Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

This is the first vignette in a collection set after ADWD or during the very last chapters, and pertaining to the same universe as Wild bear. I guess that, in the end, all those short fics may be considered as my own version of the resolution of the infamous Meereenese knot. This present vignette has been my answer to the challenge Tag!Your ship! on the gameofships community on LJ. The prompt was that extract of a song by the great Loreena McKennitt.

As usual, this fic is betaed by MrsTater.

First, Jorah had thought that his ears were playing tricks to his hazed, torn mind. Hearing about Daenerys' wedding had broken his mind and will when the slavers' beatings had only left superficial scars that would heal given time. However, the once Northern lord and knight, a paradox that had been his downfall, seriously started to wonder if there was any sanity left in him at all.

From the depth of his cage, Jorah Mormont heard things that did not exist.

Things that could not exist.

A song that could not be sung under the walls of Meereen.

In the dark of the night or under the burning sun, it kept sounding in the distance, so it seemed, when it was simply impossible. Yet, in spite of knowing this, he could not but help finding some solace in it. After all, it had been painful years since he had heard this sad, melancholic melody that characterized the Northern songs Lynesse had hated so much.

It evoked the cold and the dark. It grieved for the dead. It lamented the disappearance of the sun. It reminded of the fear that was such a good companion for the people of Bear Island.

It talked about the fear of the Great Winter that would transform the Bay of Ice into an endless frozen and sterile plain, fear of the growing darkness that would swallow everything, fear of the kraken, always looming under the sea.

However, cold and darkness were not the end of everything as the song taught the children during the long winters.

Spring always came back; you only needed to wait for it. The sea would move again and the trees would grow even stronger. The kraken would go back to its cavern. And the bear people would keep standing, winter after winter, and attack after attack.

Jorah could still remember his mother's voice when she had sung it to him during his first long winter, a winter that saw a six-year-old boy enter the cave designed as a shelter against the icy winds and step out almost a man grown of eleven name days in the first days of spring.

So, after a particularly vicious beating from the madman that called himself Nurse, Jorah decided that nostalgic comfort was worth the loss of the last remnants of his sanity. If this most ridiculous death under the walls of a strange city far from home was his destiny, he would embrace it clinging to his precious memories.

And, for the first time in his years of exile, Jorah began to hum the notes he believed he heard in the distance. From this moment, the crushing blows became less and less painful; the cage was not a prison anymore. Days and nights came and went, and this made no difference to him. Finally, he even forgot his own bleeding body.

Liberated from these needless attaches, his mind was free to wander at will. Other wargs must have been lurking under the walls of Meereen because the hawk accepted his presence with very little resistance. It had been a long time since he had last indulged in this secret pleasure. His father had always discouraged it and Lynesse had despised it. Only his aunt had helped him to nurture this rare quality. He had forgotten how exhilarating it was to see the earth from above, to contemplate human agitation as a man might consider an ant-hill. The rush of the hunt and the metallic taste of fresh blood and meat in his mouth made him salivate in his sleep. Only the regular beatings managed to bring him back, much to his displeasure.

Why did not they kill him already?

He had nothing left and would never his homeland again. Without Daenerys, he had no purpose left.

Why did not they let him finish his days contemplating the earth from the sky?

Soon, the Meereenese region became too small for him, and he ventured further and further away into the Dothraki Sea. The once endless green plain was turning into a dry, yellow sea. So, that was winter in Essos. He had always wondered about this during his exile. Was Westeros the only land afflicted by the bloody winter? Jorah had his answer now. The Skahazadhan lazily winded down the plane to Slavers' Bay, swelled by his numerous tributaries.

Then a staggering silhouette attracted his attention along one these rivers, which was no more than a mere stream at this point. Her hair had been burnt partially but Jorah recognized the silver shade from above.

Daenerys.

One of the first rules his aunt had taught him when she had trained him during his second long winter had been that a warg should stay clear of vegetation, however tempting it was to plunge oneself into the depths of memories older than the gods themselves.

Down on the earth, Daenerys fell to her knees in a whimper.

In an instant, Jorah became the yellowing grass grazed by the wind.