This chapter has been edited due to content. I made minor edits in this chapter. If you want to see the unedited version GO HERE.
All of us in the tent tried not to shiver. Jon and myself were used to the cold. We welcomed the chill while Davos did not. He tried to hide his disdain but was unsuccessful. Even in the warmest spot in camp, the cold still invaded everything. Hopefully this meant the dead were close by and the war would end soon. The army of the dead could spread much wider than ours could. What if each White Walker could lead two or three battles at once while not being close to any?
"We should focus on killing Viserion." Arya said. "Even if the Night King doesn't die, a large undead dragon being removed from the battle will help save lives."
"And how do you expect us to kill him?" Davos asked. "Jon already tried battling him once and was nearly killed in the process. The best hope is to use a scorpion. But we might not have the time to build one and would have to give up Valyrian steel and dragonglass to make it."
"Jon is an inexperienced rider."
"As is Jorah." Bronn said as he walked in. "But he's Azor Ahai which might mean he has the ability to ride a dragon as skillfully as any Targaryen."
The man must have overheard us and decided to add his input. As usual, it was tinged with sarcasm while not being inherently wrong. With Rhaegal dead I was the last rider we had. No one else could do what I did. No one else could ride Drogon and attempt to kill Viserion.
"We don't have many options." Jon said. "And we need Viserion dead before there is any other strategy. Arya is right in that the fate of the Night King is secondary. With his mount gone, he won't have a dragon to turn to."
In everyone's eyes, even Bronn's, there was a look of trust in me. I was Azor Ahai and the fate of humanity rested on my shoulders. If I failed then my home would become a graveyard of living corpses. It would be my fault if those standing by me were to be controlled by the dead. Yet it would only be after the war that fear could invade my mind and make me unable to move. Once it was assured Jon would have a long life ahead of him, I could stop fighting as fiercely.
"We will start looking for sightings of Viserion." Jon declared. "We could end up walking into a trap, which means caution needs to be taken. If any of you have a bad feeling, tell me and I will quickly correct course. Jorah, your priority is to go after Viserion. Once you see him, don't allow him to live."
"I don't plan to." I replied.
Drogon was still hard for me to ride, but I could kill Viserion. I had to as there was no other choice. If only Daenerys had visited me in another vision and reassured me of victory. Maybe she could've told me how to be a rider like her. How I should let Drogon let out his rage while controlling his actions. But she hadn't.
* * *
I held on tightly to Drogon and looked around. The memory of nearly falling off of him when Daenerys had rescued me kept on coming back. Those few seconds when I hung in mid-air. The few seconds when I thought I had failed Khaleesi and would soon become a member of the army of the dead. If my body was able to be salvaged, that was.
As I pushed the memory back, I observed my surroundings more closely. Drogon was high above the ground and yet close enough for me to keep track of my men. From my viewpoint they were moving without any thought except to do what they were told. If I was among them the view would be very different. They would be muttering about the cold and trying to give each other the energy needed to continue the fight. Down there was Jon who would be leading the men.
Turning my gaze from the ground, I looked at the sky around me. It was a cloudy day and Viserion was white. Drogon was slightly lower than the clouds and he kept looking upward. It would be so easy for the Night King to ambush us that way. But he did have a presence around him that should make him easier to spot.
A speck in the distance caught my eyes and I tried to focus on it. It quickly showed itself to be no mere bird as the closer it came, the larger it grew. On the ground I could see a line of white moving towards my army. This was it. The men we had run into hadn't lied to us. The Night King might have let them live purely so they would point us in his direction. Unlike Rhaegal, he would not claim Drogon.
I made Drogon dive down and he let out a loud roar that shook the sky. When I heard a horn from below I pulled up and headed for Viserion. To the dragon that Daenerys had loved and lost and now would lose again. For a moment I let fear creep into every part of me. I allowed fear to consume me until I was afraid of everything. Then I breathed out and felt calmer.
No, I didn't feel calmer at all. I was in a state of non-existence. I was watching myself do things without any harm to myself. It was peaceful as Drogon flew to his undead brother. With every flap of his wings I saw Viserion in greater detail. His eyes were blue and angry, yet he saw nothing. He was merely a way for the Night King to observe the world.
For a second nothing moved. Not the wind or air in my lungs. Everything existed as only a portrait. The next second the two dragons collided. I held on tightly to Drogon as his head skimmed Viserion's stomach and the two started their dance.
I had read about dragon's fighting and I had watched my husband. Yet being involved with the start of the fight was much different. Each dragon had all of their energy and they yearned to tear into each other. It was hard at times to control Drogon as I also wanted to spill blood.
Just as Drogon was about to claw at Viserion's wings, a patch of rough air assaulted us. The Night King seemed to be unfazed by the change while I had to fight down panic. For now I had to trust my dragon to understand what I could not. Once things changed I would again take control. For now Drogon chose exactly how to attack.
At the moment I was unsure if I could keep steady on Drogon, I saw an opening. Viserion was turned in such a way that the Night King was perfectly exposed. This couldn't have been done as a trap since the Night King was trying to keep his mount steady in the turbulence. If I didn't speak quick enough then everything could be lost.
"Dracarys!" I shouted and Drogon breathed his flames.
My breath caught in my throat as I watched the sight before me. The Night King turned and saw the flame. What must have been a smile crossed his face. At the last possible moment he turned and Viserion yelled out. Drogon's flame had done nothing but pass over his head. I flew upwards to try and gain another advantage.
Drogon reacted before I did. He pulled his wings close to his sides and my legs gripped his neck even harder. Viserion veered right just as my dragon had been about to claw at his back. Both let out loud roars of anger as they began their dance again. At times I felt more like an observer than a rider.
In those moments I would look at the ground. Both the dead and living had invaded either side. From Drogon's back I couldn't tell which side was winning. I couldn't tell what strategy was at play. All I could tell was that the living hadn't been defeated. Not yet. If only I could help with the fight on the ground to make sure my husband was alive. But if I abandoned the fight with the Night King then the fight below would not matter. The true battle that mattered was the one I was involved in.
Drogon and Viserion held each other's claws like lover's held hands. They attempted to bite each other's throat but they always missed their mark. In a world that now continually rotated, Viserion's sharp teeth kept grazing my head. I had to continually duck to save myself from death.
Finally the spinning stopped and the two dragons broke apart. Both raced the other to gain the most altitude the fastest. Just as Viserion was about to rise higher than Drogon, he slammed into the undead abomination. The force nearly made me fall off and I turned my head to see the Night King having the same problem. Seeing such a powerful creature having the same problems as me made me feel I could win this fight. He still had weaknesses, few though they might be.
When Drogon flew higher than Viserion, the undead dragon bit at his tail. I turned my head around, while still managing to hold tightly to my mount, and assessed the damage. Blood was gushing out and yet it appeared to merely irritate Daenerys' child. Once the battle was over then I would attend to the wound. For now he would have to fight, something he seemed more than eager to do.
Again the dragons went through their dance. The Night King and I finding ourselves better opponents as the fight went on. We made more daring moves and understood how to defend ourselves better. My ears picked up a sound that sent shivers through my spine and I realized it was coming from his mouth. I was the first man in some time that had heard a White Walker talk. It didn't feel like an honor and my days would've been better if I had never heard it.
Pushing the sound to the back of my mind, I focused on the fight. I focused on how the air moved around me and how it reacted to Drogon's movements. I focused on how the Night King's presence was affecting the sky around us. While the cold wind had constantly dug at my face before, now it was warming up around me while becoming colder around him. We were both things of legends and now our essences were leaking out onto Westeros.
"Dracarys!" I yelled out and caught Viserion's belly.
He roared in annoyance while not showing any sign fire had hit him. He had become much too cold to be affected by Drogon's flames now. I urged Drogon to follow Viserion into the thunderclouds that were now appearing around us. All of Westeros was being affected by the battle in the sky.
A nerve-wracking sound from the clouds kept getting louder. Soon a storm would begin and either snow or glaze ice would hit the ground below. Snow would make it harder for my men to see and glaze ice could do damage. This fight seemed to have no end in sight and yet that couldn't be possible. It couldn't because my men depended on me and most thought of me as Azor Ahai. Most thought I could not fail in my duties. How they would laugh if they could feel my uncertainty.
Drogon and Viserion locked claws again. Viserion blew his white flames and Drogon bit the other's neck. The flames singed my back and I gritted my teeth even though a yell wanted to be let out. I would not let the Night King have the satisfaction of breaking me. Throughout the fight Viserion had let out his flames and no matter how far away they were from me, I always felt as if they were burning my body. It was no wonder, then, that he had been able to bring the Wall down. He could've easily gone and destroyed the entirety of that great structure.
As the dragons parted to gain an advantage, I remembered Lightbringer that was warm against my chest. It called out to me to use it to kill the enemy. To kill the only enemy that mattered. What if the Night King had guarded himself against Lightbringer? I couldn't afford to waste the energy that was always much harder to harness once used. If it missed then I would have to rely solely on my prowess as a rider and Drogon's strength. Those had kept the current battle at a standstill.
But Viserion was not the Night King. The formidable creature was merely a vessel for the abomination's power. The dragon was given more strength and power than it had in life. The Night King had turned Viserion into a fierce weapon of the dead. But Viserion was not the Night King and nor would he ever be.
Drogon had started to fight Viserion yet again but my mind was elsewhere. My mind was Lightbringer and the power inside. It answered me with a vengeance and demanded I kill something. For a moment I was in shock as it had never replied to me like this before. The bond between us must have strengthened more than I had thought.
"Viserion." I whispered and looked at the dragon. "Viserion."
From the arrowhead burst a blue light. As it raced towards the undead dragon, it shimmered in the air like fire. The Night King tried to dodge it but it hit its mark. It went to Viserion's heart and his body started to be consumed in blue flames. The Night King raced towards the ground and jumped off when there was no part of Viserion he could hold onto.
I held Drogon back from chasing the creature. I needed a moment to breathe and he wouldn't get too far while running. Even if he ran faster than a human, he couldn't outrun Drogon. I needed to breathe after the long fight. I had to focus or else people could die.
I flew just low enough to see how the battle was doing. The dead kept being given new men when the living accrued loses. Each side was so tangled up that now there didn't seem to be any difference. Dead and living had become one. I looked to where the Night King was and wondered who I should fight.
Killing the Night King was paramount to winning the war but without Jon, what would victory mean if I couldn't see my husband when waking up? What did it mean that Westeros had been saved? The Night King could still be hunted down and wasn't the biggest threat at the moment. He now had time to fester in his worry that my home would not bow to him. Let him fester.
A light snowfall started as I made my way to the largest area of undead. With one word, Drogon would burn everything in his path. With one word, he would catch living and dead alike. But to help my men, to help Jon, I would have to take that risk.
"Dracarys!" I yelled and directed Drogon where to breathe his fire.
A few living screams erupted from the flames and I looked for another area to burn. The more fires I started, the more likely the flames were to get out of control. Everything hinged on my decisions early on. The dead didn't look up at me as I was no concern to them. What mattered to them was the flesh and blood of those down below. Those dead were also moving towards my men, where more would join their army. I had to make the dead flee. I had to choose areas that would cause them to move away from the living. Or I could make a grand gesture that would trick them into going to a location of my choosing.
Suddenly the dead fled. They ran in different directions and my feelings became confused. I was glad that there were no hard choices to make and yet I wondered where they were going. Were they fleeing or would they be back within a few hours? Was the Night King as weak as I thought or stronger without Viserion?
Once the dead left I found a place to land and stopped questioning things. If this was a master plan of the Night King, then the living would fight. If we had a day or two of peace, all the better to plan. A howl alerted me to Ghost who was running up to Drogon. He looked more than happy and knocked me to the ground when I dismounted. I laughed and enjoyed the flood of relief coursing through my veins. If Ghost was happy it meant Jon must be alive!
Once I got up Ghost started to walk and I followed. I didn't know where he would go but I trusted him. He was the part of Jon that was wild with no limits. The side that was connected firmly to his Stark heritage and would never be broken. I focused on Ghost to hide from the smells and sounds of the aftermath. I could not be seen to lose control.
"Jorah!" Jon yelled out as he looked at me.
He was battered and bruised from the battle. Yet he was full of life. He was directing healers to those that couldn't move. Some would die in a few hours time. But it would be cruel not to show them kindness as they left this world and entered the next one. How lucky I was to know where I was going afterward. When death took me I would feel no fear, just excitement.
"I worried that you were dead, Jon." I told my husband.
"I worried the same." He replied.
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