Lynesse Chapter 18: All the Enemies

This is a Game of Thrones fic. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

This chapter has been edited due to content. If you want to see the unedited version GO HERE. 

The cold winter wind blew harshly against Dragonstone. It was as if the gods were taunting us for a reason that was better not thought about. To distract myself I sipped my wine as I watched Khaleesi walked around our room in her nightgown. The color was a dark gold and the material was thin enough that not much was left to the imagination. What she wanted she would get. What she loathed she would avoid at all costs.

"Do you still believe in me?" Khaleesi asked after she sat on the edge of our bed.

"You know I do, Khaleesi." I replied and took my place beside her.

"Your eyes have a distant look to them these days."

"Very soon you will take the Iron Throne. Very soon I will be known by all as the King of the Seven Kingdoms. It doesn't seem real."

Khaleesi took my glass from me and drank the last of the wine in it. There was something troubling her and I hoped that it was how she had slaughtered helpless Greyjoys. Survivors could have meant that Khaleesi was looked at as a true ruler by the Westerosi. If the Greyjoys dared defy her afterwards, they could just be killed.

"I have more enemies than I thought I would." Daenerys said. "People should have been cheering for my arrival instead of trying to undermine me. I am here to kill Cersei Lannister who has wrongly declared herself as queen."

"There are those that follow you." I said to encourage her to have more hope. "Those that have followed you to foreign lands because they believe in you."

"But not many in Westeros willingly bend their knees to me. Sansa Stark should have given the North to me as it was my dragons that helped win the war against the dead. If not for me, the North would have been destroyed and there would have been no one left to remember her House."

The fire in her voice nearly turned my blood to ice. I turned to Ghost for help but he was asleep. Hopefully my movement didn't seem as helpless to Daenerys as it felt. Hopefully her love for me would make her not loathe my moment of doubt.

"Sansa will always do her best to undermine my efforts." Daenerys said softly. "I will have to make sure she bows to me like she should have at our first meeting. But first we'll have to deal with the traitors of King's Landing."

"Traitors?" I asked.

"What else am I to call the people who have backed a false queen? Everyone is an enemy to me unless they prove their loyalty by kneeling to me."

Another gust of wind seemed determined to uproot Dragonstone from its roots. Was the wind a sign from the gods of what had to be done? If so, they were wrong. They could see everything in existence, but they didn't have my eyes. How could they know that my love was still able to be saved? Daenerys had always had her darker side but that didn't mean she was destined to act on every thought that went through her head.

"Khaleesi, people are not as simple as good and evil." I said after having a moment to put my thoughts in order. "We have both done things to be praised and despised for. I spied on you and you exiled me. I sold people into slavery. Yet you were able to see the man in me that was worthy of you."

"You think that I have done things that should be despised?" Daenerys asked.

"I merely mean that you have made mistakes. You crucified the slavers without considering some of them were trying to end the practice."

"And I had some way of knowing that in advance?"

"No, but that doesn't stop it from being a mistake. It's a lesson that you can learn from."

"What would you have done?"

"I doubt I would have been wise enough to consider any other possibility."

No, I wouldn't have allowed the slavers to be crucified. Not because I would consider that a slaver would ever stop the practice, but because I hadn't cared about freeing slaves at that time. It had been Khaleesi who had changed my mind. Who had made me see the errors of my ways.

I got up and poured myself more wine. This conversation would require me to calm parts of myself that were crying out. I couldn't let those parts of myself ruin what I had achieved. I had earned the loyalty, love, and bed of the woman I loved. The woman I would gladly damn myself for.

"Would you care for a glass of your own?" I asked.

"No, Jorah, I want to continue to share yours." Daenerys replied.

After I was finished pouring my glass, I once again took my place by her. She pressed her body close to mine which helped lower my defenses. Tonight I would become lost in her body and forget everything for another night.

"What redeeming qualities does Sansa possess?" Daenerys asked. "If, as you say, there is good in all of us."

"She is a player of the game of thrones." I answered. "She rose from a naive girl to a clever ruler. While you helped win the war against the Night King, she made sure that our troops were well fed."

"She fled into the tombs like a coward."

"Sansa is not a fighter and would be useless in battle. From what Missandei and Tyrion said, she fought in the tombs. She's no coward."

"If she's so clever why treat me so coldly?"

"Maybe she was testing your or maybe she hates you that much. Sansa lost nearly all of her family in order for the North to gain its independence."

"Baratheons and Lannisters are too weak to lead Westeros. If I were a Northern lord, I too would have attempted to break ties with the Iron Throne. But I'm a Targaryen. I'm the rightful ruler of this land. She should have bowed to me."

Daenerys didn't care about viewing Sansa as anything other than an enemy. A foe that she could go after once Cersei was being digested by Drogon. If Sansa wasn't a coward she was rude. No matter what I said in Sansa's defense, my love would look for something else to complain about. And once I had said too much, she might even doubt the strength of my love.

"Are you going to now defend the people of King's Landing?" Daenerys asked and took my glass from me.

"They only know the lies Cersei utters from her lips." I replied as she drank my wine. "Not everyone in that city is aware of who you really are. All they see is a Targaryen who has dragons and burns people alive. If the legacy of your father was a distant memory, they would be more understanding of you."

"You amaze me, Jorah."

"You forget that I once believed that all Targaryens should perish. The reason I agreed to spy on you was because that same hatred was not gone. I can't blame the ignorant for the same mistakes I made. So it falls to us to prove their fears unfounded."

"You're not like them. You're so much more."

As she drank the wine, I put my arm around her waist. If it wasn't for her belief in me there wasn't life. At least none that would satisfy me. She was violent but she was also kind. The heart inside of her cared to make Westeros better than it had been. Or were her goals something else entirely?

"That's why I love you," I said. "You believe in me. You see the good inside of a broken man."

"And you always see who I really am." Daenerys replied after she finished my glass. "Even when my supposed allies doubt me, you believe in me."

Who was Daenerys? Was she capable of turning aside the darkness that ate away at the best parts of her? Who was right? The gods or me?

She leaned her head up and I kissed her. Her kiss was one of hunger and I replied in kind. She needed to be reassured that I would always be there for her. I needed to be reassured that she was much more than fire and blood.

"I don't know what I would do without you." Daenerys said after our kiss had ended. "No one knows me like you do."

"I am never going to leave your side." I promised and took my glass. "Until our dying breaths, I'll be here."

I got up and put the glass on the table. Would I always stay by her side? Once I had started thinking she was mad, it was impossible to imagine my life without her in it. Even if she became like her father, there had to be a way of redemption for her. There had to be a way to save the last remnants of her kind heart.

"What will you do to your enemies?" I asked as I took my place beside her.

"Destroy them." Daenerys replied. "I'm not going to let those who would do me harm live. I'm not going to allow them the chance of doing me harm."

"How will you know they're your enemies if they don't attack you?"

"I'll only kill them if they attack me. Is that better?"

"Yes."

While her words and tone indicated she was being sincere, I knew better. No matter her words and tone, it felt like she was treating me as if I were a dog. Loyal Jorah who would bow to her until his bones broke. Loyal Jorah that would never turn on his master. Yet I couldn't be mad at the woman I loved beyond reason. She might not see reason tonight, but she would tomorrow.

We sat in silence as the wind continued to cry out. The Night King was gone, but winter was still enveloping the land. The season cared not for who was alive or dead. It would come unbidden because that was the way of things. For a brief moment the snow turned to ashes in my mind. I shook my head.

"What is it?" Daenerys asked.

"A vision." I replied. "A memory. A thought."

"Is it about me winning the Iron Throne?"

"I can't tell."

But I did know. It wasn't a vision but a fear. If Daenerys became like her father then Westeros would become covered in ashes. People would no longer be able to tell when winter ended except by the heat.

"Do I frighten you?" Daenerys asked and there was fear in her eyes.

"Nothing you do will ever frighten me." I replied without thinking. "There is nothing you can do that will make me stop loving you. Even if you burned Westeros to ashes, I couldn't live without you."

"Am I evil?"

"No, you aren't. I have faced down evil men before and you are not one."

She put a hand on my chest and looked into my eyes. She must want to see if there was any doubt in my mind. Tonight was not a time for meaningless words, it was a time for truth. Maybe, just maybe, knowing she had one friend by her side then there was hope. There was hope for both her and Westeros.

"I would never burn Westeros to ashes." Daenerys reassured me. "Should you really stay by my side if I changed my mind?"

"I don't care what is right, my love." I told her. "I love you and that is all that matters in my life."

"What if I lose the Iron Throne? What if I lose my dragons?"

"I will love you still. Even the gods themselves couldn't rid me of my love for you."

I took her chin in my hand and tilted her face towards mine. She could destroy all of Westeros, but tonight she was a scared woman. She needed someone and I would fulfill her every desire. We kissed and the world melted away. We were no longer king and queen. There was no longer any conflict that drew our attention. We were simply two people in love. Two people that were enjoying simple carnal desires.

"Damn this cold." Daenerys said once we had finished our lovemaking and I helped her under the covers.

"Winter doesn't last forever." I reassured her as I went under the covers.

"We killed the Night King, that should have been the end of this cold."

Now that the lovemaking was through, she was shivering. I took her in my arms and she pressed her body tightly against mine. I ran my fingers through her hair and after a few minutes the shivers stopped. She looked into my eyes and I saw the woman I loved. No matter what came next, my love for her would never die. It would last forever. In her eyes I saw a love for me that would never die. Until her dying days she would trust me.

"Shouldn't your direwolf have woken up?" Daenerys asked.

"Ghost must not have felt I needed protecting." I replied with a shrug.

"We weren't quiet and they have good hearing."

"Maybe he was that tired. Today was eventful."

Daenerys' fingers traced the various signs of aging and scars on my body. It felt like she was going over every memory we had made in the past. The good and the bad. I put my hand on hers and kissed the top of her head.

Slowly her eyes closed and she found relief in sleep. It took awhile for me to be certain that she was asleep. Once I was sure, the tears came. Ghost woke up and looked at me. I shook my head so he wouldn't jump onto the bed and wake her up. She couldn't know my true feelings that I had finally begun to acknowledge. It was true that I would always love her, but things were much more complicated than that.

I had always known that Daenerys was not perfect and my role of advisor was to guide her. Even in the most hopeless of situations, I believed she could overcome whatever dark desires haunted her. Or maybe there had been more doubt in me than I had admitted.

This night had shown me that Daenerys might very well become like her father. Her hate and fear could destroy the kind heart. I might be unable to turn her away from the dark path she was on. If she was ever pushed to the point of burning King's Landing then Winterfell would suffer the same fate.

And if the Khaleesi I knew became a distant memory, what would become of me? The thought of going against her seemed profane.