Chapter Text
Minisode I:
When the Wall Fell
Dany hated that she couldn’t hate him.
She tried to hate him — gods, did she try — because Jon Snow was a rival Targaryen claimant to the Iron Throne. A dragon raised by wolves, brave and gentle and strong, Prince Rhaegar’s son, her only family.
I have a nephew.
She should kill him.
Win or die, according to western diplomacy. And she was in Westeros now.
By all accounts, before her landfall upon northern shores, Jon was winning. He didn’t need dragons or Dothraki or Unsullied or the Greyjoy armada. Winterfell was his, utterly and completely, with undying support from a fearsome family. He commanded Northmen and wildlings and Vale knights, loyal to the last.
When Littlefinger sought to pit wolf against wolf, sister against brother, Sansa against Jon, he failed in spectacular fashion. When the Dragon Queen encroached upon their homeland, the Starks rallied with fervor. Jon soundly defeated Grey Worm in hand-to-hand combat, rivaling the late Ser Barristan with a sword. He was the King in the North, undisputed, unquestioned, never mind whose bastard he was.
Jon rose from the dead like a prophecy made real. A song of ice and fire, the prince who was promised. Yet his kindness and humility prevailed.
And his smile, rare and precious, made Dany feel as she hadn’t in a long time. Not since Drogo.
Only stories remained of her eldest brother, painting Rhaegar in flattering light: the handsome prince, honorable, honest, peaceful though melancholy. She struggled to envision such a thing, because Viserys was a hateful and violent basis for comparison.
Jon Snow was everything Viserys wasn’t. Just like Rhaegar.
The scariest thing about Jon Snow wasn’t his wolfsblood, or his brooding, or his kingship, or his Valyrian longsword. It wasn’t even the White Walkers that hunted him, nor his half-Targaryen temper, which reared its ugly head whenever somebody whispered of Freys or Boltons within earshot.
The scariest thing about Jon Snow was his family.
His sisters were ruthless she-wolves, one a political mastermind, the other a faceless assassin, and his brother an omniscient oracle. When winter comes, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Now that winter had arrived with vengeance, those Starklings were violently protective of their big brother.
Cousin. But nobody dared correct them.
Bran didn’t realize how terrifying he looked when skinchanging, eyes glazed white, soul far gone. And Arya swapped faces more readily than most ladies swapped gowns. But despite the Three-Eyed Raven and a Faceless Man lurking about Winterfell, it was Sansa of whom Dany was most wary.
Sansa was subtly dangerous, like sweet poison. While Littlefinger thought he manipulated her, she played the player of players, reminding the world that those who'd harm Jon would die screaming. Dany saw herself in Sansa, a newborn khaleesi finding her footing, testing her power.
The reflection was humbling.
The Lady of Winterfell was also first to notice Dany’s gaze lingering too long upon the King in the North, especially when his back was turned, or dark curls framed his face, or his jerkin hung open to stitch and bind wounds.
Jon was a beautiful man, and his sister was neither blind, nor stupid. In a dark corridor, she seized the khaleesi by her elbow.
“Touch him," warned Sansa Stark, "and not even dragonflame will thaw your corpse.”
Jon Snow knew more than he let on.
Sometimes, after battle plans were drawn and supper served and the hearth reduced to embers, she caught him staring from across the Small Council, though never lewd or carnal. Something innocent, something pure.
Curiosity, perhaps.
And why shouldn’t he be curious? The man lived an unintended lie his entire life — "You must be Ned Stark’s bastard." — only to discover his father was his uncle, his siblings were his cousins, and he was a prince. For better or worse, Dany always knew who she was and still descended into abject wonderment upon meeting another Targaryen.
I'm not alone.
And Jon Snow was never alone either, not anymore, keeping constant company with his doting sisters or Ser Davos or that albino wolf. Only once, Dany ran across the King in the North unguarded in the Godswood. He sat beneath the sacred weirwood near a glassy-black pool, eying his mirror image like a stranger, and didn’t notice her until a second Targaryen reflection appeared alongside his own.
Jon startled. “Khaleesi." He still pronounced it wrong. "Forgive me, I didn't see— ”
"Daenerys," she offered, unsure if he'd accept, "but my family called me Dany." At least, Viserys did. That was the one and only thing she missed about him.
Jon blinked at her once, twice, before his features softened, and he made up his mind. "Dany." That northern dialect cuffed its two syllables, his voice gruff and deep, but nothing would ever bring her joy equal to his perpetual butchering of 'khaleesi.'
Dany sat beside him in the snow and stared down their reflections in the ink-black pond. No two people had ever looked more different. His salvation, she knew. That Starkness was a blessing in more ways than one.
“Please don’t hate who you really are.” She gestured at herself, pale eyes and silver-blonde. “Only half our family’s mad.”
He laughed. She’d never heard him laugh. It was even prettier than his smile. His eyes crinkled, and he shed ten years. Was that Rhaegar’s laugh? Dany hoped so.
“Did you know my father?” For the first time, Jon didn’t mean Ned Stark.
Dany shook her head. “Rhaegar died before I was born.”
“Me too.”
The khaleesi had so much she wanted to say and so few ways to say it, absent Missandei's tact, or Sansa's eloquence, or the undervalued convenience of speaking Dothraki. Rousing war-cries for fire and blood would win her nothing here in Westeros.
Jon Snow fought not to conquer. He fought such that others might live.
Still, she tried. “If Rhaegar was anything like you, I’m proud to call him brother.”
Something paramount shifted in Jon, a weight off his shoulders, a glimmer of sunshine to pierce the Long Night. Gone was the stunted wolf, the northern bastard, the black brother, and in their place a hatchling dragon.
“If he was anything like you,” answered the Targaryen prince, “I’m proud to be his son.”
When the Wall fell, Dany should’ve let him die.
It would’ve been so easy, so effortless, bittersweet and valiant. Assassination by White Walker. Nobody would’ve blamed her. How could they, if he died in battle, in defense of the realm, in the bitter blizzard and unending night, fighting to restore the dawn? Minstrels would sing songs of his sacrifice for centuries to come. Mothers would name their sons in his honor. A mournful khaleesi would legitimize him posthumously — Jon Stark, at long last — and solidify northern support in the war to come.
She should’ve let him die. Killing Jon was politically savvy. Cersei would approve.
Maybe that’s why she didn’t do it.
Dany wasn’t vengeful. She wasn’t mad. She wasn’t cruel. Apart from her barren womb and three half-tame dragons, Jon Snow was all House Targaryen had left, the last fragment of her family, a chance to look into Rhaegar’s child and see the brother she never met.
Jon grew up motherless, but he has an aunt now.
She should’ve let him die. Instead, she flew Drogon into the fray, wights wailing and ice-arrows glancing against black scales. She plucked Jon from the battlefield, risking her life for his.
Ser Jorah was right. She had a gentle heart.
Eyes slammed shut, trembling against her back, the King in the North clung to Dany as Drogon skimmed the clouds. This man, who charged the Bolton cavalry and slew the undead, afraid of flying? He was half-dragon, and dragons belonged in the sky.
She would teach him. Baby dragons need teaching.
Dany jabbed him with an elbow. “Look.”
Together, high aloft upon the Black Dread reborn, the last two Targaryens watched the Wall crumble.
“My family,” croaked Jon, callused fingers gripping her hard enough to bruise. “Winterfell.”
Dany ignored the heat from his hands. How could he feel so warm, even while she sat astride a living, breathing dragon? “I’ll protect them.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Your family is mine now too.”
When she returned Jon to Winterfell, safe and sound, his siblings hugged him for five solid minutes.
Rumor had it that Arya Stark couldn’t cry, but cry she did upon seeing her brother alive. The others followed suit, two enormous direwolves bounding about the Great Hall like pups, Sansa pushing Bran in the wheeled chair of Tyrion’s design. The Starklings collided in embraces of relief and affection. They kissed faces. They stroked hair.
The North remembers. And the pack survives.
Their joy was short-lived.
“The Wall fell,” whispered Jon, though he might’ve screamed it for the haunting echo and hush that followed.
“We know,” answered Arya, face still buried in his cloak. “Bran saw it through the weirwood."
The greenseer drooped, as though he were somehow at fault. Maybe he was. "I hoped I was wrong.”
Jon ruffled his brother’s hair. “You’re never wrong.”
“How long do we have?” Sansa was frightened, but practical.
“Two days before the Walkers reach Winterfell.” Jon looked to Dany, hopeful but hesitant. Those big brown eyes hurt like a knife to the gut. “Maybe longer, if we rebuild the Wall with fire instead of ice.”
We, we, we. The dragon must have three heads. Dany bowed to no king, but her nephew earned himself a nod of diffidence and respect.
“Maybe longer,” argued the khaleesi, “with three dragonriders instead of two.”
As they evacuated Winterfell, Sansa accused her of caring. “You saved him. Why?”
“I’m his aunt.” Dany was curt and impatient while strapping into Dothraki boots and braces, modified for dragonriding. Again, Tyrion’s design, for there was nothing her Hand loved better than flying Viserion. “Jon’s my nephew.”
Sansa wasn’t buying it. “He stands between you and the Iron Throne.”
Dany huffed. “Him, and an undead army.” She tied her hair into a bun and shot the Lady of Winterfell a pointed glare. Sansa lived so long amongst monsters and charlatans, she started thinking like one. I'm not a monster. “You Westerosi love murdering relatives, and guests, and liege-lords, and innocent children, then dare call me savage.”
Sansa caught her arm again, and Dany braced herself for a she-wolf baring teeth. “Thank you.” Whatever the khaleesi expected in retaliation, that wasn’t it. “Thank you for saving him. Jon is precious to me.”
“To us.” Dany found common ground with the Starks at long last. "If a son so noble survived Robb, is there any mountain you wouldn't move for him, any ocean you wouldn't cross to bring home the living memory of your brother?"
Apparently not, because Sansa never again doubted her intentions.
Looking back, after the war was won and winter ended, that conversation was the most important peace treaty Daenerys Targaryen never actually signed.
And her reward was the lifelong mispronunciation of 'dracarys' in Jon’s northern timbre.