Chapter Text
The wedding guests fill the great hall, and Daenerys finds her gaze darting from face to face, looking for familiar smiles in the crowd. There are very few - her brother is here, of course, though she is not sure she would consider his chronic sulk to be a smile, and her handmaids, Doreah and Missandei, as well as her tutor Quaithe. Some family friends who have corresponded with them over the years (but who never seemed to notice that Daenerys never wrote a single raven herself). She has met most of the king’s household, though they had little to say to her. She had been warned that the Northerners are a gruff lot, sullen and stony-faced, so she expects it will take time to gain their trust and approval.
It will take an heir, Quaithe had said, and directed her back to her studies.
Daenerys turns to the king and studies him, his strong profile looking out over the crowd with the same, steady dignity that she recalls from the day she met him for the first time, a little over a year ago. She thought he was only taking pity on her that evening, only to learn the next morning that he had decided she would make a fine wife.
Her brother has more or less sold her, she knows. Viserys didn’t care that she was going off to someplace colder than she has ever known to live among strangers, so long as he didn’t have to leave the warm shores of Braavos behind. He had even joked that a Dothraki warlord would suffice, if they were willing to pony up her dowry, as it were.
Fortunately, Daenerys had found a far more gentle suitor.
Daenerys met the King of the North at a gathering in Dorne, the sort of thing where matches were made in this day and age, for the Seven Kingdoms constantly jostled up against each other, and despite the borders between them the great houses seemed to marry as they always had before, creating alliances for trade and peace. The Targaryens hadn’t been a great house in many a year, she and Viserys were a prince and princess in name only, and yet they were still invited in a sort of honorary way. Indeed it was the third year that they had attended, with no seeming benefit that Daenerys could see.
Viserys had decided that Daenerys would find a husband at this year’s gathering, regardless of what sort of man he might be (ignoring, of course, that his own behavior was part of the problem). So determined was her brother that he became infuriated with her for refusing the flirtations of a man who Lady Olenna had warned her against. Viserys had dragged her away to a corner of the palace, shouting at her with wine-soaked breath as he clutched her jaw in his hand, practically spitting at her while he called her a useless brat who didn’t know her place.
“Excuse me.” a low voice said behind them, and Viserys’s hand dropped away, as he spun around to face the man who had appeared in the doorway. He was as tall as Viserys but much older, with lines settling into his forehead and eyes. The way he carried himself spoke of strength and solidity, as if he had simply decided already that he would not be moved.
“My name is Jorah Mormont, the King in the North,” The man nodded his head towards Daenerys. “I came to seek Princess Daenerys for a dance, if she is willing?”
“Of course she’s willing - “ Viserys started to say, but the king held up his hand.
“I asked the princess,” he said, utterly calm, before looking at her, his head tilting slightly as he awaited her answer.
“I would be honored, Your Grace,” Daenerys replied, with a curtsey, hoping the tremor in her voice wouldn’t be enough to upset Viserys even more.
The king of the North was an upstart by comparison to most houses. He had won his place in battle - hadn’t exactly wanted it, the rumors claimed. Jorah Mormont had fought with no care but to win because he had lost everything else. (At least he had believed that to be true at the time, only to learn that some of his younger cousins had survived and were recovering at a distant holdfast.) His house was known to be honorable, Olenna Tyrell had informed her, but never wealthy or of high rank. In short, everything had changed for King Jorah in a very tumultuous period of time, and now he sought a wife, like any other man.
A catch, Margaery Tyrell had whispered in her ear, but a dour, unsmiling one. Indeed, Daenerys barely saw a change in his expression as he led her through the bows and turns of one, then two dances. He asked questions that Daenerys answered in her halting Common Tongue, while he led her on a rather extended promenade before he returned her to Lady Olenna’s care, rather than that of her brother.
King Jorah had kind eyes, she thought, for a warrior. Still, Daenerys expected nothing to come of a half hour’s acquaintance, much less for him to ask for her hand the very next day. He reluctantly requested a delay of a year before they could wed. He claimed his home was not yet suitable for her, as many repairs after the war were underway, and surely she would need time to prepare for a life in such a different land.
The king promised quite a bride price, Viserys said with leering pride. More than you’re worth, he must really want to fuck you, Dany.
Daenerys was perfectly aware that she knew little of men, but she thought that at the very least, the king in the north probably had far more convenient options if that was all he wanted.
Once the deal was brokered, some changes began. The king began to send ravens that she sat and struggled to translate with Quaithe’s help. To her disappointment, though, these mainly pertained to the negotiation of how the bride price will be paid, as well as some dry political talk which was at least a bit more interesting. Nothing that told her more about who the king is, what he was like, about his family and his history.
He sent a small trunk containing three books as well, which Viserys scoffed at but Daenerys pored over, the history of Westeros laid out before her in both prose and song. Quaithe was pleased, for Daenerys worked twice as hard to absorb the stories of the land across the sea, while she also learned about the needs of such a large castle as King Jorah held.
Daenerys also received a new handmaid, Missandei, who was fluent in the Common Tongue, and would speak only in this language to improve Daenerys’s skills. She kept Missandei close, let her share her bed behind the locked door so that Viserys wouldn’t bother her, and promised that she would be free to go where she liked when they got to Westeros. Daenerys already had one handmaid, Doreah, but Viserys had chosen her, and while Daenerys liked her she knew the pretty girl from Lys was more loyal to him (made plain by the fact that she didn’t seem to mind being bothered by Viserys).
Her brother, meanwhile, went on about the riches King Jorah will visit upon him for the sake of having her, to the point where she was sure that he was lying, though she didn’t dare to mention it. Still, there were things about Essos that Daenerys was sure the Northern king could not fathom, so when Viserys cackled about the possibility of getting Northern prisoners he could sell in Slaver’s Bay, Daenerys enlisted Quaithe in helping her write privately to her future husband.
Her Common Tongue is still far from perfect. Yet she could write NO SLAVES quite plainly in her raven, sent from a rookery elsewhere in the city. And eventually, Viserys’s talk of such things faded, until he complained that the king was being fickle.
Her betrothed had taken Daenerys more seriously than her brother ever did, even when she was little better than a stranger to him. That was more than a little intriguing.
King Jorah paid them a visit the following month, which must have been a terribly long voyage, to be “officially” betrothed to her. He was a bit vague about what that meant, and as it turned out, this was for good reason.
“There is no such ceremony,” the king confessed on his last day in Braavos, as they stood together in the late afternoon on the sun-washed veranda of her home, where she was finally allowed a moment alone with him. “I only wished to see you again, my princess.”
Then he stole a kiss. Daenerys froze, never having been properly kissed before. She wavered between leaning into the tender gesture and pushing him away, but finally pressed her hand to his broad chest and stepped back. Viserys wouldn’t like that, and she didn’t dare to make her brother cross, when she was so close to being free of him.
“You should not - not until we are married,” Daenerys admonished him with all the sternness she could muster, hoping that she was getting the words right. Quite unexpectedly he smiled, and nodded, dipping his head humbly. The first smile she had seen from the king, for he had been serious even throughout all the walks and meals they had taken together, with chaperones looking on. Somehow that made him more charming, the crinkling of the lines around his eyes lending a sweetness to his dignified face.
“My betrothed is quite right,” Jorah said, “Not until we are married.” His blue eyes held a spark nonetheless, and Daenerys couldn’t quite stop herself from rising on tiptoe to press her own kiss to his cheek.
“Perhaps much kissing then,” she said, painfully aware that her face was turning as rosy as the sunset.
Daenerys laid awake that night turning the moment over and over in her mind, the clasp of his hand at her waist, the sweet taste of his mouth, how her heart leapt as if she was some little girl’s poppet brought to life. Nothing had truly changed and yet she found herself keenly aware that he was nearby, wondering what if he didn’t stop, what if he simply took me with him, what if the door wasn’t locked?
Following the visit, two sets of letters began to make their way across the Narrow Sea. The official ravens, always perused by Viserys before they were handed over to her for her own plodding translation, filled with dull observations about the North and the negotiations of the dowry and unofficial ones, curled inside notes sent to Quaithe and written in King Jorah’s own hand, where he pledged his love.
You have the most beautiful eyes on both sides of the Narrow Sea.
I dreamed of dancing with you last night. Could you feel the brush of my hand against yours?
The season is still summer in the North, but the world has no sunshine without you.
A little silly, perhaps. There are only so many words one can wrap around a bird's leg. Still Daenerys cherished them, hid them away in a trunk beneath gowns and chemises. The sentiments gave her hope, even though Jorah had spent all of a month there, and not all of that in her company, for he had other negotiations to see to, seeking trading partners for lumber and smoke-flavored whiskey and other things. Yet Daenerys believed his words, in part because she supposed that he seemed as fond of her as she was of him, as he waited patiently over her fumbling words and offered a chivalrous hand whenever it was appropriate.
Daenerys supposed she would find out if his words were true, if he was true, in only a few months, when she would become his wife.
The crowd clinks knives against their cups, demanding that the king kiss his bride again. Daenerys’s stomach clenches with nerves, feeling so many eyes on her as their lips meet again. The beard, she thinks, will take some getting used to, but she cannot picture Jorah without it.
As the night carries on, the lines of the party loosen, and people approach their table, even those who have been crowded in the back of the room. Through a haze of ale and whiskey and wine they offer well wishes.
“You’re so kind,” Daenerys says, aware of her Valyrian accent, how only pieces of the conversation flow in and out of her awareness. Though she thinks she may understand a bit more as the wine flows almost magically into her glass, which never seems to empty. The glasses chime over and over as the feast continues, and the kisses Jorah bestows on her turn bolder, the last before the dancing starts punctuated with a second to the delicate skin of her neck.
These dances are different from those she learned to be shown off in Dorne, there is much stomping and spinning and switching from partner to partner. The steps are easy to pick up, and she finds Missandei and Doreah in the whirling circles, laughing as they hook their arms together, skipping to the musicians’ drum beats.
Daenerys is out of breath, feeling almost like she is flying as Jorah twirls her around one last time. The musicians start a new song, but he is pulled away from her, and her stomach drops as hands seize her from behind.
The crowd shouts for the bedding, as she had been warned they would. Daenerys can’t help the pit of fear that opens up in her stomach as the lords of this place pick her up like she weighs nothing, and carry her up the stairs to the door of the king’s bedchamber. They tug the strings of her gown and then worse, tear the sleeves trying to loosen them, the buttons scattering on the antechamber floor. Someone manages to drag it over her head, and she has to fight the urge to try to keep them from tearing away the layers beneath until she is wearing nothing but her jewelry.
They joke all along, too, about how her husband has a fine longsword hidden to go with the bastard sword he carries, how he might be old but he’ll bed her properly. But they do not take any unnecessary liberties, before they heave her into the bed that she’ll share with Jorah and tramp off into the night.
Trembling still, Daenerys blinks her eyes into the sudden darkness. The great hall had been lit as brightly as possible with torches, but other than a few candles near the bed, this chamber has only the glow of the fireplace and the moonlight outside. From the corridor she can hear women’s voices, laughing and teasing, Jorah’s voice occasionally sounding in reply, and the feeling of dragonfly wings against her ribs increases.
The door swings open and the ladies of the court unceremoniously deposit the king inside, where they finish the job of one of them giving him a cheeky swat on his backside as they bundle him into the bed beside her. The mattress dips under his weight, and Daenerys watches them depart in a cloud of perfume and swishing skirts.
“We’d better hear you enjoy yourselves!” one of them shouts, and they pull the door shut with a resounding thud, laughing all the while.
“Are you all right?” Jorah asks, drawing her attention back to him with a gentle hand to her cheek. “Do I have to take anyone’s head after that?”
Daenerys shakes her head and smiles despite her nerves, and opens her mouth to a now familiar kiss. His hands are so different from her own as they find her flesh, the skin not plunged into rosewater and aloes to soften it, and so large that they seem to envelop every part of her that he touches. Her body blooms into life with every delicious sensation of his lips exploring her neck and chest. His hand stroking her thigh and the weight of his lean frame pressing on her just enough makes the dragonfly wings in her chest beat with a strange mix of anxiety and anticipation.
Indeed, she is so distracted that she needs a moment to realize that the cheerful shouting at the door has been replaced with something else.
“Are they singing?” Daenerys asks, confused. She only understands a few words in the cacophony, bear and maiden and…hair?
“Yes,” Jorah sighs. “It’s an old song. Should have made it a forbidden song.” The utter exasperation in his voice brings a smile to her lips for some reason, even if she doesn’t understand why a song about a bear should bother a king who has their symbol all over his castle.
“You are the king. Forbid it now,” she teases.
“What a wise wife I’ve married,” Jorah says with a lopsided, and she realizes, possibly drunken grin, and with that he leaps out of the bed, striding to the door with more dignity than Daenerys would have supposed a naked man could possess. Though from what she can tell nothing should embarrass him, despite his age. He may carry scars from his battles but his form is strong.
With a flourish Jorah throws open the door, and shouts to the northern lords. “How could anybody fuck their wives with all that caterwauling?”
Daenerys can’t help it, she bursts out laughing, just as his people do, though the noise behind the slammed door indeed fades away. She can’t remember the last time she truly laughed, she realizes, in all the worry about what might await her here.
Though now that her eyes have adjusted to the light, her first thought as her eyes follow the shape of his body downward is that cannot possibly be going where he thinks it’s going.
Even so, Daenerys beckons him back to their bed, and he pounces with a playful growl that only makes her laugh more. Daenerys brings him closer, so that she can breathe in the scent of his skin and feel the ripple of the muscles along his back. With their serenading audience gone, her world contracts to the room, and the bed, and the ways Jorah’s body fits to hers.
Daenerys guides his hand between her thighs herself, before they make their marriage true. She finds it both awkward and thrilling, and somehow feels different and the same all at once. She also has several questions for Doreah. Afterwards Jorah holds her, guarding her against the chill in the night air that lingers in the North even in summer.
“I should have stolen you that very night in Dorne,” Jorah murmurs into her ear, as he draws a fur over her shoulders. “Carried you off like a wildling and named you my bride.”
Daenerys smiles shyly at that. “I wanted you to take me from Braavos. Or I - I thought about what would happen if you did that.”
“And what was that?” Jorah asks, his voice low and warm, making those dragonfly wings flutter in her chest again.
“Something like this,” Daenerys says, before stretching up to kiss him again. He cannot have had so much joy in recent years either, and already she wants to grant him more.
She will bear their first son within twelve moons, and be known as the Summer Queen long after winter’s mantle has settled on the North again.