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Chapter Text

Torturer’s Deep, The Stepstones, Essos

They approach the pirate king’s ramshackle palace in secret, knowing there is little time to proceed with their mission: rescuing the queen and escaping to sea in the small Tyroshi ship that waits for them at the harbor.  The palace may be crumbling, but Aurane Waters’ war ships are the finest in Essos and Westeros, commissioned by (and then stolen from) Cersei Lannister herself.  There will be no time to spare if they are to outpace these ships, which Waters will surely set after them once the deed is done.  Their own ship, an older junk newly christened The Maiden Fair (someone’s idea of a joke), is swift, but lacks the firepower of Waters’ galleons.

Accessing the palace is more difficult than desired, of course, for they are hardly inconspicuous: a big bear of a man with a demon tattooed on his face and a dwarf with half his nose missing.  Thus, Ser Jorah Mormont and Tyrion Lannister are forced to wait until cover of darkness, sneaking through hidden passageways and dark alleys at the moment they are sure the Queen’s captors are occupied.

Later, Mormont tells himself that they should have stormed the gates to the compound, consequences be damned.  It is no matter; everything is shot to seven hells now.  If only they had known what the secret meeting was about.  If only they had arrived a day sooner.  If only—

“Run!” Tyrion Lannister shoves Ser Jorah’s much larger frame, forcing the man to move.  The knight puts one foot in front of the other, the base instinct of self-preservation kicking in as flames engulf nearby roofs and balconies and smoke fills the sky.  They run for the port, for the safety of water, of the ship that was supposed to have held Daenerys Targaryen, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, on her journey to Westeros.

Instead, the queen lies dead amongst the rubble of the palace, Daenerys the Unburnt now no more than a pile of ashes.  There is no time to mourn and only small solace to be found in the fact that her captors were put to death only minutes after her own demise.

Above the island, Daenerys’ dragons howl.  Their mournful wail is an awful sound to behold, one that will echo in Ser Jorah Mormont’s nightmares until the day he dies.  Woeful, angry, terrible. The beasts were dangerous enough in Daenerys’ care.  In her death, their danger has increased tenfold.  He watches them circle high above, wings flapping, fiery breath destroying everything in their path in retaliation for the murder of their mother.   Mormont wonders if they will see him and destroy him, too—if they instinctually know him for his treachery, for failing to save her.

“We have to go now,”  Tyrion says, but despite his tone, the dwarf is awestruck, too and for a few long moments, both men stare up at the sky as ash and soot rain down, the sky a blaze of angry red and orange.

Around them, there is a mix of awe and terror, as many men standing dumbly as there are those running every which way.  The harbor grows smokier and Mormont feels his eyes burning.  They need to leave or they will be consumed by the dragons’ rage.  “The ship!” he reminds Tyrion and they are on the move once more.  They have nearly reached the slip where The Maiden Fair is anchored when Mormont is felled by some unseen obstacle.  He yells out, but can no longer see Tyrion in the thickening gray haze.  He hits the dock with a thud, nothing making sense any more, and Ser Jorah Mormont is sure he will die here, too.  There is something fitting, he thinks, at the idea of becoming nothing but ashes not far from where his queen rests.  His Daenerys. Perhaps the winds will carry some of his remains toward Westeros, toward home.  Where is home? the knight wonders dazedly.

His senses are dulling, and now he must be hallucinating, for Jorah sees, through the smoke, a man in Westerosi armor leaning over him, the flaming tower of House Hightower emblazoned on his cloak.  How can that be?  But he is no longer able to consider anything, real or imagined, and everything goes black.

Chapter Text

The Summer Sea, off the coast of the Stepstones, Essos

Ser Humfrey Hightower, in excellent physical condition but not remarkably tall and more than a little weighted down by his armor, lets the larger man fall from his arms onto the deck of the Mighty Malora with an ungraceful thud.  The noise is cringeworthy, but he thinks the Westerosi, whoever he is, will be grateful—after all, what are a few bruises or even broken bones when the alternative is incineration by dragon fire?  Humfrey takes a few seconds to catch his breath, pushing a pile of sweaty brown curls back from his forehead with a soot-stained hand.

One of his men deposits another, much smaller body next to the burly one, but everything is still too obscured by the smoke and soot to give more distinction than size.  There is no more time to waste and Humfrey gives orders for the ship’s crew to depart the harbor at once.

Torturer’s Deep shrinks as they put out to sea and they are able to see the total decimation of the small island.  Flames light the darkening sky as debris and ash fill the air and high above, Daenerys’ dragons circle, occasionally diving in for more destruction.

Even when they are well away from the island, it is some time before the smoke completely clears from the air.  Humfrey, leaning over the ship’s railing and looking toward where they are headed, instead of where they have been, thinks he will smell it even after it ceases to linger, for there is something terribly unique about dragon fire.   

“Ser Humfrey!” Robert Rowan, his good sister Rhonda’s youngest brother, interrupts his thoughts, the boy rather urgent.  “You must come at once—the men we brought aboard—the small one—it’s a Lannister, Ser!”

A Lannister?  There is only one ‘small’ Lannister man—could it truly be the Imp?  Humfrey lets Robert Rowan lead him to the other side of the ship where the two men still remain unconscious.  But now the smoke has cleared and there are several crewmen around the smaller one.

“Clear the way,” Humfrey says, and they do.  He kneels down, scrutinizing the dwarf.  He wears no sigil, but his hair is Lannister gold, his face maimed as Tyrion Lannister’s was during the Battle of the Blackwater.  At one time during the war, the imp would have been treated as a king on the ship of a Tyrell vassal.  But times have changed.  Tywin Lannister is dead, his abominable twins grasping to hold onto power whilst Queen Margaery fights for her life and the bannermen of the Reach fight to keep their holdfasts from the Ironborn.  “Take him to one of the spare cabins,” Humfrey says, standing.  “But find Ser Baeron Beesbury and have him stand guard.”

“What of his companion?” Denys Mullendore asks.

It is only then that Humfrey looks upon the larger man, the one he himself carried from the docks to the Malora.

The man is broad-chested, balding, and half of his face is disfigured by some sort of demon tattoo—the kind given to slaves in Essos, Humfrey realizes.  He wears no identifying marker except for the grotesque image on his cheek, yet there is something familiar about the man, something Humfrey cannot shake.  He looks him up and down, from the craggy lines etched in his forehead to the large knuckles down to his ragged clothing and dilapidated boots, and then it hits him.  It cannot be.  But it is.  As soon as Humfrey realizes it, he knows it to be true—it is his (former?) good brother, Ser Jorah Mormont of Bear Island.

Humfrey barely has the wherewithal to order Mormont be given a cabin of his own, separate from the Imp, for he is certainly not a captive.  He is many things, thinks Humfrey, but the man is still a pardoned knight (at least that is the last Humfrey has heard), and thus due some amount of respect.  He watches intently as two of the crew carry Mormont below deck.

Then, it starts to rain.

 “Is it true?”  Lady Lynesse Hightower is dressed in the bright silks of the Free Cities, her hair flowing elegantly in the style of noblewomen of Lys, but her voice is every bit of Oldtown, arch, imperious, yet somehow graceful.  She stands in Humfrey’s cabin, looming over his desk importantly.

Humfrey has never been intimidated by his sister and he continues to stare at the map he’s been studying, not immediately answering.

“Humfrey,” she leans over and jabs him in the shoulder with her finger like she did when they were children and she wanted something Right. Now.  “All of your men are talking about it,” she says. “You cannot expect to have kept it from me, truly.”

“If you know it is true, then why are you asking?” Humfrey looks at her finally, rolling up the map with practiced efficiency.

“You should have told me,” Lynesse hisses.  “He is my—“

“Your?” Now it is Humfrey’s turn to be arch.

She narrows her eyes and says, “I want to see him.”

“You will not.  He isn’t even awake,” her brother says.

“It has been—too long—and he is my—was my—I want to see him,” she scowls.

“Then go on, Lynnie,” Humfrey waves a dismissive hand.  “Go do exactly what you were going to do in the first place. I’m not sure why you even spoke to me about it.”

“Don’t call me that,” Lynesse says, “Anyhow, you may be commander of this ridiculously named ship, but you cannot command me.  Nor can Father, or any other man.  I chose to come back.  Remember that. I chose.”

Despite the fact that this was her idea to begin with, Lynesse hesitates when she reaches the cabin door, taking a deep breath before she tentatively turns the doorknob.  She is suddenly afraid of what waits for her on the other side.  The words she overheard the crewmen using were things like “grotesque” and “mad.”  Her husband had been uncouth, barely bred in the ways of nobility, yet he had never been terrible, never something to be feared.  She knows that she has changed in the years since they were together, and she expects he has, too—but into a monster?

Finally, Lynesse pushes open the door and goes in, carrying a small lantern with her, which she puts on the bedside table before peering down at him.

She observes his too-gaunt frame, his familiar brow and even the manner that he rests—on the surface, everything about him is the same, yet he has been altered in ways she cannot comprehend.  When her gaze reaches the demon tattoo on his face, made more frightful by the shadows from the flickering candle, Lynesse gasps.

Instead of reeling, however, she leans forward, pressing a soft hand to his scarred face.

“Oh, Jorah,” she says as tears spring to her eyes.   “What has been done to you?”