Game of Thrones Iron Stark

Daenerys stood before them with her children.

Four of them.

One human daughter cradled in her arms. Three young dragons—one clutched to her chest, two perched on her shoulders like living armor. The red comet still burned overhead, painting her silver hair in blood-red light.

The Dothraki dropped to their knees at once, staring at her like she had stepped out of legend. The sheep people did not. They had seen stranger and stronger things on the green grasslands. Baby dragons did not impress them.

"Khaleesi," one handmaid asked carefully, "is the child a boy or a girl?"

"A girl," Daenerys answered. "But it doesn't matter. I have three sons as well."

The three hatchlings screeched and nuzzled against her, latching onto her breasts alongside the infant girl. They drank her milk like they had always belonged there.

"I name the dragons Drogo, Rhaegar, and Viserys," she said. "And my daughter Rhaenys."

She looked up at the burning star and felt the old Targaryen blood sing in her veins. Fire and blood. The comet was no accident. It was the breath of dragons. The return of her house.

In a quiet corner of the village, Village Chief Slow Sheep sat with the old Sheep Witch. She poured him tea without asking.

"You came about the red comet," she said.

Slow Sheep nodded and took a sip. "What do you see in it?"

"Long ago," the witch said, "sheep, wolves, and dragons lived together. Then they turned on one another. Dragons were once friends to our kind. Keep it that way. Do not give them reason to become our enemies."

Slow Sheep was quiet for a long moment. He had seen many strange creatures since arriving in this world—cattle, tigers, rabbits, snakes, even pegasi. Dragons were just one more. But the witch's words carried weight.

He finished his tea and stood. "I'll keep that in mind."

---

The Dothraki who had been guarding Daenerys returned from bathing in the stream. The Qiq i flowers they had eaten earlier had washed away in the cold water, pollen drifting far downstream.

When they saw what had happened in their absence—the birth, the hatching, the comet—they stopped dead.

Ser Jorah Mormont was the first to move. He drew his sword and dropped to one knee in the snow.

"Khaleesi, you are the last true dragon. I swear my sword to you."

The other Dothraki followed, slamming fists to chests.

"From this day," Jorah continued, voice steady, "I am your blade when you need one, your shield when danger comes, your counselor when you ask, and your man until the end. Point me east and I go east. Point me at your enemies and they die. I will never fail you."

The Dothraki warriors exchanged glances. One muttered under his breath in Dothraki, "Westerners and their pretty speeches."

Daenerys looked at them all and smiled. It was enough.

She wanted to ride for Drogo immediately. But the dragons were still tiny, fragile things. They needed time to grow strong. She would stay in the sheep village a little longer.

---

Far to the north, in the deep snows beyond Winterfell, a small party struggled through drifts already two feet high.

Thoros of Myr threw his head back and shouted at the sky. "Lord of Light! Melt this cursed snow so your faithful servants don't freeze their balls off!"

Beric Dondarrion laughed with the others. "Save your prayers for real darkness, Thoros. We handle the cold ourselves."

They were heading for the Wall to reinforce the Night's Watch. None of them had ever been this far north before. The silence was heavier than the snow. The cold bit through every layer of wool and leather.

Thoros stopped suddenly, eyes narrowing at the tree line. "We camp here. Something's watching us."

No one argued. They had learned to trust the red priest's instincts.

The forest around them was a white cathedral. Tall pines wore coats of snow. Ice hung from branches like crystal daggers. Small creatures moved through the drifts—squirrels shaking snow from their tails, rabbits leaving delicate tracks, a fox the color of the snow itself stalking a bird.

Deeper in the woods, a wolf pack ran.

They moved like ghosts, silent until the moment they struck. The lead wolf—a scarred brute with one eye clouded—led the charge. They brought down a young elk in a spray of blood and screams. When the feast was done, the scarred wolf lifted his head and looked toward the distant firelight of the human camp.

"Leave them," he growled. "We have meat. We don't need trouble."

The pack obeyed.

Not far from the kill site, two figures that walked like wolves but stood like men crouched in a sheltered hollow. One was pulling bananas from a hidden cache beneath the snow. The other watched him.

"毛毛狗," the banana-eater said, "you sure you don't want any of this elk? It's fresh. Your brothers are eating well."

Shaggydog—once Rickon Stark's direwolf, now something else—shook his head. His fur was matted with old blood and new snow.

"Rickon's dead," he said quietly. "I killed for him. I killed because Robb told me to. I don't want to be Grey Wind anymore. I don't want to be a killing machine."

He took a banana from the pile and bit into it.

"From now on I eat what you eat. If you can live on this, so can I."

The banana wolf grinned around a mouthful of fruit. "Welcome to the club, brother. It's not so bad once you stop craving blood."

Above them, through the bare branches, the red comet still burned across the sky—fire in the ice, life in the dead of winter.

Two different worlds, sharing the same heavens.