"You will remove your hand from my Queen, brother." called out a third voice.

Daenerys felt Jon comply, and she turned around in sudden astonishment. Above in the clear blue skies, a winged shape in green circled with his brother. Rhaegal hadn't announced his arrival, because his Rider- the finest in all of Westeros- had commanded him not to.

He approached them now crossing the snowy clearing, briskly leaping up onto the weirwood platform.

Aegon of House Targaryen, Sixth of His Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm. Her husband.

He was a vision in royal black and red, looking unruffled despite what must have been a long flight from the crownlands. His long hair shined Targaryen silver, and he wore a cheery grin on his face.

The smile didn't touch his eyes. Aegon's dark purple orbs were locked onto Jon like a hunting hawk on forest game. He carried a long canvas satchel strapped over his shoulder, and strode confidently across the rest of the ivory stump to stand slightly offset Daenerys, facing the both of them.

Jon offered a small bow. "Your Grace." Aegon waved him off dismissively. The motion was so alike what Jon had done minutes earlier it was almost eerie to see.

"Don't start that title-spouting dung with me, Jaehaerys. I've been here long enough to know that you don't mean a single syllable of honorific spilling out your mouth. You will call me by name as you have been calling my lovely Queen by name, and I shall do the same for you- we are family, after all."

Jon's mouth curved into a grim smile that was not a smile. "As you wish, Aegon. But I must tell you that I go by Jon, the name given to me by my late Lord Father."

"Ah, but Jaehaerys is the name our late Lord Father gave you." Aegon's smile was just as grim, and degrees more wicked.

Jon strived to remain unaffected. His face was a mask of calm as he replied.

"Eddard Stark of Winterfell is the man who raised me. He is my Lord Father, now and always."

"Yes, I do remember how proudly you cling to your northern heritage. It's good to see that hasn't changed in all these years- which reminds me."

The King swung the bundle he had been carrying over his shoulder and deftly unwrapped it to reveal two forms. He tossed one straight at Jon, who caught it with one hand without even moving his gaze.

But of course he didn't need to, thought Daenerys, when she saw what Jon held in his hand. A sword. His sword. Jon had never held anything in his hand as easily as he did that blade.

"Longclaw." spoke Aegon. "Though hardly anyone uses its true name these days. Lightbringer! They call out, Lightbringer, the sword of heroes! The Mormont family sword, more famous than even Blackfyre" he motioned to the other Valyrian sword that he had been carrying in the bundle. "My ancestors would weep." he chuckled joylessly.

"You took Longclaw from Bear Island?" Jon asked, a note of danger in his tone.

Aegon snorted. "Not what you think, little brother. I didn't so much as sneeze on Lady Mormont's little head, though from her glares I expect she'll try to tear mine off. They had to hand the sword over to me, I'm their King. Besides, when I announced that I was bringing the blade to its rightful wielder I got the full backing of the pilgrims. They had to allow me to take it."

"Pilgrims?" Jon raised an eyebrow in puzzlement.

Aegon grinned. "Oh, you haven't heard? The followers of R'hllor flock to Bear Island now, any of the truly faithful undergo the holy pilgrimage to the North to pray before the Lightbringer. They were queueing up for hours every day just to catch a glance of your sword sitting in a locked glass case. I heard the First Sword of Braavos offered fifty-thousand dragons just to hold it for a moment, and little Lady Lyanna booted him off the island for the 'insult'. That woman is a spitfyre."

Jon smiled at some memory prompted from that line. Aegon snapped him out of it with the sibilant hiss of steel on leather, as he drew Blackfyre.

"Come now, Jaehaerys. Enough talk about your mythical weapon. Now that it's in your hands again, what do you say to a little brotherly spar?" Aegon's dark eyes were full of mirth and something more. Jon didn't deign to answer, he was lost in examining the sword that he had swung since he was a boy. The sword that slew the Night King. The sword he gave back House Mormont when he returned from the final battle.

Aegon looked ready to carve him up. "You never really did answer the Queen's question, brother mine. Where are you hiding one-horn the White?"

Jon shrugged. "I answered fairly. The Frostfangs are his favorite haunt, he's probably there. Viserion does like to sleep amidst the rock and the snow."

Aegon shrugged right back. "I supposed I can always find out after I get a few good licks in during our duel."

"Aegon! Enough." Daenerys interjected. This is terrible, she thought. This is situation is spiralling away from her. "What are you doing here!? We discussed this in the throne room, I would travel north alone." Aegon pursed his lips at her before letting out a carefree laugh, sheathing his sword in the same motion.

"Sweet Daenerys, but I have kept my word! We have traveled separately did we not? I didn't see Drogon on the horizon my entire journey till now. And I couldn't have possibly left my dear wife to face the fearsome White Wolf all alone." As he spoke, Aegon stepped towards her, placing warm hands onto her petite hips and drawing Daenerys into his chest. The Dragon King was the broadest and tallest of their illustrious generation of Targaryens, and she felt tiny pressed against him. He put a gloved hand on her chin, and leaned down.

She slapped him, hard.

Aegon took two lengthy strides back and rubbed at his rapidly reddening cheek. He let out a humourless chuckle as he turned back towards Jon.

"Our lovely aunt does despise my affections. Although I suspect it's more prominent because of present company, brother."

Jon might as well have been one of the statues that filled the ancestral crypt beneath Winterfell.

Aegon cocked his head examining his brother, again so reminiscent an action, and a genuine smile lit up his handsome Valyrian features.

"Oh Jae, you have no idea do you? The rumored Stark lack of guile is indeed true."

"Aegon." she shot at him.

"Beautiful aunt Daenerys left out herself when she talked about how enamored the capitol is with the legend of the Hero of Dawn, Jon of Houses Snow, and Stark, and Targaryen. Truth is, she's quite taken with the stories the bards sing of you."

"Aegon." her voice took on a dangerous pitch. Aegon paid her no mind.

"Yes, there is a rather unambiguous reason that comely Queen will not grace my bed with her presence, nor share in my affection for her. It's because she's quite in l-"

"Aegon." she spoke, with the full force of a Conqueror Queen. Aegon quieted, sending a sheepish grin in her direction before waggling his eyebrows at Jon.

Jon, who watched the two of them with an expression caught somewhere between confusion, bemusement, and infuriation.

They made quite a sight, the three of them. The Last Targaryens, people had called them, even if the epithet was no longer true. She and Aegon in rich riding outfits, suited for royalty, both with beautiful, silvery, classical Valyrian looks. Jon their dark mirror, dressed in savage rags and furs, his father's pretty features set into the long Stark face, with jet black locks and a thick northern beard. And he, the greatest of them. The song of ice and fire.

The Mad Prince Rhaegar's legacy, his sons and youngest sister forming the prophesied Three Heads of the Dragon.

She broke out of her reverie when she caught the look on Jon's face. He was staring at her, and some unknown expression was filling up his grey eyes.

"You… You don't sleep with him?" Daenerys shook her head slowly, mute. "Daenerys. Dany. When you said I had family in the south- Targaryen nephews and nieces, I had thought you meant you had…" he took a step towards her. She did the same as she replied.

"No. Jon, not mine. This hasn't changed." she rubbed at her lower belly. "I can bear nothing in my womb. The dragons will be my only children."

Jon looked aghast. "The maesters, they examined you after the final battle at the Fist, I remember. They had said you were healing."

Daenerys smiled a small, sad smile. "They were wrong."

Jon took another tentative step towards her, like she was an injured bird, or one of the small woodland creatures that lived in his grove. He reached out with his hands, glacially slow, and grabbed her smaller palms in his.

He was so warm. How could he be so warm in this freezing wasteland? Despite his furs, she could see that his clothing was poorly made and offered much less protection than the finer coats she and Aegon wore. She looked up into his eyes and now, could read those emotions swimming within.

Sadness. Sympathy. Grief, for her, for what he knew she had lost. Hope, for her future, and for his. And a tiny, glittering, glimmer of joy.

Aegon's cold voice rang out like the bells in the Red Keep.

"She's tells no lies, dearest brother wolf. All the children are from my seed, spent between the legs of royal consorts, born from unions with Tyrell and Martell, or otherwise get from highborn ladies. Probably more than a few dragonseeds running around the town proper too, with how much I love to indulge in women of low birth. Puts a new spin on the phrase 'King most beloved' wouldn't you say?" He paused to let a sardonic huff escape him. "But no children from Daenerys."

"Aegon, do not speak of my-"

This time, it was her husband that cut her off with draconic fury. "No children from Daenerys, but not from lack of trying." Jon looked up at that. "Oh yes, our sweet little aunt was a dutiful Queen after we first wed- some of that Stark honor must of rubbed off on her at the Wall. We had some good times together in the marriage bed, didn't we wife?"

Daenerys felt her hands tighten around Jon's in her rage, and she felt him grip her back just as strongly. Aegon closed his eyes, tilting his head up into the noonday sunlight.

"Ahh, I can still recall our last night together, a feast for the birth of my second son, you'd gotten so drunk on wine that night I'd been able to convince you to join Margaery, Arianne, and I in the royal chambers-"

"Shut your mouth Aegon." Daenerys snarled at him. Jon snatched her attention back to him quickly. He wasn't paying attention to Aegon anymore. His open, grey eyes held not a hint of judgement, and they spoke to her:

Don't mind him. I couldn't care less. I want you.

She wanted to kiss him right there.

Aegon continued his tale in the background, a stage-voice of mournfulness in his tone. "And after she left my bed, she found herself with Old Man Jorah, her guardian from childhood returned to faithfully serve his queen by trying to pump a baby into her womb. Of course, his old heart gave out soon enough. Couldn't keep up with his sinful lust, you see."

Daenerys dropped her hands from Jon's and launched herself at Aegon. Jon's strong arms latched onto her shoulders and held her solidly back. A feral scream tore through the air, and for a few seconds she didn't recognize it as her own.

Aegon's fake sorrow dropped to reveal a malicious grin, somehow twisted further by how beautiful the expression was on his delicate face. "And yet, between the Old Bear and I, so few seeds caught in auntie's belly. And the few that did- well, let's say they just had a hard time… staying."

And all of Daenerys' rage, all her righteous fury at her tormentative King, evaporated into raw pain. The deep, deep despair of that which plagued her her whole life. The memory of all the agony, all the blood.

When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east

The babies.

When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves

Oh gods, the babies.

Daenerys' body racked with a sob, she collapsed onto her knees into the warm surface of the weirwood stump. She gasped in pain. Why had she fallen? Where was Jon?

The clash of steel on steel awoke her.

Daenerys looked up to see the horror, brother against brother, whirling Valyrian steel twisting and turning in their deadly dance.

"No! Stop this madness!" she screamed, pleading onto deaf ears.

Her nephews sought blood. Targaryen blood, blood of the dragon. The ultimate strength and fatal weakness of their family.

She saw their faces, Aegon's a rictus cocktail of emotions, rage, pain, fear, excitement. Love. Hate. He looked the part of a Dragonlord, a Targaryen King in all his greatness and madness both.

But it was Jon who scared her.

His face had no emotion. His Stark features were carved not in stone but crafted of ice. His mouth a grim slash, and his cold grey eyes saw only death. This was the face he had worn into battle against the Long Night. The face that the Night King saw before it's destruction. The face of the Last Hero.

Ghost slunk around the edges of the wild duel, watching with blood-red eyes as Jon and Aegon charged and parted, swung and ducked, danced to and fro, lifeblood spraying the immaculate white weirwood with splashes of red from Valyrian steel making thin flesh wounds- cutting through skin and meat like it was silk. The great direwolf was a reflection of his partner, silent as the grave despite the carnage, waiting for a moment where he could pounce and tear Aegon to shreds.

Daenerys had to prevent that. A wolf had no place between warring dragons.

"Go, Ghost, run!" she yelled and shoved at the massive white direwolf, smacking him on the nose when he refused to budge. Ghost let out a whimper and backed up to the treeline.

"I'm sorry boy, but I can't let you get hurt." she whispered to him.

The fight was coming to a close. Aegon was a talented swordsman, he bested Garlan Tyrell easily, the Rose Knight being considered one of the finest blades in the realm after the conclusion of the War of Five Kings. It was not all gifts either. The King worked his fingers to the bone training with his Kingsguard, waking at terrible hours to condition his body and his swordsmanship. All to be able to beat the comparisons between him and his brother.

And for all that Aegon was the greatest swordsman alive, it only amounted to holding against Jon for a minute or two, because Jon fought with inhuman speed and skill, borne of combat with inhuman foes.

Jaehaerys Targaryen. Jon Snow. The Blade in the Darkness, who has bested no knights nor won any tourneys, trading all that to instead train his sword by fighting White Walkers to the death.

He advanced, an unstoppable tide of steel, a storm made flesh. He battered away at Aegon until he could slam Blackfyre out of nerveless fingers, nicking the cheek of the King of Westeros in the counter-swing before kicking him right in the stomach and knocking him to the ground.

Daenerys saw Jon's impassive face curve into a frown, the point of Longclaw aimed at Aegon's throat as he wheezed air laying flat on his back on the white, blood-streaked stump.

"I apologize for attacking you, Your Grace, but it was foolish of you to provoke me like you had. Aye, and even more foolish to resist me like so. You are skilled enough that it was risky to disarm you. I could have grievously injured you, brother."

Aegon made no answer, busy as he was. Jon watched for a moment longer, before dropping the point of his sword and quickly making way to her.

"Dany, are you alright? I'm sorry I dropped you like that." the man had the gall to act embarrassed after what he just done before her eyes.

"Jon…" she whispered, throat hoarse from her screaming.

He leaned in closer to her, arms supporting her weight. "Yes, Daenerys?"

"Behind…" she gasped.

Jon whirled around to see Aegon crawling back up onto his feet, but he made no move to recover Blackfyre on the ground.

Aegon smiled at Jon, the same smile he had greeted him with.

"You are singularly impressive, Jaehaerys, my brother wolf. But you forget that we- that you, are also a dragon, and dragons fight not with steel, but fire."

His face twisted from a smile into deep determination, and he shouted up into the air.

"Rhaegal! Dracarys!"

Daenerys managed to stand in that moment, bracing against Jon.

"No Aegon! Drogon!"

Both dragons answered the call, shrieking roars bellowing out of their maws in tandem. From circling in the sky, they dove straight down intertwined, biting and slashing at each other.

When they neared the ground, Rhaegal managed to slip free from his slightly larger brother, put enough space between them that he had time to open his great jaw and spew a wave of hot dragonfire towards the little clearing on the ground.

Daenerys looked in horror at Jon. There was no time to escape. He didn't have her immunity to fire, and even Aegon had enough blood of Old Valyria that he'd get out with only minor burns. Jon was fully vulnerable.

Aegon stared straight at his half-brother, unblinking, waiting with baited breath to see him either incinerated by flame… or not. Who knew with the legendary Azor Ahai? Aegon wouldn't miss a moment. This is what he'd be starving for. His brother. Family, true family, someone who shared with him a father. And a rival worthy of the Dragon King- who started out as a sailor's child who dyed his hair blue to hide from the world, and ended up sitting on the Iron Throne.

Daenerys felt the world slow as the heat of the dragonfire fell on them from above, even before the actual flame would wash the grove into ash, and Jon along with it. She looked at his face. Jon Snow, Jaehaerys Targaryen, the man she'd fallen in love with for the brief and bloody few years that was the War for the Dawn, and then lived secretly in her heart without even her knowing for fifteen years until that love reawoke today.

And Jon? Jon… felt exhausted. This whole ordeal was tiring. His Targaryen family had come by today and in less than an hour they've ruined the nice copse of trees he'd spent the last decade growing. They reopened old wounds and gashed apart new ones, physical and mental. And Daenerys wondered why he refused to come to King's Landing and live with an entire brood of dragonblood.

The True North had what he'd been chasing after his whole life. Peace. There he could sit, quietly, no longer needing to be a warrior. He could reflect on his past and think on his future. He could mourn. Ygritte, dead from the mistakes he made as a boy. Val, dead from the mistakes he made as a man. Sitting on his stump- though, it wasn't fully accurate to say he owned the stump, Jon finally had time. Time to contemplate life. It was a luxury he'd never had before.

Fifteen years was too short, but he supposed it was longer than he had expected, or deserved.

It could be that the peaceful, quiet life was just not meant for him. The Old Gods cursed him to always live in exciting times. It was a distinct possibility, given the family that he belonged to. Both Houses of it.

It wasn't as if the lands beyond the Wall would be lost to him forever. There would always be some peaceful woodlands he could retire to, whenever he needed a time of peace again. But for now...

Jon heaved a sigh. Back into the fray once more. It could be worse, he told himself.

I could be without a dragon.

"Viserion."

The world flipped on it's side. Daenerys saw the sun swing from directly above them to down by the horizon, and then as her body started slipping down what was suddenly an upwards slope, she realized that the sky was not moving but the ground beneath her feet was.

The weirwood stump they all stood on tilted up at an angle, and Daenerys saw the edges of the clearing in the woods crack in a circular chasm all around them.

The ground was breaking. What was this? Some kind of massive cataclysmic earthquake?

The wind started howling, but it was a noise she'd never heard it make before. Daenerys felt the rumbling of the sound shaking her every bone and organ. She couldn't hear anything.

She caught a glimpse of Ghost dashing deeper into the woods, moving away from the epicenter of the disaster. The direwolf had the smart idea. The humans on the other hand, were right on top the center of action.

The weirwood stump tilted up even more, and both she and Aegon where forced to climb up and grab hold of it's edge- which was quickly becoming a ledge. She looked behind her, and saw Jon sinking Longclaw into the wooden surface of the stump, then grabbing hold of the handle with both hands and bending his knees as if bracing.

For what? He grinned at her. He shouted something that was lost over that gods-awful noise. "...-dy! Ge-..." was all she caught.

What was making that noise? It couldn't be wind. Not even storms were this loud.

Then the ground shot straight up.

They ascended at breakneck speed, faster than she'd ever flown upwards on Drogon's back ever before. She and King Aegon both watched Jon grin and howl like a wolf, holding onto the handle of Longclaw in one hand, other arm waving in the air.

'He's insane' mouthed Aegon. Daenerys found herself in agreement.

Just as sudden as their climb started and was, it came to an abrupt halt. The noise had finally stopped too. Her eardrums still rang quite a bit. They had not climbed too high, the canopy of the trees was not too far below them.

But why would the earth go straight up like that? Daenerys climbed up a bit more, and peered down below them, hanging as she was from the edge of the weirwood stump. They seemed to be at the tip of what looked like a curved pillar of rock and dirt, and they weren't the only one. There was another, similarly shaped pillar next to them, reaching much higher and tapering out near the end.

What was worrisome was how the pillar was trembling, rock, sleet, snow, and tree debris falling off in great clumps of earth.

Then, suddenly, a piece of the upraised earth in front of Daenerys split open into two pieces, and the pillars of earth gave not a tremble but a shake, the way an animal shakes off water, and the great wave of sound that was that noise covered her body again.

All the dirt and stone and ice sloughed off but instead of them falling back to the ground, it revealed what they stood atop of. The great white body of a scaled beast. The earth before her split in two because it was a snout, and that noise was not the wind, it was a roar.

A dragon's roar. Viserion.

The white dragon pulled more of it's immense bulk out of the ground, shaking off even more rock and snow as it did.

"Viserion!" Daenerys screamed. "Viserion, my son!"

The dragon roared again, but Daenerys could not tell for the life of her if the dragon recognized or even heard her. She turned around and looked behind them, and saw the white expanse of cream and snow colored scales, more and more being wrenched free from the what looked like a massively large cave system.

The mouth of which was plugged up by loose dirt and snow, and Viserion's gargantuan head.

And his horn. The whole time, they were sitting on the stump of Viserion's chopped off horn.

With a final roar of triumph and a shake all over his titanic body, Viserion pulled his tail free from the cave he had been resting in. From the vantage point atop his head, Daenerys could see the full extent of her wayward son's body, and the sheer scale of it boggled her mind.

The White Dragon was nowhere near 'half again as large' as Balerion the Black Dread. He was easily three times, probably four or five times larger.

She looked forwards again, and saw Rhaegal and Drogon circling in the air before Viserion. She sensed panic and confusion in both of her sons. It made sense, they were both now roughly the same size as a their third brother's head.

The dirt finally cleared from his head, Viserion could rotate his great golden eyes up to meet Daenerys' purple ones, and the recognition that sparked in the lizard-like pupils of the beast warmed her heart. Her heart also dropped into her stomach when she realized Viserion was now as big as a castle.

She turned to her fellow castle-riding companions. Aegon had turned pale as Ghost. Jon was grinning like a loon. She felt a sudden sense of role reversal. Jon waved them both down the horn into the space between it and the unbroken one. He helped ease her gently into a comfortable divot between two great white scales.

"What did you feed him!?" Daenerys yelled over the whipping wind.

"I told you, the True North is good for great beasts. The Old magic is strong." Jon thumped the white surface they were seated next to. "This thing helps too. I had Bran help me whip it up after the Great Other cut through the horn."

Daenerys touched the alabaster surface. It was wood, not the bone texture of a dragon's forward horns. She leaned over the side and saw, and finally understood. The weirwood stump's roots were wrapped around the base of the actual horn, acting as a strange sort of cap over the injury.

Jon noticed her revelation and nodded a confirmation. "Its to help Viserion recover from the Great Other's cold magic. Something about the leftover magic in the wound, the True North, and the weirwood worked together to make Viserion grow to this size. Eventually it'll finish it's job and fall off. Or it'll grow into a nice weirwood horn for Viserion. I forgot which one."

Jon Snow was the maddest Targaryen out of all of them, Daenerys reaffirmed to herself. No other man could be the Prince That Was Promised.

Aegon simply shook his head in disbelief. "Why didn't you just have him swallow me whole the second I set foot on his head?"

Jon smiled a very small, but genuine smile. "You and Dany are right. I've been a bad brother, and a terrible uncle. It's time for me to go meet my family, and try to make amends."

Aegon shook again. "I don't believe it. You would just up and come back, after fifteen years in self-exile?"

Jon regarded him with a more classically grim expression. "You're right to be skeptical, brother. I do have conditions. And even then I'm liable to simply return North again before long."

"Name them."

"You treated Daenerys awfully. When we return, you must publicly apologize to her." Daenerys was astonished by how fast Aegon nodded his assent. He must be hungrier for his brother's return than she had realized. "Secondly, you're going to annul your marriage to her. There's no reason for you to stick together when you both want different consorts than each other. I admit the lords will grumble about a King and Queen not married to each other, but we have Viserion."

Aegon once again agreed readily. Jon was not done. "You'll let me have free reign with her for a year, maybe two."

Daenerys reached up and pinched at his arm. Aegon guffawed. Here they were, the three of them all past thirty years, acting like children playing out legends of old. And she blushing about Jon's desire for her as if she was ten and five again.

"You two are are truly Targaryens, mind and body, all right. I meant I'm going to take Daenerys around to greenseers and Children of the Forest. See if Green magic or Old Ways can help restore her."

Aegon nodded again. "You may as well. If you succeed, then our House is greatly strengthened in blood. If you fail, it's not like the maesters did any better. But if Daenerys does prove infertile with no hope of cure, you will also have to do your duty and continue our line."

Jon pursed his lips. "I'd sooner dive down Viserion's gullet."

Aegon grinned his kingly smile. "We can have this discussion later, mayhaps I'll better convince you at King's Landing, when I've got you surrounded by beauties from every corner of the Seven Kingdoms. What other royal demands are you going to make?"

"Just the one left. If I teach you how to fight, you'll wield Blackfyre by my side if the Others return with winter." Jon's tone and expression brooked no argument. Aegon agreed, his countenance as serious as Daenerys had ever seen him.

"Then, we'll be on our way?" she turned and asked Jon.

"Yes, we will." he closed his eyes in a moment of focus, hand brushing against the top of Viserion's skull. They snapped open again after a few seconds, and he had another small, joyful smile on his face.

"I think we'll even make it in time for Rhaenyra's birthing." And in the great shadow that was the spreading of Viserion's mighty wings, Daenerys leaned over and kissed Jon Snow.

Finally.

It only took nearly eighteen years.