The Stag and The Frog - (GendryxMeera, GOT Fanfic) Part 2: Together

36: Save them all

In far-off lands, a creature sat high up on a cliff. After the death of his mother, he had flown away with her body. He had taken her home. To where he and his siblings were born. To the womb from which the whole world was born. Perhaps she would rise from there again one day.

Then the creature had flown. As far south as it was possible to fly. To jungles filled with mysterious creatures. Where he didn't need his internal fire to keep warm. People rarely came here. Mosquitos and diseases kept them away. But those things didn't bother a dragon.

High up on a cliff Drogon had made his nest. It was decorated with bones from his prey. Basilisks, giant apes, and river otters were the most common victims to his giant talons and razor-sharp teeth. The prey had grown to unfathomable sizes on these distant shores. Which was good, because the appetite of a dragon was unfathomable as well.

A bat buzzed around the dragon's ears and annoyed him. Drogon snapped his head and snatched the perpetrator out of the air. Not much to eat, but at least the disturbance was gone.

Drogon scraped with his feet and made a circle to lay down. Time for an afternoon nap. Even dragons need to nap. The giant creatures of the jungle could be safe for a few hours. Then it would be time for an afternoon snack.

But as the dragon's mind drifted into dragon dreams something slipped into his mind. An intruder. Drogon could feel it, it was as if something scraped against his brain and asked to be let in. Like an itch behind his temple. He raised his back foot to try to scratch the itch away. But the intruder wouldn't leave.

Bit by bit the intruder made its way into the dragon's mind. It took control over thoughts and movements. Drogon fought it with every fiber of his being. But it was to no avail.

His eyes blinked and once they were opened again his mind was completely under the spell of darkness.

Darkness had won for now, but under the surface, the struggle for power still went on. Drogon kept fighting, looking for an opening to regain control.

The dragon flapped its wings and took flight. The darkness told it to travel towards a stormy port.

***

The whole castle was sound asleep. But not its lady. Meera sat on the bed with her daughter propped up on a pillow in her lap to nurse. The little girl had woken up and demanded to be fed.

Meera was so tired. She never seemed to get more than a few hours of sleep before when her daughter woke up again. Then she had to figure out what the little girl wanted. Sometimes Joreen just seemed to want to scream.

Howland claimed that a certain little girl that he had brought up had done the same.

Right now Joreen wanted food and she hungrily suckled down milk while her mother looked out the window. Rain poured down on the outside of the glass and created an intricate pattern. Meera's mind got lost in the pattern, in it she saw memories she had tried to forget. How her brother died and how she had to put a knife to his throat to stop his suffering.

Then suddenly he stood there, right in front of her. Jojen. In front of the weirwood. He looked different than before. He looked scared and hurried.

"You need to leave, Meera," he said in a rushed tone. "Take your daughter and escape to the tunnels. He's coming. It's coming."

Behind Jojen she saw it. Dark as the night and huge as a castle. Sharp teeth and a fiery breath.

It was coming for her. It was coming for her daughter. It was coming for them all.

Meera snapped awake. The little girl in her arms had stopped nursing and instead looked at her mother with big eyes. It almost seemed like Joreen had seen the same thing as her mother. The little girl had seen her uncle that she would never get to meet.