"You need to rest."

"I'm fine." Her voice shook with the lie, but Dany dug her nails harder into the soft wood of the cradle set near the blazing hearth and tried to force her feet to root to the floor.

"Dany, please. You're as white as your-"

"I said I'm fine, Jon!" Dany snapped in a voice that thinned over the lump in her throat she had been forcing down for as long as she solemnly kept her vigil.

"But you've been-"

"Dany," another voice, smooth like poured honey, cut across Jon's, "listen to Jon. We'll be here, you need to rest." Dany felt a slender hand on her back. It pressed her shirt to her, dried and hardened with old sweat. Her hair had dried as well, fallen out of her braid in messy tangles that clumped around her face. Her body felt like a tree limb that had been ripped from its world and battered through a storm: brittle, weak, stripped bare. Jon rested his hand on her shoulder, placing the lightest pressure to pull her away. So caring, so loving. It broke her, rendering her unable to keep a ragged sob from being ripped out of her lung.

"No!" she cried helplessly, "No, I can't leave, Jon! I need to be with her, I need to see her! I need-"

She buckled forward and was held up by his strong arms, pulled against his warmth and pried away as he soothed her feeble fighting, the weak pounding of her fists on his arms, with a scratchy voice. "Shh, my love, shh," he breathed, kissing her hair tenderly as she wept.

"Don't make me leave her, Jon," Dany finally managed to shudder through the wracking sobs that tortured her already beaten body, "not yet."

Their baby, their sweet, tiny daughter had neither moved nor made a sound. She was born sleeping, Willa said, when the baby had not stirred after birth. But Willa had left the house, trading places with Kolla, blood still on her hands, and had not said when their little girl would wake up. Dany had not looked up when she left, had barely taken her eyes from her daughter since the moment she saw her. If her mother looked away for too long, she could be lost forever. Never looked upon with the love she deserved. Like Rhaego.

She wanted to memorize her. The ten toes and ten fingers. The little nose that already reminded her of Rose. Her skin in the moonlight that had shown through their window until a second yellow morning broke over the trees. The silver hair already crowned her head; it looked like spun starlight. And the peaceful face of sleep. She was so peaceful, and yet all Dany wanted was to hear her cry, to hear her daughter's lungs fill and greet the world with a vibrant scream of life. To nurse her at her breast and know that she would grow like her sister, forever free in the world she could make her own. To promise her fiercely and know she heard, as she soothed her in the dark of night, that she was so loved, that she would never be alone.

Dany's sobs had subsided, replaced by stuttering breaths. She had wrapped her arms around Jon in turn, holding him close, wanting to feel that there was still life in the world, that her world had not fallen away to nothing. Whispers still fell from his lips, so inaudible that she could not tell if he was speaking to her, to himself, or to the gods. A tear dripped from her hair onto her cheek and she pulled him tighter to her.

Months could have passed with time remaining unchanged as they held each other, and Dany would not have minded. She feared change, feared what would happen when she closed her eyes and let time pass, and yet she knew that no power in the world she ever had sought could stop it.

"Dany?"

A voice that was not Kolla's moved time again and Dany, with the most enormous effort she had put forth yet, wrenched her eyes away from her daughter's cradle to see Willa. The healer's eyes were rimmed red, her brown face blotched. Her hair was pulled back, silver and gold adornments dotting it, save for the eagle feather whose tip rested on her shoulder. It hadn't been there before.

"Where's Kolla?" Jon rasped. Dany felt him shift in her arms, no doubt having a look around the small house. She had not heard the spearwife leave either.

"Out with the others," Willa answered.

In the lean-to. Enda had ridden Embar with Rose to fetch Tormund and her parents. While Ulf had gone back to Shadowedge for the night, not wanting to leave Nerell alone, the others had set up to stay in the lean-to for as long as needed. They had taken turns of vigil next to Dany and time outside with Enda, who Willa barred from coming inside, and Rose, for whom Jon had done the same. He said she shouldn't meet her sister this way, but Dany knew she shouldn't see her mother either. The only time he left Dany was to see Rose. He came back in to tell Dany that Enda had been painstakingly braiding Embar's thick mane and tail for Rose's entertainment and distraction to great success. The poor horse now looked much more like Willa. He smiled when he said it. It looked foreign on his face.

Dany watched as Willa looked into the cradle again. "She hasn't moved," Dany told her quietly, stomach twisting with the words of truth, "not at all."

"Mm," Willa acknowledged, furrowing her brow.

The three stood in silence again, Jon making no motion to have Dany rest any more than she was doing in his arms. Around them, the air felt thick and heavy. A leaden question had pushed itself on top of the lump in Dany's throat. She did not want to speak it, to acknowledge it, but it was there. It had been there since yesterday, steadily growing in weight. But though she could not stop time, she could stop herself. And yet she seemed to be failing at that as well.

"Willa," she said softly, breaking the silence along with the lead. Willa and Jon both looked to her. Dany took a breath, trying to keep her voice from quaking as she felt fresh tears begin to pool. "Should...should we name her?"

Jon's hand started around one of hers, then grasped it. She watched Willa close her eyes, shaking her head very slowly. "Dany…" she cautioned.

"I'm not doubting you as a healer," Dany said in a stronger voice, "I'm asking you as our friend."

Willa looked from Dany to Jon and then back again, and Dany watched as her expression hardened. "It would be deserving," Willa said, her own voice stronger as well, fixing Dany with a fierce look, "for her to greet the gods as one of us. But I swear to you both, as your friend and as a woods witch, I will not let them take her easily. They do not deserve her."

Reaching out, Dany took her hand in a strong grip, managing a small smile. A moment later, Jon's hand covered both of theirs as well. "We know you won't," he told her.

All three of them moved closer to the cradle, looking down at the still baby inside. Her breathing was quiet and slow, her little chest barely showing evidence of life. Dany reached out a finger and pressed it into one of her tiny, uncurled hands, which stayed relaxed.

"What will her name be?" Jon asked quietly, pulling Dany close to his side. On her other side, Willa had wrapped her arm around her as well. The feather from her hair brushed over Dany's shoulder.

She barely had to think. "Hazel," she told them in a loud, clear voice for anyone who was listening, stroking over her daughter's hand with the lightest touch. Looking to Willa, whose eyes were glistening, she added more quietly, "Because she deserves another chance."

Together, Jon and Willa managed to convince Dany to allow them to help her clean up and rest with the provision that she could stay with Hazel.

She was washed with rag and water, the remnants of Hazel's birth finally cleaned away. They helped to comb her hair, leaving it loose and wavy down to the small of her back. Jon drew two of their chairs up to the cradle, sitting and pulling Dany into his lap while Willa took the other, occasionally trading places with Kolla or Tormund throughout the day and silently squeezing Dany's hand whenever she did. Kolla was gentle and Tormund demure; when he spoke, his voice barely reached over a whisper. Dany continued her vigil in silence, occasionally hearing others' voices around her before sinking back into her buzzing stupor as she watched her daughter's sleeping form.

"I really thought we'd seen the last of our children leaving us," she heard Tormund say to Jon the last time she was aware of others.

It was dark when Dany was pulled into consciousness again, thinking someone had spoken softly to her. Jon's hand had gone slack around her waist, and she turned to see his head cocked to the side, brooding etched on his face as if he felt guilty for sleeping.

Someone had lit a candle. On her other side, Dany saw Willa bent over in her seat. One of her arms was wrapped around her stomach, while her other hand was fisted in her lap. At first, she thought Willa had finally succumbed to sleep as well, her stalwart friend having exhausted more options to help Hazel than Dany thought even possible, but then she heard the soft words again. Just barely, Dany saw Willa's lips moving as her fur-covered shoulders shook slightly. Reacting instinctively, maternally, Dany reached out to soothe her.

Willa jumped, snapping her head up with a tinkle and showing Dany her shiny face. "Sorry," she muttered.

"Don't be," Dany said, referring to much more than breaking her trance. "Were you praying again?"

"I haven't stopped," Willa told her quietly.

Dany nodded, looking back to Hazel, her silver hair glinting in the moonlight that streamed through the closest window. As Valyrian-blooded as they come, Dany thought, pride and sorrow mixing in her heart. It was already thick hair, thicker than Rose's had been. Hair like that was normal for free folk babies, and she knew which Northerner could be thanked for that trait. Her eyes drifted to the crackling fire next to the cradle, its many tails beckoning and snapping. Ominous, Dany thought, to some, but she thought it to be rejuvenating instead.

"My son was born dead," she said suddenly to Willa, who, to her credit, did not react. "I was told that only death could pay for life. So he died to pay for my husband's life. Then my husband died, and he paid for my dragons' lives. Some say I was reborn that night too - fire was like...metamorphosis.

"So many more have died since that night." She turned to stare at Willa, dropping her hand and fixing her eyes upon the strong gold gaze that held her own unflinchingly. In the dark, for just a moment, another friend was there in her place. "How many have to die?" she asked, "I keep asking myself if every death I have witnessed has been payment for my life, because the gods only know how many people died in service to me, ensuring I could live. And how cruel - how cruelly ironic - is it that to honor their sacrifice, I chose to turn away from everything they believed in and left it behind because I would have died otherwise? How do I pray for forgiveness for that? And why is my daughter even a part of it?"

"Dany," said Willa seriously, grabbing her friend's hand back, "this isn't punishment for living, or even a payment for it."

Dany shook with a mirthless laugh. "Isn't it?"

"No, it's not. So much death cannot be the price of one life, even one a fraught as yours. The gods don't discriminate, valuing one life over several others, or even trading one for another. Whoever told you that does not know them. This world was made for all of us to share, to strive to live our lives in as equals - all of us: humans, wolves, dragons, even those stupid fish that swim right into Tormund's hands when he puts them into the Antler. Death comes from a loss of balance in the world and in ourselves. Violence, sickness, hunger. And, sometimes," she bit her lip and cocked her head to the side, "just...because. It's inevitable, it...breaks us. But it also lets us continue on."

"Then…what do you pray for?" Dany asked.

The healer gave her a small smile. "Strength," she said simply, "sometimes I need to be reminded that I can still draw it."

"Where do you draw it from?"

Willa pursed her lips. "It's different for everyone. But I think," she said slowly, "for me, it's from the land itself. Watching it heal. Watching how it's become our home again even after everything that's happened to it."

"I used to think strength came from power," Dany told her, "how many people you had fighting for you."

"And now?"

Now?

Memories flashed in Dany's mind. Of riding next to Jorah on horseback as he laughed and pulled her back up when she slipped to the side. Drogon perched on her shoulder, stretching his wings to greet the bright morning and of his huge, black form touching down in the fighting pits and giving her a taste of freedom for the first time. Looking out over Mereen on a humid night with Missandei, arms around each other's waists, as thousands of cicadas serenaded them, and stuffing her huge mattress with Willa while they watched it snow outside. She saw Jon as they lay nose-to-nose in her bed on the ship to White Harbor. And flying next to her on Rhaegal, catching her when she slipped sobbing from her chair in her Dragonstone chamber, hoisting her up over fallen boulders in the Vale, working with her to roll enormous rocks from the place they would build their home. And holding her hand as he helped her bring their children into the world - their growing family.

"Now…" she said, "now, I think it comes from how many people you have fighting with you." By your side, to rely on, because being alone in the world is a terrible thing.

Dany flicked her gaze to Hazel again, a silent vow that she would never be alone fluttering inside her. She was still looking at her hair, when the moonlight glinting off something else silver caught the corner of her eye.

"Willa," she breathed, her eyes widening as the story Jon told her on the way back from the Mammoth's Head suddenly flooded back to her. Queen Alysanne and King Jahaerys placing dragon eggs in their babies' cradles, making it a tradition: a good omen if they hatched, bad if they didn't. Her hot-blooded sons had been a thrice good omen if she were to give into the belief that Drogo's pyre had been her cradle. The air tingled again.

Almost dreamlike, Dany stood up. Her legs wobbled as she did, feeling liquid and frozen at the same time. "What are you doing?" Willa asked, moving as if to stop Dany, thinking she would hurt herself. Dany ignored her, taking the few steps to the mantle and reaching up for Drogon and Saphira's third egg, whispering to it as she pulled it down.

"Ao sagon daor mērī dombo," she told it, bringing it over to Hazel's cradle and looking down at her daughter. There was another addition in there, an eagle feather on the baby's right side. Dany smiled, feeling a tear roll down her cheek.

She placed the egg into the cradle, next to Hazel on her left. Neither gave any sign that something had changed, but it had. She knew it. Beneath the anguish, like Hazel's tiny foot kicking inside her, she felt hopeful.

"Kostagon ao tepagon each tolie kustikāne."

Dany knew she was asleep. She remembered fighting it, forcing herself to keep watching Hazel and the egg, until sleep finally held down her broken, spent body and mind and overpowered it. Darkness had washed over her, melding her into the inviting warmth of Jon's body and relinquish her grasp on herself.

When she opened her eyes she was no longer home. The place she was in looked formless, fogged and obscured. Nothing had taken shape, nor did it seem to want to, but brilliant color and sound swirled around her in hypnotic dance. Dany wondered briefly how she could be standing if there was no ground. I have to go back, she thought firmly. She began to turn, somehow, forcing one foot to pivot her towards where she believed she had come from.

"Your Grace!" a voice shouted suddenly, the most solid thing in this world, stopping Dany in her tracks, making her head snap back to look behind her.

Missandei smiled at her, reaching as if to touch her arm. "Daenerys," she said more quietly, though she could have been whispering into Dany's ear, "live well, my friend."

Before Dany could speak, could decide what to do, the world closed in around her. She lost sight of all direction, all senses overwhelmed by the whirring color and a sudden, sharp howling that made her ears ring. Dany screwed her eyes shut from the color as the howling filled her, rattling her soul within her body like it had reached out to specifically grab her alone. Then the world gave way underneath her and she fell.

Her eyes snapped open as she hit the ground, much lighter than expected, Jon erupting from the chair. "Whuzzat?" he said groggily, "Dany?" On her other side, she heard Willa thunk to the floor in surprise as well.

Dany shook her head, still disoriented, her ears still ringing with the sound of her dream. But it was still happening, the sound was still there as loud as before. And then, Dany realized it wasn't just a sound. It was crying.

Scrambling to her feet, legs still unsteady from exhaustion or anticipation or everything together, she looked, scarcely daring to breathe, into the cradle. Red-faced and reaching up at her, swaddling somehow undone, Hazel was bawling. Her blue eyes were full of tears, her little mouth stretched wide as she cried with vigor. "It's all right," Dany crooned through her own tears, reaching in to gather Hazel in her trembling arms, "it's all right, my sweet girl. You're not alone. We're all right here. Oh, it's all right, little one. You're all right."

Dany grinned at Jon, whose expression was bewildered, incredulous, and completely overjoyed all at once. He brushed over Hazel's hair, her head barely the size of his hand, a laugh catching in his throat. As Dany moved to fix Hazel's swaddling, Jon reached and pulled a silver shard from the midst of it, looking at it thoughtfully and showing it to Dany before both peered to see where it came from.

There, nestled in the corner, tail curled around an eagle feather almost as large as it and wings folded over its nose, was the only creature to sleep through Hazel's cries. Dany looked at Jon and found him doing the same to her. Eyes wide, Jon cleared his throat and amended, "They're both all right."

Valyrian used:

"Ao sagon daor mērī dombo." - "You are not alone anymore."

"Kostagon ao tepagon each tolie kustikāne." - "May you give each other strength."