A/N: Winner of The Year of the Dragon fanfic contest at The Tourneys. The challenge was, in fewer than 2000 words, to tell the story of how being in the company of Targaryens changed a minor character.

Shall Not Fall

"So, my friend…" Illyrio fills Jorah's goblet with green nectar from Myr. "Will you accompany His Grace and the princess to Vaes Dothrak and keep an eye on them for Lord Varys?"

Jorah swirls the costly liquid around his cup, but doesn't take a drink. During his exile he's grown accustomed to the cheapest bitter wines offered in the winesinks and, more recently, to the fermented mare's milk favored by the Dothraki. Nectar sets his teeth on edge.

Lynesse adored it.

"I'm not certain I understand the assignment. You and Varys brokered this marriage between Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo to raise Viserys an army to invade Westeros. Yet Varys would, presumably, feed my information to the very king he seeks to overthrow?"

"It's not for bears to try and unravel the Spider's webs, Ser Jorah. Just you think about that royal pardon you might earn." Though Illyrio's smile remains spread across his fat face, the joviality vanishes from it. "Or is it your conscience? Surely a man who sold slaves can have no qualms about selling secrets?"

"Surely not." Jorah raises his goblet and swallows the too-sweet nectar.

He gives Viserys his sword, and in return the Beggar King gives Jorah an apartment in Khal Drogo's manse where they reside in Pentos until Daenerys' wedding. Though it's far superior to the flea-infested inns of Volantis that sheltered him for the better part of a year, the house's luxuries cannot match the rustic comforts of Jorah's own hall on Bear Island. For one thing, it's hot as the seven bloody hells.

Rolling off the sweat-dampened mattress, he pulls on a loose linen shirt and steps through the open doors to the gardens in the hope that the breeze will be cooler outside than within the walls that baked the day long under the Pentoshi sun. It isn't, but the salt tang of the island air clears his head of the niggling thought that the Old Bear will be no better pleased to hear that Jorah is restored to his seat for spying than of it being stripped from him for slaving.

"Are you certain we may trust him, Viserys?" the tremulous voice of the princess with whom he has exchanged but a few words over dinner drifts from an open doorway across the garden. "He's a northman…Didn't the north fight against Father?"

Jorah cannot but chuckle darkly to himself at Daenerys' perceptiveness; but the unmistakable crack of flesh striking flesh knocks the smirk from his lips.

"Do you dare question my wisdom, you stupid bitch?" hisses Viserys.

"No, I only-

Another slap. In the shadows, Jorah winces. The princess makes not a whimper.

Next morning when she comes to break her fast, she slides into her chair, hanging her head so that her loose-flowing hair obscures her face, but not before Jorah notes the signs of Viserys' abuse: a greenish tinge upon her girlishly rounded cheek and dark dried blood staining her swollen lower lip. Daenerys is not alone in her shame; the boiled duck eggs sit heavily in Jorah's belly with his realization that he, a knight, did not extend the hand of chivalry to a maiden in need of succor.

And that he would do well to win the princess' trust, as well as her brother's.

"Those bruises look painful," he says. "Is there aught I may do, my princess? Fetch you a cold compress?"

"I'm fine." Daenerys looks up from picking at her bread, her eyes large in her pale face, putting Jorah in mind of a small animal that has never known kindness and thus shies from it.

She'll know even less of it, living amongst the Dothraki.

"I mean, thank you," says Daenerys, her eyes dropping back to study the untouched morsels on her plate. "I have been but a little clumsy."

Jorah squeezes a fresh wedge of lemon into his beer and drinks long, wishing he hadn't broached the subject.

But the princess meets his gaze again and ventures, "I've known few men from Westeros, Ser Jorah. Have you seen Dragonstone? It is the place of my birth, but I've no memory of it."

There have been times during his exile when he's lain awake aching with his memories of the place of his birth and wishing for the oblivion of sleep. Even in a looking glass, he has never seen a hungrier face than Daenerys' when she speaks of the home she's never known. His answer cannot possibly bring her satiety.

And he hates it.

Too long does Jorah wander through the Pentoshi market. With his light purse, choosing a wedding gift for Khal Drogo's bride should be a simple task, but the sun's glint off shiny trinkets draws his gaze to luxuries he can ill afford.

He should be grateful Lynesse isn't here to lure him into further ruin for the sake of jeweled earrings or a necklace of pearls, though it's not her pleading eyes that haunt him, but a sadder, darker pair. The same violet as the stones set in the bracelet of silver flowering vines that captivates him now. A queenly gift-but Daenerys Targaryen is no queen.

Neither is she a khaleesi. Jorah strides on through the rows of merchant booths. Not a khaleesi, nor does he know whether such a young girl far from a home she has never known can be.

With a more practical eye he peruses a stall of leather goods. Riding boots or gloves are sure to be of use in a Dothraki khalassar, though he purchases neither; Lynesse had balked at his gifts of a white bearskin cloak and fur-lined boots and even an oilcloak to fend off the persistent cold rains on Bear Island. A bride's gift ought not remind the lady of how difficult her new life will be.

He's about to give up when he sees them: sheaves of yellowing parchment bound in cracked leather.

"Songs and histories of the Seven Kingdoms," says the vendor, "written in the Common Tongue of Westeros."

Jorah opens his purse and asks, "How much?" But he's prepared to lay down all his coin for the princess to have the stories of her homeland.

He shouldn't be so pleased when Daenerys summons him weeks later and he ducks into her tent to find her curled upon her sleeping silks, reading.

"Are you enjoying the books, Khaleesi?"

"They were a thoughtful gift, Ser Jorah. I feel I begin to understand my countrymen. Only I wish I could sing their songs. The words are written here, but not the melodies. I asked Viserys. He says dragons do not sing."

"Rhaegar sang."

Smiling, she sits up a little. "Would you teach them to me?"

Jorah snorts. "My aunt used to tell me I couldn't carry a tune if it was handed to me in a bucket."

"Then what better audience for you than I, not knowing how the songs are meant to sound?"

How can he deny her, when she looks at him thus, aglow with laughter? Even if Viserys will overhear and mock-all the more reason to indulge her.

"Very well then." Jorah sits. "Which would you hear?"

"Whichever is your favorite." Daenerys nudges the book toward him.

"Not that one."

The page is open to The Bear and the Maiden Fair; Jorah turns it before he can find himself confessing that the bawdy had been sung to him and Lynesse at their bedding in Lannisport. Daenerys would, no doubt, enjoy The Dance of the Dragons, but it is long, and the only time Jorah has had the hearing of it was by the harper he brought to Bear Island for Lynesse.

Sick of these painful reminders, he takes up the next song he recognizes. Unfortunately, it's The Song of the Seven, and that, too, turns his thoughts to his southron bride, for whom he'd worshiped the Seven in place of the Old Gods of his kin.

Still, the tune is soothing, and the words pretty, though Jorah sings haltingly as he strains to make out the faded ink in the uncertain candlelight. When he finishes, he looks up to see Daenerys reclining once more on her side, stroking her stomach, the shine of tears upon her cheek.

"Thank you, Jorah. I shall sing that to my babe when I put him to my breast."

As he leaves her tent, he hears her soft low voice: "The Seven Gods who made us all,
are listening if we should call.
So close your eyes, you shall not fall,
they see you, little children."

The screams of the wine merchant-turned-assassin echo in Jorah's ears long after the man has been permanently silenced by ten thousand upon ten thousand trampling hooves of the Dothraki horde. He had not lasted for even half a mile.

Daenerys remarks on this to Jorah as they ride, her cool voice belied by the same fire that burned in her eyes when she watched her husband declare war on Westeros, and before that when he executed her brother. "If the Usurper would see me fall, he will have to do better than that poor wretch."

"You shall not fall." Jorah's own gruff tones seem to sound from far away, drowned out by the screaming in his head.

"No. Nor my son. Not with my khal and my bear to catch us."

She urges her mount up ahead beside her husband, leaving Jorah with naught to do but ponder
how short the distance is between riding astride the finest horse in Drogo's herd, and being dragged, naked and chained, behind Daenerys' silver mare. For here he sits, rewarded for obstructing an attempt on her life, when he is the very one who sold it.
It's true enough that anything signed and sealed by the Usurper will mean little and less when Daenerys Targaryen storms King's Landing at the head of forty thousand Dothraki warriors. But something else had prompted Jorah to stay the assassin's hand. What, he cannot say with any more certainty than he knows when or how he arrived at a point where he could think a mere pony given by Khal Drogo would be a greater honor than a pardon bestowed by King Robert.

He tries to work it out as they ride ever eastward, now and again glancing sidelong when she reins her horse alongside his. As if he can read his own heart as plainly as if it were written in the Common Tongue upon Daenerys' stoic face. The face of a khaleesi.

The face of his queen.

Only death can pay for life, the maegi had said.

And the Stallion Who Mounts the World was born dead and malformed-if the handmaids are to be believed-with scales for skin and leathern wings: a mockery of the boy's heritage of dragon lords. Rhaego's death for Drogo's life-yet Drogo does not live. Not in any way a khal of the Dothraki, nor any man, least of all Jorah, would call a life.

If Daenerys should pay with her life, too, as seems most likely from Jorah's vantage point at her bedside, where for days she has lain bleeding and burning with fever-fire and blood, but not as any Targaryen ever spoke the words-what will it buy? The pardon he gave up because he deemed her life too high a price?

Her brother's was not, but Viserys was the Mad King's son, and Jorah would have ended it himself with no more qualms than he had sold those poachers to the Braavosi slavers, had Drogo not slain the fool first. While Jorah cannot bear the thought of forcing the gods' hand at answering his prayers for home when she is guilty of no more of petitioning them for the very same.

He bows his head now, the sword balanced upon his knees a gleaming blur of steel, and prays. For the first time, not for home.

For her.