I

UNDER THE LEMON TREE

JON

Jon first meets the little girl when he is four.

The small garden he finds himself in when he opens his eyes reminds him quite a bit of the godswood, and the great weirwood tree that Father comes to sit under for long periods of time each day. He truly believes it to be the small, sacred wood at first glance, and worries slightly. He doesn't know what sacred means, but he does know that he ought not to be disturbing the godswood. Maester Luwin says it's no place for small children, unless they behave. Behaving means not running around at all, and sitting very still and very quietly. Jon doesn't like the thought of that. He's better at it than Robb, but he still finds it incredibly dull. Fortunately, Father doesn't make him come with him, and so Jon doesn't particularly know the godswood all too well.

At first he is concerned, because if anyone finds him he'll be in trouble; he and Robb aren't supposed to go into the godswood by themselves. Even if he does stand very still and makes no noise at all, he shouldn't be here.

But he quickly notices how different it is. While the godswood is quite dark and a little scary, due to all the trees being pressed ominously closely together, this garden is light and he can easily see a clear blue sky when he looks up. The godswood, set apart from the heated walls of Winterfell, is cold. This garden is very warm indeed, with the sun up above glaring down on his skin. Jon almost feels silly in his bedchamber tunic, as thin as it may be.

If this isn't the godswood, then perhaps no one will mind if he runs around. The garden isn't very big, but it's large enough for a small boy to play in. There's are bushes pressed against the yellow, stony walls, a funny looking tree that smells very sour that he might be able to climb, a small pond at the foot of the tree, and steps he can jump up and down on, leading up towards a red door. Behind the door there must be a house. The building is quite large, but nowhere near as big as a single tower at Winterfell, let along the whole castle. Like the garden walls, the stone is yellow and even cream in some places. It's very different from Winterfell's grey, granite walls. Jon decides he likes it.

There's birdsong; not the sound of ravens cawing, like Jon often hears when the the birds come to and from the castle with their scrolls, nor the deep hoot of the owls he sometimes hears at night. These sounds are more like the birds he hears in the morning, chirping in the trees and fluttering past the castle windows. He spots a bright green one on a low hanging branch of the strange tree. It whistles gently in its pretty little song and takes to the sky, soaring up, up, up, and over the house.

Jon can hardly make to follow it, what with the house and the tall walls being in the way, but he still tries. He climbs up the steps towards the red door and reaches up to grasp its dark, wooden handle. When his fingers are mere inches from it, a loud, muffled shriek of rage comes from somewhere inside the house.

'You've done it- you've done it. You've woken it, sweet sister. Do you know what that means? Do you?'

It's a boy's voice, an older boy. Jon freezes, instantly reminded of the cook's irate voice when he and Robb steal little cakes from the kitchens. Somehow, this boy sounds far angrier.

'Where are you? Where are you?' the voice howls, high pitched with fury. 'You have woken the dragon, sister!'

He's looking for his sister. Jon has a sister too, a little babe by the name of Sansa. He can't imagine shouting at her like that. He doesn't believe he could ever be so angry at her, or at anyone, the way the older boy on the other side of the door is with his sister.

The next time the voice speaks up, it sounds quieter. The owner of the voice hasn't calmed down, but he is somewhere further away. Jon wonders if it might be safe to go inside the house. Maybe he should help look for the other boy's sister; after all, he wouldn't like it very much if little Sansa went missing, or Robb. On the other hand, he doesn't really want to meet the angry boy inside the house; he doesn't sound very nice at all. But he isn't as close as he was before, and maybe, if Jon is as quiet as he and Robb have to be when they sneak into the kitchens, he won't get caught.

In the end, curiosity wins over, and Jon reaches out for the door handle again.

'No!' a small voice calls out from behind him.

Jon turns around with a little jump. From behind the tree, stepping out beside the edge of the pond comes a pale girl in a lilac dress, watching him in alarm. She says something else in words Jon doesn't understand, and when he squints in confusion, she continues with words he recognises.

'You can't open the door,' the girl says, folding her arms. 'You mustn't.'

She is young, even smaller than Jon, though not by much. Jon would likely reply if he could, only he never really talks to other children beside Robb, and he is rather distracted by… her.

He's never seen anyone who looks like this girl before. Until now, the strangest person Jon has ever seen is Lady Stark, who people say is from the south. Unlike everyone else, Lady's Stark's hair is red. Robb and even baby Sansa, who is just starting to grow a mop of hair on her small head, both share their mother's likeness to a degree.

Red hair, hair like fire, has always seemed strange and somewhat fascinating to Jon, but Lady Stark doesn't like it when he stares at her. Her face will go stiff and tight, and the look in her eyes scares Jon enough to look away instantly. She doesn't ever do it with Robb, however. But then, Robb is allowed to do things with Lady Stark that Jon isn't. Robb is allowed to run to her and be swept up in her arms and kissed on the forehead. Robb is allowed to chatter away to her about the games he likes to play and about all the things he has seen and done in a day. Robb is allowed to call her Mother. Jon isn't supposed to do any of these things. He is supposed to stay out of her way and refer to her as Lady Stark and to not ask questions. No one has ever told him these things in so many words, but he already knows, even if he doesn't really know why.

Lady Stark's hair is certainly pretty, Jon decides, but it pales in comparison to the girl's hair.

It just about reaches her shoulders in smooth, silvery gold locks, so light that it almost seems white. Jon has seen white hair before on the heads of the elderly, but this is something else entirely. The girl is far from old and the way the sunlight gleams off it when she steps out from the shadow of the tree shines in away Jon has never seen before.

'The door has to stay closed,' the girl says. Her voice wobbles when she speaks, like she's uncertain of her own words.

'Why?' Jon finally manages to say.

The girl peers behind him at the red door, then takes a tentative step forwards. She begins speaking in another tongue again, before words Jon knows slip out in the same breath. 'I close it at night,' she says, but although Jon understands the what she is saying now, he is still puzzled. It's not night, not even close- even if he is wearing his bedchamber clothes.

When the girl reaches the steps, she climbs up rather slowly, almost as if she's hesitant to come any closer to him. Jon is confused, until he wonders if maybe she's afraid of the door, not him. Or rather, what's behind the door.

It doesn't occur to him that she is the little sister the boy inside the house is looking for. He is too young to put it together properly, and he is still rather mesmerised by her hair.

She, too, seems to be a little too young to ask an obvious question, such as why and how Jon is in her garden. She merely stares at him when she reaches the top of the steps, and he stares right back.

'It's bad inside,' she says, 'so the door is closed.'

'Oh,' Jon says, not really understanding at all.

Just then, another angry screech can be heard inside the house, loud once more, and the girl flinches. Before Jon can try to say anything else, the girl reaches out with a small, pale hand and grabs his own, quickly pulling him down the steps toward the sour tree, dodging the edges of the pond. The two children crouch down in the spot where the girl must have been hiding before, and she slowly reaches up with her free hand to press a thin forefinger to her lips. Her other hand is still holding Jon's.

'Is this a game?' Jon asks. This might be like a game he and Robb play, where one of them hides and the other has to try and find him.

The girl shakes her head, her eyes wide. Now that she's closer than ever, Jon can see that her eyes, a bright purple, are just as strange as her hair. He has never seen anyone with eyes like this before. Once again, the strangest ones he has ever seen until now are the blue eyes of Lady Stark, Robb and baby Sansa.

'Then… what is it?' Jon asks, tilting his head.

The girl stares at the grass beneath them both. 'Bad,' she whispers, then says some more words that don't make sense. He doesn't know what they mean, but they sound just as soft and quiet as the first word.

'Oh,' Jon says again. He wonders why the boy in the house is so angry.

As the older boy continues to rage and rant, the girl seems to shrink, sinking lower and lower until she's practically curled up on the ground.

'Ser Willem makes him stop,' she says.

'There's a knight living here?' Jon asks. The only knight he knows well is Ser Rodrik, the man who lets Robb and Jon train with wooden swords. They aren't really training, though, not yet. They simply play. Jon enjoys it very much. He thinks to ask the girl if she likes doing it as well, before remembering that girls aren't supposed to wield swords.

But she's not like any girl he's ever seen before. This place isn't like anything he's ever seen before.

The girl nods. 'Ser Willem is nice. I like him. He can always make Vis stop shouting.'

'Sometimes the cook shouts at me. When I take food.'

The girl stares at him. 'You steal food?'

Jon shrugs. 'It's a game. Me and Robb play. He's my brother. Do you like playing games?'

Slowly, the girl pushes herself up from the grass, so she's eye level with him. 'I don't know any games,' she confesses.

Jon tries to think of a good one to teach her. 'We play one that's a bit like this,' he says. 'One of us hides, and the other tries to find him.'

'Why?'

'For fun.'

'It's not… scary?'

Jon shakes his head. 'No. It's not meant to be.'

The girl leans around the trunk of the tree slightly, so she can peek at the house. 'What happens when you get caught?'

'We swap. He hides next, and I try to find him.'

'He doesn't do bad things when he finds you?'

'Robb doesn't do bad things. He's my brother. We're just playing.' Jon doesn't even understand what the girl means by bad things.

She is silent for a little while, her eyes still on the house. The angry cries from inside have faded once more, and she seems a little happier for it. She finally turns back to Jon and says, 'I don't think he can get me here. I'm safer when I sleep. But I'm still scared.'

Despite the heat, Jon's skin feels a little chilly, like it does when he's outside in the training yard at Winterfell and there's a large gust of wind. 'What does he want to do to you?' he asks, wondering if the angry boy will come out here and find them both. He doesn't want the boy to catch him or the girl. She seems even more concerned than he is. He's never seen anyone scared like this before- not even he or Robb, when they're listening to Old Nan's tales of the Long Night.

The girl begins fidgeting with the folds of her dress. 'He likes to shout. Sometimes he grabs me, but Ser Willem comes and stops him.'

'Why's he angry?'

The girl shivers and mumbles something in that strange tongue again, before adding, 'I woke the dragon.'

Jon's eyes widen. 'There's a dragon here? Truly?'

'No,' the girl says hesitantly. 'I don't think so.'

But she said she had woken one. Jon frowns, wondering if he should ask more about it, but the girl is talking again.

'I don't want to wake up,' she says. 'He can get me when I'm awake.'

The girl has said quite a lot of peculiar and confusing things already, and Jon decides that he wants things to make sense. 'But you're not sleeping,' he says. 'You're awake. Like me.'

The girl looks at him strangely. 'It's night,' she says. 'I like it best like this. When I'm asleep.'

'But it's not night,' Jon says, feeling a little frustrated. He points up between the leaves of the tree at the sky.

The girl's gaze follows the gesture and her purple eyes fix on the sky. She stares up at it with mild bewilderment, as if she is only just noticing that it is broad daylight. 'It can be day,' she says eventually. 'And it can be the garden. It can be how I like.'

'What can?'

'My dream.'

Jon opens his mouth to say more, but as he watches the sky, he notices that the sun has already disappeared from view and streaks of orange and red are trickling across it. After almost no time at all, they fade and morph into a dark blue canvas that covers the whole sky, until it eventually fades to black completely. Little dots of shining lights begin to well in various spots across the night sky, until it is full of stars.

'There,' the girl says. 'Now it's night.'

Jon's mouth is dangling open in astonishment. He looks back at the girl again, only to find that she's now bathed in shadows and he can barely make out her face. Nevertheless, he can make out those purple eyes looking back at him.

'Are you magic?' Jon whispers. Is she like the sorcerers in Old Nan's stories? She made it turn from day to night in a matter of seconds.

The girl ponders the question for a second, like she's unsure of the answer. 'I don't think so,' she says. 'I can only do that when I dream.'

Once again, Jon is terribly confused. This isn't her dream. It can't be. He's here, and he's awake. He must be.

The girl gets to her feet and ventures out from under the tree, as if she has forgotten how afraid she is of the house. Perhaps she feels safer in the darkness, with less of a chance of being spotted. She is, however, still incredibly noticeable, especially when she moves into the moonlight. She is the palest person Jon has ever seen. In a daze, he gets up and follows her.

The dark isn't as frightening as it usually is, perhaps because it isn't truly that dark. The house is lit up, and over the walls of garden, Jon can make out the faint glows of scattered lights, both nearby and in the distance. Maybe there are lots of other houses nearby, all with pretty gardens just like this one. Jon wonders if each one has angry older boys inside, and strange girls with silvery gold hair and purple eyes, who sometimes say strange words and hide under trees outside.

The girl is staring up at the sky, a small smile on her face. She must like the stars. Jon does too. He and Robb often sneak out at night, when they're supposed to be abed and asleep, to play another game in which they make out patterns and shapes in the stars.

Maybe Jon should teach it to the girl. She'll likely prefer it to the hiding game.

When she finally turns back to him, she says, 'I'm Dany.'

'I'm Jon,' he replies.

And somehow, at this very moment, with no further knowledge of each other or of anything yet to come, this is all that matters to either of them.

My GoT Tumblr: jonathansnowflake . tumblr . com

About three years ago, I was prone to starting each one of my A/Ns with 'I should not be posting another fic' or something along those lines. Back then, I had several regularly updated stories on the go all at once and one would think I was more of a mess back then. And yet, I handled writing and posting fics so much better back then when I do these days. I miss how I never actually had everything planned out (which seemed as if it should have been irresponsible and unorthodox, but always worked out for me) and I miss the times when I would spontaneously post fics with like ten others on the go. I was more motivated than ever because I had so much to work with.

I'm trying to relight that old spark, tbh.

So here we go. Another spontaneous fic, and my second (and definitely not last) Game of Thrones one. What I've discovered so far with this show is that when I write for it, I like writing about the characters as kids. Like, a lot. My other fic is all about Jon and Arya's childhood. This one will of course be about Jon and Dany, and will show them growing up, up until and during the main events of the show. Plot-wise (aside from Jon and Dany being childhood friends and having known each other since they were very small), this should be fairly canon-compliant. All the main events that occur to the other characters, and probably all the main ones that Jon and Dany experience, will still happen. All this will is offer a whole other story in these special dreams they share, and will of course be the main focus.

The idea for the dreams itself, was all because I was musing over what I could write and I quite liked the idea of the Targaryens having other unique abilities, besides being able to bond with and ride dragons, and occasionally survive fires. So I went: hey. What if the Targaryens could share super weird, magical, telepathic dreams with each other? And thus, this story was born.

There will be eventual Jonerys. A rather slow burn, I expect (they're starting out as little kids, after all), but they'll grow up and get there in the end. As children, they don't understand a lot of what they perceive. Dany's 'other tongue', for instance, is High Valyrian. It's as natural to her as the Common Tongue, and growing up in the multilingual Braavos, while not to mention having an older brother who must insist upon her learning it, means that at such a young age, she often mixes the two languages together without meaning to. And yeah. It's the house with the red door and the lemon tree from the books. I'm incredibly emo about it. She always thought of it as the closest thing she'd ever known to home, and so therefore it's naturally become a short of happy place for her to use in her dreams with Jon.

You'd at least think my days of long, rambling A/Ns were over, but they never seemed to die lmao.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and remember to review!