Author's Note:

This is some post-S8 AU-fluff nonsense where Daenerys is Queen and Jorah didn't die. I'm supposed to be working on other things but I felt weird not posting a Jorleesi fic this week and this random scene just waltzed into my head and said "write me, please" :)

#IMayBeAddicted
#ToJorleesi
#OhWell

Daenerys

A week before my scheduled coronation, Tyrion tried to marry me off to the Prince of Dorne. He'd brokered the deal without my knowledge, dragging us to Sunspear on the pretense of a summit meeting, and now sought to sell it to me wholesale, with an endless list of practical reasons why I must accept.

It would solidify our alliance with the Southern kingdom, he said, and we might need their help should Jon Snow be tempted to press his claim for the throne. I'd told Tyrion that Jon gave me his word before leaving the capital, that he would go North, that he would go home, that he had no interest in being king. Not now, not ever.

He swore an oath to me and I had no reason to doubt it. No matter the blood that ran through his veins, everyone agreed that Jon had learned his sense of honor and duty from the only father he ever knew. And Ned Stark would never break such a vow.

But Tyrion was insistent. It was time to settle down, he said, no more would I be the dragon princess traipsing from battlefield to battlefield, with blood and fire in my wake. I was the Queen now, and not of the Eastern variety, where much was forgiven in the face of liberation and mythical creatures flying above dusty pyramids.

"This is the West," Tyrion lectured me with that insufferable tone that betrayed his own sense of self-worth and the high value he placed on his own opinions. He continued, "In the West, there are certain expectations which you must meet."

"I thought our intention was to break the wheel," I reminded him smartly, wondering, for perhaps the hundredth time, why I allowed the last Lannister to remain in my service.

"Break all the wheels you want," Tyrion grumbled, as if tussling with a child, imploring me to understand the gravity of the situation, "But make sure to do it in the right way."

I laughed in the little man's face. What was the right way? Did my ancestor, Aegon, do things in the right way? Had Cersei, when she blew up the Tyrells in the Sept of Baelor? Had her children? Or Robert Baratheon, who ordered the slaughter of my brother's children and then sent spies and assassins across the sea to finish off the rest of us?

I had retained Tyrion as my Hand after Cersei's defeat, even though I still had my reservations. I would have given that pin to Jorah if he asked, but he hadn't. And so I gave him the white cloak of my Lord Commander instead. He told me it was for the best and that Tyrion would always be better-suited to a role that required his mouth to run incessantly from sunrise to sunset.

True enough, Ser…I had relented, finally realizing that my bear knight's penchant for silence and reservation would undermine his ability to serve as my Hand anyway. And he didn't need the title, having gained my ear a long time ago.

At moments like this, though, I sighed heavily, wishing for a little more silence and a little less advice. Tyrion was wise in his own way, I suppose. He'd survived more attempts on his life than I had. But there are many flavors of wisdom and I knew myself well enough to know I was more inclined to listen to those flavors that didn't force me into the prison of a political marriage.

Viserys had tried the same with me years ago. Look how his efforts turned out.

So, that night, I dismissed Tyrion from my presence without giving him an answer. We'd talk in the morning, he declared, for the Prince would expect an answer shortly. He urged me to consider the future, for all our sake's. I nodded, but frowned at his back darkly as he left. Then I looked around the guest chambers that the Dornish prince had fashioned for me, all splendor and expense, thinking to woo me through a display of wealth.

But I was never that sort of woman, having grown up on the run, denied even the simplest of homes. And what I wanted was never the conventional choice.

I sighed again, this time to myself, and soon left my room to wander the palace and clear my head. The two Unsullied at my door made an effort to follow me closely, but I told them to stay outside my chambers, with a fierce command that they wouldn't dare disobey.

We had brought a small escort with us, just in case things turned sour. But the fragrant night air of Dorne held only spices and floral scents—no tension, no plots. After a decade of bloodshed, Westeros appeared ready and willing to commit to peace, at least for the duration of spring. So after wandering the lush gardens of the palace for a while and finally deciding on my answer—I would tell my Hand that maybe he should consider entering into a marriage pact with the Prince of Dorne—I went down to the kitchens and found my Lord Commander and Ser Bronn of the Blackwater playing cards around a rickety servant's table and drinking Northern whiskey.

They both stood at my presence, on guard immediately even though they were off duty, but I waved them down again and bid them continue their game. In fact, I grabbed two bottles of red Dornish wine out of the cellars and joined them, much to their astonishment. But I was their Queen and neither one of them would dare refuse me, one out of fear, the other out of devotion. And I didn't want to be alone.

We played until one in the morning. With the same streak of luck that had followed me from Meereen to the Red Keep, I cleaned Ser Bronn out of his week's wages with a little too much energy and zeal.

"What? Nothing left to bid with, Ser Bronn?" I looked at his dwindling pile, teasing, "No Lannister gold left. Where'd all your coins go, Ser?"

"Yeah, rub it in, Your Grace," Bronn muttered, throwing his faithless cards down in disgust. "That's it. I'm out."

He grabbed his coat off the back of his chair and pushed the last of his coins my way.

"Take them. It's less than I owe you," he sniped at me, adding, "I suppose you'll want to take some off my flesh, as well?"

To my left, Jorah gathered the cards off the table and began shuffling.

"Oh, I'll forgive it this time," I winked at him, a little drunk on my streak of luck, a little more drunk on the Dornish red wine. Ser Bronn of the Blackwater didn't smile.

"Don't be that way, Ser," I pouted but could not keep the expression for long. I grinned without meaning to. Ser Bronn waved me off, gloomy in his defeat, especially at the hands of a woman. He stomped out of the kitchens, despite the apologies I called out after him.

"You tease the boys too much sometimes, Daenerys," Jorah mentioned as he dealt the cards for the next hand. I turned from Bronn's retreating back to meet my Lord Commander's even stare. His blue eyes did not flicker away from mine but held steady.

"Do I?" I cocked an eyebrow at him, wondering when he'd become so bold again. It had taken some time, of course. After he returned to me at Dragonstone, we danced around each other for a while, healing old wounds by tip-toeing around the familiar. But time heals all and this was the Jorah I knew from years ago. Before Meereen, before Qarth. The man who led me through the desert and sparred with me over the nature of trust so vehemently.

This Jorah Mormont said whatever he liked to me.

"You know you do," he said, soft but sure on that score.

I pressed my lips together as I picked up my cards, but I wasn't unhappy with his words. I liked when he spoke freely. I liked it more than I should.

He had dealt me three queens. But I'd lost the ability to bluff and my Lord Commander didn't play as loose as Bronn. I won the hand but had little to show for it.

"You're reading my thoughts now?" I asked him smoothly, still grinning, looking at him through the haze of red wine. It softened the rougher edges of his personality. It dismissed all the sad history that cluttered up our lives, making it all seem like a bad dream from a long time ago—not even worth mentioning.

No…the only things worth mentioning tonight were the shade of his blue eyes. His strong hands sweeping the cards from the table. The ginger hairs in his stubbled beard. My fingers itched to run along his jawline, as I had in the past. When I wasn't a Queen, when we traveled together in the East. Alone, and far from the reach of what Tyrion would consider proper and expected.

Thinking of Tyrion's plans again, his game of queens and kings, his lecturing voice, his prattling plots, made me want to do something reckless. Something unexpected.

Here. Now.

I was suddenly and irrevocably tempted to kiss Jorah Mormont, as impulsively as I had kissed him that night beside Drogo's pyre, all those years ago.

But my Lord Commander had set the cards to one side. And his glass was almost empty. Perhaps he was reading my thoughts, after all. For after downing the rest of his whiskey, Jorah reached out and kissed me first.