Chapter Text
The smell changed.
Blood and warmth, through the winter cold, all the damn snow.
Drogon jumped into the air and opened his wings, flying the few meters to cross the wall, into the destroyed room. He gazed at the funny chair his mother loved so much and landed close to her. Jon was holding her. For a tiny second, the last one for a very long time, he felt relieved. Only Jon. She was well for sure. Nothing to worry about. He would keep her safe...
... but her smell had changed...
Approaching slowly, he took another deep breath. Blood. Why was there blood? Why was she lying on the ground? Hadn't they talked a moment ago? Hadn't they made plans?
He nudged his mother.
Wake up! Wake up. Please, wake up.
She smelled just like his brothers had as they fell out of the sky. One killed by the ice-man, the other... He remembered their screams, their shifting smell, all that blood, their fire burning out, disappearing...
This couldn't be. His mom's fire couldn't have burned out! Never. He nudged her again, ever more desperate, hoping, hoping, hoping. She had to move! She had to open her eyes and glance at him. Smile a little as she always smiled when she watched him.
"Drogon?" she'd say. "What is it?" Maybe stroke his head or nudge him away, scolding him for waking her.
But she didn't.
She didn't.
She didn't move, didn't wake, didn't scold.
His mother was gone. Her fire had died.
Drogon growled, very slowly raising his head, spending attention to the room for the first time.
His mother was gone.
Leaving only Jon and the smell of her blood, getting stronger and stronger... he breathed again. On him.
He had killed her. Poked her with that metal thing. (His smell was even on it.) He had killed his mother! He had trusted him, and he - he -
Drogon opened his yaws, breathed in air, the warmth already building in his chest.
He had killed her. And he would kill him for it! Roast him alive, see him vanish in the heat, and -
No. Death by fire was too gentle for him. He would be gone in an instant. No pain, no nothing, just gone. Mother had always chosen death by fire for others. He wasn't worth her memory. He wasn't worth anything.
Drogon's head shot forward, fast like a snake, and ripped him apart. Jon screamed, the two parts of his body hitting the ground. Drogon growled, encircling him, and watched. The smell of his blood getting stronger by the second, his screams and whimpers and groans getting weaker. Music to his ears.
Only after Jon had stopped moving, only after his smell had fully changed, Drogon moved. He picked up mother in one of his claws and jolted into the air, his wings beating, getting higher and higher.