Playing the Game (Game of Thrones)

“I demand to speak with this new Khal immediately! Do you know who I am? Unhand me this instant, I am Viserys Targaryen, rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms and heir to the Iron Throne of Westeros!”
 
How had his life become this? As Viserys’ high-pitched voice emits from outside of Jon’s tent, the young man rubs the bridge of his nose, trying to make the headache currently forming go away. He’s not doing a very good job of it, but then that might just be because Viserys won’t fucking shut up. Still, it seems that the Dothraki guards are keeping Jon’s uncle at bay, for the time being.
 
Or rather, Khal Jhono’s guards were keeping his uncle at bay for the time being. Yeah… they’d given him a new name. Apparently ‘Khal Jon’ didn’t sit well with most of the Dothraki, so they’d started calling him Jhono. Being given the title of Khal, and then a Dothraki name along with it… Jon wasn’t sure how to feel about all of that. But this was the path he’d chosen, wasn’t it? And now here he was, at the head of an entire Khalasar, making his way East towards Vaes Dothrak to be confirmed by the crones there, rather than making his way West to Westeros.
 
But then, truth be told, Jon wasn’t all that inclined to invade Westeros right away. That was at least half of why he’d decided to take up the mantle of Khal. Not that everyone had been all that happy with the change in leadership. Khal Drogo’s bloodriders were not the end of it, by far. While every Dothraki at the wedding had submitted to him after watching Jon slay Drogo and his bloodriders so handily, the rest of the Khalasar had not been there, and seeing was believing, as the saying went.
 
Jon had effectively spent the last few weeks fielding challenges from Dothraki who thought that they could beat him and take the Khalasar for themselves. He’d accepted all comers and fought each one to death or disgrace. Some of them, Jon had left alive, merely removing their braids as a show of dominance. Those were the ones that the rumbling monster inside of him had seemed to think would actually submit and cause no further problems.
 
Those were the minority. The majority of the men that challenged Jon were the sort of ambitious men to definitely cause problems and hold a grudge going forward. So, those ones Jon killed, listening to the feeling inside of his chest, the desire to conquer and destroy and control leading him to ending the lives of any man he didn’t think would fall in line after he beat them to a pulp.
 
Recently, the challenges had slowed down to a crawl. At this point, most of the Khalasar had seen Jon fight at one point or another. Most of them had seen him spill blood and claim a life by now. He was still foreign, of course, but more and more were referring to him as Khal Jhono, as if changing his name made him more palatable to them.
 
Of course, with the settling of the Khalasar came new issues. Such as his aunt and uncle. Jon had… allowed Viserys to come with them when the Khalasar left Pentos, against his own desires. It just made sense, in the end. Leaving Viserys behind left an enemy at his back. Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer. Viserys needed to be watched if he wasn’t going to be killed, and Jon wasn’t quite sure he wanted to kill his uncle yet… even if the other man clearly was quite unstable.
 
Regardless, while he’d let Viserys and the slaver Jorah Mormont come with them, he’d kept them separate from Daenerys. Daenerys, who he had yet to touch… but even now, Jon was being counselled to take her. Not just by Bellegere, though the Black Pearl, who even now was traveling with him, was most insistent that he bed the last female Targaryen sooner rather than later. But also, Jon’s captains within the Khalasar itself, his ‘kos’, were also advising him to take Daenerys as his khaleesi, lest he be forced to hand her over to the crones in Vaes Dothrak.
 
He would have to deal with that eventually, but for now he merely had Daenerys tucked away out of sight, given all the comforts a woman of her station deserved but not allowing her any visitors, for the time being. Her guards told him she didn’t seem all that put out by the situation… and that more than anything, she seemed too obsessed with the petrified dragon eggs the Magister back in Pentos had gifted her just before Jon’s challenge.
 
“Unhand me! Unhand me immediately! Ser Jorah, if you are loyal, you will assist me!”
 
Jon sighs, the headache having only gotten worse by this point. With a primal growl that starts low in his chest, the young man abruptly stands up. This draws Bellegere’s attention, though she remains lounging off to the side, even as Jon stalks across the floor of the tent and throws it open.
 
“I will speak with him.”
 
The Dothraki guarding his tent take one look at him, glance at each other, and then let Viserys go. The slightly disheveled, and entirely pissy man scowls mightily at the hulking Dothraki warriors, before looking to Jon with a narrowed eye glare. Behind Viserys stands Jorah Mormont himself, with a hand on the pommel of his sword, but obviously no intention of drawing it any time soon.
 
Jon simply raises an eyebrow at both of them, before standing aside.
 
“Well? Come in.”
 
The two Westerosi men do so, even as Jon walks back to his seat and sits back down. He doesn’t miss the way both Viserys and Jorah’s eyes slide up and down Bellegere’s body as they feast upon the courtesan’s beauty. While the jealous dragon within him rears its ugly head at that, he’s able to control it easily enough. Let them look. Neither would ever get a chance to touch.
 
There’s a beat of silence as a result of their momentary lapse in attention though, and Jon clears his throat into it, drawing Viserys’ attention and pinning his uncle with his dark eyes.
 
“I assume you wanted to speak with me for a reason, yes?”
 
Viserys’ nostrils flare at that, and he squares his shoulders, doing his level best to puff out his chest.
 
“You’re Jon Snow. Eddard Stark’s bastard. Your father helped the Usurper kill my brother, my father, and steal the throne from its rightful owners. Now here you are, interfering with my plans and taking the army I paid for EAST instead of west! Did your father send you?! Is this all some plan to keep the Usurper in power?!”
 
Jon just raises an eyebrow at that and shakes his head, glancing over at Jorah Mormont, who’s looking at him curiously. Obviously, the disgraced Northern Knight was Viserys’ source of information, but how Jorah even knew who Jon was confused and surprised the young man.
 
“It’s just Jon now. No Snow, not anymore. As for my father… my father didn’t send me to do anything. After all, he’s been dead since the Trident.”
 
That takes both Viserys and Jorah back, the latter blinking rapidly and the former’s face scrunching up in confusion and disdain. Before Viserys can start getting a full steam of head going again, Jon speaks up once more, driving his point home.
 
“My father was Rhaegar Targaryen. My mother was Lyanna Stark. According to evidence provided by the Iron Bank, they were wedded in secret and thus married at the time of my birth. I am a Targaryen… and your nephew. Though I think we’ll both agree that Jon Targaryen is a piss poor name for a King.”
 
Viserys’ eyes widen, and the dragon in Jon’s chest rumbles with satisfaction as the silver-blonde man suddenly pulls his sword from his sheathe and charges. As Viserys comes at Jon, the latter is already beginning to stand. He’s unarmed and unarmored… and not remotely worried as Viserys charges him with the sword, thrusting it towards Jon’s chest.
 
It’s all too easy, in the end. Was Viserys ever even trained as a swordsman? Jon has to assume so, but even if he was, he’d obviously let his training lapse significantly. Or perhaps he was simply so angry that he was unable to keep from telegraphing his attacks. Regardless, Jon catches Viserys’ wrists with ease, even as he dodges the initial thrust. In the same moment, in one smooth motion, Jon turns his uncle’s blade back upon the man and forces Viserys to sink it deep into his own chest before he can even properly react.
 
Viserys’ eyes bulge out of his skull and blood flows from his lips as he’s impaled on his own sword. Jon holds his uncle’s wrists fast, not allowing the other man to collapse quite yet as he leans in close, whispering to him. All the while, his eyes are actually over Viserys’ shoulder, pinning Jorah Mormont in place. The slaver has half-drawn his blade, but the moment Jon looked at him, he froze up, unable to move.
 
“Thank you, uncle. It didn’t feel right, having you killed because of what you might do. But self-defense? I can live with that.”
 
Then, he yanks Viserys’ wrists in such a way as to twist the blade buried in his uncle’s chest before finally releasing his grip. His uncle collapses forward onto the floor of the tent, face down and decidedly dead, even as Jon flexes his hands and looks to Jorah, cocking an eyebrow and grinning a macabre grin that honestly feels more right on his face then it should.
 
“Jorah Mormont. Why are you here, in Essos?”
 
The disgraced knight looks between Viserys’ corpse and Jon for a long moment before sliding his blade back into its sheathe. Out of the corner of Jon’s eye, the newly minted Khal sees Bellegere slowly begin to relax, his lover tucking what was likely some sort of throwing implement back into her hair as she leans back. If Jorah notices that the courtesan was ready to kill him in an instant, he doesn’t say anything.
 
Instead, the knight kneels and bows his head before Jon.
 
“I have come a long way to serve the rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms… your grace.”
 
Jon’s smile dims somewhat, even as he looks down at the knight with some measure of disdain.
 
“I know who you are, Jorah Mormont, just as it seems you thought you knew who I was. I know you to be a slaver, a man who took the freedom of other men away so that you could turn a profit. Eddard Stark might not be my true father, but he raised me all the same. Why would I want a slaver in my service?”
 
Jorah actually looks stricken when he looks up at Jon after the young man is done speaking. In the end, he has to bow his head again, this time not out of respect or deference, but pure shame. Swallowing thickly, the disgraced knight collects himself for a moment before speaking.
 
“… I made mistakes. Grave mistakes. I regret what I did to those men, your grace. If you would have me, I would like to try to redeem myself through service to you.”
 
Jon lets the silence sit for a moment… and then smiles.
 
“Very well. Who am I to deny a man his second chance?”
 
He doesn’t mean one word of it of course, even as Jorah looks at him with shocked wide eyes and slow rises at Jon’s beckoning. Even as the young man sends the disgraced knight off, he’s turning back to Bellegere with an expression of disgust on his face, the courtesan giving him a nod of understanding in return. She at least understands what Jon is doing.
 
Jorah Mormont is not to be trusted… but better to have him close by for the time being, so that they can find out the knight’s true purpose in Essos. Regardless, as the Dothraki pull Viserys’ body out of Jon’s tent, Jon knows that it’s time to speak with Daenerys. The young woman seems so very fragile, but with his uncle now dead, the dragon in his chest is all but roaring for him to claim his prize. Even if Jon himself doesn’t see her that way, the advice of his lover as well as his captains is to claim Daenerys as his khaleesi.
 
He’s a Khal now, which means it’s time to start acting like it, he supposes. Though, how exactly is he going to go about this? He could approach Daenerys with gentle kindness and tender love. It wasn’t what Bellegere liked, but a girl as fragile as Daenerys might need a gentle hand. Or, he could do as his captains had been suggesting and mount the girl like a true Khal apparently did.
 
But he wasn’t a true Khal, was he? So perhaps that wasn’t the right option either. Perhaps his best bet was to strike a middle of the road path, where he could have the best of both worlds. He could make Daenerys want it; he knew he could. And once he made her want it… he could mount her all the same and conquer her as the dragon in his chest demanded…

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