Breaker, Broken | Jorah Mormont

Chapter 1

A/N: Hello everyone! Before I kick off my first Game of Thrones story, I wanted to make a note about a few things. One, you can expect the usual Game of Thrones themes of abuse, miscarriage, traumatic childbirth, underage marriage, violence, incest, etc. Two, it will be depressing in many aspects and have a great deal of angst. Three, I am basing this off of the show. I have not read any GoT fanfics, only HotD, so I'm mostly winging this. And four, as with my past fics, the main point is NOT necessarily the love story, it is about the growth of the character! Jorah Mormont is the intended love interest but the majority of the focus is on the OC's journey.

If you're still interested, go right ahead. For reference, the OC's face claim is Jeanne Goursaud (but with Valyrian features). If you look up gifs from her role as Thusnelda in Barbarians, you'll see the image I have of her.

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Astapor, 300 AC

"We've arrived, Princess."

She swept her hood sideways, tilting her head upward to stare at the magnificent golden harpy, the symbol of the Ghiscari Empire. Towers stretched as far overhead as they could reach, a strangely beautiful sight when one considered the city was proud to own slave-soldiers.

The journey had been unpleasant, but certainly not the worst voyage she'd been on in her life. Seasickness threatened to throw her overboard, and it was up to her companion to keep her focused on something else.

Hope. Family. A rebirth that she thought would never come.

She was here to meet her sister.

She'd always wanted a sister. She used to beg her mother for one, clinging to her leg and refusing to accept that it simply couldn't be planned that way, that the 'gods' had to decide. Wouldn't the gods have wanted her to have a sister? Brothers were a pain in the arse.

For a time, she had someone to call 'sister,' someone she loved. Tragedy seemed to strike wherever sisters were involved. Nothing lasted forever.

The first had been ripped away more violently than the second, though both still left an emptiness in her heart that she could not fill no matter how hard she tried. If she was braver, she might've dared to have children. Many claimed that kept them from succumbing to the suffering their lives were filled with; she didn't understand it. And she refused to have children solely for that purpose.

What good had having children by force ever done anyone?

She existed because her father forced himself on her mother. Her sister was conceived in that same situation, her brothers were most likely a product of similar abuse. The babies she'd intended to raise were brought into the world out of duty, not love. And it had never been enough, none of it.

They still lost everything.

The empire had started strong, their dynasty eviscerated abruptly because of stupidity, selfishness, madness– she wasn't sure what to call it anymore. The Targaryen rule had been in decline since the Dance, and she'd hardly had the age to understand what was happening around her as it collapsed. All she knew was that the walls had crumbled down and were it not for a handful of kind souls, she would have been crushed by them.

The sweet girl who sang to her horse and trembled at the sight of blood had died eighteen years ago.

She could still remember how pricking her finger used to make her wail. There was no hope of teaching her to use a sword; her brother had learned that the hard way when she fled from the training yard screaming her head off because he knocked her down and made her scrape her knee.

Her mother had always nursed her back to health, soothed her and asked her to be braver. Cowardice felt more comfortable; when would she ever need to be on the battlefield? Her brother could handle any fights that came to them; such was his skill as a warrior. She preferred to walk through the gardens with her friends and listen to Cersei Lannister complain about everything under the sun.