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rise-my-angel · 2 years ago

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Heart of the Great Wolf

18 - Afraid of a Ravens Flight

Pairing: Jon Snow x F!Baratheon!Reader, Robb Stark x F!Baratheon!Reader (Past)

Length: 10.8k

Warnings: angst/hurt comfort, references to rape and abusive relationship, discussions of implied sexual context, canon divergence, strained familial dynamics

Notes: We start going gradually exploring new sights in not too long, so brace yourself. Previous Chapter Here, Series Masterlist Here.

Jon truly couldn’t tell if he wanted to talk about it or not. Spent so long lying about what it was, lying to himself, lying to her, lying to all of them until he woke from a delirious dream back in the beds of Castle Black did he realize he couldn’t. He couldn’t lie about loving Ygritte when he woke from such a horror stricken vision of you pale and dead in your own blood, and to make it all the worse? Sam coming to him to say that not only was that dream real, but just beyond what he couldn’t see then, was Robb as dead as you were.

For a while, he did think he convinced himself what he was feeling was want. He had lied so much he manipulated his own mind into thinking it was true. Seeing her as someone she wasn’t, when in truth so much was spent as he watched himself teetering on mistrust, her teasing him with a mean kind of playfulness that he didn’t like. But she was aggressive and bold, and not liking her meant finding himself on the other end of her own blood thirst.

Jon never felt like he had to walk on eggshells around you. He wasn’t combative with you, he never had been and he hated the idea of speaking to you the way Ygritte would him. As if the threats of violence were supposed to be cute. Strangely his time with Ygritte reminded him more of the dynamic he knew you once shared with Theon.

Always bantering, Theon would make sexual advances in jest but the two of you would play at a battle of wit to see who could knock the other down a peg the most as a game. Jon had tried to ask him subtly once if Theon was truly attracted to you and the man had laughed. Sensing no ulterior, he just shook his head and told him “Just because a girl’s pretty enough to fuck, doesn’t mean I want her in my bed, Snow. Only means I have eyes that work.”

Ygritte was pretty, and at times there was simple genuine amusement in her banter but more often then not it was nothing like that. The small moments build into lies about who she was until Jon made the wrong call. Tried to play off of what he knew she felt for him and it got him shot full of arrows for it, and if he were to be honest, all lies died then. She didn’t kill him, but love in Jon’s eyes would never be anything to hurt the other.

There was no scenario which would ever lead to Jon harming you like that, and he certainly knew there was none that would ever have led to Robb harming you like that either. Real love hurts in the heart, not in blood.

Jon had heard Olly’s story, the details of the redheaded wildling and it wasn’t until that night as he watched the arrows flying into her back be shot from that same boy did he realize the monstrous actions she did. That was not an Ygritte Jon knew, nor did he want to. If it were love, Jon would’ve taken the time. Held her, brought her body to the North beyond the wall to burn her like a lover deserved, but he didn’t. He let the men drag her into the piles of the rest and spend the rest of his time being called a wildling lover with no bravery to tell any or even himself, that he never wanted what she took from him.

Things now though, weren’t quite as easy as he had wished. Seeing you, in person, right in front of him as your fingers gently traced along the scars on his chest had made him snap. Like he was set on fire and the only way he could be put out was you, in your taste, your kiss, and as Jon finally slid inside of you for the first time he knew he was consumed for life. But then you pulled away. Struggled to look at him, and walked around with something so lost and broken that he was terrified it was him.

That your moans and pleas were only a response because of how it felt, but Jon knew that if he didn’t want it when it felt good with Ygritte, he may have just forced the same onto you. Forced something onto you after what Ramsay had already done with much more blood and violence. But then you said something that bothered him more then anything else so far.

That you would have wanted all of it with Jon all over again, but refused in the thoughts you being here was ruining his life. That, he truly hated. Hated that something inside you said that you shouldn’t be here with him, like he didn’t spend his old life in love with you, and his new life desperate for you to let him be addicted to you.

As Jon looked out to the night, much of that evening he spent with the one person who treated him no different. Edd could sense that the time was approaching that Jon would leave and no one would have any protest to it, that he believed in him as a friend and a leader and having you show up with new life and bring it to him as well? Edd felt that maybe he was just supposed to go back to the North he grew up in, and find himself as a leader there, that maybe he was just supposed to do so. And you were a sign to “get your ass moving” as the man put it.

Jon thought of Robb often, he thought of all his siblings often but it was he and Arya that struck him the most. The ones that his world felt a bit more cold and lonely without. Would Robb hate him for what he was doing? Hate that in Jon’s first true reunion with you, he spent over half the night with either his mouth or his cock buried between your legs? That he wanted to do it again and again and all he could see was you and how much he wanted to be inside you?

Was his need for the woman Jon always loved now a great offence to the brother who passed? Yet on the other end, Jon had a very distinct feeling what Arya’s response would be. The word dumb or idiot surely would be in there somewhere as she would scold him for always pushing everything away that would make him happy. Arya knew about you both in those innocent days, not that he ever told you.

Suspected it with her endearingly keen eye and caught you both in secret thinking you were alone in the stables one day. It was only a kiss she saw, but did Arya ever come barging into his room later calling him dumb for not telling her. But now that there was nothing in the way of the way you both felt for each other, his little sister no doubt would have taken it upon herself to force you both to talk.

But she wasn’t, and Jon wouldn’t force you to talk. He knew how gentle things should be taken with you right now, and he would never do anything to harm you regardless of how much he wanted you both to talk. Heavy in his heart, the little princess knew it too.

That talk they shared that day, how instantly she caught the lie saying he was only your friend and that the only person she felt she could go to and be honest about how much losing you hurt was Jon? That wasn’t fair. Shireen didn’t deserve to find comfort only in what was essentially a stranger to her, and yet throughout her time there he always felt her curious eyes watching. Would sit on the steps and watch him train the others, the last connection to the only sister she lost, in him.

Just how much death and bloodshed weighed on your mind? How much of that death kept you from letting Jon go to you. That moment in his office, he wanted so desperately to tell you it all. That you were the one thing that could keep him here on earth, and that you both experienced a violence that none other would understand. Both had died, and both were brought back and Jon knew it was you who was his reason. Didn’t know how or why, but it was you. He wanted to tell you his new life would mean nothing if you weren’t in it, but he didn’t. Not right now.

An utter mess that brought you back to him, and Jon wanted to make it better. But there was only more violence approaching, the most urging one to come from his once home and the people who butchered his family. A violence that Jon knew he couldn’t stand back and ignore any longer.

Yet as a large figure came to lean against the railing beside him, it did strike Jon somewhat amusingly that so much of what started as a tempered, untrusting dynamic full of threats of death had turned into a trusting friendship. Tormund didn’t hold back his thoughts, and never pulled punches which truthfully Jon desperately needed in his life.

“They think you’re some kind of god.” Gesturing across the way to where many both his men and the free folk would find their gazes onto Jon with reverence. There was nothing he could do to stop it, but being looked at in such a way didn’t feel normal.

Grimacing a slight bit, Jon’s voice was low. “I don’t think a real god would hate being called one this much.” Tormund chuckled beside him as Jon felt a small one of his own slip as well. “I died, and somehow I came back, and no idea why or how. But that doesn’t make me a god, just makes me tired.”

Humming, the man looked at his friend with a curious gaze before relenting. “I can tell you, you only came back because your pretty crow brought you back.” Jon stiffened, his gloved hands gripping the railing a bit too tightly as his jaw clenched. “Can’t tell you why, but I do know she showed up and next thing we know you’re by her side a whole lot less dead then when she got here. Your crows all say she died too.”

His eyes slipped shut as he exhaled roughly, giving it away to Tormund instantly. Grey eyes opening to train harshly on the door he knew you were in, like a man possessed to always keep an eye on you. It was quiet for a moment, but he had been honest about you to him before he died and there was no reason to keep this as well.

Jon and Tormund both knew what they’d seen at Hardhome and dreams and visions were child's play to that. “I used to dream about her. With my brother, south fighting a war, I just kept seeing her and they all kept coming true. Until..I finally got back here and I dreamt about her dying in a pool of her own blood and when I woke up they told me she was dead, my brother was dead and everything they fought for.”

It made him sick, thinking that Robb’s last moments were forced to watch that. “Maybe they were trying to tell you to find her before it happened.”

He considered that, that he was seeing you as a way to try and make him to find you before what happened, happened but he couldn’t focus on that. It did, and then it happened to him too. “And now? What are they telling me to do now?”

Tormund leaned closer to him, voice more a too loud whisper. “For one, they’d probably say that the little crow is wasting his time trapping himself here in this shit hole instead of fighting for what he actually wants.”

Just as Jon opened his mouth, his eyes whipped over cross the way. Watching you leave your mother’s quarters with an exhausted look in your eye and much to Jon’s irritation, his cock stirred at the sight of you still wearing his fur cloak keeping you warm. All the worse as for the entire time his eyes followed your person, a dark smugness fell across his face when you relented, and made your way to Jon’s own quarters rather then yours.

Tormund however, leaned even closer with an amused grin behind his wild beard. “Also that if you don’t take her for yourself now that she’s here, someone else just may.”

Jon was torn between amusement and slight anger, but the grin on his companions face told him that was the intention anyways. Face falling flat he turned away to the yard again. “It’s not like that down here. You can’t just take what you want, especially if only one of you wants it.”

Shaking his head, Jon wondered how much the man was catching from his vauge words. A wonder of how much did he realize Jon was far less wanting of the red head then Tormund presumed. But something seemed to connect enough. “I’m not telling you to take her like some dog, little crow. I’m telling you if you can fight for what’s right, you can fight for her.” Tone shifting to more mocking and light, “Or maybe I’ll just have to show her how giant a Giantsbane is, if you’re going to leave her be.”

Now that was purposely just trying to rile Jon up, which absolutely worked. Pushing off the rails as he glared at the larger man, “She’s been through enough. Don’t push it.”

Tormund truly was trying to guide Jon into something, and then kept pushing him further into taking the bait. “I wonder, is all of you so small, crow? That why you’re letting her walk around your camp full of men all alone? Can’t compete?”

Nothing but amused as Jon leaned in, a sprinkle of jestful competition in his grey eyes to match. “Trust me, she knows first hand there’s more then enough of me for her to handle.”

“Then go remind her, before I show her better.”

The man knew just where to poke at the most possessive parts of Jon to rile him up over you, but later as Jon walked into the dark quiet of his quarters? That burning desire simmered down at the gentle sight of you asleep in his bed. He never really had that. Never risked falling asleep so freely in the other’s bed risk of someone finding you in that castle of many who burst into doors unannounced.

Left only in his breeches, Jon slowly slid in behind you. His heart heavy as he pulled the hair out of your face gently to the side. A hand running smoothly along your upper arm as he looked down at you before sliding it just under your breasts to tug your back into his chest.

And when you gave the smallest of slumbering sighs, and moved to fit better with his own arms already around you, Jon found no other explanation to why he was still here then to fight for what he loved, and that was undoubtedly including you.

It was a gamble, but one that you knew had to be taken. The longer you waited, the more time to rally forces the Bolton’s had and the risk of losing too many allies would grow. Having to choose a place to start and this felt like the closest to what could be an easy ally. You sat at your fathers desk, Theon across from you ink to the parchment and Davos to your side.

Your eyes on maps, Davos helping dictate the best course of words to display in such a strange pledge of cause. You had been leaning over, running along the marks you were making trying to plan around what would be the quickest and least obtrusive path. You were only a Stark in marriage, but you were trying to rise against the House that murdered their King. To deny such a plea from where you sat was going to be a fight for some you knew, but denying the whispers of what could be a lie about their dead Queen would be much harder if you stood at their gates. With whatever small numbers you even had at your side.

The door to your father’s quarters had been slightly open and the cold ran steadily over your minimal layers with nothing thick to protect from the wind. Footsteps trickled in, but more then one pair had done so in and out during the course of the day and you simply ignored it for the most part. Theon’s voice reading out parts as he wrote them in bits, “...from my beloved father-”

Your eyes whipped up Theon, brows slightly confused before narrowing in dismissal. “He wasn’t my beloved father. We were at war, he thought I was a traitor. I didn’t love him, he didn’t love me.”

None of the eyes passed judgment, certainly not the ones who had met the man but it was the understanding from Davos who tried to speak up. Beyond what he knew first hand was a truly broken relationship. “A harmless courtesy, your grace.”

Your face twisted almost innocently in incredulity, not looking up from the papers enough to catch faces but for them to see how casual yours felt. Easy dismissal on your lips before looking back down to the papers. “A lie. Take it out.”

Theon scratching at the words before continuing on, your mind focused on the best way to approach full well knowing those left may not be the ones you fought beside. The figure that entered watched silently, leaning against the wall at the sight, watching Theon continue on in what he knew would have to be rewritten anyways.

More scramblings, and more dictating what Theon and Ser Davos had come up with before you glanced up to them once more with a little less sharpness in your tone. “...Make sure it’s written as Lord Roose Bolton. Whatever he’s done, the man is still a Lord.”

A look shared between Ser Davos and the curiously silent watching Jon shared a tinge of amusement between them. Like looking at a younger, female vision of Stannis Baratheon it felt like sometimes with you. Proper, but not bothering with a fake courtesy that was not deserved. “We should send for House Manderly as well.”

Theon looking up with narrowed eyes, “Haven’t they declared for the Boltons?”

You nodded, without looking up still. Much was planning war and battle sent looking at papers and numbers until your eyes threatening to fall out was what you had forgotten was such an irritatingly large part of leading. “They have, but I’m suspicious of their loyalty. Lord Wyman has nothing to gain from siding with them and if we swing his support we cut off Roose’s access to their resources.” Pausing, you narrowed your eyes to nothing before adding, “Send for the Umber’s as well. Only half their men have sided with the Boltons, the rest might be willing to listen to us.”

Having worked hard to keep up with the workings of Northern houses, Ser Davos put for a suggestion that to be fair, neither man had any reason to think was a conflicted one. “The Karstark’s haven’t declared for them either we should reach out to them.”

Your hand paused moving in mid air, your eyes rising up in a palpable tension as you glanced to Ser Davos, only noticing then as you saw Jon lean against the wall some way behind Theon before you swallowed harshly before letting the steel grace back over you. “I didn’t exactly part ways with them on good terms. I’m not quite sure Harald Karstark will have it in his heart to forgive me just yet.”

No one asked, but they moved on and you ignored the ever present eyes of Jon watching you as debates ran back and forth over who to approach, and where to move to get there. Theon finally circling the discussions back around to where you had begun your plannings. “We need to start somewhere that we know we can win. We show up with what, the three of us and a maybe few guards if we’re lucky, and any house that would side with the Bolton’s will have us trapped before we get two words out.”

You looked over everything, and the few promising house would be harder to get to get to safely in such small numbers for what you were to ask. You knew one that would say yes, if your friendship with them was to still be trusted even after all this time, even if they were gone too. But it was getting there with so few of you was the stop.

Before you could hesitate to say it, Jon said it for you. “We should sail for Bear Island. Pledge House Mormont to our fight, and we already have a stronger ally then the Bolton’s have on their side.”

All eyes looking up to his sure and confident ones, your voice was the softest to speak. “Our fight?”

Sharing a glance with Ser Davos, an understanding was between them. A talk that seemed so long ago, but finally at least one man was going to be there to see it finally come to fruition. Jon met your own eyes after a moment, and you could only hope that the lightness in your heart wasn’t so childishly hopeful in your actual gaze towards him.

But he spoke true, and he spoke with the determination of someone who had clearly been spending a long time mulling over this choice. “I’m only lying to myself if I act as if I was brought back to keep shutting myself away here, where my fight doesn’t reach beyond these walls.” You felt heavy, and he needed to know if this was his choice but you saw a leader in those eyes. One that you hadn’t seen such a conviction in, in many before like him. “The North is my home. It’s part of me, and I need to be the one to fight for it.”

If Jon was going to do this, he needed to know and it needed to be now. Looking to Theon and Ser Davos your voice was restrained but a bit rough trying to keep calm. “Would you two give us a moment alone?”

Watching closely, you followed them to the door as Jon walked further inside. Theon only getting far enough for you to tell him to hold off of drafting the rest of the letters until you had everything finalized. But it was really, just one thing you needed to be sure of.

Gently closing the door, you stood staying faced to it with your heart racing. For two night’s now you had found yourself falling asleep in Jon’s bed, in his arms and neither of you had broached the topic beyond those quiet moments of peace in the dark. First morning he was up and gone before you, and this morning had been your turn to leave first.

It was a solace in this turmoil that you were petrified you were about to lose before even understanding what it meant. Looking back with a stilted expression, and something far away in your eyes you didn’t move any closer to him. Jon now looking over your own work, hands tapping at the desk before looking back up to you. “It’s not just me.”

Your face morphed into a confusion as he braced his palms over the top of your chair to elaborate, nodding out to the window. “Most of the free folk here came from Hardhome. Your father lent me his ships so I could sail with Tormund and bring them all here. Told them I’d allow them south of the wall and if they wanted, find them land to actually live on for themselves.”

Not for a second did you show any doubt or lack of understanding, it wouldn’t have been an easy decision but something in your once dreams of cold and ice had you pausing. Not just the goodness of his heart did such a thing come about.

“The North has never had an easy relationship with the free folk. But I knew leaving them beyond the wall to die would just be me acting like a coward.” There was something in a toned down anger in his face, in his voice no doubt from how much issue that choice brought him. But then it was haunting. A darkness so far away in Jon’s eyes that was of horrors beyond most peoples comprehension swirling inside them. “I’ve seen them.”

You knew what their fight here was turning into, but as you looked at him, your mind remembered a dream. One that started as a memory in the rainy woods of Winterfell and ended with a towering figure of freezing cold with eyes so blue they that of another world. The ice, the cries, the bodies spread out in pieces your nightmares were his reality.

“The first time I was beyond the wall. I saw a father take his infant son out into the woods, saw him leave him there in the snow..and..” Jon’s gaze flew back up to you as the dreams played behind your own eyes.

“You saw them take it. You saw one of them take the baby away.” Jon trying to ask how you knew but you were far ahead of that. “I saw it...or...I saw it through you...” Pacing forward you leaned against the wall to the side, something far and disturbed in your own eyes to match. “I used to dream about it, about the cold and ice..and I dreamt about something with blue eyes taking a crying baby away in the woods.”

It was a looming fear trying to understand what you had been seeing, but it wasn’t just a creature or a nightmare. It wasn’t the dead, it wasn’t a monster you made up. It was them. You had seen the Others because Jon had seen them and your blood ran as cold as those dreams did.

“Jon..what happened at Hardhome?”

You had dreamt of blue eyes beside a mass of standing corpses beside him in the captives of the Boltons. Jon pushed himself up, running a hand over his mouth as he circled around closer to you as he leaned back against the desk. “There were so many of them, not just the dead but..more of them then I ever thought. We got out what we could, a good amount of the free folk, but one of them looked right at me and just like that...every single one of the dead stood up beside them.” Your name slipped roughly from his lips, beckoning you to look up at him properly. “Whatever brought you and me back, this was nothing like that. When they find a way to get beyond the wall, and we aren’t ready for it-”

Your voice was barley audible were the room not so painfully silent, and Jon standing as close as he was. “If we can’t protect the North from each other, then we have no chance against them...” If the North couldn’t stand together then there was nothing to fight them back from the rest of the realm at all.

The quiet between you was thick and it was full of something more chilling then the mere wind out that door. “We start with the Mormonts. The free folk at our side should be enough to help us get there, and we start finding a way to unite the North again, together.” He was so sure of himself, and yet you were so instantly on edge.

He almost reached out to you, but the hesitation in your own eyes caught him. He murmured your name but you turned away. Running a hand over your forehead firmly before sighing out. Stood just in the middle of the room, your arms crossing over your chest almost protectively as there was a worry in your eyes.

“I...I don’t- fuck.” Fidgeting on the spot you struggled to find the words, this wasn’t how this was ever to play out that night you first heard Robb propose it. Your face fell almost like a plead, “I’m not saying this to manipulate you, or force you into anything I truly promise but you- I cannot let you do this blind. I know, and so does every lord we go to for this, and you shouldn’t find out from them.”

It made sense then, and still did now but you also knew part of planning for this included you being just as dead and gone as Robb as the likely scenario. You didn’t foresee yourself being the one to say it.

Whatever it was Jon was bracing himself for, you knew instantly by the stunned expression in his face, his guess was nowhere near this. “Robb named you as his heir to the North.” You felt your own heart race and the exponential fear of Jon hating you for this broke your calm trying to justify yourself. But if he hated you already, you weren’t sure anything would fix it. “The Lannisters were desperate, we won every battle we fought, we were winning the war and they knew they couldn’t beat us in the field. Tywin Lannister started making moves and we knew he was planning something, and Robb needed to name someone as his heir, to be King in the North after him in case...”

You looked away, trying not to see the blood and the fire. Your voice cracking before forcing it back to something you could swallow. “And he named you. He wanted it to be you.”

Once more, you were struggling to find anything in Jon you could read easily as he stood as still as a statue. His voice rough and quiet in disbelief, “But you were..”

Blood soaking his hand as he looked up to you, a broken expression you had never seen and it would be the last one ever. “Even if..it would have been eighteen years before he came of age regardless...but we also knew, we thought,” you corrected yourself, “If something happened to Robb, it would happen to me too. You were the first person he named, and out of every other option that came to mind Robb never trusted the North to anyone as much as he did you.”

Eyes a little less wide in shock, but he was still as a statue more. Whatever he thought he felt hearing Stannis Baratheon offering him a true name and lordship was nothing compared to the brother who had everything he ever wanted, leaving the most important thing trusted in no one but Jon’s own hands. “Did...who agreed to it?”

You almost could smile in a cruel pain, “Only Catelyn had an issue with it. But when Robb told her, every other Lord had signed off on it already. He only asked for her support as a courtesy..but not a single person in that meeting protested. Because Robb was right and they all knew it.” You found his eyes and hoped that it wasn’t just another knife in his chest you were adding, “Robb made it perfectly clear, he knew you deserved everything he had. Because you were his brother. Because Stark or Snow..Ned Stark had four sons. Not three.”

You couldn’t be in here anymore, you couldn’t see the conflict on Jon’s face so drastically you couldn’t stand here and talk about Robb or the son that never came, or how you just wished Jon didn’t hate you for shoving this at him. “You needed to know, before you left. Because the first place we go, they are all going to know exactly who you are and..it would be a lot harder to turn around and leave at that point. You needed to know what you are agreeing too if you do.”

One last look at him, and his grey eyes were begging you for something but you both were in too much complicated of a mess to know what that was, or for him to just ask for what he needed. Your name slipped so, so gently from his lips but you shook your head.

Debating grabbing something warm, but it was your fathers coat next to Jon’s own fur cloak and you decided to just let the cold slam into your skin as you brushed a hand over the door handle. “I’m sorry. I’m...It wasn’t...I’m not trying to trick you into something you don’t want but in my defence,” Looking back at him you tried not to think too much about how Jon was almost trying to look at the scar under your clothes as you spoke. “I thought I’d be long dead by the time you found out. So at least I wouldn’t have to see first hand how much I just continue to ruin your life.”

You think Jon may have called to you, but you had walked out the door and made your way as far as possible. You just needed to be away from him. You’d have to leave soon, army at your side or just a fair few brave souls stupid enough to follow a leaderless cause. Making the same choice as those years ago, leaving Jon behind for the Night’s Watch as you left for something which would inevitably turn into a war.

Night approaching on Castle Black was when you were found. Finding a place away from most for just a while in silence before any could come to you with just one more thing to add onto the weight of your shoulders. Sitting up on a crate, one of your feet was resting up on a small clearing of firewood as the other hung off the crate free.

The wind was cold, and your bones even colder from how long you had been outside like this but ever since arriving here you hadn’t felt anything close to yourself, at least in captivity you had a reason for being so out of your own mind. Here though it was simply a barrage of mistakes or failures on your part that had you losing your sense of self.

At least when there was no one around, it didn’t matter how exhausted or lost you looked. You could sit and contemplate the place in life you found yourself in with disappointing ease. Fingers peeling the meat one small bit at a time from it’s skewer as you let the toughness occupy yourself with how much was needed to chew. Nothing special, but in that moment you cared not for what it tasted like as long as it kept you from passing out as soon as you stood up.

Only, not quite all of it, it seemed was to make it down to your mouth. Hearing nothing right up until a whine already was right beside you, you whipped around in place only to settle instantly. Ghost stood tall even on all fours, almost matching your elevated seating enough to where you felt the food over your lap. Red eyes looking to you and then the meat, you could almost see the little smile in his huff towards you.

Brows raised amusingly as you slowly pulled off a piece. “I see how this is, I finally decide I want something to eat of my own accord and here you are demanding I share.” Not wasting any time teasing the direwolf you held out a piece between two fingers as Ghost sniffed before ever so gently grabbing it himself. Just as you finished chewing your own, he stepped forward more. Eyes just as patiently waiting with excitement.

Chuckling, you pulled off two more small pieces, tossing them into your mouth before making a pile in your hand with the rest. Not having the chance to put them anywhere, Ghost simply bumbled into you and ducked his head into your lap to eat right from your hand. That smile felt genuine on your face, and you weren’t sure how long it had been since you felt a true one. Your free hand begun to run over his fur, occasionally scratching your nails along his scalp.

Finishing off your food, Ghost let another huff out before resting his head right in your lap. Eyes closing at the feeling of your nails and now too heavy to get up without the direwolf moving first. Your eyes simply stayed trained on him, watching his red eyes slowly dip the more relaxed you made him and yet you know this was a beast many feared.

You think you sat there with him for as long as you had alone, at least until his ears perked up. Moving his head off you to look to the approaching figure, and sinking back down to rest in your lap when it was only your mother. Standing quite a few feet away she eyes it with distrust, but you only shrugged a shoulder and ran a hand back over his white fur. “It’s alright, he would’ve been more aggressive if you couldn’t come near him.”

Carefully approaching, she made a wide path with narrowed eyes around the direwolf before gently sitting on the crate next to you. Albeit with far more grace then you had the energy to put off. Watching you run your hand lovingly along the giant wolf’s fur before breaking the silence. “How did you get it to trust you?”

Not looking at her, you smiled at the once more drooping eyelids of Ghost. “I knew him back when he was a pup. He likely just remembers my face. That and I offered him food.”

Neither of you rushing the conversation, Selyse simply sat quiet next to you for a while. Your relationship with your mother was as strained as it was complicated. She just as your father had, declared you nothing but a traitor with such callousness. But now he was gone, and Shireen was gone so all was left was the both of you. Two women who had not seen one another in over six years, since even before you returned to King’s Landing with Ned Stark.

When you did, it was all visits for Shireen. Most of your days on Dragonstone were out in the islands terrain together, trudging through the sun so you could show her all the places you found on your own as a child. Simply put, there was not much to say between you two at most times.

In Winterfell it was Catelyn Stark who saw fit to treat you as a daughter and it was that mother which followed you and Robb into war. A mother who died for that war. Instead you found a reunion with this woman and she was as strange to you as the father you met that one day in the fields of the south.

You couldn’t talk to her about Shireen anymore, telling her you would not hear it you couldn’t handle any of this religious fanaticism when you had to be the one to end her. What was left was only you two, but you didn’t want to turn her away entirely. Without you there was little left for her, and you dared not think what her life might be like so alone.

You already knew that was utterly painful.

“Your father saw something in him.” Your eyes flickered up, but you moved none else to show you heard her. “Spent much of his time here learning from him, as he learned from your father. I thought at first he saw him as the son I never gave him. But now I’m not so sure.”

You let your eyes drift to the ground to find a meaningless spot on it. “I didn’t imagine he offered him Winterfell for nothing.”

Selyse sighed, neither of you were making this easy but she wasn’t sure if it was you, her, or the habits passed from your father to blame for how awfully you all communicated. Unsure if it was worth trying to find a happy medium here or if she should just cut tight to the point.

“I’ve seen the way that boy looks at you.”

Your eyes flickering shut as you sighed deeply. Turning your head away from her with a grumble, “Mother.” Your tone in a stern warning, but you knew she would press on anyways.

Which she did, ignoring your protests entirely. “You can pretend the truth is otherwise all you like, but I have seen it. I also know, that he was prepared to leave everything behind here the moment he learned you were alive and ever since you brought him back he looks at you like he would have no idea what to do with himself if you leave again.”

You bit your tongue, shaking your head as you willed your breathing to settle a bit. “I would say he looks like a man who has had everything turned upside down since I came back into his life.” Ghost huffed in your lap as you almost ran your hand over his soft fur as a crutch. “And the second I leave he can go back to the life he was building for himself again.”

Her tone was as stern as yours could be, “How many times do you think there is a second chance at love, how many women even get a first chance and you are throwing away your-”

“Robb was my second chance.” Looking over at her, there was a mix of anger and a sorrow that had never gone away. But for once, you were pure and honest and it was the first person you so freely said it to and it was your mother of all people. “I loved Jon first. For a long time, then I got married. Jon left for here and we knew we’d never see each other again. And I fell in love with Robb. He was my second chance, he was the life I was to make after losing the first. And now I’m here. Back in Jon’s life as if he had any reason to want to help me beyond obligation. He shouldn’t want anything to do with me, and maybe Robb hates me for wishing it was otherwise.”

Your mother never met him, only heard through the whispers of a war and yet the way you spoke about him was with such a defeated sorrow. Difficult to imagine what it was like all that time with the Boltons when you lost so drastically. But she had met this one, had seen the way Stannis had admired something in Jon Snow and how you both stood here together after finding sure death.

“Plans the lord has for us go beyond the normal realms of a sacred vow.” Turning to look at her you tried so hard not to say a word about this belief of hers. But the look in her eye was serious, full of a true conviction. “Through everything that has happened, he brought you and this boy back from death so you could find each other again. Trust in him that it means something.”

You cared not for her god, not for it’s strange way of doctrine, not for the fire that demanded sacrifice and blood, and not for how it was brought to your family by the woman who strung your sister up on a pyre to burn. “Why would this god of yours care for two people who don’t even believe in him?”

Leaning in, her face narrowed trying to plead to a destiny just as the red woman spoke of, just as your father always spoke that you had no choice in and you hated all of it. “Perhaps your fate with this boy is important enough the Lord can see passed such an offence. Your father is the chosen and you without any belief in the lord still think he is out there. Still leaving to unite these people for a war you didn’t even know of until finding him.”

Ghost rose his head up, suddenly rising up on a dime, as he tilted his head towards you in a eeiry silence. Leaving you to lean forward out of her sight in your sides covering your mouth with hands clasped together.

“You are meant to fight by your father’s side. Come to him in the great war, only perhaps the Great Wolf she spoke of was this one. The one that is still here, the one that you brought back.” Your eyes once more flickered to Ghost before sighing.

Both of you were quiet for a moment before you muttered, “We leave in a few days, if you are sure you want to follow you should start packing now. Have Olly gather Father and Shireen’s things as well.”

Ghost had been sternly silent, until suddenly moving forward coming to Jon’s side as he approached the pair of you. Only a matter of time before it all fell apart between you two and now was that time. “Pardon, my lady but if I could have a moment alone with your daughter?”

Nodding without issue, you both stood as she gave you one last look. One of a mother you knew was telling you to just listen to her for once before parting ways. The silence between you and Jon was painful, at least to you. “How did you know where I was?” Jon’s head tilting towards Ghost as you narrowed your eyes the slightest with a whispered, “Traitor.”

Coming closer towards you, there was no tension in his stance or face that you expected from the man, instead it all sat on your shoulders. All plastered on how much you were keeping a stone walled expression that for so long was never, could never be directed towards him. But now you were afraid to let anything else slip passed.

Looking you over with an amused glint in his eye, “At least I know it’s not just you whose bad at dressing for the cold.” You only shrugged a shoulder, glancing away from him before he found more reason to fill the silence. “Come with me, I have something for you.”

Narrowing your eyes, Jon only turned to the side, beckoning you again to follow. Doing so quietly, and a few more feet away from him then what looked natural. Paths moved out of the way for you both when passing by with watchful eyes that never seemed to go away anymore. For you or him.

Coming back to his own quarters, he guided you in first as he held the door open for you. Noticing to yourself that certain things seemed to be moved around, or at least it appeared that way as it looked emptier then before. But it was where the bed was that laid a few things, leathers, gloves, all in dyes of black.

Jon kept himself a few feet behind you as you looked it over. “I couldn’t let you leave in just those. They aren’t perfect, what I could get from the Night’s Watch own supply but they should fit well enough.” A look over your shoulder your face a little softer, and finding nothing but his own genuine concern on his own. “You should try them on before you leave.”

Turning back, your heart felt a bit faster in pace but your mind also told there there was little point in hiding. At this point more then you’d ever care too had seen beneath it all. The room was deathly silent as you slowly took things off. Back facing him you knew he could see lashes fading across your spine and a distinct scar he knew was from an arrow that had not healed but just sat dormant like certain others. One also on your upper arm that matched the imprint from that night.

At least turned away from Jon, he couldn’t see the occasional wince that crossed your face. Not much hurt to the same degree, but the muscles within not without their soreness sometimes. Hard to forget you truly hadn’t been away from the Bolton’s long enough for the worst of it to go away.

The leathers were warmer then anything you’d worn in the past year, making you wonder just how much of you being used to the cold was simple over exposure. Neither of you spoke a word despite knowing Jon’s eyes watching you the entire time, only when you gently sat on the edge of the bed did Jon come forward, kneeling down in front of you. “Let me.”

Even behind the gloves you could feel such a gentle touch, making sure the much sturdier boots fit and lacing them up without thinking of it. “You didn’t have to do any of this.”

He didn’t look up, focused on the task at hand as his voice rasped out, “I know.” Your fingers flexing into your fists as a lightness shivered over your spine. He always was like this, doing small things for you, getting things for you simply because you needed them and he wanted to do it. Finally meeting your eyes again asking, “Everything feel okay?” When you nodded he stood up abruptly, “Good. I have one more thing for you.”

Eyes slipping closed with a sigh, you stood with a dejected tone almost in warning, “Jon.”

It was a proper sword and sheath he returned with. Nothing flashy, just simple black and an average hilt. Taking it gently from him, he explained as you pulled it out slightly to look at the blade. “It isn’t anything special, but I had adjusted to fit your size.” Your eyes had narrowed, containing the feeling that this had the distinct markings of newly forged. “Assuming you haven’t forgotten how to swing one.”

For the first time, you glanced up at his grey eyes with a slight smirk before lingering too long. “I remember a thing or two.” His hand reached to take it back, unexpectedly moving close enough you could feel the ends of his hair, as he moved behind you.

Strapping the entire thing properly to your person, no doubt Jon could hear the hitch in your breathe at the close proximity. Ensuring it was snug enough before so lightly he rested his hands on your forearms before sliding up to just below your shoulder. Rasping deep into your ear, “I had Theon prepare everything to be sent out when you’re ready. Had to make a few changes first, myself.”

He didn’t let you turn to face him, but you also picked out that he likely knew you’d try to walk away from him the moment he did. “Why?”

Another shiver ran down, but this time not at the husk in his tone but the sureness in words. “Didn’t want any of them to think they were about to be raided by an army of wildlings when they all show up with us.”

“Us?”

Jon turned you himself, but kept you in his hold. Things between you were delicate but so much of that strained state came from your nerves alone. “The North is our home. All of it. And I’m not going to let you walk away from me again to fight a war all by yourself.”

Tilting your head a bit with a narrowed gaze you looked with a hesitation, “Jon if this is only because-”

“It’s not.” He no doubt, felt the shiver that crossed your skin as one of his hands gently traced up your shoulder to gently run across the hair at the back of your head as he leaned in. Enough you could feel his breathe along your skin, but never pushed further. “I spent my whole life watching Robb get everything I ever wanted, and I spent my whole life wishing I could hate him for him. Then I watched him marry the one thing that was mine and mine alone for years, and I still never could hate him.”

It was a moment just like this, as Jon told you not to look for him during the wedding. That he wanted you to be okay with becoming Robb’s, and yet years and loss later for all of you it was you both back in such a similar position once more talking about Robb.

Only you were both older, one of you much more broken and the other strong and full of what makes a true leader. And this time, you already were Robb’s and this time you also knew too well what you were missing by pushing Jon away.

Your voice but a whisper, “He,” You swallowed as your eyes slid shut in a flicker before collecting your thoughts, trying not to think of the hand ever so slowly raking through your hair. “Robb regretted not being there for you more. Wishing he stood up for you more, stepped in between you and his mother more..but this wasn’t..He wasn’t trying to prove anything with this. He just wanted to give you the one thing he knew you never would’ve thought you deserved, because he knew you truly did.”

Much like the night of the feast as well, Jon watched your hands come close to resting gently on his person and painfully hold back. “How about we start with fighting to get our home back.”

That you could agree on, that was something you could focus on. Once more however, a small smirk slid onto your face catching his curious eyes. “I’m not sure anything has quite felt like home in a long time. It may be nice to finally find one for once.”

The wall somehow felt even windier in the sunlight. Your backs both against the edges of the opening looking out to the vast forest and snowy mountains fading into the far North. He wasn’t quite sure what to do, but you gave each offer it’s fair strengths and drawbacks. Theon’s choice to follow was simple, you or risk returning to Pyke and only one of them had a promise of someone to trust still at his back and defence.

Olly was a bit different. He was pledged here, but circumstances were different. Not here by force, but simply beacuse his only home was taken from him so suddenly and violently. He was finding his stride previously as Jon’s steward but since that day, he had found a strange fearful trust in yourself. You in a way seemed to scare him, your stern intensity but also there was a softer spot that he had seen in your fathers quarters. He had followed you and your every order since that point and now that you were preparing to leave in a number of days he felt conflicted about staying behind.

None had spoken of his involvement of that night, and it only confirmed your initial suspicions that he was very much manipulated into it by Thorne. None felt the need to throw him to your mercy or to Jon’s, likely as the rest found shame and guilt in their own actions knowing it was too their fault for letting a child become entangled in the crime.

Looking back to you, he clearly was fighting to find the right words. Knowing you watched out to the north with nothing but patience for him to find it. “He wouldn’t want me around.”

A small smile came to you, rolling your head back with an eyebrow raised and a gentle tone that he continued to find some comfort in. “He’s left your situation in my hands. Hasn’t even said a word about what I’ve chosen to do with you, and he continues to be here with ten other men who are far more guilty then you.”

It was a mix of what he did, and seeing Jon come back. He looked to you with a fear in ways, but it was stronger towards him. Crossing his arms behind his back as he dropped his head, you watched calmly without any prompt. You couldn’t choose this for him, it was a weight he was to bare the rest of his life and none could dictate how he would cope with it. At this age, anything was possible.

“What would I do if I stayed?”

Eyes flickering to the side in thought before finding his once more, one shoulder moving in a slight shrug. “Serve whoever runs this place all the same, learn and grow from being under their leadership and find a purpose the way you tried to before any of this happened. One action shouldn’t dictate the rest of your life.”

He narrowed his brows, looking back down to his feet in thought. Your voice speaking up once more before it got too far, “Olly, it’s not just him to consider. When we leave, the free folk are coming with us, fighting with us. There’s no escaping that if you come with me. I’m not telling you to get over that pain, but I am asking you to consider if you’re ready to let your anger sit aside yet.”

That got him, his eyes flying out to the other side of the high walls even though little could be seen from where you both stood. You could still so vividly see what he had told you of that day. Of the horrible numb feeling seeing an arrow fly into his father’s neck, how he crumpled to the ground without his face even shifting. And the memory of his mother shaking him by the arms telling him to hide before they were overrun and she was utterly slaughtered.

How two men snatched him, hissing in his ear about how they were going to eat them and to run to Castle Black before they did it to him as well. You wouldn’t get over that so quickly either, but you also had the advantage of age. You could shove that into a box and hide it under the earth beacuse you could look out now to the North and see the crystal blue eyes that haunted your dreams. Olly hadn’t see any of that, himself or in dreams and visions. It was harder to see.

He sighed deeply. Looking back to you with almost a sad hope. “When you take Winterfell, what happens then?”

It hurt, seeing such a young, innocent face so torn from his bias, to his actions, to the pain that would never go away. The way Olly was so horrified by the truth of his actions, that he burst into tears trying to confess. The weight that you knew was horrible and burning in your mind and it came to him after only just finding his way into teenage hood.

You were quiet, trying yourself not to put too much hope into the blood and battle you were eventually to walk into. “Some will begin finding land to settle into, ones that would be safer away from the fights to come, some will likely stay at our side and others will go to wherever our plans then take us. But there is no hiding from them, Olly. They’re here now, and one way or another you will have to find a way to handle that.”

Waiting a beat, you had one idea he way be able to live with. Stepping closer, you knelt down a bit in front of him. Once more, Olly seemed to find it a bit easier to look you in the eye when not forced to look up at you in fear. “You can either come with me when we leave, stay here at the Night’s Watch. Or...” You drew out the first few syllables of the next word trying to be sure and phrase it to the boy with hope. “..when we reclaim Winterfell, you can make your way there. I’ve made it clear to the men here that you are with me, and considering your age and why you even came here.”

More hope was in his eyes at that. Clearly being left behind here wasn’t an easy choice for him, and you tried hard not to think about how you leaving seemed to feel like being abandoned to Olly. You also forced yourself to not even slightly consider the implications of why.

“You promise they won’t catch me as a deserter if I do?”

Forcing a small smile onto your lips, you raised your eyebrows playfully. “I can write you up a pretty, formal deceleration if it makes you feel better.” He huffed out a laugh at that. While you didn’t tell him before you left, you made your way into his room and left two papers. One with just that, a promise from the Queen in the North of his assurance to travel from Castle Black to Winterfell, and another smaller note scrawled out much more personally and a tad playfully, saying just in case he thought he would need it.

It wouldn’t be for a few more days that you would leave, but being totally alone now made the most sense. And when Olly hugged you tight, it was harder and harder to deny that perhaps that admiration Theon was speaking of, was just a conflicted, hurt boy finding the only solace he could, in a woman who reminded him of the mother he lost.

The Sun was up still shining a gold in the sky, as three figures stood at the railings watching over the growing black in the skyline. Only years ago, this same image looked out over a war for the North, only this time the wolf next to you was the one which was missing last, his own person darker in heart, and a strange one that beat despite the very wounds in is chest to stop it.

And yours lay untouched but under the mutilation of something that left you to bleed out in agony but both knew they would not be in a living soul once more were it not for the other. You didn’t understand any of it, and neither did Jon. But it was a truth that you couldn’t ignore. You both had been dead, and both would be things that would no longer be able to be ignored.

The Northmen knew of your death, and the Free Folk of Jons and once those whispers converged, there was no telling what was to be in store for that, or for the blood inevitably to follow.

As the three of you watched the Ravens leave, a final decision that sealed what was to be walked in on, and what was to come of the enemy you were to fight. It was Theon to the right who looked at you. An underlying waver in his own voice as he watched the far away one in yours that both men beside you could feel radiating with it’s own fear. “Are you afraid to see him again?”

Your hands on the railing tightened as Jon’s eyes darkened at the sights and sounds of what he had seen all over you, and the vile things he had Theon tell of what else had been done to you. You could fight a war against Roose Bolton, but fighting one against Ramsay was truly what Jon knew would turn violent. Your war against Roose was for the North and for Robb, but to Jon, the war against Ramsay was for you.

All your response could muster as your eyes stayed trained on the distant ravens was a single nod. A nod that had Theon lean forward more against the rails. “Good.”

Both looked at you but you looked at none. “Why is that good?”

You knew why. Theon had endured as you did, and he was the one who dragged you from that hell out and running into the cold and the freezing waters to escape before his torment ended your life, at his hands or your own. And now, you were going back. Numbers at your side, a hope for more to join, and a wolf that Theon could see, would shed as much blood as he could to protect you. But still, all that horror and you would be going right back to face him. And Theon’s answer was as blunt as it was honest about why.

“It means you’re not stupid.”

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