agoge | >>FROM:@AEGONNER

[A slim girl around Sansa's age, or Arya's, with a pipe in her hand... he shouldn't have thought that she might be any kind of threat, "gottagun" or not. His hand falls from near the pommel of his sword back to his side.]

Robb,

[he repeats, frowning.

Robb. His best friend, his most consistent rival, someone he'd been mourning for years. A young man who'd made mistakes, as Jon understands it (insofar as anyone has been able to inform him after the fact of what happened), but who had been the victim of a betrayal that mistakes like those should never have brought upon anyone.

He'd married a girl, a foreign girl, some said she was highborn. But Jon would swear that her name had been Talisa, not Jeyne. And he's heard of the Westerling house in passing: Westerling, Westerlands, they're Lannister bannermen.

All of this confuses him, yet the girl seems relieved to meet him in the way that someone with Lannister loyalties certainly wouldn't be.]

My brother was married, but... when did you meet him?

[He still sounds cautious.]

[He doesn't seem to know her, but that doesn't mean very much. He had been at the Wall, disconnected from the rest of Westeros. How long had it taken for him to learn about Robb's death or the attack on Winterfell? Nothing seemed off just yet. His guard was at least lowered and his hand fell away from the sword pommel.]

He laid siege to my family's keep. He was injured during the attack and I looked after him. [She wouldn't go completely into details. Not her mother's insistence she tend Robb (or the dark reason she might have done so). Nor what happened that night. That was hers and she would keep it to herself.] He wanted to continue to Casterly Rock, but he needed more men and he wanted his uncle to marry one of the Frey girls.

[He should know the rest, she hoped.]

You are older than I thought you would be.

[The story, as far as it goes, sounds correct... except for the part Jeyne claims in it. But with only so much of it told, Jon is reluctant to provide the ending, or the reason he looks older than she thought he might be.]

So he went to The Twins. What happened there?

[He tries his level best to keep his face expressionless except for interest in her answer, but he fails: there's a slight twist to it, a hint that the event he's speaking of broke a piece of his heart.]

[A pained expression overtakes her features, wounded and afraid to speak the words aloud. She couldn't give voice to what happened to Robb, but it seemed as if Jon didn't know. There was emotion in his voice, but had he even heard? It didn't seem like it.]

We went to Riverrun and he left me there with my mother. He went to the Twins with his uncle and mother. My brother accompanied them. [She had hoped that Raynald being at his side would ensure his safety, but it only meant that she would lose more than one person she loved.] Walder Frey betrayed them. He-

[Her eyes meet Jon's, begging him not to make her say it. There are already tears running down her cheeks, the pain in her chest sharp and brutal.]

It was wedding. He had guest right!

All right, [he says, capitulating a little, sounding sorrowful himself,] all right. I know what happened -- I wanted to be sure you did. It would have been worse if you didn't know.

[The memory of telling Daenerys about Viserion is still fresh in his mind, and it had seemed like a particular cruelty at the time, something that shouldn't have had to pass between them.

This girl, Jeyne, is little to him in comparison, except for a Westerosi girl in need of help, but he still doesn't want to distress her any further than he has to. He glances around for something to offer her to wipe her tears, but he doesn't have anything.]

I'm older than you might expect because Robb's been dead for years. That happens here sometimes... some people from the same place remember more than others do.

[But do they remember differently? Robb's wife had gone to that wedding with him; she had died there too, and so had Lady Stark. Then the Freys had paraded Robb's body around with Grey Wind's head attached to it. It had been a personal disaster to Jon, the loss of another brother, but enough Northern troops had been slaughtered there that the Red Wedding had also had the delayed effect of seriously hampering the North's ability to fight the Army of the Dead.

Jon turns this over in his mind, this matter of Robb's wife, and his expression, while less skeptical than it had been, remains troubled. Jeyne doesn't yet strike him as false, yet what she's telling him conflicts with what he knows.]

Edited 2018-01-11 00:06 (UTC)

No, I know. [She knew more than she wanted to. Perhaps she had even known before he left for the Twins? Why hadn't she insisted that he stay, she had ridden after him, but she had let him reassure her and send her back to Riverrun.] Afterwards, the Frey men and Jaime Lannister took control of Riverrun.

[Given how they would travel through time to stop the Regency and how they were pulled from different points in time, it wasn't a surprise to hear him say that he was older and many years had passed. It was hard to describe, but there was something reassuring about that. Robb had spoken a great deal about Jon, that he was someone that he trusted and cared for, enough that he wanted to name Jon his heir.]

You have been here longer too, I think? You understand COST better and have participated in their battles, haven't you?

[Even just a foothold of information was better than nothing. She had an idea of what she was signing on for, but it didn't make this training any easier. It had to end when this mission did, it had to get better.]

What is it you remember last from our world? Were the Freys ever punished?

The Frey men are dead.

[He says it abruptly. Word had reached Winterfell by raven, not too long before he left for Dragonstone, but the scroll had been heavy on what and light on how. Poison, a whole room of them -- it said that much. What little rumor he's heard circulating spoke of the ghosts of Robb and Grey Wind tearing through the men until they were dead, finding their revenge at last, but that can't be it. And Jon can't say he thinks the Freys will be much mourned.

He exhales deeply.]

Walk with me to the library. We'll sit.

I've been here since Jerusalem, a few months ago, but we've only been on BASE the last few weeks. We were in Paris after Jerusalem... they're in the same world, not our world. Jerusalem was a little like our world, like what I've heard of Essos, but Paris was... later, six hundred years later. There were no knights anymore, and no arrows, and more spear-guns than swords. I don't know if it's what Westeros will be like in six hundred years, or --

What you know of me... should I still be at Castle Black? Am I the Lord Commander there?

[It's strange how empty she feels. In her darker nights, she had wanted to see them choke on their blood. She had imagined clawing at their faces, as she had fought her mother when she took her crown. There were a number of ways grief ran its course in her (though it never found its end) and sometimes the thought of revenge was comforting, but it was as hollow and empty as her nights. Even if they paid, it would not bring Robb back.

She considered the pipe in her hand but ultimately decided to leave it behind. It might be naive and foolish, but she didn't fear death and she would trust Robb's family before her own. She would let him lead her wherever he wanted and assume he meant her no harm.]

If Westeros is still standing in that time, perhaps? Men find new ways to kill each other. It wouldn't surprise me if they created something that didn't need arrows, like what we are training with. I don't know if we could say there are still knights in Westeros or if they ever truly existed. After everything I have seen, it's hard to believe the stories of heroes.

[She met his gaze with surprise, but shook her head.]

When Riverrun was under siege, we didn't receive much news. After the Freys and Lannisters seized the keep, we were under their control. I was kept in my room unless Jaime Lannister wanted to speak with me and I had no desire to see anyone. I never heard that you became Lord Commander.

You shouldn't be Lord Commander. Unless I had a child by Robb, you were his heir. He told me that was what he wanted.

[He sees her consider the pipe and elect not to bring it, and that alleviates some of his own tension, though he's still on his guard. As they move towards the library, his strides are long and relatively quick, an attempt to cut through the pervasive presence of the crows.]

There are heroes, my lady, or people who try to be. But many of them may not be knights, and many of them will die forgotten. I met more than one at the Wall, and beyond it.

[He listens, then, to the rest of her answer. Riverrun was once under seige by Jaime Lannister, all right, but not at any time soon after Robb's death; it had been years later, not long before Jon himself had fought Bolton for Winterfell, and Lannister had taken the place. A deep frown settles in as he hears this, and though they're already not far from the library, the next thing she says stops him completely in his tracks, and the face he turns to her is surprised, perturbed. He feels his heart rushing in his chest.]

His heir? Robb left no heir.

Edited 2018-01-22 08:43 (UTC)

There are so few in the south, it makes me wonder if any exist at all. [It's said softly behind him, as she follows as closely as she can. He's quicker than she is and she simply feels so tired, even in meeting her goodbrother here. It keeps her movements from matching him in energy and speed.] What was it like at the Wall? You hear a number of stories, but never know if they are true.

[But this was a small speculation compared to the larger matter of their meeting. He hadn't heard about Robb's will, he didn't know that he should be king. He said he was made Lord Commander, had he turned it down in some show of Stark honor? Both he and Robb had an abundance of it.]

No, he had no sons of his own, but he had you. He wanted you to be king, if something happened to him. He told me and I think he told Lady Stark as well. He was supposed to write out a will and it was to be taken to you, but I don't know what happened to it, only that he intended to have one written.

[That makes him snort out a soft chuckle, as his mind races to try to take in the idea of being King in the North years before the Northerners had had the same idea on their own.]

Cold, my lady, more than anything. Full of thieves and rapers and killers and some good men who had little choice but to go, and some good men who made the choice. When I first went there, they were fighting the wildlings; they'd forgotten that they were there to fight the White Walkers. Now they fight the White Walkers with the Wildlings.

[After a pause, he adds, gruff,]

I never received it. So many men died at the Red Wedding, they might have lost any will he left. Or the Lannisters might have destroyed it.

It doesn't matter. [No, in reality, it's very significant, only he hasn't yet taken it in as fully as he might.] Stannis Baratheon came up to Castle Black not long after Robb died. He might have had me killed if I hadn't bent the knee to him. The Watch is meant to take no part in the wars of the realm, to bow to no king in particular, but he tried to draw loyalty out of me nonetheless.

[How ironic that Stannis had offered to make him Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell -- and would have taken it away just as easily if Robb had done it first.]

No "my lady." Jeyne, please. You're my goodbrother. I don't want us to be strangers.

[There were stories about the Night's Watch, but usually it spoke about the brave men that protected the realm from monsters and unspeakable horrors. The songs and stories were always more preferable to reality. Those knights that made up the Watch didn't seem to exist, save for in the hearts of some of the men...she hoped.

White Walkers?]

White Walkers are stories nurses tell children. There is no such thing.

[She hesitated, glancing up at him shyly.]

The will wouldn't be with him. He would have left it somewhere safe. I wish I knew, but he didn't accept my presence at his council meetings. [Maybe it didn't, but it was what Robb wanted. That was all she had left.] You bent the knee to Stannis Baratheon?

What about what your brother wanted? You are the only one who can reclaim Winterfell and the North.

Jeyne. [He concedes it with a nod.

Much of what she says, he sets aside for a moment, addressing only the most pertinent thing.]

I took back Winterfell and the North, with the help of the wildlings, and the Knights of the Vale, who came to fight for my sister Sansa.

I didn't bend the knee to Stannis -- the Watch doesn't, though he wanted it. But if I had been King in the North when he came North, he would have pressed for it. As it was, he tried to make me Jon Stark and Warden of the North when neither the North nor Winterfell was in his hands to give.

I wasn't made king until after he failed to take Winterfell himself, but it wasn't because of any will of Robb's. It was because we won the battle -- we took it back from Ramsay Bolton.

Edited (Major typo. And we need to get back to those White Walkers, Jeyne, in a moment.) 2018-02-15 10:51 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if it was because of Robb's will or not. You still did it. You avenged him and you reclaimed the North, you have been acknowledged as king. That's what matters to me. It means that Robb's wishes have been met.

[It might not make any difference, but it could at least reassure her that he might rest more peacefully. She wasn't superstitious by nature, but this was all she could hold onto, the small fulfillment of Robb's last requests.]

Sansa was saved from King's Landing? How did it happen? Who helped free her?

[If only Lady Catelyn could know. After the deaths of Rickon and Bran, it was like a large part of her had died as well. Robb being killed before her eyes had likely done the rest. This would at least have reassured her, knowing that her daughter still survived and returned home.]

What of Arya? Does anyone know what happened to her?

>>FROM:@AEGONNER

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