Notes: Written for day five of the Jonerys Appreciation Week -Tropes / Historical AU / King and Queen. Of courseit was going to be an arranged marriage. The only regret I have is that I didn't have more time to flesh it out fully. The Starks are meant to be Vikings from the era when they were already in contact with what would one day become the British Isles.
Title taken from Scarborough Fair and more precisely from, Tell her to find me an acre of land / Between salt water and the sea strands / Then she'll be a true love of mine.
Jon had always been rather grateful for the way his life had turned out. It wasn't all good, of course - he had never got the chance to grow up with his parents and his uncle's wife had never seen him as anything but a competition for her own children's future prospects - but his childhood had still been easier than most. He hadn't really been given a reason to envy the people who hadn't been born into nobility. Not until now, that was.
They, at least, almost always married someone from their immediate surroundings, whether out of love or convenience. Jon had met his betrothed precisely twice in his life.
The first time, they had both been children. Daenerys and her brother had been the ones to make the trip up North, even if they'd picked the summer to do it. Jon had helped her get off her ship - somewhat primitive when compared to what they had here, but still impressive considering the names he had already heard being hurled at them. Despite their noble name, it was no secret that the Targaryens were poor and Jon felt a vague kind of unease about that; as if he should have been expected to do something for the family he had been taken from years ago.
Viserys had been little more than a child himself back then and Jon remembered disliking him intensely. He hadn't been too aware of the arrangement that had been made back then, but he had liked Daenerys. She had been quiet and hesitant - all her brother's work, if Ned and Catelyn's whispers were to be believed - and her few smiles had lit up her entire face, making him feel even more encouraged to coax them out whenever he could. It had all ended abruptly with their departure, but Jon hadn't forgotten. He might have done so one day, but from that day on, he hadn't been allowed to. For the first time, people seemed to know what purpose he had and, with or without strange mysterious arrangement, Jon had welcomed that with open arms.
The second time, he had been sixteen - a grown man now, and having seen quite a lot from his uncle's journeys - and had been well aware that he was about to meet his fiancée. The Starks had made the first step this time and Jon had been more interested than he wanted to admit when it came to his other family's home. He had heard a lot of stories about the West and all the wealth that came with the lands there if you only knew how to use them - something Viserys as a ruler didn't seem to acknowledge. He was more curious still where Daenerys was concerned. Over ten years had passed. Had she changed as much as he had? Would she recognise him at all?
His questions had been answered as soon as they had arrived - she had been waiting at the shore, wearing nothing but a light blue dress and the jewels in her hair. Everything surrounding her was so delicate, soft and warm and gentle with the climate of her lands and, in a moment of weakness, he had wondered if there was anything about his world that she would even remotely enjoy.
As it had turned out, there was, although it was just him. They had spent their few days together outside of her brother's makeshift castle, half-hidden in the fields and the little privacy they offered.
"One day," she had said, clearly oblivious to the fact that his mind was mostly occupied with the way the sunlight caught in her hair as she braided it, "Viserys will not be the one who has the last word about any of this. We will have as much time to spend together as we want then and your family can have all the farms that it wants."
Jon had been given enough unsolicited advice about this to know that he wasn't supposed to mention that her taking their engagement as a given made him almost giddy. It wasn't just her, either – the thought that his people wouldn't have to suffer after every bad harvest because they had found a much more plentiful place was almost too good to believe as well. "You think he would give up the crown in your favour?"
Daenerys's expression was grim. "I think he's gambling with things he never should have touched."
Jon had known better than to ask what she meant. Viserys was unpredictable even at his best and he worried, but she wouldn't appreciate the implication that she couldn't handle him on her own even if it was the truth. She was family and his fiancée and somehow that made him feel like he was twice responsible for her. Jon was used to people who expressed themselves loudly when they had anything they wanted to share; with Daenerys, it was all quick glances and her withdrawing even further away every time he tried to press for more information.
"How long?" For how long has he been doing it? How long until you're free? He wasn't sure what he was asking, exactly, but she understood.
"Not much longer now." Her gaze had pierced him, eyes as cutting as the emeralds she now wore on her rings, when he sat up straighter in anticipation to hear more. "It doesn't depend on me. I'm not like you. I can't make a sacrifice to one of your gods and—"
"You don't ask gods to kill," Jon had protested. Not when it was much easier to kill them yourself, he would have added, but tried to refrain. The rules of her own God were much more mystifying and he wasn't sure he would ever understand.
"It doesn't matter. Gods have nothing to do with this. He is my brother," she had snapped. "I would never hurt him. It isn't our way."
Our way. It was a disowning and an inclusion all at once.
Jon had never had too clear an idea of where he belonged in the world, but maybe he did have an inkling now.
o.O.o
Their third meeting had snuck up on him much more quickly than Jon would have expected it to. There had been quite a lot of squabbling between their sides on who would follow whom where, but it had been halfway decided to begin with and, with Viserys's death, it had become even more obvious.
Daenerys abandoning her lands would mean leaving everything that had belonged to her family for centuries vulnerable. Jon had nothing but his family to leave behind – a family which he could always visit whenever he wished. She had everything he had been dreaming with – a place to call his own and a people to belong to. His father's blood offered him both and Daenerys had repeated that often enough through the messengers she'd sent his way for Jon to not need to consider it for much longer. It was the best possible decision, no matter how he looked at it.
By the time they had made all the arrangements, winter had nearly arrived. Even with their voyage south, it was impossible to miss that the days kept getting shorter, the cold that reigned all around them making Jon's skin turn blue whenever it was exposed to the wind. His companions (his family, really, who had decided to come for the wedding as a last farewell) weren't faring much better and when the seemingly endless fog around them finally started dissipating – when his ravens stopped returning – he gathered the willpower to look towards where the land was supposed to be.
She was waiting for them already. Not alone – anyone half-competent would have advised against it – but nearly so; a step closer to the ship than the rest of them were, wrapped up in a thick fur coat not unlike the one she had worn the day they had first met.
Daenerys was a queen now; there was no doubt about that. Queen in her own right, with all the sigils that her brother had worn and with none of the imposing and yet fearful facade he had somehow always excluded.
"Jon," she greeted, extending a hand towards him as soon as he'd climbed off the boat. He faltered but took it, too exhausted by the journey to worry about whatever local custom he could offend by leaning on to her for a moment. "I trust you travelled well."
"We did." Every small issue and inconvenience that the trip had been riddled with had suddenly faded away with the prospect of what was to come. He had been raised into this idea, but it still felt rather foreign – he was going to be king. It had always been promised to him and had never been particularly appealing until he had managed to get to know her through her messages and distant gestures more than anything from the time they had spent together. Not that it hadn't been precious to him as well, but it mattered less now that he was allowed to have her.
"Good." Her smile was hesitant but genuine. "We have prepared everything needed for the ceremony. If the— remind me, what was that saying of yours?"
She was teasing him, Jon realised. This particular phrase was something she had heard from him a thousand times when it came to their marriage.
"If the fates will it," he supplied nevertheless, adjusting his grip on her gloved hand as she turned towards the castle, sand giving way to grass under their feet.
"If the fates will it," Daenerys echoed, "it will be done by this time tomorrow."
If the prospect managed to make her look this happy even with everything that could go wrong in their world, then Jon was inclined to believe that. It had to have been fate, after all.