Hey there!
Sorry for the delay, had trouble with internet yesterday.
Enjoy this week's chapter!
Myrcella
The Queen had insisted that they should all ride into Winterfell, it would be perceived badly if they entered in a wheelhouse. King Jon had agreed and Myrcella was actually glad they did. This way she could see the North she had not seen the last time, confined with Tommen and her mother who had complained through all of it.
The smallfolk who were there to see them go to the castle were awfully silent. They all stared at Daenerys, some at Myrcella, but less.
"I warned you." The King in the North told the Queen as they were riding in front of Myrcella. "The North does not like outsiders."
Daenerys did not answer, she did not have to, her dragons came roaring above them. The three beasts scared of the people who started running, screaming and praying. This was a bad move for the dragon queen, Myrcella thought. Now she would be seen as an evil invader… That is, if the northerners did not consider her that way already. Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion flew towards the castle they could see in the distance. It looked as big as Myrcella remembered but it was not exactly the same. It had been burnt and had known battles, fresh stones were added.
They walked through the gates, Jon Snow first. He immediately dismounted and went to hug his siblings. Myrcella, who waited politely with Daenerys, had not known that Bran Stark was alive and back. He was in a wheelchair, much like Prince Doran's. He has lost the use of his legs, she remembered. Sansa stood graceously, as always. She looked older, wiser and less afraid than the last time Myrcella had seen her. They had been children then. Girls dreaming of knights and princes. Now, they were women.
Daenerys walked closer to the Starks and Myrcella followed, a short distance away. Jon Snow made the introductions. "Queen Daenerys of House Targaryen." He pointed to the Queen. "My sister, Sansa Stark, the Lady of Winterfell." He looked at his sister.
"Thank you for inviting us into your home Lady Stark." Daenerys smiled her false smile. Myrcella could see the lords and ladies of the North looking at her harshly. "The North is beautiful, as are you." Myrcella could swear she heard a tint of disbelief in her monarch's voice.
"The hospitality of Winterfell is yours, Queen Daenerys." Sansa said after having looked the woman up and down. Her icyness made Myrcella want to smile. It was clear Daenerys was slightly unsettled.
"May I present my heir, Lady Myrcella of House Baratheon." Daenerys declared when she finally found something to say. Myrcella wanted to laugh… and rolled her eyes at the 'lady', again. A pathetic introduction to someone she already knew.
Lady Sansa was quick to remind her Grace of that fact. "You are a welcome sight in those troubled times, Princess." Sansa took Myrcella's hands. "I hope we can share memories later." The young princess could not detect if Sansa's smile was genuine, but it was certainly truer than the one she gave to the Queen.
"Lady Sansa, you are even more beautiful than I remembered." Myrcella replied. "I do hope to talk to you as well and to get reacquainted with this marvellous keep."
Sansa
The commotion created by the arrival of Jon and the dragon queen was one they had not had in a long time. Thankfully, Jon had decreed that the first meeting they had with the lords would be without Daenerys Targaryen. The young Queen had taken it as a slight, but it was wiser that way. Many Northern lords were angered by the presence of the southern woman, some by the southern women even. But Sansa held nothing against Myrcella.
"Are you even still a King?" Lyanna Mormont challenged when Jon demanded that the dragon queen be treated with respect.
"I am still, if you'll have me." Jon answered with the sigh of a man who knew this question would be asked again and again. "We need allies and we need her dragons to defeat the Night King. There is no dishonor in asking for help." On that they agreed, but it did not make Sansa like the woman any more.
"She walks around like she owns the damn place!" Lord Glover roared.
"She is arrogant… and of the South…" Jon conceded. "I admit I sometimes dread her company myself, but she is needed! We will not survive the Long Night without her."
"What if she does not believe the Long Night is real? She is not of the North after all…" Young Lord Umber had pointed out.
Jon had had a hard time answering that particular question. Sansa had gotten out of the hall with a pounding headache. She needed fresh air to clear her thought, so she went to the Godswood. They would be the only peaceful place from now on, she feared. What a surprise it was to discover Myrcella there.
"Princess?" She asked, unsure.
"Lady Sansa." The young woman got up at once. "I am sorry, I shouldn't have come here without your leave. I will go."
"No, no. Stay." Sansa bid her, Myrcella seemed to relax a little. "I had half my mind set up to find you after my prayers anyway." Both smiled at each other.
"I wish I would have come here when I first visited Winterfell, it is so peaceful. I cannot seem to recall why it frightened me so as a girl." Myrcella looked at the heart tree.
"We were children then…" Sansa commented.
"Yes, we were. Stupid little girls with big dreams." Sansa was surprised to hear her talk this way. She often used these very terms to describe the lady she had been when she left for King's Landing.
"We were." She confirmed, not knowing what else to say.
"You suffered more than me though." Myrcella declared. "I wish I could have seen it then. I wish I could have done something to help you."
"You were younger than I was." She did not hold any grudges against the young princess. Judging by the face she currently made, Sansa guessed the girl had lived through her own lot of trauma.
"I was, still am." Myrcella confirmed. It made Sansa chuckle. It was true, she still was younger, but it was easier to forget now. Myrcella was a woman, with a woman's body and a woman's wisdom.
"How was Dorne?" Sansa was curious to know how the princess had come to accompany Queen Daenerys, as her heir, instead of being married to the future Prince of Dorne. She did not have much news from the South since she had left the capital.
"All I wished for and more. Trystane was the best husband I could have hoped for." Sansa's heart sank.
"Was?" Her voice trembled.
"Trystane died in a storm after delivering my brother's terms of surrender to the Queen. He never got to meet our daughter…" Myrcella looked filled with sorrow.
"Where is your daughter now?" Sansa did not understand how a new mother could be there and not with her child.
"Arianne is in Sunspear with her grandfather. My goodfather wanted his heir back." Sansa realised the princess, contrary to her, actually found a new family in the family of her husband. She would have been jealous if she had not understood that Trystane was Myrcella's one and only love and had been snatched from her. "Daenerys forbade me from accompanying her…" Sorrow had left its place to anger. Sansa could understand why. She herself had no love for the dragonqueen.
Myrcella
"You managed to escape after Joffrey's wedding?" She wanted to divert the conversation from herself. Sansa nodded. "Good for you… Where did you go?"
"To the Eyrie, my aunt Lysa." Sansa explained.
"But you did not stay there?" Myrcella had often wondered what the young lady of the North had done to survive. How she escaped from her mother's claws.
"Littlefinger who helped me escape killed her. We painted it as suicide." Sansa resumed her story. "Then, he sold me to be married to the Bolton's bastard." That shocked Myrcella, the tale of the bastard had come all the way to the capital after the Battle of the Bastards. He was not a nice man by any measure.
"What did you do to Littlefinger?" She asked.
"I had him executed by Arya." Sansa shrugged, but Myrcella could see the emotions under the mantle of indifference.
"Arya is here?" The princess had not known the youngest Stark sister well. The girl had been willful and a little boyish. Still, it pleased her to know she had survived.
"She is. Don't ask me where she was, even I don't know." Sansa scoffed but spoke more fondly of her sister than when they were children. "All I know is she turned up at the gate one day and had magically become highly skilled with a sword and all other sorts of weapons."
"I shall ask her for a spar then." Myrcella smiled.
Sansa snapped her head at her. "You spar?" The surprise in her tone was genuine. There was no way she could fake it.
"In Dorne, women are allowed to fight." She explained. "Prince Oberyn trained me with his daughters."
"I met him when he came for Joffrey's wedding." Sansa seemed to recall. "He frightened me. And so did his… paramour."
"Ellaria Sand. She's been like a mother to me." Myrcella dived happily into her memories of Ellaria and her upbringing in the Water Gardens.
"How did your mother die?" Sansa changed the subject again.
"Poison." Myrcella replied simply.
"I always wished I could be there the day she died…" Myrcella could not truly blame the Lady of Winterfell. Her hatred of Cersei Lannister was understandable when considering the time she spent as her hostage in King's Landing.
Jon
Winterfell was bursting with activity, the officers of Daenerys had been housed in the barracks but the castle itself was to small to welcome her entire army. Hence, the Winter Town had tripled in size with all the tents that were built around it. As a result, Jon had to deal with more complaints than usual. The merchants and smallfolks were wary of their new neighbours. The dothrakis especially. Most of the stories they told were invented with the sole purpose to be rid of the foreigners, but some had truth in them. He had been back only a week and, already, he was exhausted from all the petty fights he had to settle. Not to mention, it did not give him much time to think about how to convince the dragon queen and how to defend the North.
He had considered delegating the complaints to Sansa, but his sister was set on hating the Queen. She avoided her as much as she could, and refused to talk about her, even less to her. Sansa spent most of her time with Princess Myrcella though. In any case, the Lady of Winterfell was most likely to give credits to the northern folks, even when they lied. Jon could not risk driving the army away, he needed them, almost more than he needed the smallfolks. No, he could not think that way, he was doing all of this for the smallfolks.
Ned Stark's solar was now his. He remembered how his father used to summon him there whenever he wanted to give Robb and him a lesson on the North. He had also been sent for more than once when he had made a mistake. The solar had always represented a sense of gravity and authority to him. But now, his father was dead, Robb was dead and the solar was his. He was King in the North, no matter how much it displeased the dragon queen. The solar had been turned into a command tent. On the great oak desk, a map was unrolled. It represented North of the Wall, though Jon knew it was incomplete. He had seen things North of the wall, valleys, villages, rivers, hills, that were not on this map. With the help of the new maester of Winterfell – a man that made him longed for Maester Luwin – he had tried to complete it, but his memory sometimes faulted him.
The last time he had seen him, the Night King was at Hardhome. He had to assume that the army of the dead had marched towards the Wall from then. Even considering their slowness, the vanguard – if it could be called that way – could not be farther than two weeks from the Wall. Then, they would have to go through it, but Jon had to assume they would succeed. Better still, he had to discover how they planned to do it.
He would have liked the help of Queen Daenerys on this but the young woman was near useless on that matter. All she wished to discuss and to know were the Houses of the North, their loyalty, their characters. In times of peace, he would have praised any southern monarchs who took such interest in the North. But they were not at peace. Not that the Queen seemed to care. She barely vailed her mockery when he talked of the White Walkers.
"When can we expect the thousands of years old Wall to fall?" She asked every now and then. "Can the Night King be reasoned with?" All her questions showed that she did not take the threat seriously. Jon was starting to think that he would have to do what he had no wish to do and take the Queen north of the Wall to show her.
Barristan
The Queen did not enjoy the North, neither did her dragons who hissed and snarled all day. It was a pity that the beauty of such a land did not touch Daenerys, Barristan for his part enjoyed Winterfell immensely. It was one of the few places in Westeros where he had never set foot before.
The castle was imposing, magnificent and the cold weather refreshing. Even the people were truer than elsewhere like their late Lord had been. Oh, how Barristan wished he could go back to the years when Ned Stark had been alive and well. Simpler times, when all the trachery and folly of men had not yet been revealed. Barristan wished for many things actually, one of which being that the Queen listened to the King in the North. Jon Snow might have been a bastard, but he was Ned Stark's bastard. The old knight saw much of his late father in him. Jon Snow was not one to invent lies to gain power, if he said the White Walkers were upon them, then he believed it.
Speaking of the King in the North, he was currently approaching as Barristan oversaw the feeding of the three dragons. Five cows and eight sheeps this day.
"Do they ever stop eating?" The Stark man asked with a scof when he came to his level.
"I have never seen them stop, your Grace." Barristan replied with a smile.
"They will be useful in the wars to come…" The King commented. "Do you think they could fly over the Wall? I have half my mind set up to bring the Queen there and show her the threat so that she believes."
"As a Kingsguard I would advise against that." This would be a perillous mission, one he had no wish to see Daenerys go to. "Though, if history is any indiaction, the Good Queen Alysanne's dragon refused to take her over the Wall. Or so the maesters tell."
"A pity…" Jon Snow said pensively. Barristan watched puzzled as the King in the North walked toward the dragons. Was he mad? Most men were scared to death and never walked within a hundred feet of the dragons. But there he was, a bastard of the North advancing towards the three greatest living beasts.
Barristan was in awe when he realised that the man had taken off his glove and petted the snout of the green dragon, Rhaegal. He almost fainted when the dragon lowered his wing and Jon Snow climbed up to its neck, much like the Queen usually did.
Before Barristan had the time to scream or react or do anything really, Rhaegal was up in the air with the King in the North on his back. He thought that the dragon would try to fight free of the man, as no one without Targaryen blood could ride a dragon. But Rhaegal did not, he circled over Winterfell with a happy rider.
Soon enough, Queen Daenerys came running toward Barristan asking him many questions. But Barristan didn't hear them. All he could think of was Jon Snow's nose. Where have I seen this nose before? He asked himself over and over.
Jaime
The King in the North had balls, at the very least. Or he was completely insane, for who but a Targaryen would wish to climb on a dragon. How was this even possible anyway? Did the bastard of Winterfell have Targaryen blood? Who in the Seven Hells did the honourable fool Ned Stark fuck? Strangely, other memories came back to Jaime's mind.
He had been a Kingsguard for two years and already the charm of it was lost on him. He had stood there in his golden armour while good men were burnt alive, while the sweet Queen Rhaella was raped, while Prince Viserys was fed insanity after insanity. Not once had he tried to stop or oppose Aerys.
He waited patiently for what his heart truly wished. One day Rhaegar would be king and Jaime would be proud to serve. This would all be worth it when Rhaegar was King, he told himself.
But Rhaegar was to go into battle with most of Ser Jaime's sworn brothers. And as usual, Jaime Lannister would remain behind as a glorified hostage, guarding the Mad King.
On the eve of departure, the Crown Prince came to see him. "Ser Jaime, protect my family well. When I come back, we'll talk. When I come back everything will change." This declaration which the prince made with a hand on Jaime's shoulder, filled the young knight with hope.
But Rhaegar had died on the Trident, and Jaime had come to serve a drunkard, becoming the shadow of the young man he had once been. Then he had served another mad king, one he had created himself… and his honour had been fully lost.
This nose. Jon Snow's nose. Jaime had seen it before somewhere, he could swear it. But where? Whose nose was it?
So, any idea how people will react?
Next week: a secret is revieled and some announcements are made.
