And again, an update after a very long time since the last chapter. I keep telling myself to not turn it into a habit, but I seem to not be able to find a way around it. Well, a new chapter from an up-until-recently unconscious person.
JON XVIII
"How long yet?"
"Not a long time, my lord," the maester answered.
Every time he asked, that was the same answer. Not a long time. Every day, he said it wouldn't be long. The days had turned into weeks, and Jon wondered if they wouldn't turn into months.
"Do you know for how many days you've told me that?" Jon asked angrily.
"Sixteen, very precisely. And shouting won't make you feel better, my lord. You can already walk and eat by yourself. It should be a short time before you can leave, my lord, but not before I give you my leave. Lord Stark was very clear about it."
Jon sighed. Maester Vyman could be insufferable when he could. Always calm, always placid, never a hint of emotion in his voice. And always wanting to give him milk of the poppy. Jon refused again and again. Vyman said it would soothe the pain, but Jon didn't want it. He still had to wear a thick bandage around his head, and the maester would rebuff him each time his wound would reopen.
The only thing Jon wanted was to get out of this castle and join the massive army that would soon reach the borders of the Vale. While he was bedridden, stuck inside the walls of a castle, his brother was riding next to Tyrion Lannister against the Vale of Arryn. I the meantime, King's Landing had fallen, Selyse Baratheon was dead and the fleets of the Reach and the Westerlands were sent against the Iron Islands. Right when things finally moved in the right direction, Jon was stuck. He could not even join the small force that marched on Moat Cailin, nor join Lady Stark who rode to the Rock to see Sansa. He was forced to lay down and do nothing. It was a chance that Arya was there, or else he might have gone mad.
"Well, if you don't move too much today, tomorrow this might be better."
Jon sighed in frustration as the maester was done renewing the bandage. The deep wound on the right side of his face was much better than before, but still too fresh according to Vyman. He left Jon sitting on his bed, alone in his room. Jon gripped the sides of his bed and stood up straight. He almost felt nothing. In recent days, the pain he felt when moving too quickly had almost disappeared. He started to train again, mostly with Arya. She hit him with her wooden sword more than enough, which reminded him of his current state too much, but he laughed the best he could all the same. He could laugh as well now. In the first days, even laughing was painful.
Maybe it was because he made so much effort to not be unpleasant with Arya that he ended being this very thing with the others. Jon felt so powerless right now. And he also felt betrayed, again.
Jon had convinced Robb to not march on the capital at the start of the war because Tyrion Lannister promised to save his father. His father died all the same. Then, afterwards, when he told Robb they should consider the offer of the Lannisters, he refused. Everyone refused to listen to him. They almost considered him a traitor because he told Mira something terrible had happened. And then the Vale betrayed them, after everyone else thought an alliance with them would be better than with the Lannisters. And now they left him behind, after he was injured in battle.
Jon told himself sometimes that he should be glad to be still be alive. He should even be thankful that he got out of a fight with Stannis Baratheon only with a huge scar and half an ear missing. Still, he was furious that his family needed to be almost slaughtered for them to take the right decision, one he had been proposing for a long time. Did they not listen to him only because he was a bastard?
Jon knew he was unfair to Robb. He could understand his brother, and he knew Robb never looked down on him because they didn't share a mother. But the others, Lady Stark and the Tullys… He felt like they opposed everything he did, everything he told them, only because of his birth. He almost died for them on that damned battlefield, defending their castle and their house, only to learn later that Lady Stark had Arya knocked out and brought by force to an uncertain place. Perhaps Jon wasn't fair with the mother of his brothers and sisters in this case, but somehow it made him feel better just to think ill of Lady Stark, whatever the reason. Her allies of the Vale almost got himself and all those he loved killed.
He decided to go for a walk, and maybe for some practice in the courtyard. It might do him some good. As he progressed through the battlements, corridors and yards of Riverrun, he couldn't help but berate himself for thinking such things. Dark thoughts populated his mind, not just about his relatives, but also about all the other people he knew. Today his mind was set against the members of his own family. Yesterday, it was against the Lannisters. He blamed them for his father's death. He blamed the dead, but also the living. He blamed Lord Tyrion for not saving his father like he promised. He blamed him for not being able to prevent this war. He even blamed him for not leaving him at the Wall, far from all this war where Jon felt no matter what he did, he ended fighting against friends. And he blamed the Lannisters for not coming to their help sooner, or for not recognizing Robb as King in the North, which would have made things so much easier from the start.
Jon had understood after a few days that inactivity and the frustration that came from it stirred those dark thoughts in him. He blamed everyone, including himself, for everything that had happened since this whole mess began. He never had time to think about all that happened since the war started, nor to mourn his father or his brothers. There were so many things he had had to think about that he pushed away all his problems. War prevented him from truly processing the horrors that befell them ever since the day they left Winterfell. He couldn't remain still any longer.
He ended in the godswood, like always. No weirwood tree there, but still a godswood by name. Jon saw no reason to visit a sept since he never worshipped the Seven. That was one thing that set him apart from all his siblings. Their father all taught them about the Old Gods, but Lady Stark had also taught all her children to follow the Faith of the Seven. All her children meant that Jon was never included.
His footsteps were more assured than before. Things were getting better, his general state was improving, though not as fast as he wished. After so many months of unending activity, this situation where he could almost do nothing all day was wearing on him. He had to leave, as soon as he could ride.
He leaned with his right hand against the trunk of the weirwood. He looked at its sad face. He just fixed it for a very long time, not thinking about anything. His breath got steadier, his mind was cleansed, his heartbeat turned regular. Then he sat.
He brought his hand to his face, feeling the bandages that covered the wound. That was the mark Stannis Baratheon left on him. Everyone said this would never be forgotten, that songs would be composed celebrating this feat. But the truth was Jon had not defeated the Baratheon king. He killed him, but he did not defeat him. Teron Hill did. Or so he believed. The memory of that fight was blurry. He recalled hearing Teron's voice, begging him not to die, but he wasn't sure. He had freed Teron, making him promise to not return to the Lannister troops. Teron had not respected his promise. And yet he would have saved Jon. Jon would need to get to the bottom of it when he would meet Teron again.
He stood up. Standing no longer caused his head to spin. He had brought his sword with him. He placed himself in position, and slashed forward. No spinning again. His stance was assured. He wasn't staggering. He made a few other swings. Still no problem. Then he started performing double swings, then triple, then four in a row. It took some time for him to feel a dangling feeling in his head. He didn't take his hand to his hair, wanting to recover his stance without touching his face. He didn't stumble and he stood on his feet. He made another round of swings, and again it took some time before he felt uneasy. He continued, training alone in the godswood, until he heard a voice behind him.
"You could have waited for me."
Jon looked back at his little sister. She was covered with sweat and dust, like always. Arya trained every day. No matter how the maester or anyone else in Riverrun tried to convince her, she kept training and moved aside all ladylike activities. Jon found it funny, truth be told, especially since her behavior shocked Vyman. It made him feel good to see Arya get on the nerves of the man keeping him stuck to a bed.
"Now you're here. Do you make a worthy opponent for the bastard of Winterfell?"
She grinned in return. "I'm sure I'll make one for Stannis' slayer."
She raised her sword, longer and larger than the one Jon once gave her. Jon took his position as well, preparing for her first attack.
Jon had taken with him his actual sword, not a wooden or blunted one. He didn't plan to train with anybody. Just as he realized that, Arya launched forward. Jon deflected the blow.
"Arya, wait…"
He didn't have time to speak. She attacked again, and again, and again. When Jon blocked one blow, he realized her sword wasn't blunted either. They were fighting with real swords. His sister kept coming at him. She was more agile than he was, smaller but quicker. Jon didn't want to hurt her, and he didn't understand why she tried to hurt him. The first chance he got, he just ducked away and pushed his whole body against hers. She stumbled into the grass and Jon shoved away the sword she held in her hand with a kick of his foot.
"Arya, are you mad?"
As if to emphasize his question, she bursts into uncontrollable laughing. "Nice fight, Jon."
"Arya, you could have been hurt."
"Syrio used to tell me we learned nothing without pain." She stood up. "Do you feel better?" Strangely enough, Jon realized he didn't feel dizzy at all. "When we're afraid, we fight better. When we feel our life is in danger, we are more alert."
"Aye," Jon answered. Though he wished Arya didn't endanger their lives like that. They could have hurt one another.
He sat on the stump nearby. Arya joined him. A few leaves remained stuck to her clothes.
"Are you still bored?" she asked.
"Aye. I guess now I understand how you felt when Septa Morgane forced you to do needlework or to write poems."
They both laughed, but the laughter was short-lived.
"I'm bored, too," Arya resumed. "There's nothing to do here. Everyone else is gone. Robb is riding to battle while we sit here, doing nothing." She looked at him. "We could escape, say we're going out for a ride, then join Robb and the others. It shouldn't take that long for us to join them."
Jon didn't reply right now. He knew Arya wanted to fight. Her love of swordsmanship and archery at Winterfell, at first a leisure, had become much more with the war. She wanted to fight, and Jon realized it would get harder as time went on to keep Arya away from the battlefields. But he also knew he could not endanger her life. Lady Stark would never forgive him for that, nor would Robb or Sansa. And Jon didn't want to see Arya in the middle of battle, not after everything he witnessed during this war. He saw people lose legs, arms, heads. He saw others losing all their blood, burn alive or fall into traps that left their body pierced with a dozen pikes. He didn't want the same thing to happen to Arya. But how could he explain that to her? He managed to keep her away from the battle the last time by entrusting her with the mission to protect her mother. Would that work again, considering how Arya felt about Lady Stark lately?
"It shouldn't take long to reach Casterly Rock either. The last time I did the journey quite easily."
"You want to go to Casterly Rock?" Arya asked, unbelieving.
"I'm not sure. I made friends there the last time, but most of them are out to war now." That was not an argument to send Arya away from her plan. "Though Sansa is there now. I wonder if she's doing fine."
"I don't know," Arya replied as she looked down. "Last time I saw her was in King's Landing. I guess she must be fine now. She's with Lady Lannister, after all."
Jon nodded. He remembered how Sansa was impressed by Margaery Lannister when she and her husband came to Winterfell. That seemed like a lifetime ago.
"Robb told Maester Vyman to let me join him once I was in better shape," Jon said.
"I could accompany you."
He looked at her, a small grin on his lips. "Your mother is going to be angry at me."
She shrugged. "Who cares?"
There was no way out of it. "I would have to leave alone. But I guess if you managed to get out of the castle without anyone noticing you, there would be no way for me to bring you back to Riverrun by force."
They both smiled. Jon regretted he could not just say no.
"Can we trust the Lannisters?"
The question, coming out of nowhere, surprised Jon. "Yes, we can."
He had hesitated before he answered. "How? Joffrey and Cersei were Lannisters. They killed everyone in King's Landing. And then they killed Father. We fought them. How can we trust them?"
"You know, Arya, Father used to tell us that the battlefield was the place where we found our true friends. The Lannisters could have attacked us. They could have cut us to pieces, murdered all of us. Instead they helped us. Without their help, Riverrun would be overrun with Stannis' men."
"Our father never told me that."
Jon smiled ruefully. "He never said that kind of things to his daughters."
"Why not?"
"Because he never thought you would end up on a battlefield."
"Then, when do we find our true friends?"
Jon thought about that for a moment. "A battlefield is a place where you can die at any moment. I guess what Father meant was that… when our lives are at stake, and someone is ready to help us, to endanger himself to save our life, then he is a friend. I guess… I guess that when Father died, when you left King's Landing and there were people who helped you to escape… I guess these were your friends. You were not in a so different place from a battlefield."
They remained silent for some time before Arya broke it. "Yoren. Hot Pie. Gendry… Mira…"
The last time name brought a lot of good memories to Jon, and some memories he regretted too. He remembered how Mira looked at him after she discovered what had happened to Martyn and Willem Lannister. He didn't regret telling her. It was the right thing to do, he felt it. He wondered if she was back to Casterly Rock by then.
"… Jaqen."
The new name Arya said surprised Jon even more.
"He's not a friend, Arya."
"But he helped me."
"He's an assassin, Arya."
"He only killed evil people."
"Because you told him to kill them. What if you asked him to kill me, or Robb, or your mother?"
"I never would have."
"Of course. But if it had been someone else who he owed three deaths and he asked him to kill me or your mother? Do you really think he wouldn't have done it?"
She cast her eyes on the ground. "Maybe."
"You must not trust these kind of people, Arya."
"But the Lannisters are worth trusting?"
"I'm not saying they're perfect. We fought each other, we killed each other. But the ones who did us wrong are gone. They're dead. Those who are still alive, those who helped us, I know them. They're not like Joffrey or Cersei or the Kingslayer. They're good people."
"Still, I don't regret meeting Jaqen. Without him, Joffrey would still be alive."
Did he kill Joffrey? Arya seemed to think so, but perhaps she mostly wished it more than she believed it. Killing two soldiers in an overcrowded castle was something, but murdering a king inside his own castle? Despite all the things Mira told him about them, Jon struggled to believe this Jaqen had truly killed Joffrey. There were so many other explanations for his death, all more likely than Arya's.
"And this girl, Jon. The one who is called Mira. Who is she?"
"She's the daughter of Gregor Forrester, the Lord of Ironrath." Whose son died at the Battle of King's Landing. By my fault.
"I know, but… What is she doing, serving the Lannisters? She's from the North? Why would she follow them?"
"That's complicated."
"No, it's not. If I were in the south when the war started, I would have headed back to you right away. Why would she serve the people who fought us, who fought her family?"
"Mira's mother sent her to Highgarden long before the war started. Her mother is coming from the south, just like yours. She wanted her daughter to learn the ways of her homeland. Mira ended up under the service of Margaery Tyrell before she became Lady of Casterly Rock. She didn't choose to be caught there when this war started. She didn't know what was going to happen."
"But she chose to continue to work for them."
Jon sighed. "It's not that easy, Arya. I got to know many people at Casterly Rock when I lived there. Some of them became my friends. They were good people, for the most part. When the war started, they just followed orders, like our own bannermen did. They didn't like to fight against me, no more than I enjoyed fighting them. But we had a duty to do. Mira… Mira was in the same situation than they were. It had been years that she had lived with these people. She knew Lady Margaery and Lord Tyrion very well. She didn't want to fight them anymore than she wanted to fight her own family. And she didn't fight either."
"But she helped the people who fought against us."
"No, she didn't." Jon realized, as he spoke, that he didn't want Arya to have a bad opinion of Mira, no matter what she did. "The Lannisters helped us in the end. I think Mira was not without a role in their decision."
"Well, I'm not sure about her. She seems to always have a hidden agenda."
Jon wasn't sure either, truth be told. But the Lannisters and the Tyrells were no longer the enemies of House Stark. Jon was glad of it. After hearing of his father's death, he had wanted to kill all the Lannisters on the spot. But after he met Mira again when she brought Arya back to them, after he freed Teron, after Ser Kevan's boys were murdered in cold blood, and after a sea of red armors was all that saved them from annihilation before the walls of Riverrun, after Teron probably saved his life… Maybe wars could not be summarized by a battle between the wronged people and those who wronged them. He reflected on that as he and Arya continued to talk in the godswood.
Two days later, Jon Snow left Riverrun with half a dozen men to join the army marching on the Vale. Another occupant of the castle also disappeared a few hours later, without anyone noticing it.
As you can see, Jon's mood is quite negative. I didn't do it on purpose, but I think the general mood in link with a curious disease in an alternate reality to GOT had an influence on Jon's mood in that very reality.
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Next chapter : Mira
