HAPPY MONDAY!
I'm back, and feeling much better after a few days of relaxing the ol' noggin! I'm definitely glad I took my time to write this chapter out and get some time to think about where I wanted things to go. Unfortunately, I didn't get to go over older chapters, but I'm going to start doing so in the weeks to come. I mentioned in the last chapter that Valyria is a warg, and she is. That's all I'm gonna say about that... things will make more sense as the story goes on, trust me. ;)
Just as quickly as Kinvara had come to bring them Kattra, she was back in Hardhome heading home to Volantis. Jon, Daenerys, and Lyaella all went to see her off, leaving the younger two Targaryens at home. Lyaella watched her parents from a distance as they said their goodbyes, all three of them facing the icy shores of Hardhome as Kinvara's boat to Volantis prepared to sail. Together they spoke in whispers, insuring their secrets would be kept amongst themselves.
Daenerys glanced at Kinvara then to the sea, "You were right, Valyria is like the Raven King."
"What has she seen?" Kinvara asked them both, "Anything about the War for Spring?"
"I think," Jon stared at his feet, holding the hilt of Longclaw nervously, "I think she's seeing Bran himself. The dream she had a few nights she described as hearing a voice she knew as familiar but never heard before. She hasn't had a dream like that since."
"The Raven has a way in now, your daughter has become a crack in your Wall," Kinvara explained them, rubbing her hands as she tried to keep warm, "He will try to steal secrets from her, so you must be careful of what you say around your little dragon."
"Valyria's safety is our highest priority, as well as all of our children," Daenerys turned to face Kinvara, her body language now seeming more on the defensive than before.
Kinvara turned to face Daenerys as well, a calm smile on her face. Kinvara's ability to be calm in most to all conversations made them both anxious because it always felt like Kinvara knew something Daenerys and Jon didn't. She glanced back to look at Jon, then turned back to speak to Daenerys, "I know it is." Kinvara bows to both of them and starts to make her way towards the boat, but only makes it a few steps before turning back to talk to Daenerys and Jon, "Your daughters; there is a rift between them…"
Jon snorted playfully, "Did your lord tell you that?"
"No," Kinvara smiled, "You can read it on their faces clear as day."
"Lyaella is… a complicated girl," Daenerys sighed as she spoke and she could feel Jon get closer to her, putting his hand on the curve of her back to relax her, "She doesn't understand why things are the way they are, and it's hard to explain it to her."
"Well, hopefully, she understands soon," Kinvara glanced back to where Lyaella was standing at the beginning of the dock with Grey Worm, "The Three-Headed-Dragon cannot focus on war when two of its heads are bickering."
"I'm sure they'll learn to love each other eventually," Jon replied with mild confidence.
"Let me give you some advice," Kinvara turned back and could see that both Jon and Daenerys had an uncertain look on their face, "A sister not a priestess," She smiled and chuckled softly to herself before she spoke, "Maybe they feel you both don't understand, but her Aunt's might."
On the other side of the dock where she can't hear her parents, Lyaella and Grey Worm are watching their conversation with Kinvara. Lyaella is standing there, her eyes longingly looking towards the sea. As a child who traveled a lot as a babe, being stationary now for so long made her feel anxious. It was clear Lyaella just wanted to get away, "Lord Grey, do you go on the ships often?"
Grey Worm nodded, smiling softly as he replied to her. Lyaella had always addressed him with such kindness and felt that his full name wasn't a good representation of who he was. Yes, Grey Worm was part of the Unsullied, but to Lyaella and the other children he was just a Lord, advisor and trusted council member for her mothers' court, "Yes, Princess."
"Do you go out to sea often?" Lyaella asked, turning her head to face him.
"I do," Grey Worm replied as he glanced at the princess.
Lyaella smiled at the thought of being at sea, "Where do you go?"
"Meereen, Volantis, Bravos," He told her as he looked back out to the ships docked in the port, "Unsullied take trade to Essos for your mother, bring back goods not found in the North."
Lyaella looked out to the docks with him, admiring the boats, "Can you take me to Essos one day?"
"Lyaella is Princess of Snowhome, the princess must stay here." Grey Worm replied.
"I don't want to stay here anymore," Lyaella told him frustratedly as she turned her head back to face Grey Worm, "I want to go somewhere else… somewhere warm."
"Queen Daenerys gave up many things to come West," Grey Worm's voice got somber and calm as explained himself to Lyaella, "People she love gone so we can live in peace. People I love gone. Nothing good in the East, just bad memories."
To the sound of footsteps approaching them, Lyaella looked back down the dock to see her parent's heading back. She sighed, knowing her time by the sea was over, "But I won't know until I see it for myself,"
As Jon Daenerys walks over to Lyaella they could see her face saddened at the sight of their arrival. Both of them tried hard to not let it affect them, Daenerys walking over to Lyaella and putting her hand on her shoulder, "Ready to go home, my love?"
Lyaella shrugged, walking away without a word. The three of them watched as Lyaella headed back to the stable, Jon putting his hands on Daenerys to calm her broken heart. It was rough to see their once happy little girl so lost in the world.
"Princess is sad…" Grey Worm's voice broke the silence, turning towards Jon and Daenerys.
Jon turned to face him, holding his hurting wife a little closer as she sighed, "We know."
Once they were back in Snowhome, Jon took Kinvara's advice and sent for his sisters begging them for their assistance with his daughters. A little over two months after his messengers were sent, Sansa and Arya both arrived in Snowhome. Sansa comes accompanied by a couple of her most trusted Bannermen. Arya sailed in with some of her husbands' men, brings along her boys: little Robbert, who is a year younger than Ned, and Rodrick, her youngest no more than four who was named after their grandfather. For the next month, his two sisters try hard to get the girls to get along but fail. Whether it was training, of crafts, skills or just taking walks beside each other, it was clear that Lyaella wanted nothing to do with Valyria.
Feeling like there was nothing else they could do to help resolve these hard feelings that Lyaella had for her sister, Sansa and Arya decided it was time to stop trying to force a relationship between the girls. The night before his sisters were going to head home, Jon got the chance to sit with both of them alone.
They sat together with drinks in their hands, retelling stories and memories of their childhood. Arya was playing with her cup, smiling as she stared into it, "Do you remember what we were like as children?"
"Yes, awful," Jon joked making his sister's chuckle, "You were always getting into fights with Sansa."
Arya laughed as took a drink from her cup, "She wasn't very nice to you either."
"I was absolutely awful to the both of you," Sansa replied as she looked between them, "I was the worst when we were children."
"It wasn't just you, I was just as bad. I remember a time where we couldn't stand the look of each other," Arya smiled softly as she thought back to her childhood, visions of Winterfell and her family filling her head, "All it took was one word out of your mouth and I wanted to strangle you."
"I hated you just as much, and for what?... Because we were different?" Sansa scoffed at her youthful ignorance and sipped her wine, 'No wonder Father always looked like he wanted to throw us in a cell until we could get along."
"He would be proud to see us now, all of us getting along," Jon told his sister's, "I'm sure this wasn't the way he expected things to be, but in the end, it all worked out.'
"It took a few years without each other around, but eventually we grew to realize just how badly we did love one another," Sansa looked Arya's way and smiled, her sister smiling back at her, "I think all of us needed all those things to happen, so we could grow up. Now Arya my best friend," Something about what Sansa just said set off an alarm in her mind, and just like that she was hit with an idea, "Maybe what Lyaella needs is time to miss her sister."
Jon looked Sansa way with a bit of confusion, "What do you mean?"
"Let me bring Lyaella back to Winterfell with me," Sansa asked him with a smile on her face, her question throwing Jon for a whim, "Maybe time away will give her a new sense of appreciation for her family."
"Bran wants my family dead, Sansa, I'm not sure that's a wise idea," Jon replied with a stern face but an anxious voice.
"Your children are just as much Starks as they are Targaryens," Sansa explained to him, reaching out to grab his hand, "While they are in my Kingdom, staying in my home, they will be safe."
"You said Kinvara told you they need to get along, this might be the kick Lyaella needs," Arya added in, siding with her sister, "And what she told you is true, we can't let them take as much time as we did to all get along. We are all running on borrowed time."
Jon sighed heavy, looking between his sisters as he tried to think over Sansa's offer, "I don't know…"
"Jon, my love for my family; for my nieces and nephew, outweigh my love for anything else in this world," Sansa explained to him, "They will be safe, on my life I promise you I would never let any harm come to them while they are in my walls."
"I'd have to talk to Daenerys," Jon replied, not willing to throw away a chance that might actually work in his favor, "At this point, I think I'm willing to try anything,"
"Of course," Sansa smiles, "I don't leave until tomorrow so you have some time."
Jon takes a long pause to collect his thoughts, his mind fading back to a time long before he was King. Before his sisters were Queens or Princesses, and long before any of them had ever ventured away from the comfort of Winterfell's walls, "You know," Jon told his sisters as he stared down at the table, "Sometimes I find myself thinking about everything we've been through and every so often... I find myself thinking about your mother, of Lady Catelyn."
"Our Mother?" Arya asked confused as she glanced between Sansa and Jon, "What about her?"
"Catelyn Stark died thinking I was Father's bastard child," Jon told them bluntly, "And that wasn't the case. We know who I really am now, and sometimes I wish she would've known too."
"I'm sure she knows now, Jon," Sansa told him softly, "I'm sure she understands now why Father did what he did."
"Do you ever wonder what it would have been like," Jon asked them, "Had everything had been different? Had we always know, and I was raised to be someone else. If we lived in a world where Roberts Rebellion had never happened..."
"No," Arya quickly answered with a smile on her face, "Because everything we went through lead us to this moment. I won't have changed any of it, especially know what we got out of it in the end."
Sansa took a moment, treading lightly before she spoke her next words, "Would you have killed Daenerys... if you knew that your life would end up like this?"
"Would I do it... If I knew I'd get her back, and we'd get all of this? This home… our children?" Jon chuckled breathlessly, half-smiling into his cup as he replied, "As long as I knew this would always be my future… than yes. Every time."
"You want to send our oldest daughter South?" Daenerys growled as they argued in their bedroom, her defenses fully up after Jon explained to her Sansa's plan to get their daughter to find love for her sister, "Do you realize how dangerous that sounds?"
"Sansa loves her nieces and nephews," Jon tried his best to keep the situation calm, staying at a distance from his wife, "you know she wouldn't let anything happen to Lyaella."
"There has to be a better way," Daenerys retorted angerly.
"Dany, there isn't," Jon told her as Daenerys turned away, staring into the fire. Slowly Jon approached her, trying not to upset his Dragon Queen any further, "The Night King lives; Daenerys, and he's coming for our children. Whether we are here, or Winterfell. Even if we go East. The Long Night will return and people we love will die if we don't make our daughters get along."
"They are our children, Jon," Her voice grew soft and sad, "How do I not worry? How do I just my children run off knowing I won't be there to protect them?"
"We can't hide them forever, m blood. All we can do is make sure they are ready for what's to come," Jon turned Daenerys around slowly. He could see her eyes started to get tearful at the thought of their children in danger, "We have to prepare them for the worst. You and I won't always be around to protect them, that's why we've been training them to fight since they were old enough to pick up a sword."
"Our childhoods were bad enough; as well as their Arya's and Sansa's," Daenerys told him as she stared down and away from her husband, "I didn't want our children to go through what we went through."
"I don't think that's up to us anymore, my blood," Jon lifted her head to look at him, "We've done all we can, but now it's time for children to experience new things. Let it be now, while we still have somewhere safe to send them."
Daenerys takes a moment to think about it, covering her face with her hands as she inhales and exhales with a heavy heart. After a few moments of thinking over what Jon had told her, Daenerys finally gives in, "We aren't sending her alone, someone is going with her. Whether it's Davos or Grey Worm..."
"If it eases things for you, my love, then I'm sure that'll be more than fine with Sansa," Jon pulled Daenerys closer, feeling her grip his shirt tightly as she tried to calm herself, "We have to put our faith in the family we have left, we have no other choice. I can't promise you we won't make the same mistakes as our families did, but I swear with everything I have that their futures will not be like ours pasts... they can't be."