Jon stared at Daisy. "But why didn't you just find a shepherd or one of the stable masters? They help animals birth all the time?"
"Why didn't…" Daisy trailed off. "Shit." She lightly whacked him. "If someone hadn't been in the mines that'd have been good to hear."
He laughed, his eyes crinkling as he enjoyed watching the huff his friend was in. "You're glad you helped though."
"Yeah, yeah I am." Daisy had a sort of affectionate glow to her. "So, should I ask why you have a pigeon on your head?"
Jon reached up, knocking the pigeon off. "I've been trying to warg into him." His eyes narrowed as he watched the dumb bird circle around the room. "No success, but it likes me now?"
"You've been trying to warg into a pigeon?" Daisy's brow rose in disbelief.
He shifted awkwardly. "Well, you asked I learn to control it." Jon winced faintly at the pigeon knocking over the cups on the side table. "It's not going well."
Daisy shot forward, hugging him so tightly that it was hard to breathe.
He raised his arms and wrapped them around her and hugged her back. Jon shot a look at the pigeon, maybe he hated it a little less. He pulled back, a smile on his face. Gods, he felt actual hope these days. Real hope. "So, avoiding the mines again?"
"You don't want me in a mine dude." Daisy rocked back on her heels. She rolled her eyes. "I make the ground shake, whole name Quake and all that. Being in a cave sounds like a real bad idea. Def didn't go well last time I went into one."
Jon cringed at the thought of what the ground shaking would do to a cave. "Ah…well, you don't tell Sansa I considered asking someone named Quake into a cave, and I won't tell her you forgot shepards can help with birth."
"Deal." Daisy agreed. "So, any plans that are political?"
He nodded, letting himself fall more serious. "Aye, we found drawings in the caves done by the Children of the Forrest of the Wights."
"And you're going to show them to Dany to try and prove the Dead are real?" Daisy sighed. "She believes they're real, she just doesn't feel the threat yet."
His brow furrowed as he mulled over her words. "How do I convince her to fight for us?"
"You offer her what she wants as well." Daisy patted his bicep, before stepping away from him to shuffle through the letters he'd been writing.
Jon sighed, he knew what that meant. Offer a marriage, a formal alliance. He looked at her. "It's Dany now?"
"We bonded." Daisy winked at him. "So, letter for Sansa finished?"
He ran his hand through his hair. "I'll have it done before you leave tonight." Jon looked pointedly at her hair. "What are you going to do about your hair before Sansa sees it?"
/
Sansa cut into her mid-day meal, it was goat…yet again. She was neatly not thinking about why that was. Instead, she focused on her three–Three!–siblings. It was worth having private family meals at least once every other day, even if her court would prefer she sit with them at every meal. But with how the world had changed all of them, it felt necessary to have this time, just them. She paused as she saw Rickon draw out a dagger to try and hack his rather tough cut of goat into smaller pieces. It was valyrian steel. "Where did you get that dagger?"
"Lord Baelish gave it to me." Rickon's eyes flicked to the dagger, hesitantly pulling it back as if afraid she'd snatch it from him. "It's so I can protect Bran, it's the knife the cutthroat was going to use on him."
Arya reached out lightly, plucking it from his hand, spinning it easily. "Nice blade." Her sharp grey eyes turned to Sansa. "Why do you suddenly look like you want to use it to stab Lord Baelish?"
"Lord Baelish never gives anything for free. What did he ask in return Rickon? Exactly." She refused to panic yet. But she would not let that man get his claws into her baby brother. Her teeth near ached with the desire to snarl. She should have known better. She did know better.
Rickon leaned back in his chair. "He thought I should have it, he didn't need it. Mother brought it to King's Landing to show Father. Lord Baelish thought it should be in with me so I could protect Bran with it."
"That's all he said?" Sansa asked carefully. Her fingers were turning white from where she was gripping her fork and knife. "You're sure?"
He nodded. "Yeah, he doesn't talk to me really?"
"It's the only time he's approached you directly?" Sansa ignored the stillness Arya was radiating, the danger in that.
Rickon shook his head. "No, he only ever looks at me sometimes."
"What is going on sister?" Arya's voice was smooth in a way that screamed danger.
Sansa breathed out, letting her heart slow, and her mind calm. "Lord Baelish is one of the most dangerous men in all the Seven Kingdoms. He does nothing without cause or without expecting something in return. There will come a day when he will expect something for that gift, either from you directly, or a result from which he will profit from. If there is one person none of us, not one of us should trust it is Petyr Baelish."
"Do I give it back?" Rickon asked, but his face was serious.
She wanted to tell him yes. But it was never that simple with Baelish. Especially with Baelish's Vale army only days away. How to explain how dangerous this was? The political game Rickon had just accidentally allowed himself to be drawn into. Because his name, his position as her heir, it all made him a player, and not even the North could protect him from that.
"He turns family against each other." Bran said suddenly, his voice still possessing that disturbing emptiness. "It's what he did to mother and Aunt Lyssa." He blinked, his near cold gaze sweeping them. "He did it to us and the Lannisters."
Sansa's blood went cold at those words. "Bran, what did he do to us and the Lannisters?"
Bran blinked slowly. "He had Aunt Lyssa poison Jon Arryn. Told mother that that dagger was Tyrion Lannisters."
"He started the war." Sansa had been in King's Landing, she knew enough of how everything had unfolded. But if he was that involved…. "He betrayed father to the Lannisters then?"
"Yes." Bran answered.
Arya's chair screeched across the floor as she was on her feet, her jaw so tight it looked like it might snap.
"Stop!" Sansa dropped her hand on Rickon's shoulder keeping her brother who was audibly making a sound that could only be a growl. "Arya, stop."
Arya looked at her with sheer fury and disdain. "I'll kill him."
"Not now." Sansa forced down her revulsion as the events of King's Landing in her memories changed shape. "His army will be on our doorstep in days. You can't kill him."
There was a flicker as Arya's gaze remained riveted to her. "Not now?"
"I need him, we need him to survive this." Sansa swallowed, her fingers tightening their hold on Rickon's shoulder as she felt his fury and displeasure half radiating from him. "But men die in war." She held Arya's gaze. "Accidents happen in war. But if you kill him now we could lose an army that we must have."
Arya seemed to settle slightly, but she was still dangerous. "Fine, he can't be murdered now. But you're Queen. Put him on trial."
"With what evidence? Bran's word? It'd be murder done on the weight of my will. It'd make us no better than the Mad King in the eyes of our enemies. We cannot lose respect or we'll stand even further alone than we already are." Sansa willed her sister to understand. "He cannot be seen to die at our hands."
The tension eased further as Arya listened. "But if something were to happen to him in war, his name just one of hundreds lost…"
"Then who could blame us?" Sansa gave her sister a faint nod. "But until then I need him breathing."
Rickon shifted, outrage plain on his features. "That's not enough!"
"He has a point. You want us to do nothing until it's convenient to kill him?" Arya raised a brow, the hostility had gone, however.
Sansa released Rickon's shoulder, sure he wouldn't try and run from the room. "Hardly, he's plotting and we need to ensure he fails. And that his plans, and he always has many, don't harm us, or our people. Then, and only then I pretend I don't know you're going to slit his throat. We will put down every last one of the monsters who harmed our family. We will kill them all, but on our terms, after we've bled them for everything they can give us." And she would rip every piece of power from Baelish's hands for this.
"Well, alright then." Arya tipped her head. "So what's first?"
Rickon slammed the dagger onto the table. "Anything." His teeth showed as he glared at the dagger like it was poison itself.
Sansa breathed out, forcing herself to calm, her eyes snapping shut. The violent storm of fury she felt would do them no good. Her outrage at not knowing that he'd been playing her family's strings so early. She'd been so young and isolated at the start. And so stupid. It didn't matter though. She'd known what he was since that ship to the Vale. That hadn't changed. She opened her eyes. "He can't know we are against him. I'd been planning on having him killed in the war anyways. He was too dangerous to leave alive, not when I know what he wants."
"He wants power." Rickon said slowly.
She nodded. "He wants the Iron Throne, and marrying me gives him two, possibly three of the seven kingdoms and an army large enough to take the rest come summer." Sansa refused to show her disgust at the next part. "And he loved mother, he never forgave House Stark for stealing her from him."
"He can't have you." Arya and Rickon said at the same time.
Sansa tipped her chin upwards. "No. But first, we need to know everything he has in play."
Sansa was beyond relieved that the public evening meal in the great hall was almost certainly not going to be as emotionally exhausting as her private mid-day meal had been. But she felt deep satisfaction at what had come of that afternoon. Rickon was sworn to silence, and only keeping an eye out through the eyes of animals if he noticed Baelish leaving Winterfell itself. It would keep him safe. Arya…well Arya seemed more settled in her own skin with a mission to focus on. Who knew murder was such a good bonding activity? She'd have suggested it days ago if she'd known.
She was trying to pretend that the goat, yet again, wasn't turning her stomach. But the hall was warm with various lords and ladies, men at arms, and even servants filling the room. It wasn't a feast, or formal. Just food, conversation, a minstrel strumming at something in one corner. A sign of a settled court. She was brought out of her thoughts by the high clear words of Lyarra Karstark as she sat at the table just below the head table and immediately in front of Fitz.
"How'd you meet her Holiness?" Lyarra looked at the confused, and rather quiet recently, man. "It's only I don't know, but it must be a wonderful adventure."
Fitz opened and then shut his mouth. He clearly didn't have the faintest clue about what to do about a young girl demanding information from him. "Uh…"
"I would wager you're right." Greatjon boomed, drawing the attention of the rest of the room. "Come now, don't leave us waiting all night."
Fitz set his fork down, a look on his face that Sansa hadn't seen before…it might have been something like happiness. "Alright, it uh…you have to understand she thought she was human then, we wouldn't realize she was anything else for months so just…she was just Skye then, no last n-name." His lips turned up at the last bit.
He twitched slightly and rubbed at the back of his head. "It was our first mission with SHIELD. Jemma and I h-had only just finished er…I guess getting our maester's chains I guess? We were so young then…" Fitz trailed off before seeming to shake himself out of it. "Our commanding officer was Coulson, then May and Ward were the t-two knights. There was a lead about a hacker with the Rising Tide c-connected to an attempt to make, well, the elixir of the gods. The criminal hacker turned out to be Skye. So er...first time I met her she was in a black hood and chains after she got caught."
Sansa was mostly amused as she listened. Of course, a younger, believing herself to be human, and untrained in combat Daisy, would decide the best way to escape a divinely powerful man; was to kick the meanest looking man in the room in the dick and call him a 'little bitch' to start a street fight. It was…it didn't surprise her at all. It was like punching the biggest man she could find in any room was hardwired into her or something.
Though, hearing what the golden elixir, or centipede serum, or whatever it was, caused madness and then death similar to drinking wildfyre was disturbing. Additionally, she knew enough to realize this younger version of Skye had gotten caught on purpose. She remembered Daisy's guilt about joining SHIELD initially as a traitor. Which meant human Daisy clearly hadn't had a single survival instinct in her entire being as a human. Not that she really did now.
Arya leaned towards her. "I think I'll like your lover."
"And to think, you haven't even seen her punch an Umber in the face yet." Sansa took another bite of her supper.
/
Daenerys walked beside Missandei. "How is Tiffany?"
"She is well, her husband and her are still arguing on a name for the baby." Missandei smiled. "Tiffany is quite set on naming her Dany, and her husband is convinced they must name the baby Daisy."
She huffed, she could see Tiffany doing such a thing. It was touching to hear all the same. "What are they calling the poor babe in the meantime?"
"Dee." Missandei replied with an amused curl to her lips.
Dany laughed at that. "That poor girl will be called Dee all her life won't she?"
"Almost certainly." Missandei's voice had repressed laughter in it. "Her Holiness made it worse with her gift I think."
She looked at her friend as they continued to walk. "What did Daisy give them?"
"A mobile of glass dragons to hang above Dee's cradle. I believe she melted sand into glass and shaped it herself." Missandei was clearly impressed. "It's lovely."
Dany wondered if Daisy or the small family it had been gifted to had the faintest clue what such a gift was worth? She rather doubted it. "Do you believe there will be enough time I might visit Tiffany tonight?"
"If your time with Prince Jon does not take overlong, your Grace." Missandei paused as they came out through the gates, the vastness of the ocean before them. "Still no word from the Unsullied."
Dany reached out taking her friend's hand and squeezing it briefly before releasing her. "Soon. He will come back to you."
"He'd better." Missandei replied with some feeling.
She looked at her friend amused. "What happened?" It would seem her friend's romance with Grey Worm was advancing well then.
"Many things." Missandei replied, her voice full of implication.
Dany raised a brow, her smile growing. She was genuinely pleased for her friend and advisor. "Many things?" Her tone was light.
A throat cleared from the bottom of the stairs. A clearly embarrassed-looking Jon Stark waiting for them. Between the smear of dirt across one cheek and the pink flush to his cheeks, he'd clearly heard the last bit of that. "Your Grace."
"You will have to tell me everything later, it wouldn't do to make our guest too uncomfortable." She gave a last fond look to Missandei before making her way down the stairs to where Jon was waiting. "I hope we haven't left you waiting long, your Highness."
He gave an amused huff, his embarrassment fading. "Not at all, it's good to get some fresh air." His good humor suited him.
"I'm surprised Daisy isn't with you?" Dany replied as she fell into step beside him.
He actually laughed at that. "As she just recently reminded me, one of her names is Quake. Not that I think she'd lose control and cause a cave-in. Best not risk it though."
"Understandable." Dany walked across the sand hardened from the tide with long steps. "I presume you did not ask for me to come here to simply see your mining operations?"
He nodded. "No, I did not. I probably should have brought you here before we started hacking it to bits." Jon gave a slight shrug. "But we found something."
"Which you won't tell me till we reach it." Dany considered the man. He seemed every bit as honorable and dependable as had been reported. She would not soon forget he'd been willing to throw himself into dragonfire for a woman who was only a friend.
Jon's eyes were crinkled at the sides. "It's better to see for yourself first."
"And if I was your sister would you be explaining or showing first?" She asked.
He chuckled a low and pleasant sound. "If you were my sister I'd be up to my eyes in discussions of food storage, trade, and tax laws by now. To be honest I understand about half of what she talks about."
"So you would have told her to distract her from politics?" Dany wondered what it would have been like if her brothers had been good men?
Jon nodded. "Aye, no doubt when you are introduced you'll find her a better conversationalist."
"And you plan for us to be introduced?" Dany prodded, curious what he'd say.
Jon's solemn grey eyes locked on hers with all the sincerity contained within him. "I would have us be allies, your Grace."
She fell silent, that he meant it wasn't in question. What he wanted was clear, it was how far he would go that was in question. And she was near certain she knew that as well. Was she willing to accept that however? "You wished to show me something."
"Of course." He looked away then, taking a torch from one of his men, and then led them into the cave they were mining from.
Dany followed one of her Dothraki guards taking a torch and standing closer to light the way.
The cave was entirely dragonglass. Torchlight seemed to flicker within the glass itself as it reflected the light. The cave was full of Northerns working at, as Jon had said, hacking it to pieces. As the men spotted her they gave short bows, before moving to get water. Clearly, Jon had ordered them to cease work once she arrived. What struck her most was the thrum of good cheer. No one should be this pleased to be hacking rock in a cave.
As they walked deeper into the caves the walls narrowed till they could only move through the tunnel one at a time. Finally, they came to where it widened again.
Dany stared at the symbols carved into the rock as Jon lit the braziers, lighting up the whole section of the cave.
His voice was deep with the weight of what this was as he spoke. "The Children of the Forest made these."
"When?" She reached out touching a spiral in the rock. These were ancient, truly and utterly. Awe curled in her gut, similar to what she'd felt when she first beheld her dragon eggs.
Jon raised his torch, leading her still deeper. "A long time ago."
"They were right here, standing where we're standing. Before there were Targaryens or Starks or Lannisters." This place felt ancient. "Maybe even before there were men."
"No." He held his torch showing images of the small diminutive forms of the Children standing near the larger forms of men carved into the rock. "They were here together, the Children and the First Men."
Her eyes refused to tear away from the images. "Doing what? Fighting each other?" It didn't look like it, but the images were crude and simple.
"They fought together against their common enemy." There was a thrum of passion in Jon as he spoke, showing more of the wall. The newly illuminated figures had blue eyes, towering over the other figures. "Despite their differences, despite their suspicions. Together. We need to do the same if we're going to survive. Because the enemy is real. It's always been real."
Dany looked at him, finally tearing her gaze away from the proof his army of the Dead was real. Not that she'd had hope it wasn't. "And you say you cannot defeat them without my armies and my dragons?"
"I don't know." Jon for all the determination written in every line looked lost. "We will fight to our deaths if necessary, and it may not be enough."
She wondered at the dogged determination and rigid code these Northerns all seemed to have. But she could not ruin herself and her armies for a people who would be her enemies. "I believe you Jon Stark. But I cannot fight for a Queen who would supplant me."
"Sansa doesn't want the iron throne." He swallowed. "We don't want it."
Dany was compelled, but her men, her dream, and her would-be people deserved more. "I need more than your word."
Jon ran a hand through his hair, but he nodded. "Then permit us to wed, that our two kingdoms could be bound as family."
Her heart thudded at that, he'd done it then. For better or worse, he'd thrown his gauntlet down. She was prevented from replying by a Stark man at arms tripping into the room and nearly being gutted by her Dothraki guard.
The man stumbled back, hands raised in surrender. "Ravens for the Dragon Queen!"