Jon
There was much disagreement with the Northern Lords after Jon told them he would be traveling to Dragonstone. He did his best to make them understand why he would go, but they didn't seem to care. They were stubborn and it made Jon upset inside. He never saw them act that way at his father. Robb had faced the same doubts as King in the North. But the circumstances were opposite. Robb was ridiculed for not returning North to defend it from Ironborn and Jon was being challenged for leaving to seek allies to help them protect the North from the Dead.
In a way, he felt the same way about the south as they did, but more in the sense that his attention had to be focused in the North. It would be the first of all the Seven Kingdoms to be attacked by the White Walkers if they found a way through the Wall. The North was always the first to suffer the hardships of what came beyond while the rest of the kingdoms were squabbling over petty things. But none of that would matter nor would who ruled over the other when the dead come.
Jon had spent some time whenever he got the chance to mentally prepare himself. It wasn't the journey, it was the woman he would be going to meet. Maester Aemon never said anything about his niece to him, but he had talked about her to Sam. And then he heard much about her from Grenn as well before he was killed.
From all he was told, Daenerys sounded like a good woman. She put an end to slavery in Slaver's Bay, or as it was now called the Bay of Dragons and was loved by her people when she ruled. But then there were the parts that made him nervous. She commanded an army of two mighty factions and three grown dragons that could wipe them out in a day. And Daenerys did not take kindly to rebels, which in technical terms is what Jon and the men of the North were. But if he could convince her to join them in the fight that mattered, then it might just be enough.
Jon was sitting next to Rickon, who was confined to his bed, looking over one of the books left by Maester Wolkan. His brother was finally well enough that he could start walking, but he was bedridden and recovering from an accident that hurt his wound greatly. Ghost was lying down at the foot of the bed.
"You been reading enough?" Jon asked as he looked over the spine of the book at the title, 'Foundations of Grammar'
"I feel like I've been reading more than any maester who ever lived," Rickon said a disappointed look.
"I have a friend who would greatly prove you and any maester who ever lived wrong. He's studying at the Citadel right now and it wouldn't surprise me if he's read everything in the whole library by now."
"It's not that I hate reading, it's just the books are about saying things proper… properly."
"Don't worry. You'll get to all the tales of knights and dragons later. Took me till I was eight until Maester Luwin let Robb and I read those kinds of books."
"I want to read about the legends of the giants and the Children of the Forest. I want to know more about what used to be north of the Wall. The things that everyone thought just to be stories made to scare us. I want to know how many of them aren't just that."
His pursuit for that kind of knowledge did impress Jon. he hardly recognized his brother at times. He wasn't a little boy that played with him and their brothers and their direwolves. His time running from Ironborn and Boltons had hardened him like the men of the North. In a way, it was tragic that it was happening to him so early.
Jon set the book down and folded his hands. "I'm not sure how long I'll be gone for, but I promise you that I will return."
"I wish you wouldn't leave. Maester Luwin once told me and Bran that Starks never fair well when they travel south. He was right, of course."
Jon looked to his brother, seeing the worry he had. "Then it's a good thing I'm a bastard."
"We have the same father which makes you a Stark by blood." Rickon looked at the ground momentarily, as if thinking on something. "When father died, did my mother stop being a Stark?"
Jon shook his head.
"Then she was wrong to go south too."
As a bastard of another woman, Jon had always done his best to not be a problem for Lady Catelyn. She always looked at him with hatred and he never had any desire to be in her good graces, but still, it was an evil way that she had to die. She didn't deserve that and she didn't deserve to be taken from her children.
"Will you bring Ghost with you?" Rickon asked. Ghost's head rose up when he heard his name.
"If I brought him with me, who would be here to protect you?"
Rickon looked discouraged when Jon asked him that. "Osha thought she could protect me when the Umbers turned on us. Now she's dead. I don't want you to die."
Jon never met the Wildling named Osha, he was only told about her in previous visits to Rickon. "I'm sorry about what happened to her and Shaggydog, but Ramsay is dead. The Bolton men were all prepared to kill you, but now they're gone, and the Stark men are all prepared to protect you just as much as Ghost will." Jon stood up and walked to the door. He retrieved something he left just outside the room as a surprise. He returned to Rickon's side and began to unwrap the cloth that concealed his gift. "And soon enough, they won't have to."
Jon unveiled the object and revealed couldn't hold back his joy when he saw the wonder in Rickon's eyes when his brother beheld a longsword in a black and brown scabbard. The top half of the scabbard was wrapped in dark brown leather straps above the black covering. On the bottom half was the Stark Direwolf sigil stamped into the black leather. The design of the sword was the same as their father's broadsword. "I gave Arya her first sword before I left for Castle Black, and now I'm giving you your first sword before I leave for Dragonstone." Jon held the handle towards Rickon right arm, waiting for him to grab it.
Rickon's fingers wrapped around the wood of the handle and he pulled the blade out of the scabbard, Jon pulling backward to make it easier for him. He could see it was very heavy for Rickon to hold but he was able to raise it up in front of him. The sword was nearly identical from what Jon remembered. The only difference was the rise on the hilt wasn't as long. "It's amazing." Rickon kept looking at the sword in wonder and amazement.
"I know you're not healed enough to wield it yet, but with your size and enough practice, you'll be swinging it in no time." Jon held the scabbard out to Rickon as the blade was returned to the scabbard. Jon placed the sword up against Rickon's bedpost and knelt down next to his bed near him. "We will survive the war to come, little brother." Jon carefully embraced his brother being cautious of his injury. He held him for a long moment before releasing him and giving his little brother and his direwolf one last smile before he left the room.
He had less than an hour before he was going to leave, but there were still others he had to see first.
The isolation of the crypts was a bit welcoming, strangely enough. As a King now, Jon rarely had moments to himself these days. But down where it was silent with no one but himself to utter a sound it felt peaceful.
He stood before the crypt that was made for Robb. It didn't look like him. It looked older and his beard was thicker than what Jon remembered about him. Though in the three years before his death, Robb would have changed enough. Unlike the other statues of the previous Lords of Winterfell, Robb did not have an Iron copy of Ice. He carried no sword. Only his direwolf, Greywing, stood with him.
Jon went to the statue next to Robb's and looked upon the image of their father. This one didn't look like right either. Father's skin was not a smooth look as the stone made it look and the statue was empty of emotion. He caught a glimpse of his Aunt Lyanna's statue. The candles lit around her and the shadows made it so that hers was the only one to have any sort of emotion behind the eyes of stone. For a moment Jon felt as if the statue was watching him.
'Am I doing the right thing?' Jon asked in thought to the statue, hoping that his father's ghost might hear him. 'Am I making the right choice?' The last time he was faced in a situation like this, the choice he made got him killed. But still, he was the King and he would do what he believed to be best for his people. He just hoped that his father would guide him through it.
He stood there with longing for his family to be back with him, to help him where Sansa and Ser Davos couldn't.
Jon had just left the crypts after his exchange with Littlefinger. He was in a small fit of anger but it disappeared when all of the sudden Ygris and Lyarras flew down into the courtyard he was in, the last ones he meant to see before leaving. The people around them backed away and the horses began to fuss, still not used to their presence. Jon, however, was unfazed and gladdened at them as the two dragons approached him. He seemed to calm down when he saw them and began to pet at their heads. He knelt down to them and they seemed to give him questioning eyes. "I promised you two that I wouldn't abandon you ever again, but I can't bring you with me. I'm not sure how you would react around other dragons, but the ones I'm going to see are near ten times the size of you. So instead I need you two to do something important for me." They both screeched quietly as if asking him what. "Keep my family safe." Jon stood up and his dragons both returned to the sky.
By this time, Davos and his guards were waiting for him to leave Winterfell with them. Before Jon mounted his horse, he was stopped by somebody calling out to him. "You really are your father's son." The voice sounded much like Mance Rayder's, but not as old.
Jon turned around and saw an older lord approaching him. He had short brown hair and a thick beard that was starting to gray. He wore dark orange leathers underneath his heavy brown cloak. At the base of his neck was a lizard-lion of darkened iron, the lord's sigil. "Lord Howland of House Reed."
"King Jon Snow of House Stark, or have you chosen to have your own name now that you're the Lord of the Dreadfort?"
"I'll decide that if we win the war and still breathe to care for such things," Jon recalled the first words Lord Reed said to him. "If I may ask, how is being with my dragons remind you of Ned Stark?"
Lord Reed chuckled and stepped closer to Jon "I can tell you don't want to leave Winterfell. You don't want to leave the North and neither do the other lords want you to. So why are you going?"
"Because I have to."
"No, you don't, you're the King in the North, you can choose whether or not to stay or to go, so why are you going?"
Lord Reed was really challenging Jon, just like when Mance Rayder asked why he wanted to be part of the Free Folk. "We've already lost so many lives in the last war. The Battle of the Bastards took the lives of a great part of the North's remaining fighting strength. If we do win the war by ourselves, by some sheer miracle of a chance, we can't afford to face an army just as powerful from the south. I'm tired of all the death, Lord Reed. I'm tired of all the fighting people do for a fucking chair of swords. I'm going down to Dragonstone to make sure that won't happen. Because it's the right thing to do and that's all the reason I need."
Lord Reed seemed impressed with his answer. "The other lords think your heading to your death, but I feel we'll be surprised."
Jon was leaving with the knowledge that this could be the last time he sets foot in Winterfell. But he needed to do this, if not for him, for them. "I hope I am as well."
Lord Reed smiled when Jon spoke to him. "It's been too long since I saw you last. To see what you have become is amazing."
Jon tilted his head to Lord Reed. "Forgive me, my lord, but I can't recall if we have ever met at all."
"The first day I met you was also the day Ned Stark met you. And now here you are, a King of direwolves and dragons." Lord Reed looked up at the dragons circling overhead when he said that. He looked back at Jon, still having a smile on his face. "Your mother would have been proud of you."
This froze Jon down to his bones. Did Lord Howland know her? Did he ever meet her or see her? He then realized what he just said, 'would have'. "She's dead?" Jon asked, looking to the ground.
The smile fell from Lord Howland's face. "She died shortly after you were born. I never saw her when she did, but I did know her."
Jon had so many questions, but he turned his gaze to Ser Davos and saw him waiting for him. Jon couldn't help but laugh a little. He looked up at Lord Howland returning a smile. "I'm afraid if I might never leave if we continued to talk. There are so many things I want to know, but I need to go now."
Lord Howland chuckled and placed an arm on Jon's shoulder. "The next we see each other, we'll talk about your mother."
Jon felt a bit scared when he heard that. Those were the last words his father said to him. "I look forward to it, my lord."
Lord Reed removed his arm and bowed his head. "As do I, my King."
Jon mounted his horse and made his way to the gate. Before he left, he could see Sansa watching from a balcony above him. He waved his hand to her and she waved back as he and his men galloped out of Winterfell.
The journey to White Harbor was cold and dreary. When Jon was a boy, the snows that fell over Winterfell made him and his siblings happy. They would spend hours playing in the snow each day. But now they had all grown up. Instead of wanting to play in the snow, Jon wanted to survive it. The first night that came, Jon and his company had made it to Castle Cerwyn where they would spend the night before continuing tomorrow at first light. If their horses weren't bred in the North, it would have taken them days longer to reach the White Harbor than they would be.
Jon was in the castle's great hall, eating venison with Davos. He was in the middle of chewing a piece of his food when he was interrupted by the Onion Knight. "Who was the lord you spoke to before we left?"
Jon could tell that Davos was only asking because he had nothing else to do. He swallowed his food before answering "Lord Howland of House Reed."
"What was he talking to you about? Don't go to your death?"
"Actually, I think he was saying the opposite."
Davos brought a mug full of ale to his lips and took a long drink. He brought the mug down and wiped his beard with his sleeve. "First lord I know of that wants you to meet the Dragon Queen."
"I don't think he wanted me to go, I feel like he knew I had to."
"I noticed you seemed a bit distraught at something he said."
Jon didn't answer immediately. He grabbed his own ale and took a very long swig of it. He practically slammed his mug on the table when he finished. "I'll tell you when we get to Dragonstone."
