AN: Sorry this is late. Just started my first semester of grad school. Yay reading assignments.
Every Loyalty
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Chapter VIII:
A Fool's Errand
She was losing patience with him, Tyrion was sure. The late hour passed by as the remnants of their conversation fell between them.
I have something to ask of you.
"Will you try or won't you?" she said, finally.
His brows furrowed. "Why risk making yourself look suspicious for such a simple matter?"
"This is no one's business but my own," Larisa snapped.
She was defensive, Tyrion noted. Why?
"I'm only saying, Jon Snow would understand."
"I don't care what he'd understand…only that he need not see any more of my weakness."
He found that interesting, especially that she wasn't meeting his gaze.
"If he has allowed you to come here, I dare say he doesn't think you weak."
She didn't answer him, but he thought her silence was more telling than her heated words.
He left her chamber and started down the halls for his own. Soon the night would be done, and a new and harder day would begin: convincing the Dragon Queen to make an ally of Jon Snow.
And come the morning, Tyrion was not disappointed. For as long as he'd known Daenerys—which admittedly wasn't very long—she always knew exactly what she wanted. It was part of what made her an effective leader. As a result, she had a penchant for being exceedingly stubborn.
In his mind, his gift of diplomacy (or talking cleverly and often, as he thought of it) did well to smooth the sharp edges of her…more impulsive tendencies.
Or at least, he was trying.
"Dragonglass?" she repeated, unimpressed. They stood across from each other in the war council room, the great table carved with the mapping of Westeros between them; another mark left by her ancestors.
"Yes, volcanic glass. Obsidian," Tyrion said. "He says you have a tremendous amount of it here."
"Why are we talking about glass? We just lost two of our allies!"
Yes, the Ironborn and Dorne were lost to them due to Euron Greyjoy's Iron Fleet. Admittedly, they should have known better than to think he would keep to the Iron Islands. More than likely he would have allied himself with Cersei; she was the only other piece on the playing board strong enough to form a beneficial alliance with.
Even so, Tyrion held to his patience. "Which is why I was speaking with Jon Snow, a potential ally."
Neither of them truly believed in White Walkers and Night Kings, but it was getting harder for Tyrion to doubt Jon Snow's sincerity. Daenerys too, seemed to at least consider it, after he pointed out that the King in the North would have been advised at all fronts not to come to Dragonstone. Yet here he was.
And she agreed, the Dragonglass was no concern of hers. And at the very least he would be preoccupied with mining it from the rock while they saw to the Unsullied heading to take Casterly Rock.
"And what was that Ser Davos said?" she asked. "About him taking a knife for his people. Did you notice that?"
"You must allow them their flights of fancy," Tyrion said. "It's dreary in the North."
She raised a brow. "And yet southerners have allied themselves with him. The boy, and that woman. Your kin?"
"Yes. I'll explain," he nodded. Though he paused a moment, wondering how much of the tale his cousin told him would be of interest to his queen.
"No, too much," he shook his head. "I'll sum up."
Jon's back hit the jagged wall of the cave. He wiped the sweat from his brow as he regained his breath.
Mining the black, unforgiving stone for the past few days had proved trying. But true to her word, Daenerys had provided them with the tools and enough Dothraki men to make the process easier than it would have been with only six men and a child.
"Your grace."
Larisa offered him a wineskin. He took it, knowing it was filled with water.
"Thank you," he replied after he took a long drink. There was another flask for wine, and it sat on a cart where both Larisa and Will were polishing the pieces of Dragonglass. Already they had filled several carts, and going deeper into the ancient mine only led them to more caves filled with what they needed to arm themselves against the Night King.
But for right now, Jon felt he had to focus on what was in front of him. Not on all the things that would come later. Hopefully much later.
"Fuck me with a rusty spike!"
Jon looked over as Davos dropped his axe with a loud clang. The knight bowed low over his left hand and uttered a string of curses that managed to tug a grin onto Jon's face. He was surprised to hear Larisa snort a laugh.
His grin deepened a little, to see the lady then try to smother it from embarrassment.
"I'd thought I heard every oath imaginable on the Watch," he said.
"You hadn't yet met a smuggler from Fleabottom," she countered with a more restrained smile. But even in the dim cave, he could tell her eyes were laughing.
Looking over her head, he saw another cart being wheeled toward them.
"Watch out," Jon pulled her towards him against the wall as the Dothraki passed with the large haul of Dragonglass. He didn't like the way some of their eyes dragged across the lady as they passed.
"A bit dangerous down here," Larisa remarked lightly. Her face, hands, and clothes were smudged gray and black with rock dust. Her hair, braided and piled on her head as usual, was beginning to fall in places. Loose strands fell about her face. She looked tired.
"You've done good work," he said. "I can have Davos escort you back to the keep."
She smiled slightly, but shook her head. "I didn't come here to rest."
"Your grace," said Caleb, one of his men, who came with a lit torch in hand. "We found something…you should see this."
With a glance to the woman at his side, he nodded. "Show me."
Caleb led them deeper within the mountain, through a twist of caves that grew narrower and more steep. When it became harder to be sure of one's footing, Jon braced one hand on the wall and offered Larisa his other hand. She hesitated, but eventually she took it, allowing him to lead her through a narrow opening. It widened again into a larger place, where this particular cave seemed to end.
Caleb and his crew of men had already left torches here, but he brought his own close against the far wall, illuminating on small cave drawings etched into the rock. Jon couldn't mask his shock at what he saw; the carvings went across the entire wall, up and up until he was forced to crane his neck.
"Bring Ser Davos here, Caleb."
The man nodded and was off, but Jon watched Larisa, who was already tracing the lines of what looked like a sun on the wall. Though to be fair, it could just have been a circle within a circle. There were several variations of it-circular symbols and spirals, half-moons.
"Who made these?" she asked. Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. Jon picked up a torch from the ground, still lit, and held it near more of the wall. He waved her over when he found a drawing of figures who looked like men, holding spears and weapons, and others, who he could only guess from the stories he'd heard Old Nan tell when he was a child.
"The Children of the Forest," he said.
"They were real," she breathed. "All those things…they were always real."
Larisa reached out with her hand again, as if touching the edges of those lines could bring the creatures who drew them back to life.
"It's one thing, to recreate those old stories in your mind. To think there must be some truth in there somewhere—someplace where a version of it must have existed for the myth to live so long," she said. "This is…something else."
"Aye," Jon nodded. The dark coal that stained her face, it didn't take away from what he saw in the firelight.
For her sharp tongue, she had soft features. Softer hands, and more curves than he was used to.
She wasn't a golden-haired Lannister, but still pretty. Beautiful even. And stubborn, used to getting her way. Just so, Jon wondered just what it would take to satisfy a highborn Lannister woman.
He knew she was married before. Sansa had told him things…things he hadn't particularly cared or wanted to know. But a proper Southern lord hadn't been enough for this woman. What should she think of a bastard from the North? Even one with a famous father and a hoard of Northerners calling him king.
But there was no point in that kind of thinking anyway. If Sansa was right about one thing, it would do him no good to even consider...getting involved with the woman under his charge, any more than he already had.
So Jon wandered, following the wall with the torch, more and more. Until Larisa's gasp stopped him. They both stared hard at what she found.
"Is that…"
"Aye."
If the Children of the Forest had made these drawings, then they were likely some of the first to encounter White Walkers. Their eyes somehow shone blue in the rock, like dark sapphires, and the crowned Night King was unmistakable.
"The queen needs to see this," Jon said.
"Aye," said Davos. He stood behind them with Will, the rest of their men, and even a few Dothraki. "She does."
Jon lead Daenerys to that place and watched more of the same wonder cross her features, but she wouldn't be swayed. He knew then that he wouldn't get the queen's help until he swore fealty to her.
It proved that for all her knowledge of history, regardless of who was at fault Daenerys hadn't spent even a year of her life in Westeros. She didn't understand just how laughable it would be if Jon returned to Winterfell and told the lords of the North that he'd bent the knee to another Southern ruler, let alone a Targaryen woman.
When they were out of the cave and on the beach, rejoining Davos and Missandei, they were met with worse news. According to Tyrion and Varys, the Unsullied Army was able to take an empty Casterly Rock, while Jaime led his army to take the Reach. Olenna Tyrell was dead, and the wheat and livestock that the Reach would have supplied Daenerys's armies was lost.
Jon and Davos ventured back up to the castle, walking up the rows and rows of stairs under a warm, cloudless sky.
"What do you think of her?"
"Who?" Jon asked.
Davos sighed patiently. "I believe you know of whom I speak."
Jon shook his head. The queen had been angry enough to consider taking her dragons and razing King's Landing directly, until she surprised him by asking his opinion. Asking him what she should do. All he could offer was his honesty.
"If you use them to melt castles and burn cities, you're not different. You're just more of the same."
The anger had calmed from her eyes then. She might be stubborn and ill-tempered at times, but…
"I think she has a good heart."
"A good heart?" Davos echoed. "I've noticed you starin' at her good heart, when you're not escortin' our own good lass in the caves by firelight."
He regarded Jon with a wry grin.
"Ah, to be young and surrounded by opportunity."
Jon shot him a look. "There's no time for that...I saw the Night King, Davos. I looked into his eyes. How many men do we have in the North to fight him, ten thousand? Less?"
"Fewer."
"What?"
Larisa heard the bell toll in alarm. From the courtyard at the castle she could see a ship drawing near the beach. It had dark sails, but she couldn't make out the sigil. She could also see Ser Davos and Jon on the stairs leading up to the keep, heading back down them with Missandei, and she decided to head down herself.
By the time she reached the shore, it was to see Jon grabbing a young man by his coat.
"What you did for her," he growled, "is the only reason I'm not killing you."
Jon released him, and while Davos questioned the man about his uncle, Euron Greyjoy, Larisa realized this must be Theon Greyjoy—the one who betrayed Robb Stark and burned Winterfell. Who claimed he had burned Bran and Rickon Stark.
She had seen Jon's fury before, when he'd beat Ramsay Bolton just shy of death. To see a glimpse of it again was slightly frightening, considering it went against every other interaction she'd ever had with the man.
She could almost still feel the warmth of his hand from earlier that afternoon, when he'd lead her through the darkness.
"We thought you were dead," said Davos, disrupting her thoughts.
"I should be," Theon replied.
"Your sister?"
"Euron has her," he said, the weight of guilt in his eyes. "I came to ask the queen to help me get her back."
"The queen is gone," Jon told him.
"Where did she go?"
"To Highgarden," Davos said, "to reclaim the Reach."
But it didn't take long for Daenerys to return. Within days, she and her dragons were landing back at Dragonstone. Larisa could see them from a window in the dining hall. Not long after her was Tyrion, with the rest of the Unsullied.
That evening he came to her again.
"They evacuated Casterly Rock in preparation for our attack," he told her. "But she could have fled long before that."
"Where else could she go?" Larisa asked.
"To Cornfield, for one. The seat of House Swyft," Tyrion gave her a dry look. "Surely you've been there."
"Not since I was a child." Larisa huffed in aggravation and leaned back in her chair. "Can't you find out for sure?"
Her cousin hesitated. Perhaps she understood his reluctance, but she could no longer hold her tongue or her patience.
"Look here, I know we might as well be strangers. But I can see you're not the drunken, self-pitying lout they all said you were. I think you're a good man, and like it or not, we are kin. So what will you do?"
Tyrion seemed to weigh her words. Eventually he smiled.
"Tis a pity we didn't associate sooner, cousin. I'll wager you were a sight to behold at court."
She couldn't quite return a smile. "I only want to know my mother is safe."
He raised a brow.
"And then?"
Arya was alive. Bran was alive.
And the Night King was marching for the Wall.
Joy and frustration, longing for home and fear for the future warred for dominance within him as he stalked out of the council room. Three of his siblings were at Winterfell, and they would have to face the Army of the Dead without him if he didn't leave now.
He was still skeptical of Tyrion's plan to persuade Cersei to suspend the fighting, but it was the only plan Danaerys would agree to. He was more reluctant allowing Davos to risk his life smuggling the dwarf into King's Landing, but Tyrion seemed confident Jaime would listen to him.
Even so, Jon risked her anger to declare his leaving for the North, and he didn't regret it. He couldn't sit idly on this island anymore.
"Why should you want to go?"
Jon's attention perked up at the familiar voice that carried from down the hall.
"I'm supposed to go where he goes."
Despite himself, curiosity had Jon following it into a small inner courtyard. There Willem practiced his swings with a sparring sword while his sister lounged on a stone bench, her nose in a book. Her dress left her shoulders bare to make up for the day's heat. But a shawl fell across them, and down her arms to nearly brush the floor.
"Not there," she said crisply. "You'd only slow him down anyway."
Will's grip tightened on the hilt of the sword as he pointed it at her. "How the hell would you know?"
Larisa barely gave him a glance.
"Yes, do threaten me with your little wooden stick."
"I swore an oath too!" Will let his arm fall, but there was no mistaking the resentment in his eyes. "I should be there to help Ser Davos if something goes wrong."
Finally Larisa snapped her book shut and glared at him.
"If something goes wrong," she repeated. "In King's Landing, where any half-wit City Watchman would recognize your idiotic blonde head? Do you think Cersei will kiss your cheek and seat you at her table?"
Will ignored her with a huff, tossing his sword on the ground and stomping gracelessly out of the courtyard. Larisa turned her head to watch him go, frowning with annoyance.
Then she noticed Jon leaning against the wall, forcing him (with only a little embarrassment) out of the shadows. She stood to greet him and offered a short nod in respect, but all the while he knew she was daring him to comment on what he saw. By the way she looked at him, maybe she was expecting him to say something snide. The truth was, even if he wanted to provoke her, he didn't have the energy.
"He'll understand when real trouble bites him in the arse," he said. She seemed to relax somewhat, held her hands in front of her.
"That's what I fear."
He nodded. On that front, Jon had always understood the loyalty she had for her family. The desire to protect, regardless of what would come afterwards.
"Will you really go over the Wall?" she asked.
"Looks like I have to." He watched her mouth tighten as she turned her gaze to the island's shore below.
Jon knew that look well by now.
"You disagree," he said wryly. "That's surprising."
Larisa raised her chin, but her mouth curved up at the corners too.
"I wouldn't presume to—"
"Aye," he interrupted, and started drawing near her almost without realizing. "I think you would."
Her face was bright with the setting sun behind her, blazing the bit of auburn in her dark hair. She seemed to search for something in him, all the while hesitating, holding back whatever it was. He waited, daring her this time.
"Don't go," she said at last, shaking her head. "Don't barter with your life to try and reason with Cersei…it's a fool's errand."
"Maybe," he allowed. "But for the sake of my people, I have to try."
"And what will your people do if the Night King butchers you?"
So she did believe him, he thought. He was hard-pressed to think she truly cared about his life, though. It wasn't as if she'd had much choice in swearing for his house.
And if given the chance to return to her home, Jon knew what choice she would make.
"I should think you'd be relieved," he said, somewhat dryly.
She quirked her head incredulously at him. "Should I?"
He ignored her though, continuing as the space between them lessened.
"But you're hardly qualified to tell me what I should do."
Her green eyes burned his again, angry and defiant.
"Don't you patronize me, your grace," she hissed, mere inches from his face. "You may be King in the North, but these are southern waters you're treading."
His temper spiking, Jon did the first thing he could think to do.
He hooked a hand around her waist and pulled her close, raising a brow when she gasped.
"The hell are you doing—"
He pivoted on his heel and brought her against the wall behind him, pinning her there with his arm, if not his body. She pushed against his chest with both hands, glaring at him fiercely. Not with hate, he recognized, but with something else that brought fire to his blood.
"I wouldn't dream of it, my lady."
Larisa held his gaze as stubbornly as she held him at bay with her palms warm against his chest.
"When Ser Davos returns, you will go to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea?" she whispered coarsely. He was tempted to stop her lips, if only to prevent her from arguing with him again for just a moment. But he also wanted to see her, hair unbound and wrapped around his fingers, and wilder still.
"Aye. The Free Folk will help us find a wight to bring Cersei."
"You don't need my brother for this expedition," she asserted.
"He will come with us to Eastwatch, but he'll stay at the Wall with Davos. You'll stay here and—"
"I will not," she said. Her fingers curled just slightly into the leather of his coat. "If I have come this far, I won't be left behind."
Jon looked down at her and couldn't help his amusement. Gods help the man who bedded this woman.
With more difficulty than expected, he stepped away from her, allowing both of them to breathe again.
"Fine."