SIX : NED (II)
His daughter rode with them from Starfall to Grassy Vale, where a host of Tyrell men was awaiting her so that they could accompany her back to Highgarden. In that time, Ned attempted to know the enigma that was his daughter, but she remained elusive to him; avoiding him when she could and speaking in clipped tones. But sometimes, were he to say something that peaked her interest, she practically pounced on him in her excitement.
Jon and Alys embraced fiercely before she left, and to Ned's surprise she hugged and kissed him as well. He had to admit he was going to miss her greatly, and he was deeply upset that she was not able to join them.
Jon rode alongside Ned on a brown mare. He looked so much like Lyanna, and yet there were traces of the Dragon Prince in him as well; his lean form and his sharp features. He had grown into quite the young man, though Ned had seen him do naught but frown.
They barely spoke. Jon spent most days avoiding Ned's eyes. When Ned did attempt to make conversation, Jon would give short replies whilst fiddling with the reins of his horse. Ned knew that the boy was angry with him, but he had no idea what to say to change that.
At last the day came when Jon spoke first. They were approaching the Riverlands, and the weather was gradually growing cooler. The boy was wrapped in furs despite the lack of snow or wind, but having been raised in Dorne, Ned was not surprised.
"Why did you not allow my Mother to come with us?" Jon asked him, quite suddenly.
Ned's head swivelled around only to be met with a scowl. He raised a brow. "I did," he told Jon, "but she wished to stay in Starfall, as your uncle and aunt are currently at Sunspear."
"And did you come just because you knew they would be?" Jon asked. Gods, he was rather sharp. Ned pulled his destrier up, and Jon did the same, albeit startled. "So that my Mother had no choice but to stay?"
"Jon," Ned said firmly, "I have no wish to hurt you or your Mother, nor do I have any wish to cause discord among your family—"
"But you came without telling her," Jon retired hotly. "And we'd never even met you before." Jon shook his head, appearing utterly disgusted, and urged his horse to ride on. Ned quickly followed. The boy was silent for a while and so Ned allowed himself to gather his thoughts.
"You are my blood—"
"I am your son," Jon corrected quickly. "Alys is your daughter. And you left us in Dorne."
"Was your life unpleasant there?" Ned asked. "Was your Mother unkind?"
Jon glanced around wildly, cheeks pink. "No!"
"Exactly," Ned nodded. "I did it because it was what was best for you and your sister, Jon. Bastards are not looked down upon in Dorne. I knew that you would be treated with respect, not distain, as a Dayne."
Jon raised an eyebrow. "Then why take me north where they say the word 'bastard' like it's as bad as 'Targaryen'?"
The breath left Ned's lungs. Did he know? Ned looked at him, studied him, but there was only challenge in those grey-purple eyes. "Because Winterfell is your home just as much as Starfall is—"
"No," Jon shook his head. "I was born in Starfall. I was raised in Starfall. My name is Jon Dayne, not Jon Stark or Jon Snow. I have no claim to Winterfell, I know no one in the north, and you... You left us." With that he spurred his horse into a gallop and left Ned behind.
Ned slept fitfully that night. He dreamt of the Tower of Joy, of Lyanna's death and Jon's birth. He dreamt of the war, of the battles he had fought, and long before that; the death of his mother, Lyarra. Rhaegar's murder on the shores of the Trident; rubies spilling across the dirt and greedy soldiers grabbing at them before they washed away...
He awoke with a start, covered in a thin layer of perspiration. Ned rolled out of bed and landed heavily in the grass. He crossed his tent and splashed his face with water from a shallow basin which rested on his trunk. He managed to calm his fast beating heart after a few moments.
"Why are you awake?" Asked a quiet voice.
Ned turned, startled, before he remembered that he shared at tent with Jon; he had wanted to keep a close eye on him; insure that he would not run away in the night. That had not appeared to be the case, thank the Gods.
Jon was propped up in his bed, a candle down to its last inches on his bedside table. He had a fat, large book open in his lap. Ned could not see what it was about. "I could ask you the same question."
Jon flushed. "I lost track of time," he confessed, sheepishly looking down at his book. "It's about the Targaryens; The Dance of Dragons: A True Telling by Grand Maester Munkin."
Seven hells. This was all either a load of coincidences or his son was purposely antagonising him. He had little reason to suspect the latter, however; he was only being paranoid. Ridiculously paranoid. "A good read," he told Jon, drying his face with a towel. "Have you read it many times?"
"No," Jon said. "Only the once. But I read The Habits of Dragon Breeding by Lothar Flowers twice, and Balerion the Black Dread by Jeor Blackfyre at least a dozen."
Ned had never heard of either; he had never been interested in dragons or Targaryens as a child. "Impressive," he told his son, sitting on the edge of the bed. It creaked under his weight, and Jon scrambled back to make room. "What of your sister?"
Jon grinned. "Sanni — I mean, Alys — prefers riding and training in the yard to books," he said. "I do, too, but I've always liked dragons. I make time for them. Anyway, I'm better with a sword, but she's brilliant with a bow."
Ned was surprised. "I expect that the Tyrells will encourage her on the path of more ladylike persuits," he told his son.
"In Dorne ladies and lords train with weapons alike," Jon retorted. "My Aunt Allyria taught Alys herself. And Margaery already knows about Alys' training, anyway. She even asked if Alys could teach her."
He seemed quite satisfied with himself, if his grin was any tell. Ned tapped the edge of the book. "Do you want a dragon, Jon?"
His eyes lit up. In that moment, to Ned's great terror and amusement, they looked more purple than he had ever seen them. "I do," he confessed, and his face fell, "but they're all dead."
No. One sits before me now. "I think you would look brave atop a dragon, Jon," he told him, smiling softly. "It is a shame they all died before you could ride one."
Jon nodded, solemnly. He chewed his lower lip, something Ned had seen Lyanna do a thousand times before, and brought him more pain now than it ever had in days past. "Do you think your son will like me? Or will he hate me because I am your bastard?"
"Never call yourself a bastard," Ned said sharply. "You are my son, Jon."
"But I am not Lady Stark's son," Jon retorted. "And I... I take no shame in being a bastard, Father. Mother said Alys and I were born of love. Why would I be ashamed of that?"
Ned sighed. This boy was going to ruin him. "It is true, what you say," he told Jon, "but in the North, 'bastard' is not a word of pride. People will spit it out like blood, Jon. You must promise me not to call yourself that ever again, mm?"
Jon nodded.
"Another thing," Ned cleared his throat, "you must not mention your sister, Alys. My Lady Wife... Is not fond of your existence. She has promised me that she will be civil — even kind — but I do not want... I cannot have her growing short with me if you talk about your past."
"So... I can't talk about myself at all? I can't tell my brothers and sisters about Alysanne?"
"You can," Ned nodded, "just not in front of Lady Stark, alright?"
Jon frowned. Nonetheless he jutted up his chin in a sharp nod. "Okay," he said, quietly. And then he looked down at his book. Ned watched a tear fall and wet the page. Quickly, startled, he reached out and pulled Jon into his lap. "I miss my sister..."
"I had a sister, you know," Ned told him, stroking back his son's hair as he cried. "Her name was Lyanna. I loved her more than I loved breathing."
Jon looked up, tearful. "What happened to her?"
She was your mother, Ned wanted to say. She loved you. Gods, she loved you. She held you once, and I saw then that you were her whole world. "She died in the war," he told Jon. "I miss her every day."
Jon sniffed. "Tell me something about her?"
Ned blinked. Only one thing had surfaced. "She loved blue winter roses."
At that, he smiled so wide and true it warmed Ned from skin to bone. "Alys is not dead," Jon murmured. His voice was gathered now, and firm. "She's in the Reach with our friends."
"Your friends..." Ned frowned. "Do you know the Tyrells well, then?"
"We visit twice a year," Jon's voice had taken on a warm and excited tone. "Alys and Margaery are best friends. She's nice to me, too, and Garlan's like my brother — he's older by three years, but that's fine. Loras is fun, too. And my Aunt Allyria is betrothed to Willas."
Ned had heard of the latter part. He worried, however, about his son and daughter in the company of the thorny roses of the south. Jon seemed to like them, though. At least there was that small comfort.
Jon squirmed in Ned's hold, and so he let him go. "I should sleep," he decided.
"I'm sorry for startling you, Jon," he said. On impulse he leaned forward and kissed his son's brow. Jon blushed and buried himself under the furs. Ned smiled. He marked Jon's spot in the book of dragons and stowed it away.
They arrived at Winterfell two weeks later.
Jon had gradually opened up more and more to Ned; every night they would talk over the crackling fire, of dragons and wolves and their pasts. Ned found that he had made the right choice in placing Jon with Ashara; his childhood had been happy and full of love. Jon spoke of his time in the Reach, to which Ned discovered his woes were for naught.
It seemed that Jon was absolutely smitten with Margaery Tyrell, though Ned highly doubted he knew it. It would have been an ideal match, in another life where Jon was Jaehaerys Targaryen. Margaery might have been his princess.
But now he was known publicly as a bastard. Ned's bastard son. It pained him to bear the knowledge that Jon would never be with this girl he adored. He said nothing to his son.
Alys, Jon said, was a better rider than he, and could shoot from horseback. Ned smiled at the image of his daughter firing off arrows at targets, hair tied back like that of a Dothraki boy.
Jon also spoke of Ashara. He confessed that he missed her greatly. Ned was immensely grateful to his former love; she had taken Jon in and loved him as her own. She had raised him to be good, honourable, and kind. She had never complained to him, only protected her children. He still loved her for that.
The first time Jon saw snow, they had just passed through the Neck. Jon was still reminiscing about how Meera Reed had thrown a spoon-full of pie at Jory's face when the first flake landed on his shoulder. Then another came, and another, and soon the air was brisk and the sky was grey, and Jon was slipping off his horse to catch some on his tongue.
Ned laughed at Jon's antics, thinking of both Robb and Lyanna. Jon asked him if he might send some snow back to Alysnne. He saddened considerably when Ned reminded him that the snow would melt before it even reached the Riverlands.
Now Jon was used to it, but still delighted with the frozen white flakes falling from the sky.
Winterfell was as Ned remembered it; stone walls, high towers, and Stark banners flapping in the wind. Jon gasped at the sight of it. Ned supposed he had never seen a castle quite like this — so dark and large, so very old.
"It looks like it's been here a thousand years," Jon proclaimed.
Ned smiled and pulled up next to him. "It has," he told his son. "And it is your home."
Jon swallowed. Then, with a sly grin, he kicked onward and rode straight to Winterfell. Ned, startled, managed to catch up on his rather large horse. They rode over the drawbridge together, and under the raised portcullis.
The courtyard was bustling as usual. Ned dismounted and handed his reins off to a stable boy. Jon did the same, although more reluctantly for the stable boy was Hodor. Ned assured him that his horse would be fine.
Out of the Great Keep came Ned's family; Cat, holding Bran who was nearing on a year old; Arya who ran straight into his arms with an excited squeal; Robb and Sansa who waited their turn and then embraced him just as fiercely. He kissed their heads and ruffled their hair — to Sansa's dismay.
"Cat," Ned kissed her cheek, feeling her smile, and stroked their youngest child's hair back. Bran was growing every day, he looked like Catelyn, as all of their children did aside from Arya.
"Is that him?" Cat whispered, eyeing Jon.
"Aye," Ned said.
Her eyes took on a steely glint, but she sent a forced smile in Jon's direction. It was all he had asked of her; courtesy. "Where is the girl?" She turned back to Ned. "His sister?"
"Alysanne is being fostered in the Reach as Lady Margaery Tyrell's handmaiden," Ned informed her. "Apparently, she and Alys are good friends."
Cat seemed a bit surprised at that, but she nodded. She handed Bran off to Ned and went to Robb. "This is your half-brother, Jon Dayne," she told their oldest son. "Introduce yourself."
"I'm Robb Stark," their son announced promptly, grinning with pride.
Jon raised an eyebrow at the hand extended to him. Ned recalled that customs were not the same on opposite ends of the realm. Nonetheless Jon shook Robb's hand. "Jon of House Dayne," he said with a smile.
Robb nodded. "These are my — I mean, our — sisters; Sansa and Arya."
Jon kissed Sansa's gracefully extended hand, seemingly bemused, and was about to do the same for Arya when she pounced on him, wrapping him in a hug that send them both toppling into the snow. Arya peppered his face with kisses.
Jon's eyes were wide, but to Ned's surprise he did not push Arya off. Instead he laughed. "It is a pleasure to meet you, little sister."
Arya grinned.
"He looks like you,"
Ned startled, and looked up from the many scrolls that littered his desk. They had piled up in his absence; some opened and read by Catelyn — those of which were the most urgent — and others awaiting his approval and guidance.
His lady wife was standing in the door way, dressed warmly in a satin blue gown trimmed with grey fur. She wore a cloak, for despite it being summer it was bitingly cold this far north. Ned welcomed the weather; the heat of the south had felt strangling.
"He does," Ned nodded, though inside he was screaming the opposite; the boy was Lyanna's son, not his own. "And yet he has Ashara's look, as well."
Catelyn slipped inside. She shut the door and sat opposite him. "Did she thank you for bringing him?"
"No," Ned read over a request for more grains from Lord Cerwyn, "she wanted him to stay in Starfall with her; she was already losing Alys."
"And why did Alys leave now?"
"Her aunt was departing for the Reach," Ned rolled up the missive and looked up at his lady wife. "Allyria Dayne is betrothed to Willas Tyrell, if you recall. She is now flowered, I believe, and is to be sent of to live with the Tyrells for a few years before she marries."
Catelyn pursed her lips. "It is odd for a girl to get her moon blood so young," she said softly. "And yet, Lysa got her own at ten. Sometimes it happens once and not again for a few years..."
Ned leaned back. He knew little about the ways of women, and so he stayed quiet as his wife pondered over the news. Catelyn eventually sighed and looked away from him, her gaze settling out the window to the white storm that approached. "Do you love her, still?"
"Perhaps a little," he confessed honestly, for he did not want to lie to her. "It is an old love, though, and not one I am eager to re-sow."
Catelyn shifted. "I was worried you would not return for some time," she confessed, "and that, when you did, you might carry a newborn babe in your arms." She let out a shaking breath. "It would appear this is not the case."
"I did not lie with her, Cat," Ned told her firmly. "I would never do such a thing to you."
"But you did," Catelyn protested. "You sired two bastard children—"
"Before I was married to you," he countered. "You were betrothed to Brandon. Brandon died, and it was then that I visited Ashara to tell her the news. She was stowed away in Silverhill, and that is when Alysanne and Jon came to be. It was two weeks later when your Father informed me I would be marrying you, Cat. I knew you not before then. I made no mistakes aside from dishonouring Ashara Dayne, who has never complained to me of what we did."
Cat smoothed her skirts. "I will not shame Jon for being alive," she said, "nor will I shame you, any longer. I... To tell it true I do not know why I have. If you had sired the twins after we were married, or even betrothed, I might have cause to be bitter. But there... There is no reason for my discontent. You have kept them away from me these past seven years, and you were so very courteous regarding them for my sakes. They are only children. The deserve to know their northern roots."
"And so you bear Jon no ill will?"
"No," Cat smiled thinly. He was not sure if she was being honest or merely telling him what she thought he wished to hear. "I am glad Robb has a companion, now."
Ned rose from his seat and looked out the window to where the children were playing in the yard. Ned recognised the game as come-into-my-castle, to which it seemed Jon was unfamiliar. Robb was gesturing madly with his hands, and Sansa was giggling. "They have got on rather well, have they not?"
"Indeed they have," Cat's eyes filled with love at the sight of their children. "It is a sight to behold."
"Yes," Ned smiled. "It is."
Ned stared at the stone effigy of his sister.
She was beautiful, even now with a face of stone. Ned knew that beneath it there were only her remains. Her hands were open to him, and though Ned had expected him to find them empty of anything, and yet there was a blue rose resting there.
He might have panicked, if not for the one in Brandon's grasp, as well as Rickard's, his father — and the secret he had divulged to his son comforted him. It seemed that Jon had already been by to honour those of which had fallen in Robert's Rebellion.
Ned reached up, hesitantly, and stroked her cold cheek. If he closed his eyes he could almost pretend she was real; Lyanna had always been one of frozen face. She had died in heat, however; in a stifling tower surrounded by lit candles and a smoking hearth.
She had been crying to him, whispering the name of her son and telling him how afraid she was, how she feared death, how she was not brave.
"You were always brave," he told her now. "Stronger than even I could ever have been."
AN: Sorry it's a bit late; I've been rather busy. But yes. Enjoy it, my lords and ladies! Review, please!
Much love! xx