Strength of the Realm Found in Bonds: Jon (283 AC)
Jon Arryn plodded into the godswood of Riverrun, mechanically carrying himself towards the castle's weirwood tree, hoping to find his foster son Ned Stark there.
It was important for the both of them to talk things out together regarding their futures should they succeed in their rebellion against the Mad King, especially now.
After all, they were both about to get married the next day.
And seeing as this would be Jon's third time around as the groom, he figured that he knew at least a thing or two about getting married.
Jon snorted. Robert must have had more of an effect on me than I thought.
He remembered how nerve-wracking the experience was the first time around when he was preparing to wed Jeyne Royce, but also how happy she made him after it was over, and he also remembered the assurance he felt after he married his cousin Rowena.
He knew Catelyn and Lysa Tully were fine women both, would make for good, dutiful wives, and whatever hang-ups Ned had about taking up the betrothal that had been due his late brother, he needed to reassure him that it would be for the best.
And thus it distressed him to not find Ned at the weirwood tree, where he thought that his most honorable foster son would have been looking for solace from the Old Gods.
Instead, he found something altogether new staring at the face set in the tree's trunk: a grey-eyed Doll.
It wore a sleeveless black dress with thick white lines on the bottom and down the front, a flared collar with stylized white flames, a hood over its head, simple-looking but finely-made black shoes on its feet with white stockings up to middle of its tanned thighs.
But what stood out the most to Jon was the spiny metal tail that swung from its lower back, the massive four-fingered gauntlets that were each equal to its own body in size, and that it looked like a young girl of no more than ten and two.
Jon then immediately recognized it as one of the Wanderers, more specifically the one the maesters had named Ogre Arms, which had landed right here in the Riverrun courtyard during the Arrival, and was well-known locally for its daily habit of walking out of Riverrun just before sunrise and then wandering about the countryside until it came back just before the sun set.
And whenever it didn't wander, it just stared at the weirwood tree's face, still as a statue, leaving Jon to wonder how he could have forgotten about its presence here at this time, considering there were people in the area who set their daily routines to its habits.
"I don't suppose you know where Ned has gone, would you?" he asked the Doll sardonically.
As expected, there was no answer.
Jon looked at the face bleeding red tears on the tree. "What is it about this tree that requires you to constantly look it in the face? That's the only face that tree has ever worn, and ever will."
The Doll gave no reason, and continued its observation.
Jon sighed, walked up to one of the tree's great, bulbous roots, turned and seated himself.
"I hope you don't mind the ramblings of an old man, do you?" Jon asked rhetorically.
The Doll remained unresponsive, and Jon chuckled, "Talking to you is almost like I'm talking to myself, must be what getting old is like."
Jon frowned, and took a long look at his wrinkled, cracked hands, also remembering how wrinkled and cracked his own face had become, and how pale his hair had grown.
"Oh gods, I'm growing old, and soon I will wed a little girl who's barely any older than you look, Doll," Jon lamented, rubbing his hands together as they began to shake.
A head turned, brushing alien fibers against each other as softly as a butterfly's wingbeat.
Jon understood, very deeply, that it was his duty to his House to produce a new heir in the wake of losing his only nephew Elbert at the Battle of the Bells, but he had wished more than once that the Stranger could have been more patient in taking away everyone he loved.
"I would just as soon let Lysa marry anyone else, but I am not her father, and he won't help us fight the Mad King if I don't wed her, and Catelyn marries Ned," he explained.
Jon closed his eyes and held his head in his hands, as he allowed his anxiety and weariness to swell up from behind his defenses.
There was a shuffle from the grass in front of him, so quiet that he failed to notice.
"Others might blame the gods for making a broken world filled with broken men," Jon expounded, "I, however, blame men for not seeing the blessings the gods have given us and building a better world with them.
"I would rather live in a world where old men didn't have to wed children for the sake of preserving stability in the Realm, but that is a world I cannot create."
Jon opened his eyes and looked to his hands again, tightening them into fists.
"The world that I can create, however, is one where kings are punished for tyranny, a world where no men are above the laws of the land, so that no king can ever become a tyrant, even if they wanted to."
Metal groaned like a mix of the sounds of the heavy hinges on the doors to a great hall and the clank of chains as a gate was opened.
Jon looked up at the strange sound, and stared in childlike wonder at the sight before him.
The Doll was facing him, looking down at its own giant hands that it held before itself, slowly closing them into fists, in clear mimicry of his own motion.
Jon had half a mind to rush back into the castle, seek out Lord Tully, a maester, a servant, anyone who could tell him if anyone had ever elicited a response from this Doll before.
The half of his mind that was in control of his body, however, was simply transfixed at this deceptively simple sight of the Doll looking at its own hands as if was just noticing them for the first time.
One could have remarked on how the scene resembled a parent watching an infant growing in awareness of their own body.
The Doll unclenched its hands looked up at him, and their eyes met.
For Jon, it was as if the world had gone still, as he stared into the Doll's dead gaze.
And then, the Doll blinked, and its eyes turned orange.
Jon let out a gasp, thinking That's never happened before.
The Doll then something else he recalled no other Doll had done before.
"Who are you?"
The voice matched her apparent age and sex, but with a rough edge more reminiscent of smallfolk girls.
The sudden stimulation it brought to Jon's limbs also made Jon realize that he was leaning back against the root of the tree, so he straightened himself back to his full height.
"I am Jon Arryn," he answered.
He was about to follow up with his titles before immediately understanding that the Doll probably didn't understand things like that yet, so he asked in turn, "And what is your name?"
The Doll looked back at her hands again, clenching them back into fists, the metal groaning and scraping from the weight.
Then the Doll smiled, cocksure and proud like Jon's foster son Robert might, and looked up at him.
"I am Strength."