There were no beheadings the morning that dreaded raven from the capital arrived. We all woke normally, broke our fasts and went straight to training. Robb and I sparred first, going about every form Ser Rodrick taught us before we ended in a stalemate. The competitive theory running around had been correct, my drastic and speedy improvement had put a fire under Robb that forced the boy into an explosive evolution. The two of us were neck and neck in terms of swordsmanship. But Robb was the better jouster, while I excelled in Archery and Horse Riding.
We moved then to Bran's training, a boy of ten who was still learning to fight properly. It was funny for Robb and I to watch the boy struggle because we were quite adept at using bows and swords by his age.
But we weren't bullies. That would be rude.
So we helped the boy instead, much to his delight. He looked up to the both of us, much to our delight.
A peculiar raven came in between the one from King's Landing and while we trained. Ned and Catelyn Stark were watching us guide Bran in using a bow, laughing when Arya upstaged him and shot perfectly from further away. The raven came a moment before that and Maester Luwin came carrying it just then.
Ned Stark walked away leaving Catelyn with Alys Stark, Robb's wife. They'd gotten married the previous year, yet to consummate the marriage since Alys was still young.
The raven from the capital would arrive much later in the day.
Six whole months passed since the letter. The whole of Winterfell went into a frenzy preparing for the King and his family to arrive. It would not be a small group coming they all knew. It was the King, after all, he would require every protection that could be mustered. Especially since he would bring his family with him.
Ned Stark grieved for most of this time. I didn't get an idea of it from the books or the show that did not dive deeper into this part of the story. I saw it now, in the way he held himself, the look in his eyes and how he'd speak. He wasn't an open book in terms of emotions, but it showed still and those keen enough to notice noticed it.
But as the days passed and the King drew closer to Winterfell, the man's mood lifted more and more until he was practically buzzing with excitement on the day of the King's arrival.
The visitors poured through the castle gates in a river of gold and silver and polished steel, three hundred strong from what I'd heard from Maester Luwin, a pride of bannermen and knights, of sworn swords and free riders. Even from far away, I could make out some of the men. Like the Hound with his terrible burned face and Ser Jaime Lannister with his hair bright as gold.
I say afar because I was not standing with the rest of my family.
I was in the back with Theon Greyjoy and the rest of the men at arms of Winterfell.
The secret of my birth was still a secret, but now amongst three people. Catelyn thought it would be wiser to put me in the back, since to the world I was still a bastard and that my being up front would be disrespectful.
Ned did not argue, and neither did I. I was never a first-row kind of boy or man anyway.
"Are we sure Prince Joffrey isn't really Princess Joffrey?" Theon whispered and I snorted.
After the little spar we had the day after Theon was brought to Winterfell, Theon had developed a respect for my skills. Some he admitted on one of the many times I'd had to drag him to his chambers when he'd become drunk.
There was also the confession of him wanting to fuck me if I was a woman.
We never speak of that.
My eyes went to the tall boy beside the hound, with curly blonde hair, deep green eyes and pouty lips. Yep, he did look like a girl.
"Why? You wanna fuck that one too?" I teased, earning a shove on the shoulder from the Ironborn.
Okay, maybe Theon never speaks of it.
"If you are, I think you'd need to fight Sansa for that."
Both our eyes were on Sansa as the Prince greeted her. Robb was glaring at him, which could only mean that Sansa was blushing.
"You think she'd give up her maidenhead the moment she bleeds to that boy?"
"It's weird how much you keep track of my sister's bleeds" I gave him an unimpressed look.
Theon just smiled sheepishly.
"Knowing the King, he would want to betrothed Joffrey to Sansa, if for nothing else but to have that Stark and Baratheon tie down that he couldn't have with Aunt Lyanna."
"You think so?" Theon asked, his eyes now on the King. "The man's changed."
Robert Baratheon had.
The huge man was at the head of the column, flanked by two knights in snow-white cloaks of the Kingsguard. He was still a man of six and a half feet in height, but now he had a girth to match it. He had a coarse black beard and dark circles under his clear blue eyes.
"He's changed, aye. But he's not forgotten his brother in fostering" I told Theon, "Nor has he forgotten Aunt Lyanna most likely."
"Hasn't he? With a wife like that?"
Cersei Lannister was a strikingly beautiful woman, with curly golden hair, emerald green eyes, fair skin, and a slender, graceful figure. A wet dream for many men, which probably now included Theon and me.
But to Robert Baratheon, she was no Lyanna Stark.
"Nope," I said with a pop of my words, then motioned for him to watch. The King and Ned went aside while Jaime Lannister moved his sister away by her arm. "Told you."
The King's feast was as grand as one would expect the King's feast to be. The Great Hall of Winterfell was hazy with smoke and heavy with the smell of roasted meat and fresh-baked bread. Its grey stone walls were draped with banners, white, gold, crimson: the direwolf of the Stark, the crowned stag of the Baratheon and the lion of the Lannister. A singer played the high harp and recited a ballad, but his voice could scarcely be heard over the roar of the fire, the sound of pewter plates and cups and low murmurs of a hundred drunken conversations.
Who would say that the feast had been going on for four hours?
"Jory was a good lad" someone beside me half wailed, a man at arm of House Stark. I was sitting with them and not my family at the head table for the same reason I did not stand with them to welcome the royal family. "But he's a Lord now! He's got himself a noble lady for a wife too. I hear he's already got a child on the way."
The castle at Sea Dragon Point was reconstructed successfully less than two years from today. Jory Cassel had been named Lord of it in place of Ser Rodrik, who had decided to remain as a Master at Arms of Winterfell. As a way to involve the Manderlys in helping House Cassel learn the trades of running a Port Town, Jory married Wynafryd Manderly, the eldest granddaughter of Lord Wyman Manderly. Only recently had she birthed their first child, a boy that Jory named Martyn after his father.
"He's a good fighter, that lad! Fought with him in the Greyjoy Rebellion. Lucky bastard too for scoring a Lordship!" said a man at arms of House Baratheon.
The conversation then drifted to war stories and I listened to them with all my attention. There was something fascinating in the way these men told their stories that the books written about the wars did not. That was the experience of living through them probably.
My attention was broken when something wet rubbed against my leg. I looked down and found a pair of red eyes up at me.
"Hungry again?" I grinned at the wolf. There was still half a honeyed chicken in the centre of the table. I knifed the thing and let the carcass slide to the floor between my legs. Ghost tore into it in savage silence.
Yes, I kept the same name. It was already brilliant.
"So this must be one of the direwolves that I've heard so much about."
I looked up and found Benjen standing, grinning down at me and the wolf feeding under the table. The squire who had taken over to tell stories moved to give the man some sitting space. Benjen straddled the bench and poured himself a cup of wine.
"Summerwine," he said after a taste. "Nothing so sweet. How many cups have you had, Jon?"
"I don't drink," I told him with a grin.
It was an old habit that I seemed to have brought from my past life. And a good one at that too. Who knows the kind of things I'd end up saying drunk?
Benjen shook his head fondly.
"You're a rare man then," the man said. He then watched Ghost eat with amusement. "Much like your wolf here. A very quiet one this,"
"Unlike the rest of his siblings," I reached down and ruffled his fur. The wolf nipped my hand affectionately before going back to the food.
"There are still Direwolves beyond the Wall. I heard them on rangings" The man took a bite of honey onion. "Don't you usually eat with your brothers at the table?"
"I do. But a bastard sitting at the table with the King there? A grave insult."
Benjen did not have to ask whose idea it was. Nor did he know that I was no bastard.
"My brother does not seem very festive tonight."
I looked at Ned and then leaned forward. Seeing me lean Benjen did the same.
"He's not happy with so many Lannisters around" I whispered to him. "And the Queen's not too happy either. The King went straight to the Crypts and ignored his wife's request to rest. She took offence to that."
"You don't miss much do you?" Benjen said with a measured look when we both pulled back. "We could use a man like you on the Wall."
"You better keep looking then" I took a bite of the chicken I was eating.
"No wish to take my oaths?" Benjen asked.
"I want to be a Knight" I answered with a shrug.
Deep into the night, I returned to my chambers, the feast having finally ended. I ate way too much, and moving felt like a painful chore. Which it was. How I wish someone would have carried me.
The easiness left my body when I entered my chambers and found a pair of amber eyes staring at me from the dark. Ghost growled behind me but I ran a hand through his soft white fur.
"A friend," I told the wolf.
Then I turned to the creature. "Anything I can help you with?"
The creature slowly moved into the light of the moon, its amber eyes clear and curious.
"You're not surprised I'm here," it said in a childlike voice.
"I expected it to be a matter of time before I'd see one of your kind," I said with a smile. "You're a long way from home."
"The Greenseer wanted me to be close to you. So I can relay information to you if you're unable to reach him."
"Fair enough" I nodded. "And do you have anything to relay?"
The creature nodded.
"The Greenseer says that the masked one has moved the child and her eggs from the false dragon and the cheesemonger's care. They await the moment they can crossover."
"Jaime this is not safe!"
"Don't worry I have made arrangements for us. Lord Stark's bastard was kind enough to lend me his room for the night for a small price. He expects that I'd bring a whore over."
"Is that what I am to you? A whore?!"
"You're my whore and so much more."
Brother and sister had snuck all around the castle in the dead of night when only guards remained awake and nobody else.
Who would stop the Queen and her Kingsguard on a walk if they saw them?
Sneakily they entered the bastard's room and once the door was shut with a silent click, Jaime hungrily kissed Cersei, his hands expertly ridding her of her clothes.
Cersei moaned, her hands doing the exact same thing until they were both in the nude.
Jaime gently pushed Cersei and did so again and again until he had her toppling over the edge of the bed and onto the mattress. On her back, hair sprayed around and nude she looked absolutely delicious.
Jaime's cock gave a twitch as it began to harden.
Slowly he climbed on top of her.
"Make a noise and we'll be caught," he said in a teasing sing-song voice.
Cersei cupped the man's face and lifted her chin slightly.
"Your eyes look different," she said with a frown. "They look almost grey…"
"Must be all the wine you've had tonight" he purred and kissed her, slamming his entire length into his sister.
Cersei moaned and wrapped her arms around her brother's neck. The thought of eyes promptly left her head.