Chapter Text
“I’m very excited to meet your sister,” Daenerys said.
Jon grunted in reply. Sansa would not be excited to meet her.
They were less than a day’s ride from Winterfell now, but a snow storm and exhaustion had them stopping for the night. Dany insisted Jon share her tent. He was uncomfortable with it but accepted her offer.
He didn’t want people to know he was sleeping with the queen. He somehow felt dirty for it, like he was committing some terrible sin by following her into bed every night. He felt disloyal.
“She’s nearly all you talked about,” Dany continued. “She seems quite a remarkable woman.”
“She is.”
“She and I have quite a bit in common. In terms of our marriages and being sold off.”
“You told me you loved your husband. You named your favorite dragon for him.”
“I didn’t love him at first. Not for a while, actually. But I don’t think Sansa ever came around to her husbands, except maybe Tyrion.”
“Can we talk about something else?” Jon’s tone was harsher than he meant it to be. He couldn’t stand to think of the things his poor sister endured.
Sansa didn’t seem to mind discussing it – never in detail, of course, but she didn’t choke on the names of the men who abused her. She wasn’t haunted by the ghosts of Winterfell; it was her home and she went where she pleased when she pleased.
The only room she wouldn’t enter had belonged to Theon in their childhood. Rickon declared that he would take the room for himself once he was old enough to challenge Theon for it. “Ramsey kept me here,” she said. “I’ve seen far too much of this room.”
Dany perked up at once, hoping to distract her new lover. “Tell me about Winterfell, then. Your favorite memories growing up.”
Jon thought for a moment. He couldn’t talk about Sansa even if he wanted to; they had few happy moments together growing up.
He grinned as he settled on a memory. “When we were nine or ten, Theon taught me and Robb curse words.”
Dany giggled. “Curse words?”
“Aye. The Iron born aren’t known for gentle speech, and of course Theon picked up on it before he came to Winterfell. We were all in the armory repeating these words over and over – and laughing, of course.”
Dany smiled, too. “As little boys are wont to do.”
“Sansa heard us and tattled – at least I think it was her, we never knew for sure – and the septa came storming in. she was furious.” He actually laughed; something Dany had never seen before. “She took Robb and Theon by the ears and dragged us all into the sept.
‘You’ll apologize to the gods for your crudeness,’ she said.
Robb and I had the old gods, and Theon followed the Drowned God, so we didn’t think we should be in the sept.
Robb said, ‘Septa, we can’t apologize, these aren’t our gods.’
She looked ready to throttle him. She said, ‘No, they aren’t. the new gods are much angrier.’”
Jon chuckled again.
Dany leaned her head against his shoulder. “I wish my childhood had been as happy as yours.”
*
The ride through Winter Town was uncomfortably silent.
Dany reveled in the people’s wonderstruck gazes and whispers of “That’s the dragon queen!”
Jon couldn’t stop shifting in his saddle. He was tired of traveling – he was seasick on the boats (he quite nearly vomited on Daenerys the first time they’d made love) and nearly crushed his balls riding these damn horses. No wonder the Dothraki were so angry all the time – they generally rode bareback at a full gallop. It was a wonder they could even father children.
The lords and men-at-arms were assembled in the courtyard when the queen and her party entered through the gates.
Jon ran straight to his brother – fully grown now, with a strong nose and proper jaw, not the babylike child he left all those years ago. He was too excited to even look at Sansa, though all he’d done in the time he’d left was think of their reunion. “Look at you.” There were proud, joyful tears in his eyes. “You’re a man now.”
Bran looked as though he was suppressing a smile. “Almost.”
Bran and Arya have come home, Sansa’s note said. They are both well. Bran is very different now.
Jon didn’t know what that meant when he first read the scroll at Storm’s End, but he imagined it wasn’t something good if Sansa felt the need to note it.
Sansa opened her arms and wiggled her fingers, waiting quite impatiently for Jon to embrace her. She’d imagined this embrace would be much like the one they shared at Castle Black. It wasn’t. There was a deep anger and anxiety below it; each was afraid what the other would do and what they had done already.
Sansa couldn’t relax. She kept her eyes open, trained on a small woman with her hands folded in front of her. Her white hair was intricately braided, her smile thin-lipped. Her gaze was filled with warmth. Beneath it lay anxiety.
“Where’s Arya?”
“Lurking somewhere.”
Daenerys approached the party. Jon cleared his throat before introducing his new queen. “Queen Daenerys of House Targaryen. My sister, Sansa Stark, the Lady of Winterfell.”
Jon had spoken endlessly of his sister – she was tall, red hair, blue eyes. Beautiful, he said. She was far taller than Dany had anticipated, and it didn’t help that an absolutely enormous woman with a sword stood behind her.
“Thank you for inviting us into your home, Lady Stark,” Daenerys said warmly. “The North is as beautiful as your brother claimed. As are you.”
It was perhaps the worst thing she could have said. Jon knew that right away.
Most people who called Sansa beautiful had harmed her, and now they were mostly dead. It was an insult to her intelligence, too. Assuming that idle flattery from a foreign stranger might earn some level of trust and adoration.
Sansa looked her over, letting the silence drag on for a long moment. She blinked and put on a half-smile. “Winterfell is yours, your grace.”
Bran suddenly opened his mouth and said that the Night King was coming, that he’d broken through the wall, that he rode the dead dragon Viserion.
Jon glanced at Sansa again. Bran is very different now.
Dany stood by the hearth rather than sitting at the great table as the lords met in the great hall. Such a table was not worthy of her beauty and grace, Sansa thought.
“We need more horses and wagons, if it please milady,” young Lord Umber said in response to a question about bringing his people to Winterfell. “And milord. And . . . my . . . queen.” His eyes flicked to the floor and back. “Sorry.”
“You’ll have as many as we can spare,” Sansa said. “Hurry back to Last Hearth and bring your people here.”
Jon told the maestor to send ravens to the Night’s Watch with instructions. Wolkan bowed. “At once, your grace.”
“Your grace.” The icy voice belonged to young Lyanna Mormont. “But you’re not, are you? You left Winterfell a king and came back as . . . I don’t know what you are now. A lord? Nothing at all?”
The other lords began to stir in their seats. They were all waiting for someone to start the inevitable fight.
Jon mustered up what he hoped was a soothing smile. “It’s not important.”
“Not important? We named you King in the North!”
A great cry came up; Sansa tried to hide her look of satisfaction when she glanced at Jon, who had looked to her for some defense.
You did, my lady. It was the honor of my life. I will always be grateful for your faith.” Jon stood to address the room. “When I left Winterfell, I said we needed allies. I have brought those allies home. To fight alongside us.” Daenerys looked at Jon while Sansa looked at her. Allies, indeed. “I had a choice: Keep my crown or protect the North. I chose the North.”
That explanation was unsatisfactory, as was Tyrion’s speech about Jon’s courage and his sister sending along her army. He only made things worse. Sansa and Lyanna might have killed him with the way they glared at the Hand.
“May I ask, how are we meant to feed the greatest army the world has ever seen? I ensured we had enough provisions to last us five years of winter. I failed to account for Dothraki, Unsullied, and two full-grown dragons. What do dragons eat, anyway?”
Everyone turned to the dragon queen for her reply. “Whatever they want.”
*
Jon’s skin crawled when Dany suggested the two of them stay in a cave forever. He’d promised Ygritte he would do the same with her. He didn’t want to make the same promise someone else. That would be disloyal.
Jon couldn’t even stand to think what Ygritte would do to the Targaryen. Her temper was as bad as Sansa’s, and her archery skills were a thousand times better. He imagined it would be an unpleasant encounter for everyone involved.
He was still thinking about it when he came to speak to Sansa. She informed him that the Glovers had broken faith.
“House Glover will stand behind House Stark as we have for a thousand years,” Jon growled. “Isn’t that what he said?”
“I will stand behind Jon Snow, he said. The King in the North,” Sansa bit out.
“I told you we needed allies.”
“You didn’t tell me you were going to abandon your crown.”
“I never wanted a crown; all I wanted was to protect the North. I brought two armies home with me! Two dragons!”
Sansa whipped around. “And a Targaryen queen.”
“Do you think we can beat the army of the dead without her? I fought them, Sansa. Twice. Who care who holds what lands or what title? I’m telling you it doesn’t matter. Without her, we don’t stand a chance!” He took a deep breath to calm himself. “Just this once, I’m asking you to listen to me. Trust my judgment.”
Sansa felt ashamed suddenly. She shouldn’t have spoken to him like that. He was thick-skulled and impulsive but he didn’t deserve that. The air hitched in her throat when she saw the sadness in his eyes.
He looked so tired when he spoke again – the scars on his face, the lines around his eyes, his unkempt beard and hair. He hadn’t rested once in all the time since he left for the Night’s Watch. Death, as it turned out, was far from the eternal slumber people dreamed of.
“Do you have any faith in me at all?”
Sansa swallowed back the lump in her throat. “You know I do.”
“She’ll be a good queen,” he promised. “For all of us. She’s not her father.”
“No, she’s much prettier.” All the bluster had gone out of her. She was tired, too, and more than anything she was hurt. Why should he prefer Daenerys over her? What did she have that Sansa didn’t?
Blood, she thought to herself. They don’t share the same blood. They could do whatever they liked without shame or guilt. He and Sansa could not.
Jon smiled slightly at her comment. Sansa hadn’t meant to be funny, but she liked her brother’s smile too much to set him straight.
She wondered if the dragon queen made him laugh. If he embraced her the way he embraced Sansa. If he thought about her when they were together. If he thought about her at all.
“Did you bend the knee to save the North or because you love her?”
Jon could only stare at his sister in shock and pain.
“Never mind,” Sansa said, turning back to the papers on her desk. “I hope she was at least a good fuck. You should go; we both have work to attend to.”
Jon was too shocked and too tired to say anything He was halfway out the door when something finally occurred to him. “What happened to Littlefinger?”
She didn’t miss a beat. She did not turn to face him when she replied, in the same icy tone, “He underestimated me. It seems to be a common mistake.”