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Chapter Text

A merchant sails from Blackwater Bay.

If you asked the ship’s master, he’d tell you they sailed for Whiteharbour - carrying Dornish wine and Qarthian spices for the tables of great Northern Lords. The master would not be lying. He’d smile wide, tell you to move along now.

You may not look in his cabin.

The ship leaves a little later than expected, though the sun is still high in the sky. With a good wind in his sails and a clinking leather pouch in his pocket, there is little in the world that could slow the captain down.

They make the journey in a few days, though their ship’s cook was a little preoccupied for most of the trip - spending hours below with his paltry box of egg whites, rose oil and the carpenter’s vase of turpentine.

They pull into port under a moonless sky, unloading their cargo with a quiet, practical calm. A local lad in a smaller skiff waits just off the docks, barely ten and two - but strong. Very strong. How fortunate! Who knows how the crew would have carried that heavy, sack-covered stretcher off the deck and into the smaller vessel’s hold?

The White Knife river rages beneath the boat, rocking men and sacks back and forth as the water churns.

The cargo groans.

Where is it? How did it get here? What happened to-?

Horseshoes. Gravel. A rocking, wooden cart. The sack twists in a fevered, sweating haze.

No. No don’t - what happened to them, Jory-?

“Be quiet!” a voice shouts, kicking the man wrapped up in a burlap sack, “- keep yer whining down, you hear?”

But he twists, crying out as his leg - wrapped in something thick and heavy, almost like clay - catches on something cold, like iron.

“Wha-? Where-?”

“Give him a drink, Bones, or he’ll wake the bloody Others,”

Fingers tug on long tangled hair, ripping the cover from his eyes. For a brief moment, he sees an open sky, studded with stars that rush past in time with the beat of running feet, and then-

“Get that down you, Ser,” the voice laughs, and something hot and wet pours over his face and into his throat. His head tips back, slamming into the bottom of the splintering wood like … like …

“My lord!”

Hands - small hands, shaking hands, gentle hands - rest lightly on his shoulder, but Ned twists wildly, wrenching himself away.

“M -my- my Lord,” the voice says again, stuttering and squeaking, “-please, you must lie back, your leg-,”

He tries to sit up, a groan pulled from his throat - his body burning, it’s burning. But as sweat drips down his neck, a heavy weight on his chest holds him down - a shifting, breathing thing. He tries to throw it off and it’s-

It's very soft.

A cup is pressed to his lips - one filled with a thick, milky liquid that stinks of sweetness. Ned tries to push it away but it trickles into his mouth, down his throat and -

“Your father’s asleep, Snow,”

“How is he? The wound on his leg, it’s-,”

“It is severe, but healing - it looks as if someone set it before-”

“I promise Jon, the Maester had me dress it myself, and … well, I know how it smells but-,”

“-Who could have done this? How could he have made it this far?”

“I don’t know, but someone must have sent him here- or at least it looks like it to me - b-but we-,”

“Let him be lad, he’s not going anywhere for a little while, and your wolf will watch over him,”

“But-,”

“Go, Jon, or Ser Alliser will-,”

Ned falls and falls and falls.

Lord Eddard Stark is … in a bed. A bed with white sheets - mostly clean - and a wooden frame that creaks as he shifts his head. There are stone walls, four that he can see, and two shadows that-

“Maester, he’s awake!”

That voice again, except this time it resolves - in a blurred, hurried sort of way - into a boy. A plump boy, with dark hair and a round face, dressed in black.

“Lie still, My Lord, I just need to-,”

“Where-,” Ned starts, but cuts off when he shifts his leg and the pain-

“Yes,” the boy hushes, reaching behind him, “-yes, you need, I need to-,”

“Check his bandages, my boy,” another voice says, softer and wheezing, “-tell me if you see any rot,”

Ned swallows - his throat thick.

“Wa-” he starts with a cough, “Water, I-”

“Sorry, of course, hold on-,”

The boy returns quickly with a wooden cup, unsteady hands lifting it to Ned’s lips. He accepts it greedily, taking several long gulps in a way that would make his mother smack his wrist. The lad takes the cup from him, and Ned raises one hand to wipe his face only to find it trapped.

Frowning, he looks down, feeling slow and stupid. He has to blink a few times at the puddle of white pooled on his chest, spilling over his legs and on top of his knuckles.

Then the puddle looks up with silent, red eyes. Watching. Its tail begins to twitch.

“Where-?” he starts, but the direwolf’s fur is soft and real under his fingers, and that can only mean-

“You’re at Castle Black, My Lord,” the boy replies, setting the cup down and rolling back his sleeves, eyeing Ned’s leg with trepidation, “-the Night’s Watch, I mean,”

The Watch, Ned thinks.

“Yes, My Lord,” that older voice hums, “- you’ve been here several days now - and you’ve been given something stronger than the poppy, I fear,”

The Watch, he thinks again. The Watch, so that means-

“Benjen - Jon, are they-?” Ned groans, trying to sit up again, but his knee bites and the wolf - how big the little pup has grown - looks up at him from his chest.

“Benjen’s beyond the Wall,” the boy stammers, wiping his hands and approaching the bedside again. “-and Jon’s here, he-,”

The lad starts again.

“I’m Sam, Sam Tarly,” the boy stammers, lifting the linens to squint at Ned’s leg, “I’m a friend of your son - Jon, that is - Jon Snow, he’s the best friend I’ve ever had, well, I haven’t actually known him that long, but he’s been good to me, and I thought you should know-,”

“Samwell,” the aged voice prods, “- the salve,”

“Y-yes,” the boy stops, shaking his head and reaching back behind him “-sorry, Maester Aemon,”

Ned bites back a wince as the lad timidly lifts his leg. The boy’s cheeks drain of colour and he turns aside to cough - a sound from deep inside his chest. After a few moments, Ned feels a cool, moist cloth pressed on the throbbing limb. It brushes gently over the wound but he groans, his throat full of bile.

“How-?” he begins, the words pulled from behind his teeth, “-how long?”

“- you’ve been here a week, My Lord,” the Maester assures somewhere across the room, a vague shape of black robes and light flashing from a long, winding chain.

A week. A week at the edge of the world, so far from the city and his daughters and-

“My daughters,” Ned starts, “-my, where - where are they? Sansa, Arya, where-?”

He tries to move, to break free, but the great white wolf on his chest presses down - unaggressive, even gentle. The Maester’s voice sounds just the same.

“I’m sorry, My Lord,

“You were brought here alone,”

Sitting up on straw-stuffed pillows, Ned dozes - what else can he do with the wine in his belly and drugs on his tongue? He heard some stammered explanations of broken bones - straightened and healing, near clean too. Rest is the best medicine, he was told. You’re no good to them without it.

But it’s them he thinks of - dreams of. In between golden cloaks and bastard babes, he sees his girls, alone and trapped in a cell of red, sandy bricks. Alone. By the gods, they’re all alone - not only Sansa and Arya, but Vayon’s girl Jeyne too. Not even his men can save them now- not Jory, not Heward. His men - Northmen, so far from home - butchered like animals in the street, with half the city gawking like they were catching flies.

But not me. Why not me? Why am I here - how and who and-?

No, Ned cannot sleep - or lie in this dazed, half-conscious state - forever. Eventually, the sounds of the fire crack like sparking flint beside his face. He moans, tossing his head from side to side when a gentle voice drifts up from across the room.

“Are you awake, My Lord?”

The Maester is perched in his great wooden chair, feet resting on a little stool cushioned with tattered, black wool. With his back to the flames - a wrinkled face and pale, unseeing eyes search fruitlessly across the room.

Ned grunts - not a noble sound. The old man hums.

“Young Tarly left you some wine before I sent him to bed - to your left, I believe. It may still be warm,”

Sure enough, a cup waits for him on the little stool by his bed. Ned reaches for it gingerly, careful not to jostle both his leg and the beast still draped over his chest. The wolf’s ears twitch, eyes cracking open as Ned gasps through a few mouthfuls, but he stays quite content in his place. His nose presses into the back of the Lord’s hand.

A loyal beast, Ned thinks.

“Is it late?” Ned asks, looking about the windowless cell.

“Last I knew,” the Maester replies, “it was the hour of the owl, My Lord,”

Yes, it feels dark enough for that.

“You should rest too then, Maester,” he states, hoarsely to the frail, shrunken man, “-I have kept you up for some time,”

But the other man shakes his head.

“Oh I have rested enough, My Lord - I sleep little these days,” the Maester assures, waving his hands. “Besides - did I not vow to keep watch in the night?”

He smiles then, toothlessly and Ned can’t help but huff.

“Aye, so you did,”

The room is brighter now - though Ned’s clarity is not rewarded with much detail. The wall is lined with a few untouched books on rickety shelves - a cabinet stands with coloured vials and pots of herbs in the farthest corner. There’s a battered table - a few piles of sheets and a basin of water on the floor. It’s a simple space - humble. Much improved by the leaps and jumps of the orange flames in the little grate piled high with wood and kindling.

“Has there-,” Ned begins, his waking thoughts given a voice, “-is there any word of them?”

Aemon sits up, tucking his hands into the great sleeves of his robes.

“No my Lord, no wings nor words,” he sighs, “- though I’d imagine if anyone knew you were here, they’d have many reasons not to alert the birds to your presence, as of yet,”

Yes, Ned has to agree. The whole thing reeks of machination.

“There are rumours, however,” the old man continues, not hesitating but careful, gentle, “- about your wife-,”

“Yes, I know that Lady Catelyn-,”

“And-,” the Maester interrupts, “-about your son,”

Ned blinks,

“My son - Robb?”

Maester Aemon leans forward, one hand revealing a tightly wound scroll - the seal broken.

“This was sent to the Lord Commander the day before you arrived,” he begins, carefully, “it says that the Hand of the King has vanished from the capitol after being attacked in the street - his daughters kept prisoner in the keep,

“-and that the young Stark is calling the banners,”

Ned hoists himself onto his hands, the shooting pains in his knee nothing to the hammering in his chest.

“The banners? You mean to say - we are at war?”

But the Maester shakes his head.

“Not as yet my Lord,” he assures, one hand raised, “-but when in search of answers, it seems the young man is preparing for force,”

The young man. Robb. Gathering Lords and Knights and blooded swords in his name. For his father, the young Stark would ride to war.

Ned shudders.

“Robb - he’s just a boy,”

“Aye, so you say,” says the Maester, placing the scroll back into his robes, “- but it seems he is also his father’s son,”

Ned swallows - throat tight, head heavy. One bare hand smooths over the lazy wolf’s back over and over again.

“What about my girls?” he says again. He’ll say it many more times, no doubt. “They’re not safe there, they don’t belong there, in that - that pit,”

The Maester’s face softens. He leans forward, the wrinkled mouth curled with sympathy.

“Few do, My Lord,” the old man sighs, “- the Red Keep is rarely a home to good intentions, I remember it well,”

Does he? It takes a moment for the words to settle - but yes, how strange. Of course, he’d remember, Ned thinks. He grew up there after all.

Aemon of the Citadel. Prince Aemon Targaryen. How odd - the Lord of Winterfell had quite forgotten about the dragon that slept in the shadow of the Wall - so far from the world.

What would Robert say to me now? Ned muses, taking another drink. What words would he have for the last dragon in Westeros?

Would he have any left for me?

Ned sighs. I should never have set foot in that wretched place. A soldier has little use in the wars of words and treachery. Walking in the steps of Jon Arynn - the business of gold and tourneys, friends and foes. Looking into the eyes of young women with babes at their breasts - searching for the remnants of his eldest friend’s spent seed.

Lordly lies. Bastard babes. By the old gods, Ned, what do you know of those?

On his chest, the wolf yawns, stretching its oversized toes.

Has he been here this whole time? At Winterfell, that little pup barely left his master’s side - bundled up in his arms, nipping at his feet. But the one his boy called Ghost seems quite content to be kept apart - protectively spread over Ned’s body like a cloak.

“Has Jon been here?” he asks, petting the beast once again.

The Maester smiles.

“Aye, several times - he’s been very worried for you, and your girls,”

Oh lad.

“Is he … is he well?”

“I would say so,” the old man nods, and the relief Ned feels is … beyond anything.

I have not failed all of them yet.

“- He’s a good boy, my Lord,” the Maester continues, easily, “- he’s made many friends here - the lad who dressed your leg, in fact,”

Ned looks down at the careful linens wrapped around his swollen limb.

Aye, that sounds like Jon. He rarely saw the lad without one of his siblings in tow - running after Robb, carrying Arya or Bran on his shoulders. Once, Ned watched him dutifully sway back and forth under the instruction of a sweetly singing Sansa - barely four years to her name. The boy took her hands, pouting seriously - careful not to tread on the little lady’s toes.

“That’s good to hear,” Ned nods.

Jon at the Wall, Bran and Rickon behind Winterfell’s high walls. Yes. Let them stay there. Let them be safe.

With all this talk of royal bastards…

“-and the Lord Commander has kept an eye on him,” the Maester carries on “- especially since your brother rode North,”

Ned sits up.

“I should speak to the Lord Commander, as soon as he is able,”

“Yes,” the Maester nods, “- he has a few questions for you too, but my Lord-,”

Ned stops, bracing himself and his leg to shift out from under the wolf’s sleeping weight.

“- Rest a while - that leg won’t thank you for rising so soon, and the snow is still falling,”

Aemon smiles at the ceiling, and Ghost resettles on Ned’s waiting lap.

Once, a long time ago, Lord Mormont visited Winterfell for a feast.

This was many years back - before Ned left for the Eyrie. His father had sat with the Lord of Bear Island all night discussing matters over meat and ale- something dull that neither Ned nor his elder brother cared to listen to. He remembers his black beard, his thick brows - the hair on the back of his knuckles. The (then much younger) bear hadn’t once laughed or cracked a smile that the boys could see- but his father never spoke ill of the man, and the party left with a firm handshake and quiet words.

Ned can see much of that proud Lord sitting before him now - though his beard is grey and his head is lined and bald. Dressed in black, he is the very image of the aged Commander of the Night’s Watch - grizzled and stern. Although-

Corn! Corn!

Ned did not remember the raven.

“Cursed bird,” the Old Bear sighs, reaching somewhere in his pocket. Sitting across from where Ned is propped atop his bed, Mormont tosses some corn to the other side of the room. A flash of black wings disappears behind him, followed by rapid tapping on the old stone slabs.

Ned adjusts, doing his best to hide how the pain sparks up his leg and spine. That boy brought him a basin and cloth to wash with, but Ned would kill for something other than a nightshirt at this moment - it feels wrong to receive a fellow Lord in this way.

Not that he thinks Mormont would mind - the Lord Commander sits at ease with an ale horn in hand. He even brought a cup of hot wine for Ned to sup - a larger jug still steaming on the bedside stool. He twists the drink thoughtfully in his palms - grateful for the warmth and something more to take the edge off his pain.

“-So you’ve no clue who sent you here, Lord Stark?”, Mormont asks- not sceptical, but straightforward.

“No, My Lord,” Ned replies, “-to my regret, I remember little of the leaving, let alone the journey,”

The Commander seems to expect this, nodding to himself.

“To send you by ship too - aye, now there’s a trick,” he murmurs, taking a gulp from his horn, “- none of the men who brought ye even knew who you were - or claimed not to, at least,”

He strokes his beard, thoughtful.

“There’s little point keeping you secret from the men,” he declares, shaking his head, “-half of the watch that night saw you arrive, and even those that don’t know your face have lived with your brother’s for most of their lives,

“Still,” he frowns, “- you understand, of My Lord, what position this has left us both,”

He looks over the rim of his cup.

“The Night’s Watch takes no part,”

Ned nods, solemn.

“Aye, and I would not ask it to,” he assures, flexing his bandaged leg, “-I mean not to wait on your hospitality longer than necessary,”

Jeor leans back, face a little less creased.

“Nor would I throw you out my Lord - there are many leagues between here and the south, and besides-,”

He grimaces then - not quite a smile, but crooked and satisfied.

“House Stark has always been a friend to the Watch,”

Ned smiles, grateful for the Old Bear.

“-and so it shall remain,” he replies.

Both men drink. The older looks from the corner of his eye with suspicion - watching the bird still cheerfully pecking at the scattered corn.

Ned has never been alone with Jeor Mormont, though they’ve exchanged many a raven over the years. Supply lines mostly - negotiations with House Manderly on behalf of East Watch. Handling wheat and ale - management of the Gift.

His son, the Slaver, sent across the sea.

Ned looks into his cup. Yes, he thinks, watching the grizzled old man, perhaps it’s best not to speak of him.

“Maester Aemon told me,” he begins instead, voice hoarse, “-that Benjen is beyond the Wall?”

“Aye,” the Commander nods sagely, “-some months past now - with six others, looking for Ser Waymar Royce,”

He pauses then, eyeing Ned with a frown, but sighs with a nod.

“-I’ll admit his men have been gone longer than we’d agreed - I’ve sent parties out to search for them,”

Ned stiffens. Benjen is missing?

“- you believe something happened to him?” he asks, leaning forward, “- storms? Wildlings?”

But Mormont shakes his head.

“I cannot say, My Lord,” the Commander huffs, “- but Benjen was not made First Ranger for nothing,

“If they have come to some trouble, the men are all the better to have him leading them through it,”

True enough, Ned thinks. His brother found a place here and made it his own. He would not do Benjen the dishonour of doubting his strength or his skill.

Still, he swallows, looking into the fire. There is one less Stark sleeping safely in their bed.

He drains his cup, carefully placing it on the bedside stool.

“As you say, My Lord,”

The two men share the silence - minds North and South. The bird hops over - claws skittering on the stony floor, before flapping onto it’s master’s shoulders.

Lord! Lord!

“Not you, ye pest,” Mormont mutters, stroking a finger down its back. Ned huffs with a half smile.

“How else fairs the Watch?” he asks, “- your new recruits will swear soon, yes?”

“Aye, they’ll swear soon,” the Commander nods, “-your bastard too,”

Sooner the better Ned thinks quietly.

“Aemon tells me he’s done well here,” the Lord says instead, “- with the other lads, making his way,”

The Commander nods, gruffly.

“I’d say so,” he agrees, letting the bird peck at his fingers, “- needed a few hard truths told, perhaps, but find me a lad of four and ten who didn’t have to learn the way of the world,”

He stretched his neck, narrowing his eyes at Ned.

“He’s a good boy though, your bastard,” he says carefully, mulling the words as he says them, “-I mean to take him on as my steward,”

Ned frowns.

“Your steward?”

Truly?

“Aye, My Lord,” says Mormont, keen-eyed, “- my Steward,”

“… I see,”

When Jon asked to go North with his uncle, Ned always imagined his boy as a ranger. Of course, he did. Jon was as swift with his blade as Robb - much swifter than the Iron Born Theon Greyjoy. Jory Cassell always spoke highly of his swordsmanship. Surely he would do well beyond the Wall with his new brothers at his side, defending the land from wildling raiders and the like. Ned can’t imagine why-?

“No disrespect, my Lord, but-,”

Knock Knock Knock

“Come!” says the Lord Commander, leaning back in his chair as the wood creaks open.

“I’m sorry my Lords,” says Jon Snow, standing in the doorframe with a scroll in his hand, “- I did not mean to disturb you,”

“Maester send you here, boy?” the Commander asks, gesturing him to come forward.

“Yes, My Lord,” the lad replies, walking across the room, careful not to stare at his Lord and Father.

But Ned does. Oh, how he stares at the boy - his boy. Has it truly been a few months since he saw him? It feels as if it’s been an age.

Jon is a little taller than he remembers, with dark hair brushing his shoulders and dressed in the customed thick, black leather - yet, he’s almost just as he left him. Exactly where he told him he’d be. If he weren’t a Lord, Ned would weep, right there and then.

“Are you well, Jon?”

Jon watches from the corner of his eye, handing Mormont the scroll with his free hand twitching at his side.

“Aye, My Lord,” the boy replies, “- I am well,”

He glances at Mormont, then back to Ned.

“And you, My Lord?”

His jaw is tense, his shoulders square. The boy looks from the wrap on Ned’s leg, the wine in his hand to his father’s face, glancing away when grey eyes meet grey.

“Better, lad - better than I was,”

Jon keeps to his place, nodding slowly and shifting on his feet.

Bastards don’t run to their father’s side, Ned thinks, his heart twisting. It’s not the proper way.

Robb would likely break my leg again in his landing, the lad’s so fierce. He need not be so polite.

Beside Ned, the wolf sits up - ears perked and tail gently wagging. Ghost stretches with a yawn, gives a little shake, and hops off the bed. Jon looks down with a half smile, offering the pup his open palm. It’s a sweet sight - Ned had seen Lady do the same for Sansa many times, prim and proper.

The poor thing.

Mormont clears his throat, waving the sealed roll of paper.

“Did he tell you when this came, lad?”

“Just now my Lord - Maester Aemon had me help him feed the birds,”

Mormont hums, looking through his eyebrows at Ned, who still watches his boy. If he could, Ned would embrace him - custom be damned. But alas, he has yet to try and stand on his own two feet. It would help neither of them to see the Lord fall on his face.

“Tell me,” Mormont says, his voice pointed, chin raised, “-come here boy,”

Jon frowns but steps forward, one hand rubbing between Ghost’s ears.

“Yes, my lord?”

Mormont raises the scroll, letting the wax seal catch the light.

“Where did this scroll come from?”

Jon narrows his eyes.

“... Hornwood, My Lord,”

The older man nods, looking pointedly at Ned.

“- and what makes you say that?”

Jon opens his mouth, then shuts it - looking between the two lords with hesitation. Like he’s waiting for a jest.

“... the seal,” he replies, slowly, “-orange wax with the moose horn sigil,”

Mormont huffs, nodding his head. He then reaches into his jerkin.

“What about this one,” he asks again, producing a broken scroll with hard blue wax.

“Whiteharbour,” Jon says, tilting his head to see, “-blue, with a merman and trident,”

“And-,” Mormont continues as if raising his voice to a crowd, “-if I were to hand you one in yellow with a pair of blue eyes, where would you say that’d be from?”

Ned watches the scene, hand curling around the sheets.

“House Flint, my Lord,” Jon replies, “at Widow’s Watch, but why-?”

“And if I were to ask you on which river you’d find House Cerwyn, what would you say?”

What game does he play? Ned wonders, following their words back and forth.

“The Western White Knife,” Jon frowns, “-Maester Llewyn used to say-,” he pauses, looking at his father, before Mormont waves him on, “-that Lady Cerwyn’s tongue bites harder than the river’s fork,”

“Aye, so he would,” Mormont nods, pausing thoughtfully. Jon visibly braces, hands now behind his back. Ned waits with him - considering what use a Maester’s drill has at this late hour. But the Lord Commander is not finished.

“How many Northmen would say there were at Castle Black, Snow?” he asks, “excluding you and yer uncle,”

Jon looks to the side like he’s counting.

“Yourself, My Lord - then Bowen Marsh, Ser Mallador Locke and Wynton Stout,” the boy begins,

“I’ve heard the men say the wandering crow, Yoren, came from the lands around Deepwood Motte - he,” Jon shrugs, “- he has the accent for it,”

Ned nods along. Yes, he thought so too. Jon’s always had keen eyes and ears.

“I think there are some men from Torrhen Square in Three Fingered Hobb’s kitchens, and one builder from Moat Calin, I-?,”

“-and what of the recruits,” Mormont interrupts, petting one hand down the curiously silent bird’s back, “- the boys you train with, where did they come from?”

Jon frowns.

“Not above the Neck, My Lord,” the boy says, “-though Pypar’s mummers troupe travelled to many places before he came here,”

“Do any of them have their letters?”

“No Lord Commander,” Jon replies evenly, “- just myself and Sam,”

Mormont sighs, fixing a stray feather on the raven’s wing. Ned smiles quietly at his boy - whatever strange test the Commander set him, he’s clearly passed. Of course, he knew his son was no fool, but Ned would admit he paid little mind to what Jon learned in Luwin’s chambers. Cat had long begrudged him the time with Robb in his lessons, it’s true - Llewyn was wasted on a Bastard, she would say.

But Ned decided long ago - if Jon was to be his son, he would learn with the rest of them. Know the land he lived in. Keep up with his elder brother in the yard and the schoolroom.

I owe him that at least.

Mormont’s lip curls - not quite a smile. Then he waves the lad away.

“Right boy, off you go,”

“My Lord-?”

“Go on now, get some stew in you, I’m sure the Maester will find something else to keep you busy before Alliser has you all at drill,”

Jon doesn’t move, hands twitching.

“Lord Commander, can I ask-?”

“No you can’t boy,” he says firmly, fixing his pale eyes on the lad, “-you heard me, go on now,”

Still Jon swallows, though he goes to leave. Mormont’s voice lowers.

“-don’t you worry, lad,” he says, not unkindly, “yer father will be here a while yet,”

Jon frowns, looking back to Ned. His mouth opens and closes. The wolf shakes out his fur.

Ned sighs.

“We’ll speak later Jon, I promise,”

That seems good enough. The boy bows, just at the neck, then turns towards the door. The wolf trots behind him on his heels, tail in the air, but wordlessly Jon shakes his head. One hand on the latch, he points the beast back to the bed, back to Ned, and the pup silently obeys. The door creaks shut, and Lord Stark’s lap is full again with warm, white fur.

“A good lad,” Mormont says again, fishing some more corn from his pocket.

“Aye,” Ned replies softly, petting the beast’s chin. He hasn’t turned away from the door.

They sit in silence - the fire crackling and the bird happily picking at the handfuls of yellow grain. Though Ned has yet to leave his bed, he’s wearier than he’s ever been.

“Do you know, My Lord,” Mormont murmurs, wincing as a beak bites into rough, calloused palms, “-how many highborns we get here at the Wall?”

Ned shakes his head.

“Not many,” the Commander says, “-not these days,

“Most of them come with men like Yoren - cleared out from dungeons, riding up the King’s Road,

“-lots of good hands, no doubt - men who can raise a keep, tend a horse, start a fire - even lead a small company or watch over a chest of coin,

“All of them wanting a second chance, to escape the noose, the sword - as ye like,

“Bastards are ten-a-penny, I’ll grant you too - I’ve known half a hundred Flowers and Stones, Rivers and Waters and many, many Snows,”

“Snow” the Raven repeats happily, “Snow! Snow!”

“-but very few of them could tell me half of what your lad just did, just now,”

“He’s a smart boy,” Ned agrees, “-always has been,”

“Aye, he’s smart,” Mormont says “a smart boy, who knows the North, has his letters and has learned a thing or two about being a brother,

“-he could do well here,”

He leans forward.

“Better here, than beyond the Wall,”

And it clicks.

“You’d make him your steward,” Ned repeats, quietly.

Bring your food, and change your sheets. Pour your wine and clear your table. Read your maps and your ravens. Stand at your side to hear counsel, to make plans.

To learn.

Mormont sits satisfied.

“He’s a temper on him, I’ll grant you-”

A temper? His Jon? Ned can’t say he’s ever seen much of it himself, but-

“-but he’s found friends here, good friends - he looks after them, teaches them what he knows, Thorne’s rod or no-,”

Mormont leans forward.

“Your bastard will swear his vows soon, as many have - and then he’ll have his place,

And Mormont stares his liege lord down with steely eyes.

“He could live here,”

Ned almost bristles.

Aye, so there’s your plot.

The Lord shall not linger where bastards may thrive. He wants Ned to leave, but not his boy. Eddard is almost surprised he didn’t send Jon to swear his vows the moment he arrived- marched to the godswood under guard, ready to swear his fate.

But, despite the bite, Lord Stark lets the elder’s words roll over him. Sees the sense, almost with relief.

Mormont tells no lies - Jon can do well here, away from the world. More than his name, less burdened by his birth. His blood has manned the wall for thousands of years. With him, they shall stand guard for many more.

And besides - Lord Eddard Stark had no intention of bringing Jon Snow South.

“I’m sure he will serve the Wall with honour,” he says with as much force as he can muster, meeting the Commander’s eyes with his own steel.

“Aye,” Mormont smiles, the first true one Ned has ever seen - all strong, white teeth, “-I’m sure he will,”

He finishes his drink, setting the horn down beside him and the Raven squawks.

“Snow! Corn! Snow!”

“Now, My Lord,” Mormont sighs, reaching over to pour Ned another cup of wine.

“What word from King’s Landing?”

Chapter Text

The creaking, ancient contraption that crawls up the side of the Wall does not fill Ned with much confidence.

The winch, turned slowly by some pock-faced man, groans with every step - the splintered handle shining with frost that is likely older than every man at Castle Black put together. The great cage, large enough to hold ten men in all, is held together with rusted nails. As it draws nearer and nearer, the frame shudders and jolts, creaking as it reaches the landing platform. The guard spits as he wipes his hands, gesturing for the Lord to come forward.

Leaning on the twisted, wooden cane pressed in his hands at the behest of Maester Aemon, Ned approaches the little gate with a nod of thanks. Neither man comments on how he huffs on each, laboured step- Ned’s knee striking as hot as a blacksmith’s forge. Nor does the guard express surprise towards the sleek white wolf that leans close to Ned’s side - a silent companion lightly hopping onto the wooden floor, settling without a sound. The Lord rests one hand on the oaken sides as the guard grunts behind a woollen cowl.

One jolt, then another - and Ned begins to rise.

The novelty of the machine is a distant thing - the muddy courtyard and smoky hearths of Castle Black beginning to shrink before his eyes.

Mormont had given him free movement about the keep - though both men knew that did not mean much in the Lord’s weakened state. Even as he stands stationary, his knee sings to him - every gust of wind against the great icy sheet is enough to tighten his grip on the cage. But plied with hot wine and as much milk of the poppy he can stomach, Ned could not bear one more hour in that little chamber - confined to his grey, straw-filled bed.

Instead, Ned breathes- the first true gulp of fresh air he’s had since he caught sight of Kings Landing and it’s stinking maw.

Bran would like this he thinks idly as the cage climbs and climbs, looking across the foggy stretch of the Gift before him - the distant glow of Queenscrown’s chimneys illuminating the darkness. He could imagine the lad squirrelling his way up this very pile of planks and stone - even now, the thought makes his stomach lurch. Never mind that Bran will never …

Ned shakes his head. This is why he decided, for the first time in many days, that he needed to walk. Between those stifling stone walls his mind could not help but wander South - first to Winterfell, then to the Riverlands and finally all the way to the Red Keep. That viper's nest.

How far my pups are scattered he thinks, drawing his cloak up to his chin, and my Lady too. Fending for themselves out there. He knew better than to doubt his proud, southern wife - spirit as fiery as her flaming hair. But the pack was not meant to be so divided - so alone.

My girls he sighs. What a Lord he is. A winner of wars, the Warden of the North with the blood of Winter Kings in his veins - carried away like a mewling babe to leave his daughters in that writhing pit.

The box shudders to a halt. Shaken from his thoughts, Ned takes up his stick and shuffles over to the other gate - bracing against the wind as he steps off the wooden platform onto the snowy passage.

Another man greets him there - perhaps a few years younger than Ned with dark hair and darker eyes. He makes no move to assist the Lord as he negotiates his dismount, but he watches him carefully - stepping aside as Ned reaches for a wall to steady himself. The wolf slinks beside him, nose to the ground as the men exchange a word or two - gruff and short - but he needn’t have asked where to go as Ghost disappears off into the distance.

There is little to see. The dark sky is flecked with falling snow and the Wall is a jagged, narrow thing - high walls studded with alcoves and nooks where cloaked figures stand guard, always watching. There aren’t enough live bodies at the Wall to guard every battlement, but enough for one or two skinny, pale faces to turn as a limping shadow passes behind them.

The Wall winds around like a river and Ned hobbles his way past flickering torches and sputtering braisers, bracing his borrowed cloak against the chill as a white tail disappears around each corner. He passes some old greybeard heading down for his supper with a nod - but the great fortress of legend could be abandoned for all Ned can see. There’s no one around for miles.

No Queen’s maids or Petyr’s talking whores, at least.

Eventually, after peering through several more shelters, Ned reaches the final turn.

“Lord Stark,” says his bastard boy, still greeting the wolf at his feet. Jon’s hair blows in the wind, the hood of his cloak flecked with white, and the boy bows his head as Ned lingers at the gap in the passage.

“How long have you been up here?” the Lord asks, resting a little against the carved niche, relieved to take his aching palm off the stick.

“The recruits’ Watch starts at sundown,” the boy replies evenly, rolling his shoulders.

A few hours then.

“Aren’t ye cold?” Ned says gently, drawing his own cloak a little closer.

“It’s colder beyond the Wall,” the boy says sagely, no doubt repeating some bluster from one of the older men. But Ned sees where his fists tuck tightly under his cloak - Jon’s tawny skin flushed a bright pink, even in the firelight.

It brings a smile to Ned’s face. How often had he seen his eldest boys tumble into the great hall - red cheeks and frosty boots, peeling with endless laughter in the summer snows?

But Jon does not smile back, shifting on his feet and turning towards the far North. Ned treads carefully, moving around the brazier and the humble woodpile stacked beside it to join Jon at his post, his wolf looking up with silent red eyes. He thinks about leaning down to give the pup another gentle pat, but as he approaches the edge he cannot hold back a breath.

Benjen had told him, many times, what hid behind that great barricade. He spoke of the snow, the looming forest - the strange lights that could be sometimes seen even from Winterfell in the darkest months.

But Ned - a man well grown, a Lord and a father to boot - cannot deny what greets him is unlike anything he’s ever seen.

The sky glows. Not quite the great strips of light that Benjen spoke of, but the night drips with colour like wet paint - a wash of green and orange against an inky black, pierced with pinprick stars. The earth stretches out into a roll of trees and somewhere far away the jagged, snow-capped mountains almost shine.

“‘Tis quite a view,” Ned hums, words almost lost in the falling snow.

“Aye,” the boy agrees.

They watch it for a little while.

It is not a tense silence - but, as he massages the top of his hip with as much subtlety that he can muster, Ned is not completely at ease.

It is the first time he has been alone with his boy since that day on the King's Road. So much has happened to both of them since then - standing side by side, Jon is half a hand taller than Ned remembers, his hair brushing his shoulders with a little stubble on his chin. Leaning on his stick, the Lord knows that the short time has changed him too.

It was easy to speak to him as a boy. All Ned had to do was take both his sons by the scruff - smear the dirt from his bastard’s face and send him after his brothers. Watch yer feet lad he’d shout when he cheered alone from the castle wall. What do you have there? he’d ask as the boy fiddled with some carved, dark wood toy. Hold tight now he’d smile as he settled him on a grey dappled pony, trotting about the stable yard pretending to be some feathered tourney knight.

Every time there’d be that same shy, gap-toothed smile. A cheerful Yes Father that chirped like bird song - in chorus with the other little ones that ran Winterfell ragged.

But that was many years ago. Even as a babe, Ned knew every word he spoke to his bastard would be a slight on his lady wife. As the child grew, he was best addressed as one of the eponymous “boys” of Winterfell - part of a group, one of many. Rarely did the Warden of the North see Jon Snow with no other ears around to hear them - and what little time they had always seemed to be too short. Too cold.

He wanted to talk to me, that day he rode North and I rode South, Ned remembers, the ghost of that moment still waving goodbye over the hills. He’d wanted to ask, but he didn’t. Surely, the boy wanted to know?

Can you deny how glad you were that he didn’t?

Ned shakes his head, tucking one gloved hand under his armpit. Rocking on his cane, he winces as his knee twists, the salve under fresh bandages not quite so potent as it was two hours ago.

That thought stirs him, and he turns to Jon.

“That boy,” he tries, keeping his gaze steadily out across the snow, “… the plump lad,”

His name escapes Ned for a moment.

“Sam?” Jon asks, turning to him with a raised brow.

The Lord nods.

“- he speaks well of you, that one,”

In his own way, that is - but Ned knows a small victory when he sees it. For the first time since the Lord arrived at Castle Black, Jon smiles - a quiet little thing, but it’s boyish in a way that softens his long, sombre face.

“Aye,” he hums, “- Sam is a friend,”

“I gathered as such,” Ned replies, shaking his head. He twists his cane.

“Though what a boy like that is doing so far North is beyond me, I must say,”

He turns to share a smile with his lad, but stops. Jon’s lips twist.

“Sam has just as much a right to be here as any of us,”

Jon’s voice is low. Tense. He does not look at Ned.

Us the Lord thinks. As any of us.

“He’s craven as they come,” Jon continues, rallying, “-but no one admits it faster than him,

“What he lacks in valour he makes up in his counsel,”

Jon looks up then as if daring, with some strange kind of courage, for his father to question him.

“There was no place for him in the world, so he came here,”

How old he sounds - how certain. A wisdom Ned had not come to expect from the boy.

Is there truly no place for you too, lad?

But Ned does not ask him this. Instead, he nods, almost placatingly.

“Aye, I’m sure the Watch needs all kinds” he agrees, gesturing to his leg, “ - he’s proved that to me already,”

The fire crackles and the wolf shifts his head in his oversized paws.

“It’s good,” Ned tries again, leaning forward, “- to make friends here, with the other boys,”

Jon nods.

“They’ll be my brothers,” he says simply.

“Aye,” Ned agrees. If there is one thing he knows about Jon, it’s that he’s a brother above all else.

“They tell me you’ve been teaching them,” he smiles, leaning forward, “ - had them swinging their swords, fixing their feet,”

“A little,” Jon nods, looking down.

A lot, if what Mormont said of Sir Alliser Thorne’s gripes is true. The Lord can’t help but smile.

“I’m sure Ser Rodrick would be pleased to hear it,” Ned says honestly, and Jon turns away to look along the wall. The torches shine like gold coins as they disappear into the distance.

In this light, it’s as if the boy is carved from stone. The shield that guards the realms of men, his vows will say, and with his beast beside him Ned could almost believe it. How right it feels to have a Direwolf keep watch above the world - like an old song sung among the weirwood’s leaves. Perhaps Brandon the Builder stood in this very spot - looking out with the same, long face.

But still, Ned has long known there was little of legend about the Wall these days. Greybeards and cutpurses - old bears and rapers. Freezing stone and rotting timbers - only the Wall still stands strong, half-abandoned.

The boy’s wolf sits up, nosing into Jon’s leg with his tail wrapped around his feet - that scruffed jaw tense, his brow low.

How tired he looks. Ned wonders how he’s been sleeping. Where does he sleep? The Lord doesn’t know - there are a lot of things he doesn’t know about his children these days.

“How are you, Jon?”

It’s a lame question, even to his own ears, but the baffled look his son returns him shows it was worth asking.

“I am well, My lord,” Jon says, uncertainly, glancing down at his father’s leg, “-and yourself?”

Ned only nods.

“Aye lad,” he grits, wishing there was some bench to sit on, “- I will live,”

If the gods allow it.

“Are you keeping well?” Ned tries again, “- are they feeding you? Clothing you? Keeping you busy?”

Again, his son nods.

“Yes, my Lord,” Jon replies, solemnly, “-there is always much to do,”

Ned would not call his natural son a liar. No, not his Jon. Still, Lord Stark cannot soothe his dissatisfaction.

“It’s just,” Ned tries, running one thumb over the stick’s carved handle, “-I imagine there has been some adjustment for you, especially without-,”

Without Benjen he doesn’t voice, gaze drawn back to that open, rolling landscape.

Jon says nothing - chest rising and falling. He heard him, though. Ned can see it in his eyes.

“This place…,” Ned continues, faltering, “- it is a different life, especially for one …-”

One so young

“For someone your age,” he decides.

“The Wall is not an easy lot,” Ned nods to himself, “-but there is honour here,”

Jon sighs. Ned looks up and sees the pup standing now, the boy staring straight ahead - his grey eyes shining.

“Honour,” the boy repeats slowly. Like he’s chewing - tasting every syllable.

“Aye,” Ned swallows, “- even in this place,”

Jon bites his lip, leaning against his gloved, clenched hands.

“How were they?” he asks quietly, not looking Ned in the eye, “-the girls?”

Ned inhales deeply. May the gods give him strength.

“Themselves,” he decides, thinking of fountains and courtyards and summer feasts, “- last I saw them, Sansa and Jeyne were enjoying the Southron dresses, the tourneys and singers and such,

“-and Arya,” he laughs, despite himself, “- I found her a teacher in Braavosi water dancing to keep her occupied - for that little sword of hers, did you see it?”

Jon nods, that tiny smile tugging at his face again.

“Aye,” he replies quietly, “I saw it,”

Ned leans on his stick.

“Yes, last I spoke to them - they were well,”

Robert would not let them come to harm he thinks - almost like a prayer. Forrel took a liking to Arya in all her wild ways, perhaps he would watch out for her - take all three away from harm.

He should tell Jon these things, and is about to when-

“Do you know who sent you here?”

Jon’s voice carries no accusation - no judgement, no malice. But Ned can’t help but bristle - a nobleman’s pride wounded by a boy.

“No,” he murmurs, looking into the wind, “- nor am I sure I want to,”

What monster takes the man and leaves the child? Why keep him alive and leave his daughters in the lion’s den?

Jon nods.

“You’re going to get them back,”

It is not a question.

“Aye,” Ned answers, “I am,”

Snow crunches as Jon shuffles on his feet, eyes still straight ahead. He opens his mouth, breath staining the air bright white, but closes it again. His wolf shakes out his fur.

“Jon?”

But the boy says nothing - his shoulders square, eyes narrow, a little curl of hair peeking out from the hood of his cloak. It's a grim look - one that will only grow sterner as he grows tall. Cold like steel - focused like a razor’s blade. It shocks Ned a little - how fierce his boy can be.

How much he looks like her, in this light.

“I should be there,”

Ned blinks as the boy speaks, almost without thought.

“- when you go, I should be there with you,”

The words are all but lost to the wind. Jon might as well shout them for all it shakes Ned to the core.

“-Jon,” he begins, but the boy has started now.

“- Sam told me about Robb, how he’s left to call the banners, it’s all they talk about in Queenscrown - especially after what Lady Catelyn did, and they’re looking for you, and the girls,”

He shakes his head, gritting his teeth.

“Everyone knows it - this will be War, it’s happening right now, and you can’t just-,”

He cuts himself off, but now Ned can read the boy like any book. Of course, he can - how could he expect any son of his to sit here with what he now knows?

Except he isn’t-

But Ned raises one hand, like soothing a spooked mare.

“Jon,” he speaks, voice firm, “- I know that this is difficult,”

The boy sighs, shaking his head.

“-Listen,” Ned carries on, summoning some noble strength, “- this is no game that we are playing here, if what the word says of Robb is true then last thing I need is-,”

“What you need,” Jon interrupts, “-is allies,”

Ned shakes his head.

“Jon, you’re only a b-,”

A boy is what he meant to say, but Ned winces when he sees that his son heard something else.

“I know what I am, My Lord,” Jon declares, voice rising over the wind, bruised with hurt, “- but I will not hide up North while my family fights the world and more -

“Do not ask me to choose to sit behind this Wall while my brother fights and my sisters suffer-,”

Ned’s head swims - with sleeping draughts and bitter cold and lingering grief. But his temper is rising now - he cannot keep it all in check.

“I am asking you to do as your Lord commands,” Ned all but shouts, the wolf’s ears flattening to his furred head, “I’m asking you to be safe,”

“Safe?” Jon repeats, bold and brazen, “- is that what you think of this place? Is that why you let me-,”

He stops himself then, red-faced. He looks down from his father towards his shoes, almost ashamed, and his wolf ducks its head.

“I know I have no right to your name,” he swallows, steadying, “- but do not send me away when it is my blood that needs defending too,

“I cannot abandon them for vows I have not yet sworn,”

The boy looks away, breathing hard.

“Do not ask me to,”

Oh Jon.

He’s thought too little of his bastard son these last few months. Ned wishes he’d taken the time to decide what to say to him now, standing at the last castle in the world with a chill in his bones.

Ned shakes his head, running one hand over his snow-caked hair.

“Jon,” he says carefully, like threading a needle, “-you’ve found a place here,”

But the boy scoffs, and Ned-

“Listen to me,” Ned asks, keeping his voice as even as he can bear, “-there are more fearsome things than knights and battles at work in the South,

“There are forces that seek to root things out - whisper in the dark, put knives to your throat, I barely understand it myself, I-,”

“-then you need people you can trust,” the boy implores, voice rising, “- who else here would come with you?”

“There is a long road from here to Winterfell,” Ned retorts, as if convincing himself, “- with season soldiers, hardened men - loyal to me and and the North,”

“But if there are enemies,” Jon pleads, eyes wide, “-you shouldn’t face them alone, not without your fam-,”

Ned steps forward, ignoring his groaning leg

“-Jon, I will not ask again,”

“You cannot keep me here,” Jon says low - like a threat.

Ned goes cold.

“Even if you leave without me,” the boy carries on, “-you cannot stop me following-,”

“I can,” he warns, “-I can and I will,”

“I’m not a child,”

“Jon, I’m warning you-,”

“No, Father - they’re my family too, and you can’t-,”

“I will not,” the Lord growls, “-be told what I can and cannot do by my own b-,”

Ned catches himself at the edge of a cliff.

By my own bastard.

But Jon heard it anyway. Teeth gritted, his wolf sits low to the ground, ears flat. Jon’s face is red.

Ned takes a breath.

“I’m doing this for your own good-,” he says, almost like a chant, “- I mean it Jon, you must do as I say,”

But the boy just stares, holding his breath.

“These people play no games,” Ned twists his lips, “- they see all, and I would keep you from them with my last breath,”

But Jon looks as if he might scream.

“You would hide me from them,”

“Yes I would!” Ned shouts, his voice cracking, “-by all the Gods, I would hide you from that place,”

Protect you from them..

But it’s as if Jon’s been struck. The boy looks through him - something snuffed behind his eyes. Ned already has another strike ready on his tongue, when-

“Are you so ashamed of me father?” Jon whispers.

His shoulders shake.

“Do you think so little of me?”

It’s a sullen sentence. Drained of righteousness - of duty. Instead, he sounds only like a boy of four and ten.

Jon must hear it in his own voice - his face aghast.

“I’m sorry My Lord,” he swallows, bowing his head, “-I, you are unwell, I would not wish to-,”

But Ned shakes his head, dumbly.

“No Jon,” he almost whispers, “- I,”

He stumbles - struggling for words that could comfort.

Because the boy is not wrong.

The things Ned has done to hide his sweet, dark-haired babe. The one who would defy his father and liege lord to save his sisters - would look at him with fury to prove his worth.

Because he did send him away. Knowing what he did of the Watch and its keepers, he waved the boy goodbye at the King’s Road, almost with relief. How neat the solution was - solving what had nagged in his mind as he prepared to take his place at the King’s right hand.

Benjen would keep him safe, he’d thought, as he lay in bed that night. Men get what they earn, his brother said, on the Wall. A bastard boy with no name can make his own destiny. Escape whatever fate lay down south.

Yes. How long Ned has feared Jon’s fate.

“Jon,” he begins, treading carefully, “- you must understand-,”

Ned swallows. He cannot do this.

“I know you want to do what you think is right, and I know that you would fight with honour, but you see-,”

Jon shakes his head.

“-I see it Father,” the boy whispers, “- I see it plain and true,”

He turns towards the snow, fists tight. Eyes shut. Two shining tracks fall down his cheeks.

Ned cannot bear it.

Arya and her Butcher’s boy. Sansa and her Lady. Rickon - his little fists waving goodbye behind the Maester’s hood. Bran - so still, lying in a bed twice his size. Robb with barely a hair on his chin - preparing the North for war.

Not one of them was ready for the world. Winterfell was a haven for them all - for a soldier tired of bloodshed as much as the babes, green as summer grass. Leaving the keep like a flock of lambs - marching towards the cleaver.

Did Arya and Sansa truly know what waited for them in the King’s castle?

Did they trust their father to tell them?

The truth should die with him, he’d promised himself. The boy would never need to know. He was already safe - behind one wall or another. A bit of gossip at best. A bastard, nothing more.

But that lie is what threatens him now. Even if Ned left, the story he’s told for nearly five and ten years now would only follow him South. How could it not, with that glint in his boy’s shining eyes?

The romance of a bastard brother, riding to war for his true-born kin. The natural son of a great Lord, proving his worth - another sword in an army to die, one few would look twice at beyond the shame of his father’s lust.

Ned swallows.

He’s just a boy

A boy who’ll swear his vows soon enough.

You’ve carried it for this long

He’s breaking in two.

I -

Jon doesn’t look at him. Standing there, he’s all arms and legs - a body not yet fully grown, a face still a little soft in the cheeks.

He’ll be a man soon - making his own way in the world. A world of snow and hard labour - with no wife or babes of his own to keep him warm.

Ned shudders.

He deserves to know why.

“Jon, I-,”

He doesn’t look up. Ned is almost glad he doesn’t. It gives him a few moments more to give the past some words it is worthy of. Worthy of his boy.

His first little boy.

“You know lad,” Ned decides, his voice softening, “-I never felt a man until I held you in my arms,”

Chapter Text

“Such a wee thing you were,” Ned huffs, leaning on his cane like the old man he isn’t, “- a real pair of lungs on you too - screaming with all your might,”

You could hear his wails for miles around - a tiny purple face, all screwed up with fury. It had run him ragged at first, all those years ago, but now the memory only makes Ned smile.

“I’d never held a babe before,” he muses, “- I had no idea if My Lady Wife had even taken to the birthing bed, let alone if we’d been blessed with a daughter or son,

“I’ll be honest Jon,” he confesses, turning to the boy with eyes as round as fresh, white eggs, “- I was terrified,”

Ned leans forward, resting his cane against the ice. He shakes his head, watching Jon watch him.

“You came early, you know?” Ned sighs, “-so small, the women thought you wouldn’t make it through the night, and your mother-,”

Jon stiffens. A long forbidden word to them both. How long they’ve waited for it to be spoken.

“Father-,”

Ned holds up his hand, stuttering Jon’s gaping mouth into silence.

“- I was ten and nine when the war began, and by the end, I’d spilled so much blood …I think most of us had forgotten things could be born at all,

“Any boy can swing a sword Jon, but when the smoke on the Trident cleared and I stood in the Red Keep-,”

The very spot where my brother and father were murdered.

“-I was both a husband and a Lord, and I truly felt that after everything, I was ready to take their place,”

He shakes his head.

“Then I heard word … about your mother,”

Something passes over Jon’s face, but Ned has the momentum to carry him now. It’s as if he’s stepped back from himself - floating away from the top of the world, with trees like splinters and Castle Black like a remote, glowing hearth. Distantly, and he’s grateful they are so high up - so far away. With the wind howling, the great distance from here to that rattling cage - the Wall truly feels apart from the rest of the world.

“She was already in labour when I found her - and I was there when they caught you, in the end,” he half whispers.

“There was an awful pause, waiting for you to-,” to live Ned remembers, that fear like nothing else he’d ever felt, “to take your first breaths,

“-and when you finally did, she reached out - called for you with … with what would be her last …,”

Steady Ned.

“…her last breath,”

She could barely speak then, Ned remembers, and her whole body was soaked red. They’d wiped a cool cloth over her brow as she sang to her little babe - something they both remembered from Mother when they were young. She pressed the tiny thing against her breast and fed him herself, even as life went out from her. She ran a gentle finger over his curled fists, murmuring nonsense all the while.

He looks back to Jon - the boy’s bloodless face drawn and pale.

“She-,” he whispers, eyes shining in the firelight, “-she’s dead?”

It hurts the same as it did fourteen years ago.

“Yes,” Lord Eddard Stark replies, “-she is dead,

“But-,” he interrupts as Jon leans back, hands trembling, “but Jon, please-,”

Ned goes to reach out, to comfort the boy whose world collapses around him like that ancient, stone tower. But he thinks better of it, instead-

“It had been a hard birth, Jon,” he tries to soothe, “- a long one, and she-,”

She bled. Jon’s mother was as strong as iron and would fight off a hundred men if the world would let her. But the birthing bed is another kind of battle - one that so many lose to the will of the gods, old and new.

Ned doesn’t tell Jon this. Instead, he sighs - sounding older than every grand-maester in the citadel.

“She wanted you safe,”

And there it is. There is the truth, in so many words.

But the Lord cannot stop now.

Can you do this Ned? he thinks as the boy clutches his own chest - shards of truth, cutting the boy's soul like glass. Can you really break the promise you made, all those years ago?

Yet he knows he has made so many more - to his wife, his friend, his sister and the wretched young man he sent this forsaken place. In the end, he must ask himself what means more. The debt to the living, or to the dead?

The Wall holds them high - alone as the two Northmen will ever possibly be. No shadows cast in the firelight - just a Lord and his bastard son - what more would any pair of eyes even see? How could they hear them, so far from the world?

“She wrapped you up in the sheets on her bed,” he continues, a strange, certain calm washing over him, “-she kissed your brow and made me promise to keep you safe,

“She beckoned me closer and had me take you from her,”

What a strange weight it was too. So light and delicate with flushed, wrinkled skin - still warm from the womb.

“She made me promise to keep you, to claim you - make sure that no harm came to you, and then -,”

Ned shuts his eyes.

“She told me your name - your first, given name,”

He swears he can still feel her breath in his ear, the damp sweat from her brow on his cheek as she pulls him close beside her - one shaking hand holding the babe’s soft-skulled head.

The last words of the rebellion, spoken like a prayer.

“I wish I knew what she said,”

Jon blinks, the meaning of the words settling on him like snow. His face twists - brows furrowed and lip curling.

“What do you-?” he starts, but Ned cannot stop now.

“Listen Jon,” he pleads, so far from the fearless Lord he once was, “-she was almost gone, exhausted, nearly with the gods, and all she wanted was for you to be safe,

“Her words were so faint - I - I’m sorry Jon, I really wish I knew,”

The boy stares as if trying to see the jest - looking for the trick in his father’s eyes. Ned wishes he could find it too.

“But I do know,” he sighs, remembering works like blood dripped petals.

Ned shakes his head, like defeat.

“-you were named by your father,”

The Wall stands silent as two pairs of eyes search each other, the wind screaming atop the icy fortress.

“-but,” Jon’s voice might as well be from Winterfell, his words are so soft, “- I don’t understand-,”

Ned opens his hands, as if to show him he means no harm.

“I promised her I’d take you, raise you as my own,” Ned confesses, “- and I knew what a choice that would be, for both of us - what a life that would give you,”

Ned takes in his boy dressed in black, shivering as frost settles in his tangled hair.

“-but it was a life, nonetheless and I-,”

Ned swallows.

“I loved my sister very dearly,”

The Lord almost thinks Jon didn’t hear him, his face is so still. Ned wonders if the gods will make him speak the truth again, when-

“Aunt … Aunt Lyanna?”

Jon steps back, his hands pressed against the icy edge.

“But - she died, Aunt Lyanna … she …,”

Jon’s words fumble like a blind man in an empty room, scrambling in thin air.

Then his eyes go wide.

“She was taken,” he breathes, “-everyone knows it, she … she was taken, kidnapped by-,”

The boy looks like he might be sick, running one hand over his forehead. His wolf presses into his side, nosing at Jon’s free palm, but even its silent comfort does nothing to soothe the wild look in his master’s eyes.

Ned can only nod.

“I don’t know it all,” he continues, words falling like a river over a cliff’s edge, “I wish I understood, Jon, I really do, but-,”

“What?”

Jon’s voice cuts through the wind - half a shout and half a sob - rising high and carrying along the snow-covered turrets and trestles of the last wall in the world. Ned raises his hands, swallowing a curse as he steps forward on his aching leg.

“We all thought the same, I thought the same-,”

He struggles for a moment, wading through memories he’d long hoped to bury.

“After the tourney, when he laid that crown of roses in her lap, the Prince’s interest … it was an open secret,”

One everyone thought would fade if we all looked away.

“When months passed and she’d disappeared, my Father and Brother, Robert and I - we all truly believed this was part of some great conspiracy or some cruel scheme,

“You have to understand Jon, the realm had been on a knife’s edge for years - like the gods had set pieces on the board just for us all to topple,

The Mad King had festered in the Red Keep for decades, he remembers, - perhaps it was only a matter of time before his rot spread beyond.

And when Lya disappeared, why wouldn’t we think his son was more of the same?

Ned sighs, running one hand down his face.

“It wasn’t until I received the call to Dorne and I arrived at Starfall to hear the truth from…,”

From my Lady, Ashara, he thinks, but now is not the time.

“From the sister of Ser Arthur Dayne, the Crown Prince’s trusted friend and King’s guard, that I knew that-,”

He shakes his head.

“Lyanna went with Prince Rhaegar willingly.”

By the Old Gods and New, Ned wishes he could understand. When he stood at the foot of that Tower, the greatest Knight to ever live dead at his feet and the blood of King’s Landing still staining his cloak, he had wondered what it had all been for.

When he left that same Tower one day later, a fussing babe tied across his chest, Ned Stark knew even less.

Did the dragon prince’s crown rob him of his senses? Did the doom of Valyria’s fading smoke blind him to such petty things as consequences. Did he truly not know what would happen when House Stark lost one of its own?

And Lyanna-

Was she truly so wild? Could she abandon them all, oblivious to the scars her choices would leave behind?

Did she miss her Prince, when he rode off to war? Was she frightened when the babe he gave her quickened, or when the labour drew nearer as she waited for word from the Riverlands? For word of its father’s fate?

Was she angry? Full of hope? Did she think she’d be Queen one day, even with her lover’s wife still breathing in the Red Keep? Did she think he’d set Elia aside for her? Or did she imagine they’d run off together, free of the throne to raise their child across the sea?

Did she hate him, did she love him?

Did he love her?

Those questions are as dead as the bones in Winterfell’s crypts, cold like the rubies in the river - not one of them will help their son, frozen in time with fire in his eyes, as he stands before Ned now.

“Jon?” he asks, taking a careful step towards the boy, “- I know that this is-,”

But Jon pulls away, shaking his head.

“I don’t, I-,”

He walks away from Ghost too, rocking left and right as if he can’t decide which way to run.

“And that’s why … Seven hells it all makes - of course -,” and Jon laughs then, a strangled, choking thing, “- protecting the prince’s bastard it-,”

The thought stops him again, his whole manner like a half-forged chain - missing and making links at random.

“A Prince’s bastard,” he repeats slowly, “-worse than a Lord, a Prince -,”

He laughs - a single huff that sounds more like a retch.

“Fuck,”.

Jon groans, his voice echoing down to the forest. Can Ned really bring himself to quiet him? Carrying this weight has been like holding in a scream, but the relief of sharing it has yet to come.

And Ned is not finished. He takes a look behind him, watching the way the braiser's flames flicker against the walls - listening for footsteps. The Watch takes no part he thinks again, and the Iron Throne is miles away.

“No Jon,” he murmurs, shaking his head.

“Not a bastard,”

The boy makes a noise, high and sharp like a knife through the chest.

“He was married,” Jon hisses - the weight of another man’s mistakes already like a rock on his back. Must he carry the sins of others all his life?

“He was,” Ned confesses, “I don’t deny it, but it’s clear Jon, think,”

Ned shakes his hands, resisting the urge to grab the boy by the shoulders - anything to make him understand.

“This man rode to war without his greatest sword - kept both of you tucked away in Dorne as far as he could from the fighting, and Ashara -,”

Ned sighs. He has to know it all. If Jon is to carry the weight of what his breath and his birth mean to the world, now is not the time to hold back.

“Lady Ashara spoke of a meeting beneath a heart tree - the last one in the south before they rode to Dorne, of ribbons and oathsand Jon-,”

What a Lord he is, pleading with a boy of four and ten.

“Even if that’s a lie - even if whatever maester or Septon decides what the law says and means - he’d claimed you before you’d even drawn breath in this world - gave you your name, and Lyanna-,”

Promise me, Ned. Promise me, protect him, he might be the last- those poor babes- and he, he-

“Lyanna might have taken your given name to her grave,” Ned decides, maybe in that moment, “-but she was clear what House he would claim you for -,”

How these thoughts had plagued Ned’s waking hours when Jon still squealed in his crib. Even if it weren’t true, he had mused in the quiet of his chambers, Cat sleeping peacefully beside him, the question alone would damn them all the same.

Perhaps the boy realises this too - his face melting in sorrow as a thousand truths sink in one by one.

“Who else knows?” he murmurs, his voice as grim as the grave, “who - is that why-?”

He doesn’t finish the thought, but Ned is just grateful for a question he can answer.

“Two houses - even then only one man and one woman living for sure,” he sighs, “Lord Reed was with me when I rode for Dorne - he was Lyanna’s true friend and will stay so till his dying breath,

“He took her belongings to the Neck when we rode north, all of them - I couldn’t bare to-,”

Ned pauses a moment, voice thick, but he has to recover.

“There is also House Dayne,” he continues, fists tight, “- two of their name were there when you were born, and their brother is, was a true friend, despite everything.

“One of their ladies even nursed you on the road North until we took to the ships, Wylla her name was - all of them sworn to secrecy,”

And so far have kept it, he thinks, like a plea.

“No one else?” Jon asks, his voice quiet again, like something has drained behind his eyes.

“Not a soul,”

A simple truth, yet one so hard to live with. It fractured his marriage, his family and his loyalty to his oldest friend - all before they’d truly had a chance to begin the new age they’d lost so much to make.

“Not even Uncle Benjen?”

Ned hesitates.

How he wanted to tell his littlest brother - the last of the House Stark he knew as a boy, young and green. Benjen and Lya had been inseparable as little ones, the former toddling after the latter like a shadow.

When Ned came home with his sister's bones, Benjen had said nothing about him nor the bastard babe in his arms - they’d hardly spoken of anything at all. When he’d announced he sought the Watch, not long after their father, brother and sister rested quietly in their tombs, Ned hadn’t tried to stop him. When he saw his brother again, months later, it was plain to see where something had frozen behind his eyes.

But still, the Lord of Winterfell is not quite the dullard the world believes him to be. Benjen has always been a joy in the lives of Ned’s children. When he had permission to visit his childhood home, all of Winterfell’s pups fell upon their uncle with audible, bursting glee. There was always a grin for Robb, a playful bow for Sansa - free shoulders for Arya and Bran to ride and a pat on the head for little baby Rickon.

But for Jon, there always seemed to be something more. Extra attention in the training yard, a few morsels spared at dinner - quiet asides by the fire or the shadow of the castle’s Godswood.

To the world, it looks like Benjen has a soft spot for the slightly scruffier, more solemn son of their Lord and Master. Born a bastard and second best, maybe he was in need of a black-sheep uncle to steer his way.

Yet Ned has seen the look in Benjen’s eyes - following the pack of boys for all these years like he’s searching for something.

Perhaps, like he’s already found it.

And the fact of the matter remains - ultimately, it was his brother’s idea to take the boy with no name north. Out of sight. Tucked away - with an eternal vow to cloak him from the burden of titles, destiny and the headsman’s sword. No matter what Ned’s final word decided - some understanding had passed between the second and third sons.

How Ned wishes to speak to him now - to tell Benjen what a fool he’s been. To tell him, no matter what he suspected, that some part of their sister lived on in the boy they both loved like their own.

Perhaps he’d know what to say to that very child as he swallows, pale and with tears in his eyes.

Jon must see the conflict in Ned’s face and either way, what more could he say to that? To all of this? The young lad, so nearly a man, looks out beyond the wall, the snowflakes dusting his cloak like ash.

“I…-,” Jon hesitates, not looking Ned in the eye, “- what do I-,”

He absently opens his hand and Ghost, the loyal pup, presses his muzzle into Jon’s palm. Ned watches how gloved fingers run smoothly over the wolf’s ears - a comfort for boy and beast - as Jon takes a steadying breath.

“I cannot speak of this,”

Ned shakes his head.

“You know what happened to the Prince and Princess-,”

Your half-siblings, he doesn’t say - the thought as foreign to the younger as the elder.

“- and the King’s wrath has not cooled in all these years,”

Once, Ned had watched Ser Gregor Clegane clean his nails - still crusted with flecks of rust-red to match the smear on the castle wall. Not a week ago, he’d pictured a young girl with silver hair - great with child - falling prey to the poisoned fangs of a perfumed spider.

Both times it was the blue eyes of his oldest friend staring him down, and Ned wishes he could say that he barely recognised the great booming boy he’d loved for so long.

But no - this was Robert as he’d always known him. Ours is the Fury his house words said - and the great hammer will forever fall on dragon’s blood, young and old.

You can’t get your hands on this one, can you?

Jon wipes a hand over his face, holding gloved fingers against his brow for a breath, and one more. Then he swallows, his eyes as dark as coal in the half-light.

You see now, child? Ned pleads, you see now why you must stay?

“What would you have me do, my Lord?” Jon whispers.

Be a babe again Ned thinks, remembering that squirming, warm weight against his chest. Let your only care be waking up with no one's arms around you, or wondering where your elder brother may be.

Be something small and simple, where your troubles can be simply solved and happiness easily given - a teether to chew or a gentle hum to lull you away.

Be that little boy I carried North like the treasure you were; too small to know what a burden you carry in your blood and in your name

But alas, Ned has not the power for such things.

“Jon,” he begins, wondering how to craft the right words that can soothe his boy, his first boy - if not by blood but in his heart, “-I,”

But then, as if answering a far away call, the Wolf jumps - startling them both. Ned had forgotten the beast was even there.

“Ghost?” Jon whispers, his voice shaken.

Silent as ever, the wolf’s tail stands straight as a rod and his front paws jump to rest atop the edge of the wall - nose pointing somewhere at the edge of the haunted forest.

“What, boy?” Jon mutters hoarsely, resting one hand on the beast's head as he scans the tree line. Ned gingerly steps towards the edge, following both their gazes to where the black leaves and spiny trunks leer like shades.

At first, Ned sees nothing - just the same, dreamlike landscape that greeted him when he first stood atop the wall. Unchanged in the face of the two men’s turmoil. But then he hears Jon gasp, leaning closer and … there.

Just to the west - a shadow, a shape. If Ned squints he can see something crumpled just where the wood becomes snow. In this light, you could take it for some stray log - a single branch stretching forward.

But the wolf snarls silently and Jon curses.

“Rangers” he chokes, staggering backwards - face still puffed and swollen from stifled tears, “-I have to, I have to-,”

He turns on his heel, pulling at his cloak. Ned can only watch as the boy falls on his duty like a life raft.

As he moves, a shadow falls behind them, blotting out the furthest brazier and Jon rushes to the cut hole in their watch post, shaking his head. He squints for a moment, Ned just catching the hurried flap of a long, woollen cloak, and Jon shouts.

“Rast,” he calls behind the high corner of the frozen wall, voice gravelled, “-get back here, Rast,”

After a moment a boy returns - a little older than Jon with a spotted, sharp-cheeked face. Wiry hair and black eyes, he breathes hard - as if caught in a dead sprint.

“Sound the horn,” Jon demands, grim and certain, like he has twice the years to his name, “-rangers returning on foot, in distress - we need riders to meet them on the tree line,”

The boy is red-faced and wide-eyed, looking between the two of them with something in his mind - as if he is untangling a looping, rigid knot. Rast stares dumbly like he hadn’t heard a single thing.

Jon growls.

“Seven hells,” he huffs, pushing past him - the call of duty something like the urge to flee.

Ned watches as both boys disappear, the white wolf on his master’s heels, and he is left alone. The wind hurries through his loose hair, urging him to follow, but the Lord feels frozen. Tethered here, in this moment.

Somewhere far away, a single, lingering note moans across the ice.

Chapter Text

“And yer certain they weren’t there before?”

The Old Bear’s eyes narrow, still bleary with the late hour.

“Yes, My Lord,” Jon replies, staring at the two bodies laid out before them - one pale, leather-clad arm hanging limp over the side of the ranger’s sledge.

A small crowd has gathered in the courtyard - be it men roused from sleep or young recruits summoned from their watch duties. One man - Ser Rykker, Ned heard his name was - murmurs to himself as a stiff, frozen corpse is nudged aside to reveal the other - glassy eyes flickering in the torchlight.

“- and you, Lord Stark?” Mormont grunts.

Ned shakes his head.

“We saw nothing my Lord,” he replies, distant, “- it was the boy’s wolf that caught their scent,”

Ghost, who’d led both Jon and whatever rangers could be summoned beyond the Wall at this late hour, sniffs the bodies’ boots - tail curled curiously in the air. He’d run ahead as they approached the scene, and Jon had returned with a single hand - cut off with frozen gore.

Mormont growls, turning to Rykker. Ned half listens as they discuss the corpses - mutilated by some unknown foe. Wildlings perhaps? But why would they dare venture so close just for this? Limbs gashed and mouths agape - they’d died hard, the pair of them. They’d died slow.

And Benjen was supposed to be with them.

More men gather, striding to greet the commotion that shakes the castle. Not the whole keep, but enough that Ned knows this discovery will not be kept as secret as the Lord Commander may wish. The Lord Steward and the Master-At-Arms appear to have awoken - Ned half-recognises the flinty-eyed Ser Alliser walking beside that boy again, Rast. He growls something to the recruit as he looks between the cadavers and the lad who found them - eyeing Jon’s face, still a little red and swollen. Ned bristles on his boy’s behalf.

But beside him, Jon doesn’t seem to notice. Ned hears murmurs between him and Sam Tarly - shaken from the dormitories on behalf of the aged Maester. Both are pale - Tarly is half-dressed with a crooked cloak and cow-licked hair - but even now Jon’s voice is low and hoarse. It shakes despite the heavy, almost commanding tone.

“-don’t be craven,” Ned hears him whisper, barely looking his friend in the face, “-if you see something, speak it plain,”

He has little time to wonder as the boy, trembling, steps forward.

“My … my lord,” he mumbles.

“Not now, Tarly,”

“B-but-,”

“Let him speak,” Jon says - his voice croaking.

Mormont looks across, an eyebrow arched.

“My Lord,” Sam tries again, “-the … the blood,”

And so the boy makes his case - one that washes over Ned in all its strange sense. Bloodless corpses - without rot nor the maggot’s hungry mouth. Two men but half a mile from home - one of their number missing and not a single footprint left in the fresh, unmarred snow. Those eyes - crystal blue.

But Ned confesses he barely takes in the admonishments - from Ser Rykker, Ser Thorne and even Lord Mormont himself. He doesn’t watch the bodies be pulled through the yard - disappearing from his sight in halting, scraping tugs. He hears the commander’s shout to ‘get back to yer beds’ - half sees Rast and the Master at Arms walk towards the dormitory cells. But it’s not until he feels the warm, furry body of a very tired, hungry wolf slink past his legs that he looks up.

And Jon-

He’s gone. Both Jon and Ghost walk from the yard without a word - the flap of a frosted cloak as loud as the slamming, oaken door.

He reads the scroll again.

Sitting in the Maester’s chamber, Ned holds the parchment up to the grey half-light that streams through the open window. The seal unbroken - it had arrived an hour before and handed to Ned over a bowl of something with oats and milk. It was addressed to The Hand.

Whoever that was, he’d thought as he unfurled the paper, squinting at the slanted, black ink.

Then his heart stopped.

The letter is unsigned.

Oh Robert. Ned can scarcely believe the words. Even after all these years - more belly than the trident’s fearsome bull - it’s hard to imagine anything could take his eldest friend from this world. No sword, nor axe - not even the cups he so loved to drown in. Robert would go on till there was not one flagon of ale left in the world.

Yet, something must have happened while Ned travelled up the White Knife like a barrel of salt beef. Some treachery. Some mummer’s farce.

But the scroll reveals nothing. Just four words without blame or intent.

I should have been there, he thinks, remembering that laughing, black-haired boy who became his brother. Even after all we have said - he should not have died without someone there who loved him.

As for the rest … by all the gods, without Robert, who will think of his girls? No word of Arya, nor Vaylon’s daughter, entrusted to his care - and Sansa-

Ned curses.

To think of Sansa with those blonde babes was a horror. No matter if Joffrey was Robert’s son, nor the promise he’d sworn his oldest friend - the boy was a beast, a golden-headed tyrant. Ned could barely believe - even through all of Roberts's many, brutish faults - that the prince could ever be his-

Could be his …

A moment passes over a single, sucked-in breath. He reads the scroll again.

The seed is strong Jon Arryn said - his last fool’s errand assembling into the blinding, obvious truth.

By all the Gods.

In their true King’s honour. Ned’s mind spins and spins. If what he thinks is true … then yes, he would expect Lord Stannis to do nothing less. He is a man of duty, of course - but how would he know? Perhaps Renly … but what does the Master of Laws know of such things?

Unless someone told him what Ned had to scrabble in the dirt to find… laughed as he blundered only to present it all to another on a silver platter. And if they told two stags … why not three?

Oh Robert. Did you see those horns of yours, before you took your final breath? The heavens know you sired many bastard babes of your own.

But this scroll answers nothing.

Ned allows himself a moment to sit with his misery. Then he shakes his head.

Who would send him this? Who would dabble in such deception? Who would whisper in the dark - who would want such tragedy to set the realm aflame, yet would save the Hand from the blaze?

Ned can think of two men - and one of them left him to bleed in the Street of Silk. And the other -

Is this what a spider might call peace?

Lord Stark stands and begins to dress - he must speak to the Lord Commander. His leg still gripes, but it’s easier to stand than before - a night’s troubled sleep was rest enough for the healing bone. Ned takes his stick in hand, draws a cloak around his neck and limps towards the door.

It’s the first time he’s seen the keep in daylight, as gloomy as the clouded sky may be. It's a little better than it was the previous evening- the stony courtyard is trodden with mud and snow, with black-cloaked men trudging through and about their business. Horses pulling carts, hammers striking stone -

Steel meeting straw.

Following the noise, Ned sees a young man alone in the practice yard - a blunted sword striking a figure of cloth and old mail. Jon is a fury of dark hair - hacking at the thing again and again. Even from this distance, Lord Stark can see the great streaks of purple beneath his eyes, the pallor in his tawny skin.

The boy has not slept a wink, Ned worries. Will he ever know rest again?

He thinks of calling out to Jon across the yard when he sees a figure - tall and sleek with greasy black hair - stride towards him. The master-at-arms watches the boy for a moment, his face hidden from Ned’s sight as he observes the boy’s movements - hacking at the dummy’s broken limbs with laboured grunts and heavy breaths.

Even in his anger, there’s a grace in his stride that Ned knows Jory always praised. In his rage, Jon is precise - may the gods protect any man who might meet the end of his blade.

Ser Alliser Thorne calls to him - though Ned can’t hear the words. It’s more a bark - an order, a sneer. The boy doesn’t reply. He just keeps hacking, gritting his teeth - Ned wonders whose face he pictures under the wool.

There are a few more words from the knight’s mouth - calling at the boy’s back as he cuts and cuts and cuts. They bounce off him - or perhaps Jon is thinking of other, further things.

Ser Alliser calls once more, this time lower - sharper.

Jon stops, turning on his heel. Lord Stark heard it this time and already has two unsteady feet on the stony ground when -

Jon lunges for the man- dropping his blade, his fist closes in Alliser’s leathers as the other reaches for the dagger at his belt.

“How dare you-” the boy growls as Thorne tries to shake him off, already assisted by a few other men and boys in the yard. “What do you know, you know nothing you-,”

But now a few other lads, including that Tarly boy, have hold of Jon too.

“Jon, enough!” Ned shouts, stepping between them all. The boy looks up, still struggling in the arms of his friends.

“He called you, Fa- My Lord, he called you-, he said-,”

“I know what he said Jon,control yourself,”

A traitor’s bastard. Yes, yes Ned heard it. It seems news from King’s Landing has reached the rest of the Watch too. Ned should expect such things - the Hand disappears and a few days later, the King lies dead.

Who’d have thought Ser Alliser would be bold enough to say such things? Not when said traitor was his Lord Commander’s own esteemed guest?

Yet Alliser does not look at the Lord of Winterfell, whose honour he so easily questions. Instead, he strides forward, batting away the arms of his brothers aside to look straight into the boy’s grey eyes. He doesn’t lay a hand on him (would he dare?) but instead he stares, his sharp gaze running over the boy’s face - taking in his brow, his nose, his chin.

What does he look for?

Something flickers over the man’s flint-grey features, his mouth falling open, when-

“What is the meaning of this?”

Ned is not surprised at what Mormont does next - taking the recruit's blades and banishing him to his cell with disappointment in his eyes. Jon looks at neither of them - not his Commander nor his father (his uncle). Alliser watches him the whole way - that strange look in his dark eyes - but Ned cares not. He only murmurs a few words to the Lord Commander, who nods with a beleaguered sigh, and follows haltingly after the boy.

He passes through the empty chambers - no guards posted, no men gathered. Ned finds Jon mid-kick against the wall - ripping off his gloves with his wolf somehow already watching from atop his bed roll. He doesn’t look up immediately and Ned takes the chance to take in the young man, unawares. His fists clenched, his hair tangled - it's a wretched sight. How he shakes. How fast he moved to wrap his hands around the other man’s throat.

There’s a fire in him Ned thinks with a shudder.

“Jon,” he calls, startling the boy with wide, red-rimmed eyes. “-What was that?”

The lad huffs, collapsing onto the bed.

“You heard what he said,” he mumbles.

“Aye,” Ned replies, carefully, “-but I’ve had worse thrown at my name,

I’m no maid in need of defending, boy.

If anything Ned thinks, I’d have thought you too angry to stand up for my honour. By the gods, Jon now knows more of honest Ned than most men in Westeros.

The boy says nothing, rubbing his bare palms on his thighs.

Ned sighs and, before he can think better of it, joins the boy on the edge of the cot - sitting with enough distance so as not to crowd him.

“So you’ve heard the news from the south?” he asks.

Jon nods. Ghost has settled in the lad’s lap, and the boy runs one hand over the beast’s ear - self-soothing.

“I-,” Ned hesitates, “I cannot stay here for much longer,”

The Hand remains at large the scroll had said. With a new King crowned and House Stark on the brink of war, the Lord cannot remain in convalescence much longer.

He cannot remain at the Wall.

The boy remains quiet, smoothing the fur under the wolf’s chin. His hands are shaking.

“What would you have me do, My Lord?” Jon whispers, again.

Ned sighs.

“You know the answer to that Jon,” the Lord replies, leaning forward as the boy lets out a harsh, grating huff, “- no, Jon, listen,”

“Listen to what?,” he demands, “- you still expect me to stay here?”

“What don’t you understand, boy?” Ned demands, “- it isn’t safe for you, down South,”

“So?” Jon huffs, “You think I care about that?”

It’s worse than Ned thought.

“I care,” he pleads, keeping his voice as hushed as the stone chamber would allow, “- by the gods, I promised to keep you safe, and if it takes my last breath, your mother-”

Jon snaps his head away, tensing his fists - wincing as if in pain.

The wound is too fresh, Ned thinks with pity. Even the softest words are like acid to the bone.

“I know this is difficult,” he tries, leaning a little closer, “- but even without Robb calling the banners, this Castle is the safest place for you - who knows what would happen if someone, anyone down South even caught the scent of the truth,”

“But what if no one does?” Jon counters, “Why would they? I lived in Winterfell for fourteen years - the King and Queen barely gave me a second look,

“I’m still just a northern bastard,” he mutters bitterly, “- why would this new King think any different?”

It’s not Joffrey I’m worried about Ned thinks, remembering Mockingbirds and Tywin’s blood-soaked dog.

“Robb is my brother,” Jon pleads, as if convincing himself it’s still true, “Arya and Sansa are my sisters, and you-,”

He stops, watery eyes wide. Ned almost wishes he didn’t.

“You’ve been a curiosity since the end of the Rebellion,” Ned says with hoarse words, “- a little gossip at most, I know, but-,”

He twists the piece of broken parchment in his hands.

“Things are different now, Jon,”

He doesn’t hand him the scroll - the truth is not plain enough in the written words.

“When I left King’s Landing,” he says instead, “-there was … talk, of King Robert’s children, his bastards and … and the children of the Queen,”

Jon looks back up, slowly.

“There is treachery afoot,” Ned continues, “- when Jon Arryn died, he had stumbled upon something that threatens everything the Rebellion tried to build,”

He looks Jon dead in the eye and sees the moment those words - Queen and children and bastard - come together in his mind. The boy’s mouth falls open.

Lyanna was always quicker than Ned too.

“Every natural child sleeps a little less safe in their bed,” Ned carries on, “- there will be much talk of … of bastards in the days to come,”

-and who else would the eyes of the realm turn to, if not the own natural babe of the Hand of the King. The one who vanished as Robert faded away- only to return with his fiery, baseborn son.

Ned shudders. How much the world has changed in the night. The King is a bastard … and in another life this bastard might have been a-

“So what?” Jon asks with no less strength, “- you want me to stay here and hide from … from …-”

He falters a moment. The boy can barely say the truth himself.

“-what kind of man would I be, to save my own skin and not my blood?,”

He chokes again. This is too much for a boy to bear.

“You’d make this my lot,” he whispers, “make this my place for the rest of my days?

“You’d have me for a craven?”

Why must Jon be so much my sister’s son? Ned asks every bone-white, blood-red tree above the Neck. Why must he be so much mine?

“I’d have you live,” he replies with as much force as a Lord can gather.

Jon looks away, drawing his wolf and its soft white fur a little closer.

“You’d have me freeze,”

He turns away.

Ned does not stand for several minutes - the two let the silence speak a thousand words. When he gets up to leave, careful not to jostle the sleeping pup, Ned hears a single, sharp breath from his boy, his sister’s boy, like he’s holding something back. Like he’s in pain.

But Ned knows he cannot help.

I wish Benjen were here.

Closing the cell door, Ned walks towards the tower stairs. He will tell Mormont he may post his recruit’s guard when he makes it to his chambers - to discuss Robert, the King and his departure. For now, Lord Stark is certain his bastard boy is going nowhere.

For now.

“Fire!” a voice cries out in the darkness, startling Ned Stark awake. “Fire! Fire!”

The shouts carry across the stone keep as Ned pulls himself from the bed, reaching blindly for the cane and staggering into the biting night air. He’s almost knocked off his feet by the parade of black brothers that storm past him - running across the scaffold towards the furthest staircase. The very one that leads up to the Lord Commander’s Tower.

What in the-?

Ned follows with as much haste as his leg can muster, pushing through the small gathering of men to find -

Seven Hells

Commander Mormont stands with a sheet wrapped around his middle as men stamp wildly on a pile of flames - tall as a cook fire with smoke stinking of broiled, rotten flesh.

Snow! the raven calls, circling the high ceiling, Snow! Snow! Snow!

A dark shape, shrouded in burning linens, lies prone in the middle of the room - the strange pyre lurching on the stony floor.

Ned steps closer to see them clearer when -

“Watch out my Lord!”

The voice grabs the back of Ned’s cloak, pulling him away as something twitches at his feet - crawling on the paving slabs.

Looking down it’s a …

It’s a hand.

A blackened, bony, reaching hand - skittering like a monstrous, hairless spider across his boot. It lunges towards him, overgrown nails scraping on the floor and -

A wooden bucket slams down like a mouse trap.

“Jon?” Ned murmurs as the boy, cradling one hand against his chest, jams his foot over the cage - the captive bashing, again and again, against the sole of his boot. His face is covered in ash, hair plastered to his face with sweat, and Jon looks up with wide, frightened eyes.

“W-we heard it,” he whispers as Mormont shouts through the door and the white wolf skulks around the fire, watching it burn, “- we woke, and Ghost … we - we-,”

Gods, his hand - raw flesh already bubbling under what should be smooth, young skin.

Snow! Burn! Snow!

“Jon,” Ned cries, his hands coming down on either side of the boy’s face, “-what happened, how-?”

But Jon shakes his head.

“It was Othor,” he whispers, watching the flames, “I swear it was, he killed - he -we saw him dead, we found him beyond the Wall, but he- but we-,”

He swallows, and Ned pulls his boy into his chest.

“He was walking -” the boy breathes, rigid as a stone slab in Ned’s arms, “-he was dead, but he … he was walking,”

Tomorrow, they decided. Tomorrow, Ned Stark will leave for Winterfell.

They’d sent Jon into the Maester’s chambers to see to his hand - the boy following one of the men with no complaint and a wolf on his heels. Shock, Aemon had said later, awoken from his chambers.

Aye. The lad has suffered many of those these last few days.

Mormont - now dressed - had poured each of a small council of men a glass of ale. Ned and the Maester - Bowen Marsh, Alliser Thorne. (Rykker, the First Ranger in Benjen’s absence, lies dead - wrapped in white cloth with a shattered blade still in his belly).

All four could scarcely believe it - what their eyes saw denied every common sense.

“If it weren’t for your boy,” the Old Bear growled at Ned over his drink, “-I’d be as dead as Jaremy, with my breeches down and all,”

The Lord nods - by the Gods if Jon and his wolf had not woken - but he doesn’t miss the strange, sharp smile the cuts across the face of Ser Alliser Thorne. The one who called him traitor, but not to his face.

What to do - they’d wondered in a chamber that still stank of smoke - what can any sane men do?

For the first time in many months, he wonders what the man called Gared saw beyond the wall. “The poor man was half mad,” Ned had told Cat as he cleaned a ranger’s blood off his family blade, “Something had put a fear in him so deep that my words could not reach him.”

What would make him prefer the fate of Valyrian Steel?

At first light, Ser Thorne is already saddling his horse - that hand which caught at the hem of Ned’s cloak still twitching behind a jar of glass. To show the King Mormont decided, with Aemon’s approval - Grand Maester Pycelle should see it on behalf of the Citadel, at least.

Half hiding a yawn behind his hand, Ned watches the Master-at-Arms depart for the King’s Road - galloping through the gate without even breaking his fast. Before he disappears though, those dark, flint eyes look over his shoulder - looking at Lord Stark one last time. Even in the distance, he sees the flash of white teeth - like a beast leering at trembling prey.

Ned swallows, and turns for his chambers.

He needs one more day - to rest and gather his thoughts. To redress his leg with fresh linen and splints. To speak with Jon, one more time.

I’ll chain him to the Wall myself.

Ned takes a few hours to rest abed - the murmur of an active keep enough to lull him after a long, fraught night. It’s almost an hour to noon by the time he wakes - the urge to relieve himself and taste some of that fresh, northern air leading him out of the cot and into the yard.

You’d think nothing had happened. The same carts trundle past - the same voices shouting from battlements and across the courtyard. Horses nicker in the stables and the recruits - those same ones who’d held his boy back the day before - practice sparring together in the far corner, without their master-at-arms.

Jon is nowhere to be seen.

Ned never broke his fast, so he makes a move towards the kitchens - where he knows a man named Three-Fingered-Hob may spare some bread and cheese for a hungry Lord. Leaning on his stick, he moves carefully but with increasingly practised purpose, limping his way along straw covered stones, when-

“So, you better watch it, Ser Piggy -,”

A familiar voice scrapes behind a hidden corner - hissing down a passage between the smith’s forge and the stables. Ned stops and turns around, craning his ear.

“‘Cos you won’t be safe forever, you - *hic* you hear, that wolf boy won’t - *hic* won’t be around for long,

“-with his father an-an his plotting, I ‘eard it, I heard it, I did! They’re plotting something against the- the- King, and, and-,”

What?

A softer, stammering voice squeaks back.

“I’m - I’m not afraid of you Rast,”

“-and, and I’ll tell you something, else, Piggy-,”

“What’s going on here boys?” the Lord interrupts, straightening his back as tall as he can bare.

“N-nothing My Lord,” Sam Tarly replies, wringing his hands with colour flooding back into his soft, pale cheeks.

Beside him, that boy - the one who’d stared like startled deer that night atop the wall - leans back, swaying slightly like he’s been in his cups.

“Nothing, m’lord,” the boy - Rast Jon said his name was - mutters, taking his hands from where they’d threatened Sam's throat. “-just talking to Tarly here, is all,”

“I can see that,” Ned observes, sternly “- but I’m sure you’re both wanted somewhere,”

The boy swallows, squinting blearily.

“Yes, m’lord,” he nods , drawing his cloak nearer. He staggers back towards the courtyard, and disappears around the corner.

Perhaps the maester can give him something to unfuddle his head.

But Ned sighs, turning back to the other boy.

“Are you alright, lad?” he asks - still stern but a little softer.

“Y-y-yes My Lord,” Sam stammers, brushing off his jerkin, “-Rast he - he - he and the other boys have been drinking, is all - it’s yet to leave his head, I think, ”

After last night, Ned is surprised the whole Watch hasn’t turned to the wine barrels. Half the keep had woken, and word travels fast here - especially when it concerns the dead getting up to walk. Besides, even Ned knows that the recruits - with a few sworn brothers to drag them home - take many a trip to Queenscrown when they think no-one’s watching. Plenty of drink for young boys to drown in before they swore their lives away.

Seven Hells.

“What did he mean?” Ned asks, curiously, “- he spoke of Jon, didn’t he? Jon and his wolf?”

“Ye-yes, My Lord,” the boy nods, “-he and Jon … they don’t get on well,”

Ned frowns.

“Go on?”

“I think he did something-,” the boy blurts, cracking under Ned’s grey glare, “-Jon, I mean, he …

“When I came here, the other boys and Ser Alliser, they laughed at me, picked on me - because … well,”

The Tarly boy looks down at himself. Ned feels a stab of pity.

“But Jon stood up for me - told them to stop and then he … and Pyp and Grenn, they … well,”

He swallows.

“They did something, with Ghost, I think - and well, Rast and his boys haven’t bothered me since,”

That’s my Jon Ned thinks softly. Then he frowns.

“Until today?”

Sam twists his hands.

“Yes, My Lord,” he nods, biting his lip, “until today,”

Call it a Lord’s instinct. Call it being a Father. Ned presses the lad.

“What did he say, Tarly? What did he mean?”

The boy takes a breath, his cheeks flushed red and his thin brows creased into a frown. He looks as if he will answer, when-

“Are you taking Jon with you?”

Ned blinks.

“What?”

Impossibly, Sam flushes redder.

“It’s just - I mean,” he hesitates, rocking on his feet. “- Jon, he-,”

Ned leans further, both hands resting on the shorter boy’s shoulders. It takes every ounce of control in his body not to shake the lad.

But then the boy clears his throat.

“- I mean, from what Rast said,” Sam wheezes, “- he said Jon wouldn’t be here, much longer - what with the riders going South,”

Ned’s heart slams into his stomach. Blindly, he grabs the boy’s collar, pulling him further down the passage.

“He isn’t going is he, my- my Lord?” Tary stammers, “-it’s just, he’s been out of sorts the last few days, this morning too, though that’s understandable after last night I suppose, but still, Pyp said-,”

Jon, you foolish boy Ned thinks madly. What are you planning? Do you still mean to sneak off behind my back?

“Tell me Tarly,” he commands, blood draining from his face, “-what did the Rast boy say?”

“I - I,” Gods, can this boy not speak?, “I don’t know my Lord, he wasn’t making sense, none of them are, after last night but -,

“He said he heard you talking,” Tarly half-pleads, trying his best not to wriggle away, “that he heard Jon … he heard him crying, the night they found the bodies, like a little maid he said and - and ,”

Oh. Ned thinks, slowly. Oh no.

“- then there was something about Jon’s Uncle Benjen and roses and- and - and the Rebellion - he was rambling, I don’t know, but he said - Rast said he knew the old royal families names, as a child, so-,”

No. Ned thinks, the floor dropping from under him. We were alone, there was no one for miles - and the wind and the fire and the Watch takes no part, and-

“-and, and a baby, protecting a baby, a- a bastard,”

Sam’s eyes go wide.

“A prince’s bastard,”

Ned drops the boy’s collar. Neither of them moves.

You saw him, Ned. You thought he’d been running. You saw the look in his eyes and thought him a boy of the watch, chasing after lost Rangers.

He grips his cane.

It’s just one boy, Ned thinks, desperately. Just one foolish boy, at the edge of the world.

The Tarly lad is pale as snow.

Two foolish boys.

“What did he mean?” Ned asks again - he cannot deny anything now, “What did he mean, about riders going south?”

“I don’t know, My Lord,” the boy whispers, ducking down in his cloak collar, “-truly, I - I -,”

Then he swallows.

“He mentioned … he mentioned Ser Alliser at first - said he’d -,”

Sam looks up, more fear in his eyes than Ned felt at the sight of a dead man’s hand.

“- he said he’d sort the bastard out, My Lord,”

Lord Stark staggers back - head resting against the moss-covered, crumbling wall.

Sir Alliser Thorne. Alliser of House Thorne. Bannermen to House Targaryen - a Castle in the Crownlands and a history of noble service in the Red Keep and the King’s guard. One of their knights even stood by on the battlements as Tywin Lannister sacked the city below.

He’d known Dragons by their names and their faces - drinking at their tourneys, fighting in their wars. He’d probably seen the King and his children many times in his life - more than the legend of silver hair and purple eyes, he’d known their voices and their smiles. Their rage and their folly.

Seven Hells.

He’d even seen them go off together that night, the younger boy hesitantly chasing after the old knight’s cloak. He’d seen Alliser watch the boy he hated so much - probing fresh wounds about his ‘father’ with no desire to injure the man himself. To get him closer. To see the proof of it with his own senses.

And he’d smiled. When he left, on his horse with a dead man’s hand, he’d smiled.

Lyanna, I’m-

Ned shakes his head, one hand clamped over his mouth, the other resting back on Sam Tarly’s shoulder.

“You will tell, no one what we’ve discussed,” he growls, “you hear? Not one word, to anyone,”

“N-no My Lord, I wouldn’t - I won’t - but Jon is my-,”

Ned is already half-way up the stairs.

Chapter Text

He doesn’t knock on the Lord Commander’s door.

“My Lord,” Ned demands, startling Mormont and the bird perched on his shoulder, “- we must speak at once,”

“Lord Stark,” the Commander replies, standing up beside the Maester to his right, “-we were just speaking of you, perhaps-,”

“-I am sorry, Lord Commander, but there has been a change to our plans,”

Mormont frowns, the bird shaking its feathers out beside his ear.

Corn! Corn!

“-how so, My Lord?”

Ned’s chest heaves, his leg aching from his march up the castle stairs.

“I have decided I will not depart Castle Black alone,” he demands, his breath fast, “- I want my -,”

My Son

“-I want Jon to accompany me South,”

The words fall like blood from a wound, staining Mormont’s cheeks red.

“My Lord-,” he says slowly, “- your son is a man of the Night’s Watch,”

Ned grips his cane.

“He has sworn no vow,”

No vows - could a vow protect him now?

“He will,” Mormont insists, leaning on his desk, “- they will all swear this very night,

“I’ve had Septon Cellador make preparations, and Snow will be taken to swear before the Godswood like myself and his uncle before him,”

“Then we shall leave before then,” Ned insists, “- I can have him gather his things and be out of the Keep before the sun sets,”

“My Lord,” the Commander growls, “-I must insist,”

“I must insist,” Ned forces, stepping closer, “My Lord,”

The two men stare at each other, the Maester sitting straight in his cushioned chair.

“Lord Stark,” Mormont begins, his voice like gravel, “- you saw the same as I did last night - you saw what waits beyond the Wall,”

A dead man, walking. A single hand - twitching.

Grey eyes, burning.

“The Watch needs every man it has, and,” he pauses, considering his words, “ - I believed we both understood your Son’s situation,”

Ned bristles.

“The boy is not only yours to command,” he says, sternly, “- as his liege Lord and his Father-,”

“-as his Father,” Mormont returns, “you will want what is right for him,”

A brave Old Bear, gritting his straight, white teeth.

“You would make him stay the boy, at his sire’s side?”

How hard it is for Ned to steady his thoughts.

“I,” he begins, evenly, “- will do whatever I think is best,”

He does not see that I would keep him here till his beard goes grey.

Alas - if I cannot keep him safe, let me keep him close.

But Mormont’s temper rises.

“You know what we discussed last night, my Lord, and my course of action has grown clear,

“I would lead us beyond the Wall, and I mean to take Jon Snow with me,”

Beyond the wall. So the Bear would leave it’s den.

But Ned shakes his head.

“And I mean,” the Lord retorts, “-to take Jon South,”

“Perhaps” the soft voice of the Maester interrupts, “-we should ask Snow himself,”

Snow! Snow! the raven cries.

Ned leans back, almost relieved. He knows the answer to that already - Jon had near been on his knees. To think he would have locked that boy in the ice cells but half an hour ago.

But Mormont will not back down.

“- aye, so we should,” the Bear sighs, “-but what does a boy of four and ten know of what he wants?”

He wanted to come here Ned thinks, sadly. He asked to come here, since he had no place, and I let him.

The Lord Commander reads it on his face.

“You would take the first choice he made, as a man? You would take him South, where is name is dirt? Where he must live in the shadow of his brothers, of you?

“His siblings will be Lords and Ladies - Knights and Queens - what will he be? You would let your own fear deny him his chance to live? To lead?”

“My fear?” Ned demands, his face growing hot, “-My fear?”

What does Mormont know of his mind? What could he possibly know?

Ned steps forward, leaning hard on his bad knee.

“You would call me craven, My Lord?”

“No, My Lord,” Mormont replies, his face stern, “- but I’d tell you that you cannot hide him from the world forever,”

You cannot hide him. There is no where you can hide him.

“- you have seen what may face us - your brother may still be out there, looking beyond the Wall,”

Benjen gone - and Jon going after him? Lost in the ice and the snow, with hunger and wildlings and the dead that walk?

Ned swallows. You must remain calm. You cannot break now.

“- My Lord, I would ask you to respect my decision -,” Ned insists, but-

“Seven Hells,” Mormont shouts, slamming his fist and startling the bird from his perch.

Snow! Snow! Snow!

“-what could have changed? Days ago, we understood each other, hours ago, we knew what should best be done, last night even - after we saw the impossible, so why-?,”

“My Lords,” that soft voice asks again, “-perhaps we should discuss-,”

“Lord Mormont,” Ned interrupts, “- I came here in the hope that Jon need not steal away under cloak and dagger -,”

“You came here to protect the boy’s honour,” Mormont shakes his head, “-but he could find more here - in defending the last shield in the realm, and-,”

Steady Ned. Steady.

“Jon’s honour is not your concern,”

“And is it yours?”

Ned must remain firm.

“Who else should it be?”

“My Lords,” the Maester raises his voice. But Mormont is not finished.

“What good would his leaving do? Tell me, how could one boy possibly change the fate of the South when the North has need of him?”

“- Lord Mormont, I would ask you-,”

“-No, Lord Stark, I want to know,” the Commander demands, “- Snow was the first to face the Watch’s true foe in a thousand years - saving my life, mind - and you would take him away from his place to fight some southron quarrel,”

“-this war,” Ned growls, “will be no quarrel-,”

“-and yet you lead him there eitherway,” Mormont scowls.

“Lord Stark, I implore you,” Mormont growls, reaching to calm his flapping bird.

Snow! it calls again. Snow! Corn! Snow!

“- your blood has manned the Wall for a thousand years - bastard or no, he is of your line, and by all the gods -,”

My line, my blood. Her blood, my sister’s blood. Red upon red, over her hands, the sheets - the dusty stone floor.

“-why would you take him from it? You would rob the watch of his deft blade and defter mind? You would rob him of his chance to make himself a man?”

Robb and Bran and Rickon. Catelyn and Sansa and Arya. My pack, spread so far.

“Let him make his vow, let him take his place,”

How can I leave him again?

“Won’t you do what is best for your son?”

And so something in Ned breaks.

“He is not my son,”

Lord Mormont turns white.

Not one man says a word - the crackle of the fire and the soft rustle of feathers a cushion against the truth smacking against the ground.

Knock Knock

“Not now,” Mormont murmurs, his eyes as wide as silver coins - his face drained of blood and rage.

Knock Knock Knock

“Not now, I said!” the Lord Commander repeats, louder, as Ned rocks on his cane - still reeling.

Knock Knock Knock Knock-

“Seven Hells, are ye deaf? Come back lat-,”

But the door swings open - a rush of brisk, frosty air blowing through the chamber.

Jon’s hand rests on the latch. The other - heavily bandaged past his wrist - clutches at his cloak. Jon’s mouth hangs loose, and his eyes are draped in shadow.

Oh lad.

Ned wishes he had not heard that.

“Snow,” Aemon somehow knows, beckoning him closer “-come inside, boy,”

The door clicks shut - and now four figures sit in the uneasy silence of the truth.

“What are you doing here, Jon?” Mormont demands, his voice rattling.

“Sam-,” the boy begins, drawing a sigh from Ned.

Of course.

“-he told me what happened with Rast, he-,”

Jon turns to Ned, barely looking him in the eye.

“Is it true, My Lord,” he asks, voice shaking, “-did he really hear-?,”

“Now stop right there, boy,” Mormont commands, finally stepping out from behind his table and into the firelight, “-hear what? What is all this?”

He turns to Ned.

“What in the name of Seven Hells do you mean?”

But Ned just stares, the world around him falling away like snow from a mountainside.

Mormont turns to Jon.

“Well? You know what yer father wants lad? You know what he means to do?”

And Jon looks back to Ned - three pairs of eyes, searching for answers. Searching for something. But Ned has had so much truth wrung from him in the past few days. What more can he say? What else can he do?

Words fail him. He fails.

So Jon looks to the floor.

“My Lord Mormont,” he whispers, voice cracked, “- Lord Stark, he-”

Just say it boy. Say it and free Ned from this curse.

“Lord Stark is my uncle,”

Maester Aemon looks up from his chair.

“My mother - she- she was-,”

Yes. Even now, it is not so easily spoken.

Yet, the two black brothers say nothing - letting the boy’s breaths weave a story in the air. Aemon is as still as stone - and Mormont’s mouth twitches, his eyes searching first Ned and then the boy’s face.

Then they go wide - wide as the Wall stretches East and West.

Because Mormont is an Old Bear - he may have sworn his vows long before the Rebellion took root, but he knows the reasons for the war as well as any man in the North.

And he knows the story that was told. Knows the lie.

Because there are few in the world that would make Ned Stark break his honour. Not for one night in a pleasure house - not for the comfort of some nameless woman’s arms.

But it could not be for Benjen - the lad was too young, with no reason to need a tale so bold. Yes, it may be Brandon - fierce, dead Brandon with an eager eye and wandering hands. No doubt he’d have needed many stories to keep his exploits in check.

Yet the boy spoke not of his father, but his mother. And that can only mean-

Aemon shuts his clouded, milky eyes.

“By all the Gods,” Mormont whispers, leaning against the table. His raven hops beside him, nipping at his shirt.

Snow! Snow! Snow!

“Did you know this, boy?” the Commander demands, fixing his gaze on Jon, who has yet to look up from the floor.

“I-,” the boy stutters - like he still scarce believes it himself.

“He did not,” Ned replies, softly, “no-one knew,”

No one North of the Neck, at least.

“And that means-,” Mormont mutters, gripping one hand in his beard, “-yes, yes it does mean … Seven Hells,”

He turns to Ned.

“So, is this your reason Lord Stark? This is why you’d take him?”

Jon looks up at last - his face as open as a book. It is not quite hope. Ned feels the pain of it in his chest.

“- Jon and I … we discussed this matter some days ago,”

You foolish man, Ned. You should have taken this to your grave.

“- I hoped it would … would explain some events that have come to pass … of reasons and … and-,”

I wanted him to understand. I wanted him to be safe. I wanted him to know I did not send him here for nothing, and I did not spurn him without love in my heart.

He shakes his head.

What use have such feelings to a soldier and a Lord?

“- but one of the boys heard some of what was said,”

“Rast,” Jon interrupts, softly, “-Rast heard us, I don’t-,”

Mormont frowns.

“The Riverlands boy? What did he-?”

“It matters not what he heard,” Ned implores. I doubt the boy himself understands it. He thinks of a petty plot as means to revenge - perhaps a pardon should things work out in his way, “-what matters is who he told,”

Ned thinks of black, flinty eyes. Smiling.

“-and he rides for King’s Landing this moment,”

Mormont’s brows crease.

“Ser Alliser? My master-at-arms?”

Ned nods.

“Thorne is a man of the Night’s Watch,” Mormont states - like a fact.

“I do not deny it,” Ned replies softly.

“He swore to take no part,”

“I am sure he did,”

“So what makes you think he-,”

“My Lord,” Maester Aemon calls out, his gentle voice startling the other three. The old man rests his hands lightly in his lap.

“You know as well as I that the Master of Arms has no love for Jon Snow,”

Snow! Snow! Snow!

“Aye,” Mormont interjects, “-but what you’re suggesting is … what possible reason would he have? He has served the Wall loyally for near on fifteen years, and besides - Rhaegar-,”

Jon flinches visibly - the name of the man leering like a spectre over the scene.

“-was his liege lord,” Mormont continues, “- the man who he took the Black for defending,”

“Aye,” replies the Maester, “-and look what that loyalty earned him,”

The wind rattles the window shutters - a puff of frost creeping through the cracked wood.

“All we know,” Aemon hums softly, “-is that a man has left Castle Black with a secret-,

“A secret that could put the fate of a boy he hates in grave danger,”

“Something that could remove him from his troubles for good,”

Aemon sighs - how old is he, Ned wonders? The Maester sounds as if he was there himself the day the Wall was built.

The Lord Commander nods.

“All the more reason for you to swear,” he states, looking Jon Snow in the eyes, “-the Night’s Watch has no time for the wars and plots of men, and-,”

“My Lord,” the Maester interrupts again, “-we both know it will not be enough,”

Jon shuffles on his feet, still staring at his shoes.

“It was enough for you,” the Commander counters, “-was that not why you joined us, Maester Aemon? Was that not why you took the Black?”

The Maester nods.

“Aye, ‘twas enough for me. But things were different then - the world was younger, and dragons were still a memory kept bright by the living,”

He shakes his head.

“But much has changed,”

He will not be safe here. Ned thinks, again. He has never been safe here.

“I had a brother, with good men around to guide his hand and guard his back - and my House was still a beating heart on this side of the sea,

“My life was no threat - no weed to stamp out,”

Beside him, Ned feels Jon shiver. As if only now he realises who sat before him - who he helped feed the ravens and read by candlelight. Not just a wise old Maester - a blind, frail man. A secret flame, tucked away beneath the Wall.

“I expect,” Aemon reasons softly, “-that our new King will not be so merciful as the one who followed my Father,”

King! the Raven cries suddenly - like a nail scraping across melted steel. King! King!

“We would let a few misplaced words drive our hand?” Mormont asks, “the King’s Road is long, Maester Aemon, and we shall soon be far beyond the Wall - besides, the boy is still a bastard, dragonseed or no, so unless-,”

Then Mormont catches Ned’s eye. Lord Stark shakes his head and the Old Bear turns a deeper shade of puce.

Indeed, Ned thinks, remembering that last whisper from his sister’s lips, two lovers meeting beneath a red and white tree.

… Unless.

The Raven caws happily from the Commander’s table. That word again. King! King! King!

“Aye, My Lord, words are wind,” the Maester agrees, what others see he must hear in their laboured breath, “-but how far can one breath travel?”

Ned hears his own thoughts given voice in the two - one proud Lord, one aged Prince. Jon watches like a shadow of himself.

“If the boy told Ser Thorne - what few crumbs he gathered, anyway - and then was fool enough to tell Tarly, who told Lord Stark, who had no choice but to tell you? Who else might see the truth in his folly? What might they say in Queenscrown? In Wintertown, or beyond?”

Ned sees the sense reveal itself in Mormont’s eyes. His fists clench, as does his jaw. He looks up at Jon.

“-and you, boy?” the Commander asks, folding his arms, “- speak your mind - as you so often do,”

But Jon has no fight left in him.

“-I, I -,” he tries to start, “- I have asked my Lord - my Lord Stark if I should-,”

“I would take Jon South,” Ned says again. “- I would keep him by my side,”

Now you will see, he prays, looking to the Lord Commander.

But it is the Maester who speaks again.

“My Lord,” he asks softly, “-what was it that made you tell the boy?”

Ned frowns.

“Pardon, Maester?”

“Why did you tell him now, after all you have seen? Why did you do what you did, and when?”

Ned opens his mouth, then closes it again.

“Because-,” Aemon continues, “- I believe to tell him such a thing would not be something that a man like yourself would do lightly,”

You would hide me from them, his boy had cried, shivering and covered in snow at the forsaken, edge of the world. He looked so like her - full of righteous fury - and he’d asked, like the young lad he was, if his father was ashamed.

And he could not bear to see another child of his turn away in tears.

“- ask yourself, My Lord,” the Maester says, “- would Jon Snow truly be safe in the South?”

Ned bristles.

“Yes,” he implores, resisting the urge to take Jon by his arm, “- yes, he would,”

Safer with me he thinks, his heart pounding in his chest.

Aemon nods.

“For a day, perhaps,” he sighs, “-for a week, a moon even,”

He opens his white eyes for the first time.

“But we both know that Westeros is no place for my kin, not any more,”

My Kin Ned thinks. By all the gods..

“And My Lord,” Aemon says, delicately, “-all that would keep him safe is a wall of men - of lives,

“We both know what the Red Keep has done to secure its hold - we know what the Lion thinks of innocents,”

Ned shuts his eyes - yet all he sees is streaks on blood on a Castle Wall.

They have Sansa - perhaps Arya too. Robb loves his cousin like a brother, because to him that’s what Jon is. Bran likes Jon’s stories the most (after Old Nan’s) and little Rickon always finds a spare blob of jam on his bastard brother’s plate.

They love him, and he loves them. It is everything Ned could have wished.

Even now, House Lannister would cut them all down to get what it wants - that is war, after all. Yet what else would they do to reach the last Dragonseed in Westeros?

Beside him, Jon stiffens.

But the Old Bear still growls.

“Maester, this is madness - where is safer than here? The wall has been a haven for many man cursed by birth or deed since it began,

“Let him come North, past the forest, the Fist of the First Men, even - No southron King would follow Snow there,”

King! Snow! King! the Raven calls, as if to remind them the boy they speak of is still there, lost in thought.

“Aye, perhaps,” Aemon agrees, “-but surely we would not doom the boy to hide behind it forever?”

And who knows what could be waiting for him when he returns.

If any of them return.

Ned leans on his cane. It is too much, all of this. His head swam in Baelish’s account books and Pycelle’s droning - he has the head for soldiers, for battle, for strengthening a keep. This is a story that stretches the length of the realm - too much to guess, nothing to see.

I would keep them all in my den. Yet to save one might hasten the doom of the others?

Ned sighs.

This was the risk you took, four and ten years ago. This was the price you knew you might pay for playing the mummer - perhaps the traitor too.

But we cannot just-

“So what would you have me do?”

Jon’s voice is hoarse, his bandaged hand loose by his side. He holds his head high, looking between Mormont and the Maester as if facing down an army - though his shoulders tremble.

Both Ned and the Lord Commander open their mouths when-

“East,” the Maester states simply, “- you must go east, child,”

And yes. Yes, Ned knows, in his heart, the old man speaks the truth. He has had the thought too many times to count, and how long he has known it and tried to hold back the tide?

Four and ten years, he thinks again, dumbly, since Stannis Baratheon sent word of a ship fleeing Dragonstone.

“-Essos,” Mormont frowns, “- the Narrow Sea is called as such for a reason, Maester - you truly believe-?”

“My family is of the East,” Aemon nods, softly, “- and I have oft heard word of my grand niece and nephew making their way across it’s lands,”

He frowns slightly, as if searching his memory - remembering when last he had word.

“Pentos, I heard - perhaps-,”

“No,” says Ned, “-not Pentos,”

Robert’s voice bellows across the room- one of the last words ever spoken to him by his eldest friend. Drowned in wine and fury - he wanted to kill her, and her baby. Let alone her brother too. The last dragons in the world - little more than children, walking further and further east.

Ned shakes his head.

What would you have done at the sight of my Bastard son?

“The last council … before,” he says, lost in thought, “- the Spider told us that Daenerys and Viserys travelled with Khal Drogo - the Dothraki took her as his wife, and she carries his child,

“-Word says they were making for Vaes Dothrak,”

If she still breathes, Ned prays.

“Essos is no place for a green, Northern boy,” Mormont growls, “-let alone the Great Grass Sea,”

Ned agrees - and yet neither is the Haunted Forest. The Lord of Winterfell would send his bastard there nonetheless.

And there are few Lions across the Narrow Sea. And if Ned is right about the intent of the Spider’s many legs...

He turns to Jon.

Such a skinny thing, his boy - but tall, and strong. Once his hand is healed, he will be fearsome with a sword, and even now his eyes are full of questions. He is no fool. What parts of Jon that are still green will soon grow.

But if he lets him do this …

Robb and Cat. Bran and Rickon. Arya and Sansa. My pack is here, they are here - and this war was mine to bear, though I did not see it.

I cannot go with him.

Jon sucks in a staggered breath.

“I can’t-,” he starts, “- I cannot …,”

He looks between Ned, Mormont and the Maester - as if one of them has any answers.

“-my family, Arya and Robb and Sansa - and Sam! A-and Pyp and Grenn - they …. I can’t just-,”

To think, Jon was so sure earlier - begging his father to take him from this place. Perhaps it is easier to run towards something than to take flight for yourself.

A boy with no name, finding a place of his own. Now a boy with too many names, with not one rock to call home.

And his soul is bleeding.

But Ned doesn’t know what to say - not when he’s the one to cause all of this. Not when he’s spent his whole life pushing Jon away, thinking of what is decent. What was safe.

Yet, he still steps toward the lad, searching his memory for something soft and true, when-

“Jon,”

The Maester reaches out from where he sits - pale hands, painted with blue veins and brown spots, open palmed in mid-air.

“Come here, child,” he soothes, beckoning the boy forward.

Jon blinks, swallowing something thick in his throat. Yet he moves slowly across the stone floor, boots striking the slabs with a heavy echo, before kneeling at the Maester’s side.

The old man leans over, reaching with his shaking hands. Gently, as if calming a startled horse, he rests his fingertips on Jon’s cheeks, pale skin meeting a long, tanned jaw. Then, like a sculptor, he traces the line of his brow, the curve of his nose - the shape of his chin.

Jon accepts the ministrations with eyes wide, like the moon - holding his breath as if searching for something of his own in the old man’s features.

Aemon repeats the patterns a few times more - wrinkled brow furrowed in concentration. The fire crackles brightly behind them, casting the two figures in warm, orange light - wreathing them in flame.

Then Aemon nods, leaning back and taking not his face, but Jon’s one, unbandaged hand.

“My dear boy,” he says softly, “-if what you and Lord Stark says is true, then … then you are the only kin left to me that I’ll likely ever know,”

Jon’s face is flushed red, his eyes shining - as if only just now he understands who they are to each other. He watches the blind man break into a smile.

“- I … I cannot describe to you, how it feels to - to-,”

He looks down, without seeing, to where is hands grip the boys tight. He raises them closer to his chest - full of affection. Of feeling.

“- I knew your father,” he says simply - and Jon stiffens, even as Aemon draws his hand nearer.

“- he would write to me,” the old man explains, “- to tell me word from King’s Landing, asking for advice- or simply to see how his old uncle faired,”

The maester laughs then - a croaky, wheezing thing.

“He loved music, and starlight - and would ask for what I knew of times long past, when I was a boy,

“He was fierce, and proud - would fight for what he believed in,

“-yet, he carried something - a burden - a weight that he would not even share with me,”

Jon swallows - Ned can see how he hangs on every word.

“- I do not know what took place between your mother and him,” Aemon confesses, running a shaking hand over Jon’s knuckles, as if searching for something else to remind him of things long dead, “- but I know that, to me, he was a great source of comfort in the coldest winters,

“- so if a little of him survives in you …,”

Jon tries to pull away, but Aemon holds firm.

“-then that is a blessing,”

He leans forward, pressing a kiss that holds a thousand lifetimes to the boys fingers. An old man - sharing a joy, long drowned in grief. His toothless smile lights up even his clouded, withered eyes.

Ned feels like he should look away. This is private - not meant for him, nor Mormont for that matter, to see. This is something quiet, shared between kin.

“I know that this is difficult,” Aemon says quietly, “- I know what it is to watch the world go on from afar,”

Ned sees Jon open his mouth then - his lips already forming the worries of an elder brother, and a younger. Of his siblings and his friends - once so easily left behind, now like a weight on his spirit.

“But while I stayed at my post,” the Maester says, “as I vowed to long ago - you must do something far worse,”

The old man leans closer.

“You must run, dear boy,”

Aemon shuffles closer, and Jon leans nearer too.

“You must remember what you learned here - what you heard and what you saw - and you must carry that with you to see another sunrise,”

Jon stares and stares.

“You have made friends - and enemies too - but you can do so again - you could be half a hundred things, take on half a hundred names and lives,

“But first you must live - and to live, for a little while, you must flee,”

The Maester looks over to where he knows Ned and the Lord Commander stand. He nods, solemnly.

“- and we shall not let them catch you,”

Jon says nothing - but Ned can see the Maester’s words settle behind his eyes, quelling the protests on his tongue. He keeps looking where their hands are joined - the old and the young, already known to one another, seeing with eyes anew.

“- how can I leave?” the boy whispers, his voice full of doubt, “- how can I run, just abandon them, abandon all of you and- and-,”

Aemon hushes him, softly.

“Some people see this world … as a game,” he says, “- see men as pieces to move and to bargain - lives as things to sacrifice for some greater goal,

“You, my boy, have become a piece on that board - in some ways you have been all your life - as have all your siblings and your friends,

“I dread to think what they might play,” he says, mournfully, “- with you and the ones you love - I have seen it myself, too many times,

“Sometimes,” the Maester says, as if quoting some words spoken long ago, “- the best you can do, is to take yourself off the board,”

His empty eyes catch the light then - a flash of fire, flickering with a wisdom of near-on a hundred years.

“-at least,” he continues, gesturing over the boys shoulder to Ned himself, “- for a little while,”

He shakes the lad.

“Do you understand me, child?”

Ned does. Curse him for a thousand lives, he does.

Jon swallows, his bare hand slowly curling around the older man’s wrinkled, thin fingers.

“But,” he says softly, “but they need me,”

Aemon grips his hand tight.

“They need you alive,” the Maester says, “-and my boy -,”

Aemon taps his bandaged hand.

“We know the dead do not rest easy,”

Ned shudders. He’s just watching now. His words mean little, his actions even less. He has no power here. Perhaps he lost it long ago.

“My Lord Commander,” Aemon asks, looking up, “-what say you?”

Mormont stands stiff as a board, tugging on the end of his beard and gritting his teeth. Yet even he says nothing now - looking at the boy kneeling at the Old Man’s side, there is something in his eyes Ned recognises in himself.

“Aye,” he grunts, his face purple, his jaw tight, “Aye, so it is,”

Aemon nods.

“And you, My Lord Stark?”

Ned swallows.

Forgive me, Lya,

“Aye,” he whispers, far away, “- aye,”

Then Aemon looks back to Jon.

A few moments pass. The raven pecks about the studded wood on Mormont’s table - each knock like a post being struck into the ground.

“Alright,” he says simply, looking into the Maester’s white, honest eyes, “-alright,”

Lord Stark shuts his eyes.

May the Gods forgive me.

But Aemon is not done. Grabbing the boy’s arm, he shakes him again.

“Do you trust Samwell Tarly?”

Jon blinks.

“Of course,”

We owe him much Ned thinks, after all

“Then fetch him,” the Maester asks, leaning back in his chair, “-fetch him with a quill and some parchment - tell him what he does not already know - and bring him to me,

“I have need of his hands and his eyes,”

Then he turns back to Ned, who swims in pain and the past.

“-and you, My Lord Stark,” he sighs, as the boy sweeps from the room and Mormont takes a long gulp from his drinking horn, “we shall need you most of all,”

Chapter Text

The lantern swings from Ned’s saddle like a great pendulum, casting light this way and that as his horse treads slowly on the frosted, white ground. The Wall looms behind their small band - four horses venturing out into the empty space beyond the edge of the realm. Ahead, the dark forest reaches for them with twisted, bare branches - leering with a hundred bony fingers.

Ned winces as the chestnut mare beneath him shakes its head - jostling his leg as it rests carefully in the stirrups. Mormont had not wanted him to come - he already had a long journey ahead, and their arrangement relied on subtlety, after all. Yet Ned would not hear a word of it. If he started this he shall see it to its end.

Besides, he’d said, if anyone will endure talk, it is you. Why would the Lord Commander accompany two young recruits to the Godswood, and not his head steward?

But Mormont shook his head.

Perhaps the Lord Commander has something to pray for.

Up ahead, the two boys talk quietly - the stouter shifting uneasily in his saddle. Tarly’s voice rises over the crunch of snow and the fussing horses - high and fast. He had insisted on coming North - something about the Old Gods answering when the Seven didn’t - but Ned thinks he can see the truth.

A good lad he muses. A loyal lad. What a shame they shall be parted.

Both boys have their hoods up - though dressed entirely in black, one has a motley of whatever fur could be spared from the castle stores rolled up behind his saddle. His horse is laden with supplies - tucked under his bed roll, in his clothes. Whatever he could carry without raising suspicion.

Tied around his neck, Ned knows, is a leather pouch.

He’d watched the Maester place it in the boy’s palm himself - signed its contents in his own hand and seen the Tarly boy pour a seal of thick black wax over the scroll. Aemon had fussed with it a moment, fishing something from behind his chain that Ned could not see, before beckoning Jon closer.

“This,” the Maester whispered, “is your lifeline boy - but it could also be the knife across your throat,

“Keep it safe, keep it secret - but should you find your aunt and uncle, then let this be some proof of whatever you choose to say,”

He took Jon’s hand again, before pulling him down and whispering in the lad’s ear. Ned may never know what the old dragon said to his boy - but Jon had nodded, seriously, and said goodbye in a small, hushed voice.

At the two boys' feet, Jon’s wolf trots along curiously - sniffing the ground as they make their way out from the open sky into the creeping woods. The stars hide behind the twisting trees, and Ned ducks his head as they weave through the rocks and snow. It’s beautiful, in its own way - the frost glittering in the soft firelight.

“Easy,” the Old Bear says, pulling the reins and patting his horse on the neck, “-we’ll stop here, lads - there’s sacred ground ahead,”

Ned steadies his own mount, and the boys have already alighted - Jon patting his steed’s flank and Sam stretching his knees. It’s not an elegant dismount for Ned - some unlordly words pass his lips as he unhooks his knee and reaches for the cane tied to his pack - but he tethers the horse beside Mormont’s and follows the two boys into the grove.

‘Tis a holy place.

Ned had long thought the Winterfell weirwood was the finest in the North - perhaps it is, that side of the Wall. But to stand here, surrounded by nine, bone white trees on a floor of bloody red … the flickered light from swinging lanterns, moving with the breaths of their gentle steeds ..

Yes - the old gods are here, no doubt.

Behind him, he hears a stammered voice mutter behind a hood.

“I could still come with you,”

“Sam,”

“I could though! I’ve read about Essos, and the Horse Lords and - and the-”, he lowers his voice then, as if someone might hear, “-the Targeryens,”

Jon shakes his head - Ned cannot see his face.

“You shouldn’t be alone, Jon - and I- I-,”

The boy stammers.

“-What would I do, beyond the Wall? I’d be useless - I - I’d make a mess of things, I’d fall behind and - and I’m craven as they come, so-,”

“So you’d follow me across the Narrow Sea instead?” Jon finishes, not unkindly, “- quite the craven, you,”

“We- well,” the boy responds, “-if you were there, I could do it, I know I could,”

Ned’s heart twists. Yes, all the gods know he’s rather his boy did not go alone. It would be no bad thing for Jon Snow to have some company in his exile.

Yet this journey requires swiftness and stealth. Young Tarly has neither - and besides -

Jon reaches out to his friend, and even in his quiet hush, Ned can hear the gentle smile in his voice.

“Aye, you could - but you’re wanted here Sam, and the Lord Commander-,”

Mormont, who carefully inspects the face of the largest Godswood, makes no response.

“- he needs every man,”

The Tarly boy bows his head.

“Even me?”

“Especially you,” Jon assures, behind his hood, “- he needs your maps and your letters, and the Maester wants you to watch his ravens, don’t you remember?”

Jon reaches out one hand.

“You’ll say goodbye to Pyp and Grenn for me?”

“Of course,” Tarly replies, “-though I know not what I’ll tell them,”

“You’re a clear mind, Sam,” Jon says plainly, “- I’m sure you will think of something,”

And the shorter boy wraps his arms around his friend - muffling the words they share. Ned thinks of the courtyard at Winterfell - waving goodbye to pups young and old - flecks of white melting in long, red hair.

Mormont marches beside them.

“Tarly,” he calls, a frown hidden behind his beard, “- my horse, fetch the pack on the saddle for me,”

So the younger lad stumbles back for a few moments, and the Old Bear stares Jon down. It’s a fearsome sight - even more so in the torchlight with so many faces grinning from above. The commander looks at Ned’s boy from head to toe, twisting his lips. Then he nods.

“Here, Lord Commander,” calls out Tarly, holding something long and sleek, “- it - it’s heavy-,”

“Aye, so it should be,” Mormont grumbles, taking the cloth-wrapped pack. He grasps both hands around it a moment, one gloved thumb running over the edge, before thrusting it into Jon’s hands.

“My Lord?” the boy asks, quietly, before slowly untying the end.

His mouth falls open.

“Lord Mormont,” Jon protests, holding the gift out with startled eyes, “-I, I cannot accept this,”

Ned leans forward, peering where the dark cloth falls away to see the unadorned pommel of a leather-gripped sword. A Hand and a Half he notes quietly, A Bastard Sword.

Then he catches sight of the blade.

Seven Hells

“Much of the handle was burned away in the flames, but I had Noye do what he could in haste - I would have had the pommel made anew, but alas-,”

“My Lord,” Ned interrupts, “- I know this blade, this is-,”

“Aye, Lord Stark, you’re quite right,” says Mormont, grimly.

His family sword - his son’s sword. He is giving my boy his son’s sword.

Mormont says as much to Jon, who shakes his head.

“My Lord, you honour me, but-,”

“Spare me your buts boy,” the Old Bear Growls, “I would not be standing here were it not for you and that beast of yours. You fought bravely - and more to the point, you thought quickly. Fire!,”

So Jon grips the blade tighter, his mouth open. Pulling back more cloth, he marvels at the twisted black patterns in the steel, the way it almost shimmers in the lantern light. He knows what it is, of course - he’s seen the Stark family sword many, many times.

I left Ice in King’s Landing, Ned thinks sadly, and that would never have been Jon’s to wield.

Will it ever be Robb’s?

“Besides,” Mormont goes on, gruffly, “-you’ll have need of a good blade, where you’re going - so do not lose it, ye hear?”

Jon nods, running his bandaged sword hand over the grip.

“I-,” Jon starts again, running on thumb over the simple pommel - a little scratched where a white bear once growled.

“Does it have a name, my Lord?”

“Aye,” Mormont nods, “- it did once. Long Claw it was called,”

Jon nods softly, and Ned watches the boy grip the sword tight to his chest. Wolves have claws as much as bears, the Lord thinks, quietly.

Yes another, softer voice replies, and so do other beasts.

“Thank you, my Lord,”

Mormont hums, before turning away.

“Tarly,” the Commander barks, startling the other lad whose mouth lies open, staring the blade in his friends hands, “-a word with ye, come now,”

They step aside to talk beneath the farthest tree, Samwell taking twice the steps as Mormont to keep up. They leave Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell with … with Jon Snow. His nephew.

Jon takes a moment to fix the precious blade onto his horse, hitching beside the simpler sword he’d taken from the Castle forge and fussing at the straps with one clumsy hand. He takes his time, making sure it will not fall, but eventually, he has to turn back to face Ned.

Around them, the ruby leaves rustle in the winter wind - the carved faces laughing like they see the truth of some ancient joke. A Lord and his Bastard. An Uncle and his Nephew. A Wolf and a-

Something nudges in Ned’s side. Looking down, two bright red eyes stare back from under his arm - a black nose like coal in a blanket of white. He could swear the pup has grown since he’s been here - his ears reach near the underside of his ribs, when he is sure the wolf used to just graze the top of his hip. Feeling the rise and fall of his ribs - Ned takes comfort knowing that those teeth and claws will be by Jon’s side.

How much larger will the beast be the next time they meet?

Next time.

Ned pats the top of his head fondly.

“You will not take the King’s road, my Lord?” Jon asks, flexing his bandaged hand.

“No,” Ned replies, “- I mean make way through the gift towards Last Hearth if I can - if the Great Jon and his son have joined Robb, I will to ask Lady Umber to give her Lord shelter, and any news,”

It is a long way to Winterfell - and by now Robb may already be in the Riverlands. Ned knows must make contact where he can, and carefully. He must be wiser too.

Jon nods. Even now Ned can see the itch in him - the urge to abandon this flight by night and follow where he knows his family may be. But he will not. Ned knows now that Jon will not be the flame that guides the archer’s volley. For, as Aemon said, who knows who else the arrows may hit? Ned should have known all along - Jon would do anything for his siblings, for his kin. What a pity that he should be the one who brings the blades.

The boy swallows.

“You’ll …. You’ll tell them something, from me?,” Jon says softly, making Ned look up, “- for Robb… the girls, Bran and Rickon-,”

The Lord swallows.

“Whatever you ask,” Ned replies, his throat tight. At least, I will try.

Jon swallows. He looks up at the great canopy of fire all around them, before nodding.

“-you’ll tell them I wanted to come … and that I’ll come back,”

He nods again.

“I’m coming back,”

Ned wants to believe it. By the Old and the New, this is not the end.

“I will,” he says simply, “-I will tell them,”

Though what else I will say - to Robb, to my girls … to my Lady Wife? Perhaps it is for the best that the road is so long. Maybe by the end Ned will have thought about how best to weave his words.

Ser Alliser’s smile glints at him in the early morning sun.

Maybe he will not have to.

“Do you promise?” the boy says suddenly - urgent, “-you promise me, you’ll tell them?”

Ned winces, gripping his cane.

“Aye lad,” he forces between twisted lips, “-I promise,”

Beneath him, the trodden leaves smell sweet with rot - red upon red.

“- and I will get them back,”

Jon twitches then - rocking on his heels like he’s frozen in place. As if the ice and snow around them trap him, like a statue to a plinth.

Ned wants to hold him tight and never let go. Instead he inches forward - holding out one hand and half expecting the boy to flinch away. Yet Jon remains still and allows the man who carried him from that wretched tower, wrapped in bed sheets and sleeping soundly at his chest, to press a kiss to his forehead. Ned rests one hand on his shoulder and feels the snowflakes in Jon’s hair prickle against his lips.

I should have made you mine, the Lord of Winterfell laments, stepping back, damn them all, I would have named you Stark. Spared you from the shame that led us here.

Jon closes his eyes and offers a single, too-formal bow.

You should never have carried the burden of-

“Snow!”

Mormont and Tarly stride from the darkness.

“You know where you are going, yes?”

Jon nods, flexing his hand again and straightening his back to full attention.

“Eastwatch, My Lord,” the boy replies, steadily, “-on the ranger’s paths, behind the tree line,”

The Old Bear nods.

“By night, if you can - most of the castles are unguarded, and it’s safer for you this side for now - Less eyes,” he explains, as if to himself, “-less chance to meet people on the road - or wildlings, this close to the Wall.”

Mormont swallows, casting an eye through the gaps in the trees.

“-and you keep that fire lit, yes?”

Jon nods, flexing his hand as Ned sends up a prayer.

Watch out for blue eyes in the dark.

The Commander tells the boy the plan again. Ned needs to hear it too.

“I’ve sent a raven for Cotter Pyke to look out for a lad called ‘Hal Rivers’ - in need of a ship for Braavos on urgent business for the Lord Commander. He’s a good man, and had stranger requests from me, mind - but remember, you’ll say not a word to him beyond your means, you hear?”

Jon nods. Ned drinks in his long, familiar face. His solemn, grey eyes. His tangled, dark hair.

“Aye, my Lord,”

“From there, you’ll be on your own. You have a little coin, your sword and your wits - use your letters to find some work, but you keep your head down, listen out for talk, trust your instincts,”

Mormont raises one, bushy brow.

“And you’ve never heard of any ‘Jon Snow’, understand?”

The boy shakes his head.

“Yes, my Lord,”

Mormont’s face twitches then - almost a smile.

“Good lad,”

Jon jumps up on his horse - a single swift movement that’s full of grace, even one-handed. Looking down, the lantern on his saddle lights the red trees above like a crown of amber and gold. Pulling his cloak about his chin, Jon grips his reigns, causing his horse to shake its head.

A few more words pass between the other lad and the commander - good fortune. Good advice. Ned nods along, his heart tearing in two.

Then his boy - his sweet boy who screamed his way into the world yet is now so silent - turns to him. Grey meeting grey.

“Ride safe, Jon,” he tells him - as if that would make any difference, “- ride swift, and-”

He swallows.

“- I will see you again,”

Three figures ride back to Castle Black that night - two men of the Night’s Watch and one aching, tired Lord. There are questions about the missing fourth - about the horse that should be in the stable, the sword taken from the armoury. An empty cot in the steward’s cells, reserved to the Commander’s new right hand. They all heard the calling earlier, after all - so where could the bastard-?

But Mormont has no time for that. He must plan. He is heading north, he tells them all to a murmur like thunder. They have rides to saddle, supplies to gather, maps to find - and he is taking this southern boy, with a soft heart and a sharp mind, with him. Along with every man the Keep can spare.

And Lord Stark … he will go South. He will find his wife, his sons and his girls. He will head to his family home, gods be good, and see what world the Lions and the Stags and the Spiders have made in his absence.

But part of him … Yes. Part of him is travelling East - galloping through wood and frost with a white wolf at his heels. Night gathers the Tarly boy vowed at the bottom of that great white tree.

Night gathers … and so it begins.

Taking his horse through the great Castle’s gates, Ned looks back at the Commander, the Maester and the boy, standing vigil in the courtyard as if to watch a play to its end. What they learned together here means more than Westeros could ever imagine.

But Ned looks back further, through a wall of ice, where a horse disappears carrying a rider cloaked in black and brown. Ned raises his hand to an Old Bear, but what he sees is a long, tanned face looking out with grey eyes. Stark eyes. They brim with salt streaked tears.

Overhead a raven cries and cries.

Snow! Snow! Snow!