(no subject)

[ungentle]

Daenerys knew the North very well by now, as much as she knew it wasn't hers.

She'd spent practically her whole life in Winterfell, under Lord Eddard's -- protection?  Care?  Watchful eye?  Possibly some combination -- and truly, she was grateful of it.  Surely her life could have taken other, less civil turns: exile, perhaps, or being killed like the rest of her family.  She wasn't a Stark, she had always known she didn't quite belong, but she was looked after by the Starks, this for reasons she was only just beginning to understand.  (It fascinated her that not killing children was considered a matter of politics and not of basic decency, but then, she was only a young girl, she wasn't meant to understand these things.)

It wasn't uncommon for the once-princess to seek out privacy and quiet when her day's work was done.  She'd been a striking girl and she'd grown into an even more striking woman, and even despite the whispered worries about her lineage, she had always received a great deal of attention; she was as good and polite as she could be when approached, but this tendency to run off and hide, though not entirely ladylike, stemmed from a desire to avoid such attention.  She often retreated to the godswood, though not from any particular religious inclination so much as that she knew it was unlikely she'd be disturbed there, at least by anyone who wasn't welcome to disturb her.

Today's earlier raven from King's Landing, though innocuous enough, had sent Daenerys into a mood: carefully disguised, hardly noticeable to most, but nonetheless one she felt she needed to be alone, or mostly alone, to sort through.  If anyone were to look for her, or just to stumble across her, they'd find her in the godswood, bundled in a cloak and deep in thought.

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[blackbastard]

All his life, Jon Snow had existed in a kind of middle state. As the son of Lord Eddard Stark, he was a part of one of the great and powerful houses of Westeros with the whole wild and beautiful North as their land. But as a bastard instead of a trueborn child, he could never inherit name, title or honor from the family that was his in every other aspect. Even Lady Catelyn had always seemed to treat him only grudgingly as part of House Stark, a necessary inconvenience and embarrassment. Jon's main comfort was that for the most part, his half-siblings treated him as trueborn as they were, and he was content.

Then, the raven came from King's Landing and the servants at Winterfell began to chatter. They spoke of King Robert and the friendship that was shared between him and Lord Eddard. They whispered that at last, the Lord of House Stark was to be named Hand of the King. If any of it was true, it boded very ill for a bastard son. And so he left the company of his siblings to find another place he felt welcomed, the godswood.

It was no surprise that he found Daenerys there, also seeking refuge. Jon could not imagine what would be in store for the would-be princess, should the servants' whispers prove to be true. He knelt near the heart tree and gazed into the carved face. "Have you heard?" he said quietly. "All the castle casts guesses about the raven's message."

[ungentle]

There had always been a sort of camaraderie, or at the least an understanding, between Daenerys and Jon; she was more overtly set apart, the family was even less hers than it was his, but though the Stark children were by and large kind to her, though she could sit sewing and chattering with Sansa for hours and be chased across the courtyard by Arya with equal ease, Jon was the one she considered herself closest to in spirit.

As such, he was one of the few she was glad to be joined by, especially just now. Her arms were wrapped round her legs, hands plunged into her cloak (she'd come to terms with the fact that no amount of living in it would make her fully equipped to handle the cold), but she offered a polite nod hello.

"Yes," she murmured. "I imagine they would." She wasn't sure what else to say; she held no resentment toward Lord Eddard, she couldn't without spending her whole life unhappy so she'd never let herself, but the Baratheon king was another matter, and she'd been sorting through the swirling mix of fear, anger, and anxiety that the thought of him had stirred in her. "Is there any consensus?"

[blackbastard]

Almost without a second thought, Jon undid the tie of his bearskin cloak and draped it over the girl's shoulders. Daenerys was always cold, and he had always done his best to help her, as they were both so much of and not of the Starks at the same time. When the silver-haired girl wasn't around, Robb would joke that her unease with the Northern chill was because Daenerys was part dragon. Jon had seen flashes of light and strength in her from time to time that made him wonder at the idea.

He shrugged, sitting down beside her. Immediately, the godswood settled his nerves as it always had. "Most coin is being laid upon Father-- Lord Eddard-- being named the new Hand to King Robert, and that he would be fool to refuse. Seems that would mean moving the family and the better part of Winterfell's people down to King's Landing."

Jon sighed. "Sansa is of the opinion that move would not be one undertaken by a bastard son, as-- in her opinion-- I'd be an embarrassment to Father's new station." The words were bitterly said, all the more for so likely being true.

[ungentle]

When she was little, before she'd fully understood that she was different from the other children running around Winterfell and why, she'd gotten embarrassed about the way her body didn't seem to hold up to the weather the same way. It was nothing to be ashamed of, not really, but it had still bothered her in the way that such things do children. She hated to ask for help even still, not wanting to call attention to this (she'd have laughed if she heard Robb, she wouldn't think of herself so despite her ancestry), but Jon's way of looking out for her caused her to try for a grateful sort of nod of acknowledgement.

"I see," she mused. She had never known King's Landing, but what she knew of it made her believe it a treacherous place, and between that and the low esteem she had for King Robert though never expressed, she could already start to suspect where her opinion would lie about this.

His second item, though, caused her to frown openly. Speculating on Jon's role in this new development was easier than speculating on her own, not that she wouldn't. "Doubtless Sansa is mimicking the opinions of others," she said, "But there's no need to do so that bluntly." For all the courtesies the younger girl could have, as sweet as she could be, there were still some things she hadn't quite learned. Observing this was Dany's way of offering sympathy without overtly doing.

[blackbastard]

He laughed, despite himself. "Sansa is the roughest-tongued proper lady I've ever met," Jon offered, half a teasing comment and half a compliment. Whatever happened, she was still family. He nodded to Daenerys, though, silently thanking her for the words. It was like this with them, two outsiders despite being deep and protected inside the walls of Winterfell, helping one another out as they could.

"Could still be true, though. And if I'm to be left behind, it's not permitted for me to stay as the castellan. It would be a black cloak and the Wall for me."

And for the first time since he'd arrived in the Godswood, Jon shivered at the thought before he shook it away. He looked at Daenerys and tried to put on the most hopeful face he could manage. "There's no danger of being left behind for you, though. No need to worry about that."

[ungentle]

And she returned the laugh, perhaps a bit too loudly -- any levity was welcome just now. "Perhaps so," she said carefully (it wasn't wholly her place to comment, Sansa had grown up alongside her but Sansa wasn't her family). "But words are one of the best tools a lady can hope to have, when they're used correctly at any rate." Which wasn't only applied to Sansa, and was thus followed with a slight sigh.

Unthinkingly, she shifted just a bit closer to Jon. A proper distance was still kept between them, but it was instinct born of her sympathy and nerves both. She couldn't help but look just a bit horrified at what he said, though it didn't entirely surprise her. "Oh," she whispered. "I'm..."

There wasn't really a good end to that sentence, though; they looked out for each other, but they rarely acknowledged why or offered apologies for the things they had no control over. She certainly didn't know what to say once the conversation was turned back toward her, though. "Of course not," she finally managed, and it was bitterer than she usually let herself be when she added, "That's not why I had been worrying."

[blackbastard]

"Then if it's all the same, I suppose I'm glad to have been born a man," Jon mutters, "as I'm no good with words at all." He wasn't a simpleton, he knew that, and he could read well enough and write passably, and when it came to common sense, Jon figured he was clever enough as he needed to be. But skilled with words? No.

He frowned at the way Daenerys seemed to react, and he closed the gap a little further without thinking. "It's not so hard a life," he said, trying to reassure her. "And I'm used to wearing just about all black already." Jon shrugged.

"But if it's true, I confess... who am I supposed to keep reminding to put on her cloak or her woolens, hm? I've seen men of the Night's Watch before," Jon said with an attempt at a smile, "and I don't fancy helping keep any of them warm like you." The moment the words tumbled out, he wanted to snap them back up.

[ungentle]

That coaxed an odd, anxious smile from her. She wasn't one for taking up arms and roughhousing like Arya was, and she was plenty feminine, but she had long been aware of the advantages that might come from being able to do like men and fight with more than just words. Besides that, there was truth to what he said, though Jon's intermittent awkwardness had long struck Daenerys as endearing, so she wasn't about to say anything about it.

"It can't be an easy one," she said, shuddering a bit in spite of herself. It wouldn't bother Jon, of course, but the thought of anywhere even colder than Winterfell pained her to think on. And -- well.

Her first instinct upon Jon's teasing was to give another of those laughs and bat at his arm, feigning something like playful shock. "Perhaps they wouldn't want your reminders," she countered, "Ineffectual as they seem to be, since they've never stuck." But once she'd taken the time to think over what else he said, she was suddenly struck with the idle thought that ensuring she was dressed properly wasn't the only way he could keep her warm, and this got her falling back into a polite shyness.

[blackbastard]

Jon gave Daenerys a conspiratorial smile and leaned in just a little closer, something he was finding himself growing more and more inclined to do that day. "Come on, now. You and me, we wouldn't know an easy life if it bit us on the arse." Oh, there were worse ways for a bastard and a deposed princess to grow up, but neither were they pampered and fawned over.

There was a moment then, when it seemed that Daenerys had caught exactly the second meaning in his words that he'd not intended to put into them. The idea did not dismay him. In fact, it had the opposite effect, and that just made him more melancholy about leaving.

"No, it's quite pleasant in the South," he said quietly. "No more fur cloaks and rough wools. It'll be silks for you. Proper, beautiful gowns to suit you. Proper finery. Proper, fancy men, too..." Jon's voice trailed off.

[ungentle]

"No, we wouldn't," she agreed, chuckling wryly. They'd been about as fortunate as any in their positions could be, but those positions were by nature rather unfortunate, it was true. Daenerys would never have wished this on anyone else, but, well, having Jon there already had always been a comfort.

As for their current conversation, she wasn't sure if it was also a comfort or something quite different. Some of this, she knew, could be attributed to her mood and opinion of the situation -- his role in it, her role, everything as a whole -- but some of it was not so easily explained.

She glanced away when he attempted to -- console her, perhaps? -- and seemed to sink down into herself a bit more. "It sounds very pretty," she about whispered, because she wasn't sure how to put the rest of what she was feeling into words just yet.

[blackbastard]

He could feel the retreat, and it was the last thing that he had wanted to happen. Not that Jon could completely understand everything that was going on right at that moment-- it was like those bitter cold days where ponds would freeze over, and though a man could walk across the surface, things could still be seen below, living and moving but unknowable. He laughed at himself for the image, thinking he was starting to sound like Maester Luwin.

"Pretty," he repeated, "but kind of empty, too. I'd prefer it here. I'm made for a hall filled with cooking smoke and the warmth of hearths. I'd be a poor excuse for a proper noble boy, don't you think?"

He looked at Daenerys and offered a bit more of a smile. "You, though? You should have a chance to shine like you ought."

[ungentle]

Honestly, Daenerys could barely understand all of it herself, let alone begin to explain it. She didn't often show her fear, she wasn't used to even thinking she ought to, but in this moment, she couldn't much think of an alternative, and that at least was fairly easy to read on her face.

"I think you wouldn't be happy trying to be one," she amended, diplomacy and truth rolled into one. "Too much putting on airs, I suspect. It wouldn't suit you."

It was because he was honest that she knew what he said meant something. What, she wasn't sure, but he was sincere, and she didn't know if that made it better or worse. Possibly both. "It wouldn't be me shining," she murmured before she could think better of it. There would, after all, be only so many things a dead king's daughter would be seen as good for, and none of them would be her own idea. "But thank you."

[blackbastard]

He looked back at Daenerys and nodded. She saw him, saw exactly the kind of man he was as clear as day. Just more proof for him that the two of them really were kind of a pair, growing up in a place where not a hell of a lot of other people could really understand their situation.

"Wish I could stay here and watch over Winterfell for Father. It's always been my home, I'd like it to stay that way."

Despite himself, Jon found himself smiling. "Very sorry to tell you, Princess, but you wouldn't have much choice in the matter. You do it already all the time. Just might be a bit harder to see up here in all the snow."

[ungentle]

[[Psssst, you tagged the other thread with a different account journal, just in case you'd want to know]]

"I wish that for you, too," she said softly. "I..." I think you deserve at least that much, maybe, though she was finding it getting stuck in her throat. Or I'd stay back with you even if it is damnably cold, or something like.

She went pink, like she did most times she got called "princess" (not that it wasn't based in fact, but then it wasn't strictly true anymore, either). Sweet, decent Jon; she couldn't be sure in what way he meant what he told her, but because he was one of the few, if not the only full stop, who could understand her fully most of the time, she knew he meant it at least sincerely.

"Thank you," she repeated, and propriety be damned she scooted closer and hid her face against his shoulder like a child before she added in a rush, "They might dress me up and -- and parade me, but it wouldn't be me, it would be what someone else wanted." She'd been remarkably safe from being used as too much of a political pawn at Winterfell, sheltered from the machinations of King's Landing, but she could only imagine it.

[blackbastard]

[Yeah, I caught that but had to wait until I could fix it. Sorry.]

When she blushed, it did something inside of Jon's chest that made him feel as though he'd done something very right. Complimenting her had always come easy, since he knew what it was like to live on very few of them at all and he didn't think anyone should have to do so. But when she curled against him, the movement and her sudden closeness did something else to him.

Jon wrapped an arm around Daenerys' shoulders and hugged her tightly against him and he didn't care who might see. The life she spoke of was a cruel, unfair and ignoble one and he wanted nothing more than to protect her from it. Lady Catelyn would have scoffed and said it was an impulse that he'd inherited from his father, always standing up for impossible and unwinnable causes in the name of honor. If that was so, Jon would be proud to be that kind of fool.

"If I could stop that from happening, I would. No one deserves to be treated like... a thing. If Father allowed be to be castellan, you would always have a place here with me."

[ungentle]

[[Oh it's no worry, I just know sometimes people would rather be told so they can fix, so just in case.]]

Daenerys did not consider herself vain or particularly attention-seeking, but she did treasure the compliments she was given, especially by Jon. Sure, she believed that there was at least some sincerity in the way that Rickon would praise how she read him a story or Sansa would say something about how nicely she'd done up her silver-blonde hair, but Jon's kind words always meant more, felt realer somehow.

Once he had wrapped an arm around her, though, all bets were off. She rather collapsed against him, sighing and very carefully not crying but certainly sniffling.

"I know, I know you would," she murmured, because it was true. It seemed silly to complain of what amounted to a gilded cage when what suddenly stood before Jon was so much harsher, but she couldn't help it, it all came spilling from her lips. "I suppose it could be worse, I could have spent my whole life there like some sort of pet, but what other purpose would they have for me?"

[blackbastard]

[It's much appreciated.]

She was even closer, and more than that, it sounded like Daenerys was right on the verge of crying. Jon just held her closer and wished that he had more to wrap around her than a cloak or an arm, something that would shield her from people that would use her like an object or a trophy simply because of who she had been born. It cut deeply with Jon in so many ways and now his own worries about being sent to take the black were all but forgotten.

"I can't even start to imagine," he answered her quietly. "Those games are played by people with more cunning and more ambition and more brains than I could ever hope to have. Even Father hates them, which is why he's been so content to stay up here in the North."

Concern became boldness. Jon leaned his head over and kissed her right on the crown of her head, amongst the soft, silvery hair. "You don't deserve that life. You deserve a home and comfort, like anyone else."

[ungentle]

There would be no need for him to worry: Daenerys had trained herself out of crying when others could see when she was a child. It was never worth it, the embarrassment she felt just made it worse and it called the sort of attention to her that she very much didn't want. But she was closer to it than she'd been in a long time, caught up in these anxieties.

"You're plenty smart," she insisted, though she wasn't moving to lift her head yet. "You're just not cruel, which I imagine is the difference." Despite his cloak and his arm around her both, she shivered a bit at the thought.

And though he couldn't see it, she blushed yet more when his lips found the top of her head. "I think perhaps it's not a matter of deserving," she mused, because it was easier somehow than thinking about how his assurances made her insides flutter. "If it were, the world wouldn't be as it is."

[blackbastard]

"I'm sure you're right," Jon replied, giving her a squeeze when he felt a shiver run through her. "I can't understand all those things that Father tells us about what it's like in King's Landing. All those plots and lies-- no wonder he stays up here." He chuckled despite himself after a moment.

"Daenerys, you need to stop being so right all the time, it's getting harder to comfort you."

And then he sighed when she was right some more about what people deserved and what they got. They were living, breathing proof of that, something that Jon had never felt so keenly as right at that moment, holding Daenerys against his chest in the godswood. "No, I like to think in a fair world, I'd have the choice to live a simple life here where I belong, have a few responsibilities, maybe settle down."

[ungentle]

"It sounds horrible," she agreed, nuzzling a bit closer. "Everyone so worried about petty little things, hurting each other for power but -- but how can they have the time to do anything with it when all their time is otherwise spent?" Of course, she wouldn't presume to know how things actually played out, but it seemed rather skewed from where she sat.

She shook her head very adamantly. "I'm not right all the time," she declared before a playful note crept into her voice (she wouldn't have dared with anyone but Jon, but she couldn't help it). "Only most of it."

How was it that someone so clearly of the North, someone so comfortable in the cold, could feel so warm? Daenerys wasn't sure, but there was Jon contradicting that logic. If there wasn't anyone like him in King's Landing (she doubted there would be) she wouldn't be half as warm there. "Choices," she murmured, nodding. "In a fair world, we'd all have more than we're given. Your hopes aren't so extreme, they should be able to come true. If things were fair."

[blackbastard]

"Oh, I see," he said with a smile. "Only most of the time. I stand corrected." Even that little bit of lightness is more than appreciated; by both of them, he was sure.

The fact that they were speaking of what might happen should both of them be separated from Winterfell, a place they had both called home for years, was weighing heavily on Daenerys, that much he could tell. Jon hadn't anticipated how it would weigh on him, as well.

"If things were fair," he repeated. "All right, princess. What would you do if things were fair? How would you live? Where would you go?"

[ungentle]

Honestly, most of the lightness in Daenerys' life came from moments with Jon. She'd not thought about it so directly, but it was true: she couldn't really be the same sort of playful with any of the trueborn Starks, mostly it didn't bother her but she had never felt fully comfortable, with her position here being ambiguous at best. Jon, though, Jon she could trust and tease accordingly. Like now, not quite responding but managing to offer an almost cheeky little grin.

Winterfell had been the only home she'd known, it was true; it wasn't exactly home in the real sense, but it was close, and it was much more home than the city looming ahead of her. That was what burdened her the most, but in her way she knew she'd miss the North even if she didn't belong to it.

"I'm not sure, exactly," she admitted. "I'd want to be comfortable, of course, but I don't know that I'd need a lot of grandeur or high society. I'd like to be somewhere where it wouldn't matter who I was or where I'd come from." A little shrug. It wasn't a wild fantasy, but it was the closest she could get, and given the circumstances of her life still enough of one.

[blackbastard]

The smile that Jon suddenly found pulling at his face was wider and more genuine than he could've expected. "You know, that sounds not half bad, the way you put it. Maybe better than that, even." It wasn't something he'd ever considered, really. Jon loved his siblings and was proud to be a Stark, even a bastard one. And truth be told, he all but idolized Lord Eddard. But a bastard he was and would always be, and the idea of no longer being "Ned Stark's bastard" and just being Jon? It was tempting.

"Yeah, a clean start doesn't sound bad at all," he told Daenerys wistfully. "And your version of it sounds a damn sight better than the one I'd get in the Night's Watch. Is there room for one thickheaded Northman in this special somewhere?" Once again, the words escaped and it wasn't until they were well on their way that he realized how they could be taken, depending on the ears they reached.

[ungentle]

A part of her expected that she should have fancier tastes than she did, royal blood and all that. She should have dreamed of palaces and courtiers and knights like Sansa did, maybe; perhaps it was that she knew why she would be surrounded by such things in real life that she didn't crave them in her imaginings. She wasn't picky, she just wanted to be happy, maybe to find some way to do good for people while she was at it.

She regarded Jon with some curiosity when he spoke. Indistinct fantasy could be anything she wanted it to, or anything that anyone else wanted it to be, of course it was open enough to be nicer than anything, one way or another. "It's -- it's the best thing I can imagine," she agreed slowly.

There was no mistaking how she'd heard it when, after a weighty pause, she added in a whisper, "And of course there is."

[blackbastard]

[sorry, I usually try to tag at least once on the weekends, but this one was a pain]

"That's, um--" Jon swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry and tight. "That's good."

The godswood was suddenly much warmer than he ever remembered it being, and yet he wanted to shiver at the same time. He'd had his arm around Daenerys, who had been raised right beside him, a hundred times or more but now he found he couldn't recall a single one of those times.

"I'd hate to miss out on a wish that good," he said, the words tumbling out of him without thought once again. "And I'd really hate to think that you might be out there, having a fine life... but being lonely."