sixthiterationlogs | (no subject)

WHO: Jon Snow
WHERE: Along the road; Margaery's home
WHEN: 9 September
OPEN TO: All - feel free to find him along the road in the village or at the inn dropping off the game he's killed.
WARNINGS: N/A
STATUS: Open

Jon had spent the last several weeks with a certain routine: he awoke early and took to the woods when the animals were still grazing and hunted what he could. He never shot the first animal he saw because, in theory, if there were enough to be eating, he would see another and be able to take it instead. If he never saw another, it would be a good thing he hadn't taken the first. That had been one of the many lessons he'd learned from his lord father and he'd carried it with him to the Wall and now to this place.

Afterward, he would check his snares to see if anything small had wandered into the traps. He'd gotten lucky with rabbits, of late, and while the pelts were small, he still skinned them and saved them in hopes that there was something they could make from them. He knew that winter would come to this place eventually and none of the clothing that their captors had given them had seemed especially warm to Jon. There was no fur on any of them; how would they keep warm during the winter with no fur to line their collars or wrists?

After the work of the day was done, he would take his kills to the inn to be cooked and would spend much of the rest of the day surveying his own home for repairs. There had been a leaky roof that he'd had to patch with little in the way of supplies and Jon hoped that the ground wouldn't quake again and cause actual damage to the building itself. He had no tools to fix it and, truthfully, these homes were nothing like anything he'd seen in Westeros. He knew how to thatch a castle roof, yes, but these homes had something else entirely.

Come mid afternoon, he found himself wanting to check on the Lady Margaery. She had her own house some distance along the road away from his own and if she needed repairs, he imagined she'd be less suited to complete them than he was. It was with that purpose in mind that he headed out along the road, head bent, to see if there was something he might do for her.

It was an offer made of kindness, he told himself. Nothing more and nothing less.

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Jon made a sound that was halfway between a cough and a laugh and he looked at Robb in something approaching horror. He had never wanted to draw attention to himself in quite that way but it seemed that he'd made himself seem very memorable to Lady Margaery.

"It was just a fence," he said, shrugging it off. "Nothing else happened, just a fence. I don't know why women have to make such a fuss over things like that."

"You're still shite at taking compliments, I see," Robb teased, but gave Jon's shoulder a quick squeeze. "I don't know that I'd call it a fuss anyhow, although she fancies herself Queen of the Livestock now and I'm not sure the sheep would thank you, judging from last I saw her with them."

It was still a bit beyond him why Margaery would feel the need to attempt such things to begin with. Wanting to feel useful was one thing, but she was clearly at a loss.

"She cares too much about those damned sheep," Jon said, huffing a little. It was a little easier to talk about Margaery's sheep than Margaery or, gods forbid, himself.

"We have to eat them, eventually, and then what is she going to do? Cry about it? Mutton is mutton."

"And she'll never forgive you, you understand," Robb reminded him. "To her they're pets, and I've an inkling she could carry a grudge longer than most. Meanwhile, we're out everyday catching what? Rabbits, if we're lucky. Trying to put food on the table." He shook his head.

"It honestly makes you wonder if all women in the South are so nonsensical. I don't think even Sansa would be so impractical."

"Sansa is more practical than I am, at this juncture," Jon said, thinking of his sister for a moment. He worried about her quite a lot. While Winterfell might have been won for the Starks, he worried that leaving her alone meant that Littlefinger could press his advantage.

"She'll do what needs to be done to survive. I have no doubt that she'd kill the sheep herself if she needed to. She's a different girl than when you saw her last, Robb. Very different."

It always stung a little, the reminder of all of the things which Robb had and would continue to miss due to his own poor judgment. His arm fell easily from Jon's shoulders but his face clouded with the thought that his prim and delicate sister might be forced into a personal acquaintance with the harsher realities of the world.

"At least she was safe last you saw her," he said, a small consolation for either of them when she was alone now. "Better than kept by the Lannisters."

"She's steel now, Robb, steel cloaked in porcelain. Sansa is well cared for, or was, but I want her here so that we can both take care of her and see her with our own two eyes," Jon said.

"I want the assurance that no one can harm our sister again. I want to know that our blood is safe with us, no matter what place we find ourselves in. House Stark has suffered too much for too long."

For a long moment, Robb was silent, the heavy weight of everything left behind falling upon his shoulders and smothering the light mood they'd been enjoying before. They'd not discussed much about the truth of this place, the two of them, but Robb had long been considering its hidden nature.

"I miss her," he slowly admitted at length, his gaze downcast. "But I do not think I would wish her here. If she is as changed as you say, perhaps she is the best hope for our house."

"Sansa is House Stark," Jon said emphatically. "The Lords of the North named me King but I do not think they were right in this. I may have won them battles on the field but I am better suited to be a commander, to help Sansa in military matters. She is wiser in the matters of people, I think, in how to rule. She knows more about it. She's what House Stark needs."

Still, he missed her so much and he worried about her, especially knowing that Littlefinger still was at her heels at every turn. What did he want? What would he want from her in exchange for the knights of the Vale? What would he want the next time and the next?