the song of ice and fire [closed]

[tooktheblack]

WHO: Jon Snow
WHERE: woods
WHEN: 14 December
OPEN TO: Robb Stark
WARNINGS: Starks being stubborn idiots
STATUS: locked post, only open to Robb Stark's thread.

---

Jon had not really spoken to Robb much over the past several weeks. He'd moved into a house shared with Ygritte, which had worked out to be for the best given the influx of family over the past moon. Sansa and Arya were with Robb now, along with Margaery, and there simply wasn't room in Robb's house for the lot of them to live there together. It was no Winterfell, after all, and after Margaery had accused Ygritte of...whatever she'd accused her of, it had simply been for the best that Jon take a house further away from Margaery in order to simply keep the peace.

Still, he missed his brother. They used to talk quite a bit, especially when they first arrived and it had only been the two of them, and Jon missed that. He had been reminded of how things were before they ever left Winterfell, how they'd been as boys. He wanted that closeness back even though years and battles and politics would ensure that neither of the men would ever be the same as the boys they once were; nostalgia painted things warmer than cold, grey reality.

It was cold today, wet and the snow was the sort that seemed to be changing into a half-melted sleet as Jon went along the lines to check his traps. He had a bow in an attempt to hunt a deer or something but there was no way he'd spot anything in miserable weather like this. The animals had all taken shelter, much like he should, but he had duties to fulfill to the other villagers and one of those duties was trying to ensure they were all fed.

He spotted Robb's red hair along the tree line and cursed under his breath, wanting to avoid him if he could. He was in a foul mood from the cold and wet and didn't want to be reminded that he couldn't exactly just say hello to his brother without opening up the wound of not having spoken with him in the better part of a month so he wanted to avoid the subject entirely. He gripped his bow hard, shocked when it went up in flames. How had that happened?

He'd heard of one person who had this gift, the tall man called Thor Odinson, but this was something Jon had never seen with his own eyes. The fire came again, a towering flame this time, and scorched a tree in front of him. "Seven Hells!" he shouted.

So much for slipping away unnoticed.

Comments

[king_in_the_north]

"What?" Robb spit out, his expression going pinched with confused distaste. "What has Margaery ever done to you that you couldn't bear to sleep in the same house as her?"

That the incident over the sheep was Margaery's fault, he well knew -- He'd chastised her for it himself after he'd finally forced the story from her. But yet it still seemed the height of ridiculousness that a grown man couldn't stand to share a space with one Southron noblewoman.

"Your Wildling had no trouble whatsoever in raising a hand to her, so I very much doubt she needs you to worry for her being beset by such a fearsome foe."

[tooktheblack]

"The woman has political motives," Jon insisted. "Why would she suddenly be so in love with you, in spite of never having met you before, except the fact that you're King in the North? I don't trust her and I don't want her around. She accused Ygritte of murder when she did nothing of the sort. Ygritte isn't stupid. If she killed an animal, it'd be to butcher it for meat because that is what a Wildling does. I won't live in the house with an idiot woman that I think is trying to trick you into a marriage. If that means we quarrel, we quarrel, but that is my only fight with you, Robb."

[king_in_the_north]

"I'm not a king here, Jon!" Robb shouted back. "How could anyone have political motives in a place where the only politics involves who signs out the damned bow and arrows? There is literally nothing to be gained politically by marrying me!"

In throwing up his frustrated hands, a soft gout of snowflakes shot into the air and then drifted down upon the two of them, interrupting his outrage. "Seven hells," he hissed, frowning as he looked to his chilled fingertips.

"Perhaps you simply can't fathom someone wanting me for myself," he added, watching as he curled up his fingers around the ice forming in his palms.

[tooktheblack]

"Certainly she might, but so quickly? I would be loathe to trust anyone that quickly, Robb. Don't be blinded by someone who speaks pretty words, especially someone who has betrayed House Stark before. That's all. That's the last I will speak of it."

If Robb didn't want to listen to his counsel, fine. Jon was under no obligation to provide further. "But I won't hear you accuse me of being a traitor to my family solely because a woman I lived with and loved and who saved my life countless times over two years has returned to me from the dead. I won't. Think it to yourself, if you must, but don't say another word of it to me."

[king_in_the_north]

And as quickly as that, Robb's anger was snapped, leaving in its place such a sick hopelessness that for a moment he hardly managed to breathe. The anger had been fortifying, but this wave of self-loathing he had little defense against. He felt as if his legs had been cut out from under him.

"Aye. So did I," he managed, and simply gave up, turning to crunch his way back through the underbrush, swallowing back the bile rising in his throat.

He'd known, of course, that he'd be punished for his carelessness, had known that the simple act of dying, of seeing his men, his mother killed, wouldn't be enough. He just hadn't known it would come to this.

[tooktheblack]

"So that's it, then? You walk away? We go on avoiding one another? I have a right to my opinions, same as you," Jon said, following after him. As he did, he felt the burning of fire in his fist, felt it welling up; would he set the whole damned forest aflame?

"All I ask is that you don't immediately think my choice to be with a woman I care about is betrayal, especially when you aren't aware of everything that transpired between us when I was North of the Wall. I don't need you to like her. I don't need you to talk to her. I do, however, need you to stop holding her against me."

[king_in_the_north]

"You left me!" Robb yelled, the words practically propelled from his chest as he swung around, ice crackling lightning-quick up to both elbows. "You left me twice! I died, too, Jon! I died bleeding on the cold floor while Roose Bolton stood over me, while my mother screamed for me! Why weren't you—" His voice hitched, eyes welling with sudden, hot tears. "Why weren't you there?"

It all felt so pointless, so small and stupid as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and he shook his head, shivering as he looked down to his hands, ice falling away as he curled his fingers.

"I don't care about your damned woman, Jon," he said without looking up.

[tooktheblack]

It was never about Ygritte. All along, it seemed, this rift had been born of the separation long ago; this was born out of his choice to go to the Wall instead of remaining with House Stark alongside his trueborn brothers and sisters.

"She forced me out," Jon choked out, the words like ash in his throat. "After Bran was attacked, she made it known that I wasn't worthy of seeing him. She made it known I wasn't his brother. I wanted to go somewhere I mattered."

[king_in_the_north]

"You mattered to me!" Robb shot back, and jerked his gaze back up. "You could have come to me, Jon! You could have said! I asked and you said she was kind to you!"

It was so difficult for him to understand how his mother's chilly treatment of his brother could have overridden his own affection and his own secret hope that Jon might change his mind. He'd held onto that hope until the moment they parted -- Until nearly a week later, even, watching for his brother to return to Winterfell and confess that he'd decided to stay with them after all.

He swallowed roughly now around the understanding that it was all pointless. He was dead and they were all very far from Winterfell.

"You could have told me about Margaery," he continued at length, watching Jon with a steady, if uncertain eye. "You just went. Why didn't you say?"

[tooktheblack]

"I didn't want to cause strife," Jon said. "I made the wrong choice but I never want to come between you and someone you love. I would not have made you choose sides between myself and Margaery, just as I never would have made you choose between your mother and me."

He paused for a moment. "They're not the same, though. Lady Catelyn was a great woman even though we did not care for one another. I do not know if I can say the same about Margaery Tyrell."

[king_in_the_north]

Robb lifted his eyes to the slate-gray sky, so like the one he'd grown up beneath, occasional snowflakes catching and melting in his hair, on his cheeks. No divine help was forthcoming, though, just as it hadn't intervened back home.

"You're my brother, Jon. I've known you all my life. I care for Margaery, yes, but I've known her mere months. I'm not—" He sighed, having little idea of how he even felt, and even less of how to explain it.

"I wish you'd come to me. Aren't we supposed to do that, as brothers? Isn't that what Father would have wanted?"

[tooktheblack]

"It's precisely what he would have wanted," Jon agreed. He knew that he had fault in this even if he'd been so blinded by wanting to do right by House Stark and Winterfell. Carrying the burden of the future had weighed heavily on him and he'd shown it in bad ways.

"Everything I do, I do it to protect House Stark. There's so little of us left in Westeros now and I would lay down my own sword and my own body to keep Sansa safe because she's all that we have left. I have to remember it's different here. It isn't all on me."

[king_in_the_north]

"Apparently we both were guilty of believing that," Robb quietly admitted with a slow sigh. Weeks he'd gone, nursing his perceived slights, believing it was his duty to bear up and provide for the girls alone. It hadn't been quite as harrowing as going to war, but it had often proved more demoralizing.

"This is our family, Jon. What's left of it, anyway. We both of us went to war to protect our house, we both understand the need to guard it. We cannot go on quarreling. I don't know if this place is truly a second chance, but with the girls here... We must be united, for them if for nothing else. Father would have wanted it that way."

[tooktheblack]

"When Arya and Sansa are getting along better than we are, we know that the world has gone mad," Jon said, croaking out a harsh, sharp laugh. It felt good to laugh again and it felt good to laugh with Robb after weeks of silence between them.

"I don't think Father would ever have expected something like this. We've never really fought for more than an afternoon."

[king_in_the_north]

Robb's smile was weak but genuine, accompanied with a shake of his head at the idea of Sansa and Arya getting along at all. They were certainly more patient with each other than they'd been at Winterfell, although living with them both in a much smaller home now, Robb had been witness to the occasional flare-up of tempers. Truthfully, it was a bit comforting.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking to Jon. "For leaving you with so much on your shoulders, and for not speaking to you here like I ought to have."

[tooktheblack]

"Let's forget about it. We're brothers above all else," Jon said. No matter what quarrel they might have between them, they were always going to be brothers and that was the most important thing.

"No one can sever that bond - not even us."