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Jon stares blankly at his reflection in the polished silver mirror. In his mind the words You know nothing, Jon Snow circle like a minstrel’s refrain—whisper-soft, like a ballad to the new gods.

Ygritte’s mocking-affectionate words have never resonated more in him than now—they shake him to his bones. Literally.

He clenches his fingers into a fist, breathless by their small size, a children’s hand, soft and unmarked. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong…

It does nothing to the soul-shaking tremor, wracking through him. 

His lungs burn. It feels like he has been stabbed again. 

He can live with magic. 

He can live with ancient, fantastical childhood tales about winter and death—horror unimaginable come to walk the earth.

He can even live with the bitter knowledge what it means to be a death-abandoned corpse hungering for the slightest flicker of life.

But this is a thousand times more cruel. Gods-forsaken, thrice-damned.

In the mirror, his father’s face stares back. A distorted mirror image of his own.

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Walking through Winterfell is like walking through a graveyard, or maybe more apt, the crypts beneath the castle now stretch beyond their boundaries. Walking statues with features strongly familiar and yet so other.

Himself most of all.

He looks at his aunt and tries to see his mother—long dead, only story-known—and instead only sees a young Arya in her features. In the curl of her hair and long face, waiting to be grown into. In the way she laughs and constantly pesters Lord Stark for lessons on riding, archery or swordsmanship, she is not picky. She constantly seeks him out; he wants to smile, a greeting, Arya, already on his lips, and she opens her mouth, and it takes everything not to flinch because the voice is wrong, higher pitched than Aryas ever was.

Brandon, firstborn, wolf-blooded, is worse. He is Rickon’s ghost walking along the ancient hallways, carefree and laughing —a flash of Rickon’s wild grin , which makes it worse, for it's a stark reminder of a life cut way too short. The little brother whose life slipped through his fingers. His death, his failure. It’s nearly a relief when he frowns, and it’s suddenly Robb looking back, in the wrinkles around the eyes and the puckered mouth. How he bites his lip in concentration.

Uncle Benjen is surprisingly the easiest to bear. For all that he is an adorable toddler, affectionate and quiet, Jon can look at him and see in his features a man grown, wise and a life lived, comfortable with his place in the world. Maybe it helps that there never was a body to be found. The tiny hope not yet extinguished that he somehow survived the war, is just lost somewhere, waiting to be found, as impossible and foolish as it is.

Lord Rickard Stark, Warden of the North, is a person right out of a story, there is something unreal about him. Jon thinks it’s his eyes. One Stark gray, the other pale green, like a new leaf after winter’s end. Ghost-eyed, god-blessed, there are many names among the Free Folk for it, and whether it’s a sign of luck or an ill-fated omen Jon cannot say. He looks at him and can only see the man, not the grandfather-that-could-have-been. There is no Sansa or Bran or any of his siblings in him. He cannot even see his father in him, for all that everyone remarks on their similarity.

Jon looks upon him and only sees a stranger, and that is a relief.

He never goes down into the crypts to take a look at the statue of Lyarra Stark. There are already enough ghosts as it is.

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The old gods may have forsaken him—cursed him—for this felt like anything but a blessing, but they were still Jon’s gods and his faith held steady and true. 

The bark is strangely rough and soft equally against his fingers when he glides them over it. The sensation reminds him of early childhood memories. His father’s fingers, sword-callous-rough but always gentle when he tousled his hair or wiped away tear tracks. 

The roots of the ancient weirwood cradle him—even in this small body—like a mother’s embrace. He feels as safe and protected as he did when he was young and could no longer stand the icy disapproval of Lady Stark. 

The wind rustles through the blood-red leaves and even now it sounds like a whispered song, a lullaby from times long gone, promising comfort and peace. He had often dreamed of family-not-known under the old and eerie eyes of the god-tree. In the branches above him, a few crows caw softly, as if they too, are unwilling to disturb the tranquility of this sacred place.

Maybe it’s because he is relaxed for the first since he woke up here, or it’s the presence of the old gods, their blessing, but the headache he carried the last two days finally slowly fades into nothing.

Shifting slightly, he turns his head to the pond at the foot of the tree—and in the reflection, the child version of his father stares back. Softly, like that faint autumn breeze playing with his hair, the love Eddard Stark held for his family flows into him. 

The adoration he feels for Rickard Stark, the admiration he holds for Brandon, the protectiveness Lyanna and Benjen stir within him. And then, like leaves dancing in the currents of the wind, memories are carried over. Brandon stealing a freshly baked honeycake from the kitchen and sharing the spoils with him, grinning all the while high on his success. Lyanna, walking towards him on unsteady legs, laughing without abandon and nearly toppling over. Crowberries smeared around her mouth and hands staining everything blue. Benjen, chucking his toy away the moment he sees him, babbling 'Ed, 'Ed, 'Ed, arms raised, wanting to be picked up and then falling asleep on his shoulder, his little face pressed against his neck. Sitting on Lyarra’s lap by the fire, while a storm rages outside. Her voice, a soothing distraction while she tells stories of ancient Stark kings. Rickard dismissing the maester and setting his letters aside so he has time to help him track down one of the less shy mousers so he can pet it.

He looks calm and in the slight ripples of the water; it looks like he is smiling. Jon is glad; his father deserves to be happy, even if it has to be in death.

Shifting back, he tips his neck back to stare up into the weirwood’s crown as the last threads of Ned Stark weave themselves into the shape of his soul. The man he will always consider his father is no more, but then he supposes neither is Jon Snow.

It’s quite ironic in a tragic kind of way. For most of his life, he wished to have the name Stark. Now he is one in blood and bone and name, and he never felt more like Snow.

He’s pulled from his thoughts when he notices a crow eying him. It’s perfectly camouflaged in the tree, hidden between the branches, with snow-white feathers and ruby-red eyes. Its head tilted, its piercing stare feels nearly too sharp, too knowing while it stands unsettlingly still.

The crunch of dried twigs breaking under a greater weight diverts his attention for a moment. When he looks back, the crow is gone. He didn’t even hear the rustle of feathers taking flight.

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The godswood had always been a place of silence and prayer for him. A place where he feels closest to the old gods, through he believes them to be deities of stream, forest, and stone—that so long as he prayed to nature, they would hear. Still, there is something other about ancient weirwoods, he always feels seen under the carved faces. Maybe the gods can hear him wherever he prays, but they can only speak to him through a god-tree. The limitations of men.

 There is always a prickle skittering along his spine when he kneels between the roots and prays, but today, his skin prickles all over and Rickard is not even kneeling in front of the great tree. Instead, he lingers in the shadow of an oak, half-hidden by its trunk, watching. 

He’d followed Ned here—concerned for his second son, who’s been uncharacteristically solemn these past days. Nerves, he thought at first, but there was something disquiet in his eyes that worried him, something that went beyond anxieties of a boy sent away to be fostered. He expected Ned to come to him with his troubles. He has never shied away from asking for comfort when needed before. Instead, it feels like Ned is attempting his best to avoid everyone, to completely fall into obscurity.

His boy sits beneath the weirwood, cradled by the roots like he tries to become one with the tree. Which is quite ironic—though his children believe in the old gods, none are very faithful.

It worries him sometimes, not in the belief the gods will punish his children—that is not their way—but because what it might mean for them or the future of the north.

He believes many things got lost since the time of Bran the Builder, with the knowledge of magic, a gift from the gods, being the greatest loss. Much had been forgotten, faded into children’s tales—but Rickard was born with one green eye, a color no one could explain. He does not dream, or maybe to be more accurate, he is certain he dreams too much. To vividly. Too powerfully.

Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night, his heart beating like death stands behind him or a scream, a warning, locked in his throat. But the moment he opens his eyes, the dreams scatter like snowflakes in a gale. He has not remembered one dream in his life. Good, bad or fantastical, it does not matter. 

Like a sponge, he absorbed every story, every fairytale in his childhood, desperately searching for something he could not name. The first time he heard of the children of the forest and greenseers, his breath caught in his chest, his heart missed a beat and goosebumps rose all over him and he knew. He knew by its name and he knew it true. Greensight, they called it; prophetic dreams.

But he has been born with one green eye only, and he never could remember his dreams. The gift come to him fractured—half there, half lost. Sometimes vague feelings were the only thing remaining and even those were rare. He never could be sure if they were god-given or were born of the common sense of men.

There are only two instances where their influence led to far-reaching consequences, as far as he can tell.

The first time happened when his mother introduced him to Lyarra Stark, his cousin once removed, when he was six and ten. The moment his gaze fell upon her, he knew he had to marry her. 

It was not love at first sight as so many whisper, the opposite in fact, he wasn’t particularly fond of her at first. Which made breaking his engagement to Ysilla Umber all the more painful as he was quietly smitten with her. Luckily, his feelings for the Lady Lyarra changed over time. They became friends after a few failed starts and slowly and steadily he fell in love with her.

At first he thought it was about her Stark blood. That he needed the traces of magic still existing in their bloodline, so that one of their children would be born with the full gift, but it never came true. Lyarra has gifted him with four perfect children, but none were born with green eyes, none of them have greensight. It’s not even like with him, only half present. For all he can tell, they are healthy, happy and completely magic-less children. Although Brandon—and Lyanna is showing signs too—are uncharacteristically wild and free, Lyarra laughingly calls it wolf-blooded, he just calls it hot-blooded; it feels nothing more than a character trait to him. Now, Lyarra, his beloved wife, is dead; there will be no new baby to coddle and he can’t help but wonder why was it Lyarra, what had made her so special? Why her and not Ysilla Umber—was it really for her Stark blood when it did not bring magic back?

The second time had not been a single moment, but a growing compulsion. For e very child Lyarra gifted him, the nameless urge to strengthen ties with the south become more prominent. Well, he interprets it as such. It’s just one word that getting louder and louder with each child: South.

So, he allows Ned to be fostered at the Eyrie against northern traditions. Is making careful inquiries in a potential southern match for Brandon. It makes his lords grumble a bit, so he will needs to send Benjen away to be fostered for a few years to one of his lords. Although traditionally in the north it happens later than in the south and most often than not, it’s the household of the future bride-to-be, to give the engaged couple time to get to know each other, before the bride leaves her home behind to join her husband’s. As far as Lyanna is concerned, he is still quite undecided.  

His neck prickles. The feeling of being watched makes him look up into the fathomless stare of a god-blessed crow, made out of weirwood bark and sap—creatures known as messengers of the old gods in every story told. It makes his breath catch. He has never seen one before. When it knows it has his attention, it dismisses him, directing its attention back to Ned. Something nameless shivers through him, as the wind rustles through the leaves and the sunlight flickers across the carved face, throwing it into stark relief.

Rickard Stark knows a sign of the gods when it appears before him. He bows deep in respect and turns to leave. His talk with Ned can wait.

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With a sigh, Jon closes the door to his chamber behind him. Exhaustion drags his legs. He forgot how tiring the mundanes of travel planning can be. Tomorrow he will be on his way to the Eyrie. It still echoes strangely in his mind, even after the few days to get used to the idea. He will be leaving Winterfell once again.

Jon toes off his boots and the heavier outer furs and leathers, putting them aside. He throws the wash basin a longing glance. He desperately wants to get clean and then fall into bed. But first he has to double-check that everything he needs is packed away in the travel chest and his satchel contains everything for the road.

He is pulling the third drawer open when he stops in surprise. Haphazardly crammed inside is a random collection of clothing and furs. He fishes one out. Holding it up, he recognizes it as one of the new linen shirts he was gifted days ago.

A quick check later revels two further drawers, all relatively close to the floor, stuffed full with things that should be in his chest instead. With a thunk, Jon rests his head against the wood for a moment, trying to find the energy necessary to repack his chest.

Now, that he takes a closer look at the travel chest at the end of his bed, he sees it is not correctly closed, the lock ajar.

Cautiously, he kneels down and lifts the lid fully, trying to see the exact damage done to his carefully packed chest.

It’s well…

Inside, crammed awkwardly among a few remaining bundled cloaks and a pair of spare boots, Lyanna sits cross-legged with Benjen curled in her lap. Her arms are wrapped tightly around their youngest brother, her chin resting atop his head, dozing. With the lid open, she blinks awake and then her features quickly morph from sleepily awake to a very familiar stubborn expression.

"We’re coming with you," she announces, as if this were a perfectly reasonable declaration and not the mad, hair-schemed plot of a four-year-old.

Jon doesn’t know whether to laugh or weep and just sinks down to sit on the floor in front of the chest. Lyanna’s proclamation is enough to wake Benjen. The toddler blinks up at him sleepily, thumb in his mouth, utterly unfazed by his sister’s kidnapping attempt. 

"Lyanna…" For a moment, he is lost for words. He had not expected this at all. Gently, he reaches in to brush a stray curl from her flushed cheek. "But what about Father—" he slightly stumbles over the word, "—and Brandon, they would miss you both fiercely. Instead of just me gone, it would be all three of us. That’s not very fair, is it?"

Lyanna does not look like she agrees with his reasoning. "But you’re leaving," she says, lip wobbling. Benjen, sensing her distress, pats her cheek with a sticky hand.

Jon wonders how the entire castle is not already looking for them.

"I’m sorry Lya, but you can’t come with me, but look you have still Brandon and little Benjen around and wouldn’t you miss Nan terribly?" And what a shock it was to see Old Nan—now not quite so old—be one of the maids taking care of Lyanna and Benjen. Lyanna utterly adored the woman.

He could see her carving in. "I’ll write to you. Every moon, I promise. And you can pester Brandon to write letters for you. Long letters, so I can read them too."

For a long moment, she considers his proposal with all the importance it deserves.

She sniffs, but agrees. "Benjen can draw you pictures."

"Deal." Now that they are in agreement, he lifts Benjen out and puts him down out of the way.

Then, because she is Lyanna, she immediately clambers out of the chest and begins "helping" him repack—which mostly means tossing his belongings back in the chest with the precision of a drunk trying to hit a moving target during a snowstorm. He has to rescue Benjen twice from a flying projectile when he toddles closer, before Jon sets him on the bed, where he promptly falls asleep again.  

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Traveling, Jon decides, can be fun, provided one is not racing against time to muster an army against the undead.

It helps that the land is not war torn and desolate, and autumn makes a late ditch effort to show itself from its prettiest side. The days are mostly sunny, though you can feel the bite of winter creeping in, in the nights.

The North is often called dreary by southerners, but Jon never understood what they mean. The north can be starkly beautiful, especially in winter—white snow against black stone, icy blue skies framing dark-green firs, ice fracturing sunlight in a dizzying array of color.

Now as they are progressing further into the south, and they leave the modest evergreen trees of the north behind and exchange them for trees aflame in a wide variety of colors—brilliant hues of copper, gold, and deep crimson—he might understand where they are coming from. This is breathtaking in a completely different way.

He is glad they decided to take the overland route. It may take longer, but is by far safer than taking a boat with the approaching winter storms.

In the distance, the first mountains of the Vale rise above the early morning mist. And as the mountains grow bigger, the weight upon his shoulders finally decreases. He loves Winterfell, doesn’t think he will ever not consider it home, but it had been hard living there under the concerned gaze of Rickard Stark and the expectations of his siblings. It felt like a performance where he did not know his lines, a desperate scramble to get them right.

He is not Eddard Stark, never can be, but he is also no longer just Jon Snow—he died beneath the heart-tree. The tragic thing is, he feels better than before this rebirth, more alive and settled. There had been something missing since he had been brought back in fire and blood by the red priestess. He never noticed there was a wound in him until the remnants of his father’s life dripped into the missing void and filled a hole that went unnoticed.

In the Eyrie he is unknown. Just the second son of the Warden of the North. There he can write his own play, decide who he wants to be.

He can find himself and think about the future he wants, for he knows it in broad strokes. And he knows one thing for certain — it will not involve marrying Catelyn Tully. That way lies only madness.

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One year spent in the Eyrie, where nearly everyone was at least double his age or older and Robert is ready to admit he may possibly, a tiny little bit miss Stannis, who will not break a rule even if Robert pays him his weight in sweet-cakes. He is that bored. Not lonely, losers are lonely.

But now the waiting is finally over. A raven arrived this morning, informing them that Eddard Stark and his escort would arrive soon. If the other boy resembled his brother even in the slightest bit, then Robert would willingly give a prayer of thanks to the new gods. Not that there were many rumors about Brandon Stark, heir to the North, but the tiny snippets he picked up over the last two years made him hopeful. How different could they be?

The anticipation makes him restless until the master-at-arms has enough and makes him run laps around the training ground until his legs are jelly.

He has so many plans. Finally, someone his age to spar with, get into trouble with. Someone who’d laugh when they fling chestnuts at the servants and dare each other to steal extra sweet-cakes from the kitchen. Someone who won’t tattle when they break something important. They are going to be the best of friends. He can feel it in his blood.

This is an outrage. Ned, and even in his mind he spits the name, is worse than Stannis. By the storms, it’s infuriating. Worse than Stannis.

His little brother is a kind of stick in the mud, but at least there are some things they could do together!

He should have noticed when the boy rode into the courtyard sitting all straight and quiet, like he was already old, like twenty. There were like no emotions in his face. It reminded him of his father on the one occasion where he accompanied him to a funeral.

He should have taken it as a sign, but he told himself the other boy was just tired and to be fair, the road from the Gates of the Moon to the Eyrie is difficult. You have to be very careful when navigating. He was hopeful it would be better the next morning.

It was not.

The boy was a ghost and not even the cool kind, but like a very boring, gray ghost. Catching him was surprisingly difficult. He came to meals and lessons—no talking, the maester hissed—and promptly disappeared afterward. Robert feels worse every time he is successful in cornering him and suggesting another activity they could do together. It’s not even the rejection of the overtures of friendship he extends to the other boy, but the… he doesn’t even know how to describe it. There is something in his eyes when he looks at Robert. It feels piercing, like he can look directly into his heart and judges him. Finds him wanting, not good enough.

Which unfortunately strikes every one of Robert’s nerves, and it just wants to make him try harder. With a groan, he lets his head hit the desk in his rooms. Maybe he can annoy him into friendship?

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If accused, Robert will deny it until the day he dies. He is not stalking the younger boy. If at all he is doing reconnaissance. It’s a tactical move and not spying, he tries to tell himself. Spying is for a craven. Or love-sick maidens. He is neither.

His reconnaissance is not helping much in figuring out his fellow ward. If at all, it helps him cement his first impression of the other boy. Comparing him to a ghost was very apt. If Robert takes off his eyes off him for even a moment, the other boy is gone. Robert is reluctantly impressed. He even lost him once in a straight hallway.

So Robert doesn’t learn much which will help him befriend the new ward. Also, he is mostly convinced the other boy is messing with him. There is no way he actually reads that much or does volunteers for chores he doesn’t have to do.

He learns one thing though: Ned hates being called Ned.

The only reason Robert even knows that is because he practically haunted him from the moment he arrived, demanding his attention. Which makes him sound too much like a love-sick maiden from a song, so he tries not to think about it. He is pretty sure he is the only one who noticed. There are not many people Stark regularly interacts with and even less who call him so familiar. There was always a subtle tell. A twitch at his cheek, a furrow between his brows, a quick clench of his hand. Easily ignorable or attributed to the situation at hand, if it weren’t for the one situation with Lord Arryn he witnessed.

Robert doesn’t even remember what it was about. He just remembers Lord Arryn patting his shoulder in approval and telling him, "Well done Ned". Lord Arryn already walked on, so he missed the most obvious grimace Robert saw until now when he said the name. And with a grimace he means, he pressed his lips together for less than one heartbeat. Then he noticed Robert at the door and disappeared again.

It was also the last time Robert noticed anything. He hides all tells now, but Robert knows.

He doesn’t know why he won’t just tell them to call him by his full name, but he is glad.

Ned. 

It’s nice and short and Robert is going to call him that until he tells him to stop, which means Ned will have to talk to him.

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Gripping his wooden practice sword in one hand, Robert nearly bounces on the balls of his feet in excitement. This will be the first time he and Ned will train together.

The anger he felt at the beginning when Ned ignored and rejected him is gone. Mostly. Instead, there is a growing fascination growing in him. He never had problems making friends before; until now, people were more than happy to be his friend and go along with his jokes. This has never happened before. Now he is more determined than ever that they will be friends.

He has great hopes of how this sparring session will go. If you put them side by side, the year difference in their ages becomes obvious. Robert is nearly a head taller and bulkier than the younger boy. Which just adds to Robert’s fascination because Ned has never once been impressed, let alone been scared of Robert, even when his emotion stormed like the sea at home.

There is no doubt in his mind that he will beat him, but Robert is determined to not end the fight too fast and show off his skill with a sword. He will be gracious in his victory and not cheer too much. He is self-aware enough to know his opponents don’t like it, but his joy at a well-deserved victory just always fills him with so much excitement it’s hard to contain it and most of the time he sees no reason to curb himself. This time, he will try.

Ned will see his excellent sword skills and will be duly impressed, despite his loss. Motivated to not lose against Robert again, he will accept Robert’s offer to train together more often. Robert can show off that he is a great friend and, as a bonus, Robert trains him up to be a worthy opponent. Which only will benefit both of them. 

Okay, maybe there is still a little anger left; he still calls him Ned.

Well, nothing went as Robert expected it since Ned arrived, so it shouldn’t surprise him that this isn’t any different.

It starts with Ned studying the training sword he is given for imperfections, and if that wasn’t enough, he makes a few swishes that remind Robert of his father when he is presented with a new sword. The master-at-arms nods approvingly at Ned, and Robert tries not to grimace. He doesn’t understand how Ned can stay so unaffected. Robert is ready to vibrate out of his skin.

Finally, the master-at-arm gives the signal to begin. Two steps and a lung later, his sword curves towards Ned, whistling. In his excitement, his promise already forgotten that he wanted to hold back.

In the first few moments, it looks like a quick fight. Ned’s movements are jerky, somewhat uncontrolled. He evades and parries in just in the nick of time. It’s enough to not get hit, but not enough to prevent Robert from pushing him around. 

Then something changes.

It’s not that Ned suddenly whips out fancy slashes or something like that—of the like he has seen a handful of times, the few times he was allowed to accompany his father to tourneys. The Stranger’s folly, his father calls them. He doesn’t get it. They looked majestic in his opinion, but his father and the master-at-arms at Storm’s End adamantly refused him when he demanded them to be taught. He tried once to learn them by himself. Exactly once. That punishment had been gruesome, when he had been discovered.

So it’s not that Ned suddenly disarms him, but he finds his rhythm. It’s the closest Robert knows how to describe him. He still retreats and parries, but to Robert, it feels like he is suddenly the one that is chased around instead of the other way around. He doesn’t attack often, but when he does, it takes everything he knows to avoid being hit.

In the end, the master-at-arms stops them, and Robert counts it as a victory that Ned is as out of breath as he is. He is pretty sure Ned would have won twice over if he didn’t trip over his own feet. Growth-spurt sucks, Robert knows that all too well. He kept tripping over himself for weeks when he suddenly grew a lot shortly after his ninth birthday, after being the same height for what felt like ages. At some point, he feared Stannis would tower over him soon.

Despite his exhaustion, Robert feels like he is grinning so much it will split his face in half if given half a chance.

He wants to do this again, and again and again. He feels like he can fly away—he is so exhilarated. If this is madness, he doesn’t care. He is going to befriend Ned and if that is the last thing he is ever going to do.

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The white raven arrived before dawn, like all unwelcome messengers do. Dark wings, dark words, Jon Arryn thinks grimly, completely ignoring that the raven in question is white as snow.

Jon sits at his writing table with the folded parchment in hand, running a hand over his beard, sighing softly into the air. Maester Bennet had delivered it the moment Jon had been passable decent. Without opening it, he already knows what the message says.

Winter is coming.

It’s not unexpected — the chill in the wind has teeth already, and the fog in the valley no longer lifts even when the sun climbs high. He learned the signs quite early in his childhood. It’s one of the easiest lessens he can remember his father taught him.

If the Citadel has sent out a white raven, then it is only a matter of weeks, and there is not much time left, although he wishes for more.

Preparations for the descent will need to pick up the pace. The Eyrie, for all its beauty, is no place to bunker down in winter, especially not for growing boys. It becomes too cold, too dangerous, so high in the mountains and compared to Winterfell, there isn’t a hot spring being fed through the castle walls to keep it warm. Even the journey down to the Gates of the Moon will become more precarious if they dally too long. The steep ascent to the Eyrie is not without its dangers even on a good day and it will become downright deadly on bad days. If he is lucky, he has three moon’s turns, until the high passes will be choked full with snow and the stone towers will howl with winds sharp enough to flay a man to the bone or so it will feel in the icy winter air.

He folds the message carefully and tucks it into the pocket of his robe before making his slow way back down the spiral stairs.

His thoughts, as they have a habit of doing lately, turn to his wards.

And there he has another problem. Robert, now that there is someone else his age is thriving, in his own loud and messy way. Now he is all impulse and bluster and one mischief after another. It isn’t dampening his spirit at all, that the other boy tries to avoid him as much as possible. It nearly seems like it has the opposite effect.

There are days where Jon Arryn feels every one of his years in the creak of his bones and can hardly remember what his own boyhood was like, but he is fairly certain it hadn’t involved sword fights before breakfast, coming up with the most absurd of reasons for skipping lectures held by Maester Bennent and on one memorable occasion attempting to ride down three floors of stairs on a shield, like it was a sled. It was a miracle no one, not even Robert, came away with any injury. The boy has spirit — too much of it, perhaps — but Jon loves him for it.

Young Ned, on the other hand…

Jon frowns, pausing briefly at a window to watch the rising sun cast pale gold across the valley.

He is well-mannered, quiet, studious and has no problem helping when there is work to be done — but too quiet, perhaps. At first Jon thought it was homesickness, not an uncommon reaction in these kinds of situations. But now it doesn’t feel right. He is not sullen and not withdrawn exactly, but there is a stillness in him that Jon finds hard to articulate.

Sometimes it feels like Ned watches the world with the weary eyes of someone twice his age and then Jon blinks, and the look is gone and only a young boy stares back trying not to roll his eyes at the antics Robert gets up too and Jon wonders if he imagined it all.

Maybe they are too opposite in character, because there is a tension between his two wards that hasn’t softened in the weeks they'd lived side by side. There is no open hostility, but it doesn’t say much. Jon has the feeling Ned is too diplomatic for that, despite his young age. They train together without incident, and share meals, but they don’t seem to get any closer to becoming friends.

Perhaps the change of scenery will help. The Gates certainly will provide that. They will be quite busy during the winter months. More knights seeking shelter, more minor lords bringing their own wives and children to court for the season, their holdfast too far up in the mountains like the Eyrie to winter there.

Now they will just have a race against time, to finish preparations so long the mountain roads are still passable. Maybe he should send the boys ahead, a thought for later.

And maybe, with less stone and more soil beneath their feet and competition for their attention, the boys might grow something like friendship between them. Then he grimaces. Now he sounds like a Reachman.

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Jon Arryn watches his breath curl white in the morning air. The Eyrie’s already pale towers are looming behind him, sparkling like crystals in the morning sun. It’s quite a pretty sight—fair maidens would probably swoon at the sight of its beauty. For Jon, it’s the worst omen imaginable.

Jon knows how winter behaves in the Vale, has learned it since childhood. But this is a winter he has never seen before. Winter in the Vale starts dry but cold, the temperatures plummeting abruptly below freezing. There is a rare dusting of snow, but even that is the powdery kind, not heavy with water. Winter in the Vale always takes a big breath, holds it to give them a moment to gather their wits and prepare and then finally covers them in one fell swoop in a big heavy layer of snow — winter’s lament the people call it here — and then it just keeps going like that until spring. Where the rising temperatures turn the snowflakes back to rain and drives the snow as meltwater into the rivers, filling them to the brim, rushing downwards in deadly roaring streams into the valley.

This winter is everything but that. This year it starts with storms and rain, with sleet that slicks the paths to glass and rain that freezes the moment it touches stone in the icy hours of the night.

The Vale, like the North, is still predominantly following the Old Gods, but the Faith of the Seven stops for nothing and wormed itself even here into many a house. Now whisper already circulate that the Gods have been angered — for what slight the people think they are punished for, Jon can’t imagine — for winter to cry its anguish already so early and, the fools, instead of rushing through the more and more difficult becoming parts of winter preparation, they rush to their priests like a flock of scared sheep begging for mercy on their behalf.

Now the rivers running down the mountainside already roar like it’s mid-thaw. 

Maester Bennent assured him shortly before dawn the weather will hold. Two days of clear skies, he’d said, peering at his charts with the certainty of a man who’d never once been caught in a mountain storm. Jon has no choice but to believe him. He certainly can make no prediction in this god-forsaken weather.

The ice creaks beneath his boots. It finally stopped raining last evening and Jon had prayed for it to hold, but it must have at least drizzled in the night. He tries to tell himself it’s not so bad. Until everything is finally loaded and the caravan is ready, it will have melted in the sun. The path will be muddy, which will have its own dangers, but at least they will not just step onto a hidden glass-frozen patch and just slide to their deaths.  

In the next two hours, the caravan vanguard forms in the courtyard. His first priority is getting the children, including his wards, and the elderly down to the 'Gates. They will be just carrying a few provisions, mostly household stuff. The main caravan will follow the next day, carrying all the remaining food supplies, furs and everything needed to survive winter. The moment they are gone, Maester Bennent and Ser Wyllis, his master-at-arms, will prepare the remaining wagons and donkeys. Making sure everything is secured properly and the remaining bulk of his knights are well equipped for the mountain raids that certainly will fall upon them. They will follow them at first light the next morning. 

Slowly, like an old woman, the caravan starts to move. In the corner of his eye, he sees Robert lingering at the edge of the courtyard, squinting at the clear sky. For once, the boy isn’t bouncing with restless energy — just still, shoulders tense. Jon opens his mouth to ask what’s wrong, but then the steward asks him a question and when he turns back, the boy is riding next to Ned, talking animately at him. The question slips his mind, and he turns his attention back to the task at hand.

The descent begins.

They are about one third of the mountain down, when the storm comes upon them like a Faceless Man unseen and unnoticed until it’s too late.

One moment, the sky is clear. The next, the wind shifts and black clouds roll across the peaks like an approaching army, and the rain comes down in sheets—not water, but ice, needling against Jon’s face.

While he tries to decide if it is safer to try to turn the caravan around and make their way back up or hurry down the rest of the way. At some point, they have to make their way down or they will all die anyway. Freezing, he thinks with gallows humor, is at least a peaceful way to die. It is said it feels just like falling asleep.

“My lord!” One of the outriders is galloping back, voice panicked. “The path ahead—tree down—”

Jon doesn’t get to ask.

The first arrow takes the rider in the throat.

The mountain folk burst from the tree line like wraiths, lean and fast, shrieking like bloody carrion birds. The fallen tree ahead isn’t an accident—it’s a barricade. Jon is cursing them to all the hells in his mind. Can they have not the sense to see that they are hardly carrying any supplies and attack his well defended supply caravan? Out loud, he calls for shields and draws his sword. Half the guard forms a shield wall; the other half scrambles for cover. 

The path here is exposed, flanked on one side by the steep slope upward — now crawling with raiders using tree trunks for cover — and on the other side by the canyon, its edge slick with mud. The river below is swollen to a monstrous beast, already lapping at the edges. 

It was the right decision to go now. A few more days of the endless rain will have fed the river enough to make it spill over its confines and will make it impossible to traverse the mountain. The realisation doesn’t bring him any happiness now.

He allows his attention to wander to his wards for one moment to check up on them. Ned has the god-given sense to try to steer his mount backwards to a more easily defended spot by the wagons. Then he halts because he notices the same thing Jon does. Jon can hardly believe it — Robert, the fool boy, has drawn his blade and is shouting something brash and foolish, trying to spur his mount into the fray.

"Seven hells," Jon curses, watching his ward trying to throw himself into the melee with courage but not a lick of sense. "Someone get that boy to safety before he gets himself killed!"

He sees one of his knights intercepting the boy and ushering him back to a more defensive position, then he has no more attention to spare.

The fighting begins in earnest.

Time after that becomes a hazy concept that is overshadowed by the frantic beat of his heart. His best fighting years are behind him, and Jon feels it dearly. He parries a spear thrust — he abandoned his horse at some point when it became more a hindrance than a help in the tumult — and slits his opponent's throat. No-one new falls upon him and he allows himself a second to breathe and to glances desperately around for his wards, but the driving rain has reduced visibility to just a few meters.

Somewhere in this chaos are two boys under his protection, and he has lost sight of them both.

Jon Arryn prays.

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Jon knows battle in nearly every form. From armies clashing against each other. Bodies pillowed by soft snow and rivers of blood painted like a labyrinth against the white background. To groups of bandits, starved and crazed by hunger, ferocious and hard to predict. To single combat, where the gods watch and judge. To a sparring match for the joy and fun of it and the improvement of oneself.

He is an excellent swordsman, tested and proven, and not too bad at strategy.

Unfortunately, all those things are completely meaningless now, especially because he can’t see. He has the body of a child, even his horse is smaller, not coming even close to the heights of the war-horses that Lord Arryn knights are riding. 

It’s already chaos around him and he can’t even see over their heads to decide in which direction he should go. Even worse, his horse, while normally even-tempered and easy to control, is neither battle tested nor trained for it. A waste of money for a children’s horse and normally he agrees, but now it’s becoming increasingly nervous and Jon curses the fact.

The heavy rain makes keeping track of the surrounding battle even worse.

The older part of him kept track in which directions the wagons are, so Jon manoeuvres his horse carefully back while keeping an eye out for Robert, who, at the start of the fight, had promptly disappeared into the skirmish with an exited gleam in his eyes and the youthful belief of immortality. The wagons are the goal of the riders, believing them to carry the winter supplies, but it will also be the most well defended part of the battle. In good weather, he thinks, Jon Arryn’s plan would have worked. If they didn’t have to hurry, if it didn’t rain, even the mountain men should have been able to see that they were the vanguard. That they were not carrying the winter supplies.

If they hadn’t blocked the path, the best way would have been forward and out of the battle and to relative safety. A part of him chafes at the thought, mostly the younger one, to run away. That part still hungers with the innocent of the young to prove itself, believes that there can be found glory in battle. The older part of him knows better, knows that the best way for Jon to help is to keep himself safe and as far away from battle as he can. Besides his riding leathers, a warm cloak and an oilskin cloak above it, because Lord Arryn had the foresight to not take any chances despite the maester insisting the weather would stay clear, he has nothing close to armor. He has his training sword, which compared to a wooden sword is quite sharp, but it’s nothing he wants to test against the mountain men’s mismatched armor.

Keeping his spooked horse from bolting in a random direction and probably straight to his death becomes increasingly more difficult. He thinks about dismounting and either leading it back by the reins or abandoning it altogether, but his small statue makes it too easy to be overlooked and be trampled to death by a warhorse on accident.

While he is contemplating that, his horse abruptly changes direction. Cursing, he tries to steer it back to the way he wants, but undeterred, it keeps going. Squinting through the rain, he tries to figure out its destination, only to be taken aback when he sees a smaller silhouette through the downpour, which can only be Robert. In blurred colors, he can see one of the Arryn knights at his side, and Jon is very glad the other boy is as safe as it can be in a battle.

His horse neighs happily, the horrors momentarily forgotten as it greets its stable neighbour. Robert’s horse turns its head and in the motion, he can see that the knight has its reins in his hand. Jon is glad someone has the sense to keep Robert as far away as possible.

Suddenly, the course of the battle changes: where Jon was previously on the fringes of the battle, he is now in the thick of it.

Before he can curse his luck, an arrow or a cross bolt, he can’t tell, whizzes past his ear. Then his horse jerks with a pained noise and rears up. Next, they are both falling. He contributes it to his experience that he has the presence of mind to free his feet from the stirrups and use every bit of strength his young body has to push himself away mid fall. It probably saves his life in more way than one.

For one, he lands hard and will be black and blue in the next days, but he can roll himself to safety and is not crushed under the weight of his horse.  

Not being trapped under his horse also allows him to draw his sword in the nick of time, to block the downward swing coming at his neck.

The next moments are a blur. His opponent is not particularly skilled compared to a trained knight, but he has an advantage of height and weight, not to mention better protection. But in the end, the patchwork armor is the deciding factor, but in Jon’s favor. It’s rather ill fitting and snags against another piece of armor. It creates an opening Jon doesn’t waste. 

Breathing hard, Jon doesn’t feel any satisfaction as he stares at his dead opponent, instead he just feels exhausted, at what he perceives to be senseless death around him.

When he turns around, Robert and the knight are nowhere to be seen. He prays the other boy is still safe.

Unfortunately, there are no gods on a battlefield just death.

Jon is inching to the edge where the mountain path drops into the river, hoping he can more easily make his way back from there, as both the mountain men and the knights try to stay as far as possible away from it. No-one wants to be caught in the fast-paced currents. Normally, it is just a little stream at the bottom of the river bed, now it is so bloated from the continuous rain, it nearly laps at the edge. It’s a death sentence for everyone who falls into it.

This is the moment he hears an enraged bellow.

He is already turning in the opposite direction when he hears the words over the sound of fighting.

"You little bastard!"

As far as insults go, it’s very generic, could refer to anyone. Even little is not very informative. The mountain man live up to their name in more than one way. Still, it makes the blood freeze in his veins and he is sprinting in the direction he believes the shout came from before he can think better of it.

A short way down, he finally spots his worst fears.

An enraged mountain man, fitting his name, bleeding freely on the side of his head and missing an ear, is driving Robert merciless towards the edge of the river. It’s clear he could easily overpower the boy and kill him on the spot, but he wants Robert to die a more painful death, incensed by his injury. By the rising panic in Robert’s face, the boy also realises that he is being toyed with and death is coming closer, one step after the other.   

Instead of running straight towards the pair—he will never make it in time—Jon dives towards the side, to the body of a dead knight, or, more accurately, towards the crossbow lying in the mud beside him. He is fumbling for the cross bolts when he notices the knight already loaded it but never had the chance to fire it. He spins on his heel, inhales, exhales, and fires. 

Then he runs.

The bolt doesn’t strike true, but the result is even better. Jon is proficient enough with bows and crossbows, but not enough to have aimed at the neck or head in these conditions. He aimed for the torso, as it’s a bigger target and the man didn’t look very armoured. Maybe the crossbow was damaged in the fall, maybe the gods intervened, because instead of piercing his back, the bolt penetrated the side of the neck.

The man drops his sword and stumbles forward, both hands reaching for his neck. Robert inturn stumbles in shock another step back, directly to the edge. The man lurches and falls, hopefully already dead, headfirst into the river, brushing Robert as he goes.

Instead of scrambling away from the edge, Robert just stares in apparent shock at Jon sprinting towards him.

The ground is slippery with mud and blood, and Jon nearly falls twice as he yells for Robert to get away from the edge.

"Robert, move—"

It's too late. The rain-soaked earth crumbles away beneath Robert's feet. Jon sees it happening as if time has slowed—the way it pieces through Robert's state of shock, his eyes going impossibly wider, the desperate windmilling of his arms, but gravity already has its hold.

Jon doesn't think. He throws himself forward, his hand closing around Robert's wrist just as the other boy disappears into the water.

The impact nearly dislocates Jon's shoulder, the pain a sharp burst. Suddenly he's flat on his belly in the mud, Robert's full weight threatening to drag him over the precipice and into the maelstrom below. The river’s pull is strong and Jon barely can keep his hold on the other boy. He reaches with his other hand forward so he can grip the wrist with both hands. Robert, meanwhile, desperately scrabbles at him with his other hand but doesn’t get a good grip, only catches his sleeve with the river continuously trying to drown him. Desperately snapping for breath when he can get his head above water.

He keeps a tight hold on the sleeve, unwilling to try his chances for a better result again.

Even in a better situation, where the river’s pull is not so strong, or where the ground isn’t so slippery or Robert doesn’t weight more than Jon, it would already be a herculean act to pull Robert from the river. But the river’s pull is strong, the ground is slippery and Robert weights more than Jon and his grip on Robert pulls him slowly towards the river. Instead of keeping his second hand around Robert’s wrist, Jon desperately fumbles around for something to grab hold of, so he has something he can leverage against the river’s current and keep them both from a watery death. For the moment.

He catches the crown of a larger rock buried in the mud and for the moment it’s enough for him to slip further towards the edge, but he can’t pull out Robert with just one arm.

The river water is icy, and he feels his skin go numb as he loses feeling in his fingers. He is not alone. The temperature of the water visibly affects Robert as well. It takes him longer and longer to breach the surface again when he goes under, and when he does, Jon can see his lips turning blue.

Robert stares up at him with eyes wide and wild with terror, water cascading over his face as the current tries to drag him under once again. The hand gripping Jon's sleeve is white as Jon’s own, gripping with the same white-knuckled desperation Jon has on his own wrist.

"Don't let go," Robert whispers, his voice barely audible over the water's roar. "Please, Ned, don't let go."

Gods, Jon doesn’t want to. He won’t. He doesn’t want to see the other boy die; doesn’t want to hear the terror in his voice, the belief that Jon could let go, because Jon hasn’t shown him much kindness. Now it feels like he cursed him on his way to the Eyrie with his desperate desire to never have to marry Catelyn Tully. If Robert dies now, that will certainly derail the future he remembers. Most likely not even for the better.

He knows he evaded and ignored Robert as much as possible till now, and part of it was his apprehension for the man he became. Then he found other reasons to justify his behaviour, stupid ones in hindsight. All Robert had wanted was to be befriend him. Now lying in the mud, he feels as if he wakes from a dream. He can’t stay scared of the future, what will happen, will happen with or without Jon’s input and he will deal with it, but he refuses to let it start with the death of an innocent boy, for Robert Baratheon had done nothing yet deserving this fate.

"I won’t." He promises, steel in his voice because he needs Robert to believe him, to trust him. He won’t let go. Even if his entire arm will go numb, if he has to bite the earth to keep them alive and in place, he will. He will hold on until Lord Arryn’s men have driven the mountain men away or killed them all. He will keep hold until they can pull him from the water. He won’t leave Robert alone.

Jon must be convincing, because the naked gratitude in Robert’s eyes is painful to see. It should be something given, nothing to beg for.

It starts with a dull rumble. 

Tilting his head so he can peer at the sky, he prays to the old gods to have mercy on them. The absolutely last thing they need is for the downpour to become a thunderstorm. Blinking water out of his eyes, he looks at the clouds. They are dark and grey, heavy with water, but they are not the dark shade typically associated with a thunderstorm.

Instead of stopping, the rumbling gets louder. The earth beneath his body begins to tremble. Robert makes an unidentifiable sound of sheer terror, as he dips down into the water again. He doesn’t need to see the horror in Robert’s storm blue eyes or how his already pale complexion just goes whiter to know what is happening behind him.

He was wrong. There can be something worse than a thunderstorm.

A mudslide.

And they are in its path. 

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Time crawls to a stop, or so it feels to Jon.

Fury rises in him like the tide. He just made a promise to himself and Robert to not let go, to keep holding onto him until help can arrive. 

And now. 

The gods must be testing him. Or punishing him. For what reason, Jon doesn’t know. It’s not like he chose to be here.

He throws a glance up the mountain road. Even through the rain, he sees the realisation sweep over the leftover fight, how both mountain men and Lord Arryn’s knight freeze in mid combat and then break out in a flurry of activity, scrambling for safety.

Sees a lonely war horse just a short distance away, dribbling nervously, its ears twitching rapidly in every direction. If he runs now, there is a chance. If he runs fast enough, if the war horse even allows him to mount it, if… if… if…  

A weak tuck on his wrist brings his attention back to Robert. He is white as a bloodless corpse, and Jon refuses to take it as an omen.

They will survive this. Jon just doesn’t know how yet.

Weakly, Robert tucks at his wrist again.

"You have to go." 

On Robert’s face, there is an expression Jon never wants to see on a child’s face again. His eyes are still terrified, he is still scared to die, to be left alone, but there is also a resignation in his face, like he accepts that his death can not be changed, but what he can change is Jon’s fate. 

"Ned, you have to let go. Please."

In the distance, even over the rumble of the descending mudslide, he can hear their names being called. He can’t help but look back. A knight is riding down towards them in full gallop. There is nothing identifiable about him through the rain, but Jon thinks it’s Ser Marley, the knight that tried to keep Robert safe.

He will never make it in time. The only thing he does is ride right into his death alongside them. They will never get Robert out of the river before the mudslide is upon them, never mind out of its path.

He is really his father’s son, Jon thinks. More righteous honour than common sense, because the realisation crystallises in him like ice that he will not let go. He will not abandon Robert to a lonely, cruel death.

He turns his head back, intending to tell Robert… well probably that they will die together, but his gaze catches on a crow so white its feathers sparkle in the rain, something bright in the dark tree, the only reason he even sees it. He can’t see its eyes if they are weirwood sap-red, if it is really watching him, judging him, or maybe waiting.

He is moving before the saner part of his mind can tell him that this is his most stupid idea he ever had. If they want to survive, this is the only option as unrealistic as it is.

He throws himself forward, colliding hard with Robert. His free hand scrambles for purchase, clutches what he thinks is Robert’s tunic, and in the next heartbeat, the river is yanking them away in its current.  

The river water is so icy it feels like knives between his ribs, a not completely unfamiliar feeling. Even when he gets both their heads above the surface, drawing breath feels impossible. The cold is nearly beyond description. It feels like he is freezing from the inside out. It steals the feeling from his limbs within heartbeats, turning his fingers to useless clubs. He feels like he loses touch where he starts and ends. Unconsciousness tugs at the edges of his vision, everything slowly going black around the corner of his eyes.

Magic, Jon knows, came back into Westeros with the awakening of the Others from their long slumber, with Daenerys giving birth to her dragons, with his death and resurrection. Like drop into water it threw ripples, affected more—old forgotten magics coming back to life.

Winter is coming — it’s a warning, a prophecy, a promise. It’s the reason why the Starks were Kings of Old. From Mara Green Eyes, to Benjen God Blessed to Bran the Builder. Green Seers, Wargs and Dream Walkers—magic was strong in the North and the Starks had a fair amount in their bloodline, but there was one gift that made them kings. For Starks of old were born with ice in their veins and winter’s chill in their breath and where others froze to death, they went to sleep.

In that moment, before he blacks out completely, a memory sparks in the darkness. 

Sansa, after the Long Night, crossing Winterfell's courtyard. Her breath fogless in the still-bitter cold of early spring. Her maids fluttering around her with furs she left behind. "I forgot," she’d said, bemused, when they scolded her. "I don’t feel it anymore."

I am a Stark, Jon thinks. Of blood and magic. Thrice born.

He survived the Others. This cold is nothing.

He grits his teeth, shifts Robert’s weight, forces his limbs to move. He kicks. With a splash, their heads break the surface—just in time to see a crossing ahead where the river splits around a rocky outcropping. On the far side, the water runs shallower and slower over gras and stone, an overflow over land.

Jon kicks with the strength he has left, angling them toward the calmer water. Robert is a dead weight in his arms, but he holds tight. They crash against the stones with bruising force. Jon feels his knees scrape against the bottom as he finds purchase, dragging them both up onto the muddy bank. Robert isn't moving, isn't breathing—his lips are blue-white and water trickles from his mouth.

He wishes between all the boasting Theon did in their childhood of the might of the Ironborne and their seafaring ways, he would have also included what is you do if somebody fell overboard and drowned. He has so much secondhand knowledge he could probably steer a ship if he ever has to, but the Ironborne belief in the Drowned God and death by drowning is a sign of favor. Now the only knowledge he has in saving Robert’s life are fragments of a memory, of tales told around a campfire during a snowstorm while he was in the company of the Free Folk.

Jon presses his mouth to Robert’s, once, twice—

Robert jerks, coughing up water, but he doesn’t wake, not really. His eyes flutter like he is caught in a dream, his limbs twitch, but that is all.

But he breathes, and for the moment, that’s enough for Jon.

Jon pulls him upright, throws Robert’s arm over his shoulder, and staggers forward. More dragging than carrying the other boy. His legs ache and his skin feels like it is burning with a thousand little pinpricks, but he can’t stop. If they stay, they’ll freeze to death before any rescue party finds them, assuming anyone even survived the mudslide to mount a rescue.

Above them, the rain doesn’t stop.

Chapter Text

Robert dreams. 

Robert remembers.

Coldness. The river water, stealing the warmth of his body breath by desperate breath, unrelenting pushing him further and further into the Stranger’s embrace. He is a Baratheon of Storm’s End. Robert is more than familiar with the dangers lurking in the choppy waters bordering his home. He has seen drowned fisherman washing ashore; Pirates and merchants still clinging to the remains of their ships drifting on the waves, frozen to death.

He knows what will happen to him one way or another if they don’t pull him to land soon.

It gets harder and harder to keep his head above water—Ned’s hand around his wrist a lifeline in more than one way. It burns in the icy water, a steady reminder that not all hope is lost yet. It gives him strength to fight. To ignore the fatigue creeping into his bones.

He pleads, because he was a nuisance, wasn’t he? Always bothering Ned when he preferred to be alone. He is sorry about it— but he just really wanted them to be friends. Please don’t let go.

Then he pleads again. For Ned to run. Because Ned may not consider him a friend, but Ned is Robert’s friend if he wants to or not. Robert can be very selfish. He is aware; he is told it often enough—but he is not that selfish. It scares him terribly. He doesn’t want to die, but the thought of Ned dying because of him is even worse.

And time is running out.

During the first second, when the river pulls him along, he still feels a stab of betrayal. He let go…, he let go… 

Then—

A body crashing into his, an arm wrapping around him, while the currents drag them deeper into the water.

Ned jumped in. For him. He is glad the river water is carrying his tears away as soon as they leave his eyes. He doesn’t want to die crying; he wants to be brave and bold!

He isn’t even sure why he is crying. He is so, so glad he is not alone, but he is also so furious with Ned. Don’t die, he wants to scream at the other boy. Don’t die for me! 

Live!

Live, be happy and remember me!

Just live!

And then finally darkness. It’s all-consuming, and Robert lets it take him.

And then warmth, somehow, spreading through him like sunshine.

Robert wakes up, but it’s slowly like he is drifting up from the bottom of the ocean. His thoughts feel sluggish and tumble over each other, like a part of him is still caught in the river’s current.

He blinks slowly, but the world stays blurry—everything is swimming at the edges. In front of him is a fire, he thinks. It comes and goes out of focus. It’s sputters and crackles, like it wants to rail against the world. 

Mad, Robert thinks, but he isn’t sure what he means. His thoughts are evading him like a school of fish when he tries to spear fish. 

There is something warm against his back. 

Coldness still clings to him and the darkness tucking at his thoughts just feels so welcoming. He easily gives in and doesn’t think about fighting it.

He wakes again. This time, more aware of what is happening. The fire is burning merrily, calm and strong this time, deep and red-gold, throwing light and shadows against the walls and for the first time Robert realizes they are in a cave. 

He feels warm, the coldness of death finally driven from his bones. He feels the heat of the fire against his face, against his front and Ned’s warm body behind him. Ned is curled around him, an arm thrown around him, his breath hot little puffs against the back of his neck. He feels like the warm stones, bundled in soft cloth his mother puts under the covers at his feet on cold winter nights. He loves just resting his feet on them and soaking up all the warmth.

He thinks about moving, grabbing another log, feeding the fire so it keeps until the morning. Where did Ned even find dry enough wood to get it going—

But sleep pulls at him like a tide, and unconsciousness takes him again before he can even twitch his fingers.

When he wakes for the third time, morning light filters through the cave entrance, soft and gray. Finally, a break in the endless rain.

The fire still burns, strong and steady.

Ned hasn’t moved. He is still pressed against his back, a furnace in human form. His breathing is deep and even fully asleep. A reassuring, gentle breeze against the back of his neck. Now, in the morning light, Robert sees Ned used their oil-treated traveling cloaks as both bedding and a blanket to keep warm, and that he carefully laid the rest of their clothing around the fire to dry.

He stretches lazily and burrows deeper into Ned’s embrace. Soaking up every scrap of warmth he can.

He feels safe. 

Protected. 

Alive.  

Sleep still tugs at him and he lets himself drift back into peaceful darkness, knowing that everything is well.

Chapter Text

They drudge up to the Gates of the Moon shortly after sundown, tired, wet and muddy from head to toe.

Here they are to hunker down for winter. They are a place of warmth and safety — now it feels like a punch in the face.

Roaring hearths and a well-laden table with fresh bread, piping hot stews and freshly grilled meat meet him and it threatens to choke him. Jon is not unfamiliar death or even young lives lost as tragic as it is — he had two wives and one daughter all lost to him now. He never expected to have another chance to experience fatherhood in his life. He had those lads for less than a year, but that hadn’t prevented them from worming their way into every crevice of his old heart. They have living fathers, fathers they love, but to Jon, those two perfect boys are everything he ever could have wished for. They may never call him father, but for him they will always be his sons till the day he dies.

Outside, the storm still goes strong, rain pounding down in sheets. Inside, fury burns inside of him with a vengeance. What has he done to anger the old good so much that he now also has to lose those boys?

Jon stares at the madly crackling fire of a nearby hearth and grips his wine goblet harder, because it’s either that or the pommel of his sword, and there is nothing in here that he can kill to get justice.

Life in Vale is harsh, as it is in the North through for different reasons and Jon is well versed in all its nuances. He tries to hold on to a glimmer of hope, but he knows the reality of their fates is a dark one.

Despite how much he hates it, in his mind he is already composing letters he will have to send. 

To Lord Baratheon of Storm’s End, … To Lord Stark of Winterfell,  …

Around him, servants bustle to and from, unfazed by his dark thoughts. Ferrying the surviving remains of their cargo to the cellar and pantry. Maids are hurrying between the kitchen—now boiling linen and bandages instead of cooking up a feast—and the sick rooms so that the maester has enough to treat the injured and dying.

Between all that occasionally he sees different knights checking the weather outside, like the sound of the rain hammering against the slate roofs could new anything else. By the old gods, he understands their desire to go out and look for the boys, to at least recover their bodies. To give them at least some dignity in death.

But—

Going up to the Eyrie in light rain, when the ground is slick with mud and more slippery than eel in water, is already asking the stranger for a dance. In this downpour and at night with no light, no one who goes out will make it back, especially because they will have to go off the beaten path.

Not even the raven he wanted to send up the Eyrie to warn and inform them of their descent wanted to fly. The lad minding the ravens in the maesters’ absence had to practically hurl the bird out of the window to get it to fly. Jon is still convinced the bloody thing took the first chance to hunker down between some branches to weather the storm out instead of going up to the Eyrie. But there is also nothing he can do at this front.

The only thing he can do is pray for the storm to pass quickly so they can at least make an attempt at first light. So that is what he does.

The rain breaks in the early hours of the morning, and at first light, they ride out. For the first hour, no one speaks. The men scan the paths, eyes sharp and grim. For signs of the boys, but also for further raiding parties or signs of another mudslide.

At the two-hour mark, while they are stomping through the underbrush, trying to determine in which direction the river might have carried them—with the river splitting like a frayed thread—the sun breaks through the clouds in short bursts. An hour later, the entire sky is clear, the sun shining brightly, and life returns to the forest around them. The bird chirp happily in the trees and Jon spotted three rabbits and one bloody deer, all quickly fleeing before them. Resentment burns in his chest at the injustice.

His head jerks up when he hears a knight shout in the distance. It’s too far away to make out who it was or what was said. The only thing that sticks with him is that it didn’t carry the notes of immediate danger. Disgusted, he lets the already half decomposed linen tunic sit in the puddle he just inspected. Who ever lost that, lost it already months ago. It just sours his mood further. Ser Reynar had spotted it half an hour ago, and it had taken them this long to make their way safely down the incline which closely resembles a cliff, and Ser Merryn had still badly turned his ankle in the descent. A waste of time and in addition, they would have to figure out how to get Ser Merryn back up.

Then the shout gets suddenly picked up like a bush fire in dry season. His heart gallops inside his chest and he scarcely dares believe the words he picks up under all that noise. Only when Ser Marley shouts at them from high up that they found the boys — alive! — down the cliff side just a few hundred meters around the bend he truly lets hope settle in his chest.

Jon runs.

He still can’t believe it and they are standing in front of him. Robert’s face is flushed, eyes bright with the early signs of fever, but he grins the moment he sees them. Ned, though the boy’s grey eyes make it difficult to tell but probably has a fever too, is definitively too pale for Jon’s comfort and alarmingly sways under Robert’s arm, but he too is upright.

It is nothing short of a miracle.

Chapter Text

The signs are already there when they lift Robert and Ned up the horses so that they are sitting in front of Ser Marley and Ser Reynar. Both knights are excellent riders and Jon trusts them to carry his wards back safely to the Gates, but he can’t help but worry. The boys sack immediately, like now that they are safe, there is no energy left in them. In the end, both knights have to wrap an arm around their charges to keep them safely on horseback. Then they are off.

Worry eats at him, but there are a few more things he has to organise before the rest of them can journey back to the Gates. First, they have to figure out how to get Ser Merryn up the incline and then they will have to check the status of the road up to the Eyrie and make sure they are no more mountain men waiting to ambush the second caravan.

It’s nearly nightfall when Jon finally is back at the Gates of the Moon again. Exhaustion weights heavily on him, but there a is one thing he refuses to postpone to tomorrow just so he can retire for the night. After a quick wash, he stands in front of Maester Corrik’s rooms.

All in all, the updates the maester provides are better than he could have hoped for. Regarding his knights, the maester is hopeful that those who haven’t died yet won’t, through for a few, he predicts a longer recovery period. As far as the boys are concerned, physically they are surprisingly unhurt besides a few scapes and bruises the maester already cleaned and bandaged, so they will not get infected. But in the hours Jon was gone, Robert developed a full-blown fever, with no obvious signs for the cause. The maester is certain it’s just a response to the stress they had been under or a precursor to a cold and nothing Jon should worry about. That is easier said than done, Jon thinks. He is aware children often bounce back from illness, especially a cold, but while it’s nearly twenty years ago, Jon still remembers the horrible cold that spread through the vale in the summer of all seasons. Many children died during that time while leaving the parents and the elderly grieving and hale. The Summer of Tears will be never something he will forget.

While Robert is restless, turning and dreaming in his fever-sleep, Ned slipped immediately into the deep sleep of utter exhausting. According to the master, he has a slight fever as well, but he is hopeful it will be gone by morning, with warmth and a good night's rest if he doesn’t develop a cold as well. Jon just prays for his words to hold true.

The next morning starts well. They get a message that the additional knights he send up to the Eyrie made it safely, and they saw no further signs of the mountain men and that they will make their way down at first light. By the time Jon reads the message, they will already be on their way, so he just sends a quick prayer to the old gods to watch over them.

After he breaks his fast, he goes to visit the boys, wanting an update on their recovery.

Anxiety spikes through him when he sees the worried furrows between the maester’s brows while he is leaning over Robert’s bed. 

Jon clears his throat softly so not to startle the man. Despite his best effort, the maester still twitches in shock, so absorbed in his thoughts he completely missed Jon’s entry.

"How are they?"

Maester Corrik hesitates, just a heartbeat too long for Jon’s comfort. "Robert’s fever has spiked again. It's... high. Worryingly so. We gave him something to hopefully lower it again, but it will make his mind more addled than it already is."

Jon’s mouth flattens in worry.

"He’s eating," the maester adds quickly. That is not the good news Jon hoped for. "Very well even considering his fever. When he’s not asleep or coughing, he’s asking for young Lord Stark—though he forgets the answer each time. Typical with this sort of fever. The forgetfulness will pass when it breaks."

Jon glances past him, to the boy buried in furs, a wet cloth resting on his brow. Robert’s lips move faintly in sleep, but no sound is audible.

Jon nods once, sharply. He wished for better news, but it also could be worse. "And Ned?"

The shift in the maester’s posture is subtle, but telling. His shoulders drop a little. The worry Jon tried to suppress resurfaces with a vengeance. It feels like a gauntlet is squeezing the air from his lungs. 

"No change," the maester says quietly. "He is not worse, but not better, either. His fever hasn’t climbed, which I took for a blessing. But..."

The maester sighs.

"We can barely rouse him. When we do, it’s only for a breath or two. He swallows a few sips of water, his eyes flutter, but that’s the most we have been able to rouse him. We have already substituted the water for broth, but it’s not the fever that worries me now, my lord. It’s—" the maester shrugs helplessly, then trails off.

Jon walks to the bedside. Ned is pale as snow, lips chapped and dry, his dark lashes stark against his waxen skin. He barely looks alive. Jon is all too aware that if they can’t get Ned to eat enough to keep his strength up, his chances to survive will soon will dwindle with every hour that passes. 

Jon says nothing for a moment and just carefully cards his hand through the sweat soaked strands.

"I will instruct the kitchen to make the strongest broth they can and send you every drop of honey they can spare."

What an awful way to start the winter. He doesn’t pray, not out loud. But he thinks of the letters already half-formed in his mind and how heavy they’ll still have the chance to become.

"Send for me at once if either of them changes. No delays."

"Of course, milord."

He lingers a moment longer, watching the boys. But there are many other things that need his attention. The responsible of a Lord only ends with death.

The following days are fraught. Jon is certain he has new grey hairs from all the additional stress those boys give him. At least Robert is well on his way, getting better by the hours. His fever broke during his second day. The boy is still coughing occasionally and has a stuffy nose, but gains more and more energy every day. By now the Maester Corrik has trouble keeping him abed and resting.

Ned, on the other hand, keeps worrying them. His pallor got better over the last few days and his fever finally broke yesterday, but otherwise there is no change. They just can arouse him enough every few hours to drink a few spoonfuls of broth and honey water, but that’s it. His condition keeps the maester baffled, and Jon knows he already wrote to the citadel for more information.

The following day, the maester allows Robert to leave the sick room and to move into the room that will be his until they go up to Eyrie again in spring.

This lasts exactly two days, then with Robert up and underfoot again, bouncing between full recovery and absolute boredom, Jon gives up and has them moved into the same room again, at least during the day.

It quiets Robert. That alone is worth it.

To Jon’s surprise, it reveals a side of the always loud and boisterous boy Jon has not hoped to see for another few years after trying to temper his restless energy.

Apparently, Robert is perfectly capable of being quiet and calm. Who would have thought.

He still complains, yes. Still has too much energy, but now he channels it. He sits beside the sleeping Ned with a book open on his lap, frowning at the words like he could intimidate them into obedience and haltingly reads one story after another. Not bothered that Ned is unconscious or asleep the whole time. He had just frowned in confusion when Jon had tried to explain it to him. With an annoyed huff, Robert had just told him he couldn’t know that.

When he gets too restless for that, he finds another thousand things to do. From polishing his blunt training sword (it has never shined so much), to writing letters (to Ned’s siblings and not his own) to more memorable shenanigans. Once he caught him trying to mend a hole in his sock and Jon had to abruptly turn around and leave so he could laugh in peace. The little fool was aware enough to know that it involved needle and thread, but his execution involved stabbing the needle through both sides of the hole, then snipping the thread, pulling the sides together and making a few knots so it holds. Then he threads the needle again and repeats the entire process until the hole is closed securely. In the end he snipped the left over stands and Jon already decides he will keep it when Robert outgrows his current socks and sent it to Lady Baratheon. He is certain she will get as much amusement from this as he does.

Then there is the time he finds him with a bucket full of potatoes, a sharp knife in hand, and peeling them with utmost dedication. How this came to be Jon still has no clue, but he is very certain the knife plays an integral part.

While seeing Robert trying to mend his own socks was very amusing, finding Lady Brynna Templeton in the boys’ room and teaching Robert needlework was utterly baffling. It would have made sense to Jon if Robert had reluctantly gone along with it. Some kind of punishment after boredom drove him back to his pranks, but Robert had the focused expression only seen in sword training and was very carefully following Lady Templeton’s instructions.

Then there was the fact that Robert insisted on being the one to feed Ned. Bemused, they allowed it the first time he made the demand. Both Jon and the Maester Corrik were certain he’d lose interest after a single attempt. Feeding Ned was no simple task. First, the boy had to be carefully propped up to help him swallow. Then came the feeding itself, which could be messy and required patience. The broth had to be trickled slowly into the mouth, so he could swallow it easily with his saliva. Too much at once increased the risk of it going down the wrong way and trigger a coughing fit.

The first time that happened, the maester had sent a silent prayer of thanks to the Seven—by then, he had feared Ned was too far gone to wake again. His symptoms weren’t identical, but they resembled too closely those seen in cases of grave head injury, when the unfortunate lingered in their bodies like empty husks, waiting for the Stranger to come for them.

Their assumption proved false. Jon couldn’t recall seeing Robert more dedicated to a single task in the nearly two years the boy had spent with him. In this, Robert showed a level of dedication and patience Jon would have wagered many gold dragons he didn’t possess.

Jon had grown to deeply love the boy, and it’s not that he didn’t know Robert could be calm and focused—he could—but only in short bursts, usually followed by even greater explosions of energy. Perhaps sword fighting was the one exception. There, Robert listened well and concentrated hard, but that also demanded intense physical exertion, which helped drain some of his boundless energy.

This, though, was nothing like that. And yet, Robert kept at it.

Another week nears its ends, with no further improvement of Ned’s situation, though there is no worsening either. Jon nearly expects a raven from Lord Stark to arrive, telling him of his immediate arrival. No raven arrives but in his dreams, but he feels unsettled still when he wakes, so when he is presentable, he goes to check on Robert before he makes his way to check up on Ned.

Robert is not in his bed, which looks too well made in those early morning hours for Robert to have slept any amount in it. For a moment his lungs feel like they are crushed again, then he shakes it off. The boy will be fine. He will check on Ned and then send out a few servants to look for Robert. It will be fine. Robert probably fell asleep in the library looking for a new book to read to Ned.

There is nothing to worry about.

Carefully, he opens the door to Ned’s sick room and then nearly has a heart attack with the many emotions crashing over him simultaneously.

There, in the pale predawn light, Ned sleepily blinks up at him, with Robert curled around him like a little octopus.

The relief he feels nearly buckles his legs. He has to grip the door frame to keep upright.

He writes the letter with the good news to Lord Stark in a daze. He is pretty sure the content of the letter can be boiled down to your son is getting better, please don’t take him from me.

Over the next few days, Ned regains more and more of his energy and it’s harder and harder to pry Robert from his side. This will not be first and last time someone finds Robert curled around Ned in the morning. No matter how much Jon scolds him for it, that Ned needs his sleep uninterrupted to get better. Robert nods just very seriously and goes straight back to it.

Ned, it seems, suffers the intrusion of his personal space in silence. For the moment. Jon kind of fears Robert’s reaction when Ned is healthy again and reverts back to his more standoffish behaviour. No longer content to indulge Robert’s—well whatever this seems to be.

To his surprise, not much changes when Ned is finally allowed to switch to his own rooms. Robert keeps following him around, like a shadow—a very loud shadow. Only this time Ned allows it and no longer evades the other boy and his endless energy. 

It doesn’t surprise him that there are times Ned needs time for himself, craves a bit of quiet time. What does surprise him is that Robert picks up on that without fault and actually goes away. It’s very amusing because, in that time, Robert will continue to do the oddest jobs to keep himself occupied while periodically checking if he is allowed back yet. How Robert notices either of those things are a mystery to Jon, because as much as he tries to see the clues Robert somehow picks up, he doesn’t notice them. 

And then.

Then Robert starts calling Ned Eddard during first meal and Jon nearly drops his spoon in shock. Because what?

Every time Jon hears it, he wants to scream.

What in the name of the old gods happened for Robert to be suddenly so formal and standoffish? They were the best of friends last night when they went to bed. He hasn’t heard of any altercation or fight in the few scant hours they can have been awake.

It takes him until midday to notice that Ned seems pleased by the change in name.

He buries his head with a groan in his hands. It’s official he is too old to understand what goes on inside their minds. It’s incomprehensible to him.

Chapter Text

Appearance wise the Gates of the Moon and Winterfell resemble each other as Arya and Sansa do—superficially they are as close as the sun is to the moon. But if you dig deeper, he quickly learns, there is a core that connects them. Similar to Winterfell, the Gates of the Moon certainly will not claim prizes as castles of great beauty, but like the ancestral keep of the Starks, their forbearers built the Gates of the Moon to withstand winter, and it shows.

It’s a clunky castle with thick stone walls and few windows. There are large central hearths in the great hall and a smaller fireplace in every other room. It has steeply sloped roofs to prevent snow buildup, and nearly all walkways are enclosed corridors. The courtyards are all internalised and smaller than in other southern castles. Even the supporting buildings are tightly clustered together. Everything is built to share as much heat as possible and minimalist its loss at every opportunity. The Eyrie is a beautiful castle, especially in sunlight, but to Jon the Gates of the Moon feel like home.

The castle is not at full capacity but close to it; several lords and their households are using it as a winter residence until spring comes. It makes it hard to find a quiet place, to have a few minutes of solitude, but it also makes the castle lively in dreary winter weather. There is nothing worse than boredom in the depths of winter.

It had snowed again in the night, but the high walls prevented the training yard from much of the snow buildup. Now that they have carried much of the fresh snow off to the kitchen, every young boy not yet a knight is gathered here.

The yard rings with the clash of blunted swords and teenagers with too much energy. Robert, of course, is at the center of it all. Red-cheeked from the cold, he is swinging his blunted blade as if it is a battle-axe instead of a sword. Running back and forth, he is not standing still even for a second, too much pent up energy after being cooped up indoors for several days. Poor Nester Royce, who has the dubious honour of helping the master-of-arms, looks like he is out of his depth, corralling a murder of children, after having finally having a taste of freedom. 

Jon watches from the edge. He has no real intention of joining; there's too much mayhem for his taste, though it’s amusing to watch. He prefers doing stretches at the side and enjoying the crisp fresh air—or at least, that was the plan. But Robert finally notices that Jon has abandoned him, and practically sprints over, eyes sparkling with excitement.

Jon takes a step back, but there is no escape.

"No Robert,—" Jon tries to protest, but Robert is already shoving his own practice sword into his hands. He isn’t given a further opportunity to demur. With a war cry, Robert launches himself back into the tumult. He jumps on the back of an older teen Jon doesn’t know the name of yet, and wrestles him for his sword. The teen curses impressively for his age and tries to shake Robert off while a young boy, certainly not older than five, whacks at his shins with a small wooden sword. Jon squints suspiciously at the young child. It’s very bundled up, but he could have sworn he saw that face not a few days ago in a dress, sitting on her mother's lap while she mended shirts. 

With a resigned sigh, Jon follows him back into the tumult. Someone has to make sure nobody loses an eye. The adults probably see it as a necessary sacrifice for a few hours of peace and quiet. 

Tranquil and peaceful are probably words that will never describe Robert. Even so, in the somewhat organised chaos of a full castle, sometimes Robert becomes exactly that for Jon. Jon isn’t sure at what point the Ladies of the castle discovered he had enough patience to be roped into variations of make-believe balls and tea-parties where he was suddenly the handsome prince entertaining a rabid horde of pretend princesses. 

The irony was not lost on him.

Now when the noble Ladies crave a few hours to gossip in peace about their husbands without the danger of small mouth repeating things not appropriate for polite company, Jon finds himself with a gaggle of girls under the age of six—the few septas they have here looking after the older ones.

There is nothing more tiring than preventing petty blood feuds from erupting between girls not even reaching his chest. He learns quickly—as a matter of life and death—that Jon by himself is an acceptable target to approach and Jon in the company of other rambunctious young boys has suddenly the status of do not disturb and keep far away from.

Now that they are surrounded by other children of noble and not so noble blood, Robert quickly gained a following of friends. This is not surprising. Robert is outgoing, friendly, quite charming and always ready to do mischief—Jon isn’t really any of those things. It’s not that he is unfriendly or unwilling to do something, but the constant demands on his attention are exhausting. Where Robert soaks it up and somehow converts it to even more energy, Jon just wants to curl up and sleep to have some peace and quiet for himself. 

Despite Robert ever-increasing his circle of new friends, Robert has not forgotten Jon. He was clingy the first few days after Jon woke up, which was somewhat understandable after their harrowing adventure, but Jon expected that to wane after Robert made the first acquaintances of the other children inhabiting the castle. It’s not like he made an effort to befriend the other boy before.

It didn’t.

Robert may not be physically glued to his side anymore, but it also isn’t far off. Even when they are assigned tasks on opposite parts of the castle, Robert still somehow finds the time to check up on Jon several times a day. If there is an opinion to be had, then Robert will ask Jon first and only then any other kid—if at all. One thing every child learned very quickly was: If you want Robert Baratheon as your friend, you leave Eddard Stark alone. Do not make fun of him under any circumstances—better yet, be courteous.

Jon has not yet been successful in his attempt to convince Robert to forgive the two teenage boys, who tried to pick on Jon in a badly thought out attempt to rise in the strange pecking order all the children fell into under Robert’s relentless charm. They are still shunned even months later. Jon is equally amazed and disturbed over Robert’s masterful application of courtly manipulation—the children’s version of that at least. Who ever had said that the man didn’t have the patience to play the game?

Robert is now the undisputed king of the male population under five and ten, and Jon is afraid to wonder what that makes him.

From the corridor to his left, soft girlish laughter spills followed by a tired voice chiding the girls for running ahead. Jon quickens his steps. He is not up for babysitting another few hours. As quickly and quietly as he can, he runs down the stairs to where Robert told him he would be this afternoon. 

When he slips into the room where Robert and a few other boys spin yarn and braid it into neat cords under the sharp eyes of a few elderly women, he sighs in relief. Robert, of course, notices him immediately. He doesn’t stop in his retelling of whatever story he currently shares, but he throws Jon a blinding smile and then jabs the boy next to him with his elbow when he doesn’t move fast enough to his satisfaction. By now it’s only tired resignation he feels at Robert’s antics. He would like to say he feels sorry for the other boy, but at the moment he is just glad. The stone bench, heated by the nearby hearth and covered in soft furs, is everything he wants at the moment. He doesn’t even notice falling asleep a few minutes later, to the familiar murmur of Robert’s voice, a shield against the rest of the world, till they have to get up for dinner. 

Chapter Text

Jon should’ve known. He really should have.

He doesn’t know exactly who started the rumour or for what purpose, besides rising in the estimation of his peers. But the whispers about secret tunnels under the castle run like a flash fire from mouth to mouth. And as it is the habit of rumors spread by young excited boys, every time he hears snippets of it, it is more exaggerated than the last time. Robert’s eyes, of course, grow brighter and brighter every time someone tells a new outlandish story about the supposed hidden tunnels leading into the mountains. 

I’ve heard—

He can’t even count anymore how often he has heard conversations starting with that phrase over the last week.

Jon is fairly sure Robert’s mounting excitement is the sole reason the tales grow more outlandish by the day. Egging each other on to greater and greater heights. According to the children, they are now living over a sprawling buried underground city, with the Gates of the Moon being the last protection between them and the monsters hungering for sunlight living below. What kind of monsters those are supposed to be, nobody can tell him.

When Lord Arryn approaches him and asks him if they should be concerned, because the children are anything but circumspect in their fun, falling suspiciously quiet every time someone resembling adulthood comes close. This is of course a sign of alarm for anyone with a modicum of sense.

Jon is too exasperated by then and by Robert dragging him into every dusty corner this castle possesses in his goal to find the tunnels leading to some imaginary underworld. He gives Lord Arryn a dead-eyed stare and a flat "No." 

Of course, three days later, during first-meal Robert has so much barely restrained excitement he nearly vibrates off his chair. The moment the table is cleared, Robert practically hauls him from the table and away from Lord Arryn’s piercing stare.

In short order, on the other side of the castle in an abandoned wing, where the ventilation for the hearths no longer works, Robert proudly presents him a hidden door and a tunnel going down.

Jon is still in a state of disbelief when Robert disappears into the dark, without even a torch. Like an idiot.

Three hours later, they are filthy, scraped, and covered from head to toe in dust, standing in a forgotten passageway that smells of damp stone and bad decisions. So many bad decisions.

He still has a death grip on the back of Robert’s tunic when Jon spits out a mouthful of dust and tries to glare at him. Considering that his eyes are tearing, irritated by the amount of dust flung in the air when the passageway further up caved in, it may not look as intimidating as he wishes. "I told you that ceiling was unstable."

If Robert gives a reply, he doesn’t hear it under his sudden coughing fit. Roughly, he drags Robert with him, further away from the collapsed tunnel and back the way they came from.

When they are free of the dust cloud, Robert, predictably, is grinning.

"You were right," he admits, sheepish and triumphant in equal measure. Jon really wants to shake him for good measure. He doesn’t sound like he is sorry in the slightest. "But you still followed me in."

Jon gives him the flattest look he can—what else was he supposed to do, leave him alone? "Is there anything even close to common sense running around in that head of yours?"

Robert claps him on the shoulder, undeterred and unashamedly denies everything. "No!" He laughs again and adds, "That’s your job!"

Stunned silent, Robert is already striding ahead, before Jon can retort. He stares after him, and to his horror, laughter bubbles in his chest. His patience for such nonsense should be thinner, given the lifetime of responsibilities rattling around in his skull.

But… it isn’t.

Here, with Robert’s laughter echoing off the walls and the thrill of successfully escaping death once again humming in his veins, Jon feels lighter. Younger.

Then they round a corner and nearly crash into Lord Arryn.

The Lord of the Eyrie stands with arms crossed, his expression cold like it’s carved from ice. Behind him, Ser Marley holds a torch aloft, illuminating the tunnel more than Jon’s little lamp does and hiding nothing of the dust streaking their clothes—and the guilty flush creeping up Robert’s neck. It’s good to see he has some kind of sense.

Jon just sighs. Well, on the positive side, at least he no longer has to find a way to tell Lord Arryn about those old tunnels without implicating Robert or himself. Forgotten by time, they are now too old and unstable for curious children to explore. They either need to be closed off completely or repaired if they think they will be useful in the future.

Lord Arryn’s voice is dangerously quiet. "Would either of you care to explain exactly what you think you are doing?"

Robert opened his mouth—

Jon steps on his foot.

It feels like he just fell asleep when the creak of the door pulls him awake again. He turns his head, groggy, squinting into the near darkness trying to see who is attempting to sneak into his bedroom.

In the glow of the embers of the fireplace, he can see Robert standing in the doorway. His hair’s a mess, tussled in every direction, and he’s got a blanket bunched in his arms. Jon is too sleep-addled to immediately make sense out of it.

Robert glares at him, as if this whole situation—standing in the middle of the night in Jon’s doorway—is somehow Jon’s fault.

He blinks sleepily again, his thoughts still half muddled. "What." 

It’s more a statement than the question he actually wants to ask.

"Don’t be weird about it," Robert mutters, already making his way into the room like it’s his own. He doesn't wait for a further reply or permission and just tosses the blanket onto the bed and climbs right after it and lets himself flop down with all the grace of a falling sack of flour. 

Then there is silence, and Jon just rubs his side where Robert’s elbow hit him, wondering if it is better for him to just ignore this interlude and go back to sleep or attempt to get answers out of Robert.

He is drifting off again when Robert suddenly starts talking again. "Some knights are saying they can hear the ghosts of dead mountain men moaning in the night—looking for revenge." His voice goes quieter, nearly a whisper when he continues. "That they will try to eat you if you are alone."

Jon props himself up on one elbow, blinking. "They don’t," he says flatly, caught somewhere between confusion and amazement. Ghost stories? That’s where Robert’s bravery ends?

"You sound very certain." His voice is muffled as he burrows under the covers like he wants to hide under them. He is not subtle as he slowly inches closer to Jon.

Jon stares at the ceiling incredulously for a moment before rolling onto his side, resigned. Draping an arm around the other boy, he tells him, "Go to sleep, Robert."

There’s another pause, and Jon hopes they can finally go back to sleep. Then Robert breaks the silence again. Hesitantly he asks, "You’d protect me from a ghost, wouldn’t you?"

Jon can feel him clenching the cover in his fist. "I mean… not that I believe in ghosts. That’d be stupid," he adds, embarrassed.

Jon exhales through his nose, trying not to laugh. "Yes," he says simply.

"Good."

Although Jon has no idea what Robert actually expects him to do if a ghost were to attack.

Robert is already half-asleep, curled unselfconsciously toward him, when Jon drifts off again. 

It should be strange, Jon thinks, being here.

But somehow, it isn’t.

It’s—

Nice.

Chapter Text

Robert knows he isn’t supposed to be here, but at the moment his curiosity about the meeting the Vale Lords hold every two sennights is greater than his fear of disappointing Lord Arryn—and the punishment for eavesdropping.

He expected little from this attempt. He predicted either to be caught quickly or to hear nothing through the heavy wooden door, and at any other time this would be true. But today the lords are too busy gossiping with each other; they don’t take notice of Robert pressed into his little shadowed alcove as they pass him by. 

The door to the solar is ajar while they wait for the last to arrive—which in this moment means Lord Arryn—and Robert can hear their voices very clearly as they animatedly discuss the latest news.

"…fair and flaxen," Lord Hunter's voice echoes into the corridor. "So pale it’s near white. Not the true gold the Lannisters are so proud of."

"Not unless the gold’s gone to silver," another jokes, and Robert needs a moment to match it to the face of Lord Baelish. He is the lord of a minor, newly established house, and Robert hasn’t had the chance to talk to the lord yet. "I’ve only seen hair like that in one family—and they don’t reside in the Westerlands."

A few chuckles drift into the corridor, and Robert leans out of the alcove, heart beating fast with the thrill of overhearing something forbidden.

"They say the Lady Joanna left King’s Landing in a great hurry after the Anniversary Tourney. And when she was seen again…" Lord Lipps’ voice rises in pitch, with barely held excitement. "…nine months later."

"His Grace has always kept mistresses," Lord Waynwood adds. His voice is thick with disapproval. "At least he had the sense not to father any bastards; the last thing we need is another Blackfyre rebellion." 

"Hear, hear!" several voices cry out, but Robert can’t identify the speakers.

He can hear Lord Hunter picking up the previous thread of the conversation. "Some he tires of in a moon’s turn. Others, well they linger longer. But the Lady Joanna? The King’s… fondness is well known. Even when she was wed." Robert can hear him laugh, but it sounds strange. "Or maybe especially then."

Robert’s nose wrinkles as the king is mentioned, and he finally understands what they are talking about.

He is pulled back into the conversation when Lord Hardyng pipes up, "They’ve whispered about those two since the day of King Jaehaerys’s coronation. There are rumors she was Prince Aerys’s paramour in truth after he took the throne."

"Bah!" Lord Royce exclaims. "Tywin Lannister never would have married her if that were the case. Way too proud, that man, to accept another man's leavings, even if it’s the king’s."

There is a pause as the gathered lords contemplate that.

"I’m certain the babe’s no silver-haired princeling, but I suppose we’ll see if news reaches us about some unfortunate accident befalling Lord Tywin’s second son…."

There is a derisive snort from someone.

"I’ve heard worse! That he’s a monster. Born with a tail, a head too large for his body, claws, teeth like a hound’s. Can you even imagine the disgrace about to befall House Lannister? If that were my son…"

It’s at that moment Robert presses himself back deeper into the alcove, pale as a ghost, and stops listening. His stomach twists in anger. He can almost see the newborn they’re describing, and the thought of the king smiling at the idea of a baby being born as punishment makes his skin crawl.

Later, when he slips into Eddard's bedchamber, the other boy is already asleep, one arm curled around his pillow. He looks so peaceful, and Robert decides as he crawls into the bed to join him, that he will lie come morning, that he couldn’t overhear anything. Eddard certainly will hear the rumors in the coming days, when the news makes its way through the castle, but it doesn’t need to be him who tells it. He can give the babe at least that much respect. 

Chapter Text

Robert had not, in fact, meant to become ghost-like quite like this, although he now fervently wishes he could actually become one, just so he could disappear into the floor to avoid detection. His tumble had not been silent, and he can already hear the approaching footsteps.

The plan had been simple: sneak into the eery underground storeroom with their strange vaultlike ceilings, liberate a bit of flour—to dust the knight’s armor he already absconded with so it looked ghostly and scare a few of the older squires in the night—and vanish before anyone notices his presence. He thought himself clever reaching for one of the smaller flour sacks higher up. So that it wouldn’t be immediately noticeable there is one missing, until he could enact his revenge, but then the apple crate under his feet to boost him up had other ideas.

With a splintering crash, it cracked under him. Windmilling, he tried to keep his balance as he toppled backwards—unsuccessfully. The only thing he managed was hitting the sack of flour against the edge of the shelf and ripping it open at the bottom—a dust cloud of flour following him down to the ground.

Wheezing for breath and blinking up at the ceiling through a haze of white, he is just glad he didn’t land on one of the apples with his back; that would have hurt even worse.

The shouting starts before he can even right himself.

"Boy!"

The cook’s voice could curdle milk at fifty paces when truly displeased and was as dangerous with her spoon as any knight with a sword. Robert flinches as her shadow falls over him, bloody hands planted on her hips and more blood sprinkled upon her apron. "By the Seven, what in the Mother’s name—"

He blinks blearily up at her through the flour dust. The blood gives her an even more terrifying appearance than her naturally scowling bearing already gives her. He remembers now the fresh kill the hunters brought in this morning. Given her appearance, they were probably in the middle of making blood-sausage, when he disturbed them. Just his luck.

Her tirade doesn’t stop, but her hands are careful as she first checks his head for injury and then makes sure nothing else is broken besides his pride.

His chest still aches from having all breath knocked out of him, and he wonders if it’s more advantageous to continue lying still on the ground and play up his nonexistent injury or get up quickly and disappear before—

More quickly approaching footsteps echo in the hallway. 

Too late to escape now. He chose the time deliberately, so he had a ready-made excuse for anyone too suspicious of his presence down here—that he was with Lord Arryn and the steward inspecting the supplies. Now, it will be his downfall. 

He tries to scramble up, so he will at least not lie on the floor like a dolt, and brush flour from his tunic at the same time, only to sneeze violently, toppling back down, sending up another cloud. Bad idea. And totally pointless, there is no way he can hide the wasted flour in the few remaining seconds he has left. He should have prioritised getting up. Cook begins another tirade, displeased by her newly acquired coating of fine flour. 

Then… silence.

Cold, dreadful silence.

Robert squints up.

Lord Arryn stands in the doorway, his face still like stone. Behind him, Maester Bennet gapes, and the castle’s stern steward looks ready to strangle him. And just beyond them—

Eddard.

He blinks in surprise. He thought he had babysitting duty again today, but it looks like he escaped and convinced Lord Arryn to take him along. Good for him, Robert still can’t wrap his head around the fact that he has the patience to look after the young children. He did that once, and it was an utter nightmare. He is so never going to do that again. Luckily, it was a nightmare all around, so nobody even entertained the idea of making it a repeat performance.

At first he thinks it’s the flour, making Eddard appear so white, but then his hand starts to tremble. His face drains of color so fast Robert fears he might faint. For one heartbeat nothing happens, then Lord Arryn takes a step into the room and, unnoticed by anyone else, Eddard turns on his heel and disappears.

Robert’s stomach drops, but he can’t stare more than a heartbeat at the space Eddard just occupied before Lord Arryn’s imposing stature redirects all his attention to the man in question. He knows it’s futile, but he still tries to give Lord Arryn his best guileless look. Sometimes it helps.

"Robert Baratheon." Lord Arryn’s voice is dangerously quiet as he full-names him. May the Warrior give him strength. He should have gone with repentant.

A hand closes around his ear, hauling him upright, and Robert yelps as he is marched out like an unruly, misbehaving child. Lord Arryn already listing every unpleasant chore he’ll be saddled with in the following days.

Shame creeps up in him from the sheer disappointment in the man’s tone. He hates not reaching the expectations of Lord Arryn nearly as much as he does not reaching his father’s. Still, he also can’t help but grow annoyed when the list grows larger and larger. Yes, he wasn’t supposed to be there, and he made a mess, but his growing list of unpleasant chores is way too overboard for a few bruised apples and a bit of spilled flour!

He doesn’t see Eddard for the rest of the day, which is not much of a surprise. Lord Arryn keeps him very busy, but then dinner comes and goes with still no sign of Eddard and he starts to worry. He still doesn’t know what made the other boy flee, and he isn’t sure if anyone else noticed that there was something wrong.

When the plates are cleared and Eddard’s seat remains empty, even Lord Arryn’s stern expression flickers with concern, a furrow building between his brows.

He pushes a bowl of stew and a plate full of apple cobbler towards Robert. "Take this to Ned and—" He pauses. The usual command to stay out of trouble never makes an appearance. Instead, he sighs. "Just… make sure he eats."

He suddenly feels very small, but he gives Lord Arryn a grave nod. He will make sure Eddard is fine. 

He finds Eddard in his chambers, sitting too close to the roaring hearth on the stone floor, his knees drawn to his chest. The room is nearly sweltering, heat rolling off the hearth in waves, but Eddard is shivering as if he spent hours outside.

"Seven hells!" Robert curses, quickly setting the food down on the nightstand. Then he tugs the idiot back from the fire, and corrals him to the bed and pushes him down until he sits on the edge, ignoring his weak protests that he is fine. In reply, he just shoves the bowl of stew into his hands. "Eat. All of it. You look like you need it."

They stare at each other for a moment, but then he is obeyed. He just watches for a minute as Eddard eats and with relief he sees a bit more colour returning to the still somewhat pale skin.

Satisfied, he busies himself banking the fire lower until it’s less of a hazard, wiping sweat from his own brow as he works. He is used to hot summers in the stormlands and he still finds it nearly too unbearable in front of the hearth.

When he is finished, he joins Eddard on the bed. For a while, they sat in silence, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the scrape of Jon’s spoon. For once he is at a loss for words—afraid of making whatever is wrong worse.