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Brother.

Jon thinks of his own brothers — Robb and Rickon, who were dead, the latter having been shot in the heart with an arrow by Ramsay Bolton before his very eyes. It still sickened him to think of Sansa's harsh, yet true words, and how clear they rang in his head when he raced on his horse towards his little brother. He was already dead, Sansa had said. Sansa knew that Ramsay wouldn't allow Rickon to live, that the youngest Stark was already a lost cause that could not be saved. And yet Jon tried, even as he knew his brother's life was lost, he tried.

He tried and Rickon still died. He tried a lot and people still lost their lives as a result. He could try and try, and people would still die. (The former Lord Commander, Ygritte, King Stannis...)

There was still hope for Bran, though. No one had seen him, but he chose to take no reports of death as a sign that life was indeed possible. There was too much gloom in the air already. No need to indulge it further by adding another dead brother to the list.

"I don't think there are many good men left," Jon ventures. "The least I can be is that."

Davos looks ready to say something in response to that, but Jon holds up a hand and speaks before his Hand can. "You won't. I invite you to stay here in Winterfell as an advisor to the throne of the North."

They don't start immediately.

First, they see to the task of getting her settled. A room, food, the things a guest receives in hospitality. Walking through Winterfell, River notes the looks she gets. Men that think she is another Melisandre, less or more fearsome, some who think she's a wildling, some who are too occupied with their own interests and fears to care about the freezing girl from the gate. It feels like hundreds of shadows following her, specters of women she isn't and assumptions born of a world she doesn't belong in.

It isn't until after dinner that she's able to speak with Jon again, without Davos' ever-watchful eyes.

"I haven't been entirely honest with you." There's too much here for her to start this, whatever this is (a mission or a duty or a way home), on unsure footing. "I'd like to change that."

The first step to dispelling shadows is light, and it's too far to dawn to wait for what little sun this world will give them.

Jon is firm in his decision to keep River around and sternly reprimands anyone who dares to treat her unkindly. He is quick to remind them of his own (supposed) origins, pointing out that if a bastard can sit on the throne of the North, then an outsider can sit with him in the Great Hall. The knowledge she possessed was invaluable, her perspective unique. With winter here and only a wall of ice separating the northern lands from the untamed wilderness that the White Walkers thrived in, they could use any help they could get.

And that included River.

She was a peculiar woman that the young king didn't know quite what to make of. She wasn't mystifying in any of the ways that Melisandre had been, and he sensed no ill-will from her or intent to do harm. Jon was big on trusting his gut; it rarely led him astray. His gut instinct towards River was that she was here to help, just as she said she was. As far as he was concerned, she was a friend to the North. A valued ally and trusted confidant.

When she speaks, he lists to one side, leaning on his elbow so that he can hear her better. So that when he lowers his own voice, it's ensured that only she will be able to here him.

"What do you mean?"

A shiver creeps up his spine. Melisandre hadn't been entirely honest with him— Had he made a mistake again? Was his gut wrong?

She can feel the shiver, almost lets it carry through her before thinking to brace herself against it.

"Don't do that," she says, a light chastisement. Don't think it's bad, and don't worry, except she knows he should be. Has every right to be, with the threads leading off him to the things that have happened to him, to those he loves. River intends for it to sound like levity, but it lands in sullenness instead.

She doesn't lean in, doesn't even really look at Jon as he moves closer. There's too much there to take in and speak to at the same time.

"It's not--," wait, no, there's already frustration. The grasping for the right words when the air is full of a language that forms so differently from what she's used to. "When they took me, told me to come and help you, they called me a warg. I don't think it's right, that's just the only word they had for it, but," and here is the scariest part, the vision of a pyre in the back of her mind that she knows isn't just a grim reminder of the past in this world, "I can know things."

And that's it. She feels it hang there between them, because that's all she can do. There's no magic, no gift, no resurrection. Only knowing, and that may not be enough.

Wargs aren't just something Jon's heard of, but something he's encountered as well. He remembers Orell, the Free Folk's warg, and how he was able to disappear into the minds of other creatures in other to gain a greater sense of the landscape; so that he could hear and see the things that others may not want him to without anyone so much as noticing. Jon struck him down personally when he rebelled against his captors, though he was never quite certain if he killed the man or just the body he used to inhabit.

He's also living proof that magic and intangible things like greensight and the ability to warg your way into another creature's mind exists. He was dead. He was struck down and stabbed through the heart and died. If not for Melisandre's magic, he wouldn't be sitting next to her. And while yes, it was true that the Red Priestess had misused her powers in the sacrifice of an innocent girl, something in his gut told him that cruel act had come from a good place.

Backwards as that sounded. He couldn't quite explain why he felt that way, just that he did. It's why he banished her instead of having her beheaded like others had wanted him to do. He owed her his life and he didn't fully believe she was out for blood — anyone's blood.

Just as he didn't believe River was out for blood, either. Least of all his.

"What sort of things?" Jon keeps his voice low, not wanting to be overheard.

There are still pyres, somewhere, but they feel further from her. The sensation of unbelievablilty lingers, and with it the rush of information ebbs and flows. River doesn't look at Jon, but instead out at the rest of the people here in Winterfell that still haven't found another place in the castle to rest their heads and feet yet.

"Lies, and true things. Sometimes, it's things that happened."

She turns her head, now, to look him in the eyes. He is a brother, whatever else he is beneath that, and there are words that hang in the air sometimes when Arya is in the room. Something her own brother would never say, not in seriousness, but it makes her miss him that much more.

"When you left here, you gave your sister a blade," she says, her eyes going unfocused for a moment as she lets herself think. "You told her to stick it with the pointy end."

His eyes widen slightly, but he's aware enough to reign in his expression the moment he realizes he's making it. There are eyes upon him, and not all of those pairs agree with his place on the throne. He's a bastard, the first one to reign in hundreds upon hundreds of years — especially without a royal degree revoking his bastard name.

Stannis had once offered to make him a Stark, to sign the documents necessary to make him Ned Stark's rightful son and not one born out of wedlock. It had been a tempting offer, but Jon refused. He'd been too loyal to the Night's Watch then, and for what? A stab in the back?

"I did, and I said that. Can you see what she called it?"

"Needle," she says, automatic. As if this is a quiz and that's the right answer (she always did manage to have the right answer), and maybe it is. A test, small and simple.

River focuses again slowly, and considers whether or not to tell him the other truth. There aren't many ways to take 'You aren't Ned Stark's son' that aren't terrible, especially not in this climate. The disapproval is quiet, but the way it hangs in the air is no less thunderous than the winter storms on the horizon.

After a moment, she glances out at the rest of the occupants of Winterfell still milling about. Between them all are countless lies and secrets, things untold but understood. It's easy for her to get lost in the fog of it.

Or in something else.

"You should know you're a Stark. Whatever else they say, that's something that's always true."

Needle.

That's all Jon needs, one simple word to cement his faith in this woman's truthfulness. That was a conversation that took place between Arya and himself with no one else around, and even if his sister had shared the name with others, how could this woman have possibly come to learn it by any other means? It was far too unlikely, even with the way happenstance seemed to make the most improbable of people cross paths.

He blinks, brow furrowing in open confusion when she makes her next statement.

"Well, yes," he begins, uncertain with his footing. "I know that."

Jon has Stark blood, but he isn't Catelyn's son. So he isn't legitimate. But if he didn't have Stark blood flowing through his veins, the Lords that supported him would have never allowed him to become King in the North.

And just like that, she feels the trust settle in at her back like a heavy cloak, like armor. All of which are necessary now, no matter how it is she came to be here or what it is she knows.

Part of her wants to nudge at this, to push through with the point and have it over and done with already. It's the same instinct that has her lift a hand as if to put over his arm in reassurance, but she thinks better of it (he is a King, and there are a hundred eyes here she does not know) and sets it back in her lap. This secret is bigger than she is, and there will be a time and a place for it soon enough.

"Good," she says as if she was only reminding him of it, and River feels awkward again. A conversation on truth just circles back to a lie, a glaring if conscientious omission.

"What else do you want to know?"

"My brother and sister," he says immediately, thinking of others instead of himself. He could have asked about his future or the uncertainty of his past — for he still doesn't know who his mother is or if she's even still alive — but the desire to know of Arya and Bran's fate pricks at him more. "Can you tell me about what happened to them and where they are."

Not if they're dead. No, Jon can't take more death. It was bad enough that he had to watch Rickon be struck down by Ramsay's arrow. Sansa had told him going into that battle that the youngest Stark was a lost cause, that he would be dead by Ramsay's hand one way or the other, but Jon had refused to believe it. And the memory of it still woke him up at night when his unconscious mind decided to reflect upon it.

They're alive. They're out there — somewhere. He just knows it.

For a moment, it's like she's with Simon again. Different but familiar, and she shifts all at once from awkwardness to something sadder. Somewhere, very far away, he's probably looking for her, and there isn't anyone who would be able to tell him where she is. The least she can do now is tell Jon, but it's not an answer that can come as easy as the name of a blade.

River looks down at her hands, fingers still cold as ever, and tries to think around the immediacy of here and now.

She sits back, eyes still on her hands while her fingers twitch against each other as she works through it in her head, grasping at any connection that can be found. Still, not much comes until she looks up and sees Ghost sitting at his master's knee, looking at her, and she knows with sudden clarity his own sister has gone wild.

"They'll come back. Both of them." River turns toward him again, a little disappointed in herself. "It's harder--farther than I can find. I know what I told you before because you're here, because it happened here. And I know they'll be back here, but everything else..."

That isn't much of a reassurance, and she knows it. "I'm sorry I don't have more than that."

Jon was never fully allowed to be part of the family; even if Ned Stark went out of his way to raise him like a lordling, the truth of the matter was that he would never hold a title or preside over anything. And yet, he was still a good brother in spite of it. Robb and he were constant companions in their youth, and he doted on his sisters and younger brothers — even when Catelyn tried her best to put a stop to it, even when Sansa fell in step with her mother's wishes that he not be regarded as a part of the bloodline she had helped to secure.

(Things were different now. He and Sansa were different now, and no power in the Seven Kingdoms could tear him away from his sister.)

It's those brotherly instincts that have his gloved hand reaching out across the bench, shielded from sight by the long, elaborate banners that hung from the edge of the table. His hand covers his in a gesture of comfort for something unsaid, something he isn't going to inquire after. Whatever it is, it isn't his business, but he can still be sorry for it all the same.

Silently.

"They're alive," he breathes gleefully, the relief heavy on his tongue as a warm, happy smile spreads across his features. (Gods, when was the last time he smiled?) "No, don't apologize." His hand squeezes hers. "That is more than I ever hoped to know."

His hand surprises her, all warm leather and comfort. River isn't quite sure she's earned it until she sees him smile. Jon has lost more siblings than she's ever had, more parents, more friends...

When she smiles back, it's small but genuine, and her other hand moves to rest on top of his. A hidden reciprocation, from a sibling that is lost to a brother that finds.

"If I find anything else, I'll tell you. I promise."

But in spite of the large family, he's also been ostracized for most of his life. The very table that they're perched at was off limits to him until he took back Winterfell from the Boltons. A bastard does not sit or dine with those of noble birth and true, pure blood. Jon earned his kingship, earned his right to sit at this table, and the love and respect of a sister who once hated him.

That's not to say that Jon wasn't raised with love, for his father and (some of his) siblings made sure that he knew he was loved and appreciated. But it's still possible to be loved and cared for and still feel like you're alone in the world.

Perhaps that's why the solitude of the Wall felt like home to him for so long. A home he was suited for and belonged to.

And now look at him. He's the fucking King.

One of them, anyway.

"I appreciate it," he whispers back. "Truly, I do. The North is indebted to you."

There is so much here, this bitter blend of isolation and home, that River has a harder time pulling herself back inside her skin. Jon's hand on hers helps to ground things, the sensation of connection (this is real, this is a real place, this is not a frozen dream), but even that is screaming contrasts. Hands in hands, hands on weapons. Used to make and uphold promises by any means necessary. Fragility and brutality held equally inside twenty-seven bones, popping out of aching joints.

She tilts her head forward and wishes her hair wasn't pinned back, as if hiding behind a tangled curtain of it would help somehow.

"I've only been here a day," whispered and teasing, even a little strained in tone, but true. She hasn't even told him the most important things about himself, how can she have already earned a debt?

"You'd be surprised what one is able to accomplish in the span of a single day," he says.

Jon may not have had the sort of upbringing his siblings have, for he was never destined to hold an office or title of any kind (rising up to Lord Commander of the Night's Watch was a feat all its own, and now he's King), but he knows his histories. Kingdoms rose and fell in a day, people were born and died, alliances were forged while others crumbled...

There was not nearly enough credit given to the amount of time held in a single day.

Days are arbitrary. The measure of a single solar cycle, the tick of seconds and minutes and hours finely measured into something considered appropriate and immovable has always been fickle in her mind. There were always too many planets, too many suns, for her to believe in a solid standard of it. If she were home, she would argue the point just to be contrary. Rattle on about quantifiable time, black holes, perception --

But this is one planet, one sun, where only the slow ebb and flow of seasons is arbitrary and completely unmeasured by conventional means. In her own context, what he says is more poetic than River thinks he intended.

So she doesn't argue, just smiles, small and self-conscious.

"I suppose," because she can't help but be contrary anyway, at least a little bit. "Did you want to know anything else? Maybe if you're in enough debt, I can ask your for a boat later."

A joke, sibling-esque teasing, because why not? Though absolutely not a joke she would speak aloud if Davos were within earshot.

It isn't that Jon doesn't have questions. He has a lot of them, and when an offer is posed to him in such a way, he can't help but circle back to questions that plagued him during his childhood about his origins. Who was his mother? Did she know he was alive? Was she still alive? Ned Stark had promised to answer those questions in due time, but Ned Stark was gone. To his knowledge, he was the only one who knew the truth about his origins, the only one who could answer all those unanswerable questions.

But those questions are selfish ones, answers that would do little to benefit the North as a whole. He's a king now, and he needs to think like one. Needs to be a better monarch than the inbred Lannister bastard sitting on the Iron Throne. (Jon, don't throw those stones.)

"What use would landlocked Northerners have for a boat?" A laugh, because he appreciates the veer towards humor.

River can feel the curiosity, the want to know, spike off of him like lightning aimed straight at the heart of the matter. There is so much he should know about himself. It's unaccountably tempting to blurt it out, let that unspoken crackle have an answer...

But.

Something else rises to the surface instead, and River just cants her head to the side and says, "You'll have boats," in a tone of sure knowing. She can almost feel them bobbing on the water, a gentle sensation of rocking calm before battle. She looks down at her hands, his over hers, and tugs gently to get them back so she can flex her fingers against each other again and worry away some of that lightning of his.

He swears he can feel it, that prick of magic in the back of his mind, lighting up some untouched part of himself and making his skin tingle as she draws away. Magic was a key element of life back in Old Valyria and his ancestors coated themselves in powerful magics in order to forge the lasting bonds between their people and the dragons they rode. The magic may have been lost to the times, but what it did to the Valyrians still existed in the Targaryens that were descended from them. It's what allowed Daenerys to bond with her children, what helped bring Jon back from the brink of death.

All things he doesn't know, and yet he knows that there's something there. Something he doesn't know about. Something inside him that's hiding, something he's not sure he should let out.

He flexes his own fingers, wringing out his hands as if they were wet and needed to be dried. "Of course," he says with a sudden awkwardness. "A whole fleet."

She watches his hands, feels the crackle shift into some other tension turned inward. It's difficult for her to parse what of it is real and what is interpretation, a vision filtered through her own perception to help her understand. Old Valyria means little to her, and the mere thought of dragons would feel silly if not for everything else about her current predicament. There's connection there, though, between lightning and history. It's just out of reach of her own comprehension, so she lets it go. When it's time, maybe when he knows, it will come back clear and unmuddied by noise of the hall and the soft murmur of other things seen.

In her lap, River focuses the nervous reverb of that crackle still inside her head into picking a little at one of her cuticles before she stops herself, Simon's voice in the back of her mind warning about infection and the probability of losing a finger to it in these primitive conditions.

"Don't worry," she tells him as she stills her hands flat against the slightly scratchy fabric of her outer dress covering her knees, attempting to steer them back to wherever they were a moment ago. "I'll only ask for a small one--"

At which point she yawns, big and ungraceful, one hand flying up to cover her mouth as the whole rest of her face scrunches up above it.

"We don't do anything small in the North," he says.

It's a statement that could very well be read as innuendo if not for the innocent, yet serious way in which Jon says it. He's oblivious to the potential double meaning there, having not reflected upon his words upon needing to say something in the wake of that odd tingling sensation that was steadily leaving his form. It warmed him, in an odd sort of way, shaking the cold from his bones in a way the fires burning bright in the hearth behind them failed to do.

Strange.

At her yawn, he says quickly, "Forgive me. You have had quite the journey. I'll have the maids set up a room for you."

He turns to Davos, whispering in the Onion Knight's ear. The older man rises unhappily from his seat and trudges off to deliver the king's orders.

Any potential innuendo flies above River's head as whatever magic existed in the moment recedes and ebbs back into whatever secret part of Jon's blood it lives in. She gives a small smile, thankful and apologetic, to Davos' retreating back once the remainder of the yawn subsides.

"Thank you," she says, though she doesn't move yet.

It's suddenly very hard to get up, to walk to some foreign room and exist, alone. The hall is crowded, the knowing sense exhausting in some way as much as walking here had been, but it's a distraction from every other homesick thought waiting in the corners.

"Tomorrow... Tomorrow we can figure out what I can do to be of service to the King." River can guess as to a few options, other than telling him his siblings will return. Maybe reviewing battle plans, maybe standing ominously in the background of meetings with other Northern leaders to keep them honest. Maybe both and more. Jon can ponder it.

With a tight smile in his direction, she stands, finally, and turns to follow where Davos had headed.

Weeks pass that soon turn into months, River becoming something of a permanent fixture at Winterfell. The lords have grown accustomed to her presence and no longer question when she sits with the king and his sister, though the Hand still eyes her with a suspicion he can't quite shake. A suspicion borne of too much time spent in the company of Melisandre. A suspicion he may likely never fully get over, but at this point, he's stopped questioning the king's judgement and settled for keeping a silent watch over the budding connection between the mysterious knower of things and the King in the North.

It's on a particularly bright and still morning that the raven arrives with summons from Dragonstone. Queen Daenerys Targaryen wishes to speak with him — in person. No envoy, no response raven, but to travel to her keep in person to hold formal audience with her. Kingship is still something Jon is settling into and he doesn't feel entirely comfortable playing this part of the role attached to the title he now holds.

A title a bastard like him was never meant to hold.

"What do you think I should do?" He asks River, passing her the sliver of parchment. "Should I go? Send Davos in my place? Feign having the Raven lost to the winter winds?"

PICK YOUR POISON
PIC PROMPTS / TFLN / RANDOM SCENARIO
HAN SOLO velocities	BETTY MCRAE bombsheller	RIVER TAM subsulcus	RIVER TAM (AU) comprehender
SIMON TAM vest	BRIA THAREN exulted	NADINE CROSS bridaled	GU JUN-PYO toddler
available on special request: veronica sawyer, benjamin linus, imani, maria deluca, mushu, poseidon, niccolò machiavelli, malik al-sayf, chloe

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i'm falling asleep, hopefully this make sense

it does!

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comes back to this months later

hells yes

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