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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?"

He isn't a bastard, and River has skirted around telling him for far too long.

They've glanced toward it before, idle comments and pointed reassurances of his standing that never cross the line into revelation. The words sat heavy in her gut during every meeting she sat in on, every time she whispered to him about a man who wants to slip away from the guard in the night before he has the chance to do it; they grow heavy when Davos turns his suspicion in her direction when she makes a comment on something unsaid.

Now, with a raven and a summons, the words feel more like they'll choke her before the day is through. The hand holding the parchment trembles slightly as she looks down and sees --

Fire. Mistakes. Family. Blood.

"You'll go," she says, tone as far away from an order as it can be. A statement of fact, of her knowing, that Jon has probably grown accustomed to. "But you need to know before. I couldn't--" and the paper in her hand is shaking more than she would like to admit to, so she sets it down and stands, moves to pace as if she can outrun eventuality, or maybe just her own dread.

So she paces, wrings her hands together, as she lets truth settle down in the room until she stills and looks at him not as a friend or a protector, but as a King.

That passes, too, and her eyes are on his face when she speaks to him, hushed and so very sorry, praying to whatever cruel gods this world has that he believes her.

"You aren't Ned Stark's son." A pause, brief, letting this truth settle on him, too, and her hands are twisting against themselves again. "You're Lyanna's."

Edited 2019-03-12 02:46 (UTC)

Jon chokes on his wine. He sputters, coughing and staining the white fur rug at his feet with the dark red liquid — red on the white snows of the north, like a secret Targaryen prince in Winterfell crowned King in the North.

"What did you say?"

Her eyes are on the stain, like some Rorschach ink revealing what she already knows. Steadily, River lets herself lose focus, blurs out the immediacy and closeness of Jon's shock to go back into what she already knew, to find the words that want to choke her and put them in the right order.

"Lyanna had you in the tower. There was--" Blood. Death. Roses. Fear and begging. River closes her eyes to it, stills her hands, feels for whatever is left of Ned's secrets that his worry and love carved into the walls of Winterfell around them. "She called you Aegon, but he made you a son. They would've put a newborn's blood on their blades if they'd known you had fire in you..."

They'd put Jon's blood on their blades now, too, and she looks up at him with a start as the obviousness of it sinks into her gut.

"I won't tell anyone else."

Jon goes pale, the realization that he may not be Ned Stark's son drowned out by a different horrifying prospect.

"Are you implying that I am the product of—"

Everyone knows what happened to Lyanna Stark. She was kidnapped, raped, and killed. If he was born in the tower in which she died, that would make him the result of a terrible act. It's a wonder Ned Stark could even stand to look at him.

He feels sick and angry all at once, and he wants nothing more than for this truth she's trying to feed him to be nothing more than a well fabricated lie. Part of some game she's been playing with him from the start. Perhaps Davos was right about her after all.

Edited 2019-03-24 01:27 (UTC)

She feels the suspicion immediately, and it hurts more than she thought it might. More than the constant stream of it from Davos, even Sansa. But even louder now than Ned's truths are Lyanna's, written in every remaining cell of her body and echoing out of her statue's eyes.

River's eyes go unfocused again, looking at Jon but not seeing anything, overwhelmed as if speaking even as much as she has out loud has opened a floodgate that won't be quiet until she speaks all of it no matter what Jon may have done to her after.

"I am his and he is mine," said soft, and she can't parse it at first. She knows the stories, had assumed them true, but now realization creeps in and plants it's roots. "The stories were wrong. She ran to him, took his hand..."

"Impossible."

Jon knew his histories. He was educated alongside his siblings, making the transition from lordless bastard to reigning king far smoother than it otherwise would have been had he had no formal upbringing at all. Most in his situation weren't as lucky, but Jon could name all the members of the great houses several generations back, could put dates to events, could tell you the battle tactics that were used during the Battle of the Trident.

A battle where his supposed father fell to Robert Baratheon's hammer.

(A hammer that would have been brought down upon his infant head had King Robert known that the baby Ned came away from Dorne with had been a Targaryen princeling, a living heir to the throne he had seized.)

"He was married to Elia Martell. If the Dragon Prince is my father as you so claim, then I am still a bastard. A bastard who was shown a great kindness by a man who did not father me by allowing me to believe I was conceived during far more honorable circumstances instead of those that helped to spark a war."

"Annulment," she says, clipped and defensive.

It's disconcerting, speaking to him like that, feeling the need to, and the tone in the room isn't one she finds any comfort in. There's the sensation of snow melting underfoot with no solid ground beneath it, of an edge unseen but barreling closer every time she opens her mouth.

River, at the moment, would prefer to run. Take her leave and hide in her room and await some inevitable disaster. The possibilities for which, those that are too many and her imagination too prone to bias the dire end of sad fairytales, would haunt her until she's-- cast out. Thrown in the dungeon. Called a witch and tied to a stake.

She forces herself to stay, to look at his face and do her best to speak past the tremor in her voice to tell him, "It's the truth. I've only ever told you the truth. You don't have to do anything about it, and I swear I won't say a word of it outside this room, but... Before you go to meet her, you need to know."

The sharpness of that word, that lone word, grazes against his skin like the cold steel of the knives his former brothers in the Night's Watch had driven through his chest. It pierces his heart with whispers of possibility instead of the promise of death; he's completely taken aback by it.

Could it be possible? Could Prince Rhaegar have annulled his marriage to the Dornish Princess and married his ill-fated aunt — mother? — instead? But then... If they were wed, the ill-fated part of her story takes on new meaning. It changes the entire premise of Robert's Rebellion entirely.

He doesn't know what to do with the prospect of this new narrative, nevermind the very real possibility that he's a Targaryen.

"Say I believe you. What do you possibly expect me to do with this knowledge, stroll into Dragonstone and announce to my dear aunt that he beloved nephew has come to ask her to fight alongside the North against the Night King and his army of the dead?"

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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comes back to this months later

hells yes

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