Chapter Text
Jon woke to see the soft rays of the first light of day shining through the shutters. Beside him Ygritte slept on, the pair of them wrapped snugly in many furs. He cast his sleepy gaze over his wife, the little light that was in the room catching on her red hair and making it glow. It was as everyone said that you looked younger in your sleep, Ygritte did too. Her face was relaxed and all of the tension and worry was gone making her look or the more beautiful than he already found her. She always said that he worried too much, she hid her worries behind a playful smirk but Jon could always see through it.
She breathed out, shifting slightly in her sleep. Jon smiled, sitting up slightly and feeling the cold air against his bare chest. He ran an absent minded hand over the scar above his heart then down to those on his abdomen. They were bittersweet. He died, was betrayed by his own men, that was the bitter. His Ollie had stabbed him in the heart. But the sweet was beside him, the sweet was his wife, his soulmate, his queen.
He yawned, stifling the sound with the back of his hand so as not to disturb the woman. The king slowly swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, reaching out and pulling on the breeches that he had discarded on the floor the night before. Ghost raised his head from his paws, red eyes watching him from his position at the foot of the bed. Jon walked over to the wardrobe and pulled out a tunic and boiled leather. It was all plain as was the way , the tunic grey like the Stark wolf and the leather black, similar to the black he used to wear in the Watch.
"Morning," he heard Ygritte mumble behind him, he turned, leaving the buckles of the leather undone in favour of going over to her.
He crawled back up onto the bed, stroking the hair back off of his bare shoulder and pressing a kiss to her forehead. Just as the king was pulling away she whipped up and grabbed the tunic by the laces pulling him back down on top of her in a fierce kiss before flipping them over so that she was straddling his hips.
"I can feel you staring to worry already," she said, running a hand through Jon's tangled black hair.
"I'm not--"
"You are."
"I'm going to talk to the lords about how we can prepare the North today," Jon told her.
"About the dragonglass and about training woman and girls," Ygritte nodded slightly.
Jon nodded in return, his hands were on her hips but he gazed over her body and frowned. She was completely naked still from the night and it was winter in the North. He traced his fingers down her arm, both of them shivering as they skated around the soul mark on her right wrist.
"Aren't you cold?" he asked running his hands up and down her sides gently.
"I'm a free woman, I am the cold," she smirked, leaning down and pecking him on the lips before swinging off of him and the bed, pulling on her undergarments.
Jon stretched and rolled back off of the bed, buckling the leather protection and pulling on his boots. Long Claw lay on the table over his map of Westros but he didn't want to buckle it quiet yet, the map drawing his attention and his worry. He still maintained the front that he knew what he was doing. In reality a large and nasty part of him was certain that they wouldn't be able to defeat the Night King.
"You're thinkin' again, worrying," Ygritte commented.
The king turned slightly to look at his soulmate concentrating on the bond. "You're thinking too."
"I bet it's about different stuff though," she replied, coming up and wrapping her arms around him from behind, resting her head next to his on his shoulder.
"Okay, so what am I thinking about and what are you thinking about?" Jon challenged.
"You're thinking about the white walkers and I'm thinking about responsibilities as king and queen," she whispered so close to his ear that her lips brushed against the shell.
"Responsibilities?" Jon asked, turning in her arms so that they were face to face.
"Yes, you're a king. Kings need heirs."
Jon blanched. Children. She was talking about children. He had never wanted a family before her, never wanted the soulmate that was promised to him when he was sixteen. He had soon excepted the soulmate thing when he met Ygritte. He married her because he was king and he knew all too well that royalty signed themselves off for marriages anywhere that may help forge alliances. To this day he had never given any thought to children though.
"Well you know that you're not sworn to overthink everything right," Ygritte quipped with a raised eyebrow.
"You're talking about children?" Jon replied stupidly.
"Yes."
"But you don't want children."
"I didn't want children when we were constantly on the move, having to defend ourselves. You can imagine how that may have caused problems. Now we live in a castle."
"I... I think that maybe we should revisit this once we've dealt with the Night King," Jon suggested awkwardly then had a second thought, "You're not pregnant are you?"
"No, not at the moment. You know that it will happen though because I'm not stopping the sex."
"Right... now I think that we should get ready to talk to the lords," Jon said awkwardly.
***
Jon sat before the lords and told them his plans. He could feel Sansa's gaze on him as he spoke about the need to search for dragon glass and particularly when he started to speak about training the women of the North. It was Ygritte's idea but Jon wasn't going to disagree; if anything, his time with the free folk had taught him to respect female warriors as equal to men. All he had to do was look at his wife to see the prowess of the woman. It was a waste having half of the population of the North left vulnerable against the army of the dead.
Of course many of the lords protested against his idea. Then Lyanna Mormont stood up. Jon marvelled at the girls fire, she was just a child but she commanded respect from all of those on Bear Island as well as anyone else she came into contact with. He support as a girl soon made the other lords back down.
In all everything went smoothly including moving Tormund and the free folk off to East Watch by the Sea. Then it came to the traitors- the Karstarks and Umbers.
Lord Glover was all for tearing the castles down but then Sansa spoke up for the first time. She pointed out that there was no point in destroying the castles, that they should be given as rewards to those that fought alongside Jon in the Battle of the Bastards. Jon knew that he couldn't do that; the new leaders of the two houses were only children, they had no say in their father's choices. In that moment though, Jon's sister was gaining support from all around the hall. He could feel Ygritte tensing up beside him but he felt calm, in control. He'd sort this and then talk to Sansa later. He stood, hands braced on the table.
"When I was Lord Commander of the Night's Watch I executed men who betrayed me, I executed men who refused to follow orders. My father always said that the man that passes the sentence should swing the sword and I have tried to live by those words. I will not punish a son for his father's sins and I will not take a family home from a family that it has belonged to for centuries. That is my decision and my decision is final," Jon said. He said it firmly and he said it loudly so that the whole hall would hear his words.
Beside him Sansa huffed but she didn't say anything more as he continued.
"Ned Umber, Alice Karstark," Jon called waiting as the two children parted from the crowds and made their way forward.
"For centuries our families have fought side by side on the battlefield," Jon addressed them," I ask you to once again pledge your loyalty to house Stark, to serve as our banner men and come to our aid whenever called upon."
The two draw their swords then and knelt before the king.
"Stand," the bastard told the children before addressing the hall on a whole," Yesterdays wars don't matter anymore. The North needs to band together, all the living North. Will you stand beside him Ned and Alice now and always?"
"Now and always," they pledged and the hall erupted into cheers, all the lords and maesters getting to their feet.
Jon nodded and smiled to the two children. He knew that Sansa wasn't happy but he could feel Ygritte's smugness and pride that she was trying to stifle. He looked down at his wife, at his soulmate, their eyes met and he saw the small smile on her face.
***
Jon strode away across the walkway to where Ygritte was standing. He couldn't make sense of his sister. She definitely wasn't the girl he had known before but after everything she couldn't have been the same. She sounded like Cersei though, uncannily like Cersei at times.
Then there was the letter. He rolled it around in his fingers absently as he made his way to his wife. She looked up at him, away from whatever she had been watching. Jon glanced down to see Brienne of Tarth sparing with that Payne boy while Tormund watched on. He really was going to miss his friend when he went to the Wall.
The king settled beside his soulmate as he reached her, pressed into her side, loving the contact. He leaned on the railing and spoke.
"I have a letter from Cersei Lannister," he stated, looking at the letter rather than the woman beside him.
"That's that southern queen isn't it?" Ygritte asked.
Jon looked up at her nodding. Watching her watching him, taking in how beautiful she was, distracting himself from the knot of worry in his chest.
"So that's all the sudden extra stress I'm feeling," the wildling commented.
"I guess so. She wants me to go to King's Landing and bend the knee."
"What's she going to do?" Ygritte snorted, "She's a southern queen with a southern army. This is the North, they'd have no chance normally and now it's winter. We don't need to worry about anything but the Night King."
"I really hope that you're right," Jon returned.
He looked up then to see Littlefinger and Sansa stood together talking. He didn't like that. He didn't trust the man, he was too tightly wound into the politics of King's Landing to be anything good. His alliance with his sister had only brought her more pain at the hands of Ramsey Bolton so far.