Work Text:
Winterfell
289 AC
Something is wrong.
Jon was at Winterfell, walking the outskirts of the godswood, but Winterfell was all different. When he looked up, the Great Keep still stood the same…and he still knew the way back to the castle, so that was the same, but...something about the air was different. Like he was swimming through funny-tasting water.
All the snow was gone, Jon realised. That must be it. There were nubs that looked like the peas he hated sticking up from the branches of trees.
Spring? That wasn’t right. It was still winter just yesterday. He barely remembered spring. His mother said it was because he had been too little during the last one. He didn’t think spring was such a fast runner, to come in so quickly.
Jon turned a corner out of the godswood and into a side yard. Hadn’t he just crashed into that heaping snowdrift here when Robb was chasing him in tag? Now there was just hard ground and a cart in the middle of being fixed. Something was definitely not right.
Jon didn’t like this one bit, but there was naught to do but wander through the courtyards, finding his way back to the inner bailey. He had thought he would like spring. His mother had always smiled when she spoke of it.
But then, she would like it, because it was supposed to be less cold in spring. Amma was from Dorne, where it was really hot, so she got cold more than everyone else and had to bundle herself in furs every time they went out riding.
Yet if that were so, why didn’t Jon feel any warmer than he usually did outside? He looked down to see that he was wearing a quilted tunic and thick wool stockings, but he couldn’t remember ever being so cold. Not just cold on his nose and fingers. Cold in his gut, like there was an ice worm nibbling at his insides. He shivered and picked up a run back to the castle.
He’d go to the kitchens first, he determined, and ask for some hot milk. That would feel nice, the hot milk settling in his tummy. Then he’d go find Wylla and see if she had enough time to make him her arrowrice pudding. He’d make sure to ask for extra cinnamon and apricot preserve. Jon could almost taste the warm, sweet rice sliding down his tongue and hear the light crackle of the burnt sugar Wylla always put on top, just for him.
Aye, that was it. Everything would be alright back at the castle. Amma could explain to him what was going on with the snow and the trees—because there had to be an explanation. Once he knew it, Jon wouldn’t be so cold anymore. And maybe, if he could convince Robb it wasn’t for babies, they could go to Sansa and Arya’s room when their mother was tucking them in, so she’d have time to tell them all a story.
With the new twins, it had been a while since Amma had had the time to tell them a Dayne story.
In the inner bailey, he ducked and dodged around the working men as he always did, darting his way into the Great Keep, relieved that his feet, at least, did not feel wrong. Yet, the moment he stepped into the little hall, he froze.
The ice worms in his gut were going to devour him whole from the inside. They had to be. A sickening sort of chill was sloshing around in there. Cold sweat broke out on his neck, and his hands had gone all clammy and stiff.
Before him was a little girl. Arya’s age, but it wasn’t Arya. It wasn’t anyone he knew. She had red hair—red the way only Robb’s hair was red—and when she turned Jon saw that her eyes were blue like Robb’s too.
Had Robb turned into a girl? But no, that couldn’t be it. This girl was a baby still. Not Robb. Not Robb, but so much like Robb.
She waddled two steps towards him then, tilting her head in a way that was almost familiar, which felt even more wrong.
She blinked her shiny blue eyes. Eyes like ice, he thought, and shivered.
“Why you running, Jon?”
Before Jon could make words on his tongue, a woman rounded the corner and rushed towards them.
“Sansa! Oh, little lady, you mustn’t run off like that!” She was dressed the way his nurse dressed, but Jon had never seen her in his life.
“Oh, and you’ve just found Jon,” she said, turning to him, the scolding still in her voice.
“And where’s you get off to, lad? No matter, get on up to your rooms, quick. You’re supposed to be bathed before your supper.”
Suddenly, Jon was very, very scared. This girl wasn’t Sansa. His sister had dark curls like him and purple eyes like the sky at dawn. This girl wasn’t his sister.
At the woman’s urging look, Jon swallowed hard.
“Where’s Amma?” The words tore from his throat.
“Ah who? What’s wrong with you, boy? You look like you seen a ghost.”
She reached a hand to his forehead. Her fingers were stone-hard.
“Don’t feel sick,” she muttered to herself. She picked up the girl who was not Sansa and pushed Jon between the shoulder blades, urging him up the steps.
“Go on, then. You’ll be right as rain after a bath.”
Jon wanted to shake her hand away, wanted to demand who she was and where his family had gone, but his heart was stuffed up in his throat, hot and aching, and he could not force out words.
He let the strange woman push him up the stairs and down the familiar hallways on the way to his and Robb’s chamber. Everything in the hall looked the same. The torches even glowed the same. But...but...no, this was very, very wrong.
They turned a corner. Jon stopped cold. Before him was a woman in a dark green gown, flaming red hair in a braid down her back. Hair the colour of Robb’s. He thought he was going to be sick.
The woman was talking to a servant, but as they approached she turned, and Jon saw that her eyes were the same stomach-churning blue of the little girl’s.
The nurse curtseyed and called her ‘milady.’ That was wrong too. The servants only called his mother ‘milady.’
The lady smiled when she saw the girl, reaching out her arms to take her from the nurse, but when she caught sight of Jon her face turned to stone.
Jon wished the floor would open just then and swallow him whole. Anything to escape the hard, mean look in her eyes. Anything to not feel like a horsefly she wanted to swat aside. He wanted to claw at his throat for breath, but his hands were stuck to his sides.
The lady frowned then and averted her eyes back to the nurse.
“Take the boy to his bath,” she said, her voice cool and smooth and frightening. The little girl squirmed in her arms and looked down at Jon too, then back at the woman.
“Mother, why frown?”
He watched as the woman’s face relaxed, her hand taking the little girl’s and kissing it with a smile. The sight carved something out of Jon’s chest, making an ugly black hole appear into which his heart suddenly dropped, disappearing forever and ever.
He felt the nurse’s hand on his back, guiding him away, and at last he cried out.
“No! No! Where’s Amma? Where’s my mother?”
He yanked himself out of the nurse’s grasp, but he turned his head then, and the face of the red-haired stone lady came back into view.
That look on her face now...Jon had never seen anything so terrible.
“What’s wrong with the boy, Nurse? Who’s been talking of nonsense around him?”
The nurse reached for him with some mumbled apology.
Jon shook her hand away with all the strength he had and took off, bursting into a desperate run, for he had to get out of that place, had to escape the strange blue-eyed girl and the terrible gaze of the lady whose face was stone.
His blood had turned to slushing ice, but he forced himself to keep running, his legs burning. Run. Run! Get away from there.
Yet suddenly it seemed all the Winterfell hallways had melted into one another, and no matter how he pumped his arms and thumped his feet against the cobblestones, he could not get far away enough from those hard eyes. From that chipped voice that called him ‘boy.’
Jon sat bolt upright in the dark, his heart threatening to pound out of his chest, his blood beating inside his ears.
Thump. Thump. His head spun and his hair stuck to the cold damp of his neck.
Thump. Thump. His throat still ached, and he gripped the bunched sheets on his bed, his icy fingers stiff.
Just a dream, he told himself. Just a dream.
But was it?
Blindly, he felt under his pillow, his hand closing around Lord Dragonknight. The little wooden soldier had guarded his bed forever. That was a good sign, surely? That he was here?
In the moonlight, he squinted over at Robb’s bed.
“Robb?” he whispered into the still night. The lump that was his brother did not move.
He tried again. Again, no movement. Jon could wake him if he tried, but Jon didn’t want Robb right now. He didn’t want anyone save his mother.
Wrapping his blanket around himself, he slid out of bed, hissing at the cold flagstones against his feet. His slippers had disappeared under his bed as usual, and Jon wasn’t yet brave enough to look there all on his own.
He padded over to the door, dragging his blanket behind him, and nudged it open with his shoulder. Outside was dim with dying torchlight, and a long shadow appeared as he stepped into the hall. Don’t look at the shadows, don’t look, don’t look, he told himself, repeating Amma’s words to himself like a little prayer. They’re only tricks of the light. They aren’t alive.
Down the hall, to the right, and his parents’ chamber was at the end of the hall. Gratefully, Jon picked up speed, his frozen feet thwacking the flagstones, but at the door, a horrifying thought suddenly crowded into his head. He froze.
What if it wasn’t a dream?
What if, when he knocked, it was that terrible lady with the cold, hard eyes who opened the door. Jon pulled the blanket around himself as tight as he could, for it was suddenly very, very cold.
No, be brave, Jon. He would never know if he didn’t open the door.
His hand shaking, he gripped the ring handle and turned.
In the black grey shadows of the room, he thought he saw something moving on the great bed and heard the sheets shuffle along with soft sighing sounds. Jon frowned.
“Amma?” He hated how small his voice was.
No reply. Biting his tongue, the terror and panic dragging like a lead ball down his tummy, he tried again.
“Amma?”
A muffled sound, and then,
“Wait, wait, Ned, stop.”
It was his mother’s voice!
At once all Jon knew was relief, hot and wonderful, crashing against his ribs and surging like a huge wave over his head. Maybe the bed shifted and shadows moved about, and maybe he heard his father’s confused voice, but he barely noticed any of it over his gasping breaths.
His mother was crouched before him now, her eyes—oh, purple was the best colour!—catching the light from the hall, sparkling and warm with concern.
“What’s wrong, love?”
Her hand cupped his face, and that was warm too. At once her familiar face blurred, and Jon did not even try to hold in the tears that rushed and spilled over his heated face. The next thing he knew, she had clasped him to her, her arms wrapped tight and safe around him, her soothing hands caressing his damp back. He buried his face in her hair, breathing in the familiar sweet smell, listening to her calming voice in his ear and finding he could breathe again despite his gasping sobs.
“Shhh, there now, there love…I’m here. Amma’s here. Shhh…I’ve got you.”
He clung to the back of her neck and had the distinct feeling of being thawed by a great, roaring fire after a day out in the snow.
For a long while, he let himself cry, but as the crashing waves of relief passed and his sobs turned to sniffles, he felt his face heat. He wasn’t a baby anymore.
He drew back, though he was thankful Amma still held him as she studied him. Embarrassed, he tried to wipe his eyes, but her hand was there first, smoothing the tears away with her sleeve, a soft frown on her face.
“Oh, my poor boy, whatever is the matter?” She drew him close again and kissed first his right cheek, then his left, then his forehead. “Did you have a bad dream?”
“Must be.” Father had come to crouch beside them, his sure hand on Jon’s shoulder. Safe. He was safe here. Jon nodded.
Amma gave him a gentle smile then, and Jon couldn’t help smiling back, still embarrassed. He was supposed to be a big boy now, but here he was, crying from a stupid dream.
“Come then, love, why don’t you keep us company a while,” she said, and Father picked him up and settled him into their bed. The blankets were strangely all over the place, but Amma had them fixed very fast, tucking the soft quilt around him as she climbed in next to him. Father went to light some candles.
“Would you like some hot milk, Jon?” Amma asked.
Jon couldn’t think of anything he wanted more just then.
“Yes, please.”
“Ned, would you summon a servant?”
Father studied Jon for a moment longer, then came over to give Jon a reassuring squeeze on the leg before leaving the chamber, his voice echoing in the hall.
Amma reached her arm around him then, tucking his head against her shoulder and kissing him again, this time on the top of his head. Jon smiled again and snuggled closer, then turned and gave his mother a kiss on the cheek too. She laughed like pretty bells, then leaned in to brush a stray tear from near his chin.
“I love you so much, Jon,” she said. “More than all the stars in the sky at night. You know that, don’t you?”
Jon nodded.
“And your father loves you, and your siblings, Yli and Wylla and Corynne, and your Uncle Brynden. They all love you very much. Then there’s your Uncle Benjen, and your Uncle Oberyn, your Aunt Lyrie and your Uncle Dev. They all love you, all the way to the moon and back a thousand times. Do you understand? There are so…so many people who love you, more than you can ever know.”
Jon settled himself into her embrace, letting the gentle words cocoon him in comfy warmth. Amma liked to play this game with them sometimes, listing all the people who loved them. There were always people he hadn’t even met before, but he liked hearing them anyway.
“I love you, Amma,” he said.
“I know, my darling.”
Father came back then, sitting at the foot of the bed, his hand again on Jon’s leg, and Jon had never been so cozy.
“Do you want to tell us what you dreamed of?” Father asked. “Sometimes speaking of it makes things less frightening.”
Jon chewed his lip.
“I was here. At Winterfell, I mean, but it was all wrong because there was a girl who wasn’t Sansa but she called her Sansa. The nurse, I mean, but she wasn’t anyone I knew. And it was summer because all the trees had icky peas on them, but it was still cold, so that was wrong too. I knew it was wrong. And then…and then…”
Jon frowned, looking down and staring intently at the shadows dancing across his clenched hands.
“And then?”
“There was a stone lady. She had red hair like Robb, but she was nothing like Robb at all, and she…her eyes were so, so scary. And no one knew where Amma was, so I ran away, and then Winterfell was all wobbly and horrible and melted, and then…and then I woke up.”
There was a silence, and Jon felt his parents exchange a glance over his head. He thought Father wanted to say something, but in the end, he only sighed.
“It was only a dream, son. It wasn’t real. We’re here, and you needn’t be frightened.”
“I’m not going anywhere, love,” his mother said “and neither is your sister. Even if one day you cannot find me, I’ll always find you, I promise. Be sure you remember that, alright? So next time, if I am missing, you will know ’tis only a dream.”
Jon nodded. It was silly of him to be scared. He saw that now, though thinking about those hard blue eyes still made him hollow and lonely in his gut.
“Well then, how about a story, Jon? While we wait for your hot milk?”
Jon felt his ears perk up.
“Oh! Yes! Yes, please.” He paused. “Would you tell a Dayne story?” He was sure the stone lady in his dream didn’t know any Dayne stories. Only his mother did, and the idea of a Dayne story was very comforting indeed. Father laughed, then looked at Amma, something very soft about his eyes. She smiled again.
“It has been a while since I told you one, hasn’t it? Which should you like to hear? The one about the moonlight prince or—”
The door creaked open, interrupting her, and all three looked up. There, with his own blanket tossed over his head like a septa, stood Robb.
“Amma?”
“Oh, Robb, darling, you’re up too.”
Father rose, and Amma slipped from the bed again and went to the door, crouching to take hold of Robb’s hands.
“There was no one in the chamber,” said Robb. Then, “Why’s Jon being a baby?”
Jon bristled, even though Robb was right. He was being a baby, but he didn’t really care about that right now. Still, he narrowed his eyes at his brother.
“I’m not being a baby,” he muttered.
“But you’re sleeping here. Father says only babies still sleep with their parents.”
Amma turned her head to arch an eyebrow at Father. He coughed.
“No one is a baby for coming here. Your father...misspoke, didn’t he?”
Father coughed again.
“Jon just had a bad dream and came for a story is all,” she told Robb. Jon paused but then nodded. Robb frowned, looking first at him, then back at their mother.
“I’d like a story too,” he finally said.
“I thought you might.”
Amma turned again towards Father, who went to the door as well and lifted Robb up, laying him next to Jon. Their mother drew the quilts over them both, then planted another kiss on both of their heads before settling at the foot of the bed.
“And your father’s going to get both of you some hot milk. Isn’t he?”
Father opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut it and gave them all a relenting smile.
“Your mother only wants to tell the two of you her stories,” Father said, shaking his head and heading towards the door. Jon thought Father was being silly. He probably got to hear Amma tell him stories every night. They shared a chamber, after all.
“Now,” their mother said when Father had shut the door behind him. “Jon wanted a story about my Dayne ancestors, didn’t you, love?”
Jon nodded again. Beside him, Robb made an excited “oh” and drew the covers up to his chin.
“Alright then. I will tell the one about the moonlight prince. Once, a long, long time ago, all the way south where the sparkling Torrentine meets the Summer Sea…”