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Lord of Winterfell, they had named him the day after they reclaimed the castle. By rights it was Sansa’s, Jon had argued but Lord Glover had told him that she had been disinherited by King Robb when she became a Lannister. If not Sansa’s, he said, then Arya’s. So long as a trueborn Stark child lived, they would always come before Jon. But Winterfell could not be held by a lost little girl that everyone knew was dead but would not dare speak it aloud.  

“Until such time as she can be found,” Lord Umber said. “You shall hold the North in her place. You are the son of Eddard Stark, and there must always be a Stark in Winterfell, by blood or by name.” 

Jon had accepted, dutiful and dour as always, as he bowed to the council that was now his. Search parties would be sent for Arya, as far south as was needed and ravens would fly across even the Narrow Sea. If there was an Arya Stark to find, they would find her. Hope, it gave Jon, that he was not the last remaining Stark child. Hope, Satin told him to keep in his heart. Men needed hope, even false as this one may very well have been. But until the day came where a search party brought young Arya to her rightful home, alive and breathing or simply bones, Jon would be the Lord of Winterfell.  

There was a part of Jon, he had told Satin, that wanted it. He had wanted it when King Stannis had offered it to him too – Winterfell, the Stark name, even Val to wife. A temptation, Jon had told him that night, but one he refused because of the Wall and Arya. Now, there were neither but no King Stannis to legitimize him and make it true. 

“It is my lord father they love.” He told Satin. “Not me.” The words were spoken plainly and without bitterness, just as a simple truth.  

Satin had sat with him by the fire once he had finished massaging his leg and listened. “Everything I have ever heard about Lord Eddard Stark,” he began. “says he was a good man, an honorable man. That he did his duty no matter the personal cost. That he lived and died doing what was right, not what was easy. That he inspired loyalty in all sorts of people high and low. Of course they loved him.” 

“He was all those things. And kind too, beneath the ice.” Jon sighed. “They love him still, even now. It’s him they rallied for. I need to be... as much like him as I can be. But I’m a Snow, not a Stark. At the Wall, a bastard could rise to Lord Commander. But in Winterfell? It can be only bloodlines, rights, and legacies. And I’ve only got half a bloodline and no right to any of it.” 

Satin leaned across the chair to give his arm a squeeze “Every word I just said, Jon, describes you as much as it described him. You are your father’s son. I see it. They see it. Bastard or not, they chose you to lead them. Eddard Stark was a good man and so are you.”  

Jon had made a face at that, casting his gaze to the floor in a way Satin would almost call bashful if it was anyone other than Jon Snow. He did not take praise well, Satin knew. It made him uncomfortable and hesitant like he feared he would lose his footing, like he was unsure whether to argue or give thanks. “No need to butter me up.” 

“I’m not.” He assured him with a smile. “Can’t a man speak plainly without being accused of flattery?” The words brought a small smile to Jon’s lips and a faint sound of amusement. After a moment’s grumbling, he begrudgingly accepted the praise, compliment or not, as it was.  

Slowly but surely, Jon was settling into his role as Lord of Winterfell. His time in command of the Night’s Watch had prepared him well, and his time leading the march south even more so. Satin served as his steward, unofficial as he was. The days since the castle was returned to its rightful hands had been busy, endless and exhausting. The blood had been scrubbed from the cobbles, the dead counted and burned upon their pyres, and the castle regarrisoned and reorganized. Tomorrow would be another busy day, and Satin would spend it running behind Jon until his feet ached and learning the castle like it was his own.  

It wasn’t his own, of course. It was Jon’s and Satin was, by rights, a man of the Night’s Watch. He had taken vows before a weirwood. It shall not end until my death, he had sworn, I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come. Yet now he spent his nights lounged in the plush feather bed belonging to the Lord of Winterfell, leagues away from the post at which he had promised to live and die. Satin had been forced to take the Black. The Black or hanging, it had been, and he had chosen the Wall with little other choice. The vows were sworn at the threat of the noose, but they were sworn all the same. 

“What comes next?” Satin asked into the quiet nearly a week after they had reclaimed Jon’s home. 

They had drawn the canopy curtains closed around the bed. It kept out the worst of the chill, dimmed the firelight at the hearth, and left them in warmth and shadow. Winterfell was quiet. Any sounds that would have reached their ears, the guards on the walls, the squawking of the ravens in the rookery, servants passing in the halls, all were muffled by the thick canopy wrapped around them. The world was gone. All that remained was the downy feather bed, thick heavy furs, and Jon breathing evenly beside him. Their talk had long since faded out into a comfortable silence as they laid on their sides nose to nose. 

“Mm?” Jon sounded and peaked an eye open, rousing from his half-asleep state. “Oh, tomorrow. Meetings, mostly. The council says we should prepare a proper feast once things have settled. To mark a fortnight from Winterfell’s liberation. So, I assume we’ll be planning that as well. Coin is tight after everything, wars and the upcoming winter, but morale is important too. The men need to celebrate.”  

“I hear many of the Black Brothers are heading back north after the feast.” 

“Aye, likely.” 

Satin sighed. “And what of me, Jon?” 

“You?”  

“I was allowed to leave my post to help you retake Winterfell. We took it.” 

He watched Jon’s jaw tighten and his brows pull into something akin to a scowl, the last of his drowsiness seemingly leaving him all at once. Jon’s lips pursed in that way they always did when he was deep in thought. Perhaps it is only occurring to him now, Satin thought, that his watch may have ended but mine did not.  

“Well.” He started after a moment. “You and our Brothers were allowed to ride with me to take the North back from the Boltons. They may be dead, but there is still much left to do. The... Dreadfort still needs taking; there are many important prisoners held there. And the Twins too. The Freys killed my brother and allied with the Boltons. No doubt they will be a continued threat against the safety of the North. The Lannisters, as well, will likely take issue with me holding Winterfell. They may even send troops North, if they are not too entangled in their own current issues. I am still very much in need of a steward. And of a squire. You will not be a deserter if you remain in Winterfell a little longer to see things through.”  

All perfectly reasonable arguments, Satin supposed, but none of them the truth. He heard the underlying request beneath Jon’s words as clear as day. Stay with me. He would, of course, as long as he could. And beyond, if Jon allowed him.  

“Well…” His soft drowsy smile widened to something almost sly and playful as he released a mock sigh. “When you put it like that, I suppose it would be rather tedious for you to find a whole new steward and a new squire.”  

Jon huffed. “One might even call it troublesome.” 

“Or far too much work, perhaps? For a lord as tired and weary as you?” 

“Far too much.” His face was serious, but his eyes glinted with amusement. 

“How cruel it would be for me to put such a weight on your shoulders.” Satin grinned. “So long as my head stays on my own shoulders, of course… It is the Lord of Winterfell who tries Black Brothers for desertion, is it not?”  

“Aye. But I have it on good authority the Lord of Winterfell shall not find you guilty of desertion.”  

“Oh? Whose?” 

“His. Mine.”  

Satin swallowed a laugh and made a show of considering his options before settling on a decision with a click of his tongue. “I suppose I’ll just have to stick around then.” 

“That sounds like an... adequate solution to me.” 

Satin gasped, bringing a hand to his chest as if he were aghast and affronted. “Adequate? How dare you?” 

“Decent, then.” 

“Decent?"

“Good?” Jon offered again. 

“Getting there but not quite.” 

“Great?” 

“Mm... Almost.” 

“Perfect?” 

“Oh ho ho. ‘Perfect.’ Yes, that’ll do.” 

Jon’s well maintained straight face finally cracked, and then they were giggling like children. “Quit making me laugh.” Jon chided and tried in vain to school his face but his eyes still danced. “This is serious. Having a competent steward is no laughing matter. Hey, no, don’t make that face at me.” 

“What face, hm?” 

“That one.” Jon insisted and fixed him with a glare that had no heart at all. “The big eyes.” 

“Those are just my eyes, Jon.”  

“Well quit it.” He grumbled.  

Satin snickered and pushed Jon’s shoulder to roll him onto his back so he could lay his head on his chest. He felt Jon’s arm sling loosely about his waist in return. The weight was grounding, comforting, and Satin couldn’t help but bask in it as their giggles faded out into comfortable quiet. Maybe Jon could not say it aloud yet, could not reach out and take what he wanted yet, but he could hold Satin close just because he wanted it and that was more than enough to make Satin happy. 

Their first proper night in Winterfell, Satin had stood by the hearth picking at his fingernails. The room had a small set of servant’s quarters attached and Satin had claimed them as his own. It had a bed and a hearth, all that he needed in truth, but the thought of using it was repellent. He had not slept apart from Jon in months, not while marching to war nor through mutiny and death and resurrection. He certainly didn’t wish to start now. But with all that had happened and almost happened between them, all that had been said and almost said, he had not been sure if he would be welcomed. Jon was a creature of shame and guilt, he knew, and despite the forgiveness Satin had offered him so freely he knew it weighed heavily on Jon. 

May I? he had asked as he put a knee on the edge of the bed, and Jon had nodded. May I? he had asked when he inched closer long after their words had faded away, and Jon had nodded. May I? he had asked as he placed his hand on Jon’s shoulder and his head on his chest, and Jon had nodded. 

Is this okay? Jon had whispered when he let his arm come to rest across Satin’s waist as it always did when they woke in the mornings, and Satin had nodded. They stopped needing to ask after the third night.  

It was a new intimacy Jon allotted them, to hold and be held while awake. There was a spot on Satin’s back - small, constrained to just the shoulder blades and nape – that Jon had seemingly decided was the only place he was allowed to touch. Sometimes, he would press the flat of his palm there firmly and let the pressure simply hold Satin to him like an anchor, only moving up and down in tandem with every breath Satin drew. Sometimes, Jon would let his fingers trail along the allotted expanse instead. They would learn the lines and angles of him with soft, feather-light touches as he explored that tiny little area of skin he allowed himself. Satin could not have said which he preferred at sword-point. 

Satin had long since come to learn that Jon was a man of strange and ever-shifting boundary lines. First, they could share a bed each night for over half a year but only for warmth and never touching. Then they could share a bed for comfort but only in silence. And finally, they could share a bed simply to share it and press together even in the waking hours. They could cuddle, for there was truly no other word for it in Satin’s mind, but they could not kiss. Surely, he thought to himself sometimes, that so much of what was between them was more intimate than a kiss.  But perhaps those intimacies, grown and morphed over time from something reasonably explicable as proper into what they were now were cumulatively less insurmountable than the blatant untouchable line set by the act of a kiss. It was something that couldn’t be pulled back from or explained away as anything other than what it was. Satin considered their position now, wrapped in each other and hidden from the world by thick woolen curtains as they drew slow even breaths, and knew this could not be explained away either. But if Jon needed to believe it could still, Satin would not tell him otherwise.  

Satin did not have a word for what stood between them, what they were, anymore. Lovers, a part of him supplied. But they had never kissed and never made love and never whispered sweet declarations to one another in the dark so surely it could not be said they were lovers. Friends, he would think too. He hoped they were, thought they were, but it was not all they were. Servant and lord. Certainly that was so but that, too, could not encompass the vastness of what lay between them. They were a strange in-between, an amalgamation of somethings. It was odd, frustrating at times, but sweeter than any summer fruit he’d ever tasted in Oldtown. 

He rested his head on Jon’s chest and slept easily. There would be work and duties come morning, where he must wear the mantle of Steward and Jon the title of Lord of Winterfell, but that could be left for tomorrow. Tonight, he dreamt of summer, of the breeze rolling in from the Sunset Sea, and of Jon lounging back on a pile of heavily embroidered beaded pillows with a relaxed smile dancing across his face and a goblet of arbor red in his hand.  

_____________

Satin leaned over the edge of the balustrade, peering down into the courtyard. Some men-at-arms meandered through, resting their hands on their sword hilts and chatting about the day. Maids and manservants bustled across with hands piled high with whatever task they were completing. His eyes scanned the area. No Jon. He took the stairs down and crossed to the next yard. No Jon there either. He was not in the council room, his chambers, the armory, or the barracks. He had not seen him since a meeting with the Manderlys a few hours ago. Satin had been sent to retrieve a report from some scouts who had returned to the castle at dawn, and when he had returned to the council chambers, Jon had been gone. Satin pursed his lips and asked a passing serving girl if she had seen him, but he received only a shake of her head.  

He crossed a section of the Great Keep and came out onto a balcony overlooking another courtyard. The men trained here sometimes, and Jon would occasionally watch and offer advice. Satin saw a few young boys trading blows with wooden swords below, but the Lord of Winterfell was not here either.  

“My lord.” A soft voice called from behind him. Satin did not think to glance over his shoulder at it as it was not his business until it came again, closer this time and more insistent. “I beg your pardon, my lord.”  

He found Jeyne Poole behind him, standing in the archway leading to the balcony. Her hands were clasped neatly in front of her. Gone was the rather unflattering flesh-pink and brown gown she had worn when he had first met her. It had been replaced with a grey and blue dress trimmed in silver, with long bell-sleeves and an embroidered front covered in swirls like flowing water. Her acorn brown hair was neatly braided out of her face and down her back with not a strand out of place. Prim and neat and sightly, Satin would have thought, if not for her eyes. Bags clung beneath them, dark and purpling like a bruise, and there was something hollow to her dark-eyed gaze even as she smiled prettily and softly. He noticed a hint of make up too, in a tone similar to her complexion and a blusher as well to cover the worst of a lingering bruise on her cheek from either Ramsay or one of his cronies. She masked it well and clearly knew how to blend the paint into her skin to make it look as natural as she could, a process Satin and his pillowhouse sisters had known all too well in Oldtown. Lady Jeyne curtsied at him, and he realized – perhaps delayed – that it was he she was addressing.  

He turned and bowed at once. “My lady.” 

“I realized I had not yet thanked you, my lord.” She began. “For all you did during the battle. I owe you my life and have been remiss in telling you so.” Her words were perfect but there was something about her tone that struck him as rehearsed like a mummer in a play, like a girl playing a woman’s role. Poor thing, he thought, poor child.  

Satin shook his head. “I am no lord, my lady, only Lord Snow’s steward. A Southron boy who took the Black. I am just Satin, if it please.” He paused and searched himself for the niceties he knew he ought to use. “I am grateful for your thanks and honored to receive them. I did only my duty.”  

“Satin, then.” She nodded and bowed her head to him. “Still, duty or not, you were kind when you did not have to be. I appreciate it.”  

“Thank you, Lady Poole.”  

She joined him at the balcony, looking down at the yard below and the boys running their drills. Her face was the picture of pleasantness, but her eyes were still distant. He remembered unbidden her sobbing and begging and wretchedly clinging to his arm then to Theon’s body and then to Jon’s chest. She had looked a scared little girl then, unguarded and raw. He had a feeling she was still that scared little girl but that she hid it better now.  

“You are Lord Snow’s steward, did you say?”  

“Yes, my lady.” 

“Oh.” She fiddled with the balustrade, brushing her fingers through the gently piling snow. “My father was Lord Stark’s steward once. House Poole has served as stewards of Winterfell for hundreds of years.” 

Satin suppressed a grimace. “I was his steward when he was Lord Commander of the Watch, and I followed him here to offer what help I could. It is not my intention to step upon any toes or overreach. Only to serve as his lordship finds useful.” 

Jeyne shook her head, lips twitching for just a moment before her smile returned. “I did not mean it as a reproach. My mother died when I was a babe and my father fell in King’s Landing. He had no son. There are no toes for you to step on. There is no one left of House Poole but me. And no one left to serve as steward.” 

“I’m sorry, my lady.” Satin did not know what else to say so said nothing. 

“I’m not sure what happens now. I’ve no father, no uncles, no close male relatives, and my husband is dead.” 

The word husband was spoken with a quiet venom that she could not mask, though Satin could hear her trying. She had told him enough of what her ‘husband’ did to her when she had sobbed her confession to him beneath the cacophony of battle to know without doubt that he had earned every ounce of hatred she had to offer him. Steel had sung and the sounds of men screaming and dying had been thunderous all throughout the castle, but somehow one girl’s weeping had deafened him to all of it and he had listened to every terrible word she had said as if it was the only thing he’d ever been able to hear. Ramsay Bolton had been a vile, wicked man. The rest did not warrant thinking of. Satin well knew the cruelty some sorts of men were capable of. Ramsay, it seemed, had been the worst of them.  

“It was my understanding,” Satin began cautiously. “that Lord Snow had your marriage annulled, as it was performed illegally and under false pretenses. You are not Lady Bolton, but Lady Poole.” That had not seemed to matter to much of Winterfell. Satin had noticed the men giving her a wide breadth, whispering as she walked the corridors. All of Jon’s host, not just Jon, had expected her, wanted her, to be Arya. She wasn’t Arya and that very fact felt to many like a betrayal. She was only a liar who had wed a traitor and for that they looked at her with little but suspicion. Jon had annulled her marriage to offer what help he could, but it had done little. The people of Winterfell, servant and noble alike, were wary of Jeyne Poole. It tugged at Satin’s heart to see it. “I cannot say what will happen but I’m certain his lordship will see you taken care of, my lady.” 

“You are good to say so.” She parroted, with the perfect inflection and just the right amount of a smile. In that moment, something about her was eerily familiar. A look in her eyes, perhaps? Distance, he’d say, as though she was anywhere else even while she smiled and spoke with perfect curtesy. Or mayhaps it was that her smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Or how the words she spoke sounded more like lines read from a script than spoken from her heart. Whatever it was that struck him, whatever it was that was so jarringly familiar, he could not quite place it. She curtsied to him once more. “I shall leave you now, steward. I came only to thank you. Good day.”  

Satin bowed and watched her go, catching in a tiny moment’s falter the hint of a limp remaining from her injuries. Poor thing, he thought to himself as she disappeared into a corridor, poor familiar thing.  

Satin put her from his mind and continued his search for Jon. In a small inner yard empty of anyone, he eventually caught sight of Ghost. The direwolf was sitting on his haunches before a heavy ironwood door, eyes up and alert. The beast’s nose twitched as he caught Satin’s scent, and his head turned to see him. Ghost remained stoic, guarding the door like he must have been commanded, but his right ear twitched in a way he recognized as excitement. Satin crossed to him and gave him a scratch under the chin.  

“Is your master in there, sweetness?” 

Ghost looked around as if to check the coast was clear before leaning into the hand and nuzzling it. It was such a human action, to make sure no one saw him accept affection or let just anyone see him drop the image he wore of the scary beast, that it made Satin chuckle to himself. He threaded his fingers through the thick coarse fur for a few moments. Ghost was happy to be home, Satin thought. He had spent much of his days wandering the castle, sniffing it and learning it again. He must have been just a pup when he left. Now, he was a massive beast worthy of being the emblem of House Stark. Ghost’s red eyes glanced back towards the door, looked back at Satin, and then again towards the door.  

“Did he tell you to keep others out?” Ghost pressed his nose to Satin’s ribs. “Yes? But will you let me in anyway?” The slight wrinkle of his snout told Satin he would. “Has he been in there long?” Another press to the ribs. “I’ll check on him.” 

Ghost moved to let him pass and retook his place as Satin closed the door behind him. He had entered into a long cobblestone hallway he’d never been in before, bereft of windows and lit only with two torches. After a few paces, the hallway began to slope down before turning into steps carved into the grey stone of the earth. He followed them down into the dark. With each step further down, he could feel the chill worsening into that kind that settled deep into the bones. He shivered and pulled his cloak tighter around him, the air steaming up before him with each breath. 

The stairway opened up into a long dark twisting hall, lined on each side with large sepulchers and granite caskets. Urns and sculpted statues of tall hearty Northmen stood proudly before them, cast in stone to stand vigil for eternity. Some sat on thrones of pale stone, direwolves at their sides, swords in their laps. The darkness swarmed around him and only the faint burning of a torch from around the corner caught Satin’s eye, blanketing the dead in only the faintest of orange light and flickering shadows. Satin followed the glow through the crypts, passing King, Lord, and Lady alike, all of Jon’s lineage laid out before him. Their empty stone eyes seemed to follow him, and he wasn’t sure if he was shivering from the cold or their watchful gaze.  

Around the corner, he found Jon. He was stood beneath a statue of a proud man, hand on his blade, and staring down with solemn empty eyes. There almost seemed a strange haze around Jon, the flickering firelight from the torch sconce pairing oddly with the blazing heat that radiated from him as though he himself was steaming ever so slightly in the bitter cold of the crypts. The statue he stood before was of a tall broad-shouldered man, with a long serious face and thin stern mouth. His brow line was heavy, and his chin was solid and square. Satin did not need to squint in the darkness to see the engraved nameplate to know who this was.  

The echoing of the heel of Satin’s boots brought Jon’s attention. His long serious face and solemn eyes, much like those belonging to the statue before him, turned to face Satin.  

“Forgive me, my lord, for disturbing you.” Satin bowed his head. They were alone but calling him Jon before his father and his father’s father and all his forebears before him felt wrong.  

Jon shook his head at the apology before glancing beyond him, back towards the stairs that led out with a slight furrow to his brow. 

“Ghost is still at his post.” Satin assured. “I think he was worried you had been down here too long.” Perhaps he feared you lost again, he thought, standing empty and still as a dead man amongst countless other dead men. Perhaps the idea unnerved him. Satin glanced at the torch so Jon could follow his meaning.   

He sighed and shook his head, lips twisting up in the barest hint of a tired smile. “My own direwolf sending you down here to check on me... I haven’t lost any time today, or yesterday for that matter. The flames don’t grab me like they used to.” 

“I know. But he worries.” 

“My wolf worrying about me; that’s a strange concept.” He paused, looking back at Satin. “You were looking for me?”  

“Only worried about you.” Satin said simply and Jon huffed at that. 

He turned to look once more upon his father and was silent. After a moment passed in the quiet chill of the crypt, Jon motioned for Satin to join him. He took his place at Jon’s side, staring up at the visage of Eddard Stark. It was a fine piece of craftsmanship, that was for certain, so lifelike it looked like it could almost start to breathe. He pictured it with color, adding Jon’s chestnut brown to the chin length hair wrought from granite, that dark Northern complexion to its skin, and stormy grey to its eyes. He could almost be Jon, if Satin added twenty or so years. Not quite, but almost. 

“My brother Robb had this commissioned when our father’s bones finally came back North.” Jon said, eyes roaming over the statue. “But he never got to see it finished. Robb’s bones were never sent home, but I suppose I ought to have one made for him too. It’s not tradition to sculpt children but Bran and Rickon should also have one, no? Bran was Lord of Winterfell for a time. They should all have one.” 

The melancholy in his voice made Satin’s heart ache. “It would honor them well.” He finally said. He looked again at the stone man before him. “How is it? The likeness, I mean.” 

Jon considered his father for a long moment. “It’s not bad. It’s him, clearly him.” Jon said. “But the eyes are a bit too round and the brow not heavy enough. The chin is perfect. It’s well done. The mason must have known him.” 

Satin imagined this granite lord with smaller eyes and a heavier brow. “He looks somber. Serious, too. Strong. He looks just like you.” Jon’s eyes cut to him, widened with surprise. “Except for that chin.” 

He brought his hand to his chin as if to consider it for the first time. “Oh?” 

 “Yours is... softer, less square than that. More like—” He glanced to the statue beside Lord Eddard and pointed. “More like hers, whoever she once was.” 

Jon crossed to the second figure, and Satin followed. It was that of a woman, short and soft featured. She had the long face of a Stark with a prominent nose and doe-like drooping eyes. Her chin was soft, long and rounded, and nearly identical to Jon’s. Her dress, carved expertly from granite, was trimmed with stone roses. She was a beauty; there could be no doubt of that. 

“That’s my aunt Lyanna.” Jon told him.  

“Lyanna.” Satin repeated back. “Why do I know that name?”  

“Lady Mormont, maybe?” 

“No, I mean Lyanna Stark. I know that name.” 

“She was kidnapped by Rhaegar Targaryen, and stolen south.” 

The stories rushed back to him – ones he heard in childhood after the war had ended, of the wolf and the dragon and the stag. The common folk of Oldtown had spoken of it as little more than juicy gossip, of some torrid love affair that brought down the whole house of the dragon. The gallant prince and his lady love, some versions said while others spoke of a terrified little girl and a man nearly a decade her senior who already had a wife who stole her body, mind, and life. It had been an amusement to him then, a faraway curiosity that didn’t matter in his little corner of the world. It didn’t feel amusing now, to look upon her face; dead and cold, and made of stone.  

“He named her the Queen of Love and Beauty.” Satin recalled. “And she died for it.” 

“Aye.” Jon answered. “My father marched to war for her. He came back with a bastard son and no sister. He lost his whole family there. Father and brother burned. Sister dead. My father used to come down here a lot, to pay his respects. He’d bring me sometimes, take me up in his arms and show her to me and tell me about her. He’d give me roses to bring her. The blue ones that she loved.” 

“Perhaps we should bring her one, sometime.” 

“Aye...” Jon said, and was lost in thought for a long lingering moment. “When I was a boy, I used to dream about being Lord of Winterfell. As if I wasn’t a bastard, as if they’d realize there had been some mistake and I was actually his trueborn son somehow. They were childish thoughts, of course. In those dreams I was Lord of Winterfell and Robb was right at my side, father too. I didn’t understand then. To be Lord of Winterfell, everyone I loved would have to die. And now here I am. And they're gone.” 

 A family for a lordship was not a worthy trade and never would be, not to a man like Jon. Satin wanted to reach out and take his hand, to offer him some sort of comfort – offering, always offering – and almost did. But the eyes of Eddard Stark stared down at them, cold and empty and watching, and it felt so very wrong to touch him in front of his father. They were at once alone and surrounded, unseen and witnessed, and he found he could not bring himself to cross that barrier. Instead, he gave Jon a soft smile.

“I’m sorry they’re gone, my lord.” 

Jon’s brow furrowed again, a curious look cutting through the gloom on his face. “Jon.” He corrected.  

“Jon.” He echoed, and the word did too through the cavernous underground tunnels that made up the sprawling crypt. He watched his breath fog up before him in the silence that settled around them.  

“Satin.” Jon started after a long moment had passed as he stared up at the likeness of his father. “Why did you... my rooms. Why did you pick that one? There were so many others but you took me there, passed a dozen rooms at least. Why?”  

Satin blinked in confusion. “I didn’t. It wasn’t me who chose it, I mean. I asked a maid to pick a room fit for you and tell me which one. I know some of the Keep is in disrepair. I figured she chose that one because it was in good condition. Why do you ask?”  

“It was his room.”  

Satin’s eyes fell on Eddard Stark again, and a hundred small understandings fell into place. “Oh.” He chewed his bottom lip. Our bed was his bed. His bath, his clothes, his everything. “We can find you another room.” 

Jon shook his head. “It’s the Lord of Winterfell’s chamber, and they made me Lord of Winterfell. It is where the stewards would have put me, in the end.” He fell quiet again for a moment. “He used to read to us there, me and Robb when we were little. Laying on the bed, me on one side and Robb on the other in the crooks of his arms. I’d fall asleep there sometimes, and I’d wake up come morning in my chambers again knowing he’d carried me there. He never called for servants for that sort of thing; he always did it himself.” 

“Jon...” Satin whispered, and didn’t know what else to say. His hand twitched forward to reach for him but he stopped himself.  

“It’s getting late, isn’t it? It must be nearly supper.” He turned to Satin and offered a small smile.  

Jon said goodbye to his father’s statue with a frown, an incline of his head, and a hand over his heart, then bid Satin follow him. Satin lingered a moment longer, sparing another glance at the man who made Jon Snow who he was. He bowed deeply to the statue, rose, and turned to the right. He bowed to the statue of Lyanna too. A father and an aunt, two ghosts that haunted Jon his whole life long. The father who raised him and the woman whose tragedy had allowed him to be born at all. Eddard Stark had only met Jon’s mother because he went south to save his sister. Without her, there would be no Jon at all. Satin did not wish to think of such a thing. He rose and followed after his lord as he always did, seeing Jon catch the bow with a small almost fond smile.  

“I was thinking.” Jon said as he motioned for Satin to climb the steps ahead of him. “How would you feel about being named Steward to the Lord of Winterfell officially?” 

Satin paused on the stairs and turned to look back down at him. “Jon...” He said with a tone that was almost chastising. “I’m no lord with ancestral rights to that station. I’m a whore’s son, a former whore myself, and no northman at all. The council may not like it, will not like it. I doubt they’ve liked all I have done so far, unofficial as it is. The men may whisper.”  

“I well know all those things, Satin. I asked if you wanted it.” 

“You would honor me so?” 

“I would.”  

Satin smiled softly as warmth filled his chest. The statues and sculptures of dead kings and lords, and of forebears long past were just around the corner but out of sight. Their empty stone eyes could not see them. Satin reached a hand out to rest it upon Jon’s arm and squeezed it softly.  

“Officially, unofficially, I care not.” As long as I’m at your side, he thought. “As long as I get to keep being your steward, I am happy.” 

Jon smiled and rested his hand atop Satin’s for the breath of a moment before dropping it back to his side. “Come then, I shall have the paperwork drawn up.” 

_____________

“Jon?” Satin called inquisitively as he poked his head through the door from his attached quarters and into their main room. “What’s this?” 

Jon glanced up from his chair by the fire, a writing desk over his lap as he finished penning some letters for the evening. He flicked the feather quill absentmindedly with a finger. “What’s what?” 

“This.” Satin held up the heavy leather pouch in his hand.  

“A bag, looks like.” 

“Oh, ha ha. Yes, thank you.” Satin pulled on the drawstring to make sure his mind hadn’t played tricks on him, and sure enough he saw the glittering stash within. He shook the bag so Jon could hear the coins clink and clatter. “There’s a bunch of gold dragons and silver stags in here. I’m not sure why it was on my desk?”  

“Oh that. It’s yours.” 

Satin cocked his head to the side. “Whatever for?” 

It was Jon’s turn to look confused. “It’s your... pay?”  

He blinked down at the bag. “What?” 

Jon laughed. “We aren’t at the Wall anymore. Satin, you are the personal steward to the Lord of Winterfell. That is a job with a lot of responsibility and a lot of work. You are providing a service, an essential one at that. Of course you’re getting paid.” 

Payment had not even occurred to Satin. Why would it? What need had he for it? He paid no dues to a pillowhouse bawd anymore. He paid no rent despite the personal room he technically had and the large lordly chambers he shared with Jon. He’d never been asked to pay for a meal or drink since arriving here. He’d even found clothes, simple but well-made black winter garments, hanging in his wardrobe a few days ago. And when he was inevitably forced to return to the Wall once they could delay it no longer, what good would coin do him then?  

When Jon had made him his steward officially a few days before, payment hadn’t crossed his mind for even a moment. Some of the council members had seemed disquieted by his appointment. One had even spoken up that perhaps a different position might be “better suited to someone of Satin’s... station” and Satin had heard the unspoken meaning under his words as clear as day. Jon had too, and in response he had only smiled tightly and informed him that the appointment had already been made. It would not be up for debate. Jon rarely smiled at meetings and that itself seemed to have been enough to quiet any further argument.  

Jon had assigned him a tutor that evening, to sharpen his literacy skills and arithmetic. He had been versed enough in both for helping Jon at the Wall but more advanced skill would be needed for Winterfell. So, he had begun lessons each afternoon. The position of Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch’s steward and the Lord of Winterfell’s steward were different enough to warrant some new training so had accepted it gratefully.  

There were new duties to learn but also duties that were suddenly no longer his at all. At the Wall, the Lord Commander didn’t have a large household staff tending to his quarters and needs. The Lord of Winterfell did. Butlers and manservants and maids and laundresses and more still. There were hosts of other servants to do things that were no longer supposed to be Satin’s jobs. Satin did them anyway. When a manservant had spoken to him in the hallway saying he was to be the one to dress Lord Snow, Satin had sent him away. That was his job. When a maid had said it was to be her duty to keep the fires lit and burning in Jon’s chambers day and night, Satin had sent her away too. To serve his meals, pour his wine, saddle his horse, those duties were all supposed to go to someone else. By Satin’s newfound station, they were technically beneath him but there was no way in any of the seven Hells that anyone but him would be doing them. If Jon had noticed the steady diminishing of the inner-household staff, he hadn’t said anything.  

Satin looked again at the coins in the leather pouch. At least two hundred silver stags, some copper stars, and even a handful of gold dragons too were within. It was more raw coin than he’d ever had in his hands at once before. More than he’d ever made in his life combined. If the year was good, Satin made a combined dragon and a bit back in Oldtown. If the year was good. If, if, if. This was far too much.  

“All this?” 

Jon placed his writing desk aside and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Technically, that is only a margin over half of what you should be paid as a lord’s steward. After the wars and with winter coming, the treasury is tighter than we would like it to be. It was a compromise. But when summer comes and things settle, you’ll get your full pay. And remittance for what you’ll miss before then.” 

“Backpay?” 

“Aye.” 

Satin laughed incredulously. “Jon, holy gods, this is so much money!” 

“It’s really not, not in the grand scheme of things.”  

“Well, I’m not exactly a grand-scheme-of-things person, Jon!” Satin stared wide eyed at the hoard of coins again. “I’m a Southron commoner who grew up in a brothel for Seven’s sake. This is more money than I’ve ever made in my life, more than my mother ever made too, and probably every single whore at the pillowhouse combined. I can’t accept this. It’s— It’s far too much.”  

“You have more than earned it.” Jon said simply. “To speak plainly, you are a fantastic steward. I barely even know I need something before I find you’ve either already done it or have it in progress. I would not have made it here without you.” 

Satin scoffed. “Come now, that’s not true.” 

“It is. Ramsay would have killed me. No— don't argue with me. It’s the truth of it. And you keep me... tethered, anchored. Let me— let me reward you. Accept it.” 

Satin wasn’t sure if he should laugh or cry or slide into Jon’s lap in his chair and kiss him senseless. Eventually, his mind seemed to settle on laughing, so that was what he did. It bubbled out of him like a pot forgotten on a roaring stove. “Gods, Jon, what in the world was I ever doing being a whore? I mean, obviously the first time I ever needed coin I should have immediately made my way to the Wall, stumbled blindly into becoming the steward of the man who stumbled blindly into becoming the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, and then, through a series of highly improbable and quite honestly fantastical events, that man becomes the Lord of Winterfell and decides beyond all reason to not only keep me around but make me his personal steward in his castle where he pays me an exorbitant amount of money. That clearly should have been my career path right from the start!”  

Jon threw his head back and laughed. Satin tossed the coin purse carelessly onto his desk to come join him by the fire. Jon had had a second chair brought in for him and Satin took his place in it.  

A boy who had been a whore in Oldtown had no right to any of this, no bloodline or legacy to point at to say he deserved this, but Jon had given it to him anyway. Coin, a place at his side, a place in his heart however ambiguous and unspoken that place may be, all of it Jon gave him so freely. He smiled widely as he watched Jon laugh. The world had been heavy these past few weeks. Death and war and winter coming, all of it weighed so indescribably heavily. But Satin did not feel so burdened tonight. He had a feeling Jon did not either.