A Brother's Grief
First Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC
Jon Snow looks small, pale and downcast. Most of all, even standing next to Dany with their hands almost touching, he looks alone. He looks like he wants to explain something to his uncle, his father in all but name, to soften the blow of finding that Robb is not only dead but soul-lost beyond the gaze of gods. There is nothing he can say, there isn't even anything you can say with all your skill and all your knowledge. The best you do is to say what will not happen. Raising the body that once held Robb Stark will not bring him back, but something else, something that may walk and talk as he did, that may know the things he knew, but whose allegiance would be bound to the Void beyond the Farthest North so long as it keeps his soul.
Catelyn Stark is crying as you burn the body, in haste and without ceremony before the Others can make use of it. Even the most exacting of training will not mask grief this deep. As for Lord Stark, he is trying to be stoic behind a mask of ice, perhaps for the presence of strangers, perhaps because he thinks he cannot afford to let himself feel.
Part of you wishes you could tell him not to bother with the charade. You can see the tremble in his hand and hear the minute pauses in his words, but even if you were deaf and blind to all of that, you would know it's mummery for the way he tried to comfort the boy who is not his son by birth. The most you could do is conjure fire hot enough to burn the small miserable bundle in an instant, leaving not even a trace of ash, as you listen to their words:
"I was supposed to protect him... I promised... I promised...."
"You faced his murderer as soon as you heard, running towards peril and not away. You held that door against a foe fouler than anything Winterfell has faced in many long years. Robb would be proud of you...."
"
Is proud of me then," Jon interrupted, voice breaking between anger and sorrow. "His soul isn't gone, it's just hidden and what's hidden can be found again." Standing there in the Godswood of Winterfell beside the foster father he so resembles in face and temperament, Jon Snow had never sounded more like a Targaryen, an heir to Powers that had cast back the hosts of the Bloodstone Emperor, of slave-children who had rebelled against them in turn. He turns to Dany in a flash. "It's a rule of magic, tell them!"
You open your mouth to speak, but your sister answers first. "It's called the Law of Imperfection, and no you can't make a flawless veil, but Jon, it would be harder than you can imagine..." she cuts herself off with a sigh. "Just think of what Robb would want for you. Don't break yourself against this,
please?"
The boy mutely shakes his head, unwilling to lie, unable to reassure her.
That is not a conversation you will be hearing the end of today, you know for certain, but for the moment at least it can be set aside. There is still the matter of Winterfel's protections and Jon's safety in the moment, Lyanna's existence, not to mention the matter of Robert's 'heirs' and Eddard's pledge.
Your mother is leading Lady Stark away, you notice, and Rina is speaking in whispered voices with Maester Luwin, trying to learn more about the wards, but it is clear Luwin and the newly arrived Halys will be staying for any conversation.
What do you speak of next?
[] Jon's protection
[] Robert's 'heirs' and the Lannisters
[] Lyanna
[] Write in
OOC: I was tempted to make this and interlude from Jon's PoV, but I feel that is best kept for later when it is in a less chaotic headspace. Not yet edited.
