At dawn, silence embraced Winterfell.
Jon walked the great hall. Embers still flickered in the fireplace, and horns greased with mead laid strewn across the tables, reminding him that the night’s events did unfold. Soldiers did cry. Ladies did cheer. It was not his imagination - the war for the North was won.
Yet, as the hall now stretched before him devoid of people, the emptiness between the cold stone walls seemed to grab him tighter than winter itself managed. This did not feel like a place for a feast, he thought, rather a mausoleum.
War kills men, that was no secret. Jon grew up with tales of conquerors, and no one conquers without bloodshed, that he knew. But this had not been a battle. It had been a slaughter. Worse, he thought, as he fixed his gaze on the oak doors ahead of him, his pace quickening. Worse, he never even knew the names of most who fell in the field. They were strangers, fighting on strange lands for strange families whose banners meant nothing to them.
The quicker he walked, the more he felt the walls close in on him. As if invisible hands stretched from them, the spirits of those left behind, their fingers closing tightly around his throat and hands and ankles, dragging him backwards. Demanding a feast of their own.
Then, sunlight - Jon pushed the doors open and stepped outside. The bright light blinded him and he closed his eyes to the breeze, the cold on his cheeks. As he breathed in, his head seemed to clear, and he finally allowed a faint smile at the brightening sky.
“I gather you couldn’t sleep either,” Daenerys spoke.
Jon lowered his gaze to find her standing in the courtyard. “Your Grace,” he greeted, which earned him a slight smile. “I didn’t expect to find anyone awake at this hour.”
“Do you not rise with the sun in the North?” she asked.
“Forgive me, I cannot tell if you mean to tease.”
“Perhaps that’s exactly how I wanted it,” Daenerys replied.
Dressed in black, she perfectly contrasted the snow. Her silver hair framed her pale face, cascading in braids down across her shoulders, leading his gaze to the slight glimmer in between her locks. As he joined her side, his eyes narrowed, trying to pinpoint the source of the sparkle, until Daenerys silently held up a lock for him to inspect.
There, a silver bell nested.
“Dothraki custom,” she explained. “A bell for a victory.”
“It suits you,” he said, feeling dumb the moment the words left his lips, but she smiled gracefully.
“I know to most I am some foreigner bringing chaos, but I know my past, and I respect tradition.”
“Some may say your tradition is the exact chaos they fear,” Jon spoke as they started to walk the courtyard. Their steps were slow, he noted. Almost as if time no longer existed. There was no hurry.
“Tell me, my Lord, should a Northern man find himself in Vaes Dothrak, would you call it chaos if he asked to keep his blade? Tradition to one is a source of humour to another. But to liken it with chaos? That’s deceptive.” Daenerys let her lock fall, the silver bell once again disappearing to nothing but a glimmer in the morning light.
Like a star, Jon thought, caught up in her hair, unable to disappear in the sky.
“You could not sleep,” Daenerys returned to her earlier question.
Jon watched his hands. He had left his gloves inside, so he could feel the cold creep across his skin, bite at his knuckles, redden his fingertips. He clenched his hands to fists and then opened them again, catching a lonely flake of snow. “I think too much.”
“Some men think too little. I find that is a greater issue.”
“I fear-” Jon took in a deep breath as he watched the flake melt in the heat from his palm, “that I might have led us astray. ”
Daenerys was watching him with care. He didn’t have to look at her to know that those glimmering, violet eyes were following his every move.
He tried to twist his face into a neutral position. “I mean,” he continued as she did not speak, “you should not be here.”
“You asked me earlier if I was teasing,” Daenerys said. “Now, I must ask you - how should I take your words?”
“Forgive me,” Jon said. It seemed it was all he did these days - beg forgiveness. From his sisters, from his friends, now from Daenerys. “I meant no offence. The war, this was a war of the North. I realise that we could not have won without you, without your army. But it was not your war to win.”
Daenerys let out a sigh. “A perfect world would have no wars.”
“I thought that myself, but I don’t think such a world exists.”
“Only because some men think too little,” she replied and offered him her hand.
Jon watched it, then her. Her face too, he noted, had been laid in perfectly neutral folds. It unnerved him. He did not want to play games. So he took her hand, closed his fingers around hers, and turned to face her.
“My Grace,” he spoke as they stopped. They had reached the main gate. Behind them were the safety of Winterfell and its sleeping occupants. Before them, the great vastness of slowly melting ice. “My Grace, I grew up with a sword. I dreamt of battles since I could walk. I have always wanted to lead men to honour. Not death - honour, and glory. I believe in fighting for what is right. War is inevitable.”
“War is a tool,” Daenerys retorted. She too closed her fingers around his, squeezing them so tight he could no longer feel the cold. “A tool that should be used for the greater good. So that when my war ends, peace begins. So that when your sisters have children, those children will not know of war as anything but stories.” She reached up and touched his cheek, and he felt his eyes close and lips quiver lightly. He could not help but to lean in to her touch. “Stories inspire us to become their heroes. I want new stories. Stories of glory and honour, yes, but not death.”
“You speak well,” Jon whispered and smiled.
“I will tell you this, my Lord,” Daenerys said and stepped close.
With his eyes still closed, Jon could feel her heat, the roughness of her dress, her breath caressing his skin as she spoke: “I used to love red. I have dreamt of going home, and home to me had a red door. For years, I remembered the red door of my childhood. I thought of it and I felt peace.”
Jon blinked his eyes open, expecting to see a dreamy smile on her face, but instead he was met with eyes dark with sadness. It froze him in place. He could not even try to speak.
“But last night, as I laid in bed alone, I tried to imagine the door. But I found no peace. Instead, I saw the red drag down the sides of the wood and colour the streets, dripping like the blood of my khalasar.” Tears slipped from her eyes. They started running down her cheeks, and Jon wanted so badly to wipe them away. “In the end, my door had melted, and behind it was nothing. That is the story I shall carry. But it shall not be the story of the future.”
Jon slowly grabbed Daenerys hand and led it from his cheek to his lips. He pressed a kiss to each of her knuckles before holding it tightly to his chest.
“If that is the future you will build,” Jon said, “that is a future I want to be part of.”
Daenerys smiled through her tears, and she allowed Jon to wrap his arms around her and drag her closer. As close as they could be, sheltering each other from the cold of the vastland ahead of them.
“Good men are gone,” Jon said, “but a great woman still stands.”
“So let it be,” Daenerys said, “one last war. Then no more.”
As he kissed her forehead, her nose and then her lips, Jon silently mouthed:
