She is not used to the way the men bow to her and call her Your Grace.
She was barely ever called lady in truth, and now Queen is even more jarring.
“You’ll get used to it,” is what Bran tells her, with a shy smile, so much like the ones Jojen used to give her that it breaks her heart.
“And you?” She quickly moves the conversation on to avoid the wave of memories and pain any thought of Jojen brings. “Will you get used to being King Brandon?”
“It should have been Robb,” he says, as he always does, and not for the first time Meera wonders if his lord father had said the same so often about his brother Brandon.
“But it’s not, love,” Meera says gently. “It’s you.”
“It’s me,” Bran says wearily. “Brandon the Broken.”
“No,” Meera says fiercely, because it still hurts her that Bran still defines himself by that alone. “Brandon, the Greenseer. Brandon the Re-Builder. Brandon who ended the Others.”
She kneels in front of his chair, and takes his hands in hers. She places kisses on his palms.
“That is why the men crowned you King. You are a trueborn son of Winterfell. You are the leader the men looked to when it appeared that night would never end. You are the last hero, Brandon Stark. And you are my King.”
She is surprised to see tears in his eyes, and to feel them welling up in hers. Bran motions for her to rise and she does, seating herself in his lap as she had so many times before.
“I could not rebuild Winterfell without you,” he tells her, when his tears have cleared.
“It was you who rallied the men, and led armies, and battled Others with spear and net. You who helped broker peace accords between wildling and Northern lord. I could not be King Brandon without my Queen.”
He smiles at her so sweetly, and once again he is an eight year old boy, sending her choice cuts at a dinner table, before the Krakens had come.
She returns the smile, kisses him soundly.
“Shall we have dinner, my King?”
“Lead the way, my Queen.”
