A Dream of Snow [ON HOLD]

11 | An Alliance

➰Jon➰

I shift anxiously on my feet and glance around the wood. Tyrion had been here some time. Her commander, translator, and a dozen of her Bloodriders too. Yet she was nowhere to be seen.

She'd truly come to the Godswood alone? Ride from the great encampment alone? What if some northerner felt brave and stupid enough to attack her? His mind fixed on some wild notion of rebellion and freeing the north?

The idea of her coming to any kind of harm, of her soft warm skin being pierced through by the cold steel of a blade makes a sickening twist of fear cut through me. My fingers tighten around the hilt of my sword as I imagine it, my throat thick with worry.

I'd behead any who tried it. Without thought or burden. I'd slice their heads clean from their bodies and leave their carcasses for the wolves. Any who thought to harm her would pay for it with their lives — It would be a sentence I'd impose gladly.

I look to Tyrion again. He's holding the lantern out at shoulder height as he gazes casually up at the moon. Sensing my eyes on him he looks at me and smiles, easy and relaxed. Why doesn't he look worried, as I do? Why doesn't he fear some harm coming to her, as I do?

In fact, most of those of the queen's company look almost relaxed, their eyes fixed straight ahead even though their hands hover near their weapons. The northerners gathered among them look, by contrast, fraught with nerves. They don't share my own fears about the queen's safety, I know this much.

I knew it was either that they trusted weddings less than they trusted southerners and foreigners, or because despite their silence as I delivered this news, most viewed this union as the north's greatest folly yet.

Tormund, of course, is the exception — he sups his ale and watches me with an easy countenance. Tormund rarely looked anything but battle-crazed or battle-weary; a comfort in many ways.

He had returned as the sun set and found me dressing in my chamber. There'd been no knock or announcement of his arrival, only the door bursting open and him sauntering through it to make himself at home by the hearth.

'My Little Crow! Have you missed me? You look shorter!' He exclaims, slapping me on the back. He steps back and inspects my dress, my washed hair, the polished belt and sword laid out upon the bed. 'So it is true, then? You are marrying the Dragon Queen?' He sounds neither surprised nor disappointed, just faintly curious.

'An alliance, that's all.' I do not look at him as I say it, worried he'll see the lie in my eyes if I do.

'An Alliance....That's what they call it in the south, is it?' He scoffs as he collapses in a heap of limbs in the chair by the fire. 'You know what we call it? Us free folk?' He grabs his crotch and makes a lewd gesture.

'Aye, I know what you call it...'

'You can't even say it, can you?' He chuckles. 'But you know, little crow, I know you know...' there's meaning in his intonation, meaning I choose to ignore. He's silent for some moments, and then: