CHAPTER THIRTEEN
[ her ]
THE MEMORY WAS CLEAR AS DAY.
A beautiful morning in the middle of the long summer, the sun only just beginning to peek through the trees in the Godswood. Jon sat with his back against the trunk of one of the trees, still in sight of the weirwood tree, and Visenya, still Asena then, was laid on her back with her head in his lap.
"You know, I heard that the smith's son is bedridden today," Jon told her, eyes looking pointedly down at her, "can hardly eat, let alone work."
"Is that so?" She hummed, avoiding his eyes.
"Vis."
His stern tone made her eyes flit up to his as she tried and did not succeed to hide her smirk. "Jon?" She replied, feigning innocence.
"Did you have anything to do with it?"
A sigh left her lips. "You heard the way he spoke of you."
He's a bastard, the boy had sneered when they walked by the previous afternoon. Visenya had seethed at his words, but Jon had pulled her away before anything could be done. A filthy bastard. He doesn't even deserve to live in Winterfell! Go back to the gutter you were born in, bastard!
"Father will not have it," he told her, as if she did not already know. "You'll be punished. If he's angry enough, he will threaten betrothal."
"They don't get to speak of you that way. I do not care what Father does." Their eyes locked, and again that coy smile played on her lips. "How angry do you think he will be?"
"That depends on how badly you hurt the boy."
"I shall be betrothed on the morrow," she jested, the back of her hand on her forehead in faux distress, missing the way his face fell at the prospect.
"You do not have to defend me against every smith's son that makes a remark on my birth," he told her, ever serious. "You will waste your entire life that way."
"You forget, Jon Snow," she said, taking the hand that he had laid at his side in hers and lacing their fingers together, "that you are mine, my dearest friend, and should any smith's boy, high lord, or king speak poorly of you, it is my duty to defend you."
You are mine. How they had both wished for that to be true.
"Perhaps you might not incapacitate them the next time?" He suggested, but she only shrugged her shoulders.
"We will see."
Silence fell over them, comfortable and serene, until he could not help but ask what had been preying on his mind. "Who might you be betrothed to?" What man dares to presume he is worthy of you?
"One of the sons of one northern lord or another. Lord Karstark has sons, Lord Umber too, and Lord Manderly. Renly Baratheon and I are close in age, and he is yet unbetrothed."
"Who would you choose?"
You, was the word written in her eyes, though he had not noticed at the time.
"If I had to, had I no other option, any of them but Renly Baratheon."
"I have heard he is quite handsome. And kind," he said, doing his very best not to sound bitter.
"He is a Baratheon. Being in such close proximity to the usurper for so long would be enough to have my supper make a swift reappearance." He chuckled, low and hearty, at her blunt comment. She had never been one to mince words, especially around him. "If I had a true say in my future, though, you know I would not wed any of them, ever."
"What would you do, then?" He asked, quite eager to hear the answer.
"I would stay here, in this spot, with you, for the rest of my days." Her eyes on his were suddenly too much.
"I would like that."
She squeezed his hand, a fond smile on her lips. "As would I."
This was the last thing he thought of as the last knife was pulled from his heart, and he fell back into the snow. He should have stayed there, with her, in the Godswood. Her. Her eyes, enchanting and beautiful. Her smile, bright and infectious. Her, staring up at him like he was the only thing in the world. He should have stayed in the Godswood with her.
As he laid there, bleeding out into the snow, and took his final breath, there was only one thing he could think of: Visenya.
VISENYA. THIS WAS THE FIRST THING HE THOUGHT OF WHEN HE GASPED BACK INTO LIFE.
IT WAS SO POWERFUL IT WOKE HER IN THE NIGHT. Not nearly so painful as the time days ago, but the force with which it hit her stole the breath from her chest. Her eyes opened, and she sat straight up in bed. She knew instantly what had happened, though it perplexed her.
Jon.
"Visenya?" A groggy voice beside her spoke, and suddenly she remembered that she was not alone. Oberyn turned onto his side and touched her arm, expression contorted with concern. Oberyn's paramour, Ellaria Sand, who had joined them on Dragonstone the morning after Jon's death, and had joined them both in his bed a handful of times, laid on her other side, still asleep. Suddenly, she was wracked with guilt.
"It is late," she said, already starting to slide out from underneath the furs, "the sun will rise soon, and Howland and Arianne are due back today."
"Something has happened," he assumed, and pushed himself up into a sitting position. "Was it a dream?"
It was so much more than a dream, she knew. It was the piece of her heart, once torn out, being forced back in an instant. It was Jon, coming back from death. She knew because her chest no longer ached. She knew because a spark had been reignited inside of her. She knew, because the void was gone.
"No," she answered, "it was not a dream."
"What, then?"
"Nothing terrible, I swear," she promised, and pulled on her nightgown. "But I must go."
"You would tell me, if it was something terrible?"
The doubt in his voice halted her actions and she stopped to meet his gaze. "You are one of my closest advisors and a dear friend," she told him, "I would come to you with any trouble I have, I swear it. You needn't worry."
"If I did not worry over you, my life would be very dull indeed." He flashed one of his charming smiles and reached out to take her hand. He brought it to his lips, and brushed them over her knuckles. "But if this is a matter you must handle on your own, then so be it, My Queen."
With the unease inside of her beginning to grow, she left him.
She was more aware of the void now than she was when it existed.
The sudden fullness of her heart was unsettling, nearly as much as the impossibility of what has most certainly happened. How could such a thing be possible? Jon died, she'd felt it as much as she would feel her own. How was it that he had returned?
An impossibility, though it had been made possible by whatever force returned his life to him.
Visenya stared out of the window in her bedchambers, the one that faces north, and heaved a sigh. "I hope that you are all right," she whispered into the breeze, "I hope that it was not painful."
I hope I will see you again.
Before she shut the window and walked away she paused, and muttered, "I still do, Jon. I do."