[Chapter Size: 3500 Words.]
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Third Person POV
Arctic, 299 AC.
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Jon settled at the main table, while there was almost no one in the hall, at the same time a servant approached the king.
"My king, do you need anything? May I serve you already?" she asked.
"Thank you, but I will have breakfast with my family. You may continue your work." Jon said as the servant lowered her head and then disappeared.
"How are things here in the sanctuary, Styrn?" Jon turned his attention to one of the royal guards beside Lancelot.
Jon ended up naming this underground place Sanctuary later, since it seemed like a more appropriate name. Seven moons had already passed since the beginning of the war, and some things remained the same. The enemies were concentrated in the northern part of Arctic, however, many things had changed since then. The fact that the sun had now almost returned to normal — there were now 8 hours of sunlight.
Jon later discovered that this was because the white walkers were losing their initial strength. After all, they had accumulated power for more than 8,000 years to alter even the rotation of the sun, creating a much longer night artificially. Meanwhile, they were unable to produce a storm that completely covered the sky because of Arctic, while the Grand Weirwood had prevented that after accumulating so much magical energy that Jon had placed in it, along with a few movements from the gods themselves, which prevented the world from falling into total darkness.
Now, the battle was practically guaranteed to be a victory. Eight hours of sunlight was much better and Arctican was thriving. People still hid in safe places or even in their closed homes, wanting to remain in a private place just for their families.
Now, they only needed to find a way to enter the snowstorm or try to undo it. Jon was producing, together with the kingdom's alchemists, tons of new barrels of wildfire, aiming to destroy the storm once again as they had done in the first clash of the war after creating perhaps the largest explosion the world had ever seen.
In any case, Jon was working day after day to create an opening. They needed to reach the main group of white walkers hidden within the storm.
Hearing the king's question, Styrn quickly turned back to him.
"We haven't had any problems, besides a fight between Tharn's family and the other families yesterday," the guard said.
"My wife told me about that, all because they wanted to privatize the bath area. Tharn came to ask forgiveness for his family's behavior, but we cannot allow that anymore. You will make it very clear that the bath area is for all families, and they must respect the other people who wish to use it." Jon said while the royal guard nodded.
Tharn was a servant who brought her family, the same ones who caused a sort of commotion yesterday for wanting to monopolize the bath area, which is not allowed. Other families complained.
"It will be done, my king." The guard named Styrn was entirely responsible for the sanctuary's security while the king was fighting the war on the surface.
"Great." Jon nodded as he took a blank scroll from the pockets of his clothes and aligned it on the table. Taking a quill to begin a drawing.
None of the royal guards behind him said anything else while the king continued scribbling on the paper. Time passed, and it didn't take long for people to start entering the place, filling it up, since the sun should be rising at that very moment.
Jon remained focused on his drawing when someone finally approached him.
"Another day I woke up with an empty bed, without the warmth of my husband..." Hiyori's melancholic voice sounded as she sat beside him, adjusting her dress.
Val also came right after, wearing leather training clothes, unlike Hiyori who had a dress. Jon looked at her and opened a smile.
"I had to read another report from the day before." Jon said with a small smile, while he saw Hiyori's lady-in-waiting bringing little Daemon to join them.
"You always go to that garden and stay with Lady Joy there." Hiyori commented with a pout.
"She is good company..." Jon said.
It had been two months since he had found Joy Hill in the sanctuary garden. When he spent the night inside the sanctuary, he often found her there before the day began. Eventually, he himself started seeking it out, because he liked the silence while Joy didn't speak much, and he had his duties as king such as reading and responding to war reports.
They had a moment of silence, and it felt pleasant. Jon preferred being there rather than in a room with his guards always serious and positioned near him. He ended up talking to Joy as well, only when he finished his kingly duties, having a brief pleasant conversation before leaving the place. The girl liked staying a bit longer, and Jon always left alone. She would remain for a while in the garden, then go to her room and get ready to meet Queen Seryna later to help her with the king's youngest son.
Jon ended up forming a kind of bond with Joy from then on, perhaps because they were alike in terms of birth, or because they lived as bastards. They had much to talk about with each other, sharing their experiences in that low-birth position while living in a great castle. There was something only they could share with one another.
Obviously, within the royal family, many had lived difficult lives. Daenerys had a very complicated life, living on the streets of Braavos and constantly living in fear of her brother, although she hadn't been mistreated — except for the fits of rage Viserys had.
Rhaenyra, even though she had grown up hidden in Dorne as a bastard to conceal her identity, never lacked education. Her uncles and cousins never treated her as inferior; in fact, the Martell family had always been preparing her to become the next queen, even if it was a political game for her uncle Doran.
Val, Ygritte and Seryna had lived beyond the Wall and also had hard lives before going to Arctic or meeting Jon.
But only a bastard who lived as one knows exactly what that life is like. Jon and Joy didn't have identical experiences, but they understood what it was to be looked down upon. Jon had Catelyn, who always reminded him of his birth until one day he left Winterfell because of her, while Joy didn't have a vengeful and hateful stepmother — but she was advised to always stay away from family matters, especially public ones. The other children always openly mocked her, and even the servants often no longer respected her or did their tasks properly.
They knew exactly what it was like to stay away from feasts, to always receive second-hand things while the trueborn children had the best. They knew what it was like to be looked at with suspicion or even hatred by certain members of the house. They knew what it was like to try to find a place in the castle where they fit, where people wouldn't look at them with disdain.
Jon had a godswood in Winterfell, where he liked to spend his free time when he wasn't training or working, to avoid exactly that. Joy, by some irony, found her place in the sept; when there were no masses for the Seven, no children would search for her and torment her there. She stayed there for hours, reading and passing the time.
Obviously, all this strange contact Jon had created with Joy in the past months didn't go unnoticed by others, especially the queens, who looked curiously at the fact that the husband spent some time before dawn in silence, reading his reports, while Joy stood there, just dipping her feet in the water and lost in thought.
It became a habit they both formed; Jon liked doing that, so it was no surprise that Joy ended up drawn to that moment on those mornings. Since then, she had never stopped the habit of always waiting for the king to appear every morning. Sometimes he was already there; she greeted him, sat, and stayed. She liked the Sanctuary — it reminded her a lot of the sept where she used to hide, but it was much more pleasant, with a great variety of fauna and flora around, flowers and some trees with a sacred one for the people of Arctic who came to pray, and with the real sound of the stream running through the place.
She liked Jon's company. Seryna began questioning her about it, but with a smile on her face, while Joy became embarrassed and didn't know what to answer. Seryna began teasing her, and Joy even asked why the queen wasn't angry at her for spending a somewhat inappropriate moment with the king — with her husband. Joy thought Seryna would be jealous of it.
Seryna only laughed, saying that they hadn't done anything and seemed to only talk. She saw no problem with that. But even so, she teased Joy saying that if Jon chose her as a lover, she wouldn't complain because she also liked Joy during the last 5 moons they had spent together.
Anyway, at the main table, Jon saw Hiyori, who had asked the question, giving a small smile.
"You know… I wanted to wake up with you, my love." she said. She seemed a bit bothered by waking up to an empty bed, between her and Val, who shared the night.
"I would love that too… however, you know we still cannot afford that luxury." he said.
Val had sat beside Jon and let out a characteristic huff. He turned his gaze to her.
"How are you? Are you going to the surface with me?" he asked.
"I'm fine, except for the empty bed," she complained in a playful tone. "I just wonder if you're going to the South, like you said you would," she asked.
Jon nodded. "Yes. I'm going to the Wall to find out what is happening in the South. We've had no answers for too long. Now the skies are safer. Even though we still can't send ravens, I will go with Eragon." His tone grew more serious. At that moment, little Daemon was brought to them in a comfortable wooden-wheeled cart.
"Queen Hiyori, here he is. Daemon is a bit restless," said the friend Hiyori had brought from Yi-Ti.
Jon and Hiyori automatically turned toward the child, who was nearly a year old. Since the war began, seven months had passed, and the last children were all born within the two months before the war. Seryna had even had the youngest child just a few weeks before the battle — he was only two and a half moons younger than his younger siblings.
And none of the other queens had become pregnant — except for one specific one who was right beside him, with blue eyes and honey-blond hair. Val had become pregnant a month ago, and Jon had married her inside the Sanctuary. The marriage should have happened before the war, but they ended up delaying it. As soon as she became pregnant, Jon joined with her before the gods by calling a child of the forest, and she became officially a queen.
Still stubborn, Val insisted on going to war at Jon's side. He told her that she only had one more month; after that, he wanted her to stay resting in the Sanctuary, even though he knew Val would find that boring. Della was there in the sanctuary and would be perfect to care for her sister just as Val had cared for her until the nephew was born.
Jon had seen the surprise in Val's eyes when he spoke about the baby in her belly as soon as he knew, but he had also seen happiness. He was surprised that, in the end, Val was truly receptive to the idea of being a mother, as if she had already wished for it for a long time.
The war was now in the kingdom's favor, and the weather had improved greatly. It was only a matter of time before they destroyed the White Walkers — they only needed the new stock of wildfire to be ready. Jon would work on that and, in the end, eliminate their enemies.
"How is this little guy?" Jon couldn't help but comment, looking at Daemon while touching the boy's lips, who stared at him curiously before opening an almost toothless smile and laughing.
He had some Valyrian features, obviously, but also some of Hiyori's traits, as his eyes seemed slightly almond-shaped — he had characteristics of both parents. It wasn't very noticeable, but even so, one could see that the mother's features were there, and they seemed to become more evident as the moons passed.
Other movements came from the entrance of the hall, while Jon shifted his attention from his son beside the mother and lifted his gaze as Lyanna came running between the tables until reaching the main one.
"Daddy, Daddy!" she began shouting, laughing as she used a slightly childish tone, circling the head of the table and going to Jon.
At the entrance, Loki ran toward the table, looking furious as he chased after his sister.
"Protect me, Daddy!" Lyanna exclaimed, clinging to Jon's legs as she tried to climb his clothes, catching the king off guard.
"What is all this?" he said, while Lyanna settled on his lap, laughing and gripping his clothes to protect herself from her older brother, who ran up to them.
"Daddy, protect me! Loki wants to hit me!" she said with a tone of exaggerated desperation.
Loki stopped in front of them, breathing deeply, his face tight with anger, but looking at his father cautiously.
"Can someone explain exactly what happened?" Jon turned his gaze to Lyanna, who immediately hid her face in his chest, looking embarrassed. Then he turned his attention to the older boy.
"She threw flour on me after entering my room, Father!" Loki said, while Jon noticed the boy's hair full of white spots — and even his face.
"Why did you do that, Lyanna?" Jon immediately believed the older one and questioned her, while she looked frightened.
"He said he would protect us, so I wanted to test him. I went into his room and threw flour in his face to prove that he wouldn't be able to protect us like that. And if it were a White Walker? He would be dead!" she said with a tone full of conviction.
Jon stared at his daughter in silence. Val huffed. Hiyori let out a quiet giggle. At the same time, at the entrance, Ingrid and Seryna entered — Seryna carrying the baby, and Ingrid holding Brandon's hand, while her lady-in-waiting carried her other daughter. Joy came right behind Seryna.
Seryna and Ygritte had their eyes fixed on the main table; they already seemed to know what had happened by seeing the two children close to their father in the main chair.
"You must not attack your brother like that, much less belittle him, Lyanna," Jon said in a serious tone. She immediately shrank upon hearing the reprimand.
"But—" she tried to argue, but Jon simply raised his hand and gently pressed her small lips so she would stay quiet.
"You must not doubt your brother, Lyanna. I am certain he would do anything to protect you all. But don't use underhanded tricks to prove otherwise. And even if you say he should protect everyone, he is doing his part. No White Walker will come here while he is asleep. And he is doing a great job as the oldest brother, taking care of everyone in my absence."
Lyanna parted her lips slightly, a little hurt that her father was defending Loki, while Loki kept a proud expression at the praise.
"You know, Lyanna… just as I expect your older brother to take care of you all, I expect the same from you," Jon said, making the girl lift her eyes in surprise at that comment. "I've said it once already — you two are the oldest. You also have your responsibility alongside Loki. Remember: you are one of the eldest and must share the same weight in protecting the family, not going around testing others in unfair ways."
She seemed to think for a moment about what her father had said, and Jon opened a small smile. "You are my daughter. I'm sure you will do the right thing. You are Arctican and a member of this family. One day, you will be responsible for all of them. You are the eldest sister, so I want you to take care of them as well. Understood?"
Jon sought to calm his stubborn daughter, who usually brought the Seven Hells with her wherever she went. Lyanna nodded slowly, bit by bit, now with a more serious expression than Jon had ever seen on her.
"Alright, Daddy. I'll help Loki protect everyone. I won't do anything to embarrass you again," she said. Jon smiled and pulled her in for a kiss on the forehead.
"Now go apologize to your brother and take your seat at the table. We're going to eat. After that, I'll head to the surface and return only the next day," he said.
Lyanna nodded, blushing. Jon took her by the waist and placed her on the floor, positioning her in front of Loki.
"Now apologize to your brother," Jon said again, still watching the two carefully.
She hesitated for a second, but soon nodded. "Brother… I'm sorry for throwing flour on you. I… will try not to do that again," she said in a timid tone.
Loki stared at his sister with some suspicion, but she moved forward and hugged him. He returned the hug and, in the end, accepted the apology. "I forgive you, sister. Just don't do that again, please," murmured the older boy.
"Alright. I won't. Daddy said I will help take care of our siblings just like you. So let me protect you too!" she said before both children headed to the table beside him.
Seryna and Ingrid also settled down, observing the whole conversation and exchanging a look with Jon — they would clearly talk more later.
Daenerys and Rhaenys entered the hall soon after and settled at the table with Jaehaerys and the two babies. Aemon was with them, talking about something cheerfully.
The servants and their families also settled at the tables as the place became quite full now.
Jon let his gaze rest on the two children, who had previously been running after each other and were now talking and laughing, satisfied. That filled him with deep joy.
"You know… you just solved a rather serious problem with your eldest daughter," Val commented beside him as Jon sat back down.
"And what would that be?" he asked, curious.
"You don't understand, do you? She wants your approval all the time. And she's probably jealous of Loki because you chose him as heir. She's jealous of that. I know… because I was like that too," Val confessed. "I used to envy Della when we were children… our mother always spoke to her about everything, and all I could do was listen from the side. She never included me, even though I was the youngest…"
Jon raised an eyebrow when he heard his now-wife. "Jealous of Loki? How could that be… everyone would say the opposite. Everyone says I favor Lyanna even more than my heir by enduring all her mischief without punishing her severely…"
"Maybe you should show that better. She's a child; she doesn't understand everything yet. And you haven't considered that maybe she's always restless because she wants your attention? As you give new responsibilities and abilities to Loki, it seems like she's being left behind… even though you've already talked to her about this before. I heard you spoke to her before the war about taking care of their siblings, but she doesn't understand, because you always include Loki. She thinks you only talk to her brother."
Jon grew thoughtful after hearing that. He would do something about it later.
He enjoyed breakfast with his family until it was time to leave. Val and Seryna would go to the battlefield with him. Arya and Benjen entered the sanctuary at that moment, covered in dirt and snow; they had spent the entire night outside and returned to rest.
Now Jon was heading to the surface — and he planned to go South to investigate what had been happening since the kingdom had fallen silent.
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Raccoon Here:
The next chapters, we will start working with the South again. After all, 7 moons is plenty of time for a lot of shit to have happened in the South.
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