A/N: Book 2 is here! I hope you enjoy this one as well! And if you do, please let me know! Votes and comments are always very, very appreciated!
The soup they shared tasted good, but the words coming from their mouths made it feel sour somehow. Ylina could tell Jon hated the fact that she had sent both Rickon and Bran away, especially considering she had allowed their disabled young brother North of the wall. Still, he trusted her better judgement. Ylina had always been quite responsible anyway. More than he and Robb, that was for sure.
"You know what is North of the wall, Ylina?" Jon asked, as the girl simply took a sip of her soup. He sighed. "And even so, you let Bran go?"
"You don't understand..." The girl bit her lip. "He begged me. He begged me so many times. I tried to argue, tried to tell him it was safer for him to stay, come with me to the wall, but he wouldn't listen."
"He's eleven, Lina." Jon countered. "You just decided that because an eleven-year-old decided he wanted to go North of the wall, he could go? Alone?"
"He's not alone." Ylina reasoned, causing Jon to scoff.
"As much as I care for Hodor, he doesn't count much as a company."
"It's not just Hodor." She said. "Summer is with them. And the Reeds."
"The Reeds?" Jon asked. "You mean the lords of the mudmen, who talk all the time about magic and the Children? Lina, they are..."
"You don't know what they are, Jon." Ylina interrupted her brother, suddenly growing defensive. "Not like I do. They are good people, Jojen and Meera, and I know they will take care of Bran. They have promised me."
"Well, you don't know the North of the wall like I do." Jon glared at her. "It's harsher than you think. And the people there..."
Ylina watched as Jon turned his eyes from her to his soup. He played with it in his hands for a second in silence and Ylina sighed. She knew her brother. Jon enjoyed his solitude and, often times, he would prefer not sharing his troubles and thoughts. Ylina thought that wasn't good for him, but how could she possibly say anything about it if she did the exact same thing.
"They say you broke your vow." Ylina whispered. Jon nodded, his eyes still glued to his soup.
"I have."
"They say you'll have to... They say they will punish you..."
"I can't tell for sure." Jon sighed. "But they should."
"Jon..." Ylina frowned. "But they made you, didn't they? They told you to get close to the wildlings. You only did what you were told."
"Some people don't see it like that."
"But if they... If they decide you guilty, you'll be deserted. Do you know what happens to deserters? Of course you do... You went with Father to behead deserters before, you..."
"Lina..." Jon smiled gently, placing his bowl of soup down.
He walked toward his sister and grabbed her own bowl from her hands to place it on the table beside her and pulling her in for a hug. As Ylina shoved her face in his neck again and wrapped her arms around him, Jon placed his arm around his sister's body and noticed how shaky she was. He grabbed his cloak and placed it around both of them, trying to share his warmth with hers.
"It will be alright, Lina." Jon promised, even though they both knew he couldn't tell for sure.
"It's just... I can't lose you, Jon. Not you too."
"You won't." He whispered, already aware of where this was coming from. "I will always be here to protect you, Lina."
"Don't promise me that." She mumbled. "He promised me the same thing. And I did too, back at him. I promised him I would always be there for him. We were barely children back then. Arya had just been born. Robb was ecstatic to have another baby sister and he told me he would always protect us. I told him he didn't have to worry too much, because I would protect him, then. He laughed. Back then, we didn't know how much weight our words could possibly carry, but when he left to war and left me behind... I worried every day and every night. Would he ever come back? Would I ever see him again? Would he ever hold me again? Some nights, I managed to lie to myself and pretend that, soon, we would all be back together in Winterfell, as it should have been. But some nights I couldn't... All I could think about was how in danger Robb always were and how I couldn't fulfill my promise to him. I couldn't protect him like I promised because I was stuck in Winterfell while he was out there, risking his own neck for his people and his family."
"You were the Lady of Winterfell, Lina. You couldn't have left even if you wanted to."
"Sometimes I wonder if he nominated me Lady instead of Bran because he thought I would be a good ruler or simply because he wanted to lock me down in our home."
"Maybe a bit of both." Jon shrugged, causing Ylina to lift up her head to look at him. "In Winterfell, Robb was my best friend. We were close in age and Father treated us both as legitimized sons. As much as he could, at least. Robb and I would train together and as much as I praised myself on having Robb as a best friend, his love for me was nothing compared to the love he held for you. You were his darling angel, Lina. It was clear that he would never be able to live knowing you were sad or hurt and as much as you felt the same, clearly, Robb was your older brother and he felt as if he needed to protect you from any harm that could possibly come your way. No matter how much you insisted, he would have never let you go to war with him."
"But I need him, Jon." Ylina cried out, as the older boy sighed, holding the girl tight in her arms. "I can't live without him."
"You won't." Jon assured, pressing a kiss to Ylina's head. "Robb will always be with you, and so will Father. They both loved you very much and would never ever leave you. Not even in death. And should anyone try to harm you in any way, may the Gods be kind on them, because if there is one thing that could not be questioned by anyone who ever saw you and Robb was that the boy held you in a pedestal, above anything else and he will never stop looking after you. He's just honorable like that. One of the many things that made him who he was, really... The perfect son, the perfect King."
"Jon..."
"Last time I saw him, he was in the courtyard at Winterfell." He said, letting go of Ylina and walking toward a window, as he looked out from his room and toward the grounds of the Wall. If Jon focused enough, he could almost imagine being back to Winterfell, while he saddled his horse with Robb standing right beside him. Back then, he had his curly brown-red hair cut short because of King Robert's visit. He imagined that, after months of combat and war, the curls Lady Catelyn always adored from her oldest son were far longer than before. "He said, next time I see you, you'll be all in black."
Jon stopped talking. He scoffed with a smile, almost as if his words embarrassed him. Ylina didn't dare move. She knew that if she interrupted Jon, he would, most likely, stop talking altogether and never touch in the subject again. So, instead of asking him continue, she simply stayed quiet, giving him the time to do so if he wanted to.
"I was jealous of Robb my whole life." He finally admitted. "The way Father looked at him, I wanted that. He was better than me at everything... Fighting and hunting and riding and girls. Gods, the girls loved him."
Jon chuckled. At that, Ylina giggled. Still, she felt bad for Jon. Of course, growing up, she supposed he felt that way every once in a while. He was a bastard, after all. Their Father loved him, there was no doubt in that, but Lord Eddard couldn't show him much affection, not like he did his other children. Suddenly, Ylina felt stupid. She should've known Jon thought that. Of course he thought Robb was better at everything, everyone always loved reminding their young lord how skilled he was with a sword in hands, how fiercely he rode his horse... The girls loved fawning over him. After all, Robb wasn't just a young lord, he was a rather handsome one and very kind.
"Any lady will be lucky to call herself yours someday..." Their Lady Mother would often tell Robb.
Jon didn't have any of that. Sure he was skilled with a sword. Maybe even better than Robb. But it didn't matter how much of a capable fighter he was, or how well he rode a horse, or how kind and handsome he was... Jon was a Snow. A bastard with no lands or titles in his future. That was why he came to the Night's Watch, ultimately. To make a name for himself, without having to be a lord of somewhere, a bannerman to their brother.
"You were famous with the girls, you know?" Ylina found herself saying. Jon scoffed, but turned to his sister with a small smile. "A mysterious, handsome young man... Many of them would have given anything for a night with you. But you never gave them that. Ros told me you almost gave it to her once. But then, you didn't."
"You talked to Ros?" Jon asked, amusement evident in his face.
"I've visited Winterfell's brothels once or twice." She shrugged.
"You? Why?"
"A Lady must know her people." Ylina answered easily. "Lords, ladies, common people and whores alike."
"So you went to Winterfell's brothels just to talk?" Jon raised an eyebrow. Ylina giggled.
"Don't believe me?"
"Weirdly enough, I do." He smiled.
"Good." She nodded, before looking at Jon's eyes. "But that's beside the point... The point is, Robb was jealous of you too, you know?"
Again, Jon scoffed.
"What would Robb be jealous of me for?"
"Well, for one, you were a better swordsman that he ever was. And don't even try to argue with me, Robb told me so himself." Ylina said, lifting her hand when she noticed Jon's mouth opening to protest. "And he was jealous of your freedom. Maybe you would never be a Lord, or a bannerman, but you would always have the Stark protection, living in a great castle, learning from the best Maesters and septas... All the while, being free to make your own choices, fall in love, marry the woman you wanted if you ever found one... While him? He would have to follow our Father's footsteps, marry some woman just for the sake of her family name, produce heirs, never be able to choose anything."
"But he'd be a Lord." Jon insisted. "Respected for who his Father was, while all I ever gotten was the chance to be called Ned Stark's bastard boy."
"Robb didn't want to be a Lord. He wanted to be a knight." Ylina mumbled. "Yet, ever since he was born, he was groomed to be a Lord. No choice was laid upon him; he didn't have the freedom to be what he wanted to be. All he had ever known was his duty. His duty as his Father's son; his duty as the future Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North."
Jon fell silent after that. Of course he knew Robb was never allowed a chance to decide if the fate given to him was something he wanted to carry out. Still, he did, so gracefully and confidently that Jon never once stopped to think that, maybe, he never wanted any of it.
"The night after you left to the Wall, Robb and I sat by the fire, sharing soup, much like we were doing just now..." The young girl continued. She got up, walking toward Jon as she stood beside him, with a gentle hand resting over his in the window sill. The siblings were so absorbed in their memories, they never heard the door being pushed open, as Sam entered the room, but stayed silent, not wanting to ruin the moment they were sharing. "We talked about you leaving, and Father leaving, and the girls leaving and how everything would change. We talked and talked and talked, but I could tell something was bothering Robb. So I asked him. Do you know what he told me? He said... I never understood why Jon felt the need to go to the Wall, but as I saw him riding off with Father and Uncle Benjen to a fate he decided on himself, I suddenly did."
Jon gulped down hard, turning his hand so his palm was against Ylina's and, as both of them kept staring out into the snow, Jon intertwined his fingers with his sister's, squeezing her hand gently.
"I wanted to hate him. For all the things he was better than me at, I wanted to hate him." He admitted, and Ylina nodded. "But I never could."
"Sometimes I want to hate you."
Both Jon and Ylina jumped alarmed from the new voice. They spun around from the window and visibly relaxed when they saw it was Sam standing there. After the shock, his words started to weight on the Stark siblings and Jon frowned. Sam shrugged.
"Well, you're better than me at everything." He said. "Except reading."
Ylina giggled when Jon rolled his eyes. Sam smiled, but his happiness soon turned to dread when he remembered why he had come to Jon's room in the first place. Sighing, he looked at Jon and no other words were needed. When Sam's eyes, full of sorrow, found Jon's form and the young man sighed, dropping his head down, the three people in the room understood what that meant.
"They're... They're ready for you." He said.
Jon nodded. Ylina lifted her eyes at Jon again and he smiled sadly at her, running a hand through her long red locks of hair.
"He's wanted to hang me for a while." He said, referring to their Lord Commander Ser Alliser Thorne. Ylina bit her lip, clearly worried. "Now's his chance."
"No one's going to hang you." Sam assured, although he didn't seem too sure himself. "You've done nothing wrong."
With his usual stoic posture and firm look, Jon fixed his coat and walked out of the room.
"I've done plenty wrong." He whispered, as soon as he was out the door.
Ylina stood there quietly, watching him as he went. Sam stood beside her, his fear and worry clearly reflecting those of the girl beside him. With a gentle sigh, Sam offered Ylina his arm and the girl turned to look at him with a confused smile.
"It will take some time for Jon's hearing to end." He said. "May I escort you back to your chambers, my lady?"
Ylina chuckled meekly.
"It would be most kind of you, brother Sam."