ficlet meme | jon snow/robb stark (@anonymous)
→ robb goes to the wall to make jon his hand.The King of the North brought with him more men than the all of the Night’s Watch’s garrisons put together, but none of them wore the black. Overhead, banners of the wolf and his allies whipped in the crisp breeze, and if Jon didn’t look too closely, it was as if the direwolf descended from the clouded sky. Robb dismounted as soon as his destrier came to a stop, sooner than any of his guards could stand in ceremony around them. Jon, and all of his brothers behind him, knelt in front of the king—the first to have visited the Wall in so many years.
Robb raised an eyebrow, bemused. “Is that any way to greet your brother?”
No, Jon wanted to say. It’s how I greet my king. But he’s a man of the Night’s Watch now, and they swore no allegiances, and raised no banners. Robb was not his king; Jon, for all the oaths he had sworn, had no king, but soon enough, he found himself pulled to his feet, Robb’s gloved hands firmly around his, and into an embrace that smelled faintly of rapidly cooling summer.
“I’ve come a long way,” Robb said, in a whisper loud enough to carry, but the sound was drowned out by the whistling wind for the rest to remain anxious of what he uttered.
“Why have you come?”
Robb looked at him squarely in the face, and Jon knew why. He need not have asked.
Jon sighed. “Robb—”
Robb pulled away, a grave set to his face that reminded Jon so jarringly of their father that the pang of loss and longing for Winterfell left him almost breathless. “Do you remember the day when Robert Baratheon came to us? For father?”
Jon nodded. How could he forget? The sound of trumpets, the livery of the Kingsguard, the nightly feasts. Leaving.
“Well,” Robb shrugged, and the twist to his lips was a smile so wry that Jon could’ve mistaken it for a grimace, reminding him that while his brother was king, it was at the cost of his father and sisters held hostage at King’s Landing. A brewing war, and a realm once again torn to pieces. “I need you as Robert Baratheon needed father, Snow. I want you to be my Hand.”
Jon looked up in surprise. He had expected Robb’s want for an ally, for a commander of his army, perhaps, or a sworn shield to guard him. To be the Hand of the king was to be the king without his crown, with all the power of the north, from south of the Wall to north of the Neck, a long stretch of bannersmen and soldiers braced for war and winter, hard-helmed. Steadfast. There had been a time when Jon had dreamed of becoming a lord of Winterfell, before he had been taught that such dreams were impossible.
Robb grasped his shoulder. “I need you, Jon.” The other gloved hand cupped the back of his neck, pulling him closer until their misted breaths mingled in the scant space between them. “I’m king now and kings can make lords and knights,” the fingers around Jon’s neck tightened meaningfully. “Starks out of Snows, and if there’s anyone I trust, it’s you.”
