Still Soulmate

Chapter 7: Cave

  Ygritte didn't see Jon much the next day. He woke before her and left long enough before that his side of the bed was cold by the time that she woke. At first she worried if it was because of the baby but then she remembered his face when she had told him, the way his eyes had lit up and the smile that he seemed to be trying to suppress. Besides, he often did this because he was a king, a busy man.

  She took her time getting up, it was so warm here compared to the North. After arriving they had put on new, thinner clothes which had made Ygritte feel so light. Once she had finally dragged herself out of bed and donned the clothes, she picked up the hair brush and brushed her hair until it was silky smooth. It was never something that she would regularly do beyond the Wall. Sure she had a bone comb which she would use to use to battle the worst tangles but it was never necessary to take that much care. Now though she loved the feel of her hair after it was brushed.

  Still, she didn't take too long with it, she still wasn't a lady. Instead she left the chamber and retraced her steps through the halls from the day before until she was standing outside of the castle. The free woman made her way down the steps, taking her time and enjoying the sun on her face, the wind ruffling her hair. Still Ygritte couldn't believe that the sun could be so warm.

  Making her way down to the beach she enjoyed the solitude and the warmth. She had always been around a lot of people all of her life and she loved to just go off by herself. Now though she wasn't really by herself, she had the baby in her stomach. It seemed like forever ago that she had asked Jon about children and had told him that she wanted children. The truth of the matter though was that she wasn't sure whether or not she wanted to be a mother. 

  As she stepped down the last of the stone, Ygritte bent down and pulled off her boots, allowing the cold wet sand to get in between her toes. She made her way down the beach listening to the waves crashing against the shore and the craggy rocks and the seagulls calling out. 

  The seclusion was perfect at that moment and Ygritte spent a long while just walking along where the waves met land, watching and feeling the water wash over her bare feet. She still couldn't quite believe that she was going to be a mother, it was something that she promised herself she would never be. Then again she never thought that she would be a queen.

  ***

  After having spent the day wondering the beach and the island, Ygritte was relaxed to say the least. All of the built up tension from days at sea and meeting the dragon queen and revealing her pregnancy to Jon was pretty much gone by the time she returned to their chambers. 

  The door swung shut behind her and she saw her husband bent over a map that was spread over the desk. Ygritte shook her head and walked over to stand beside him, seeing that the map was one of the island.

"You know you could stop working for one day," she said to him.

  "Daenerys has given me permission to mine the dragonglass on the island," her husband returned, looking up at her.

  "That's... that's really good though. I didn't think we'd get anywhere with her but that's definitely something," Ygritte encouraged. She was surprised to say the least, the woman that she had met the day before didn't seem to want to negotiate or budge from her stance at all.

  "Tyrion spoke to her. He said that he believed me about the white walkers. Daenerys doesn't though," he explained more.

  "But she has dragons. I don't understand how she can't believe in things like that," Ygritte rolled her eyes.

  "Believe what you see I suppose. I just hope that we can make good weapons out of the dragonglass," Jon said, he just sounded disheartened. 

  Ygritte didn't say anything, she didn't have anything to say, she just looked at him as he looked over the map searching the lines there.

***

  The next day Ygritte woke still curled into her soulmate's side. His arm was draped over her and his breath ruffled her hair slightly as he slept. She sighed and let her head fall back against his bare, scarred chest content to bask in the warmth with him for the moment at least.

  It was only a few moments though because he stirred next to her just after she woke. The king groggily lifted his head to look down at her, smiling when he saw her smiling up at him. His hair fell in tangles to crown both their faces, cutting them off from the world, creating their own little space where only they existed. 

  "I love you," he breathed quietly.

  "That's good cause I love you too," she smiled back, running her hand over his mark and making them both shiver at the contact. 

  "I'm going to go down to the beach today with the men and start to scout out the caves and tunnels before we start mining there," he told her.

  "Err," she groaned, wrapping her hand around the back of his neck," can we have five minutes without business talk?"

  He rolled his eyes at her but nodded, flaking back down into the pillows and revealing the world once again, letting the sun shine down through the window onto her face. Ygritte simply closed her eyes and let the sun warm her skin. She felt her soulmate's hand smooth over her stomach and over their baby and she couldn't help but smile at his excitement over the child.

***

  He held the touch out in front of him with one hand, the other was clasped in hers. The tunnels and caverns stretched on and up and down. The ceilings were high, so high above them and in places the light from the flame didn't always reach it. The walls of the tunnels shone in the light, black as night because of the obsidian. 

  "You know I think that our cave back in the real North is a lot better," Ygritte said to him.

  "Aye, that one is more... personal than this. But then again, this one's more useful to us," Jon replied not looking back.

    She could feel the awe coming from him and she couldn't help but feel it too. The sheer size of the place was enough but she could see the beauty and the age of the place  as well. The only sound was their footsteps echoing on and on and the drip of water down the walls and falling from great stalagmites that descended from the ceiling like dragon teeth. 

  Jon's hand was warm in her own, a welcome relief against the cold of the underground tunnel. Ygritte didn't mind though, like Jon she just wanted to go deeper, to explore. That was how they ended up finding the carvings. She traced her fingers over the markings made by the children of the forest hundreds of years ago and she revealed in the finding. Men and the children had once sided with each other to fight the white walkers, this was proof that they had existed. Proof that they could show to the queen. Jon's smile when he had turned to her after their discovery had to be one of her favourite things to see.