Her Name Isn't Snow

Chapter 30

The boat ride seemed to take forever. Two weeks felt more like two years. It didn't help that I was sick most of the trip, meaning I spent most of the time in my cabin. Thankfully the sickness seemed to be caused by the sea and once we met up with the Dothraki in White Harbor I started feeling much better, if not still a little queasy in the mornings. It wasn't until we landed that I realized how much I missed the North. The crisp clean air. The cold breezes and the vast expanses of land. It was so beautiful 

We stayed a night in White Harbor and we were preparing to ride to Winterfell with the rest of our forces. It was early, early enough that the sun had yet to rise. I was laying in bed, having just barely woken up. I was on my back and I moved my right arm out, feeling the empty spot where Jon would normally lay. 

"Jon?" 

"I'm here" he mumbled from his spot at the foot of the bed. I sat up slowly, a bit confused at the time. I glanced at the covered window and saw only darkness.

"Why are you up?" I asked, slowly moving forward. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, in only his small clothes staring intently into the fire, his elbows were resting on his legs with his hands lightly clasped together in front of him. 

"I can't believe it's finally here..." he mumbles as I inch closer, resting on my knees behind him to his left. 

"That what's here?" 

"The Great War...I've been trying to prepare everyone for this war for years. Most of the time no one would listen. But now that the time has finally come, I don't know if...I'm ready" he admits. I scoot closer behind him and wrap my arms around his waist while I rest my chin on his left shoulder. 

"I don't think any of us are really ready" I mumble, placing a light kiss on his shoulder as I do so. 

"How can I prepare an entire castle for a battle against the dead if I can't prepare myself?" he asks, a bit of frustration in his voice.  

"It won't just be you preparing the castle" I offer, unsure of how to respond. 

"I'm their leader. The Northerners chose me to defend them-"

"And you are defending them"

"Really? By bringing in foreigners. I couldn't even prepare our small party when we went North to retrieve the wight. I couldn't even defend you from those creatures"  he mumbles, trailing off at the end of his sentence. 

"There were hundreds of thousands of those things. You couldn't have prepared for something like that" I say pulling away from him. He turns around to face me with a heavy look on his face. 

"No, but I should have. If I was more prepared then we would have made it out without a scratch" he says, a look of pain in his eyes. 

"Jon, you got us out of an impossible situation. We survived, isn't that enough?" I ask. He turns back to look at the fire. 

"I don't know if it'll be enough this time" 

As everyone was getting ready to leave I made my way to the maester's home. I still wasn't feeling all that well and I had hoped he could give me some herbs to help calm my stomach. I walked over in my brown and black fur-lined dress with my white cape draped across my shoulders and the white fur-lined hood pulled up to cover my hair. Once I reached his house I knocked on the wooden door and waited patiently. 

I could hear him shuffling around and what sounded like the breaking of a pot. After a few minutes, the door opened, revealing a pale older man with a white mustache.