Who Might Have Been
“Who are you? Joni wouldn't have sent someone else; she would have come herself!” The girl’s tone held a familiar tone of accusation. Jon had heard it enough times from Robb to recognize it.
“I'm Jon,” he said.
“Now you lie about your name? Am I truly meant to believe you?”
“My name truly is Jon. I fell through a mirror in Winterfell. I think your Joni must have fallen through from this side.”
The girl peered at him and emerged from behind the statue. Another smaller girl clung to her skirts.
“I believe you,” she said.
“You do?”
“Only a madman or one that speaks the truth could come up with such a story, and you don't strike me as mad.”
“He’s a stranger!” hissed the boy, scuttling back to join the girls. There was another too, Jon noticed, little more than a shadow moving behind the first two.
“You have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I don’t know yours, lady Stark.”
“You could just call me lady Stark,” she said.
“Is that not a little formal?”
“Do you not know our names from the other side of this mirror you fell through?”
“No. Things are different there. It’s still Winterfell, but we’re not under attack by the Baratheons, and there's no… you. Who is Lord of Winterfell here?”
“My father, Eddard Stark.”
“Is your mother Catelyn Stark?”
“She is, yes. Did Joni tell you that?”
“No. That is the same on my side of the mirror. My father, Eddard Stark, married Lady Catelyn Tully and they had three sons and two daughters.”
“And who is your mother then, Jon Snow?” asked the girl.
“I cannot say. My father always refused to say.”
She nodded, her voice soft and heavy. “He was the same with Joni.”
“I don’t understand,” complained the boy.
“Do you not?” asked the girl Jon couldn’t see.
“He’s not Joni! And where is Robert? Where is father?”
“I can’t answer for your family. But I think I came to your Winterfell from the other side of the mirror, where you were all born the opposite sex,” Jon replied.
The boy scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Your bastard sister, Joni. That’s me. On the other side of the mirror.”
“Do you believe this?” asked the boy, looking up at his sister.
“I think…” She sighed as a strange shriek echoed through the crypts. “I think stranger things have happened to us recently. My name is Lyarra.”
Jon smiled and bowed. “Nice to meet you, Lady Lyarra.”
“This is Berena,” she said, touching the head of the little girl clinging to her skirts, then glancing over her shoulder. “That’s Minisa. I’m sorry she won’t come over; we’re all a little on edge at the moment.”
“I understand.” Jon turned to the boy. “What’s your name?”
The boy made a rude noise and a brash gesture.
“His name is Edwyle,” said Lyarra.
“Nice to meet you,” said Jon.
The boy folded his arms and stepped back to put himself in front of his sisters. “I don’t believe you and I don’t trust you.”
Jon laughed. “You’re smarter than my version of you.”
Arya would have told him that and then tried to punch him in the stomach. Or bite him. Or both. Being born a boy must have been good for her. Him.
“What’s that meant to mean?”
“It means you’re smarter than her.” Jon’s heart ached for his own home. These Starks were so similar, and yet he could already see the differences. Edwyle was harder than Arya, while Lyarra was softer-spoken and more considerate than Robb. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to settle on the plan of leaving them here. He could change his clothes, re-enter Winterfell, and hopefully jump back through the mirror, but what would that mean for the four of them, and Robert, if he was still alive? He’d be leaving them to an unknown, and likely deadly fate.
He couldn’t do it. These were his siblings; different, but still his siblings.
“You came here to hide,” he said to Lyarra.
“I didn’t think the Baratheons would think of it quickly, and Father always said only a Stark could navigate the crypts. Even if they come down here, we can hide. They won’t find us.”
She could be right. There were a thousand places to hide in the crypts. If they could find a way past the blockage, maybe there were more.
“We don’t have any food,” Jon pointed out gently. “And we might be able to get water, but we can’t boil it without a fire, and a fire would mean smoke.”
Lyarra sighed. “It was a pretty dream, to hide down here, wasn’t it?”
Jon offered her his hand. “It was smart, and I think it might have bought you your lives. Now we need to work out how to keep them.”