Chapter 28
Chapter 28
Lord Stark didn’t know what to do.
He didn’t even understand when everything went wrong. He just knew that it did.
Was it his father’s southern ambitions? Or his own plans to ally himself with his best friend through the marriage of his only sister, Lyanna? Or was it when no one had considered her opinion? Or that they didn’t guard her well enough and gave her the opportunity to run away?
Or was it Elia Martell’s fault as a woman? Was she so terrible in the bedroom that her husband chose to stray? Was she barren? Or was the Prince a lustful fool that took after his father more than anyone knew?
Or was it Brandon’s fault, who like a hard-headed idiot rushed to the capitol and demanded the arrest of a Crown Prince? Was his brother really that much of an idiot? Asking the Mad King for justice? What did he even expect? A fair trial?
Or was it Robert’s? When he mistook the feeling of possession for love? When he decided to play the Game of Thrones? When he married the Lion bitch? Or when he stepped over the bodies of children?
Or was it Jon Arryn’s? After all, he was the man that raised them the way they were. And now the man is dead. Poisoned by the Lannisters apparently.
Or was it that dragon-spawn bastard’s fault? Had the boy not sported a mop of night-black hair and been a splitting image of a true Stark, Ned would have never believed him to be of his blood. Because that wretched boy? He was a dragon thru and thru. One just needed to know where to look. Although everyone who had never seen a dragon mistook him for a wolf. But that was not the case. Where all Starks lived by the principle ‘The pack survives and the lone wolf dies’, Jon Snow didn’t need the Pack.
At all.
And at first Ned was fooled just like everybody else. But not for long. What had started out as games with Robb and a similar age group of boys devolved into something very different. Ned could admit to himself that he was secretly glad when his wife took initiative to keep the dragon-spawn away from his heir. Perhaps the wretched bastard would finally learn his place and coincidentally some humility.
But that was not the case.
Jon Snow still walked with the grace of a Prince, ate with the skills of a court butterfly and always held his head high. And when guests compared him to Robb, the comparison was not in his son’s favor.
He didn’t behave a wolf ought to. Where a wolf pup forcefully excluded from the pack would seek reconciliation with the group, bare his neck up to the leader or perhaps issue a challenge, Jon did none of those things. He was perfectly comfortable alone.
But he wasn’t a lone wolf.
No.
Because the runt Direwolf pup given to him as a consolation prize? It was dying. And Jon Snow snapped the thing’s neck.
Ruthlessly.
Mercilessly.
And that was not the behavior of a wolf which would have tried to nurture it until the very end.
It was that of a dragon.
A dragon that was now missing.
Just as his friend was coming to visit.
Just as they began negotiating a Royal marriage for Sansa.
Just as Jon Arryn vacated his position as hand. And although he will miss the man that fostered him, was like a father to him, he will not regret the opportunity. A Stark for a Hand. Perhaps he will finally be the one to lead the North to greatness? The Stark that will have their name immortalized in stone?
But perhaps it is for the best. There will be more questions but absolutely no chance that someone would recognize the brat as Rhaegar’s. He wouldn’t want to test the bounds of his and Robert’s friendship after all.
So good riddance.
For now.
Because as soon as the dragon-spawn is found, it will be given a long-deserved lashing and sent to the Wall.