Shouts echoed around the vast Hall, now filled to capacity with the Northern nobles. Lords, Ladies and bannermen had all heeded the ravens calling them back to Winterfell to greet the returning King in the North and the Dragon Queen who journeyed with him.

“My Lords and Ladies…” Jon raised a hand to quiet the din as he paced in front of the heavy table at the front of the room. “I am indeed grateful to be back home at Winterfell. And I am honored to present…Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen…” he gestured to the willowy silver-haired woman who now approached to take her place beside the earnest young man.

“Khaleesi…from across the sea…” he continued, hesitatingly. He was sure he saw gentle laughter in her violet eyes as she gave a slight shake of her head, the bells braided into her hair tinkling softly.

He gave a brief nod and a smile played upon his tense lips for a moment. “She has earned many titles,” he finished simply. “And today, she is our Ally against the first, the last, the only enemy in the Great War to Come.” 

A roar of voices swelled again, laden with cheers that momentarily drowned out the icy wail of the white winds swirling thick snow around the castle walls.

Daenerys surveyed the Northerners. She did not yet know all their names or Houses, but she knew their reputation for stubbornness, for fierce pride and for loyalty. She had become acquainted with all these qualities in Jon.

She glanced back at the pale, sturdy figures arrayed at the table behind her. Sansa, Lady of Winterfell, was an auburn haired beauty who wore her nobility as easily as her rich but simple gowns. Her heart shaped face, the only feature she shared with her older half brother, seemed perpetually calm, though Daenerys sensed the young woman had become exceptionally adept at concealing her emotions–a skill cultivated by most women who wished to survive and one readily recognized by the Dragon Queen.

Arya, the younger sister, appeared at once wary and dangerous. Her left hand rested on the hilt of a dagger that Daenerys had earlier recognized as Valyrian steel, while her large, Stark eyes calmly scanned the room, warming slightly when they met Jon’s.  Bran, their pale, strange little brother, seemed to tower over them, even as he gazed serenely from his wheeled chair. Daenerys felt for the crippled boy, but something about him unnerved her, just as he seemed to unnerve his brother and sisters. Bran did not so much look at others as through them. When Daenerys first met him, he turned his vacant, expressionless eyes upon her and remarked,  “The caves under Dragonstone do not tell even half the story.”

Jon had not mentioned the crude art he had discovered depicting the creation of the White Walkers. As far as Daenerys knew, no one in Westeros had discovered it.

How on earth Bran could have known this, no one could say. Daenerys had experienced more than her share of magic in the world. In Essos, she had seen visions which she did not yet understand. She had heard prophecy. She had watched humans tragically tinker with life and death. And she had walked out of a funeral pyre with the first dragons to draw breath in over a thousand years. Daenerys sensed that Bran Stark knew more than all of them, though he spoke the least.

Sansa, Arya, Bran. Together with Jon, the last surviving Starks. Daenerys had heard snippets of the legendary tragedies that had befallen them since Robert’s death. And she knew their troubles began long before that, when her own father had slaughtered their grandfather and uncle and her older brother had raped and killed their aunt Lyanna…all before she or the Stark children sitting before her were ever born.

Daenerys respected their resilience and she envied their tight bonds. She was vaguely fascinated by families, especially siblings. Growing up in exile with no parents and no siblings save for her monstrous brother, she could not quite imagine what is was like to have a home, a shared foundation of memory…to gently squabble with a little sister over the last lemon cake…to run shrieking and laughing through your family’s grounds with a doting older brother.   She knew that whatever strength they shared, whatever force had kept them alive and brought them back home to each other–it would be needed in the coming struggle.

“My Lords and Ladies…” Daenerys began, regarding the assembly and commanding the room with an easy charm and hard earned authority. “All my life I have heard stories of the North’s honor, your strength, your courage.” Not strictly true, given she had been raised on Viserys’ rantings about the Starks’ role in Robert’s Rebellion, but discretion was the better part of diplomacy. “The stories did not do you justice.” True enough.

“I have seen the enemy.” Daenerys unconsciously clenched her fists as she remembered the hordes of White Walkers and wights swarming below her and Drogon as she struggled to rescue Jon and the others. She would never forget the screams of her dragon Viserion, her ivory and golden child, as he fell from the sky and plunged into the dark, icy lake, shattered by the Night King’s lance.

She drew a deep breath. “I have seen the enemy,” she repeated. “And I stand with the North–with all of Westeros–in the Great War to Come. For if we lose this War, we lose the world. I will support and defend you with my armies, with my dragons and with my life.”

Again, the Northerners roared their approval. Daenerys was gratified by their enthusiasm, but watched carefully as Jon stepped forward, knowing that the most difficult part was coming next.

“The Queen told you she had seen the enemy, but she did a great deal more than just observe.” Jon surveyed his siblings and then looked out upon his bannermen, waiting for silence.

“When I departed for Dragonstone to meet Daenerys Targaryen, I didn’t know what to expect and I didn’t much care. We had all heard the stories,” he glanced evenly at Daenerys, “of the silver haired girl from across the sea…the Mad King’s last child and her dragons.” Jon returned his intense dark eyes to his nobles. “What I found, was a strong woman who had survived the destruction of her family, and a life in exile. She had been sold like chattel into a forced marriage, and eventually lost her husband and her child to dark forces. She has suffered and survived, as we all have, and has tried to make it mean somethin’, as we all have.” Jon paused and noticed Sansa’s large gray eyes fixed on the Queen, shining with a newfound curiosity.

He nodded to the 10 year old head of House Mormont–the tiny and fierce Lady Lyanna. “Ser Jorah Mormont told me how he watched Daenerys walk into an inferno and walk out unscathed with three newborn dragons.” Jon looked to the nobles clustered in the back of the Hall. “Her advisors recounted how they eagerly chose to join her service, after she laid waste to their cities in Slaver’s Bay, freeing them, along with every other slave within the cities’ walls.” He met the Queen’s gaze. “Daenerys laid a fearsome punishment on the slave masters but, as is her custom, forbade her men to rape the women or harm the children. I learned how she escaped a band of hostile Dothraki, destroying her captors and winning their armies to her command.”

The young man paced deliberately now, his voice rising. “At Dragonstone, Daenerys heard my warnings about the White Walkers. She opened the pits and set her own men to mining dragonglass for the fight. And when we were trapped on that ice Beyond the Wall, she saved us.” Jon met Daenerys’ eyes again. He spoke to her, his voice even and deliberate. “Without hesitation, and at terrible cost to herself, she personally travelled half the continent to fly into that swarming mass of death and save us.”

Silence hung in the Hall, heavy and breathless, as all eyes flickered between the two figures commanding the room.

“Daenerys Stormborn has proved herself to be a fearless warrior, a just ruler, a compassionate defender of the people…and a woman of honor. If we are to defeat the enemy which neither knows nor cares about names, titles or Houses, then we–all of Westeros–must stand together, united as one people, under one ruler. Daenerys may claim that position by her name, but all that matters, is that she has earned it by her deeds.”

Jon paused and gazed at his people. “I have already bent the knee to Daenerys. I have pledged to her my service and my life, as the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms…of all of the Seven Kingdoms”

Murmurs rippled round the vast room like wildfire. Heavy shadows shifted on the torch lit walls as the pale, fierce Northerners glanced at each other, and finally back to their King.

Jon looked to his sisters and brother, and then faced the nobles. “You are free men and women of the North. You swore yourselves to me, but neither I nor anyone else can swear you to another. But as the eldest of the Stark blood, whom you proclaimed as your King, I do ask you, to follow me and swear allegiance to Daenerys–our greatest hope in the gathering darkness.”

After a moment’s pause, the room burst with the clatter of wooden benches scraping against stone and alarmed voices rising in confusion and protest.

“How can you ask us to bend the knee to a stranger, practically a foreigner?” cried Lord Wyman Manderly, incredulously. “We’ve had enough of the Iron Throne and its intrigues,” he finished, his great, fleshy face growing red with frustration.

“Aye,” chimed in Lady Sybelle Glover. “I do not question the Dragon Queen’s courage or honor. But we cannot submit ourselves to Southron interests once more. The North must govern the North!”

Cries of “Hear, Hear!!!” echoed Lady Glover’s words.

“There will be no North after the Long Night falls!” The high, firm voice of Lady Lyanna rang out clear as a bell over the din. The girl rose, and stepping up onto the bench, turned to face her countrymen. “Who here rallied to Stannis Baratheon to oppose the Lannisters?” Lyanna’s shrewd eyes narrowed as she scanned the somber faces awash in speckled light from the torches. “Who, once before, was ready to submit to Dragonstone to destroy a common enemy?” Lords Burley and Liddle shifted uncomfortably. Big Bucket Wull dropped his eyes. Others fell silent as they gazed at the young Bear.

“We need Daenerys and her dragons,” Lyanna said simply. “And I swore to follow Jon Snow as King in the North, as did all of you. Do you trust our King?” She surveyed the silent faces around her. “I do.” Her voice rising, she continued, “Will you honor your promise to follow him?” She paused. “I will,” she intoned solemnly.

Lyanna looked from Jon and Daenerys. “I have pledged House Mormont to your service, Jon Snow. As you have pledged yourself to Daenerys Stormborn, a proven leader devoted to the defense of her people, so I do as well.”

“Daenerys,” As Lyanna addressed her directly, the Dragon Queen recognized the same the same slight lift of the chin that she had seen in Lyanna’s cousin Jorah, and the same stubborn devotion in the child’s intense, inky dark eyes. “I declare to you the allegiance of House Mormont, and recognize you as the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. I pledge to you my service and my life, in War and in Peace, in this Winter…and in the Summer to come.” As her voice broke ever so slightly on her final words, Lyanna knelt, her eyes never leaving Daenerys’.

Slowly, the noise of gentle, muffled thuds filled the Hall as the assembled Northerners rose to their feet and dropped to their knees.

Daenerys and Jon turned at the sound of rustling behind them, to see Sansa and Arya stand and bow their heads to the Dragon Queen. Bran remained motionless, but his strange, unnerving gaze held Daenerys for a moment. She felt a slight shiver sweep over her as she glimpsed…something…at once familiar and foreboding in his enigmatic eyes.

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