Chapter Text
"Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North." Was the closing line yet the polite bravado couldn't stop the rage that was brewing inside Jon. Although the talks of future battles occurred around him, he couldn't stop thinking about Rickon. Rickon was a babe last time he saw him, clutching at his mother, Lady Stark's skirts.
Now a hostage of a monster, who not only is part of the family that had a hand in destroying theirs but also a monstrous creature in his own right.
After his resurrection, he had no aim, he thought he had a plan. To kill the wight walkers, to save the North, make his father proud. Yet knives in his heart and the words of 'traitor' echoing in his ear, told him that he did wrong. Maybe his beliefs were in the right place, but maybe he could have thought more about his actions.
"Snow," Tormund said, bringing him out of his thoughts.
"Hmm. Yes." He responds.
"Your heads spiralling, what is it?" Tormund wonders, now Brienne, her steward, Podrick, Davos, Sansa, Tormund and Edd look at him expecting.
"Nothing. Just, nothing." He nods and drinks some ale looking down.
Most seem to believe him apart from Edd.
"You look down when you lie, Jon. You just did." His thick accent forcing all to focus on him again. Jon's face scrunches up a bit and he chuckles.
"I was just thinking, what if? What if, I chose not to let the free folk through, what if I was just a lord commander who stopped free folk and went to brothels?" Sansa and Brienne both flinch a little at this. Edd raises his eyebrows.
"If you were like that, you never would have been elected as Lord commander."
"But, they killed me Edd, maybe my actions were wrong." Now Tormund tenses.
"What you mean Snow? You wish you hadn't brought us to the south?"
"Maybe? What if this creates a war, what if these creates more death and chaos than peace? What if we have to consider our actions just as much as our end goal?"
"Of course, you do. But just because some disagree with your actions, doesn't mean they're the wrong thing to do." Davos says, Jon nods away. "Did you agree with what you did?" Jon nods.
"Well you should, you saved thousands and have banded together with two groups that have once despised each other for thousands of years, to save them all." He pauses. "Listening to your people is a good thing for a leader to do. But do not mistake violence as a form of communication. They violated any form of trust and rights to voice their opinion you once gave them when they betrayed you." Jon looked quite emotional now and so did all around the table.
"Damn. That was good." Tormund exclaimed. Leaving all to laugh a little.
Jon turned to Sansa then and held her hand in the middle of the table.
"We will take back our home, not because the home is ours by right, but because as long as that bastard has control of the North, no one is safe." Sansa smiles fully now and nods. "And. We are saving Rickon." Sansa begins to protest a little. "I don't care if it's too dangerous. He is our brother and we are going to save him, even if it's the last thing I do."