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NYMERIA MARTELL

back, sending goosepimples up her skin as she drew the thick cloak closer to her. White Harbor was not unfriendly, but something rubbed her the wrong way, especially with the stares the Northmen were giving her.

She knew it was unusual to see the Dornish this far north, just as it was unlucky for Starks to travel south. And yet here she was. Forced to live among Wolves and report back to her Uncle.

At least it wasn't because he wanted her to marry a Stark. She would have thrown a fit.

If they were still Kings she might not have objected, but she was a Princess of Dorne, and she would not lower herself because of her Uncle's whims.

She would not join her mother in sharing that fate.

Nymeria's gaze flew upward as they docked, passing underneath the city wall, towers and brick splitting the harbors in two, the Outer Harbor home to fisherman and merchants who had been pushed aside, while ships donning regal flags and sails docked themselves into the inner harbor. The orange flag bearing the red sun of House Martell whipped behind her, the wind picking up now that they were closer to the city, blowing through the harbor. She was grateful for the leather tunic providing some form of warmth, the violet color less jarring than the oranges and yellows she preferred.

Despite her attempts to blend in, she still stuck out among the greys and blues that the North favored, drawing unwanted attention her way as she descended the ramp, the crew unloading what little she had brought. She wasn't sure how long she would be here.

She played with the sleeves of her undershirt, unused to wearing anything that extended past her elbows, let alone sleeves that ended at her wrists.

Nymeria felt as if she was being watched by everyone around her, gloomy and wary stares eyeing her olive skin and black curls, sticking out amongst the pale bodies that swarmed the city and she shuffled her feet.

She'd never been so self-conscious before. Nymeria had always been proud of who she was. Of where she came from. She'd never had any reason not to be.

She and Arianne were famed beauties, although Arianne was more classically beautiful than she ever would be, and even her cousins joined them in that aspect.

But here...she was out of place. No one would look like her and the further north she went, the more she would stand out.

"Are you ready princess?" Areo Hotah's deep rumble shook her from her thoughts, the Captain of the Guard towering over her, his bald head shining in what little sunlight streamed through the clouds.

Nymeria chided herself. If she felt out of place she couldn't imagine how Areo was feeling. He was darker than her, with a mother from Norvos. His rich umber skin may have been common among the sand dunes and summery isles of Dorne, but here he was a reminder that there were more people out there. That Westeros wasn't the only continent in the world.

Nymeria swung herself over her black steed, settling on her saddle as she grabbed ahold of Phoenix's reins, turning toward Areo as she nodded, making their way through the Seal Gate and into the inner walls of the city. They passed through a square almost immediately, merchants and smallfolk alike pausing as Areo and Nymeria rode through, the latter keeping her head up high, trying not to let the stares get to her.

She could practically hear them whispering, her back prickling at the thought. She forced herself to look at the fountain in the middle of the square, a stone merman brandishing a trident in his hands, staring intensely at any passerby.

Nymeria shrunk under the stone creature's gaze, the lichen-covered beard doing nothing to calm her nerves, only making the statue more intimidating.

She forced herself to stand tall as they passed the women washing small clothes in the fountain, the children selling milk and street merchants attempting to sell their wares at a cheap price.

It was much livelier than Shadow City and much brighter. Nymeria shook that thought away. It would do no good to think of Dorne now. She dug her heel into Phoenix's side and spurred the horse on, their pace quickening into a gallop as they found themselves weaving through the alleyways and streets of White Harbor, wanting to get to Winterfell as quickly as possible.

JON SNOW

His face itched. He hated having to get all pretty for the king and his men, especially since he wasn't going to be allowed to dine with them in the first place. He couldn't wait for Uncle Benjen to return. To take him to the wall. To leave all of this behind and make a name for himself besides being the bastard who sullied Ned Stark's honorable reputation.

Jon had been standing outside for what seemed like hours, waiting patiently for the King to arrive with his company, trumpets bellowing as the party began to show.

"Where's Arya?" Lady Catelyn asked, sharp gaze scanning the horizon before turning to her eldest daughter, "Sansa, where's your sister?"

The redhead shrugged, clearly not caring about the younger girl's whereabouts. Jon resisted the urge to scoff. While he had nothing against her, Sansa was the spitting image of the woman who hated him, and he had never gotten along with her as well as he had with the rest of them.

His head snapped up when he heard panting, a small body wearing a guard helmet running past Father, stopping before entering the lineup.

Jon smirked when he caught sight of his little sister, her face red from her excursion, a wide smile across her face as Father removed the helmet and lightly shoved her into the lineup.

"Move!" Arya commanded, pushing Bran further down and squeezing next to Sansa.

An eery quiet fell over the courtyard as several horses bearing the royal sigil began to circle, lining up to allow the giant wheelhouse to appear, soon followed by several Kingsguard and the King himself. Jon fell to his knee immediately. Not that long ago he would've entertained the idea of becoming a member of the Kingsguard, back when he still believed he could've been Aemon the Dragonknight, and not a lowly bastard who no one would miss.

His knee was beginning to ache by the time King Robert urged them upward.

"Your Grace," Father spoke reverently, as if he and King Robert had never been friends in the first place.

The King stared at his old friend, in a way that made Jon rather nervous, and he shifted slightly in his position, trying not to move too much in case he offended the king. As a result, he missed the next few words that were exchanged, and instead watched as he embraced Father and Lady Catelyn, a hearty laugh leaving him and a wide smile on his face.

"Nine years..." King Robert mused, shaking his head. "Why haven't I seen you? Where the hell have you been?"

He asked like it was an obvious question with an obvious answer. Like Robert was any old lord who could come and go as he pleased instead of the King of the realm.

Jon's father clearly felt the same way, gesturing toward Winterfell slightly, "Guarding the North for you, Your Grace." They shook hands once more, smiles all around, "Winterfell is yours."

Jon found himself in the courtyard after the King's arrival, practicing his swing on one of the dummies Jory had set up earlier. It was the only way he could distract himself. He knew Lady Catelyn would rather him outside than be anywhere near the Royal Family, so here he was. Trying to prove himself while the Royal Household unpacked around him, Father and King Robert in the crypts visiting his aunt.

Jon briefly wondered if his mother was buried there before shaking the thought away. His mother wasn't a Stark. She was a southerner and would be buried nowhere near Winterfell.

He used to see her in his dreams. A wild woman with dark curls and grey eyes like his. They would live far away from Winterfell, perhaps across the Narrow Sea, where nobody looked twice at an unwed mother and a bastard child.

When rumors spread that Ashara Dayne of Starfall could have been his mother the dream changed entirely. Grey turned to violet, and Jon was living under the blistering desert sun, trained by the Sword of the Morning himself. He would have squired for a man like Ser Barristan, earning a title and becoming revered as a knight instead of spat at.

But then Lady Catelyn had caused all of that to come crashing down.

On a day she was feeling particularly hateful, she spat out the truth. That his mother wasn't a highborn lady or the grey-eyed woman, but his wet-nurse.

A dornish woman named Wylla.

And the dreams had stopped.

The steel whacked unceremoniously against the stack of hay and burlap tied to a stick, a dull thud heard through the main courtyard before he sheathed the sword, the pitter-patter of horse hooves drawing him out of his thoughts. As he placed the weapon back in the armory, murmuring began to erupt around him, and Jon finally turned around, curious about what had sparked such sudden conversation. When he pushed past some of the crowd toward the South Gate, he froze, mouth dropping open in shock as he caught sight of Winterfell's newest visitor.

"She looks just like her...what are they doing all the way up here?....their kind don't belong here..."

The woman atop the horse held her head high, russet eyes narrowing at the castle before her, as if scanning for potential weaknesses. Her ebony curls cascaded just below her breast, part of it braided back out of her face. Her bronze skin made her a novelty among the fair population of the north, and Jon knew exactly where she was from.

A Dornishwoman this far north was unheard of. His eyes drifted to the men who were accompanying her. They were just as strange.

One of them wore a bright yellow tunic with a halberd strapped to his back, face unchanging as his eyes scanned the courtyard, his swarthy skin reminding Jon of the trunks of trees in the Wolfswood.

He had never seen Dornishmen before. And they looked very different than he expected. Most of the men held the same salty look that the woman possessed, but Jon thought he spotted a few pale faces scattered among the retinue. The woman huffed, flicking the reins and moving closer to the center of the Courtyard, exactly where Jon was standing. She stared down at him, brown meeting grey for the first time.

His mother was dornish, he told himself. Whether she was Ashara Dayne or Wylla or the grey-eyed woman, she was dornish. And he himself had been born in the desert.

Lord Stark had told him so on his tenth name day.

Perhaps this woman knew his mother. Even if she looked similar in age to Jon, he still held out hope.

"Where's Lord Stark?" She asked, her accent only cementing her identity as an outsider. To most of the north, her words would sound slurred, hard to understand. But the Starks were highborn. They had encountered men and women from the Free Cities, however rare it had been.

From the look of her retinue and the fine threads of silk and leather woven through her tunic, Jon guessed she was highborn. Probably a Martell or a Dayne. Which meant that she was expecting his father, and not his bastard.

"He is in the crypts my lady," Jon explained, placing his hands behind his back, trying to recall his manners, "Lord Stark and King Robert went to pay their respects."

The sound of steel being unsheathed rang in Jon's ears and he found the point of a halberd aimed directly at his throat, the dark-skinned man's narrowed gaze trained on him.

"You will address the Princess of Dorne properly, she is not one of your common ladies." The man's accent was thicker than the woman's and much scarier. Jon's eyes widened at the information he was just given. The Princess of Dorne?

The newly revealed royal held up her hand, "Peace Areo," She requested, dismounting from her horse, "We can forgive the northerners lack of manners," she smirked, boots crashing into the dirt, "After all, it appears their Lord had no intention of informing them of our arrival."

Jon bristled at the veiled insult, not taking kindly to her callous observations. The Princess smiled sweetly, "You must be Jon Snow," She observed, a glint in her gaze as she eyed him up and down like a wolf catching sight of its prey.

"I'm afraid so Your Highness," He corrected himself, the halberd lowering at the correct moniker, Jon's heartbeat slowing down as his nerves calmed.

The Princess swept her eyes over Winterfell, drinking in the castle as she wrapped the reins around her hand, no doubt waiting for Robert and Father to finish their journey to the crypts. Jon however, turned to Hodor, asking the stable boy to take care of their horses. The bumbling man nodded, eagerly pressing forward to escort the Princess's horse to the stable a few paces away. Even if the family was busy making sure the royal family was seen to, at least Jon could be hospitable. They had traveled a great distance after all.

It almost made him feel like the Lord of Winterfell, an observation that burned in the bottom of his stomach. He would never be the Lord of Winterfell. Lady Catelyn would use her last dying breath to make sure of it.

Hold no lands, father no children. That was what he was going to promise whenever Benjen came back. When he took him to the Wall.

The man with the halberd stood at attention, his neutral expression sliding back over his face.

When everything was taken away, Jon suddenly realized just how short the princess was. She barely reached his shoulder, and she looked absolutely dwarfed by the men who surrounded her.

He never would have guessed her to be a princess from the clothes she was wearing. The breeches threw him off guard completely. The same violet color as her tunic, they hid nothing, showcasing her figure in a manner Jon had scarcely seen before. He felt heat rise to his cheeks at the thought, and tore his eyes away as quickly as he could. The tunic was the exact same way, except with a covering around her neck, no doubt to keep her warm amongst the frozen winds of Winterfell.

She was back to eyeing him, a slight smirk on her face as she traded words with the man she had called off, no doubt furious with their welcome. Jon was at a loss of what to do. He could escort them in, but he wasn't the lord, he'd never be the lord. And if he remembered correctly, Lannisters and Martells did not get along after the Rebellion.

Neither did Robert and the Martells.

Jon gulped, suddenly realizing the situation the Starks had been put in. They were to be peacemakers between the two houses. Nothing would get done as long as the Royal Household and the Martells lived under the same roof.

Jon had never felt bad for Lady Catelyn before, but this certainly came close.

"How was your journey?" He settled on asking them questions, trying to pass the time until his father appeared.

The Princess smirked and moved away from her guard to answer the question, "Long." She settled on, something dancing in her gaze, "But the scenery was worth it." She stared directly at him as she said that, and Jon suddenly felt his jerkin tighten, body warming.

Thankfully the doors to the crypt opened, and the Princess turned around, straightening up as she caught sight of Lord Stark.

Jon didn't miss the way her body tensed as the King came into view, both men carrying a somber air about them. Despite that they were smiling, an expression which quickly died when Father saw the Princess of Dorne standing in his courtyard, welcomed by only his bastard.

"Princess Nymeria," Father called, abandoning Robert by the crypts and grasping her hand in a show of peace, "My deepest apologies for being unable to welcome you. We didn't anticipate your arrival this early."

Nymeria plastered another sweet smile on her face, although Jon had the feeling that it wasn't quite genuine. "Lord Stark, Prince Doran thanks you for your generosity, and Prince Oberyn sends his regards."

Father nodded, and before he could say anything else, a rough voice cut him off.

"Well, what have we here?" King Robert asked, eyeing the retinue warily before catching sight of the Princess before him.

Father turned toward his friend and gestured to Nymeria, "Princess Nymeria of House Martell, your grace."

The woman gave a stiff curtsey, although Jon noticed that the man with the halberd did not follow suit like the rest of the guards. Robert eyed her, as if trying to recall who she was.

"You're her daughter aren't you?" He asked, a dark tone entering his voice.

Nymeria held her ground, "I am your grace," Jon noticed how she practically spat out the last couple words, "And you're the King of the Seven Kingdoms. My expectations should have been lower."

A pause hung in the air between the two royals, and Jon and his father stood between it all, waiting for Robert's next move. His blue eyes narrowed slightly, but the woman refused to back down.

And then laughter broke out of the man, similar to when he had met Father that morning. King Robert slapped the Princess's shoulder, a gesture that caused the knight beside her to tighten his grip on the halberd, and Nymeria to stiffen.

"I'd forgotten how much fun Dornishwomen could be," A gleam formed in his eye as he turned toward Father, "Turns out you have more uses than being good in bed, perhaps my son should marry you instead,"

Jon watched Nymeria's lips tighten at the King's insult, and he couldn't blame her. Jon himself was uncomfortable by the insinuation and he hadn't even been insulted. "Oh I don't think that's such a good idea, your grace," Nymeria spat back.

Robert's laughing ceased as he turned back toward her, "Oh? Why's that?"

Jon watched the Princess smirk, something twinkling in her eye as she refused to look away from the King's gaze, "We don't want a repeat of the last time a Martell and a Stark fought over a prince do we?"

Robert went silent, his smile dying.

The air between them turned frosty at her words and Lord Stark coughed, trying to move on from the accusation, gesturing toward the Great Hall. "Please follow me, I'm sure you're anxious to get settled in."

Nymeria nodded gratefully, her smile never wavering as she and her retinue moved into Winterfell, Jon and his father following close behind them.