Chapter 15: Arise

The hall of Winterfell had never seemed so large to Jon before this moment, and of course that would be the case for the room. After all, a moment like this only happened once in a man’s life.

Fire burned to give warmth, for the North experienced the facsimile of winter before Autume truly arrived. Banners of Stark, Baratheon, and Lannister hung above the gathered people.

The Northern lords often had a certain disdain for the Southern nobility.

Such animosity did not come from nowhere. In the past three hundred years, the Southern rulers only involved themselves with the North when they needed an army or very few goods, like hardened wood, fur, or ice, but in those cases, the many houses saw the North as mildly tamed savages who kept the Wildlings on the other side of the wall.

After a certain point, houses like Manderly, Bolton, and Karstark had no love for the South. The only reason they even respected the Iron Throne was that House Stark respected the seat of power.

There were also complicated feelings about the South when it came to Northerners. They disliked the religion of the Seven, they disliked the elitism of the South, they disliked puffed-up self-importance many of the lordly families had down south.

More reasons, some broad and some personal, existed of course, but for this divisiveness, Jon understood how meaningful this day was. And so, as he came to approach the men who had helped mold him into the man he was, he was hopeful that his life would have meaning.

As a legitimized bastard, Jon knew the truth of his position: Nothing would be handed to him. Every inch he scraped and gained would be earned, but that did not mean he could keep his treasures.

Winter had the power of undoing everything one worked for in the North, and in the game of thrones, that was how power shuffled about in the South. As he walked up to the King; Lords Lannister and Stark; and Sers Jaime and Barristan, Jon understood the precarious position he was in.

Had those in history been aware of how fragile power was, would they have lost it so easily. What Jon learned from Ser Selmy and Jaime was that skill, once earned, belonged to the warrior, but Tywin explained that influence could be lost by something as simple as a handshake and a bribe from one’s opposition. Further, in that vein of thought, coin was power and influence until people needed bread; then, like in the north, food and blankets were what was valued.