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Jeyne pulled the black thread taught, snipped it with the delicate silver scissors on the table between them, and tied it off. She mounted a dark blue thread onto her needle next and returned it to the linen stretched across her embroidery hoop. They’d been at it for an hour or so now, sitting mostly in quiet while stitching away at their respective hoops. Ghost lazed on the floor at his feet, radiating warmth and silently keeping a protective watch over both of them. Satin glanced out the window beside him down into the courtyard and saw Jon was still training with a few men at arms below, so he returned to his stitching after giving Ghost a quick absentminded scratch on the scruff. His piece just needed its finishing touches after a few weeks of intermittent work during what little free time he could find in the afternoons. He’d taken to spending that time with Jeyne, her septa, and Ghost in one of Winterfell’s many drawing rooms overlooking the training yards. He hummed lightly to himself as he worked.
“You like that song.” Jeyne said after a moment as she stitched neatly. “You hum it all the time.”
It was a slow melodic song, sweet and rolling with a hint of melancholy to it, one that he remembered well from the night of the feast. He let it fade off as he sewed another scarlet thread into his linen. Satin gave a soft chuckle. "I suppose I do, my lady.”
“It’s a rather sad song, isn’t it?”
“Hmm... Mayhaps. But I’ve grown fond of it, even so.”
“As you say, steward.”
Satin continued his humming and the two continued their stitching. They spoke occasionally but never of their shared experiences or of the deeper understanding they had of one another since the feast, only of quotidian things and pleasantries. But it was nice, nonetheless, to sit together with the quiet knowledge that someone else understood. After another half hour, Satin rested his hoop down when he was content that the final threads were all in place. He looked down at it with an inspecting eye. It was easily some of his best work. He liked it, and when Jeyne had seen it while in progress, she had liked it too. He felt a faint anxiety as he looked at it, now that it was finished at last and he could do with it as he had intended. He glanced out the window at Jon below, guiding a few young men at swordplay and showing them different techniques, chewed his bottom lip, and forced himself to put that fool’s nervousness in his chest aside.
Jeyne made a soft noise to herself and nodded as she looked down at her work, drawing Satin’s attention back from the courtyard. He leaned over to glance at her hoop, but she pulled it from his sight hastily.
“It’s not done yet!” She complained and hid it against her chest.
Satin raised the hand holding his own needle, loaded still with ivory white thread, in surrender and laughed. He showed her his work, and she complimented the stitching and the colors of the finished piece. He even showed it to Ghost, who lazily brought his large head up to inspect the linen before him. “Look,” Satin told him. “It’s you.” Ghost blinked curiously at it, stood, and shoved his head into Satin’s belly to beg for attention. Satin, of course, did not hesitate to give it.
He heard Jeyne giggle to herself from her place on the opposite couch. She had been nervous around Ghost at first and Satin could not blame her. The beast was bigger than she was and silent as the grave with each creeping, stalking step he took. Satin would not have called Ghost friendly with Jeyne. He seemed to, at most, tolerate her but he had yet to bare his teeth at her or show any outward aggression, so Satin had not made to correct him. Ghost simply sat with them, as close to Satin as he could be while also being as far from Jeyne and her septa as he could. Even so, he thought Jeyne was coming around to the direwolf.
“He is sweeter than I would have thought.” She had told him one afternoon, when Ghost had shoved Satin’s embroidery hoop from his lap with his muzzle so he could replace it with his own head and rest it there until Satin had no option but to pet him. “Do you think I could pet him? Sansa’s wolf, Lady, used to let me pet her and brush her fur and tie ribbons around her ears. Do you think Ghost would let me?”
Satin had only laughed and shaken his head. “He is still a wild animal, my lady. I would not recommend it. He has sharp teeth and a habit of giving warning nips at those who get too close.”
“He doesn’t nip at you.” She had pouted and Satin had been reminded abruptly and thoroughly by the expression that Jeyne was no more than twelve.
“Well... no.” Satin had screwed up his face in thought. “Perhaps... give it time. He is slow to trust and uneasy around strangers. I’ve had well over a year to earn this. Maybe one day he’ll let you pet him. But I, ah, would strongly recommend you don’t do that now, my lady.” Lest he take a finger or two off before I can stop him. He does not love you. An errant hand from you will be a lost hand. Jeyne had only sighed and returned to her work that afternoon.
Satin rubbed at Ghost’s ears a few more times as he glanced out the window again and saw that Jon was wrapping up drilling in the courtyard. It was time to go. He gently pushed the beast away and moved to stand.
“Leaving already?” Jeyne asked him. Her smile was polite and perfect but Satin caught a hint of melancholy in her tone.
“His lordship will need me, and I mustn’t keep him waiting.” Satin told her apologetically, folding up his finished linen and placing it in his pocket. “Is yours done yet?” He gestured to her hoop. “May I see?”
“Not yet.” She hid it again from him. “When it’s finished.” She promised.
“As you say, my lady.” Satin bowed, bid her a good day, and promised to see her again the next afternoon. She rose, curtsied, and saw him off politely.
It wasn’t always to join her in sewing, but Satin had done his best the past month since the feast to call on her for at least a few minutes each day. Sometimes they walked the walls and looked out on the vast white and grey snowy vistas that surrounded Winterfell. Sometimes they watched the men train and run drills in the yard. But mostly, they sewed, they talked, and Jeyne looked just a little lighter with each day that passed. There was still a wariness that sat deep in her bones, Satin could see it and he doubted it would ever truly go away, and bags still clung beneath her eyes but they did not seem so black and there seemed to Satin a little more color in her cheeks these days. It made him smile to see it.
His day continued as most did. Meetings, errands, and the snow-covered cobbles of Winterfell under his feet with Ghost at his heels. The North prepared to march again, this time against the Dreadfort. What lesser cousins to House Bolton that remained, Freys and Hornwoods holding out in the well-fortified castle, and political prisoners awaiting rescue were priorities that could be put off no longer. Winterfell had been regarrisoned and was in fit enough position to be left under the care of a castellan while Jon rode East to solidify his hold on the North. Satin would be at his side, of course. Jon had asked him one night as they were abed if he wished to remain at Winterfell and Satin had only rolled his eyes and told him to hush the very thought of it. Jon had obeyed with a small smile pulling at the corners of his lips.
They would begin the march within a few days. Travel would not be long, less than a fortnight, but Satin could see Jon was weary already.
“At least it’s not another full moon’s turn of a ride.” Satin told him that night as he worked the taut muscles in Jon’s leg from his place by the fire. The travel south from the Wall to Winterfell had been grueling and long. Compared to that, the march to the Dreadfort did not seem so daunting.
“Aye.” Jon said and absentmindedly scratched at the spot behind Ghost’s ear as the beast lazed beside them.
Satin considered him, pressing his thumbs along the raised jagged edge of the scar beneath the thick fabric of his breeches. “You seem heavier than usual tonight.”
“Do I?”
“Mhm. Share your burdens?”
“Just tired.” Jon offered him a small smile, worn and solemn but not false.
“Dreading the Dreadfort?”
He huffed through his nose in amusement. “Aye. I suppose.”
Satin swayed in place as he ran his strong fingers along the line of the muscle connecting knee to thigh. “But that is not what’s weighing on you, is it?”
“No.” Jon admitted. He looked down at Satin and sighed. “Another raven came today from another group of scouts. There is still no sign of Arya.”
Satin stilled his hands at the knee and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Every man in Winterfell from lord to commoner thought Arya Stark, a child not sighted in years and lost in Lannister territory while multiple kings warred and countless smallfolk were slaughtered, was long dead. Whether that be to war, starvation, accident, or illness, none could say but the consensus was the same. Arya Stark was dead. Satin, loathe as he was to admit it, could not think it likely to be any other way. “Give it time, Jon. It’s only been a few months and there’s a whole world to search. Don’t despair just yet.”
“Aye, I know.” He sighed. “I just... I think of the Dreadfort, and then of the Boltons, and then I think of her, of how I thought she was with them all this time but she wasn’t. They’re dead and gone now, but she’s still not here. All of that, and for what?”
Satin passed his thumb repeatedly over the moleskin trousers in a comforting motion. “For Winterfell.” He said simply. “For home and all the men and women stuck under Bolton rule. For the North and old loyalties. For justice, rights, and honor too.” Satin paused. None of those were Arya. None of those were a sister. None of those were what he had died for. “And for Lady Jeyne. She may not be Arya. But she was a little girl in need of saving. And you saved her, Jon.”
Tired grey eyes met his as Jon nodded down at him, a small smile coming to his face. “Don’t you ever get tired of being right?”
“Never.”
A small chuckle fell from Jon's lips and Satin returned his attention to the leg beneath him. The muscles were still stiff, the large scar never truly let them loosen, but they were far better these days than they had been last year. Jon walked easier and Satin only rarely saw him struggle to sit or rise like he did before this all began. After a moment’s quiet, Jon continued.
“How is Jeyne, by the way? You saw her today again, didn’t you?”
“I did, while you drilled.” Satin hummed to himself. “I think she’s alright. We talk, we sew, we walk. Perhaps it’s strange for a man grown to be friends with a girl of two-and-ten but I find her to be pleasant company. After all she has been through, she is old for her age. And, you know, it’s nice to have a girl to talk to again if I’m honest. After a lifetime spent mostly with women and girls, I’ve been surrounded by only men for far too long. All they ever talked about was food and ale and the cold and women they’d had. None of the men on the Wall would sew with me peacefully by the fire, that much is for certain.”
Jon laughed. “Well, you never asked.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Asked what?”
“For me to sew with you.”
It was Satin’s turn to laugh. “As if you sew.”
“I don’t.” Jon admitted. “But I told you, sometimes Arya would beg me to finish her needlework because she hated it. Or, she’d have run off somewhere having forgotten to do it and the septa would be furious if she realized Arya was behind, so she’d plead with me until I gave in. I was terrible at it, stitches all crooked and knotted, and I would grouse and whinge the whole time. But I never refused her.”
Satin imagined a young miserable Jon Snow, three-and-ten perhaps with acne on his long sullen face and his nose all scrunched up in good natured annoyance, needle in hand as he grumbled into some linen while an energetic little sister hung off him and Satin couldn’t help but smile at the thought. “Well, gods forbid I be the cause of your grousing and whinging by making you sew with me.” Satin chuckled. “I shall leave my embroidery endeavors with Jeyne, I think.”
Jon raised his hands in surrender, but Satin was sure there was a hint of relief in him. “As you wish.”
Satin paused. The completed embroidery piece he’d spent the last month working on seemed almost heavy in his pocket. It was stupid, he knew, but he had made it for Jon. Now that it was finished, the idea of actually giving it to him seemed foolish. What use has he for such frivolous stitchings? he thought. Jon was a practical man, Satin knew. He kept things that had a purpose, gave away what didn’t, and had little interest in pretty things that were pretty for the sake of being pretty. He was Lord of Winterfell, Keeper and Warden of the North, yet he did not drape himself in precious metals and jewels or spun-gold thread. He wore wool and moleskin like every other Northern lord. An embroidered kerchief too delicate to be used to even wipe one’s brow would be useless to him. Still, Satin had made it. Jeyne had wanted to sew with him, and it had seemed the obvious choice at the time. And now it sat in his pocket like a rock, a weight very much pulling at his awareness.
Satin bit at his lip and glanced at Ghost lounging beside him. He reached out and began to pet him to give his hands something to do as he willed himself to bring it up. The direwolf looked over at him with his big blood red eyes and nuzzled him sweetly. It was all the encouragement he needed. “I actually just finished what I’ve been working on during our meetings, Jeyne and I. If it would please you to see it.”
With Jon’s nod, Satin took the linen from his pocket and placed it in his hands for him to unfold. It was a kerchief of simple linen, monogramed with a J.S. in each corner, swirled with small snowflakes as if caught in a winter wind. In the center, upon a swath of pale snow, laid a white direwolf, each tuft of fur pulled through with ivory threads, with scarlet embroidered eyes. Atop the back of what was clearly Ghost stood a crow of black and blue thread with its beak open as if squawking, pestering, down at the direwolf beneath it. Ghost was posed looking over his shoulder at the crow, but he did not seem annoyed. Instead, his ears were lax and his mouth was pulled open in a pant the way he did when he was at ease. Around them fell a few pale blue snowflakes. Satin watched as Jon looked down at it, grey eyes moving along the fabric as if to take in every detail before him. His brow furrowed, deep in thought, and his face held that strange inscrutable quality Satin still struggled to read after all this time.
“Oh.” Jon said after a moment in an odd flat tone that betrayed no emotion at all. Satin had come to know in the year spent at his side that gifts, like praise, were something that left Jon unsteady. He watched him blink down at the fabric like he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with it, like it was a foreign weight in his palms. It made Satin wonder again why he’d done this in the first place. “Did you make this for me?”
With the initials sewn into its corners, there was no denying it was. Satin sat back on his haunches and scratched at his neck, suddenly strangely shy despite himself. “I did. I needed to make something with Jeyne and... I couldn’t think of anything else. But you needn’t keep it, if you don’t like it.”
“No.” Jon shook his head, finally looking up from the kerchief. “I like it. It’s... it’s well done. There’s Ghost, of course. And I like the bird, too. Is it Mormont’s raven?”
Satin shrugged. “Just a crow.”
“Just a crow.” Jon echoed back and a small smile tugged at his lips as his eyes returned to the linen in his hands. “Well, I like it. You really made this for me? This must have taken days.”
A few hours a day for a month. When you trained, when you had meetings and dined alone with lords, and sometimes when you fell asleep before me, this is what I was doing, Satin thought but didn’t say. “It was no trouble.”
Jon ran his fingers along the threads that composed the direwolf and the crow. “No trouble? I know enough from Arya and Sansa to know this was more than no trouble.”
Satin picked at the hem of his sleeve. “It’s not much use, I know, but—”
“Thank you.” Jon interrupted. “Truly, Satin. Thank you.” His lips twisted and pulled taut after a moment, lifting his eyes to meet Satin’s gaze again. “I don’t have anything to give you in return.”
He shook his head with a smile as the feeling of warmth began to replace the nerves that had settled in his belly. “You needn’t give me anything, Jon.”
Jon looked primed to argue but he pressed his lips together instead. He looked down to the kerchief again and smiled. “You’re certain I may keep this? After all the work you put into it?”
“If it would please you to keep it, that would please me.”
Jon smiled softly, warmly, at him before folding the linen neatly and sliding it into his doublet’s left breast pocket for safe keeping. “Then I shall.”
Satin rose from where he was kneeling on the bearskin rug and circled around to behind Jon, letting his hands come to rest on his shoulders. “Come. I’ll get your back tonight. Then we’ll rest.”
Jon tilted his head back to look at him with a tired but contented look in his grey eyes, nodded, and rose to follow him to bed.
_____________
The Dreadfort awaited them. Satin finished saddling Jon’s horse, pulling the strap through the final buckle and giving the saddle an experimental tug. The beginnings of dawn were just pressing in around them and it would be time to mount up soon. Men loitered in the courtyard. Some kissed their wives and children goodbye. Some hugged family and friends and promised to see them again soon. All prepared to march, all prepared for battle. Jon hoped it would not come to that at all. It was his intention to press for surrender, for what remained of Bolton loyalists to see a large sprawling force at their gates and simply yield the castle to them in exchange for their lives. Satin could only hope they had the sense to make the right choice.
Jeyne saw them off at the East Gate. She curtsied to Jon and offered him a square of linen emblazoned with the sigil of House Stark. “A token, my lord, of my favor, should things come to battle. May your victory against the traitors be swift.” Jon accepted her embroidered piece humbly with a bow and a softly spoken, if a little stilted, thanks. Jeyne then turned to Satin. “And for you also, steward, a token of my favor.” To him, Jeyne gifted the work she had been unwilling to show him during their meetings. Satin took it in hand and found upon it a crow sitting atop a wall of pale blue ice. Her work was fine and highly detailed, even using white thread to add reflection and darker more saturated blues to add depth to the Wall. He thanked her and promised to keep it with him during the journey. “I pray you stay safe.” She told them both as they mounted up to depart, and she had watched them go until she was only a small blue and white dot standing at the gates when Satin looked back over his shoulder. He made sure to keep the token in the pocket of whatever breeches he was wearing with each day they travelled.
The march to the Dreadfort was progressing smoothly. The weather had been favorable, and the men were well rested. Their force of Northerners, Wildlings, and the mismatched Southron remains of Stannis’s army took the Kingsroad before branching off East. During the days, Satin rode his horse – to his pride’s great relief, he managed not to fall from his mare again – and spoke with Jon at the head of the column. Ghost, large enough to be nearly of a height with their horses, kept an easy pace with them.
“Maybe I should ride him instead.” Satin jested one day after another moment of stopping and starting before his horse had obeyed his desire to trot forward. “At least he likes me.”
“My direwolf is not a horse.” Jon huffed.
“You’d let me, wouldn’t you Ghost?” Satin cooed at the wolf and ignored Jon. “You’d carry me if I needed you. Oh, yes, look at those eyes. You would, sweetness, you would. I can tell.”
“Ghost.” Jon snapped but there was no heart in it, only a thinly veiled smile in his voice. “Tell my steward no.”
Ghost had only blinked up at Satin sweetly, not a ‘no’ in sight. “Oh, my lord, I think you’ve been outvoted.”
Jon had only grumbled and spurred his horse forward, Satin’s laughter trailing behind him.
That was how Satin passed his days. During the nights, the men set up tents and cookfires while Satin ran his errands before he retired to bed at Jon’s side. Camp Master Keon, from their journey from the Wall, knew better than to place Satin’s bunk anywhere other than in Lord Snow’s tent so it was simple to collapse into bed beside him each night. The routine was easy and familiar, and Jon was warm against the bitter chill of sleeping on the road.
On the sixth night of travel, as Satin returned from running a message to Lord Glover, he found Jon sitting on the palette that made up their bed with a large swath of plain unadorned fabric in his lap. It must have been at least 5 feet long and wrapped around something thin and narrow. Jon looked up at him when he entered.
“There you are.” he said. “Tie the flap closed and come here.”
Satin quirked an eyebrow but joined him on the bed. “What’s this?”
“Yours.” Jon told him, and he pulled back the flap of fabric. Pale as bone, so pale that it almost seemed to glow in the dim firelight, Satin looked down at the finely carved composite bow before him. The body was made of weirwood, white and lacquered to a faint shine, carved with exquisite craftsmanship and the ends were strung with a line of strong silk. The grip was made of a deep brown horn, aurochs if Satin recognized its mottled pattern correctly, and carved into its hard keratin was a small embellishment. Upon closer inspection, Satin saw it was the image of a crow, beak open and squawking. It was the finest bow Satin had ever seen.
“Mine?” He asked incredulously as he took the offered weapon in hand. The wood was supple, flexible but firm, and Satin could feel its light even weight under his palms.
“Aye.” Jon nodded. “Yours.”
“Jon...” Satin dragged his fingers along the bow. The materials alone, let alone the craftsmanship, were so high a quality Satin did not doubt this had come with a price as fine as the bow. “This must have been expensive. How could I possibly accept this?”
“By accepting it.” Jon said simply.
“Jon. My lord, I—”
Grey eyes fixed him with a look that stopped his words. “Jon.” He corrected. “I’m Jon. I’m not giving this to you as your lord. I’m giving it to you as Jon. Will you accept it?”
You may not be giving it to me as my lord, but it is most certainly a lordly gift, Satin thought as he caressed along the line of the bowstring and felt soft silk under his fingers. This was a bow for a knight, a bow for a soldier far better than he. A whore from Oldtown was not worthy of such a fine weapon. A Northman's weapon at that, made of the bones of their gods, a wood as holy as if it had been anointed in the seven oils in the Starry Sept itself.
Satin remembered the gifts he had received from clients in Oldtown. Lord Seamus had gifted him a robe of glossy black satin. Wear it when I come calling, he had said with eyes dark with lust, and bid Satin promise to only wear it for him. Satin had sworn up and down that he would with batted eyelashes and a coy smile as he spun around in the robe to show it off. Only for you, milord, he had lied through his teeth with ease and wore it frequently with any client he pleased. He had been gifted baubles and trinkets too by different men over the years. Bracelets of colored blown glass. A choker of fool’s gold, satin ribbons for his hair, makeup in fine clamshell cases, and perfumed oils of countless kinds. He had accepted each one with eager hands, kissed the giver sweetly, and thanked them with far more than words. Such was the way of things. No man had ever thought to give him a weapon. And Satin had never so much as hesitated to accept a gift. Even ones he didn’t like could be sold at pawn shops or traded amongst the other girls. A whore took what they could get and never refused a gift.
“Jon…” He began after a long moment’s silence. “I’m no fighter worthy of such a bow...”
“You are as sharp a shot as any I know.” Jon pursed his lips. “I well know you are not a man keen on battle or training in the yard. Or even on hunting. But if I am to continue dragging you into battle, the least I can do is arm you properly.”
Satin looked up at him, wide eyed and unsure. “You honor me too much...”
“I honor you not nearly enough.” Jon raised a hand to silence him before he could argue. “Accept it. It is a gift. It would please me if you accepted it.”
Satin held the bow in his hands and then clutched it to his chest as he swallowed the heavy lump in his throat. “Then I shall accept it.”
Jon smiled and let out a breath. “Good.”
Satin turned the bow over in his hands a few more times, inspecting each aspect of it. His eyes lingered on the carving in the aurochs horn, the image of a crow. Whoever Jon had commissioned to make the bow was a fine artisan for the carving was beautifully done. Jon, eyes ever watchful of him, saw where his gaze lingered.
“I know you said that a crow was perhaps too on the nose to take as a personal sigil, but I think between Tormund calling you little crow,” Jon paused for a moment as if remembering something and then wincing a little bit. “among other... bird related... things... and Jeyne giving you an embroidered crow as a token, I think it’s been assigned to you whether you think it’s on the nose or not.”
Satin laughed, running his fingers along each line of the engraving. Perhaps it was a bit obvious an icon to take, considering he was a man of the Night’s Watch, dressed all in black with his black ringlets and eyes so dark a brown they were nearly black, but he didn’t truly mind. A crow was not such a bad thing to be. He opened his mouth to say so when something Jon said caught up to him.
“Wait. What does Tormund call me?”
Jon waved his hand as if it would wipe the question away. “It doesn’t matter.”
Satin smiled, all teeth. “No, no. You brought it up. Tell me, does he talk about me when I’m not there? Does he ask about me?”
Jon shook his head and scoffed. “He... once or twice he’s inquired about you.”
“Oh? And if he’s not calling me Satin or little crow, then what’s he calling me when he’s ‘inquiring’ about me, hmm?”
Jon’s ears tinged red and he pursed his lips. He grumbled something Satin didn’t quite hear.
“What was that, Jon?”
“I said pretty bird. He calls you ‘pretty bird’. I told him to stop. He hasn’t listened.”
Satin smiled and shook his head, deciding to show Jon mercy for the evening. He couldn’t repay this sweet gift with endless teasing no matter how endearing Satin found it when his ears went all red. “Let him say what he will, Jon. It is of no matter to me.” He looked back down at the bow in his hand, and the crow engraved upon it; the icon Jon had solidified for him. “Well, let my symbol be a crow then, the prettiest crow it can be. Perhaps it is a little on the nose, but so is you taking a white direwolf with red eyes as yours. So, we can both be forgiven, I suppose.”
Jon huffed with amusement, turning Satin’s attention back to the bow. “Test it.” He said. “It has a fantastic draw, a steady easy pull, and shoots hard and fast.”
Without nocking any arrow, Satin drew the bowstring back and felt the wood bend and tense with smooth ease. He loosed the string and felt the power reverberate through the horn at the grip. Satin did not know the finer points of weapon-craft, but even he could feel that this weapon would be a fierce one. He pulled it back into himself and turned to Jon once more.
Satin did not know what else to do but to smile at him and whisper a soft “Thank you.”
Jon laid a hand over the left side of his own chest, over his left breast pocket, and pressed it there as he gave Satin a nod. “You’re welcome.”
Satin’s eyes lingered on the hand over his chest and wondered if the kerchief he’d given him a week ago was still there. Had Jon brought it with him, transferred it between doublets, and wore it each day they had travelled? Jeyne had given them kerchiefs each as a token of favor. He wondered if that was how Jon saw the one he had given him. Jon seemed to catch where his gaze had fallen, seemed to catch what must have been an inquisitive expression, and Satin saw the barest hint of a bashful smile spread across his face. That was all the confirmation he needed to know Jon had done just as he thought. Are you wearing the token of my favor over your heart, my love? Satin thought as he drew in a shaky breath through his nose, a tight lump building in his throat. Will you wear it to battle? I shall carry the token you have given me, this god’s wood bow, to battle too.
“Thank you...” Satin said again, just barely more than a breath, and he wasn’t sure what he was thanking him for. For the bow, for holding the kerchief close to him despite it being a useless pretty thing, for taking him as his steward a year ago, for turning him down the first night they shared a bed, for saving him from Elyar’s wandering hands, for coming back to life and not leaving him broken and alone, for holding him when he cried, for the countless kindnesses he didn't feel he'd earned, for simply being Jon. Satin wasn’t sure. All of them, perhaps. Or maybe something altogether different. It didn’t matter. Satin thanked him all the same.
In the back of his mind, he felt the need to do more than say thank you. There were other ways of thanking a man who gave him a gift, familiar ways. But that was the back of his mind, the old part of him that lingered there even now, the whore that spoke up from time to time and prompted him to do things he needn’t do anymore. Things that felt familiar, and in that familiarity, safety. Strange as it was to think, on the road to war as he was, he knew he was already safe here without the need for that. And just as Jon had not given him this gift as his lord, Satin had not received it as his whore. He did not need to thank him as one.
Instead, Satin leaned his head against Jon’s shoulder and let himself rest against him. It pleased him somewhere deep in his chest when he didn’t feel Jon tense up at the touch. He pressed a bit closer, seeking the fever-like heat that radiated from him, and felt it sink into him until it was all he could feel. Warm, he thought, safe. Ghost rose from his place by the brazier and crossed to them. He laid his massive head across their laps and Satin leaned down to kiss the direwolf between his scarlet eyes. He felt Jon watching him as he did.
He held the weirwood bow in hand and, though it was a weapon and he was no fighter, he cherished it more than any gift any man had ever given him.