Chapter 1: Life One
Notes:
In case you're wondering, since a few people did not know: I occasionally link music in the story that I believe will enhance the reading experience for a certain portion. When you see a string of underlined words, that is a link to another site with pre-selected music; most of the time it's Youtube, sometimes it's not. I hope you enjoy.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Jon opened his eyes and felt the gentle featherbed under his back, he was momentarily disoriented, confused. It was only after he rolled to the side and saw his cousin, Robb Stark, lying in the bed on the opposite side of the room that a slow, gentle grin spread across his face.
“One of those dreams, then.” He muttered, slowly pushing himself upright. The sunlight shining through the window in their shared bedroom was weak, and he noted with some far-away amusement that he had woken up fully dressed in his leathers. Just more proof that his sleeping mind could not be bothered to stay perfectly logical, he supposed.
This dream of Winterfell was more vivid than most, as he walked along the corridors of the family wing in silence. After twenty years north of the wall, he had forgotten many of the details of his childhood home; That the click of his boots on granite floors echoed long after he had finished walking, that the door to Arya’s chambers had nicks and scratches along the frame from any number of her childhood fooleries…
Even as he stepped out into the courtyard, old thoughts returned to him with the sound of soldiery in the distance. “How many years…” He whispered. He blinked, suddenly noticing the timbre of his voice; he was barely more than a boy. “My dreams grow queerer by the year.”
He laughed, then; the wildlings had helped him learn to laugh and smile again, in the freedom of beyond the Wall. No thoughts of bastardy or Iron Thrones, or beautiful mad Targaryens, had polluted his mind for at least two whole turns of Winter and Summer. He moved with purpose, strolling about the empty courtyards and enjoying the Summer dawn.
He found himself in the training courtyard, an old, beaten dummy still erect, and a blunted sword still on the racks. He picked it up, swinging it about experimentally. “Who shall I be defeating today, then?” He asked the dummy. “Perhaps you shall be Tormund, or another chief come to challenge King Crow.”
He lunged forward, then, attacking the dummy with a Wildling fury. The sword struck at the crown of the faux-enemy, the side, the the crook of neck and shoulder. He danced, darting back and forth with speed, and his mind’s eye imagined his foe before him.
On and on, he fought his imaginary enemy, until a loud clapping startled him. “By the gods, Snow!” Robb called, grinning widely. “Where was this energy when we last sparred? You might have thrashed me then, instead of the opposite!”
Jon could only laugh, throwing the sword to the side; sweat dripped from his hair, and the linen shirt underneath his leather was plastered to his back. He had been training longer than he thought. “Oh, cousin. You of all people should know that skill in battle cannot always save you.”
Robb blinked, rapidly. “... Cousin? Snow, what’s wrong with you? You’re not making sense.”
“Enough of that.” Jon walked forward, sweeping the phantasm of his dead cousin into his arms. “Let’s not ruin a dream so vivid as this with grim talk.” Jon pulled away, staring Robb in the eyes. “I am glad to see you again, after so many years. Your face had begun to fade, for me.”
Robb’s expression twisted from befuddlement to concern. “Are you ill? Should I call for Maester Luwin?”
“Ah! Maester Luwin!” Jon smiled; the sight only seemed to unnerve Robb even further. “I had not thought of him in such a long time; I would be glad to see his face, too. So many were lost during the sack that I could never pay respects to.”
“Jon, please.” Robb gripped Jon by the wrist and pulled his hand from his shoulder. “I don’t think you’re well at all. You’re talking absolute nonsense, and you’re not yourself.”
Jon looked at the fingers wrapped around his wrist. “You’ve quite the grip on you for a figment of my imagination.” he jerked his arm free. “I’m fine. I just wish I was this open with you all while I had the chance. For too long, I let my shame and fear of your mother cow me into resentment and brooding. Now I’ll never get the chance to tell you how much you meant to me.”
“Alright, that’s it.” Robb backed away. “I’m going to fetch the Maester, you’re not well. Stay right here.” Thrusting his hand out multiple times, as if he was a hound to be commanded, he backed away slowly around the edge of the courtyard and disappeared.
Jon snorted, full of good humor. “My memory of him must be growing foggy. I don’t remember him being quite so concerned for my well-being before. Twenty years dead, and everyone becomes gentle in your dreams.” he walked out of the courtyard, whistling a tuneless song, and watched with glad eyes as his boyhood home came to life with the sun.
“JON!” Robb shouted, from far away.
“Oh, damn him.” Jon muttered. “Even in my fantasies I can’t get away from people fussing.” he broke into a steady jog, darting between soldiers where possible and looking for a place to hide. His eyes lit on the gate to the godswood, and he ducked through.
The peace of the Old Gods was felt immediately by him, even though the Weirwood was not yet visible to him through the grove. Jon continued his pace of running from his shouting cousin, his voice growing softer and softer as he went deeper through the acres of forest, until at last he could hear him no more. Jon chuffed softly, shaking his head. “Unbelievable. I have to run from a figment of my imagination, a man dead to me for decades. I had thought the phrase ‘running from your past’ to not be quite so literal.”
His head lifted, and saw the Heart Tree itself standing before him. Jon fought the urge to kneel before it; the Free Folk had instilled a greater respect for the Old Gods than he had before he had been exiled, but this was just a dream. “I had thought I was beyond all of this.” He admitted, for he could not tell a lie before the Heart Tree. “This hasn’t been my home since even before Daenerys Targaryen came with fire and blood, and I had thought I had finally let go, after twenty years.”
“Maybe…” he rocked back and forth on his heels. “Maybe I simply ache. When I wake, I will be old, and Val will be there, heavy with our last miracle child, but Ghost…” He blinked away tears. “Ghost will no longer be there, from yesterday until the day I die. Only his pups remain of him, now.”
“JON…!”
Jon’s head snapped up at the distant call; an involuntary grimace spread on his features. “Father…?” he whispered. His grimace turned into a scowl.
I will not allow my dream of better times to be broken by thoughts of Targaryens.
Jon turned on his heel, striding quickly towards the smaller wooden gate leading to the Hunter’s Gate. The keep was clearly going to be a problem, and he would not allow himself to be woken from this dream by recriminations on the lies of Honorable Eddard Stark.
The sun was high in the sky by the time Jon reached the Wolfswood on foot. The air was crisp, an edge to it that told Jon it was nearing the end of Summer. The green of the land would fade, and become blanketed in snows dozens of feet deep; the idea made Jon think of his home beyond the Wall.
He bowed his head underneath a low-hanging branch and stepped through into the woods proper, and the sun became muted by the thick canopy. Jon slowly pulled a simple arrow from the quiver on his back, and fixed it against the string of the hunter’s bow he had taken from the Gate. he wasn’t sure if he had any purpose hunting game in a dream, but he had grown to enjoy the chore among the Free Folk, a productive way to clear his mind of troubles.
He padded through the forest underbrush with a practiced stealth, hunched over slightly and avoiding the more destructively loud twigs and growths. The forest was quiet; his memory wasn’t sure enough to say whether it was unnaturally so, but the namesake howling of wolves was absent from the soundscape, and he had not found any game even after an hour of the hunt.
Finally, his ears perked at the sound of shuffling through the brush. He renocked the arrow to the bow’s string, slowly pulled it back to his ear, and loosed it into the brush. A sharp squeal of pain told him he had found a rabbit. With a grin, Jon Snow pulled himself to uprightness and moved to collect his quarry.
“Snow! Snow!”
Jon stiffened at the unxpected voice. He turned to the sound; a raven was perched on a far-away tree branch, staring directly at the boy.
“Snow! Snow!” it cawed again.
Jon’s eyes narrowed. His hands reached for another arrow, never taking his gaze off the bird. “You think me enough of a fool that I can’t recognize a Warg when I see one?” he said to the bird.
The raven stilled, staring back at the human with black beady eyes, before taking off from the branch with a flap of wings. Even as it flew, Jon nocked the arrow to the string and traced it’s flight path with the metal head. He squinted, and loosed the arrow at the in-flight bird.
The moment after the arrow left the string, Jon heard a low snarl behind him. It was all the warning he received as he whirled about, the bird forgotten, and the wolf that had crept up on him leaped at his throat. His leather-clad arm went up in reflex, and the beast sunk his teeth deep into his wrist.
Jon let out a shriek of pain and toppled to the ground, free hand smashing weakly against the predator’s face. The animal’s eyes were white, and without pupils, as it wrenched his arm about. A sickening crunch of flesh and bone sounded out as Jon lost all feeling in his left hand beyond white-hot pain.
His free hand landed at the beast’s snout, and he jabbed it forward. With a squish of blood, the wolf’s eye was gouged out by his thumb. The Warg howled in pain and retreated for just a second, but it was enough to allow Jon to scramble backwards. His hand was shredded, ribbons of flesh dangling off his forearm like red banners, and blood poured freely into the ground. He could not feel anything past the wrist, and his fingers refused to curl at will.
His remaining hand lashed backwards to his quiver, as the Warg backed away, and then lunged once more. His hand wrapped around the stem of an arrow, and with a roar, Jon stabbed downward with the tip. The arrow plunged through the animal’s skull just as it’s teeth wrapped around his neck. The wolf went limp, but it’s force was not cancelled, and the corpse bowled Jon to the ground, plaque-coated teeth tearing furrows along his neck.
Jon lay there on the forest floor, for a time, heaving and panting in agony. This is no dream . I am awake. I am awake, and a boy again, and I nearly died.
I might still die, if I do not staunch the bleeding.
Jon clumsily pushed the wolf-corpse off of his chest with a single hand, and nearly blacked out twice attempting to push himself to his feet. The arrows in his quiver, he noticed absently, were all shattered from the fall. He left the hunting bow where it had fallen, and began to walk, clutching his nearly-severed hand to his chest.
He had not taken more than a dozen steps before another crunch of underbrush alerted him. Jon whirled about, eyes wide in fear, to take in a majestic stag standing behind him, antlers curled and crowned with nearly twenty points.
Jon Snow had nearly relaxed, until he locked eyes with the stag. The animal’s pupils were pure white, without pupils.
“No… no!” Jon shouted, stumbling back. “Why!? I’ve done nothing to you!”
The Stag skinchanger merely snorted, and lowered its’ head. Jon didn’t wait another moment, but turned on his heels and burst into as fast of a run as he was capable.
It wasn’t enough. He heard the Stag burst into a gallop, through the blood pounding in his ears, a moment before his entire world exploded in pain.
He was aware, as if from a distance, that he heard the Stag’s neck snap from the force of goring him in the back with its antlers, even as it carried him down to the forest floor. He only felt the antler tip that had gone through his neck for the blood that fountained out across his cheek; everything below his neck was numb. He would have been screaming, if his lungs hadn’t been ruined in the Warg’s suicidal attack.
Why… drove yourself mad… like Varamyr… what did I…
Darkness.
When Jon awoke and felt the featherbed underneath his back, he was screaming.
“BY THE GODS!” somebody shouted from the opposite end of the room. Jon thrashed wildly, trapped within the fur blankets. A pair of arms gripped him by the shoulders. Jon answered the touch with a flailing punch at the offender. “AGH! Dammit, man!”
“The Warg!” Jon screamed. “The Warg!” he frantically pushed himself to his feet, stumbling like a drunk wearing only his smallclothes and trampling his pillow under his feet. Only after his shoulder slammed against the corner of the room, when he had no further place to retreat to, did the sleep clear from his eyes.
Robb was sitting precariously, knocked on his bum and clutching his jaw at the side of his bed. His eyes met Jon’s, angry and bemused in equal proportion. “Others take you, Snow, sometimes I forget how strong you are for being so thin.” He remarked, rubbing the bruising part of his jaw. “You hit like the Greatjon when the nightmares have you, it seems.”
“Robb…” Jon breathed. “No, no. this isn’t real. None of this is real. You’re dead.”
“Dead?” Robb’s hand dropped away. “I should hope not. I haven’t even begun my lordship.” the joking tone fell away as Jon continued to stare at him like a wight. “It’s alright, Snow. You had a nightmare. Your dreams of Wargs and Grumpkins and Snarks are just that - dreams.”
“No.” Jon shook his head, and slowly slipped down the wall. “No, that was real, Robb. I felt my blood pour out. It was real. It wasn’t - it wasn’t a dream. Val wasn’t a dream. My happiness wasn’t…”
Robb’s eyes grew wide as Jon began to shiver. “Jon, brother, please.” he pulled himself onto the bed and wrapped his arms around the Bastard’s shoulders, as Jon stifled his emotions as quickly as they came. “Tell me about it. Tell me what the nightmares showed you.”
“I… I was beyond the Wall, with the rest of the Free Folk, after I was banished for killing Daenerys.” Jon whispered, his eyes going far. “Val was pregnant with our third, after we thought she had grown too old. Ghost had just passed from infection, after he fought against a rival pack a week earlier, and we were celebrating to mourn his death. I went to sleep, and I woke up here, with you.”
Robb nodded gently, as if he understood anything that was coming out of his mouth. “Your third child, you said? With a ‘free folk’ woman, you said? Who are they? Was she the Warg you were shouting about?”
“No…” He shook his head. “No, Val wasn’t the warg. I woke up here, and I saw you, and that was when I thought this was a dream, because you had been dead for twenty years.”
“Twenty years?” Robb repeated, his tone full of indignation. “I died so young?”
“At the-” Jon shuddered, involuntarily. “The Red Wedding, when the Freys broke guest rights and slaughtered you and your army on orders of the Lannisters.” Robb’s eyes shot wide open. “I thought it was a dream, so I went to hunt in the Wolfswood. A wolf was there, and I could see by it’s eyes that it was a Warg. I killed the wolf, and then he - he had already changed bodies, and he finished me on the antlers of a stag.”
“Such deep lore, for a single nightmare.” Robb said. “I’m fine, Jon, and so are you. Wargs are a tale from Old Nan, and the ‘Red Wedding’ is a night terror.”
“But it’s NOT.” Jon clutched at Robb’s shoulders, grey eyes gleaming wide and sable. “It WASN’T. They paraded your body through the streets, Robb, with Grey Wind’s head sewn onto your neck. They called you the Young Wolf, so they mocked you in death. They desecrated your corpse, you were never laid to rest in the crypt, and I couldn’t…” he dropped his head onto the other boy’s shoulder, shuddering. “I could not betray the Watch… I couldn’t save you… I couldn’t save Father...”
Robb hesitated, just for a moment, before squeezing Jon tighter into his chest. “I’ve never once seen you so shaken, Jon.” he said, softly, as Jon’s breathing grew increasingly wet. “I won’t pretend to understand what it is that you saw, but I’m here.”
Jon’s head nuzzled against his cousin’s shoulder, before pulling upwards and away. His eyes were red with unshed tears. “I’m afraid of what happens if that’s not true.” he replied, softly, his words phlegmy. “If I’m dreaming still, and I will wake again, banished beyond the wall, and I have forgotten how to raise direwolf pups.”
“Direwolf pups!” Robb exclaimed, eyes wide. “I suppose that makes sense, given that they’ve never been seen below the wall, but - direwolves! This Ghost of yours was a direwolf!?”
Jon blinked, then shook his head slightly, in confusion. “Robb… have you forgotten Grey Wind?”
“Grey Wind? Who is that?”
Robb didn’t leave his side all that day. He asked questions of Jon, his natural skepticism giving way to a burning curiosity when Jon spoke of the wars that were fought. He was still a green boy, playing at glory vicariously, but Jon had little and less to give him of the War of Five Kings, other than what the ravens had told him. Instead, he told him of the battles he did know; first the Wall, and then the war against Ramsay Snow. Only now, as the sun was setting, did he turn to the Long Night.
“The Dothraki…” Robb breathed. “A hundred thousand Dothraki screamers, right here at Winterfell. What a terrible sight it must have been.”
“Ten-thousand, more like.” Jon scoffed, absently holding his horn of ale; it had barely been touched, and he had sipped at it only when his throat grew sore from talking. “The rest of the horde, and half the Unsullied, were taking their sweet time on the Kingsroad. They were loyal to their khaleesi , Daenerys, but I still feared any number of them would break away to find softer targets than the amy of the dead when they realized they were vastly outnumbered.”
“But they didn’t.” Robb’s eyes glittered. “They followed this Targaryen queen across the Narrow Sea for the first time, and fought against the Others themselves. It sounds like something out of a song.” his teeth flashed in a fierce grin.
Jon snorted. “Followed her to their doom, perhaps. I’ve had years to look back on those days, and the strategy we had was horseshit. You could come up with a better defense in your sleep; I’m amazed any of us made it out alive.” He sighed, leaning back and staring broodily at the edge of the table. “They should have heeded their own legends. They call the sea ‘poison water’ because their horses cannot drink it. It, and all the things beyond it, must be a cursed thing in their minds.”
“But they followed her even still.”
Jon shrugged. “The khaleesi who brought back dragons can unmake the things that are cursed, and lead to new pastures. Me nem nesa. ”
Robb blinked. “What was that?”
Jon gave a start. “Forgive me. It was a Dothraki saying. It means ‘it is known’. I picked up a smattering of phrases while I rode with them to Winterfell.”
Robb leaned back in his chair, eyes wide. “You know Dothraki?” he reached for his own horn off the table of the Great Hall, and took a long slug of ale. “Jon, for all of today I thought you were simply a masterful storyteller. But you know a language that nobody in the North has even heard, much less speaks. I…”
“You’re done humoring the madman, then?” Jon asked, wryly.
“Jon…” Robb’s hand rose to his forehead. “Jon, this is mad. You’re telling me all of this… ALL of what you told me, that was real?”
Jon waved his hand around the empty room. “As real as any of this is. I’m still not entirely convinced I’m not dreaming, even after dying with an antler in my throat.” Robb’s fingers threaded through his auburn Tully hair, pulling at his roots in sudden stress. “Why did you stay with me, if you thought I was a liar?”
“Because you’re my brother.” Robb replied forcefully. “Because one day you were brooding about taking the black and fathering no sons, and the next you wake up screaming about being killed by wargs and your pregnant wildling - tch - pregnant ‘Free Folk’ wife. You and I haven’t called each other by our first names in two years because you wanted to keep your ‘shame’ away from me, and now you wake up and call me Robb. I thought I could use whatever fell mood had taken hold to talk you out of the Night’s Watch and staying as my right-hand man, not…” he exhaled. “Not this .”
“Robb…” Jon said, gently.
“This is magic, Jon.” Said Robb, fervently. “This is some sort of hellish magic, the work of the Other himself. Who else would benefit from turning back time and undoing a war that saved the lives of every man, woman and child in Westeros, except the demons who lost? Father and Ser Rodrik have taught me how to lead men, and fight men who live and bleed, but this? This dream of yours, that wasn’t a dream at all? It’s absolutely fucking mad.”
Jon Snow’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t even considered… could the Night King really have undone time even after death?” His eyes narrowed. “But then, why am I here? He must have known I would work to undo everything he tries, because we beat him once.”
“You’re asking me to understand the inner workings of magic. I don’t know.” Robb responded. “But you’re here. And you… you already died once, and got back up. Do you think it will keep happening?”
“That I’ll wake up in Winterfell every time I die, so young that we haven’t even found our Direwolf pups yet?” Jon asked. “I don’t know. And I’m not keen on throwing myself off the top of the broken tower to find out.”
“No, no, of course not. Please don’t.” Robb shook his head rapidly. “But… augh. You know so much more about the situation than I do, but you’re a bastard.” Jon’s eyes darkened, and Robb quickly waved his hands. “Please, Jon, I mean that in all seriousness. If a Snow walked up to the archmaester with a Valyrian Steel rod and mask, and tried to ask him how time travel works, you would get laughed out of the room. Hells, you wouldn’t even be able to get IN the room in the first place.”
“What are you suggesting, then?” Asked Jon, leaning back. “You’re already talking about finding an archmaester in the citadel. You have something in mind.”
“I… Well… shit.” Robb suddenly looked nervous. “I thought… well, I’m the heir to the North. My name will open almost as many doors as our Lord Father’s would. And maybe, it’s possible you won’t have all day to convince me that you’re not in a fever dream, and we will work faster. Just in case it doesn’t work out, this time.”
Jon’s eyes widened. “You’re talking of secrets. Secrets that only you could possibly know, so that when I repeat them to you, you know it’s magic.”
“Exactly.”
Jon suddenly grinned, and bit his knuckle quickly to hide it. “You know which secret you are going to give, and it’s embarrassing.”
“Mortifying.” Robb’s head landed in his open palms. “I might jump off the broken tower myself when you repeat this to me, now that I think of it.”
“Any others you’re willing to share?”
“No, this has to be the one…” Robb sucked in a deep breath, and exhaled. “My first sexual experience was… was oral sex from Elen Woods.”
Jon exhaled sharply, before throwing his head back in laughter. “Elen Woods!? Noseless Ned’s daughter, from the Wolfswood? You got fellated by the girl with the cleft lip?”
Robb could only stare in shock. “... By the gods green and wise, you really are twenty years removed from here.” he said, finally. “I don’t think I’ve seen you laugh like that since the moment you learned what being a bastard meant.” he leaned back. “There. That’s the secret. Not even Theon knows this; he thinks that the time he dragged me along to the brothel in Winter Town after my nameday party was my first. It was horrible, and awkward for the both of us, and we never spoke of it again. If you tell me that secret, I’ll know you’re from the future, because there’s no way Elen told anybody about it.”
“Thank you for that illuminating knowledge.” Jon drawled, his northern accent thick with mirth. “Nothing like knowing where your brother’s cock has been to put things in perspective.” his smile died, though, and he took his first long draw from his horn of ale. “You think they’ll aid me if I come with a letter from the heir of House Stark?”
“I doubt that.” Robb shook his head. “The letter would be too incredible to believe. Which is why I’m coming with you.”
When Jon saw who was riding with Robb towards the hill they had declared their rendezvous point, a small frown made its’ way onto his face. “Why is Theon coming with us?” He asked.
“Lady Catelyn requested that I bring him along if we were to ride very far.” Robb replied. “I never specified to her just HOW far we were riding.”
“What’s this I hear about you and prophecy, Snow?” Theon Greyjoy called out, a mocking smirk on his face. “Have you become the Warg King come again overnight?”
Jon merely continued to stare intently at the Greyjoy. There was none of the broken, haunted man he had last seen at the Battle for the Dawn. The visions overlapped in his eyes, the haft of a phantom spear jutting from the side of the man on horseback who had not yet had his perpetual smile ripped from his lips. This was not the man who died defending Bran the Broken; this was the man who could roast a child and call it Brandon Stark to the world for the glory of himself and his Ironborn father.
Robb pulled the reins until his courser came to a prancing halt. “Jon, what’s wrong?”
“You told him?”
“I did.” Robb nodded. “He would find out eventually, riding with us, and he’s as much one of us as you are. I told him in front of the Heart Tree, so he at least knew I believed what I said to be true.”
Jon couldn’t help but snort. “One of us. Perhaps.”
Robb continued staring. “... What did he do?”
“What?” Theon said, staring back and forth between the two. “Don’t tell me you believe this, Robb. I can buy that Snow had an eerie dream, but to put stock in it against me-”
“What did Theon do, Jon?”
“... He forgot who his real father was. And the North bled for it.” he said, finally. Silence greeted his words. Theon’s smile slipped. “Those of us who were left forgave what he did to our home and family, eventually. But you never did, Theon. You didn’t forgive yourself until you paid for your sins with iron.”
“You’ve got a fucking pair on you, Snow,” Theon growled, “to say something like that to my face.”
“Am I wrong?” Jon retorted. His voice changed, taking on a timbre more like the greenland ironborn. “I always wanted to do the right thing. Be the right kind of person. But I never knew what that meant. It always seemed like there was an impossible choice I had to make: Stark or Greyjoy.” He locked eyes with Theon, who had gone pale. “Those were the words you said to me on Dragonstone, when you begged my forgiveness, before you went to rescue Asha from Euron Greyjoy.”
“Nuncle Euron…!?” The horse underneath Theon rocked back and forth at his startlement. “How do you know that name?”
“I only met your Nuncle once.” Jon replied. “But he, more than any other man, caused the Mother of Dragons, the woman I loved, to go mad and burn down King’s Landing.”
“MOTHER OF-”
“BURN DOWN-”
“You will have to forgive me, Theon Greyjoy.” Jon continued, over their unified shouts. “For if I make it that far into this life, I will not hesitate to stab your nuncle at the first opportunity.”
Theon’s attention was split between Jon and the horse underneath him, who continued to grow restless in place, but even still his expression was drawn tight. “Euron was an eerie, fearful man even before I came to Winterfell, and that was before my father banished him. Did… did he have anything to do with - damn this horse, hold still! - with whatever it is that I did?”
“No. you did that all by yourself.”
“But it’s over.” Robb said forcefully, riding a few steps between them. “You just said you forgave him, and this man before you - this one, and no other, has done our family no wrong. Surely you can save a man from himself if you know which mistakes he is liable to make?”
Jon, after a moment, nodded. “Aye. I have, and I can.”
“Then do so.” said Robb. “For if you cannot save Theon from his folly, then how can you save the Young Wolf from his?” he turned to Theon, who was now totally focused on his courser prancing wildly beneath him. “Others take you, Theon, it’s like you’ve never ridden in your life!”
“I don’t understand!” Theon called, pulling harder and harder at the reins. “She was perfectly calm when we left!”
Jon pulled his own steed forward, reaching towards the animal’s neck to help him, when he looked at the animal’s gaze.
Theon’s courser stared back at Jon with milky white eyes, and snorted once as if to taunt him.
“THEON!” Jon shouted. “IT’S THE WARG!”
Before the Greyjoy could even process his words, his courser had already reared high, whinnying loudly as he was thrown off his saddle. He landed hard on his back, his bow snapping under his weight, and tried to stumble to his feet. The Warg had already landed on both feet, and kicked backwards at the squid prince. The hoof took him in the neck, and Theon was sent flying, limp as a ragdoll.
“THEON!” Robb roared, drawing his longsword. In a single thrust, he buried the blade in the eye of the possessed horse; he left the blade in the falling cadaver as he scrambled off of his own mount, stumbling to the Greyjoy’s side.
“Robb, no! He’s still here!” Jon shouted, whipping his head about. “This is just like the first time! Help me find him!”
“Theon! Theon!” Robb cried, clutching at the collar of the man; Theon’s head was twisted at an unnatural angle, and half of his cheek was torn off, exposing his bloody fractured teeth.
“Robb, there’s no time!” Jon shouted again, whirling around on his horse. “The warg will-”
The courser underneath him reared, and jon was airborne before he could finish his warning. He collided with the ground and could feel his shoulder pop from it’s socket, as he rolled down the hill uncontrollably. He heard a long scream from his cousin, over the wind in his ears and the blood in his brain, before he came to a sudden stop as a jutting rock collided with his stomach.
Jon groaned, his head spinning wildly and blood leaking from his lips; his tongue bled freely from how he had bitten it in the tumbling. He pushed himself to the pads of his feet, but immediately fell, this time onto his back. The blue skies of the North swam in front of his gaze.
“Snow! Snow!”
Jon Snow lifted his head with a heavy effort; the two remaining horses were slowly cantering down the hill, in perfect synchronicity, one of which had blood splattered up to the fetlocks of its forelegs. A raven was perched on the head of the other horse, cawing out the same word he had heard before.
All three animals stared at him, before their eyes flashed milky white in unison. The blood drained out of Jon’s face; the same Warg was controlling all three of them at once.
Not even Varamyr was powerful enough to do that. The only one I know of is-
“Snow! Snow!” the raven called, it’s eyes returned to beady black. Perhaps it was merely a trick of the light, but Jon swore he saw a indent in the bird’s forehead, in the shape of a closed third eye. The two horses charged forward, And Jon screamed in pain as he was trampled underneath. He could hear the bird’s call, until a metal-clad hoof stomped down into his neck.
Darkness.
Notes:
I’m rather surprised that I got so heated over the ending of the TV show that I went and dreamed up this story. It started as the life of Jon beyond the wall with the wildlings, and then one day my fingers had a mind of their own and turned it into something completely different.
The idea of this is rooted in the ending of the show, and for that to be true, certain plot contrivances must be unhappily respected. But on the other hand, Fuck D&D, and fuck the horse they kind of forgot they rode in on. I’m going to be mix-and-matching elements from the books, bashing them together until it comes out as something coherent.
Credit must be given to the wonderful Purple Days, for doing this first and (probably) doing it better. I mentioned that I was writing something to this effect early on, and a friend mentioned ‘oh, isn’t that like Purple Days?’ I had never heard of it, and so I binged it, and now feel wholly inadequate in comparison. Nevertheless, I will strive to make sure this is unique, take it in a different direction, and break new ground that Good King Joff never set foot on. Go and check it out on Space Battles if you like what I’m doing.
Stick with me, folks. This is gonna be fun.
EDIT: Since it's come up in later chapters, I'll give you fair warning here: I like heavy elements of mystery in my plots, and not explaining to you as the reader everything that is happening that exact moment. That means that the story can sometimes be a little confusing. I have the cheat-sheet on my end, so I know what to add where to make it all make sense eventually, but please give me your trust if you get lost. you are always free to post a comment asking for clarification, and I will do my best to help you without giving away important future details.
Chapter 2: Life Three
Summary:
Jon seeks a greater understanding of his curse.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
When Jon awoke and felt the featherbed underneath his back, he was gasping for air, clutching at his throat. His eyes saw nothing but the phantom image of a metal hoof blocking the sun, and his fingers traced at a bloody indentation that was no longer there.
The Warg is the Three-Eyed Raven. The Three-Eyed Raven is trying to kill me.
He knew only a little of the being that Bran had claimed tutored him in his magic, beyond the wall. He knew he had visited him in his ‘green dreams’, in the form of a raven with a third eye on it’s brow. The Free Folk claimed that before Bran assumed his title, they thought him a myth, a servant of the Old Gods and the Children of the Forest, bound to the Weirwood in exchange for eternal life. And Jon knew, from what Bran had told him, that he was a Greenseer, one of the most powerful; he was to Wargs what Wargs were to men.
And now this legend from beyond the Wall was trying to kill him. He HAD killed him, twice over.
“He knows…” Jon whispered, eyes wide with horror. “He knows I’ve come back.”
It was the only possible explanation. The Greenseer somehow knew that Jon was from the future, and wanted him dead for it. But how? Jon hadn’t the slightest idea of the magic that brought him back… much less how such a thing might be detected by others.
Jon’s eyes drifted over to Robb, who was still asleep in his bed. The Robb who, if he was grasping the nature of his new curse correctly, wouldn’t remember a thing of their discussions, and how they had reconnected as brothers. It wouldn’t be long before the heir to Winterfell was moved to his own separate room, instead of the shared rooms that all the siblings had. Jon had learned during his talks with Robb that it was nearing the end of the year 297 AC, which Jon vaguely remembered was the last year he and the heir had shared a room.
Jon slowly pushed himself to a sitting position on his bed; his fists were clenched hard enough to whiten the knuckles. He was not a fool. He knew that the only reason he was trapped in this curse, ripped away from his family, was because of his blood. The blood of a Targaryen. The only Targaryen left, besides the children he sired with Val.
His vision grew cloudy. Lyan, his firstborn daughter, one-and-ten, and Ragnald, his son, only six years old. They both had their mother’s hair, yellow like spun gold, and grey eyes, so light they sometimes appeared clear in the correct amount of sun. They were gone. They had never even existed. And the third, the one that they were so proud of. He would never see their face, never learn if he had a new son or daughter. Val didn’t even know him-
An involuntary shudder passed through him down to his bones. Jon shriveled up, his knees pulling to his chest and slowly fell back into the bed, trying his best not to wake Robb with his sobbing.
It had been a day since Jon had awoken, and the Three-Eyed Raven had not yet killed him.
Jon had taken to walking around the grounds of Winterfell with a castle-forged sword on his hip. Ser Rodrik had protested heavily at the idea, as though he were simply a boy play-acting at being a grown soldier, but Jon was not dissuaded. He looked askance at every animal in sight, waiting for an errant twitch that showed they had been taken over by his foe from hundreds of miles away. It took all of his willpower to not carry a bow with him as well to shoot down every raven that flew in and out of the keep. Lady Catelyn would have had him flogged for that, no matter how much Lord Stark protested.
He hadn’t spoken to Robb in that time. Jon knew now that the Greenseer was not afraid of collateral damage to get at him; there was little and less point to getting others involved until he had discovered a workable solution to the problem. At the moment, the only idea he had was riding North of the Wall and setting fire to the entire Haunted Forest until he found the right tree. He didn’t think he would, but it was good to imagine it even still.
For a few moments, he had been in the company of the man who he had called Father, Eddard Stark. A rush of thoughts and complicated emotions passed through him, as he watched the man mediate a dispute between two Winter Town merchants in the Great Hall. one moment, he wanted to rush forward and hug him tightly; the next, to scream and curse at him for lying to him from the moment he was born. Both impulses passed as quickly as they came.
He briefly considered his knowledge against him; if Robb’s secret was enough to convince him he was from the future and to aid him, how much more would Ned Stark’s secret gain him?
He held the thought, considered it, and discarded it. Though his body was not even five-and-ten yet, he was no longer an insecure boy, pining after his missing mother. To bring Lyanna Stark’s name back from the grave would cause more trouble than it was worth. Robert Baratheon was still alive, after all, and nothing would rouse the Demon of the Trident from his self-induced torpor like knowing there was a son of Rhaegar still alive. His hatred of Targaryens was legendary.
In the end, he avoided him. He had held him dear, once, aspired to his image. But that memory was dead for many winters, from his perspective. He could stand a few more days before resurrecting it.
Mostly, Jon simply wandered, and watched. He needed to remind himself of Southron courtesies, and the way that he was supposed to act. He had snorted in laughter, when he first had the thought. Tormund and Val had properly corrupted his mind, if he thought of a place like Winterfell as South .
Eventually, though, he tired of exploration. Though it was clear that the Jon Snow of ‘yesterday’ had cleaned himself, he himself did not remember taking a bath in nearly four days. Dying again and again had prevented a stench, ironically enough, but he longed for the ritual of one all the same.
As he made his way through the family wing and into their private bathhouse, he saw the men’s half already closed off. He quietly rapped at the door, and from the inside, Robb called out. “I’m already submerged!”
Jon smiled, and stepped in. the bath was centered in the room, with seats inside the pool for two persons. The bath burbled and flowed with the pipes connected to the hot springs; the circular construction meant that filth was quickly swept down the drains, keeping the water hot and clear.
Robb was leaning against the corner of the bath, his arms across the grey stones of the floor. “Snow!” he called out. “What’s this I hear about you walking around with live steel all day? You afraid an assassin’s come for the Bastard of Winterfell?”
It was as he suspected. Robb was calling him Snow again; He didn’t remember a thing. Jon suppressed the sudden feeling of resentment. it wasn’t Robb’s fault. “Mayhaps they’ll mistake me for yourself!” He called, smirking, as he stepped behind the half-wall and began undressing himself. He pulled himself out of his leathers and placed them inside the carved stone cubby. “Seeing as how I look more a Stark than the heir himself does.”
“Ho-ho! Fair play, Snow!” Robb laughed, splashing as he scrubbed without motive at his limbs. “Maybe I should keep you at my side, then, instead of letting you run off to the Wall. You can draw all the footpads that have never seen my face, sit on the throne looking all dour and lordly, and Theon and I can properly enjoy ourselves in Winter Town.”
“I think if I even looked sideways at the throne without Father sitting in it, your lady mother would run to the Boltons with questions on how to properly skin a man.” Jon replied back, tugging off his woolen shirt.
Robb laughed again. “You’ve grown back your sense of humor overnight! I’ve missed this back-and-forth. The two of us have grown apart- BY THE GODS! WHAT HAPPENED!?”
“What?” Jon jerked his head up. Robb was halfway out of the bath, water dripping from his naked body as he scrambled forward. His Tully blue eyes were locked on Jon’s chest, and his hand was outstretched towards the black-haired boy.
“Jon! Those scars !”
“What scars?” Jon looked down at his chest, the chest of his four-and-ten body-
And at the faded, puckered skin of half a dozen stab wounds, one of which was directly over his heart.
The world narrowed to a point. His breath froze in his lungs, and then came back, faster and faster until his stomach was pumping like forge bellows. It’s not possible.
“JON!”
Jon sank to the ground, falling flat on his bum as his hands traced along the old scars - familiar scars - scars that he shouldn’t have yet . “Impossible…!”
“Jon, are you alright?” Robb was standing over him, buck naked. “Is this why you were carrying the sword around? Who did this to you!?”
Jon looked up, immediately squinched his eyes together and turned his head away. “... Put some pants on first.” He said, groaning. “I’m not some Winter Town whore to shove your cock into my face.”
Robb blinked, looked down, and realized just how close his naked hips were shoved to Jon’s head. His flushed deeply, starting from his neck and working upwards to his cheeks. “Shit!” he scrambled backwards. His foot slammed into a patch of spilled water, and with a squawk of surprise, the heir to the Stark name flew ass-over-face into the scalding hot water. “AUGHGH! Bblhlhlhlhbh…”
Jon burst out laughing, clutching at his belly as his shortness of breath transformed from panic into uncontrolled mirth. Robb exploded from underneath the surface, his auburn hair plastered to his head, as Jon fell to his side, gasping for air as he kept laughing.
“Stop it!”
“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Robb pulled himself to the edge of the pool and lifted himself halfway out by his powerful arms; he mercifully kept his lower half submerged and hidden behind the stone edges. “Others take you, Jon Snow! You had me thinking you were half-dead!” he squinted, staring at his half-brother. “By the gods Old and New, Jon, you should be dead by those scars.”
Jon let the last whispery giggle escape him before he pushed himself upright; his face ached with laughter that his younger body was not used to. “I’m fine… no, that is a lie, I’m not fine, but I’m not dying…” Jon cocked his head. “Come to think on it, that’s a lie too. But that’s a long story.”
“Either speak sense or throw me a towel so I can get out. I’m starting to prune.”
Jon traced a finger along the edge of the scar over his heart; Olly’s face swam in his mind’s eye, fuzzy and indistinct. He had been wondering for days what the cause of his resurrection was, but all he needed was to strip naked, to see the signature of his benefactor written across his torso.
The Red God…
Jon absently plucked a folded woolen towel from the half-wall and lobbed it to his supposed half-brother. He snatched it with one hand and forced himself out of the pool in a single motion. “I’ve told this story to you before, but I want to know something first. Do you believe in magic?”
“Oh, no.” Robb groaned. “You’ve gone snow-mad. Is that what this is? Snow-mad, in the middle of summer. Of course you would.”
“At least I’m not cock-mad, like Elen Woods.”
SPLASH! Robb Stark had slipped off the edge of the bath, and taken his clean dry towel with him.
“So… let me square this story, Robb Stark.” Theon said, tone flat, as the horse bounced underneath him at a fast trot. The moon was high in the sky, and they had been riding as fast as three men on horses could reasonably go without killing their mounts from exhaustion. With luck, they would make the trip down the Kingsroad to a port city within two weeks, and sail to Dragonstone from there.
“You, Robb Stark, roused me from my slumber in my comfortable featherbed. You, Robb Stark, made me mount up and ride with you and your bastard brother without telling a single soul in Winterfell where we’re going.” Theon continued. “It’s only after Winterfell is out of sight that you, Robb Stark, deign to tell me that your bastard brother thinks he’s from the future, because you, Robb Stark, saw him naked and he has ugly scars. He then tells you, Robb Stark, that this is the work of a foreign god, and you need to ride to Dragonstone - to Dragonstone - to find a priestess that he imagines is also magic, and brought him back to life in ‘the future’ and gave him said ugly scars.”
“And you, Robb Stark, believed him, and this story…” Theon finished, his voice taking on a disgusted note, “Because he knew about a time you got sucked off badly by a minor lord’s daughter.”
Robb looked back, his expression twisted between looking apologetic and trying to not laugh. “Well, when you, Theon Greyjoy, put it like that, it makes me, Robb Stark, sound like a lunatic.”
“That’s because you, Robb Stark, ARE A LUNATIC.”
“While I, Jon Snow, am merely enjoying the fact that we are all speaking in the third person now.” Jon drawled, his lips curling in a suppressed smirk.
Robb laughed, a deep rolling laugh, while Theon scowled deeper at Jon. “And why did I have to come with? Leave me out of your skullduggery, and let me return to bed.”
“Because three men on the Kingsroad is less of an appealing target than two men on the Kingsroad.” Jon replied. “You’re also a deft hand with a bow, and we might need that.” His smile dropped. “I’m serious. I need you to listen to me very carefully. If you hear a wild raven begin to call my bastard name, you dismount, kill your horse, and shoot any living creature that approaches. Both of you. Understood?”
“Kill our horses?” Robb repeated, dumbfounded. “And leave us all stranded? Are you mad?”
“Better than getting killed by them.” Jon shook his head. “I’ve finally discovered the reason for my past two deaths. He is a Greenseer, called the Three-Eyed Raven. I first died impaled on the antlers of a stag he had skinchanged into, and then I was trampled underneath our horses, after Theon had been thrown and kicked in the head.”
Theon dropped the reins of his courser, as if it was a live snake.
“You can tell he’s in control of a beast when their eyes turn pure white, but only for a moment. Do not hesitate to warn us if you see it.” Jon finished, gently pulling up on the reins as the Greyjoy fell back in speed. “Let’s make camp here for the night. We’ve made good time.”
“Is that why you were walking around with a castle sword?” Robb asked, as he dismounted, and led the animal off the side of the Kingsroad. “You thought this ‘Three-Eyed Raven’ was about to take control of any of the castle animals and kill you again?”
“Aye.”
“Madness.” Theon declared it, though his eyes still kept a watchful bead on the three horses, and he undid the band on his leg that kept his hunting knife tight in the sheath.
“Is it, Theon?” Robb said, pulling the supply packs from his horse. His hands quickly went to where his own bedroll was stored. “Can you truly say that this is the same Jon Snow that you’ve known for all your time in Winterfell? When was the last time you heard him laugh and make jokes before today?”
Theon’s mouth pressed into a line, before bouncing his head back and forth slightly. “... Your last nameday, probably.” he said, finally. “When he was forced off the lord’s table and got deep in his cups with the soldiers. After that, he went back to his regular broodiness.”
“That settles it, then. We keep the horses bound further from us as we sleep. And we keep a close eye out for any grumpkins and snarks, as well as any other myths that declare themselves real today.”
Jon nodded, and undid the saddle from his horse. Theon frowned even deeper at him as the bastard lifted the entire saddle and attachments over his head. “Are you seeing this, Robb?” He complained, gesturing at Jon.
“What?” Jon replied, looking at the both of them confusedly.
Robb rolled his eyes. “You’re freakishly strong, Jon, and it’s a wonder nobody has ever commented on it. All of that gear is, what, over a hundred pounds? And you’ve lifted it over your head without even breathing hard.”
Jon shook his head, throwing it down on the ground and fishing out his bedroll, as Theon filled his hand with a portion of travel rations. “That’s not so much. You’re as strong as I am.”
“Yes, but my arms are almost twice as thick as yours, and I’ve worked at my strength.” the heir called, loosely tying the reins of his mount to a low-hanging branch. “I know you hold back on me when we spar with Ser Rodrik. You make sure that you win only half the matches at most for fear of my lady mother.”
“Did I do that?” Jon glanced down at his fist. “I honestly cannot recall. I thought I only gained my strength when I lived north of the Wall, after my exile.” His eyes narrowed in thought. “There was a raider among the Free Folk, called The Weeper. He and his band had managed to survive beyond the wall, and when I returned with Tormund and the rest, he didn’t take kindly to them listening to the words of the former lord commander.”
“You were the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch?” Theon asked. His tone was still suspicious, but there was a curiosity, now. “But the wildlings listened to you.”
“We made strange bedfellows in those days. I thought we were on the brink of extinction, and needed all the living to rally together. If I had known that the army of the dead would be such a pushover, perhaps I would have acted differently.”
“Wait, what? Hang on.” Robb’s head whipped around. “Go back a second. Brink of extinction? Army of the dead? You never mentioned anything about this.”
“But I- oh.” Jon scowled, frustrated. “You’re right. I’ve told you once, but then I was trampled, and you forgot. Alright. The White Walkers are real, they are marching on the Wall in a few years, and it’s not anything to be concerned about. All you need to do is kill the Night King with Valyrian Steel, and they all drop like puppets with their strings cut. It’s not necessarily easy, but any sufficiently stealthy assassin could do it. I know it works, because that’s how Arya killed him before.”
“ ARYA? ”
Theon threw up his hands. “And now I’m back to believing you a lunatic. The Others are real, they’re marching on the realm of the living… and they were all defeated by a nine-year-old girl.”
Jon shrugged. “Apparently she trained as a Faceless Man in Braavos?”
“WHY IN THE SEVEN HELLS WAS NINE YEAR OLD ARYA IN BRAAVOS!?”
Jon just shrugged again. “I haven’t the faintest. I only knew what was happening south of the Wall when a raven was sent to me. That must have been where she ended up when the War of the Five Kings happened.”
Robb flapped his mouth open and shut several times, before dropping heavily to a seat on the ground and held his head in his hands. “Do I even want to know about this war?”
“Not really. It’s not a happy subject.”
Theon grimaced. “Your future sounds like a disaster. Maybe that’s why your foreign god sent you back.”
“Why me, though? I barely did anything, in the grand scheme of things. Even during the Battle of Winterfell, all I did was hide behind a wall and scream at an undead dragon -” He held up a hand at the both of them about to shout. “An undead dragon, I might add, that wouldn’t have been dead if I hadn’t chosen the worst possible way to collect a wight to display at the peace talks.”
Theon flopped backwards into his bedroll. “I cannot believe this. You’re talking about dragons - UNDEAD dragons - as if they are mundane. There aren’t even any dragons left, and you’re talking about undead ones. Either you’re a legendary liar, Snow, or we’re all going to die.”
Robb looked up. “Weren’t you talking about that wildling before? The Weeper? Go back to that. I can’t handle more of this fantastical subject.”
Jon snorted. “If you like.” He slowly sat down cross-legged on his bedroll. “The Weeper didn’t like the remaining Free Folk listening to the words of a crow. Didn’t like crows in general; he split from Mance’s army the moment he died, and fled into the deeper cold, instead of working with crows to cross over the Wall to safety.”
“One night, he and his raiders captured a few of our band. We found their heads on wooden spikes later, made of ash and eight feet long even after being driven into the ground; there was another four feet or so that were staked into the ground. It must have taken them half the night to drive them so deep into the frozen earth, to send us that message. I remember being able to pull out one of those stakes by myself, one-handed, while the others took four men to free them.”
“Gods be good.” Robb breathed.
“Hey, Robb.” said Theon, grinning. “Who do you think would win in a contest of strength? Jon Umber, or Jon Snow, after six months of eating properly?”
“Which Jon Umber?” Robb replied, his voice mirthful.
“Either. Maybe both. Smalljon wrestling his left arm, and Greatjon wrestling his right.”
“Jon Umber, then. No question. Now, make it a year of eating properly…”
“Oh, damn the both of you.” the wide smile on Jon’s face belied the heat in his reply.
Robb laughed loudly. “Go on, then. Tell us what happened with the Weeper.”
“He kept picking us off, raiding us in the night and running off with Free Folk. he would always try to go after the former members of the Night’s Watch, if he could, but he’d take whoever. Cut out their eyes, and then stick their heads on spikes to taunt us. They called him the Weeper because his eyes were always inflamed and leaking; it was said he hated anybody who could see clearer than he did, and would cut out their eyes for trophies.” Said Jon. His voice grew quieter. “Finally, he took someone important. The goodsister of the former King-Beyond-The-Wall, Val.”
“You don’t mean Mance Rayder, do you?”
“Just so.” Jon nodded. “The people of the seven kingdoms considered her a princess, though the Free Folk wouldn’t have; the title isn’t hereditary. I formed a party and hunted The Weeper across the whole of the Frostfangs, never letting him have a moment’s rest. Never enough time to kill her or to rape her. Always one step behind.” his eyes grew soft. “We cornered him on the Frozen Shores, him and his raiding party. They outnumbered us by two to one, but we fought just the same, and we slew them to a man. The Weeper was the toughest of them all. We fought for nearly an hour, myself and my valyrian steel against his massive scythe and two hand sickles.”
“You won, obviously.” Said Theon, leaning towards him.
“Yes. He nearly had me, near the end.” Said Jon. “I was almost too tired to lift Longclaw, at that point, but Ghost, my direwolf, nearly ripped off his ankles in an attack of opportunity. I severed his spine in a single stroke while he was distracted.” he smiled. “His eyes never stopped weeping, even in death. Only when the cold froze him solid did they cease.”
He leaned back, and the two of them staring raptly at him. He smiled, sadly. “And that, friends, was how I ended up betrothed to my wife.”
Robb rocked backwards in shock. “Wait - what? How does… oh! ”
“You?” Theon exclaimed, eyes wide. “Married to Val, the wildling princess? A woman like that married you , Snow?”
Jon laughed. “It was close enough to the Free Folk way of stealing your future spouse from another clan to count, in her eyes, for her to declare herself mine the day after we freed them all. Not a single man objected to us being married on the spot, except for me. I was still fresh from exile, you see, and wanted to at least court her a little.”
“Oh, Others take you Jon!” Robb shouted.
“Robb, your brother’s a poof.” Theon said loudly. “No other explanation. A woman throws herself at him - Wildling royalty, to a bastard - and he says-”
“Oh, fuck off!” Jon shoved at Theon, and now they were all laughing.
“This daft bastard says ‘please, milady, don’t jump on my cock! I want to bring you flowers and serenade you sweetly first! Whatever you do, in the name of the Old Gods and New, don’t swallow me to the hilt the instant we are alone!’ You’re a fucking sword-swallower, Jon, the ultimate nancy-boy. We’ll need to find you some different type of pillow-biters if we bring you to Winter Town- AUGH! Get off me, Snow!”
“Now you’ve done it!” Jon roared, as he laughingly wrestled with Theon on the hard ground.
“I won’t do it, Jon! I’m not sucking your cock! I REFUSE!”
Robb fell backwards off the lump of his saddlebags, wheezing with laughter, as the two boys wrestled and fought. Eventually, though, the two separated, falling apart, and gasping with laughter. The sound of animals was far away, and the tail end of Summer kept the air just warm enough to not require lighting a fire for warmth. The mood was light, and thoughts of just why they were camped together on the Kingsroad were distant in their minds.
Eventually, Robb picked himself up, and his cheeks ached with the remnants of good humor. “I’ve been trying to get you two to get along for years, I think. I started to think it would take magic to make it work; I never knew just how right I was.” Robb picked up the saddlebags he had been using as a seat, and moved them further outwards. “I’ll take first watch. I’ll wake someone in a few hours.”
“Good. I’ll rest quickly, then.” Said Jon. the two boys slipped into their bedrolls, and the camp grew quiet.
Eventually, though, Theon spoke again. “What did she look like?”
“Mmm?”
“This wildling princess of yours. What did she look like?”
Jon went silent, for a little. “She was beautiful.” he said, finally. “Golden hair, like the sun as it dips low, or dark honey. Sometimes she wore it in a tight braid, down to her waist, but mostly she wore it wild, and it fell long and curly, almost like loose ringlets. She had high cheeks, and a sharp jaw, and a nose that was small but pointed. She had eyes like the sea, and changed color depending on the light as the sea does. Sometimes they were blue, but most of the time, they were a pale grey, and could stare right through you. She could have been the jewel of any Southron court.”
“... what about her body, though?” Theon asked, lewdly. He laughed, as he heard Jon shift and give a glare. “Don’t be chivalrous with me, Jon. I need to know just how amazed I should be you won this woman.”
“... Fine.”
“How were her tits?”
“High, and firm. They were large even before we were together, and they only got bigger after each child.” Jon closed his eyes. “When I last saw her, heavy with our third, they were bigger than the head of a child.” Theon sucked in a breath. “I'll never understand how they never began to droop, but I'm grateful they didn't. She had broad hips, and a narrow waist. She was slender, but her thighs were thick, and she had muscle all across her; the life of the Free Folk doesn’t allow for lazing in the sun. Damn, I miss her…”
“Lucky bastard. She fuck well?”
“Like an animal.” Jon groaned, his northern accent thickening. “Dammit, Theon, stop talking. You’re making me REALLY miss her.”
“Both of you be quiet!” Robb called. “If I don’t catch one of your wargs because I can’t hear strange sounds over your gossip, I’ll haunt you in death!”
“You tell Greyjoy here to stop reminding me of my lady wife, brother!” Jon shouted. “Or else the only strange sounds you’ll hear will be from beneath my furs!”
The sounds of the night were shattered by loud, uncontrolled laughter.
It took just over a moon to cross the distance from Winterfell to the port city of Duskendale. If the three of them had been more accustomed to long rides, they could perhaps have made better time, but the neck slowed their rides, and Jon’s legs throbbed and chafed at the end of each day, filled with bruises. Not once were they attacked by the Three-Eyed Raven, and Jon did not have the faintest idea why; the feeling of constant paranoia had passed, but he was still left feeling unsettled, and wary of strangers.
When they reached the city, Robb made for the Dun Fort, to treat with their lords. They had sent a raven when they reached the Twins to King’s Landing, and it discomforted Jon greatly to deal with the men who had once murdered Robb, but to arrive at Dragonstone when the realm knew full well Stannis was at King’s Landing serving as Master of Ships would only bring suspicion upon their group. As the Heir of Winterfell dealt with the Lord Rykker and exchanged meaningless platitudes, as was his necessity, Jon and Theon made for the ports and portside stables.
Theon stopped walking as the ships came into view, and Jon came to a halt briefly after. The Greyjoy stared at the vessels, silently, before taking a great loud inhale through his nose. “You smell that, Jon?”
“Dead fish?”
“The sea.” Theon said, wistfully. “I’ve been away from it for too long. Did you ever go sailing, in your other life?”
“A few times.” Jon grimaced. “I wasn’t fond of it. When I wasn’t laid up with injury, I was sick off the railing.”
“Ha!” Theon laughed. “You Northerners. You’ve been afraid ever since your Bran the Burner. You have to breathe the salt air, let the Drowned God strengthen your legs before you can really understand it. I was born for this.”
Jon waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t go pretending you’re a pious man, Greyjoy. Everybody knows you don’t pray to much of anything at all.”
“Mayhaps I’ve reconsidered my position!” he declared, a wide smirk on his face. “After all, if you are to be believed, your Red God is real. Who’s to say that my Drowned God, and your Lord Father’s Gods, aren’t real as well? Maybe even the South’s Seven are real as well, with all their pomp and circumstance. Perhaps I’ll find religion the moment I step on the deck of a ship.”
“Perhaps you’ll find you’ve lost your sea legs and hurl over the side within five minutes.”
Theon laughed. “It amazes me how much better you are now that you’ve known a woman, Snow. We can actually have a conversation, now. How long did you have to live before that was possible?”
“At least twenty years beyond today.”
“You’re not certain?”
Jon shrugged. “Time flows different beyond the Wall. it never truly thaws even in summer, and we lacked a Maester’s wisdom in reading the stars for the exact years, and the turn of the seasons. The only true marker is the turning of the moon.”
“Savages.” Theon replied. “But they did well, if they mellowed such a prickly fellow as you. You used to fly into such rages when you thought people slighted you. Now you don’t even flinch when we call you a bastard.”
Jon smirked. “That’s because I now know the circumstances of my birth.”
Theon stopped walking, halfway to a ship captain. “Truly? You know your mother?” his semi-permanent smile widened. “Do tell. It’s one of the greatest secrets of the north: Who did the Honorable Ned Stark stain himself over?”
Jon shook his head. “Not here. It’s not a secret to be shared openly.”
Theon’s eyes grew wide. “That good?”
“Wars have been started over women lesser than my mother. To name myself hers would be… difficult.”
Theon pinched his eyes shut, and shook his head. “How is it that the men who don’t even try end up with the quality women? You and Lord Stark both. I have to wheedle and cajole to even get commoner puss.”
“But Theon,” Jon replied, smirking slightly, “You’re so very good at wheedling and cajoling for commoner puss. How many Winter Town bastards have kraken blood in them, you think?”
“There’s a difference between a fair maiden worth fighting wars over, and a whore with a fat arse.” Theon looked up, and towards the docks. “Nearly as fat-arsed as the draft on that ship there! Gods, the most broken-down longship without a thrall to it’s name could take some of these ships. The Iron Throne is lucky the Ironborn have given up following the Old Ways in Westerosi lands.”
Jon looked at Theon askance. “That… implies that the Ironborn still reave, but farther ashore. If we’re not including Bear Island, of course.”
Theon looked down at Jon, and a thoughtful frown formed. “You know something, Snow…?” he began. “Maybe you can learn something of that. When I’m no longer a ward of Winterfell, and return to my Father, perhaps you could come with me. Sail as my right hand on distant shores. Someone in the north other than the Manderlys should know about the sea. Maybe you can be the one who rebuilds the Northern fleets.”
“Lord Admiral Snow?” Jon asked, his eyebrows arching. “I could be tempted. Add it to the list of all the other ‘Lords’ I’ve been. Balon Greyjoy wouldn’t be so happy that you’re aiding the Starks, though.”
“Father can jump off the gunwales. Your Red God undid over two decades and the entire damned Long Night. This is bigger than him.” He replied, and the smile slipped from his face. “You said yourself that’s it’s a foreign god you don’t hold to. I think whatever it wants you to do, it will be done in foreign lands. You’ll like as not need to know how to captain a ship, so you can go off and have grand adventures, and I can stay nice and comfortable and actually remember all the common whores with fat arses after you die.”
Jon stared at Theon, silently. Theon met his gaze, confidently. After a while, Jon nodded. “You may be right. Thank you, Theon. I am gladdened by your offer.” He turned on the heel of his boot, once again facing the docks. “Let’s go purchase passage. Robb won’t be long with the Maester.”
“Aye.”
When the gates to the throne room of Dragonstone opened, Robb carefully schooled his face into a practiced, ‘lordly’ expression. Behind him, he could hear his two companions still. Now was the time for him to play his part, so that Jon could do what they had really come here for.
Stannis Baratheon sat on the throne of Dragonstone, a masterful carving of a dragon so vivid it might have been real. He was cloaked in dark colors, and his eyes stared from sunken sockets with a hard intensity. The three of them approached the throne, and Robb bowed as low as courtesy demanded a visiting lord give to another. “Lord Baratheon.”
“Robb Stark.” Stannis nodded his head only perfunctorily. “Your letter asking to discuss business at Dragonstone came at an inopportune moment. I trust you are not wasting my time.” he glanced to Robb’s left and right. “This is the extent of your guard?”
“My lord, this is Jon Snow, My bastard brother, and Theon Greyjoy, the ward of my house.” Robb gestured to the two. Jon, he could see from the corner of his eye, was staring with that look that he’d slowly correlated with remembering something from his distant future. He knew Stannis Baratheon personally, somehow. Robb remembered, with sudden clarity, that he had mentioned a war of ‘Five Kings’. Perhaps Stannis was one of those kings, if something had happened to King Robert.
“Not one of you three have seen twenty years.” said Stannis, his tone clipped. “Am I to understand that you speak on behalf of House Stark in this unnamed venture?”
Robb bit back his initial response. “I am the heir of House Stark.” Robb said, after a moment’s pause. “I have my father’s trust in these matters. The business is in regards to the Dragonstone mines.”
“The mines?” Stannis repeated. His lips curled. “The mines are barren. Nothing in them but worthless Dragonglass and Bauxite. Anything of value is buried too deep to reach.”
“The North finds that it is in need of Dragonglass, in the coming days.”
“Really.” his tone was skeptical, but Stannis leaned forward in his seat just the same. “It’s too brittle to make swords from. Sharp, but it shears on a plane with overuse even after forging.”
Robb nodded his head, acquiescing the point. “True. however, our notes show they work well in the heads of weapons. Arrows, spears, axes… weapons that will serve the Wall just as well as steel swords.”
“These weapons are for the Wall?” Stannis said, slightly surprised as if he hadn’t considered it. After a few moments, he nodded slowly. “The wall is ill-manned and ill-supplied in these times. It would serve the realm well to equip them better than they are. But why Dragonglass, in particular?”
“Dark wings, dark words.” Robb replied. “It is a quiet subject.”
Stannis’ eyes flickered about to the guards in the room. He understood when a lord was asking for a more private setting. “Shall we continue these discussions elsewhere?” He stood. “The Chamber of the Painted Table will suffice.”
Robb nodded, bowed slightly, and tried not to let out a loud sigh. The three of them had come up with this scheme on the Kingsroad, but even as he rolled it around in his head, he couldn’t imagine the dour lord of Dragonstone believing the hints and whispers of Others.
I can hardly believe it myself, and I’ve seen the proof with my own eyes etched into Jon’s chest.
The three young men followed after the Lord of Dragonstone, his arms folded tightly behind his back and not sparing them a glance or small conversation. Upwards and through the twisting hallways of the great fortress they followed, until they reached the top floors of the Stone Drum, and Stannis stepped forward through a greater archway. There, the eponymous Painted Table of Aegon the Conqueror lay, clear of any stands or set pieces. Stannis turned on his heel and gestured a single hand at a high-backed chair.
Now comes the hard part.
Robb turned to Jon, waving his hands dismissively. “Leave us.” he said, disdainfully. “Wait outside. Guard the hallway, if you must.”
A flicker of anger passed through Jon’s face, before his expression hardened. Jon nodded, and left through the door. Theon stepped closer, watching Jon’s coattails, as the heir of Winterfell walked to the seat Stannis had offered him.
Stannis’ mouth was a hard line. “You send your brother away, but not the son of Balon Greyjoy?” he asked.
Robb wasn’t sure if it was disapproval or suspicion in the Lord’s voice; he hoped it was merely the former. “He is a bastard, my Lord. He is a skilled swordsman, but he was not raised with the trueborn children, and is quick to wroth.” he said, lying through his teeth.
“If he is so quick to wroth, then do you not place yourself in danger keeping him as your guard?” Stannis walked slowly around the Painted Table, to a position at the head. “The Blackfyres have taught us that bastards are prone to remembering their slights.”
“Lord Stark feels differently.” Said Robb, curtly. He doesn’t like this line of conversation, but his discomfort was less important than the need to keep Stannis occupied.
“The Honorable Ned Stark’s one stain.” Said Stannis. “Even the South has heard of your brother, when they tell stories of the North and the Rebellion. Some whisper of Ashara Dayne, and that he should be a Sand instead of a Snow.”
Theon perked up. “With respect, my Lord,” he said, as Robb twisted to look at his best friend strangely, “I think the tale to be more scandalous than that. If it were Ashara Dayne, the tale would merely be tragic, and not secret as it is. Many know the Lord Stark was smitten with her at Harrenhal, before Brandon Stark’s murder.”
“We did not travel all these weeks to gossip on my bastard brother, Theon.”
Theon flinched back at the rebuke, nodding once. “As you say.”
Theon was much better at this game than he was. He had too much of his father’s honor to be skilled at it; Jon had vaguely intimated on the ride that this was a dangerous flaw for him. If Jon believed he must be less honorable in the future, then his counsel had weight.
“To business, then.” Stannis placed both hands on the Painted Table and leaned forward; he did not take the seat that was directly behind him. “Why does the North believe that Dragonglass weaponry will be crucial for the Night’s Watch?”
“... Lord Stannis, perhaps you are unaware, but a common saying among our people is that ‘The North Remembers’.” Said Robb, leaning his cheek into his braced knuckles. “We remember the Old Gods, we remember the old ways, we remember the First Men whose blood flows in our veins, we remember old slights and old favors. But most importantly, we remember the old stories, that the south prefers to forget.”
Stannis remained quiet, but a muscle in his jaw jumped. Robb could tell he did not appreciate the flowery language.
“In recent months, we have heard reports of a new King-Beyond-The-Wall being crowned, a man called Mance Rayder.” Robb continued. “He is gathering all of the wildling tribes and marching south. Some say his host could number above a hundred thousand. He means to breach the wall, take his people south, and pillage his way across the North.”
“I have heard no such reports being raised before the small council.” Stannis replied.
“You wouldn’t.” Robb shook his head. “The Night’s Watch’s pleas for aid have been ignored for years. It’s only now that I’ve become aware of it that the problem is being addressed. But what is more concerning to me are the other rumors surrounding Mance Rayder.” Robb lifted his cheek from his arm, and leaned forward. “That Mance is gathering all the tribes and assaulting the Wall, not as an army, but as an exodus.”
Stannis’s eyes narrowed. “The wildlings have lived beyond the Wall for millennia. Why would they leave now?”
“They’re fleeing something.” Robb replied.
“And it’s whatever they’re fleeing that you want the Dragonglass for.”
Robb nodded. “You’re a sharp man, Lord Stannis.”
Stannis pushed himself upright. “And just what could put the King Beyond The Wall to flight by mere reputation alone, mm? You seem to have the answer to that as well.”
“I won’t say it aloud. You will call me a madman, and our talks will conclude with nothing. But believe me when I say that the North will deal with both of these ancient foes, and the South will be able to rest easy in their beds.” Robb rapped a hooked knuckle against the dark lacquered wood of the Painted Table twice. “I want this to be productive talks for both of our houses. Dragonstone is thin with industry, as I understand, but you sit on a resource not easily found anywhere else in Westeros.”
“So be it, then.” Stannis’ head inclined by just an inch.
“Do you have the men available to mine the dragonglass? As Master of Ships, it will be trivial for you to supply the cargo ships to carry the glass to White Harbor, but if we have to import our own workers the costs will change.”
“We will have enough to begin operations.” Said Stannis. “You can expect a cargo ship to sail for White Harbor loaded with Dragonglass within a moon.”
“And who should I speak to, if I wish to talk of taxation and ownership rights?”
“Maester Cressen is the one with his gold link in his chain. I will call him from the Sea Dragon Tow-”
A Woman’s faraway shriek rang through the halls.
Theon gave a start. “What was that?”
Stannis’ back went ramrod-straight. “Melisandre!” Robb’s mouth dropped open in horror, as Stannis burst into a run through the door. The Lord of Dragonstone swung his head back and forth down the halls. “Where is your bastard brother!?” he shouted.
“Gods, Jon, what have you done…!?” Robb hissed.
Jon had hinted that he had a bad past with this Red Woman, but would he really be idiotic enough to -
He Didn’t finish the thought, and instead rose from his seat to give chase to Stannis; he could hear Theon following a heartbeat behind him. The Red Priestess’ shrieks of pain continued to echo through the halls, giving them a clear marker to where she was.
Stannis ran faster and faster through the halls, and a small number of guards joined them in their hunt; for a castle of its size, Dragonstone was lightly garrisoned, and few men stood at regular intervals.
Suddenly, though, the screaming stopped. Stannis snarled, snatching a spear from one of the running guards and racing with it pressed against his side.
After what must have been at least ten minutes of running, a hallway full of guards was revealed, crowded around a single open door. Stannis parted the gathered men like a wave, and both Robb and Theon followed in his wake.
Jon was up against the wall, half a dozen weapons pointed at his body; his hands were high above his head, and his sword was unbelted from his hips and on the ground, still in its sheath. His dark, grey eyes were wide, and Robb could see a fear in them that he wasn’t accustomed to seeing from him, especially not after the past two weeks.
Lying next to the lit brazier, across the bedroom floor - for that was what this room was - was a woman in a flowing red robe, face down. The smell of burning filled the air. Robb could not see Stannis’ expression, but the tendons in the older man’s neck bulged like iron cords.
A guard by Stannis’ side reached down to Melisandre’s shoulder and rolled her onto her back. The stench of burned flesh became stronger, then, as her charred and blackened face revealed itself. Her bright red hair was burned away halfway up her scalp, and her face had frozen in a rictus of agony. Her eyes were entirely burned away, and the blackest ashes fell from her sockets. The red gem wrapped around her throat pulsed with a bright, throbbing light.
Notes:
I decided partway through this chapter that it would actually be fun to change perspectives some of the time away from Jon, so that we can see how it all looks from the outside. Hence the Robb perspective at the end. It wasn’t exactly planned that way when I first came up with this story; I’m flying by the seat of my pants just a little bit, even as my good buddy Majin and I brainstorm fun ideas.
We know what the plot of this story is, from a ‘Going from Point A to Point C while stopping at Point B’ kind of perspective. But the beauty of these time loop stories is that there are so many details that you can fill in, in between moving the overarching story along. We can be silly, we can be sad, we can be serious as a heart attack, we can touch on ideas and themes that nobody has ever had time to touch on before because of the whole ‘zombie apocalypse in Westeros as a metaphor for climate change’ plot that ol’ Georgie-boy gave us.
I really enjoyed writing the three lordlings of Winterfell as a bunch of lads on a camping trip that was the trip down the Kingsroad. We don’t often get the chance to see people in Westeros actually having a good time for the sake of having a good time; whenever it’s there, it’s as a backdrop for other people’s schemes or machinations, and we get the uncomfortable subtext that it is a bad thing to enjoy yourselves while there is still somebody around who plays the Game. being able to explore those three as a bunch of salty young men instead of leaders and heirs was great fun.
Thanks for the great response to the first chapter. I don’t really know the points of comparison for AO3, considering I started on FF, but I feel like it was well received for it being my first output here and only being up for a week. Encouragement is what makes men like me write faster. We’ll see if the next chapter comes out in as quick a time as this. I hope I can get through a lot of the early chapters quickly. I'm looking forward to the lives where we are gonna get WEIRD.
Chapter 3: Life Three: Part 2
Summary:
The dungeons of Dragonstone, and the streets of King's Landing.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“... If it eases your anger at all,” Jon began, finally breaking the hour-long silence, “Know that I didn’t do it.”
Theon didn’t bother dignifying that with words of his own; his only response was to thump his head against the cold, damp iron bars that barricaded his way to freedom.
“I swear, on the Old Gods green and wise, I had nothing to do with it.”
“Oh, of course.” Theon drawled, thumping his head against the bars again. “That just makes it all better, doesn’t it? Nevermind the fact that we’re stuck here in the Dragonstone dungeons for who knows how long, and we didn’t tell a single solitary soul when we left Winterfell that we were going here. ‘You didn’t do it. ’ That’ll placate a man like Stannis into letting us keep our heads.”
Jon remained silent.
“Of course, this must not be all that much of an inconvenience for you.” Theon continued, the bitterness in his voice rising. “You’ve got your Red God looking out for you. When we are all arrayed before the headsman’s axe, you’ll just get right back up like nothing even happened. Perhaps it will be like a long nap. You will tell your story about Robb getting his cock sucked by that woods girl, I’ll get dragged out of bed at an ungodly hour, and you’ll gallivant along to some other landlocked shitstain of a kingdom like nothing even happened until we all die again from something that you didn’t do .”
Jon didn’t respond. Theon snarled to himself and hocked a wad of blood across the room; the inside of his cheek was still bleeding, and his left eye was beginning to swell shut. The guards had held a certain cruelty to them when they arrested him.
“You know, I was actually beginning to enjoy you, Snow.” Theon continued. “And then you go and do some stupid shit like this, and shove a woman’s head into a fire.”
“That’s not what happened.” Jon said, softly.
“It fucking IS what happened!” Theon roared, leaping to his feet and rattling the bars of his cage loudly. “You were the only one in that room, and everybody knows you weren’t supposed to be there! You came all this way to kill that red bitch!”
“I didn’t.” Jon was slumped against the back wall, in the cell opposite of Theon’s. “That’s not what happened.”
“Then what the FUCK did happen? Don’t you dare lie to me, you motherless whoreson, or I’ll stake you to a beach until the tide rolls in!”
“I…” the back of Jon’s head thudded against the damp black stone gently. “I went to her, and asked her questions. She was evasive, as I knew she would be, and I confronted her with things that I knew about her. Things it was not possible for me to have known. She was shocked, and she immediately tried to look into the flames for answers… and…”
“And what?”
“Her eyes lit on fire.”
Theon’s thought process ground to a halt.
“What.”
“I swear, on the Old Gods and the New.” Jon said, wearily. “She was at least an arm's length away from the brazier, but she let out an ear-splitting scream and turned around towards me, and her eyes were boiling in her skull.”
Theon opened his mouth, and closed it again. He swallowed. His mouth was suddenly very dry. “And that’s… not, normal , for these fire priests?”
Jon stared at him across the hallway as if he were simple. “No. it’s not.”
Theon stared back at Jon from across the hallway, before flopping into the wall and slowly sliding down onto his bum. “... Magic.” Theon whispered.
“Aye.” Jon agreed. His tone was sour. “Magic.”
I’m beginning to fucking hate magic.
“... They won’t believe us, if you say it is magic that killed her.” said Theon. “A fire worshipper killed by fire? Too ironic to be coincidence.” Jon remained quiet in his cell. “Where do you think they took Robb?”
“He’s the heir to Winterfell.” Jon replied. “They would kill him only if they want a war with all the Stark banners. He’s like as not under house arrest.”
“Lucky cunt.”
Jon snorted in laughter.
Theon’s eyes flickered about his cell, and listened to the crash of the waves outside. It was a quiet comfort to him, to be close to the sea again, even if he was trapped. “... So who killed her?” he asked, finally.
“Who?”
“Someone has to have cast the magic, right? Is that not how it works?”
“... I do not know. But I would have been glad of it, if only we hadn’t been blamed.” Theon glanced over, and he could see Jon’s face set like stone. “The world is well rid of Melisandre.”
“... What did she do?”
“She burned men, women and children alive at the stake in sacrifice to the Red God. Her last sacrifice before her death was Shireen Baratheon, Stannis’ only child.”
Theon could feel the blood drain from his face. “... And you wanted to seek her out?”
“Robb already told you, didn’t he?” Said Jon. “I didn’t survive the wounds that left the scars he saw, but Melisandre brought me back through her red magic. When I saw those scars again, that was the signature of my benefactor carved into my chest. I couldn’t ignore that clue if I tried.”
Theon was glad he was already slumped against the wall. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see if he could stand at the moment. I do remember Robb saying that. But I didn’t believe it when I heard it, and I never thought of it again until now.
“... Crazed bitch.”
Jon’s loud laughter echoed through the dungeon.
Theon was rather surprised when their imprisonment did not lead to a headsman’s axe, but instead dragged out. A few days turned into a sennight. A sennight turned into a fortnight. Theon had begun rearranging pieces of his straw bed to mark off the time they had spent in the dungeon. According to his count, it was nearing the mid-point of their second moon.
The guards didn’t talk to them, when they were brought food. Questions about Robb, or any responses from the North, or about the employment and marital statuses of the guards’ mothers when they were born. Stannis hadn’t come to them, at any point. Neither had been tortured, at least, and they were fed relatively regularly, but he could still tell that his skin was growing pale and pasty, and his fingernails yellowed. If he hadn’t picked up a few habits from Jon in the other cell, of exercising what they were able to do with just their own bodies, he was sure he would have been stick-thin from loss of muscle.
It was during one of those days, when Theon was already awake and repeatedly pushing himself from the floor out of frustration, that Jon woke up with a strangled scream. “You alright over there?” Theon called, not interrupting his exercises.
Jon only panted, eyes wide. Theon cocked his head, suspicious of the lack of answer, and rolled himself to a low standing position. “Speak to me, Snow. are you dying over there, or what?”
“Theon…” Jon gasped. “How many days have we been in here?”
“Almost two moons.”
“No, I mean exact days. I know you keep count.”
Theon’s eyebrows arched, but walked over to the ordered lines of straw. “... thirty-nine days, today.” he said, after counting.
“thirty-nine…” Jon said, almost too quiet for Theon to hear. “And we were travelling for thirty days before we reached the island of Dragonstone… plus the first day that…” A small sound escaped him that Theon couldn’t quite make out. “Seventy days. It’s been seventy days since I woke up.”
“And that means something to you?”
Jon Snow closed his eyes. “... It makes something make sense. And that makes other things make a little bit of sense, too.” he looked back up at Theon. “I had a dream that I haven’t had in more than seventy days. And now I know why.”
“You’re talking in riddles, Jon.”
“Did you know, Theon, that a wolf mother is pregnant with a litter for between two and two-and-a-half moons?”
After a moment, Theon scoffed. “Why in the Drowned God’s name would I need to know that? And what does that have to-” he stopped talking, after Jon fixed him with a withering glare. The idiot actually wanted him to think about it.
So Theon considered it. Why would Jon Snow, time-travelling bastard extraordinaire, care about how long a wolf bitch is pregnant with pups? His father’s sigil was a direwolf, of course, but that didn’t mean-
Direwolf. Jon Snow mentioned almost a moon ago that he had a direwolf in the future.
Theon’s eyes widened. Jon’s smile grew. “I had a wolf dream.” Said Jon, beaming widely. “My Ghost was just born last night. His mother is alive and well, roaming the Wolfswood, and not dead on the tines of a stag’s antler. He has a hunger for milk, and his eyes have already opened, and though he has never seen my face before, he already knows me.”
Jon Snow is a Warg. The Bastard of Winterfell was a thing from children’s stories and campfire tales in the dead of night.
Jon leaned sideways against the black stone walls, and a half-stifled laugh escaped him. “The Red God has a sense of humor.” Jon declared. “I fell asleep on the day that my oldest companion died, and now I wake again and again on the day he was conceived.” he stretched out his arm, grasping at something that wasn’t there. “After seventy days, I am a man made whole once again, Theon.”
Theon’s mouth is suddenly dry, and his fingers wrap around the sharp edges of the iron gates too tightly. “... Can anything be done?” Theon asked. “Can you free us with your magic?”
Jon looked at him askance, and then shook his head. “I never trained as a Warg. almost all the Free Folk who knew the skill were killed, by the time we returned beyond the Wall, and I never had the innate talent to expand beyond control of Ghost.”
No talent? You’re seeing through the eyes of a newborn wolf over a thousand miles away. Fuck everything I know if that doesn’t mean you’re not the Warg King reborn.
Theon bit back his desire to chastise Jon. “Put that on your list of things to do, then.” Theon said, keeping his voice level. “Right above getting us out of this damn dungeon and right below learning how to sail.”
“Priorities.” Jon replied, wearily but with humor in his voice.
“I like this new, non-virgin you, Jon. but come back to me once your hair is drenched in the piss of the Storm God, and you’ve spat in his face for it.”
“That’s an image that will haunt my dreams tonight.”
After that, they said no more. Theon rolled over to his side, and began to do push-ups instead.
Another week passed before something new broke their stagnation.
Jon did less and less in his cell, leaving Theon to his thoughts. The man slept whenever possible; Theon imagined he did it so that he could be free through the eyes of his direwolf.
Damn me for not having a kraken to dream through the eyes of, right?
A day came, though, that a multitude of guards stomped down through the dungeons. The clatter of iron armor and tramping boots woke Jon from his slumber, and the two of them were immediately on their feet with their backs against the cell walls. The turnkey pulled forward out of the square of guards, and turned to Theon’s cage.
The Greyjoy held his breath, not daring to even have thoughts of freedom. He didn’t see a headsman’s axe among the group, but that meant nothing. The door opened, and a pair of guards stepped through. “What’s happening?” Theon asked. He only got a scowl, in return, and they grabbed him roughly by the arms. “Ow! Hey! Tell me where you’re taking me!”
The last Theon saw was the turnkey walking towards Jon’s cell before he was manhandled out of the dungeon and up the black staircases. Theon managed to walk correctly, even through his awkward position where he was being half-dragged through the halls. He imagined that if he hadn’t been exercising the way he did in the cells, it might have been a different kind of struggle, but his legs had remained strong, and the difficulty only came from not quite being allowed to touch the ground.
Upwards through more stairs they dragged him, until they passed through another hall that he recognized led to the throne room. They pulled him through the doors, and Theon saw for just a brief moment that Stannis Baratheon was seated on the back of that black stone dragon once more before he was flung to the ground. He got his hands underneath him, before a metal boot slammed into his back and forced him back down to the ground.
Theon didn’t tempt fate again by rising, but scowled furiously into the ground and bit the inside of his cheek near hard enough to bleed. He heard more footsteps behind him, and Jon Snow was flung to the ground next to him. “Jon Snow.” Said Stannis, his voice like iron, cold and pitiless. “Theon Greyjoy. You stand accused of murder, of my courtier Melisandre of Asshai. How do you plead?”
“Where’s Robb?” Jon asked, before a boot slammed into his back.
“How do you plead?”
“Not… Guilty.” Jon ground out, his face slammed against the stone.
Stannis remained quiet, for a moment that stretched out like a bowstring pulled taut. “Then you are a liar.” he declared. “By my lordly rights, I would have you both hung by the neck until dead.”
Theon pushed his eyes shut.
“... Lord Stark, however, seems to take offense to my lordly rights.” Stannis continued. “He demanded the safe return of the three of you, and threatened to call his banners if I did not.” Jon exhaled, harsh against the stone, but full of relief. “I returned to him his heir, but kept you two.” Theon heard the sound of crumpled paper waving about. “Now I have received another letter, telling me that I shall have no justice at all for murder, and that the return of Robb Stark to Winterfell just under a week ago was not enough to placate him.”
Theon heard Stannis stand from his throne. “Which means that one of you - the hostage, or the bastard-born - is important enough to the Honorable Ned Stark that he would threaten war, when you are both condemned criminals.” he said. “He also informed me that King Robert, my brother, is approaching Winterfell, and he suspects he will be named Hand of the King. by now, Robert will have reached him.”
“I will not be threatened in my own lands with royal punishment.” Stannis snapped.
Theon gulped.
“But that is what this has come to.” the Lord of Dragonstone said. “I know my brother bears little love for me; he will send his armies to my door if Ned Stark asks him. I am forced to release two murderers from my lands. You took no bread and salt, and so I cannot accuse you of that foul crime, but a woman I invited to my home is dead because of you.” Stannis walked closer to the two of them, until Theon could see his boots from the floor. “So I will ask you again, and may you be cursed in the eyes of the Seven if you lie to me again - how do you plead, to the murder of Melisandre of Asshai?”
“... I asked her questions that only she could answer.” Jon mumbled on the floor. “She turned to the fire for answers, and the Red God rejected her. She turned back to me with her eyes on fire, and fell to the ground screaming. I did not touch her once.”
“You lie to me again, and say it was her own foreign god that struck her down.” Stannis sneered.
“She was an evil, cruel woman, but I did not kill her.”
“Even at the end, a bastard cannot tell the truth.” Stannis turned on his heel. “I want them off my island by nightfall.”
The guards dragged the two of them to their feet. Theon nearly cried with relief -
“You were working with Jon Arryn on something, before he died!” Jon shouted, as they were being dragged away. Stannis came to a sudden stop; if it was possible, the dour lord was standing even straighter than before. “You only had suspicions, but we dragged you away from it, and now he is dead, and you have no answers.”
“Be quiet, Jon!” Theon exclaimed. “He’s letting us go!”
“Tell me I am false!” Jon exclaimed. He wrestled against the guards, and they wrenched him beyond the doorway.
“Wait.”
The guards stopped dragging them along. Stannis turned around, and his face was dark with fury.
“How do you know this?” he asked; his voice was as cold as the grave.
“The reason that I know this is the reason that I sought Melisandre.”
“Jon, shut up! Do NOT tell him about-”
“I will not be named a liar and a murderer, Theon.” Jon said, hotly. “Not when I can prove it false.” Jon’s eyes swung back up to Stannis. “You had suspicions. Suspicions about the royal children. I know not who approached who, but the two of you were working together, and then Jon Arryn is dead from illness almost overnight. You think it wasn’t illness.”
Stannis glared at Jon with an icy intensity for what felt like an age to Theon. “Release them.” He said, finally. The iron hands around theon loosened, and his fingers immediately went to his muscles to try and massage the pain away. “And leave us. Guard the doors, and enter only if you hear violence.”
The guards nodded, and filed out of the room; the large wooden doors slammed shut behind them. Stannis moved forward at a fast clip, until he was right in front of Jon, towering over him. “How do you know this?” he hissed.
Jon doesn’t even flinch, meeting blue eyes with grey. “The same way anybody touched by the Red God does.” he responded. “I saw it.”
That’s as close to a lie as I’ve ever heard Jon tell, and there’s nothing in it that’s even false.
“The damned Lord of Light again.” Stannis’ frown grew ever deeper. “Well, then? Can your Lord of Light tell me the answers I seek? Melisandre never gave an answer, and only spoke in riddles of Long Nights and foreign legends.”
“... It’s true.” Said Jon. Stannis looked as though the floor had disappeared from under his feet. “All three of them.”
“Who?”
“Jaime Lannister.”
Stannis sucked in a sharp breath, and actually took half a step back. Theon had no understanding of anything they were saying, but this was the first time he’d ever seen Stannis truly stunned. Stannis shut his eyes tightly, and his hands curled into fists so tightly the leather creaked under the strain. “... And Jon Arryn?” he asked, quietly. “Was it them?”
Jon shut his eyes; it’s not an immediate answer. “... I do not think so.” he said, finally. “It was unrelated, but it will be exploited nonetheless. It was not illness.”
“Who? And how?”
“Petyr Baelish.” Theon did not recognize the name, but clearly Stannis did, the way that his eyes glimmered with tightly-leashed fury. “Through Jon Arryn’s wife, Lysa Arryn. Baelish has known the Tully sisters since they were children. I think they were having an affair.”
Jon just accused the aunt of all the Stark children of cuckolding and murdering the Hand of the King and Lord of the Vale. I don’t even know if he’s lying about it to spite Catelyn or not.
I don’t… I am uncertain of the method. But it was poison.” Jon shook his head. “Something to do with ‘tears’.”
“The Tears of Lys?”
Jon nodded. “That was its name.”
The muscles in Stannis’ jaw stood out in sharp relief against his skin; Theon had to imagine that he was grinding his teeth to a powder. “A rare substance with no residue. It simulates a strong sickness of the belly, and leaves no proof of otherwise.” he said. “More than one Lord of Dragonstone has been killed by such a poison. Expensive, but what is gold, to the Master of Coin?” he folded his hands behind his back, and stood straighter. “You orchestrated this entire council on the Dragonglass mines. A mummer’s farce, to approach her to speak of the Red God. Robb Stark answered to you, and not you to him.”
“... Only partly true, my Lord.” replied Jon, his voice low. “The Wall will have need of Dragonglass. That was no lie.”
“Is that the extent of your visions?” Stannis asked.
“... As much as you are able to effect, yes.”
“Do any of your visions explain why the Red God felt the need to burn out Melisandre of Asshai’s eyes, as you claim?” Stannis asked, glaring.
Jon glanced over at Theon. Theon could only scowl, before shrugging. “... Yes, My Lord.” Jon replied. “In a future that no longer is possible, she falsely proclaimed you Azor Ahai, a prophesied hero, and burned many men at the stake in your name.” Stannis’ expression curdled. “She summoned a shadow to kill your brother, Lord Renly Baratheon, and eventually burned your daughter at the stake as well.”
Stannis’ eyes lit with fury; he said nothing, but his chest pumped furiously with his breathing, as if suffocating on perfectly good air. “Foul witch…!” he cursed. “Selyse invited her to cure her childbirth difficulties, and instead she…!” he slammed his mouth shut; Theon thought he realized too late that he had shared delicate matters with a stranger to his house, in his anger. “So the Red God punished her, for the sins she would commit in his and my name.”
“It is possible.”
Stannis, after a long moment, nodded. “Go, then. I exonerate the three of you of murder. The realm may not see it this way, but I will inform Ned Stark the North no longer has quarrel with Dragonstone.” Jon exhaled in relief.
Does he not understand what Lord Stannis just said? He just admitted the realm will think us free-roaming murderers, let loose only through the blatant threat of war upon the Crownlands. We won’t be welcome in any court south of the Neck for years. Even I know this. Is Snow’s grasp of court politics truly that tenuous? “
If you wish to be rid of the South,” Stannis continued, “then ride north on the Kingsroad and be done with your quest. But…” Stannis paused. “Do you still seek a Red Priest?”
Jon hesitated, but nodded.
“Then go to King’s Landing, and seek Thoros of Myr. He is a reprobate and a drunkard, but deft with a blade, and all of these qualities have made him a fixture in King Robert’s court. He may have answers for you.”
Jon smiled; it seemed to Theon that it was sad. “Aye. I know Thoros of Myr, and his flaming sword.”
“I will have your personal effects brought to you.” Said Stannis. “As well as compensation for the unjust imprisonment.” Stannis hesitated, and then bowed, just a fraction lower than politics would dictate a lord bow to another, and certainly lower than one would require a lord to acknowledge a noble’s bastard. “I ask your forgiveness for my actions.”
“You have it.” Jon replied. “Your sense of justice is well-known, and you acted only as you knew the situation. No man could fault you.” he glanced at Theon, and the Greyjoy quickly nodded his assent as well. More than anything, he wanted to leave before their good fortune turned.
Stannis straightened. “Then if you will excuse me, I have a great deal many things to attend to. My guards will attend to your needs, and book you a ship. Good day.” he turned on his heel and quickly exited the throne room, leaving them to themselves.
Jon exhaled. “Shit.”
“What?” Theon asked.
“I reacted too harshly to his accusations. I thought I had grown past that, but I see now I haven’t.” Jon turned to Theon, and his eyes were weary. “And now I think I have just started a war.”
When Jon counted the coinpurse Stannis had awarded them, it equaled out to 200 dragons - a small fortune to someone born of smallfolk, and a more-than-reasonable ransom for two noble sons who were not heirs. They made good use of it, when they booked a room at Balerion’s Tail , an inn on River Row where sailors and sea captains often rested between journeys.
It was the first time Jon had been to an ‘pristine’ King’s Landing. The first time, when he had negotiated the truce at the Dragonpit, the city was still scarred from previous assaults. The second, he remembered with a deep unease, was when Daenerys Targaryen, Queen of the Ashes, had burned it to the ground. Now, the capital was in full bloom - both the people, and the overwhelming stench of human filth.
The Balerion’s Tail was one of the better inns of the city, Jon discovered, because the smell of shit and death was mitigated by the smell of salt and sea. He and Theon booked a room for the month with two separate beds, and now supped on lamprey pie and a dark, strong beer as thick as liquid bread.
“So what will you do?” Theon asked him, as he chewed on his meal.
“Tell the truth, I am uncertain.” Jon replied. “Events this far back are unclear. By this point in my life, I had already set out for the wall, or was in preparation for it. I thought no further of the South until I was appointed steward of Jeor Mormont many moons later, and handled his letters.”
“So the great Jon Snow isn’t all-knowing after all.” Theon smirked. “What do you know, then?”
Jon thought for a moment, and his mood darkened. “At some point, Lord Stark will discover that all three of Cersei Lannister’s children are bastards born of incest. King Robert died in a hunting accident, Lord Stark confronted them on the truth, and the Master of Coin, Petyr Baelish, will betray him in such a fashion that leads to his death. Thus began a brutal succession war that lasted years, named the War of Five Kings.”
Theon’s face went pale, and his jaw dropped open. “Drowned God deliver us.” he cursed, softly.
“I know not when or why these things happen, only that they did happen.” Jon shook his head, and took a bite of his pie. “And taking into consideration what I have done with Stannis, at least one crucial figure, Renly Baratheon, will live where he otherwise died. What I know of the future means little and less, now.”
“Do you think you have failed in your task?”
“... it’s possible.”
“Then perhaps you should learn as much as you can of the South before things go to shit.” Theon said, gesticulating with his fork as he spoke. “Take advantage of your condition to learn, both for your sake and for everybody else’s. Don’t go about ending this Red God business until everything is perfect. You haven’t told me once of how I ended up in the future, so I can only guess I died horribly; I would prefer that not be how I permanently end up.”
“... Would you really like to know?” Jon asked. Theon grimaced in reply.
“... Damn. Now that you say that, I actually want to know.”
“No. You don’t.” Jon shook his head. “I’m going to just tell you three things.” He leaned forward, and met Theon’s surprised expression with a hard gaze. “You. Sansa. The Boltons.”
Theon blinked, several times, before his face paled. “Gods…” Theon breathed. “What did I - Sansa? But I would never- whatever it is you’re implying, it isn’t possible!”
“Why?” Jon glared. “Because a small part of you still dreams that one day you might be betrothed to her?” Theon flinched back, as if physically struck. “I know about that, too, because you told me, in the depths of your despair.”
In truth, it was Sansa who told me of your childhood fancy, when we were burning your body, but that doesn’t cut to the quick near as much as this does. And I will make a point of making you bleed, every time you hear the tale.
Theon said nothing in reply, but instead grabbed hold of his beer and took a long, long drink.
Jon shook his head. “You’re an easy enough fate to resolve, but what about everything else? I am only one man, and you’re suggesting I fix a casket of wildfire that has been steeping for half a century. And that isn’t even considering what this Lord of Light wants.”
Theon dropped his empty mug to the table. “... As far as we know, you are being given infinite attempts to do SOMETHING.” He said, a little too loudly. “Even a simpleton can get a complex problem correct if given enough tries at it, and the past few moons have convinced me that whatever your flaws are, you are not a simpleton. Your problem might have no relation to the politics of Westeros whatsoever; so be it. Fuck the original goal. Use it to your advantage.”
“And how might I go about doing that?”
Theon shrugged, slumping. “If I were you, I would use the opportunity to fuck every noblewoman from Last Hearth to Sunspear, but I don’t think you’d go for that.” Jon could feel his face go red at the suggestion; Theon laughed at his discomfort. “If you won’t take personal pleasure from a divine blessing, then take the time to master yourself. Become a legendary swordsman, or the pinnacle of a strategist, or an artful musician. Hell, given enough tries perhaps you can figure out how to be a deft enough politician to end up on the Iron Throne, though given your skill at politics that might be the most difficult one of them all.”
“It would not be as difficult as you imagine, I think.” Jon smirked, taking a swig of his beer. Theon opened his mouth to continue, but closed it again, and stared at Jon with wide eyes.
“... Does this have something to do with your mother?”
“I cannot answer that question.” Jon’s smirk only grew wider.
“... Mermaid’s teats, you’re not a secret bastard of the Mad King’s wife, are you?”
Jon burst into uncontrolled laughter. “No, my friend. I’m not a secret bastard of RHAELLA Targaryen.”
Theon’s eyes grew wider, and Jon only laughed louder.
It took only a day for Jon to realize that his reputation had preceded him; the smallfolk of King’s Landing gossiped endlessly about the attempted murder of Stannis Baratheon two moons ago, foiled by a foreign priest. What should have been old news suddenly came alive again with the news that the Hand of the King himself threatened Stannis with imprisonment if the assassins were not released; speculation whirled with who the assassins could be, but all knew that the Master of Ships had fled back to his island, full of fear at the Hand of the King who had not even set foot in King’s Landing.
There was no possible way for him to safely approach the Red Keep with such an outrageous fable being spread (And Jon could only wonder just who could have such details as this, even if they were morphed beyond truth), and neither he nor Theon knew where Thoros of Myr resided. It was folly, too, to wander a city of half a million souls and endless taverns to try and find the ones that the drunkard priest frequented. It wasn’t until the noon sun was beating down on them, practically boiling them in their northern jerkins (Jon did not remember his previous trips south being so HOT) that Theon suggested the Street of Steel.
“You said that Thoros of Myr has a flaming sword, correct?” He had said. “Unless his was a Valyrian Steel blade, the fire must warp the metal, given time. He must purchase regular replacements to continue fighting.”
The logic was sound, and so the duo found themselves among the clank and clatter of the Street of Steel. Theon was right; near every blacksmith he spoke to knew of Thoros, as the Red Priest had bought swords from almost all of them. Few, however, were charitable towards him for how quickly he destroyed their work, and none knew anything about his living situation.
Jon scowled, twisting around in the middle of the street; he and Theon had separated to cover more shopfronts, and after near a dozen responses to the same effect on Thoros, he was beginning to believe that the idea was a dead end. The evening sun was beginning to set, and he now wished only to return to their shared room in the inn and eat.
There was something that twinged a part of his mind, though, as he looked at the blacksmiths at their craft. A half-forgotten memory, something important. He couldn’t place a finger on what he could have forgotten from his first life, so early on, but he knew there was something.
Perhaps I simply miss the weight of Longclaw on my side, and my mind is trying to trick me into hunting down Valyrian Steel here. As if such a valuable thing would be open for the smallfolk to see; it would be stolen within a fortnight.
“Jon!”
Jon Snow’s head lifted to see Theon walking briskly towards him, a wide smirk on his face. “There you are. Come, I’ve finally had a bit of luck in our search. An ironmonger said that Thoros is a regular patron of a master smith named Tobho Mott.”
“Lead on, then.” Jon gestured forward, and the two pushed through the crowds of men clogging the street up the hill. Jon’s eyes wandered as he walked, taking in various tools of war on display and comparing them in his head to both Longclaw and the nameless castle-forged blade on his hip. There were some of superior make to Mikken’s work, but not many.
The further and further they climbed up the hill, the greater the craftsmanship on display, and the more grand the buildings, until at last Theon took him to a house at the very top. It was a grand building, multiple stories high, with doors carved of pale white weirwood and pitch-black ebony, and stone knights wearing fantastical armor stood guard. Jon glanced about the front of the building, his expression pulling the more he took in. “This is Thoros of Myr’s preferred armorer?”
“The man must be a fearsome melee fighter, if he can afford this.” Theon agreed.
“He certainly knew his way around a blade.” Jon cocked his head. “Until he got chewed up and spat out by an undead ice bear, but that’s hardly sporting.”
Theon could only gawp at him in shock as Jon rapped on the double-doors insistently. After a moment, a young, slim girl pulled open the doors just a fraction, staring at him with wide eyes. “We wish to speak to Tobho Mott, about another customer of his.” Jon told her. The serving girl nodded, pulled the doors open further and led them to a sitting room.
All around them in the sitting room, beautiful colored weapons and armors sat in display. Flanges, hammers, swords of all lengths and widths lay strapped to display cases on the wall, and armor from chain to scale to full plate stood on mannequins of wood and clay. Jon had long to stare at them all, for Tobho Mott did not immediately appear, and something about the sight of the swords set the uncomfortable feeling that he had forgotten something important ringing louder.
Finally, the master armorer entered the room, clad in a black velvet coat speckled with hammers. “Welcome, my lords.” He said, with a faint Essosi accent that Jon could not place. “My servant informs me you wish to speak of another who has graced me with their patronage. Who do you seek?”
“We are in search of Thoros of Myr.”
As soon as Jon said his name, the smile on Tobho Mott’s face fled, and a disgusted scowl replaced it. “That false preacher? Bah. He comes to me after every tourney, when his Wildfire deceit has warped yet another sword of his beyond repair. May the Black Goat feast on that charlatan. I would not straighten a horseshoe for that man; the apprentices and journeymen craft his blades, instead, and I charge him as if it were my finest.”
It was not Wildfire that he used beyond the Wall, though. That was real fire, that did not douse itself. Perhaps he was not so much a charlatan in my time.
“Does he have a blade being made now?” Theon asked.
“He does. It was one of my apprentices, this time.” Said Mott. “Shall I bring him here?”
Jon stood. “Perhaps we can go to him. No need to dirty your floors with the soot of a forge.”
“Just so.” Tobho Mott smiled. The two boys followed the master armorer outside, to the massive stone outbuilding that served as the forge. Jon had thought the summer day was hot; stepping inside the forge was a step beyond, and he shuddered slightly as he involuntarily made associations to the day Drogon almost roasted him alive.
Rows and rows of ironworking benches spread across the room, at least two for every forge. Young boys worked the forge bellows to maintain their heat, while older ones made the air ring with their hammers. Tobho Mott stepped through them all, and led to a journeyman bent over what appeared to be a half-finished helm, with crude horns jutting from the forehead not yet beaten smooth.
Jon froze. His eyes grew wide. He recognized the boy before him, and knew his name before Mott shouted it over the din.
“Gendry!”
The boy’s head snapped up, and his icy blue eyes met Jon’s dark grey eyes for only a moment, before he stood straighter and dropped his head back to the ground. “Yes, Master Mott?” he asked, a sullen servileness to his voice that sounded utterly alien to Jon.
“I put you in charge of the Red Priest’s sword. The lord…?”
“Snow.” Jon answered, his throat dry from the heat. “Jon Snow, and Theon Greyjoy.”
Tobho Mott’s eyes lit at the sound of the name of the Iron Island’s Lord Paramount. “Lords Snow and Greyjoy wish to know of the charlatan’s business. How do you fare?”
“‘s almost done, m’lords.” said Gendry, not looking up from his blacksmith’s apron. “Just need to set the hilt, is all. Will be done on the morrow.”
“... May I see it?” Jon asked. Gendry glanced upwards to meet Jon’s gaze, just for a moment, before shuffling off to an iron chest some feet away. He opened it, revealing what looked like a number of half-finished projects, and pulled a blade from the top. He walked back over and handed it to Jon. it was a serviceable blade; not the best he had seen, and not as good as the blade at Jon’s side, but that was rather the point of it. The long thin tang of the blade was exposed, just as Gendry had said; the hilt had not yet been fitted onto it.
“Thank you, Gendry.” Said Jon, after he had finished inspecting the blade; his eyes lingered overlong at the tang; something about its shape set the uncomfortable feeling of forgetting tingling stronger. “Will you be sending a messenger once the hilt is fitted?”
“Yes, m’lord. Just get an urchin, no fuss.”
“Then Theon and I will return tomorrow, and meet Thoros here.”
“Will that be all?” Tobho asked, his eyes pinched.
Jon lingered. Gendry, the tang, the blade, all of it was outside his mind and he couldn’t understand what he was forgetting-
Arya. I woke up more than two moons before I left for the Night’s Watch. I only had Mikken start forging Needle a single moon before I left.
“WAIT!” Jon shouted, overloud. Tobho, Gendry and Theon all flinched back at the sudden raising of his voice, and Jon flushed a little deeper than the heat required of him. “Gendry. There is something I want you to make. Something beautiful, and worth more of your effort than this cheap blade for Thoros.”
“As you wish, m’lord.” Gendry nodded, but his eyes were up off his apron, now, and Tobho Mott was leaning forward, a look of mild curiosity on his face.
“I need you to make me a sword. A thin one, thinner than the common style of Westeros.” Jon said, voice moving fast. “A style like those they carry in the Free Cities. Long, whippy, flexible. Made more for the thrust of it than the cutting. It will be for a girl’s hand, one that will never grow to be very tall, but quick, and reflexive, and very stealthy.”
Now Gendry’s eyes were focused, and a bit of the intensity he remembered glimmered. “I think I have the image of it, though I know not the style of Free City swords.”
“I do.” Tobho Mott spoke up. “You speak of a Bravo’s sword. An enlightened design for a woman’s hand. Though it would never pierce a properly made plated armor, she might instead cut out a man’s throat or gouge his eyes through the gaps in his helm. Perhaps she could even disable a man's sword-arm by piercing through the chain mail of the unplated sections, at the elbow and the armpit, with a narrow enough point.”
“Mmmm.” Gendry nodded, stroking the small patch of bristle on his chin thoughtfully. “I see it now. And who shall this be for?”
The woman you loved.
“Arya Stark. My sister, and daughter of the new Hand of the King.”
Tobho Mott recoiled as if physically struck. “You are Lord Stark’s-” He half-screeched, as Gendry’s mouth dropped open, icy blue eyes wide as saucers. “Forgive me, my Lord, I did not realize you were Lord Stark’s - Yes. Mm-bhegm!” he cleared his throat, loudly. “It would honor me to personally forge a blade for a member of the Hand’s family. I shall begin-”
“No.” Jon shook his head. “It has to be Gendry.”
Tobho Mott’s eyes widened. “But- But my lord Stark, he is only a Journeyman! The boy is talented when he applies his mind, yes, and strong - but I have mastered my craft across the world! I trained with the Qohorik masters, and learned to reforge Valyrian Steel! Surely, it would please you more if I applied my hand to-”
“I’m not a Stark, Master Mott.” Jon interrupted. “And I believe Gendry here to be talented enough for the task. It would be more meaningful this way, as well.”
“M-Meaningful, m’lord?” Gendry said, stumbling; Tobho Motts eyes narrowed at the statement as well.
Jon shrugged. “The daughter of the Hand of the King receiving a custom blade forged by the son of his best friend? I can think of nothing better.”
The gathering went dead quiet; you couldn’t hear them breathe over the ring of hammers. “Son of his- what?” Gendry shook his head. “What are you talking about? I’m the son of no one. I’m a bastard, m’lord.”
Jon felt the world crack, just a little; he had the distinct feeling he had just made a grave mistake. “... oh. I see. My apologies.” he turned away, awkwardly, and saw Tobho Mott’s face frozen in fear.
At least one person here knows his parentage. I had no idea that Gendry wasn’t aware of it from the start, the way that he introduced himself so forcefully on Dragonstone.
Jon nodded, and smiled apologetically. Tobho relaxed, and nodded. “Well, then!” He folded his arms behind his back. “If that is your wish, Then Gendry shall craft the finest weapon he has ever made. I shall personally supervise him through every step of the process.”
Gendry whipped his head to Tobho in shock, as Jon pulled out his coinpurse of 200 dragons and began to discuss payment.
The pair of Northern boys had nearly reached the Balerion’s Tail on River Row before Theon decided to voice himself. “So, who was he?”
“Hmm?”
“That Journeyman. You recognized him, too, though you knew not that he worked at that shop.”
Jon felt his face twist as he considered his folly. “I did. We fought together.”
“You knew who his father was when he himself didn’t.” Theon countered. “That’s more than just fighting together.”
Jon wobbled his head in acquiescence. “Before I was banished with the Wildlings, Gendry and Arya were… close.”
Theon blinked, before barking out an ugly laugh. “HA! Little Arya and a great big lummox like that!? He probably broke her in half!”
“Talk carefully, Greyjoy. That’s my nine year old sister.”
“She wasn’t nine when they were ‘close’, or else that blacksmith’s boy is far more degenerate than I pegged him for.”
“This is why I was unable to stand you when I was a child, Theon.”
Theon laughed loudly, once, as they reached the door of their chosen inn. “And what has changed you, that I am suddenly tolerable?”
Jon snorted, grinning to himself. “My friend Tormund is fouler than you could ever be. Enormous bastard, beard down to his chest and hair redder than your own blood. Chief of the Haunted Forest clans, last I saw him. Kept trying to convince me to try and take one of his daughters into Val and my marriage bed.”
“Gods, the more I hear you talk the more I want to go beyond the Wall myself.” Theon groaned. “And I bet you didn’t, you daft idiot?”
“The Free Folk might have a view of marriage that comes out to ‘as many as you can keep happy’, but that was never me. I only needed one woman in my life.”
“I despise you, Snow.” Theon said, a playful heat in his voice. “I really do. I have a weakness for ginger girls, and you just threw away that chance when it’s handed to you on a platter.”
“What makes you think I don’t have a weakness for gingers?” Jon countered, grinning, as they both made their way up the stairs of the loud and well-lit inn. “My first love was a ginger from the Haunted Forest, and I’ll never fuck another after her. Mayhaps I’ll go back beyond the Wall, now that she’s…” he trailed off, eyes widening. “She’s… alive again.”
“Fuck off.” Theon continued, not taking notice of his companion’s discomfort. “All these wildling women. It’s because you’re prettier than a girl, isn’t it? Your long, curly hair and your soft, grey eyes.” Theon cackled, whirling about on the stair. “Maybe I should start brooding and talk of duty and honor, you know. Make the girls think I need saving, just like you, and they’ll throw themselves at me!”
The feeling in Jon’s chest passed, and he shook his head with a rueful smile. “You’re a menace. And what kind of Ironborn lets the women think he’s weak?”
“You say that now.” Theon japed. “But once I’ve got their legs around my neck, it’s-”
Theon’s voice cut off, and his arm shot out across the hallway. His other hand pointed towards the door to their rented room, which was open just by a fraction. “Did you lock the door before we left?” he whispered.
“I did.”
Theon’s hand snaked down to the knife strapped to his waist, and Jon likewise slowly drew his castle-forged sword from its sheath so that it made no sound. The two slowly crept forward through the hall, stepping lightly enough so that the wood would not creak. Jon lifted his sword high, preparing for a powerful thrust. Theon raised his open palm to the door, turned to Jon, and nodded.
At once, Theon shoved the door open, and the two rushed into their chambers screaming bloody warcries. A man sat on the edge of the furthest bed, dressed in black velvet robes, and the room stunk of rich perfumes, of lilacs and rosewater. He did not flinch at their charge, but stared at them instead with a small, greasy smile.
Jon froze, near as instantly as he saw the figure, but Theon kept charging. He only stopped when he was that they were unarmed. “Who are you!?” He shouted, brandishing his knife wildly.
“Oh, I believe the better question to be, who are YOU?” the bald man replied, his voice high and oily. He glanced past Theon, staring at Jon with a knowing look. “I believe your friend here already knows my face.”
Jon gulped. “Varys.”
Notes:
How? How am I doing this? I’ve written the past two chapters in as many weeks. This is the fastest I’ve written in years. Have I become part machine without looking? Am I morphing into Brandon Sanderson? Mysteries upon mysteries.
A lot of people have been asking me if this story will be ‘friendly’ or ‘unfriendly’ to certain characters. The short answer: yes. The long answer: yes and no. Remember, this is a Time Loop story. The only thing that stays constant are the things that happened before Jon woke up in the waning months of 297 AC, and the things that he can remember about people. What I can say is that I will be FAITHFUL to characters, both their good and their bad sides, but Jon has the unprecedented ability to really screw things up and make people grow along lines that Canon would have never afforded them. That will be exploited, both for and against his benefit, and I can also use this to make people develop in really, really weird/crackish ways. It's going to be great. All three of those options are going to be exploited, often with the same character across multiple lives.
(It's worth noting that I will pay far less attention to the characterization that went into seasons 7 and 8, because it’s clear that the writers had stopped giving a fuck, but even those will be kept in the back of my head as Jon’s understanding of people. Know, however, that I will treat all of the entities that the show created as ‘BAD END’ versions of characters.)
I’m not entirely sure if a hundred kudos in two weeks of this story existing is a big number, but I’m still extremely proud of that number. Thanks a bunch to all of you who gave a guy with no other stories to his name (on this website, at least) a shot. I want to ask you all: do you think that my lack of tags for character relationships is helping or hindering people giving this story a read? I was considering not tagging any of the relationships at all, because that way people can go into this without any expectations and can be surprised when I come out of left field with something rare, but that also means that it might hurt my chances of being seen by the people who filter for stories based on the pairings. Let me know what you think.
Chapter Text
“Jon, who is he?” Theon glanced backwards at his companion, not lowering the blade for an instant. Varys remained seated, and gently swirled a rough goblet of wine in his hand.
“Don’t answer anything he says, Theon.” Jon replied, eyes narrowed. “Treachery comes easily to Varys.”
“Treachery?” Varys giggled, as high as a young girl. “I am ever a faithful servant of his Grace, King Robert.” he took a slow sip of his wine, and his smiling eyes flicked between the two. “You mustn’t listen to such rumors, Jon Snow.”
Jon’s grip on his sword tightened. The only memory he had of the Spider, in truth, was of his attempt to turn him against Daenerys, and then his horrible death by dragonfire. Perhaps his experience was not the truest judge of his character.
Then again, maybe it was.
Varys slowly lowered his goblet to the table, and folded his hands neatly on his lap. “No reaction?” he asked. “I’m disappointed. It gives me small pleasure to watch men who think their secrets are their own sputter and protest.”
“Your ways are not a secret to me, Varys.”
“Then perhaps you and Greyjoy here merely think yourself invisible, walking among the crowds of King’s Landing.” said Varys, with a thin smile. “I assure you, you were not. You were quite obvious in your dealings, I’m afraid. The only question, then, is what those dealings are .”
“You’re not afraid of us, or our reasons.” Jon retorted, lifting his blade higher. “You wouldn’t have put yourself in our path if you thought we were a danger. You would know I could cut you down in the blink of an eye.”
“Then I would be very shocked, and very dead.” Varys pantomimed a gape-mouthed look of surprise, before giggling again. “But the natural son of the Hand of the King would not disgrace his lord Father before he’s even set foot in the capital by slaying a member of his Small Council, I think. Not you, at any rate. You’re too much of a Northman for that. So I must ask, then, why you murdered a woman on Dragonstone.”
Theon sucked in a sharp breath ahead of him. “How…!?”
“It’s what he does, Theon.” Jon answered. His eyes were flinty, and the color of sable as he tried to glare a hole through the eunuch. “The spider’s web does not spread as far as you think it does, if you think we killed her.”
Varys shrugged and pouted, flexing his fingers outwards on his lap. “It is true that Dragonstone is rather more difficult to find little birds to roost. Hard living, you see.” he stood, and slapped off his lap with the dangling sleeve of his robe. “But Stannis certainly thought you killed his Red Woman - who has been living at Dragonstone for rather longer than I thought she had, I must admit - and had you arrested.”
Varys slowly hid his hands inside the sleeves of his voluminous robes. “So, tell me. How did you two go from murderers in the court of the most inflexibly just man in the realm, to free in King’s Landing with Stannis’ gold in your purses?” he half-smirked; his oiled, hairless head caught the light of the flickering candles.
Jon couldn’t help but be stunned; his sword drifted downwards. Varys thinks we secured a pardon by agreeing to serve him. In that light, their very first visit - to Tobho Mott’s shop, where King Robert’s bastard apprenticed as a blacksmith - took on a more sinister light. He thinks we are confirming the secrets of the Lannister children for Stannis, so that he does not leave the safety of Dragonstone.
Which means that Varys knew. He knew that Cersei Lannister had horned the King, and told nobody.
A muscle in Jon’s jaw jumped, involuntarily. The man sitting in front of him had caused the deaths of fully half the Starks of Winterfell - Ned, Catelyn, Robb and Rickon Stark. The entirety of Westeros bled, and countless Houses, great and small, went extinct, because this unman deliberately held back the secret of Cersei’s infidelity. He CAUSED the War of Five Kings.
An old, familiar shade of black rage began creeping into the edges of his vision. Jon no longer cared about his character; The Spider was his enemy.
The eunuch seemed to sense the mood of the room change, for the glib smirk on his face fell away, and now Varys, for all his perfumes and robes, seemed a dangerous man. “I see.” Varys said, waggling his jaw side-to-side slowly. “Then you do know. How unfortunate.”
“You could have told anybody.” said Jon. his voice had dropped an octave, and his eyes gleamed dark in the light. “You could have prevented all that is to come.”
The realm is not yet ready for the truth.” Said Varys, shifting on his feet. “Were the Queen’s actions to be unveiled at the wrong time, it would wreak havoc. Too early, and the fool King Robert will disavow the Lannisters, a short civil war will be fought and won, and he will continue to whore himself and the kingdom into poverty and dissolution. Too late, and the Lannisters would have cemented their grip, never to be dislodged.”
“You WANT the Seven Kingdoms to destroy itself.” Jon snarled.
“What I want is irrelevant.” Varys snapped. “I served a silver-haired failure of a king on the Iron Throne. I serve another black-haired failure now. When the stags are inevitably devoured by lions, a third, golden-haired kingly failure will take his place and cut himself on the throne the second he seats it. No more. I will ensure the next man with silver hair on that throne is worthy of it.”
“Jon…” Theon anxiously bounced on his feet. “Why is he telling us this?”
“Because now, it matters not what you hear.” Varys answered him. “The both of you will neither reach Eddard Stark or Stannis Baratheon, unless the Small Council grows a craving for a bowl of brown.”
“What-”
Jon threw himself to the side, even as Theon continued to speak, the instant he heard a floorboard creak behind him. In front of his very eyes, from the open crack of the worn standing closet doors, a crossbow bolt flew across the room and punched directly into Theon Greyjoy’s throat.
Pain bloomed in Jon’s side the moment he saw this, but Jon still rolled to the side, and lunged forward with his sword into the closet; a spray of blood flew from the darkness and coated his blade. Jon ripped it out of the unseen body as a high voice screamed a warcry behind him. He spun in a half-circle on his heels, and the sword decapitated the young boy, who had to be no older than Bran.
Jon did not allow himself to think, before he turned and lunged forward, and plunged his sword into Varys’ gut to the hilt. The Spider gasped in silent pain, glancing down at the weapon impaled in him; in his soft, manicured hand was a small dagger, wicked sharp and frozen inches from Jon’s side. He looked back up, and his face held a look of shock, and disbelief. Jon ripped the blade out roughly, and the Master of Whispers dropped to the floor, dead.
Jon stumbled to the side, hearing a small body thump on the wooden floor behind him. His free hand clutched at the pain in his side - a crossbow bolt had punctured through his leather jerkin and poked cleanly out to the other side. He dropped his sword to the bed, jerkily running to Theon’s side. The Greyjoy was moving weakly, his fingers clutching at the fletching buried in his adam’s apple.
“Theon…” Jon gasped. Theon’s eyes traced to him, but when he opened his mouth, nothing but a gurgle of blood came out. His fingers stilled, his head slumped to the side, and Theon Greyjoy was no more.
Jon pushed himself to his feet, stunned. In a daze, he turned around, and saw the body he had stabbed through the closet door. It was a girl, brown-haired and short. She looked just like Arya, and she couldn’t have been much older than her, and Jon had stabbed his sword into her skull so roughly that he had almost entirely cleaved her head in two.
The black rage that had lingered on the edges of his vision clouded over entirely. Jon screamed, a wordless, bestial thing, like a wolf howling. He ripped the bloody sword from the linens of the bed, swung it over his head, and began hacking the body of Lord Varys to pieces.
Jon fled the Balerion’s Tail that night. The first thing he did was find a healer, someone who knew enough Silver mysteries from the Citadel to serve as a surgeon. He nearly bled out before he found one, on the Street of the Sisters; if he had not bound his stomach wound tight enough to nearly prevent breathing with the bedsheet, and left the bolt inside of himself to plug the hole, he would have. The healer clearly overcharged him for the midnight service, but he removed the crossbow bolt cleanly, and was adequate with a thread and needle.
He was woken roughly, the next day, by the healer shaking him by the shoulder. “What have you done?” he exclaimed, holding up a roll of parchment. The world was blurry, still, and Jon felt sapped of all his strength. The healer shoved the parchment closer to his face.
It was a bounty poster, with two faces sketched on it; the rough likenesses of both himself and Theon, as well as descriptions of their colorings. The offered rewards for either of them was ten gold dragons, a fortune for the non-nobility that clogged the streets.
“These posters are all over the city! Every street has a copy!” The healer exclaimed. “I knew you were trouble, but if the Gold Cloaks find you here I will be killed!”
Jon felt his neck give way, and his head thunked against the headboard. Varys. They couldn’t have known our faces without him. But if Theon is included, then this must have been something he prepared before he met us, if he didn’t return.
“I…” Jon coughed. His throat was dry, and his voice sounded weak and tinny to his ears. “I will pay… equal to that bounty, for every day I rest.”
The healer paused. “Ten gold dragons.” he repeated. “For every day.”
“I swear it.” Jon rasped.
The healer, a tall, middle-aged man with a Dornish tint to his skin, stared at him silently for some time. “You will need at least a sennight to allow your blood to replenish. You have seventy dragons?”
“I do.”
“And what prevents me from taking your dragons and then calling the Gold Cloaks myself?”
Jon sighed. “Your Maesterly vows?”
“I left the Citadel before I forged my chain.” the healer folded his arms.
“Then I promise that if you attempt to rob me… I will kill you.” his wound throbbed at the thought.
The healer stared at him, eyes dragging across his body, before he shook his head. “Pay me now, or I hand you to the Gold Cloaks myself.”
Jon glared.
Jon left in the night of the sixth day. He didn’t trust the Dornish healer. He had made sure to sleep on his coinpurse the entirety of his stay, and though he still felt flimsy, he would not allow himself to wait any longer. He left his punctured jerkin behind, and stole a hooded cloak from the man. He justified it to himself easily enough; there was little and less chance that he had completed whatever task he was cursed by the Red God to complete, and so one day it would be as if the theft had never occurred.
The healer hadn’t lied about the volume of posters across the city. A rough sketch of his likeness was on nearly every street at least twice. Jon knew he could not stay in the city for much longer; he had to leave, and with speed. He had missed his chance with Thoros of Myr, and without the aid of Tobho Mott and Gendry, there was no way he would be able to find him. King’s Landing held nothing for him but death, now.
The problem, then, was finding a way out. Jon had made for the Old Gate, as quickly as his weakened body would allow him, but the opening had become a checkpoint, manned by at least twenty guards inside the archway, and more than that inside the walls. They were examining the wares and carts of those that were leaving, and so it was clear they were on the lookout for smugglers, but even still, Jon could not easily slip past.
Jon vaguely recalled that a man he had once executed, Janos Slynt, had been commander of the city watch. He had been a vain, corrupt man, and had ended up at the Wall as a result of some political struggle. If the gold cloaks were fashioned in the same mold as he was, then there was little doubt that if he could find a lightly-manned gate, he could bribe his way through.
The trick is actually finding the lightly-manned gate. And that will require a lot of walking.
And so, with nothing better in mind, Jon began the arduous process of making his way towards the Dragon Gate, the next closest exit to him. He kept his cloak draped over his sword, and the hood over his head, even as the sun made the arrangement unbearably hot. Nothing could be allowed to make him noticeable to the city watch.
Jon tried not to think of the night in the Balerion’s Tail. he’d been trying not to think of that night for a week now. He tried not to think of how he should have been more careful in King’s Landing so as not to draw attention, or how he should have been more aware of his surroundings in that room. How he should have known that a man as clever as Varys wouldn’t have come alone. How Theon’s eyes, who had laughed and glowered and actually saw jon and not Robb’s bastard brother, dimmed and faded in his arms. How Varys spoke of kings and failures and-
Wait.
Jon came to a sudden stop in the middle of the street, just outside of a well-decorated brothel with an ornate globe of metal, glass and fire swinging over the door. A man behind him slammed into his shoulder and cursed at him, but Jon’s mind was reaching back, now.
‘I will ensure the next man with silver hair on that throne will be worthy of it.’ That was what Varys had said, and if his coded words carried through, he was speaking of another Targaryen. But Varys didn’t know that I was Rhaegar’s son, and Daenerys is a woman. So who was he speaking of?
The world tilted on its axis by a fraction. Varys had a plan. A plan he didn’t have the slightest idea about, even with his foresight. It was clear, now, that the Master of Whispers was a Targaryen loyalist above all, and was working towards a Restoration of the dynasty. But who was he trying to restore? And what had happened to that plan, that he had shifted to Daenerys, and then to him?
You know nothing, Jon Snow.
Jon grit his teeth. He was fumbling in the dark. He was not a plotter; he never had been. The deceits of the South were a mystery.
Then perhaps you should learn as much as you can of the South before things go to shit.
Theon’s words echoed in his ears.
“Perhaps I should…” Jon murmured. He shook his head, and began walking again.
He had not taken more than a dozen steps, however, before something slammed into his side, and sent Jon tumbling to the ground. “Oh!” a high voice exclaimed, before another giggled. “So sorry, m’lord!”
Jon shook the impact from his head, and managed to see a pair of young urchins staring down at him. One of them waved excitedly, before they took off running down the street. Jon cursed, good-naturedly, before pushing himself to his feet. He began walking again-
He stopped. His hand flew to his side. “Fuck!” Jon cursed, before taking off at a dead sprint. “STOP! THIEVES!”
The two urchins who had stolen his coinpurse had already disappeared into a side-street, but Jon gave chase all the same, led the fading patter of their feet onto the Street of Flour, home to a great number of bakeries and breadmongers. The more frustrating thing, Jon discovered, was that the Street of Flour was a maze-like lattice of narrow alleyways and blocked off passages. Only a native could remain centered.
Eventually, Jon ended up staring at a dead-end brick wall; he had been tricked away from his quarry. Jon bent over, panting heavily, and restrained the temptation to break his hand punching the wall. Without the hundred-or-so gold dragons he still had to his name, bribing the guards to escape was now impossible.
With a frustrated inhalation of fetid air, Jon straightened himself, resettled the hood on his head, and -
- he watched the two urchins race along the squalid dirt roads below, whooping as the playfully tossed their spoils between them. An old woman stirring a foul-smelling cauldron of indistinguishable brown shouted a harsh warning at them, and they answered back with equal filth as a contented purr rumbled through his belly. He sighted a pigeon on the roof next to him, and his tail flicked with excitement -
Pain exploded in Jon’s head. The world spun for a moment, and he found himself slumped to the ground, temple pressed flush to the brick wall he had just collapsed against. With a shaking hand, he pushed himself to his feet. “That’s never happened before…” Jon murmured. “But I won’t complain.” he turned on his heels, and ran back to the main paths of the Street of Flour.
It didn’t take long, following the larger paved paths, to reach the entrance to Flea Bottom proper. Here, the smell of all the foulness of humanity was at its peak, and Jon’s eyes watered just standing there. To his right, the very same woman he had seen before was still stirring her cauldron of foul brown liquid, in front of a larger pot-shop; to his left, and up, a cat was perched on the roof, its snout covered in red blood.
Jon shook his head wearily at the unexpected burst of magic that had led him there, and began making his way further into the slum. He followed only the wider roads, and felt the eyes of numerous gang toughs tracking him; he stood out by wearing such heavy clothes on such a hot day. In Flea Bottom, men and women alike were stripped down to layers of clothes thin enough to be scandalous, and Jon thought for a moment that he saw children younger than five playing utterly naked in the side-streets.
The streets grew more crowded the further inward he went, and Jon noticed, with a growing sickness in his belly, that there were more old women with foul-smelling pots on the edges of the road, apparently a street-side serving station for the pot-shops they were stationed in front of. Not only that, but numerous residents were actually paying to eat the indistinguishable brown gunk. With a sudden flash of horrified insight, Jon realized just exactly what Varys’ ‘bowl of brown’ was really referring to.
“HELP!”
Jon’s head whipped up. That voice was familiar; it was the boy who had snatched his purse. The Northerner burst into a run, bashing aside men and women to reach the source of the voice.
When he reached yet another twisting side-street, the cry for help became clear. A grown man, with thin, greasy hair and a gap-toothed sneer, had the boy held to the point of a rusty dagger, and the girl trapped by a boot on her neck. In his free hand, he held Jon’s coinpurse, ripped at the cording and moving away from the boy as if he was still in the middle of snatching it.
“Oi!” Jon called out, and he drew his longsword. The two urchins looked up at him, their faces twisting in fear as they recognized him. The cutpurse tilted his head only slightly, but he shoved the dagger closer in to the boy’s chest, enough to make him yelp.
“Tryna be a fuckin’ ‘ero, are ya?” he snarled, and his voice croaked with the evidence of self-abuse. “Not one step closer, or I kill th’ both of ‘em, hear?”
“You misunderstand.” Jon replied, glancing about. The side-streets were narrow, and would not allow him to swing his sword in much more than an up-and-down motion. Memories and lessons from the battle against the mutineers, and Karl Tanner, forced themselves to the fore of his mind. “That’s my coin you’ve got there. I want it back.”
The cutpurse cackled. “Little Northern lordling went and got got, did ‘e?” he shook the hand holding the fat purse, and it jingled loudly. “Well, if it please m’lord, piss off and die. I like the clink of it, so you ain’t ‘avin’ it back.”
Jon’s gaze flickered between the two trapped urchins. He blinked, and a fleeting image of the boy’s green eyes floating in a bowl of brown flickered across his eyelids. This was life in King’s Landing. This was life, in a city of a half-million people. He had never seen the like anywhere in the North. He knew, from an academic perspective, that the thieves, rapers and murderers sent to the Wall had to come from somewhere. But knowing it, and seeing it, were two different things.
He refocused on the man, and with his free, gloved hand, grabbed the fuller of the blade on both sides with his fingers, pressing the sharp edge into his palm. With his grip set like a pinched vice at the halfway point of the weapon, Jon lifted the blade up to his side, the point aiming directly at the cutpurse, who laughed in disbelief. “You want to slice yer own fingers off, you dumb cunt? Back off, before-”
Jon lunged, and suddenly, in the cramped quarters and gripping the blade in such a way, the cutpurse shrieked and leapt backwards from what was now a very lethal polearm. The longsword’s reach was halved, but now the razor-sharp point was deftly controlled, and was jabbed forward thrice in a second. The thief snarled, resettled the dagger in his hand, and lunged wildly forward.
Jon twisted the sword in his hand, and the knife clashed along the lower half of the blade, until it slammed against the metal crossguard. Before the thief had a moment to retract, Jon twisted the blade yet again across his body. Now, the hilt and the thief’s knife-hand were above and away from Jon’s head, and the tip of his blade was at the cutpurse’s throat.
“Aaah! Merc-”
Jon didn’t let him finish his sentence as he stabbed forward, punching through the thief’s throat easily and ripping it out again in a spray. The cutpurse dropped his knife to the ground as both hands went to his spurting neck, before falling to the ground.
Jon regripped his castle-forged blade by the hilt, flicked off the blood, and resheathed it in a single motion, before bending over to take his coinpurse back.
“THAT WAS AMAZIN’!”
Jon looked behind him. It was the boy who had shouted, while the girl had pulled herself to her knees and massaged her neck while quietly coughing. “How’d you do that, m’lord?!” he shouted again. “You were all, ‘Hah!’ and ‘Swasha’!” he pantomimed a rough approximation of his crossguard hook technique in time with his sound effects. “Me ma always said only a fool grabs a blade by the edge, but you did it and you got all yer fingers still!”
“Quiet, Aedrick!” the girl hissed.
“But-” the boy began to whine, but his eyes shot wide and he quickly shut his mouth as Jon took a single step forward. “S-Seven blessin’s on you, m’lord, for savin’ us.” he mumbled. “M’sorry I took yer purse.”
Jon simply stared at the two, silently, until the girl was fully back on their feet. They looked like a pair of skittish fawns, twitching in place and ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.
After a moment, Jon jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “How long will it be before the city watch discovers him?”
The urchin boy - Aedrick, his sister called him - blinked rapidly, before shaking his head wildly. “Gold Cloaks don’t go down the alleys, m’lord, an’ they don’t visit but once a week. An ol’ nan’ll clean up before they find ‘im. They always do!”
The old nans. Those must be the crones who were serving the pots of brown. Jon resisted the urge to shudder. Cannibalism wasn’t an unforgiveable sin in the eyes of the Gods, OId or New, the way that kinslaying or incest between direct family was. The thought of serving men on platters still set the Northman’s stomach to queasiness, though. He was thankful that his tribe had never been forced to that last resort, in the long winter that followed his exile.
The fact that these two probably ate from those pots every day … something in Jon’s heart hurt at the thought. Not just them; how many people living in Flea Bottom subsisted on the stuff?
Jon slowly crouched down to the ground in front of them, reached into his coinpurse with two fingers, and drew out a single gold dragon for the both of them to see. Their eyes nearly popped out of their heads at the sight. “Where are your mother and father?” he asked.
“Don’t ‘ave any.” the boy replied, never taking his gaze off the coin. Jon held back the wince. He reached forward, and when Aedrick held out his hands reverently, he placed it gently into his hands. “I never seen a whole gold coin before.” he whispered. “Seven blessin’s on you, m’lord.”
Is this what the South truly is? If men were allowed to live like this in the North, they would be the first to freeze in the winter. And they have an entire block of people like this.
Jon pinched another gold coin between his fingers and held it out to the girl. She rushed forward and snatched it, cradling it to her chest like a precious thing, as if it would run away if she didn’t protect it. Jon chuckled, sadly. “I won’t take it back from you, you know.”
“It’s nothin’ on you, m’lord. Teia’s been proper mad since the fat man didn’t show up with her favorite sweetmeats-” the girl, Teia, immediately kicked her brother in the shin. “OW! Hells! See what I mean, ser!?”
“It’s not fair!” Teia shouted. “He ALWAYS shows up, and he didn’t ! Something is wrong and nobody knows nothin’!”
Her bottom lip trembled, and so Jon hesitantly reached out a gloved hand to her shoulder. “Why do you think your fat man is in trouble?” he asked. “Tell me about him.”
“He -” she hiccuped. “He’s fat, an’ he’s bald, an’ he always smells nice, like flowers.” Jon stiffened. “An’- an’ he asked me to stand outside the house where Dancy works, an’ to listen if anybody was lookin’ for a baby.”
“A baby?” Jon repeated.
Teia nodded vigorously. “Uh-huh. An’ if they were lookin’ for a baby - cuz it’s probably little Barra, Mhaegan’s baby - I gotta remember their faces, an’ if they got any pictures on their clothes. An’ then, he visits every fortnight, and I tell ‘im if anybody was looking for a baby at the house Dancy works at, an’ he gives me sweetmeats an’ a whole stag, but he didn’t show up three days ago, an’ I know he’s in trouble an’ now we gotta go back to pickpock’in’ an’ he just stepped on my throat an’ my tummy hurts an’-” Teia broke into a wailing sob, arms hanging limply at her sides.
“... And was that house the one I was in front of, when you stole from me?” Jon asked, quietly. Teia nodded without interrupting her wailing.
The analytical side of Jon’s mind - and that was the only side he wanted to acknowledge at the moment, because he didn’t want to consider the fact that he had just murdered the only chance at rightful employment these children would likely ever have - noted with a clinical interest that if Varys was watching a whorehouse for anybody after a baby named Barra, then the King had at least two bastards in the capital. He hadn’t the faintest clue if that was the end of it.
Jon slowly opened his arms a little wider, and Teia run forward, and wrapped her thin coltish arms around his neck like a noose as she began to wail wordlessly, directly into his ear. Aedrick, off to the side, was moodily kicking a rock back and forth.
Summer children, the both of them. Did they survive the decade-long winter that came to Westeros? Or did they even make it that far, with all the horrors that were visited upon King’s Landing?
Jon let her cry into his shoulder for some time, before gently prying her arms off of him. “Where do you live?”
“We… we found a cellar that nobody uses.” Aedrick answered. “‘S alright, but we gotta make sure it looks like we ain’t in there. Nobody finds us when we’re sleepin’, then.”
We will Break the Wheel together.
A full-body flinch passed through Jon’s body. He hadn’t been haunted by that voice since the day he first held Lyan in his arms.
“... Can you take me there?” Jon asked, quietly. “I would be glad to see you off safely.”
Aedrick nodded, rapidly. “Okay, m’lord. It’s down the road a ways.”
Jon tried to stand, but Teia clutched harder at the neck of his cloak, pouting. With an amused scoff, Jon reached down, gripped her by the hips, and lifted the small girl who trusted a stranger far too easily into his arms. Now properly positioned, she nuzzled deeper into the crook of his neck and hid her face entirely.
She can’t be much younger than Ragnald. He was never the cuddlebug of the two, though; he always wanted to be running about after Ghost’s heels. Thinking about his son made his heart ache.
“C’mon, this way!” Aedrick shouted, running forward. Jon tromped after him, exaggerating the bounce of his step. Teia was giggling into his shoulder by the time they exited the side-street, practically jumping up and down in his grip independent of the silly walk.
The three of them had passed more than a dozen intersections when Jon saw a bright flash of gold through the shoulders of the crowd. He froze. “Wait.” he called out; Aedrick continued on for nearly a few more steps before stopping, and scurrying back to the teenager’s ankles. He lowered Teia to the ground, crouching as he did. Through the legs of the Flea Bottom crowds, another flash of gold was seen; it swished about, on fabric, and on far more than he saw from above.
“Get your little sister out of here.” Jon hissed.
“But-!” Aedrick began.
“Now.” he pushed the girl into her brother’s arms. “Do as I say.”
“I don’t wanna!” Teia protested, but Aedrick seem to see that Jon was serious, and after a few moments grabbed her by her wrist and pulled her to the side. “No! Lemme go! Nooooooo!”
Jon stood back up, making sure that his hood was securely over his face, before turning on his heel-
The streets behind him were already blocked off by the Gold Cloaks. A dozen men, at least, blocking off the path he had just trod. Behind one, an old woman - the very first crone he saw minding a pot of brown - was pointing directly at him.
“Others take me.” Jon cursed, quietly. Behind him, he could hear the clatter of armaments that signified the main routes being blocked off. He was surrounded. He flicked his cloak to the side, and revealed his blade to all. He slowly inched his hand towards it -
“Jon Snow!” a voice called out from behind him. Jon stiffened. It was the voice of a dead man. He slowly turned around, and saw none other than Janos Slynt, commander of the city watch. He had pushed himself ahead of the line of gold cloaks that barricaded the road, and though he held the city watch’s spear in his hands, it was gripped loosely, and his longsword was still in his sheath.
“You are surrounded, and are a wanted man.” Janos continued, his jowls wobbling underneath his beard as he spoke. “Yet we are not unreasonable. Let your blade remain sheathed, and none need be harmed today.” and then, looking directly into Jon’s eyes, Janos actually winked.
Jon’s eyes narrowed. With the man’s helm on, it would only have been visible if you were looking directly at his face, as Jon was. It meant something , but he had not the faintest idea what. All he knew of Janos Slynt was a general sense of corruption, and that he had hated him for his bastardy at the Wall with an unusual vehemence.
Jon slowly straightened, and lowered his hand away from the hilt of his blade. Janos, seeing the threat alleviated, walked forward with a brisk pace, and grabbed him roughly by the forearm. “Well done, bastard.” Janos murmured for only them to hear, as he walked around to his back. “There shall be a show of arrest, but within the sennight you shall easily escape the black cells, I think.”
Jon’s eyes widened, even as Janos himself began marching him roughly out of Flea Bottom. “Why?”
“Why, indeed.” Janos replied. The Gold Cloaks fell in around their commander. “You have made powerful friends at court with your actions, bastard. Lord Varys was not a well-loved man. Why, when we searched his room we even found evidence of traitorous loyalties, hidden behind secret panels.”
Jon sucked in a sharp breath.
“Though you have broken the law, in doing so you have done the realm a great service.” Janos continued, softly. “The Small Council has therefore decided on leniency.”
Jon stilled his mind. “And when I pray to the gods tonight in thanks, whose name shall I offer to them for blessings?” he replied.
Janos laughed, a sharp, ugly thing. “Littlefinger is in little need of the blessings of bastards, but I shall tell him of your appreciation.”
Littlefinger. Petyr Baelish. Jon’s stomach dropped out. Sansa once said that only a fool trusted him. If Baelish is well-pleased with the death of Varys, then I have made a grave mistake. Now Jon could see the reasoning. If Varys was a counterweight to Littlefinger’s schemes, whatever they were, then killing him had just freed a devious man from constraints. Freeing Jon, in the meanwhile, created a gross embarrassment to Ned Stark; the new Hand of the King had a son who murdered one of his father’s Small Council, roaming free. The scandal would cripple his power.
I am a great fool. He gritted his teeth. I will not make this mistake again.
They crossed out of Flea Bottom proper, and the bells of King's Landing began to toll the noonday chime, when Janos made a loud, strangled cry and released Jon from his grip. Jon whirled around, to see Janos Slynt standing upright as if being drawn from both end with fish hooks. "What...!? No...!" Janos half-screamed. "Get out...!"
His throat flexed wildly, and his limbs shook wildly, stuck in the middle of a seizure. “Others take me…!” Jon hissed.
"Get out...! I won't...! I won't...!" Janos screamed. With his arms still shaking uncontrollably, the Gold Cloak commander reached up to his own neck. "I won't... let you... Take me...!"
Janos then grabbed himself by the scalp and the chin, and snapped his neck snapped to the left, beyond the range a man could twist it on it's own. He stood there, with his own neck broken with his eyes rolling wildly, as the gold cloaks surrounding him began to shout and brandish their weapons at Jon, as if he had something to do with it.
Jon did not even move an inch, watching Janos' eyes. He was still alive, even as his control over everything below the neck was lost. his eyes were trembling, even as his arms fell limp... and then they flashed white.
“An admirable, but futile resistance.” A deep, rumbling voice came from Janos’ mouth that did not belong to him. Jon’s eyes went wide with horror, as Slynt twisted his broken neck back around to face forward. His head lolled onto his shoulder, and his eyes were pure white. "I have found you."
The Three-Eyed Raven.
Jon leapt backwards, immediately drawing his sword. “What have you done!?”
“Your magics cannot hide you from me anymore. ” Impossibly, Janos' body responded as if it didn't belong to a tetraplegic, and stood straight. The Three-Eyed Raven drew Janos’ longsword, and the stance he took was that of a master. “ The Stark named you; Now that I have seen your face, I will hunt you forever. The Ink Is Dry, R’hllor.”
The Three-Eyed Raven lunged, with blazing fast speed. Jon parried three whistling lunges at his heart, and two slashes at his throat, before scrambling further away. The Three-Eyed Raven wouldn’t allow it, and twisted the blade to plunge at his face. Jon slapped the longsword away, but not before it cut a long red furrow from cheek to ear.
“You shall not subvert the planning of eons. ” intoned the Three-Eyed Raven; his head had not left his shoulder once through the fight. “ Die, and return my Sight to me.”
“HELP ME!” Jon shouted, as a flurry of attacks so fast it seemed to come from four directions at once were desperately avoided. “THAT’S NOT SLYNT! HELP ME!”
One of the Gold Cloaks shouted courageously, and charged forward with a spear at the Three-Eyed Raven’s back. He whirled, and almost contemptuously slashed three times, once to deflect the blow, once to sever the hands, and once to slash the neck. The Gold Cloak fell to the ground even as the Three-Eyed Raven blocked another slash from Jon.
Jon roared, clashing blades with the Warged Janos again and again. The Three-Eyed Raven parried the blows all easily, and shifted the tempo once more against the northerner. More and more, the attacks were deflected at the last moments, and wounds flowed freely, while Janos’ body had yet to even be blooded.
A sudden flash of inspiration took Jon, and as he slapped the Raven’s blade away, he reached up across his blade to grab it by the fuller once again. As the Raven went to end him once again, Jon caught his enemy’s blade along the edge, and it bit into the metal crossguard. Jon twisted the sword in his hands, and now the Raven’s guard was wide open. He lunged with the tip-
Without any warning, the tip was deflected, and the move reversed on him. The Raven flicked his sword free, and Jon raced to reposition himself-
A moment of white-hot pain.
Darkness.
Notes:
I love my boy Varys, but you know I had to do it to em.
I didn’t even realize we were all taking a trip to Papa Jon’s (no pizza) until I was halfway into creating those little urchins. That’s alright, though. I already knew you hoes were calling him daddy- okay, I’ll stop now.
I had a big ol’ soliloquy written out about what really went wrong with the ending of the show and how it related to the books, but it was really long and made the author’s notes seem real preachy, so I moved that rant to the next chapter. Instead, let’s focus on this story. Jon just got slap-boxed by his general lack of knowledge that The Game even exists, plus not being as good of a swordsman as he thinks. At least Ned made it through the better part of a year as Hand; Jon didn’t even last a fortnight in King’s Landing. Let’s see what he does next… in a little bit.
I’m gonna take it a little bit slower on the next life, because I don’t have too much of it planned out yet. Give it a little bit of thinking before I write, so you’re not gonna get more ‘6000+ word chapters written in a week’ energy like the rest of this has been. (I've also been neglecting my other story I have on FF.net, but that's another matter entirely.)
Y'all are really helping me blow this thing up, huh? Thanks a bunch for reading and supporting a guy who just wants to be a sneaky bastard by not even tagging his pairings in advance.
Chapter 5: Life Four
Summary:
Jon goes on the offensive.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
When Jon awoke and felt the featherbed beneath his back, his hand was moving before his mind fully realized they no longer gripped a sword, and smashed his fingers against the wall. “Agh!” he hissed, and clutched his hand tight enough to whiten the flesh. He blinked twice, looked over to his side, and saw Robb still asleep in his bed.
Jon face twisted in fury, and punched the air multiple times before flopping back into his bed. He was back, once again. “Seventy days…” he murmured. Seventy days before Ghost was born. Seventy days before that Night’s Watch deserter, whose name had fled him after all the years, was executed. Seventy days before Winterfell learned that the Hand of the King had died, and that King Robert was travelling north to see his father.
Jon grimaced. Seventy days was a great deal of time, and yet not nearly enough. Seventy days allowed him enough room to cross the entirety of Westeros with a small band, or sail across the Narrow Sea and potentially reach any of the Free Cities, before his father was ever named Hand. Hells, Seventy days allowed him ample time to ride to King’s Landing and potentially prevent Jon Arryn’s death, and keep Ned Stark in the north, where he belonged.
But none of it matters if the Three-Eyed Raven is out for my blood.
Never before had he ever seen somebody Warg into a human being. Jon hadn’t even thought it was possible, until Janos had broken his own neck struggling against the invader. Perhaps there is some kind of ironic retribution here; now Slynt and I have both killed each other while we pleaded for mercy.
Now that he knew it was possible, there was nowhere in the whole of Westeros that was safe from him. Perhaps nowhere in the known world, if this legend from beyond the Wall could reach even into Essos. Jon glanced over at Robb, still asleep even as the morning sun filled the room. Jon flexed his fingers -
And pulled himself back, a disgusted look on his face. No. No, that’s not right. If I was in as grave a danger as that, I would have woken a dozen times already with Robb’s hands around my neck. Jon pushed himself out of his bed, already fully dressed - just what exactly had he done, the night before his rebirth, that he fell asleep without taking a scrap of clothing off? - and quickly made his way out of the family wing.
It took him several circuitous routes through the castle, in order to not cross paths with a single person, but eventually, Jon had collected a medium-sized hunting knife, a fur-lined bedroll, a pair of flintstones, an armful of firewood and several packaged rations of food. With his supplies in hand, Jon stole out of the keep and made his way to the First Keep, which had not been used for centuries. The doors to the abandoned structure were the pale white of Weirwood, and so the rot of centuries of neglect would never take them, but the hinges were all but rusted shut, and squealed loudly as he pushed through.
The drum tower was covered in dust, and was just as cold as the air itself; one of the reasons it had been abandoned was the main keep being fitted with the central piping from the hot springs. Jon followed the stairs downwards, into the bowels of the dormant Hypocaust. The lumber-intensive heating chamber was empty of any fuel in-between the numerous pillars of stone tiling that reached from the floor to the stone ceiling, and insulated well, to force the hot air into the evenly-spaced brass pipes and through the drum tower’s walls. Heating their home from the hot springs was much cheaper; the Wolfswood had nearly doubled in size since the day they stopped foresting it to feed the kiln, over three centuries ago.
Jon quickly lit a fire, in between the stacked pillars of the room, and set out his bedroll. As the Hypocaust was a small, cramped place, the air heated quickly. Jon sighed, and set his hunting knife to the side, and stared into the crackling fire.
“What am I doing?” he said aloud. He didn’t need another person to answer that; he already knew he was hiding from an implacable foe. It was the why of it that remained a mystery. Running from impossible enemies was not his way, and yet Jon could not be bothered to care, for the moment. He simply huddled closer to his fire, and kept a hand on his knife at all times.
He stayed in the bottom-most level of the First Keep for three days, venturing out only when the moon was high to plunder more wood. Jon did little else during that time but stare deep into the fire, and dream of the life that had been taken from him by a foreign god. Dreams of Val, of her fierce acerbic wit matched with a crooked smile she only showed to him that could drive him to depravity in seconds. Dreams of Lyan, his sweet, golden girl who loved freely and had charmed Ghost from the moment he saw her. Dreams of Ragnald, so fierce and brave, and had the talents of a Warg since he was only three.
He did not want to be in Winterfell anymore. This was the home of his childhood, but he was no longer a child in his heart. His home lay even further North, and it had been stripped from him more permanently than a flensing knife carving his flesh.
Upstairs, on the first floor of the First Keep, the squealing of hinges drew him back from his memories. “Jon?” a voice called. Jon stiffened; he knew that it would be obvious the First Keep was lived in, by the very nature of the central heating elements. “Jon, are you there?” the tromp of boots, and then a pause. The man then turned, and moved down the stairs, until the weathered, worried expression of Eddard Stark was visible from where Jon sat.
Jon did not trust himself to speak, the way his heart was suddenly pounding in his throat. Ned must have seen something in his expression, for his expression weakened, and he crouched down slightly to work his way through the tile pillars of the Hypocaust. “Are you alright, Jon?” he asked, quietly. “Have you been here this whole time?”
Jon silently nodded, and shifted slightly to grip the handle of his hunting knife.
Ned glanced down at the weapon hand. “Is something wrong?” he asked, worry permeating his face as he took a small step towards Jon. “Has someone in Winterfell-”
“Come no closer.” Jon lifted the hunting knife off the ground, holding it to his side in preparation for a lunge. Ned immediately backed off, gape-mouthed, eyes suddenly full of fear. “Are you unarmed?”
“I- yes, I am unarmed. Son, what is wrong-”
“I’m not your son.” Jon replied automatically. Ned instantly grew still, and Jon mentally kicked himself for his loose tongue. He had been trying to avoid this emotional bloodletting since the moment he first woke up, but now it was out in the air.
“Jon… it doesn’t matter what anybody says. You are a Stark. You are of my blood.”
“You know as well as I do,” Jon replied wearily, “that just because those two things are true does not make me your son. I know who my mother is, and where she is buried in the crypts.”
Ned Stark unsteadied himself and fell backwards, his back slamming against one of the tile pillars that held up the ground floor. “I… I…” his eyes flicked down to the knife held at Jon’s side. “I swear by the Old Gods, Jon, I never meant to hurt you. I wanted to protect you.”
Jon tracked his eyes to the knife and kicked himself again, before setting the thing far aside. “I know. You are still the one that I honor in my heart, Nuncle.” Jon felt dirty even saying those words, like admitting the truth out loud erased the good of the past. “I am not angry at you. I simply…” he sighed.
Ned looked lost, and somewhat like he wanted to retch from sheer panic. “What? What is wrong? Please, let me help.” he made to scoot himself further, but Jon picked up the knife once again, and he immediately backed off. “I thought you said -”
“It’s not you.” Jon gestured with the knife away from himself, and Ned slowly backed away. “I do not…” he hummed an irritated note, before fixating back on the crackling fire. “I am… I am being hunted, by a thing that can wear the skins of others like a cloak. Even humans.”
Ned stilled. “What? That’s not…” his brow furrowed. “Are you speaking of a Warg? Those are just stories, Jon.”
Jon shook his head. “It’s not a Warg; Wargs cannot inhabit any higher order than beasts. He is to Wargs what Wargs are to men.” he pinched his eyes shut. “It matters not if you believe me, it is true all the same. He is called the Three Eyed Raven, and though he is somewhere far beyond the Wall, he can strike me down whenever I am at my most vulnerable.”
“But that is…” Ned began, before shutting his mouth. Jon said nothing, as it was clear Ned had more to say. A long moment passed before the Lord of Winterfell spoke again, and his voice was low and intentional. “Have you seen this?”
“Seen?” Jon echoed.
“Your…” Ned grimaced. “Bloodline. They were well known for the gift of prophecy. Have you seen this Three-Eyed Raven in… dreams?”
Jon’s eyes widened, just slightly, before nodding. “Aye. That is close enough to the truth of it. I have seen the Three-Eyed Raven kill me in three different ways; the most recent was through the body of a man.”
Ned said nothing but backed even further away from Jon, who favored him with a thankful smile in return. “Can he be killed?”
“... I believe so.” Jon frowned. “In one of - my visions, I was led to believe that he had died, and his… name? Title? Had passed to another of similar power. So he can be-”
A sword plunged into Orell's gut. “You were right the whole time!” the sword shifted upwards, and the wildling's eyes burned white.
Jon’s eyes shot wide open. “Oh… oh Gods, no... “
“What?” Asked Ned, though he did not move any closer.
“It wasn’t a title. It wasn’t a title at all.” Jon breathed. That sweet, adventurous boy who wanted to believe he was a man grown at seven, and the cold, emotionless man in a wheeled chair… “It was him, all along. It was him, wearing Bran’s skin, and none of us saw it.”
“Bran!? What has happened? Is Bran in danger?”
Jon threaded his fingers through his hair. They had welcomed Bran into their midst with open arms. None of them questioned anything he said, questioned his powers. None questioned anything about what he said, or did, or why the Others were so intent on killing him. Bran had -
Jon’s heart stopped. Bran had become King .
“JON!” Ned shouted, and now the Lord of Winterfell was right in front of him, grabbing him by the shoulders. “What has happened?”
Jon swallowed. “When - When a Warg dies,” he said, softly, “if they have the chance, they can pass their minds to one of their animals, and can live on in that new body. But the Three-Eyed Raven can skinchange into men, and Bran has power cut from the same cloth. He went to him, beyond the Wall, and-”
“Look at you. You’re a man.”
“Almost.”
“And he took him.” Jon whispered, horrified. “He took Bran. He took Bran, and not one of us suspected a thing.” Just like Orell and his eagle.
Ned’s face was pale. “Bran… Bran was taken by the Three-Eyed Raven, in one of your dreams?”
Jon nodded. “And he -” his eyes narrowed. Black began to speckle the fringes of his vision, as the fire cracked loudly. “He banished me, beyond the Wall, along with the rest of the Free Folk. And we went willingly, though a decade-long winter was upon us, and they had fought to reach the southlands for millennia. We went, and not a one of us ever attempted to cross back over again, even when the ice froze too thick to cut through to fish, and even the volcanic greenery of the valley of the Thenns grew too cold for plants. None of us even TRIED.”
“You think the Three-Eyed Raven did something to you, in this dream?” Ned asked, his eyes narrow, and the color of flint.
“He MUST have.” Jon snarled, gripping the handle of his hunting knife hard enough for the wood to creak. “Only one of every three of our clan survived that winter. I watched men starve to death so that their children could eat. I watched babes live for only hours before the cold took them. I watched my people die like RATS. We were nearly driven to CANNIBALISM when even the animals died of the cold.”
He flung the knife into the small stack of wood, and the blade stuck at a crooked angle. “And not ONCE did any of us even think to cross to warmer lands, with a gaping hole in the Wall and not a single man garrisoned against us. Tormund fought his entire LIFE to cross that Wall, and not ONCE did he even suggest going back South.”
Ned remained silent.
“He banished me.” Jon pushed himself to his feet, but remained hunched over. “He banished me because of my blood, so not a single person could look to me as a claimant. I didn’t want it - I DIDN’T WANT IT!”
His fist rocketed outwards, and the punched tore through a pillar of stacked tiles, scattering stone fragments across the floor. “What is the South to me, but a pack of perfumed vipers and disloyal schemers? I’ve only ever wanted the North - ever since I was a child, I wanted to be Lord of Winterfell, but I loved Robb like a brother! I would have thrown that crowd of swords they handed me into a furnace if it meant that none of us had ever been forced to go below the Neck!”
“How many…” Jon’s voice failed him, just for a moment. “How many decisions were made that were not truly ours? How many failures happened, how many men died... because a man could make us fail in just the right manner from a thousand miles away?”
Ned’s hands curled deeper into Jon’s shoulders, before he pulled the boy into a fierce hug. Jon was stunned, for a moment, before wrapping his arms around him, and squeezed tightly.
Neither said anything, for at least a minute, before Ned pulled back. “So when are you leaving?” Ned asked, voice low.
“Leaving?” Jon repeated.
“To find this three-eyed craven and gut him.”
It took them only a day to covertly gather all of the supplies they required for the journey. Jon had impressed an abundance of paranoia onto the Lord of Winterfell, and Ned had obliged; neither of them could rightly say what the Three-Eyed Raven was capable of, if he could wear the skins of men, and whether Janos breaking his own neck struggling against him was normal or not. Caution and secrecy was their watchword.
Eventually, the two of them rode together from the Hunter’s Gate in secret, with Jon’s supplies split between their horses. Jon was dressed in dark greys and browns, and had a castle-forged steel sword at his hip. He could not tell whether or not it was the same sword he had worn in his last life; he imagined, fancifully, that it was.
The two of them rode for several hours, until the Wolfswood began to draw into sight on the horizon, and Ned pull himself to a stop on his destrier, with Jon following suit. “This is as far as I can go,” he said. “I only wish it were possible to send a retinue with you.”
“You know well why I must travel alone.” Jon replied.
“Aye.” Ned nodded. “If the Raven turns a single man against you in the night, it could spell doom. Knowing that doesn’t make me worry any less about you riding North alone.” He vaulted himself off of his horse, and began slowly transferring the packs from one beast to another; Jon did the same with somewhat less grace, as his riding skills had atrophied beyond the wall. “Do you have a plan?”
“I do not.” Jon admitted. “I did not know this man even existed until…” he grimaced. “Bran mentioned him as his mentor.”
“And by then, it was not Bran any longer.” Ned said, quietly. “The man was boasting, in a way only he would understand.”
“He won’t be boasting when I find him.” Jon vowed. “I know the lands beyond the Wall as well as I know Winterfell. He will not escape me.”
“Good.” Ned finished tying a hunting bow and quiver of arrows to the flank of Jon’s courser, before hesitating. “I’ve been thinking on what you said, in the First Keep.”
Jon looked at him with questioning eyes. “When you said that you wanted to be Lord of Winterfell-” Ned continued.
“A child’s fantasy,” Jon interrupted hurriedly, “a dream of a motherless son. I love Robb as much as any brother, and I have outgrown-”
“No,” Ned shook his head. “I don’t think you have. This prophetic dream has clearly matured you, but you meant those words.” Jon’s face twisted in pain. “I have not… been as good of a father as I should have, to you. I have raised you the same as my true children, and now…” Ned smiled. “Now you are almost a man grown. Both in body and in mind. And I could not be more proud of you, Jon.”
“Father…”
“I did not know Rhaegar Targaryen well in life, and so I cannot say in truth how much of himself he left in you.” Ned’s eyes grew watery. “But you look so much like Lyanna that it makes my heart ache every time I look upon you. And you have paid for my weakness, I think.”
Jon felt himself choking up. “You have given me a better life than a bastard son could have ever asked for.” he said, thick with feeling. “You gave me a family.”
“And I would give you more.” Said Ned. “I thought to send you to the Wall to protect you from King Robert, but now I see you are worth more than that. Drive a sword through this wildling sorcerer, Jon, and come back. Do not die out in those frozen wastes protecting our family, but come back to us, and I would name you Lord of the Neck.”
Jon’s heart stopped.
“You wanted to be Lord of Winterfell because you wanted a true home.” Ned continued. “Return to us safely, and I would give you one, in Moat Cailin. I would write to King Robert and petition him for the right of crenellation with a loan from the Crown, to rebuild that great fortress. I would grant you lands from the mouth of the Fever River to the White Knife and fifteen miles to the north and south, declare you subordinate only to the Stark in Winterfell, and gift you a thousand bannermen for your armies and smallfolk to tend your lands.”
Jon, after a moment of stunned silence, immediately dropped to a knee. “Lord Stark, I- you do me too much honor.” He stammered. Even in ruins, Moat Cailin was one of the most powerful fortresses in the North; when fully rebuilt, it would be functionally impossible to dislodge any man inside, even if the entirety of the South marched against it. And to be named the founding member of a house with lands on par with the Karstarks, the Boltons and the Manderlys? It was an honor due to an honored second son, not a bastard.
“I don’t do you enough.” Ned replied, firmly. “In a gentler world, you would have been born a prince. Now you ride off to do battle with a monster who threatens our family, on your own? All I can do is give you cause to come back to us.”
Jon’s eyes watered. He had been Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, the second King in the North since Torrhen Stark, and held a claim to the entirety of the Seven Kingdoms in his blood. How was it, then, that being granted a single ruined castle on the edge of swamplands filled him with more emotion than any other?
Because the most honorable man I know is the one who is granting it to me.
Jon clumsily pushed himself to his feet, shaking out the cloudiness in his vision. “I - I will not fail you, Father.”
Ned smiled, wobbly. “I want you to know that I do this for you, and not your name. You have always been Jon, my son, and never Jaehaerys.”
Jon froze. “Jaehaerys?” he repeated. “But.. I was named Aegon.”
Ned looked at Jon with an odd expression. “No. That was your half-brother. Your mother would not be so crude as to give a man two sons of the same name.” he tilted his head. “Who told you that your name was Aegon?”
Jon opened his mouth to protest -
“I had a High Septon’s diary, and Bran had… whatever Bran has…”
Jon felt a chill pass through him. “... Bran told me.” he whispered. The look in Ned Stark’s eyes showed he was thinking the same thing Jon was: Why would the Three-Eyed Raven intentionally misname Jon after his murdered half-brother?
“... Then it is not your fault.” Ned said, finally. Jon ndded. The two stared at each other, silently.
“... In a little over two moons, you may find a direwolf mother, dead after whelping.” Jon said, softly. “There will be six pups. One will be albino; his name is Ghost.” he smiled weakly. “Take care of them, will you? One for each of the Stark children.”
Ned nodded, though his eyes showed his amazement. “I will.”
The two held the moment, for just a moment, and then Jon threw himself into Ned Stark’s arms, and held him tightly. Ned’s grip was tight against his back, and his lips were down against Jon’s scalp.
“I love you, Father.” Jon breathed. I missed you so, so much.
“I love you, Son.” Ned whispered into his hair. “Don’t you dare die on those frozen plains.”
Jon wanted to say something more - Don’t you dare become Hand, don’t you dare go South, don’t you dare die again when I’m hundreds of miles away - But he said nothing, and merely gripped the only man he had ever called Father tighter.
Jon rode hard on the Kingsroad, hoping to waste no great amount of time reaching the wall. It had taken him twenty days, the first time he had gone to the Wall, but much of that was due to accommodating the Lannister half-man Tyrion’s inability to properly ride. Jon’s thighs were probably bruised black and purple, and the horse would have likely hated him if not for liberal use of treats, but by travelling alone he had cut the time it took to come within sight of the wall in half.
Or, rather, he would have been in sight of the wall, if a Summer blizzard had not blotted out the sky almost entirely.
Jon cursed as soon as he saw it. Summer blizzards were not unheard of in the North - certainly not as common as gentle Summer snows, but they were known to happen. They could take lands unprepared to deal with them wholly unprepared, and could last for days. When they passed, the snows could melt and reveal a crop damaged by frost, putting lesser houses without the coin to import from the Reach in danger of starvation. Even short Winters could be made dangerous by such circumstances.
This storm in particular held a size and viciousness that made Jon leery of testing it, and looked to be moving from the north and east of him. He could wait it out, but that would make him an immobile target on the Kingsroad for any bandit, and would make the Kingsroad impassable in the aftermath.
Jon frowned. He had to race it. Not to Castle Black - he’d never make it in time. He might make it to shelter elsewhere, though. He could easily make it to Queenscrown, but that might leave him holed up in that abandoned holdfast for days - the same problem of waiting it out on the Kingsroad. Many knew of the tower as an emergency shelter, and if anything with a pulse were to find him, they could potentially become a puppet of the Three-Eyed Raven.
Not Queenscrown, then, or Castle Black. But what if…?
His eyes tracked further east, to the places where the wall began to curve and wobble it’s way across the land, like a winding snake. He would be forced off of the Kingsroad, but it was possible he might be able to reach one of the abandoned forts on the Wall. Deep Lake, or even Queensgate if he arced around the storm’s trajectory well enough to avoid the leading squall. Those were the places he could be assured of solitude.
Jon grinned, slightly. He wouldn’t be able to use those tunnels, for they would have been collapsed by the Builders when the castles were abandoned, but they would make fine refuge until the storm passed. After that, he could make his way to Castle Black, and pass through the gate there. The letter in his pocket from Ned Stark to Jeor Mormont would allow him free passage without many questions.
Jon goaded the courser into speed. If the storm kept its current pace, he had a day, maybe two, before he was caught in it. And that was not a situation he was looking to experience.
Jon shivered, rubbing frantically at the snow-wet hide of the courser as man and beast were pelted with icy winds and snow. The horse was walking slowly, and stepping through snow drifts as tall as it’s knees.
The storm had shifted as soon as it hit the Kingsroad, on the second day. Instead of tracking to the south and west, as it had been, it began rolling directly to the west. Jon had only enough time to tear open his packs and throw every scrap of clothing he owned onto himself, so that not an inch of his skin was exposed to the freezing air, before the blizzard rolled into him. That had been several hours ago.
“Come on, boy.” Jon goaded, rubbing its shoulder to try and clear the snow and reclaim warmth for the nameless horse. “Come on, not much further. Come on, stay strong. That’s it. I’ve got an apple for you if you make it to the fort for me. Come on.”
I should have gone to Queenscrown. I let my haste and paranoia get the better of my common sense, and now I am going to freeze to death lost in a blizzard because of it.
If he had been riding in the correct direction, he should have reached the bulge of the Wall that signalled he was close to Deep Lake, but he had not even seen the Wall since the blizzard enveloped him. Jon could only pray that he was riding in a straight line, instead of being turned around in circles.
The horse stopped, and wobbled in place. Jon immediately jumped off, and his feet sank into a snow drift down to his knees. “Come on.” Jon pleaded, holding the horse by its reins. Without his weight on him, the horse seemed to stabilize, and began walking slowly forward. Jon could only scowl, hold a hand in front of his eyes, and walk forward. The frost would take his feet, soon, if shelter wasn’t found.
Jon and the courser trudged forward through the driving snow at least another fifteen minutes before a shade other than pure white appeared before him. Jon gasped, before pushing even harder through the snow. Slowly but surely, the ruined fort revealed itself, its towers collapsed and its yards overgrown with treegrowth. Off in the distance, a zig-zagging line of carved steps traced its way across the face of the Wall all the way to the very top.
This isn’t Queensgate, or even Deep Lake, Jon realized with a queer feeling of unease in his belly. This can only be the Nightfort.
He had been thrown far off course if he had passed over the other forts to reach one of the most ill-omened castles in all of Westeros. It didn’t matter, though, at the moment. Anything that would put a roof over his head would serve, and though the green wood would not light easily, it might be possible to cut down branches from the plentiful trees that grew in the yard and start a fire.
Jon pulled the exhausted horse behind him into the yard, and made towards the biggest doors he could find. The immediate choice led to what appeared to be the remnants of a great hall, but only one of the walls remained standing, leading further inwards. Jon led the horse behind him down the hall until he found another set of doors large enough to fit a horse through. When he pushed them open and led the two of them inside, it was clear that he had found the kitchen. The large, eight-sided room was filled with abandoned cooking fires and tools, with an empty well in the center. Off to the side, blood-red leaves surrounded a Weirwood tree that grew through a hole in the floor, and Jon had to wonder where it originated from if the branches reached here.
The courser limped into the kitchen, lowered itself down onto it’s knees, and flopped onto its side, shivering and twitching heavily. Jon cursed as a sympathetic shiver from the cold worked its way through him. With a hard determination, he grabbed the small woodsman’s axe from the pack on the horse’s side. A nearby chair molded from Weirwood was summarily hacked to pieces and formed into a rough square fire placement close to the horse’s belly, and a handful of red leaves stuffed underneath for the kindling.
When the flint sparked on the leaves, and the pale fuel caught, Jon began to strip himself out of the snow-soaked clothes. Some of the outer layers were frozen solid and would not loosen their grip until he held himself uncomfortably close to the fire. Only once he was down to nothing but his smallclothes did he allow himself to sit close to the fire. The pain in his extremities as the warmth came back was a terrible burning, but it was better than to lose them to the cold. He wasn’t keen on losing three toes and an ear all over again.
He wondered how long the blizzard would last.
When Jon woke the next day, the embers of the fire were only barely smoldering, and the horse had died of exposure in the night. He felt a keen regret in his gut; the mount had died because he was too incautious, and no other reason.
Throwing off his blankets and slowly pulling on a dried layer of clothing, he set to work demolishing another weirwood chair and rekindling the fire. His fingers still tingled and ached, but he hadn’t lost feeling, which was a good sign. The tip of his left ear was swelling, though, and burned painfully. That likely meant the frost had penetrated deeper, and Jon wasn’t looking forward to the cold blisters that would likely come with it. He wouldn’t be able to tell whether he’d lose it or not without a mirror.
The blizzard was still raging outside, and the decrepit structures of the Nightfort, as large and powerfully built as they once were, still shuddered under the winds. Jon glanced about at the walls of the kitchen; they looked sturdy enough to survive the blizzard, but you never knew. He reached for the rations pack, and began to unwrap an individual bundle of brown bread, cheese and sticky honeycomb, when he glanced at the dead courser.
“... shit.” Jon rewrapped the bundle, placed it far to the side, and drew the hunting knife he had packed. The blood in the horse had already thickened from the cold as he carefully carved off a portion of shouldermeat. With a grimace, he skewered the entire portion of lean meat with his steel sword and roasted it over the fire until the outsides blackened and the juices ran clear and hot. He lifted it gingerly to his mouth, took a cautious bite, and chewed.
“Mmm.” Jon’s face flexed in surprise. “Not bad. Could use some spices, but not bad.” it was a rich color and flavor, like beef but sweeter, and had a leaner texture to it than even chicken. He had seen many Dothraki make meals of horseflesh on the march up to Winterfell, and he was led to understand that this was their primary meat sustenance. If it was true, then the Khals and their armies were eating well.
“Khaleesi! Khaleesi!”
Jon’s arm spasmed, and had the slab of meat not been present, he would have slammed the flat of his own blade into his nose. Instead, his upper lip and both his nostrils were involuntarily slathered in hot juices. Jon growled, wiped away the horsejuice with his gloved hand, and forcefully cleared his mind of her .
He quickly finished off his meal and cleaned his sword on the mane of the dead courser. With a full belly, he covered himself with the rest of the many layers of clothes and made his way out of the kitchen. Many of the hallways of the Nightfort had collapsed since the time it had been abandoned, nearly two and a half centuries ago. The keep was massive, and Jon could only wonder at how many men must have volunteered in the past to maintain the place, in the ages before the Night’s Watch became a penal colony.
He wandered, as he had little else to do but explore until the blizzard let up. He spent several hours ducking through collapsed barracks and abandoned training halls. The most curious thing he noted of all was the abnormally large amount of rats crawling through the ruined fort; Jon’s mind naturally drifted to the legends of the Rat Cook, and shivered.
Eventually, he stepped through a large set of doors and into a long, massive room covered with rusted wall hooks and rotted ledges. Jon wasn’t sure what to make of it until his eyes landed on a half-destroyed shield hanging on a hook. The armory, then.
For as big as the room was, it must have been able to hold the weapons of thousands and thousands of men. As it was now, though, the room was almost entirely bare, and gutted with rot. That was to be expected, though; when the men of the Night’s Watch abandoned the fort, they would have attempted to take as much as they were able to carry with them to their new, more manageable location. Almost all of the armor stands had collapsed, and what little gear was left was useless.
Jon noticed, however, an extremely large cabinet at the end of the building, situated in a place of presence in the center of the wall. Mildly curious, Jon walked the long path towards it, and slowly came to realize it was made of stone, and not wood, and stood almost half-again his teenage height above his head. With a grunt, Jon pulled aside the stone doors, which slid on grooves carved into them.
Inside was a massive set of black, full-plate armor, and a greatsword that likely equaled the size of the Stark blade, Ice. both the blade and the full-plate armor, which was crested on the chest with a crow wearing a crown, wings outspread, were inscribed with runes that could only belong to the First Men up and down their lengths. The helm of the steel suit of armor was molded in the shape of a crow as well, with its wings stretching down the wearer’s face.
Jon stepped back, to marvel in awe of the set. The armor was far too big for him to use - standing upright, it had to have been made for a man over seven feet tall, and built like a giant. Even so, neither sword nor armor showed even the slightest bit of rust or age. He had not the faintest idea why they had left such a fine set behind, other than the small likelihood they would find somebody capable of wearing it.
He glanced about the armor cabinet, marveling, before looking at the foot of the stand. There was a bronze plaque inside of the grooves the stone doors slid on. The plaque was tarnished green with age, but the words were still legible to him.
Let the arms and armor of Wylis Royce ‘the Bronze Lord’ serve as a reminder of our duty. Let no man of the Night’s Watch raise arms against another, from this day until the last.
Jon stumbled back, eyes wide. Wylis Royce was the commander of the Nightfort when the Nightfort waged war upon Snowsgate. Brothers of the Night’s Watch had killed each other in open combat until the Stark in Winterfell ended the war by killing the commanders of both castles. Now that he saw the name, he could even see that the armor was wrought bronze, painted pure black.
But that was over six centuries ago. How, by the Old gods and New, was his equipment still shining like new?
Jon could only stare at the runes. House Royce, he had heard, placed great stock in their First Man lineage, and held that their knowledge of runic magics would create great feats in battle. Maybe there was something to it, after all.
Regardless, Jon slowly shut the sliding stone doors and backed away. Now he fully understood why the men of the Nightfort left this behind. It was a symbol of the Nightfort’s shameful past, and the knowledge of it’s defiance of the passage of time sent a queer chill through his gut. They would not have wanted this with them at Deep Lake, regardless of worth.
Jon turned his back on the armor stand, and without further thought left it behind.
It was nearing sundown when Jon finally returned to the kitchen. The blizzard outside was beginning to weaken, and he could reasonably guess that by the next morning the wall would be safe enough to walk on to Castle Black. It wasn’t ideal, but it surely beat trudging through the new snows now that his horse had passed.
Jon carved off another portion of the horse to eat. This time, he applied the butchery skills the Free Folk had taught him to the long and tough neckmeat. It was a more sinewy cut, but the color was rich.
Jon absently wondered, as he skewered the flesh on his sword and held it over the rekindled fire, what the Dothraki technique of eating horse was. They had been eating the stuff for as long as they had been a culture. Surely they knew what the best cuts were and how the best ways to cook the meat were.
Then again, they were savages who did not even have a capital of their own.
Jon kicked himself for the thought. The Free Folk didn’t have a capital of their own, either. He had lived long enough among them to know that just because they didn’t have the knowledge of how to build long-term structures or cities did not mean they weren’t men as well.
Except for maybe the Ice-River clans, and anybody who learned too much from them. Thank the Old Gods that Sigorn did not take after his grandmother, the way his father did. The Thenns would never have recovered from two Magnars who listened to that crazed Ice-River harridan.
Jon snorted good-naturedly, as he slowly turned the meat over the fire. Once Sigorn had returned back to the land of the Thenns and fully assumed his role as Magnar, the proverbial god-king of the Thenns, his first order was to bring forth all the men who had scarred themselves in the way of the Ice-River clans and had grown fond of human flesh and had them executed.
It was only then that Jon had first realized that the Thenns were not naturally cannibals, but in reality were quite sophisticated; many had reluctantly followed in the image of the Magnar Styr, but happily ended the practices as soon as his son banned them. Many of the Folk who had scarred themselves in the Ice-River fashion took to heavy tattoos in order to cover their shame.
It was a lesson that Jon took to heart, and spread to every young Free Folk man he knew. Never, ever, ever steal a wife from the Ice-River clans. Sigorn’s grandfather had done so in order to strengthen his line with far-away blood, and his entire clan paid the price for a generation when Styr had taken after his mother far too much.
So, in truth, who is to say that the people who will not settle in one stretch of land are wrong? They may not win great wars except through numbers, but if they do not war, then who decides the correctness?
“They do not get a choice.”
Jon’s body went through a massive involuntary spasm at the voice. Jon leapt to his feet, and spun around, eyes searching wildly. It was only after a moment that he realized that the female voice he had heard was imaginary. It was only a memory so vivid he could still see her lips move as she spoke, and her voice echoing in the halls.
It was a second later, at the ‘CLANG!’ of iron on stone, that Jon realized he had flinched so hard he had flung the sword from his hand. “NO!” Jon rushed over, but it was too late. The sword, with his hunk of half-cooked horseflesh still impaled on it, had fallen straight down the gaping hole of the well in the middle of the kitchen. “AAAAAAUGH!” he screamed in frustration.
He hadn’t had a reaction that bad to his memories in decades. Ser Rodrik - hell, Tormund would never have let him live it down if he was so startled by imaginary noises that he flung his sword across the room and down a well. “This damned Nightfort has me on edge.” He muttered. “And now I have to climb down this well to get my sword back. I’ve ruined my meal, as well.”
It was lucky enough that the walls of the well were ragged enough to climb down, he supposed. He grabbed a burning brand of weirwood from the fire and stuck it between his teeth before slowly making his way into the dark pit. It was a surprisingly deep well. He had likely climbed downwards for at least five minutes before his feet touched packed earth. There was his sword, and his horseflesh, dirty from the fall. He gripped the hilt, and slowly pushed off the ruined meat -
“WHO ARE YOU?”
Jon screamed and whirled around, flinging his sword outwards into a fighting stance. There, set into a deeply recessed wall, was a massive pale white face, craggy and wrinkled with age, with blind eyes staring straight at him. It was the face of a weirwood tree, one of the most massive trees he’d ever seen. A weirwood tree that had just SPOKEN to him.
And the horseflesh, which he’d only just begun to push off the blade, flew off the edge of his sword and slapped right into the weirwood tree’s eye.
Jon could only stand frozen in embarrassed shock as the meat flopped limply out of the tree’s eye, down onto the bridge of its nose, and fell to the side of it’s right nostril, where it stuck in a wrinkle. It looked like the giant tree had just grown an enormous pimple on the side of its nose.
The weirwood tree didn’t react to any of the meat’s movements. It didn’t even seem to be looking at him. But Jon had heard it ask that question. There was Magic afoot, and Jon didn’t like that one bit.
“I…” He hesitated. “I am Jon Snow. Who are you?”
The tree didn’t respond. Jon waited for several moments, but nothing happened. Finally, the tree spoke once more. “WHO ARE YOU?”
“I - I just told you.” Jon replied. “My name is Jon Snow.”
Silence.
“WHO ARE YOU?”
Jon bit the inside of his cheek. He was beginning to think the weirwood tree was looking for a specific answer. “I…” he sighed. “I am Jaehaerys Targaryen, Third of his Name. Rightful heir of the Seven Kingdoms.”
Silence. An especially long silence.
“WHO ARE YOU?”
Jon growled wordlessly, and punched the air in frustration. “I ALREADY TOLD YOU!” Jon shouted. “I already told you who I am! I gave you my real name! The one I don’t want to even think about much less answer to!”
The tree didn’t answer back. It didn’t even ask the question again.
Jon scowled, before dropping to the ground to sit. His hunger was forgotten, now. Now he was pissed at a tree with a giant pink pimple on it’s nose.
“You ask a specific question, and you’re looking for a specific answer.” he said aloud. “So what am I? I am a boy raised as a bastard. I am a son of the North. I am a warrior. I am a leader of men. I am the savior of the Free Folk. I am the Queenslayer. I am the exiled prince. I am the man who dies over and over and still wakes up on the same day in the same bed no matter how long I was past that day. Any of those do anything for you?”
The tree remained silent…
“WHO ARE YOU?”
“Fuck off.” Jon cursed. “I am the man who’s going to light you on fire. I am the man who got the first two women I loved killed. I am the man who tried to save all the living and was useless during the critical moments. I am the man who was lied to from the moment I was born. I am the man who got killed for doing the right thing. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers. I am the shield that guards the realms of men. I am-”
“THEN PASS, LORD COMMANDER.”
“What!?” Jon leapt to his feet as the mouth of the mouth of the tree opened wide, further and further until it passed the physical limitations of a real jaw. The gaping pit grew wider and wider until there was nothing but the passage and wrinkles so deep you could barely see the white of the tree.
Jon felt a chill pass through him. I didn’t mention during the rant that I was Lord Commander even once, but it knew all the same. He had never once been Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch in this life, but it knew. It responded to him not as king, but as a Brother.
The vows. It opened when I recited my vows.
And it had said he could pass… was this a secret tunnel through the Wall? How had he not known of this, at Castle Black? This was a critical failure of their records; if all it took was a brother to recite the vows only they knew, then Mance Rayder could walk up to this gate and lead his entire hundred-thousand strong army through, and none would be the wiser as to how it happened.
Jon slowly slid his sword into its sheath, and began walking down the tunnel. The brand in his hand burned low, but still lit his way well enough through the dark passage. He would see that the Gate made it all the way to the other side, and then return to his packs and collect his things.
He walked for some time, through the tunnel, until there appeared a faint light on the other side, the orange of a fading sun. Jon laughed and burst into a run towards it. He ran outside into the tall snows of the North beyond the Wall, and heard the creak of the ice above him. He was home.
Jon sucked in a deep, calming breath, and exhaled. And then his eyes narrowed. “The Raven will not escape m-”
A body slammed into him from his blindspot. Jon flew into the ground, his impact muffled by the new snowfall. The stun only lasted for a moment, before his eyes focused. There, standing directly over him and pinning him to the ground, was a massive, full-grown male direwolf, staring at him with pure-white eyes and snarling soundlessly.
“SON OF A-”
The possessed direwolf lunged at his throat.
Darkness.
Notes:
So, this has really not been a good week for me. One of my friends committed suicide on monday, I nearly gouged out my own eye by accident on tuesday, and I got the call that my grandpa was probably in his final twenty-four hours on thursday (it wasn’t, but it was such a shitty time thinking that thought that it colored everything). The fact that I got this out in such a short period of time is astounding to me.
Jon’s really not having a good time with the Raven right now. One of these days he’ll figure out what stupid mistake he’s making that is causing his trouble, and learn how to counter it. Until then, I get to have fun.
So, yeah. I hope y’all noticed that there are some blatant attempts to fix some bad writing by D&D while also merging in some book concepts that were cut out. The Thenns aren’t cannibals; the Magnar you meet in the show just took all of the Ice-River culture that he learned from his mom and made everybody follow it. The Black Gate is back from too-expensive-for-the-CGI-budget-land. And Jon is not named Aegon, because I have to believe that Lyanna was not as crass as the Freys. Seriously, Walder Frey has like a dozen Walder Juniors, and that doesn’t even count his grandkids.
I’m actually super excited that I learned that I can insert hyperlinks into the story, because that means that I can insert music for certain portions. I tried REALLY hard this chapter to make the music sync up to the words I was writing. I must have worked on it for days so that the Stark leitmotif crescendo would hit right at the point where the hug-rush happens. I hope it worked out that way for your reading speed.
Here’s a question I’d like you to answer in the comments. Do you like the length of the chapters that I’m putting out? I’ve been flipping about the site and I’m noticing that most of the other stories around are putting out chapters that are much shorter than I write. Is that what you guys would prefer? Or do you like my longer word-counts? Let me know.
Next chapter - Beyond the Wall. Home Sweet Home.
Chapter 6: Life Five
Summary:
Wandering the wilds Beyond the Wall.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
When Jon awoke and felt the featherbed beneath his back, he pulled himself to his feet, and cracked his fingers loudly.
“Alright, you feathery son of a bitch.” He said aloud. “If that’s the way you want to play this game.”
Jon arrived at the Nightfort, and there was not a single flurry of snow in sight.
It took him less than half a day to covertly gather the supplies that Ned had given him in his previous life and get onto the Kingsroad before they could discover he was gone. He didn’t want to go through the emotional tumult all over again by asking for Ned’s help; he might actually start to cry if he was offered Moat Cailin a second time.
With the gift of foresight, Jon rode the courser (The same courser, in fact. He was going to have to learn the steed’s name at some point, for it was a fine mount) at a fractionally more leisurely pace. His legs were spared a portion of the bruises gained from eleven day’s hard riding, and he still arrived at the ruined castle with days to spare before the blizzard hit.
With a smile, Jon pulled the saddle and saddlebags off of the horse, fixed a full feedbag to its neck, and slapped it on the rump. The horse kicked, but Jon was safely out of the way, and it started off at a measured trot. Hopefully, it would be onto the Kingsroad by the time the storm hit and would be found by a noble house. The brand would mark it as a Winterfell horse and see it returned; otherwise, some poor opportunistic sod was going to be marked a horse-thief and lose his head for it.
After settling all of his supplies onto his back, Jon quickly made his way through the collapsing halls and passages of the Nightfort until he reached the kitchen. With a fierce kick, he snapped off one of the legs of a weirwood chair, and wrapped it in pitch-soaked wool. He struck flint against it until the torch caught flame, dropped it down the well, and waited until it clattered against the cold ground to light his path.
It was slower going, climbing down the walls of the well with all of his gear on his pack. Once Jon reached the ground, he picked the torch back up, and turned to the magical weirwood Gate.
“WHO ARE YOU?”
“I am the watcher on the walls.” He recited with solemn intensity. “I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers. I am the shield that guards the realms of Men.”
“THEN PASS, LORD COMMANDER.”
As the mouth of the Gate slowly stretched open, Jon drew his longsword from its sheath and began to slowly walk forward. Down the tunnel he walked, the weight of the Wall pressing down on the ceiling like a colossus. Eventually, the exit drew close. Jon breathed slowly, slipped the pack from his shoulders, and resettled the longsword tighter in his grip. He raced forward in a fighting stance.
There was nothing outside of the other mouth of the Gate. Jon’s head whipped around on a swivel, barely allowing himself to breath so further aid his hearing. The forest was quiet, but quiet in the manner of snow-muffled, lived-in spaces. When a direwolf was hunting a portion of forest, all the animals either fled went absolutely silent for fear of the apex predator. Only Snow Bears commanded a comparable amount of fear and respect within the natural kingdom.
Jon scowled. He darted back inside the tunnel, slung his back over his shoulders once again, and walked back out, still brandishing his blade. An owl hooted from an indistinct position to the east.
He’s not here, waiting to ambush me. Jon frowned, glancing behind him. He had just exited a gaping mouth in the side of the wall, equally as pale as the weirwood tree and equally as distinct. With a grimace, he set off, crunching the snow underneath his fur-lined boots.
He didn’t understand the rhythm of the Raven’s attempted murders. The first time he had woken up, it didn’t take a full day before his murder. The next time, two days. But the time after that, he had almost lasted three full moons. Now, he was killed after little more than a sennight, but here he was again, trodding the same ground with no danger in sight.
If he truly hated him as much as he said he did through Janos’ lips, then why was he not struck down the moment he saddled the courser headed to the Wall?
Your magics cannot hide you from me anymore.
He doesn’t know I exist.
The realization stopped Jon cold. He had always assumed, from the moment he first realized that it was the Three-Eyed Raven controlling the murderous animals, that he had instantly known that he had been cursed by the Red God to wake up over and over at Winterfell. But if he didn’t know, then it explained much and more.
And the companion to that means that he’s somehow realized I exist every single time.
A fierce light bloomed in Jon’s eyes. The Raven didn’t find him for nearly three moons. It was possible to escape his notice for quite some time. And that meant that Jon could learn to repeat the feat on command, instead of by accident. All he had to do was discover how he was finding him.
And then, Jon thought, as he flashed his teeth viciously, he’ll never discover me before I’ve lopped his misbegotten head from his shoulders.
The air of the lands beyond the Wall were always most still in the hour of sunrise. No animal wanted to be active before the sun had warmed the earth by at least a tiny fraction, regardless of their suitability to the cold.
A snowy white owl slowly waddled out of the hollow of a tree, and fluttered its wings on the branch. The owl spread its wings to fly, and hunt for it’s daily meal of vermin -
An arrow pierced through its breast from behind, and it fell to the ground in a puff of feathers.
Jon slowly lowered his bow to his side, grinning slightly. “Lunch.”
It had been two days since he had left the Wall behind, and though it still loomed in the distance, it shrank with the miles that Jon put between them. The ranger roads of the haunted forest were an open book to him; he probably knew paths that neither the Watch nor the Free Folk knew of yet, given that Jon himself had discovered them many years in the future.
He had been ranging north-by-northwest, towards Craster’s Keep. He knew of a path across the tributary that fed into the Milkwater, at the fork of the two headwaters. An old tree had snapped in two across the base, during the first winter of his exile, and had crashed to perfectly wedge into a cliff on the opposite side; they were still making use of that as a bridge at the very day he last went to sleep. The tree wouldn’t have collapsed yet, but that was why Jon had brought a woodsman’s axe. It would save him at least a fortnight of travel, likely more, compared to the conventional ranger roads.
Jon quickly made his way to the fallen bird of prey and looped a cord of rope around its talons, before hooking it to his pack. Owls were not necessarily the best source of meat, given how scrawny they were underneath their absurd pile of feathers; They were much preferred as companions for skinchangers. Jon had learned to not be picky, though.
If he was positioned where he thought he was, then he had another ten miles to trek before he could be confident in starting a fire to cook his mid-day meal. He wanted to be at the river on the inside of a sennight, to properly give time to creating the bridge. He wasn’t sure where the Raven was situated, but he had an inkling that he was in the northern half of the haunted forest. If he was hiding anywhere south of the Milkwater, the Night’s Watch would have found him by now.
Jon slapped off the snow on his gloves and was in the process of resettling the bow to the side of his pack when he noticed the silence of the forest. It was utterly silent, save for the wind running through the canopy so thick that neither light nor snow reached the ground. He swallowed to wet his suddenly-dry throat, and drew his longsword as silently as possible.
He had traveled further north for another twenty minutes, using all the silent-moving skills he had practiced for two decades, before a loud howl broke the silence. It was close - far too close for comfort. Jon readied his blade in a fighting stance -
A second howl joined the first.
Jon immediately sheathed his blade and threw himself at the bark of a tree, scrambling upwards. With a quick hand, he thrashed the cord on the dead owl about until the carcass came loose, and it dropped into the snows with a heavy plop. The bulk of his backpack made climbing a dangerously cumbersome task, but he wrapped his hands and legs around a thick branch and pulled himself up into the canopy.
Jon heard the pair of padding footsteps all too clearly, in the unnatural silence of the haunted forest. From out of the shadows stalked the very direwolf that had ripped out his throat, a massive male almost as large as a destrier, and nearly pitch-black in its coloring except for white streaks along it’s muzzle.
It stalked right up to Jon’s tree, and the dropped owl, without any fear whatsoever. It stared him right in the eye and growled, as if daring him to complain about stealing his prey. All he could do in response was attempt to let his body hang loose as possible without falling, and averted his eyes; Ghost had taught him that his kind were incredibly perceptive to those signals.
After some amount of posturing, the direwolf male grabbed the owl by the head and carried it away, without eating. Jon watched him go, and his eyes widened.
On the boundary of his vision, a second direwolf paced, limping slightly. It was smaller than the male, with dark grey and brown colorings, and its belly slightly swollen. Jon recognized the beast.
The male dropped the owl in front of the female, and licked the other’s muzzle gently. The female quickly snapped up the owl, nearly swallowing it whole in three bites before chuffing in what sounded to Jon like gratitude.
The breeding pair took off at a relatively fast pace, with the male hovering protectively around the female as she limped along. Only after they had disappeared into the forest, and the sound of their pawsteps had faded, did Jon slowly lower himself out of the tree. The two had been headed towards the southwest, where the Wall ended and the gorge under the Bridge of Skulls began.
What happened, to give that female her limp? And what had happened to that male, so that he wasn’t there twice-over when she gave birth to Ghost’s litter?
He stared after them, for a time, before shaking his head. Trying to stalk a direwolf seemed a deathwish to him. They were going in almost exactly the opposite direction as him, to boot. He would leave that tale a mystery, for now.
Jon resettled his pack correctly, and filled his hand with the hunting bow once more. He needed to catch lunch all over again.
THWACK!
THWACK!
THWACK!
Jon leaned backwards, wiping a furred glove across his brow and panting slightly. He was nearly ready to strip a layer of clothing off him and let the chill of the afternoon air cool him. But after nearly two hours of careful ax-work, his bridge was ready to fall.
With a grin, he walked around to the face-up side. Holding up two fingers to check the alignment of the wedge, he nodded. He set the ax down, breathed deeply, and roared as he stomped mightily into the tree.
The last bit of wood holding the tree upright snapped, and it began to fall. The triangular wedge he had hacked out of the tree guided it’s fall, and it toppled across the flowing Milkwater, wedging itself in-between a cleft of the cliff on the opposite side of the river.
Jon whooped in victory. It was a perfect tree-fall. With a swift sling of his pack across his shoulders, Jon stepped lightly onto the rough bark and walked point-toed across the makeshift bridge. The Milkwater rushed hard and cold underneath him, but the tree was old and thick, and Jon stared down at the bark to ensure his steady footing.
“No further!”
Jon froze. He whipped his head up to see a pair of men, with taut bows pointed at him from across the ridge. “No further, Crow!” one of them shouted, in the Old Tongue.
Jon slowly lifted his hands, with the woodsman’s ax still gripped in his left. “I’ve got the wrong colors for a Crow.” He replied back, in the Forest dialect. “Not enough black.”
The response stunned the both of them. “You speak the Tongue!?” shouted the other.
Jon smirked. Clearly, they had been hoping he hadn’t understood them, and gave them an excuse to shoot him and take his gear. “I speak Mountain, Forest, Shore, Thenn and Mag Nuk, friends.” He’d never had reason to deal with the Cave-dwellers, and so he’d never bothered to learn their particular dialect of the Old Tongue. He also didn’t mention that his understanding of Mag Nuk was purely academic, given that they never found any other Giants once the first winter passed.
“But you’re a southroner!” he shouted.
“Aye, I’m southron.” Jon replied. “But the blood of Bael the Bard flows in my veins. No Free man shall have trouble with my passing.” the wind picked up, and his perch became unsteady. “Let me stand on solid ground, and we can talk.”
The first man on the left, after a moment’s hesitation, lowered his bow. The second was hissing low curses at him, but Jon was already scrambling up and across the tree, until he finally was on solid stone once again. “Thank you.” Jon nodded, and fixed the woodsman’s ax to the loop of his pack.
“Just because you speak the Tongue doesn’t mean we trust you.” the second replied, who hadn’t unstrung his bow yet. “You say you’re not a crow, but the only men that come here from the South are crows. Why are you here?”
Jon glared at him. “That’s none of your concern.”
“I’m MAKING it my concern.”
“Fyodor, the man gave his word to give no trouble.” the first man said lowly.
“Shut up, Virkyn.” Fyodor snapped, his dark unibrow furrowed in anger. “Bad enough we’ve got the Mance’s men sniffing about and his Shadowcat ranging nearby, now we’ve got fucking kneelers. I’m done with this shit.” he lifted the bow and pointed it at Jon’s head. “Last chance. What are you doing here?”
Jon’s fist clenched - black speckled his vision. “Lower that bow unless you intend to die.”
“Fuck you.”
Jon was already moving when Fyodor loosed the arrow, ducking low and slamming a fist into his gut. His off-hand slammed into the wildling’s face, and as the older man staggered, Jon grabbed him by the front of his furs and bodily hurled him to the side.
Fyodor staggered only twice before momentum carried him off the cliff’s edge. His startled scream echoed for only a moment before the loud splash of his body hitting the surface of the Milkwater, carrying him away underneath the currents. Even if he got out from underneath the tide, the cold would take him in minutes.
Jon turned, fists raised, to see the first man, Virkyn, pointing his bow at Jon’s face, arrow taut. He noted, with the absent clarity that comes to a man staring death in the face, that the black-haired wildling was missing the pinky finger on his right hand. “You got a fucking problem with that?” Jon growled, readying himself to leap out of the way.
Virkyn held his position for a long moment. An owl hooted, and the soft splashing of Fyodor struggling against the river faded. Finally, he loosened the string and lowered the weapon. “Nah. Fyodor was a cunt. Made eyes at my wife.”
Jon didn’t respond, but he slowly unclenched his fists, and let his anger dissipate like steam.
“Doesn’t mean he was wrong, though.” he continued. “What are you doing here in the North?”
Jon frowned. He hadn’t been intending on telling anybody what he was doing. It might be some time before he found where the Three-Eyed Raven was hiding, though, and emergencies happened.
After a moment of waffling, he sighed. “I’m here to kill a man.”
Virkyn’s expression turned frosty. “And which man is that?”
“A skinchanger. A powerful one.” he replied. The way that Virkyn’s eyes narrowed told him that it was a dangerous answer. “One that has made a habit of wearing human skins.”
The wildling’s eyes shot open. “Children preserve us. In that case, you’re welcome to our table. Not a man alive would try and stop you.”
“You’ll have to forgive me for refusing guest right.” Said Jon. “The skinchanger has taken over men I encountered to attack me.”
Virkyn cursed. “Then we’ll all sup with our weapons on the table. Fucking skinchangers…”
The village that Virkyn led him to was a cluster of five unmortared houses and a weak stockade, on the edge of a cliff overlooking the river. The place was named, uncreatively, Cliffsedge. Jon vaguely remembered the village as long-abandoned by the time spring broke, when they first discovered the new bridge. Now it was home to half-a-dozen families, and more single hunters.
Virkyn had half of a building to himself and his family, with the other half shared between three wandering Free Folk. Fyodor had been one of them, and had roomed with them for a month. Jon learned that while he was a skilled marksman, he was not well-liked. Virkyn’s woman, Baely, and their two daughters, Ynga and Velma, thought him a lech.
Jon was careful to keep a wall at his back while he was with them, and his sword remained strapped to his side. Even with this, the family welcomed him with only the customary level of suspicion, and shared with him roasted goat with spices, and a beer so thin it was almost see-through, and nearly tasteless.
Once more Jon told them that he sought to kill a skinchanger, and once more they reacted strangely until he specified, without naming his foe, that the Three-Eyed Raven had stolen the bodies of humans. This time, Jon did not restrain himself.
“Why is it that my task alarms you?” he asked, as he set the haunch of goat to the side.
“That’s ‘cause the Lord of Moss Hill is a warg.” the young Velma responded too quickly for her parents to give an alternate answer.
“The Lord of Moss Hill?” Jon repeated.
Baely scowled at her daughter before she responded. “A powerful skingchanger that we… give gifts to, in exchange for his protection. He defends us with the wolfpack he commands, and in return, we gift him food and clothes.”
Jon frowned. Tribute for protection. That almost sounds like a proper lord. Any more southern, and they would be asking these villagers to kneel. “And you allow this?”
“It’s because of him that we’re able to live here.” Virkyn answered, though saying it out loud clearly pained him. “A dozen smaller clans can survive because of him.”
“We’re not the Horn-Foots or the Thenns,” said Baely, with acid in her tone, “with the numbers to protect against the reavers.”
“We can hunt for food instead of having the women become spearwives.” pretty Ygna said, though her full lips pursed as if the idea of fighting was not entirely awful.
“So you honor this Lord of Moss Hill.” Said Jon, leaning back. “And yet, you fear him.”
“That’s none of your business.” Virkyn replied sharply. “Keep your nose out of places it don’t concern you, kneeler.”
Jon’s eyes quickly tracked around the table. His welcome had worn thin with the questioning, and his refusal to take his Guest Rights burned at the fore-front of his mind. “... Very well.” he said. “Then if you would hunt with me for a day and help me refill my packs, I won’t trouble you any longer.”
It was Baely that joined him with a hunting bow, a well-worn thing of rough yew and a thick hemp drawstring. The brown-eyed woman was clearly the better hunter compared to her husband, and even with twenty years of experience to draw on, Jon still had to struggle to keep pace with her in his untrained body.
“You’re not half bad, boy.” she remarked, as they stepped lightly through the snows, following a somewhat fresh elk track. “I would have expected you southron ponces to clod about and scare all the game away, but you stalk like a Free man.”
“Our people are not so different, just because of a Wall.” Jon replied, eyes still focused on the snow. “The blood of the First Men still flows in our veins, and our ways are the old ways. It’s when you travel south of the Neck that our blood grows thin.”
“The Neck?” Baely repeated, and her tone was inquisitive.
Jon grinned. The Free Folk always loved stories of the lands beyond the Wall - he delighted many a hall with stories of Westeros that to them might as well have been from a different world. “A land of fetid swamps and flooded riverlands. The stories say that the Children raised their magics to shatter the pathway north against the invading Andals, as they had done to the Arm. But it failed them, and they merely flooded the land.” Jon’s grin turned cutting. “It worked, though. No Andal king ever made the North kneel, thanks to the Neck.”
“Still kneeled, though.” Baely smirked.
Jon side-eyed her with a cut-glass stare. “The Targaryens were not Andals. And would you have done differently, if three dragons flew North, from below the Wall?” he replied.
“... Possibly.”
He scoffed. “Liar. Your very name shows their reach, even here.”
Baely bristled. “I am named for Bael the Bard, the cleverest King Beyond the Wall who ever lived.”
“And where do you think he got his name from?” He replied. “The name’s styling is as Valyrian as Aegon.”
Baely’s cheeks flushed red with anger, but as she opened her mouth to shout, a loud, wooden grinding sound cut the conversation short. The two immediately sunk into a crouch, argument forgotten, as the crept forward into the forest.
The grinding continued until they found the source. A bull elk was rubbing his antlers into the pale wood of a Heart Tree, stripping them of the last of their velvet. Jon and Baely nodded curtly at each other, drew their bows, and loosed in unison. Jon’s arrow took it in the neck, and Baely’s in the heart. It fell with a loud bellow, twitched several times in the snow, and then lay still.
Jon smiled fiercely. “That will feed me for many days. I thank you.”
“I would’ve shot him even if you weren’t here.” Baely responded, walking over to the elk. “The Old Gods are watching us through the weirwood. Most bucks are smart enough to stay well away, when we’ve been shooting any who deface them for generations.”
Jon joined her at the beast’s side, and slowly began working the arrow shaft out of its neck to see if it was reusable.
Baely remained quiet, for a time, before she spoke up again. “So this warg you’re looking to kill. He strong?”
“Horrifically so.” Jon replied. “I’d never seen a man able to warg into multiple skins at once, before him.”
“You’ve seen him?” she asked. “But you don’t know where he is?” her eyes grew wide. “He’s strong enough to warg past the Wall?”
“That he is.”
“By the Old Gods.” She breathed. “That’s not a skinchanger you’re after, Snow. That’s not any kind of man at all.”
“He is a man.” Jon deftly tied a rope around the front legs of the elk, and slid a straight rod between the arc created. “And I know for a fact that the Raven can be killed.”
“The Raven.” she repeated. Jon caught a tremor in her voice, and he turned to her to see her face white with horror. “You’re here to kill the Three-Eyed Raven.”
“I am.” Jon replied, wincing. He hadn’t meant to say his name aloud. “Before he kills me.”
“The Last Greenseer.” she scrambled to her feet. “I - I want no part in this. I’ll not have my family dragged by a madman into a milkbabe’s tale. The Three-Eyed Raven isn’t real.”
“You’re awfully afraid of a milkbabe’s tale.” Jon remarked sourly, squat-waddling over to the hind legs and beginning to tie them. “Help me carry this back, and-”
“No!” Baely exclaimed, her head darting back and forth between Jon and the scowling face of the Weirwood. “I - My family wants no part of your schemes, southroner! Take your packs and go, or I’ll put an arrow in you!”
“What on earth are you-”
“NOW!” Baely nocked an arrow and drew it back to anchor, pointed directly at Jon’s heart. “Get out!”
Jon threw up his hands, and slowly stood, backing away. He had never once seen a Free Folk react this way to mention of the Three-Eyed Raven, and none of the stories he had heard, other than his own life story, explained it.
But not every clan tells the same tales. Some were warped by the telling, and some were simply forgotten. Many people might be alive now that were not when I first asked.
“Alright.” Jon said, deliberate in his enunciation. “I will leave. Thank you for allowing me to return and get my pack. I won’t trouble you anymore.” he turned and walked slowly towards the village, intentionally leaving his back towards the woman with the taut bow.
The village was not more than thirty minutes away, but Jon walked slowly and surely, making sure not to intentionally startle the wildling. It was the latter half of the hour when the village came into view, and a series of screams became hearable.
“Ynga!” Baely cried, her voice full of distress.
Jon gritted his teeth, and burst into a run. “STOP!” Baely shouted. The teenager immediately darted to the side, not an instant too soon as an arrow pierced through where he had been.
Jon rounded the corner, and came across a sight he couldn’t quite believe. Nearly half the village had gathered at the margins, standing well back from Ynga, who was being menaced by a large, dark Shadowcat. “Please!” She pleaded. “Please, I don’t want to! Help me!”
The Shadowcat snarled, and slapped with its front paws at her back, it’s claws retracted. She turned and attacked it with a small dagger, but the beast dashed lithely around the jab. Not a single man there stepped in to help, though half of them held their weapons tightly. Even Virkyn, her father, stood there and let his daughter be assaulted, but Jon noticed that his face was bright red, and his fists were clenched so tightly they had burst the stitching on his gloves.
“Papa! Please!” Ynga sobbed. “I don’t want to!”
Jon scowled. He stomped forward, and drew his longsword. The scrape of castle-forged steel on leather and iron was clear and distinctive in the air, and every pair of eyes in the village immediately turned towards him. “NO!” Virkyn shouted.
The Shadowcat immediately locked eyes on Jon, and rowled loudly, like thunder over the mountains. Jon quickly raised the blade high and close to his head, poised for a thrust, as the beast crouched.
With a powerful flex of muscles, the Shadowcat pounced, crossing the distance between them in an instant. Jon countered, and slammed the flat of his blade against the cat’s forepaws. The impact nearly knocked Jon off his feet, and he slid backwards in the snow.
The Shadowcat immediately flexed his lower half and slashed its hind leg claws at his chest, tearing furrows through his leather jerkin. Jon roared in reply and pushed the cat off of him, who landed lightly on the snow. The predator lunged forward, but Jon spun and slashed at its back, cleaving a bright red line through the mantle of black.
The cat yowled in pain, and immediately darted back. Now it was wary, and Jon roared at it, gesticulating with his sword. “GO ON!” He shouted. “GET! GO!” He slapped the flat of his blade against the wall of a nearby house, and the ringing sound of steel on stone was loud and piercing. “GET OUT OF HERE!”
“STOP!” Virkyn roared. “What have you done!?”
“It’s a Shadowcat!” Jon shouted. “They’re only bold enough to attack men when they’re starving! Give it trouble and it’ll find a carcass to scavenge instead!”
The Shadowcat paused in its flickering movements, and tilted its head in an incredibly human-looking gesture.
“You fucking idiot!” Virkyn roared. “It’s not a Shadowcat! It’s-”
The Shadowcat’s eyes flashed pure white, for just an instant.
“The Lord of Moss Hill!”
Jon felt his the world tilt on its axis.
The Shadowcat chuffed, almost as if the skinchanger was laughing at him, before beginning to prowl about, staring directly at Jon. Jon scowled, and lifted his blade higher. In response, the skinchanger sank low, in preparation to pounce -
And then immediately seized up. The cat’s body thrashed about, yowling loudly as it’s leg locked into placed, and toppled to its side. The tail that was thicker than Jon’s neck slammed against the ground repeatedly, and a keening note escaped the beast’s throat.
“Wh-what’s happening!?” one of the hunters exclaimed.
Jon knew. He recognized it. “Someone’s fighting the Lord of Moss Hill for control.” he breathed. “And they’re winning.”
At once, the Shadowcat went still. It slowly pushed itself to its feet, lithe and sinuous. It stared directly at Jon, and its dark yellow eyes were once again pure white. The entire movement pattern of the beast was different.
The Three-Eyed Raven has found me again.
“Not this time.” Jon growled, lifting his sword. “You’re not getting the drop on me again, you three-eyed whoreson.”
The Shadowcat angled its body down, its bleeding side ignored as both it and Jon circled around the other. The teen could immediately tell the difference; the Raven moved fluidly inside the beast’s body, where the Lord was all force and power.
The Shadowcat burst into movement, slashing at Jon’s legs. Jon skipped back just out of range and stabbed at the beast’s muzzle, but the Raven rolled to the side and darted back. It hissed in displeasure.
“Not so easy when you can’t ambush a man, is it?” Jon snapped. The Raven rumbled in response. Jon reached behind him, drawing his long, fat hunting knife from his back holster and flipped it around to a reverse grip. “It doesn’t matter if you get me here.” said Jon, staring at the beast. “All you’ll have done is piss me off.”
The enormous feline pounced, high over Jon’s head. Jon slashed at its belly as it passed, but he missed by inches, and was battered in the head by its paws. A man screamed as he was taken to the ground and gouged by the extended claws, but Jon paid no attention as he shook the stars from his vision as quickly as he was able, whirling about.
The Raven was already lunging at his exposed back, but pivoted on a dime to dodge the spinning longsword, darting back out of range. Jon spat a wad of blood, and flexed his wrist experimentally by spinning the longsword once. The Shadowcat lunged again, but as Jon slashed again with the sword, it dodged into the range of his off-hand, where Jon immediately stabbed into its eye with his knife.
The beast howled in pain, jerking its head free and sending the small blade tumbling out of Jon’s hand. It dashed back far out of reach, glaring at the teenager with one eye filled with hatred. Jon flashed his teeth in only the faintest approximation of a smile. “Got you, bastard.”
Now the beast’s back was up, and refused to expose its left side to him. The two circled each other. Jon absently noted that he hadn’t heard any of the wildling villagers in some time, but only for a moment. In a burst of movement, Jon rushed forward, slashing ferociously at the shadowcat. It dodged the first overhand cut, and the second follow-up slice, but then its head twisted in the wrong direction to avoid the third and lash out a paw, exposing its blind side.
With a swift hop backward, Jon avoided the swipe, slashing at the beast’s leg and severing it in a single motion. The Shadowcat howled in pain, hobbling to the side.
Jon lunged forward, stabbing at it. The shadowcat bounced back out of the hit, standing on its hind legs for a moment, before pouncing, savage teeth exposed and racing towards Jon’s throat. Jon moved on pure instinct and flicked the point of his blade upwards, and the beast drove its breast onto the blade to the hilt.
The shadowcat slammed into Jon’s chest, knocking him to the ground. The beast thrashed about wildly on top of him, razor-sharp claws coming within an inch of his face, but Jon roared in defiance and kept tight hold of his longsword, making a point of wrenching the blade in all directions inside of the animal to mangle its innards.
Seconds passed, coating the front of his torso in sticky red blood, until the beast finally fell still. The full weight slumped down onto him, until he pushed with his forearm to roll the carcass off of him. Coated in beast blood, Jon stumbled to his feet, leaned over, and ripped his longsword from the breast of the dead animal in a spray of gore.
“Anyone else ?” he snarled.
Not a single surrounding Free Folk villager replied, staring at him with wide, fearful eyes. Ynga, the pretty girl who the beast had been assaulting, was nowhere to be seen.
Jon smirked. It wasn’t every day you met a man skilled enough to kill a Shadowcat in melee combat.
He flicked the longsword twice before wiping it clean of blood on the fur of the Shadowcat, and then sheathed it. “Any man who moves within ten feet of me or nocks an arrow in my presence dies.” he declared. He walked towards his knife, and they fearfully scurried away from him as he picked it up and sheathed it. “Bring me my pack and place it at the edge of the village. Do this, and you’ll never see me again.”
He glared. “And if anything is missing… I’ll know.”
“Snow! Snow! Snow!”
Jon cracked an eye open, glaring hatefully at the crow perched on a branch. “If you want another arrow in your breast, you only had to ask.”
The crow stayed perched on the tree branch, not moving an inch. It was only when Jon reached over and grabbed his hunting bow that the bird took off into the canopy with a wave of feathers.
Jon lowered his head back down to his makeshift pillow and groaned. It had been three days since he had left Cliffsedge behind, and it seemed that the Greenseer had decided to attempt to murder him through exhaustion, after the rest of the animal ambushes failed. Every moment that jon attempted to sleep, some sort of weak ambush or loud noise would startle him awake, and prevent him from rest.
It had been a day and a half since he had slept more than an hour or two, and already he could feel his senses dulling and his reflexes slipping. He took great pains to follow Ranger Roads that led him away from natural features that were deadly to the clumsy, such as steep hills or fast streams. Even so, he had begun to trip and stumble in any amount of snow.
Jon slowly pushed himself to a seated position, and shakily reached for his sword-belt. If the Raven were going to choose an opportune time to attack me, now would be it. He hadn’t had his eyes closed for more than 30 minutes before that raven appeared. It likely meant there was something else coming.
He stumbled to his feet, and glanced about. Even with the afternoon sun still lighting the forest, his vision was clouded and fuzzy. “Come on.” Jon said aloud. “Let’s get this over with. No games, Greenseer.”
Silence.
Jon almost sighed. And then he realized that it wasn’t quiet. It was dead silent.
“Seven hells.” Jon carefully drew his longsword, already dulling from how many beasts he had been forced to kill, and held it forward.
Nothing moved in that forest, even as Jon strained his senses to catch the ambush he was certain was coming. He saw nothing, other than the encroaching blackness of sleep; he heard nothing, other than the pounding of his own heart.
Then, after what could have only been minutes, but felt like a lifetime, he saw it. From behind a distant set of trees, three wolves emerged. They were normal wolves, and not walking in the unified manner that Jon expected of the Raven’s pack ambushes, but they still lacked the customary wariness of man that Jon knew was normal for them. They walked together towards him, and stopped some yards away. One of them, a grey-brown beast with one eye the mottled white of blindness, lifted his head and howled long and loud.
Jon held up the sword higher and tried to keep the sway from his legs as he watched the three wolves begin to circle around him. They all stayed several yards away from him, but still trod a path that allowed them to lunge quickly. And they didn’t close the gap.
Jon stood there, watching with fevered intensity as they circled, until another sound intruded. It was a dull thudding. Heavy footsteps, bigger than a man, and with a four-legged gait. Jon whirled toward the source, and his eyes widened.
From the depths of the forest emerged a massive, 13-foot tall snow bear. It snarled at him, but continued its measured gait. On top of the snow bear, a small dark lump stood out in his blurry vision against the snow bear’s fur.
Jon shook his head, and the grey lump fluttered into detail. It was a man, draped in the colors of a Shadowcat cloak. The man was riding and controlling the snow bear without any reins or spurs, and his eyes glittered with unshielded malevolence.
Varamyr Fiveskins came to a halt atop his steed and stared down at Jon. “So you’re the kneeler bastard who killed my cat.” He said, in the Common Tongue. “You’ll die for that.”
Notes:
Back at it again. Y'all know what it is.
Thanks to all of you who gave condolences last chapter. As you might have guessed, between that chapter and last I'm now short one grandpa these days, and he and I were actually pretty close. It didn't leave me in the best mindset for writing. But life moves on, and we all get better. Getting old is not a process for sissies.
This chapter was also held up by a little bit of a struggle with the plot. I know what I want to happen, in order to keep things moving, but just saying 'thing A happened, and then they moved and did thing B here, while thing C happened in the background' isn't very interesting. There needs to be a connective tissue. So I made up the village of Cliffsedge. We certainly know there were more clans than just the ones we were introduced to in the books and series; some were just not big enough to get names.
I'm also leaning on the rather smart concept that was theorized by the GoT hired linguist that not every single wildling beyond the Wall spoke the same unified Old Tongue, but instead likely diverged into many different dialects based on region. It makes sense, and also feeds into one of the ideas I have down the pipe. Can you guess what it is? I left a hint this chapter...
Chapter 7: Life Five: Part Two
Summary:
Enter the Fiveskins.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Jon remembered Varamyr most for his time among Mance’s warband. He had seen him, when Ygritte had led him around the camp, astride his snow bear and as haughty and proud as any Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. “Are you afraid of wargs, Jon Snow?” She had asked, with her teasing drawl. “The Fiveskins is the greatest in a hundred years. Maybe he’ll find a direwolf for his pack, and they’ll call him Varamyr Sixskins, instead.” She had turned to him and smirked. “Then he’ll be more a wolf than you.”
Jon had thought no more of him, until he went back beyond the Wall, and heard the legends of his death. He had left, when Mance’s host broke against Stannis, and returned to his hall, where he refused to be pried free even when the whole of the army of the dead had swept over him. The Beastlord’s War, the bards named it. They claimed he had commanded a thousand skins, and died a thousand times, beating away the horde of wights until his mind broke. The truth was less certain, but many at Hardhome lived because of the distraction he created among the Others.
And now the man was alive again, less of a legend but no less powerful.
And I have killed his tame shadowcat, for he is the Lord of Moss Hill and I am merely a man who knows nothing.
Jon grimaced, and lifted his blade higher. I am sick to death of being mauled by animals.
The wolves circled closer around him, but none passed beyond a certain point, and Varamyr remained seated upon his mount, unmoving even as he glared his hatred at the Stark bastard. It took a moment for him to realize, but then his eyes widened.
He fears me. His beasts outnumber me four to one, and yet he is wary still. Why?
“Well met, Fiveskins.” Jon replied to him, in the Common tongue.
“Fourskins, now.” Varamyr snapped. “Thanks to your blade.”
Jon bit back the wordplay that immediately jumped to his lips. He was above those jokes, for the moment. “You are not my foe, but I will fight if you force me to.” He replied. “How many of your second lives will I cut down before I fall?”
“I’ll find more.” Said Varamyr, in a low growl. “There are other beasts to be broken to my hand in these forests.”
“Maybe I’ll take your hand, then, before I die.” Said Jon. The world wobbled, and his foot shot out wider to keep himself standing.
The warg’s eyes narrowed. “Bold words, for a man who can’t stand up.”
“You woke me from my nap.” Jon retorted, his voice cracking in the process. “Hunting grumpkins and snarks is tiring work.”
Varamyr lifted his hand. “Then the hunter has become the hunted.” He flicked his hand forward.
None of his beasts moved.
Jon, after tensing, looked to his side. The one-eyed wolf was standing stock-still. Both of its eyes were white.
“Oh, for the love of-”
“Snow! Snow!”
Varamyr’s eyes were bulging, and the top of his bald head had gone pink with blood. “What have you done to my beasts!?” He shouted.
“It’s not me.” Jon replied, and lifted his sword to point it at the crow perched on the tree behind him. “You couldn’t have waited thirty seconds to let him kill me, could you?” He shouted at the crow. “You just had to do it yourself. Gods forbid anybody other than yourself kill me. They might have gotten it wrong .”
The one-eyed wolf and its companions growled in unison. The snow bear under Varamyr roared and threw itself onto its hind legs, sending the wildling warg flying off its furry back.
“... Fuck it. Fuck it!” Jon screamed. “Come on!”
The four beasts moved in unison towards the cornered Northman, and Jon charged swordpoint-first at the one-eyed wolf. It darted to the side of his blade, snapping its jaws at his arm, but Jon kept running, his sword sweeping in wide arcs. One of the smaller beasts lunged for his ankles and was met with a kick in the snout, sending it yipping in pain backwards - directly into the path of the charging snow bear, who was unable to dodge out of the way and trampled it underneath.
The three beasts all shuddered as one, as the Raven died a death, and Jon skipped backwards. He slid minutely on a patch of frozen ground before jumping forward on the offensive at the other young wolf to exploit the opening, hacking downwards at its neck with a furious howl. An instant before the blade connected, the wolf’s eyes lost the pure white, and Jon cleaved into the head of an unpossessed animal, getting caught in its brainpan.
A snarl sounded from behind him, and Jon immediately rolled forward, leaving the stuck blade behind. The world grew dizzy, and he stumbled to his feet, with his sword out of his hands and still in the body of the wolf. The old one-eyed wolf stood where he had just been, while the snow bear snapped wildly at thin air, ignoring Jon completely.
The Northerner clenched his jaw and drew his knife with his off-hand, slowly stepping to the side as the large wolf stood possessively close to the abandoned sword. “Four against one, I haven’t slept in two days, and you still can’t take me without an ambush.” he spat, baring his teeth in an angry grimace. “I’ve got your measure now.”
The one-eyed pack leader snarled, its ears laying flat against it’s skull and its fur bristling all along its back. Jon slowly bent his knees and sidestepped towards his abandoned sword, but the one-eyed wolf snarled and lunged forward enough to make him flinch.
The world began to swim in front of his eyes, and his hands shook. Jon’s leg shot out to stable his stance, and in that moment of weakness, the wolf lunged. Blinding hot pain lanced through his right arm, and Jon was slammed into the hard frozen ground by a hundred pounds of flying wolf.
Jon screamed in pain, and the Raven only crunched his teeth down harder, but before he could begin to shake the limb in his mouth to sever it, Jon stabbed the knife through its neck. A burst of blood coated his wrist, but he just kept screaming and stabbing the beast in the neck, until the light left the wolf’s one good eye, and it slowly toppled onto him.
The blade dropped from his grip, and with his one good hand, Jon reached towards the beast’s muzzle. Every single movement sent his vision into burning white, but even so, he pried the sharp teeth from his right arm and gingerly pulled it free, before rolling the corpse off of him. He had killed the animal before it could begin the severing motion, but his forearm and wrist were a bloody mulch, and he couldn’t feel his fingers.
Gasping, Jon clutched his arm close to his torso and pushed himself upright. “COME ON!” He screamed at the snow bear, just standing at the edge of the fight, eyes pure white. “COME ON!”
The bear shuddered, and the color of it’s eyes flickered, until finally the white faded, and it’s dark eyes stared at him with a human intelligence. It groaned lowly once, before turning around and treading to Varamyr’s side.
It turned its head to Jon, and gently pawed at the wildling, who was prone against the ground, his eyes pure white.
Jon’s eyes widened. “... Varamyr?”
The bear inclined it’s head, slowly. The beast pawed at the unconscious body once more, before arching its back prominently, and then jostling Varamyr once again.
“... You want me to get you back on the bear without waking you.” Jon interpreted. “You want to leave, but you’re not breaking your control for that.”
The bear nodded.
Jon gritted his teeth, and grabbed the hunting knife where it fell - even jostling his hand sent stars to his vision, but he wiped the blood on the pelt of the wolf and resheathed it, before doing the same to his sword. “You’ll fall off.”
The bear snorted, before pointing a claw at Jon.
“And why would I come with you?” Jon asked. “You, who only came here to kill me?”
The bear snarled in response, and slammed its leg into the ground hard. An obvious threat.
“No.” Jon shook his head. “I’ll take my chances alone.”
The snow bear snorted in response, and lifted its leg into the air, before letting its paw droop and limply shook it about. Then it flashed its black claws out, and it bared its teeth.
Jon grimaced, and clutched his right arm closer to his torso - the blood still flowed from the wounds, and he couldn’t feel his fingers underneath the glove. The Warg was right - he was useless in a fight without his sword-arm. He had a little practice with a dagger in his off-hand - Jon had learned many unorthodox techniques from the Wildlings, among them Half-Handing and Dual-Wielding - but he wasn’t some ambidextrous master. He would be easy prey for another ambush.
With a moment’s hesitation, he reached down and clumsily slung his pack onto his shoulders with one hand and walked to Varamyr’s side. He was a smaller man, the same height as Jon even though Jon was only half-grown, and from the tops of his ears to his crown his head was shaved hairless. Jon wrapped an arm around his midsection and found he was able to lift him, speaking to his thinness.
The bear, mercifully, lowered down onto it’s belly. With an awkward shuffle to the beast’s side, Jon threw Varamyr’s body over the back of the bear, and he draped across it like a limp sack. The bear turned to face him, and Jon could swear it was smirking at him. Jon’s lips thinned into a line, before he grabbed a hank of white hair and yanked himself upwards.
The moon had crossed it’s zenith and began to sank when Jon was jolted awake by the snow bear flopping heavily to the ground. He wearily pulled himself upright, off of the back of Varamyr’s prone body he had been lying crosswise across so that neither of them fell off while he slept. With a heavy rub at the drool on his cheek, and slow blinks, jon came back to his senses.
At first glance, Jon thought that Varamyr had brought them to a large, nondescript hill that rose above his head. Once he had blinked the sleep out of his eyes, though, he was shocked to see that it was instead a large hall, built out of dirt and mud and covered in moss, with a small timber door hidden cleverly behind a hanging sheet of thick moss. The sides merged into the ground seamlessly, and had Jon not been brought directly to the door he would never have given it a second glance.
Marvelling at the construction technique he hadn’t expected from a man of the Free Folk, Jon pulled himself slowly from the snow bear’s back, and transferred Varamyr to his shoulder. With both the man and his heavy pack over his shoulder, it took him more time than he would have to make his way to the door.
He opened the door slowly, and an instant strong, acrid smell assaulted his nose and made him wheeze. Stepping through the door, he instantly noticed the temperature difference - it was cold enough for deep snows outside, but inside was well above freezing. Jon slowly kicked the door closed.
As soon as the latch took, the body over his shoulder came alive. Varamyr let out an inhuman snarl, and wriggled out of Jon’s grip before falling to the ground on all fours. The Warg scuttled around on the floor, slamming into things that Jon couldn’t see in the dark and growling like an animal, and jon involuntarily stepped backwards until his back was to the door he had just closed. Outside, the snow bear let out a bellowing roar, and the sound of a bear galloping away stayed his hand from leaving the earthen longhouse.
After another few moments of beastly sounds and clumsy four-legged walking by Varamyr in the dark, far ahead of him, he grew silent.
“Fuck.”
Varamyr’s dark silhouette rose from the ground into a stand. It looked as though an arm was rubbing against his head - it was possible he had slammed his skull against something solid.
“Never like being in a beast’s skin for that long.” He continued in a low, gravelly baritone. “Makes it hard to remember how to be a man when you come out. Couldn’t take the chance, though.”
Varamyr’s silhouette sunk down to the ground. “So. You weren’t the one who took my cat, kneeler. That’s the only reason you’re still alive, after killing most of my skins.”
“Aye.” Jon replied, as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. There were dark shapes all over the interior of the earthen longhouse. Furniture, perhaps. “I’m here to kill the man who did.”
“Then we have a common enemy.” Said Varamyr. “I’ll rip the bastard’s throat out with my teeth - One-Eye was going to be my second life, or one of his pups if I lived that long.” His shadow moved. “Your arm. Can you hold a sword?”
Jon grimaced, and held up his hand. He had bandaged it and splinted it with supplies from his pack while riding, but the bandages were soaked red, and his wrist was swelling.
“Tch. hold on. We need light.” His shadow disappeared deeper into the longhouse, before the sound of flintstones being struck together rung out. A spark caught, and the acrid smell in the air intensified as a fire in the middle of the room took. Jon was amazed to see that the logs were not wood, but instead appeared to be long thin bricks of dark earth. The dirt burned low but hot, and almost smokelessly, but the smell was nearly overpowering.
“Heh.” Varamyr scoffed. “Never seen bog dirt burn? Cut and dry a hundred sleds of these and I have enough to last an entire winter, and I don’t have to chop a single tree.” He walked across the packed dirt floor and grabbed Jon by the wounded arm, yanking it away from his chest and up to eye level. “That’ll go foul, like as not.” He released him. “I have something for that.”
Jon didn’t appreciate being manhandled, and yanked his arm back as Varamyr disappeared around a corner. Now that the bog dirt had taken, he had a better view of the interior. The hall was braced all around by thick, load-bearing trees, and the walls were the color of smoothed blue clay, instead of dirt. By the entry door, he could see many stacked bricks of hardened dirt where the clay walls ended, and rough-carved wooden chairs, tables and beds covered with thick furs were pressed to the sides.
The hall was so well-designed that it was not simply one single room, but divided in half by dirt walls, with a narrow opening to pass through; Jon could imagine that given the size of it from outside, there might even be a third room. Hanging from a ceiling-bracing log was a long metal chain, and a brass cooking pot swung gently over the bog dirt fire. Though it was made of nothing but logs, mud and moss, Jon had never seen such a well-adorned hall north of the Wall.
Small wonder the Free Folk called him a Lord. And small wonder the Beastlord fought so viciously to protect this place, in the songs.
Varamyr came quickly from the other room, holding a rag that was clearly torn from a Night’s Watch uniform and a brass jug. “Unwrap it.” He commanded. Jon did, gently. The bite marks still oozed fluid, and his wrist had swollen to twice its normal size, but the blood had stopped. Varamyr dunked the rag into the jug, and it came back wet and viscous, before applying it roughly into his wounds.
Jon grit his teeth at the pain. “What… is that?” He asked. “Smells disgusting.”
“Recipe a woods witch taught me. Payment for staying in my hall and eating my food.” Varamyr replied, his expression not changing as he applied the ointment. “Take booze as the base. Add equal amounts of crushed garlic and onions. Then you cut open a snow bear’s stomach, rip out its gallstones, pulverize one and add it.” He sneered at Jon’s curdled expression. “That’ll be the smell. Put it all in a brass jug and let it curdle for nine days exactly - had to go north and trade with the fucking Thenns to get that, but it doesn’t work in a wooden jug. I’ve tried.”
Varamyr set the jug aside, took the bloodied rag from Jon’s hands and lobbed it into the fire, before handing him the ointment-drenched rag. “There. That’ll keep the pus out of your blood.”
“My thanks.”
“It wasn’t a gift.” Varamyr seated himself on a wolf pelt, as Jon carefully wrapped his wrist back into place with the splint. “You saved me from the wretch who stole my skins, and now I save you from foul blood. I owe you nothing.” He leaned forward. “Now, you’re going to tell me who he is.”
Jon grabbed one end of the rag in his teeth and wrenched the knot in place with his good hand before he answered. “He’s a Greenseer.”
Varamyr’s eyes widened for a moment, and then narrowed. “There are no Greenseers, anymore.”
“Then he must be the last one.”
Varamyr burst to his feet and grabbed Jon by the scruff of his shirt, hauling the teenager’s face within inches of his. “Don’t fuck with me, boy.” He said lowly, and his rank breath washed over Jon’s face. “You southron milksuckers don’t know the meaning of such words.”
“Did I stutter?” Jon snapped, unafraid. “I said what I said.”
Varamyr glared, and pulled the boy so close that their noses brushed. “Say his name.”
“I don’t know his name.” Jon’s eyes narrowed to slits. “But I know that he calls himself the Three-Eyed Raven.”
Varamyr went still, but his eyes twitched wildly, tracing across the teen’s face. Eventually, his grip loosened, and the Warg stepped back.
“You’re not lying.”
Jon nodded.
“... Why?”
“He wants my brother.” Said Jon, softly. “He has power, so he wants to take him, like a second life. I came North to stop him.”
Varamyr closed his eyes, and his face went blank. “The Three-Eyed Raven.” He murmured. “Nothing but a tale for babes.”
Jon stood there silently, watching the Warg process the information. After a long minute, Varamyr slowly smiled, a bloodthirsty expression. “They’ll call me Varamyr Godkiller, after I’m done with him.”
He turned his back on Jon. “Get out. I have all I need from you.”
“What?” Jon’s jaw dropped slightly. “But the Raven-”
“Is after you.” Varamyr cut him off. “He used my cat and my wolves against you, and would have stolen my bear as well if I didn’t keep a tight leash on her mind; then we’d both be dead. You leave, and he chases you.” He turned slightly, his mouth pulled into a snarl. “And that means he won’t see me coming with a new pack.”
Jon felt the blood drain out of his face. With his hand the way that it was, he couldn’t hold either a bow or a sword, and he had no idea where he was in relation to any possible clans. If he wasn’t ambushed yet again by the Raven, there was a good chance he’d starve to death. With as much ground as he’d covered, he didn’t want to have to start all over again.
I can only survive with help. And the only one around to help is Varamyr.
Jon clenched his good fist at his side. He wasn’t enough of a fool to think a man like the Lord of Moss Hill worked on charity. He had deliberately not fed him, though both of their stomachs were softly growling, so that he could not claim guest right. He couldn’t trade anything from his pack, for he needed it all in the future. The only thing he could give freely was information, but he knew nothing about the Warg other than an ego-stroking story he would just laugh at.
Varamyr seemed to notice something in his expression, for his lips pulled away from his teeth, showing how one of his canines had been split in half in the past. “Don’t try anything, kneeler.” he warned. “I can call my bear back at any time.”
“... I want to be there.” Jon said, finally. He had to at least try. “When you kill him.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“No.”
“Then you’re fucking worthless to me.” He turned his back on him. “Get moving.”
“I can pay you.” Jon replied, urgently.
“Your southron money is worthless to me.” Said the Warg. “And if I wanted anything from your pack, I’d maul you and take it from your corpse.”
Jon grit his teeth. He knew nothing about Varamyr. Nothing that he could exploit -
But I know the Free Folk. And I know the North.
The revelation hit him like a mace to the chest. “If you killed me,” Jon countered, “Then you’d never learn what I know. A secret worth more gold than any kingdom in Westeros.”
Varamyr stilled.
Jon grinned in triumph. He had him.
“And what secret is that?” Varamyr asked quietly. “It had better be good.”
“I know how to get across the Wall.” Jon replied.
“Everybody knows how to get across the Wall.” Varamyr rumbled. “You take the Gorge or you grab an ice pick. It’s not hard.”
“Not my way.” Jon shook his head. “My way is a tunnel. Exits directly into the middle of an abandoned keep on the other side. Not even the Night’s Watch has records of this passage, so they never blocked it off.”
Varamyr’s back was still turned to Jon, but the older man had gone perfectly still. “There is a secret tunnel under the Wall?” He repeated. “That… that is a fine secret, indeed. Many men would kill for such a secret.”
In a blur of movement, a large knife was in Varamyr’s hand, and it was pressed to Jon’s throat. The bald man’s eyes were shining wildly in the light of the fire, and a vicious grin spread across his face. “And you’re going to tell me that secret.”
Jon did everything within his power to keep his throat from swallowing and pressing flesh into the edge, and glared with all the contempt he could muster upwards at the man. “It’s a Weirwood tree.” He answered. “The largest I’ve ever seen. The face will speak, and ask a question. Only the right man giving the right answer will open the tunnel, when the Weirwood opens its mouth wide enough for half-a-dozen men to walk through shoulder-to-shoulder.” his eyes narrowed. “It won’t open for you. It WILL open for me.”
“A magic tree, huh.” Varamyr repeated, clearly not believing him. “And just where did you find this magic tree?”
“In the Nightfort, the oldest castle on the Wall. It’s been abandoned for centuries. The gate will lead from this side of the wall to the bottom of a well, in the middle of the kitchen. The walls are scalable, for an able man.”
“But not for beasts.” Said Varamyr, vocalizing the implicit statement.
“Not for beasts.”
“And only you can open it.”
“Not ONLY me. But the other men who could do it would fling themselves from the top of the Wall before helping you.” Said Jon. “And no other man knows the passphrase, for no other man knows the gate even exists.” He gulped, slightly, and the sharp edge cut a thin line of red across his throat. “You deal with me, or the knowledge is less than worthless.”
Varamyr stared silently at him - only the crackle of the bog dirt logs broke the silence, until at last he laughed. “HAR! Well said, kneeler. I need you alive for this crow-black gate to work. Then let us deal.” he pulled the knife away and sheathed it. Jon stifled the immediate impulse to brush a hand over the red line etched on his throat.
“I partake of your bread and salt.” Said Jon. “I stay as a guest in your home as I heal, and we hunt the Raven. I know he is above the Milkwater, but below the valley of the Thenns, and not so far east as the Frostfangs. Somewhere that a young, crippled boy could reach while being pulled on a sled.”
“You suggest searching nearly half the Forest for the Raven, for the promise of this black gate while you suck my supplies dry?” Varamyr retorted hotly. “No. I will not allow that. I will give you bread and salt, but you will work for the privilege of my aid.”
“And how would I do that?” Jon replied, holding up his right arm. “I can hold neither a bow nor a sword.”
“By the Gods, you’re a skinchanger.” Varamyr replied, gesturing wildly. “Don’t pretend you’re useless, I could sense your power a mile away.”
Jon went still. “... How did you know that?” Jon asked, eyes wide.
Varamyr’s eyebrows furrowed. “Are you touched in the head, boy? I can sense you. You exist in my mind like a tick burrowing between my shoulderblades. Any skinchanger can tell another for what they are.”
Jon slowly blinked. “... I can’t.” He admitted. “You feel no different from any other man.”
“Don’t be stupid. Your training would tell you that I am-” Varamyr stopped. “... You’re not trained, are you?”
Jon slowly shook his head. “I am not.”
“Children preserve us. What do they feed you kneelers? No training and still your presence nearly drives me to murder - can you even get out of your own skin, boy?”
Jon was feeling distinctly like he was failing a test he hadn’t known he was taking. “No. I have had wolf dreams, and can communicate with Ghost, but I have never… warged.”
“HAR!” Varamyr laughed, scornfully. “Nearly a man grown, and you still can’t get out of your own skin! Fucking kneelers. I had warged into my father’s hounds and ripped out my brother’s throat before my seventh nameday.” Jon’s eyes shot wide at the casual admittance of kinslaying, as the wildling leaned back, a scrutinizing look in his eyes. “A proper warg, though… that’s good. It takes a certain kind of man to dream of wolves.”
Varamyr grinned, and in the flickering light of the fire it looked sinister. “Then here is what you will do. You will serve me as we hunt this Raven. I will teach you all the things your worthless sires should have taught you from the moment you first dreamed on four legs. And in return, you will bring to me a replacement beast for every one you slew, and one more. When I have become Varamyr Sixskins, we will scour the Forest until we hold the Three-Eyed Raven’s wooden heart in our hands.”
He stepped forward, and his shadow draped long and pointed over the blue clay walls. “And then you will lead me to this Black Gate, and speak the words you need to speak, and I will cross over to the South without a man knowing, and I will be freer than any of the Free Folk have ever been since the Dawn. And all will know, that I am Lord of all that I see.”
The Beastlord held out his left hand, fingers spread. “Do we have a deal?”
Jon stared down at the extended hand, feeling an uncertain dread sweep into him. For all that he knew that this was likely the only way he could continue on without waking up in Winterfell once again, the twisting of his bowels whispered to his mind that this was a bad idea, yet still.
He looked up and met Varamyr and his promises of tutelage in the eye.
‘Put that on your list of things to do, then. Right above getting us out of this damn dungeon and right below learning how to sail.’
You were right, Theon. This is something that needs to be done, sooner rather than later. I shall simply have to learn as I hunt.
Jon exhaled, steadied himself, and met the warg’s outstretched arm with his own left, gripping him at the crook of his elbow. “We have a deal.” he declared.
“Your name?”
“Jon Snow.”
“Then be welcome at my hearth, Snow, and eat well of my bread and salt. For tomorrow, you will bring me my skin.”
Notes:
Well wouldja look at that. Y’all thought he was dead at the end of the last chapter. SIKE. He was meeting his new teacher. Chapter was a little bit shorter than usual this time, but it was such a good cutoff point that I had to do it to em. I'll see if I can't bump up the word count on the next one to make up for it.
Varamyr is one of those book characters that is going to be fun to play with, because right now, because of the way he was absent from the show, he’s a complete blank slate. The books give us a rough image of him, but Varamyr in the books was a complete jackass to Jon because he took Orell’s eagle while Orell was still in there as his second life, and so he had a dead guy whispering in his ear to kill this dude at all hours. That hasn’t happened yet. As far as I can tell, there’s not much fanon interpretation of him, either, so I feel a bit like I’m treading new ground, which always makes me excited.
I just had my birthday within the last week, so, yay me. Twenty-five. Is this the point where I start having a quarter-life crisis? Only instead of being afraid of getting old and buying a motorcycle, I cry into packets of instant ramen and worry that I’ll never have a job that I can buy a house or afford kids with? Inquiring minds want to know.
I’ve had this rant/analysis written out for a while now, but I kept bumping it back as other shit happened that I wanted to talk about, and now that I actually decided to put it into the ending notes, I realize it's too long. So, whoops. Guess I'll just set it to the side for the moment unless I find a way to condense it down. The basic point of it is that a lot of the sins of D&D are because they deliberately ignored the themes of ASOIAF once they slipped GRRM's leash in the later seasons, in order to do cool, disjointed things. Themes aren't something that readers like to codify and quantify, but it should also be EASY to tell what the point of a story is, what the author is trying to impart as greater wisdom. By ignoring the themes of the source material, Dumb and Dumber focused on Hollywood spectacle that was about as intellectually filling as instant ramen, and shat the bed in the process.
But since I can't post the whole thing, let's play a different game instead. Once we really build up a head of steam in this story, we are going to be travelling to all the weird and wild parts of Planetos, for reasons that only I understand. While I work through the prerequisite events, I want Y'all in the comments to guess which of the Free Cities Jon's gonna visit first, and for what reason. Anybody who can get that right will be allowed to ask one question about the future of this story, and I'll try to answer as well as I can when this website doesn't have any kind of PM system and I don't want to spoil everything.
Catch you all next time.
Chapter 8: Life Five: Part 3
Summary:
How to Train Your Skinchanger.
Warning: brief mention of non-consensual sex.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“The essence of being a skinchanger, one that is worth the squirt into their mother’s cunt, is hate.”
Jon had been woken from his cot early in the morning with a jug of frozen snow dumped in his cot directly onto his crotch when he was wearing only his smallclothes. Varamyr stood by as the teenager shrieked in an unmanly way and swatted frantically at the cold in his loins, before shoving a wooden plate - more a facsimile of a plate, just a circular cut of a tree trunk - into his hands topped with rabbit haunch seasoned with garlic. Now Varamyr was talking to Jon, hunched over his own meal and eating with a ferociousness.
“... Hate?” Jon repeated, uneasily.
Varamyr grunted an affirmation, and tore off a hunk of flesh with his teeth. “Hate. Hate of the world, hate of the damn animal that you’re taking over, hate of anyone that would step over the line and take what’s yours. But, most importantly, hate of yourself.”
“So sorry to disappoint, then,” Said Jon, with a bored expression, “but I don’t hate myself. I’m quite comfortable with who I am.”
“You have wolf dreams recently?”
Jon thought back to the moment he woke in the dungeons of Dragonstone, the taste of mother’s milk still on his tongue. He remembered the moment when he had unexpectedly seen through the eyes of the alleycat, to track down Aedrick and Teia. “Aye.”
Varamyr snorted. “Then you hate yourself well enough.”
Jon’s face twisted into a sudden scowl. “I don’t hate myself.”
“Har!” Varamyr laughed once, and picked up his half-eaten haunch with his non-dominant hand. Immediately after, he swung out, and cracked Jon in the face with the wooden circle. Jon fell to the floor, immediately clutching his face in pain, his ear ringing from the strike. Varamyr stepped to his side and squatted, leering down at him.
“You can lie to yourself, boy,” Said Varamyr in a low gravelly tone, “but as long as you are in my hall, you don’t lie to me. Understand?”
“Touch me again,” Jon snarled, “And I’ll gut you.”
“Kill me and you starve to death when you burn through my supplies.” Varamyr snapped back. “And draw the wrath of the gods, but you faithless Southron shits don’t even worship correctly.” Varamyr grinned. “Unless you were touched by a miracle last night, your hand is still a ruin.”
Jon merely glowered, and pulled himself back into his seat.
“That’s what I thought.” the wildling sat back down, and quickly stripped the rabbit bone in his hand of meat. “Now. as I was saying. You hate yourself. Don’t bother arguing, because I know it’s true. Every warg hates themselves, in some way. ‘S practically required.”
“... Why?”
“Because a man’s got no reason to slip into another’s skin if he’s comfortable in his own.” Varamyr replied, as he gathered up his bones and threw them into a simmering clay pot, where various vegetables, along with another whole rabbit, were stewing in a vinegar base and slowly becoming a bone broth. “Known plenty of Folk who never dreamed once until life fucked them raw.”
He sat back down. “Now, plenty of skinchangers are just ugly. Knowing you’ll never know a woman’s cunt unless you’ve a taste for rape will more often than not set you dreaming, if you’ve got the blood for it. But I don’t think that’s a problem for you, boy.” he laughed derisively.
Jon thought of Orell, and the way that the man had stared longingly at Ygritte and hatefully at him whenever they were together.
“I don’t much care what angst you have, as long as you don’t lie about it.”
Jon squared his shoulders. “I’ve come to terms with my past long ago. There’s no point to dredging it up again.”
“Fuck that.” Varamyr spat. “Come to terms? Break those terms. Whatever it is you forgave, take it back. Get mad enough to kill, again. You won’t command a damn rabbit if you don’t hate.”
Jon merely glared at Varamyr, and the wildling scoffed and leaned back. “This is why you have to get them while they’re young. A child hates as easily as breathing. You don’t have to convince them.”
The wildling folded his arms. “Your kneeler passivity and weakness is the exact opposite of what you’re trying to learn. It is through hate - blistering, blinding hate - that you project your will onto beasts that would rip your lungs from your chest the second you give them a chance. By hating yourself, you weaken the bonds between your own flesh and your mind, and by hating others, you force control onto an unwilling beast, and break them to your hand.”
“You will learn to hate, Jon Snow, or you will die here.”
Jon’s expression darkened. “I know how to hate.”
“Then prove it.”
Jon stared, face twisting in an exaggerated scowl, and thought of hate. He wanted to murder them, he wanted to snap their neck, he wanted to see them die, he wanted to watch them burn in flames, he wanted to see them in a cookpot with a sprig of parsley and garlic-
He sighed, and slumped backwards. The rabbit flickered its ears and twitched its nose, but didn’t move any closer to him from the other side of the wicker cage.
“You finally got it?” Varamyr called from the other side of the hall, leaning across the wall. His expression immediately soured when he looked into Jon’s eyes. “Hells, boy! Are you simple in the head!?”
“I tried to hate, but all I found was hunger.”
Varamyr threw a plate directly at Jon’s head, but the teen ducked, and it sailed over him. “Fucking - small wonder you southron shits don’t have any skinchangers!” he shouted. “You can’t even hate properly!”
Jon clenched his left hand into a tight fist, but said nothing. He would have clenched his right fist, but he still hadn’t regained movement in his fingers. He was beginning to fear the Raven had crippled him, somehow.
“How in the ever-winter hells can you even have wolf-dreams?” Varamyr cursed. “Your very presence burns like a coal in my armpit, but you’re so fucking repressed you can’t even slip your skin!”
“I’ve tried for a LONG time to control my temper.” Jon snapped. “People have died when I act rashly.”
Varamyr blinked. “Oho.” he stroked his chin slowly, and now he had a curious gleam in his eye. “Then perhaps you’re not totally worthless after all.” he walked around the corner with a fresh log of press-dried bog dirt and settled it onto the fire. “What can drive a kneeler such as you to murder?”
Jon looked away. “You wouldn’t understand. It’s not a thing the Free Folk ascribe to.”
“I didn’t ask for excuses. I asked for a fucking story.”
Jon hung his head low, staring at the skittish rabbit that he had been attempting to skinchange into. “... for nearly all of my life, I was raised to think I was a bastard.” he said, finally.
Varamyr frowned. “And what the hell is a bastard?”
“It’s…” Jon scowled. “It’s what someone is, when their mother is not their father’s wife.” He looked up, and as expected, Varamyr’s face was twisted in confusion. “I know it’s not something that concerns the Free Folk, but for families south of the Wall, especially noble families, it’s an incredibly shameful thing.”
“Why?”
Jon’s eyes snapped back to Varamyr. “What?”
“Why?” he asked again, and his beady eyes were focused intently on Jon. “Why is having a son by someone you haven’t yet stolen a shameful thing? Why do your nobles care?”
“That’s…” Jon struggled. “It’s… the New Gods say that it’s shameful, but beyond that, it’s…” he licked his lips, before looking up. The words came to him. “It’s because we’re kneelers. We stay in place, instead of constantly moving. We have more, and we need to know who gets the things that cannot be put into a pack.” he reached out and knocked on a wooden timber brace. “Like this hall.”
“Aah!” Varamyr’s eyes widened in understanding. “You say that only a child of the wife can take his father’s hall when he dies!”
“The firstborn, yes. Many younger sons leave in search of fortune and fame, since they will not inherit much when their father dies.”
Now Varamyr was stroking his chin, a thoughtful expression on his face. “But only if they are a son of the wife. If the son is a bastard… yes, I see it now. If I die in my bed and not from some twat raider slamming an ax into my skull, who would take Moss Hill from me, if the bastard is born before the son of the wife?”
“Or if the wife gave birth to a son that is clearly not her husband’s.”
“And another man’s squirt takes Moss Hill from me by pretending to be mine.” the wildling rumbled. “And that’s who you were.” Jon nodded. “You were hated from the moment you were born.” Varamyr said. “You might take your father’s hall from the wife’s children. So you were hated, and you hated right back.”
Jon exhaled loudly. Of course the Fiveskins would be the one Free man to understand why inheritance law exists- he’s one of the few who owns something that can’t be rolled into a tentpack. Jon pushed himself back upright. “I was the… I was in charge of a group of men, in the south. I was sent a man who had angered the wrong man. His name was Janos Slynt, and he had a hatred of bastards. I commanded him to fortify a castle, and he refused to obey.”
“As any man should.”
Jon’s eyes narrowed. “I had him dragged outside and beheaded for insubordination. I only found out years later that he was one of the men who had murdered my father.”
“Mmm.” The wildling’s eyebrows flexed. “So that’s what drives you to hate?” Varamyr asked. “Being a bastard? Being disobeyed?”
“... No.” Jon replied. “No. that’s not it. Not anymore.” Old memories swam before him.
“Then what?” Varamyr leaned forward, his eyes glinting. “Who do you hate the most? What haunts you, in the dead of night?”
Jon shut his eyes tightly, faces flickering like a lightshow against his eyelids. “... I failed.” he whispered. “I failed, again and again.”
“How?”
Jon clenched his jaw, and said nothing.
“How did you fail, boy?”
With a slight tremor, Jon reached with his left hand and pulled the hem of his woolen shirt upwards, exposing the faded white scars all across his chest and stomach. Varamyr stared silently at the wounds, as the bog-dirt fire crackled and hissed softly in the background.
After a moment, Varamyr reached out a finger, and traced it across the curved, puckered skin directly over his heart. The scar itself was numb to sensation, but gooseflesh raised along the path the cold digit traveled. “Do you remember who gave you that one, boy?” he asked, quietly.
“... Olly.” Jon replied. The boy’s face was indistinct in his mind, but he remembered the way he had stood, bow in hand as Ygritte lay in his arms, and the way that he had been crying as he had cut out his heart. “His name was Olly.”
“Do you hate Olly, boy?”
“... I do. I used to feel guilty. But now…” Jon looked up. “I would have let him succeed me, even after what he did. But then he…”
Varamyr nodded, slowly, and retracted his finger as Jon slowly pulled his shirt back down. “Then hate, Jon Snow. Tear open that scar, over your heart. Hate him for giving you that, and hate yourself for not stopping him. Remember what Olly did to you, and let that hate free you.”
Jon leaned back, and shivered.
It took Jon a fortnight with Varamyr before he first intentionally slipped his skin.
Jon didn’t like to think about the things that happened, the first time he had been this young. He had met some of his greatest companions back then, but more than half of his family and countless men and women of his childhood home had died ignominious deaths. Deaths he could not prevent, because he was trapped at a glorified frozen penal colony.
When Jon went beyond the wall with the remaining Free Folk, the nightmares of the ones he had failed, both the living and the dead, had plagued him for years. He would wake in the night choking on his own tongue instead of the screaming alternative as faces in crow-black died horribly, and the phantom smell of rancid dragon-scorched flesh lingered in his nose. Jon had attempted to keep women from his furs for fear of disturbing them, no matter how many offered.
And then Val had come, and wrenched away his shield and latched onto him like a burr. Every time he woke in the night unable to tell whether or not he was still plunging a dagger into his own kin, she would pull him close and kiss gently at the flesh of his neck and across the spread of his collarbone. How she was able to heal him and not break under the weight of her own tragedy, Jon would never know, but he adored her for it.
When Lyan was born, in the middle of a terrible blizzard, with half the clan dead of starvation and two years still to go in that decade-long winter, she didn’t even flinch when Jon named her the day after - not a milkname, not a nickname for a babe under two who might not live past suckling their mother, but a real name - as if to say ‘ not this one, I won’t let you have this one no matter what you do’ to the Old Gods and the New that had brought him here. She barely left their arms for the rest of the winter, giving her the gift of their own heat, and she grew up sweet and beautiful and snuggly in a way that made Jon’s heart ache in how much he loved both her and her mother.
They helped him heal. Their memory was what allowed him to come to terms. And what Jon was doing now was the exact opposite.
Jon stared at the rabbit on the floor, and thought back on the faces of the dead. Ned Stark, beheaded on the stairs of a sept. Robb Stark, betrayed at a wedding. Ygritte, killed by his own duplicity.
The more he remembered, the more he hated. But it wasn’t until he thought of Olly - whose face was still indistinct - that the world snapped into place.
Jon stared at the rabbit, and thought of Olly, and the more he thought, the more his heart clenched and his face twisted into a scowl. He remembered walking across the gallows, and staring at a boy with pure unfiltered hatred in his eyes. He remembered those eyes, and with the eyes came the rest of his face, and when Olly finally came into sharp, pure focus in his memory his eyes rolled backward, and Jon slumped backwards.
He didn’t know where he was for a moment, over the rapid hammering of his heart and the cloying scent of swamp in the air that told him he was in danger, but he eventually went back to chewing on his leaf. After a moment, though, he had a thought - wasn’t there something he had to do?
He let the leaf fall from his fuzzy mouth and looked up to see wooden bars all around him, and he jumped to the side. With a twitch of his puffy cheeks, he crouched and leaped forward against the bars. The wood stopped him, but his entire floor rocked with the impact, and so he readjusted and tackled the cage again, and again. Each time the ground underneath moved the fear in him nearly threatened to burst his heart in his chest, but he forced it down.
On the fourth tackle, the bars shifted, and his entire world shifted. A high-pitched screech escaped him as he tumbled downward, and an explosion of wood surrounded him. A gaping hole appeared, and so he got through it after wriggling his fat body through it -
A thundering sound. Two moving pillars that towered into the sky slammed down over him, and a thunderous noise that made him so afraid he needed to run he needed to hide he was going to die he didn’t want to die while he was so hungry he was so afraid -
Jon’s head twisted to the side, and his body tumbled off of his seat. Varamyr grinned victoriously, his hand still moving from where he had viciously slapped the teen across the face. “First rule of skinchanging.” he said, a pleased note in his low rumbling voice. “Protect your body. A good hit can break you from the trance if you are unprepared, and if I had slit your throat instead of striking you, you would be stuck in a damn rabbit until you get eaten by a hawk.”
“Nngh. fugoo.” Jon mumbled, his tongue lolling limply in his mouth. “Whad. whaddafug. blegh.”
“Come on, get it out,” said Varamyr. “This happens when you get snapped out of the trance unwillingly, or you have been wearing another skin for too long. Your spirit returned at a crooked angle. Always happens the first time - men can get stuck before they’ve learned the path back, and then their body can starve to death.”
Jon glared at him cross-eyed, but the logic held; he had been looking through the cat’s eyes until he had slammed into the wall. With an overexertion of effort, he slapped himself twice with his good hand; his body straightened, and his eyes regained their usual grey clarity. “That… was awful.”
“The rabbit, or the return?”
“... Both.”
“Har!” Varamyr laughed. “Second rule of skinchanging. You are what you wear. What you bind to your side changes you as much as you change them.” he leaned forward, grinning. “All a rabbit wants to do is eat, fuck, and flee at the first sign of danger. How’s your peck, Jon Snow?”
Jon scowled as he blushed deeply. “I’ll find a new animal, then.”
“We’ll see about that.” Varamyr squatted down, eye-level with Jon. “The men who have any talent worth mentioning find predators - meat-eaters. The ones who only take grass-eater skins go strange. Cowardly, if they can’t counterbalance the impulses.”
“Dogs are easy.” he continued. “We’ve kept them at our side for so long wearing them is like wearing your favorite boots, already molded to your size. Loyal beasts, once you’ve carved a place out for you. Wolves are tougher. Binding them to your side is like forging a marriage with the one you’ve stolen, but it’s all the more worth it if you can hack it.” Jon realized, with a sinking feeling in his gut, just what exactly it meant that he had killed three of the Fiveskins’ beasts that were wolves.
“And birds?” he asked.
Varamyr cocked his head. “Never bothered, before. There’s a mighty pull, to soar through the winds and see with eagle eyes… but men have gotten lost in the skies, before.” his mouth thinned into a line. “They never came back down, and forgot what it meant to walk on solid ground.”
Jon nodded slowly, and then glanced at the door. “... And the bear?”
Varamyr laughed sinisterly. “Fierce bitch. She’d kill me and every whoreson for miles if I ever let her completely free; I don’t think she’ll ever be tame. I always keep a piece of me with her.” he grinned, and it seemed savage in the bog fire. “It’s good practice. I’ve grown strong just keeping her on a leash.”
Jon’ gaze grew uneasy. “And when the Raven tried to take her from you?”
“He would have, if I didn’t already have a hand on her. It was a strength like nothing I’ve ever seen or felt.” Varamyr turned and spat into the fire. “I’ve kept a tighter grip on her since.”
Jon wasn’t comforted by that. He lifted up his mangled hand, whose dexterity had not yet returned to him, and shivered.
Jon stepped out of Moss Hill and took in a deep, filling breath of the dew-filled morning air. He stepped through the thick, slightly springy grass around to the hidden mound where the wildling skinchanger had stored his bog-dirt stockpile, and quickly selected two long, thick bricks from the watertight inner chambers.
As he returned to the hall, he let out a sharp whistle. A loud cawing answered him, and a small black crow flew from the trees and landed on Jon’s shoulder. After a moment of careful rearrangement, Jon reached into the inside of his cloak with his good hand. It reemerged with a pair of nuts, and the corvid gulped them down greedily as he held it up to his head.
Jon had discovered the bird after Varamyr had left him some weeks ago to extract tribute from a number of villages. He had woken one morning after snowfall to hear activity on the roof. When he had cautiously gone outside, hunting knife in his good hand, he had found the bird. It had taken hold of a scrap of flat wood with a lip, and to Jon’s great amusement was using that wood as a sled, squawking and cawing as it rode down the white roof. When it reached the bottom, it grabbed the lip of the board in its beak, flew up to the crest of the roof, and did it all over again.
Jon was just as amazed to discover it wasn’t a skinchanger. It was just a regular crow, sledding on his roof. Sledding on his roof for fun. He didn’t even know crows could have fun.
Jon slipped his skin and took the bird for his own. He named him Snow the Crow, for how he had met the corvid. If he found any humor in how he was once referred to as the same, he kept it to himself.
It was a strange sensation to discover the bond between him and Snow the Crow he had forged. The rabbit, who had quickly been cooked and eaten after two more skinchanging events to ensure Jon knew how to exit a body, had left little impact on him. But the more he became the black bird to test the exhilarating feeling of flight, the more he could intuit Snow. Not quite a presence in his mind, but he knew the exact direction Snow was, more often than not. The crow squawked and screeched loudly the first few times he exited him, but with time, and consistent snacks provided, it was almost as it a hole was being carved out, to seat Jon’s presence; it grew easier every time, and now Snow didn’t even call out after he left.
As Snow pecked and preened at the inside of his wing, Jon stepped back through the door of Moss Hill. He shut it behind him, and as Jon carefully arranged the bog bricks over the low smouldering fire, Snow fluttered off his shoulder and onto the end of his bed, chattering aimlessly at everything and nothing.
Jon returned to his seat with a bowl of rabbit bone broth, simmering and cooking for several days. He took a long, savoring slurp of the soup, and as he let out a satisfied sigh he looked up and met Snow’s pale white eyes.
Jon stiffened. The eyes faded back to their inky black, but now Jon could feel it - the intuition of his crow’s direction was gone. In its place was a deep, formless resentment. “... Do you mind?” Jon said finally, anger hitching his timbre a note higher. “I’m breaking my fast.”
“Snow!”
Hmm. So crows are able to talk as well.
“I will not be intimidated by my own bird inside a house while I’m eating rabbit broth.” Jon retorted. “What will you do? Try and peck my eyes out? I’ll swat you out of the air with this bowl.”
The bird fell silent, but it’s perch on the bedpost remained far too still for a normal crow.
“Good.” Jon took another long, slow sip of broth; a strong taste of simmered garlic stood out in the spoonful. “Of all the times you’ve killed me, doing it now might be the time that irritated me the most. Here, I’m actually learning something, instead of simply feeling a great ignorant fool over his head.”
“Live! Live!”
“Hah.” Jon scoffed. “That’s right. You don’t remember a thing, do you?” the teenager leaned back. “Four times you’ve killed me, and four times I’ve woken up in Winterfell where you have to rediscover that I am a thorn in your side. I haven’t reached your hiding place yet, Raven, but that’s only because I just started looking.” he flashed his teeth in a vicious expression. “I don’t know what you’ve done to the Red God to provoke him, but you’ve certainly provoked me. You won’t take Bran a second time.”
The Greenseer wearing Snow’s skin fell utterly still.
“Maybe once I kill you, I can finally die like a normal man.” Jon continued, taking another spoonful. “Not likely, though. Since when have the Gods taken heed of who sits the throne? If they did, Aerys would have been smote down, and my mother would not have died in a forsaken Dornish tower.” Jon bared his teeth like a weapon, as if he could cut a man’s heart out with his smile. “But it will feel good to do it. And I’ll do it, as many times as it takes to free myself from this curse, because I won’t let you take my family from me again. So get out of my crow. ”
Snow the Crow blinked twice. “Snow! Snow!”
“GET OUT.”
“Die!”
“If you in sist .” Jon was on his feet, hunting knife in hand. The moment he took a step forward, the crow shuddered, and suddenly began squawking wordlessly and skittering all about the room in a cloud of feathers. The boy sighed, and gratefully sheathed his blade. “Snow, it’s alright. He’s gone now.”
The bird continued cawing in a blind panic. Even as Jon pulled a handful of berries from his cloak and scattered them on the floor, Snow the Crow continued to bash around into various pieces of furniture, refusing to be consoled. Jon huffed, and quickly opened the door to the outside before arranging himself on his bed, as his eyes went white.
At once, he could feel his panic soothe at the familiar weight, though his mind continued to flick about from topic to topic. He could see the one who gave him food and took his wings laying on his back, and a number of berries on the floor. Not one to turn away food, he hopped downwards and snatched them up with a great warbling gobble as he ate.
The door was open, and he had calmed enough from DANGER DANGER to want to fly,and so with a flap of wings he disappeared out the door in seconds. The sky called to him and flight was his birthright that thrilled a part of him-not-him and so he flapped into the sky, beyond the treeline. He wasn’t a raven, with large and powerful wings to soar and twirl and dive-bomb; he was the small, poor cousin, and he had to constantly work to reach the higher blue that was his calling.
The sun rose on a cloudless day, and he was lifted higher on the warm air rising, and he let out a series of self-indulgent caws, for he was talkative and wished to find a murder of his kind once again. Off in the distance, a number of faded calls answered, and he readjusted his flight path downwards. The lumbering sound of a beast underneath him shook the trees, but he cared little for the landbound predator, as he continued onwards -
Without warning, his head was wrapped in a vice once again, and the sense that he was in DANGER DANGER flooded him in his entirety. The familiar pressure already within him fought back, and as it did he lost control of his wings. As he dropped in fits and starts, the DANGER presence took control of his beak, and began to speak. “SNOW! DIE! SNOW!” he called, without wishing to.
The lumbering beast underneath him came to a stop. “BASTARD!” a voice called, but he did not care as the presence within him forced itself back into control, and he bega to fly once again. He landed heavily on a branch, and now that he wasn’t in danger of death, he fought even harder-
Jon screamed as the arrow punctured his breast, and as he fell to the ground, pinion feathers breaking away from all around him, his eyes flashed from white to a pupil-less, bloodshot red, and the world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of meaningless color.
The first thing Jon noticed, as something similar to consciousness returned to him, was the lingering taste of savory broth upon his leaden tongue. The second thing he noticed was the weight of a blanket over him, and that his clothes and leathers were still on his body.
The third thing he noticed is that he couldn’t move his limbs.
A low moan of panic escaped him. His eyes were like weights, but he pushed them open all the same, and the world was too dark.
“You’re awake.”
A voice over to his left. Jon slowly, achingly rolled his head to his side, and saw a blurry Varamyr sitting across from him. “You’ve been out for a day and a half.” he said, matter-of-factly. “You’ve come out of your first death sleep quickly, especially for a novice. That’s good. It means you will be strong. You know your way back to your own body already. I’ve known men with years of experience not coming back from their first death sleep before they starved.”
A sound like footsteps pattered around beyond his sight, and Varamyr leaned forward. “I take it that crow I shot was yours?”
Jon, after a moment of testing his muscles, inclined his head just a fraction. “R’v’n…”
“Tch.” Varamyr turned and spat. “Should have known he wasn’t done with us. I’ll gut him for nearly ruining my path south.” he leaned back. “When you died in the crow, your spirit launched free. You likely don’t remember any of it, but until your spirit reconnected with your body, you were wasting away in what we call the death sleep. It doesn’t always happen, thank the Old Gods, but sometimes a man’s spirit can’t find his way back quickly enough, and it wanders. Dying in a skin has driven men mad before because of the death sleep, if the death was brutal enough; even if you come back to yourself quick enough and remain sane, your body won’t recover fully from it for some time.”
He folded his arms. “You’ll be functionally useless for at least a week, given your current state, but you’re alive, and your mind hasn’t shattered from the experience, it looks like. Woman!” he shouted. “Get over here!”
A surprised yell answered him, and from the edges of his vision came a familiar figure. Ynga, the pretty daughter of his former wildling hosts, entered his vision, her hair unbound and in less heavy attire. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her lips were swollen and bruised.
“You recognize her?” Varamyr asked, grinning. “I bet you do.” he reeled back his hand and swatted her on the butt hard, and she let out a stifled shriek. “I went back to that village because I wanted my cock sucked, and you interrupted me before. You’re lucky I did; I sure as shit wasn’t going to feed you like a mother hen.”
Jon could only muster a foul glare in response.
“There’s hope for you yet, kneeler!” Varamyr called mockingly. “Unless somebody brutalizes you in a skin, you’ll never have a worse time than your first death sleep! Now, hurry up and get off your ass! You still have work to do!”
After two days, Jon was strong enough to function inside of the hall of Varamyr. Strong enough to pull himself along the furniture in a facsimile of walking, capable of feeding himself and not defecating in his own bed. He was also capable of covering his ears and deafening the sound of Ynga being raped in the other room. She never truly resisted him, but when your captor is in perfect command of a half-ton killing machine, the warg didn’t need to say a word for the threat of violence to hang in the air.
It was one of those times, as Jon covered his ears as much as possible while still eating a bowl of broth, that Varamyr returned around the corner, looking supremely satisfied with himself. “Ahhhh. Nothing like a woman’s throat to set your mind at ease.” he proclaimed, swaggering. “You sure you don’t want to try her, Snow? Or is your damn kneeler passiveness getting in the way again?”
Jon felt a flash of hate clench his heart alongside the burning urge to strangle the Wildling for his actions, before schooling his expression. “If I wanted to please myself, I don’t need to force myself on a woman.”
“Har! Well enough.” Varamyr laughed. “You’re prettier than a girl yourself. You can get a woman to crawl to you on all fours, no doubt.” he set himself down on his wood-hewn bench with a loud breathy exhale. “Still, it matters not to me. A good release might be the trick for you.”
“I’m not going to fuck another man’s wife.”
Varamyr did a double-take. “You think she’s - HA!” he laughed caustically. “I told you. I went ranging so I could get my cock sucked. I didn’t do it to take a wife.”
Jon jerked upwards, and now he couldn't hide the fury burning onto his face. “You attacked that village twice for the same woman and brutalized her, and you don’t even have the courage to say you stole a wife? Not even Craster had the gall.”
“Don’t you compare me to that degenerate daughter-fucking would-be Crow.” Varamyr snarled, and laid a hand on his sheathed knife.
“Even Craster knew to name them his wives after stealing them from his own cradle.” Jon retorted, pushing himself up to sitting position. “Because you know as well as I that a Free woman has the right to slit her husband’s throat if he brutalizes her after the theft. If you intend to simply just throw her back like a too-small fish- ”
Varamyr lunged from across the room and slammed Jon’s back against the clay walls, and braced the knife against the teen’s throat. “One more word out of your fucking kneeler mouth,” Varamyr hissed, “and I’ll slit your throat.”
Jon remained silent, but his eyes burned with unconcealed fury.
“I’ll not be shackled to a woman with a foul womb.” he hissed. “And I’ll not be lectured by a snot-nosed milkbabe only barely old enough to have a name.” he glanced to the side, to the opening of the middle room of the hall. “I’ll steal a wife when she can prove she can give me the son I want, and not a moment before.”
He turned back. “So I’ll have no more fucking backtalk from you, boy.”
Jon sneered in response. “Do it, then. Slit my throat, and see your dreams of the Black Gate and the South die with me.”
“You’re not the only way South.” the skinchanger replied. “The Mance is sniffing about, calling himself the King Beyond The Wall. He’ll come to me soon enough, and offer me a place of pride in his army as the greatest warg in a century.”
“Mance Rayder will fail.” Jon declared, with all the certainty of clairvoyance. “Men such as Qhorin Halfhand and Jeor Mormont will not falter against his army.”
Varamyr’s eyes narrowed. “You speak of the Crows fondly, for a man who claims to not be one.”
“I know them well. My nuncle is First Ranger.”
Varamyr’s eyes widened, and the knife pulled away from his neck. “You’re a Stark.” remarkably, the wildling slowly stepped back. “Ned Stark of Winterfell.”
“My nuncle.” Jon said. “He raised me as his son.” he resisted the urge to rub his hand across the line on his throat. “I know the tales they tell of Bael the Bard and my family.”
“Ned Stark is known, even here.” Varamyr slowly sat back down, though the knife was not resheathed. “Then, the brother of yours -”
“In truth, he is my cousin.” he admitted. “Brandon Stark, his son.”
“Two Starks have the gift…” Varamyr murmured, and he stroked his chin in thought. “Then it may be the blood, after all… how many cousins - siblings, do you have?”
“Five in all. Three boys, two girls.”
“And have any other than you and Brandon shown the gift?”
Jon opened his mouth, then closed it. “... No. I hadn’t considered that was possible.”
“It’s all in the hate.” Varamyr leaned forward, and in the firelight Jon could see the stubble of hair growth across Varamyr’s formerly-bald head, showing brown roots and a deep, deep widow’s peak. “What led your brother to it?”
Jon grimaced, and held his tongue for a long moment. “... He is a cripple.” he said, finally. “He fell from the highest point of Winterfell, and broke his back. He wanted to be a knight - a mighty horse-mounted warrior of the South, and now he will never walk, much less ride again.”
Varamyr was silent, for a long moment, before speaking. “Aye. that would do it.” he said softly. “Up here, he would have been left to die after an injury such as that.”
“I know.”
“And the rest of them?” he asked. “No great traumas?”
Jon bit his lip. Not yet, there aren’t. “Only that my youngest sister, Arya, is teased as having a horseface.” he grinned a little. “She and I have the long Stark faces, but I’ve had time to grow into it. The others have the Tully look.”
“And what the fuck is a Tully?”
“... Southern lords. You know about the Starks - know that there are seven other lords just as powerful as they, in lands you have never even heard of. The Tullys are one of them.”
Varamyr’s eyes glinted in the firelight. “A Kneeler lady, then. Quite the woman, to have a Greenseer for a son. They say only one man in a thousand is a skinchanger, and only one skinchanger in a thousand is a Greenseer. Old Gods blessed her.”
He drummed his fingers against the table, dancing less than an inch away from the edge of his knife. “Consider, then, that all of the Stark whelps could slip their skin, and only you and your brother found a reason to do it. The Gift flows in the blood - and the blood of a King Beyond The Wall is mighty indeed.” he smirked. “And this ‘Tully’ blood must be just as good, for five children to have the Gift. Quite the woman… quite the blood.”
Varamyr fell silent, staring into the flickering bog-dirt fire. After a moment, his gaze shifted upwards, and there was a gimlet hardness in them. “... My blood is strong.” he murmured. “Stronger than any man I’ve ever met. I could have been the Sixskins, had you not killed my pack. I’ve not met a man yet to bind more than three beasts to their side.”
“So why is my seed stunted, and free of magic?”
Jon met his eyes. This was an intensely personal subject, more than Jon had expected to hear from the Wildling. “... I can’t answer that.” he answered. Even in his own life, only Ragnald had shown signs of being able to Warg - now that he knew what he knew, he feared what it was that he had missed in his son to cause him to hate himself. Lyan had remained free of wolf dreams for all her childhood.
“I’ve fucked dozens of women.” Varamyr said, voice low. “Some got with child, when I returned them. Of the ones who weren’t stillborn, all of them were feeble. Half of them died before they traded a milkname for a real one. And none of the survivors have a scrap of power.” his hands tightened into fists. “Old, young, strong, weak, ugly, pretty. Not one of them will give me a son that takes my power, but not my body.”
Jon considered that it was not his time to speak, right now, but the wildling had given him a thread he could not ignore. “Your body?”
Varamyr’s gaze flickered up, filled with anger, but redirected it into the fire. “My power is what gave me hope for life, for I was born sickly. I didn’t take a real name until I was four, and nobody cared for it. Only my own mother called me Varamyr.” his hand wrapped around his knife, and began stabbing small gouges into the table. “Then my brother was born. He was strong. He wouldn’t be remembered only by his milkname. He might have been a skinchanger, too, had he lived.”
“I hated him.” He hissed. “So I took my father’s dogs and ripped his throat out with my teeth.” Varamyr smiled viciously at the memory. “That was how they found out who I was, and brought me to that old fuck, Haggon.” the tip of the stolen knife fixed into the grain of the wood, and he began rocking it back and forth.
“But that’s what I want of my sons. If a woman gives me a child like Bump, I’ll steal her. Give me a strong son, with the Gift in his veins. Even if he is weak, if he has the Gift, I will steal her, and she will be as a kneeler lady from across the Wall. Not these - wastes of seed. They don’t deserve to have what I have made. I’ll have a wife who’s proven she can give me what I want, and no other.”
Jon stared at Varamyr from across the room, and as a soft sniffling from the other room was barely audible in the silence, he thought of Samwell Tarly, and the lordly father who had cast him out.
He is every bit a Lord as Randyll, he thought to himself. And someday, I know that Varamyr Fiveskins will die on the end of my blade.
“Tch.” Varamyr ripped the tip of his blade from the table and refixed it in his rough leather sheath. “Enough of that. I’m tired of this shit. WOMAN!” He shouted. “Bring the jugs! And two cups!”
After a moment, Ynga entered the room, carrying a wooden jug with a cap sealed with molded beeswax, and two wooden cups. As soon as she neared, Varamyr snatched the jug from her hands roughly, and cracked the seal of the wax with a single hand as she shakily placed the two cups between the men. Jon met her eyes and smiled with sympathy; her eyes began to tear up, but she said nothing and ducked away.
“A gift, from a clan under my protection.” Said Varamyr, grinning slightly, as he poured out a light, frothy straw-colored liquid into the two cups. “Take it. I know for a fact it’s the best ale any Free Folk can have for miles.”
Jon took the cup with gratitude and drank - it was light, crisp, and flavorful, and flowed down the throat easily. He grunted with appreciation, and Varamyr chuckled as he drained half of his cup in a single pull. “Like cream.” Varamyr rumbled. “A dozen jugs from that clan every time I visit. I often kept a wolf prowling that clan’s land alone - no jumped-up Flintaxe or Hornfoot will touch them as long as they keep making me this ale. Drink.”
Jon did, until a stray thought struck him. “... Your old clan.” he began. “What happened to it? Is it still around?”
Varamyr snorted. “No. They are not.” He bared his teeth in a savage grimace. “When I became a man grown, and took that bitch I mount for myself, I went back to that clan and killed every single man and woman who ever called me Lump. She developed a taste for manflesh, then.” His eyes flashed up to Jon’s frozen expression. “Now, the only ones alive who know that name are my own mother… and you.”
Jon carefully schooled his expression. So that’s why he told me all of his story. He doesn’t intend to let me live, either. “I’ll remember that… Varamyr Sixskins.”
Varamyr grunted once, and drained the rest of his cup in reply.
“Better a quick death. They won’t last long without their mother.”
“Right, give it here.”
“NO!”
“Stay your blade.”
“I take orders from your father, not you.”
“Father, please!”
“... I’m sorry, Bran.”
“Noooooooo!”
Jon awoke screaming. “NOOOOO!”
“FUCK!” Varamyr cursed, jerking upright. “Bastard! My head…”
Jon’s head was pounding as well, for they had drained the entirety of the ale jug between them, but he refused to be dissuaded. “I’LL KILL HIM!” He screamed. “I’ll kill that squid bastard for this! He’ll die SCREAMING!”
“What the fuck is wrong with you!?”
“THEY WEREN’T HIS!” Jon roared. “THEY WEREN’T HIS TO KILL! THEY WERE OURS!” he pushed himself to his feet without thought, and immediately regretted it as his legs gave out underneath him and he collapsed to the floor, slamming his head against the furniture. “HELLS!”
“Shut the FUCK up!” Varamyr shouted, attempting to reach for Jon’s throat while clutching his head and eyes at the same time. “Ooogh… too fucking loud…”
Jon grit his teeth, and pulled himself up onto the bed with his arms. His mind was whirring. “Varamyr… is it possible to enter another skin, while you’re already wearing one? To jump from one body to another?”
“What- why in the Children’s name do you -”
“ Is it possible? ”
Jon’s eyes went white, collapsing backwards onto the bed -
He was hungry, and he was cold. The world was blurry in his sight and he legs were weak underneath him. From a part of him that he did not know but felt as much a part of him as his paw, he knew that his eyes had opened too early and he needed to feed often. He needed to find his mother.
The big ones had gone away, and the forest was silent, but he had fallen down a small muddy slope into the river. He squirmed around until his legs were underneath him again, and he pushed himself into a wobbly stand. Every step he took had the potential to send him tumbling, but that familiar part of himself gave him balance and a strength that was external to him, and he toddled upwards on the slope.
The mud gave out underneath him, and he slipped muzzle-first into the muck. His nose was hurting, now, but he forced his way back to his feet, and with steps even more considered than before, he worked his way to even ground.
A foul smell greeted him, and part of him wanted to avoid the smell because he instinctively knew the stench of rot, but his other half pushed onwards towards the smell. It was only after his nose bumped into soft belly-fur that he realized what this was, and he immediately began to root for a nipple. The rest of his pack was gone ( Don’t think about that, his other half whispered) and what should have been a struggle against other warm bodies was over near instantly. He began to give suck, and his hunger began to lessen -
His other half left him, and the world grew colder and foggier - he had thoughts beyond his own when his other half was there but now he was alone and he was cold and hungry and his mother was not waking up. He pulled away from the nipple and began to shiver; where his brothers and sisters would have mewled and yelp, he remained silent. He didn’t want to be alone, but he was alone and he was scared.
The milk eventually went away no matter how hard he gave suck, and a small part left over my his other half said that maybe that wasn’t supposed to happen. But his hunger was no longer satisfied, and his mother did not react even when his bit down with his hard gums. He pulled his head away and waddled himself around, pushing his body further into the still body of his mother to claim heat. She was too cold, and the stench only grew stronger as the sun moved through the sky, but he did it anyways, and closed his eyes, waiting for his other half to please come back.
The sun moved further through the sky and still his other half did not return; he was hungry again. He curled up in a tighter ball and attempted not to shiver.
A long howl pierced the sounds of the forest around him. It was close - very close. He opened his red eyes once again to watch the world outside his mother’s body.
From atop the ridge, a wolf appeared. It was a female, and her belly was swollen and hanging low in the way that one who had recently whelped did. Her body language expressed nothing, but her eyes had locked onto him almost immediately, and trotted down into his weak field of vision. He felt a pair of teeth latch onto his neck, and he writhed in response, but instead of breaking through the skin, the she-wolf placed him back on the ground feet-first, and then grabbed him by the baggy skin on the back of his neck.
He was carried that way for a distance - how far, he did not know, for his weak eyes had grown tired partway through and he had closed them - but a soft growl from the she-wolf alerted him that something was happening. He opened his eyes and steadied himself as he was placed on the ground, and his ears caught the whimpers and yelps of other pups mere feet away. The wolf mother had brought him to her den.
As she laid down on her side, and he began to root for her nipple without protest, his other half returned in a burst of revelation. Your name is Ghost, his other half whispered. And I love you.
Ghost’s other half faded.
Notes:
So. um. The script for the final episode was leaked to the internet. And, uh… holy shit. I understand why Kit had to go into therapy after he was done. This is fucking atrocious. They literally called Daenerys ‘Her Satanic Majesty’ in the direction notes, and stated that Jon and Sansa were dumbfounded by Arya’s ‘WhAt’S wEsT oF wEsTeRoS’ quip because, and I quote, ‘they both failed geography.’
And this is the shit that they think deserves an EMMY. this is the shit that got NOMINATED for an emmy.
There is no justice in this world if these people still have a career after this. They need to be driven out of hollywood on a rail, tarred and feathered.
Speaking of feathers, Snow the Crow. RIP to the homie. I did some research into crows and ravens, and they are simply delightful. One of the only species on earth that can not only use tools, but MAKE tools for their own ends. Researchers say that they probably have the general intelligence of a 7-year-old human, and I know some pretty smart 7 year olds. Considering George appears to have buffed the general specifics of the corvid species for plot reasons… crows are great here.
Took me a while longer than I was expecting to write this chapter, but we’re moving along at a good clip. Part of the problem was trying to figure out how to accurately portray Varamyr as the very bad man that he is, without turning him into a mustache-twirling villain. Part of that is the reason for the involvement of Ynga, who I didn't expect to bring back the moment we left Cliffsedge; I expect to get a little heat for that, so I put up some warnings to make sure you're not surprised. This is A Song of Ice And Fire, though - horrifying brutality is baked into the setting, and you guys should already know that.
Things are starting to pick up now, though. Thanks to all of you who are blowing this story up. 500 kudos before we’ve even cracked 10k hits. You all really like this, huh? Share it around if you really like it. I always appreciate new readers, and I love chatting with you guys in the comments, so always feel free to speak up if you want to ask or say something. Thanks so much.
Chapter 9: Life Five: Part 4
Summary:
Remembering how we got to this point.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Jon opened his eyes, rolled onto his side and immediately vomited the remnants of his meal from the night before onto the dirt floor.
“What the - augh!” Varamyr’s head snapped back as if physically struck, from where he had poked it out around the doorframe. “Fucking - Hells!”
“Oh, Gods…” Jon moaned, his bad hand slowly covering his face. His eyes were swollen and crusted, and his body was burning with fever. A stray thought passed through his mind that he was hungry, and needed to find his mother’s nipple; another, stronger thought followed that he needed to find more prey so that the pups could be fed.
“If you were going to do that the moment you came back, I would have preferred if you got fucking trapped.” Varamyr groused, as he walked around the edge of the doorway belting up his pants. He gingerly stepped over the mostly-liquid putrescence and threw open the door, wafting his arms from inside to out in a futile attempt to ventilate the hall. “WOMAN! Carry him outside. I need to shovel this dirt before it starts to stink.”
After a moment, Ynga appeared around the corner and moved to Jon’s bed. With a gentle touch, she helped him onto his feet, and with an arm around her shoulders, she walked the teenager out of the hall and into the open air. “Are you alright?” she asked, quietly.
“... No. But I will be.” he murmured. “And you?”
“... No.” she looked away. “But I will be.”
The silence dragged on, punctuated by Varamyr’s cursing from inside the hall. Finally, Jon spoke again. “I… I am sorry, that I could not protect you from… him.”
“You fought a shadowcat by yourself to protect me.” she said, and smiled weakly. “If he were any other man, that would have been enough. But when he appeared in person…” her smile slipped. “If we had known it was only him and his bear, we could have killed him then and there.”
“And give up your shield?” Jon asked, as he wiped the bile from his lips with his forearm.
“Without his beasts, he isn’t shielding us anyways.” Ynga replied. “He won’t let me leave until he’s tamed more of them. We’d kill him if we found out he was lying to us.” she smiled sadly. “We would be forced to leave that village, but we would be true Free Folk once again.”
Jon smiled thinly. Ynga gently lifted her hands away from his body, and although the world swiveled about underneath his feet, he stayed upright underneath his own power. “You’re getting better.” she said, with a forced happiness. “That’s great.”
“Then he can stop being a layabout and start earning his keep again.”
The two flinched hard as Varamyr appeared with a bucket in hand and threw the contents out in a spray of vomit-scented dirt. The small man flung the wooden bucket back inside as he did and folded his arms. “And just what in the ever-winter hells did you think was so important that you decided to fucking chain for?”
“Chain?”
“Jumping from one skin to another.” Varamyr answered. “Powerful skill, but half the men mad enough to try it die because you break the bonds to your own flesh.” he sneered. “You chain to the second skin, and when you come back, you return to the first, only to find there’s no way back to your own meat. You find you’re in your second life whether you’re ready to die or not.”
Jon paled. Being trapped in a newborn’s skin until all memory of being human faded… “How do you know this?”
“How does a grown man know anything?” said Varamyr. “I tried it myself when I was young and stupid like you. I was nearly trapped in a wolf. I had to skinchange into my own damn body before the wolf forced me to forget how.” he flashed a vicious grin, his yellowed teeth seeming too sharp for his mouth in that instant. “I’ve never been the same.”
The Three-Eyed Raven knew how to do it, Jon thought to himself. A blackheart like him would not risk a threat like that if there was a half-chance he could not return.
“I’ll ask again,” Said Varamyr, “Since you didn’t answer me, boy. What was so important that you risked chaining?”
Jon pursed his lips, carefully considering his words; he hadn’t forgotten his insight into the warg’s motives. “Saving a life.” he answered slowly. “Below the Wall.”
Varamyr snorted in disbelief. “I told you not to lie to me again, boy.” he raised his hand to strike him - and paused, before Jon had the time to flinch away. “... You woke from a dream. You saw your life needing saving in a wolf dream.” his eyes grew wide. “You have wolf dreams from below the damned Wall.”
“... Yes. I do.”
“Others take my bones. What do they feed you kneeler lords?” Varamyr lowered his hand, and stared at him with a cautious look in his eyes. “You’ve had a beast bound to your side since before you could even slip your own skin. That’s the work of the Gods.”
“... Our house sigil. He’s been with me since he was a pup.”
The two men stood there, staring at each other, up to the point that Jon threw a hand to his mouth and dry-heaved through his fingers. “Har!” Varamyr laughed. “Whatever you ate in you other skin isn’t agreeing with you, Stark!” he kicked at the scattered puke-dirt with his toe, covering it further. “You’ll be well enough to walk tomorrow. You’ll bring me my new skins, now.” his eyes narrowed in a vicious glare. “I’ve allowed the Three-Eyed Raven to live long enough.”
“Papa?”
“Yes, sweetling?”
“Make the winter go away, please? I don’t like it.”
“None of us like it. But you’re a tough girl. Did you know you were born in the worst winter in a thousand years? They called it the Long Night.”
“Heehee. I know, papa! You beat the Others!”
“Yes, that’s right! I beat them all, with just me and Ghost there. That’s why he’s missing an ear, because he had to bite the King of the Others very hard.”
“Nunca Tormund sez ‘e rode a dragon!”
“That’s right, Ragnald. A big black dragon, as big as the wall, named Drogon. He could breathe a stream of fire as thick as a tree, and he rode him. There was another dragon, named Rhaegal, and I rode him.”
“You shouldn’t be filling their heads with wild tales, Snow.”
“Nothing but the truth of the bards. I’m having too much fun.”
“Keep squawking like a crow, and I’ll have to come over there and pluck your feathers.”
“... Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep, love.”
“... Sweetlings? Why don’t you go help with the fires. Your papa and I have to… talk.”
“Yes, mama.”
“Papa? Wher’re drogon and ragal now?”
“They… are across the sea. They had to go back home to Valyria. But maybe, if you go outside and shout loud enough, they will come back and scare away winter. Can you do that, Ragnald?”
“I can do it! RHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
Jon jerked awake silently, with his heart pounding in his throat and tears pricking the corners of his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut as the birdsong around him heralded the morning.
With a few soft grunts he pulled himself from his wolfskin bedroll, slung the bow over his back, and stepped outside of his cave to relieve his bladder. He had been ranging for two days away from Moss Hill, and had created a camp inside a former bear’s den. Jon knew the area he had traveled to well enough, once Varamyr had informed him on a crude map where his hall was located; the area was lush with game, and consequently a favored hunting ground for predators, beast and bird alike.
After taking care of his morning business, and feeding on fire-roasted pheasant, he set out. He had regained some movement in his fingers of his ruined hand, which was a relief - he likely wouldn’t ever be able to hold a dagger or shield in his left hand again in this life, but for pulling a bowstring, it was more than enough.
After about an hour of searching, he finally found what he was looking for - A fresh deer carcass, lying in the thin snow of the forest floor. To his eyes, it wasn’t more than half a day old, and obviously had been mauled by a wolf. With a slow shuffle, Jon dipped his fingers into the congealed blood and dabbed it across his forehead, cheeks and the dent of his throat, before settling into scrub-brush. He wasn’t particularly eager to coat himself entirely in the dead scent, so he hoped it would mask him just long enough for a beast to approach.
The sun was high in the sky before any creature approached the carrion. A young wolf, mottled grey, thin and small enough to mark it as a female. She approached the carrion softly, and Jon waited softly in the bushes, thinking of a young boy stabbing through his heart. When she lowered her head to the meat, Jon took that burning loathing and pushed.
The world exploded into scents unknown to man. Beneath her, the smell of flesh left by a larger beast made an appetizing meal for a lone wolf such as herself, but she would not eat it, for a part of her was screaming and howling wordlessly in fear and rage. She walked away from the carcass and approached a brush - and now she could smell it, another beast hidden by a weak scent of blood. She stalked slowly towards it, half from caution and half because part of her snapped and howled and resisted her lifting her legs with every step.
With a shove of her nose, she rolled the new thing over, and saw that it was still alive, breathing slowly with white eyes. You belong with me now, said a voice, but part of her knew nothing of voices and yowled in fear even as her body remained silent. After a moment, she closed her eyes.
-The thing was standing now and he was stroking her fur and a lump of flesh dangled from his open hand and she howled and bit and tore against a beast as he lashed with a claw that shone like darkling ice and she was surrounded by a pack that she did not know but she could feel in her bones was hers and she was warm and full -
Jon let out a loud inhaling gasp as he was forced out, and a canine yelp next to his side streaked away. With a mad scramble, he stood himself up, watching the lone wolf streak off into the forest. “Shit.” he cursed. He had learned with Snow the Crow that some creatures were smart enough to understand the meaning behind speech, as he had been. When that failed, however, almost all could grasp the meaning behind visions and emotions. He hadn’t counted on it spooking the wolf, though.
With a scowl, Jon stood up from his spot. Nobody would be coming to the carcass for hours, now that both he and the wolf had tracked scent all over the place. With a sigh, he began walking again.
After an hour’s walk, the trees thinned for a moment, and a small cliff opened before him. Jon scowled, and reached for a drumstick of smoked rabbit to replenish himself before searching for a way down. Before he did, however, a soft screech broke the silence. Jon blinked, and quickly swiveled his head to locate the source - he had recognized the sound, and sure enough, an eagle swooped past him and down through past the edge of the cliff.
Jon grinned. He knew the eagles beyond the Wall - they had a brown-gold plumage, nested in crags and bluffs and the sides of cliffs, and were indisputably the masters of the skies. Given just how large the one he had just seen had been, she must have been a female, closer to fifteen pounds than ten. With a slow economy of motion, he removed a small weave of twine and moss he had been using as a net for rabbits and spread it across the ground.
With that done, he sat himself down with his back to a great pine, and dreamed of a black knight who had promised he would have done it all again -
At once, she could see farther than was even thought possible, as she scratched a furrow in the nest of twigs and branches. Individual blades of grass many yards away were as easily seen as her own breastfeathers, and part of her exulted in the simple experience. After a time, she spread her wings slowly and took to flight, and her body was only marginally hindered by part of it resisting. With a few powerful flaps of her wings, she was over the cliff-edge and soaring towards a two-legged creature lying against a tree.
She landed gracefully, and had her claws snag in a mesh of moss and fiber. It was easily escaped, but instead of flying away, she dug her talons in deeper, and wrapped her legs around the fiber in circles. After a few moments of this, she flapped her wings again, and was pulled down to the ground by the wrappings. With a satisfied screech, far more tinny and weak than would be expected from such a powerful hunter as her, she released -
Jon snapped back to himself as the eagle immediately began thrashing about in a fit of rage, unable to free herself. The Northerner leapt to his feet with only a modicum of dizziness and grabbed the net, hauling it upwards. The eagle dangled upside down, and it thrashed it’s wings and feet about for a few moments more, and then went still. It wasn’t the stillness of sleep or relaxation - the eagle’s mouth gaped open, and it’s eyes were wide, and it’s wings were tensed outwards as if halfway into flapping away.
Jon snorted involuntarily at the absurd attempt at playing dead, and quickly extended the edges of the net so that it met over the raptor’s head, before setting it back down. Just as the bird inside began to slightly move, Jon pushed -
Her legs were trapped and the two-legged beast had grabbed her, but now she was upright once again. With careful movements, she wriggled her talons out of the twine until she could walk freely inside the dark area. She could not see more than a few motes of light filtering through, but she could hear the two-legged’s breathing close by. Human, whispered a part of her, and now instead of darkness, she could SEE.
She could see herself soaring through the skies, above the forests, until a sharp, shrill noise caught her attention; she immediately banked, and plummeted to the ground to meet the two-legged (HUMAN, she whispered) and alighted on it’s outstretched limb. He cooed meaningless words to her and held out a giblet of meat, which she snatched away and gobbled down as he stroked her feathers. She did not attack it, and did not peck out it’s eyes or gouge her talons into its fist, and gently allowed it to place a hood over her head, returning the world to darkness.
Jon returned to himself with a start, and immediately focused on the trussed bird - the eagle wasn’t visible through the coat of moss that normally disguised the net, but even still the net wasn’t moving or thrashing about. With a small grin of excitement, Jon reached into his bag and pulled out a piece of cooked rabbit; it wasn’t raw, the preferable way to feed predators like the eagle, but it would do in a pinch. Clenching it in one hand, he gently untied the net.
The eagle exploded outward with a flurry of feathers as soon as the net dropped, flying away into the sky. Jon grinned even wider, opened the palm with the meat wide, and pictured his First Steward telling him fearfully that you shouldn’t be alive-
A part of her returned, and she wheeled in the sky several times before reaching a point that she could soar. She turned to look where she had come from, and the two legge- human, was lying still against a tree. In his outstretched hand was a giblet of meat. Take it, whispered a part of her. She let out a screech and folded her wings, diving back down to the ground. With a slow waddle, she walked closer to the hand-
Jon returned to himself, and turned to stare at the bird. It immediately flinched back, fluffing its wings and rearing its head back to peck, but it didn’t take to wing again. He ground his fingers together, tearing away a fleck of meat under his gloved thumb, and bounced it forward. The eagle paused, then stumbled forward and picked it off the ground to eat. Another string torn off and thrown, this time closer, and it ate that piece too.
Then Jon readjusted the lump of flesh to the top of his fist, and lowered his arm to the ground. The eagle bobbed its head as it stared at the meat, and then Jon’s face, and back at the meat. The moment stretched out, like a musical note hanging in the air that would not fade.
The eagle took to wing, its span nearly as wide across as Jon was at the shoulder, and crossed the distance, landing on his wrist and digging it’s talons into the leather of his glove. Jon held back the irresistible urge to whoop with triumph as it bent down and plucked the meat from his fist, gobbling it up in seconds. It was only when he was able to reach with his free hand and gently, oh-so-gently, stroke her golden-brown plumage without more than a fiery glare, that Jon’s grin split his face in two.
“You’re going to be wonderful.” Jon whispered to the nameless eagle, stroking it’s plumage.
After all, eagles hunt and kill ravens.
It took Jon another three days to return to Moss Hill, with the sun sinking low in the pale sky. The eagle slowed him down, mostly; Jon knew from experience that to have such a well-behaved bird was a feat all but the most skilled of falconers would be envious of, but even so, she demanded constant attention and training. It was only when she was taught to perch on his shoulder when he was wearing his thick fur cloak, instead of constantly perching on his fist, that he began to make close to regular speed again.
When the hall of logs, mud and moss came into sight, Jon let out a small sigh of relief. He approached the door and slammed it twice with his fist. “I’ve returned.” He called.
A moment of shuffling inside, and Varamyr opened up. “You’re not dead.” he smirked. “Well done for a one-handed man.” He stepped outside and glanced around, frowning. “I see no beasts. Are you simple, boy?”
Jon immediately pivoted to the faint intuition of the eagle. “She’s over there.” he pointed.
“She?”
Instead of answering, Jon put his fingers to his lips and let out a shrill whistle. The sound carried through the air, hanging, until it was answered by a piercing scream. Varamyr’s eyes lit up as the golden-brown eagle soared over the treetops and dove towards the two, and as Jon held out his bad arm, she landed on it with grace.
“... Hells.” Varamyr breathed. “Look at the size of her. She’s a killer.” he reached out a hand to her, but the eagle immediately snapped it the offending digits, and he withdrew them with inches to spare. “Fierce bitch!” he laughed, and his eyes were shining with glee.
“I’ve taught her well enough that a hand that feeds her is a hand to be trusted.”
“Learned that trick already, have you?” Varamyr grinned. “If I didn’t know for a fact you couldn’t escape your skin, I’d call you a liar for saying you couldn’t warg.” he lifted his hand and pointed past Jon’s shoulder. “And that one, there. Is that your beast, too?”
“What beast?” Jon pivoted to follow the finger. There, at the very edge of the treeline, was a glimmering, moonlit pair of eyes and a mottled grey snout. “... No.” Jon said, amazed. “I thought that one ran away.”
“The bear brought back a half-eaten stag. I’ll throw the neck meat out to keep her occupied until I’m ready to take her properly.” Varamyr stepped back inside, and Jon followed. The warg disappeared into the back rooms, headed to where jon knew there was a butchery table, and within a minute came back with the severed head of a yearling stag. With a loud call, he flung the head outside, before closing the door and turning towards the bird. “There. Now…”
He carefully inched forward, before taking his seat across from Jon and the raptor; his mouth was fixed in a halfway grin. “What are her needs? I’ve never taken an eagle before.”
“Raw meat, and regular flights. If you wish to transport her far without her taking to wing, you’ll need to create a hood to block her sight.” Jon replied, pulling from his half-remembered conversations with a wildling falconer in his clan. “For one as big as this, a pound of meat a day will sustain her. They will eat anything - fish, game, other birds, carrion. They’ll even fight hogs if they’ve the advantage.” he gently stroked the plumage of her neck. “I’ve broken her of her need to protect her kills - she knows that if I take her rabbit, I will give it back in bite-sized pieces.”
“Useful trick, ain’t it?”
“I know kennel trainers who would kill for the skill.” Jon admitted. “It took six months to break Ghost of the habit while he was still a pup, and I’ve now done the same in three days.”
“Now comes teaching them to attack on command, without accepting humans as prey.” Varamyr grinned. “Rather trickier lesson, that.” he held out his gloved fist in an expectant manner, and Jon reluctantly met that fist with his own. After the eagle had waddled across the breach onto Varamyr’s fist, the two sat down, with the wildling flicking his fingers near the bird’s face and it snapping at the digits in reply. He’s more gentle with an animal than he is with any human.
“You’ve brought me a fine gift, Jon Snow.” said Varamyr. “Well done. The day they call me Varamyr Godkiller is now on the horizon, with a bird like this serving as my eyes.”
Jon frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“Say what?”
“Varamyr Godkiller. The Three-Eyed Raven isn’t a God.”
Varamyr snorted. “And what kind of tales does a southron boy possibly know of the Raven, hmm? None, that’s what.”
“The Free Folk say he’s a servant of the Old Gods, and the Children of the Forest.” Jon countered, folding his arms. “He was bound to the Weirwood, and in exchange for servitude, they granted him eternal life and Greenseeing.”
Now Varamyr Threeskins stared at Jon, a narrow glint to his eyes. “That’s not the tale I was told, though there’s the ring of a bard’s truth to yours.” he gently maneuvered the nameless eagle onto a bedpost, and leaned forward, he face growing shadowy in the bog-fire. “Now, I’ll tell you mine.”
In the days of our ancestors, when the Wall was not built and men still knew the Names of the Old Gods, there lived a tree. It was the first tree, but it was a mean, twisted, hateful thing, its wood pale like bone and its leaves red like blood; Taller than a mountain, and a face like a curse. This tree could speak through its face, and it could pull up it’s roots like a skirt and tread the world like a man. Wherever it’s leaves fell, a new tree sprouted, and wherever its fruit fell, a new beast sprung forth.
This tree hungered for flesh and blood and bone, and demanded that Men sacrifice their kin to it. The men of those days cursed it, and pleaded with the Old Gods by name to aid them, but the Hungry Tree was beloved as kin to the Old Gods, and so they were silent.
And so men sacrificed their kin to the Hungry Tree, and hung their entrails on it’s branches for it to feast as it walked. Some did so willingly, and with great joy gave up their sons and daughters; the Old Gods blessed them, and blessed them with twice as many children as they gave. Others did so grudgingly, and the Old Gods only repaid them with a new child for every two they gave.
In those times, there was a King in the North, whose name was not Stark, and who had a single daughter who he loved dearly. The Hungry Tree came to him and demanded his daughter. The King in the North refused, and the Old Gods cursed him for refusing their Hungry Tree, and took his daughter by force and hung her entrails from its branches. The King in the North raged and wept bitter tears, and went to war. He took the bones from his daughter and forged a mighty ax, and from her hair he wound a black rope.
When the Hungry Tree roamed south, he tied one end of the rope to the tallest mountain of the Frostfangs, and the other end to the tip of the Antler River. And when the Hungry Tree walked north once more, it tripped and fell on the rope, for the King in the North had wound it with his own blood. When it fell to the ground with a mighty sound, he took the axe and chopped the tree to pieces, and he ate the fruit of the tree greedily.
The people cheered and praised him, for no longer would they have to sacrifice their children, but the Old Gods raged, for they loved the Hungry Tree like kin. They cursed the land, and where fragments of the Hungry Tree fell, new trees sprung just like it, with pale wood and red leaves and faces like curses, and where the leaves fell creatures sprung molded of wood.
The King in the North, whose name was not Stark, fled the North, and the pale trees and the wood-children chased him forevermore, wherever there was a green thing to haunt him. But the King had eaten of the fruit of the Hungry Tree, and would live for eternity, so the Old Gods cursed him again to never again have his name or be remembered. And the people swore bloody oaths, that until the King came back, so they would never have another King, and as long as they could not remember his name, so too would they not remember the names of the Old Gods. When their names were forgotten, the Old Gods left, and merely watched the world through the faces of the Hungry Tree’s bones.
The Hungry Tree hung the entrails of many humans and beasts on it’s branches, but there was one that it never did - a Raven that sat in its branches, and feasted on its fruit, who was too small and clever for the Hungry Tree to catch. When the King in the North chopped down the Hungry Tree, the Raven flew away, seeking one as wise as it. One day, it found a boy with only one eye, and the Raven knew the boy was just as wise as him. The Raven flew down the boy’s gullet and wore his skin, and taught his village its secrets, of how to see through the bones of the Hungry Tree and to take skins the way the Raven had taken the Boy’s skin.
The people loved the boy, but when the boy grew old and died, the Raven burst from his skin, wearing the boy’s only eye on its forehead, and flew down the gullet of another girl. When the people realized that the Raven would not die, for it had eaten of the fruit of the Hungry Tree also, they killed the girl and tore the Raven out of her.
But the Raven was clever, and flew away, looking to find more young children. But many had heard of it, and so turned it away - only the naughty children who didn’t listen to the stories paid heed to the Raven, and got their skin stolen in return. And so now mothers warn their children to always listen to the stories, for if they don’t pay attention, they might get their skin stolen by the Three-Eyed Raven.
The bog-fire crackled softly as Varamyr trailed off into silence.
“A milkbabe’s story.” Jon said softly, though he had a chill in his bones.
“Aye. I heard it from my mother when I was in my fifth year. It has the cadence of a bard’s truth. In other words, mostly bullshit.” replied Varamyr. He had gathered a jug of his favored ale during the story, and slowly took a sip of his cup to wet his throat. “But given what you say is true, can you say it is wholly a lie?”
“... No. I cannot.”
“If the Raven is immortal, or something close to it, then that’s as good a god as anything.” Varamyr said. “They’ve called him the Last Greenseer since my grandfather. It’s not because he’s the only one left - your Bran puts that to the lie.” He leaned forward. “It’s because he will BE the last. When the world is ash and dust, and the Others take us all to an icy grave, he’ll still be here, seeing through the eyes of the Weirwoods, the Hungry Tree’s bones.”
Jon clenched his fist tightly. “Not when I’m through with him.”
“Har.” Varamyr laughed, and repositioned himself so his back was securely supported. “Now, let’s go take a look…”
His eyes rolled upwards to pure white, and he slumped downwards slightly. Jon slowly positioned a wooden cup for himself and poured a glass of the ale for himself. He lifted it, toasted it silently to the eagle, and drank it, as the wolf outside howled in victory.
Jon was outside, stripped down to his woolen shirt and leather breaches and sweating fiercely as he attacked a makeshift training dummy he had assembled with his sword, when Varamyr slammed open the door. “Get yourself presentable. We have somebody coming.”
Jon lowered the longsword tip to the ground, and wiped at his face with his forearm. “You saw them?” he asked, getting his breathing under control.
“Around two or three miles out. Saw them through a break in the trees.” Varamyr answered. “They’re headed straight towards us. They look like the Mance’s men.”
“The Mance?” Jon’s blood chilled. “Mance Rayder?”
“That’s him.” Varamyr replied. “One of them had Breakspear furs, and I know the Breakspears joined him months ago. The other two I didn’t recognize.” he smiled, with a cut-glass quality to it. “They finally remembered me.”
Jon knew why they were coming. They were coming to recruit Varamyr to attack the wall, but they were bringing everybody along with them. An exodus from the north, to flee the dead that did not die.
I forgot about the White Walkers. I’ve been so fixated on the Three-Eyed Raven, and solving my curse, that I forgot about the damned Army of the Dead.
And now Mance Rayder was coming to them. The King-Beyond-The-Wall. His Goodbrother.
Val didn’t talk much about her sister Dalla, who had married Mance. She told him she was kind, with soft pale eyes and wisdom about her. Mance had loved her dearly, and honored Val in return. And she had died in the birthing of his son, the night of the battle of Castle Black; the son had died shortly after. Val mourned them both.
Jon was abruptly drawn out of his musings by a harsh slap upside the back of his head. “AGH!”
“Bring your head back to your feet!” Varamyr barked. “I want you clean, and ready.”
Jon grimaced and rubbed the back of his head. “Clean, I understand, but ready? Ready for what?”
“Ready for what could happen when I tell them no.”
Jon went still. He knew the tenacity of Mance when it came to this army. The Thenns still told stories a decade after his death of how Styr, the Magnar who had led the Thenns into the Ice-River’s cannibalism, had to be defeated three times in a single day before he swore to the King-Beyond-The-Wall. “They’ll not give up. Mance wants every living man in his army.”
“I’d have humored him if the Mance himself came to my door.” Varamyr jeered. “But he sends a trio of lackey would-be kneelers. I have you, and your Black Gate. I don’t need the Mance.”
Jon frowned, but let the matter drop, dipping inside the hall to grab hold of the bone-bladed body scraper. It certainly wasn’t a nobleman’s preferred way of cleaning themselves, running the dull hook across their skin until the dirt had come away and leaving their skin burning pink, but he’d grown used to it both on the Wall and beyond. The Wall was actually preferred, in truth; the Reach was required to tithe shipments of olive oil, which had the effect of greatly softening the filth when rubbed into the skin and making it easier to remove. Such luxury was reserved to those who survived a Ranging, or had performed particularly well at their duties.
After cleansing and reclothing himself, Jon kept himself busy. He wasn’t sure what the messengers would do when refused. More importantly, he didn’t know what the Threeskins would do when they refused his refusal. He made a point of secreting Ynga away from the front hall, and took up a seat at the door. His eyes bled into white -
She was padding silently through the forest when a part of her pulled elsewhere. On swift paws she darted through the trees, seeking the scent of intruders. Men-things were intruding on her new territory, she knew, and while she wasn’t to attack, she would make it known that they weren’t alone.
It did not take long to find them - it almost seemed as though they were deliberately taking the loudest path possible. Without fear, she stepped into their way, and the lead man let out a shout of startled fear. He reached for a spear across his back before the one behind him grabbed his hand. “Wait!” the man-thing shouted. “This one is different. Look at it.”
“Bugger off.” the lead replied, but he allowed his hand to be led away from his weapon. She merely stood there, matching their gaze without fear.
“We’re here to talk with the Fiveskins.” the middle man continued. “We speak for the King-Beyond-The-Wall.”
She didn’t understand those words, but a part of her did, and she bobbed her head once. The one at the back let out a relieved sigh, before she pivoted and paced confidently forward; she could hear the three man-things following behind her, in a much less obnoxiously loud manner.
She led on, for more than an hour, before the clearing of her man-thing den appeared. The small, sickly one stood there, draped in the hide of a shadowcat, his head-fur freshly scraped to the flesh and arms folded. She turned to meet the eyes of the three wildlings -
Jon returned to himself with a soft inhalation, before slowly fumbling his way to a standing position. A small, nagging sensation told him that his balance was all wrong, that his spine was too straight and that he would be better served on all fours, but he shoved away the remnant viciously. “Stay out of sight, Ynga.” He called. “We don’t know if they’ll take guest rights.”
A moment later, the door opened, and Varamyr entered with the three wildlings. “Boy.” he called. “Bring us food. They will partake.”
“Your son?” asked the one with the spear.
“Hardly.” Varamyr replied, as Jon quickly brought wooden bowls and set them beside the brass cookpot. “He learns from me.”
The three wildlings gathered the bowls, dipped them into the rabbit bone broth, and took small, ceremonial sips. With the sacred hospitality now observed, they sat down. “You come from the Mance, then.” Varamyr said without preamble. “Get on with it, then. Speak his words.”
“Mance Rayder is now King-Beyond-The-Wall to five-and-sixty different clans.” said the middle one, who Jon noted had shaved the sides of his head and let his scalp grow wild, like the mane of a horse. “He knows you hold sway with a dozen more, and are a skilled skinchanger besides. He would ask that you join him, to defeat the crows and break the Wall forever.”
“He can have the clans.” Varamyr answered. “I care little about them, now. My eyes are set further north.”
The three looked askance at each other. “Going north is to go to death.” said the one with the spear. “Winter descends, and brings horrors with it. All who live past the Valley of the Thenns are gone, and any who leave their dead unburned risk the Others.”
“Others take your Others.” Varamyr snapped. “I’ve set my sights on hunting one set of make-believe monsters. I’ll not have you add to the pile.”
“It’s not make-believe.”
Varamyr went still.
“It’s not make-believe.” Jon repeated. “The White Walkers are real, too.”
The wildling with the mane sneered. “And who are you to-”
Varamyr thrust his hand into the air and snapped it into a fist, as if snatching the man’s words out of the ether and crushing them to powder; the wildling fell silent. “... And you didn’t think to mention this before now?” he growled.
“No. I didn’t.”
“You see now why we cannot leave without you with us.” said the third man, who had a long, narrow face with ears nearly perpendicular to his skull. “Every man, woman and child is going South with us, for good. The Wall will not stop us.”
Varamyr closed his eyes, and kneaded his shavepate forehead with his knuckles. “... Boy.” he said, finally. “Tell me what the South says of the Others.”
“The North - that is, the North of the Seven Kingdoms, the land of the Starks - tells of cold, and death, and the winter that lasted a generation.” replied Jon. “The true South thinks they are merely tales told to frighten children, but the North remembers. Fire for the Wights, Dragonglass or Valyrian Steel for the White Walkers. Dragon’s fire would serve against all but the Night King, but the last dragon died generations ago.”
Varamyr remained silent for a time, kneading his forehead. “... And where is Mance Rayder?” he asked. “I would have thought he would have greeted me himself.”
“The Mance is below the Wall.” said the first, with the spear. “A king of the South has gone to Winterfell of the Starks, and he has gone to see their feast. He is Bael the Bard come again, with the songs and trickery to match.”
Jon blanched. “He WHAT?”
Mance Rayder, the King-Beyond-The-Wall, was a bard at King Robert’s welcoming feast and NOBODY NOTICED?
“Har!” Varamyr laughed. “Weren’t expecting that, were you, Snow?”
Jon’s mind raced. It was certainly possible - he and Mance Rayder had never crossed paths before he was captured, and the traitor had never mentioned the story to him, but - Jon had not attended that feast. He had been outside, hacking away his frustrations at a training dummy. He had met nuncle Benjen, and the Imp, that night instead of being near the king - and that was deliberate on Father’s part, wasn’t it, to ensure the king didn’t recognize some speck of his hated foe in me - and if he was clever in traversing the mountain roads to reach the Gorge, he could have been back North before Jon had even reached the Wall.
How many blood would remain unshed… how many lives could be spared… if Ned Stark, Robert Baratheon and Mance Rayder were put in the same room to talk?
The possibilities dizzied him.
“So Mance isn’t even here to command his own army, let alone convince me.” Varamyr replied, folding his arms. “And you just LET him walk off? And you stayed together? Bunch of fucking kneelers, all of you.”
“Bold talk for a man too weak to do his fighting himself.” snapped the one with the mane. “I didn’t see your famous pack, Fiveskins. You don’t seem a man worth -”
“Enough!” Barked the man with the mutilated ear, but Jon could already see that Varamyr’s face had twisted in fury.
“Boy.” He hissed. “Get the woman, and bring three jugs for the guests. A parting gift.”
The three wildlings went still. They knew what a host giving a gift to one who had eaten of his bread and salt meant - a deliberate delineation of his obligation. A revocation of Guest Right.
Jon knew, too, but when the thought of refusing crossed his mind, the two functional fingers on his bad hand twitched, and it passed. He returned, quickly, with Ynga at his side, carrying three of the ale jugs between them.
“Give these to the Mance, to let him know I appreciated his thoughts.” Varamyr said, through his teeth as the two younger two set the alcohol before them. “And tell him that I refuse, with every breath in my body, to join his army.”
The man with the spear inhaled, and steeled his face. “Then let me tell you, Varamyr Fiveskins, that Mance will not accept that answer. You will join his army, as all Free Folk will, because he refuses to feed the armies of the dead through his inaction.”
“Then let him come and try.” Varamyr snarled. “Get out of my hall.”
The three men stood, slowly, and took the jugs with them as they left. As soon as the door shut behind them, the small man screamed and punched the timber beam behind him. “COCKSUCKING MONGRELS! MOTHERLESS HOGSPAWN!” he roared.
“You know they speak truth about Mance.” Said Jon. “He fought and defeated the Magnar of the Thenns thrice in a day in order to force them into his army. This is an exodus.”
Varamyr growled like a vicious beast, his teeth bared like he would cut the boy’s throat out with the expression alone. “Then let me prove I won’t be convinced.” His eyes rolled into the back of his head, pure white, and he collapsed backwards onto the table, arms spread-eagle around him.
Jon’s eyes shot wide. “Others take me.” He cursed, before whirling on Ynga. “Get your things together, now. Anything you need, anything you care about. Gather it together.”
“What’s happening?” Ynga moaned, fearfully.
“Varamyr’s burning his bridges. GO!” Jon lunged towards his bed and grabbed his swordbelt, slamming his sheath into the loop made for it. Outside, the thundering roar and stampede of an ice bear was heard only seconds before the screaming started.
Jon had only just wrestled on his full cloak when the sounds outside ceased, and Varamyr returned to himself, gnashing his teeth. The Warg forced himself into a seated position, staring at Jon, who had gone still. “Running away, boy?” Varamyr asked quietly. The bog-dirt fire popped, and the outline of the Shadowcat cloak cast a shadow on the wall, a terrible half-man half-beast silhouette.
“... No.” Jon said, finally. “I still have to find the Raven.”
Varamyr grinned. “Damn right.”
Ynga slammed to a stop in the doorway, a sack full of food over her shoulder. Varamyr rotated slowly to her, eyes narrowed. “And where do you think you’re going, woman?”
“Let her go, Threeskins.” Jon warned. “She’ll only be a burden.”
“I let her go when I SAY SHE CAN GO!” Varamyr roared. “THIS IS MY HALL! I AM THE LORD OF MOSS HILL! I AM THE LORD! NOT YOU!”
“Where I come from,” Said Jon, leashing his emotions tightly, “The Lords answer to the King. and you just butchered his messengers.”
“I’m not a fucking kneeler SHIT like you, Jon Stark!”
“We’re both Free Men, now, Threeskins, and on the run from the King-Beyond-The-Wall. And unless you think she’ll do you any good other than pleasuring yourself, she’ll only slow us down.”
“I’ll gut you.”
“You’ll only die that much quicker.” Jon replied, through gritted teeth. “And I’ll get right back up from it.”
The wildling skinchanger glowered hatefully at the boy. “Go, then.” he snarled, without turning to face Ynga. “Get out of my sight.”
Neither moved.
“GO!”
Ynga gave a start, and burst for the door - Jon grabbed her by the forearm before she made it. “If the spear that man was carrying is still intact, take it.” he murmured in her ear. “I know this isn’t the way you wanted to become a spearwife, but it’s here now. Don’t waste it.”
“... Thank you.” with those final words, she ran past him, flinging open the door out of Moss Hill and into freedom.
“Spiteful little brat.” Varamyr snapped. “I gave you my bread and salt, and this is how you repay me?”
“The moment you killed those men, you could not keep her.” Jon replied, keeping his tone carefully placid. “She’s not your stolen wife, and she’s Free the same as you and I. Your bear can only carry two men on it’s back before tiring more quickly, as well.”
“You know nothing of my bear.”
“I know it’s like.”
Varamyr scowled. “You know of the North and it’s ways an awful lot, for a boy green enough to piss grass who’s never been past the Wall.”
Jon rolled his jaw for a moment. “... I never said I had never been beyond the Wall.”
“... Is that so?” Varamyr stared at him for a moment, before turning and diving deeper into the house. “Fine. Then you know that what I’m about to do will infuriate the Mance when he comes for me himself, if it doesn’t kill him first.”
“And what is that?”
Varamyr returned, holding three thick strands of rope.
Jon paled. “You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, I would.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing. You should burn them.”
Varamyr grinned, sinisterly. “Oh, but I do. You said it yourself - the Others are real. Now, come with me. We’re going to leave a parting gift for the King-Beyond-The-Wall.”
Jon stared at the small man, draped in Shadowcat colors, emotions boiling in his chest. I should have killed you. I should have killed you, when you were still in control of your bear, and spared the world of you. I would have died, but then I wouldn’t be party to this foulness.
His fingers danced along the hilt of his castle-forged longsword, uncertainly. Questioning whether it was worth it. After a lingering moment, he lowered it back down. “Not yet.” he whispered. “Not until we find the Raven.”
He closed his eyes, steeled himself, and stepped outside. He had three dead men to hang.
Notes:
It’s a funny feeling, knowing that somebody whose writing is the reason you started writing a story in the genre is a fan of your work. Shoutout to DannieU, I see that Kudos. Dragonstone was my fucking jam, you don’t even understand. (*muffled screaming in the distance*)
And yes, I click on the profiles of every single one of you that bookmarks or leaves kudos, to see if any of you are people I recognize, or otherwise have good taste in stories that I can steal from. I gotta say... some of you don't expect your profiles to ever be examined, and it really shows. Blegh.
11 thousand hits! With five digits to our names, we are officially a big boy story now, and we’re basically still in the prologue. We have not even BEGUN to get wild and wacky with the scenarios. Life Six is gonna be a fucking adventure, where a hint of the bigger picture emerges, and it’ll still be only a primarily Westeros-based tale. Wait until we really start ranging abroad. Man, I kind of wish I had a robot to do all these early parts on my behalf so we can get to the spicy lore.
Hope you all enjoyed. It was certainly enjoyed by me, as a distraction to the pain of looking for a new job. Writing might slow down, as I look to make sure I don't starve when I lose my paycheck at the end of September. Wish me luck.
Chapter 10: Life Five: Part 5
Summary:
Feet First Into Hell.
Notes:
For those of you who don't read my author's notes and are wondering where I've gone - I'm not dead, I'm just jobless. Please wait warmly for the next chapter or two while I make sure I don't have to type this all out inside a cardboard box down by the river.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Spit it out.” Said Varamyr, after hours of riding north in silence.
Jon said nothing in reply, biting the inside of his cheek to stifle himself. The snow bear underneath his legs lumbered forward in rolling motions, carrying the two of them easily.
“You think I can’t tell you’re itching to talk? Say what you need to say. We’re together now, until either we’re dead or we’re standing on the Raven’s corpse.”
“... You shouldn’t have done that.” Jon said, finally.
“The killing, or the hanging?”
“... Both. But the hanging was worse.” his fists clenched. “You should have burned the bodies. If they return as wights-”
“Returning was the whole point.” Varamyr said, cutting him off. “The branch wasn’t so thick they couldn’t break it, if they wiggled. Teach the Mance a lesson.”
“You’ve only fed the army of the dead.” Jon replied heatedly. “Mance is going to march on the Wall, and he is going to be repulsed. The corpses he leaves will create an army for the Night King a hundred-thousand strong, and every body you willingly add to that number will be another man slain once the Wall is breached. If Mance Rayder is killed before they even assault the Wall because of your ambush, the massacre will only be worse.”
“Mance Rayder is going to fail horribly, but without him, his army is going to fail horribly.” Varamyr drawled. “And you wanted me to join them?”
Long golden hair flashed behind his eyelids, and a low throaty chuckle echoed in his ears from long ago and far away. “... I didn’t say that.” Jon murmured. “Only that there are people worth saving in that army.”
“People worth saving everywhere, I’d guess.” Varamyr said, refocusing his gaze forward. “Doesn’t mean I give a wet shit about them.”
Jon grit his teeth, but kept silent.
“Eyes open, boy.” Said Varamyr, after the silence dragged on. “I am only the Threeskins now, and we don’t know where this Raven is hiding. We’re not nearly as prepared as we should have been.”
And whose fault is that?
“If you have any hint of where the Raven is hiding,” Varamyr continued, “better than your suggestion of half the Forest, now is the time to say.”
Jon began to deny it, but stopped. “... Possibly.” Jon said, thoughtfully. “Wherever he is hiding, it is in a place accessible to a crippled boy, dragged by a sled by a man who is simple.”
“Simple?”
“A stablehand of Winterfell, named Hodor.” Jon replied. “The only thing he is able to say is his own name, but he’s a beast of a man, at least seven feet tall. Some think he has the blood of giants in him.”
“Giant’s blood… Now I see it.” Varamyr rubbed his chin. “No clever hiding place in the side of a cliff, then. Has to be accessible from the ground, to drag a sled to. And it’s in the Forest, as well… but not so far that it can’t be reached by those two, without good hunters.”
“So there is no crossing of the Antler River.” Jon finished, eyes glinting clear and grey in the sun. “And they wouldn’t go so far west as to reach the Fist of the First Men. It must be north of the Milkwater, as well, else the Night’s Watch would have discovered it long ago on a ranging.”
“So north of the Milkwater, but not so north as to pass the Antler, and west, but not so west as the Fist, and somewhere accessible by sled.” Varamyr grinned. “And his hiding space will be marked by Weirwood.”
“... It would be, wouldn’t it?” said Jon, as his eyes narrowed. “Bound to the Weirwood, they say…”
“Born of the Hungry Tree, they say.” The wildling echoed. “Narrows it down quite a bit. That’s still a lot of ground to cover, but we won’t have to search the entire damned North.” Varamyr snorted. “Searching for a single tree in a forest from the air. Good thing it’s a tree with leaves of blood, or we’d be here until we die of old age.”
“... We both know that won’t happen.”
Varamyr glanced over his shoulder with a single eye. “... Aye.” He said, flatly. “There won’t be any peaceful deaths, out here.”
Jon kept his eyes rigidly forward, and resisted the urge to inch his hand forward to flutter over the pommel of his blade. He wondered if Varamyr was doing the same.
The wind drafted up underneath her wings, raising her high into the sky as she soared with outstretched wings. Above the endless sea of green and white, the world was still - the cold did not penetrate her thick feathers, and her pinprick eyes sought splashes of color standing apart.
Ahead of her, a hint of red underneath a blanket of snow became visible from the right angle. She let out a screech and tucked her wings inward, diving hard and fast towards the target. Only when it became obvious to part of her that it was not what they were seeking did she bank, braking her wings and pulling to a graceful stop upon the pale white branches. A flicker of movement from the brush caught her attention, and she dove forward -
Jon shuddered, and came back to himself. “There was another heart tree, about two miles north.” He said, slowly pushing himself upright from the carefully-perched slumped position he had been in.
“And?”
“Wrong one, again. She’s off eating a hare, now.”
Varamyr growled throatily. “Fuck it. We end here today.” the snow bear came to a halt, and she bared her teeth in a silent snarl. The two men dismounted, and the older Wildling was walking with a bow-legged gait. They had been riding for three weeks, now; It was only Jon’s youthful resilience and experience in the saddle that kept him from the same appearance.
The moment the two were standing free, the 13-foot-tall predator immediately dashed off into the forest. She hates being bound by Varamyr, and it is only by the grip of a skinchanger’s control that keeps her from abandoning us, Jon thought. She couldn’t hide from him no matter where she ran.
Jon turned to glance at Varamyr. The short man was behind a tree, loudly relieving himself, but Jon still knew where he was, less by his five senses and more by a near-incessant faint tingling in his head, like a single ant walking in a tight circle on the inside of his skull towards his general direction. It had developed during the second week of travelling, and had not stopped. He hadn’t mentioned it to the Wildling, but he could guess why - Varamyr had said that he could tell Jon was a skinchanger by a burning sensation.
This is mild compared to how Varamyr described his condition, at the beginning of all this. If his description is more regular, then it is small wonder most Wargs live away from men, and each other.
The two of them quickly staked a wide leather sheet to the midpoint of a pine tree and the ground respectively, creating an overhanging three-sided tent. Varamyr wiped the sweat from his brow after breaking the icy ground and glared hatefully at the makeshift shelter. “I hate this thing.”
“It’s yours.”
“I still hate it. Hate it every time I have to use it. It’s cold, and drafty, and wet. It isn’t worth shit when winter properly sets in, too.” Varamyr reached into his pack and drew out a ration of thinly-sliced flame-roasted venison rolled around a group of berries, and took an angry bite. “And now it’s all I have, until that feathery cocksucker is dead, and we’ve crossed your Black Gate.”
He’s angry he had to abandon Moss Hill, Jon realized. He longs for home, the way I longed for Winterfell before I was banished. He hated how much it made him empathize with the wretch.
After a moment, he spoke. “Tell me about Moss Hill. I’ve never asked, but it was as fine a hall as could be found beyond the Wall.”
Varamyr turned to face him, as animal grease and berry juice dribbled down his chin. “... Aye. It was, wasn’t it?” he replied, finally. “And now, it’ll likely be destroyed the moment the Mance sees what I’ve done to his men.” the thought seemed to dampen him further.
“It wasn’t my hands who built the place; not really. I was too young for that. It was old Haggon who built it, though I was the cause for it.” his lips curled. “Tall and grim, he was, and a voice like a mountain shedding snow. I was thrown to him when they discovered I was a warg; back then, I was too sickly to travel far, the way a ‘real’ Free man does. So Haggon built Moss Hill, on the edge of a bog so that the dirt could be harvested for the flame, and the iron brought out of the muck to become nails.”
“It sounded as though he cared.”
Varamyr snorted. “Hardly. A great cage of moss and mud is what he built. He knew I had torn out Bump’s throat; mayhaps he thought it was a duty to the Gods to restrain a kinslayer, for he knew I couldn’t leave that place without his aid.” he folded his arms, and his lips thinned. “He tried to bind me to his rules - ‘to mate as wolf with wolf, or to feast on manflesh as beast, is abomination’ - but I hated his rules almost as much as I hated him. I learned, though.”
Jon wrinkled his nose. “Mating as wolf with wolf sounds right, though. That’s foul.”
“Har! I’ll give you that, Stark.” Varamyr chuckled. “Rather loud complaint from you, though - not looking to fuck your Tully cousins, little wolf?” Varamyr only laughed louder at the curdled expression on Jon’s face.
“That’s disgusting. I’ll not suddenly bed them just because the gods know they’re not my siblings anymore.”
Varamyr smirked wordlessly, right up until Jon’s face twisted into anger. “Alright, Stark.” he responded, through there was a mocking tone to his voice. “I kept to those rules by Haggon as long as I was trapped by him, not because I wanted to, but because I had to.” Varamyr smiled slightly, in a menacing way. “I had the last victory in the end. He was an old man, even before he took me.”
Jon kept his expression neutral, and free of emotion - he had a feeling he knew where this story ended, now. “... Did you kill him?”
“I did. He was dying already of old age - couldn’t even rise from his bed. But I wouldn’t let him choose his time.” Said Varamyr. “I stuck a knife in his chest, early in the day, and as he spent his last breath racing to his favored beast, a greybacked wolf nearly as wizened as him, I took it for myself and denied him his second skin.” he grinned cruelly, revelling in the memory. “He died choking on his blood, on the day I became a man grown.”
“After that, Moss Hill was no longer my cage - it was my hall, my seat of power. No man would ever again bind me - instead, I would bind others. None but my own whims will tell me that I am forbidden from eating manflesh as a beast, or from wearing another man’s skin as I would wear a beast.”
Jon Snow stilled. “... You can do that?” Jon said softly, a horrified look on his face.
“Hmm?”
“A regular skinchanger can… take the skins of other men?” Jon repeated. “Not only Greenseers, but other, regular skinchangers can as well?”
Varamyr Threeskins leaned back, and folded his arms. “... Aye. We can.” he said, warily. “Not nearly as easily as a beast, I was told, but it can be done. A beast doesn’t have a sense of self - it can’t tell what thoughts running through their minds belong to them or not.”
“Then, that protects men from being taken?” Jon repeated, eyes wide. “Knowing firmly who you are can fight it off?”
“For normal men, yes.” Varamyr nodded. “I’ve never done it, but that’s only because I’ve never wanted, nor needed to. I tried once, though, to take Haggon when he drove me to fury.” his lips curled downward. “Like skipping a rock across a frozen lake - bounced right off. He didn’t even notice. Those with the Gift, I imagine, are immune, else one of us would have been taken by the Raven and murdered the other by now.”
Jon Snow closed his eyes. “... Then how is it that the Raven can take the bodies of others for his own?” Jon asked. “If all skinchangers, wargs and Greenseers cannot be taken, then how does he intend to take Bran, who is a Greenseer?”
Varamyr opened his mouth, then closed it again, brows furrowed. “... Naughty children…” he said quietly, after a long moment. “Maybe…”
“What?”
“The Hungry Tree.” he replied. “Only the naughty children, the brats who don’t listen to the stories, are taken by the Three-Eyed Raven. Don’t you get it?” He leaned forward. “It means knowing about the Raven prevents him taking you. Because if you know about the Raven, you know he is a wicked greenseer born of the Hungry Tree, and turn him away. He can only take the ones who LET him take them.”
“... Or there’s nobody left inside.” Jon’s eyes widened. “They’re already skinchanged into something else, and the Raven takes the place their soul vacated.”
Varamyr’s lips peeled back into a teeth-bearing sneer. “Ravens are scavengers the same as Crows - they’ll pick over the carcass after the others have left. Aye, that sounds like some kind of truth to things.”
Jon turned his gaze outwards, to the place where the female wolf was trailing after them; she always followed many steps behind them, seemingly still fearful of the bear. “Then when the time comes to fight the Raven, and whatever guard he has assembled… we must do it as ourselves. Or he will take us.”
“... Give me your bow, then.” Said Varamyr. “I’ll be needing it, after all.”
As Jon handed the wildling the weapon, Varamyr suddenly smirked. “I’ve told you tales of my home. Now, tell me tales of yours.”
“Of Winterfell?”
“That’s right.” Varamyr leaned forward, eyes glinting in the dying light of dusk. “Tell me how a kneeler lordling lives. Tell me of your red-headed Tully siblings, and the things a lord does with family. Tell me of the food, and the land, and the people who scrape and beg at your feet. I want to know.”
“The smallfolk don’t scrape and beg.” Jon protested, drawing back.
“Smallfolk! Oh, I like that.” Varamyr laughed. “Big, tall, strong lords, and then the smallfolk. I like that very much.”
“You misunderstand.” Jon said, more forcefully. “It is not a slight. The lords are there to ensure the land is managed and exploited properly, and the smallfolk do the necessary work. In doing the work, the smallfolk extract a promise that the lords will protect them, and ensure they will be able to live through trade - a man who only forges swords or builds houses will not fear for starving, for the lords promise that he can trade his labors for coin, and coin for food and heat, and that he will not be assaulted without justice meted.”
“And how many keep with such noble intentions?” Varamyr asked, a mocking smirk.
“Not all.” Jon admitted. “But most. There are usually ways to force correction on errant lords.”
“Like what? You’ll scold them like children?”
“Or you can kill them.” Jon said flatly. Varamyr went still. “That’s what happened to Mad King Aerys, who burned my grandfather alive fifteen years ago.”
“HAR!” Varamyr crowed, throwing his head back and laughing. “You Southerners have more spine to you than I thought!” he grinned, like a wild animal. “Go on, then. Tell me more. Tell me why you have been able to keep us beyond the Wall for so long. I’ll be one of you, once I am through the Black Gate - so teach me.”
No, you won’t. I won’t let a man like you loose on the Seven Kingdoms. You will die beyond the Wall, one way or the other.
But Jon Snow said none of that, and instead, he did as asked, and spoke of the South. And with every word, Jon grew all the more acutely aware of just how Varamyr’s eyes gleamed with envy… and greed.
It was another two weeks of wandering before they were attacked.
The two men were slowly cleaning up the debris of roasting a stag over a small campfire, having carved it into as many portioned pieces as they were able to carry and leaving the rest of the carcass to the nameless snow bear. It was a lucky hunt, for they had begun to run low on supplies, and had resorted once more to game to bolster their meals.
Varamyr finished the last grease-laden portion of venison and wiped his bristly chin roughly with his arm. “That’s it, then.” he said, the first words he’d spoken since the fire started, and kicked a footful of snow onto the small cookfire. “Call the bird back. We need our eyes.”
Jon nodded, trying to keep a straight face. He had been spending more and more time as the eagle as they traveled, as Varamyr could not both direct the bear and fly at the same time; he could understand now why men got lost in the skies. It was always a moment of deep regret when he came back to his immobile meat. He might have lost true perspective by now, had it not been for the constant, faint sensation of Ghost in the back of his mind. The pup was growing fast and strong, and it was a ballast to his skyward soul.
Jon slowly closed his eyes, tracing himself towards that twitching sensation in the sky, and remembered the love of his life bleeding in his arms, an arrow in her back-
She was soaring through the air once again, eyes peeled for that characteristic splash of red that part of her knew marked her foe. But she was in a strange place, so she wheeled instead, searching for a trail of smoke that would mark the last remnants of a campfire. It was there, after a moment, in the distance, she flapped her wings, raising herself higher -
Down below her, a flicker of movement caught her attention. On pure instinct, she refocused on the movement. It was fast, and nearly invisible against the forest, but it was there, and moving towards the campfire. She let out a scream of fury and dove, razor-sharp talons extended fully. In an instant, she was there, plunging her preferred mode of attack into the attacker’s eyes, who were wrought of green and brown-
Jon came back screaming. “There’s a Child of the Forest!” He shouted. “Charging us with a spear! North-by-northwest!”
Varamyr, to his credit, did not even question the pronouncement, and instead immediately slung the bow off his back and nocked an arrow. His slender arms trembled with the effort of the string, but the arrow still shot true, and an inhuman scream answered them.
“Tear it to shreds!” Varamyr roared, and the snow bear bellowed it’s reply before charging forward to finish the job. The longsword was in Jon’s hand in an instant, circling around with wide eyes.
“There’s more!” Jon shouted. “There’s always more! Don’t let them-”
Jon whirled around and slashed the longsword down, deflecting a twisted and pure white spear aimed for his heart. The Child of the Forest let out a high sibilant hiss, like the sound of wind over a snowy plain, and dashed away faster than Jon could even see. The shadows of the forest dappled over the bark-colored skin, shadowing its too-large cat-slit eyes.
Jon had no idea how he had seen the attack coming - it was in his perfect blind spot, and the Child had an inhuman agility. He lifted his blade, matching it to the Dragonglass speartip, and charged. The Child hacked an ugly sound like cracking ice and dashed to the side, but he was prepared for that and caught the spearhaft with his blade. The weirwood weapon deflected it, but now the Child was off balance and slowed.
It’s face twisted in fury, and twirled the weapon about, slapping away the longsword with not near enough reach. The butt end flicked out, slamming into Jon’s nose, and reared back in pain as his eyes automatically shut. The Child pulled the spear to its side and charged -
Even with his eyes closed, Jon swung the blade with powerful purpose, catching the haft with the crossguard and directing it down. Before it had the chance to be shocked, his boot slammed the spearpoint into the ground, trapping it, and with a wide whirl swung his blade perfectly through its neck, decapitating it. Only once he heard the thump of it landing on the frozen turf was he able to open his eyes again, stinging and watery. The Child’s death expression was one of shock.
“Is that all!?” he shouted, his vision cloudy. “Are there any more?”
“I don’t-”
The eagle screamed from on high, and Jon knew instantly. “ABOVE YOU!” By the time he had plucked the weirwood spear from the snow and spun it in a wide semi-circle behind him, blocking the two incoming spears, the fifth ambusher had dropped from the trees, weapon plunging towards the Wildling. Jon tucked the weapon close, to stabilize it in his bad hand’s grip before it could roll from his fingers, and with a loud scream hurled the weapon overhead; Varamyr dodged with all the grace of a lumbering cow, and the spear flew in a perfect arc to impale the Child through the chest, blasting it backwards until the point stuck into the turf.
The Northman instantly spun and skipped backwards to face the two others who had attempted to backstab him, flicking his blade tip out of the snow to point directly at them. “COME ON!” he screamed at the two, who were staring at him with wide unblinking eyes instead of attacking. “AAAAAAAH! COME ON!”
The one on the right said something, in a language that sounded like nothing more than a burbling stream, before flitting away in that too-fast-to-see manner. Jon knew, somehow, that it was going behind him, and so he strafed to his left, but the one still in front of him stabbed rapidly, forcing him to deflect the blows on his backfoot.
The spears were not especially long, he noticed, being around only six feet, but that was still almost twice the range of his longsword. One of them dashed behind him and thrust at his exposed back, and only the inhuman knowledge of exactly where they were aiming saved him, as he twisted to the side and counter-swiped the other. The two were not making the same mistake as their first companion - without giving him the time to breathe or get himself in range, they could kill him through exhaustion, or a misplaced step.
He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
Onward he spun, sword singing in the air as he blocked and deflected and dodged from all angles, for no matter how quickly they raced around him to stab he was prepared. One of them snarled something in their impossible language. Jon swiped the blade within inches of its face in reply, then slid to the left.
His foot slid. He had hit an icy patch, underneath the snow. Suddenly, Jon’s balance was in danger, and the one behind him jumped. His side burst wide open in pain; it was not a fatal wound, but he was bleeding from the gouge all the same.
And as the pain filtered through his senses, the sudden, inexplicable sense of knowledge, of a second pair of eyes, left him.
Cold fingers of fear gripped him, then. He swung wide, in a swift circle, slapping the two weirwood weapons away from him to back away, but the second was behind him again, twirling the weapon, he spun to meet it, charging into it’s range with a desperate man’s strength; he only had a moment to wish he had a true bastard sword, to utilize both hands, before striking again.
“BEHIND YOU!”
Jon immediately rolled, and the weirwood spear pierced through where he had been standing a moment ago. He sprang to his feet, and the two Children of the Forest stared at him with sinister, toothy grins. He roared, feeling his wind leaving him. “COME ON!”
One dashed away, and the other charged -
A keening shriek sounded behind him, and the first stumbled. Jon didn’t look behind him, but raced forward to grab the spear with his free hand, pulling it just enough to run the Child through the heart. The diminutive creature looked up at Jon, let out a small, keening wail, and died.
Behind him, a thunk of impacted flesh sounded out, and Jon turned around in time to see the golden eagle take flight away from its grip on the Child’s gouged eyes, with a bone-tip arrow protruding through its forehead. He panted, his hand flashing down to lean on the back of the grey wolf. The wolf herself was standing over yet another dead Child.
“FUCK!” Varamyr shouted, punching the air with terrified, exhilarated energy. “EIGHT! EIGHT OF THEM!” he turned to Jon, eyes wide and shimmering with vicious pride. “They thought Children were a myth and we just killed EIGHT of them in one day. Oh, we are close - close enough to piss on his leg, I can feel it.”
“Varamyr, I-” Jon wiped at his numb face; his forearm came back bloody, bleeding from his broken nose. “I could see. I shouldn’t have been able to see that one twice, but I still knew where it was! How? Is this more warg magic?”
“Not the fucking time!” Varamyr whistled, and the nameless snow bear came charging back. Jutting out of its side were two white spears, and it was bleeding from a missing eye, but it only appeared to be more furious than ever.
“Is it!?”
“Yes!” Varamyr shouted, scrambling up the furry beast. As he reached the top, he grabbed one of the spears and ripped it from the bear’s side in a spray of blood; the beast howled in fury, bucking once, but Varamyr stayed mounted. “But I don’t know how to do it intentionally! Now GET ON THE FUCKING BEAR!”
The admission that Varamyr didn’t know stunned him, but only for a heartbeat, as Jon sheathed his blade, snatched another weirwood spear from the ground and joined Varamyr on the bear. Jon immediately reached for the connection-
She was soaring once again, her talons dripping with viscera. Part of her knew she didn’t have long, and so her powerful wings beat against the sky to rise high, higher than she had gone in a long time, and to search for her target.
She found it - a pair of trees of white and red, nestled against the side of a hill. On top of the hill, a massive blood tree stood, groaning in the wind, and between the two lesser siblings, a yawning abyss opened, dark as night. In the branches of the greatest tree, a raven stared back at her with an unhallowed rage, and she ducked her wings to dive once more -
Jon snapped back to himself with a gasp. “It’s there!” he panted. “Three miles to the west, a cave in a hill near three weirwoods!” Varamyr answered with nothing but a shout and digging his heels into the bear’s sides, who let out a furious roar and took off at a dead sprint.
Jon clutched onto the fur for dear life - the bear was moving almost as fast as a horse at full gallop, without a single saddle between the two. “Get the bow off my back!” Varamyr shouted, over the wind and the galloping thunder. “He’s not done with us yet, count on it!”
Jon, with as much speed as he was capable of with only one free hand, slid the bow and leatherskin quiver from the wildling’s back and onto his own body. That done, he regripped the spear tightly, and swiveled his gaze about.
It won’t take even ten minutes to reach that cave, but for a man like the Three-Eyed Raven, that’s more than enough.
From the distance, a rowling scream echoed. “Shadowcat!” Varamyr called. “Eyes peeled, the little shits can sprint!”
Not even a minute later, he saw it - a speeding streak of black and white darting through the shadows. The bear was fast, but Shadowcats could outstrip a horse in seconds. The feline raced to their side, yowling its battlecry; Jon answered with a shout and a two-handed stab at its face.
The stab flew wide, and it batted away the point almost contemptuously without even breaking its stride. Jon kept stabbing anyways, going for its head. He went far over to the side, chasing the beast until the only thing keeping him on the bear’s back was his bloodless clamped legs.
The shadowcat lunged, snapping at his neck in his exposed position; Jon retorted with a spinning strike to its snout. The beast yowled, its eyes flashing white for a fleeting second, before darting back. He had the Raven’s full attention, now.
A hand grabbed Jon by the neck and yanked him back upright as the beast lunged, before Varamyr’s own spear lashed out. Back and forth, the running battle went, with neither being able to land more than glancing blows. Then the Shadowcat began to lag - slowing for an instant, before pulling back up to speed.
“Shadowcats are sprinters, ya featherbrained cunt!” Varamyr cackled when he noticed. “No fuckin’ endurance!”
The shadowcat didn’t appear to take kindly to that. Its paws slashed out at the snow bear’s legs, and the beast howled as it’s gallop stumbled. Varamyr yelled in surprise and toppled; the shadowcat yowled in victory and leaped.
Jon roared and threw the spear. The angle was perfect, and caught the beast in the breast. Its feline roar turned to a screech as it fell numbly onto Varamyr’s body, thrashing once, twice, three times before falling still.
Jon whooped, and grabbed the bear by the neck fur and dragged it to the side. With far more agility than would have been expected, the beast wheeled back around, and with a single smooth motion, Jon leaned over the side and grabbed Varamyr and spun him back into his seat single-handedly.
“Hells, you’re strong, kid!”
“What have we learned!?” Jon shouted.
“That I’ll wring his scrawny NECK for that!” Varamyr replied, reseating himself properly on the racing bear’s shoulders. “Fuck, I dropped the spear!”
“We’re not turning around for it!”
“No need!” He grinned viciously, and reached down to the jostling weapon, still planted in the bear’s side, and ripped it out. She screamed in pain, and nearly stumbled, but Varamyr’s eyes flashed white for a moment, and she righted herself once more. “We have a spare!”
“She’ll kill you if you keep abusing her like this!”
“I’ll plunge my own dagger into her skull the moment she tries!” Varamyr shouted. “I can tell every thought in her head the moment she has them!”
A loud bugling call echoed, as if answering his thoughts. “Ah, fuck.” Varamyr cursed, shifting his spear higher, and for the first time his eyes held a hint of fear. “That’s a bull moose. There’s a herd nearby.”
Jon paled. A fully-grown bull moose was easily twice as big as even the largest of snow bears, and unlike their giant elk counterparts were ornery enough to even give direwolf packs pause against all but the young and sickly; Shadowcats didn’t even dare try. “He’ll know.” He shouted over the wind. “They’ll be coming for us, and they’re faster.”
“THEN KILL THEM YOU DUMB BASTARD!”
The trees thinned, and Jon could see just for a moment a bigger herd of moose than he’d ever seen swerving through the trees towards them. “Son of a- there’s a dozen of them!” Jon lifted the spear in his hand and cocked it back. The first bull, who had to be closer to three-thousand pounds than it was to two, bellowed and charged just as Jon threw the weapon with all his might.
The spear flew true, and took the moose in the hindlegs. It let out a scream and toppled, into the path of two others, who tripped and fell across its body. The rest swerved out of the way and continued their wild stampede. “Gods, if we weren’t running!” Varamyr shouted. “I could eat for half a year on just one of these things!”
Jon didn’t disagree in the slightest - finding the giant moose carcasses in the wild was one of the few things that kept his entire clan from starving in the winter. But now’s not the time for that, he thought as he slung the bow off his back, spun around to face the pursuing beasts and loosed an arrow at the nearest possessed animal in a smooth motion.
The projectile landed true, but unlike the spear the moose didn’t even flinch as it landed in it’s chest, and just charged harder. Jon paled. “Die!” He shouted, loosing another, but this time the entire herd dodged in unison. Another bull pulled forward alongside them, and it swung its head at them to attack with antlers that were wider across than Jon was tall. The two ducked, but Varamyr caught a glancing blow - he came back up with his cheek torn open, and his eyes were alight with fury.
“DIE!” he slammed the tip of his spear into the eye of the moose, ripping it back out just as the beast bellowed in pain and toppled to the side. “KEEP FIRING!”
“THE ARROWS DO NOTHING! THEY’RE TOO SMALL!”
“HERE!” Varamyr threw the spear behind him, and Jon, in a feat of dexterity, juggled the two weapons until the smaller wildling had the bow once again. A pair of broad-shouldered cows bellowed and charged opposite sides, but Jon twirled the polearm about to slash as the both of them, forcing them to drop away. Even still, the entire herd of megafauna was nearly on top of them.
“WE CAN’T HOLD THEM!”
“HOLD THEM LONG ENOUGH! I CAN SEE THE CAVE!”
The entire herd pounded against the ground even harder in reply - the air thundered with the sound of their hooves. Jon stabbed again, again and again with the weapon to try and keep them at bay, but at last, the Bull of the herd - a monster of a moose - broke out of the pack, lowered its antlers, and charged.
“IT’S GONNA BREAK OUR LEGS!”
“HOOOOOOOOOLD!”
With a final, panicked scream, Jon drew the spear back and threw it with all his might at the bull’s head. it hit perfectly in the skull, and the beast stumbled but, Jon noted with horror, it did not fall. It bellowed, louder than any before, and charged. The beast crossed to within inches -
And slammed its massive antlers into a stone archway hard enough to crack the ground, as the sun disappeared. Jon only had a moment to yell out in surprise before the cave entrance shuddered behind them, as more and more of the many-ton beasts slammed into the body of their companion, until at last the bedrock gave way. Great boulders the size of a man fell from the roof, collapsing inward and burying the bull behind them as it screamed.
Varamyr screamed wordlessly, a primal, feral sound of victory as the snow bear slowed to a halt and shuddered, swaying hard enough to topple the two riders off it’s side. Jon didn’t even care as he landed hard on the rock floor - he was too busy laughing, tears streaming down his face.
“Fucking - AAAAAAAAAAAH! YES!” Varamyr roared. “Other’s frozen FUCKING ballsack, YES! OH!” he turned, panting. “Gods, I don’t think I’ve ever been this hard in my fucking life. Mange-ridden pox-infested slack-jawed - AAAAAAAH! FUCK YOU AND YOUR MOOSE, YOU SON OF A WHORE!”
With a final, slow exhale, Jon pushed himself to a seat. “We’re here, then.” He said, steadying his breathing.
“We are.” Varamyr said, grinning. “The Raven can’t stop us now.” Then the grin slipped. “He might ruin the victory, though. The entrance has collapsed.”
Jon turned around, staring at the pile of rubble with a hard look. “I don’t think so.” he got to his feet and slowly, carefully climbed up the pile of boulders.
“What are you doing?”
Jon said nothing until he reached the top, before gripping a boulder by a sharp edge and pushing hard. The rock shifted slightly, revealing a stream of light through a hole roughly a foot around.
“Hells.”
“The top layer wasn’t as trapped as the others. We can make our way out through there when we’re done.” Jon climbed back down, dusting his hand against his pants before drawing his longsword. “Now… let’s move.”
Jon took the lead, with Varamyr behind him and the panting, lumbering bear following behind. The cave was oppressively dark, without the light from the entrance, but the walls were thick with tangled Weirwood roots, and they glowed faintly with an eerie light. It was just enough to enable walking without stumbling, but even still, they made their way carefully, for the passages were tight.
“... Fuck.” Varamyr said after a few minutes, with a strange whistle to his words. “Ah, fuck, that hurts. Oh, hells, that hurts. He slashed my damned cheek open.”
“You need bandages?”
“I’m just complaining about how it feels like there’s a fucking coal in the left side of my face. That’s all. Of course I need bandages, you dumb fuck.” he replied. “But if we take a minute to stop and there will be an ambush. Count on it.”
Jon nodded, and continued on. Through the cave’s tunnels, the walls and floors were thick with bones - the walls were inset with the skulls of fantastical beasts, some that Jon could tell belonged to the Children, some to Giants, some to things more uncertain than that. In some places, where the tunnels widened into cavernous chambers taller than the higher peaks of Winterfell, the skeletons of enormous bats larger than a grown horse hung from the ceiling.
It was in one of these caverns that Jon finally insisted on bandaging Varamyr’s face. “If you fall through loss of blood, the bear will turn on me, and then we both die to whatever the Raven has left for us.” he said.
“... Fine.” Varamyr slowly sank to his knees, as Jon pulled out a wrap of bandages. The older man looked as though he was perpetually smiling on the left side of his face, for the cut was long and jagged and exposed his teeth. “There’s my potion from the woods witch in my pack, the one to keep your blood from fouling.”
Jon nodded, and quickly gathered the flask and dunked the bandages in the foul-smelling concoction. “I don’t have a needle and thread to sew the hole closed, or milk of the poppy to numb the pain.” Jon said, as he wrapped it slowly but tightly in a circle around his face. “But if we bandage it, and keep you from infection, you should be fine.”
“Apart from half my cheek being missing.”
“Apart from the scar.” He admitted.
“Hmph.” Jon tied a knot, and Varamyr stood; the bandages had wrapped across his right eye to ensure it would not slip, and so he looked as though he had been more hurt than he was. “If I left here without a reminder of the Raven, no man would believe me when I say I slew the Last Greenseer. Now they will know I am dangerous - no man ever feared Qhorin Halfhand less for his scars.”
“They might call you the Smiler.” Jon suggested, an attempt at levity. “Childslayer, Beastlord, Godkiller, Bane of Ravens. You’ll have titles to match Tormund Giantsbane.”
Varamyr let out a surprised bark of laughter. “How the fuck does a southron whelp like you know about that ginger cunt? Fucking braggart. He had the audacity to say that Ruddy Hall was a better hall than Moss Hill.”
“You’re just mad that he fucked the bear you’re riding.”
Varamyr doubled over, whooping harder than Jon had ever seen him, and he couldn’t help but laugh alongside him. The merriment echoed through the caves and into the roof, until without warning one of the giant bat skeletons detached from its perched and plummeted. It crashed with a mighty echoing shatter, and the two men were showered with cutting bone fragments.
“Fuck!” Varamyr cursed. He lifted his arm and slapped a hand against a shallow cut. The crash echoed through the halls further and further away. “You alright?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he knows we survived, I suppose.”
The minute the words left Varamyr’s mouth, a rattling cacophony of bird calls thundered through the stone walls, and from the passage a massive murder of ravens swarmed.
“RUN!” Jon shouted.
“Where!? The passage back is blocked!”
“JUST RUN!”
The two dashed to the back of the enormous cavern, the murder chasing them with every step. Varamyr snapped up one of the fallen skeleton’s larger bones and whirled, swinging a bat’s collarbone as long as his entire arm at the swarm. Three of the ravens were swatted out of the air, but the rest were too far away, and they were on him before he could retreat.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
“VARAMYR!” Jon shouted. He whirled on his feet, and was momentarily horrified by the sight - there was not an inch of the wildling visible, only a writhing mass of black feathers. Jon snarled, lowered his shoulder, and charged at the center of the mass.
His tackle slammed into the mass, and the cackling of the ravens only grew louder as he knocked Varamyr free, and immediately trapped him underneath his good arm. He whipped him onto his shoulder, as the man screamed in pain and wriggled unhelpfully, and Jon ran with all the speed in his legs towards the passage forward.
“MY EYE!” Varamyr screamed. “I CAN’T SEE!”
“Get your bear to follow us!” Jon shouted. “She’ll be too big for them to get past!”
“MY EYEEEEE!”
Jon burst towards the tunnel, but even then he could already feel the ravens pecking and ripping at his back. A claw tore at the skin of his neck, so he ducked his head and poured on even more speed. Behind him he could hear the roar of the snow bear, and it charged, slapping aside the corvids with contemptuous ease.
Jon dashed into the tunnel, to find it full of tangled pale roots bulging from the walls. He only had a moment to maneuver his way around them before the bear slammed into them behind him, blocked. It roared, deafening in how close it was to Jon’s ear, and backed up for another charge. The Northerner paled and ran even faster, before it flattened him.
The sounds of murderous crows disappeared, to be replaced with the sound of roots exploding, and rumbling rocks overhead. Jon flopped to the side of the near-black tunnel and set Varamyr down. “Can you walk?”
“My eyyyyeeeee…” he moaned. His face was hidden from his sight on account of the dark, but Jon could vaguely make out a stream of shining viscera streaming down from his left eye socket. “I can’t see…”
“You wouldn’t be able to see anyway.” Said Jon. “It’s too dark for that. The birds didn’t get under your bandages, did they?” Varamyr shook his head, moaning wordlessly. “Then you’ll be fine.” Jon replied, soothingly. “When this is all over, you’ll still have the eye that was covered.”
“Auuuuugh… Gods in the ever-winter heeeeeeells…”
“Come on, stand up.” Jon gently pulled Varamyr to his feet, setting his arm on the back of his furred cloak. “Hold on to this. As long as you hold on to this, you’ll be fine. I’ll see for the both of us.”
“Kill him… I’ll kill him… Bane of Ravens...”
“Stay with me, Threeskins.” Jon said, louder. “I still need you to leash that bear. Can you do that?”
“Mine… She’s mine… I am the one… none but my whims…”
Jon took a hesitant step forward, feeling for the tug of the man’s hand on his cloak. When he felt his cloak lift, he drew his sword and started forward once more. The snow bear behind them continued to roar in anger, tearing through the roots blocking her way; Jon had no doubt that there were ravens clawing and pecking at her backside, but to a beast like her it could only be a mild annoyance.
Jon took another step - and stopped. A faint sound, like that of shifting rocks, caught the least edge of his senses, barely audible over the sound of Varamyr and the bear. The glowing of the Weirwood roots only lit the way before him some number of feet before fading back into darkness. He narrowed his eyes. Slowly, ever so slowly, he reached into his pockets and withdrew his flintstone, before rapidly striking it against the edge of his sword.
The faintest reflection of a pair of eyes revealed themselves against the thrown sparks. The Child screamed a battlecry at it’s ambush being discovered and charged. The castle-forged longsword swung out into the dark, deflecting the Dragonglass tip of the spear away, but the polearm was far more maneuverable in the passage, and jabbed forward again. “BACK!” Jon shouted, deflecting again.
The dark speartip stabbed at his face, and Jon felt a burning line of pain across his temple. The Northerner howled in pain, and slammed to the side of the cave, trapping the shaft of the spear in-between the crook of his neck and his collarbone. The inhuman Child chittered something and tried to yank it back, but the spear held for a second too long, and Jon’s blade broke its head in twain before it could try again.
A loud scream, from multiple throats, echoed from in front of them. Jon grit his teeth. “Alright. If that is how it will be.” he sheathed his blade, and picked the spear from the crook of his neck. “I’ll cut down every last one of you.”
From the dark, a line of bodies swarmed. “FOR BRAN!” Jon howled, and lunged. His stab pierced through the leader’s face, before their attack could even reach him. He charged through the corpse and on to the next, with much the same results - his longer, human arms gave him a reach the Children could not hope to match, and in a cramped tunnel barely wide enough to fit two men shoulder-to-shoulder, there were no clever maneuvers that could avoid the deadly Obsidian spearpoint.
Body after body fell to his fury. Blood spattered up to his elbow as he just. Kept. Stabbing. One of them wailed in something resembling despair before its death. Another picked up what appeared to be a small molded ball to lob at him, but then their throat was cut, and the tool fell unused. Behind him, Varamyr wailed something feverishly, but Jon stared forward, ever alert for more.
By the time the line of attackers ended, he had counted nearly two-dozen bodies thrown against him. All together, they had killed over thirty Children of the Forest today. Jon grinned ferociously, like a wolf baring its fangs. “Come, Varamyr.” he said. “We won’t have far now.”
“Kill him… Varamyr Godkiller… Me…”
The two men stepped through the tunnels with a frantic pace, across the bones of long-dead creatures, through a steeply descending path. No troubles were visited on them - perhaps the Raven had run out of defenders. At last, though, they came to a place where a great river could be heard flowing underneath them, and a bridge across a yawning darkness.
At the edge of the bridge, seated in a tangle of weirwood roots shaped like a throne, was a body, more skeleton than flesh. He had pale white hair reaching to the ground, and roots grew through his body, including through an empty eye socket. The other eye, blood-red, swiveled slowly to meet Jon’s gaze, and on his neck a red blotch in a shape that spoke to Jon in a way he could not describe.
“... At last, I see you clearly.” Said the Three-Eyed Raven, with a voice that rasped with disuse.
Jon gripped the shaft of his spear even tighter.
“Let us talk, then… as equals.” The Raven continued. His lips quirked upwards. “Without our lessers listening.”
His eyes flashed pure white. “VARAMYR!” Jon shouted.
“NO! MINE!” Varamyr roared as the snow bear reared up behind him, and fell backwards into a skinchanging trance as he went to wrest control of his bear back. The bear twitched and jostled, and a strand of blood began flowing out of its snout.
Jon spun about, hefted his spear higher, and let out a furious shout as he hurled the spear. The weapon flew perfectly, punching through the chest of the Three-Eyed Raven. A single breath escaped the corpse as it seemed to sag against the roots, and then the Greenseer was no more.
The bear went slack, swaying on its feet, and Varamyr slowly, ever so slowly, stood back up from where he had fallen. “... Is it done?” He asked. “Have you killed him?”
Jon let out a slow, shuddering breath. Suddenly, his body ached, from all that he had done to get to this point. “He’s dead. He’s finally dead.”
“Good.”
Varamyr reached down to his leg, pulled out his large bone-bladed hunting knife, and shoved it to the hilt into his snow bear’s eye.
“What!?” Jon shouted. “What are you doing!? That was-” he stopped, as the man reached up to his facial bandages and ripped them off in a single smooth motion.
The left half of his face was a ruin, a glaswegian grin torn up to his ear and his eye socket dripping blood and pus. But he smiled in horrible triumph, and his right eye was slowly going bloodshot, pure red.
The same eye, and the same pure red, as the corpse of the Three-Eyed Raven.
Jon’s vision went black. “YOOOU!” he drew his sword and swung at his neck, but the Wildling darted underneath the blow with a greater agility than Varamyr had ever displayed, dashing back until he stood next to the human corpse.
“I had wondered whether he would take the bait, and leave his skin unattended.” Said the Three-Eyed Raven, through Varamyr’s lips. “Not knowing for certain is an unfamiliar feeling. I have you to thank for that blasphemy.”
He reached down and rolled his old corpse aside, and pulled a wrapped bundle from behind his back. From the bundle, he pulled a blade of darkened Valyrian Steel, with a dark red jewel in the hilt and golden flames licking from the pommel. He flicked the blade out, and took an expert stance.
Jon stared at the sword with wide, horrified eyes, and then at the corpse, where a dark red blotch covered the inside of its neck, in the vague suggestion of a raven. “You…” Jon breathed. “You’re Brynden Rivers. You’re Lord Commander Bloodraven.”
The Three-Eyed Raven smirked.
Jon’s eyes narrowed. “... No.” He said. “No, you’re not Bloodraven. You’re the one who was wearing his skin. He went ranging by himself, and never returned - that was you.”
“Clever.”
“I know the histories of the men who were Lord Commander before me.” Jon said, feeling his heart twist. “You took a man who was my uncle, many-times-great, and turned him into a puppeted carcass.”
“He was decrepit even when I took him.” said Varamyr Three-eyes. “I bound myself to the roots, and I survived, though I enjoy walking once again.” he grinned, and his glaswegian half nearly touched his eye. “I’ll enjoy it more when you die, and return my Sight to me, R’hllor.”
Jon screamed, and swung for the Raven’s head. Dark Sister met him, the clash ringing in the cavern over the roar of the river. “No, you’re not R’hllor, are you?” Said Varamyr Three-Eyes. “You cast a burning shadow like his, but you’re not him. But you’re certainly not Jaeherys Targaryen, either.”
“I AM JON SNOW!” Jon shouted, slashing thrice at Varamyr’s head from his blind side. The Raven blocked them all easily, and his blade darted within an inch of Jon’s cheek.
“Are you?” The Raven grinned. “Do you really think that what came back from a blade in the heart could truly be called ‘Jon Snow’?” Jon flinched, just for an instant, and Dark Sister flashed out -
The Raven’s wrist twitched upwards, and a slash that would have taken out Jon’s throat instead traced a wide gash across his forehead. Jon stumbled back, gritting back a scream of pain as blood began to flow freely, and the Raven scowled for just a moment. “Did you truly think magic of that worth came without a price, in this stunted age?” The Raven continued, as if nothing had happened. “None who are brought back are ever whole. But your hollow soul has been filled with scouring light, and incandescent flame. Tell me your game, R’hllor.”
“MY GAME IS TO KILL YOU!” Jon roared, slamming his castle-forged blade against Valyrian Steel over and over.
Varamyr Three-Eyes laughed, mockingly. “You don’t know! You don’t even know why!” the Raven dashed back, more agile than Varamyr had ever been, with his back to the stone bridge over the river. “You think your quest’s end is kinslaying, and you don’t even flinch from it - proof enough you are not Jaehaerys Targaryen in truth, anymore. No, you are something lesser.”
A wordless, animal sound escaped Jon’s lips. The Raven’s ruined smile only stretched wider.
“And now your folly has led you to me, in the dark places of the earth where my roots grow strongest. I won’t give you another chance to regret your mistake.”
He rolled his sword-wrist, and the slender blade spun in the air. “Say one thing for you, boy,” the Raven said, scowling, “say that you’re strong. But you are outmatched.”
“You’ve stolen the body of a man so sickly he held his milkname until his fourth year.” Jon snarled. “I have strength enough, for you.”
The Raven’s ruined face twisted in anger, and Jon lunged. The two clashed, Jon hacking and slamming his blade against the Raven’s with force enough to numb his arm. Varamyr Three-Eyes clearly felt the blows more, given the way he backed away, leading them back across the stone bridge. The rock was slick with condensation, and covered in places with moss; the Raven seemed to know well the places to step lightly, and where to stand firm, where Jon did not. As he sliced ou, intent on cutting out his heart, Jon’s footing slipped - his hands instinctively went up and out to balance himself.
Dark Sister flashed out, and Jon felt searing pain. He screamed, as his ruined hand flew off the edge of the bridge, and down into the underground river. The Raven laughed once, in triumph, and swung -
And missed. Dark Sister passed below his sword-elbow, and not close enough to his belly to disembowel him.
The Raven jerked in place, face twisted in fury; his head began to twitch violently. “You…! You still resist me, wretched ape!?”
“Mine…!” Varamyr Three-Eyes’ head twitched hard to the right, exposing his ruined eye and face. “No… Will… But MINE…!”
“Varamyr…!” Jon gasped, clutching his bleeding stump to his side; his hand had been cleanly severed at the wrist. With a ragged roar he charged. At the last minute, the Raven’s head reversed, granting him sight through his single eye once again, and blocked the stab.
“You think he can save you now!?” The Raven shouted, hiding his ruined face from Jon as he rapidly deflected the blows. “Shall I tell him of your plans for his family, wildling!? How you dream of Ned Stark’s head on a pike, and Catelyn Stark swelling with your child!? Of making his sisters Sansa and Arya your bedslaves!?”
Jon’s vision went black.
“YOOOOOOU!!” he howled, slamming his blade down. The two clashed, each blow so mighty tiny fragments of Jon’s sword chipped away against the Valyrian Steel.
“You’ll never walk out of here, wildling!” The Raven shouted. “Never! I control you!” The Raven slapped Jon’s blade wide, twisting him out of position and leaving his back and side exposed. He lunged the tip of Dark Sister for his belly-
The blade sliced down and wide, slashing the boy’s left ankle. Jon screamed in pain, and dropped to a knee. The Raven was stumbling backwards.
“No one…” He hissed, exposing his blind, ruined side and hiding his eye. “Controls me… BUT ME!”
His grip loosened, and Dark Sister fell from his grip. “NO!” The Raven screamed, chasing it down, but the blade clattered against the stone, and dropped over the side of the bridge into the yawning blackness of the underground river. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE! WHAT HAVE YOU-”
A broken, battered blade punched into his chest. Jon dropped to a knee as his severed tendons gave out, wrenching the blade upwards into Varamyr’s chest. A gout of blood spurted from between his lips, and Varamyr fell to his knees.
Jon panted, chest heaving with the struggle to breathe. Varamyr’s left hand reached shakingly up to Jon’s face, stroking it. “... Thank… You…”
That was the strength of the one they called Beastlord. That was the willpower that could defy a Greenseer, and turn away the Night King. “It’s over…” Jon gasped, quietly. “It’s over…” The eyelids over Varamyr’s ruined eye closed, and his body went slack -
His right arm swung up, hand burning with a green-blue intensity, and grabbed Jon’s throat with a furious strength. The blood-red eye of the Raven were staring at him with hatred. “NO… IT HAS ONLY JUST BEGUN.”
Jon’s flesh sizzled, and he didn’t even have the air to scream as dark magic burned its way underneath his skin. For uncountable seconds they held there, as Jon’s vision ran to white…
The hand around his throat went slack, and the Three-Eyed Raven toppled over the edge of the bridge, and plunged feet-first into the black hell of the underground.
Jon slumped to the ground, panting for breath, as he clutched at his neckflesh. He could feel ruts in the shape of the Raven’s fingers, and when he drew his own hand back, the inside of his palm reflected a faint, glowing blue. Magic. Whatever he has done, it has marked me. For what, I know not.
A long howl echoed through the caverns, and Jon wearily turned to face the path to the cave-in. From the tunnel, a figure approached on four legs, and only once it reached the foot of the bridge could Jon see it’s markings. It was the grey wolf, the female that he had bound, and in it’s mouth it carried a bleeding haunch of meat, covered with a thick layer of moose fur.
Jon did not have the strength to stand, and so he simply smiled, weakly. He knew leaving a hole in the cave-in would turn out well. “Good girl.”
By his count, he was not more than ten minutes of normal walking from the cave-in, and the hole he had left as a path out. He wasn’t capable of that speed, however - not anymore. Jon reached for a collected bundle of edible mushrooms and slowly chewed them as he considered his options. He knew there was little-to-no hope of making it back to the Seven Kingdoms in his condition. He wasn’t willing to give up, though; that had never been his way.
A low moan escaped him, as his stump throbbed and his severed ankle pulsed. He wanted to be away from this pain, even for a moment. He needed… he needed to be free of the cave. He pushed himself up against the rock wall, situated himself as comfortably as possible, and closed his eyes -
She was flying once again, free as the wind. A part of her exulted in that. Most of her simply wished to find breakfast. She soared higher and higher, until a twitch of movement underneath her caught her attention. She folded her wings and dove, and the hare squealed in terror as she slammed into it, stunning it for long enough for her talons to tear the life from its body.
Her powerful hooked beak quickly tore into the body of the hare, gorging herself well on its meat. Once she had had her fill, and the sun had risen higher in the sky, she spread her broad wings and took to the air once again. Her belly was full, and the winds were accommodating, allowing her to rise high on the thermal updrafts. Part of her was content with this. Part of her wondered whether this was not better than what had taken place. It was -
It was like a thunderbolt hit - his wings gave out, and Jon plummeted for a moment before remembering how to fly once again. And that was the first sign that something was wrong - he knew himself. The Eagle was still there, but he knew he was a he - there was no symbiosis, anymore. Jon reached outwards -
He couldn't. He didn’t know how to find his own body again.
Fear gripped him. He rose higher, and higher, praying his powerful eyes could see the Weirwood that marked the cave. Higher and higher he wheeled until at last he could see - see that the tallest, mightiest of the Heart Trees had been split in half, an enormous spear of ice jutting from the ground underneath it.
He could see the army of the dead shuffling outside the cave entrance, blasted apart by ice and snow. He could see them writhing and slashing at a small darting figure, a speck of grey too fast to catch before it broke free of the horde and disappeared into the forest. And he could see a figure, skin blue as a cloudless day and crowned with a circle of horns, step forth from the cave.
Behind him, a figure shuffled. Jon let out a loud, screeching wail as he saw his body walk again, a spear of ice jutting from his chest. The handmark on his neck, he could now see, glowed the same pale blue as the skin of the Night King his corpse now served.
The Raven had marked him. Tagged him, lit a beacon for the Others, and the Others had answered. Neither of them had made it out of that cave alive.
He let out a scream, full of anger and despair, and raced after the wolf. He would make sure she lived, where he did not.
They had made it to the Wolfswood, and still Jon had not awoken in Winterfell.
There were moments where time melted together - he ruffled his feathers to pick at an irritant, look up, and realize that somehow the sun had set and the grey wolf had carried them for miles. Where he forgot, just for mere instants, who HE was and why HE was trapped in the body of an eagle. He did not know how long he had been like this; that memory had already fled him.
The grey wolf kept him together. The sight of her reminded him of what he was there for, of the sigil that was his - only humans had sigils, and no matter what, he was human. He had to be.
The grey wolf padded slowly through the underbrush of the Wolfswood, low and careful, stalking a deer. It was not often that wolves hunted alone - they were social creatures, and hunted in packs. If ranging alone, they feasted on carrion. Only when desperate did they try to hunt live game.
She burst from the brush, and the doe startled. The wolf gave chase, barreling between the trees, nipping at the beast’s heels. Jon tucked his wings and dove at the doe’s eyes, but it dashed to the side, avoiding the blinding attack. The doe began to pull away-
Suddenly, a figure burst from the opposite side, tackling the doe to the ground, tearing at it’s throat. The grey wolf came to a halt. The interloper lifted it’s muzzle from the kill and bared its teeth in a silent snarl.
Jon stared. A fond memory, once forgotten, came back. How long had he been like this, for him to have grown so large? He took to wing once again, and flew down to land on the rump of the doe. The great beast lifted away from the kill to attack, but Jon met it’s gaze, and it stopped.
The two stared at each other for a long time. No sound passed in the Wolfswood but the wind in the leaves. Then the white wolf stepped forward, gently, hesitantly, and brushed its black nose against Jon’s beak. Jon leaned in to it, revelling in the touch, before taking to wing and landing on the white wolf’s back. The white wolf, so young yet already larger than the female, stepped away from the kill. The grey wolf dipped her head, and began to feast.
Jon remembered himself the moment that he heard the horn.
He had been losing himself for longer and longer, but the sound rolled over the hills like Judgment, and Jon remembered that he was not an eagle, but a man. The White Wolf looked up from his pup, ears pricked to the north - the Grey Wolf, heavy with a second litter, emerged from her den panting.
Jon and the White Wolf took off together, racing across the ground and through the air. Jon soared higher, over the trees, and stared at the source of the sound.
The great, impenetrable Wall was falling, crumbling to pieces with the sound of the Horn. each time the sound rolled across the world, fragments only barely large enough to see that must be larger than some mountains in truth, crumbled and fell.
Jon let out a trilling scream of fury, and raced closer. Underneath, all manner of creature ran away from the sound of the seven Hells, but the Eagle and the White Wolf ran towards it. Snowflakes blotted the sky, but Jon didn’t care - he had to know.
After the hours it took to come close, the army of the dead was swarming south, through the Gift and the New Gift, like a scythe through wheat. And at the center of it all, a figure that Jon remembered stood, tall and triumphant. At his side, a figure of ruin stood - it’s lips were burned with cold, and it’s throat was shattered like ice. In its hands it held a nondescript horn, banded with bronze, and shattered from the lip to the midpoint. Even now, through the icy ruin, the handprint of the Greenseer pulsed.
Jon screamed in rage at the destruction of the wall, and sorrow at the desecration of what had once been him. He wheeled in the air, and soared away. The White Wolf followed underneath.
Jon came back to himself with the howling of a wolf. How long had he been withering inside the eagle’s feathers? Too long. He was fading, and She was returning, longer and longer.
The dead marched. They swept across the land, like a plague. Castles and keeps fell, buried by wights and buried by snow. They rose back up, sigils of flayed men fluttering in the breeze and on rotting chests. The crowned one did not march on Winterfell, though - he went around. Jon followed; the White Wolf followed with him. The Grey Wolf stayed in the den; the Wolfswood had not yet fallen, and the pups required nursing.
The crowned one marched south, and then west, further west than the seat of Winter Kings. It marched to the deadlands, the tomb of the First King. Living men tried to break his army - they fell, and then joined the march. The Night King would not be denied.
The city of graves fell, and the Night King stood on the highest point of the Great Barrow with his hands to the ground. Jon watched as the earth shuddered and rocked before the hill split wide open, spears of ice prying it open. The interior was hidden in shadows and snow, but from the dark, a figure emerged. It walked with the shape of a woman, though her skin was icy pale and her eyes burned like blue stars.
The Night King walked to her, took her hand gently, and pressed his lips to her forehead; the sound of crackling ice filled the air, and Jon realized with a start that it was coming from the woman’s lips. She walked forward, out of his grip, and stroked a hand across one of the Others’ face. With her touch, the mummified appearance faded, wrinkles smoothing and flesh filling out, until the White Walker held a gaunt, sharp, ethereal beauty.
Jon watched from above, staring in silent hate as she did this to all of them, while the Night King raised his hands. The ground beneath them writhed, as the dead of ten-thousand years pulled themselves from their rest. He cocked his head, after a moment, and crooked his finger - from the horde stumbled one, barrow-dirt still clinging to his ragged uniform. Jon could see, with his eagle eyes, a sigil on his breast, two quartered Targaryen dragons opposed by a moon-and-falcon in blue and a seahorse in green, but it was the dark-black longsword, clutched in its hands by its blued-steel handle, that drew his attention.
The corpse walked to the Night King’s side, and offered the blade. The Night King took it, holding it from his side as if it were a live snake, before encasing it wholly in white ice. Covered from tip to pommel, he struck it against the ground, and the blade shattered to pieces. He turned, handled the bladeless hilt to Jon’s corpse, and walked back to the side of the woman. Jon could see the engraving on the handle, as his corpse listlessly dropped it, read ‘We Light The Way’ in beautiful, flowing script.
Jon saw it all, from his vantage above, and hated.
Jon did not know how long he was gone, this time, but when he next came back to himself, the sky was dark, and the army of the dead were arrayed against Winterfell. He was afraid he wasn’t going to get another chance to come back.
Thousands upon thousands of wights shuffled and clattered in the snow, as the rejuvenated Others stood among them. The Night King stood at the back of the horde, lightly clasping the hand of the woman he had freed, staring with placid blue eyes at the seat of Northern power. Banners fluttered on the walls, pink flayed men one and all. The horde stumbled forward, and an arrow flew from the walls into a deep trench.
The trench burst into flame, and many of the corpses burst with it. Jon wheeled in the sky and soared downwards, to the edge of the forest. There, the White Wolf stood, with the eldest of his progeny - and here Jon held back a cry, for these wolves were far older than last he remembered. The half-breeds had to be at least two years old, and larger than any natural wolf. He had lost so much time and not even realized; he was withering inside his feathers.
The White Wolf stepped forward, and gently nuzzled against the bird’s curved beak. Jon loved him dearly, then. The beasts of the Wolfswood let out a howl against the dark, though their father remained silent, and then they charged.
The half-breeds raced ahead, cutting a swath through the wights like a scythe through wheat. The White Wolf charged directly towards the Night King and his woman, spittle dripping from his bared fangs. The Night King turned to the beast, drawing his sword -
Jon screamed his fury, and dove feet-first, his talons tearing into the icy blue flesh of the inhuman creature. The Night King let out a sound like a shattering lake, and the White Wolf leaped -
Grabbing the wight next to the King with his teeth, and dragging it struggling behind him, as he raced forward.
Jon screamed, and dug his talons in further, as all around him the beasts of the Wolfswood began to fall, overwhelmed by the numbers. He gouged out the eyes of the monstrosity with his talons tearing and ripping with his beak-
A cold hand touched him, and Jon fell numb. The woman beside the Night King plucked his avian body from the Night King’s face, and drew him close. Jon tried to struggle, but his wings were frozen to the pinions, and he could feel his life ebbing.
“Hush, beastkin.” the woman whispered, in a mottled form of the Old Tongue so archaic as to be barely understandable. “Cease thy struggles, and know peace.”
Jon felt the darkness closing in, but he slowly turned to the side. He saw the White Wolf charging towards the fiery trench, the wight still clenched in it’s teeth. A line of dead bodies formed ahead of it -
The White Wolf jumped, leaping over the line in its entirety, and plunged headfirst into the fire.
Jon felt, like a hand unclasping his heart, the moment his body caught flame. His eagle head dropped forward, losing what little strength it had.
“Know peace.”
Darkness.
When Jon awoke and felt the featherbed underneath his back, he was gasping for breath, ripping at the hand that was clutching his throat.
Notes:
It is time, my friends. Life Five has come to an end, and Life Six is upon us. This is where shit starts getting weird. We’re gonna have fun with this one. Hehehehehe… We also come to one of the points where we learn just WHY I chose not to tag any pairings in advance. Huehuehuehuehuehuehuehuehue… One of y’all said that because of my writing they started shipping Jon and Val even though they’d never seen it before. Honey, you ain’t seen NOTHING yet. I hope I can have all your ships fucked up by the time I’m done.
And for those of you who thought that the Raven was the ultimate Big Bad… HUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUE. Ya mans is dead and we haven’t even gotten started. We are officially moving out of training wheels.
Question for the gallery: how many of you actually open up the links I post and listen to the songs as they read? Is it an enhancement to your experience to do so? Should I keep doing it? I hope you guys are using them, because I have quite a few thematically appropriate bangers lined up for future scenes. Let me know.
I want to give a massive shoutout to all of you who made this story get as big as it did. I just checked, and for all metrics - kudos, hits and bookmarks - we are now big enough that we’re all in the double-digit pages. That might be a weird tracker to keep, but for a fandom with over 30k stories, that means we’re all in the top 10% - for bookmarks, you all have put me in the top 1%. I can’t thank you enough, except by apologizing for my ‘one-page-a-day’ writing pace. I wish I was the type of dude who wrote faster, but I’m not. I’m picky like that. But hey, I made you an extra-long chapter, the longest one yet, so... it all works out in the end.
Last note: pour one out for the homie Doublehex, who has declared A Song Of Dragons to be dead as a doornail. That one hurts, man. Shit was fire. That on top of Serpentguy killing Dragons of Ice and Fire (and not even having the guts to update the story to say it's dead, he announced it in his own comment section)… all my heroes don’t want to play anymore. At least they had the courtesy to give us rough strokes of where their plots were going. I feel like I’m watching Gandalf and the Elves sail off into the distance - all the magic is leaving the world, now, and all we have left is ourselves and the ruins of greater men.
Chapter 11: Life Six
Summary:
Once More, With Feeling.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The pain was hot enough to blind him, but Jon continued to flail helplessly at the burning fingers on his throat. His fingers, as dextrous as fat sausages and just as useless, tore at his neck’s skin as he flailed about. His thrashing slammed him against the stone wall, and then with a thump, rolled off the bed, smashing his head into the nightstand.
“What in the - Snow!” a voice called. The pain faded, just for a moment, and so Jon fell limp on the floor. Blood was trapped underneath his fingernails - he had ripped apart his own throat. “Snow!” a hand laid itself on his back. “Thumped yourself good, did you? You usually sleep like the dead.”
I know that voice. Jon tried to move, but his wings were missing, and his legs were all wrong, gangly and blunt, and so all he succeeded in doing was flopping around on the ground. Something is wrong. Why can’t I move? Why can’t I fly?
“Snow? What on earth are you-” the voice gasped. “Jon!”
He was rolled over roughly onto his back, where a face stared at him, blurry and indistinct. No, he is not blurry… my eyes are weak. These are not my eagle eyes. His left not-wing flopped across his body like a worm, smacking into his nose and groping it carelessly. This is not my beak.
“Jon!” cried the voice over him. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you to Maester Luwin. We’ll get that bandaged.”
Who are you? I should know you… the world cleared, just an iota, and ruddy copper-red hair and blue eyes came into focus. Oh… that’s right. It’s you. Robb Stark, my brother. My human brother. You died, but came back.
Jon’s head flopped back, and tried to speak; only a small keening sound, like the call of an eagle, came out of his throat. Just like I did. I’m back. I died as an eagle, but now I am a man once more.
But what does that mean? I don’t even remember.
Robb began to drag him, but stopped, eyes wide. “Others take me… who did that to you?” Jon felt Robb’s fingers trace along his neck - a moment of panic took him as he felt them retrace the path the burning had left. Robb wrenched his hand away, covered in red, and visible in the blood’s reflection was a faint, pulsing blue-green handprint.
It took Jon two days to remember how to speak. It took three more to remember how to properly use his human body, to walk and eat and relieve himself with merely the use of a cane.
All of his family visited him while he was in Maester Luwin’s care; Even Catelyn appeared, hovering over the shoulder of Sansa as his red-haired sister fretted and sighed at his bedside. Robb had spread the word that he had been attacked in his sleep throughout the castle - only the Starks were allowed to see the glowing handprint on his throat that proved the truth was something more malignant.
It was Ned, though, that lingered by his bedside the longest. When a Lord’s business did not call him away, he took all his meals at Jon’s side. When he was able to rise, and walk without leaning on someone’s shoulder, the first thing Ned did was hug him fiercely. Jon merely stood there and withstood it, arms hanging limp and staring blankly at the opposite wall. Immediately, he moved the both of them to his solar, and brought Maester Luwin with him.
“What have you discovered of the handprint, Maester Luwin?” Ned asked, softly but insistently.
“My library tells me nothing, my Lord. They have never seen the like in recorded history. Perhaps the Citadel would know more, and I have sent Archmaester Marwyn a raven with the particulars.” Luwin answered. “To tell truth, though I wear a Valyrian Steel link, it is the first time I have seen the higher mysteries with my own eyes.”
“Nothing?” Ned’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve had five days to search, and you have not even the slightest idea?”
“Our records on higher mysteries are sorely lacking.” Luwin replied. “Many of our older records were burned on decree of King Baelor the Blessed, and magic is well-known to have left the world a long time ago, if it ever existed.”
“Left the world?” Ned swung his hand out, pointing directly at the pulsating mark. “There is your magic, Luwin! It is right in front of us, and it tried to strangle my son in his sleep! Magic robbed him of his full function for nearly a week, and you can tell me nothing!?”
“Magic is-” Luwin began, but bit back his rising tone. “In the Citadel, there are four Dragonglass candles, three black and one green, artifacts from Old Valyria from even before the Targaryens came to Westeros.” he continued, more softly. “When an acolyte has completed his training and is ready to say his Maesterly vows, he is locked in a lightless room with the three black candles, and will not be released until he has lit them.”
Ned frowned, annoyed at the divergence. “And did you?”
“No. not even with my Valyrian Steel link, which only one in a hundred maesters wear.” Said Luwin. “And therein lies the point - because none have lit the candles. It is to prove that even with all our knowledge, there are still things that are impossible for us. No matter how much we learn, how to balance the humors and stymie fouling blood, or bend the resources of the world to our will through tenacity and wisdom, we cannot practice the higher mysteries the legends claim is possible.” Maester Luwin grimaced. “And now you ask me to enlighten you to this attack. As well ask me why the seasons do not track with the rotations of the stars, or what lands are south of Sothoryos. No man alive in the Seven Kingdoms knows the answer.”
“Unbelievable.”
“It does not matter.” Jon said softly. Ned immediately whipped around to face him. “I know who did this to me.”
“You do?” Ned leaned inwards. “Tell us.”
“A Greenseer.” Said Jon, eyes hooded. “A thing called the Three-Eyed Raven. It has stolen the body of Brynden Rivers, otherwise known as Bloodraven.”
“Bloodraven…!”
“One of the Great Bastards of Aegon the Unworthy.” Replied Luwin, eyes wide. “There were many queer tales of Brynden Rivers, during the Blackfyre Rebellions. ‘How many eyes did Lord Bloodraven have’, asked the old riddle, and ‘A thousand eyes and one’ it answered. But he disappeared beyond the Wall. And he would have to be ancient, over a hundred years old.”
“He was tied into the roots of the Weirwood trees.” Jon shook his head. “It was through them that -”
He stopped. His mouth dropped open, and his eyes widened. “The Weirwood… it was the WEIRWOOD!”
“The Weirwood?” Ned asked in confusion.
Jon leaped out of his chair, fisting his hair and pulling until his curly roots strained. “Oh, I am a great FOOL! You know nothing, Jon Snow! ‘I told him in front of the Heart Tree’, he said! ‘The Stark has named you’, he said! I PRAYED in front of the damned thing! I even promised to kill him in front of one!” He slammed the tip of his cane into the stone floor with a loud CLACK! “And the damned Black Gate, when I said my name - OOOoooh, I am THICK! I am thick as a brick! My gravestone will read ‘Here lies Jon Thick, son of Rhaegar Thickgaryen, lord of the Seven Damned THICKdoms. He died because he knew absolutely NOTHING.’ I’m a damned FOOL.”
Ned’s face turned pale as parchment. “J-Jon, how did you-”
“Don’t you see!?” Jon whirled. “He doesn’t know I exist until he’s told I exist! He can’t find me unless somebody gives him a warning in front of the Weirwood! The Children carved faces so the Old Gods could see us - but the Raven is watching, too! Yet somehow I’ve blinded him - he keeps saying I’ve stolen his sight, and he wants me-”
Jon straightened, and immediately hobbled to the door of the Solar and wrenched it open. His head swiveled around outside the doorframe, before slamming it shut once again and stalking back to his padded seat. “Everything that I say here must not leave this room.” Jon said, soft but fierce. “If you breathe a word of it to another, and they mention any of it in front of a Heart Tree, I will likely be dead within days, and nothing would annoy me more than to fail a sixth time.”
“Jon-”
“Swear it.” Jon cut him off, pointing the wooden cane at him. “Swear it on Lyanna’s bones.” Ned gaped, wide-eyed - he looked as though he were having a heart attack.
“Jon, you don’t speak to your father that way-”
“Swear it.”
“... I… I swear it…”
Jon whirled on the Maester; the soft-spoken maester’s further words of reproach died in his throat as Jon’s eyes flashed sable. “... I swear it.”
“Good.” Jon grabbed a large roll of parchment in one hand and an inkpot between his thumb and pointer finger, before slapping them down.
“Jon, what are you doing?” Asked Luwin, as Jon began to draw.
“The Raven,” said Jon, re-dipping the quill and hastily sketching out landmarks, “is beyond the Wall.” Maester Luwin frowned even deeper, but allowed him yet another ill-mannered slight. “North of the Milkwater, east of the Fist, southwest from the headwaters of the Antler.” he slashed an X into the map, and pushed it across the solar’s desk - he’d drawn a crude map of the lands beyond the Wall. “It’s within a twenty-mile radius of that X, give or take five miles. I got a very good look from above.”
“Above?” Asked Maester Luwin. “What are you-”
“That’s not important. I’m telling you this so that you know where I am going.” Jon cut him off. “You can trace my path with this, if you compare it to my starting point at the Nightfort. I will be leaving shortly - ah!” he held up his hand to Ned Stark. “It must be me, for he doesn’t know I exist - any other men would be killed long before they reached him, by fang or antler or claw. What matters right now is what I saw.”
He turned to Luwin. “Maester Luwin, there is a Valyrian Steel blade buried in the hinterlands of Barrowton. I don’t know how or why, but it’s a one-handed longsword, thicker at the base than usual, with the words ‘We Light The Way’ etched in gold into the steel handle - it was carried by a man wearing a sigil of two quartered Targaryen dragons, with House Arryn’s moon-and-falcon and House Velaryon’s seahorse. Have you any idea of what I speak of?”
Luwin reeled backwards. “Well, that’s - how do you know this? That sigil is…” he frowned, his brow furrowed. “That… was Rhaenyra Targaryen’s personal heraldry. The Arryn falcon for her mother, and the Velaryon seahorse for her first husband. The Blacks used it as their standard during the Dance of the Dragons, that blood-soaked civil war. And Barrowton, you say? ‘We Light The Way’ are the house words of House Hightower, in the Reach - and you should know that, Jon, I taught you better than that. That couldn’t be…”
“What?”
Luwin’s eyes were wide. “Vigilance. The ancestral sword of the Hightowers, in the Reach. It was lost during the Dance in the first Battle of Tumbleton, when Roderick Dustin and his Winter Wolves reinforced the Blacks, and he slew Ormund Hightower in combat. The entire town was razed in dragonfire afterwards, and none could locate it.”
Now his eyes were twitching rapidly - Jon could see the Maester running through his histories in his head. “But if a Winter Wolf turned a Broken Man and looted the blade before the burning, and returned home with it… Yes, winter fever was rampant in the North near the end of the Dance, so if our Winter Wolf succumbed, he might have even been buried with the blade to hide it - perhaps the Hightowers had the same thought and were searching for it. I can’t imagine those that hid the blade with our Broken Man would have left it there unless they died as well, which we cannot rule out during a plague.”
“... How do you know all this, Jon?” Ned asked, quietly.
“A dream.” Jon answered flatly.
“If you gleaned this from a dream, then it’s a remarkably plausible theory.” Luwin rapped his knuckles against the table. “Given your... circumstances, I won’t rule out prophetic dreams, just the once. My Lord, you should mount an expedition to Barrowton with all haste; if you will it, I will send a raven ahead of you. For how many graves lie in the Barrowlands, you will need the knowledge and manpower of the Dustins. The Hightowers are as rich as Lannisters - the Citadel owes them patronage, and they own one of the largest banks in the Seven Kingdoms, to say nothing of the fact that Mace Tyrell’s lady is a Hightower.”
“Aye, I see it.” Ned nodded. “There are starving houses who would rather sell a daughter for her dowry than give up their ancestral Valyrian blade. To return a sword a hundred years missing would make one of the most powerful and well-connected houses of the Reach a staunch ally of the North.” His eyes lidded. “And Winter is Coming.”
“There was something else, along with the sword.” Jon cut in. “I know who is buried in the Great Barrow. It was a White Walker.” Maester Luwin’s eyebrows shot up. “It had to have been. She was beautiful, with eyes like burning stars, but her skin was paler than fresh snow, and her touch could trap you in a block of ice with a touch.”
Luwin snorted. “A female Other? This, I believe less. You’ve been listening to too many of Old Nan’s stories, Jon.” Jon turned to face Luwin, eyes piercing. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told Bran when he had nightmares - the Night’s King was likely real, given the plain truth that no fort along the Wall has any defenses built towards the south, but his supposed heresies and atrocities as the thirteenth Lord-Commander are merely a ghost story. His ‘Corpse Queen’ is almost certainly a myth.”
The Maester leaned back. “And though we know not who is entombed in the Great Barrow, it is always suggested it was a King - never a Queen. They say it is the grave of the First King, who led the First men across the Arm of Dorne, or perhaps a mythical King of the Giants. More likely, it is one of the early Barrow Kings, whom the Dustins claim descent from. The Corpse Queen is more likely a daughter of House Dustin, given their cadaver-like appearance, and both she and her husband are long dead.”
Jon flopped backwards bonelessly. “The Corpse Queen…” he whispered, eyes wide. Now, he remembered the stories. The thirteenth Lord-Commander, who Old Nan insisted was a Brandon Stark, who gave both his seed and his soul to a woman as pale as the moon, and waged war upon the south in the name of dark gods.
“The Corpse Queen is real…” he fell face-first into his hands. “All manner of grumpkins and snarks are coming alive all around me. How many more legends will I find before I am free?”
A beat of silence passed, before Jon lifted his head once more. “No. It doesn’t matter how many monsters I find. I’ll kill them, too.” he stood, glaring. “I have all the time in the world.” he hobbled to the door and threw it open.
“Jon!” Ned shouted. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to kill the thing who put this handprint on my neck.” Jon snapped. “I’d like to return the favor properly.”
“You do not have my permission to leave.”
“Does a bird need your permission to fly?” said Jon, moving remarkably fast for a man with a cane. “You haven’t been my Lord for a long time, Nuncle.”
“Jon! JON!”
Jon had gathered half of the supplies he needed before he was captured.
Jory Cassel had approached with half-a-dozen of the household guard, an easy disarming smile on his lips. “Your father says you’re not well.” he said. “Lord Stark has suggested that you be resting now.”
Jon glared, and slammed the package of food into his burlap sack before dragging his high-necked collar tighter to hide the handprint. “Tell the Lord Stark that if he’s too much of a coward to say it himself and hear what I have to say, then I don’t need to listen to him.”
The smile slipped from Jory’s lips, and his eyes narrowed. “He was right, then. Your sickness has left you irritable, and without your manners. Come along, lad.”
Jon whipped his cane up, directly at Jory’s face. “Touch me and pay for it.” now all good humor was gone, and one of the household guards scoffed and reached for Jon; he was rewarded with the cane being rapped across his ears. Now the rest of the guard surged as one, and Jon attacked with a disproportionate fury, swatting them away with painful blows. Eventually, Jory snarled, his eye swelling, and detached his leather-sheathed blade from his belt and met the wooden weapon with his own.
The cane was knocked wide, and a fist slammed into Jon’s stomach, knocking the wind from him. The household guard swarmed over him, gripping him by all limbs as Jon spat obscenities at them all, hauling him through the courtyard for all to see. They dragged him into the keep, never letting him touch the ground as he writhed, before bodily throwing him inside the cell for high-ranking prisoners, and locked it behind them. “CRAVENS!” Jon shouted through the door. “Dung-headed incompetents!”
“You’re going to cool your head here until your sickness has cleared from your body, on orders from Lord Stark.” Answered Jory flatly, from the other side. “Any man can tell that you’re not yourself.”
Jon screamed animalistically, and leaped at the door feet-first, attacking it as a raptor would. All he accomplished was bouncing off of it, and slamming his shin into his bed.
Once he had finished rolling about, clutching his injured leg, he flopped spread-eagle across the floor. “Why did they stop me?” he asked the room. “How dare they? I have to kill the Raven - his magic nearly killed me. Somehow, he knows I exist, even though I never told the Weirwood.”
His eyes narrowed. “Was he wearing Jory’s skin? That’s why he -” he shook his head. “No, if he was I would have a sword through me. Not Jory.” his eyes narrowed. “But he was following orders… and though I told those two not to speak to the Heart Trees…” his eyes narrowed hatefully. “That facestealing sorcerer has locked me away, until he has a chance to run a sword through me. I won’t give him the chance, then.”
He glanced around the room. The door was made of a thick hardwood, and no windows to the outside existed, though the beds appeared soft and full of furs. There was a single unlit candle and a striker on the nightstand, but it certainly wasn’t enough to try and burn his way through the door. A chest was placed at the foot of the first bed, but the thing was empty of anything useful.
Jon angrily kicked at the door once more, before sitting down once more. “There is nothing to free me from the inside, then.” he said aloud. He walked to the door. “Guard! Guard!” He called. “I require water!”
Silence answered him.
He grinned, slightly, and walked over to the bed, sitting down cross-legged. “Two can play at your game.” Jon closed his eyes and reached…
And was blown backwards on the mattress, slamming his head against the wall, as a voice in the distance screamed in pain and shock. Jon lay there, hyperventilating, as the anguished cries of Jory Cassel slowly faded. “By the Old Gods and New…” Jon gasped; underneath his collar, the handprint of the Raven throbbed and pulsed in time with his breathing. It was like trying to grab a Shadowcat by its tail; the moment my hand closed, it whirled and bit my face off.
And the thing that stole Bloodraven, that stole Bran, could do it to anybody from half a continent away.
Jon closed his eyes, a scowl working onto his features. He wouldn’t allow the setback to stop his plans for freedom. He wouldn’t lie here waiting for the Raven to gut him. He needed to think. “You can take beasts, because they are simple - they cannot tell their thoughts from somebody else’s. Men are strong in will; they know themselves.” he muttered, running through his lessons. “So how do I find a man who is weak-willed, and doesn’t know himself? Weak enough for…”
He trailed off. “Aaaaaaah.” He cooed, grinning sharply. “Oh, Bran. You stupid, stupid boy. I see it now, brother. If only you hadn’t been so clever, none of this would have happened to me.” he resettled himself on the bed, closed his eyes again, and reached…
This time, there was no resistance. It was like a sword sliding into a sheath; his mind had been hollowed out by something long ago, and left a welcoming hole for one such as him. He straightened up to his full, towering height, and softly patted the horse he was stabling. “Hodor.” he said, gently, before turning and walking away with more energy and purpose than the mental invalid had held for years.
Jon opened his eyes at the same moment the door to his cell opened, leaping to his feet. “Hodor! Hodor!” Hodor screamed, clutching his head and backing away in a terrible fright.
“Those are mine.” Jon picked up the fully assembled travel kit and slung it onto his back. He stepped towards the door, but stopped mid-stride, wrinkling his brow as the stablehand refused to even look at him. “They’ll catch me.” he said aloud. “I’ve been able to escape before because nobody sought to stop me. But they’ll stop me now… unless they’re distracted.”
He looked up at the cowering stablehand, and a twisted grin broke from between his lips. “And didn’t I make a promise, all those years ago?” with careful movements, he closed the door so that it did not locked, and sat down against the foot of the bed. “You will make such an uproar, not a man will see me slip out the Hunter’s Gate.”
His grin spread wider as he heard thundering footsteps race away from his door, and he thought of a man who YET AGAIN stole what belonged to the Starks -
He pulled himself to a stop, and cracked his neck. Somewhere deep inside of him, a small, wretched thing was screaming in incoherent fear, but he was strong enough to silence it. He was in control, now.
“Hodor.”
He reoriented himself, and took off with a purposeful stride. He had a feeling he knew where to find who he was looking for.
Nobody stopped him along the way - not the guards, not the servants. Nobody questioned the presence of the stablehand, except maybe to give lingering side-eyes and quiet jibes to their companions. The benefits of being well-known as a simpleton.
It did not take him long to find his target - the Squid Prince was never subtle in his dealings. He wandered into the training courtyard, as Theon nocked a bow and loosed it. The arrow flew with deadly accuracy, and thudded into a target studded with arrows, clustered in a circle less than three inches in diameter.
He looked around, and saw that the courtyard was relatively empty for the time of day with only a single guardsman practicing with a wooden training spear, and the Master-at-arms Ser Rodrik Cassel was nowhere to be found. He smiled wickedly, an expression wholly unfit for his usually-slack face, and cracked his knuckles loudly. Deep down inside, a part of him began to scream even louder.
He started forward, and Theon turned to face him at the noise. His nose wrinkled, though his cocksure smile never slipped. “You lost? This isn’t the stables. You there, with the spear. Help the retard find his way-”
His massive fist swung out, slamming into Theon’s face and throat with the force of a battering ram. The Squid Prince flew several feet away, choking loudly, too stunned to even grasp his throat. “Hodor!”
“HEY!” shouted the guard, whipping his spear about to point at him. “Stop! Stop right there!” he ran forward, speartip pointed upwards at his face. “Hodor, I’m warning you-”
His hand whipped out to grab the head of the spear, and with a flex of his arm snapped it in two. The guard only had a moment to shout his surprise before He slapped him with the flat wooden blade of the practice spear, and as he was reeling take a massive stomping kick to the chest that blew him backwards.
He snorted, derisively-
Pain burst open in his back, and a shout of agony ripped from his lips in the same timbre as the terrified screams in his mind.
“HELP! GUARDS!”
He whirled as fast as his clumsy feet would let him and charged; Theon let out a terrified scream and nearly fumbled nocking the second arrow. He loosed it, and the arrow punched into his gut, but He didn’t let the pain break his control, and He slammed into Theon with the force of a charging auroch.
A spurt of blood flew from Theon’s lips as His entire body weight carried him down to the ground. The Greyjoy tried to breathe, but it turned into a scream as He crunched his wrist inside his meaty fingers. “AAAAAAAAH! GUAAAARDS!”
He repositioned himself over his prey, looked him directly in the eye, and let just a little of his power slip. Theon’s expression only grew more pale. “What- What are you!? WHAT ARE - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
He made good on the promise he had made, a lifetime ago- Theon Greyjoy died screaming.
Jon lifted and drew his bow in a single smooth motion, tracking the point of the arrow to a fat rabbit sneaking between a pair of trees, he slowly inhaled, exhaled, focused his mind, dropped his fingers away-
The world turned blurry, and the teen’s arms jerked wildly. The arrow loosed far wide, and slammed into the trunk of the tree with a loud crack. By the time Jon regained control, the rabbit was gone. His temper flared, and let out a loud wildling curse. The handprint on his neck dimmed once more, back to it’s muted heartbeat pulsing.
That was the tenth animal in a row he had taken aim at this week, and missed. He’d take a wild guess and assume that the arrow was unsalvageable from the tree trunk, as well. He had packed for his food supplies to be supplemented by wild game, but he had fallen short in nearly all respects.
“Blast.” Jon pushed himself off of his knees, and began trudging through the snow. He wasn’t even sure why he had packed that way. He knew the travel distance to reach the Raven’s cave and then to reach Castle Black; he’d only barely packed enough to even reach the cave. He wasn’t in the habit of making such blunders.
He shook his head. No point in second-guessing myself. The handprint pulsed, and his eyes narrowed. I have more than enough supplies to kill the Raven.
He slung the bow over his shoulder, and continued onwards, leaving the arrow embedded in the tree trunk. If he had looked, he would have seen the arrow was in unblemished condition.
While the qworking echo was what first dragged him from slumber, when Jon rolled over in his tent and jabbed himself in the cheek with a sharp rock, he came awake with a bleary curse of pain. It was only after he wriggled the irritant from the ground and angrily chucked it from the flap that he noticed the cold, and the fingers of hoarfrost creeping across the ground.
Jon burst into frenzied movement, snatching his pack up from where he had laid it and drawing his blade. His fire was dead with the stack of logs only half-burned, and his campsite was surrounded by a thick bank of morning fog. Over his head, a murder of crows on the wing rattled and cawed. His head swiveled all about, staring with a fevered intensity, until at last he saw it - a pair of blue eyes, piercing through the fog like lamps.
Immediately, he took off in a run, sheathing his blade and wrenching his pack higher on his shoulders to not unbalance himself. He had a resin-soaked bundle of rags in his pack, but there wasn’t nearly enough time to attach them to arrows. With neither fire nor Valyrian Steel at his side, he could only hope to outrun the wights.
All around him, the forests came to life with the sound of stumbling feet stomping through fresh snow. He evened the bellow of his lungs as well as possible in a sprint, and leaned forward. A rotten hand reached out from behind a tree, to which Jon jinked away from and continued the charge. All around him, the sound of crows continued - ‘Go, Go, Go!’ they called.
He could not have run half a mile before his legs failed him, and Jon fell face-first to the snow. As he pushed himself to his feet, wobbly, the fog began to clear behind him, and hundreds of cold, burning eyes stared at him. The air now was cold enough to crackle as he exhaled. The mob of dead flesh parted, and from the ranks came forward the leader. The shriveled, mummified face of a White Walker stared at him without expression, as the air around them grew nearly too cold to breathe.
“...Fuck.” Jon cursed, as he slowly drew his castle-forged steel blade - wholly inadequate, he knew, against his foe. “You came right for me, didn’t you? The same way you did before.” he slapped his free hand against his neck, and in the snowy reflection he could tell the mark was glowing bright.
The Other stared at him, it’s beard fluttering in a frozen breeze.
Jon lifted his blade higher. “Come on, then.” Jon snarled.
The Other drew from it’s hip a razor-thin, crystalline blade, and slowly lowered it to its side. The air was so cold it burned the inside of jon’s lungs, and what little light filtered through the fog danced and refracted off of dancing specks of floating frost. All around him, trees popped and groaned, and a branch exploded into fragments behind the Other as the water inside the wood flash-froze and expanded too quickly to resist against.
“I won’t make it easy for you.”
The White Walker stepped and swung, and as Jon blocked the blade with his own, the blade sang with a keening note. ‘Run, run, run’ called the crows overhead. A dozen wights stepped forward in unison as Jon chopped at the White Walker’s head, and were dive-bombed as the crows pecked and clawed at their faces.
With a roar, Jon slammed the crystalline blade down, and slashed at the Other’s face. The blade swung perfectly, arcing into the creature’s neck - and stopped with the sound of clanging ice. The Other thrust his blade forward towards Jon’s belly, and only a wild dodge saved him. The air grew even colder, and past the throbbing sound of blood Jon could hear tree branches exploding all around him. The Other raised it’s blade up, and Jon slashed to meet it-
The blade exploded in Jon’s hands as it met the Other’s sword.
Jon let out a scream of pain as jagged metal shards lanced across his body, fiery pain blooming across his left eye. The Other’s expression shifted to a fractional smirk and slashed at Jon’s defenseless torso, but the boy dropped backwards to dodge, carried by the weight of his pack. He popped up, holding a thin uneven sliver of the sword in his hand, as blood burned hot down his skin and eyelid. He howled in blind rage, and lifted it up to stab.
‘Ax! Ax! Ax!’ called a crow, darting up and away from the clawing murder attacking the wights. Jon stopped, eyes wide, and lowered his blade. The handprint on his neck flared brighter, but Jon darted back and further back, and quickly slung the woodsman’s ax from the loop on his pack. As he flung the leather headcover from the blade, the Other glared. The air chilled even further, and behind the creature of ice and death, a tree branch exploded.
Jon scowled. “I won’t kill you with an ax, will I?” he backed away even further, and the White Walker followed just as slowly. Only when Jon’s path was halted, his back hitting an obstruction, did his expression change to victory. “Then I’ll just slow you down.”
He turned and slid away, and heaved the woodsman’s ax above him. With a loud roar, it bit deeply into the trunk of a towering tree. The Other stopped, and cocked it’s head. Jon ripped the head out and let out another roar, and the ax hacked out a miniscule wedge. The Other straightened, and raised it’s sword as it stepped forward. Jon let out one more howl, and chopped into the tree for a third time.
The tree shuddered, crackling noises filling the air suddenly. Jon ripped the ax from the tree and dove away, as ice burst out from the wound he had hacked open. The Other only had a moment to react before the trunk exploded outward with the force of Wildfire. The aged tree, which has survived a hundred years and a dozen winters untouched, groaned and toppled, and crushed the White Walker and a handful of wights under its bulk.
Jon gasped, for just a moment, before reslinging the ax on his back. He took only a second to see that the wights had not dropped where they stood - despite the brutal weight, the White Walker was still alive. ‘Run! Run!’ qworked the crows, as they lifted away from the wights as one, and Jon did not question it. He took off as fast as his body would allow him, and the dead followed.
He did not know how long he ran to the north, or if he was even running north anymore, for he simply chased the feeling of ‘less cold’ like a bloodhound. Behind him, the wights followed, slow but implacable. The Other was nowhere to be seen, but that was little comfort - he had no other gambits to use.
After a time, his legs finally failed him, and Jon tumbled to the frozen ground, gasping for air and legs trembling like jelly. His hands clutched and dragged against the snow, but his strength had left him. Behind him, the slow crunching heralded the silent horde of undead chasing him. With a snarl, Jon pushed himself to a sitting position, and pulled the ax from off of his pack-
“Get up!”
Jon jerked his head up at the shout, the first time he had heard a human voice other than his own in weeks. The crows, always chasing after him, had thickened into a black-winged frenzy, and over their calls he could hear a wild galloping. From within the forest, a dark shadow was racing forward. Jon pushed his screaming legs underneath him and stumbled to his feet, as the dark shadow revealed itself to be a black-clad figure riding on the back of a massive elk.
The figure reached out a black hand to Jon as he rode forward. Jon grit his teeth, burst into a run, and jumped. His hand met the stranger’s, and with a wild swing seated Jon on the back of the Elk. the beast bellowed and nearly tripped, but the man, who Jon could now see was dressed in the blacks and greys of the Night’s Watch, called something in a ringing sibilant tongue, and the beast steadied itself and galloped away. The wights disappeared behind them into the fog.
“Thank… the Old Gods and New.” Jon gasped. “You’re… a long way… from the Wall, brother.”
“Even here, I can serve the realms of Men.” said the Brother, his voice pitched high and rattling. “When the Cold Ones began to track your movements from many leagues away, I followed.”
Jon’s hand slapped instinctively up to his neck, folding over the mark.
“Never have I seen a man draw their ire in the manner that you have.” said the rider.
“I’ve made myself a particular enemy... of the restless dead.”
“So it seems.” the sound of the elk’s galloping and jon’s slowly-steadying breaths filled the silence between them, before the rider reached down to rest his black glove on the pommel of his weathered sword hilt. “You called me Brother for my garb.” said the rider, his strange voice taking on a sinister edge. “Yet your colors are wrong.”
Jon, after a moment of staring at the hilt, understood. He thinks I’m a deserter. And yet, now that he was thinking on it, Jon had never seen this brother before, or even heard of him. Even if he had been part of the other keeps, he would have seen the records of him at Castle Black.
“My watch has ended.” he said, flatly.
“There is only one way your watch ends.” said the rider.
“I’m glad we are on the same page, then.”
“You have a remarkable vivacy and rosy hue, for a dead man.”
“Shall I rip open my leathers and show you where the blade took me in the heart?” Jon snapped, his right hand clenching harder around the handle of his ax.
After a moment that stretched out into several, the rider shook his head and lifted his glove away from the pommel. “Well met, then. Be glad your eyes have remained the Stark grey, in that case.” said the rider. “There is undeath enough between the two of us without inviting the revenant blue.”
The meaning of his words escaped Jon, for a moment, until his left arm instinctively clutched tighter around the rider’s waist from a wild leap by the elk. It dug into the man’s stomach - which had remained perfectly flat during the entire ride. The hooded figure hadn’t taken a single breath since Jon had mounted.
Jon’s eyes widened in horror - his eyes immediately tracked to the man’s cold hands - not gloved, as he had initially thought, but bare hands, blackened to the color of pitch from frostbite and decomposition. “You… your hands...”
The rider with the cold hands lifted his arm up into the air. His sleeve pulled by an inch, revealing the skin underneath to be a bloodless, pale color. “When a man’s heart stops beating, the blood pools in the extremities. While the rest of his body turns the color of milk, his hands and feet swell, and turn as black as pudding.” his rattling voice pitched higher, a bad impression of a singular laugh. “Fear not, Brother - I have been this way for longer than you have been alive.”
Jon said nothing, but his grip on the wooden ax handle tightened until it creaked. images of a First Ranger, face shriveled and puckered, danced behind his eyelids. Undead, buried under a wave of undead. Dark eyes, not blue - raised by other, eldritch forces.
“Where does your ranging take you, Brother? I would aid you, as I’m able.” asked the revenant with cold hands, never looking backwards. “Or are you able to return to Castle Black and the realms of men, as I am not?”
“ The Raven… ” Jon hissed - his vision narrowed to a point - the point of the revenant’s hood where his neck connected to his shoulders. The handprint throbbed .
“The Rave-”
The ax connected with the revenant’s neck with a wet THUNK - the elk let out a squealing yelp as it toppled to the side at the movement, bringing the two men down to the snow. Jon landed lightly and away from the bulk of the beast, but the revenant’s leg let out a loud CRACK as it snapped under the enormous animal. With a roar, the bastard ripped the ax from the dead man’s neck and swung it down once more, severing the connection in a single chop. A third strike split the head in two horizontally, and black blood spewed outwards as if from a burst grape.
Immediately, Jon whirled and began hacking at the limbs of the revenant - first the arms, breaking away as though they were twigs, and then the legs. The elk had pulled itself to it’s feet and darted away, but with a final swing, Jon buried the ax in the limbless torso of the dead man, before toppling to the ground, eyes pure white.
The elk had traveled nearly beyond the sight of the attack, but gently it returned, eyes flickering white. It stood there silently for a moment, before Jon gasped and immediately stood to his feet, eyes once again dark grey. With a deft hand, he ripped the sword belt from the revenant’s hips and attached it to his own. He snapped his fingers once, and the elk, now meek, lowered itself just enough to allow Jon to hoist himself to it’s back.
With a rough kick to the beast’s side, which caused it to bellow in pain, the elk took off at a gallop, and Jon left the desecrated corpse behind, never once looking at the face beneath the hood.
The elk died, three days later. Jon did not care that he had ridden it to death, that it was not a horse made for endurance - he merely cared that the wights were hopelessly behind him, and that the beast would feed him the rest of the way to the Raven. He skinned it, butchered and portioned as much of it as he was able to carry, and set off, leaving the carcass behind without a second thought.
Without the elk, he would have starved to death. With the meat from the beast, he still nearly did. It wasn’t until a day later when he tried to cook the meat that he realized his mistake. “Why in the Seven Hells did I leave the ax behind!?” he shouted aloud, as he stared at the stack of unchopped firewood. That was beyond a rookie mistake - this was something that no man with any experience in the wilderness would have done, and he had decades of hard living to speak of his experience.
And yet I didn’t think once about retrieving my gear.
He made due, eventually - finding smaller pieces, small enough to be worked by the revenant’s sword - but the meat nearly went to waste for being unable to cook it. And now, Jon knew there was a bigger problem. Something was wrong with him. Something in his mind was off, to the point of near-suicidal foolishness. He wasn’t sure how long something had been wrong with him, or why - but a gnawing feeling of discomfort in his gut told him he’d done something else wildly stupid, and couldn’t even recognize it; It was only the brutal obviousness of the ax that had tipped himself off.
He took his time, then, moving more methodically through the forests beyond the Wall. not so slowly as to allow the dead to catch up with him, but enough that he could pay more attention to himself and his surroundings. Smaller kindling, directional markers, game nests - things he should have noticed off-hand, but now had to strain himself to catch.
It was on one of those days that his stretched senses caught the far-off scraping of wood. Jon lowered himself down and crept through the brush, tracking the sound. There were no tracks, but the sound grew louder and louder, until the forests cleared. Jon’s eyes widened. An enormous bull moose, of similar size to the beasts that had attempted to run him down a lifetime ago, was grinding it’s horns against an enormous Heart Tree on a hill - a Weirwood he had seen before.
A predatory grin spread across Jon’s face. “Found you.” he whispered. Slowly, carefully, he crept across the open space between the edge of the green forest and the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven. The bull moose never once raised its head from it’s vandalization. No assailant sprang from the ether to stop him. He made it across the way, and into the open cave. With the distance cleared, and in the mouth of the cave, Jon stood to his full height and drew the stolen blade on his hip with as little noise as possible.
He had crossed through two gaping caverns without incident. It was in the third that he encountered his first Children, two of the creatures tending to some cultivated patch of mushrooms. He sprung forward and thrust his blade through the back of one’s neck, and it died before it could make a sound. The second let out a loud scream, like fingernails on glass, but died just as easily as the first.
“Come on, then.” Jon declared, flicking off the blood from the edge of his blade. “You know I’m here now - test your luck against me.” the tip swept upwards, and Jon disappeared into the tunnels.
But nobody did. Not for the first cavern. Not in the second, and not in the third, where the skeleton of the giant bats hung. Jon Snow’s eyes narrowed. This was the cavern just before he had been attacked by dozens of Children in the tunnels. They had tried to ambush him to whittle down the advantage from the ice bear and Varamyr.
But he was alone now, and yet he hadn’t even been attacked once. His grip on the undead Watchman’s blade tightened, and the leather handle creaked under the strain. Something was wrong. He was missing something.
Aware once more of his unnatural carelessness, he raised the blade up once more, and pressed forward. The tunnels narrowed overhead - a forceful twitch in his wrist reminded him of the phantom sensation of cleaving through Children of the Forest in the exact location he was standing.
Nobody attacked him. No spears rushed at him from the dark. Even his footsteps were muffled by a thin layer of moss carpeting the rock underneath him. Jon’s brow furrowed even as he reached the lip of the tunnel; the raging underground river echoed through the wider cavern, drowning out his approach utterly.
It can’t be this easy. If Jon stepped out from behind the lip of the tunnel, he would have an unblocked path to the Raven, wholly entwined with the Weirwood roots, unable to escape. It can’t possibly be this easy. I’ve missed something. After all this time, it can’t be this easy.
He exhaled, slowly, hitched the blade higher, and leaped from the corner and charged.
The Three-Eyed was there, slumped against the roots, one eye wide-open and pure white and the other a gaping cavity through which a pale root grew, unresponsive to Jon. the boy crossed the distance in seconds, and stopped right in front of the shriveled old man. The blotchy red mark on his neck was exposed, looking more like an abstract interpretation of a raven than the eerie depiction the Targaryen histories described it. The fiend looked more of a mummified corpse than a living being, and only the movement of his chest proved otherwise.
Jon swallowed a mouthful of spit, and traced the point of his sword over his chest. “You…” Said Jon, out loud. “You didn’t even know I was coming. You don’t even know I’m here, right now.”
The Three-Eyed Raven said nothing in reply.
Jon grit his teeth, placed his free hand over the pommel of his sword, and plunged it into the old man’s chest.
The Raven let out a shuddering gasp, his single eye fluttering back to a pure blood-red. It flicked up to Jon’s face, a look of uncomprehending confusion on his face. His mouth dropped open, and a sound that might have been the beginning of a word began. Jon jerked the blade hilt upwards, cutting further, and then ripped it out in a spray of blood.
The Three-Eyed Raven let out a soft, rattling sigh, and slumped forward.
Jon stared at the corpse, eyes wide. “Is… is that it?” Asked Jon, disbelievingly. “Is that it? No - no charge? No… resistance?”
After a moment, the blade dropped from his loose hand. “It’s done, then.” He said. “He’s dead, and I… am free.” a moment’s pause. “... I don’t… am I free, now?” his hand slapped against his chest, as if feeling for a sign of the Red God’s curse leaving him. “I don’t… feel, any different.”
His legs became wobbly, for just a moment. “... what do I do now?” Jon asked softly, as he stared around the empty cave. His eyes flicked back to the corpse of the Raven - an old memory struck him. “Didn’t he have…?”
He stepped past the body, his hands digging through the thicket of moon-white roots that was the Greenseer’s throne. He quickly found what he was looking for, and more - not one, but two thin cloth-bundled parcels were hidden in the roots. His hands dragged out the larger of the two, and unwrapped it. An unstrung longbow the color of the roots revealed itself, of a high-quality make. The bowstring was waxed, and curled in a small bundle near the head - it had the appearance of age, and was clearly well-used, but had no obvious fraying and still appeared to be usable.
Jon quickly bent the Weirwood bow to shape and strung it, and it gave good resistance - the weapon was taller than he was, a shade under six feet long. He placed his own smaller bow on the ground set the Weirwood weapon over his back before slowly unwrapping the second parcel. Here was the tool he was expecting; Dark Sister revealed its distinctive flame pommel. It was not nearly as large as the bastard sword that was Longclaw, and was slender even compared to standard longswords, but sliding just an inch of the steel from the well-tended leather sheath showed the mark of quality that was the Valyrian steel.
He smirked, just a little, and attached the sheath to his sword-belt-
A loud scream startled him from his inspection. Jon’s head whipped to the sound, and saw at least three Children of the Forest standing on the bridge over the river, hands cocked back.
They were on the other side of the river-!
“YOU HAVE DOOMED US!” One of them screamed, in the Common tongue, before hurling a Weirwood spear directly at Jon’s head. He lurched to the side, and it sailed past. Immediately, his hand reached to the new blade on his side, just as the two behind the leader hurled their tools. Not spears, like the leader, but two orbs of packed mud, and glowing as blue as the sea.
A sudden spike of fear took Jon in the heart; he did not want to be hit by whatever magic made those orbs glow. He took a mighty leap to his right and forward, and the orbs passed by where he had been standing -
As soon as they touched the ground, twin gouts of flame exploded with a furious vigor. The heat scorched Jon’s back, and the incredible force slammed him forward into the wall. The world exploded into white, and he bounced off limply, rolling bonelessly to the edge of the river.
Momentum carried him over. The ringing in his ears and white in his eyes disappeared in a torrent of ice-cold water. He swallowed a lungful of water, and came to the surface with a panicked gasp. His hand reached out to scrape futilely at the edge of the worn-smooth rock, before plunging back under.
The river carried him under, swirling down, down, further down into the abyssal depths of the underground.
Notes:
Huehuehuehuehuehuehue. The fun begins.
(If you’re concerned about Jon’s mental state, as I’m sure some of you will be, then I’ll take a moment to clarify something for you all - I’m working on a roadmap, and I know what I’m doing. Trust me. I despise edginess for edginess’ sake.)
I’d just like to take a moment to thank all of you who are into the fanfiction of ASOIAF. You may all have extremely fucked-up tastes on account of the fucked-up setting (helloooooo incest)... but at least when I click on the filters that do the counting, two-thirds of the stories aren’t M/M stuff. Yeesh. I’ve never regretted trying to quantify a fandom’s tastes faster than when I looked at the Boku no Hero Academia section. The Fujoshis are alive and well here. Like, I’m not gonna judge because I’m just as big a degenerate as the rest of you, but come on. Learn to come up with a better idea than ‘these two men are rivals, that must mean they actually want to fuck each other’, people. It happens every SINGLE time in anime fandoms.
On a side note, I AM hardcore judging every single person who’s written a Ramsay/Theon story here. Come on. Really? You know what you’ve done wrong.
Last thing I want to mention: sorry that I’ve taken a while to push this out. I’ve been out of work since the end of September, and I’m having trouble finding a new job in my field. (you’d think they’d be clamoring for IT guys in this economy, but nope.) It’s been eating up my time, and sapping my motivation to write. However, somebody suggested to me that I could set up a tip jar for my writing through a Buy Me A Coffee account. I don’t like the idea of monetizing my writing, because it feels gross to do that for something that’s purely a hobby and isn’t even my own setting, but it would help me out, and it would definitely draw my mind back to the story every once in a while from job-hunting.
So I’ll let you folks decide instead. Should I go ahead with setting up a tip jar for this, and would it be something you actually gave to? I won’t enable any kind of monthly subscription (because I've burned out before and I don't want you feeling like I'm screwing you for not having consistent uploads), and you wouldn’t get any kind of perks other than my profound gratitude. Let me know in the comments, and I’ll make my decision based on whatever you tell me to do.
However it goes, hope you stick with me, folks. Life Six is gonna be fun.
EDIT: Welp. Apparently AO3 explicitly bans commercializing stories on here, so the tip jar idea would get me kicked off the site. Thanks to all of you who offered to help, but I'm pretty sure getting banned would be counterproductive. Worth a try, I suppose.
Chapter 12: Life Six: Part 2
Summary:
What is done in the dark will be brought to the light.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“WEEPER! Enough running!”
“You don’t fucking give up, Crow! You and that ginger cunt want my sloppy seconds that badly, eh?”
“You don’t have enough cock to even fit it in, you blind whoreson, let alone the time. AH-AH! One more step to the ice and I’ll fill you full of arrows.”
“It’s over, Weeper. No more tricks.”
“... You dumb bastards. I’ve already won. Do you think this false spring will last?”
“The White Walkers are dead. I saw them die with my own eyes.”
“They were never alive to begin with! What is dead may never die! When they woke, it had already begun. The world will freeze, and the sun will not rise for a generation. And here you are, with half of your clans, hunting me and my men across the Frostfangs and all the way to the frozen shore. How many of your sons and daughters will starve because you weren’t there to hunt?”
“Sounds like some Woods Witch horseshit, to me. Did Mother Mole’s grave whisper that prophecy to you? Eh? Corpse gas fart that one in your ear?”
Enough, Weeper. Release Lady Val, and your death will be quick and painless.”
“Gwahahahaha! You don’t get it, Crow - or you, Giantsbane. It doesn’t matter if I die; I’m already dead. But now, you, and everything you love, will die when the true Long Night comes. You will die. Your Crows will die. Your Crow-lovers will die. Every single dirty whoreson kneeler who ever went south of that Wall will die. And you get to watch them wither away.”
“You…!”
“You’ve been chasing a ghost all along, Crow. And now this ghost will- AUGH! MotherFUCKER!”
“VAL!”
“I’m fine! Now gut the blind son of a bitch for me, Snow!”
“... So be it. I gave you a chance to end this well, Weeper. Now you’ll die choking on your own blood.”
“... You still can’t see it, Crow. You’ll never stop chasing ghosts, because you hold them tight. You’ll never learn to open your eyes and look away. Well, no matter to me - I’ll end your dream on the edge of my sickles. You’ll wake up, Jon Snow. WAKE UP. ”
Jon awoke with a panicked gasp, before letting out a series of wretched, hacking coughs. Water poured from his mouth as his arms feebly grasped at the wet stone underneath him. He was face-down, hanging off of some half-submerged shelf with his legs dangling into some pool, and nearby he could hear the thunderous echo of a waterfall.
Feeble hands scraped at smooth stone, as the water in his lungs turned to putrid bile, his eyes too clouded with pain to see. A scraping noise vaguely took his attention - somehow, he was still clutching Dark Sister in his fist, and the pommel had caught against a groove. With a single leverage point, he pulled himself forward by inches up a gentle slope of rock, before his strength left him and his head flopped down into a small puddle.
Every inch of fabric clung to him wetly, and he was soaked to the bone, causing him to shiver. More water came out in great hacking coughs, more than he thought possible.
Did… did I drown?
Slowly, he dragged the blade forward hilt-first into the pitch black surrounding him and pulled himself forward. Inch by inch, he removed himself from the pool, though his arms felt weak as a kitten. His throat felt like sandpaper, and his eyes were swelling out of their sockets. With a final gasp, his feet pulled entirely from the water, and he flopped to his belly.
He laid there for an unknown amount of time, before his arm slowly snaked it’s way out of the pack pressing down on his chest. It fell with a loud sound of shifting and clanging equipment, and the clatter of wood against stone told him that Brynden Rivers’ weirwood bow had still been attached. He luxuriated in the lack of burden, before a small, niggling sense that he was forgetting something came to him.
He nearly ignored it, with how weary he was. But then, he remembered. My mind is not my own, right now. I cannot trust my instincts. The sound of the waterfall he had plunged down from drowned out all sound, but Jon still mumbled aloud meaningless half-words as his hands roamed across his body. He had lost remarkably little, and his pack was still sealed.
It wasn’t until his fingers brushed against the nape of his neck that he realized - he was thoroughly soaked. “Shit.” he cursed, and immediately reached for his boots. If I hadn’t stopped myself to think, I might have died from exposure from the cold and wet. Already, his limbs were sluggish, and his fingers refused to move in the way they should.
Even the mere act of stripping off his many layers helped - while not the same temperature as a well-insulated room in Winterfell, the air was remarkably warm for where he was in the world. Once naked, he hesitated, then grit his teeth and fumbled for the Weirwood bow. He took it in hand, and in a single strike broke it in half over his knee.
It took a number of similar breaks to create suitably-sized sticks for a fire, but with a packet of shavings and a well-placed flint strike, they lit well. A sigh escaped Jon as even the meager flame penetrated through his drowned flesh, hovering over the flame.
The fire was not strong, but even that faint light helped to reveal the parameters of his new surroundings. The grotto around him was smooth, damp stone of many hues. Stone stalactites dangled from the roof, and in the distance, the pool of water shuddered and rippled with the force of the waterfall.
"... How far did I fall…?" Jon murmured. He reached out ardently to stroke a brighter streak of the wall - and did a double-take, as his fingers traced smooth wood. The streak was not stone, but Weirwood roots, burrowed through the impenetrable rock.
He marvelled at the thought of trees so old their roots could crack the bedrock, then quickly began shaving off chunks of the wood as best his numb hands could. Only once the flames had greedily taken their fill, and after he had huddled by the fire long enough that his shivers subsided and the flames dipped low, did he open his pack.
It took him little time to fish out the resin-soaked rag bundle from their waterproofed leather pouch and tie them to the one portion of the bow he had preserved, but the torch lit, and the shadows of the tunnels fled. With a wry grin, he stuffed his only-mildly-dried clothing into the pack.
“No point in modesty down here amongst the moles.” he remarked to himself, out loud. “I can tell clear as day that I am not in my right mind now, to consider this… but I can’t find it in me to care.” he slung the pack over his shoulders and set off down a snaking tunnel, naked as the day he was born.
I’m feeling remarkably confident for a man who is likely to starve to death before he finds a likely-nonexistent path to the surface. Jon thought to himself, as he swung the torch slowly across the path. Perhaps I’ll luck out, and I’ve found Gorne’s Way for the first time in three-thousand years. Or, more likely, I’ll end up like the rest of the Cave People who never found the sun again, and starve to death chewing on rocks.
But he continued on, nonetheless. It was well-known amongst the Free Folk that the lands beyond the Wall were riddled with natural caverns and tunnels that extended far and wide. A pair of former Kings Beyond the Wall, the brothers Gendel and Gorne, had even led a wildling army from one side of the Wall to the other through the caves. The Free Folk claimed that when Gorne died in the invasion against the North, Gendel led his people back underground, but could not find his way out without his brother. The Cave People, at least those who found their way to the surface, claimed descent from those who were lost.
Nobody says out loud what the Cave People must have done to survive three-thousand years in the dark. But everybody thinks it. And everybody hates them for it, the way they hate the Ice-Rivers. Jon didn’t even want to think of the other rumors he’d heard of them, of the dark gods they supposedly worshipped. With the Red God carved into his chest, those rumors might even be true.
If he was trapped down here for too long, he might begin to pray to one of them himself.
The cave tunnel, mercifully, did not turn into a dead end, and perhaps more importantly did not narrow to the point where the fire would snuff itself due to lack of air. That was a danger Jon only realized was present after an hour of walking, when he was lighting a second torch- if the air was stale enough underground, the fire could devour the air he himself needed, and he would suffocate long before he starved.
Yet another danger I should have immediately recognized. This curse of suicidal foolishness is an insidious thing.
It gave Jon hope, though - it meant that no matter how far away it was, there was an exit. Somewhere in there, a place with enough exposure to the surface existed to create a cross-draft with the waterfall churning the air. He just needed to find it, before he starved to death.
It had been hours - or perhaps only minutes, for time had little meaning down where the light never shone - since he had eaten his last package of food, the bread sodden and crumbling, the honey runny from dilution. If he needed sustenance in the future, he would have to start with the leather from his boots.
Some nondescript amount of time later, walking through the surprisingly spacious tunnels of twisting stone, the first change in scenery appeared in the form of a fork. To the left, a gradually narrowing path that grew more and more claustrophobically small - the light from his weirwood torch did not carry that far, but if he had to guess the narrowing would force him to crawl. To the right, a large, open path, with the sound of moving water if he strained his ears.
Jon licked his lips, suddenly parched, and started towards the rightward path-
A shining glint caught the corner of his eye, and he turned in an instant out of fighting instinct. But there was no blade in the dark lunging for him. Not even a figure. Jon narrowed his eyes, and slowly stepped forward, bringing his torch down to the ground, and examined his find. A single night-black stone, out of place with the grey rock around him - he would never have seen it without the glistening edge hewn in rough chunks reflecting against the torch.
Jon slowly picked up the stone - more like molded rectangle, really - and gently pressed the single edge against his forearm. The pressure stung lightly, and a pinprick of blood welled along the touch. “Obsidian.” Jon whispered, eyes narrowed. “Only that stone holds an edge finer than steel.” The edge had been knapped to deadly sharpness, as he had seen some wilder men of the Free Folk do. It wasn’t shaped like a dagger, though, nor any other weapon he knew of. And it had fallen in the shadow of the leftward tunnel.
Jon sneered, before slinging his pack off his naked shoulders. He knew his course now - he would simply have to somehow come back for his pack and clothes once he knew who, or what, was on the other side. He doused the torch, sunk to his knees, and began to crawl.
The crawling tunnel did not end after several feet, Jon found with a growing sense of horror. Indeed, it continued on and on for what felt like eons. Only Dark Sister, clumsily held out in front of him like a dowsing rod as proof he was not crawling to a dead end, kept him from descending into a gibbering bundle of fear.
Old Gods and New, I did it again - I knew to watch for the foolhardy move and still fell for it. I could hear the water down the other path, but I took this suicidal path without a moment’s caution.
The Raven has ruined me.
But onward he crawled, for there was no easy way to turn back other than to move in reverse. He would either be free, or he would die like a rat.
After what felt like weeks, but could logically only have been a few hours, the scabbard of Dark Sister swung out into the pitch black and hit nothing at all, not even the walls he was expecting. The Northern man felt his heart leap into his chest- he angled the tool upwards, and hit no ceiling. A ragged gasp escaped his throat, and he scrambled forward. The crawlhole had come to an end. He had made it out.
Jon tried to push himself up, but fell instead to his knees, hands clasped together around the hilt. “Thank you… thank you…” he sobbed. “Never again… Any gods who are listening, Old or New... “ He stumbled, coughing. “Red God… R’hllor… don’t let me do that again. Whoever is listening… please, cure me of the Raven’s curse, so that I never do that again.”
He laid there for a while, until his breathing steadied, and then pushed himself back to standing. The cave was a stygian black, as expected, but Jon’s eyes had adapted slightly, just enough to intuit the walls. Slowly, carefully, he made his way down the path, Dark Sister’s scabbard tapping a staccato pattern against the floor to guide his way.
He could not have taken more than a few sharp turns in the cave before a brief flash of color broke the monotony, a scant flash of orange. Jon stopped, lifting the blade from the floor. Did I imagine that? Or was that a torch? Slowly, and silently, he drew Dark Sister from it’s sheath, and settled it in his hand. Stepping lightly on the balls of his feet, he inched around to the corner of the wall, where a sharp 90-degree angled hid him from the other side. No light shone from the other side… but if he stilled his breathing, and strained his ears, he could hear a quiet inhale and exhale of breath.
“HAAAH!!” Jon shouted, whirling around the hidden edge, Dark Sister brandished expertly in front of him. A form in the dark flailed in surprise, before a narrow shape flicked up. The figure charged, shouting something nameless, and the narrow thing swung low at his belly. Jon expertly deflected it away, a sound of metal on stone ringing in the cave. Another swing at his knees, easily blocked. The figure stumbled, and with an easy flick, the Valyrian Steel was it it’s neck.
A second voice shouted out, and suddenly, the cave was illuminated to brightly Jon was blinded, stumbling back clutching his eyes. A gasp.
“Flesh-man!”
Even blinded, Jon’s brain stumbled. The words sounded like the Old Tongue, but… devolved. Almost Mag Nuk-like. If he had no experience with the Giant’s tongue, he might not have understood.
“Flesh-man, not green-babe!” a second voice shouted - this one a female, to the first’s manly timbre.
The ache in Jon’s eyes lowered, just enough for him to take his hands away from his face. Two figures stood in front of him, one a man in a strange amalgam of pale barkskin and stone sheets, the woman naked from the waist up with only a similar kilt of bark and stone protecting her nethers from view. If Jon hadn’t been a married man for well over a decade, his face might have flushed scarlet; instead, his eyes went to the man’s brandished weapon.
It was a strange thing, a long thin plank of weirwood, clearly worked by mortal hands to taper to a grip and widen to a oblong top. All along the two edges were the same sharpened obsidian squares, melded into the wood close enough to each other that if it weren’t for the uneven knapping it would be difficult to tell the seams between them. On the flat sides of the weirwood, intricate patterns were carved, with the greatest appearing to be a gruesome, dagger-toothed face.
An unusual, primitive weapon… but likely the closest thing he had seen a Wildling forge to the deadliness of a Southern blade. With how sharp he knew an obsidian edge could be, it would likely pass straight through his leather armor and-
Jon felt his heart stop. He wasn’t wearing his leather armor. He wasn’t wearing anything at all.
I want to crawl into a hole and die, but I’ve already done the first and am about to do the second.
A flash of anger burst through Jon’s mortification. He didn’t want to die like this. Not here, not now. He would fight, and survive, and-
The cave-man let out a sharp hissing noise, and Jon realized he had lifted Dark Sister back to a fighting stance without him even noticing. He clenched his jaw; he tasted blood as the inside of his cheek tore open. Remember - my first instincts cannot be trusted.
Slowly, haltingly, he lowered the naked blade back down to his hips, and then he slowly knelt down, to lay the weapon on the ground. “I…” he began, as his voice cracked; with an afterthought, he angled his leg to hide his nakedness. “I am not your enemy. I ask for hospitality.”
The woman’s brow furrowed, and the man mimed out his words. “Hoh-Speh-Tah-Lah-Teh.”
“I…” Jon scowled, and switched from Forest, to Mag Nuk. “I am a guest. I ask bread and salt.”
“Breddansat!” the woman exclaimed, eyes wide. “Yes-yes, we give-offer!”
“No!” shouted the man, lifting a hand to the woman. “Not yet.” he turned back to Jon, who he had not lowered his Weirwood and Obsidian sword from. “Attacked by green-babes? Dark-mad, you were?”
“I…” Jon hesitated. “Have lost for long day. Fall from high place to dark. Hunger. Cold.”
“Fall?” the man stepped closer to him; Now, Jon could see his hair was bleached pale, his skin as white as untouched snow, and his eyes a pale pink, with the woman of a similar coloration. Albinos. “No place to fall-trip. Hurt-bump head no reason for bare skin.”
“No, no.” Replied Jon, gritting his teeth. The constraints of Mag Nuk were wearing at him. Trying to explain himself in almost entirely monosyllabic words was hard even without the strange rhythmic repetition of the Cave Dweller’s tongue. Perhaps imitation would work better. “Fall. From Tall-Sky to below-down. Push-Tripped by - by green-man. Three-Eyed Raven, king of green-babes.”
The two Cave Dwellers went quiet - the topless woman holding the torch was staring at him with eyes as wide as dinner plates. The man, after a moment, lowered the weapon to his side and stepped forward with his free hand reaching to Jon’s face. The Northerner moved to place the scabbard of Dark Sister between them, but the hand snapped forward and gripped a lock of his dark, curly hair. “You sky-touched.” the Cave Dweller breathed, breaking apart the lock with a gentle roll of his thumb and forefinger. “Like Gendel and Gorne. Like Gan.”
“Bring-take to wise man.” said the woman, more insistently. “Breddansat. Gift for stone-guest, yes-yes.”
The man remained quiet for a moment, and then smiled widely. Jon noticed, with a perfunctory intellectual alarm, that the Cave Dweller’s teeth had all been filed to sharp daggers. “Follow-come. Stone-path no place for lone flesh-man. That when Green-babes or dark-mad come. Pale-Root safe, yes-yes.”
They turned away and began to walk, and even as a knot began to twist inside Jon’s guts, he followed them anyways. I suppose I’m going to learn now whether the Cave Dwellers were universally despised for a reason.
The path that the two Cave Dwellers seemed to twist and turn through endless tunnels, following signs only they could perceive, until at last the echoing sounds of other men began to be heard. The three were greeted by another Cave Dweller, yet again an albino with dagger-like teeth but closer to Jon’s age than the two adults that found him. The adults began to bark out words in their dialect of the Old Tongue that was indistinguishable to Jon - just when he thought he was beginning to grasp the tempo, the sentences blurred, and understanding fled him.
The man’s name was Mar, he thought, and the woman Vi. Within the first minutes of touching the settlement, the boy had run off, and returned with a kilt of bound wooden strands and scales of dull stone; Jon accepted the clothing, meager as it was, with both embarrassment and gratitude.
Through the cavern, he counted somewhere close to three dozen men, women and children. One was scraping in hard dirt, harvesting what looked like mushrooms into a stone bowl; another older man was knapping a hunk of obsidian to an edge.
Eventually, Jon was brought to a wide, round cavern, with a dark hole filled with spikes of weirwood stacked as a small fire pit. He sat down, as directed, next to the unlit wood, and waited as they left with the only light. From his left, a loud thump of wood against stone rang out.
“Greet-welcome, flesh-man.” said another voice, deeper and softer. Footsteps stepped softly around him, and a heavy sheaf of what felt like stone was placed on his knees. “Breddansat. Gorge-eat.”
“I…” Jon licked his lips, inexplicably parched. “I have no light to see.”
“Did King-kin have light? No-No, sky-touched. Gendel had dark-dark, and tears. Now, we honor with dark-dark, and tears. Eat breddansat, sky-touched, and cry.”
Slowly, Jon reached out his hand to the face of the stone, groping blindly against the flat surface until his fingers brushed against a moist, pliant surface. He gingerly lifted the morsel up, hesitated for only a moment, and popped it into his mouth. It was tough, and rubbery, and took far too long to gnash apart with his teeth. It was only after he had finally swallowed the last piece that he had a stray thought. Where did they get the meat?
The stone tablet lifted away, and a strike of stone on flint rang out. The weirwood kindling lit, from another man, revealing the one who sat in front of him. Immediately, Jon could see the difference - this man was old and wrinkled, but more importantly, his eyes were missing, staring at Jon at an off-center angle with empty sockets. Across the bridge of his nose, a single clean, pale scar traced from one temple to the other.
“Your eyes…!” Jon said, without thinking.
The old albino chuckled, low and rumbly. “Where we go, not need eyes to see .” his lips peeled back in a smile - his sharpened dagger-like teeth were worn down to round, yellow nubs.
Jon, suddenly unnerved, quickly looked around. The cavern had many signs of heavy use, but the details slid off as he focused on a pathway deeper in, guarded by two Cave Dwellers armed with what looked like wooden atlatls, with stone darts. They stared at him, with their albino-red eyes, and bared their teeth.
“You move-come to Pale-Root at strange time, Sky-touched.”
“Jon.”
The old man nodded, his nubby teeth revealing themselves again. “Jon. good name. I before-once had name. Give to the dark-dark. Give to Her. With this.” he traced his pointer finger across the scar on his nose. “Now, I wise man. Now, I See.”
A queer chill settled in Jon’s gut. The man was a woods-witch, or whatever passed for that among the Cave Dwellers. A younger man might have laughed off the unsubtle hints at higher connections with whatever goddess they were worshipping. Not now, though.
“Mar-Vi-both say-speak you fall-trip after a fight-attack.” the Wise Man continued, cocking his head. “Fight-attack the king of the green-babes, then fall-trip from the sky to the dark.”
“Yes-yes.” Jon nodded, stifling his unease. “I... “ his lips twisted, thinking carefully on his words. “I look-seek a return above. Cannot stay in the dark-dark. Must save clan from… from Others. Cold Gods. Dead-but-walking.”
The Wise Man leaned back, his empty eye sockets fully exposed in the firelight. “Dead-but-walking? Not true. Sky is not cursed so, no-no. You trick-lie.”
“It is true. And many more threats as well. I must save my clan. Only I can. Only I know. Three-Eyed Raven, King of green-babes only one threat.”
The Wise Man fell silent. “... Mar-Vi-both not say who King of the green-babes was.” he said, after a long silence. “Raven is known to me, yes-yes. Dark name.”
Jon remained silent.
“Green-babes come to our stone-paths. Flee the Raven, they do, yes-yes. They bring new king of green-babes with. They attack-kill.” the Wise Man leans in, snarling softly. “They take Gan.”
Jon could feel the leather on the hilt of Dark Sister creak under his tight grip. “Who is Gan?”
“Blessed child. Sky-touched, but not from sky. Gift from Her.” the Wise Man answered. “Sign that she will show-mark the way Home. we have cried long time, made peace with King-Kin’s faults. When Gan born, we knew-knew we were forgiven. We were ready, yes-yes.”
The Wise Man struck the stone underneath him with his fist. “Then THEY attacked. Green-babes. They took-stole him. Took-stole new-babe Gan. Never find our way home. Now, we hunt-track. Find them, we will, and take-steal back Gan.”
Jon nodded. “I wish you luck. Where is the way out? Back to sky?”
“Sky?” the Shaman let out a wheezing chuckle. “You not hear what I say? Not way out. Not until She show-mark the way. You stay-live with us now, yes-yes.”
Jon’s eyes slowly narrowed. The blade of Dark Sister lifted from the ground-
He stopped himself, after barely moving an inch. No. No. I am in control. Not the raven. Not his curse. I am in control, and he is not lying to me. I only think he is.
“There is way out.” Jon said, firmly. “Air go bad with no way out, all choke to death. Air come from Three-Eyed Raven cave one way - must go-leave other way.”
The Wise Man stared at him, unblinking, for a long moment that seemed to drag on. At last, he giggled, an old man’s laugh. “You have mind of wise man for young boy. Good-good. There must be way out, he says. We know. Secret. She hides the way Home.”
“Who is ‘She’?”
The Wise Man grunted. “Not Secret for you, sky-touched. Not for you. Only secret for Wise Men, and Gan.”
Jon felt an urge rise up in him - first, to leap up and strike the Wise Man until he spoke sense and in proper Common Tongue. The second, to bash his head against the stone walls until he passed out screaming, and hoped he woke up in Winterfell again like this was nothing but a bad dream.
Then, as Jon gripped the exposed flesh of his thigh with his free hand hard enough to dig his nails into the skin, a third idea came. “Where is Gan?”
“What?” The Wise Man blinked, reflexively.
“Where is Gan. Where Green-babes took him.” Jon replied. “What stone-path?”
A moment of silence, before the Wise Man giggled again, slapping the stone ground. “Yes-yes, Sky-touched! Gift from Sky, to bring-take Her gift back! Bring-take Gan back, and She shows secret. You very young Wise Man, yes-yes!”
He leaned forward, as the embers of the camp fire dwindled. “Seek-find the pools. Search-look there - one man dead there. Tok, father of Gan. too few men-boys, no-no - we not chase. One dead, bad-bad. Many-much? Doom.” he grinned, an eerie thing. “Could be dark-mad, men who heard-saw Her name and run to death. Could be green-babes. Could be Gan. Seek-find the pools.”
Jon pushed himself to his feet, his weirwood-twine and stone-sheaf skirt clattering about him. “I will bring Gan home.”
Though they had given Jon a torch as he left their ‘village’, with strange undulating blessings, he left it unlit and looped it through his ‘belt’. Slowly, his eyes adjusted back to the stifling dark of the caverns, making his way through the twisted mass of tunnels that he had been directed down.
The tap-tap-tap of Dark Sister’s sheath against the ground rang out as a guide-stick, echoing against the silence of lifeless stone. It was quiet, Jon thought to himself, down in the dark where not even the worms lived. Not even the heights of the Wall, or the deepest nights of the Long Night, were ever so silent, or as oppressive in their silence.
Dark-mad, the Wise Man said… I can see a man going insane, trapped down here.
A nondescript sound stopped Jon in his tracks. It was far away, with how muddled it was, but he could hear it through the nothingness just the same. Slowly, he drew the Valyrian shortsword form it’s sheath and padded forward on silent bare feet. The tunnel narrowed, and widened, and narrowed again so tightly he had to slide sideways through it, but the sound continued - a repetitive drop of water against a larger body, he could tell now.
He rounded the corner, and his blown-wide grey eyes saw the rough outline of a number of water pools, of various sizes. There was no fresh source of water nearby, not like the waterfall from the underground river with the Three-Eyed Raven; instead, they seemed to have formed from groundwater from the roof, more porous than first assumed.
Jon licked his lips. The Pools, he knew, meant he was close to where they had last lost the trail for Gan, but seeing the open water reminded him of a growing thirst in him. He crouched down, laid Dark Sister by his side to cup his hands full of water, and brought it to his lips-
The handprint was glowing, in the all-encompassing dark, and in the singular light, a pair of blood-red eyes reflected like a cat’s. Jon whirled-
“MIIIIIINE!!” an inhumanly loud voice screeched, and a body barreled into his side. “MINE-MINE! ONLY MINE! SHE-SHE GAAAAAAVE!”
Razor-sharp talons tore at Jon’s arm, which had whipped up instinctually at the attack to block the tackle. Jon grunted in pain, before hooking his free arm out into a punch; the assailant grabbed it by the wrist and slammed it down, it’s strength belying it’s reed-thin frame. “YES-YES! MINE!” it screeched, and it’s yellowed teeth snapped out at the offending arm.
Jon growled, wordlessly, reaching for an instant at the fallen weapon, but the thing held him in place. “MINE-MINE!” it howled, and tried to bite his face, instead. The two struggled against each other, neither able to progress against the other -
Jon let out a curse, pulled the thing forward, and slammed his forehead into the attacker’s nose. It screeched, and recoiled in pain, loosening it’s grip on his right arm just enough for Jon to reach out, grab Dark Sister, and slam it’s jagged flame-wave hilt into the creature’s eye.
“AAAAAAAAAAGH!” Now the thing screamed in pain, losing it’s grip entirely as it’s arms went to the gouged eye. It only took Jon a second more to readjust the angle of his grip, and pierce through its throat all the way to the crossguard. The screamer choked, spat out a gout of black blood onto Jon, and fell limp.
Breathing heavily from the exertion, Jon rolled the corpse off of his chest, pulling himself unsteadily to his feet. With a slight struggle with the flint, the unlit torch hanging from his belt was lit, and his attacker was made clear.
It was one of the Cave Dwellers, but in a more degenerate form than any he had seen yet. It’s single intact eye was entirely blood-red and without sclera, with heavy scarification as if it had attempted to gouge them both out with it’s own terrifying elongated and sharpened fingernails. It’s limbs and chest were shrunken and emaciated from hunger, it’s biceps nearly smaller than Jon’s pointer and middle fingers pressed together, though a grotesque potbelly bulged outwards as if recently gorged on something as big as itself.
Dark-mad, a quiet voice in Jon whispered. This is what they mean by Dark-mad. Did this thing come from Pale-Root… or did it come from somewhere else?
A shaking hand traced over his body, and with a relief Jon found that aside from the lightly bleeding cuts on his arm, he was unscathed. If he hadn’t had Dark Sister within reach, or if the light of the Handprint had not revealed his ambusher, perhaps it would have turned out differently.
You tried to have me killed once more, Raven. But this time, your own ploy worked against you.
Cautiously, Jon reached down and closed the single eye. The death rictus of it’s face was unnerving enough without it staring; the jagged, shark-like teeth were even more prominent, as if the Dark-Mad’s jaw was growing to outsized proportions to it’s skull. After another moment of thought, he quickly readjusted the lay of the corpse, leaning against the wall instead of in danger of falling into the pools to foul the water.
A queer chill took him, then. A wordless prayer to all the gods, Old, New and Other, came to his lips - both for the dead man, and himself. Don’t let me die down here like he did. Let me see the sun once more. I will pay the price you see fit.
Just let me see the sun again.
Jon was not precisely sure when it was that he began to get the inkling that he was getting close. Something in his muddled instincts, and not his higher mind, was perhaps catching signs in the flickering torchlight. It wasn’t until he saw the half-harvested mushrooms, though, that he knew without a doubt that something lived nearby.
They’re close, Jon thought, his hand absently itching at a persistent irritant in his scalp. With his other hand, he slowly set the torch down on the ground - he didn’t really have an effective way of dousing it, so he would simply have to come back for it.
With Dark Sister’s steel bared, he stepped slower, more quietly. The jangle of the thin stone slabs that pretended to be ‘clothing’ went away, and the only sound Jon heard from then on was the sound of his heartbeat in his ears, and his own stifled breath.
The oppressive dark served another, useful purpose as well, as he crept along. After an indiscernible amount of time, the Handprint throbbed a sickly blue-green light, and Jon stopped dead, frozen in his tracks. The curse is trying to hide something from me. His higher thinking shut down, his attention focused instead on straining his senses to the brink-
A soft, nearly invisible puff of wind brushed along the hairs of his arm.
Slowly, Jon raised his hand, trailing it through the air, to catch the wind by its tail. His fingers twirled, stroking outwards with calm, deliberate movements, following it back to the source - a seam in the stone wall, nearly invisible even with Jon staring right at it.
Jon smiled viciously, and pulled at the seam with all his strength. The wall shifted, with a shower of finely-powdered gravel, and slid on a hidden groove. “Even in a place as devolved as this, there are secrets.” he muttered, before creeping forward once more.
It did not take long before the echoes of life began to reach him. Jon quickly pressed his back against a sheer stone wall, and silently exhaled a shaky breath. He raised the blade of Dark Sister into the air -
The sound of conversation ended.
Jon didn’t even hesitate; he knew he had been discovered. With a loud battle cry, he whirled around the edge of the wall and charged into the cavern. Dark Sister snapped forward with a keening note, and was met with a ringing clash of steel against obsidian, and yellow cat-slit eyes staring at him from the darkness.
Here, Jon could trust his instincts. Here, his body and soul would not try to betray him.
The Valyrian shortsword sang as it was swung, clashing against two, three, four different opposing weapons seeking his life in that sunless place. They screamed something at him in their primordial tongue, and a spear slipped past his guard to slash at his side, opening a thin gouge along his obliques.
Jon hissed in pain, but attempted to clamp his arm around the spear as before; this one seemed wise to the trick, though, and dropped it downwards instead of trying to retract it. He was forced back, and back, and back again, until the heel of his foot stamped against the halfway-rolled secret wall.
A flash of martial inspiration took him, and with a furious roar, he turned his back on the Children, and instead leaped at the stone wall, before kicking off of it upwards and outwards with all of his strength. He soared over the pointed spears, landing clumsily as his ankle rolled with the impact - but the backs of his assailants were exposed, and with yet another furious shout swung the legendary blade in a wide arc. Four heads dropped to the ground, and four bodies slumped lifelessly after them.
He stood there, panting for a moment as the burning adrenaline numbed the spear wound and the likely-sprained ankle. That was unbelievable. He thought to himself, as that singularly annoying itch in his scalp remained as strong as ever. A momentary roll of his jaw, and he started running as fast as his ankle would let him. You’re not far now, Gan.
The Handprint throbbed, just as he rounded the corner; his eyes widened. What!? What could I possibly be missi-
His world went white with pain as something as thick around as a mammoth’s trunk slammed into his back. Jon went sprawling face-first, slamming his forehead against another stone wall. The sound of wordless whimpering and crying was only vaguely audible through the ringing in his ears.
Face-down on the ground, he could not resist a thick, rough rope-like appendage wrapping around his wrists and binding them together behind him, yanking him upwards with a scream of protest from his shoulders. Dazed, Jon could only see what almost looked like a pale figure, standing in a singular ray of pale sunlight. The itch in his scalp was undeniable, and the handprint pulsed rhythmically.
A soft voice, like snow over a mountaintop, spoke to him. Another, higher-pitched voice merely sobbed. The figure stepped forward out of the sunbeam, and as Jon’s vision cleared, he could see it for what it was - a Child of the Forest, but with skin as pale as a cloud, and eyes of ruby red. It was small, even compared to the rest of its kin, and a streak of blood was flowing freely from its dainty nose.
It spoke again, in that primordial tongue that sounded more like nature than speech, and Jon flung angry jumbled explicatives at it in return. It gestured with its four-fingered hand, and his arms were yanked further back - now, jon could see it was not a rope that was holding him, but a weirwood root, prehensile as a snake.
But that’s - the thought stilled, as he suddenly became acutely aware of the itched in his scalp once more. A Greenseer. A Child Greenseer. That is what it was hiding from me - but even then, I would not have known it was capable of this.
“Why do you refuse to acknowledge me, Lord of Unbound Flame?” asked the Red-Eyed Child, this time in the Forest Tongue. “Though I am unrooted, you think me so little I cannot dispel your mortal form?”
“Didn’t understand… a fucking word… you said.”
“I see your fire, Lord of Unbound Flame. You know the True Tongue as I do.” the Red-Eyed Child replied, before swaying slightly on its feet. A body raced out from the shadow and latched onto the thing’s side. Jon’s eyes widened as they refocused, and a pale, dark-haired and grey-eyed boy who could not have been five years old looped the Red-Eyed Child’s arm around his neck.
“Bless you, gentle one.” the Red-Eyed Child whispered, only barely loud enough to hear it.
“You…” said Jon, half a moan from pain. “You’re Gan. but… they said you were a newborn…”
“... You come from them?” the Red-Eyed Child said. Its eyes narrowed, and it crooked a finger; the root binding his arms twisted his wrists further, and pain shot through his arms until Dark Sister clattered to the ground. “How is it you cannot see, for one as divine as you? You who burn with -”
Gan said something, in a mumbled voice. The Red-Eyed Child stopped; it’s cat-like pupils blew wide. “... No. It cannot be…” it unlooped its arm from Gan’s neck, and with slow staggering steps, as if it was unused to walking upright, toddled to Jon. It brushed its four-fingered hand across his forehead; Jon immediately snapped his teeth out, barely missing as it was retracted. “... Who are you?” the Child said, with a hint of fear and awe.
“I’m the man who’s decided the Raven’s not the only Greenseer who needs to die.” Jon snarled, wriggling against his tight bonds.
The Red-Eyed Child stilled. “... The Raven is dead?” it asked.
“And you’re next, unless you return that boy.”
The Red-Eyed Child stared at jon with wide, unblinking eyes. “... Then the tormentor of my people is dead.” it replied, after a time. “Along with our future. The last notes of our song will fade away, down here among the shadows.”
It stared at Jon once more. “... Unless. That mark.” it raised a black-taloned finger, pointing at the crook of his neck, where the Handprint resided. “Who gave that to you?”
“The Raven did.” Jon sneered. “Before he died.”
The Red-Eyed Child’s eyes widened even further. “But that is not…” it stopped. The thing’s arm dropped limply back down, and it closed its eyes. “... I see.” it whispered. “I do not understand, but I see.”
It’s fingers curled into a weak fist. “Can it be that it does not matter what happens now? How liberating, to know that the song of the earth will continue to be sung after all, no matter my fate today.” slowly, gingerly, it lowered itself to its knees.
“How many times have you been reborn, oh Prince Who Was Promised?”
The words struck with all the force of a scorpion bolt to the gut; Jon forgot how to breathe.
The Red-Eyed Child smiled, a happy thing, even as bloody tears began to form in its eyes. “You know what I speak of, then; I was right after all. The turning of the eons has finally come.”
“H-How…”
“The magic upon your neck distorting your soul came from the dying hatred of a powerful Greenseer, to distort your mind, remove all self-preservation and drive you forward with furious abandon, to a quick and easily avoided death. All manner of unforced errors and reckless energy compels you. And that curse was laid on a day that has not yet come to pass.” the Red-Eyed Child said. “It can only be lain by one betrayed by their own blood. The Raven had taken a man of the Dragon’s Blood, the day I was born…”
Jon felt an ugly scowl crossed his face, he said nothing, but bit his tongue until pain came, and a slight taste of blood filled his mouth.
“You did not come here to end me; your true cause is higher than that.” said the Red-Eyed Child. “But you must know this, and know it well. When they succeed in their dark workings, and break open the Labyrinth, you must not fear for any left behind. We are already doomed; only the ruination of the cornerstone matters. You must rush in the place they have foolishly unlocked, and do not stop for anything until you find the first way out. Then, you will be free.”
“What in the seven hells are you talking-”
The Red-Eyed Child’s hand snapped out and grabbed Jon by the throat, and his world went white with pain. The Handprint SCREAMED, and an echoing, wordless howl of fury in Brynden Rivers’ voice echoed in the cavern.
Then the Greenseer pulled its hand away, and Jon went limp in the grasp of the knotted tree root. A moment after, even that fell away as the root unbound his hands, and he flopped belly-first to the stone. A low wheezing groan of pain escaped him as he weakly adjusted his head to still stare upwards.
The Red-Eyed Child was lying on its backside where it had fallen, blood streaming from all facial orifices, and a glowing five-fingered handprints pulsed with a sickly blue-green light. “How…?” The Red-Eyed Child gasped. “How did you make it here, with such power ruining you…?”
“NO!” a voice shouted. Gan ran as fast as his small stubby legs could carry him to the Child’s side. “No, no! This is bad! You said bleeding is bad! You need to sleep now!”
“Oh… oh, little son of Man…” the Red-Eyed Child whimpered, wrapping an arm around the boy’s waist and pulling him into an embrace. “Thank you, but it no longer matters. What matters now, is that you be brave. We have protected you for many years, and now it is time for you to protect him. Do you understand?”
“I don’t understand!” Gan protested, childish tears welling in his eyes. “You need to stop bleeding! Where are the others? I want the others!”
“Then I will help you be brave, Gan.” Said the Red-Eyed Child. “I can hear your people coming, so you must be brave. It will be alright.” the creature pushed itself shakily to its feet, and looked to Jon, whose eyes were already clouding from pain. “I have absolved your sin, oh Prince, and taken it from you. No more will the Mark of the Kinslayer haunt you.
“... What…?”
“And in return, I ask only one thing.” the Red-Eyed Child smiled, sadly. “When you are reborn once more, come and save us from this place. Give me a chance to let my people live, and your debt to me will be paid.”
“... Why…? I don’t understand…”
“Because I do not believe you are an evil Man, oh Prince. One day, I think, you will save us all.”
A wordless shout of battle echoed out from the entrance to the cave, and a stone dart as thick around as the Red-Eyed Child’s arm punctured it’s chest. The Greenseer’s body was blown backwards, rolling to a halt as Gan began to scream. The last Jon saw before unconsciousness took him was the albino-pale legs of a man in a stone-sheaf skirt.
Jon Snow awoke with a panicked gasp, chest heaving as wordless chanting and shrieks echoed around him. A low drum was thumping, setting the stone about him to shivering, and Jon could neither move his arms from behind his back nor feel the weight of Dark Sister on his person.
“It is done-done!” a familiar voice shouted. Jon attempted to roll onto his back, but a foot slammed into his back, keeping him belly-down and able to only turn his head, to see the feet of his captors. “Gan has been stolen-taken back!” the Wise Man exclaimed, and a new cacophany of noise from the assembled tribe deafened him.
… how did I not see this coming. Jon thought, a sudden chill clarity taking him. A clarity he hadn’t felt in weeks. Everybody hated the Cave Dwellers not just for their worship of dark gods, and their evil acts in the shadows, but for their deceitful and perfidious natures - they will not keep their word to any are not of their tribe unless forced. But I forgot that. I forgot ALL of that. I was MADE to forget all of that.
The Wise Man chanted something else In that chattering tongue, too quickly to understand, but Jon instead wriggled against his bonds and the foot on his back to give himself a better view than a sea of feet. There were at least two-score people gathered in the cavern, all the Cave Dweller coloring, and all facing towards the direction the Wise Man spoke.
Jon could see him, now, and the sight chilled his blood. The blind man stood next to an altar, jet-black and weeping with an oily substance over incomprehensible, eldritch carved symbols. The stone wall above it had shattered apart from a thicket of weirwood roots, twining about each other as it grew until it reached the blackstone altar, wrapping over and about it as if to strangle it. Rust-brown stains covered the altar, in strange patterns, that the Northerner could tell in a moment was old blood.
Gan was there, laid upon the groove of the altar, hands bound and still. Too still, for how panicked he was when we were captured , Jon thought.
“The King-Kin stuck-trapped us here! Tried to bring us home, failed!” The Wise Man shouted, eyeless sockets flickering black and terrible. “Did not know that home was far! But SHE showed us home! She of chasms and stone-paths, and the Down! She showed-taught, that to go UP, we take the DOWN!”
The gathering shouted their approval.
“Madmen…” Jon whispered, a growing horror in his voice.
“We take the DOWN, to find-see our true-real home. Find our clan, of ancient K’dath, where no man is king!”
The Wise Man lifted a finely-wrought obsidian knife, its edge glistening with a heretic sheen in the torchlight. Jon knew, then, what they had wanted Gan for, and wrestled fiercely against his bonds. “NO! YOU DARE!?”
“Quiet!”
A foot kicked him in the back of the head, setting his world ringing.
“Now we have-own the key! Let his sky-touched blood lead us to the down, and open the way!”
“Do not look away, oh Prince.”
Jon’s eyes widened for just a moment at the Forest tongue, before he arched his body to see the altar once more. Gan had turned his head to stare at Jon, and the small boy was crying bloody tears, and had lost all color but ruby red.
“Locate your blade, and be ready to flee.” Red-Eyed Gan continued, staring at him without pupils. “Do not be afraid of what they unleash, but plunge into the Labyrinth once this altar is desecrated, and find the first way out. You will know it, for none but the race of men can pass out. And remember what you see here. Remember what you fight.”
“NO!” Jon roared, slamming his chest into the ground hard enough to bounce him to his knees, before another foot lashed out to kick him to the ground. “NO! GAN!”
“I will be brave for the boy, oh Prince. I will be his strength, now.” said Red-Eyed Gan. “Only you can escape this doom.”
“PRAISE SHE OF THE DARK-LIT PATH! LET THE BELLS SCREAM-SCREAM!”
Red-Eyed Gan smiled, a weak and sad thing. “Don’t forget us when you wake.”
The Wise Man turned, and though he was blind brought the obsidian knife down in a single expert move, slashing the boy’s neck open in a spray of red.
Jon roared in fury, thrashing about against his bonds as even more hands were brought to hold him down. The entire event felt like a nightmare, a terrible confusing fever dream where nothing made sense and was meant only to torment. All he knew was that he wanted every Cave Dweller in this room dead where they stood for the deceit.
The Wise Man reverently laid the bloody knife to the side of the altar, and dipped his fingers into the blood of Gan, pooling in grooves in the altar to reveal eldritch patterns. He lifted the coated fingers high, and the chanting reached a fever pitch. “LET HER REVEAL THE SIGN!” he screamed. “LET HER REVEAL THE PATTERN!”
The room fell silent; an eerie stillness filled the air, as nobody except Jon, thrashing against his captors, seemed to even breathe. The Wise Man lowered his fingers slowly, reverently. He murmured something too quietly to hear, and as he dabbed the bloody finger to his chest, the crowd began to stamp their feet as one.
Jon stilled, at the sound. The Wise Man dragged his fingers with a strange, jerky energy, as if he himself was not certain of his actions. When the blood began to run dry, he lifted one hand away only for the other to pick up not a moment later, and redabbed itself in Gan’s blood.
So it continued, again and again, a frenetic cycle of arms and fingers, driven by the sound of flesh against stone. The pace began to increase, and as the tempo sped up, so did the painting. Jon could only stare, in horrified fascination, as a symbol began to emerge. He did not know the first portion, a tangle of curved lines and harsh angles daubed across withered pectorals, but the sign on the belly reminded him of nothing so much as a single closed eye.
The Wise Man threw his arms wide, and let out a primal scream, and the congregation matched it. The howl echoed across the stone, for a good minute, before it trailed off. The Wise Man stood there, chest heaving and covered in blood, with nothing but silence to meet him.
“Not enough.”
A woman gasped.
“Not enough!” the Wise Man moaned. “Is not enough, Stone-Path stay shut. Touch of sky too weak, touch of light. Touch of the Sun. The Sun! THE SUN! THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN!”
The madman’s raving ended as quickly as they started, staring with empty sockets at Jon, from across the room. “We have more.” he declared, voice a threatening monotone. “More blood. Blood that has touched-tasted the sun. better blood.”
Jon immediately began kicking and thrashing against all surrounding bodies, but a horde of hands piled onto him, and he could feel himself lift off the ground. “BASTARDS!” He shouted. “YOU GAVE ME BREAD AND SALT! OATHBREAKERS! I’LL KILL ALL OF YOU!”
His back slammed into a shallow pool of blood over hard stone, as the small corpse of Gan was unceremoniously tossed aside like leftover garbage. Even without the blood, the stone was oily and foul to his touch, and an unceasing fury built in his bones. The torches flared. The Wise Man picked up the obsidian knife once more.
“PRAISE SHE OF THE DARK-LIT PATH! LET THE BELLS SCREAM-SCREAM!”
The Wise Man swung the blade down, and Jon felt it touch his neck-
FIRE.
When Jon was next aware of himself, his sight was wreathed in flames, and screaming echoed through the stony underground. With slow movements he pushed himself upright, and part of him noticed in a detached way that the pool of blood he had been lying in was burning like oil.
He had not noticed until he saw it. All he had felt was a warm, soothing sensation. His hand went to gingerly touch his throat. The knife had pierced his skin by some small degree, and where blood flowed from within him, streaks of fire ignited. My blood is burning.
The gathering had broken, those without arms or weapons running about in mindless panic. Those who had weapons, such as the obsidian-edged clubs or dart launchers, were standing in wavering formation against him - trained to attack, but too afraid to be the first to move. The Wise Man, however…
The Wise Man was burning. Flailing about, coated in flames. His skin bubbled and cooked as whatever magic had come from Jon’s blood wreaked its havoc, but the symbols painted in Gan’s blood remained untouched - a recessed engraving in flesh and fire.
The Greenseer said to locate Dark Sister before I ran. A quiet voice whispered. A quick scan found it - a young albino off to the flanks, barely old enough to be called a man, holding it more poorly in stance than even the freshest recruit to the Night’s Watch.
“WHYYYYYYYYYYY!?” screamed the Wise Man. “WHYYYY, PNOTH!? WHYYYYYYYYYY!?”
The caves rumbled. Then shook. Behind Jon, a great cacophony shrieked of stone clashing against stone. An unearthly scream echoed -
Don’t look back. We are already doomed.
Jon lunged into the range of the one holding his sword. The boy reacted poorly, swinging upwards with the hilt instead of the blade. With skill born of practice, Jon punched downward into the boy’s elbows, then grabbed over the boy’s hands twisted them about. He didn’t even have time to scream before Dark Sister was shoved halfway to the hilt through his own throat, dying with a wet gurgle. Jon ripped the blade out, and noted with passing irritation that the scabbard was nowhere to be found-
Something tackled him from behind, throwing him to the ground. An inhuman voice bellowed in his ear, before pain erupted across his back as something began to tear. The howl turned to a scream with the sound of erupting flames, and the pressure left him; the attack was over in less than five seconds.
Gasping for breath, Jon pushed himself to his feet with a stumble. The world felt like a waking nightmare, a fever dream of terrifying atrocity.
The steady torchlight was gone, replaced with wild random shadows cast by out of control fires, and through the thrashing light a scene of horror revealed itself. The weirwood roots tangling about the Altar burned, and from the walls, all the streaks of white breaking apart the monotonous stone smouldered. The Altar itself, remarkably, crumbled before his eyes.
But the Altar was not the source of the horror - the gaping hole next to it was. An entire wall had simply disappeared, and from the yawning blackness that was not there before poured a multitude of terrible and twisted forms. Hunched over on human legs, skeleton-thin but for the wrinkled paunch, and a malformed canid-like cast to their expressions, the things were attacking, tearing, ripping flesh from the screaming Cave Dwellers with terrible ferocity.
The Wise Man was covered by three, as blood poured from his wounds, screaming the loudest of them all as he was devoured alive. The symbol on his belly had changed; now, the eye was open, with a pupil of thirteen-pointed stars, and it was moving , staring directly at Jon.
Do not look away.
Something inside him broke.
The world shuddered, and a dull pain spread through his chest.
Pain. I am in pain.
… I fell. I don’t know where, or how, but I fell.
A phantom sensation brushed across the side of his face - not a phantom. My fingers - his fingers reached underneath him and pushed himself upwards. The ground underneath him was smooth, and regimented, but he couldn’t see.
I can’t see. I can’t see the ground, or my fingers. Why can’t I see?
Because it is dark. It is so dark I cannot see. I don’t know where I am, and I cannot see.
Light flickered down his neck, a droplet of liquid fire dripping to the ground, revealing smooth, uniform grey stone. His free hand - his other hand was gripping a sword, he realized - went to his neck, and came away covered in flames that did not burn.
I am fire. I am light. I am truth. I am… I am…
Who am I?
A shard of panic pierced his heart. His chest felt too tight. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know my name. Who am I? I need to know who I am. I… I am…
“I am…” he spoke aloud, his voice hoarse, and the taste of blood filled his mouth. He realized he had been screaming - screaming so much he had destroyed his voice. He had been screaming-
“-ESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTH-”
“No.” He stated, raspy. “No. I am not.”
An inhuman shriek echoed from the dark. He looked up.
Find the first way out.
He lifted his glowing hand, and brought his hand to the sword. The sword was covered, from flame-coated pommel to deadly tip, in sticky red blood. His palm gently caressed the flat, and with a rush of air the edge ignited.
The burning sword revealed the boundaries of his surroundings - plain grey stone merging with seamless right angles to walls that soared up, up, up, higher than the tallest towers of the Red Keep with no hint of ceiling. Then he noticed his own body, covered in splattered red from head to toe without a stitch of clothing. The ground underneath him was a dried pool of blood; there was no sign of how he had arrived, even as his feet were leaving burning footprints.
He raised the sword of flames, his stumbling steps into the dark growing stronger and more steady. The stone about him was identical no matter where he looked, or how far he travelled; if his burning footprints did not mark the way he had moved, he might have thought he was not moving at all. He noted absently that the smoke rose from all sources not in long thin wisps, but in delicate bubbles, cloudy and vague.
Why am I walking?
Because I must find the first way out.
But why must I find the way out? Why not simply lay down, and quietly die?
Because I must…
I must what?
I must remember… why it is I fight.
And why is it that I fight?
I don’t remember. It was stolen by the fire.
He stepped forward, and felt his toes touch emptiness. With a start, he looked down and saw a yawning abyss. With a slow movement, he touched a finger to his slit throat, and let a flaming drop of blood fall from his finger. The light plunged down, and down, and down, until it was swallowed by the dark.
This is not normal, he realized with a groggy clarity. Wherever I came from before, this is not normal there. I do not belong here.
That is why I must find the first way out. I do not belong here, and someone depends on me.
Who?
I don’t remember. The fire took that from me.
From the dark, behind him, a roar with the fury and timbre of hunting horns reverberated across the walls. The fire he left behind with his steps began to die, swallowed by a thing with eyes too wide, and a mouth too big.
He stared at the dying light with wide unblinking eyes, slowly backing against the edge of the abyss.
Run.
How? There is nowhere left to go.
Who told you that?
I did.
But I know nothing.
That’s right. You know nothing. This is not a place to dwell in, but to pass through. Let the Labyrinth lead you out.
He turned around, and saw the edge of the abyss. A burning flower hung suspended in the air, spinning gently. The petals curled inward with flames burning green and blue and black, and across the chasm came the smell of the sea.
That’s right. I know the way out.
The fire gave that to me.
He stepped out into the abyss, and touched down on empty air as gently as stone; his steps burned ever brighter as he continued across the empty chasm without fear or frenzy. The thing chasing him charged, and lunged, but he did not turn back.
The thing screamed, and fell down, down, down, its fury swallowed by the dark. The dark changed, then - underneath his feet, a single, burning Eye the color of dead stars opened, and gazed upwards with hate.
He did not look down. Did not acknowledge the Eye. his feet stepped lightly onto the solid stone once more, and reached out. He gently took the rose in his fingers-
“What the FUCK!?”
He was not surrounded by the dark and the stone, anymore. Now, he was on a beach covered by snow and ice, and the ruins of wooden buildings.
He was not alone, either. A dozen men stood about him - dressed in dark leathers and bright furs, with long dyed beards trailing down to their chests. One of them had shouted in alarm, and whipped a crossbow to point at his face - a heartbeat later, a half-dozen more weapons joined it.
“What is this nonsense?” an authoritative voice shouted. “Do not linger about like some Lysene whore! Move! The fleshmarkets will only wait so long for us to capture more product!” He looked up to the source of the shouting voice to see a tall, many-sailed carrack only some feet from the shore, a wooden gangplank dropped to the ground. A man crested the railing of the ship, flamboyant thickly-padded robes accented by a long forked beard dyed purple and green.
The man stopped, clearly taken aback. “What in the gods’ name…?”
“He appeared not even a second ago, captain!” one of them shouted. “Hasn’t said a word, yet. We weren’t the ones who stripped him naked!”
“Stop looking at his cock, idiot!” The captain shouted back. “Look at that sword! See the pattern!”
A hushed silence fell.
“I don’t know what brand of northern madman you style yourself, sunsetlander,” said the captain, eyes glinting, “but that Valyrian steel in your fist is worth more than a thousand of your lives. I will be taking it for myself, boy - the only question is whether you’re alive or dead when I rip from you. Your choice.”
He blinked slowly, looking down at himself. An involuntary shudder passed through him; already, the cold was worming its way through him.
His fingers loosened, and the blade in his hand fell to the snow. A man behind him kicked his calves, and he fell to his knees as he was swarmed. Beyond the throng, the captain shouted. “Forget the rest of the hold! I have a greater prize now! Get that star worshipper out here to plot a course home, and break camp! We sail for Tyrosh with the tide! And throw that sunset madman in there with the rest of the slaves!”
Notes:
Hey there. Kept you waiting, huh?
I told y’all this was the arc where things start getting weird. Key word: START.
(For those of you who like it more mundane: Don't worry. There's plenty of low fantasy still in the cards, and after this chapter it'll chill out for a while. I want to make sure everybody is satisfied with the direction here.)
For those of you who weren’t keeping tabs, I didn’t die. Job-hunting is a full-time job, ya know. (Also, this chapter went a lot longer than I expected it to. Whoops.)
I recently joined an accelerated cert program, since I figured the reason I wasn’t getting hired was because I kept getting thrown in the slush pile without certs. Now that I’m in that program, ironically, I have more time to do fun things like this - I think I slammed out around 10 pages just this weekend. Hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for being patient.
We are THIS close to the start of the (REDACTED) Saga. I am very excited. Lend me your energy to write faster, friends - the hype sustains me. ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
(Side tangent - people who like my work enough to bookmark always make me happy, but the people who like it enough to bookmark and also leave their own tags and little comments about how they like it make me warm and fuzzy. Like, shoutout to Toddy_76. I don't even know this man, but every time I feel like quitting or going a less complex route for plot, I think 'hell no, I gotta keep being quality so I can justify that guy's hype! If I start slipping then I make his bookmark look like a lie and then I embarrass him, and Toddy_76 is a gud boi!' and going again. lmao. I have the weirdest hangups sometimes.)
I included several references in this chapter. Anybody who can catch some gets a cookie.
Chapter 13: Life Six: Part 3
Summary:
High adventure on the high seas.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Let the Tigers weep and the Elephants moan
For they have reaped what they have sown
When the Daughters go to war~”
“She lied to us.” a wildling woman moaned, hysteria creeping through her voice. “Mother Mole lied to us.”
“You should have fought back!” shouted a young man not long past his majority, fists raised. A mottled clump of dried blood streaked down the back of his head and onto his neck. “The damned kneelers wouldn’t have been able to take us all if you’d just fought back!”
“And die to those dart-throwers before we stepped in their range?” an older man retorted hotly. “You’re lucky you got away with just a thump, fool boy.”
“At least I didn’t lay down and die to a band half our size!”
The waves outside rolled high, and the chains binding him clattered loudly. The motion sent him forward until the clasp around his neck drew taut, leaving him no more than inches away from his wall.
The wildlings went quiet, then, and the waves pulled him back to his sitting position.
“... How long you going to sit there in silence, boy?” said the older man, staring at him. He merely stared back at the older man blankly.
“What, you think he’s going to say anything now?” scoffed the younger man. “He hasn’t said a word since they locked him in those chains a fortnight ago. Must be an invalid; he could have strangled himself with that neck chain by now if he had the guts.”
“Quiet!” the older man admonished. “They must fear him, else they would have put him in a cage like ours, instead of such heavy chains.”
“I ‘eard them.” a fourth man spoke up. “Through that ‘ole right above my ‘ead. They fear ‘im, alright. Fink ‘e’s magic. Don’t know why, ‘cause I didn’t get the rest of the daft tongue they speak, but I swear on the Old Gods I ‘eard the word ‘maegi’.”
“... That why they only feed him once every other day?”
“Like as not. Too scared to even go near, let alone get in reach.”
“He’s so young…” murmured the woman.
“Dunno what kind of magic he is,” said the older man, “but I could go for a skinchanger right now. Try and tear a hole in this damned place with some beast.”
He simply stared ahead, not saying a word.
Some time later, the trapdoor above the cargo hold creaked open. A wild spray of salty ocean carried inward, and a black-robed figure tumbled inward with a platter of food and drink.
“Who’s that?” muttered one of the dozen captured wildlings. “Never seen this bastard before.”
The man slowly paced down the steep steps, his shaved monk’s tonsure nearly scraping against the roof for how tall he was. An amiable, meaningless smile covered his face as he gently placed hardtack bread and small cups of water outside of the wildling’s cages, only just within their reach. As the wildlings scrabbled and fought to get the supplies, he turned and slowly unlocked his cage.
“Hmmm.” the black-robed man cocked his head, staring at him. He stared blankly back in return. The black-robed man ambled forward, far closer to him than he had to the wildlings, and slowly dipped the hardtack into the last cup of water until the bread softened.
“You don’t look much like a maegi.”
He just stared.
“But then,” the black-robed man continued, his accent different from the sailors, “perhaps I don’t know what foul blood wizards look like. I would have expected a warty hag of a woman, not a comely young man like yourself.” The man lifted the wet hardtack to the prisoner’s lips, and after a pregnant moment, he allowed himself to be fed.
“There we go.” the man cooed, warm brown eyes smiling. “They think I know magic, too, you know.”
The prisoner cocked his head at the words.
“Ah! You understand me!” the black-robed man exclaimed, delighted. “I didn’t think you were a wildling, but that settles it. What brought you all the way to Hardhome, sunsetlander?”
He stared at the man, his mouth opening for a moment as if to speak before slowly shutting again.
“Don’t trust me?” the man sounded disappointed. “I suppose that makes sense. I wouldn’t trust me either.”
“... I…”
The black-robed man blinked. “Yes?”
“I… don’t… remember.” he rasped. “The fire… took…”
After he trailed off, the black-robed man let out a small empathetic sound. “Then perhaps it is best after all that you are on the sea, now. Fire cannot take you here.” he popped the rest of the hardtack into his mouth, before lifting the cup and gently pouring in the rest of the water.
“I will be back in the coming days.” said the man, in an assuring tone. “The superstitious fools think you will curse their members to fall off if they approach, or some nonsense. Then, if you are able, I shall help you regain your insight.”
“... why…”
“Because it is my creed.” the black-robed man replied. “Let the fools declare us a cult, and call us maegi even as they hire us. Our illuminated forefathers knew the truth.”
“For only when the night is dark do the stars truly shine.”
The cultist continued to tend to him, speaking in a tongue he wasn’t sure how he knew that his other captives could not understand as he ensured he was fed three times a day instead of three times a week. He felt himself return; not the memories of anything before the fire or how he had ended up naked on that beach. That was gone. His speech, though, and his wit - that returned.
One day, though, a fortnight after they had first met, the cultist stepped down into the cargo holds holding a key instead of a wooden tray. He quickly inserted himself into Jon’s cage and unlocked one of the shackles, and his hand fell limply to the ground from the sudden intense pins-and-needles sensation of blood returning.
“What are you doing…?” He asked.
“The captain would like to have a word with you.” the cultist replied flatly, none of his customary warmth present. “And he finds himself unwilling to insert himself into the cargo hold as the rest of us do.”
CLICK! The second shackle lifted away. “So,” he continued, “I have been instructed to bring the wildling maegi to the captain’s chambers, as my star worshipper magic has tamed you. Ridiculous.”
CLACK! The neck shackle fell away, and the prisoner’s head dropped from its perfectly-upright position in weeks. “Why…?”
“I did not ask.” he replied simply. The cultist pulled him up to his feet, and braced him against his shoulder. “I do not think I need to tell you why not to try and escape while we are far from land. I would similarly advise against provoking the monkey’s attention. It’s a vicious creature.”
The cultist pushed him up through the trapdoor with some difficulty, as the sun and the sudden sound of singing hit the prisoner like a wave.
“Roll away, me boys, roll away
We’re not selling no sails today
For they’re handing out crowns
That will drive you to ground
Roll away from these Nine-Penny Kings~!”
“At least they’re not singing ‘The Daughters Go To War’ anymore.” the cultist muttered. “Could not stand such overblown patriotism, even if they only know half of the dozen stanzas of ‘Ninepenny Kings’.” the ship rolled with the tide, and the prisoner stumbled to the side, knocking into a barrel with a loud clatter.
The ship’s singing trailed off almost instantly. All across the deck, nearly two dozen men were staring at the prisoner and the cultist together; one man by the deck had his hand immediately go to the cutlass on his hip.
The cultist scowled, pulled him up from the barrel, and shuffled him to the stern, where a door lay. He quickly moved the two of them inside, and shut the door behind, muffling the sound of rigging and dampening the waves.
“Captain.” the cultist began.
“I see him.” responded the two-bearded Tyroshi, dipping his writing quill into his inkwell.
The prisoner stared at the man, then at the black-and-white speckled monkey hanging off his chair back. The creature bared its fangs at him and let out a threatening screech, so he averted his eyes slightly. He lingered on the pale white, intricately carved wooden chair, with its flowing arcs and whorls, only momentarily - something in it caused him great unease.
“So.” the prisoner’s eyes flicked down to the Tyroshi, who was now staring at him with indigo eyes. “You are the one who has frightened my men so. The maegi .”
He stood from the chair, revealing both his two-tone forked beard and the Valyrian steel blade on his robed hip. “They tell me you appeared from thin air. One minute, they were leaving for a mission, the next-” he snapped his fingers. “In between their ranks, with a priceless blade drawn and not a stitch else.” the captain’s eyes trailed down to the sackcloth pants on his hips, and scowled.
“I do not fear you, maegi .” he spat. “I have killed your gods before, and made their corpses into a resting place for my ass.” his carefully manicured hand fell to rest on the arm of his bone-white chair. “I tolerated you, for a wizard of any stripe sells far higher than a galley slave. But now an example must be made.” He drew the stolen blade from his hip, and from a scabbard too big for it’s narrow width. “I will remind the lackwits on this ship that I am the one to be feared, not a mute wildling in chains.”
“He’s not a wildling.” said the cultist, quickly. “Or a mute. He’s spoken to me.”
“Silence!” the captain snapped. “I tolerate you for your uncanny knowledge of the winds and the waves, not for your lip. If you try any of your Starry Wisdom tricks you’ll follow him.”
The cultist bit back his reply, until the Tyroshi captain lifted the blade once again. “He’s a Sunsetlander.” he blurted out. “A Westerosi, Not a wildling. And no memory.”
“You dare?” snapped the captain, and the blade flicked up to the cultist’s neck. The cultist froze; the prisoner stared at the scene, grey eyes clearer than they had been in weeks. “One more word from you, Tiras, and I won’t wait until port to rid myself of you, let alone return you to Braavos.”
The cultist, Tiras, gulped loudly, but said nothing in reply.
The Valyrian blade shifted, and moved to the prisoner’s neck. “Well, boy?” Said the Tyroshi captain. “Did he lie? Are you a wildling?”
“... No.” said the prisoner, standing straight. “I am not.”
The Tyroshi captain’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Of course you’re not. I recognize that foul Northman’s brogue. I’ll never forget it, after that Manderly cutter forced me to slit the throats of an entire hold’s worth of cargo. Two months of hunting, wasted, to avoid an overeager sunsetlander patrol looking to kill men of my profession.”
The blade lowered, but his free hand snapped up and grabbed the prisoner by the chin. The prisoner grit his teeth, but did not rise to the captain’s touch. “But you’re not just any Northman, are you?” said the captain. “Young, barely even of age, but wide in the arm and leg muscles. Broad shoulders, clear skin, bright white and straight teeth. Thick hair. You’ve never gone hungry a day in your life, have you?”
A wide, sneering grin spread on the slave captain’s face. “You’re a noble’s brat, aren’t you?” he asked, gloating. “Ran away from home with the family sword to learn wildling blood magic.”
The prisoner remained silent. The monkey let out a series of shrieks.
“Just so, I think.” He grinned. The hand dropped away. “Then I’ll take my revenge on the Manderlys through you, I think. Khal Drogo is in Pentos, I hear. Searching for a pretty wife to buy. I think I’ll sell him a pretty catamite instead. Those horselords will fuck anything that moves, I hear, and they aren’t scared of blood wizards like you. Even share their lays with their mounts. You like that, Northman? Looking forward to being reamed in two by horsecock?”
Still the prisoner said nothing, but flexed his fingers angrily.
“Hmph.” the captain scoffed. The monkey screeched in time with his owner. “Throw him in the cargo hold again. Feed him only once every two days. I like the idea of my lackwit crew more now.”
“... No.”
“No?” The captain repeated, indignantly.
“No.” Said Tiras. “I will feed him as I desire. This one is marked for something by the Wayward Star. I know it.”
“And you are marked for a watery grave.”
“You think you can function without me?” Tiras replied. The prisoner could feel the cultist’s fingers on his arm, damp and shaking. “You sail faster than any other slave ship because I lead you to the winds, and away from danger. You kill me, the Church will know, and never deal with you again. You kill him, and I will becalm us for weeks - or direct you into a hurricane.”
“You would not dare.” The captain said, voice barely above a growl.
Tiras stared back without saying a word. No word was said, tension thick in the air.
“Tch.” Finally, the Tyroshi stabbed the valyrian blade point first into the wooden deck. “Quarrelsome fool. Isn’t your cult supposed to diffuse strife?”
“We diffuse great strife where it exists, and bring small strife where there is none.” Tiras recited, as if from rote memorization. “A night not so bright you can see without effort, but not so dark you stumble and fall.”
“What, then? A clear, moonless night that never ends, the whole world over?” The captain spat.
Tiras smiled thinly. “A poetic description.”
“Bah.” The Tyroshi turned away. “Get him out of my sight. If I see him even an instant before we land at Pentos not even your threats can save him.”
The cultist gripped him by the shoulder and quickly shuffled him out of the cabin. An uncomfortable silence followed the two below deck.
“Thank you.” said the prisoner, as he was led back into his cell. “But why?”
Tiras sighed and wiped at his shaved crown, hand coming away wet with sweat.
“Because life had been going too well for the good captain.” he said, after a long pause. “Should he sell that blade of yours, he will become as rich as a magister.” his lips thinned in a frown. “And I did not lie - the Wayward Star hangs over our ship, and grows closer every day. It calls for misery and strife, and so I will act to bring such things writ small, before it acts for itself writ large.”
Something about that statement set a chill in his bones. “He could have killed you.”
“Very few men of my creed ever die in their own beds, friend.”
“Then why? Why believe, if it dooms you?”
Tiras smiled, but his eyes remained flat and faded. “Why indeed? Someone must, or else we all…” he trailed off. “No. That is not a tale for today. When we reach Pentos, and the captain attempts,” and here Tiras smirked knowingly, “to sell you off to this Khal, then I will tell you of our folly. Our First Folly, for we have had many.”
He leaned back, closing his eyes. “So many follies. Reaching all the way back to the Dawn…”
The prisoner stared at him, brow furrowed, until the cultist shook himself. “You don’t need those chains anymore, I think.” he stepped outside of the cage, locked the gridlock metal door behind him, and slipped the key into his robe. “Though I would make an effort to pretend to be locked up should any of the other crew come looking.”
“Rest well.” the trapdoor shut behind Tiras, and plunged the cargo hold into darkness once more.
The prisoner stared ahead flatly, before leaping up to grip the top of his cage through the gridlock mesh, and began to do pull-ups.
“Where will they go? Their mother is dead.”
“They don’t belong down here.”
“... Better a quick death. They won’t last without their mother.”
“No! No, father, please!”
“Bran, you need to stop crying. They aren’t meant to live down here.”
“Nooooo… I don’t want them to die… Robb, please…”
“... Father, a word? … I don’t think this is wise. Not with Bran here… he still cries at night about… about Theon. And… Snow. This execution was hard enough for him.”
“You would have me spare these pups, only to let them starve out of sight? You think Bran will appreciate the crueler death if he does not see it this time?”
“I don’t know, but - wait. What is… do you see that?”
“... Another one. Newly born and already it has its eyes open.”
“... Father. There are five pups at home, and one ranging far, stranger than the others. Our sigil is the Direwolf, and magic has touched our family once already. Do you think…?”
“... Gather them up.”
“Oh, father!”
“You will feed them yourselves. You will train them yourselves. And if they die, you will bury them yourselves. This one… is mine. Jory, ride ahead and collect Maester Luwin and a cart for the mother’s body. Tell him his Valyrian link is needed again.”
A wooden barrel slammed against the metal cage, and the prisoner snapped awake with blank white eyes. All about him, the cargo supplies were sloshing wildly about as the ship rolled under mighty waves, and the wildlings let out a cacophony of fear and blustering anger.
None of that mattered to him. He remembered his magic. His past was still a mystery, but this - the power that came from skins and hate - this, he remembered.
“Enough!” he shouted, in the wildling’s tongue. The prisoners stilled.
“You talk!?”
“Aye.” he replied. “You fight?”
“Aye!” shouted the young one.
“Shut your mouth.” chastened the older man. “Fight who?”
“These slavers.” replied the prisoner. “I’m going to get us loose, and then I want you to kill them.”
“How?”
“You said before you wanted a warg with a beast.” The prisoner smiled, teeth bared like daggers. “I think a monkey will suffice.”
He wrapped the chains around his arms to hold himself in place, and as the wildlings began to shout at him, thought of the captain and how much he would dearly love to slam an ax into his skull-
He felt the wordless screech of fear die in his throat, as his Man-thing spat curses and frantically swept his desk ornaments into drawers. “Fucking Trios devour that lying cultist! Either blind or moronic - A Gods-damned HURRICANE doesn’t just APPEAR out of fucking thin air-” he swarmed to the door, throwing it open and getting a furious sheet of wind and rain. “GET THE CARGO BELOW DECK!!” his Man-thing screamed. “CARGO! BELOW DECK! NOW!!”
He let out an instinctive trill as he leaped forward and snaked his hand into the half-closed drawers, and came up clenched around a keyring. A single powerful leap brought him onto his Man-thing’s back, and scrambled onto his shoulder before he could whirl about and snatch him off.
“NO, DAMN YOU! NOT THE TIME, YOU DAMNED APE!” his massive hand reached for him, but he was already plunging out through the door.
The rain hit his small frame like an anvil, with droplets nearly as big as his fists and gale winds threatening to lift him skyward. His tail immediately flicked out to grab hold of a rail, and watched for his moment. Even now, just a few feet away, his man-thing’s voice was nearly drowned out.
All at once, the world turned to light, and the sound of a thousand explosions drowned out everything. The ship roiled - a man who had been on the side slipped and flew over the side, screaming as he went. The trapdoor to the cargo hold had flipped open from the extreme angle -
His loosed his tail, and fell.
The prisoner came back to himself with a clamor of barrels and boxes slamming themselves against his fixed cage, and a throbbing pain where the side of his head hit the metal. The monkey came through the open trapdoor a moment later, shrieking with all the terrified energy a wild animal has.
The keyring fell from the beast’s hand the moment it landed, and promptly scattered off to the dark corners of the cargo hold. The ship rolled back, miraculously intact, and then upwards, as the trapdoor slammed shut. The prisoner could feel the urge to throw up growing in him, but suppressed it and scrambled forward. His hand closed around the keyring just as whatever wave they had just crested gave way, and the ship plunged down.
“WE’RE ALL DOOMED! WE’RE DOING TO DIE!” “NAMELESS GODS, SAVE US FROM THIS HELL!” “I DON’T WANT TO DIE LIKE THIS!”
He ignored the terror of the Wildlings, and clumsily flipped through the keyring until he found that which Tiras had shown him that day. With a shaking hand, the lock gave way, and he was free again.
“Look! He’s out!” shouted a female voice.
The prisoner tried, as best as he was able, to stand upright when his whole world roiled about him. “I’m going out there!” he shouted. “To fight!”
“ARE YOU MAD!?” shouted one of them.
“I WON’T GO OUT THERE IN THIS STORM!”
“COWARDS!” shouted the younger man. “This is our chance! They’ll never be so distracted! They keep their food in this room! If we kill their leader, we can force them to either let us go or starve!”
“He has the right of it!” the prisoner shouted, and threw the keyring to the young wildling’s grasping hands, who quickly began testing every key on it. “Any man who wants to fight, grab a weapon and come with me! Otherwise, stay in here and guard this trapdoor!”
With a click, the cage door swung wide, and the young wildling scrambled out, taking only a moment to collect what looked like a pair of butcher’s cleavers from a supply crate. Nobody else joined him. “What’s the plan, stranger?”
The prisoner picked up an oar, settling it across his shoulder. “The captain’s cabin is to the left. He’s the one with the purple-and-green beard. Kill only those who get in our way, for we still need to reach shore. And do not harm Tiras, the black-robed man - he is a friend.”
“Got it!” The wildling reached up and pushed open the trapdoor-
A physical wall of rain battered the two, a weight holding the trapdoor down to just a few inches open. The prisoner reached up, tackling the wooden slab and getting rocked backwards. The weight of the rain blocked further passage, until the floor dropped out from underneath them.
The door floated open, and so did they, as the ship plunged down, down, down from the crest of a massive wave. The wildling, who was not holding on to anything, let out a terrified scream as he was carried through the air, while the prisoner gripped onto the edge of the door with all his might.
The prow slammed into the water, and gravity returned in the worst way. The wildling youth plunged back downwards hands-first, still clutching his cleavers. His hands were the first to impact the deck, followed by his face; the red of his blood from the blade plunging through his neck and almost decapitating himself washed away with the rain.
A ragged gasp escaped the prisoner, as he stumbled to his feet, freezing water battering against his skin. All about him, the slavers raced about, hauling desperately against ropes and sails and clutching cargo. At the prow of the carrack, clutching the side, Tiras stared at the sky, screaming in a mixture of despair and fear. “THE STAR! THE STAR! THE FOLLY OF THE EMPEROR!”
The prisoner looked up, only for a moment, before the urge to throw up in fear forced him to look away. Waves as tall as their sails roiled and thrashed, and in the distance, a whirling, towering, terrifyingly large column of wind and rain blotted out the sky. Lightning raced across the black clouds, and for a moment he thought it formed an impossible pattern - an intricate, thirteen-pointed star.
Then the phantom disappeared, and the sea exploded as a thunderbolt split the waves. The ship rolled, and the prisoner flew to the rail of the ship. The body of the wildling slammed next to him, a glimmer of his free cleaver glittering as it sailed off and over the edge. A Tyroshi slaver screamed in fear as he slammed into the rail, and disappeared overboard as it gave way.
“IT COMES! IT COMES! THE BLOODSTONE RUIN COMES!”
He felt his chest heaving as if unable to get enough air, before a steeling of nerve overtook him. With one hand, he grabbed the rail; with the other, he ripped the cleaver from the dead wildling’s throat, and allowed his corpse to fly overboard. Then he whipped about, and charged the cabin.
The door gave way under his shoulder, or perhaps it had not latched properly under the fury of the storm. The prisoner barreled forward with the grace of a bull, slamming into the Tyroshi captain’s desk. “WHAT THE-!?” the man shouted, hunched over an open chest of indiscernible items. “YOU!”
“You die, now!” shouted the prisoner.
The man’s beard bristled, and in an instant the stolen valyrian blade was in his hand. “I should have THROWN YOU OVERBOARD, Maegi!” He roared. “I should have GUTTED YOU!”
He lunged forward, slashing and stabbing. Instinct guided the prisoner’s hand, blocking and deflecting the blade with the flat of his butcher’s cleaver. Even as undersized as it was compared to other longswords, the valyrian blade had the advantage of reach.
The slaver, however, was not a master at the blade. A wild stab came for his stomach, too low and slow, and the flat head of the cleaver shoved it roughly to the side. A wide opening, and the prisoner lunged, edge swinging for his neck -
A deafening boom, and the ship rolled hard. The prisoner flew to the side, slamming against the wall; if he had the mind to notice, he would have seen and felt all the hairs on his body standing upright from the electric discharge running through the air. The Tyroshi captain caught himself on the edge of his desk, bolted to the deck even as the pale-white weirwood chair tumbled to the side.
The captain looked, for just a moment, and then let go of the desk, plunging downwards with the blade. The prisoner rolled along the wall drunkenly, and Dark Sister sunk into the wall by inches. The ship overcorrected, and the captain kicked him in the chest as he stumbled back to the right.
“Northman barbarian!” the captain snarled, as the prisoner gasped for air. He heaved on the hilt of his lodged sword, and the wall released it with a shower of splinters. “I’ll see you dead before I let this ship sink!”
The prisoner let out a wordless growl and lifted the cleaver to a wide outward stance once more, free hand floating. The captain lunged, stabbing and slashing with wide movements. If the both of them had swords in their hands, the fight would have been easily won.
Instead, the prisoner continued to block and deflect, waiting for the moment. The ship heaved underneath them, and everything not bolted down scattered about. The Tyroshi slaver stumbled, but the Northman lunged, and grabbed the intricately-carved weirwood chair. A window exploded inward with a wave of salt ocean water, and the slaver stood upright just quickly enough to get the piece of furniture slammed into his face.
Blood spilled, and a scream burst from his throat, before the sharp edge of a cleaver silenced it.
The corpse of the Tyroshi slaver slid down to the ground, blood spewing and staining the intricately-carved whorls and arches of the godswood chair, but the prisoner paid no attention. Instead, he reached down, and took back the valyrian steel blade that had been stolen from him. He stared into the flickering steel pattern with hard grey eyes-
A crackle of electric energy arced across the metal blade, and the reflection of the blade morphed into a baleful red thirteen-pointed star. And then, with a deafening boom, the ship exploded.
Cold. it is so cold.
He could not feel anything beyond the cold, and the blinding pain that emanated from his forehead. Far away, as if from a distance, he could hear the crackling of fire, and the groaning collapse of wood. But all he could feel was cold, and pain, and his eyes would not open.
His lungs slowly began to burn, and with a faded intuition realized that if he opened his mouth, either, he would drown. He was sinking ever lower, and yet he could not find the strength to move his arms. He could only sink down,
Down,
Down…
Darkness.
A soft pressure against his lips, and gentle arms under and around his chest. A wet, wriggly appendage broke the seal of his mouth, and with a rush he was forced to exhale. Air returned a heartbeat later, slow and paced.
A voice burbled near his ear. A giggle, he realized. Someone is giggling to me as I drown. He is still unable to open his eyes. He is not sure that he wants to.
You took one of my sons. Whispered the voice. Female. A woman was speaking to him, in words he heard on the inside of his skull. Now you will give one back.
Open your eyes. Open your eyes, damn you. But his limbs would not move, and his eyes would not open, even as he sank down, down, down. A slender hand reached down, underneath his ragged waistband, and her touch sent the world spiralling into the kaleidoscope.
A great hall stretched out, men of stormy complexion roaring with laughter and bloodlust, clothed in rags and wielding iron weapons. Women of impossible anatomy, clad in silver seaweed, floated between the lusty men with abandon. At the head of the hall sat a man as grey as the winter sea-
A great streak across the sky, blotting out the dawn with a color dark as clotted blood, carving a line beyond the horizon, while underneath the sea roiled in fury-
A skeleton in black robes dancing about, red staining his teeth. “Red and yellow and light, your colors above may be, I know, I know.” said the skeleton, in Tiras’ voice, “But flames burn green and blue and black, down here below the sea, ooh ooh, ooh ooh.” a howling laugh-
His eyes opened. A face was against his, lips parted and blowing air into his lungs. Everything was dark, but the eyes were wide open, completely yellow and blown wider than humanly possible.
He thrashed once at the shock. Her arms tightened around him, and a searing pain raced through his skull as something moved-
Something was in his forehead.
Something was lodged in his forehead.
Hush… whispered the voice, as what felt like an impossibly-tight vice clenched around his lungs, squeezing his chest every time she breathed into him. You are ours, now. For a time. We will return you, Prince, to your realm of fire and light. But only once you have insight. For what is dead is dead may never die. His feet touched solid ground, for just a moment, as her face shifted away -
To reveal a nest of tentacles as wide across as he was tall and bounding into the darkness, illuminated by flaming vents from the sea floor, with flames burning green, and blue, and black. He screamed, involuntarily, and writhed only once before the pain debilitated his movements, and the world faded. The last thing he saw, as the woman giggled once and dragged him closer, was a single glowing eye, staring at him with an unwavering gaze. An Eye he knew. An Eye from that place, after the fire.
The Eye grew too wide to comprehend, but the woman kept pulling him onwards, until they reached the pupil, and passed beyond the boundary.
But rises again. Harder and Stronger.
He knew nothing more.
“Captain. Captain. Captain.”
Asha Greyjoy’s eyes snapped open, her feet swinging over the edge of her small fixed bed. “I’m up, I’m up. What is it?” she responded automatically, fog shrouding her brain and a deep weariness in her bones. “Did the Tyroshi catch us?”
“No, captain.” Qarl the Maid replied, hands locked at his side and standing upright, though to her eyes he looked ready to be blown over with a stiff wind. “They’ve not been seen since that foul storm.”
She let out a soft, mindless moan of appreciation and flopped bonelessly back into the thin mattress. A foul storm it had been, and timed auspiciously for her, surrounded as her raiding fleet had been by a dozen Tyroshi war-galleys. She had left the Iron Islands a month ago with half a dozen lesser longships, crewed and captained by landless ironborn, and two knarrs to stow both foodstuffs and the plunder of the Stepstones.
Foul luck that she had come back during the periodic flare-ups of war between the Three Whores over the chain of islands. The Tyroshi had been out in full force looking for Myrish and Lysene fleets, and she had been caught with her bare ass exposed after plundering a pirate lord’s ‘city’. Now, only her own ship the Black Wind , built for the Iron Fleet, and a single knarr survived.
“What, then?” she groaned.
“Rolfe the Dwarf has spotted a light.” this caught her attention, and Asha rolled over once more to face Qarl. “The others can’t see it yet, but he swears that our eastward heading has brought us to the Weeping Tower.”
“Lys?” she exclaimed, incredulous. “The storm pushed us so far south as Lys?” she stood up, feeling the comforting roll of the ship under her feet.
“We’ll have a welcome port if it is.” replied Qarl. “Of all the free cities, it is Lys who is most plagued by the Stepstone pirates we prey upon.”
“Wouldn’t be much of a problem if those perfumed whoremongers didn’t generate most of those pirates, as well.” she quickly marched over to her sea maps, snatched her target out, and spread it across her desk.
“The Weeping Tower can be seen from…” she trailed off, finger tracing across a byzantine scrawl of chart markings of her own make. She never bothered to fill her living spaces with books, the way that Uncle Rodrik did; even though she was able to read, a rare skill among the Ironborn, being a woman captain was handicap enough on the Iron Islands without the infrequent accusation of sorcery such feats entailed.
Reading a sea chart, though, must surely be the next-best thing for all their complexity, and it hid nothing from her. “If the Dwarf tells no lies, we could make land at the Free City within half a day at the latest.” she declared. “Fewer, the further south the lighthouse is. A few days of featherbeds and checking for damage, then we sail for Pyke with all speed.”
“Aye, captain.” Qarl made to turn about and leave, but her hand snapped out and gripped him around the wrist.
“Stay.” she said, a firm, warm tone in her voice. “I could knock you over with a feather right now.”
“You could already do that to me.” he replied, a smirking twist to his mouth not hiding his bloodshot eyes. “A single kiss and I fall backwards into your bed.”
“And what then? Passed out before I’ve even mounted, beardless boy that you are.” She pulled him close, matching his smirk, before pushing him backwards until he stumbled to a seat on her mattress. “You’ve done enough today.”
“No, I think not.” Qarl replied, though his eyes fluttered. Even the act of sitting down seemed to have taken something from him. “You are still tired. Come, rest within my arms. Don’t you know I am terribly frightened of the sea without my favorite pillow?”
Asha let out a loud snort. She only allowed such talk because they were alone; both of them knew that anything of this sort in front of the others would have drawn harsh discipline. “Sleep fast.”
“Aye, aye.” he replied, but she was already through the doors. The Black Wind ’s decks were understaffed, with most of the crew likely passed out below deck after a long double-shift on the oars to escape the Tyroshi fleet. The easterly winds took the sails now, and Rolfe the Dwarf stood at the bow, towering over the rest of the crew. Through the morning fog, she could see nothing, but as she watched longer, the more a hint came through - a distant, flickering light.
A wide grin grew on her face. The Dwarf’s prodigious height had given him the best vantage, after all. “All above!” she shouted. “Full sails, and make for the lighthouse! Signal the Reaver’s Cut ! We sail for Lys!”
The Free City of Lys was known by many sailors to be the most beautiful of all of Valyria’s daughters, with its paradisal climates and gentle waters, its vivid hues and sensuous pleasure houses. It certainly was not the biggest; the firm boundaries of the Free City stretched only across three islands, with none of the tributary cities that the mainland cities maintained. It was, therefore, trade that defined the city’s economy.
Trade didn’t mean much to Asha in and of itself - she was a true Ironborn, and paid with iron instead of gold whenever she was able. It did, however, concern her with trade’s aftereffects - so many traders turned to piracy after a string of losses, turning their mercantile fleet to a reaving fleet. When they had managed to gather a tidy profit, and create a base among the Stepstones, that was when she struck.
An easy game, cutting down upjumped merchants and taking everything they own. Until we end up surrounded by a real warfleet, Asha thought sourly, spread-eagle on a wide featherbed and staring up at a painted fresco of a sunset on her ceiling. Five days in Lys, and already the city was grating on her nerves. She could do with Qarl between her legs to take the edge off, but he was likely down at the docks, watching over the ships while repairs were underway.
An irritated sigh escaped her, before rolling vigorously out of the bed. Through the doors, the inn became more vigorous and lively, with warm fires and bright colors. She ignored it all, and the serving girl attempting to wheedle her into having breakfast.
“Greyjoy?”
She stopped.
“Greyjoy! I thought that was you.”
Asha turned, and saw a figure from her past standing there. “Vyrellio Sorren.” she said, eyebrows arched high and her grimace smothered. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I could say much the same.” The olive-skinned man said, with an easy twist to the smile that reached his indigo eyes. “I saw the Black Wind at port and said, ‘surely it cannot be that the scion of the Ironborn, the bane of Torturer’s Deep, has returned to Lys!’ and yet, here you are. Happy day!”
“You... look well, for how I last saw you.”
“You found me starving, diseased, and whipped to within an inch of my life by the Sea Shrikes. I should hope I look better than then.”
“You were so pox-ridden we didn’t even bother taking you back to the Islands as a thrall.” she said, her smirk wavering as she woodenly allowed the man to lead her to a table. The serving girl from before eagerly paced forward with a carafe of sweet wine, but she irritably waved the girl away, while the Lysene accepted. “I thought you were off to Braavos to die.”
“Ah, but I was!” Vyrellio exclaimed, taking a generous sip. “Mm. Wonderful nose to that. The last you saw me was seven years ago, was it not? Which now makes you… at least twenty. My, but you have flowered into a beauty since.” a smirk appeared on his face. “Perhaps I should have you stand for a painting. ‘The Sunsetlander Princess’, I’ll call it. Magisters will seek you out as a bride.”
Asha violently rolled her eyes. “One-and-twenty, now. Keep away from me, paintmonger, or I’ll introduce those magisters to the one who speaks for my virtue.” Her ax had been banned from the city by the portmasters, but the sound of her dirk sliding from its sheath underneath the table was unmistakable for the both of them.
Vyrellio waved his hands in surrender, even as the smirk never left; the motion set the brightly-colored feather in his ridiculous muffin cap bouncing wildly. “As you say, as you say. Now, where was I?”
“Braavos.”
“Braavos! Yes. you last saw me as I set out to the House of Black and White, to see the Weeping Lady and entreat the Faceless Men. Imagine my surprise, then, when my mean condition rendered on me by the filthy pirates you saved me from, improved!”
“You were a mess of wounds and infection when I saw you last.”
He grimaced. “By all rights, I should have died. And yet I lived, well enough that when I reached the Faceless Men I turned against asking for a painless death.”
“What is dead may never die.” intoned Asha.
“But rises again, harder and stronger.” Vyrellio finished. “I took strength from the words of your people, Asha. Perhaps not in the intended way, when you told them to me, but instead of lying down to die I found inspiration. The gods of the House were beautiful, in their own way, and I set to work.”
Asha’s eyebrow arched. “And you found a fool magister to buy your works?”
“The Temples bought my works.” he replied. “The Isle of the Gods is always in need, though more sculpture than art. A lovely medium, though much more painstaking than oils and paints - I became very skilled with a chisel and hammer. Even the House purchased one.” his lips twitched. “Did you know that the House has a statue of the Drowned God? They consider him an aspect of Death.”
Asha’s expression curdled. Even as lukewarm a believer as she could see the multiple heresies. “The Drowned God has no icon.” she said. “His body is the fathomless sea, his face the cresting wave.”
“I offered to help correct their error, but they refused.” Vyrellio shrugged. “But no matter. After many years of patronage and hearty success, I longed for the warmth and beauty of Lys. and so, I am here once more, to bring my talents to bear for the gods most dear to me.”
“At least your story ends well.” she groused, taking a swig of her glass before irritably realizing she’d refused the serving girl’s wine earlier. “We were driven here by an unseasonal storm, and before that were ambushed by a Tyroshi fleet.”
“Tyroshi dogs.” Vyrellio turned and spat on the floor. “A wonder we ever thought to make alliance with them against Volantis.” his expression lightened. “You will be here for several days more, then? Perhaps you should come to my studio. Fully paid for by my patron, the good magister Tregar Ormollen. You simply must meet my new assistant.”
“A slave.”
“Not at all! I came upon him in the most remarkable fashion a little over a moon ago.” Vyrellio took a long swig from his wine, an excited twinkle in his eye. “I found him on the beach, washed ashore and with the most remarkable injuries. A victim of some shipwreck, I am certain, and must have drowned - but as I approached, he came gasping back to life!”
Asha leaned back in her chair, eyebrows arching as a bemused frown expressed itself. It was the first time in this unwelcome reunion that she gained even the slightest interest in his words. “Not every day the Drowned God throws one back when they reach his halls.” she said.
“Precisely.” said Vyrellio. “Even more so when I realized the boy, who I am certain is Westerosi, had little memory of himself. Perhaps for an obvious reason. He is… Well.” he leaned forward, and smiled. “Perhaps you should meet him first before I continue. I doubt he’s ever picked up a brush or chisel in his life, but his skill with a blade is remarkable, and his visage is… striking.”
“A blade won’t do much against a Lysene’s favorite weapon.” she remarked. “Does an artist truly need a bodyguard?”
“Magister Ormollen is a powerful man, and a strong candidate to be elected the gonfaloniere . From there, he is but a stone’s throw from becoming First Magister. And his paramour favors my work.” Vyrellio said, wryly. “That alone creates enemies, not the least of which being Magister Ormollen’s wife. None would dare strike the Magister or Lady Hightower directly… but I am not so secure.”
A lopsided smile burst from his lips, and he pushed himself to his feet. “Ah, but you are not here to learn of Free City politics! Come, come! You must see my workshop before you leave. Tell me what you have paid to the thieves at the inn and the harbor - the debt shall be cleared in my name! You paid for my freedom with iron, now I pay for your stay in gold!”
The grimace reappeared on Asha’s face, but slowly let herself he directed outside. She halfway hoped those supposed enemies had poisoned the wine, so she could be rid of this braggart once and for all.
For how annoying this man is, this assistant had better be as great as the Grey King himself.
Notes:
Ladies and gentlemen, we have hit peak MAGIC BULLSHIT. We will now return you to your regularly scheduled Low Fantasy programming.
Yes, my friends. We are here. The beginning of the Ironborn Arc. This was an arc I had in mind since chapter one, way back when the scope of the story had not blown out nearly as much as it is now.
Shoutout to my boy Majin for helping me brainstorm, I appreciate the fact that you wouldn’t give a shit about this setting anymore if I wasn’t writing a story in it. We’ll all feel better once George hurries up and fucking publishes Winds of Winter this summer.
I really enjoy bullying the shit out of Jon. I really do. My sadism comes from a place of love. In a setting like A Song of Ice and Fire, there needs to be quite a few lows if you intend to end up somewhere high. And I intend for us to end somewhere very high.
I’ve been told that the story is getting a little convoluted, which is… okay, that’s understandable, there’s a lot of worldbuilding in the past couple of chapters and I intentionally left some parts mysterious for future plots. If anybody needs help understanding something they just read, feel free to ask me for help in the comments. I’m always paying attention, and I’ll try to set you right without spoiling you.
That’s all I wanted to say. Stay safe out there, wash your hands and wear your masks. Don’t want any of you catching the coof.
EDIT (5/30/20): Just found out Asha can actually read, so I had to make a small change. Not a big deal.
Chapter 14: Life Six: Part 4
Summary:
Asha discovers many secrets in Lys.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Fresh fish! Catch of the day, a quarter off the regular price! Fatty tuna, exquisite marlin, ocean salmon, freshly caught!”
“Come feast your eyes on the wonders of the east! Beautiful jade from Yi Ti, luxurious indigo from the plateaus of Leng! The finest ivory in the world, straight from Great Moraq! Come and see, come and see!”
“Slaves! Slaves for sale! From blushing maids to fierce Unsullied, strong backs or learned minds! Rufus has slaves for every budget! Slaves!”
Asha could not help but wince, as the cacophony of the marketplace buffeted her ears. The trade district she was being led through by Vyrellio was seething with life, and it was a struggle to even keep track of the artist’s back. Twice already she had had a pickpocket try to steal her coinpurse; the second time, the thief left with one less finger than they started with, and the bystanders barely even reacted.
More gold passes through this square in a day than Pyke sees in a moon.
The artist was having none of the difficulties she was; he practically flounced through the crowds, exuberantly emoting at various showpieces offered by various greedy merchants before carrying on. Asha, on the other hand, was about ready to start slitting throats.
When Vyrellio let out an effeminate noise at some fashionable bauble, she reached her limit. “Enough, paintmonger.” she growled, gripping him by the back of his tunic and yanking him back.
“But Greyjoy, is this not the most-” Vyrellio turned, and the words died on his lips at her foul expression. “Mm. Yes. Forgive me. We are not far. My studio is just around the corner. I have not been leading you astray, my lady.”
Then stop wasting time.”
True to his word, he led her to the oaken door of a wide, squat building firmly nestled between two taller businesses. Vyrellio led her inside, frowning at the interior. “He is not back, yet. Shame. I’ll need him to get back with the eggs before the day’s work can begin.”
Her nose wrinkled. “What is that smell?”
“What?” He replied. “Are you smelling the rabbit-skin gesso, the tempera paints, or the peppers from my breakfast?”
“Smells like piss.”
“Ach!” he exclaimed, rushing off into the studio. “The gesso has gone bad!”
Asha rolled her eyes, absently stepping across the threshold. A number of long slits across the wall allowed the scent of the sea to waft through, cutting the scent of spoiled ammonia. A dozen different wooden stands stood about, all bearing panels that seemed to be incomplete. A woman in fine silks leaning against a bedpost, skin a pungent green and missing a face; a man covered in metal spikes and carrying a bloody lash in one hand who had only the vaguest stenciled outline of legs.
Her eyes trailed to an easel set away from all the rest, turned against the rest. Her eyebrows shot upwards once she could see it - this one was rougher, far less structured and quite honestly a poorer quality than the rest. Swatches of paint crossed and swirled across the panel as though the painter had attempted to mix them on the wood, not realizing a layer had already dried. It added a heady, abstract quality.
Nevertheless, she could see the subject. An eye, dominating the center, whose pupil lightened to a crowned figure beyond, a maudlin grey coating him. To the side, a woman hung suspended, her torso hazy but her arms inhumanly long and her eyes a vivid yellow. From the outside, the unfinished tracing of tentacles writhed. Across the center of the painting, an angry stripe of red slashed it in two.
“Ah. Enjoy that, do you?”
Asha flinched, and nearly went for her blade. It had been a long time since someone had been able to sneak up on her. How long have I been standing here?
“It’s not my work.” Vyrellio declared. “It is most certainly striking, though - a remarkable first attempt at the craft. He gave up halfway, though. Hated the fact that the paint dried near instantly. Didn’t understand that you’re supposed to apply richer colors in layers, or the fact that this is a process of weeks.”
“Who?”
The artist opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, the door to the studio opened. “I have returned.”
“Ah!” Vyrellio whirled about, a bemused expression on his face. “Lodos, where the blazes have you been? I needed those eggs an hour ago!”
Asha stiffened.
“Asha Greyjoy.” said Vyrellio, a smug tone in his voice. “It is my pleasure to introduce my bodyguard, and recent apprentice, Lodos Palecrown.”
She turned, every muscle in her arms taut with anger to curse out the painter. The words died unspoken.
Anything that could be said about his appearance - how young he looked, how his long hair was as grey and bleached of color as the winter sea, how his sharp, sunken grey eyes sat in his long face, the faded finger markings on his neck peeking out like an old tattoo - paled in comparison to the jutting arch of wood lodged in his forehead. Pale-white, and decorated with whorls and delicate carvings, it was deeply set at his hairline and aimed diagonally upwards like a visor, and crossed the width of his skull from temple to temple. A piece of furniture planted right in his skull, perhaps the arch of a wooden chair, with the flesh around the roots sealed tight as if it had been there all along.
This man should be dead right now. He should be lying on the floor, bleeding from the eyes and mouth, not walking about fetching groceries. No maester in the world could have saved a man from a blow like that. This is not possible.
“I told you his appearance was striking.” said Vyrellio, a smug tone to his voice. “He came to me with his very own driftwood crown.” The newcomer simply stood there, staring at her blankly with a slight twist of a frown. A hand dropped from holding the collection of eggs to a blade hilt, wrapped entirely in plain sackcloth.
“... How in the Drowned God’s name are you still alive?” she said, finally. “I’ve killed men with lesser blows than that.”
The newcomer - Lodos - narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Greyjoy.”
“Humor me.”
“Your grandmother did it.”
“Fuck you.”
“Then don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to, woman.”
“Now, now!” Vyrellio stepped in-between them, hands raised in the air. “We will have peace in this house. There’s no reason for this.”
“She eyes me like she wants to skin me.” replied Lodos. “That’s reason enough.”
“Last time a Greyjoy met a man named Lodos, he tried to start a rebellion, so he cut his head off and sent it to the King in a pickling jar.” she snapped. “The time before that, he tried to usurp the seastone chair, and tricked thousands of men into drowning themselves with him. Aye, you could say I’m in a skinning mood.”
The stranger stared at her with a stormy expression, before flicking his eyes to the painter. “You told me the name you gave me was of a holy man in Westeros.” his frown curdled even further. “You lied to me.”
“No lie was told!” Vyrellio replied quickly.
“I see it so.”
“The Iron Islands are home to men of iron. Even their priests are hard men, and Lodos Twice-Drowned was more. He claimed to be the Drowned God’s son, and could commune with his father, and for that he was crowned with driftwood just like you are now. I thought the name was fitting for you!”
“You’re trying to explain to me my own people’s history, paintmonger?” Asha snapped. “He claimed to be a messiah. Where was his ‘father’ when Aegon Targaryen burned the pretenders to Harren the Black’s throne in their castles? Where were his krakens?”
The maimed boy watched her with intense, unblinking eyes.
“A myth.” she spat. “It was all a myth. A lie from greedy Drowned Men seeking a throne that did not belong to them. No krakens rose up to smite dragons from the sky, and he drowned himself in shame. A fool rose thirty years later with a dead man’s stolen name, so we cut his head off for it. I ought to follow the family tradition.”
The collection of eggs fell to the floor and cracked apart, as Lodos drew an inch of bare metal from his scabbard. “Third time’s the charm, then.” he growled, lowly.
“Peace! Peace!” Now the artist was wildly waving his hands, his eyes wide; he seemed to only just realize the trouble he had caused.
“No.” Lodos stated flatly. His sword inched up, and as it did Asha’s eyes widened, for the steel of the blade was patterned with telltale dark grey waves and flames-
The door clattered open behind Asha. “Oh, my.” said a feminine voice. “Shall I come back another time?”
Vyrellio’s eyes shot open. “Lady Hightower!” He quickly zig-zagged around Asha, and she had an uninterrupted view of Lodos scowling before slamming the hilt of his Valyrian Steel blade back into its sheath. “No, not at all. Merely a-ah, a small cultural misunderstanding, nearly settled before your arrival. I did not expect you for some time!”
“Mmm. Very well.” the woman replied, in a drawling, unimpressed voice - A voice with an unmistakably cut-glass noble Reach accent. “I have certain arrangements today, so my sitting will take place earlier than previously noted. I trust that will not be a problem. Now, to whom do I have the pleasure of meeting?”
Asha turned, flexing her fingers away from her hidden dirk to face her. “Hightower, is it?” she said, carefully. “Asha Greyjoy. Vyrellio and I… knew each other.”
Now that Asha could see her, she was clearly of noble birth, with delicate hands, soft golden hair, and eyes a pale blue. Her skin was milky pale, as opposed to the sun-kissed style of native Lyseni. Her outfit was of high quality, yet danced in places along the edge of propriety, flowing silks and understated ruffles, and in the same outsized colors as the Free City.
Her eyes widened. “Of course! Dear Sorren here has mentioned your name before. The pirate story! What a daring rescue it must have been from those marauders, and for a... girl so young.” she curtsied just the slightest amount. “Lynesse Hightower, formerly Lynesse Mormont. You are welcome in my properties.”
Asha bit the inside of her cheek. Now she knew this woman, if only by reputation; the namedrop finally jogged her memory. This was the former wife of Jorah Mormont, whose whorish taste for finery had driven the lord to slaving and eventual exile. The Iron Islands had raided Bear Island for lumber and thralls for centuries; if it weren’t for her, the Ironborn would be dealing with him instead of Maege Mormont, the She-Bear, one of the most effective defenders against their raids they’d faced in decades.
And she had to have known that connection between our house and hers, didn’t she? That’s why she said it. The only question is ‘why’.
“Such an odd place for us to meet at last.” she said, carefully. “After all, we have a strange history together, don’t we?”
Lynesse laughed lightly, gently waving a fan close to her noticeably-lacking chest. “Indeed. Why, if it weren’t for your family’s little rebellion, I might not have met the man who brought me here. So, in a way, I have your father to thank for my current position.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him of your gratitude.”
“See that you do.” she sniffed once, before wrinkling her face. “Why does it smell of eggs?”
Vyrellio paled. “That, uh, that is - a slight accident, shortly before you arrived. The eggs for the tempura paint are - I’m certain we have more supplies in the back rooms, so-”
“Try a different binder.” Said Lodos, finally.
“Oh, my.” said Lynesse, “The surly bodyguard speaks at last. I had wondered if you were a mute.”
“Boy…”
“Try a different paint binder.” Lodos repeated, lifting a small bottle. “Egg yolk and vinegar is what you mix with the pigment to make it stick instead of run. Try a different binder.”
Vyrellio scowled, but snatched the bottle anyways. “... Linseed oil?” he read, eyes arching. “Is this why you were gone so long?”
“The woodworkers at the docks use this. Use it to get a different consistency.” he stated. “A thicker paint that won’t dry as fast.”
Asha’s eyebrows arched. She didn’t know much of anything about art, but that description sounded like something novel, to her ears. Vyrellio stared at the bottle silently, then glanced momentarily at the back of the third unfinished painting, of the eye and the inhuman woman, before grabbing Lodos roughly by the shoulder. “Excuse me, my ladies.” he said, obsequiously, “I need to have a quick discussion. Won’t be but a moment.”
Lynesse waved him off, and the painter hauled him away. “I suppose we have some time to ourselves now.” her lips curled. “The grovelling can get a bit much, don’t you think?”
“I couldn’t say.” Asha replied. “I’ve never needed anybody to kiss my ass on a ship before they followed my orders.”
Lynesse laughed at that, a high tinkling sound. “Marvellous! Simply marvellous. I forget that you Greyjoys are sailors one and all, and the language to match. Having an entire ship at your beck and call must be so liberating. No court to judge your actions but the one you chose.”
Asha slowly leaned against the walls of the studio. “Every captain is a king on his own ship, true. But every crewman is a lord then, also, and all hands must pull together to reach the shore.”
“And do all your hands pull together?” Asked Lynesse. “You hear such frightful tales of the Ironborn as a child, in the Reach.”
Asha smirked. “Half of my crew wants to bed me, and the other half wishes to raise me as their daughter. But all of them would die for me if I commanded them to.”
“Such freedom.” she sighed. Then she smiled, slyly. “But I have a freedom of my own, here in Lys. Tregar tends to my every need, and listens to my council intently. And that is power of its own.” she fluttered her fan gently. “And isn’t that the desire of every woman? To be in command of their own affairs.”
“Perhaps.” against her better judgment, Asha was beginning to like this woman, even if her actions had put that bitch the She-Bear in command of Bear Island. “It can’t hurt.”
“How long have you been at sea?”
“Just over a moon.”
“Oh!” Here, Lynesse leaned forward. “Then perhaps you know the truth of Westeros - I’ve been hearing such wild tales that I simply cannot believe. Is it true that my father, Lord Hightower, has actually become the Hand of the King?”
Asha folded her arms. “The Iron Islands don’t get involved in greenlander politics.”
“But surely you must know the truth! My father hasn’t come down from the Hightower since the day I was crowned the Queen of Love and Beauty at Lannisport, and that was nearly a decade ago.” a fire had come into Lynesse’s voice. “The stories said that King Robert went north to name Ned Stark the hand, yet he was rebuffed by his war companion - but then turned south, all the way to Oldtown, to ask my father? And he agreed? It’s an unbelievable tale.”
“And yet, here we are.” Asha replied. “A raven arrived at Pyke declaring Leyton Hightower to be the new Hand of the King just days before I set off. I expect at this point he’s reached King’s Landing.”
Lynesse’s eyes widened. “Unbelievable. King Robert still hasn’t forgiven the Tyrells for their allegiance, but we fought against his rebellion just as they did. More so, perhaps, due to great-uncle Gerold being the Kingsguard Lord Commander. And my father swore never to descend again after I was married. For him to do so...” a pink tongue snaked out to wet her lips. “Is it true what else they say?” she said, more softly.
Asha met her conspiratorial gaze with a blank look. “Is what true.”
“That the King didn’t return from the North empty-handed.” answered Lynesse. Her eyes gleamed. “That Ned Stark found something of great value, and gave it to Robert Baratheon when he refused to leave the North. A sailor from Oldtown said Robert Baratheon gave this treasure to my father in return for his service.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. He’s your father. Send a message.”
Lynesse pouted. “Oh, no, no. That I cannot do. My family and I, well… they don’t appreciate the position I have crafted for myself, here in Lys. The power I wield. It wouldn’t do.”
Of course. Her family thinks she’s a whore who embarrassed a war hero Lord of the North in the process.
“But I simply must know.” She leaned back, eyes now staring into the distance. “The rumors… if Ned Stark truly had found our lost heirloom, after all this time…” she blinked, and her lips twisted upwards again. Asha followed her gaze, to see Lodos stepping around the corner. “Well, there. I trust your discussions have resolved? I have important functions to attend to, today.”
“Ah- yes, of course!” Vyrellio exclaimed, rushing around the corner. “My apologies for the delay, Lady Hightower. Come, come. We are about to try something... new, today. A new style, enabled by a new material. Your exquisite personage will be the subject of discussion the world over!”
“Is that so?” she replied, an amused gleam in her eye. “Lead the way, then.”
Asha quietly bit her tongue as the magister’s paramour was led away, leaving her alone with Lodos.
“... Are we going to have a problem?” He asked, quietly.
She met his eyes evenly. “... No. No, I don’t think we will.”
“Then I expect your business is finished here.”
“... Perhaps.”
Lodos closed his eyes and breathed with a pointed evenness. She snorted, and turned away. Before she did, however, she let her eyes linger one last time on the nondescript sheath on his side, and the leather-wrapped cover disguising the hilt of his Valyrian Steel sword. Even now, she didn’t know which blade it was, if it even had a name.
Perhaps I’ll find out for myself, then.
The moon waned to a sliver in the sky as she fastened the grey mask about her face. The whole of her crew was awake, she knew, but only a handful were on deck at that point; Droop-eye Dale, Rustbeard Roggon, Earl Harlaw, and Qarl. the rest waited below decks, so as not to arouse suspicion so late at night.
“You’re sure about this?” Qarl asked her. “If this goes wrong, we’ll have every Lysene bounty hunter after us every time we enter the Stepstones.”
“And if it goes right,” Asha countered, finishing the knot behind her ears, “I’ll return home with a treasure worth a lord’s ransom. The Greyjoys hadn’t ever owned a Valyrian blade until the Red Kraken stole Nightfall, and Harras Harlaw owns that treasure now. The only thing standing between me and that sword is a single maimed boy - you think I’ll pass up that chance?”
“This is a Free City, Asha.” Qarl hissed. “We can’t start a war here.”
“Are you questioning me?” she snapped, eyes hard.
“No. I trust you.” Qarl replied instantly. “I’m saying that you can’t leave proof we had anything to do with it.”
“A body with an axe in his head and his sword missing, you mean.” Cousin Earl Harlaw quipped, folding his arms.
Asha’s eyes flicked between the two of them, before slowly nodding. “Be ready to move by the time I return.” She rolled herself over the rail of the ship, and darted off across the docks.
Even at night, the streets of Lys were not empty. Drunkards stumbling out of taverns, licentious pillow slaves of indeterminate gender calling from the doors of pleasure houses. Guards patrolling the streets with spiked maces and long spears, and merchants travelling between wholesalers taking care of business not suitable for open hours. Asha did not stand out as much for being on the streets - only her attire would have drawn a suspicious gaze.
The path to Vyrellio’s studio was a minute shorter than she had timed it yesterday, with the crowds of the Trade District thinned. The district was no less manned by guards at night, but that was fine. She wasn’t intending to go back the same way she came. She reached the door and gave it an experimental tug; as expected, it was locked for the night.
That’s alright. I wasn’t planning to go in the front door anyways. Asha reached into her satchel and pulled out a pair of rough leather gloves covered with studs across the palms. Slipping them on and flexing them experimentally, she backed up slowly before running full sprint at the wall of the studio.
She bounced up and off the wall, her fingers just missing the lip of the tiled roof. She came down light, a scowl on her face. “One more.” she muttered to herself. She backed up further this time, and leaped earlier. The bounce drove her higher, and her hand snagged the roof lip with inches to spare. The rough leather gave her a firm grip, and she pulled herself up to a stealthy crouch easily. She’d made jumps like that across the rigging since she was four-and-ten.
It took her only seconds to locate the open ventilation gaps that led into the open studio, and to gently squeeze herself through. If only we’d had the foresight to bring a locksmith with us raiding, she groused internally. Then I wouldn’t have to pretend at acrobatics. She landed somewhat heavily and immediately went to a hidden crouch, holding her breath.
Nobody came.
Slowly, slowly, she stood once more, staring about. Her eyes landed on a fourth painting in a place that had not been there before - Lynesse Hightower, illuminated by the pale moon as she stood upright, an aristocratic tilt to her gaze. Asha’s eyebrows shot up - the painting was high-quality, and appeared finished even though it had only been started that morning. She reached her fingers out to touch it -
And immediately flinched back as they came back wet, covered in blue paint. She stared at it, for just a moment, before a devious grin appeared. She loaded her fingers up more with half-dry paint, and began scrawling across the panel. Finished, she stepped back and grinned, absently wiping off the fingers of her glove. Over her head, the words ‘WHORE OF THE REACH’ were scrawled, a cartoonish tongue was lolling from her mouth, and the abstract representation of several penises were spewing over her dress.
Hightower will have his head for this. She mused, grinning wider. Serves him right.
Her fun finished with, she quietly crept through the only door out of the studio. A long hallway with multiple doors, and the faint sound of somebody snoring. The immediate burst of eagerness was dampened, when she realized the noise was the paintmonger, and not his bodyguard. She quietly passed over that room, and pressed an ear to the next door.
Soft, steady breathing greeted her.
Slowly and gently, she crept through the door. Lodos was there, lying asleep. His room was barren, save for a desk with a small stool, and a basin full of standing water; she absently noted that his hair and face was damp, and a trail of droplets tracked to the basin.
Her true goal, however, lay on the desktop. The sword was there, lying unwrapped of its cloth disguise. Her breath caught in her lungs as she took in the hilt - she KNEW that wavy crossguard and ruby inset, that flame-licked pommel. She had seen it before, in an old painting of Goren Greyjoy presenting a pickling jar to the Targaryen king. The King’s mother had been standing at his side, clutching this sword in her hand.
No. It couldn’t be. She reached out a gloved hand, eyes wide as dinner saucers. Such an ironic thing couldn’t be possible.
Her hand brushed over the grip, and gently slid it out with the quietest of hisses. The distinctive pattern of Valyrian Steel answered her.
Dark Sister. The Dragon Queen’s sword, here in Lys with an amnesiac cripple. She grinned widely. No ironborn will question my rights as heir with this in my hand. She slid the blade back flush to the scabbard, and pulled it to her -
A loud clatter of wood on stone. Her heart leaped into her throat, and an involuntary yelp escaped her.
Lodos’ eyes snapped open. “YOU!” he roared, immediately rolling from the bed with a clumsy gait.
Asha instinctively pulled the sword close and stepped away - the clatter followed, and now she could see the strip of cloth still attached to the back of the scabbard through a metal ring, and wrapped around the leg of the stool. A bootleg alarm, and she fell for it.
She let out a furious shout, grabbed the stool from the ground and slammed it lengthwise into the amnesiac’s jaw. By the time he even finished falling back into the bed, she had ripped the cloth from the ring and bolted down the hall.
“STOP! THIEF!”
“Not a chance.” she hissed, unlocking the front door and dashing away into the side-streets.
The back-alleys were suitably narrow and twisted, spaced only where construction could not put a building flush to another, and if Asha had not made a point of scoping out her pathway beforehand, she would have been hopelessly lost. As it was, the dark shadows hid her escape. Fading in the distance, she could hear Lodos shouting furiously, until it merged with the sounds of the free city at night.
Still, Asha refused to accept it. It meant nothing until she was out to sea. The planned route hooked around a slave-processing facility, and arced between two warehouses. Next would come an open stretch of road, but after that was a snarl of paths between pottery kilns -
“Stop righ’ there, girl!”
Asha pulled to a stop, as a pair of filthy ragged men stepped from deeper shadows. One smiled at her, revealing his missing teeth. The side of the other’s neck was covered in scars mangling a slave tattoo in some misguided attempt to disguise it.
Asha’s eyes narrowed. Nobody would care about the bodies of two runaway slaves.
Before the two had a chance to enact whatever depraved plot they had in mind, Dark Sister was drawn and exposed. “One chance.” she said, sharply. “Walk away.”
The first man took one look at the sword, let out a singular strangled noise, and darted back into the darkness. Slave-Tattoo let out an angry shout. “OI! What are you-”
Asha didn’t give him another chance. Dark Sister plunged through his chest as easily as a knife through butter, and he died with a wet gurgle. She didn’t bother looking back as she disappeared into the night.
It took her longer than expected to reach the docks. By the time she came within sight, the guard shift had changed, and a thicker patrol was moving through the area.
Asha scowled. She’d been told by the dockmaster on the first day that attempts to set sail past a certain time would be met with extreme suspicion and treated as potentially criminal, with resulting consequence; she had hoped to slip out during the shift change.
Nothing for it. I wasn’t going to be coming back to this city anyways.
She straightened herself up, undid her mask, and made for the ship with all the confident swagger of an inebriated sailor. She noted no less than three guards stop moving and watch her movements. They didn’t stop her, though.
Qarl was there at the gangplank, a tense expression on his face. “Captain.” the nervousness drained away. “We were beginning to worry.”
“Took a detour.” she replied simply. Half the crew was topside, waiting about in places out of the dock patrol’s line of sight. Many of their eyes went immediately to the blade on her hip.
“You got it?” Fingers asked.
“I got more than just ‘it’.” she said, and drew the blade. Their eyes went wide at the patterned steel. “Any of you recognize this sword?”
“Should we?” asked Qarl.
“Never seen one before in me life, let alone know it’s name.” Grimtongue answered, licking his lips slowly.
Asha experimentally swung the blade about. The air let out a soft keening at it’s passage. “This,” she drawled, barely keeping her excitement in check, “is a blade for a queen. A Targaryen queen, in fact. Its name is Dark Sister.”
The crew went silent.
“Storm God’s spit, how did a thing like that end up in Lys?” Asked her cousin Earl Harlaw.
“I don’t know.” Asha swung it about once more, before sheathing it. “And I don’t much care. We need to move before that paintmonger convinces the whore of Hightower to send the guards after us. Get us underway.”
“Aye.” the crew didn’t burst into action - that would have been too conspicuous. But ropes were slowly loosened, sails carefully unfurled and clamped tightly shut, and oars quietly lowered down into the lapping waves. Asha watched with quiet eyes as the ship gently pulled away, inch by inch.
“STOP!”
Asha’s head whipped up. Even in the dark of night, the sliver of moon lit up the pale half-circle ‘crown’ from all the way across the docks. “Son of a-” she cursed. “ROW! GET US OUT OF HERE!”
Lodos took off at a dead sprint, darting and weaving around the shouting guards. Next to them, the Reaver’s Cut unfurled to full sail in unison with the Black Wind . Asha spotted a guard running towards a dock-mounted scorpion. “Somebody take out that scorpion!’ She shouted. Fingers lifted his bow, nocked an arrow, and loosed, and missed by inches. He cursed, and turned to run towards one of their own ship-mounted scorpions-
Lodos turned and tackled the guard with his shoulder, and with a startled scream, the man went tumbling into the water, and a second later an arm of the massive crossbow went with him to render it useless. Asha’s eyebrows shot up. “What in the frozen hells?”
“We’re free of the docks!” Qarl shouted. A quick cursory skim of the land confirmed to her that none of the siege machinery was situated well enough to fire on them.
Asha let the tension drain out of her body, before walking slowly to the aft. Lodos was standing there at the edge of the dock, staring at her with a furious gaze. She smirked, and waved jauntily at him. “Fare thee well, ‘Lodos Palecrown’.” she called, mockingly.
The boy’s eyes narrowed, before turning around with a brisk walk all the way to the end of the dock, and spinning about crisply. The guards charged at him, and he sank down to a lunging stance. Qarl, standing at her side, let out a shocked noise. Her jaw dropped open. “No. that dumb bastard wouldn’t-”
Lodos took off running down the dock.
“He’ll never make it.” Asha declared. “We’ve gained too much speed.”
Even still, Lodos sprinted down the dock towards their ship, arms wheeling. He reached the end of the dock, took a powerful leap off the dock, arm stretched out… and instead of reaching for the edge of the ship, just inches from his fingertips, he instead brought his arms and legs together, and swan-dived into the harbor.
“Idiot.” Qarl scoffed. “Maybe that wood in his brain turned him simple.” Asha simply stared down at the water as Lodos surfaced, and began moving through their wake with powerful strokes. He moved like he’d been born in the water, half-mermaid. Yet still, he wasn’t able to match the speed of an Iron Fleet longship under full oars - speed was their pride.
“Or maybe he expects a kraken to lift him onto our deck.” she murmured, half-heartedly. She continued to stare - they were far beyond the harbor, now, yet still Lodos kept after them, swimming after their ship. He made a powerful breaststroke, pulling him forward, and lifted his head from the waves to look her in the eye.
Asha’s breath caught. There was absolutely no fear in his eyes. He was going to chase after them until the moment his body gave out.
“He swims well, I’ll give him that.” Qarl commented, leaning his chin into his palm on the rail. “How long do you think he’ll last? I give him twenty minutes - oh, leaving already?”
Asha ignored him, as her feet carried her down to the storage cupboard. Her hands had already sought out the coiled length of spare rigging before she realized. “What am I doing?” she asked nobody in particular. She stared into the cupboard, as if it would answer, before shaking her head. “Hells.”
Qarl’s eyes popped when she returned. “Wait, you’re not actually going to save him?”
Asha didn’t answer with words. The twist-and-throw of the end of rope over the aft was answer enough. Her sometimes-lover stared at her as if she had grown a second head, before biting back the obvious recrimination. Good. If he had said it in public I would have had him lashed.
I wish he had, though. I can’t kill him now that I’ve done this, fool woman that I am. Why did I just do that? What now?
Lodos grabbed hold of the rope, pulling himself along its length and upwards with only his arms. A sodden hand gripped tightly onto the rail, and the man pulled himself over, just in time to hear the scrape of steel on leather and to feel the flat of Dark Sister meet his throat.
“Congratulations.” said Asha. “you’ve just made yourself my prisoner.”
Lodos turned to her, his tight glare somewhat ruined by looking like a drowned rat. “I expected as much.”
“Yeah?” Qarl asked, scowling. Behind them, a telltale TWANG cut through the air as a scorpion loosed its payload at the harbor. “You ‘expected’ this, huh? What makes you think we couldn’t have let you drown, eh?”
Lodos smiled thinly, as though enjoying a joke only he knew. “Insight. The same reason I won’t be your captive for long.”
“Yeah?” Asha pushed the blade harder against his neck. “And why is that?”
“Because you will let me go. One way or another.”
After that remark, Asha decided, she wasn’t going to free him from chains until she threw him into a mine to live out the rest of his days as a thrall. They locked him in the cage where they would have kept any other captured persons from raids. The crew said he was remarkably complaint. “Barely says a word,” said Earl after nearly a fortnight, “just stares at the wall with his face hidden.”
That set something in Asha’s guts rolling with unease.
She snuck down through the lower decks that evening, making sure to make as little noise as possible so as not to alert him. The door to the prison cell opened with little more than a tiny squeak, and she pressed through.
Lodos sat there in the cage, legs folded and hands loosely braced against the ground, completely unmoving. The crew had stripped him down to his undergarments, but even then the chill of the underwater room didn’t seem to bother him. She moved slowly around, readjusting her angle of vision to see his face. He didn’t react once.
Finally, she rounded a barrel to see his expression, and her gut twisted further. His eyes were a blank white, staring into nothingness. With the pale weirwood planted in his forehead, they almost seemed to glow.
A shudder passed through his body, and without warning his face shifted. His eyes returned to that colorless grey, and they were staring directly at her. “I was beginning to wonder when you would arrive.” he said flatly.
She forced a braggart’s expression on. “What makes you think I’d come here at all? You’re just a thrall, now.”
“You and I both know that’s not true.” he replied. Her gaze trailed down his chest almost involuntarily, and her thoughts tangled on themselves as they caught on a horrific patchwork of scars and marks - one set appeared to be a number of lethal stab wounds healed over, covered by a number of irregular circles all across his torso. Upon his neck, a fading black handprint appeared as though to be choking the life out of him; pieces of it seemed to be flaking away like disintegrating charcoal, even now.
“How in the frozen hells are you still alive?” she asked, horrified. The boy had to be younger than she was, but carried such horrific mutilation that it boggled the mind.
“I told you before. Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.”
“Consider my curiosity piqued.”
Lodos smirked. “In that case - I don’t know. I woke with all of these scars, and no memory of how I got them. Save for these.” his hand traced along the circles. “And this.” his other hand gripped the edge of his crown. “And I already told you how I survived this.”
“Yeah.” she scoffed. “Because grandmother Sunderly can raise the dead even from the grave herself.”
Lodos snorted in laughter. “Believe what you will. I will continue to give thanks to Lady Black for the breath of life, and the gift of insight for mystery. One day, I shall have enough to offer the deep to utilize her teachings, so that I may show you what I mean.”
Asha stepped away. “You’re cracked in the head.” she said. “There is no ‘Lady Black’ in my family, let alone my grandmother. And as far as I’m concerned, your fate will be up to my father when we return. He’ll decide if you get the pickling-jar treatment or not.”
She only made it halfway to the door before he spoke again. “If you leave me down here you will not live to see the Iron Islands again.”
She turned, an icy quality to her stare. “I don’t think you’re one to be making threats from a cage, cripple.”
“It’s not a threat.” Said Lodos. “It’s a warning. You spared my life, so I shall offer the same: Free me, or every man and woman on this ship will be dead by tomorrow. Myself included.”
“You’re an awful liar.” she yanked open the door with a touch more strength than necessary.
“Remember my words.” he called from the dark. “Free me, or we will all die.”
“I don’t think so.” and she slammed the door shut behind her.
She doubled the night watch.
She felt stupid, being unnerved by the words of an obvious lunatic. She was going to go to sleep, get a full night of rest, feel properly ashamed of herself in the morning, and then promptly throw the prisoner overboard and have done with the entire Lys debacle. Nobody would ever find out how she had reacquired Dark Sister, but she would be the toast of the Iron Islands once she arrived.
Then she was awoken from her sleep in the dead of night by an insistent pounding on the door. “Captain! Captain Greyjoy!” Said the voice - Rolfe, she guessed, through her haze of sleep. “Come quickly! Fleet spotted on the horizon!”
That caught her attention.
Not a minute later, she was out of her cabin, not perfectly presentable but decent enough for the crew. She went immediately to the rails, peering into the murk of the night. The moon was nearly full and the sky clear, so she didn’t have to stare overly long before she spotted it - distant ships, with a colorful speck of a flag barely visible.
“Drowned God deliver us.” She cursed, her stomach dropping out. “That’s the Tyrosh fleet. How in the hells did they find us again!?”
“Did they ever stop looking?” asked Hagen the Horn, a low rumble.
“What kind of madman admiral keeps looking for us after surviving a hurricane?”
“We have the swifter ship, don’t we?” asked Rolfe. “They can’t catch us.”
“Aye. They can’t catch us.” Said Asha. a pit formed in her stomach. “But they can catch the Reaver’s Cut. ”
A silence fell. The two watchmen knew as well as she did that the Black Wind was not built for long solo journeys, but for war - even triple the size of a regular longship, much of the space its shallow draft provided was used for supplying its ship-mounted weaponry. It was the knarr’s role to carry the loot, and the food, and the drinking water to supply the attached longships. It lacked weapons of its own - and it was slow.
Asha didn’t even need to check her sea charts. She knew they were at least a week’s sailing from any land. If they lost the Reaver’s Cut, it would take far less than that for her people to be driven to drinking sea water to quench their thirst. If they tried to stop their ships and unload as much supplies from the knarr as possible, it would give the Tyroshi the time they needed to catch them - not to mention negating the Black Wind’s own speed from the new cargo.
Caught with our pants down again. She fumed. “How long do you think it will take them to catch us?”
“That’s half a dozen ships, but Tyroshi slave galleys can be fast…” Hagen closed his eyes. “... a day. Maybe less.”
Asha felt the blood in her veins freeze.
“I’m going to kill him.”
Asha swung the sheathed Dark Sister against the cage, setting the iron bars ringing with the strike. Lodos startled awake, seemingly confused for only a moment, before his eyes landed on Asha’s lantern-lit face. “Ah. Welcome, Lady Greyjoy.”
“You KNEW.” she snapped. “How did you know?”
“I told you.” he said, rolling his neck into a series of loud cracks. “I traded what little mystery I had for insight. It was just enough to gain an adumbration of her heart.”
“Talk sense, lunatic.” She snarled, slapping the blade against the cage. “How did you know the Tyroshi fleet would find us?”
“I cannot speak if you will not hear.” he leaned into her light, and in the flickering fire all color seemed bleached from his grey complexion, like fog on a winter sea. “One day, I will have enough mysteries to offer, and then I will show you power beyond mere foreshadowing. But I have other talents. Talents I can use to save us all.”
Her eyes narrowed. “If I let you out.”
“Yes.”
“You sure you don’t want your sword back, too? Maybe make me a nice bed-warmer, while you’re at it?” she asked sardonically. She was surprised to see a blush of color rise to his cheeks.
“That - that will not be necessary, no.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Then what? Turn around and bring you back to Lys?”
“No.” he shook his head. “There is nothing for me in Lys. I have seen only a glimpse of it, but my path leads to Westeros. It is where I belong. I know it.”
Her eyes narrowed. Now that she looked at him, past the exotic coloring and strange wounds, he was clearly of Westerosi stock just like Vyrellio had said. His accent was muddled by a slight Lysene tinge, but beyond that, something spoke to her of the North.
“I’m not letting you roam free.” she answered, finally.
“But you are letting me out of this cage.” he replied, knowingly. “That is fine. I do not need to have free reign to do what I need.”
“And what is that?”
He smirked. “That would ruin the surprise. I’ve been working on convincing the other party of it all week. I’ve been changed by the experience; now I want it to be a grand show.”
Other party? What other party? He’s been locked in a cell this whole time. She blinked. A week. He’s known we would be attacked for a week now.
“All I require is a quiet place, where I will not be disturbed.” said Lodos. “Then, when I have done what is needed, we can talk about further actions.” he stared at her, unblinking. “Do we have a deal?”
Asha stared at the madman in silence, before slowly reaching for the keyring.
“The lunatic is still comatose, then?” Qarl asked.
Asha scowled. “Still leaned against my desk with his eyes all white. Far as I can tell, he’s been that way since I let him out last night.” She folded her arms. “If he’d taken advantage of freedom to do anything, I would have killed him. But he hasn’t.”
“Then at worst he’s done nothing at all to aid us, and we’re still outnumbered.”
Asha scowled further, and stared at the half-dozen Tyroshi ships now clearly in view. Some still looked as though they bore the scars of the storm that helped her escape the first time. “Maybe.” she admitted. “But we’ve had time to lick our wounds. Looks like they never went back to port.”
“What’s the plan?” he asked, leaning back against the portside rail.
“We fight.” she replied simply. “Use the scorpions to cripple some, the spitfires to ignite those less damaged, and board those that don’t sink.”
“The slave archers won’t let us bring the spitfires in range.” Qarl replied, eyes narrowed as he lifted his hand to shade his gaze. “They’ll pick off anybody on topside.”
“When have they ever let us bring the spitfires in range?” Asha rolled her eyes.
Qarl stared at her silently, brown eyes lingering on her face. She met his gaze after a moment, and arched an eyebrow. “When we get out of here…” he began. “Let’s go the the Arbor. Sit on their golden shores, and drink their golden wine, and laze about in the golden sun all day.”
Her expression softened. “And eat golden peaches, before we make love?” she asked, a sad note to her tone.
Qarl looked away, back to the oncoming fleet. “Yeah. just like before.” he said, with a weak smile. “When you teased me about my peach fuzz, and I didn’t know what a peach was, being the grandson of a thrall.”
“You still can’t grow more than peach fuzz.” she said, warmly. She clenched her hands around the deck rail. “... if I say yes, will you live?”
“A strong effort will be made.”
“Then yes.” she answered. “So don’t talk like this is our last day.”
Qarl chuckled. “Aye, captain. As you command.”
SLAM!
Asha immediately turned on her heel as the door to her cabin loudly opened. Lodos stumbled outwards, looking as though he was barely capable of walking, eyes unfocused and arms propping him up against the walls. Despite that, though, a wide manic grin split his face in two.
“It… Has begun.”
Asha’s eyes narrowed. “What has begun?”
Lodos laughed, low and menacing. “You shall see.” he pushed himself off the wall and slowly hobbled to the rail. “I have done as requested. Now, you will understand.”
“You did nothing but sleep in her cabin.” Qarl retorted, a hand going to the sword on his hip.
“Faith, Qarl the Maid. you will see.”
“How do you know my-”
“ARROWS!” Rolfe the Dwarf called out. “TAKE COVER!”
All across the deck, Ironborn men and women scrambled to place themselves behind shelter, as a flight of arrows from the lead slave galley pelted down onto them. Lodos remained where he was standing, grinning widely. Not a single shaft touched his person.
“GET ON THE SCORPIONS!” Asha roared. Grimtongue and Cromm dashed to the siege weapons; Grimtongue didn’t have a chance to fire before an arrow took him in the upper chest, falling back with a cry of pain. Cromm took aim and fired the massive bolt, which flew well and splinted the upper mast of the leading ship, topping it into the ocean.
“Get the fuck out of here, moron!” Asha shouted to Lodos, still unmoved by the railing even as the arrows fell upon them. “You’re going to get killed!”
“I have already passed beyond the veil.” Lodos replied, grey eyes shadowed by his weirwood crown, which gleamed white as bone in the sun. “Who I used to be drained away with my life’s blood. Lost to the deep with the rest of mystery. Yet I stand here now, with renewed vigor, and powers untapped!”
He raised his arms outwards, as if lifting a great weight. The oceans roiled about them - waves and ripples from a source underneath. A shape appeared underneath the surface. Asha’s eyes widened, and opened her mouth to scream in horror.
“FOR WHAT IS DEAD MAY NEVER DIE! BUT RISES AGAIN! HARDER AND STRONGER!”
The sea underneath the Tyroshi fleet exploded in a flurry of tentacles, as the kraken swarmed over the furthest ship. Powerful tentacles constricted against the galley’s body, splintering the mast and cracking the hull as screams echoed across the ocean.
“Drowned God protect us.” Earl breathed. Somewhere on the longship, somebody began to scream.
“GO!” Lodos shouted. “Engage the fleet! He is but a child, and fear will not hold back the other ships for long - he will be overwhelmed if we do not fight!”
Something inside of Asha - the part of her that stopped believing in gods and miracles the day her brothers had died, and refused to believe her own lying eyes - kept her functional enough to understand his words. “FORWARD!” She shouted, voice cracking. “MAN THE SPITFIRES! RAZE THE SHIPS! TAKE NO PRISONERS!”
Her crew, after a moment, roared their fury, and the Black Wind’s oars propelled the ship to battle.
Burning carcasses floated on bloody waves, and the Ironborn stood victorious. Yet the Black Wind was nearly silent, save for the flapping of sails and the creaking of ropes.
Asha herself was quiet, panting and spattered with blood up to her elbow. The admiral of the free city fleet lay dead before her, head split open by her axe. Qarl stood next to her, just as winded - he had shown well today why he was considered one of the best swordsmen of the Iron Islands.
“Are you alright, captain?” He asked.
No. No I am not.
“I’m not injured.” she answered, finally. Behind them, a burning slave galley let out the heartrending sound of a keel splitting in two.
“... Aye. Same.” Qarl nodded, a stilted move. He seemed just as shaken as she.
“This is…”
“Aye.”
Asha swallowed loudly. “My… my father will need to know about this.”
“Your father.” Qarl scoffed, a hysterical tone to it. His eyes tracked to the Black Wind . “Every Ironborn will want to hear of this.” Asha followed his gaze, feeling the bottom drop out of her stomach.
Lodos was standing on the rail of her ship, stripped down to nothing but his smallclothes, baring his prodigious scars to the world. Slowly, he placed his hands together, and just as he had all those weeks ago at Lys made a powerful swan-dive into the ocean. He went underneath with barely a splash.
Asha had no idea what he was doing, but her guts twisted further when she saw his head rise slowly from the waves. Slowly, gently. First his head, then his chest, and then his waist. She watched as the ocean calmed, and Lodos stood on the surface of the water, arms outstretched. From her vantage, she could see his feet resting on a pale surface covered with enormous suction cups, but from how close he stood to the Black Wind , it must have appeared to them as though he was walking on water.
Her eyes widened, as she stared at Lodos, his weirwood crown glimmering in the sun - widened at the comparison between the suction cups of the tentacle he stood on, and the circular scars across his chest. They were nearly the same size.
She watched unblinkingly as her crew - the crew that took such a depraved pride in their woman captain, that would follow her to the Drowned God’s halls if she commanded - slowly and gently fell to their knees. She watched, and felt awe, and fear, and a little hate.
Notes:
Lodos Palecrown. A name an artist with a very shaky grasp of cultural appropriation gave him, and may or may not have turned out to be a little too on the nose.
If it wasn’t obvious, Jon died from the slaver captain’s chair exploding in his face, and then got resurrected by something OTHER than R’hllor himself. Surprise!
This was one of the (many) reasons I had the Ironborn Arc (AKA the Lodos Arc) planned out fairly early on - to show that Jon dying doesn’t mean he immediately gets yanked back to Winterfell. If he gets resurrected, say by a Red Priest or some other power within a short time frame, he can still keep fucking about in the current timeline. Of course, every time you resurrect somebody that way they come back wrong. Lodos is very much NOT Jon, in most of the ways that matter.
Don’t worry. He’ll get better. Jon, as we all know him, will return both as a character and as a POV. Just sit back and enjoy the ride for now. This arc will finally give the clever people out there enough information to understand what the true goal of this story is.
Since I'm feeling chatty, and this might have slipped some people's notice - Jon was MIA for a lot longer than might have been expected. Bobby B wasn’t even halfway to Winterfell the day the ship went under, but he’s had enough time to not only make it north, but then get turned around, go all the way to Oldtown, and then make it back to King’s Landing by the time Asha finds him. Food for thought.
It took me longer than expected to write this chapter, mainly because I didn’t know how to capture Asha’s voice. Also, how to capture a normie accidentally stumbling into PLOT and MAGIC BULLSHIT. Also, playing video games. Sue me.
World is getting pretty crazy out there. All of you stay safe.
Chapter 15: Life Six: Part 5
Summary:
Asha makes it home at last, to the Iron Islands.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Every day, as the sun rose, Lodos Palecrown stripped down to his smallclothes and lowered himself down into the ocean waves to be mauled by the kraken.
That’s what it appeared like to her eyes, anyways. Asha only bothered waking up early enough to see it once on the first day, when the night shift watchman burst into her cabin shouting that the Thrice-Drowned (an epithet the crew had given him by the end of the night, not only unbearably pretentious but already claimed by the still-living priest Tarle the Thrice-Drowned. She put a stop to that immediately) was being attacked by the creature’s tentacles. She had gone outside to see him caught in its grip, thrashing about.
Yet even as he did, a wide, vicious grin was on his face, pulling himself free from the suction cups as big as his face with loud puckering squelches, before dashing off on the beast’s body. He wouldn’t get far before another appendage would find him - sometimes he would be able to dodge, sometimes he was caught again and thrashed about some more until he pulled free again. His entire body was covered with red overlapping circles, but the vicious smile never left his face until he met her eyes.
Then it slipped, and he tapped his heel against the kraken’s slimy red skin three times. The thing seemed to wiggle about, before the tentacle gripping him unclenched, and he fell back down into the water, before climbing up the side of the longship.
“What the hell was that?” Asha asked, eyes narrowed.
Lodos simply stared at her, hair dripping with a thin film of slime. The suction marks were already beginning to redden, but in the manner of large hickeys, instead of the permanent scars already marked across his chest.
“Children require stimulation.” he answered, before disappearing back under the deck.
That was the only time she spoke to him in nearly a fortnight.
It was petty, Asha knew that. On any objective level, she should have been engaging in heavy diplomacy to ensure that the stranger was firmly on the side of House Greyjoy, but she could barely bring herself to even speak to him. Her mind would always flash to Dark Sister, and the way he had simply allowed her to take it from him.
Humoring me. Patronizing me, as if he can’t take it back by turning my own house’s sigil against me. He nearly drowned trying to take it back from me, and then simply gives it away? A mummer’s farce.
This was supposed to be her moment of triumph, returning to the Iron Islands with a treasure beyond value. There were still many on the islands who questioned her right to the Seastone Chair, once her father passed on - whispered that it should be her uncle Victarion that claimed it, rather than allowing a woman to seat it for the first time in history. It was small comfort to her that nobody was stupid enough to suggest Theon - even if he returned unharmed from his wardship, he might as well be a greenlander at this point. Stealing such a relic of authority for herself would have been a potent symbol, and silenced those voices. Not anymore.
I found a sword fit for a queen, and yet somehow I will be overshadowed by a man once again.
Still, she knew she could not put it off forever. The lighthouses of the Shield Islands were burning within sight of the Black Wind , which meant they were less than a week’s sailing away from Pyke. If she allowed Lodos to leave, or to even turn against her and her father, that would be just as potent a symbol.
So she sucked in a steadying breath, straightened her coal-black hair, and went to the cage Palecrown had claimed as his sanctuary.
It had much improved in amenities since last she had been down here - her treasonous crew had gone about ensuring he was comfortable, with a spare hammock and blankets, and a whale-oil lantern of his own. He was sitting against the wall, head bowed and hands laid against his legs. The lantern’s light rippled across his weirwood crown, revealing coarse patterns of salt and brine drying across the wood. She did not think he was asleep, though she could not tell for certain; his mutilation hid his eyes from view.
She stood there at the edge of his cage, saying nothing, waiting for him to break the silence. He didn’t.
Finally, she spoke first. “Staying warm and dry down here, prophet?” she asked, a slight taunting tone in her words.
Lodos didn’t answer for a moment, and she began to wonder if he was sleeping, before he grunted. “Is that what I am, now?” he asked, with a mocking tint to match hers. “I was beginning to think you still claimed me as your thrall.”
“Maybe you still are. Haven’t quite decided yet.” said Asha. “Certainly look as though you can swing a pick. Use your prophecy to find something more valuable than iron in the mines, perhaps.”
Lodos snorted. “As your crew tells it, your uncle will sweep me off my feet to become a priest of the Drowned God the minute my feet touch land. My dowsing skill will have to wither. How tragic.”
Asha scowled. “He would know better than to take what is mine.” she replied, coldly. “And they will learn to keep their mouths shut instead of gossiping like fishwives.”
Lodos smirked and slowly pushed himself to his feet. “I am flattered, that you lay claim to a life you clearly wish to snuff out.” He matched her gaze with his own. “Why is it that you hate me so? You have from the moment we met.”
“A woman needs a reason to hate?”
“Possibly not. I wouldn’t know. You’re the second woman I’ve shared more than two sentences with.” his eyebrows rose, and a stilted laugh escaped his lips. “Wait. Don’t tell me this is all due to my name? A silly thing like that?” He chuckled. “Unbelievable. Well, go on, then!” he bowed down theatrically, twirling his hands in circles by the wrists. “Pick a better one, Greyjoy.”
Asha’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Pick a - what, pick you a new name? Are you touched in the head?”
“Why not?” he smirked again. “It’s not like it’s my real name. I’ve no great attachment to it. If that painter’s obsession offends you, then pick something that offends your family history less.”
Asha opened her mouth to respond, but slowly shut it. “It - well, it wouldn’t matter now.” she stammered, taken aback. “The crew already knows you by one name.”
“And nobody in your home has ever gone by two names?”
“Why are you so insistent on this?” She snapped. “It’s your own damned name! Why are you letting me decide what you are called?”
Lodos shook his head, chuckling under his breath. “Why, she asks. Because I want us to not be enemies , Asha Greyjoy.” he rolled his head about his shoulders until his neck loudly cracked, as if for emphasis. “You think we need to return to your father’s house as rivals for the people’s love. Or perhaps your family’s love. I say, what is the point in working against one another when we can work with one another?”
Asha blinked slowly, feeling slightly punch-drunk, before shaking her head. “You don’t know my father, then.” She muttered. “And I nearly killed you, anyways! Why, by all the Drowned God’s oarsmen, would you want to suck up to me?”
Lodos’ eyes widened, like an owl staring hungrily at a mouse. “Because I must.” he said. “I gave a secret to the deep, just a small one. Smothered in its cradle by all the muck at the bottom of every lake and river and ocean, known and unknown, before it had time to grow, to mean something to someone. I had to, for I had nothing greater to give.”
“And in return, I was given a taste of foreshadowing. One glimpse of the narrative, for each eye a scene. That slightest of hints informs all I do.” he grinned, eerily. “Had I more eyes on the inside of my skull, then perhaps I would see more.”
Asha violently rolled her eyes. “Enough of this. You can rot down here for playing this lunatic game.”
She was halfway across the hold before Lodos’ voice called out. “No games, Greyjoy! You asked how I knew the Tyroshi would find your ships - the night we left Lys I was granted adumbration, and I saw you slamming an ax into the admiral’s skull as the kraken’s tentacles collapsed the keel of another galley, frozen in place as if I had painted it on the walls.”
Asha stopped.
“I knew you would be attacked by the Tyroshi,” Lodos continued, voice dropping to a low rumble, “before I even set foot on your ship. I knew that I would not drown when I leapt into the harbor the moment I saw you pull away from the docks. I knew I would call upon the kraken to save you, before you even stepped foot in my room-!”
“You lie.”
“No lies.”
Asha’s hands began to tremble. “You’re a damn liar!” she repeated. She knew he was telling the truth, though. She remembered the look in his eyes, swimming after their rudder. A man who was utterly unafraid of drowning; a man who knew he would be saved. It was that look, so similar to an ironman wearing a full plate of armor in a storm because he did not fear his god’s call, that spoke to her so. “You’re lying to me.”
“No lies. By all the Drowned God’s oarsmen, no lies.”
Asha stilled her hands, and pivoted to look at him again. The lantern was in his hand now, and in his long shadow lay the impression of a king. She couldn’t deny the man - the boy - had something unnatural about him; she’d known since she first laid eyes on him, and the kraken proved it so. But this was something else. Prophecy - or foreshadowing , as he continued to call it - was another beast entirely. To hear out loud what she had only suspected...
She let out a shuddering breath. “Alright, then. Let’s follow this mummer’s farce, and pretend I believe you.” Lodos’ expression lifted. “What else did you see?”
“A room of dark grey stone.” he answered immediately. “A man, grey and hollow-cheeked and hard as rock, standing before a map. Two others stood with him - Another man, hair to his waist and woven with seaweed, and you. A throne lay behind them, black and oily and of a kraken’s form. A choice was about to be made, of the kind that cannot be taken back and shakes the world in its wake, and though I know not what it was, I know it was the wrong one. The chair…” he trailed off.
Asha realized she had stopped breathing. “What about the chair?” she whispered.
He closed his eyes. “No. that insight is for myself alone, I think.”
“Pigshit.” Asha snapped. “Tell me.” Lodos shook his head. “Tell me what you saw of the Seastone Chair!”
His eyes snapped open. “You know this place, then?”
“It’s the throne room of Pyke.” she answered. “That was my father and uncle. Now tell me what you saw!”
Lodos stared at her, without saying a word. The shadows cast by the oil lantern danced across his face, and the driftwood crown planted in his skull.
“The throne was watching them.” answered Lodos, finally. “It seemed to exult in the failure. And on the head of the kraken, the oily black stone seemed to burn in the shape of a thirteen-pointed star. Though I only saw it once, remembering it even now coats my tongue with the taste of lightning, and cold ash, and snow.”
Asha stared at him, cockeyed. “... And what in the watery halls is that supposed to mean?” she asked, finally, ignoring the strange chill of gooseflesh along her arms.
That wasn’t… what I thought it would have been. I would have thought he saw himself sitting in the throne, not… whatever that’s supposed to mean.
“I do not know.” Lodos admitted. “But something about it is familiar to me. My heart knows it is evil, and it sets my wounds aching with every heartbeat.” his left hand reached up and trailed a finger around the puckered flesh of his crown’s anchors, before floating down to the side of his eye.
“Twice I was given a vision of you in the heart of danger, Asha Greyjoy. Once to save you. Perhaps the other to save your people. I could have ignored them, and chosen to stay in Lys. I choose instead to embrace the insight. Disaster comes to the Ironborn, but forewarned, we have the power to stop it.”
This is insane. He’s utterly insane. But Asha looked up to meet his gaze. His gaze was steady, his pupils blown wide, not looking away from her for even a moment. He doesn’t think he’s lying. She realized, unnerved. He could be insane… but he doesn’t think he’s a liar.
“Again, let’s pretend I believe you.” said Asha, after a long moment of silence. Lodos’ lip twitched upwards, as she folded her arms across her chest. “How’d you learn it, then. This ‘picture on an eyeball’ or whatever.”
“I told you.” Lodos answered. “A secret, sacrificed to the deep before its time. None will know it before I die; perhaps none will know it after.”
“Yeah, I’m asking for an answer WITHOUT the mystic nonsense.”
The boy smirked. “Alright. A question then, to illustrate.” he leaned forward, his clothes hanging loosely off his frame, as he picked up the lantern on the floor. “Do you remember what it was that the Lady Hightower’s portrait was painted with?”
Her face twisted in confusion. “... Is this a trick question?” she asked. “Paint, of course.”
“Yes, but a special paint. One I had created that very day. You were there when I showed it to Vyrellio. He pulled me aside, and left you alone with Lady Hightower for some time.” he leaned forward further, and the crown cast a sinister shadow over his face. “Do you remember the special ingredient?”
“I…” Asha stepped back. “... No. No, I don’t remember. I don’t remember you showing anything.” A pit formed in her stomach. “I only remember… us arguing, and then that Hightower bitch showed up, and you just… left.”
“Of course you don’t.” with a quick puff of breath, the lantern wick died. He leaned back upright, before walking past her. “Neither does Vyrellio, nor Lady Hightower. And as long as I live, they never will, nor any other man alive. Nor can I tell any other soul of it. It is a secret now, given to the deep.”
He turned and grinned at her. “And in exchange, the deep gave me something back, for water is the eternal bulwark of secrets.” his eyes seemed to glow in the dark. “Be glad it was unimportant enough to you that you merely forgot. I’m certain Vyrellio was not so lucky.”
Asha stared at his retreating back as he disappeared upwards through the trap-door, leaving her in darkness.
“Well, of course he’s a sorcerer.” said Qarl, arms folded against his chest. The ship rolled with a strong wave, and various baubles skittered across Asha’s cabin desk. “The kraken should have made it obvious.”
“And that doesn’t worry you, at all?” Asha replied testily, still seated at her chair, her heel rapping a frenzied staccato beat against the floor with how it anxiously bounced.
“There’s no point in worrying. If he wanted to kill us, we’d be flotsam on the waves by now.” he shrugged his shoulders, but Asha noticed a tension in the movement.
No doubt he’s spent time imagining that very scenario.
“But he ripped something from my mind.” she repeated once more. “He used magic on me to make me forget something! He TAUNTED ME with it!”
“He did.” Qarl nodded. “And then used it to save your life. I call it a price paid. And now he offers to use his power as your ally.”
“You can’t be serious!” she exclaimed, whipping her head around to stare at him incredulously. “We can’t trust him! I stole Dark Sister from him, and he wants to ally with me as though it never even happened? You can’t be this gullible! He stole from my memories ! Perhaps he’s stolen your sense of self-preservation, as well!”
“What is he going to do, then?” Qarl arched an eyebrow. “Rob you on your own ship, or rob you inside the walls of Pyke? Lord Balon’s wrath would be legendary. They’d write songs about it.”
“Maybe he’ll steal Pyke, too.”
Qarl shook his head. “You don’t mean that.”
“How do I not mean it?” she asked. “Ironmen have spent centuries refusing to learn to read or write for fear a sorcerer would empty their nets of fish or make their cocks fall off by reading a heretical word - this man is REAL, and you think he couldn’t bewitch his way to lordship?”
Qarl rolled his eyes. “I’m the grandson of a thrall. You know well I don’t buy into all of that superstition. Besides, you can’t seriously believe a man who is scared of a throne - not the man sitting the throne, the throne itself - would want to usurp you.”
Asha made to retort hotly, but stopped, and snorted with laughter. “Why not?” she asked, suddenly smirking. “The tales say the Iron Throne cuts those with ill intent to ribbons when they seat it, but men kill each other to plant their fat arses on it all the same.”
Qarl snorted loudly, smiling into his chest. “There you are.” he said. “You’ve been so dour ever since you pulled him on board. I was beginning to wonder where the woman who said she would die with a laugh on her lips had gone to.”
Asha felt heat rise into her cheeks. Drowned God deliver me, he’s right. I’ve been far too serious of late. If Qarl noticed, then surely the rest of the crew has as well.
“I’ve never seen you with a fisherman’s net in hand, and I’m not the least concerned about you losing your cock.” Qarl continued, smiling crookedly that helped to spread the heat from her cheeks to her chest. “What I have seen is you taking a man’s throat out with a knife thrown from the other end of a ship, and cut down four men in the time it took a man to draw a nocked arrow back. I’m not worried about you pitted against him, magic or no.”
“Flatterer.” The ship rolled underneath them again, setting the wood paneling of her cabin quarters creaking with the movement. She looked up, a small self-confident smile on her face. “You’re right. I’ve been too worried about this. Magic or not, he is just a man. I can deal with him just like any other.”
“Aye, captain.” Qarl nodded, a pleased look on his face. “That you can.”
She stood from the desk, rolling her neck and shoulders with long luxurious arcs of movement. “If I have become so prickly I have you concerned, then some entertainment is called for.” she strutted across the cabin and flung open the door to the topdeck with a loud clatter. The crew of the Black Wind moved about with the ease of purpose, men and women who knew their duties and had them well in hand. She noted with some surprise that Lodos was on deck, leaning over the rails and staring at the mainland in the distance.
“ATTENTION!” Asha shouted. “Your captain demands your attention!” as one, the crew slowed and turned to face her. She grinned. “It occurs to me that this ship has been far too quiet of late. Our guest of honor,” she waved a hand dramatically at Lodos, who tipped his head obligingly, “has thrown our usual order of things into chaos. Let’s put an end to that, I think. Give us a song! We’re going home!”
The crew whooped and cheered with excitement. Grimtongue stepped away from the helm, gave a loud grunting cough, and licked his lips through his thick beard, before beginning to sing. “OOH We’d be AAAAALL-right if the winds were in our SAILS!”
“OH WE’D BE AAAAALL-RIGHT IF THE WINDS WERE IN OUR SAILS!” echoed the crew, in a shanty’s approximation of harmony with his melodious baritone.
“we’d be all-right if the winds were in our sails
And we’ll all hang on behind~!
And we’ll roll the old chariot along~
We’ll roll the old chariot along~
We’ll roll the old chariot along
And we’ll all hang on behind~!”
Asha, grinning widely, gestured with the whole of her body to Fingers, who leaped to his feet obligingly. “OH WE’D BE AAAAAALL-RIGHT,” he sang, a little too loud and off-key, “IF WE MAKE IT PAST THE ROCK!”
Asha swaggered through the standing crowds, until she stood next to Lodos, who had not opened his mouth once. “Let’s say I believe you, wizard!” she said, just loud enough for the man to hear over the music. “Say I believe you truly wish to only help, which I don’t. You’re no reborn messiah, I know that much, but say I let the people think what they want! What then? What of this wrong choice my father is making?”
Lodos’ expression lifted. “You’re his daughter!” He replied. “You know him better than I! What mistake would your father make that would affect the world so?”
“And we’ll roll the old chariot along~”
“You really must have cracked your head if you don’t know of Balon Greyjoy!” Asha replied. “My father dreams of independence and empire, and nine years ago rebelled against the Seven Kingdoms! One kingdom against six - it was stupidity! He lost, and my brothers died for his folly, but he never stopped dreaming!”
Her hand snapped out to point at Earl, who easily stepped up. “Well, a night on the town wouldn’t do us any harm~!” He sang, with a strong bass.
“OH, A NIGHT ON THE TOWN WOULDN’T DO US ANY HARM~!”
“There could be no greater mistake from him than to rebel once more - we would not receive clemency from the Baratheons a second time!”
“Then you are a loyalist?” He asked.
“I didn’t say that!” She replied hotly. “Only that the days of dominion are gone! We ruled the waves, taking what we wanted and who we wanted, but as one kingdom amongst many - now we dig in the mud for a pittance, as our keeps rot with mold and salt! I would see us great again, aye - but we cannot fight an empire single-handedly!”
“And we’ll all hang on behind~!”
Asha heard the end of the chorus, and lifted her hand once more to gesture, but Lodos reached out and grabbed her wrist, halting the movement. He grinned crookedly at her, and for the first time began to sing. “Well, a ship full of gold, wouldn’t do us any harm~!” he called out, in a pure tenor that rang through the air.
The crew let out a cacophony of excited yips and calls, immediately taking up the improvisation. “OH, A SHIP FULL OF GOLD WOULDN’T DO US ANY HARM~!”
Asha yanked her hand out of his grip, but found herself smiling unexpectedly, a laugh caught halfway in her throat. Lodos turned to her once again, and his piercing grey eyes met hers. “Could you talk him out of war?” he asked.
“He believes in the Old Way. An Ironborn takes what he wants, and what he wants is a crown!” she answered. “Better souls than I have tried to change my father’s mind and failed!”
Lodos closed his eyes, and let his body rock with the movement of the waves as the chorus came once again. “Then he cannot be dissuaded from war, and he cannot win a war against the Seven Kingdoms!” he declared. “An impossible choice, on the face of it!”
“AND WE’LL ROLL THE OLD CHARIOT ALONG~!”
Asha stared at him, wheels turning inside her mind. When put in such stark terms, it cleared away all chaff and distractions. Of course her father longed for war once more. The longer Theon remained out of his sight, the less of a hold his memory had on a man who cared little for his children in the first place. “Then I know what we must do!” she declared. “When there is a storm to one side and a reef to the other, a wise captain steers the third course!”
Lodos grinned. “We find another way! Between the peace he will not accept, and the war he will not win, we find the hidden route!” He held out his full arm to her, and with only a moment’s hesitation she gripped his forearm tightly with her own.
“AND WE’LL ALL HANG ON BEHIIIIIIND~!”
Asha slowly straightened the collar of her doublet with one hand, resettling the haft of her axe through her belt with the other. Her father had already anticipated her arrival, but after the tumult of their docking, she would need to play her cards carefully. Before, she would have walked directly into his solar without even bothering to take off her chainmail hauberk.
She sucked in a small breath, staring at the small mirror upon her vanity as she practiced a self-confident smirk she didn’t feel. The waves outside the Sea Tower pounded loud and billowing, and the faint smell of salt and mold permeated the air. The thralls clearly hadn’t bothered to air out her room while she was gone. The air escaped her lips as she rested a hand with a feigned laziness on the hilt of Dark Sister, and made her way through the keep.
Balon Greyjoy was there, wrapped in his favored cloak up to his neck by the fireplace. He looked up from his musings at the sound of her footsteps, and though he did not smile, there was an unfurrowing of his brow that told her he was not unhappy to see her. “My daughter, returned at last.” he said, flatly.
“Father.” she replied, bowing her head slightly.
“I expected you home a fortnight ago, with more ships. What of the rest?”
“Gone to the Drowned God.” she answered. “The Three Whores are warring again. A Tyroshi fleet descended upon us in the Stepstones, and a hurricane chasing their skirts.”
“Foul luck.” Said Balon, his expression twitching with annoyance. “Yet you return with more crew than you began.” his eyes landed on her hips. “And a new weapon.”
“Paid in full.” she answered, though she did not specify whether with iron or gold. It helped to keep her mind off what he said. Of course he already knows of Lodos, even up here.
“Aeron has not returned, though I sent him to greet you, but the thrall said you refused to show the weapon to any but myself.” he thumped the arm of his seat. “So show it.”
Asha smirked, and slowly unbuckled the scabbard from her belt. “Careful not to drop it, father.” she lilted. “This is worth more than all of Pyke.”
Balon didn’t answer her with a characteristically biting retort. Instead, his eyes remained fixed on the flame-shaped hilt. His bony fingers slowly wrapped around the leather, and with a soft hiss pulled it out an inch, to reveal the dark waves of Valyrian steel. His lips seemed to mouth several words, but no sound came out.
Asha simply stood there, hands behind her back as she watched her father marvel at the treasure.
Abruptly, he slammed the steel back to the hilt. “A hundred longships lost,” he said, with a quiet, heady intensity, “would be worth seeing this blade in your hands, Asha.” he handed it back to her slowly. “The blade of the Targaryens who broke us, turned to our service.”
“There’s not a fleet on all the narrow sea that would make us lose a hundred ships.” she joked.
Balon Greyjoy grunted in agreement, and leaned back in his chair to gaze at her approvingly.
A stray thought passed behind Asha’s eyes, and she only just contained the wince. “Father.” she began. “I’ve a question, of our line.”
“You are the heir of my body, regardless of your female nature.” he replied instantly. “With this new weapon, I will make all men see that.”
Asha felt a fierce pride bloom in her chest. “Thank you, father, but I wasn’t talking about that.” she paused, steeling herself before jumping in. “Father, has there ever been a ‘Lady Black’ in our family line?”
Balon’s brow furrowed, his face scrunching inward. “Black, you say? There is no such family. Do you speak of the Hoares, and their black blood?”
“No, not the Hoares, he specifically named-” she stopped. “Wait.” her eyes widened slowly. “The Hoares. Black of hair, black of eye, and black of heart. ‘Black of blood’ as well.”
“We’ve had men in our line take Hoare daughters as rock wives before. Nearly every lord of the Islands has, at some point.” said Balon. “You know as well as I that the Hoares are gone, though, else I would not be Lord of the Islands. There’s not been a trueborn Hoare for centuries.”
Asha slowly shook her head. “No. No, there is more to this. Why the moniker of ‘black blood’? Where did that come from? I know better now than to take that man’s words for a farce.”
Balon’s eyes narrowed. “We come to the crux, then.” He stood from his chair and pushed his fur cloak off his shoulders, walking to her. “Tell me of him. This man who comes on your ship with a kraken at his call. Who threatened my brother’s life so brazenly.”
She tried not to wince; she had hoped he had not heard of that bit. “... His name is Lodos Palecrown.”
Balon glowered. “And tell me, daughter, why this man is not dead with a name such as that.”
“Besides the kraken he commands with his mind, you mean?” she replied flippantly. “He earned his life, and the benefit of my doubt, in the Old Way.”
“From the point of a blade.” he answered, his angry expression not lessening.
“The boy is unquestionably mad.” Said Asha. “But are not half of all Ironborn warriors so? And more than that, he is unquestionably a sorcerer. He…” she hesitated. “He has prophecy in him, father.”
“Prophecy.” Balon turned and spat. “Is that why he nearly tried to strangle your uncle the moment he saw him? Speak not to me of prophecy. Speak to me of why you saved him from an ax to the skull, and why I shouldn’t have him fed to the sharks instead.”
Asha sucked back a retort; she understood full well his displeasure. The Damphair had been there to greet them, and Lodos had performed with all the bravado of a mummer for the priest; for all that the sour old man disdained the world, he seemed ready to sweep the boy off his feet to dress him in seaweed robes.
Then her other uncle, Victarion, had appeared. Lodos had nearly slipped and fallen into the water, so shaken he was at the appearance, before lunging forward and punching him in the face. Asha had to physically hold the boy back, as he screamed obscenities at him, eyes blown wide and unseeing.
“I KNOW YOUR FACE, CROW’S EYE! I NAME YOU KINSLAYER, WHORE OF LIONS, FATHER OF ASHES!”
“He seemed to think he was attacking a different uncle.” She replied quietly. “He called him Crow’s Eye.”
Balon snapped to face her at those words. “Mad indeed, to accuse Victarion of Euron’s trespasses.” he growled. “And to name the man behind the burning of Lannisport a whore of the Lannisters…”
Asha nodded slowly. All men on the islands knew Euron had been banished by Balon earlier in the year, never to return while Balon lived; only their family knew it was because Euron had given Victarion horns with his favored salt wife. Some days she wondered if Victarion would sail after her uncle’s wake, to settle things out of the sight of gods and men.
But no man on the islands would mistake one brother for the other. Victarion had long brown hair and was clean-shaven; Euron had coal-black hair and a beard. Victarion had two pale blue eyes; Euron only had the one. Victarion was a simple man, with no head for anything outside of battle; Euron was clever, curious, and cruel.
And yet, Lodos with his gift of prophecy named one uncle for the other. Asha felt a cold sliver of fear in her gut. She had felt this fear more times since meeting Lodos than she had in all the rest of her life; with the Ironborn, you were raised on mother’s milk and a dread of magic in equal measure. Her head wanted to believe it was a simple mistake, or insanity - her heart dreaded that it was not as simple as that.
“He named Euron a kinslayer.”
Balon scowled deeper, but said nothing.
“The whole of the port heard what he said, and knows he is a wizard, or a prophet.” she continued. “They will take him seriously without taking him literally. Nobody knows why Euron was banished; if you kill him, then mad or not all the islands will believe we are protecting the reputation of a kinslayer. Worse if they believe him a kinslaying puppet of the Lannisters.”
“None would believe the words of a madman.”
“Madman or not, his sorcery gives his words weight.” She replied testily.
“Has he spread your legs so easily, daughter?” Balon replied caustically. Asha flinched. “You defend him like a lovestruck whore!”
“He bought my benefit of the doubt with iron, not gold, and certainly not with his cock!” She shouted. “That beast of his saved our lives. And I know for certainty he has prophecy in him. If he names Victarion Crow’s Eye, then I don’t worry about what is already truth - I fear what he sees that WILL be truth.”
Balon’s fists clenched tightly, but Asha merely straightened her spine. She did not dare reveal the second of his prophecies, for fear of what he would do, but she refused to be deterred, and met his gaze with her own.
The two stayed locked in a silent contest of wills, before Balon flexed his jaw slowly. “You are certain he can see the future?” he said quietly.
“Glimpses, according to him.” she replied just as evenly. “But he knew we would be ambushed a second time by the Tyroshi a week in advance, and had his beast waiting for them.”
Balon grunted, but his eyes narrowed in thought, instead of anger. “Kinslayer, he says…” his lips peeled back in a sneer. “Many of my brothers died young. Now I wonder how many died unnaturally.” his knuckles rapped against the surface of the wooden table they stood next to. “I do not trust your new wizard, daughter… but for Euron, it is just believable enough to make an exception.”
Asha thought of making a flippant remark, but bit back the urge. “Thank you, father.”
“After an outburst like that, the lords would raise an uproar if I were to summon him to Pyke.” he frowned. “You will control him, then. Do not let him turn against us. When the time comes, ensure that both he and the kraken sail under our banners.”
A cold pit formed in Asha’s stomach. So it’s true. Even now, he is preparing for another rebellion.
Slowly, she shook her head. “A better idea. Let him apprentice under the Damphair. Uncle Aeron will ensure his loyalty, but the priesthood will create distance from our family.” she smirked. “Maimed face or not, people will question my innocence should we mingle too long. Such horrible rumors for a father to hear.”
Balon didn’t laugh. “I will have Aeron seek him out once again, then.” He leaned forward, staring down at her menacingly. “But let me make myself clear, Asha. I will not have this boy become the third Lodos to rebel against the Islands. If that means killing him, so be it. If that means using your female nature against him to ensure loyalty, so be it. I hold you responsible for his actions from this point on. Do you understand, daughter?”
“I’m not going to fuck him to keep his beast in line!” she gasped, appalled.
“I wouldn’t expect you to.” Balon snapped. “I know full well you’ve taken an axe for a lover and a chain hauberk for a bridal gown, and I’ve never once made gripes. Never once have I auctioned you to the sons of other lords - you alone will choose your husband when I join His oarsmen. But I know just as well how you had the Botley boy writhing fruitlessly in your tentacles, and kraken or not, Palecrown is a man.”
Asha clenched her eyes shut painfully. Of course he would bring up Tristifer. The second son of Lord Botley had taken her first kiss, while he fostered at Pyke and they had only just become teenagers. She might have given him her virtue, eventually, had the maester not caught them together and sent him back home; she hadn’t heard from him since. She heard rumors that he had grown out of his pimples and become a comely young man, but he remained nothing but a childhood memory; it certainly didn’t make her some kind of seducer.
“One way or another, you will ensure he does not threaten our rule.”
Asha fought back the scowl, and opened her eyes to meet Balon squarely. “Tell me the truth, then.” she said. “Do you plan for war?”
“I never stopped.” Balon answered immediately. “A man who bends the knee can stand tall once more, even as his bones ache and the sword in his hand rusts. All we wait for is the time to strike.”
That’s it, then. That is the folly. Father is going to botch the war, and we will all pay the price. Just like Lodos predicted.
You blasted fool. Was losing three sons not enough for you? Was a crown worth me growing into womanhood alone?
Asha slowly let out a long breath, steadying her thoughts. “Understood, father.” she said. “I’ll make sure the Iron Islands are protected. Any fool with delusions of grandeur who threatens us… will be dealt with by me.”
Notes:
Back at it again, folks. You know what it is. Drowned!Jon continuing to chew the scenery, and the Ironborn continuing to be dragged along behind him. This was a slower-paced chapter, I think; we need those every once in a while. Less action, and more plot and character interactions. Lots of setup. A couple of you cleverboots out there might be able to guess a couple of the important plot points of this arc, and arcs beyond this one, before they happen. I’ll really be impressed if you’re able to figure out the third way before I tell you, though.
Not much to say today, I guess. Just chugging along. Hope you’re all doing well. Thanks a bunch for that 40k hits. Have a video of an octopus throwing a temper tantrum over humans filling his cave up with bricks as thanks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBAClAx9Njc
Stay safe out there.
EDIT: Critical feedback is making me believe that people are not having fun with this section of the story. I'd like to hear from you all - Would you like me to attempt to truncate this arc, so that we can do other things? If you think that I should rush through this so that we can move on to live Seven, then I'll respect that, and do a time-skip closer to the end, and skip over most of the character development. Let me know in the comments.
Chapter 16: Life Six: Part 6
Summary:
Between the Old Way and the New, Asha and Lodos find the Third.
Notes:
There's probably quite a few spelling and grammar errors in this chapter, but please forgive me, it's 7 in the morning and I haven't slept a wink while finishing this. I'll go over it with a editor's eye once I've finished passing out.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“LORDSPORT HO!”
Asha’s eyes narrowed in her bed, before slowly flipping around to her feet. With sure, steady movements she strapped Dark Sister onto her hip from its place of honor on her desk before stepping out onto the deck. Immediately, her eyes went up to the sky.
Sure enough, it was still there - a weeping wound in the heavens, a fiery red comet streaking across the sky as it had for nearly a week.
A more superstitious woman would have taken the comet as a sign from the gods. Asha was not that woman. She feared that her father was. That fear only strengthened in her heart when she saw the port half-filled, entirely with longships.
“Rolfe.” she called out. “Is this not Lodos’ day?”
“It is, captain.” the watchman called. The towering man’s eyes narrowed at the port; he’d caught on to the same thing she had. “The port is far too full. Every man with a ship should be gone to hear him preach.”
There was only one thing that could keep a ship in the harbor, on the day of the Kraken’s bounty. “Lord Balon must have ordered them to stay.” said Asha.
“Must have been a powerful command, too.” cousin Earl replied, folding his arms and frowning. “We’re lucky we got back in time. I wouldn’t want to miss the Pale Prophet’s words with that thing in the sky for all the gold in Casterly Rock.”
Asha smirked. “We’ll find out where he’s gone today, then. If we’re fast, we’ll at least catch the tail end.” a cheer rose up, and a working shanty broke out to speed the docking.
As soon as the gangplank dropped, a thrall popped his head out of the dockmaster’s door, and ran to her. “Lady Greyjoy.” said the thrall, with an essosi silver to his hair. “Lord Balon requests your presence at Pyke as quickly as possible.”
Asha rolled her eyes. “Tell my father that preventing a rebellion, as he requested, will take a day. Where is Palecrown preaching today?”
“He, ah.” the thrall clearly did not enjoy the idea that he would have to deliver her refusal. “He is reportedly on Old Wyk. He is headed to Nagga’s Bones.”
Earl whistled. “He’s not once preached from Nagga’s Hill before. We’re in for a show, I think.”
Asha couldn’t help but agree. “I’ll bet uncle Aeron gave him that idea.” She paused. “Speaking of uncles… Thrall!”
“Y-Yes, lady Greyjoy!”
“Where is Victarion? I do not see Iron Victory at dock.” Asha gestured widely at the bobbing longships all about. A good portion of them were Iron Fleet ships, so to not see the flagship itself was odd. “I would have thought he would have returned from his business by now.”
“Ah…” the thrall squirmed in place. “It is… Lord Victarion is gone.”
“Gone?”
‘Yes, m’lady. The last news of him was him leaving Oldtown, but sailing east, not north. This was not long after you left port.”
She frowned. She’d left Lordsport nearly two moons ago. That certainly wasn’t what her father had ordered him to do. Victarion had always been loyal, the way a younger brother is to the elder. He’d never disobeyed an order like this before, for as long as she’d been old enough to note the family dynamics.
Not even when he was ordered to spare Euron.
She quickly stifled the clenching of her fingers. “I see.” was all she said in reply, before quickly turning on her heel back up the gangplank. “All oars back! We sail to Nagga’s Cradle!”
“AYE!”
The seas of Nagga’s Cradle were already filled to bursting with all manner of ships by the time that Asha arrived following their hours-long voyage. From coracles to cogs, rowboats to galleys, tradeships and trawlers. Men and women, greybeards and children, Ironborn all - any who had ships to sail had come to Nagga’s Hill. Even more were gathered on the land, the one strip of land that led to the gleaming white rib-bones that were the only remnants of the Grey King’s hall.
There must be a thousand ships here, Asha marveled. Where could his beast possibly surface for the Bounty, in all of this?
“Qarl.” she called out, who quickly looked up from leaning over the rail at her call. “The ram is disattached from the prow, yes?”
“Aye.” he replied.
She grinned. “Good. let’s move our way to the front, then.”
A number of smaller craft let out loud curses as the Black Wind edged through the flotilla, only to hastily silence themselves at the Greyjoy kraken on their sails. It wasn’t long before they reached the end, though; numerous smaller ships closest to the cliffs lashed themselves together in a line, to prevent both the zealous or unscrupulous from pushing so close to the cliff that they ran themselves aground. She was fine with that. She just wanted to be close enough to see him without a Myrish lens. His voice carried far, these days.
It wasn’t long before a figure appeared on the edge of the hill. To those farther away, he must have appeared as a man-shaped blob, unknowable from one man to the next - but the pale weirwood embedded in his skull gleamed in the sun bright enough to sparkle for a league. A great cheer rose from the assembled masses, enough to nearly deafen Asha.
The cheer persisted until Lodos lifted his hands into the air. As he lowered them, Asha grinned slightly and watched as both her crew and others around them slowly sank down to their decks, taking more comfortable seats.
“WHAT IS DEAD MAY NEVER DIE!” He called out.
“BUT RISES AGAIN! HARDER AND STRONGER!” roared the crowd in response.
Lodos stood there at the cliff silently until the echo faded. Even the seagulls quieted their cries. “Every day, more of you come to hear me speak.” Lodos boomed, folding his arms behind his back. “Perhaps you wish to hear my words. Perhaps you seek to understand. Perhaps you simply wish to partake of the Bounty. I’m certain of that, actually.”
A laugh from the ships at the front, rippling backwards as his voice carries to the ones further back.
“Perhaps you simply wish for an answer to that which lies above us.” His arm shot upwards, to point directly at the bleeding comet in the sky. “For whatever reason, I thank you. The words of the Drowned God are meant to be heard, not hoarded.”
“He’s gotten rather good at this, hasn’t he?” Earl commented wryly, sitting next to Hagen’s daughter, a hand resting lazily on her thigh.
“With respect to your family, captain, he certainly didn’t learn it from the Damphair.” said Grimtongue, smirking.
“None taken.”
Lodos stood at the hilltop, arms folded behind his back. “Today, I wished to speak of names.” He said, breaking the long silence. “What is a name? A name is a definition, and a history. A name is the boundary between one man and another, when neither are present. A name is the record of your life, and your deeds.”
“Yet what of this hall?” he asked, laying a hand against the calcified bones that towered over him. “The man who built this hall, and gave life to the Ironborn, had no name. ‘The Grey King’, we call him. He whose blood runs through every man, woman and child born of these islands. He has no name - none that is remembered. Nor do we remember the name of the mermaid he took to wife, who led her husband home through her black heritage to the Drowned God’s halls. Nor his eldest brother, who served him with faith and loyalty.”
“Nor,” Lodos pauses, and Asha sees his face grimace, “Do we remember the name of the Drowned God.”
A ripple of indistinct voices spread through the flotilla. Asha’s eyebrows shot upwards.
“For just as we believe that we are blessed by the sea, and remade in his image!” Lodos shouted, cutting through the noise, “So too was the Drowned God reborn, harder and stronger than before! Blessed with salt, and stone, and steel!” he lowered his hands. “So, too, was I reborn through the sea.”
“... That is the blessing the priests all give, isn’t it?” Fingers murmured, running a hand absently along his leg. “Never thought about it, before.”
When their names were lost, so too was their history lost. Nothing to connect to their deeds. None to account their victories, or mark their defeats.” Lodos leaned forward. “In that moment, they are lost. A secret forever hidden.”
The words hung in the air, echoing among the waves slapping against wood, and hulls bumping together.
“And that is the way that it was meant to be.” Lodos called out. Asha could see, from her close position, a fierce grin. “Their past is of no consequence to us. It does not matter who nursed the man who conquered our lands - what matters is that he slew Ygg the demon tree, who feasted on the entrails of men, and carved from his pale flesh the first longships. It does not matter where he came from - what matters is that he taunted the Storm God, and stole fire from his furious lightning. It does not matter what his name was - it means it was not worth remembering.”
“When he came to Old Wyk, in the ancient days,” Lodos shouted, “when this island was bleak and without life, he slew the sea dragon Nagga, and formed his hall from her carcass. If his name was worth remembering, we would know it! Instead, he cast it off, and took his new name. It was as the Grey King that he conquered these islands without a shred of green, and brought them life! So, too, must we!”
Asha took a moment to look around at her crew, and saw that every man and woman on board was staring raptly at the man preaching. It’s working. Asha couldn’t believe it. They were actually listening to him. Their plan was finally working.
“Just as there is no point in warring with a broken blade, or fishing with a ripped net, so too is there no virtue in remembering with a worthless past!” Lodos proclaimed, spreading his arms wide. “The Drowned God rewards those who persevere, and blesses the bold, but he scorns the hide-bound and immobile! When a thing is no longer serving its purpose, cast it aside to be made anew! Let the sword be reforged, let the net be resewn! Take what is valuable, and throw away the silty dregs! Let our people be reborn, just as he was!”
“THAT,” he roared, casting a finger up to the sky, “is what the comet means. All men see it and tremble, and give it names in their fashion! A king will say it is a sign for his rule, and name it for himself - a maester will say it is a sign of doom, and name it for a demon - a poor man will say it is a sign of war, and name it for a sword! All names, that will disappear as it trails through the sky, discarded in its wake!”
Lodos’ hand swung around and thumped against his chest. “But we know the truth - the star appeared in the west, where the Ironborn would mark its passage first, and so marks it as a message from the Drowned God! A message of rebirth! That just as the comet casts off worthless names to make room for the new, so too must we! Cast off the histories that only bring you pain; let them die among the waves and be reborn! Let the scales of pattern and habit fall from your eyes, and see the world with new clarity! Let the insight of the salty waves guide our lands to new heights!”
“LET US RENEW THE IRON ISLANDS!”
An explosion of water from the other side of the peninsula punctuated his declaration, amid stifled screaming. A loud, moaning sound set the air rattling. A loud cheer rose, after the screaming stopped, and over the top of the land, an enormous tailfin flipped over before slamming into the ground.
“Did it just-” Earl exclaimed.
“Was that a whale!?” Asha exclaimed. “That bastard kraken’s gotten big enough to drag a whale up by itself now!?”
“I don’t think a single whale’s going to be big enough for the bounty, in truth.” Qarl laughed. “If he still intends to send everybody home with a family’s day of meat, he might need two.”
“Maybe he’ll send some home with whale oil instead!” Earl countered, grinning. “Then you can buy a week’s worth of meat with it!”
Lodos grinned, and threw his hands up in the air, as the flotilla grew agitated, boats pushing and thumping against each other to reach the kraken’s bounty - Lodos’ gift without price to all sons of the Islands. “BLESS US WITH SALT, WITH STONE, AND WITH STEEL! FOR WHAT IS DEAD MAY NEVER DIE!”
“FOR WHAT IS DEAD MAY NEVER DIE!” Roared the people back.
Asha leaned back against the rail of the Black Wind , a victorious smile upon her lips.
“You seem pensive, friend.” Asha remarked lazily, rolling the half-pint of ale in her mug. “The sermon on Nagga’s Hill will be talked about for a generation.”
Lodos did not smile back. “I had to make it worthwhile, if we intend to make good on the Third Way in time.” he replied. “The comet was a blessing.”
“Then why are you unhappy?” she asked. “Nobody will accept father’s revanchist Old Way if all they can think about is forgetting painful history, and you said yourself that the New Way will never stick if the smallfolk and the priests have it forced on them by their lords. The Third Way is the answer.”
Lodos did not reply, for a time, staring into his own glass of water the Lordsport inn had provided him. “... I think I know who I used to be.” he said, finally.
Asha stopped, and shifted upright. “No shit?” she said, amazed. “You’ve been here most of a year now and you said it was still blank.”
“... I’ve been having dreams.” he replied, slowly. “Dreams of a Northern lord, speaking of dark secrets. In the dream, I’m seeing through the eyes of a wolf. He talks of ancient histories, and magic. Of a lost sword, found through his bastard son’s prophecy. He gave that sword to the king, and the king returned it to it’s rightful owner.”
He looked up. “I think… I think I was that bastard son. He went missing, not long after - they said he went mad. Chasing a deadly legend from beyond the Wall.”
There’s only one Northern lord who can talk to the king. And it’s THE Northern lord.
Asha slowly crossed her legs and leaned back. “So.” she said carefully. “You’re no lowborn shipwrecked merchant after all. You’re Ned Stark’s bastard. Jon Snow, isn’t it?”
“I think so, yes.”
“You know your father is the one who took my little brother away.”
“... Yes.”
“... Is he well?”
“I don’t know. They don’t speak of him, in these wolf dreams.”
“And you don’t remember anything beyond what you see in these dreams.”
Lodos - Jon Snow, she supposed - looked away. “... I remember a cave,” he said, after a long pause. “Full of barely human men, and women. I remember an altar, of oily black stone, wrapped in pale roots and coated in blood. I remember it burning.” he looked up at her. “And I remember a thirteen-pointed star.”
Asha’s eyes narrowed. “... You’ve mentioned a ‘thirteen-pointed star’ before.” her free hand drummed an inconsistent rhythm on the arm of her chair. “When you talked about the Seastone Chair in that vision. You.. also described the chair as ‘oily black stone’.”
“I did.” he nodded. “I don’t think I lost my memory, now.” he clenched his fist. “I think it was taken.”
Asha’s eyebrow arched. Let him speak first; you’ve learned your lesson about pre-judging this man’s odd words. “Who took your memory, then? And why?”
He smiled thinly, more a pinch of his lips than anything else. “Lady Black, of course. Because if I had still remembered that cave of horrors, when I was first learning…”
He crooked his finger, and with a soft glug and bubbling of foam, the ale in Asha’s mug rose into the air, swirling about in a looping eight.
“I would have cast that memory into the deep first. And this, I now realize, is something I must not do.”
She was no longer nearly as awestruck as she once was at Lodos’ skill at water magic - both the material and the prophetic. She’d known he had been using the secrets of his worshippers they did not wish to remember to grow in strength for some time.
Asha instead responded by inserting her open mouth into the eight-loop, and unceremoniously chugged the entire symbol. A loud snort, and then a long chuckle at the ensuing belch, answered her efforts.
“So.” said Asha, lightly grinning. “You’re saying you think your mysterious ‘Lady Black’ sent you here because my father’s throne is literally cursed.” He still hadn’t told her who the in the stormy hells he was talking about, the bastard. “Any other insights from my so-called ‘grandmother’ since I’ve been gone? Find a dragon up your sleeve to match Dark Sister, Jon Snow?”
Lodos scowled. “Don’t call me that.”
Asha held up her hands in surrender. “You’re the one who said you didn’t care about your name.”
Lodos kept his scowl, and looked down. I can definitely see the Starks in him, now - a grim frown suits him, even though he wears it so little as I’ve known him.
“There’s something else.” he said, finally. “Something I’m missing. Critical, to this person I used to be. They speak as though I changed overnight - knew things I shouldn’t have. Was scarred, in battles I have never fought.” his hand traced over his chest, where she knew, underneath his clothes, the brutal scars from stabs that should have killed him lay.
“Know what I think?” Said Asha. Lodos’ eyes snapped to her. She grinned sardonically. “It sounds like magic horseshit.”
Lodos snorted, and his scowl disappeared. “Magic horseshit, indeed.” he chuckled. “No need to overthink it, then, in your world.”
“If spending time learning not to care about your mystic nonsense has taught me anything, Palecrown, it’s that if something is meant to be explained, it will be in it’s own time. Otherwise, you are better off worrying about what can be split in half by my axe.” Asha leaned forward. “Like my father’s summons for tomorrow.”
“You think he musters for war.” Lodos murmured. “He must know the kingdoms would unite against him once more - what changed his mind?”
Asha frowned. “He must know something.” she said. “A raven, perhaps - the ports hold no rumors from greenland traders.”
“We cannot counter what he plans without knowing what he’s learned.” Lodos nodded. “The Third Way must pass its first crisis perfectly in order for it to survive.”
Asha leaned back, staring at the drowned priest crookedly. “... answer me this, preacher.” she said, after a time. “Did your vision ever specify whether or not you were in that room?”
Lodos blinked. “... no.” he said slowly. “No, it did not.”
Asha grinned. “Then, on behalf of House Greyjoy, I cordially invite you, Lodos Palecrown, to join me in meeting my father, Lord Balon Greyjoy.”
“ What ,” Balon growled, “is he doing here?”
“Father.” Asha struggled to keep her expression flat, as she bowed uncharacteristically. “May I present to you-”
“I know who he is.” Balon snapped.
“I thought it was time the two of you finally met.” she replied glibly. Lodos kept his arms folded behind his back, dressed in the same rough wool robes as Aeron, who stood apart from the two.
“We’ve now met. Now get out.” Balon flicked his hand out. “This is for family only.”
“I’m going to have to insist he stay.” said Asha.
The air chilled, as a wave crashed along the outer walls. Balon’s eyes narrowed. “You dare?”
“If the family matter relates to the Iron Fleet gathering, then yes.” Asha said, flatly. “I dare.”
“If you were not my daughter, I would have you scourged.”
“Pardon me for thinking that the man who controls the hearts of the smallfolk as well as a kraken might be relevant to war.”
Balon stared at her for a long moment, before shifting his gaze to Aeron. The Damphair nodded. Balon’s scowl deepened. “Be it on your head, then.” he reached into his cloak and drew out two rolled messages, which he tossed to the table. One bore the seal of the Hand of the King, the other the Baratheon stag.
“A week ago, a raven came from the hand, Leyton Hightower, addressed to all the Lords Paramount.” Balon began. “That whoremonger Robert is dead, his belly split open by a boar.” Asha’s eyes widened. Balon grinned. “That’s not the interesting bit, though. He claims the stag was horned by lions - all his children are bastards born of incest, and that Jon Arryn was killed for the knowledge.”
Asha’s mouth dropped open. Aeron let out a noise. “Greenland degeneracy.”
“Aye, daughter. I called the banners. The Iron Fleet assembles.” said Balon, now pointing at the second letter. “For just yesterday, I received a letter penned by Joffrey ‘Baratheon’, First of his Name, declaring that Leyton Hightower had been executed for his treasonous slander, and demands all lords come to King’s Landing to give fealty.”
“Hightower was good-father to Mace Tyrell.” Lodos murmured, the first time he had spoken. Balon’s eyes snapped to him, as the boy lifted a hand to his head, with a pained tone. “There will be war from the Reach. Possibly from Lys, as well - the paramour of the new Gonfaloniere is a Hightower.”
“Not just the Reach.” Balon grinned. “The Westerlands, the Stormlands, the Riverlands, the Vale, the North, even Dorne - all will splinter. The Seven Kingdoms has no king.” he jabbed a finger into the table, where a map covered with symbolic statues lay. “Now is the time to rise from our knees, and take a crown for ourselves.”
Asha watched with concern as Lodos stumbled backwards, clutching his head. “You would rise against the mainland while they still hold Theon as hostage?” Asha accused. “They’ll kill him.”
“He was as good as dead the moment they took him.” Balon replied archly. “They’ll have him dressed in gold and silks like he’s Stark’s own whore, never swung a weapon since he left. Don’t speak to me of that boy.”
She felt the pit drop out of her stomach. So, that’s it then. To hear it said out loud, for the first time… a crown matters more to him than his own blood. If he still had a son, would he leave me to a similar fate?
“Where do you intend to strike?” Aeron asked, hand running through his beard; she had no idea what the sour old man was thinking, or if he was even affected by his own nephew being consigned to death. Balon opened his mouth to answer-
“How many men.”
The room shifted to stare at Lodos. His hand was still on his forehead, but a strange glimmer in his eyes took Asha aback.
“How many men,” Lodos repeated. “And how many ships, if every lord of every house answered with every scrap of force.”
“Speak one more word to me, boy, and I will-”
“HOW. MANY. MEN.”
Balon shoved away from the table, but Aeron was there instantly, holding an arm across his elder brother’s chest; even with little force applied, it was enough to hold the lord’s gaunt and haggard body in place. “Answer him, brother.” said Aeron. “It is a valid question.”
Asha could practically hear Balon grinding his molars from across the room. “Fifteen thousand of the finest warriors in the Seven Kingdoms.” he finally replied.
“Fifteen thousand.” Lodos repeated.
“The Iron Fleet numbers a hundred warships, and every lord commands their own fleet of lesser longships and knarrs to supply them.” Asha answered.
“A hundred warships. And fifteen thousand men.” Lodos began to laugh. “You fool. You great blighted fool.”
“You dare-!”
“THE NORTH ALONE COMMANDS THREE TIMES THAT NUMBER!” Lodos roared; Asha flinched instinctively at the sudden shift. “Thirty-thousand men can be mustered with speed, and fifteen thousand more from the further houses! You think the Westerlands and the Reach cannot match that!?”
“Green boys who’ve never bled in their life!” Balon roared back, a fury growing that Asha had not seen in years. Nobody had dared talk back to him in that long, so well-known was his spite. “Every reaver at my call is the veteran of a dozen battles!”
“FIFTEEN THOUSAND MEN CANNOT CONTEST A CONTINENT OF FORTY MILLION PEOPLE!” Lodos’ fist smashed through the arm of a nearby chair, splintering it at the joint and sending it skittering across the floor. Both Balon and Aeron’s eyes widened at the display. “Let every reaver kill three men each before they spend their lives - they will still fall, and you have sixty-thousand men left to contest the western shore!”
“Let them try.” Balon snarled. “Our ships ride the rivers that theirs cannot. We can win a battle and be gone with the tide.”
“You are not asking for mobility, Greyjoy!” Lodos retorted. “You are asking to conquer - to take and hold land and castles! Do you not remember the Famine Winter? The years after the Red Kraken’s fall? Your OWN rebellion!?”
He threw his hand out to point at Aeron. “The priesthood does! Look past the veneration of forefathers, and you see the same mistake repeated again and again ! The Ironborn to a man are warriors - but you do not have enough , and in all histories, the conquered rise up and push us out because the reavers give them no reason to submit! Or have you forgotten how your ancestors had their throats opened by their own salt wives!?”
“The Drowned God -”
“The Drowned God blesses the bold, not the stupid !” Lodos shouted. “Do not lecture drowned men on faith!” Aeron glanced between the two, and slowly folded his arms. He said nothing, but Asha could see the furrow in his brow; the boy’s words were reaching him.
“Father…” began Asha.
“Silence, girl.”
Now she was angry. “No, he’s right. The Redwyne Fleet alone outnumbers us two to one, say nothing of the Royal Fleet. Ours are the better and bolder sailors, but we have no reserves to spare. Our strength is striking the enemy where he doesn’t want us to be, not meeting their charge.” She stepped forward. “You ask too much, to reclaim our kingdom.”
“Cowards.” Balon stepped forward, hand on his sword. “Traitors. You would bind our necks in a leash for eternity. I’ve spent a decade planning this. The Old Way-”
“You know nothing of the Old Way.” Lodos retorted. “Your ‘Old Way’ was birthed with the burning of Harrenhal. Misguided memories of wealth and glory, born from staring at old maps.” Lodos paused. “But wealth and glory to the Ironborn is no crime.”
“Can any of us here say we don’t wish for the same thing?” Asha quickly said, eyes fixed on her father. “All of us wish to see our Islands great again.”
Aeron ran his fingers through his beard, dark eyes fixed on Lodos. “You do not argue for pacifism.” he stated. “You have another target, instead. A better one.”
Balon refocused on Lodos, eyes narrowed. “... Go on, then, mush-headed boy.” he said. His hand noticeably tightened on his blade’s hilt. “Tell us where your place to strike is. Not the North, not the Westerlands, not the Reach… teach me, oh pale prophet . But you have one chance only, before I part your head from your neck.”
Asha silently held her breath, as Lodos Palecrown slowly stepped forward to the spread map, his eyes skittering across the force markers. “You do not have the forces to contest old holdings, where you meet them on their terms.” he said, carefully. His fingers wrapped around the grey kraken statuette. “But you spoke truly, Lord Greyjoy. Now is the time to regain wealth and power. So let them meet us on our terms . And if you cannot be the one to wear the crown…”
The statuette clicked against the wooden table, as he set it nearly off the map, directly to the east of Dorne.
“... Then you must be the one who controls who does.”
Aeron’s eyebrows shot into his matted hair. Asha’s mouth dropped open.
“... The Stepstones.” Balon answered. “You suggest we take the Stepstones.” his tone was flat now, lacking the earlier emotion. His hand dropped away from his sword.
“Take, and hold, and colonize with both free men and thralls.” he nodded.
“But that’s on the other side of the continent.”
“And it covers the mouth of the Narrow Sea.” Said Lodos. “A no-man’s-land, ruled by a cycle of pirate lords, free city warlords and exiled nobility. You know exactly how easily your forces could conquer them all, and blockade all travel.”
“We could cut off King’s Landing from countless merchant ships.” said Asha, moving to lean over the map. “The Royal Fleet would be unable to pass us to assault the Reach, either.”
“And the Redwyne Fleet would equally be unable to pass to besiege King’s Landing.” Balon finished.
“Nor would whatever Lysene fleet Lynesse Hightower is able to muster through her Gonfaloniere paramour be able to reach the capital.” said Lodos. “We would control the naval chokepoint. Nobody would dare attack us first, for fear of weakening themselves to the other fleets. Any who would cross would have to make a deal with the Greyjoy of Pyke.”
“The North and the Westerlands wouldn’t care - their strength is on land, and we would be too far away.” Murmured Balon. “Dorne will be furious, but they have no ships to stop us. The Reach, and the Crownlands, though - we’ll have locked them in their corners, and will have to pay dearly to unlock the passage.”
“Not just the fleets.” Lodos grinned triumphantly. “Any merchant going from Braavos to Oldtown, Pentos to Sunspear, Lannisport to King’s Landing or Volantis to White Harbor - all will pay us in gold, or receive iron. The tariffs will set our coffers overflowing.”
Balon was quiet, now. His bony fingers drummed a steady rhythm against the wood as his sunken eyes twitched across the map feverishly.
“Think of it, Lord Greyjoy,” Lodos said, softly. “With this, you could decide the fate of the coming war. Who pleases you best earns victory. You will take what is owed to you, and they will have to smile as you do it.” his fist clenched. “And most importantly… no man of the Iron Islands has ever painted the Stepstones in their color. This is new. ”
Balon slowly looked up at those words, to meet him in the eye.
“No Greyiron, Blacktyde, Goodbrother, Hoare or Greyjoy has ever claimed that legacy. No castles raised by their hands, no smallfolk to till their lands or fishermen to harvest their seas. What you would be doing here… would cement your legacy forever. Balon Greyjoy, Lord of the Iron Islands and the Stepstones. They will speak of you until Pyke falls into the sea.”
Slowly, Balon began to smile.
Asha awoke with a mindless flinch, and immediately suppressed a groan. The alcohol in her system had begun to purge, leaving her bleary yet uncomfortably awake in the dark of night. A weak hand reached out to pat the rest of the bed, and found it empty and cold. Small miracles, I suppose. I think I remember seeing Tristifer from across the room .
Slowly, she rolled upright and began to stumble into the hallway, candle in hand. The castle was quiet now, except for the waves. The last of the feasting lords must have left, or moved to guest lodgings. They would all need to be rested and somewhat sobered when the Iron Fleet launched in the morning.
It took her some time to find her water closet, and even longer after finishing her business to find a jug that contained water instead of backwashed ale. It was as she was draining the contents, curing her of her fuzzy mind and dry tongue, that she heard a second set of footsteps echoing.
Who in the world is up at this hour, in the Sea Tower?
She quietly stalked out, following the footsteps, until the creak of the rotted entry door sounded, and the noise of the ocean increased. Asha peered around the corner in time to see the roughspun robes of Lodos - Jon Snow - disappear behind the closing door.
Now she was curious. She waited a long moment, and then followed after, skipping over the swaying rope bridge with ease and opening the door to the Great Keep without a sound.
On it went, trailing after his footsteps and remaining just out of sight, until at last his movements stopped in the middle of the main hall. Asha slowly peeked around the corner to see him standing among the wooden tables left behind from the feast, staring intently at the Seastone Chair.
“Is that you, Asha?”
She flinched, before recomposing herself. “Aye.” she replied, casually stepping into the hall.
Lodos let out a soft huff. “Good. Good.”
“I didn’t realize you’d been given a room in the Sea Tower.” she said, probing as she walked to his side.
“I wasn’t sleeping.” he responded, turning to face her. His eyes were bloodshot, and large purple bags hung under his eyes. “Lord Greyjoy and I have been… discussing matters in his solar.”
They were still talking until this late?
“Not bad for someone who refused to speak to you a moon ago.” she joked, now close enough to elbow him.
“Certain details needed to be… finalized.” said Lodos.
“Such as…?”
“Such as the terms for the abolition of thralldom on the Stepstones.”
Asha blinked. “That… what? What are you… my father did this?”
Lodos smiled, though it looked more a grimace. “Not lightly. But I refused to allow him to make the same mistakes his predecessors did; the conquered must have a reason to accept the conqueror’s rule.” the smile lightened. “Every thrall that joins the invasion fleet will become a free man the moment they step down on solid land.”
She understood the reasoning; hells, she was the one who taught him all the times that the Kings of the Iron Islands had been pushed out by the mainlanders when their predations grew too onerous. But thralldom was an institution that dated back millenia - only the most extreme New Way Hoares had ever dared speak of abolition. Her grandfather had attempted it, but he died before anything could stick. For Balon Greyjoy of all people to accept it…
A lump of ice formed in her stomach. “What did you do.”
Jon Snow remained silent.
“What. Did. You. Do?”
“... This will be my last night on the Iron Islands.”
Her fist slammed into his side. Lodos let out a strangled gasp, before stumbling away.
“You fool.” she hissed. “You DAMNED fool. What were you thinking ?”
“... I remember things, Asha.” he said. “Terrible things. This war… I know it, somehow. I know this war . Not in a prophetic way - I remember it like I lived it.” she watched as he pulled wearily at his face. “So many dead… over such a pointless throne. This blockade has the chance to change all of it. It must not fail. Exile is a bargain.”
“You remember it , eh?” she snapped. “Is that Lodos Palecrown, the Iron Islander talking? Or Jon Snow, the Northman?” Lodos stiffened. “Whose side are you on?”
“... I am on the side of the living.” he said, wearily. “Always.”
“How can I trust you?” she asked. “You tell me nothing. I don’t accept your secrets any longer.”
“You’re the only one I tell everything, Greyjoy. You know that.”
“Then who is Lady Black?”
Lodos stared at her, wide-eyed, before snorting. “Is that what this is about?” he smiled at her, and she only grew angrier. “That’s not her real name, you know. It’s simply what I have dubbed her.”
“Then what is her real name?”
Lodos shook his head. “Come now, Asha. you know me better than that. Why do you think I cannot tell you?”
Asha opened her mouth to retort, but a glare from the boy stopped her. She actually thought about it, then. “... Because you can’t.” she said, softly. “It’s a secret. It’s some other sorcerer's damned secret. ”
“Lost to time.” Said Lodos, equally quiet. “Taken from her before our lines ever began. And by somebody long dead, otherwise we wouldn’t even be able to speak of it this much.” he slowly began to walk forward. “Just like the Grey King. Just like the Drowned God. Just like the Old Gods of the Starks. Even the Seven of the Andals - Father, Mother, Warrior: those aren’t names, they’re descriptions. Think of all the nameless, absent gods and legends of this world, Asha, and know they did not start that way.”
“Think of the death of the dragons, and the fading of magic. All the great things our ancestors made, that we have forgotten how to replicate. We are lesser in all ways, Asha, and growing more so with every season . ”
He slowly drew a knife from his belt, the edge gleaming in the low moonlight. “And I begin to wonder if I have an idea why that is.”
Asha watched in shock as he slowly drew the edge of the blade across his palm, opening a deep, welling cut. “What are you-”
Fire and blood, Asha.” Said Lodos, intensely. “That’s what I remember of the cave, with the oily black stone. Fire, and blood. I do not intend to leave the Iron Islands while this is unattended to.”
He squeezed his hand into a tight fist, until the blood welled out from between his fingers, and then flung it onto the Seastone Chair. Remarkably, where the droplets touched the form of the stone kraken, a hiss of smoke heralded the birth of flame.
“Lady Black, Mother of Mermaids, Bride of the Drowned God, forgotten divine of the First Men and patron to the Grey King, I condemn this abomination by your command.”
Asha watched, awestruck, as the ancestral throne of the Iron Islands burst into flame. Lodos smiled broadly, victorious, and turned away to wrap his bleeding hand. “I told you, Asha. there is something more going on-”
“LOOK OUT!” Asha tackled him to the ground, as a flaming black tentacle smashed through where he had stood just a moment before. She immediately rolled to her feet, drawing Dark Sister and her axe to face the enemy.
The Kraken on the chair had come alive, eyes burning red as the flames consumed it. Upon its head, a glowing thirteen-pointed star shone brightly. The stone tentacle that had smashed into the ground lifted up, a black writhing thing even as cracks formed through its body, ready to strike once more.
“What in the hells IS this thing!?” Asha shouted.
“The fire! The fire is killing it!” Lodos stumbled back to his feet from the corner of her eye. “Let it burn itself out!”
The tentacle slammed into the ground once more, shattering the tiles and setting the Great Keep shuddering. “This thing will topple us into the ocean before it dies!” she shouted. She raced forward, swinging her axe in a wide arc into the limb, but a high ringing heralded the rebound. The wooden handle wrenched itself from her grip, and Asha only had a moment to move before another stone limb tried to take her head off. A chair flew through the air, shattering against the thing’s head, giving her time to escape.
“Back up!” Lodos shouted. “Keep it off of me!” his hands moved in wide circles, and from the abandoned jugs circled liquids clear and murky into the air. Asha grit her teeth, looking away from the display of magic, before lunging forward with Dark Sister. The point of the blade wedged into a crack in the black stone, and with a heave of her entire body, the tentacle shattered off it’s base and fell lifeless to the ground.
It made no sound, but the golem’s eyes burned brighter, and it began to crawl after her with a furious tempo. The fire burned brighter, shifting from orange to blue, as the black stone bubbled and cracked. An errant blow smashed a table in half, lighting the debris on fire. Asha was sprayed with splinters, blinding her for just a moment. The blurry shape of a limb raced towards her-
A chair soared through the air, crashing into the golem’s face. “BACK!” Lodos shouted. The beast shifted to face him, in time for a hose of mixed liquids to blast into its face. A groaning shudder wracked its body, as the temperature changes cracked all across its surface. The thirteen-pointed star, in particular, was split down the middle. “NOW!”
“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Asha shouted, wiping her blindness away. She broke into a dead sprint, Dark Sister leading like a compass. A powerful leap off the ruin of a feast table carried her to its head, thankfully doused, and with an angry shout drove the Valyrian blade into the crack in its forehead. The thing rolled, and a burning tentacle reached for her, before she threw the whole of her weight against the hilt once more.
If it had been a sword of regular steel, it might have shattered at the effort, and she would likely have died. But Dark Sister was of old Valyria, and a construction greater than the men of this age were capable of. With a series of rippling cracks, the split in its forehead sheared further into the kraken’s body, until all at once it fell to halves. The golem groaned, before laying still. The burning light in its eyes died, and the thirteen-pointed star faded, leaving only the guttering flames.
Lodos was at her side in an instant, pulling her up carefully. “Are you alright?” he asked, something in his grey eyes she’d never seen before.
Is that you in there, Jon Snow? The Northern bastard who was raised with my brother, and not this wild, mystical prophet? Am I meeting you at last?
A wild, heady thought nearly compelled her to kiss him. She’d been in enough battles to recognize that was merely the adrenaline talking, though; she knew well enough that setting a third man chasing after her heels would only end in tragedy. Instead, she embraced him, body pressing tightly against hers. “Next time you get the idea to do something like that… Don’t.”
Jon Snow chuckled, a rumbly thing that vibrated through her down to the floor.
Fourteen thousand warriors answered the call of Balon Greyjoy, to take the Stepstones and paint them in black and gold. A hundred longships sailed alongside the Iron Fleet, carrying strong-backed thralls and comely salt wives to build a new dominion. A hundred houses, and a hundred captains, sailing to take what was once their favored reaving grounds, and make it into something more.
The Black Wind had sailed at the head of the fleet for all of a moon now, with Asha standing at the prow. Bloodstone lay before her now, the largest and westernmost of the archipelago islands. If they were able to wrest it from whatever pirate lords claimed it now, they would have as fine a beginning to the conquest as any.
Qarl slowly paced around the busy crowds of freemen on deck to reach her side. Her ship usually made due with a crew of two-dozen; now she commanded the whole one-hundred strong compliment the warship was built for. “Captain.” he said, stiffly.
“Where is the priest?” she asked.
“Below deck. He said he would be ready for the battle, but…”
She scowled. Lodos had been in a foul mood for three days now. It had started with him posing nonsensical questions to her, and ended with him screaming at the wall and refusing to leave his quarters.
She certainly didn’t understand why. There had never been a ship named the Iron Victory built for the Iron Fleet, let alone been the flagship, so she wouldn’t know where it's supposed captain had gotten to after leaving Oldtown. And she certainly couldn’t explain why he suddenly thought her banished uncle Euron only had one eye, or black hair instead of brown. He’d never even met the man.
But that was an issue for another day. The business now was to wrench control of Bloodstone’s western shore, and the wooden fortress that had been built on it, from the current inhabitants. Lucas Waters, from what she had heard - supposedly a bastard of House Crabb, but like as not just a mummer’s farce to gain piratical authority.
“Are we prepared for the attack?” she asked. “Barring Lodos sulking in his hammock.”
“Yes, captain.” Replied Qarl, face blank. Asha fought the urge to sigh. Qarl, she knew, was making an effort not to look out of order with all the added crewmen on board, probably in some misguided effort to not embarrass her. All her regular crew were, except Earl, the bastard. But even then, there had been a strange energy with him of late, and she wasn’t sure why.
Now wasn’t the time to focus on that, though. “Then get in position. You’ll be one of the first ones on the beach.” she commanded.
“Aye.”
She shook her head as he turned away. “Set oars!” She called. “Row to the beat, you rock-brained bastards, and we might get to the battle on time!” A bloodthirsty shout answered her back, as Fingers began to beat the attack drum with precision timing. All behind them, the sound of other Iron Longships taking up the drums filled the air. Someone in the left fan began to sing ‘Steel Rain’, and the old reaving song spread like a bloodstain through the fleet.
The wooden fortress was surrounded by a number of ramshackle shacks, and towered over them in both height and construction quality. Through the bay, numerous ships immediately began to spin towards the shore, moving as quickly as possible away from the Ironborn. Bonfires began to light, and she was certain that as soon as they came within range, flaming arrows would be the counterattack. She grinned. Like we haven’t seen that one before.
Suddenly, the sea began to churn and ripple underneath the fleeing ships. A dark shadow grew underneath their keels, until all at once, a bouquet of tentacles sprouted from beneath the surface. As far away as they were, she could not hear the screams, but she was certain their last moments were full of fear, as the kraken dragged two ships down.
Asha rolled her eyes. “Attacking the fishing ships. Wonderful opening move, Palecrown. Truly the height of tactical-”
The wrecked ships appeared above the waterline once more, gripped by tentacles. The Kraken gave it two bobs in the air, before rearing back and hurling the wreckage through the air directly at the fortress. The first landed just shy of the gates, splintering on impact but still pummeling the barrier with weighty debris. The second throw went farther, and smashed down the gates entirely.
“THERE we go!” She howled, pumping her fist. All around her, Ironborn were screaming and shouting, with some attempting to start a chant of Lodos’ name. “The Thrice-Drowned has struck a fine blow!” She shouted to her crew. “Are we going to let him have all the glory!?”
“NO!”
“THEN GET IN THERE AND KILL THEM!”
The Longship’s prow impacted against the beach, and with a bloodthirsty scream, Asha leaped off the Black Wind, with a hundred warriors following in her wake, and began the first battle of the Conquest of the Stepstones.
Notes:
Got this done way faster than I was expecting to. Would have had it done even sooner if I hadn’t gotten distracted by video games. Oh well.
We’re nearing the endgame now, with Life Six. A rather sizeable timeskip to the beginning of the War of Five Kings, and we see Balon listen to tactical reason for once in his life by attacking a target I’ve never seen done before. Of course, the Iron Islands being a backwater may come to bite them. They’re not exactly operating on the most up-to-date news, so they might not see some things coming…
Big props to GarrettKeeper for the link he provided last chapter. That really helped solidify some plot things that I had already kind of intuited but had never properly quantified before, and as such made this chapter happen much faster. Specifically the comparison of Ironborn culture to Sparta - that really made the lightbulb go off.
For those of you who were saying that this life - and story - was getting too weird and confusing - I went out of my way to help you not be confused anymore, while still maintaining enough mystery to let me have fun. Did I do well? Let me know.
Chapter 17: Life Six: Part 7
Summary:
Standing on the edge of the crater, like the prophets once said.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Well, would you look at that.” Said Asha, staring over the prow of the Black Wind at the fluttering sails in the distance. “We have a bold runner here.”
“Been a while since we had somebody dumb enough to try and pass in the middle of the day.” replied Qarl, standing at her side. “Most other merchants know better by now than to try and hide from us.”
“Maybe they’re not hiding.” Asha leaned forward, squinting. “I can’t make out their colors. Are they flying any Reach flags?”
Qarl leaned forward perfunctorily, before then reaching to his waist and pulling out his far-eye. The Myrish lens gleamed of polished bronze, Qarl’s name inscribed on it in flowing high Valyrian at the base. He tended to it nearly every day to maintain the bright shine from the day he had received it, a celebration of his pivotal role in taking the island of Blackrock. It was likely the most expensive thing he owned aside from his blade and armor, and he had bought it himself.
He raised it to his eye, peering forward. “No,” he said finally, “That’s no Reachman flag. That cog’s part of the Lys merchant marine.”
“What?” she quickly snatched the lens from Qarl’s hand and lifted it to her own eye. Sure enough, the symbol of the Lysene Temple of Trade was fluttering on a field of blue. “... All hands, prepare to board!” she shouted.
Her expanded crew answered back with a raucous shout, even as her stomach clenched. I don’t like this. “Qarl,” she asked, offhandedly returning his new lens, “when’s the last time we saw a Lysene ship in the Stepstones?”
“Not since we defeated that fleet in the waters off Torturer’s Deep.” Qarl answered back. “And that was… what, nearly three moons, now?”
A hand went to Dark Sister’s hilt. I wasn’t imagining it, then. “Be ready to cut them down at a moment’s notice.”
“Be nice if Lodos were here.” Qarl muttered. “Could just sink them from afar.”
She wished he was too. She knew what he was doing was important, though - their position in the Stepstones had grown precarious since their monthly reinforcements from the Iron Islands had stopped. The Tyroshi needed someone with weight to their name for them to believe their conquest wasn’t a prelude to a war with the Free City; they didn’t need a potential third fleet to defend against with the homeland mysteriously quiet.
The longship pulled ahead with speed, catching the much slower merchant cog before they could get close to any shores. “MERCHANTS OF LYS!” Grimtongue roared, his already-booming voice carrying further through a Pentoshi speaking-trumpet. “YOU ARE IN FORBIDDEN WATERS! HAUL IN SAILS AND MAKE READY FOR BOARDING! YOU WILL NOT BE WARNED TWICE!”
The threat hung in the air without response. Asha had already raised her hand to beckon the ship-mounted spitfire to take aim when at last a small crew of men began to draw in the sails. There were only six above-deck, and moments later another half-dozen came up from a trap-door.
Qarl, standing next to her, clenched his fist tighter on his sword hilt. “They’re undercrewed.” he answered, his jaw all hard angles and tense muscles. “A tub like that needs at least thirty men.”
“Or they’re hiding below decks.”
“The thought crossed my mind.”
The Black Wind pulled up alongside the cog and dropped boarding gangplanks without resistance. Asha slowly rolled her shoulders, grimacing with a practiced ease, and stepped forward across the gap. A clean-shaven trader with dyed blue hair greeted her. “Well met, sunsetlander.” said the man, in a practiced voice. “How can Garren Qoherys help you today?”
“You’re in Greyjoy waters, merchant.” Asha stated. “Any ship that doesn’t make port at Kraken’s Cove will be charged as smugglers.”
“So we must allow ourselves to be tariffed to bankruptcy?” protested Garren. “The profits on indigo are already so thin, captain.”
“You clearly have enough indigo profits for your hair.” joked Qarl. the merchant’s eyes slid to him, and narrowed for just a moment.
Even as her crew laughed, Asha’s gut twisted strangely. That doesn’t sound right. Blue is nearly as expensive a color as purple. As she stared at him, the feeling intensified. Garren Qoherys… something about that name rings familiar.
“Our laws are simple, merchant.” said Asha. “No ship of war passes through the Stepstones without our leave, and no ship of trade passes without paying the gold price. To defy either will provoke our swords.”
“Can you not make an exception, good captain?” Garren pleaded. “To detour to the west will leave us late for our contract, and we shall default on our loans to the Iron Bank! We must move with all haste!”
“You’re asking me to defy laws that I created myself.” she stated flatly, and drew her sword an inch from her sheath. “Choose your next words carefully.”
Garren’s eyes widened. “You… are Lady Greyjoy.” he bowed slightly. “My - my apologies. I would never dare to insult.” his head rose, his eyes gleaming. “But, if you are a woman of power… then to meet with you is as good as meeting that detestable portmaster, yes?”
Asha’s eyes narrowed. “What are you getting at?” asked Earl.
“Can we not simply… pay you a tariff, and be about our business?”
“A bribe.”
“Only if you wish it to be!” Garren replied quickly. “Gold will be paid - whether it be to the Cove or to Greyjoy is for you to decide. Are they not the same, in the end?”
Asha rolled her hand along the flame-licked pommel of Dark Sister slowly. “... Bring it here, then.” she finally declared. “Ten dragons a head, and a tenth of the value of your cargo. That is the gold price in Kraken’s Cove.”
“Of course.” Garren bowed yet again, smiling widely as he did so. A pair of strong-looking men went below and reappeared after a moment with a large chest between them. “Bring it over to their ship, quick as Balaq!”
Asha’s eyes narrowed as the two men passed her by. That was a name, and one I’ve heard before. But where…?
The two men walked past the crowd of ironborn, thick arms bulging with veins at the heavy load, as the rest of the merchant crew moved to the railings to watch. “Your tariffs, my lady.” Said Garren.
Earl stepped in the way of the two men, folding his arms. “Show us what’s in the chest.” he stated, eyes narrowed.
Garren glanced at Asha, but she shook her head. “My cousin speaks for me. You said you were poor, but have a chest of gold prepared? Color me suspicious.”
“You wound me, my lady.” Garren placed a heart to his chest. “Our word is as good as gold. Show her what is inside the chest.”
The two sailors slowly lowered the chest to the ground, and quietly undid the locks. The chest opened, to reveal a plentitude of gold-coated articles shining in the sun. Asha’s eyebrows arched up at the top layer, a pile of nothing but golden armbands.
“Golden arms?” Earl echoed her thoughts. “Not dragons?”
“Ah, but that is lower down.” Garren replied smoothly. “Show them what lies beneath.”
A clench of fear spiked in her belly. This is wrong. “No games, Qoherys.” her hand went to her hilt.
“Our company does not play games, Asha Greyjoy.” Garren smirked. “We are simply showing you. Beneath the gold…”
The two men reached into the pile of golden accessories, pulled out two naked longswords, and plunged them into Earl Harlaw’s chest.
“THE BITTER STEEL!” The crew roared in unison, as they rose from their crouch by the railing, bearing drawn bows; half a dozen ironborn fell to the decks with arrows feathering their breasts before they even had the chance to draw weapons.
“KILL THEM!” Shouted Garren Qoherys, Serjeant of the Golden Company. At the bow of the ship, a large section of floorboard flipped open, and the sound of clacking wooden gears heralded a rising scorpion.
“DEFEND YOURSELVES!” Asha screamed, drawing Dark Sister and swinging at Qoherys’ neck. The mercenary matched her swing with his own, sneering in victory. Qarl was matched against two, longsword flashing in swift patterns only just fast enough to protect his body.
“You’ll die here, Greyjoy!” Qoherys spat. The bowline fired once again, and more screams of pain from her crew answered. Asha didn’t respond, but stabbed forward as her hand reached down to her belt. Qoherys predictably matched the stab, giving her the time to grab a throwing knife and flick it outward in the space of a breath.
Qoherys took the thin blade in the shoulder, letting out a gasp of pain and stumbling. That moment was all she needed to lunge forward and plunge her Valyrian sword under his chin and out through his scalp, in an eruption of bone and brains.
Two of the crew lunged forward with their weapons as Garren died. Qarl lunged to block one blade; she twisted the corpse into the path of the other. A volley of arrows rang out, answered by another round of screams from the Black Wind. The world was narrowing to tunnel vision, as she shoved the body farther down the Golden Company soldier’s sword, ripping her own out in a fountain of brackish blood.
“KILL THE GREYJOY!”
“ASHA!”
A shudder ran through the cog in time with the booming twang of the scorpion, and the massive bolt shattered the decking of the Black Wind and nearly reaching through the hull. Even as the shrapnel pierced through her Ironborn warriors, the Golden Company took advantage of the distraction, slicing throats and gutting bellies. Even as she cut down one of her assailants, the bowline took aim once more and loosed, and more men went down. Even as she killed the other, more swarmed out from beneath the decks, fully kitted in their golden armor.
“ASHA! THE SCORPION!” Qarl screamed, batting away two blades. She pivoted, and felt her stomach drop out - the war machine was being cranked back and reloaded by two men who had risen on the platform. Without thought, she drew a knife from her belt and hurled it through the air. Her aim was true, taking the first in the eye to the hilt, but even as the mercenary was dying, his discipline shone through as he gripped the crank tight and let his corpse torque the string to completion.
“GET ON THE SPITFIRE!” somebody shouted in an Islander accent. The words caught her attention - Asha turned to scream an order to stop, that she was still onboard the enemy ship. In that moment, a bowman turned to her, arrow nocked, and fired point-blank, and took her in her sword-arm shoulder.
“ASHA!” Qarl roared, but she could barely hear him through the blinding pain. A gold-clad warrior charged her, sword drawn as she staggered away-
A body smashed into her own, knocking her into the air and the cog’s railing. The world spun, as she watched Qarl slice through the Golden Companyman’s neck effortlessly as he charged the scorpion, before plunging down into the roiling ocean.
Pain blinded her, but the burning sensation of salt and sea flaring through her nostrils and lungs brought out old instincts in every Ironborn - she knew how to swim through a storm before she learned how to read. She righted herself, thrashing upwards with powerful kicks and her uninjured arm.
She breached the surface in time to hear the crackle of the Black Wind’s spitfire come to life, lashing the Golden Company’s cog with streams of concentrated flame at point-blank range. Her heart leapt into her throat. “NO!” she shouted, drowned out by the shrieks of burning sailors and shattering wood. “QARL IS STILL ON THERE! STOP!!”
“Captain!” a voice called, one she recognized as Grimtongue in the back of her mind. The longship pulled away as the gangplank fell to the sea, but the spitfire never stopped blasting the enemy vessel. “Captain overboard! Get a rope!”
“Turn around you idiots!” Asha screamed, as Grimtongue dove overboard with rope in hand. “No!” she shouted, thrashing as her crewman reached her. “Let me go! Tell them to stop! Qarl’s still on there!”
“He’s the reason we’re still floating! We had no choice!”
“NO!” She thrashed harder, even as Grimtongue’s massive arms wrapped around her, pulling her flush to him with the rope. She watched her crew heave as one on the towline, instead of saving her lover, and screamed.
By the time the Black Wind pulled into the makeshift docks of Kraken’s Cove, the land had already turned into a flurry of activity - men shouting and running about, gesticulating wildly at the very prominent battle scars on the Black Wind. She could barely tie the longship in before a number of former thralls swarmed aboard, and from the corner of her eye, she could see at least two-dozen grave boats prepared and waiting.
Lodos knew, then, she thought, fingers digging into her arm. She didn’t bother explaining the situation to the freedmen, and instead pushed through, upwards towards the wooden keep of her fledgling capital.
Lodos Palecrown - Jon Snow, in some other life - was waiting for her at the walls, alongside her steward, a native of the islands named Tsyru, some tribal byblow of Nymeria sailing to Dorne. She glared at Lodos, fists clenched tight enough to cut the flesh of her palms.
“Chieftess, you are-”
“You knew.” she hissed.
“Not until three days ago.” Lodos replied, tense. “When you didn’t return quickly enough.”
Asha wanted to scream and call him a liar - he always knew what was coming, often shaped their actions to ensure their truth. How many worshippers had confessed scandalous infidelities or secret murders to him, to have so many secrets to trade?
But this was not the place for this. She wouldn’t allow her people to come to blows with the Thrice-Drowned. She knew enough of her people’s history to not want to test whether they were more loyal to kings or to priests.
“Inside.”
Tsyru fell away, following after them from a distance. Neither of them said a word to each other as they made their way into what had now become her makeshift personal solar; she didn’t bother looking over to see if he was trying to catch her gaze.
Only after they had made the climb to the third floor of the left tower and sealed the door did she turn to face him. “Start talking.”
“Who was it that attacked?” Lodos asked instead. “That part was unclear.”
“The Golden Company.” Asha took a vicious satisfaction at seeing Lodos’ face grow as pale grey as his hair. “I should have known the minute that bastard told me his name.” she lashed out with her foot, jolting her table an inch. “Garren Qoherys.”
“Qoherys?” Lodos blinked. “Isn’t that-?”
“Yes. of House Qoherys.” she seethed. “The family that took Harrenhal after Aegon burned it. Dead for two-hundred years. How many toasts have been raised to Harren the Red for ending their line in the taverns and longhalls? Too many to count - I KNEW the Company was filled with stolen names, but I didn’t see it!”
“Asha-”
“AND NEITHER DID YOU!” she screamed, fist slamming down into the desk. “You and your damned prophecies didn’t see this! And now-” a wretched sob nearly escaped her lips, but she choked it back down and smothered it in her anger. “And now Qarl is dead. And Earl, and Fingers, and Six-Toed Harl, and more. Half of my crew, dead, because your prophecies! Didn’t! Save them!”
Her finger jabbed into his chest with each break, staggering him back. She watched his face twist in anger, and his fists clenched. “Take your hands off of me.”
“Or what?” she snapped. “You’ll kill me like you killed them?”
“I DIDN’T KNOW!” he roared. “You know full well I don’t control what I see - a hundred times, I’ve told you. A hint, or a tableau, never an explanation - and never a CHOICE!” he shook his head, looking up and away with glistening eyes. “I see a ship burning in one eye, Qarl charging through fire and steel, half-burned but taking a blow to a siege weapon. I see you in the water, bleeding, broken but alive. I see a man with blue hair, wearing no crest but a red string wrapped around his heart, leading off to the east. I didn’t see it time, Asha.”
Her immediate impulse was to strike him - then his words registered. “Red thread?” she repeated. “That blue-haired man was Qoherys. You… saw a red thread around his heart?”
Lodos closed his eyes. “Yes. and I saw the one it attached to, in the other eye.” a hand reached up and pulled downward on his face.
Her eyes narrowed. “What did you see?”
“... The past, I think.” he answered, slowly. “Just as yours was a thing that had already happened, so was this. A place… a camp, burning. Dark-skinned figures without faces burning in their huts. Only two were distinct - a silver-haired man, with a cruel look in his eye, and a dark-skinned man in hides, with hair down to his waist. They burned together, in a great hut, as men with fists upon their hearts set them ablaze while they slept.”
Asha felt her temper snuff out like water on coals. “Silver hair - were his eyes violet?” Lodos nodded, and she went colder. A Targaryen. THE Targaryen. Viserys Targaryen, assassinated along with some savages by men loyal to the Hand of the King.
Her history came back to her, and impatient scowl formed on her face. “The other - where was the other, his sister?”
Lodos’ eyes snapped open. “You know them?”
“TELL ME WHERE THE BITCH WENT.”
Lodos stared at her quietly, for a long while, before answering. “... A figure ran from the blaze, cloaked in ashes and blazing footprints in her wake. She crossed great distances, until reaching the edge of a river. From beyond the river, at the very edge of my vision, a hand reached out to the figure. Wrapped around all his fingers were red threads that arched into the sky and beyond, and beneath the threads lay the shadow of a wing.”
Asha didn’t say anything for a long moment, before letting out a measured breath. “So, that’s it, then.” she said. A strained laugh escaped her. “The Golden Company serves a dragon once more. Drowned god deliver us - it’s another Blackfyre Rebellion.”
Lodos merely cocked his head at her.
She shook her head. “You know the War of the Ninepenny Kings?”
“I know the name.”
“That was the fifth.” she watched his eyes widen. “They’re the reason, Snow, that bastards are despised across the Seven Kingdoms. And that Targaryen bitch just joined them.”
All the adrenaline in her veins snuffed out, and she slowly stumbled backwards until her back touched the wall. “Hightower killed Viserys in his bed, and his sister escaped, fleeing into the arms of a bastard. And now there’s another Blackfyre Rebellion. All because of a crown, and an ugly throne.” a half-formed hysterical giggle passed her lips.
“Asha…”
“Crowns. That’s all anybody cares for.” she said, shaking her head. Her vision was starting to blur. “It must feel as good as a woman to wear, because that’s all any of these people care about. Who cares about my grandfather? Robert wanted a crown. What need did my father have for Rodrik or Maron or Theon? A crown was what REALLY mattered. And Drowned God forbid anybody weep over a grandson of a thrall because a fucking dragon whore wanted her daddy’s THRONE back-!”
“Asha!” arms wrapped around just as she began to slide down the wall.
“WHY…!?” now, the tears she’d been bottling up for a week came at last. “Earl… Harl… Rolfe, who I knew since I was six… they deserved a better death than that…! A great battle against impossible odds, not some - some damned ambush! Qarl deserved…” she shuddered. “I weighed his body down myself - his face half-melted, his sword-arm gone… the smell! I… I…”
“Asha.” he murmured, and the voice in her ear sounded softer, now, less bombastic. This sounded like the voice of a quiet northern bastard, not a prophet; a Jon Snow, not a Lodos Palecrown. “Forget all that. You’re here. And you’ll make the Golden Company pay. Crying doesn’t match your character at all.”
“How… how could I possibly forget!?” she said, turning to face his face, inches away.
Jon seemed to hesitate for a moment, but she could see in his eyes the moment he made a decision. “Let me help you.”
His head lowered down, crossing the invisible boundary until his lips captured hers.
Her eyes shot wide, stunned for a moment, before her arms came up and shoved him away. “You bastard!”
Jon stumbled back to his feet, a panicked expression on his face. Asha pushed herself to her feet, staring daggers at him. A hand went up to her lips, touching them for just a moment before narrowing her eyes.
“I… just wanted to-”
“Shut up.” she snapped. “Answer me this.” she straightened up, and wiped away her tears until the red of her eyes was the only evidence. “Were you waiting for Qarl to die to do this?”
“Never.” Jon answered without hesitation.
“So if this hadn’t happened, you would have let him sweep me off my feet? Or any other man I was forced to marry?”
“Yes. whatever I was before, I’m a priest now.”
“A priest who kissed me.” she retorted. Jon winced, but didn’t reply. “And when was the first time you had this idea then, huh? Answer me that.”
“... In the throne room. Just as we killed that blackstone abomination.” he answered. “I nearly wanted to bend you over then and there.”
She stared at him silently for a long moment, watching as he forced himself to stay still. “... What a coincidence.” she said, finally. “I’d had the same idea.”
Jon didn’t have the chance to do more than open his mouth in shock, before she leaped onto him, legs wrapping around his waist as she latched onto his lips.
Asha awoke slowly, a pleasant fluffiness coating her thoughts. The space beside her was empty, but still held a fading imprint of a body, and her naked body and dried stickiness on her thighs reminded her of the previous night’s events.
She slowly rolled out of the master bed, glancing errantly out across the town of Kraken’s Cove, formerly the nameless seat of Lucas Waters. Across the way, freedmen and natives desperate for honest work were toiling under the morning sun, carving deep furrows in the soil to find the steady foundations her new keep would stand on. If the Greyjoys were to prove they were here to stay, then their homes would be of stone and iron, not wood.
It might not matter, if the whole of the Golden Company is sailing on Westeros. Her lips thinned to bloodless lines. A fleeting memory of Qarl’s crooked smile was ruthlessly suppressed, as her fingers dug into her free arm. I won’t let them stop me.
A faraway gasp of air pulled her from her dark thoughts. Curious, Asha followed the noise, and found Jon standing before her washbasin, naked from the waist up. His shaking hands were gripping the edges tightly, his whole head was dripping with water as his face flushed the dark red of deprived oxygen. His eyes, though, were glassed, pupils blown wide enough that the grey of his eyes was swallowed entirely by black.
She recognized what she was seeing immediately, and rushed to grab him by his sides, just as his arms lost their strength and fell backwards into her chest.”Jon. Jon!” Asha called, lowering his heavier body down as gently as possible.
Jon stared forward unblinkingly, but as she watched his pupils slowly shrank and regained their focus. “... Asha.” he answered, finally, after multiple failed attempts to remember the use of his tongue.
“What did you see?”
“... I saw…” he dry-swallowed, panting softly. “I saw a tent, surrounded by golden skulls. A man in golden armor…” his eyes glassed over again. “I know him. I don’t know how, but I know it was Harry Strickland.”
The name rang a bell to Asha, thanks to their spies; he was the newest commander of the Golden Company. Not a beloved name, or a particularly noteworthy fighter, but from a long line of financial backers of the Golden Company. An empty suit of armor.
“Did you see anything else?”
“He…” Jon closed his eyes, and bonelessly slumped into her chest. “He was in the tent with two others; an old man, and a babe. The babe… it had dark skin, like a Dornishman or a savage... but its hair was silver, with violet eyes. And the man holding it… he wore a crest, of twinned griffons in red and white.”
Asha blinked, and felt herself grow cold. “... I know that crest. That’s the symbol of Jon Connington, the Hand to Mad King Aerys. They said he drank himself to death, after Robert’s Rebellion.”
Jon let out a mirthless chuckle. “He’s not only not dead, he’s in charge of the Golden Company. Strickland was answering to his orders.” He slowly, gingerly pushed himself up to face her. “They’re coming here, Asha. The whole company. They’re using the Stepstones as a path for ‘the King and Queen’ to reach Westeros.”
I was right. Daenerys Targaryen found another dragon to curl up to. Could the stories that Maelys died childless have been wrong? “Drowned God deliver us.”
“We need to prepare. We need-” Jon attempted to push himself to his feet, but fell back down to the wooden floor.
“Save your strength.” Asha commanded.
“We need your father.” Jon repeated. “This silence is unacceptable now. We need the Capital, we need the Reach, we need every man we can get. We can’t hold the Golden Company - if they have the ships of Lys, they can carve through our land fortifications.”
“I’ll get the fastest ship we have sailing.” she slowly lifted him by his armpits, and maneuvered him onto a nearby bench. “Stay here and rest.”
“As you command.” Jon said wearily.
Asha turned and began to move just short of running to the door, but came to a slow stop. “Your vision.” she said aloud. “They come in twos. One for each eye, you say. What was the second?”
Jon Snow - Lodos - didn’t answer her for a long moment. “It was just the two of us.” he said, finally. She could hear him choosing his words carefully. “We were on the Black Wind. In your cabin. We were… we were having a moment.”
“What kind of moment?”
“A relationship-defining moment.”
Her eyes narrowed. It was an uncharacteristically evasive answer. “You’re hiding something from me, Lodos.”
Jon closed his eyes, irritated at the use of his false name. “Just this once, Asha… I don’t think you need to know this.”
Asha’s expression wrinkled into a sneer. “You once said you’d never hide anything from me, Jon Snow. Are you breaking that promise now?”
His eyes snapped open to a glare. “Yes.” he slowly pushed himself to his feet, and Asha was suddenly taken by the fact she no longer had to look down to meet his gaze, as she once had to. “Because this vision… is one I won’t let come to pass.”
The two stared into each other’s eyes, daring each other to break first, until finally Asha looked away with a scoff. “I need to get that ship to the Islands sailing.”
She could feel his colorless eyes on her back as she turned and turned away-
A pair of arms wrapped around her rippled abdomen, and she let out a louder sound of protest as the idiot pulled her flush with his chest. “No. No, you don’t get to just-”
“Do you feel better?” Jon murmured into her ear, his long silver-white hair dangling just inside of her vision.
“I’m angry with you now.”
“Angry is better than weeping.”
“Let me go.” she pulled at his laced fingers; she could easily break his weakened grip if she tried. “I need to get dressed.”
“Not until you tell me that you feel better.”
Asha began to rebuke him, and then she paused. Did she feel better? Was a single night of sex enough to chase out the memory of… of…
I don’t remember. I don’t remember how Qarl died. I know I saw him die, but I don’t remember what I saw. I know I buried him at sea, but I don’t remember how he looked when he sank below the waves.
Asha slowly straightened up. “Lodos Palecrown.” she said, carefully. “What secret did you give to see this vision?”
“You know that it’s impossible to tell you.” he answered, placing a gentle kiss on the crook of her neck. “Do you feel better?”
She closed her eyes, steadying her breathing. “... Yes. My pain is a dull ache, now.” Jon slowly unlaced his fingers, and she turned to face him, eyes like iron. “That was the second time you’ve stolen from inside my mind. The third time it happens… you won’t be forgiven.”
Jon, the cocky bastard, smiled at her. “As you wish, my lady.”
“Depending on whether they’ve made alliance with Tyrosh or not, they’ll either first attack the southern or western edges and work their way inwards.” Said Asha, jabbing at the map of the Stepstones. Her noble council surrounded the map, mostly second and third sons of great houses from the Islands who had come in search of their own lands.
“The Lyseni have spread their legs for the Golden Company.” retorted Gormond Goodbrother, third of the Goodbrother triplets. “Tyrosh would slit their own throats before teaming up with them.”
“And let Lys conquer all the Stepstones once and for all?” said Yohn Farwynd, his color-changing eyes flashing hot. “The wreckage from the wars they fight over single islands enriches us every year. They would join just to ensure that when the Golden Company moves on to the mainland, Lys does not dig deep into the islands!”
“They might just as well strike at their back while they move onwards! Pincer them when our reinforcements arrive!”
“Will you bet that with your life, dung-headed ox!?”
Just as hands began to reach for hilts, Asha drew her own dagger and slammed it point-first into the table. “Enough!” she shouted. The resulting silence amplified the ringing vibration from her weapon. “If you two bickering salt-wives can’t help but measure your cocks, I’ll just start cutting until they’re perfectly even.” she stated, her grin stretched wide without moving her eyes. “Otherwise, focus on the task at hand.”
The third son of Gorold Goodbrother grimaced, but said nothing; the second son of Gylbert Farwynd slowly shook his head. “... Apologies, Lady Greyjoy.” he said. Behind them, Donnel Drumm snorted.
Jon pushed himself off the wall. “The time for disunity is behind us.” he said, his roughspun robes scratching loudly in the sudden silence. “The threat the Golden Company brings means we cannot stumble for even a moment.” he folded his arms. “The Drowned God has a seat for every one of us waiting, but we cannot do anything less than spend our lives as a miser would.”
Asha’s smile lessened to something thin, but genuine. “We’ll be like an arrow - measured, calculated, and then once our course is set we’ll fly bold until they die.” she picked up her dagger and sheathed it. “So unless you’ve got something real to say, belay the shit-talk.”
Nobody questioned her, and so she leaned back over the table, the large map spread across it. No nation had ever bothered to make a detailed effort of cartography since some targaryen princeling thought to name himself king two centuries ago, so the product before her was more an ironborn seascape, with the islands incredibly vague. If she managed to survive this coming war, she’d have to change that.
“You have a point, though. Both of you.” she tapped her finger over the easternmost corner, where the symbol of Tyrosh was marked in heavy inks. “The Golden Company could not hope to move on us while Tyrosh is unaccounted for. The last reports placed their numbers at anywhere between ten and twenty-thousand men. They outnumber us on land, but not by much, and we can easily outfight them at sea. And that is before our reinforcements arrive.”
“And yet,” Said Jon Snow, “we have no word of Tyrosh mobilizing. Not a word - and we would receive the raven within the day if they had. They must be attacking from the south, but how are they so confident?”
Donnel Drumm rolled his eyes, glancing out the window once more. Asha frowned. “You going to spit it out, Drumm, or are you going to keep sneering at us like a lackwit?”
“There’s no point in talking before the courier arrives here.” he replied lowly, pointing with his finger. “That’s the one you sent to the Islands, isn’t it? He and his ship are alone and beat to hell.”
The words hung in the air for a long moment, before shouts broke out as the council rushed to the window. Asha, not to be outdone, wrestled and pushed her way to the front, as Donnel held out an arm to block out a place for her.
The lords weren’t the only ones who had noticed the messenger arriving - he was followed by a trailing wake of dockworkers and fishermen, all calling out and shouting beyond their hearing. The courier himself was haggard, wool clothes hanging limply as he carried a chest-sized box in front of him as if it was a casket of wildfire. His ship, Asha could see, was little better - sails in shreds, ropes frayed.
“What in the frozen hells happened to him?” Yohn muttered.
“Caught in an Autumn storm. Has to be.”
“But where are the rest of the ships?” asked Jon, staring with hard eyes. “We sent him to return with a fleet, not a box.”
“This bodes ill.” said Gormond. “Some of your fathers would abandon their children, but the Goodbrothers take care of their branches. To have none of the Iron Fleet come to us…?”
“You fishwives can cut the gossip until he actually gets up here.” Said Asha. “then we’ll have answers.”
The hall went quiet, then. None of the gathered lordlings dared to speak, instead fidgeting and nervously staring at each other, and the messenger until he passed from view. The muffled sounds of industry from the harbor were all that broke the silence, until a soft, unsteady rap came at the chamber door.
“Enter.” Asha called.
The doors swung wide, two native guards with iron spears standing at attention as the courier stumbled in. “My… My Lady…” he tried to bow, but the box in his hand shuddered, and he let out a pitiful sound as he corrected to keep it’s contents stable.
“I sent you west to raise the Iron Fleet from my father, to protect us in the east.” Asha said, leaning over the table. “Yet here you are, with nothing in-hand but that box and your own cock. Explain yourself.”
The messenger whimpered, and slowly walked forward to place the box on the table. “I… I bring a reply, my lady.” he said, and Asha noted, unnervingly, that the reason he spoke so carefully was that he was now missing half his teeth. “A message, from… from -”
“My father. Yes, yes, get on with it.”
A pitiful cry escaped him, before pulling a large roll of sealed parchment from his trousers placed it on the table. Asha’s eyes immediately flicked up. “A written message?”
“Y-yes…”
Father hates reading and writing - he only uses it when talking by raven to other kingdoms. With the Ironborn, he uses verbal couriers instead.
The seal of House Greyjoy glistened ominously in the wax seal as she picked it up and roughly split it open with one of her knives. The first words on the top of the animal-skin parchment stopped her cold.
“What does it say?” Jon asked quietly.
My father is dead.
“... In the name of Euron Greyjoy,” she began, and was immediately deafened by a roar of outrage from the council, furious and confused. “IN THE NAME OF EURON GREYJOY,” she shouted, over the din, “Lord REAPER OF PYKE!”
“ENOUGH!” Jon shouted. The crowd stilled. “Let her speak.”
“... Lord Reaper of Pyke, King of Salt and Rock, Son of the Sea Wind, the Dragonbinder, and King of the Iron Islands, to Asha Greyjoy.” the parchment crumpled under her clenched fist. “The Kingsmoot has been called and the Driftwood Crown placed upon my brow, and in doing so, the Iron Islands are independent once more thanks to -” the fury spiked. “THAT SON OF A BITCH!”
“What?”
“THANKS TO OUR LEAL ALLIES IN LYS, AND AEGON TARGARYEN, TRUE SON OF RHAEGAR TARGARYEN!”
The room exploded in fury.
“TREASON!”
“HE’S SIDED WITH LYS!”
“THAT OATHBREAKING SWINE!”
“THE BLACKFYRE STOLE A DEAD BABE’S NAME!”
“FILTH!”
“SILENCE!” Jon roared, slamming his fist down into the table corner; the impact zone was splintered and cracked as he lifted his hand away. “Let her finish.”
Asha glanced over at Jon, trying to show her gratitude with her eyes - she was nearly about to be sick, herself. “I call upon all sons and daughters to return to the Islands, to swear fealty to the Throne and join in common cause against the Seven Kingdoms. All who oppose this shall not be spared. In addition -” she stopped, her throat seizing. None of the lords spoke up, this time.
“In addition, the deviant preacher who claims the alias of Lodos Palecrown is to be brought before the throne, to be executed by right of the throne for his part in formenting a rebellion of the priesthood against my rightful election, and the unlawful emancipation and smuggling of thralls.” Asha found, absently, that her mouth had gone bone dry. “The man who captures him shall be richly rewarded with new lands and riches by the Throne. Any who refuse to do so shall be treated as outlaws and traitors to the Iron Islands. So it is decreed.”
After a long moment, she crumpled the missive into a ball and chucked it into the fire.
“He wants us to abandon the Stepstones.” said Donnel Drumm, growling. “Abandon the new lands we bled for, died for. Leave our holds and new castles to rot half-built. And if we don’t, Lys and the Golden Company will swarm us.”
“A Greyjoy working with the bloody Targaryens!? Euron’s own father, Lord Quellon, fought against the Mad King!” Shouted Yohn Farwnd. “And a damned Kingsmoot? When Lady Asha is the heir of Lord Balon’s body and spirit!? It’s a mummery! A fraud of an election! She has the greatest claim, and was not even sent for! Not to mention this joke about ‘Aegon Targaryen’ – do they think we’re stupid?”
“You’re not going to let this outrage stand, are you?” asked Gormond. Asha opened her mouth to answer -
“We haven’t finished.” said Lodos, holding up a fist. Asha glanced over at him, irritated, but instead his extended a finger, pointed directly at the box. “There is one part of the message left unsaid.”
The roomed stilled. A sudden anxiety took hold - the box that the messenger had carried so gingerly, and then fled as soon as he had shed their attention, was from Euron.
Asha took several slow, steadying breaths, before stepping towards it. Now that she saw it, it was more akin to a reliquary than anything else, with carved wooden panels on hinges concealing the contents. She gripped the knobs and pulled- and then let out a cry.
Inside the reliquary, the dried coiled piles of long black hair could not conceal the limp, eyeless expression of Aeron Greyjoy’s pickled severed head.
The smell of rotting death, once concealed by the sandalwood, now wafted freely, coating the inside of her nose and throat like oil. Though only she could see into the box, her council of second sons instantly recognized the odor as well, and recoiled. Jon clenched his eyes tightly, trembling with rage.
Slowly, gently, she closed the reliquary doors. “... that explains the ‘priesthood rebellion’, then.” she said, a farcical attempt at flippancy.
“... What are your orders, my lady?” asked Jon.
My orders are to rip and tear my uncle until there’s nothing left for even the gulls to feast on, She thought to herself. Instead, she looked them all in the eye.
“We’re staying.”
A third son in the back let out a vicious whoop; someone else slapped him across the face until he went silent again.
“We are staying, and we are going to destroy these sons-of-bitches who think they can take the Stepstones from us.” she declared, fervour building. “And then, when we are done with Lys and the Golden Company, we are going to build a fleet with the riches of these lands, and we are going to sail to the Iron Islands like Torgon the Latecomer, come to defeat the Badbrother!”
“Asha the Latecomer!”
“Euron Crow’s-Eye? More like Crow’s-Food!”
“We’ll have a headbox made for every whoreson that touched the Damphair – and this fake Aegon, too!”
The epithets ran wild, each more poetic than the last. Jon stepped forward, a gleam in his eye; he was fully in the mantle of prophet, now. “Then let it be known in all places, the stepstones, the free cities and the Seven Kingdoms.” he said, grey eyes burning with fervour.
“Let it be known that Asha Greyjoy does not recognize the legitimacy of Euron Greyjoy as King. Let it be known that the Kingsmoot that selected him be illegitimate and fraudulent, and therefore void. And let it be known that she denounces him and his allies!” the room roared in approval.
“She denounces him as USURPER! She denounces him as KINSLAYER! She denounces him as a WITCH, a SKIN-THIEF, and a scion of the THREE-EYED RAVEN!” Jon’s fist slammed down onto the table. “Though he hoped to erase his crimes from memory, they are remembered still, and the Drowned God will have his blighted soul for it! Now go and tell the world what was said here!”
The council of second sons roared with approval and stormed through the doors. The crowd disappeared, and silence fell with only Asha and Jon remaining. “Well. we’re in the shit now.” Asha remarked dryly.
Jon seemed to sag. “Yes. yes, we are.” his eyes lingered on the box. “We’ll need to have a proper sending for Aeron, if we could. Euron probably desecrated what he was able.”
Slowly, Asha nodded. “Aye. the first Greyjoy to be laid at sea in the Stepstones. He’ll receive the finest honors we can give.” she walked around the table, and stood close to Jon. “... What was it that you meant, naming him ‘scion of the Three-Eyed Raven’?”
“I…” slowly, Jon hung his head. “I’m not capable of explaining.”
“More magic?” she asked softly. He nodded his head. “... but not yours.”
“Not mine.” he shook his head.
… he ranted and raged on the way here, all those months ago. Asked me questions about Euron - whether he wore an eyepatch or not, what he looked like, and a ship from the Iron Fleet I’ve never heard of. She snorted. All the way back then, you’d realized something had changed, hadn’t you. “Uncle Euron was the strangest of my father’s brothers. It fits that he’d be a witch.”
“I can’t explain to you what I meant.” said Jon. “All that matters is that when Euron reads those words, he’ll understand. He’ll know that someone remembers what he has done… and be afraid.”
Asha slipped her arm around his waist and pulled him flush to her hip, the weight of his body against hers a comfort. “Afraid…” she murmured, staring at the reliquary. “I like that.”
“When we’re done against the Golden Company… we’ll give him a lot more to fear.”
“They’re coming.”
Asha didn’t turn around from her position at the head of Black Wind at Lodos’ words. She chose instead to stare out into the misty fog of the morning, obscuring their vision.
The man who was once Jon Snow didn’t acknowledge her silence. “There are dozens of ships, by the count of my kraken’s eyes.” he said. “Possibly threescore. The Lysenes have spared no expense.”
“That Hightower whore would accept nothing less.” she responded. “It’s as we expected, then. They mean to turn Grey Gallows into their staging ground.”
“They’ll be within spitting distance of Sunspear if they take it.”
“And yet the Martells remain quiet.” said Asha. her fist clenched. “They’ve had more than enough time to answer our raven, and yet they don’t. We denounce Euron as a kinslaying usurper, and yet the loyalists ignore us.”
She felt a hand brush against her back, for just a moment. “The Martells and the Crown will answer in time.” said Lodos. “One way, or the other.”
The two stared out across the water. The only movement she allowed herself, to release the thrumming tension in her body, was a slow clenching and unclenching of her fist.
“Did you ever think you’d be remembered this way?” asked Lodos.
“Remembered as what?”
“Asha Greyjoy the Latecomer - the defender of the crown.” he answered. “The Ironborn of the Stepstones, savior of the Seven Kingdoms.”
She laughed. “I’ll not take epithets for a battle we haven’t yet fought, prophet or not. Save it for when we win.”
She could tell that he heard the ‘if’ she left unspoken. “They’re waiting for you.”
Asha wasn’t sure what he was referring to - her army, or her glory. Regardless, she turned around to face her crew. There was a hole in the front line, where cousin Earl Harlaw would have stood - that pain, at least, she still remembered.
“You all know what is at stake here!” Asha shouted. “The Targaryens return, with the Golden Company at their backs. My grandfather, Quellon, fought them once, for the idea of Robert’s Rebellion - now we fight them again, for our HOME!”
“The Stepstones are the rebirth of the Ironborn! They are ours! Are we going to let these dragon-blooded madmen and their Free City whoremonger backers take them away from us!?”
“NO!” roared the crew of the Black Wind in reply.
“Then this is where we break them!” she roared. “The Targaryens break here! They outnumber us two to one, but we are the children of the Drowned God! We rule wherever the waves touch! They cannot match our mastery of the sea, and so they will bleed! Spend your lives like misers and take the iron price from them - don’t trade one life when you can steal five! Your job is to live, and to see Euron DIE! Do this, and all of us are promised a seat at the head of His hall!”
“FOR WHAT IS DEAD MAY DIE!”
“BUT RISES AGAIN!” They echoed back, as one. “HARDER AND STRONGER!”
Across the waves, the beating of war drums began, and Ironborn warsongs began to ring. On the Black Wind, the refrain of Steel Rain boomed out, men rowing in time with the tempo. Longships cut forward through the waves at incredible speed, until at last the silhouettes of the Lyseni ships of war emerged.
“I’m sitting down, Asha.” said Lodos, behind her.
“Have a nice nap.” she replied, drawing Dark Sister.
The flagship of the Golden Company fleet, a massive dromond with at least a hundred oars on each of its multiple decks lunged out of the fog, with a figurehead of a weeping goddess on the prow. A bright circle in the fog was the only warning before a burning ball of tar arced through the air, splashing down ahead of the Black Wind.
“CATAPULTS!” Asha roared. “BREAK FORMATION!”
“BREAK FORMATION!” echoed a man behind her; she could hear the warhorn blasting the corresponding signal from behind her, setting her ears ringing. Near-instantly their synchronized advance disintegrated, ships arcing away from each other with expert skill; a dozen more fireballs launched through the air and landed wide of their targets.
“Come on, Palecrown…” she murmured. “Now’s the time…”
The sea roiled. The Lyseni flagship shuddered.
Asha grinned. “There you are.”
From the depths, a thrashing nest of tentacles burst upwards, wrapping around the hull. Dozens of oars as thick around as a man’s arm snapped like twigs, as suckerpads slapped onto the decks and flattened men underneath it. The flagship groaned as the tentacles squeezed tighter and tighter, but above the sound of shattering planks and protesting keels came the sound of human screams.
“ATTACK!” she screamed.
She didn’t need the warhorn this time - the sea rippled with Ironborn war cries. A ship to her left loosed a great fletched bolt from the mounted scorpion, splitting the hull of a lesser galley even as a hail of arrows peppered the longship’s decks. The flagship crackled and groaned under the kraken’s touch; a tentacle flew up in the air bleeding from a stuck blade and slammed down with a mighty force, cracking the deck in twain. A ship next to the besieged dromond seemed to right itself, weapons training on their watery behemoth.
Asha bared her teeth. “READY THE SPITFIRE!” she roared. The Black Wind practically glided across the waves, pointed to the gap between the two.
“SPITFIRE READY!”
“FIRE!”
The iron flamethrower sparked, and from its dragon-shaped gaping maw spewed a stream of liquid fire. The dragonsbreath stuck to the hull and decks of the Lyseni ship like tar, eating deeper into the wood and racing up the mast even as the crew screamed in fear. The spitfire was an Ironborn favorite; the Alchemists guarded the secrets of true Wildfire jealously, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be approximated through simple chemistry.
Before the enemy could truly react, the Black Wind had already moved on, the sheer speed and maneuverability of longships making their worth known. All around her, Asha could see her people weaving and lashing the Golden Company’s ships, hit-and-run tactics to cripple instead of pitched combat. Six of their ships had begun to sink, a dozen more had been rendered little more than floating wrecks, and whatever leadership existed on their flagship had been rendered into squid food.
Her head knew that she should withdraw now, before they regrouped and countered. That was the plan they made, her and Jon Snow and all her men. But as she stared at fields of burning ships, her fist clenched tighter around Dark Sister.
Hang this caution - the Golden Company will only be caught by surprise once. I’m not leaving until I split some heads myself.
“GET US ON BOARD THAT SHIP! MASTLESS SHIP OFF THE PORT BOW!” she roared.
“MAKE READY FOR BOARDING!” echoed her second. “MASTLESS DROMOND OFF THE PORT BOW!” her crew screamed with bloodlust, and the Black Wind leaped forward across the waves as if it shared in the battle fury. Her warriors found grappling hooks, and with expert throws born of endless practice bound the larger ship to their own.
The boarding plank toppled into the ship, a great metal spike on the end punching through the decks of the Lyseni ship to prevent toppling, and Ironborn descended upon the Golden Company, vile oaths and exhortations on their lips. Asha was right behind, eyes bloodshot, as her blade and axe met with a mercenary’s gilded sword. Sparks flew as she hacked away with the Valyrian Steel, her off-hand weapon sweeping for undefended joints. A body flew by her, but she refused to break her stride-
An ear-piercing, inhuman roar bellowed through the air, louder than even the din of battle. The mercenary looked up, with a shocked, gleeful expression, before Asha’s axe found his neck between his helmet’s gaps. He died with a look of victory on his face. She ripped her weapon out in a spray of blood, seeking another enemy -
“WHAT IN THE FROZEN HELLS IS THAT THING!?”
That caught her attention. Asha over to see her crew standing frozen, staring upwards with abject fear. She followed their gaze, into the sky. Her heart clenched, and her jaw dropped.
Impossible.
From the misty fogs of the Narrow Sea, high above, a great silhouette loomed over their heads. The shadow was unmistakable, and yet still she refused to believe her own lying eyes.
Yet her belief was not required. The figure swooped downwards out of the morning fog, and the great black dragon let out a loud, belligerent roar before letting loose an explosive blast of black flame into a trio of Ironborn ships. From behind, a second, smaller cream-and-gold dragon followed, attacking with its own white blast.
Asha only had a moment to let the dread control her mind, before her instincts drove her body to move out of the way of a lunging blade. The Golden Company fought like possessed men now, like zealots who had seen the face of their god. Her Ironborn gave as good as they got, but fell just the same.
It was an easy decision. “RETREAT!” she screamed. “BACK ONTO THE BLACK WIND! RETREAT! FALL BACK TO THE BLACK WIND!” she backed away swiftly, the deck underneath slick with blood. The mercenary swung hard, neck bulging with veins - her panicked block with her axe cleanly severed the head from the wooden stock and set her arm lancing with numb pain. One of her men, clad in full plate armor, charged the man in a tackle, and she did not hesitate to whirl and run down the gangplank.
“IT’S COMING RIGHT FOR US!” Grimtongue screamed, the moment she stepped on the deck. She turned, and indeed the great black dragon was staring straight at them, flying towards them with an ungodly speed - and on the back of the dragon’s neck, a woman sat, her long flowing mane of silver hair the most visible point of her.
The dragon bitch herself. She’s recognized us! “GET THAT SAIL UP!!” shouted Asha, as if she didn’t know it was impossible to outrun this beast. The black dragon reared its neck back as it flew towards them, and opened its mouth-
A massive shadow passed over her head, and a quarter of the hull of the crushed dromond flagship exploded from dragonfire in a hail of burning splinters instead of the Black Wind. the sea underneath roiled, and then rose in a great mound, setting the ship rolling. The length of the flagship dromond’s mast rose up, clenched in a cord of tentacles, before being brought down in a mighty chop on the dragon’s head. The dragon let out a bellowing screech of pain, as it collapsed mid-flight and crashed into the ocean.
“THE KRAKEN!” somebody shouted.
“The Palecrown saved us!” shouted another. “Beloved of the Drowned God!”
Asha’s eyes landed on Lodos, who had fallen to the ground, lying on his side but still unconscious. “You magnificent bastard…!” She hissed. “Drown that Targaryen bitch for us!” She raced down the deck towards the aft, snatching up the signal horn, and letting loose with a trio of long, clear notes - Full Retreat.
The black dragon writhed in the sea, clutching and scrabbling at half-sunken wrecks to attempt to pull itself out of the water, but even as it did, the kraken latched onto the body of the black dragon. The two wrenched and wrestled with each other, the dragon spewing black flame in the air and the sea, but any man could see that the advantage was lost. Latched on as it was, the massive hidden body of the beast was finally shown, revealing a great bulbous head, a pair of bulging, hyperintelligent eyes, and a circular maw fill with rows and rows of sharp teeth. The mouth latched onto the black dragon’s body, and it began to scream.
The scream was answered by another - the cream-and-gold dragon, which whirled in the sky and soared faster than any beast had a right to soar. Asha’s heart leaped into her throat. “NO!”
The dragon reared back and let loose with a burning-white stream of flame, directly into the center of the writhing mass. The black dragon let out a screech of fearful pain - a second, higher agonized sound came from the kraken, as tentacles boiled and burned. One of its eyes bulged and then burst in a stream of bloody green ichor. From the back of the black dragon’s neck, a small charred body toppled and fell lifeless into the ocean.
A third scream joined the chorus - from Jon Snow, whose body had arched and contorted to the point of nearly breaking his own spine, blank white eyes wide open and bleeding from the corners.
“JON!” Asha shouted, grabbing him, trying to straighten his body. “Wake up! WAKE UP!” the screaming got louder. She picked up his body, wound him back as far as she could, and slammed his head against the deck.
The screaming stopped. Blood spurted from his mouth, and Jon's eyes faded back from colorless white to dark grey, before falling limply to the ground in her grip.
“Get us OUT of here!” Asha commanded.
“Captain-!”
“That Aegon just roasted his own queen to take out the kraken! We need to MOVE!”
The cream-and-gold dragon let out a roar that almost sounded anguished, yet twirled around in the air and soared towards the Black Wind, even as the ship sailed with every ounce of speed it had. The king’s dragon reared back, summoning up a gout of flame - and then twisted it’s head, blasting the sea just shy of the ship in defiance. The sea exploded, setting the ship rolling nearly 90 degrees. Men in heavy armor screamed in fear as they toppled into the ocean, where they sank like a stone.
The longship hung there for a long, ponderous moment, before groaning and slapping its shallow draft back down into the sea, toppling in place. Asha slammed against the railing, her hand letting go of Jon’s collar and stumbling to her feet. Her stomach dropped into her feet when a quick glance revealed that everyone else had gone overboard. Behind them, in the distance, the flames of the shipwrecks were beginning to peter out, as Golden Company ships gave chase to the fleeing Iron Fleet. Nobody was coming their way.
She turned slowly and watched with wide eyes as the king’s dragon thrashed and writhed in the air. A figure with striking blue hair sat on it’s neck, gesturing, as glass-like golden bands fluttered in and out of existence on the dragon’s neck, like a shining collar of light. She could see the figure gesturing at her, yet the dragon refused - but whatever magic was at play, she doubted it would stall for long.
Her fist clenched. “Come on, then, you son of a bitch.” she growled, and took off running.
Behind her, she could hear the wing beats growing louder.
She didn’t look back, though, remaining focused on only one thing - the loaded scorpion on the aft of the ship.
Asha jumped. Her left hand grasped onto the grip, and with the momentum in her jump, spun the scorpion around nearly 180 degrees. The bolt was pointed directly at the oncoming dragon, whose mouth was wide open. She could see the white-gold licks of flame billowing up in the back of it’s throat, even as it flew towards her in an unerringly straight line.
A straight line - any fool who's survived a battle with bows knows to either zigzag their movements or get feathered. This fake Targaryen has never seen a battle, dragon or not - he's as green as spring grass.
The instinctive act of trajectory calculations, cultivated in her by years of combat experience with her throwing knives, saw the gleefully static trajectory without any effort from her conscious brain and yanked hard on the scorpion's release. The string went loose, and with an anticlimactic whistle, the feathered bolt flew through the air and down the dragon’s unarmored throat, punching out the other side in a spray of blood.
The beast went bonelessly limp in the air, a gout of flame licking out the newly-created hole like a geyser as it fell like a rock. A rock, Asha realized too late, that was headed directly towards the Black Wind. she let out a panicked scream and turned to run, but before she could, the dragon smashed through the longship’s tall mast, shattering it with its mass.
The ship pitched hard to port and to stern, and Asha felt her feet leave the ground before her head cracked against the outer walls of the captain’s cabin. The world went white, and red, and ringing. The ship moved underneath her, rolling with some enormous wave, but she couldn’t see or feel. The last thing her mind understood before darkness took her was her hands landing on her left side and feeling a great spear-like sliver of mast jutting out, covered in her own blood.
The next thing Asha knew was pain, the faded impression of a wooden ceiling, and thirst. A weak cry of agony escaped her lips, as her side flared the moment she attempted to move.
“Asha, don’t.”
She knew that voice. “Jnnn…”
A wooden cup lifted to her lips, and a thin trickle of blessed water passed down her throat. She tried to pull it down with her teeth, to drink more greedily, but the still-invisible figure pulled it away. “Rest.”
“Wh… wh’re…”
“On the Black Wind, still. You’re in your cabin. Rest.”
Asha tried to summon the strength to argue, but when a cool wet rag was placed over her forehead, the fire left, and sleep reclaimed her.
Time blurred as the Black Wind drifted. Asha didn’t mark most of it, passing in and out of a fever-dream sleep. She remembered Jon Snow, tending to her wounds. The crown had been shaved down to the stubs, and the ragged flesh around the bases looked inflamed. He looked nothing like the proud, mad priest that had led them here.
“Where are we,” she remembered asking once, possibly.
“North of the Stepstones,” he responded.
“Where are we going…?”
“To the Arbor, to feast on peaches and make love in the sun,” he replied. That was when she knew she was not truly awake. Those were Qarl’s words, not Jon’s. She smiled, then.
“I missed you,” she said.
“Did you know, Asha, that I was once a slave?”
“No you weren’t,” she admonished Qarl, for he had been born a free man. A thrall was not a slave, and the grandson of a thrall even less so. The islands took pains to ensure the distinction.
“I was bound for Pentos,” said Qarl. Only, it wasn’t quite him, anymore. “When I remembered who I was meant to be, what fate I was bound for… I would not allow it to come to our new home. A thrall is not a slave, but I would make sure all men will be free.”
Asha lifted a shaking hand to his face, but before she could touch his cheek, darkness swallowed her vision.
A day came where she woke up lucid, and the pain in her belly had subsided. The tightly wrapped bandages around her wounds were stained a yellowy-pink color but were holding back whatever pus was forming well. She couldn’t imagine how they were being changed or cleaned.
“Jon…” she croaked. “Jon, come here…”
Nobody answered for a moment, and then the door opened. Jon rushed to her side. “You’re awake.” he said.
“Thanks to you, it seems.” she smiled weakly. She made to adjust herself upright, but a hand on her shoulder pushed her back down with ease.
“You know what I’m about to say.”
“Fuck you.” she pushed back against the hand fruitlessly. “I’m well enough to sit up.”
He stared at her wordlessly, before a hand slipped underneath her back and gently adjusted her upwards. An agonized hiss escaped her, but she bore with it until her head was propped upright.
“Better.” she declared. Jon snorted, smiling thinly. Only now did she realize, with a start, that his crown was missing - the wood lodged in his forehead was gone, shaved off cleanly at the stumps. He looks so young, now. She thought to herself. Only just a man. She imagined what he must have looked like, with the dark hair of his Stark father. It was a striking image. “How is the ship?”
Jon squeezed his eyes tight and exhaled slowly, and a sinking feeling came over her. “... The mast is gone.” he answered, finally. “I’ve attached some hammocks as makeshift sails, but we are at the mercy of the weather.”
“Drowned God deliver us…” she murmured. Stranded in autumn in the middle of the Narrow Sea… they were merely waiting for a hurricane to come and end them.
Jon stared at her, with a melancholic look. “Asha…”
“So that’s it, then.” she said. “This is the end of us. House Greyjoy of the Stepstones dies here, in a crippled ship of an infected wound. Our family is gone, except for Euron.”
“You’re not going to die.”
“Fuck you for lying to me.”
Jon clenched his eyes tightly, grimacing. “... This is my fault. All of this. I shouldn’t have been here.”
“And where else would you have been?” she asked, smirking weakly. “Rotting away in some frozen Northern castle? The Stepstones were good for you, pale boy.”
Jon laughed, rubbing at his tanned skin. “Maybe.” he looked down. The two were quiet for a time, before he looked up. “Do you think it could have worked?”
Asha met his gaze. Were his eyes always so dark? “What?”
“Do you think it could have worked? The Stepstones.” he repeated. “Without… without this false Aegon. And Euron.” he closed his eyes. “Do you think the Third Way could have made the Ironborn content? Made them refuse Balon’s war? Connect them more deeply to the kingdoms?”
Asha leaned back. “... It wouldn’t be the first time a good plan was ruined by a coup. Or dragons.”
Jon leaned back, closing his eyes. “Good… Good.” he murmured. “I will remember that.”
His hand sought out hers, and gently laced fingers. “I thought for a moment you were going to ask if we would have worked.” said Asha, chuckling.
“Hmph.” Jon shook his head, still smiling lightly. “You wouldn’t be the most troublesome woman I’ve ever known.”
And how would you know? You don’t remember any other women.” she teased. The joking smile on her face disappeared as Jon looked away. “... No. No, you finally remembered now, haven’t you?”
“I remembered everything from the moment I laid eyes on her, riding on Drogon. Even through a Kraken’s eyes, I could never forget that face.” his eyes squeezed tight, fighting back what looked like tears. “I could hear them calling her. ‘Mhysa! Khaleesi!’ breaker of chains, mother of dragons. Queen of the Ashes.”
A single tear fell. “This is the second time Daenerys Targaryen has burned everything I knew to ash.”
A lance of pain shot through her abdomen at that, and she bit back a cry of pain. “What… are you talking about?”
“... It doesn’t matter, now.” Jon shook his head. “Just know that… I will make this right.” he sat back on his heels, silently holding her hand. She allowed him that, instead of answering with sass - this sounded like something magic, and it was clearly affecting him deeply.
After a time he let out a drawn-out sigh. “I’ve had… a long time to think, as we drifted. Just you and me, on this wreck of a ship. To remember, and wonder.” his hand went up to brush back his fog-grey hair, revealing the roots of his wooden disfigurement. “The dragons… born again. Only two brothers, instead of three. And in the place of Rhaegal…” he looked up. “A child was born. What a world this might have been, had the son of Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo lived. The Stallion that Mounts The World, she called him.”
A soft chuff escaped him. “And what a world it might have been, had the Stallion and Jaeherys Targaryen met in more than just dreams.” he hung his head, and to Asha’s eyes, it almost looked as though he was crying. “But Jaeherys is gone, just like Rhaegal. Dead. Drowned at sea. And all that was left behind of him was… a fool madman. The world needs him more than it does a visionary who cannot see what is right in front of him.”
“Are you going to start talking sense, Jon Snow?” Asha asked, wryly. “Or do you want me to lie back and let you keep contemplating your navel for an hour or two?”
Jon laughed at that, an expression so open it almost took her aback. “No… no. I think I’ve done all I can do, on this front. Learned all that matters. It’s time for Jaeherys to return, I think.”
She frowned. “But… you just said this Targaryen - who I’ve never heard of, by the way - is dead.”
He didn’t answer her, and instead just stared at her. She felt a competitive fire rise in her, and met his unblinking gaze. After a long silence, a strange look of conviction came into his eyes. As if he’d finally decided something. “Asha…” he said, paused, and let out a slow breath. “I have wronged you.”
She snorted, breaking the staring contest at last and shaking her head. “If you’re about to say something about us having sex-”
“No. Not that.”
The attempt at humor did not raise his spirits. It was serious, then. “You sound like a condemned man confessing his crimes. Lighten up a little.”
The pained expression on his face only grew. “I once told you that I did not know of how Theon was doing, because they did not speak of him. It was a lie.” Something in her chest went cold. “They did not speak of him because… because he was already dead.”
… He knew. For an entire year. He knew my brother was dead, and said nothing.
Her fist clenched weakly. “... How did he die?” she asked quietly.
“... He was murdered. In cold blood.”
He knew, when he made that speech to father. He KNEW the North’s hostage was gone.
“By Ned Stark?”
“... No.” Jon closed his eyes. “By a madman. Stripped of all reason… who was driven to despise those who aided him, and trust those who plotted his death.”
Asha’s felt the blood drain from her face. She heard something crack - it might have been the ship, or her heart.
She screamed a furious noise as she lunged at Jon, who immediately pulled away. She toppled over the edge of her bed, and saw Dark Sister lying neatly unsheathed. Her hand closed on the hilt, and she unsteadily pushed herself to her feet. A hot pain burst in her abdomen, but she ignored it, slashing at the man who had murdered her brother.
Jon dodged easily out of the way, hands still behind his back. A second wide swing was just as easily dodged. Asha snarled - the pain in her stomach exploded, and she winced down to press a forearm against the now-bloody bandages. Jon stepped forward, hands outstretched.
The Valyrian blade twisted around, and the crouched position turned into a lunging strike with the whole of her body. The sword of queens took him directly through the chest.
Her attack carried her forward, and carried them both down to the ground; the razor-point tip of Dark Sister pierced the flooring, and plunged through to the empty space below. Asha wrenched on the hilt, but it refused to move, and so she simply wriggled it back and forth, screaming as the blood spurted up to her forearms. Her strength failed after only mere seconds, and she collapsed onto his bloody chest, sobbing incoherently.
A light pressure rested upon the nape of her neck; after a moment, she realized it was his hand. She looked up, and saw him smiling weakly, as blood burbled from between his lips.
“So this… is what she felt, back then…”
Her eyes widened, as she felt the hand on her head begin to lightly rub against her hair.
It had just been laying there. He’d already unsheathed Dark Sister, and left it where I could easily reach it.
“No. No, you bastard…” Asha moaned. “Don’t you… don’t you dare… You don’t get to run away like that…” she crawled upwards, cradling his face between her bloody hands. “Don’t you leave me here…”
Jon stared at her, still smiling, as a shudder passed through him.
“You don’t get out of this so easily…! Don’t you leave me…!”
“Oh…” A wracking shudder. “You know nothing, Asha Greyjoy.” His head rolled back, and the hand on her head went limp.
“No…! NO…!” She sobbed. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean it…! Don’t leave me… DON’T LEAVE ME!”
I promise, Asha. I will make this right.
Darkness.
When Jon awoke and felt the featherbed underneath his back, he stayed still, staring at the ceiling.
He slowly raised his hands into the air, staring at the pale, unscarred flesh of his fingers; No tan darkened his skin. A hand went to his forehead; no length of wood disrupted the smooth line of his brow. He slowly rolled his sleeve back; no pattern of dark circles crisscrossed over his arm.
So, this is who I was supposed to be, whispered a voice in his mind, deeper and stronger than he instinctively knew his own to be. Just a bastard of the North. The Prophet of the Stepstones is no more.
He slowly rolled to his side and swung his legs over the bed. Slowly, without a word to Robb sleeping across from him, he held his head in his hands and quietly cried.
Notes:
(Oh, thank god. I’m free. The curse of Chapter 17 is finally lifted from my neck.)
Hello, everybody. Been a long time. Kept you waiting, huh? https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=LI421CIhmTU
So, this chapter was a gruelling mess to write, on multiple levels. I really do think that this whole beer-virus bullshit was killing my creativity for a while. Unemployment doesn’t suit me, you know? Sitting around doing nothing is nice for a little bit, but after a while it just gets draining. Now that I’ve got a job again, things seem to be looking up.
So, Good-News-Bad-News! Bad news, It took me an age and a half to get this out to everyone - and holy hell, you guys were blowing up my statistics. I’m absolutely floored at the response while I was MIA. sixty-thousand hits. Thank you, really. It kept me going. The hype sustained me.
GOOD news! I wasn’t just twiddling my thumbs while trying to write and re-write these damn battle scenes again and again. I was productive - I skipped ahead! Surprise! Chapter 18 is almost done! Give me a couple days to do a second draft of it, ironing out the rougher edges and reconnecting the bits that changed since I wrote them, and it’ll be out very soon! We are finally moving on to a new arc - one that is in one way more traditional, and in another way continues to utilize the Time-Loop formula to create scenarios that simply aren’t possible otherwise. Please wait warmly while final details are finalized.
On one final note - If you want more Ironborn Jon shenanigans, now that this is all done, go check out Lord Reaper Jon by Raizn. It's a good time. https://archiveofourown.org/works/25390378
Chapter 18: Life Seven
Summary:
Rest and Recollection.
Notes:
Note: In the middle of this chapter, there will be a huge wall-o-text that is almost entirely italicized. This is a summary/'the-story-so-far' recap from the perspective of Jon putting his thoughts in order. This is for the readers who have been away for a while and forgot the details of this somewhat complicated plot. If you feel you already understand things, then it can be skipped.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Maester Luwin.”
The old man looked up from his parchment, meeting Jon’s steady gaze. “Jon. it is good to see you. Your father has been asking if you are unwell.”
“No, ser.” Jon replied, rolling his arms behind his back. The multiple layers of clothing required to live in a place like Winterfell seemed to lay heavy on his body. “I simply have had to… think more deeply about certain choices I’ve made.”
The Maester slowly set the quill in his hand flat to the table and leaned backwards in his chair, hands folding across his robe. “I certainly hope you haven’t had cause to regret such choices.”
“That’s why I’ve come to you, ser,” Jon replied. “I find that my thoughts are… tangled. I cannot keep them straight. I think I would be better served if I were able to write them down, to find the common thread.”
The old man arched an eyebrow. “I did not think the river of your thoughts ran so deep as that. I would have appreciated the demonstration during your coursework. Your mind is deft, but your essays have trended towards the minimum effort as of late.”
Jon felt a bellowing rebuke rise through his chest with a phantom scent of the sea. Instead, he remembered who he was, and quietly bit his tongue.
Luwin let out a small smile, and reached behind him to a chest. After a quiet riffling of papers, he withdrew a small string-bound book, no thicker than a few dozen pages and as wide as his handspan. “I will spare you the cost of the single moon I paid for this, if you swear it will be used well.”
“Of course.” Jon inwardly marvelled at the cost even as he took the journal from his hands. He HAD known that books were expensive once, in his youth, but to pay thirty stags for something as small as this…
You once said the Hightowers were as rich as Lannisters, Maester. It must be true, if they patronize the Citadel, and all their books.
Jon stopped, his brow wrinkled. “... I have another more thing to ask of you, Maester Luwin.”
“Ask it, then.”
“Do you know of a material, with an appearance of oily black stone?”
Luwin’s brow furrowed, and his right hand slowly rose to massage his tin link, the mark of geology. “An odd question. Do you speak of basalt? The curtain walls of Moat Cailin can appear as such after a rain.”
“No, not that. At least, I don’t think so.” Jon closed his eyes. “I mean it always appears as such, like a thin film of grease covers it, but will not wash away and is dry in truth. Like the Seastone Chair of the Ironborn.”
Luwin’s eyes narrowed, and nodded slowly. “Yes… yes, I remember talks of that strange throne during my time at the Citadel. Many queer rumors surround it. Some maesters speculated that the Citadel and the Chair were linked, for the foundations are made of a similar dark substance. There are even unconfirmed reports that there are monoliths of similar make in the Basilisk Isles, and farther still.” he leaned forward. “What brought this on?”
Jon’s heart leapt into his throat. So there were more. Even the Hightower itself was linked. Lodos wasn’t mad. “Just… a strange tale I heard. I wanted to know the truth of it.”
Luwin clearly didn’t believe him. “As you say.”
Jon bowed, and made to turn away, but a striking vision flashed behind his eyelids - an obsidian dagger, plunging down towards his neck, the Wise Man screaming. “... one last question. About the place I heard in this tale.”
“There’s a place? Go on, then.”
Jon swallowed the hard lump in his throat. “Have you ever… heard of a land called K’Dath?”
A hanging moment of silence. “No. No, I don’t believe I have.” said Luwin.
Jon let out a slow breath. “Then… it was all fiction.”
“I did not say that.” Luwin replied, from behind his back. “Only that if your ‘K’Dath’ still exists in this world, and not the fractious land of dreams… it is a place far beyond where any man of Westeros has set foot, living or dead.”
And yet, a group of wildlings cut off from the surface for millenia knew its name. They swore by it, as they butchered their own on an altar of black stone. Swore by an unknown god, as they unleashed demons from the seven hells with blood magic.
This curse from R’hllor was never about the Raven. I know that now. Wherever this land of K’Dath is… is where I will find answers.
Jon said none of this aloud, and bowed slowly, before disappearing into the hall.
“Never took you for the journalling type, Snow.”
Jon looked up from his journal, surprised to see Theon there, leaning into the Great Hall table face and an easy smirk on his face. “I never took you to turn down a hunt.” he replied quickly. “Why aren’t you out with Robb?”
The Greyjoy’s eyebrows arched at Robb’s name, but quickly shrugged. “I didn’t fancy it.”
“You didn’t fancy being able to show off your bowmanship?”
Theon shrugged once again, with a sort of forced nonchalance. “I just took a bath. I didn’t want to smell like horse. Not like that stablehand, the simple one - Hodor, was it?”
Jon’s eyes narrowed slightly. He knew Theon knew Hodor’s name, and he wasn’t sure why he was pretending he was uncertain.
Theon stared at him for a long moment, the silence becoming uncomfortable. “So,” said Theon. “You doing alright, Snow?”
“I didn’t think you cared enough to be concerned.” Jon replied.
“Well, it’s not like your sudden absence this past week has gone unnoticed.” Theon said quickly. “Robb was thinking you might have had some sort of - unsettling dream, or something.”
“Did he, now.”
Theon stared at him, then laughed. “Should have known it was just you being a brooding bastard. I’ll make sure to prick his pride for it.” The squid prince quickly sat down, legs spread across the back of the Great Hall chair and arms folded across the top. “A groat for your thoughts, then.”
“You don’t have a serving girl to be chasing after?”
“That can be the afternoon’s entertainment.” Theon replied flippantly. “For now, I’m interested in what’s so important you needed to write it down. Journals are expensive.”
Jon felt a flash of irritation flow through him, but as he turned to scold him, a memory of sharp eyes, and laughing lips begging to be kissed, softened him - Even as the memory turned to the feeling of blood filling his lungs.
… I’m sorry, Val. I didn’t know. And… I don’t think I’ll be able to see you again for a long time.
“... I’ve been thinking about what makes a rightful heir.” Jon said, putting aside the squid prince’s unusual concern for his well-being. “Among other things.”
Theon’s eyebrow rose. “Should Robb be concerned?”
“Perhaps you should be, instead of Robb.” Jon slowly closed the journal, after dog-earing the page he had dedicated to collating all that he knew of the mysterious ‘Aegon Targaryen’. “What is most important, to claim a throne or crown that belongs to you?”
“Springing from the right man’s loins, of course.” Theon scoffed. “In the right order, in your case.”
“If that were true, then there would still be a Targaryen in King’s Landing.” Theon’s mouth snapped shut, his lips drawing to thin lines. Jon couldn’t help but feel a small sense of satisfaction. “The most important thing, I’ve realized, is that more people want you to rule than those who want you powerless. Passing rule from father to son is just the simplest way, nearly automatic, to prevent a war.”
“A rather cynical view.” Theon remarked. “And what does this have to do with me?”
“It means that if the laws say you must become lord of the Iron Islands, but there exists enough who hate you, then they will simply find a reason to ignore those laws.” Jon poked a finger into the journal cover. “The lords will call for a Kingsmoot to choose someone else, or the smallfolk will simply rise up in rebellion, or your advisors and guards will plant a knife between your ribs.”
Theon looked rather like he’d swallowed a lemon. “Thank the Drowned God that I am my father’s only son, then.” He spat. “Then the lords have only one choice from my family.”
Jon fought the urge to roll his eyes. For all your supposed worldliness, you’re as naive as ever, Theon Greyjoy. “And if that principle applies to all titles, as small as a mayoral post and as large as the Iron Throne.” his finger flicked out to point upwards. “Then what is stopping someone clever from stealing King Robert’s throne from underneath him?”
Theon looked at Jon flatly. “The fact that I am here, instead of at home on Pyke, is your answer. The Baratheons will crush anybody who tries.”
“The combined strength of Seven Kingdoms, in other words.” Jon gave a humorless smile that barely moved his cheeks. “What happens, then, when that military strength is splintered to pieces?”
“What happens if snarks steal your beard and fuck your mother?”
Jon shook his head. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand.” Theon retorted hotly. “You’re angry about being a bastard, so now you’re here in an empty hall plotting how to wear a crown of your own.” He angrily pushed himself out of the chair and to his feet. “This was a waste of time.”
“Theon.” Jon called, as the squid prince strided away. The Greyjoy paused for a single moment.
Jon thought to warn him, for a moment. Spell out to the squid prince that to return to his birthplace would lead him to misery and despair. He thought to tell him that Euron Greyjoy was lurking in the distance, a face-stealing kinslayer with terrible magics at his beck and call, and that the Lordship would never be his so long as he was still alive.
A phantom weight settled on his brow in that moment, almost like a crown of driftwood, and instead he slowly exhaled. “You know that you are as welcome here as you allow yourself to be, yes? You are as much a part of this household as I am.”
Theon turned to face him, an odd expression on his face, before shaking his head. “My real household waits for my return on Pyke. One day, I will return there.”
Jon watched the Greyjoy disappear around a wall, his footsteps slowly fading, and sighed. “... I’ll make this right, Asha.” he murmured, picking up his quill and flipping the journal back to his dog-ear. “For both of you.”
Jon leaned back in his seat, candlelight flickering across the dark bags under his eyes. The cramping hand muscles screamed in protest as he slowly placed the quill down, staring at the final summary page of his journal. To see it all laid out, in his own hand, instead of jumbled up in half-remembered flashbacks, made him feel like a cold hand had wrapped around his heart and was pumping it for him. but instead of turning away, he steeled himself, and began to read it for the first time in full.
In the beginning, I went to sleep a man of forty on the day of Ghost’s death and woke as a boy of four-and-ten on the day of Ghost’s conception. The cause is R’hllor, the Essosi god of Light and Fire. I do not yet know precisely why, after dying six times more and mostly stumbling around blindly, but I now have deep suspicions. This past life went so far beyond expectations that it boggles the mind, but at long last I have found a piece of the puzzle.
Whatever the reason I have been brought back for is, it is tied to an oily black stone that, in both times I have witnessed it, contains evil magic. The first was in a cave system whose only entrance went through a cave system the Three-Eyed Raven was guarding, and the second was the Seastone Chair of the Iron Islands. If Maester Luwin is right, there is more of this material scattered all throughout the world.
The fact that the cave system containing the Altar is connected to the Raven seems significant, but unlike my earlier suspicions the Raven himself seems unrelated. His only real connection is his vicious reaction to knowing I come from the future, which he cannot realize on his own. He made it clear, in multiple lives, that he can only find me if I reveal my knowledge too freely, without a plausible backstory. For now, it was just if I was exposed in front of a heart tree, but I know full well that in the future many people begin to act uncharacteristically. I should be wary of speaking too freely in front of anybody regardless of my trust in them.
Regardless, the months-long journey to kill the Raven can be put aside by merely maintaining the facade of normality… unless it is necessary to destroy the Altar again. I can’t leave out the idea that it may have come back. To have to go back there once more would be traumatic, but could prove necessary. My memories of back then remain scrambled, but ordering them on paper has helped to clarify.
When I first killed the Raven, he cursed me somehow. A curse of self-destruction, I think - I trusted those who wished me harm, distrusted those who wished to help, and consistently made foolhardy decisions that should have gotten me killed. (The fact that it persisted past my return to Winterfell is troubling, and speaks to a Greenseer’s connection to time, but it's gone now and no longer my concern).
My subsequent fall into the tunnels that riddle the North trapped me there with a subset of cave dwellers - the people who fled back north after Gendel and Gorne's invasion of Westeros failed, and never found their way back out. These people were degenerate cannibals, and had I not been willfully blind I would have seen it.
When my naivete was rewarded by them nearly sacrificing me to a pagan god on that Altar, the stone it was crafted from lit on fire when my blood touched it. After the altar was fully engulfed, a rift opened in the wall, and a horde of clearly-inhuman figures - demons, as impossible as it sounds - surged out to murder all life present. The cave dwellers wanted a way out, and they got it, but I don’t think they expected the path to already be occupied.
When I fought my way through and entered the rift, at the urging of an albino greenseer Child of the Forest, I entered an altered state of mind - more altered than it already was by the curse from the Raven, anyways. The Raven had turned me into a slavering beast, devoid of reason, but the state of madness inside of that place where the demons came from was something else entirely.
I remember a place whose geometries and conventions did not obey the same laws our waking world obeys, and little else. I remember being hunted by something, I think. I walked across what I saw as empty air with burning footsteps, touched a flaming blue rose, and reappeared in the ruins of Hardhome.
THIS SHOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE, AND YET IT IS UNDENIABLE THAT IT HAPPENED. The Raven’s cave and Hardhome are hundreds of miles apart, even if I ignore the fact that there was no possible way to escape that cave system. Therefore, I can only accept, as ludicrous as it sounds, that this place I entered transported me instantly across space and time. More magic, this one clearly forgotten by all but the insane. Was it a real place like the Wall, a hidden maze connected to all manner of places through magic? Or was it more mystical than that?
Perhaps if I had found a different point other than that burning rose I would have awoken somewhere different, like the mysterious K’Dath the Cave People invoked. Maester Luwin thinks it doesn’t exist - I think it does, but farther than any maester has dared to travel, beyond the edges of the known world.
After I was taken prisoner, a member of the ‘Cult of Starry Wisdom’ nursed me back to lucidity. Tiras spoke of a ‘Wayward Star’ which he seemed to both worship and fear; during the storm that sank the slaver’s ship, he invoked its name, as though it was the cause.
I also remember seeing, in reflections of lightning and from the corner of my eye, a thirteen-pointed star. I remember seeing this same star in the cave, in the reflection of the black stone altar. They called it P’noth; He called it ‘The Bloodstone Ruin’ and ‘The Folly of the Emperor’. I do not know what land this emperor ruled, but because of the connection, I shall call this cursed black rock ‘ Bloodstone ’.
When I sank, I was taken into the grasp of what I now refer to as Lady Black, a goddess of the First Men stripped from all history, the mother of the mermaids the Grey King supposedly took to wife. My head reels even considering this, but I must face facts. I have met a god, or as close to it as is capable, face to face.
I had always thought these mythical figures, older than the Old Gods, were just the imaginings of bored Maesters; nobody had proof that the First Men had ever worshipped them other than Old Nan’s stories - that the First Men gave up their gods to worship the gods of the Children to ensure peace. now, I am not so sure. Who could possibly have the power to erase a god
I woke on the beach of Lys two months later, with the memories of all that had transpired in my life before I entered the cave missing, the fundamental nature of Rhoynar Water Magic burned into my mind, and a skinchanging connection to a yearling kraken. I knew Lady Black had given me this knowledge, but to this day, I do not remember how this happened, or how I survived those two months at the bottom of the ocean. I’m not sure I want to know.
It was only after I came into contact with Asha Greyjoy, and the greater Westeros conflict, that my memories began to return. I can only assume my memories were taken so that I would not sacrifice the memories of Bloodstone in service of my new Rhoynar magic. Forgetting that trauma would have pleased me greatly, but if I had then I would not have realized the truth of the Seastone Chair. Are Lady Black and R’hllor working together, then? Or is this Bloodstone, this thirteen-pointed star, a foe of multiple gods? Where are the Old Gods and New in all of this
Jon leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his brow. Just the summary alone of the madness that was his life as Lodos was giving him a headache again. Already the second half was becoming less tidy - scratched-out questions and half-formed thoughts littered the text.
With a heavy sigh, he leaned back in, eyes locking on to where he left off - where summary ended, and conjecture began.
During my time with the Ironborn, I learned several important lessons that inform me as to the dangers in the future. The first is that Euron Greyjoy knows magic . He has enough of a grasp of Skinchanging that he stole the skin of Victarion Greyjoy, and enough of a grasp of Rhoynar Water Magic to make men forget that Victarion Greyjoy ever existed as a separate person instead of as Euron’s face.
I now know that I have never once seen Euron Greyjoy in his own flesh, but instead as the puppeteer of his brother’s body. I he Lodos knew, on some subconscious level - the prophet nearly tried to strangle Victarion the first time he stepped in sight, mistaking the shell for the man.
The unanswered question is to his motivations, and why I did not see these skills during my first life. I dare not contemplate that he knows more magic than I do even more magical abilities, and has simply refused to use them. A greater question would be why Euron would bother stealing his brother’s body, and then erasing Victarion instead of just assuming his role. Victarion sailed off to chase rumors of Euron, before the Stepstones. Could it be that Victarion was actually able to kill Euron, and he took his own brother as his second skin as revenge? It’s the only thing that makes sense. but then why erase yourself from the world with water magic? Victarion was a well-known noble besides, not a stillborn babe or a landless warrior - how was Euron able to erase his entire existence so thoroughly from so many minds? I can only dread the answer.
The second is that there is another Targaryen in the world . He calls himself Aegon Targaryen, has the loyalties of the Golden Company, and intends to invade when the Seven Kingdoms are at their weakest. It is clear now that this ‘Aegon’ is the ‘Man with Silver Hair’ that Varys serves and is weakening the kingdoms in service to. Whether or not he really IS my half-brother is, at this point, irrelevant. He could simply be a very convincing fraud - all that matters is that he has the power to potentially enforce his ‘claim’. With this, there are now four that still claim the name - him, Viserys, Daenerys, and Maester Aemon, at the Wall.
Jon Connington, the former Hand of the King, is filling a similar rule to this would-be conqueror. The unanswered question is what happened during my first life, that the Golden Company was available to serve Cersei and that Varys was in search of a new dragon-blooded liege. And why she was with Aegon instead of
Perhaps this was the reason why the Raven intentionally mis-named me. Two Aegons claiming to be Rhaegar’s son? The Kingdoms would tear itself apart over the confusion - the Blackfyre Rebellions come again - leaving the throne open for him to steal.
But that just leads to more questions - why did he not invade during the first life? It was certainly far less stable then than it was for Lodos. Joffrey, amazingly, was still alive and unmarried last life - Robert must have been insulted by Father’s refusal to be Hand and never engaged Sansa, and Margaery Tyrell obviously would not marry the boy-king who executed her grandfather. He paid us well to blockade the ships from the Reach while they rebuilt the Royal Fleet. Though fighting was fierce, nearly half the kingdoms refused to take a side. Politically it was just as fractuous, but the death toll was significantly lower in this life than in the first, leaving more soldiers to fight an invasion.
(… Now that I think about it, the fact that Joffrey was both unmarried AND alive strikes me as significant. He died at his wedding to Margaery, didn’t he? They blamed Sansa, but she wasn’t capable of such a thing yet. Thoughts for another time.)
So what happened to Aegon in my first life? Was he dead? Did he give up? Did the invasion happen after I went North for the last time, and I simply never heard of it? Too many questions. Not enough answers.
The third is that the Ironborn can be turned away from invading the Seven Kingdoms . The Palecrown pulled back the layer of wounded pride and Balon’s revanchist empire to reach the truth; the Iron Islands are devastatingly poor, and whose permanent warrior class and mythos consistently reverts to war to solve that poverty. A convincing enough reinvention of their culture is possible, as long as concessions are made to please the warrior class and solve the poverty problem.
When this is done, a critical part of the War of Five Kings is defanged. The question, then, is how to do this without becoming Lodos Palecrown. Balon will not allow the derailment without significant pressure, but Lodos is… too much of an investment, for such a small improvement in outcome. Better to become something that defangs the Lannisters, rather than the Greyjoys.
The final, and most important lesson learned, is that the cursed Bloodstone is the key to my freedom . I was brought back by the God of Fire and Light; when my Targaryen blood - my dragon blood - touched both the Altar and the Chair, they lit on fire. The connection is blindingly obvious. The question, then, is how it is connected to the thirteen-pointed star - the Wayward Star? - and how many more of these things I must destroy. Or, perhaps, whether all of these things must be destroyed in a single life.
Maester Luwin says there is Bloodstone as far away as Sothoryosi jungles. I will be trapped by this curse from R’hllor for years decades a long time.
Theon once said, before I murdered him before I was driven mad, that even should the reason for my curse be something other than the War of Five Kings or the Others, I should use it to my advantage to save Westeros from war. Thanks to circumstance, I now know the hearts and minds of the Ironborn - perhaps there is something to his suggestion after all. But even with all the time in the world, how can one man defeat this coming apocalypse? There are too many moving pieces - I cannot do this alone.
Why does R’hllor want the Bloodstone destroyed? Could this Bloodstone and this Wayward Star be connected to the White Walkers somehow? And what will happen when it is all gone?
I still don’t know. But it appears that I will have all the time in the world to figure it out.
Jon stared at the page, filled with small script from one edge to the next, before slowly ripping it from the binding and crumpling it to a ball. Slowly, he held it over the single candle in his bedroom until the edge caught light, and dropped it. He didn’t look away until the ball had been totally engulfed in flames, and crumbled to ashes on the stone floor.
Jon slowly inhaled, exhaled, and then rapped his knuckles against the door.
“Enter.”
Inside the solar of the lord of Winterfell, Eddard Stark was hunched over his desk, a quill in his hand and writing into a raven-sized strip of parchment. “Jon.” said Eddard, straightening up in his seat.
“Father.” Jon replied. Ned seemed to relax in his seat minutely; the familial reference instead of his title meant it wasn’t a serious matter. “I was hoping we could speak of something important. I’m not interrupting anything?”
“No.” he replied, setting the quill aside. “I was writing a letter of condolence, but Lord Bolton can wait.”
Jon blinked. “Lord Bolton has had a death?”
“His son and only heir, Domeric.” said Ned, grimacing. “I just received his notification. Dark wings, dark words. As House Bolton has been in decline in recent memory, should he die without a formal heir, his lands would revert to our wardship as his sovereign lord. He is obliged to inform us of the situation.”
It had been so long since Jon had had cause to even think of the Boltons, he had forgotten Roose even had a son other than the detestable Ramsay. To learn that he had died just now… “This was the son that squired in the South, yes?”
“Aye. By all accounts a fine knight, a gentleman, and Lord Bolton’s pride. Foul luck to die of a bad belly just after returning to the North.”
Jon’s blood ran cold. Dead just as he returns to within Ramsay’s reach, you mean. Even now, decades removed from his first life, his vision speckled black with rage picturing the bastard’s cruel smirk. There are no coincidences when it comes to that monster.
He had come here to speak of Vigilance, still lacking a concrete plan for what he was to do with this life. Now, however, he found something too important to ignore by pure accident. “When did he die?”
Ned frowned at the question, but answered anyway. “The letter states he has already been buried with the proper honors, so likely around seven days ago. Before the turn of the year.”
It IS 298 now, isn’t it? More than a month after awakening. Plenty of time to find and kill Ramsay, then, if I work fast upon awakening.
Jon inhaled and exhaled slowly, attempting to calm his nerves. The thought of the Bolton Bastard had set him itching for a sword. “Lord Bolton is a widower, yes? Perhaps you could include an offer to assist him in finding a wife.”
Ned arched an eyebrow. “I’m certain that Roose Bolton is capable of finding himself a wife without my help.”
“I’m certain he is as well. But the Warden of the North has far more reach in the Seven Kingdoms than simply a powerful lord.” Jon replied. “If you were to assist him… he might be a married man that much sooner, and be grateful.”
And have less reason to invite Ramsay into his home.
Ned leaned back, rubbing his bristly chin slowly. “I’ll consider it.” he nodded, after a long moment. “Now, what was it that you needed?”
Jon suppressed a smile at his words. “I have heard rumors, recently, of an incredible treasure buried in the hinterlands of Barrowton, from as far back as the Dance of the Dragons…”
It had been two moons since Jon had awoken in his bed, and the Raven had not yet killed him.
He couldn’t help but smirk every time he realized just how lax the greenseer’s espionage really was. He had practically made himself an easy target by remaining in Winterfell and triggering a steadily-expanding gravedigging operation in the Barrowton hinterlands, and yet he was still alive.
Perhaps if I hadn’t been driven insane in the previous life, I would have realized sooner just how safe I truly am as long as I maintain secrecy. What was it he said in King’s Landing? I ‘took his sight’. He’s trapped in the here and now just like the rest of us mere mortals, instead of having eyes into all times and all places.
It was that reason that made Jon hesitate to leave his childhood home even now. Logically, he knew he had an arduous journey ahead to find whatever Bloodstone in the world existed and destroy it - but even the soles hints of Maester Luwin set him aching. Hightower was the opposite side of the continent, and the Basilisk Isles were even further still. The Palecrown had seen the decks of a ship enough for several lifetimes.
The halls of Winterfell came to see him over the weeks pacing their lengths, nose firmly buried in his journal, marking out half-remembered thoughts and half-baked plans with a dwindling stick of charcoal. He’d taken to muttering under his breath as he did so - it helped to quiet a new, alien voice in his mind that sounded like the roll of waves and the creak of wooden planks.
“... Night’s Watch will be left leaderless when Othor’s wight attacks Lord Mormont, but to join… lock myself away once more… defeat the purpose, can’t be done… perhaps supporting levies sent… but then the war of five-”
The echoes of giggling gossip followed by a sharp gasp broke Jon from his musings, to see Sansa and Jeyne Poole standing at the end of the hallway, staring at him. Jon froze - visions of weeping blue eyes, and the smell of Ramsay’s blood as he jeered underneath his fists, nearly sent him staggering to the wall.
The two girls quickly looked away and restarted their fluttery conversation in hushed tones, walking faster on the opposite side of the hall. Jon simply watched Sansa walk by. she’s so young. How have I not seen her until now? Has she been avoiding me - what am I saying, of course she has. This is... before.
With a deep, steadying breath, he snapped his journal shut loudly and shoved it within the breast of his jerkin. “Sansa.”
The eldest Stark daughter stopped, her expression not quite hiding her flicker of irritation before turning and curtseying. “Jon.”
He almost laughed. Where was the strong woman with a face like a blank slate? She’s missing a lifetime of heartache and war. Missing the corrupting touch of Littlefinger. “I’d like to speak to you, if you don’t mind. Are you busy?”
“Jeyne and I were on our way to find Jory Cassel, for a trip into market.” Sansa answered. “We’ve run out of the shade of yellow we need for Septa Mordane’s classes.”
“I would think the good Septa would be able to provide material for your needlework herself.” Said Jon, smiling. At Sansa’s confused pout, his smile only grew. “Leave such busywork for her, and come speak with me. We can see if the kitchen has any lemon cakes to spare.”
Her affectation of suspicion couldn’t begin to hide the sudden excitement in her eyes. She turned to Jeyne, but the girl was already curtseying to her with a wry smile on her face. “Shall we meet later in the glass garden, my lady?”
“Let’s.”
The moment Jeyne began to walk away, Sansa twirled around, her cloak and dress flaring out about her. “Well, then.” she sniffed.
Jon chuckled, and held out an arm theatrically. “Shall we, sweet sister?”
“You are too kind.” she lightly laid hands on his arm, and the two began to walk in tandem. “Is something the matter, Jon?”
More than you could possibly understand, Jon thought to himself. “Why do you ask?”
“You smiled at me.” she responded.
The bastard of Winterfell restrained the urge to click his tongue in irritation. “Yes. Right. My… distance.” How utterly pointless, a child’s brooding over parentage was compared to his current troubles. Who had begun avoiding whom first: her, for her fanciful ideas of ladyhood, or him, for his stubborn refusal to accept the family he had? It had been too long for him to honestly recall.
That ended now, he decided, as they rounded the corner towards a set of stairs. “Nevermind all of that. I wanted to speak of something I heard the other day.” said Jon. Sansa answered him with a wide-eyed, guileless stare. “I’ve heard rumors that the royal family shall be visiting Winterfell soon.”
“The King!?” she exclaimed, before a wide smile grew. “Oh, how wonderful! And the queen is said to be beautiful and kind!”
Jon nearly bit through his tongue fighting back explicatives.
“Do you think that Prince Joffrey will be coming as well? Oh, I do hope so! I need to have a new dress fashioned, perhaps in the southern style! Do you think that father might speak to the king and-”
“Sansa.”
Jon came to a sudden stop in the middle of the hall, leaving the girl to walk forward a step before being pulled back to his side. Sansa opened her mouth to say something in response, but Jon simply glared at her until she closed it again.
“I want you to stay away from him.”
Her delicate eyebrows knitted together in anger. “I will speak to whoever I please! Just because you’re jealous of the prince-!”
“I am not jealous of-”
“Yes you ARE!”
“I want you to stay away because he’s dangerous !” Jon exclaimed. “I am your brother-”
“ Half -brother!” Sansa snapped, with all the cruelty a child was capable of.
If Jon was still the sullen boy he used to be, the correction might have sent him into a fit. Instead, he kept his temper and shook his head. “I’ve been asking around ever since I heard they might be coming, and the rumors I’ve heard from travellers about his cruelty make me shudder. Did you know that he once vivisected a live cat because he refused to wait for her to give birth?”
Sansa gasped, stepping away from him and covering her mouth. “How- how horrible!”
“He was younger than Bran-”
“And you believed such a malicious rumor, Jon!?”
Jon blinked. “... I swear by all the gods, New and Old. I would trust the one who told me to never lie.”
You had so many other things you could have lied about when it came to your former fiancee, after all.
Sansa shook her head. “You’re horrible, Snow. horrible!” she said, eyes tearing up. Jon recoiled at the intentionally-used name as if he’d been slapped, and Sansa took the opening to dash down the hall.
“Sansa! SANSA!” Jon shouted, but she kept running until she rounded the corner and was gone. He stood there for a moment, staring at his feet, before loudly growling and punching the wall.
Did you forget how ignorant she was, back then? Whispered a voice only he could hear. She was young, and stupid, and wanted to be queen. Some things never change.
“Shut up, Lodos.” Jon hissed.
The day Jon dreaded had finally arrived. He had been sitting inside the glass gardens of Winterfell, scribbling out thoughts and plots and fanciful what-ifs for the future when Rodrik Cassel came for him. “Jon.” he had called. “There has been a deserter from the Wall captured. Your father requests that you ride with him.”
All the way out to the chosen point, Jon had stared ahead resolutely, yet inwardly his stomach squirmed. This is where it all begins. When father returns, the raven will be there, and King Robert will come north with it.
He dismounted at the headsman’s block they had arranged on short notice, a firm hand resting on Bran’s shoulders as he helped the young boy dismount. His eyes tracked Ned’s expressionless face as the Lord of Winterfell settled into an equally stony pose, and Robb did everything possible to follow suit. He wasn’t as good, though - he could see a muscle twitching in his brother’s neck from nervous energy.
Theon, surprisingly, was not showing his characteristic callousness. Instead, he was staring at the hilt of Ice in his hands, a pensive energy in his expression. Jon wondered what to make of that, before putting it out of his mind; the riders were approaching, dragging the deserter along with them.
Jon watched as they shoved the man in front of the block, not yet on his knees. He’d been mutteringly half-mad until that point, but seemed to notice the gravity of his situation then, and stared at Ned with wide eyes. “I know I broke my oath.” he answered, voice thick. “I know I’m a deserter. I should have gone back to the wall, and warned ‘em, but - I saw what I saw. I saw the Others.”
Jon’s hand clenched hard enough for Bran to let out a soft yelp of pain, and quickly removed it from his shoulder. His mind was elsewhere, though. He remembered this, and with the memory came other thoughts… and a mad, audacious idea had begun to form.
“People need to know.” the deserter pleaded. “If you can get word to my family… tell ‘em I’m no coward. Tell ‘em… I’m sorry.” the riders stepped forward to push on his back-
Hang it all. “Where did you see them?” Jon called out.
Ned’s head whipped around so fast it looked painful. “Jon-”
“Shut up !” Robb hissed, stepping forward to manhandle him.
“You’re either a madman or a coward, and your family does not want that to be their last memory of you.” Jon continued. “Unless you tell us where you saw them, and how you escaped. Then your death will have meaning.”
The deserter’s eyes lit up. “W-we’d been tracking the wildlings for ten days, milord, when we found their camp. Dead, all of ‘em, hacked apart in their sleep! A wildling girl was speared to a tree through the branch - no man would do something so ‘orrible. Ser Waymar Royce didn’t believe, but-”
“Waymar Royce? Of house Royce?” Theon asked, before slapping a hand over his mouth. Ned glared at Theon in response, but didn’t chastise him. Of course Theon remembers him - Sansa grew to fancy him when he stopped at Winterfell on his way north. He remembers his rivals.
“Aye, milord, he was the leader, but Gared and I were senior.” he nodded feverishly. “He went to see, and - the bodies were gone. I hadn’t been away but five minutes - they’d been arranged like a big closed eye, I could see it from the hill, and then they were gone!”
Jon’s blood ran cold. A closed eye… made out of bodies, instead of carved into a cave-dweller’s chest.
“W-we split up to find the bodies, an- and I heard them screaming, and their horses bolted, and…” he shuddered. “I saw the little girl, the one wot was speared on the tree. She was walking again, with eyes as blue as ice and a hole straight through her chest.” a wretched sob wracked him. “I ran. Gods help me, I ran. I can’t kill what already died.”
The clearing was utterly silent as he finished, with only the north wind whistling over the rocks. Ned’s fists clenched, his brow twitching in some repressed emotion. “And so you deserted. Crossed the Gorge to come south, deserting your post.”
“I-I was a poacher, milord. I know the woods.” the deserter stammered, frostbitten and chapped lips trembling. “I-I saw ‘em trying to track me, but I was able to lose ‘em. I saw it - a white walker, from a hundred yards. It had blue skin, puckered like a corpse, and a beard down to its waist, an’ a sword that looked like it was pulled from an icicle.” he shuddered, hard enough that it looked like he would break himself to pieces. “It followed me until I crossed the gorge. I couldn’t sleep… it always found me again…”
I know that Walker. That was the fiend I killed at Hardhome. Jon thought, even as Ned gestured to the riders. They stepped forward, pushing the deserter down to his knees and shoving his head through the notch.
“... What is your name?” Asked Ned, quietly.
The deserter shuddered in his position - all the stoic energy he’d had in the beginning seemed to have fled him now that he had been allowed to defend himself. “W-W-Will, milord.”
“I will remember you, Will.” Ned flicked his hand at Theon, and the young man nearly stumbled as he rushed forward to bring Ice to Ned’s side. With a soft, long hiss of steel, the Valyrian Steel greatsword was drawn from it’s fur-lined sheath, and Ned Stark planted it tip-down in the permafrost dirt.
“In the name of Robert of the house Baratheon, the first of his name, king of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, I, Eddard of the house Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, sentence you to die.”
The sword came down in a single clean stroke, parting Will’s head from his shoulders in a spurt of blood. Bran didn’t look away, but the flinch could be felt through Jon’s fingers. Jon said nothing, but patted the young boy gently on the shoulder, and stepped forward.
“I’m sorry, Father.” said Jon, bowing slightly. “I was out of line.”
“You were.” Ned replied, wiping the blood from the edge with a wool rag. “You know better than to try and save a deserter from the Night’s Watch.”
“I never intended to.” Jon replied. “But the White Walkers… I wanted to hear his story.”
“A madman will see what he sees.” Ned replied. “You were trying to sway me to believe he was just in his desertion.”
“We don’t need to trust a deserter’s word.” Jon pressed. “Send a raven to Uncle Benjen. Ask him if the Night’s Watch has seen strange things beyond the Wall. Then we will know if he was just a madman.”
An involuntary cheek twitch was all the expression Ned gave him in return. “Enough. We will speak no more of this.”
Jon knew he had reached his limits, perhaps even crossed them; pushing any further might endanger his pull for what was coming later, on the return trip home. “Yes, Father.” Jon bowed slightly, and stepped away.
“I’m disappointed in you.” said Ned. “I had thought you understood the oaths you wished to swear. Now I have to wonder.”
Jon winced. If he had been a different man than he was now, the words might have been devastating, a threat to the implicit permission to join the Night’s Watch. Now, however, it meant he had endangered his ability to sway the lord of Winterfell away from counterproductive actions. He would need to tread more carefully, now.
From the corner of his eye, he could see Theon staring at both him and the body of Will the deserter with a puzzled expression. Jon paid him no thought. It would soon be time to welcome his oldest companion back into his life. Already, he could feel the connection that had sprung to life in his mind, an invisible red thread that led off into the Wolfswood.
Welcome back. I missed you… Ghost.
The stones of Winterfell nearly rattled with the raucous merriment of the king’s welcoming feast, but outside the main hall, the snows of late summer fell peacefully. The courtyard was dark and abandoned, save for Jon, rolling a plain dagger by the grip between his fingers. As was usual, he’d been hidden away out of sight when nobility came to visit - only instead of it being a lord, it was the King of Westeros. He wasn’t even allowed to sit in the hall, let alone among the common soldiers. He didn’t mind, like he might have once; it gave him time to think instead.
He’d never really bothered to learn how to fight with daggers or knives before he was banished, he mused, on account of the stereotypes about bastards. Even now, he’d only had experience with one in the off-hand while dual-wielding. The things he had seen Asha - all the Ironborn, really - do with a set of knives had him reconsidering the decision now.
If I’d remembered my time-travelling condition, I might have asked her for pointers. He lifted the small blade and attempted to balance it upright by the hilt on his flat palm. It toppled and fell point-first to the dirt in two seconds. There won’t be a teacher or blacksmith for throwing knives in the North. I’ll have to start with a simple dagger, then.
He slowly pushed himself upright and took a stance in front of the training dummy. First a standard swordfighting position, knife-hand first - then immediately clicked his tongue and fell back, shifting the weapon-hand to the back and leading with the open palm. With a sharp exhale, he lunged forward, stabbing into the gut of the training dummy.
“Hmmm.” he frowned, noting how long it took him to reset from the hit. He was too exposed, and limited to strong, lingering torso shots unless he wanted to overextend for a slash at the throat. He stroked his chin for a moment with his free hand, staring at the weapon in his hand, before slowly twirling it around into a reverse grip. In a burst of movement, he lashed out, stabbing the blade into the crook of the dummy’s neck, retreated, lunged it into where the armpit would have been, then twirled around the side and stabbed into the dummy’s belly.
A slow grin spread across his face. Slow. Asha would laugh if she saw me. And yet… this could work.
“Is he dead yet?”
Jon whirled around to see a ghost unmount his horse. The blade dropped from his fingers, and he near-ran to him, arms wide. “Uncle Benjen…!”
The First Ranger let out an affectionate laugh into the young man’s hair. “You got bigger! I didn’t know you’d picked up fighting with a sidearm. When did you start?”
“Just now.”
“That would explain the bad form.” Benjen grinned. “Rode all day - didn’t want to leave you alone with the Lannisters.” his lips pursed. “Why aren’t you at the feast?”
Jon felt a sense of deja vu tingle across his scalp; he remembered this conversation. “... Lady Stark thought it might insult the royal family to seat a bastard in their midst.” he answered, without emotion.
“Ah. Well.” Benjen clapped an arm on his shoulder. “You’ll always be welcome on the Wall. No bastard was ever refused a seat.”
Jon couldn’t help but stare at his uncle, then. He knew, didn’t he? Father couldn’t have told Lady Stark, or else she wouldn’t hate me so… but Uncle Benjen knew who my father was, the whole time. He must have known mother eloped.
“... Perhaps one day.” He answered, finally. The last time he had seen his uncle was on that disastrous mission to capture a wight. His face had been blue and mottled with death, not pink and ruddy with cold. Undead, just like -
“You’re reconsidering?” said Benjen, interrupting Jon’s thoughts. A bemused expression formed on Benjen’s face. “Last time I came, it was all you could speak to me of.”
“... Maybe there’s more to do here than I first thought.” said Jon, slowly shaking his head.
Benjen smiled, massaging Jon’s shoulder. “Well, take all the time you need. The Wall isn’t going anywhere.” he pulled away as a particularly loud peal of laughter echoed from inside. “I’d better head inside. Rescue your father from his guests.”
Jon stared at his back for a moment, before grabbing him by the forearm. “Wait.”
“Something wrong?”
“There’s… another reason I’m out here.” said Jon, slowly. “But… I can’t say just yet. Can you make sure that there are guards at the side passages out of the main hall? Tell them… tell them there may be a commotion.”
Benjen frowned. “Jon, this is not the time for foolishness. The king and queen-”
“If they weren’t in there, this wouldn’t be an issue.” said Jon, forcefully. “Please trust me, uncle. This is serious.”
The First Ranger gnawed the inside of his jaw for a moment. “Alright. I’ll make sure the guards are ready.” he said, finally. “But old friends or not, embarrassing your father in front of King Robert will not be forgiven. Make sure you’re serious.”
“Thank you, uncle.”
The First Ranger turned and walked away, then, as Jon fought the urge to sag in his stance. He remembered what was coming next.
“Your uncle’s in the Night’s Watch.”
Jon turned to face the small figure sauntering slowly out of the darkened arch of the stables. Tyrion Lannister, the Imp of Casterly Rock. Hand to Daenerys Targaryen, Queen of the Ashes.
The half-man before him couldn’t have been any more different from the one he had last seen standing before the Great Council, idly sloshing a half-empty wineskin and eying him with a callous regard - hair still blonde, chin still beardless and mismatched gaze still unbroken. And yet, Jon couldn’t help but feel ants crawling up his spine. If there was ever a pivotal figure for the Raven to subvert, it’s you, Lannister. How many times has there been someone else staring out from behind those mismatched eyes?
“First Ranger, in truth.” Jon replied, folding his arms behind his back. “Preparing for a night of revelry? We have wine indoors.”
“Ah, but I like this wine better.” Tyrion retorted. “It’s the Arbor Red that doesn’t come with judging stares that becomes the sweetest.” He took a quick pull from the wineskin, before leaning casually against a stablepost. “You have me at a disadvantage.”
“I make it a point not to exploit drunkards.” Jon replied. Tyrion flashed a quick smile. “No introductions are needed, are there?”
“No, not really.” said Tyrion. “You’re Ned Stark’s bastard son and I’m Queen Cersei’s dwarf brother. Our greatest achievements - being related to those more famous.”
If only you knew.
“You don’t think that.” Jon answered instead.
Tyrion side-eyed him. “And who are you, bastard, to presume what I do or don’t think?”
“A man with a mind and name like yours, dwarf, will become known for his own actions, one way or the other.” said Jon. “The gods love a good story like that.”
“Yes, of course.” Tyrion rolled his eyes. “The gods will make me famous. Every peasant boy thinks that while he goes off to war, only to die in the dirt choking on his own blood.” he took a long drink from his wineskin, until he pulled it away from his lips and no more came out. “I’m perfectly content to sit in Casterly Rock until I die a secret death, emptying my balls into a whore’s mouth, with my name only surviving in dusty old books.”
Jon snorted in disbelief. “In that case, my lord, go in and enjoy the feast. I won’t stop you.” he folded his arms.
Tyrion shrugged, until his gaze met Jon’s. His eyes narrowed slightly, lowering the wineskin to his hip. “... And tell me - Snow, was it? What are you implying would happen if I didn’t do that?”
Jon couldn’t help but be surprised. Was this the rumored brain he never saw for himself? Or was he simply that transparent? “Jon Snow.” he said. “And if you didn’t go through those doors… then you might end up known for something after all. Because I know something about that feast that nobody else does.”
An eyebrow arched. “A secret, then. I love a good secret. Go on - it’s no good if only one person knows it.”
The Rhoynar and Lady Black would disagree, I think. But Jon kept that thought to himself, and instead leaned in. “In that hall,” he murmured in low tones, “there is an uninvited guest. A foreign man, disguised as part of the staff.”
The Lannister’s golden eyebrows shot up. “An assassin?”
“A spy.” Said Jon. “Here for only one day, and gone the next.” he smiled thinly. “He came to see a king, and found him wanting.”
Now Jon could see Tyrion’s smirk across his twisted face. “Yes, Robert isn’t exactly the Demon of the Trident anymore, is he? The glutton probably hasn’t lifted a hammer since thrashing the Greyjoys.” His eyes flickered to the main hall doors. “Tell me then, Snow - if you know there’s a party-crasher at your family’s feast, then why haven’t you done anything?”
“I have.” Said Jon. “All that it requires is that I walk through that door and reveal myself to the king for the first time. Then our man will truly get his measure.”
Tyrion’s smile grew wider. “Well! I like the sound of this. But if you’re going to impress a king, you had better have introductions made. You don’t just walk up and shake hands out of the Seven’s blue sky.” he bowed theatrically, and threw a stumpy hand out towards the doors. “Shall we?”
“You would do this?” Jon asked, surprised.
“Nothing would make me happier than to ruin my sweet sister’s day.”
Jon stared at Tyrion, grey eyes wide. And where was this hatred, when you argued to spare her? Your coddling left us all in ruins. Did you truly have a change of heart? Or did the Three-Eyed Raven change it for you?
But instead of voicing the accusation, Jon merely bowed lower. “After you, Lord Lannister.”
“Oho.” Tyrion went even lower. “I insist, Lord Snow.”
“Age before beauty.”
Tyrion straightened, his wide grin contorting his unattractive visage. “Quite right.” he turned and pointed at the wide oak doors of the Great Hall, and then flexed his stubby arms for emphasis. “But I find that with doors like that, I really must insist.”
Jon laughed. “Fair point made.”
The two formed up, and as Jon pulled apart the heavy opening, Tyrion walked through the opening crack to a virtual wall of light and sound. The wind swirled up behind them, and the brisk cold set the candlelight flickering and tastefully exposed women shrieking.
“Good evening, one and all!” Tyrion called out, in the momentary lapse in conversation, even as the bards continued to play. “Your Grace! My sweet sister, Queen Cersei! Lords and Ladies and all in-between!”
“Close the door, Imp! You’re letting the cold in!” shouted a voice from inside the crowd, setting off a peal of laughter.
“Bring me a cup of wine and I’ll consider it!” Tyrion shot back, grinning widely. Jon could see Cersei and Lady Stark sitting together at the head table, each looking like they had swallowed lemons - only Cersei was staring at the Imp as she did.
A servant quickly scurried over with a sloshing cup in hand, which Tyrion drained in a single pull to loud applause. “Now that I have your ATTENTION,” Tyrion called, as the noise began to pick up, “I have someone I would like you to meet!”
“Fuck off and close the door!”
“As you wish! Jon, be a lad and close the door.”
Jon turned and slammed the doors shut with a bang. The echo rumbled through the Great Hall, setting cups rattling on their tables and fires sparking. The hall quieted at that, as the music trailed off; Tyrion arched an eyebrow. “Strong arms on you.”
“Thank you.”
“As I was saying!” Tyrion exclaimed to a now-attentive hall. “I’d like you all to meet someone you haven’t before!” Jon looked across the hall, and noticed a big, burly man with a crown of antlers buried among a mat of black hair, only just then pulling his face out of a buxom serving girl’s chest. The man who could only be King Robert looked up and locked eyes with Jon - he could see the moment his flushed face went slack, and his eyes widened.
“His name is Jon Snow!” Tyrion called. “You might know him as the Bastard of Winterfell. The Honorable Ned Stark’s one mistake. I think you might want to hear what he has to say tonight.”
Jon felt his heart hammering in his throat - could feel Lady Stark’s eyes staring daggers through him, as though she might murder him where he stood. The words stuck in his throat. He’d been passable at speeches, once, when desperation and necessity had made his purpose clear. Those days were a lifetime ago.
Then allow me to speak for you.
A shudder ran through him; a lingering breeze from the open door smelled faintly of salt and sea. A strength formed in his spine, and the phantom weight of a driftwood crown danced across his brow.
“Good evening, Lords and Ladies.” Said the man who was once Lodos, with a confident smile. “I had hoped to not interrupt tonight’s festivities, especially not with his and her Grace in attendance, but necessity demands it.” he threw his arms wide. “You see, I have learned something tonight of great interest to everyone!”
Ned Stark, whose face was pale as the winter snows, pushed himself from the wall and began to stride quickly towards him.
“Tonight, I am not the only one in this room who was not invited!”
Ned stopped, mid-stride. King Robert flicked his wide-eyed gaze between Ned and Jon, mouthing unspoken words.
“That’s right!” Jon grinned. “And as Lord Tyrion here was telling me, such a thing is not done! And you cannot introduce yourself - no, you must BE introduced, if you are to go before a king!” he began to slowly pace. “But fear not, your Grace! I mean to rectify this grave mistake! After all…”
He slowly turned his head, to face the corner the musicians had taken, and locked eyes with a red-cloaked figure in the back row. “It is a rare day indeed when we have two kings in the same keep.”
The man didn’t hesitate for a moment, but instead burst out along the wall, swinging his lute in front of him as a blunt weapon. The hall burst into confused screaming as smallfolk nearly trampled over each other, while guards rushed out from side passages in battle formation.
Jon didn’t hesitate either, ducking into a hard charge, bounding up and over onto the feasting tables. Platters of roast boar and yearling calf and goblets of sweet wines toppled and splattered underneath his feet, but Jon paid it no mind, leaping from table to table, chasing after the fluttering red cloak. The fugitive ducked underneath a guard’s mailed fist and smashed him in the back of the head with the cup, dropping him quickly before dipping underneath another fist expertly.
The minor distractions were all Jon needed, and with a lunge, he leaped off the table, over the heads of the screaming partygoers, and tackled into the runner’s body. The two of them both slammed into the wall, then dropped to the ground. Jon recovered first, and rolled his quarry over onto their stomach, wrenching his flailing arms behind his back.
“Don’t struggle, my friend.” Jon hissed in his ear. “That will only make things worse.”
He struggled against his grip anyways, so Jon hauled him up with both hands, keeping a firm leg at the fleshy underside of his kneecaps.
“King Robert Baratheon!” Jon called, panting slightly. “First of your Name! King of the Andals, The Rhoynar, and the First Men! Protector, of the Realm! Lord of the Seven Kingdoms!” he wrenched his captive back.
“May I introduce to you! The First of his Name! The Lord of the Free Folk and the Giants! Protector of a Hundred Clans! Lord of a Hundred Thousand Swords! The King-Beyond-The-Wall!”
“MANCE! RAYDER!”
Notes:
HA! HA! TIME FOR BOBBY B!
I know that this story has been a little bit confusing lately, so I hope that you guys appreciated the recap/the-road-so-far summary. You now also have (one of) the plot(s) spelled out in plain english - finding all the Bloodstone in the world and destroying it. What happens then? Stay tuned~
For those of you from the show, I didn't make this stuff up. The name might be mine (and the Altar is too), but the oily black stone is one of George's many unexplained worldbuilding mysteries. I took it and ran. Make of that information what you will.
Side note: I wrote that conversation with Theon over 6 months ago, and never imagined it would become so uncomfortably topical. 2020 continues to be the gift that keeps on giving, just like Gonorrhea.
Merry Christmas, everyone. Hope you all asked santa for an end to the horseshit we’re all dealing with. I know I did.
Chapter 19: Life Seven: Part 2
Summary:
It couldn't possibly be this simple.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“You were holding out on me, Jon Snow.” Said Tyrion, fingers drumming on the kitchen’s inner table.
Jon looked up from his serving of warm bread and leftover boar and smiled wanly. “Good morning, Lord Tyrion. And how was your rest?”
“Absolutely dreadful. Couldn’t sleep a wink.” Tyrion replied, not missing a beat. “Do you know how many guards they had tramping through the royal suites during the night? All of them, I imagine. Not to mention the wine wouldn’t sit after that excitement.”
“My apologies, but I do believe the wine was your own doing.” said Jon, dabbing a corner of the bread in a puddle of golden honey.
“When you told me there was a foreign spy in the room, I expected someone from Braavos, or a Lyseni whore here to predate on the King’s lusts. Not the blasted King-Beyond-The-Wall.” Tyrion drummed even louder on the table, barely audible over the bustle of the kitchen workers and sizzle of cookpots. “I didn’t even know the wildlings had a King anymore.”
“Would it have changed anything if I had told you?”
Tyrion bobbed his head back and forth, before finally shaking it. “No, I imagine not. I would have made more of a show of it, though. Give the mummers some real material to work with.” With a great heave of his body, the dwarf pulled himself into the chair opposite Jon, before scooching himself into pointing the right direction. “And why are you in here instead of breaking bread with the king? You’re practically all he can talk about at this point.”
“Has he?”
“Oh, yes.” said Tyrion. “Your star has risen quite dramatically in just one night. He can’t figure out whether to knight you, legitimize you or betroth you. Maybe he’ll do all three, if he thinks it will please Lord Stark. Convince him to follow him back south as Hand.”
Jon lowered his head. “And that’s precisely why I haven’t gone before him.”
Tyrion’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t strike me as a particularly stupid boy, Jon. which is why I find it odd that you are avoiding the favor of a king to rise beyond your bastard station. Don’t tell me your Lord father’s honor is holding you back?”
Jon chuckled softly. “In another time, perhaps. I am loyal to my brother Robb, though, as you might be to Ser Jaime. You can understand that, surely.”
“Yes, yes, loyalty to family. All well and good.” Tyrion sighed. “But what is the REAL answer, then?”
Jon dabbed away the last of the honey with the last piece of bread and popped it in his mouth, before leaning forward. “I am avoiding them all,” he said, in a low voice, “because I am not yet ready to present my case.”
Tyrion’s brows slowly rose. “Your case.” he repeated. Jon could see the gears turning in his head, conclusions being reached. “You’re not done.”
“No. I’m not done. Making sure Mance Rayder stayed in Winterfell was only step one.”
“Hell of a step one.” said Tyrion. “What’s step two, then? No, scratch that - skip the steps, what is the end goal?”
Jon smiled, and locked eyes with the dwarf. “The goal is a deal between kings.”
Tyrion blinked rapidly, before shaking his head. “Hard to start the day set to be executed for desertion and end with a deal with his Grace, Snow. I think you might be cracked in the head.”
I know for a fact I’m cracked in the head, Jon thought to himself, but instead pushed to his feet. “I know what I’m doing. I suppose this is where we part ways for the day, then?”
“Perish the thought.” Tyrion shot back, leaping off the chair. “This is the most fun you could have in this frozen castle. What else would I be doing, other than making the local whores rich?”
Jon shook his head, a light bemused smile on his lips. “Have it your way, then.” If there was ever a time that the Raven decided to notice what I’m doing, it would be now. Better to have the Imp nearby than to let him run wild with someone wearing his skin.
The two made their way through the keep, Jon keeping a measured pace to allow the half-man to stay at merely a brisk walk. Everywhere they went, men cheered, and guards clapped him on the back in passing. The mood was infectious, and he couldn’t help but smile. Tyrion shook his head. “I told you, Snow. Your star has risen.”
“Interrupting a wildling invasion can do that.” Jon replied. “The North remembers what a King-Beyond-The-Wall means. We’ve had half-a-dozen invasions in the past thousand years, and far more before that.”
“The last one was that Redbeard fellow, yes?” asked Tyrion. “I was doing some reading about the North and his name popped up near the end. The idiot Maester couldn’t figure out if he’d invaded in Aegon the Unworthy’s rule or Maekar’s! I nearly wanted to burn the book after reading that.”
“Oh, of course.” Jon laughed. “Only a 40-year difference. It’s not like he could have bothered to travel north and check when my grandfather’s grandfather was killed by him.”
“Mistakes like that can turn a man cynical.” Said Tyrion, flippantly. “Remember that, Jon Snow. Don’t believe everything you read, especially if someone claims to be an ‘expert’ - far too many are liars or halfwits, and a mind is only as good a weapon as what you fill it with.”
The two reached the stairway leading down into the dungeons, with the guard standing watch at the top hesitating for only a few seconds before shrugging and letting them pass. “Come to admire your catch, Jon?”
“Something like that.”
They found the King-Beyond-The-Wall in the deepest layer of the dungeons, locked behind a larger set of thick doors guarded by soldiers. Jon waved to them slowly, and one of them nodded, grinning. “Come to gloat, Jon?”
“I’d like to think I’m above that, but perhaps.” he replied, as the other slowly unlocked the door. With a loud scraping of misshapen wood on stone, the two men stepped into the small cramped cell.
Mance Rayder was leashed to the wall by four thick chains around his limbs. Ice dripped slowly from the ceiling, forming damp puddles that soaked into his fine red-streaked cloak. The King Beyond The Wall lifted his head and glared, eyes unfocused. “You…”
Jon took an offered torch from the guards and shuffled further into the cell. Tyrion stood fully upright, a smug grin on his face. “Look at that. A cell built for my size. If I ever offend your generosity, my lord, I’ll know which room to request.” he held out his hand. “May I?”
Jon handed the dwarf the torch, before slowly sitting down in front of Mance. “Mance Rayder.” said Jon, taking in his strong features once again. His Goodbrother was bloodied, and his eyes slightly glazed, but otherwise seemed relatively well. “My name is Jon Snow.”
“Aye.” Said Mance, scowling. “I heard your introduction.”
“Have you kept warm?” Jon gestured around him. “I’m told these cells are small to retain heat better. Not comfortable, but enough to keep frost from taking a finger.”
“And I’m to believe you wish me hale and hearty before I’m dragged off to die?” said Mance. “Not a bruise on my face and not a scratch on my arse before I become a head shorter? Or perhaps you want to make sure nobody has started the torture before you have.”
“You wouldn’t have stayed if I’d asked you politely.” Replied Jon. “Once I knew you were here, I had to try.”
“Oh, yes, politeness from a kneeler. After assaulting me under your roof.”
“You took no bread or salt, and came under false pretense like a thief in the night. Claiming guest right will not avail you to the gods.” said Tyrion.
Mance just glared harder. A droplet landed loudly in a puddle of ice-cold water. “What do you want?” he asked, finally.
“You are the King Beyond the Wall.” said Jon. “The Free Folk answer to you.”
“Fah!” Mance laughed. “Is that it? You think you can turn them into kneelers by breaking me? You’re a fool. You know nothing of the north, or its people. I command but a fraction, and only because I beat them until they swore oaths. They won’t bow to you and your lords on thrones no matter what I say to them.”
Five-and-Sixty clans, to be precise. Jon thought to himself, remembering the words the envoys had spoken to Varamyr. “And yet you are King, still. How many times have your people thrown themselves at the Wall, trying to break it? How many times have you failed?”
“We only need to win once, boy.”
“You’ve gotten past the Wall before, true.” Said Tyrion, cutting in. “But once you slice your way past the Night’s Watch, you inevitably are cut down by the whole of the Stark armies. Tens of thousands dead. Mostly dead Wildlings, on account of the overwhelming advantage of steel against bone, but you’ve killed important names before.”
“Is that what you want, Mance?” asked Jon. “Tens of thousands of Free Folk dead, at the edge of the Wall. Is that what is good?”
Mance opened his mouth to reply, but seemed to catch himself. “The Free Folk,” he said slowly, with the emphasis to show he’d only just realized Jon hadn’t once called them Wildlings, “will not be turned back. There is too much at play to stop now, even if I died. They will break your Wall, or they will die.”
“And what if they didn’t have to?” asked Jon, pressing the point. “What if the choice was no longer about who had to die?” he leaned in. “King Robert Baratheon is here, in these walls. Had you come under a different banner, and claimed guest right, none could have touched you.”
Mance blinked at him wildly, before throwing his head back in laughter. The chains rattled loudly about him as his body shook. “You… you want me to negotiate with the King of the Kneelers!” he laughed even louder. “Like two drunk chieftains arguing over a goat trail!”
“And why not?” Jon asked, fighting back a surge of embarrassment at the mocking laugh. “No King Beyond The Wall has ever tried it before.”
“Because none of them were ever so stupid to think it would work.” Mance rolled his head forward, locking eyes with Jon. “I’m a deserter, fool boy. By his own laws, I was a dead man the moment I stepped into the castle. My only defense was ignorance, and now you think he’ll let me break bread and sip ale with shackles on my wrists?”
“You wouldn’t be the first person Robert Baratheon had dead by rights and still spared.” quipped Tyrion, rolling his shoulders. “Ask the Greyjoys and the Tyrells - their lords still have heads because of his whimsy.”
Mance Rayder snorted. “So I can bow and grovel in front of a fat old drunkard for hours and have nothing for it but my head? No, Jon Snow. I’ll die... with my pride intact.”
Jon squished his eyes shut tightly. Stubborn fool. You’d rather add a hundred thousand corpses to the Night King’s army before negotiating? It was that stubbornness that broke five-and-sixty clans to his hand, though.
“Are you willing to sacrifice more than yourself for your pride, Mance?” Jon asked, quietly. “Winter is Coming.”
“It’s always winter, where we are.” Mance replied, but the barb was slow in coming. He was staring at Jon with piercing eyes.
No. not staring at Jon. Staring over his shoulder.
Jon realized, with a sudden chill down his spine, two things. Tyrion had gone very quiet behind him, even in his quiet shuffling. And there was an incessant tingling in his head, like a trail of ants was marching in a tight circle on the back of his skull.
Jon turned slowly around to see Tyrion standing ramrod straight, torch held white-knuckle in his grip, as his body extended outward. The dwarf held that pose for a long, pregnant moment - Jon slowly began to reach for his blade -
Tyrion let out a loud sigh, and let himself fall limp. He dropped his head forward on his chest and began to roll it in a wide, crackling arc, before stopping as soon as he saw their faces. “What?” he asked. “I’m stiff. I told you I didn’t sleep well.”
The tingling sensation had shifted onto Jon’s forehead now. Liar.
“If that’s all you came here to say, little Lordling, then leave me to my cell.” Said Mance, but his voice was no longer as loud. Not as self-assured. He’d caught something changed about Tyrion, too; maybe, for a split second, he’d seen a pair of pure-white eyes. And he’d caught that Jon had caught it.
Neither of them felt safe, at that moment.
Jon closed his eyes, for a moment. “In all honesty, Mance, I don’t much care what you think. I came here to tell you what I am going to do. Sometime soon, someone will bring you out of this cell, and you’ll meet with King Robert. Now, at least, you won’t be surprised when it happens, and have time to think of what to say.”
“Feh.” Mance spat. “I’ll say nothing at all.”
“Then sing.” Jon replied. “You are the Bard-King, after all. Singing is what you are.”
Mance rolled his eyes. “Not without a head, I’m not.”
“Then try not to lose your head.” Jon shook his head. “ For when you are gone, the singing will fade, and the silence will last long and long .”
Jon watched Mance’s head snap up at that, eyes wide. He didn’t meet his gaze; instead, he turned and slowly walked out of the cell, Tyrion following behind him. The buzzing, tingling sensation in his scalp didn’t fade until the moment the guards slammed the lock shut with an echoing clank.
It didn’t take long to discover that the King had left with a party of riders to hunt in the Wolfswood, and so Jon was content to entertain Tyrion through the castle as best he was able. All the while, he kept his expression placid and unassuming, never letting show the intense inward concentration he was maintaining.
He never again felt that eerie sensation, but he assumed nothing. The Raven was here, now. He had noticed something was amiss, and now Jon needed to mind his every word to not give himself away. That was his devil’s bargain - letting the Greenseer live, for two critical moons in Winterfell.
Once again, I am painfully reminded I cannot be everywhere I am needed. He thought sourly. Did I not just recently learn that Domeric Bolton is still alive? If I detour to the east, and take down Ramsay before he can kill him, the course of the war is changed - but that means I am even farther away from the Raven, and will not be back in time for the feast, and Mance.
This will require planning… and iteration. I will almost definitely fail again, in some way. There are too many moving pieces to get this right the first time. Jon’s fingers slowly curled into a determined fist. But I WILL get it right. If it takes a thousand lifetimes.
“Something the matter?” Asked Tyrion. Jon flinched, causing the dwarf to smirk. “You had a look like you were girding yourself for war. Or Lord Stannis going off to bed his wife.”
Jon smothered the amused smile that welled up. “I have not met the Lord Stannis, so I won’t comment on his wife.”
“Better than you haven’t, I think.” Tyrion responded flippantly. “He’s insufferably upright. I suppose that’s what happens when you’re the Gods’ favorite chew-toy, though. Imagine - brother to the king of Westeros, and yet you’re married to a woman with a mustache, with only a stone-skinned daughter to show for the effort.”
What little humor Jon had at his comments died. “Show some respect, my lord.” he said tightly. A small, burned stag figurine flitted across the inside of his eyelids. “The girl has done nothing to earn your barbs.”
Tyrion blinked, looking up to Jon in surprise. “Of course. Shireen was too far.” he replied. “For all your boldness and maneuvering, I forgot that you are still your father’s son, bastard or not.”
Jon closed his eyes. It’s not as though I can say I feel a small measure of guilt. Had I seen what Melisandre truly was while she was still at the wall, perhaps I could have saved her. “By all accounts she is a sweet girl. Save your taunts for those with true flaws, like your own family.”
Tyrion snorted. “Too easy a target. If all I did was target my siblings I’d get rusty. How about the squid prince, then? He looks to be particularly constipated at the moment.”
Jon opened his eyes in surprise to see Theon staring through the entrance to the Godswood with a pensive frown. Strange. He’s never gone in there unless Father or Robb was with him. The two of them wandered closer, until Theon glanced back and saw their approach.
“J- Snow…” Theon said, a surprised and somewhat wary tone to his voice. “That was… quite the feat you pulled off, last night.”
Jon’s eyebrow arched. He’d caught the slip. “Thank you. Was there something you needed? Is Father in there?”
“No. No.” Theon shook his head. “Just… thinking about something. An odd dream I had, a while back.”
“Dreaming of freedom, perhaps?” Tyrion quipped. “Or perhaps your captors treat you well enough you’ve forgotten their part in your family’s ruin.”
Theon’s narrowed eyes snapped to the dwarf, but before he could respond Jon’s hand fell between them. “Forgive him, Theon. Lord Tyrion here is uncommonly tired from poor sleep. He did not mean to offend.”
The Greyjoy’s expression lightened. “Yes, of course.” he replied, smirking. “All the noise must have done wonders for his hangover. I believe I saw you drain half the hall’s wine in all the confusion.”
“Well, just because the smallfolk were ejected doesn’t mean their wine should go to waste, should it?” said Tyrion, pantomiming a drunken stagger before grinning. “My liver was more than ready for the challenge.”
Theon stared at the dwarf for a long moment, his expression slowly falling into a frown. The silence dragged on almost to awkwardness before his gaze shifted up to Jon. “Snow. Are you… are you feeling alright?”
A strange question. “No more or less than normal, I would think. Why?”
“Nothing!” Theon replied quickly. “It’s just… I don’t think we’ve really said anything to each other since…” he trailed off. “Since that time in the great hall, with your journal.” he finished. “It’s been… odd.”
“I’m certain that Jon Snow’s life revolves around more than making sure that you don’t feel odd , Greyjoy.” said Tyrion. “Even less so, now that he’s well and truly gone and fascinated King Robert. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up with a wife out of all this.”
Jon couldn’t help the grimace that came to him. I have a wife already. One that I betrayed, and I can’t even feel guilty because we’ve no longer even met. “If you’ll excuse me, milords, there is something I need to take care of.”
Theon startled. “Jon, wait.” he exclaimed, before seemingly stifling himself. “I mean… can we talk? Tonight. There’s something I want to discuss in private.”
After a long moment, Jon nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course. When there is time, I will seek you out.” his eyes flicked between his two companions. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. Lord Tyrion, can I assume that you are able to find your own entertainment at this point?”
“Well enough.” Tyrion shrugged. “Why? Finally have somewhere to be?”
“I think it’s time that I finally indulged the King’s curiosity.” Jon replied. With a bow to the two men, he turned. As he left, he could feel the unbroken stare of Theon on his back, but turned his mind away from the Greyjoy and to the future.
This will require some finesse. And no small amount of luck.
“Jon, please.”
“I understand why you are nervous, father.” Jon replied, without looking away from the door of the solar. More than you can possibly imagine. “And I swear to you that I will do nothing to bring trouble upon you.”
Eddard Stark clenched his fists more tightly. “This has gone far enough. To cause such a commotion during the feast was perhaps forgivable. But to arrange such a meeting behind my back - on top of the scene with that deserter -”
“If you wish to punish me for this, then I will accept whatever it is that you feel is necessary.” Jon said stiffly. “But until then, I must ask you - on bended knee if I must - to follow my lead and present an unbroken front. Please, father.”
Ned opened his mouth to respond -
Heavy footfalls up the staircase interrupted him. Both Starks stiffened in their place. The guard outside the door only had a moment to shout ‘your grace’ before the door swung open wide. Robert Baratheon stepped in, red-faced and damp-haired from the after-hunt bath, waving absently at the doorguard before his eyes landed on Jon.
“Gods be good.” said the king. “The spitting image.”
Jon immediately stood to his feet, noting absently that his uncle’s fists were clenched so tightly as to be bloodless. “Your Grace.”
“The absolute fucking spitting image!” Robert repeated, louder this time. “How long were you going to hide him from me, Eddard? Did you think I’d forgive you when I found out?”
“I… I…” Ned seemed to be choking on his tongue.
Robert stared at the two, before letting out an uproarious belly laugh. “Come here, son!” Robert stepped forward, and in two powerful strides had engulfed Jon in a bear hug. “Look at him, Ned!” he exclaimed, as Jon felt his ribs creak under the man’s broad arms. “Is he not the absolute spitting image of his grandfather?”
“His- his grandfather?” Ned repeated, dumbstruck.
“Old Rickard, Ned!” Robert grabbed the back of Jon’s head and twisted him around to face his father. “Look at that face! When I saw him at the feast I nearly thought his ghost had come to welcome us too!” He laughed again, and pulled Jon out to arm’s length, resting his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “You’d be too young to know your grandfather, boy, but I swear that you couldn’t be more of a Stark than if an artist made you up wholecloth!”
Jon quickly caught his breath, even as his chest ached from the hug. “Thank you, your Grace.” Jon glanced over, and saw Ned’s hands hanging slack, and his expression faintly dumbfounded.
“You had all your children lined up to meet me on the first day, but you didn’t think to show me your firstborn when he looked like this ?” Robert exclaimed, gesturing up and down. “You had me thinking he was the ugly one!”
“I…” Ned blinked rapidly, and then seemed to shake himself from the stupor. “I did not think it wise to upset Lady Stark when other members of the royal family were present.”
“Piss on that, Ned.” said Robert. “I’m the bloody king of Westeros. If I want to meet all of my best friend’s children I’ll bloody well meet all of my best friend’s children! Cat can handle a little embarrassment.”
“With respect, your Grace,” said Jon, “I must agree with my father. Lady Stark is not fond of my presence.”
“Enough of that ‘your Grace’ shite, boy.” said Robert. “You went and single-handedly captured the King Beyond The Wall for me. You’ve earned some informality.”
Jon smirked. “As you wish… King Bobby.”
Robert blinked, before throwing his head back in laughter. “ Bobby ! He called me Bobby , Ned!”
Ned looked slightly punch-drunk by the rapid twists of the conversation. “Jon, that’s…”
“A little too informal, I know.”
“Gods-dammit, Ned, how come you never came up with that one!?” Robert continued to chortle, even as he slowly eased himself into a large cushioned chair. “All that time in the Eyrie, and it was always ‘Rob’. King Bobby, he says. Bobby Baratheon, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.” he let out a long sigh. “Jon, was it? Fetch us some wine. Pour one for yourself as well.”
Jon glanced to Ned, and after a long moment the Lord of Winterfell nodded his assent. With a steady stride, Jon collected three cups and a pitcher from the wine cabinet that was only stocked when guests came. Jon had barely finished provisioning King Robert with a full glass of Arbor Red before he grabbed the cup in his meaty hands and drained half of it in a single swig.
Lord Stark swirled his own glass more thoughtfully, taking only a small sip before setting it aside. Jon, on the other hand, only pressed the rim to his pursed lips and let the drink wet them before setting it back down. “Thank you for coming, King Robert.”
“When the servant said you’d be with your father you could hardly keep me away!” Robert responded. “I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of you since the feast! I was nearly about to send out the runners after you!”
“Jon and I were busy sequestering our new prisoner in that time.” Said Ned.
“Taking care of business - gods, I need you down south, Ned.” Robert shook his head and slumped back in his chair. “Not even been here a week and it feels like your family is the only one in the seven damned kingdoms that is making my life easier. I need that efficiency as my Hand, Ned.”
Ned Stark quickly glanced over at Jon, but the boy was unfazed. “And as I said earlier, I needed time to consider what was right for my family.”
“Right for your family? Hells, Ned, you already know you’re not the only one getting offered a new blasted title! I already offered the betrothal to Joffrey - I might as well throw in something for the boy, too!” Robert leaned over in the chair, eyes twinkling. “How about it, Jon? Ever wanted to be legitimized? I’ll make you head of a branch family, like the Karstarks - The Greystarks have been dead for centuries, haven’t they? They certainly don’t need the name anymore!”
Jon repressed an amused smile. “It would certainly be a better outcome than my previous ideas. I had planned for some time to join my uncle on the Wall.”
“The WALL!?” Robert roared. “Sending you away to rot among the degenerates and dragonlovers!?”
“Even a bastard can rise high on the wall.” Said Ned quietly.
“You encouraged this!? He’d be WASTED there, Ned! It’s outrageous- I won’t have it!” Robert thumped the surface of the desk, setting the contents of his cup sloshing. “If your father won’t do it then I will - I hereby declare that you, Jon Snow, Son of Eddard Stark, are banned from ever going to the Wall!”
Jon snorted in laughter, as Ned’s face was frozen in an expression between befuddlement and terror. “I’m not sure that decree has binding power, King Robert.”
“Sod the binding power, I’ll just make them throw you out if you ever get there!”
“As you say.”
“I DO say!”
Jon continued to smile, even as it fell away from his eyes. “I hope you maintain that good will, my King, when you understand why it is that I wanted you to be here.”
That caught Robert’s attention. “What?” he leaned back in his seat. “What is this about? Ned?”
“Lord Stark did not play a significant role in this.” Jon interrupted, before Eddard could respond with some lie to protect him. “Whether it turns out well or not, it was my idea.”
A rapping at the solar door rang out before Robert could respond. “My Lords? The prisoner is here, as requested.”
“Bring him in.”
Robert twisted about in his chair, as the door opened up to see Mance Rayder in chains, escorted by two guards on either side of him.
The room was very quiet, as Robert Baratheon’s gaze met Mance’s stony expression. Slowly, Ned pushed himself to his feet and walked to the guards. “Leave us.” he said, barely above a whisper as he held out his hand. The two guards looked at each other, before one handed him a single key, and exited the room in lockstep.
Ned, aware that all eyes were on him, slowly placed the key on the edge of his desk, within grabbing range of the three men, and turned to Mance. “Would you like to sit?”
“I’ll stand.” Mance said.
“I believe all necessary introductions were made at the feast,” said Jon.
“What is this, boy?” Robert asked, his voice flat. “What are you playing at?”
“Is it not wise, your Grace, for two kings to attempt diplomacy, and seek peace before war?”
“You were serious after all.” said Mance, incredulous. “You really wanted me to speak with the king of the kneelers.”
“Kneeler, is it?” Robert’s eyes flashed. “Shall I fetch my warhammer to break your shins, so you kneel as well, wildling?”
The two glared at each other, as Robert slowly stood out of his chair. “Ned?” Said Robert. “Where is Ice?”
“... At my bedside, in the other room.” Ned answered carefully.
“Go and fetch it.” Robert palmed the key in one hand, walking up to Mance and staring into his eyes from an inch away. With slow, deliberate movements, the King of Westeros gripped the King Beyond the Wall’s manacles. The clatter of pinions echoed in the tension, as the shackles fell to the ground.
As Robert stepped away, Mance gripped his left wrist and rubbed it gingerly. “My thanks.”
“This is to be diplomacy, isn’t it? Leaving a man in shackles isn’t very bloody diplomatic.” Robert grabbed his cup and upended it. A trickle of red dribbled into his beard as he set it back on the table. “More wine, Snow. And fetch one for the wildling - what was his name again?”
“Mance Rayder.” said Mance.
“Mance. What a stupid name.” said Robert, without any heat to it. “It sounds like my servant boy. Lancel Lannister - can’t even pour wine correctly, and I can’t be rid of him because I married a damned Lannister.”
“I’d say he pours wine too well.” Mance replied, glancing up and down Robert’s frame. “A man who was as fat as you in the North would feed an Ice River clan for a sennight.”
Robert glared at Mance from the desk’s edge, his fists balled, before lunging forward a step. Mance didn’t flinch, and Robert’s momentum carried no further. The King of Westeros let out a barking laugh. “It’s been years since I’ve met a man brave enough to insult me to my face. Now I come North and I have two of them. It’s almost refreshing. NED! Where are you, Gods damn it!”
Ned rounded the corner with the valyrian greatsword in his hands, as Jon finished pouring a glass for Mance. The bard-king took it and took a swig, before wrinkling his nose. “Too sweet.” he said, before taking another sip. “I’d rather a bitter ale over this.”
“Not a bad idea at all, wildling.” said Robert. “Ned, tell the guards to fetch us a flagon. And leave Ice with me.” The lord of Winterfell made a face, but did as commanded. Slowly, Robert pulled the massive blade from it’s wolf-pelt sheath. “You ever see a blade like this up north, Mance?” he said, gloatingly. “Valyrian steel. Have to imagine even you’ve heard of the dragonspawn up there.”
“I know of Valyria. And the Targaryens.” said Mance, staring at the blade. “Half the men I knew in the Night’s Watch were sent there by you during your rebellion for aiding them.”
There, Robert glanced up, eyes narrowed. “How’s a wildling man like you end up on the Wall?”
“My mother was Free Folk. My father was a man of the Watch.” answered Mance. “I never knew him. A raiding party killed her when I was six. Had a Ranging not found me, I would have frozen to death. I took my vows at seven, because I had no other choice. I didn’t understand what I was swearing away.”
“Benjen said you were the best, and the worst, of the Watch.” said Ned. Mance snorted in laughter, but said nothing in reply.
“Is that why you did it, then?” Robert asked. “Turned your cloak and marshalled an army to kill every man you’ve ever known, because they took your childhood from you? You think that’s a compelling story?”
Jon forcefully bit his tongue, to keep himself from speaking on Mance’s behalf. The situation was out of his control, now. All he could do was wait, and see what happened.
Mance narrowed his eyes, and threw back the entirety of his wine in a single gulp. “I do it,” he rasped, face wrinkling, “because if nobody else would, then everything north of your Wall will die.”
Ned straightened in his chair, and glanced over sharply at Jon. Jon met him with a heavy stare.
“Dead.”
“Every man, woman and babe. Every giant, every Child, every bird and beast.” Mance ticked off the groups on his fingers with slow deliberateness. “You southerners, hidden away in your castles and your warm lands, think it’s still Summer. We Free Folk know differently. Winter has arrived, and it sweeps down like a scythe. We will not survive.”
“You’ve lived through hundreds of winters in the North.” said Ned.
“Never one like this.” Answered Mance. “Horrors sweep down from the Lands of Always Winter not seen since the days of the Long Night.”
The leather on Ned’s armrest creaked under the lord’s white-knuckle grip.
“The Long Night?? ” Robert laughed. “You’re trying to bullshit me into believing the Long Night is coming, in the middle of the longest Summer in centuries?” he laughed harder. “Daft fool! We have enough grain for a five-year winter! Jon Arryn took care of that before he went and caught a bad belly!”
Jon couldn’t help but stare at the king. Was he truly so foolish as to dismiss it out of hand? Surely he wouldn’t. And why is Mance being so damned vague about it? He’s here to convince him. He opened his mouth to speak-
Hold your tongue, whispered a voice that smelled of the sea. You’ve been paying too much attention to their words, and not their actions. Feel, Snow.
Jon stopped. His eyes first went to Mance, taking in his posture. He had a casual lean against the wall, swirling his empty wine glass, but now that Jon was paying attention, his neck muscles were tight like cords, and the position of his hand on the metal goblet was more like holding a club than a cup. Ned was wound equally tight, his eyes flickering between Robert’s face and the greatsword still balanced across the king’s knee. They’d both noticed something was off.
As Jon glanced up, away from Ice and to Robert’s face, the king was smiling, full of mocking good humor, but his lips were pulled far enough from his teeth to look halfway to a snarl. And when he met the sideways glance of him, for just an instant, a sudden itch like a bee sting formed in between Jon’s eyebrows.
It took all of Jon’s strength not to fight the urge to bodily recoil. The Raven is here. He’s possessed the King, and everybody else noticed before I did.
You noticed too, Snow. Or rather, I noticed for you. Whispered Lodos. They don’t know what we know, but they know that something about Good King Robert isn’t right. These peace talks will never work as long as the Three-Eyed Raven still has a foothold in this world.
Jon stifled a grimace. The figment of his imagination was right. He’d made a critical blunder, and ruined his plans in the process. Lesson learned. Now he had to salvage something from the situation. “Your Grace.” he said, rising to his feet. “Would it trouble you if I were to hold Ice for you? Our guest might have trouble speaking freely.”
“Ha! A wildling warrior doesn’t like having a naked blade drawn on him, does he?” Robert laughed, but freely passed the hilt to Jon. the boy glanced up to see Mance’s eyes on him, accusing.
Hang it all. I’m seconds away from dying anyways. Jon looked the King Beyond The Wall dead in the eyes, glanced down with a deliberate slowness towards King Robert, and silently enunciated a single word. Warg.
Mance’s eyes went wide as dinnerplates, and stood up slowly, shifting his arm to hide the metal goblet behind his back.
“What you say about Winter coming… is it true?” Asked Ned.
“Aye, Stark. It’s coming.” Said Mance. “If you don’t believe anything else I say, believe that. A hard winter is coming, harder than any I’ve lived through. And when it comes, my people are going to be on the other side of that Wall.”
“The Long Night, he says.” ‘Robert’ chortled. “As if the Others are going to rise from children’s fables and punt your chickens into the lake.” he waggled a thick finger at the wildling. “You know what I think? I think we have done with this and take his head. Maybe seeing his head on a spike will finish this Wildling invasion before it starts.”
“Robert-” Ned said sharply.
“It won’t work, your Grace.” Jon said, cutting him off. “The Fr - the Wildlings won’t stop just because Mance is dead. He’s given them too much momentum - they’ll keep going with or without him. He told me so himself. There’s no point in killing him.”
“There’s always a point to killing those who’ve done wrong to you.” Robert rumbled.
“Is this the man who spared the Tyrells and the Greyjoys when they fought you?” Ned said sharply. “Mace Tyrell nearly killed your brothers, and he keeps his head today. Has sitting on that throne changed you so much?”
“Dammit, Ned!” the King shouted, eyes alight. “You’re the blighted fool who’s going to have a hundred thousand tree-worshipping savages running amok in your lands! It’s your brother who will be the first to die when they reach the Wall, and you’re trying to defend their leader!?”
“If you ordered him dead, then I would be the one swinging the sword.” Ned glared. “Apart from being a deserter, with which you are clearly unconcerned, he’s done nothing yet to earn that death.”
“Pah!” Robert flopped back in his chair, glaring. “You Northerners and your damned honor. Piss on your honor. A deserter is a deserter.”
Jon’s eyes flickered between them all. This is going badly. I might end this life today if I try to push the Raven too hard.
Then redirect him. Whispered Lodos. He wants to sabotage the alliance - let him. But don’t let it happen on his terms. Change the course, like water against a dam. You’ve lived enough lives to know what options you have.
Jon looked up once again at Mance, who was inching closer to the King with his metal goblet conspicuously hidden. He shook his head subtly. “You’re right, your Grace.” Jon said loudly.
“Eh?” Robert turned back to Jon. Mance froze.
“You’re right. Mance is a deserter.” Jon repeated. “But he is also the King Beyond The Wall, and he is your prisoner. Surely, you can think of something more interesting to do with him than the standard deserter treatment.”
“Jon.” Ned said sharply.
“No, no, the boy has a point.” Robert waved his hand. “What are you suggesting, then? Torture? A public execution?”
“I was thinking…” Jon looked at Mance with a firm stare. “That he could be worth more to you alive. At your court.”
Mance’s eyes widened, as Robert leaned back. “A living trophy?” Said Robert. “I grant you, it’ll last longer than a head on a spike. But I don’t go for window-dressing unless it comes with a fucking great pair of tits.”
“I know every bawdy song north or south of the wall, kneeler.” said Mance, pushing himself to his feet. “And I’ve played a lute for half my life.”
Now Robert’s eyes narrowed, and a hand went to stroke his thick beard. “A bard, eh… you did sneak in with the musicians, didn’t you?” a grin spread. “You want to live that badly, eh? You’d sing and dance for the man who captured you to hold off the headsman’s ax?”
Mance glanced over at Jon, his gaze fiery. He’s trusting in me to save him from the Raven. And I’m the one who put us here in the first place. Jon felt his stomach twist at the thought, but dipped his head just a fraction in a secretive nod.
With that, Mance sneered. “Dead is dead.”
A clatter of wood on stone interrupted whatever Robert was going to say. “I don’t believe this.” Said Ned, voice cold as a mountain morning. “You talk of slavery .”
Robert sputtered, as his face turned a fiery red. “HIS LIFE IS FORFEIT!” he roared. “It is my right to do as I please with this traitor!”
“I thought you’d changed.” Ned growled. “All this time, I thought you’d changed. But you’re still the same man you were 15 years ago. Still the same.” the Lord of Winterfell straightened up, fists clenched on his desk.
“You wanted an answer, your Grace - and now you shall have it. My answer is no. No to becoming your Hand, no to joining our houses, and no to any further overtures of camaraderie between us. Any man who would tolerate slavery when convenient is no friend of mine.”
Ned flicked his hand. “Take the prisoner back to his cell, Jon, and inform Vayon Poole to have a suitable gift for his Grace and traveling provisions prepared. He will be leaving shortly.”
Jon quickly lunged towards the unlocked shackles lying on the table and gripped Mance Rayder by the forearm, pulling the older man through the solar’s door and slamming the door shut an instant before Robert’s furious explicative set the door rattling.
“Hands.” Jon said tersely, pulling the King Beyond The Wall down the stairs.
“You knew that wasn’t the King speaking there, didn’t you?” Mance muttered, as Jon wrapped the manacles back around his wrists. “That’s why you saved me from the headsman’s ax.”
Jon said nothing in reply.
Mance scoffed. “You can speak freely, boy. No skinchanger in the world can take my mind. I’ve had old magic protecting me since the day a coven of wood witches swore themselves to me, when I only commanded twenty clans.”
“And how did that work, I wonder…” Jon muttered.
“Blood magic, of course.” Mance replied, simply. “A dozen enemy Wargs, hung upon the branches of a heart-tree until stiff, and I bathed in their cold entrails.” Jon turned to stare at Mance, horrified, who shrugged. “A horror I would rather not repeat, and expensive besides - it took years to find that many skinchangers who refused to follow. But ever since, my loyal skinchangers tell me they can’t even find my mind to grip, much less take. A necessary evil, if I am to be King Beyond The Wall.”
Jon looked askance at the turncoat, and reached out his senses. Instead of finding the solid wall of a sound human mind, he found nothing at all - a sheen of gripless, reflective glass that would never have betrayed a living being had Jon not been staring directly at him.
So that’s why Varamir or the Raven never tried to take him. They weren’t able to. Jon felt a flutter in his chest. Any secrets told to him will stay secret.
As the two of them rounded down to the bottom of the solar tower, Jon gripped Mance’s forearm and pulled him to the side. “I have not been honest about what I know to anyone.” He muttered to the King, barely above a whisper. “But you have seen more than anybody south of the Wall has, and understand the truth of this world better than most. You saw in that room that there is far more happening here than you know.”
Mance looked around the hallways. Utterly empty, save for them - not even a mouse. “Aye.” he whispered back. “Who was that?”
“The Three-Eyed Raven.”
Mance recoiled, staring wordlessly at Jon’s face as if searching for the lie, before muttering a bloody oath in the Forest tongue. “A childhood nightmare came to life, and it’s after my head.”
“It’s not you he’s after - it’s the entire Seven Kingdoms.” Answered Jon. “If the Free Folk die on the wrong side of the wall, that strengthens the Walkers’ hand - but alienating King Robert from his only ally and leaving him defenseless in King’s Landing does it just as well.”
“Aye. Your father was all but commanding his own kneeler king to get out of his home.” Mance’s head swiveled about the hallway once more. “You knew why I was here. You thought our talk could have worked, had the Raven not intervened. What will you do now, boy?”
Jon looked down. What will I do, indeed.
The only thing you can do. Answered Lodos. Improvise. And survive.
The leather of his glove crackled as it curled into a fist. “I have sentenced you to go South to King’s Landing, to be a slave in a land that has outlawed slavery since before even the Valyrians came. And I have condemned Robert Baratheon to a quick death upon his return, surrounded by enemies who have sought his downfall since the moment his son was born.”
He looked up. “It is only just that I go with you, to the South, and make amends for what I have done to you both.”
The sun was halfway behind the distant mountains when Jon finished writing his farewell note. With a quick wipe of his pen on a rag cloth, he folded the paper and placed it prominently on the pillow of his bed. “That ought to set them on the wrong path for long enough.” he muttered, before tightening the fur cloak around his shoulders.
With quick motions, he pulled the satchel of clothing and supplies onto his back and strode out of the family wing of the keep. A pair of servants looked at him and his traveler’s garb strangely, but quickly turned away rather than meet his gaze. They had more to deal with in their duties today than rumormonger, after all.
The King had left in a storm of fury and thunder, shouting that the royal family was quitting Winterfell that moment and that all of their entourage was to follow them before nightfall. All of the Stark servants had been turned upside-down attempting to assist their guests in vacating their quarters they’d only just finished making habitable the day before; half the royal guard hadn’t even finished repacking yet.
The chaos gives an opportunity to work unnoticed, at least. His hand dragged his cloak across the twin handles of his castle-forged longsword and sidearm dagger strapped to his left hip; on the opposite side sat the dagger’s twin, already easily obscured. The horse he had selected for himself was waiting for him outside the side gate of the castle, held by Hodor.
He only needed one more stop, before he was prepared to quit the North.
The regular clamor of the courtyard was replaced with a cacophony of confusion and shouted orders by Lannister gold and Kingsguard white soldiers. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sandor Clegane practically ready to tear the head off of a hapless scullery maid, jabbing a finger at his pack. And above it all, Jon saw Bran clamoring like a monkey across the roofs, in search of the best place to watch the chaos unfold.
The Baratheons are leaving. And Bran is still whole. Something twigged in Jon’s mind at that relieved thought. Jon never was told why it was that Bran fell from the tower, all those years ago. They said in what few letters he received on the wall that he had memory loss, and could not remember. With the wisdom of time, and the perspective of coincidence, Jon was beginning to form a different idea.
Who among these people would have benefitted the most from Bran falling? He saw a maid hauling a case filled with the queen’s belongings; he saw a Kingsguard cloak flutter in the breeze; a flash of golden hair was the only hint of Joffrey’s passing. I can think of three with both the desire, and the ability. But these thoughts are for another time. Bran is safe, for now; let me be content with that.
With a shake of his head, Jon continued onward, dodging around bodies and through the courtyard, until at last he reached the kennels. The kennelmaster walked by at that moment, a leathery tarp full of bloodless organs suspended in his hands. “Ah, Jon!” he called out, smiling. “Busy day, isn’t it? Anything you needed, milord? Just back from the kitchen with the feedin’s, so I was.”
“Thank you.” Jon smiled. “Do you mind if I handle Ghost?”
“No ser, as you will! ‘Tis Lord Stark’s orders, after all, even if the wolves are hungrier than the regular feedin’s.”
The boy reached into the pile and drew out a severed deer heart, cleaned of the viscous leavings of the daily butchery. Immediately, the connection with Ghost drew his eyes up, and smiled; though the direwolf was silent, as always, his eyes were locked on the heart and a small droplet of drool hung from his lips.
Jon chuckled, and knelt before his direwolf. “You’re getting big all over again, aren’t you, boy?” he whispered, as he held out his offering. The beast took it from his hands and started mechanically devouring it. Already, Ghost was at his knees and as big as some hunting dogs. By the time their journey was finished, he could be as tall as his thighs, and tripled in weight.
“You understand what we’re going to do, yes?” he continued. “I trust you to behave in the presence of the royal family. Draw only from my cues if it is necessary for violence. Understand, Ghost?”
The direwolf looked up from it’s meal, fixed his gaze, and gave a soft snort in reply, barely louder than a regular breath.
“Good boy.” Jon reached through the bars and gently ruffled his fur. Even before he came into his Warging, Ghost had always had a supernatural understanding of him. Now, with the link they shared, words were barely necessary. Jon pushed himself back to standing and turned to the kennelmaster. “This evening, once the royal family has left Winterfell, I will be going out hunting with Ghost. I want you to unlock his cage and let him free around sunset; he will find his way to me. Understand?”
“Eh?” the man looked surprised. “Just let him wander? Beg pardon, but the direwolves-”
“Have you ever known Ghost to be anything but restrained?” Jon replied. “I am not Rickon to let him run wild. You have my word.”
“Ehhh… if you say so. But if he runs off, I’ll not be held responsible by your lord father, understand?”
“Understood.” Jon stared off into the courtyard, where the massive carriage was being loaded. “By the time my lord father notices,” he muttered quietly, “there will be no turning back.”
When Jon slipped out under the cover of night, through the Godswood exit, nobody questioned him. They must have recognized him, by the way that Ghost loped alongside him, but the guards simply nodded and let him through. Perhaps they simply thought he was going on a late night hunt - while uncommon, it was still summer and therefore not unheard of.
They will rue their laxity once Father realizes what I have done, Jon thought dourly, as he prodded his steed into a fast canter. The cold Northern air whipped by his face and set his hair whirling behind him, as snow began to fall from above.
It was not a difficult task to catch up to the royal caravan - even travelling on the Kingsroad, such a large procession took time, to say nothing of the cumbersome carriage that the royal family traveled in. When Jon at last saw their nightly cookfires in the distance, the waxing moon had begun to rise behind him, setting the scene in stark relief.
The guards, at least, were swift on the uptake. Long before he could come within hailing distance, half a dozen men had risen to block his path, one of whom bore a distinctive white cloak. Lannister’s been banished from his sister’s bed while her husband is around, Jon thought darkly to himself.
“Hold there!” shouted another, hand dropped to his hilt. “No further, stranger, until you identify yourself!”
Jon didn’t put much stock in the threat, but slowed to a stop anyways. “I believe Ser Jaime can vouch for my identity.” he called out, as Ghost came to a running halt beside his horse.
Backlit as he was by the fires, Jon could take some amusement from how Jaime’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. “You’re Lord Stark’s bastard.” he said, straightening up. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to see the King.” Jon announced, loudly. The camp started to take notice of him, now, as more and more soldiers turned to face him. “I have something to tell him that he will be eager to know.”
“You’re not in Winterfell anymore, boy.” said one of the guards, who hadn’t lowered his guard. “You don’t get to see the king just because you’re Stark’s get.”
“Tell him I’m here, then.” said Jon, glaring down. “I’ll wait as long as I need.”
“You really don’t want to do that-”
“What in blue hells issss going on out there?!” from an ornately large tent, situated strategically behind the carriage, a half-naked Robert Baratheon stumbled. His undershirt split open at the chest to expose his enormously swollen belly, and his wild-flying hair helped only to accentuate the bright red pallor of alcohol in his face, but at his emergence the entire camp snapped to alert and saluted nearly as one.
“Your grace.” said Jaime as he bowed (not nearly as low as one would expect of a Kingsguard, Jon noted). “We have… an unexpected visitor.”
“Fuck the vvvisitors. I don’t care if it’s the damned Stranger himself, I - I was busy!” Robert shouted, stumbling wildly to one side even while standing still. Now that he had the firelight to help, he could see just how glazed his eyes were, and how swollen his face was. If Jon didn’t know any better, he would say it was the face of a man who had been both drinking and crying in equal measure.
“Your grace.” Jon called.
Robert swiveled around at his call, and took more than a few seconds to fixate on him properly. “Yyyyyou!” he pointed a shaking finger. “You fuck’n… Stark!”
“I am aware that you did not leave Winterfell under the best of terms.” Jon called. From the corner of his eye, he could see Queen Cersei poke her still-immaculately-coifed head out from the royal tent, eyes narrowed to slits. “One would almost deem it an insult. Therefore, I came to make amends on behalf of my lord father.”
“I don’t- I DON’T need any amends from that pissant!” Robert roared. “Did I need any amends when I ruled these kingdoms for fifteen fucking years and he sat and rotted in his damp little hole of a keep!? I didn’t need them then, and I don’t need them now!”
“Not even when it is a gift of Valyrian steel?”
The only thing that could be heard in the camp after that was the crackling of the cookfires, and the popping of ripe deer fat. Robert’s eyes seemed fit to bulge out of his skull, but no words came out of his mouth.
“I offer you that and more, your Grace.” Said Jon, as he slowly dismounted. Ghost pulled close to him, then, and the boy gently curled his fingers into the direwolf’s soft fur. “My father refused your offer to be his hand, and so in recompense I shall gift you one just as loyal, and twice as resourceful. With this shall come the allegiance of a house you never even considered. All I ask for in return… is a place in your court.”
“Bullshite.” Was the king’s immediate response. “Lies from your bastard father.”
“Was it lies when I caught you the King Beyond The Wall?” Asked Jon, glancing around the camp as he did so. He didn’t see anything that appeared to be a prison… and yet, off in the distance, a trio of guards were set around a single fire, with an indistinct lump beside them. “Was it lies when I convinced him to swear himself to you?” he lifted a hand to his breast. “All you need to, King Robert, is to trust me. Ride with me to Barrowton, and you will have a parting gift that befits a king.”
“Barrowton?” Said Jaime. “But that’s days of riding off the Kingsroad. You’d have us detour that hard when the ride is already months long?”
“The ride would be faster if the King rode with only part of his entourage, and the royal family continued with the carriage.” Jon replied, glancing blankly at the Lannister. “And the reward is worth it.” he refocused on the king, whose mouth had set in a firm little line. “You may no longer trust my father - that is your right, Your grace. But do you still trust me?”
“This is ridiculous.” Sandor Clegane muttered from the background, but Robert lifted a clenched fist at the words, and any further comments were stifled. The king stared at Jon for a long moment, before opening his mouth to answer.
A soft rapping noise broke the silence of Winterfell keep.
“Jon.” Theon whispered. “Are you there?” the Greyjoy nervously wrung the forearm of his shirt as he waited for the response. “I was hoping we could… talk. You seem… different, and I remembered…” he sighed.
“I remembered that argument we had, in the great hall. And I know it sounds mad, but… I remembered a dream I had, back then, that I’m not sure was really…” he trailed off, before scowling. “Say something, you bastard! Don’t make me stand at the door explaining myself!”
Nothing.
An angry hiss escaped Theon’s lips, before throwing the door open. “If you’re asleep-!” he stopped. The room was empty. The bedsheets neatly folded for storage, and on top of the pile was a sealed letter.
Theon snatched up the letter, and without hesitation tore it open. He scanned over the contents for only a moment before a gasp escaped him, and he stumbled out of the door.
“Lord Stark! LORD STARK!”
Notes:
If you need anybody to thank for the re-emergence of myself onto the internet, you can thank my sister. She shamed me to, and I quote, “Update your shit, my guy.” She also requested a credit in the author's notes for her services. Thank you, Shannon, you were the kick in the ass I needed.
What a fucking year, eh? And things just keep getting worse. At least Final Fantasy 14 slaps, though. I’ve been hooked on that since january of 2021, if you were all wondering where I went. It really became my main comfort game when I don’t want to be doing any thinking about anything, and I think we can all agree that this last period of time has had a lot of points where we all wanted to stop thinking. I needed to tear myself away eventually, though - you guys were waiting for me.
So, yeah. Here I am. Back at it again. Fingers crossed I remember what I had planned for the next arc. I’ve certainly gotten some new ideas from some of the books I’ve binged recently. If anybody wants a recommendation, the Stormlight archives from Brandon Sanderson is an absolute bop of a series.
To everybody who messaged me during the past year - I wasn’t ignoring you. I legit forgot what my password was, and couldn’t be assed to reset it to respond to everyone, lmao. I did read your messages when they got emailed to me, though, so I appreciate the support as well as the wild theorycrafting.
See you next chapter. Love to all of you. enjoy.
(There’s probably a bunch of spelling and grammar and continuity errors in this right now, but it’s 2 in the morning and I’m a little drunk, so I’m just gonna put it out there for you guys and correct it later.)
Chapter 20: Life Seven: Part 3
Summary:
The road to King's Landing.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“I’ll be damned…” King Robert Baratheon murmured, staring down at the wrapped bundle of rotten leather in his hand, still damp from the gravemud. Jon stood silently by his side, clenching his fists. “All this time, sitting in an unmarked grave…” His thick fingers brushed aside the leather to reveal the equally destroyed sheath, but through the patches shone a blade as unmarred as it had been the day it had been forged.
Jon wasn’t paying much attention to the king’s words at that moment. Instead, he was staring out at the landscape - or, more precisely, the shredded remains of it. Ned Stark had taken his words to heart, it seemed. Far more than Jon had initially realized - as far as the eye could see, what should have been gentle slopes of long-forgotten graves and cairns had been ripped up and unearthed wholesale by Dustin hands. Even the trees had been torn out by the stumps.
The only reference point I have for where they found this sword, Jon thought moodily, is the direction that we’re facing the city of Barrowton. That and the distance from it.
Still, it gave a rough estimate for the future. Perhaps he wouldn’t even need to involve the Dustins in another life, if it came to it. They certainly hadn’t been happy when the King rode up, accompanied by a third of the caravan’s guard, and demanded the sword. No doubt they would be sending word to Winterfell as soon as they were away, and expose Jon’s farewell note to Essos as the wild goose-chase that it was.
The sound of live steel drew Jon’s attention back to the king, as Robert cast away the rotten sheath from the now-naked blade. “The Hightowers…” he murmured, staring at the engraved words on the sword hilt. “He killed a Hightower, you know. During the rebellion.”
“Who, your Grace?”
“Who else? Your bastard father, Ned.” Robert replied. “Gerold Hightower, the White Bull. Killed him at the Tower of Joy, along with Arthur Dayne and Oswell Whent. Dragonlovers, all of them, but legends in truth. Seven against three, it was, and they still nearly won if it wasn’t for that Reed fellow. If I’d been there…!” he trailed off. “If… I’d been there…”
The point of Vigilance dipped slightly. “But I wasn’t. I listened to Tywin Lannister, instead. And now I have a Lannister wife, and Lannister children, and Lannister Kingsguard, and Lannister fucking squires.” He turned and spit over his shoulder. “And Ned Stark would rather break bread with the Hightowers than me, the man who would have been his brother.”
Wrong. My mother chose to start a war rather than marry you. For better or for worse, you would never have become his brother. But Jon said none of that aloud, and instead quietly pursed his lips.
“You’ve done well, Jon Snow.” King Robert said, at last breaking from his reverie. “Stole a priceless treasure from your family to offer an apology on your own.”
“I never said-”
“Bullshite.” Robert cut him off. “Your father didn’t approve of you telling me about this expedition. You did it on your own, and robbed the Starks of an alliance with the Hightowers in the doing. If your family were any less cuddly there’d be a death warrant out for you the moment they learn. A bastard’s trick, and no lies.”
Slowly, Jon nodded. “Very well. Yes, Lord Stark does not know I told you of this. He also does not know I am here with you. He believes I have run off to Pentos, to make my fortune among the traders. A trick, to delay the moment soldiers come riding down the Kingsroad after me until after we cross the Neck.”
“I thought all of Ned’s sprogs had his honor beaten into them. I see it didn’t stick with you.” Said Robert, and Jon had to forcefully suppress the bodily wince the statement caused him. “Seeing as how you’re the only Stark worth a streak of piss, though, might be a good thing in the end.”
“With respect, your Grace, I’m not a Stark.”
“No. You’re bloody well not, are you?” Robert eyed Jon with a malicious gleam in his eye, and a cruel smirk. “Might be we fix that. Guards!” he shouted, as his entourage turned to face him as one. “We ride!”
“Back to the Kingsroad, your Grace?” Asked Jaime, who appeared even more sour than usual for being the Kingsguard picked to ride with Robert on the detour whenever he thought nobody was watching. “Catch up with the carriage?”
Robert’s eyes narrowed at the suggestion. “Back to my loving family and the snails’ pace. I think not.”
Jon blinked in rapid succession. “Your Grace?”
“You said it yourself. Your father will come tearing down the Kingsroad after you.” He grinned a toothy expression. “So we’ll let them. Let’s see how that ‘honorable’ prick feels about menacing a carriage full of women and children. We, on the other hand, will take the country roads.”
“But-!” Jaime bit back his angry response, visibly calmed himself, and started again. “May I remind you, your Grace, that we only took supplies for the straight path. We will need to restock, and our funds were left behind with the wagon train.”
“Sod the funds, I’m the bloody King of Westeros!” Robert exclaimed, setting the destrier he was riding prancing uneasily. “They’ll give us the supplies we need, or else!”
“We’re not a damned rampaging army, we are a dozen men on horse!”
Well. This is going well. Jon groused internally, as he watched the king take a long pull on a (presumably alcoholic) wineskin. It’s not a bad idea, but I’d rather not start off my place in the court by convincing him to rob the smallfolk with his name.
The king still kept drinking the wineskin, rather pointedly ignoring Jaime’s sputtering. Is he going to come up for air at some point? Just how big is that wineskin? His eyes trailed across the item… and landed on the king’s hand, glittering with rings. Or rather, one ring in particular.
“Your grace…” Said Jon, eyes narrowed in disbelief. “Is that your signet ring on your middle finger?”
“Mmm?” Robert pulled away, wiping his mouth clumsily with his arm before holding his hand up. “It is. What of it?”
Father never brings his signet out of his solar. I’ve never once seen him actually wear it properly, and this man takes his ring all the way into another kingdom. With a quiet shake of his head, Jon smiled. “Then you have something just as good as gold - your word.”
As it turned out, much to Jaime’s annoyance, many common villagers are far more willing to indulge a King riding up to their doorstep and demanding food and shelter when he hands them a signed and sealed declaration that they no longer have to pay taxes for the year.
While Robert sat inside a warm home feasting on salt pork tenderloin and honeyed bread, ( and, in the Lannister’s opinion, attempting to fuck the buxom daughter of his host, ) the rest of his host were shunted outside into the cold Northern evening for guard duty. They’d set up their tents outside the village square, and half of their number were attempting to catch a dozen winks of sleep before their night shift came about.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been in the low country since becoming Kingsguard, but Robert’s hunting expeditions rarely went so far afield, and the fields of shit and frozen rock were beginning to wear on him. That, and even the local yokels had apparently heard of the Kingslayer, for none of them went near him without looks of fear.
Bad enough when it’s the nobility - at least then I can unnerve them with words. These dirt farmers won’t even open their mouths around me. Thought Jaime. From inside, the boisterous laughter of King Robert broke the silence. Drunk already on pisswater ale, I assume.
From around the corner, Ser Boros Blount marched, his fat bald head and jowls looking no more intimidating for the Kingsguard cloak about his shoulders. “Ser Jaime.” he greeted.
“Ser Boros.” Jaime rolled his shoulders. “Shift change already?”
“Aye.”
“Be ready to pull the King to safety should the daughter not accept his advances. Try not to kill anyone.” Boros grimaced at Jaime’s words, but nodded anyway and took a position at the door. All the Kingsguard knew that the last thing a drunken King Robert enjoyed was a woman with self-esteem. Jaime didn’t doubt that, as Cersei’s creature, Boros would mark down this house for future agents to poison the water of and remove a potential bastard.
The Kingslayer hadn’t made it halfway back to the campsite before his alert gaze caught a glint of steel from the corner of his eye. Immediately, his hand went to his sword. “Reveal yourself, before I gut you.” he commanded.
A moment of hesitation, before a familiar figure rose from a sitting position in the shadows. “My apologies, Ser Jaime. It was not my intention to startle you.”
Jaime’s hand did not leave the hilt of his blade, but his grip did loosen. “Snow.” he answered. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with knives?”
Instead of growing irate, as he’d intended with the barbed words, Jon Snow simply snorted and sat back down in the light, and went back to flipping a pair of twin daggers in his grip. It wasn’t an expert technique, to Jaime’s eyes. It was the movements of someone still learning, still acutely aware of their fingers. And yet, one hand is far more experienced with the weight than the other, even if it’s a new move. The Honorable Lord Stark certainly didn’t teach his bastard son how to knife-fight. He learned that on his own.
“If my mother ever told me anything, I’ve certainly forgotten it.” Said Jon. “Do you, Ser Jaime?”
“Do I what?”
“Remember the last thing your mother told you.”
It took all of Jaime’s control to keep his face placid. “Take care of your little brother, Tyrion.” he lied. He didn’t remember; he could barely even remember her face, let alone her voice.
Jon smiled. “Yes. and what a happy, well-adjusted adult he became under your watchful gaze.”
Unbidden, a vision of a girl flashed before his eyes, covered in the semen of a dozen men and covered in silver coins. Now, Jaime’s practiced composure broke, and his lips parted in a silent snarl. Jon saw this and held up his hands, still full of daggers. “Forgive me, brave knight. I had heard you enjoyed the game of trying to wound with words. I was only trying to play the role you gave me.”
Jaime didn’t trust Snow one bit, not from the moment he first saw him at the banquet. No matter what expression he wore, he had a look in his eyes like Littlefinger or the Spider, always hiding just how much they knew. The fact that he had so alarmingly quickly unraveled the plans of everybody around him and wormed his way into Robert’s graces only concerned him more. But more than anything, it was the expression he had when looking at Jaime - like he was seeing right through him.
The fact that he knew how to hurt him in ways he didn’t know he still had hurts about, when they’d never before spoken in their lives, told him all he needed to know. This Northern bastard was dangerous.
From behind him, the boy’s direwolf companion padded up silently, thumping it’s head against his shoulder. One hand dropped a dagger back into a sheath and began absently scritching behind the beast’s ears. “I don’t know what’s going to get you into more trouble in the Capital,” said Jaime, “your beast or your tongue.”
Jon chuckled. “My tongue, clearly. Ghost is as tame as they come; he doesn’t do a thing that I don’t know and approve of. My tongue, on the other hand, must be guarded constantly.” he rolled his neck, gently cracking it. “I wonder. If they cut off my tongue, and they cut off your sword hand, would the dishonor leave us both?”
“Is that a threat?” Jaime asked flatly.
“Not at all.” Jon replied, now grinning. “More like… a challenge.” he stood, and Jaime now realized that there was a third sheath hidden under his voluminous pelt coat - of course he’d also brought a longsword. “Sparring against you at your full potential would be… a great pleasure, to me.”
A part of him wondered just what the boy meant by ‘full potential’, but the greater part of Jaime relished the chance to beat the brat into the ground. “You’re liable to lose a hand, sparring with live steel.” he said, drawing his blade partway out of his sheath.
Jon Snow stared at the bared sword quietly. One hand quietly drummed a pattern on his nondescript handle, while the other continued flipping the dagger from forward to reverse grip. He’s considering it. A live steel spar against a Kingsguard. Say one thing for him, either he’s brave, or foolhardy.
After a long moment, Snow quietly sheathed his dagger. “Perhaps not, then.” he said, with a smile that almost seemed apologetic. “We can wait for a time when neither of us will be handicapped. I want to see the Lion of Lannister at his full, untarnished heights.”
The boy turned away from him, then, and started walking away. “You’ll be waiting a long time, then.” Jaime called. “You’ll only find Kingslayers here.”
Jon stopped, and turned back. “Would I? But that was your finest act.”
The words hit Jaime like a wet sock to the face, setting him blinking rapidly as the direwolf joined his master.
He’s been talking with Tyrion, he thought to himself. He heard him say that. And yet, as the boy disappeared behind a village building, he could not help but still feel unnerved.
Jon Snow, he was more convinced than ever, was dangerous.
The world faded around Jon’s eyes as the water filled his lungs. His chest burned, his arms throbbed, his feet weakly thrashed about him, but still, more and more the river entered his lungs and drained the light from his eyes. His fingers began to finally lose the strength to hold on…
With a final, rasping gasp, Jon pulled his head from the river, head spinning with power and oxygen deprivation in equal measure. With a hacking cough, he rolled onto his side with practiced ease to evacuate the water from his lungs. His eyes throbbed and his extremities tingled; all familiar sensations from his time as Lodos.
A stoop-backed man cradles a spark in one hand, his face frozen in the act of blowing on the nascent flame. Descending from above, the Sun walks down the steps into the depths, and the spark leaps to bask in the radiance freely given. Fire feeds upon Fire.
The weary demon sits atop his throne of swords, the weight of years falling from his face, seeing eyes bloodshot from disuse. His hand stretches out in accusation, and the realm shatters from the blow. Above, a spider frantically mends a broken web, while a sparrow sings a new song.
At last, as the twin visions faded and his strength returned, Jon raised a clenched fist and the waters of the Fever River rose with it. “It worked…” he whispered. “I gave a secret already given, and it worked…”
It cannot be a coincidence that an old god intervened to teach us a magic so easily exploitable by you. Lodos whispered in his mind. Would that the rest of what led to our previous life was not also necessary.
Jon didn’t answer, but instead let out a soft laugh. He’d been practically given a hand-wrapped gift of secrets to sacrifice by people desperate to forget. Babes accidentally smothered in the crib by neglectful mothers. Family fortunes usurped. Countless regrets only remembered by old men. And to find out now that they could be sacrificed once again, after he was reborn…
“I grow more dangerous by the day.” he muttered to himself, before grabbing a traveling cloth to dry his hair. He needed to make himself somewhat presentable before returning to camp.
It didn’t take more than five minutes to climb up and around the hill to the campsite they’d chosen, along the banks of the Fever River. The high elevation meant that the area was actual ground, instead of boggy swamp along the opposite bank, and it gave them a good view of the true opening of The Neck. Moat Cailin was within a day’s ride, and it wasn’t sure whether or not they would meet up with the Carriage at that point.
When Jon walked back in site of the campfire, the guards looked at him and his wet hair with an askance look. “Took a dip in the river.” he answered.
“They call it the Fever River for a reason.” one of them muttered.
“If I catch Greywater, I’ll make sure to die away from the rest of you.”
“Is that you I hear, Snow?” the entire camp stiffened at the sound of the King’s voice. “In the tent! I’d have a word with you.”
Jon gifted the guard a wry smile as he quickly moved to meet the King’s demand. Robert was there, in the tent with a waterskin in his hand. “There you are. Sit. “ he gestured at the tamped-down ground, which Jon dutifully sat on. “I’ve made a decision.”
“On?” Jon asked.
“On your request. The king answered. “You asked to be an advisor - now you are. If Leyton Hightower is to be my Hand, then you are to be the ring on his finger. You’ll be involved in anything that the Small Council is deemed necessary for.”
Jon’s heart thumped loudly. This is what I asked for, isn’t it? Under normal circumstances, this would be considered an immense honor. “I am honored, Your Grace.”
“Don’t be.” Robert retorted. “You asked to help run my kingdom while I eat, drink and whore my way into an early grave.” he took a long pull from his waterskin.
Jon closed his eyes for a moment. The power he wielded now was powerful, but fragile, like an obsidian weapon. He needed to choose carefully how he wielded it - the vision of what was clearly meant to be Robert causing another war lay heavy on his mind. “Permission to advise, then.”
Robert scoffed. “Granted.”
“If you are so unsatisfied with your Lannister-dominated court, then why haven’t you bothered to try and counteract it?”
Robert lowered the waterskin. “What do you mean?”
“As someone who has only read of the court of King’s Landing,” Jon said slowly, “it appears as though your Small council, and your circle of allies, has remained remarkably… static. Your Master of Laws and Master of Ships are your brothers. Your Grand Maester and Master of Whispers are leftovers from Targaryen rule. And your former Hand and Master of Coin are, or were, Valemen.”
Robert’s eyes narrowed. “What are you getting at?”
“Personnel is policy, your Grace.” Jon closed his eyes. A lesson I learned the hard way, on the Wall. a phantom pain throbbed through the scar over his heart. “It is not something that can be ignored, or delegated. But these positions, which should be high honors, have been given to… what appears to my eyes to already-solid allies, who may or may not be the most competent choices.” he glanced up at Robert, who seemed to slowly be processing the criticism. “Our overture to Lord Hightower will be the first attempt by the Baratheons of King’s Landing to form new relationships.”
“So you’d have me give control over my ships to the dragonlovers I defeated, is that it?”
“Perhaps not in the beginning, so close to the end of the war.” Jon answered, slowly clenching and unclenching his fist. “But after a time, wounds must be bound, and bridges mended. What will you leave to your son, once people no longer fear the retribution of the Demon of the Trident?”
What Jon really wanted to say was that every single person on his small council was either secretly plotting his downfall or would tear apart the kingdom in civil war once he died. Robert had already been possessed once before, however; he certainly wasn’t going to tip his hand so stupidly while he still had the element of secrecy.
Robert leaned forward, shadows flickering over his face from the lit lantern. “Let’s walk this through, then. Who shall I remove from the council, to mend bridges with my enemies? Hmm? Shall I replace Pycelle with Oberyn Martell, the poisoner whose dead sister was Rhaegar’s wife? Baelish with Mace Tyrell, and see if he tries to siege my brothers once again from across my own banquet table? Shall I put a Greyjoy in charge of my ships, and watch as pirates run amok wearing my colors?”
Asha would be a fine Master of Ships, Lodos whispered in his ear. But Jon didn’t repeat that aloud, instead shaking his head. “I did not mean to offend, Your Grace, or to suggest replacing men I’ve never met. All that was meant was that binding the wounds of war requires more than just peace. Forgiveness is won from marriages and honors, and as you only have the one daughter who is still very young, we must make due with honors.”
“Forgiveness!?” Robert shouted. “Why should I be the one to forgive when I’m the one who was wronged!? Let them come to me scraping on their knees!”
Jon winced. He’d pushed the limits too quickly. “Understood, your Grace. Forget we had this conversation, if it pleases you.” he got up from his seat and quickly bowed, turning away.
“Did I dismiss you, Snow?”
The boy froze.
“I’ll say this once, and once only, because you are new to court,” said Robert. “When your king summons you to meet, you don’t leave until you are granted leave to go. Understood?”
Jon slowly let his breath escape. For all the talk of Robert Baratheon going to fat sitting on the throne, there was still an intensity that showed who he could be, if he only chose to. “Yes, your Grace.”
“Good. One question, then, and you can go.” Jon’s eyes flicked to the waterskin in Robert’s hand - his tight grip was deforming the leather beneath his fingers. “What did your father tell you about me?”
“Your Grace?”
“You heard me.” Robert’s expression was flat. “He must have mentioned me. What did he say?”
Jon closed his eyes, casting his thoughts back. He wasn’t going to lie, but his true childhood was so long ago. “Nothing, your Grace.”
“Nothing?” Robert’s eyes widened.
“He did not speak of you to us, his children, until the death of Jon Arryn.” Answered Jon. “What we learned about you and he, we learned from history books, or retainers.”
“Not once…?” Robert murmured. “Not even after the Greyjoys…?”
“Perhaps he spoke of you then,” Jon admitted, “but I was only a boy of five summers. I cared more about my father returning from war safely.”
Robert seemed to slump into his seat. “Fifteen years, and not a word…” he blinked. “Fifteen years… fifteen, you say.” Jon watched with growing bemusement as the king stared silently at the waterskin in his hand. After an uncomfortably long silence, Robert grunted. “You may go.”
With a quick bow, Jon turned from the tent and left. Robert watched him go, eyes narrowed, as his thick fingers drummed a steady pattern on the stand beside him. “Marriage and honors, he says…” Robert muttered. After a long pause, he grimaced. “Blount! Get in here.”
Within seconds, the Kingsguard was inside the tent. “Your Grace.”
“I know you heard that. You’re going to forget the idiot boy said any of that.” Robert ordered. “And if you don’t, I’ll know.”
Boros gave a well-practiced nod. “As you command, your Grace.”
“One more thing. When we are past the Neck, I have a job for you. If you fail, I’ll have your head. Understand?”
“Y-your Grace?”
“ Understand?” Robert growled. Boros quickly nodded again. “Good. Now, here’s what I want…”
It was the sixth day of rest at the Crossroads Inn, as King Robert began to grow irritable with the forced stop, that the royal carriage finally caught up to them.
Jon stood to the back of the greeting lineup, out of sight, as Robert and Jaime stood at attention as the lumbering beast rolled to a stop before them. Cersei stepped out after a moment, perfectly put together without a single hair out of place. She held out her hand, and Robert pressed his lips against her knuckles for a perfunctory second, more for ceremony’s sake than any real affection.
“I was beginning to think you had rode all the way to the capital without us.” she said, tightly.
“I would have.” he answered, as he quickly stepped away the moment she was on the ground. “Your brother demanded otherwise.”
Jon glanced to the side, eyes peeled for other mops of golden hair. Joffrey sat atop a horse attended by the Hound Clegane, while Myrcella and Tommen sat dutifully inside the carriage waiting for their mother’s permission to exit. Of the Imp, there was no sign.
A wordless thought passed to Ghost set the direwolf moving, padding silently through the entourage. The horses reared in fright and men shied away at the beast’s albino-red eyes. Ghost ignored all of them, following an easy scent upon the wind as Jon refocused on the royal couple.
“Where is Blount?” Cersei asked.
“Sent him on a mission.” Robert replied gruffly. “He’ll rejoin us at King’s Landing.”
She grimaced. “So you only had one Kingsguard with you.”
“You think your brother is not up to the task?” Robert asked, eyes narrow. “Or is it the missing pair of eyes that bothers you?”
Her grimace deepened, but only for a moment before Cersei’s expression flattened. “Are we to ride to Oldtown, then? To meet with this Lord Hightower?”
“The inn had a raven trained for King’s Landing.” Robert shook his head. “I’ve sent it ahead with an order for Hightower to present himself at court. At this point it’ll be halfway to Oldtown on a second pair of wings.”
“I expect there is a bath drawn already? Come, Tommen, Myrcella. It is time to wash up.” The two children quickly followed after their mother’s heels as she disappeared inside the inn without looking back. Robert shook his head, before waving his hand lazily to dismiss the group.
Certainly no love lost between the two of them, Jon thought to himself. How Robert has never had the thought that Cersei gave him the horns is the real mystery.
Perhaps he has. Lodos whispered. But who would think to beware becoming a cuckold to your wife’s own brother? No sane man would think it possible.
A silent impulse in his mind ended the train of thought, and Jon grinned. The Imp had been found, and in an interesting place. He followed the feeling from Ghost, and quickly found himself among the prisoner’s train.
Tyrion was there, sitting on a box crate with a book in hand, alongside Mance Rayder and a single guard watching the chain around the wildling’s wrists. “Ah, Jon Snow!” Tyrion called out, dog-earing a page and snapping his book shut. “I thought I might see you soon once your beast appeared. How was your adventure?”
“Productive.” Jon answered, squatting down. “The sword was found by the Dustins, and the King showed up in time to claim it for himself. They could not refuse him.”
“They certainly tried.” Mance let out a low chuckle. “Quite the adventure in the Neck when Stark riders nearly attacked us.”
“My apologies for that.” Jon looked up at the guard. “You may leave us. I will keep watch on the prisoner.”
“I have strict orders-”
“If you think you can do a better job menacing a chained man than that enormous monster right there,” Tyrion said, gesturing at Ghost, “you’re a bigger fool than I thought. Leave us.” the guard scowled, but nodded curtly and left.
“The riders mentioned you, you know.” said Tyrion. “Naughty boy, Snow. They all but accused us of kidnapping and torturing you. If it were possible for relations between the North and the Crown to get worse, you have caused it single-handedly.”
“You’d nearly think Stark considered you a true son, the way he reacted.” said Mance, offhandedly. Tyrion cocked his head at that, and turned to face Jon.
“You’re not wrong, wildling.” the Imp stroked his misshapen chin, staring at Jon intensely. “Now that I think about it, there’s something vaguely familiar about your face. Perhaps the rumors about Lady Ashara were true, after all?”
Jon couldn’t help the grimace. Of all the people to start wondering about my mother, it’s Tyrion Lannister.
Tyrion scoffed once. “Oh, don’t make such a face. When you reach King’s Landing, every minor lord and lady will be gossiping about your parentage in much less flattering terms. I actually like your company, so I’m being honest to your face - you certainly won’t receive that courtesy from them. Especially if you continue to make waves the way you have now.”
“They can gossip all they like about my mother.” Jon said, finally. “Lord Stark has told me as much about her as he has the realm at large.”
Tyrion shrugged. “Even better. With nobody to countermand you, you might as well take advantage of the rumors. If you make as big a splash as you already have, the Daynes certainly won’t complain if you imply you’re a secret scion.”
“Perhaps.” Jon slowly closed his eyes. “Do you mind if I speak privately to the prisoner, Tyrion? I will rejoin you later.”
The dwarf’s eyebrow arched. “As you wish.” the Lannister got up from his seat and slowly waddled away, whistling off-key.
Mance stared at Jon intently. “We’re not alone, if you’re thinking of Him.” he whispered.
“Where we’re going, this will be as empty a space as we’ll ever find.” Jon replied. He took a deep breath. “Important things must be said now, so that they can remain unspoken later. Your gift from the wood witches is the only reason I can safely tell you at all.”
“Why?” Asked Mance. “Is that what you’re going to tell me? tell me the reason why He’s after you, and I got caught in it?”
Jon slowly nodded. “More or less, yes. But also why I couldn’t leave you to your death.” he took a deep breath, and began again in a low voice. “You see… in another life, very different from this one, you and I were good-brothers. Your wife and mine were sisters, and when we first met, I was wearing the black of the Wall…”
Mance listened to Jon’s quiet words with an increasingly stony expression. He didn’t tell him the whole of his many lives - only the synopsis of his first, and the moment he realized he was trapped to repeat his lives by a foreign god. The Bard-King said nothing for a long while.
“It sounds like a madman’s dream, I know, but by the Old Gods and New, every word I have spoken is the truth.”
“... This is how you knew I was at the feast, then.” Mance murmured. “Because in another life, I escaped as planned, and bragged about it.” He stared off into the distance, quietly, before refocusing on Jon. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because, ironically enough, you are the one person least likely to die in King’s Landing.” Answered Jon. Mance’s eyebrow arched. “You’re Robert’s morality personified, now. He lost my father’s affection because of you, but not through his actions. You don’t know this, locked away from the camp as you are, but hardly a day goes by that Robert does not curse you in his cups. He is tormented by what he thinks he’s done to you and what it’s lost him, and despite his best attempts otherwise, he cares about Lord Stark’s opinion of him.”
Jon leaned in. “And if I, a stranger to court politics, can realize that you are a protected man, you can be sure others will realize much faster, and attempt to use you. I told you all of this to show you that, no matter what others offer, I can offer you more than they ever could.”
“Hmph.” Mance snorted. “You want my service as a spy against the spies in exchange for promises that will only ever be cashed by another ‘me’. A better afterlife, like a hedge priest on the hill.” Mance glanced away for a long moment, a sneer on his lips. “Tell me this then, boy.”
Jon nodded.
“This wife of mine you say I had. Dalla. When did I meet her?”
Jon fought down the urge to wince, and instead looked him in the eyes. “On your way back from the feast.”
Mance grunted. “And what happened to her, and the son you say I had with her?”
“... Dead, but not by our hand - We never saw their bodies. Around the time of the failed assault on the Wall.”
“Where you shot me through the heart to ‘save’ me from burning for your Red God.” Mance scoffed.
“Not my god. I never asked for any of this. I was happy.” Jon growled. A memory of Val came unbidden to him, dancing in the falling leaves with their two children, and his chest tightened. “I had a family, too, in that other life.”
“Hmph.” Mance shook his head, before going quiet again, staring at the ground. After a long moment, he looked up. “Did I love her?”
“I’m told you treated her well.”
“... did she love me?”
Jon, after a long pause, nodded. “Yes. Val was clear on that. You were often in her thoughts when they spoke.”
“Hmph.” Mance shifted in his spot, chains rattling as he did. “... Leave me.” Jon opened his mouth to respond, but a sharp grunt from the wildling King cut him off. “You said what needed to be said. You revealed your secrets to me, timewalker, and for that I thank you. Now leave me to my thoughts.”
With great reluctance, Jon stood. “Whatever you decide… what was said here must never be spoken aloud again. Should it pass either of our lips, we will both die.”
“Want me to swear it in blood?” Mance rolled his eyes. “I understand the risks, boy. Leave me.”
Ghost silently padded to Jon’s side, and gently bumped him with his snout. With a soft chuckle, Jon threaded his fingers through his fur and walked away. Mance’s eyes lingered on his retreating back for a moment, before staring back down at the manacles around his wrists.
Once more, Jon could smell their approach to King’s Landing before he could see it.
As the caravan passed through the Dragon Gate into the city proper, Jon could not help but reflect back to his last, disastrous foray into the capital. Theon had been at his side, more of a true companion then than he had ever been in any life, and he had died for his stupid mistakes. Come to think on it, Jon thought, there has never been a time where Theon has not died for my mistakes. Not even in my first life. The thought saddened him, oddly enough.
And now he was here, not a conquering warlord or an unknown traveler but at the side of a rightful king. It was likely his safest entry to King’s Landing yet, but only by fractions. He would have to act carefully.
“You’ve never seen such a gathering of people before, have you, Snow?” Tyrion asked, riding next to him on his modified saddle. All around them, the peasant Kingslanders parted like the sea before the outriding Gold Cloaks, who had joined the procession the moment they entered the walls.
“The North cannot compare with the sheer numbers of the Capital, it is true.” Jon answered carefully. “Yet I would like to believe that even the meanest beggar of Wintertown is more cared for than the people I see around us.”
“‘Tis nothing more than a mistake of perception.” Tyrion sniffed. “Only the ranks of the desperate form up on unannounced royal processions. The rest have jobs.”
Jon Snow looked about at the people with stoic eyes. In the back of his mind, the echo of a dragon’s roar danced across his nerves. He shook his head. “As you say. What is to happen once we reach the Red Keep?”
“Nothing, as far as I am aware.” answered Tyrion. “Hightower hasn’t arrived from Oldtown yet, and the King isn’t in the habit of ruling without a Hand. There won’t be any small council meetings without him, and Robert won’t introduce you or his wildling King to the court on his own.”
“Then were I to slip away from the procession…”
Tyrion arched a misshaped eyebrow. “Somewhere to be?”
“Following up on something, down at the docks.”
“Following up? You only just arrived.”
Jon shut his eyes. “A man I knew once paid me great service when I was at my lowest, without expectation of repayment. I go to seek his brothers.”
Tyrion stared at Jon’s face, before nodding. “Go, then. If anybody asks I will tell them you are busy.”
“My thanks.”
“I am a Lannister. I understand the nature of debts.” the dwarf smirked. “You are more honorable than you led us to believe, bastard. Be careful it doesn’t get you into trouble in this city.”
“That’s one thing you’ll never need to remind me of.” Jon replied quietly, before wheeling on his horse and riding off, down the roads to the docks. Tyrion stared at his retreating back, his mismatched eyes watching with a calculating gleam.
The seaside tavern of the King’s Bog was a noisy, rambunctious affair full of dirty crockery and filthier women, cheap food and cheaper ale. Sailors loved it; locals despised it. Hardly any regulars attended the place, only an endless stream of stopover travelers.
Through the doors stepped a pair of men, one wearing a dark, hooded monk’s robe, the other dressed in dockworker’s gear. The dockworker pushed through the crowded floors with a grimace, clearing the path for the monk to pass unmolested to reach the few private tables in a dark corner. At the furthest back, Jon sat, a glass of ale half-drunk and a small plate of fish and mushy peas picked at.
“Found ‘im, your lordship.” said the dockworker. “Took bleedin’ forever, but I knew I saw one of ‘is kind around the docks the other day. Almost always one lurkin’.”
Jon glanced at the window across the room and the setting sun outside; it had almost been noon when he first sat down to wait. “Forever, indeed.” he reached into his pouch and placed four thick silver moons on the table. “As agreed. One to look, and three to find.”
Almost instantly the money was swept up by the man, with a greedy grin on his face. “Seven blessings on ye!”
The monk stood there quietly as the dockworker quickly pushed his way back through the crowd, saying nothing. Jon gestured at the seat opposite him. “Please, sit.” After a moment’s pause, the monk sat.
“If you are trying to be intimidating through your silence, know that it will not work.” Jon continued. “Neither is it necessary. Please, speak freely.”
The monk, after a long pause, slowly reached up and lowered the hood from his face, revealing a salt-weathered face with a ragged beard and a tonsure haircut. “What is it that you desire, my lord?” said the man softly, his Essosi accent distinct.
“What I want is answers. Answers that only your order can provide, Starry Cultist.”
The cultist shook his head. “We do not answer to outsiders. I am here to provide service to ship captains only. If you are not here to hire my services then I take my leave.” the man stood to leave.
“Wait!” Jon reached out and snatched the man’s hand.
“Unhand me!” the cultist tried to break free. Jon’s grip, though, was like iron on his wrist.
“One of yours saved my life.” Jon spoke, softly yet urgently. “His name was Tiras.”
The cultist stopped breaking free. “... I know Tiras.” he said, cautiously. “When did he save your life?”
Jon gritted his teeth. Time to test whether or not the Raven is paying attention to me right now. “Aboard a slave ship, beyond the Wall. It sank in a freak hurricane; I was the only survivor, thanks to him.”
The cultist closed his eyes. “The Sunless Sea has welcomed him to its gentle embrace.” the man slowly sat back down, and Jon released his wrist.
“He spoke of many things, on that ship, and said he would explain them once we reached Essos.” said Jon. “He cannot, and so I turn to you, his brother in the cult. Tell me - what is the Bloodstone Ruin? And what did he mean when he said the Thirteen-Pointed Star hung over me? I must know.”
The cultist stared at him, before slowly reaching up to knead the bridge of his nose with pinched fingers. “Tiras trusted too easily, if he was willing to induct you as a brother,” he muttered. “And yet, he spoke to you of the Ruin.”
“Screamed it into the storm. The sight of the hurricane seemed to nearly drive him mad.”
The cultist leaned back in his chair. “Understand that I do not do this lightly. To utter these things is to invite doom. Those who know do not die peacefully. Knowing this, you still ask for the truth?”
“I do not expect a calm death in this life or the next.” Jon answered, quietly. “You would be placing no more upon my head than what already sits there.”
“Hmph.” the cultist shook his head. “Very well.” he leaned forward.
“In the ages before written history, in the age of heroes of the Dawn, there stood the mighty Empire of the Dawn, in the lands of the far east. Ruled by immortal god-emperors and divinely beautiful queens, men lived for a thousand years without sin. Yet as the generations passed, each succession of rule grew shorter and shorter, as the divine ichor in their veins thinned. Their godhood grew threadbare, and yet their divine rule remained uninterrupted, until treachery and blasphemy destroyed the Empire forever.”
“The Bloodstone Ruin.” Jon guessed. The cultist nodded, gravely. “I have heard of this Empire of the Dawn, vaguely, in a book I once read about the myths of the distant east. These are the lands of Yi Ti?”
The cultist nodded. “Just so. In the east, they call it the Blood Betrayal. The Amethyst Empress sat the throne at the time, but her younger brother, envious at being passed over, slew her in a fit of rage and declared himself the Bloodstone Emperor. He courted all manner of ruinous powers, during his reign…” the cultist paused, making a strange sign over his forehead. “Including a power from beyond the stars.”
Jon held back his skepticism. “The Thirteen-Pointed Star?”
The cultist nodded. “Our name for it, among the uninitiated. We do not repeat its true name outside of our deepest sanctums, for the safety of all.”
It sounds ludicrous. But I’ve seen too much to dismiss it out of hand. “What happened then?”
“What else could have happened, when courting ruinous powers?” the cultist answered. “Ruin came. The east claims that the Lion of Night, divine father of the imperial lineage, returned to earth in a fury to drown the world in neverending darkness.”
Jon’s blood chilled. “The Long Night.”
“Just so.” the cultist’s lip twitched in a hint of a smile. They say it was fought back, in the end, by a great warrior, bearing a blessed blade.”
“The Prince who was Promised.” said Jon, quietly.
“Hyrkoon, the Hero. Yin Tar. Nefarion. Eldric Shadowchaser. The Last Hero.” said the Cultist. “All names for the one who bore Lightbringer, and drove back the age of darkness. Azor Ahai, the Warrior of Light. Though the world was shattered in the doing, the Sunless Sea was driven back, and man reclaimed his world for life.”
Jon sat quietly, for a time. “A strong tale. Yet I do not see where the danger comes in the telling. The darkness was defeated, yes?”
The cultist gave him a pitiful look. “The east claims that. I never said such a thing. I said that man reclaimed the world. The threat has ever remained, vengeful at the slight.”
Jon frowned. “The Others?”
“Mere servants to the darkness.”
Now, Jon was done. He snorted. “Doubtful. You’re trying to say the enemies to all life named by all the clergy of the world are mere servants to a darkness only you know about. This ‘Thirteen-Pointed Star’.”
“It is the truth.”
“Prove it. How do you know this secret history when everybody else has forgotten?”
The cultist closed his eyes. “We know this history because it is our history. The founder of our cult was the Bloodstone Emperor himself, when he pledged himself and the world he ruled to the black stone from the Sunless Sea, the herald of the Star.” he stood from the table, at Jon’s shocked expression. “Ever since, our order has honored the pact our founder made, to the letter and not a step further. We do this to staunch the wound the First Folly created, lambs on a sacrificial pyre only we know of.”
“... And what was the pact you struck?”
The cultist smiled wryly. “To bring chaos, strife and death to the land, of course. What else would a ruinous power want?” he flipped up his hood. “But our ‘god’ is not easily tricked by our half-measures for long. We are always in need of more to stem the tide.”
“By asking these things, you are bound to us now, whether you accept it or not.” the cultist whispered. “You will find our number at any port of note, but to truly become one of us, seek out our tower in Braavos. There, you can know the whole truth.” With that, he turned and walked away, disappearing into the crowd.
Jon sat there at the table, watching his retreating back. “What do you think?” he whispered to himself.
I think it’s not the whole story, answered Lodos, but it’s certainly a major piece of it. He only mentioned the black stone - the Bloodstones - in the past-tense. And he spoke of his ‘god’ with all the passion of an atheist. He certainly didn’t believe that others existed, like the Lord of Light or the Lady Black.
“He certainly wished his demon god wasn’t real, didn’t he?” Jon folded his arms and leaned back, frowning grimly. “But there’s a bard’s truth to it. We’re out of our depth.”
But not so much as we were when you first awoke. You are a Warg and a water wizard both, now, on top of your skill at war. Lesser men would dream of our heights, but we can become more. We need only know where to look. The voice of his alter-ego paused. It would certainly explain much why the gods have been so invested in us. But what are we meant to do, that R’hllor himself could not?
Jon said nothing in reply, but simply stared down at his platter of food, as the steam dissipated and grew cold.
Jon had been settled into his new lodgings in the Red Keep for three days, in a small yet cozy room in the wing dedicated to guests, when a sharp rapping came at his door. “Milord Snow?” said the voice at the door.
“Come in.” Jon slowly bookmarked and closed the tome on his reading table, unsurprised - Ghost had smelled him coming halfway down the hall and reacted accordingly, positioning himself at his side. The keep servant opened the door and bowed, not stepping across the threshold as their eyes kept flickering nervously across the Direwolf. “What is it?”
“Milord, the court has been summoned by King Robert. I was sent to inform you that your attendance in particular is mandatory.”
Jon’s eyebrow arched. “Mandatory, you say? Then I will be there shortly.” the servant bowed, and quickly retreated. Jon sat there for a moment, threading his fingers through Ghost’s fur and gently scratching his ears. “We’re going to need to find someone unafraid of you,” said Jon. “You’ll roast in this heat if we don’t get you a haircut.” the beast snuffed quietly in response.
Jon quickly swapped out his wardrobe for something more appropriate for a court appearance - thicker gloves, a higher-collared shirt that covered his chest, well-shined dark boots. He thought about taking his wolfskin cloak for the true Northman look, but thought better of it - the ensemble he had would be hot enough in the capital’s heat. Ghost would more than cover that affectation.
By the time he had reached the court, Jon had noted more than a dozen servants looking at him and furiously whispering in the corridors. He didn’t take mind of it until he saw just how closely packed the grand hall was by the various courtiers, as he rounded the corner. The crowd parted like the red sea around him, leaving Jon exposed.
King Robert was there, sitting on the Iron Throne in full regalia, his face resting upon a clenched fist braced upon a jutting greatsword’s hilt; before him stood six of the Kingsguard in white, with a golden-haired seventh conspicuously missing. The king’s eyes tracked to the movement, and Jon could see in an instant that they were sharp, unclouded by drink. The fact that the King must have abstained for nearly since they arrived in the capital to be this presentable did not escape Jon; the nervous sensation in his gut only grew when he saw that Cersei was nowhere to be seen.
“I thank you all for coming.” Said Robert, and as his voice echoed in that cavernous hall the crowd fell instantly silent. “As your gossip and rumors no doubt told you, I have returned from the North short one Eddard Stark. The North faces a Wildling horde of legendary size; war is coming. The defense of our borders is paramount.”
That’s not what happened, Jon thought, eyes wide. Why is he covering for Father? He hates him now.
“I did not return alone, however.” He lifted a meaty finger in the air, pointing directly at Jon. The crowd parted, leaving him exposed, frozen in place. “I present to you Jon Snow. Lord Stark’s natural son, and favored as well as his trueborn. Because of him, the Wildlings have been deprived of their King. they are a headless snake, only threatening in their death rattles.”
Jon felt the words hit him like a mace in the ribs. Favored as well as his trueborn. Robert could have slept with Catelyn and not ruined Father’s marriage half as well as announcing those words to the capital.
“But he didn’t bloody stop there, did he? He wasn’t content with being a champion of Westeros!” Robert shouted, thumping the arm of the Iron Throne. “He went and found a priceless treasure, and found the Kingdom a Hand once more! And what reward did he ask for, in return?” he leaned back. “No lands. No titles. No honors. He asked to serve.”
“I will not have it said that Robert Baratheon did not know how to reward such selfless deeds. Step forward, boy.”
Jon felt like his legs were turning to jelly. I remember being better with crowds, before I turned into a bird.
Need help? Lodos whispered.
… only a little.
The phantom scent of the sea wafted across his nose, and Jon felt an alien familiarity fill his spine with steel. With a hand knitting through Ghost’s fur, the two strode into the middle of the hall, where Robert Baratheon was now standing. A naked sword Jon hadn’t seen against the backdrop of the Iron Throne was in the king’s hand, and his stride only paused momentarily.
“Kneel.” said King Robert, and Jon dropped to his knees. “From this day forth, you are no longer Jon Snow, naturalborn son of Eddard Stark. You are now Jon Greystark, legal son of Eddard Stark, lord of House Greystark.” Jon barely had time to comprehend the words he just heard before a blade came to rest upon his right shoulder.
“Lord Greystark.” Robert intoned. “In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave.” the sword lifted from his right shoulder to his left. “In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just.”
Jon could hear Tyrion’s mocking words ringing in his ears like a casket of wildfire had gone off inches away. He can’t figure out whether to knight you, legitimize you or betroth you. Maybe he’ll do all three, if he thinks it will please Lord Stark.
“In the name of the Mother, I charge you to protect the innocent. Arise, Ser Jon, a knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”
Slowly, Jon pushed himself up to applause. Old, forgotten words nearly sprang to his lips - I don’t want it. It felt like Varys was trying to force a crown on his head, all over again, but this time he wasn’t given the option of saying no. “You do me too much honor, your Grace.” was what he said, instead.
“I saved the best for last, though.” Robert muttered, low enough for only him to hear. Jon’s head whipped up, eyes wide in sudden fear. “ENTER!”
From the opposite side of the Iron Throne, an armored man in a white cloak entered and took a stance. It took Jon a moment to realize it was Jaime, so twisted his visage was in undisguised emotion, before another figure walked out. Stumbled, really; were it not for the Lannister’s outstretched arm, the girl Jon had never seen before would have tripped on the hem of their dress in front of the entire court. She turned to the man and whispered something, before lifting her raven hair away from her face.
Jon’s heart stopped. She was the spitting image of the man he stood in front of now. Any fool could tell with a single glance at her embarrassed, deeply unhappy face who her father was.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the court.” Robert declared, looking entirely too smug for the devastation he had just wrought upon the kingdom. “It is a privilege to introduce to you… Mya Stone, of the Vale. My firstborn daughter, and Lord Greystark’s new betrothed.”
All noise went out of the world, and the strength of his alter-ego left his spine. Now Jon realized why Cersei wasn’t present, as he leaned perilously on Ghost’s back for balance; of course she wouldn’t be, when her husband was about to acknowledge a bastard older than Joffrey. Now he realized what that expression on Jaime’s face was, staring at the face that was walking evidence against his cardinal sin; It was barely-contained murder .
I’m going to die with a Lannister dagger in my gut because the king went mad, Jon realized, with a rising sense of disassociation, as he watched the court dutifully clap without making a sound. But if I don’t do something, the newest member of the Baratheon royal family will die first.
Notes:
What, did y’all think we were going to slow down because we stepped back into lands that Canon is familiar with? Hell nah. Once again, Jon finds a way to break something that others didn’t think was capable of being broken. And the new Hand of the King hasn’t even arrived yet. Little bit of that intrigue, little bit of the big showstopper moments, little bit of the phenomenal-cosmic-power storyline… fun for the whole family!
Thank you all for being patient with me. I really do need to get into a more stable writing habit, instead of working on this in fits and bursts whenever inspiration takes me. It shouldn’t take me seven months to write 16 pages. I don’t make enough money to be that lazy. Who do you think I am, George R R Martin? (*rimshot*)
Catch you all in the comments.
Chapter 21: Life Seven: Part 4
Summary:
When you play the Game of Thrones, the best defense is a good offense.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Wine, my lord?”
Jon glanced over at the servant standing there, a covered brass jug of wine in one hand and a proffered goblet in the other. They must think I’m stupid. Jon closed his eyes and cast his mind out to his faithful companion Ghost; the Direwolf had not moved from his position at Mya’s door since the last time Jon had hand-fed him. It went without saying that Mya Stone had not left her suite in several days.
I wouldn’t leave my room either, these days, if I had the choice. Jon held back his grimace. But the outriders say that Lord Hightower will be arriving today, so now we all have to mill about like imbeciles waiting to greet him walking in the front door. “No, thank you.”
The servant was nonplussed, simply bowing slightly before turning and walking. Jon watched them go for a minute, before a beringed hand reached out of the crowd and plucked the goblet from the servant.
Jon held back the grimace on his face as Littlefinger took a quick, indulgent sip of the wine. “My Lord Greystark.” the man said, a jovial smile on his face. “I don’t believe we’ve yet had the pleasure. You and I will be working together, it seems.”
“Lord Baelish.” Jon bowed stiffly. “Lady Stark has mentioned you.” he lied.
“It warms my heart to know that Cat still thinks of me after all these years.” the man smiled, and every inch of Jon’s skin began to crawl. “I must admit, when I heard the king brought the wrong Stark back from the North, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Now I see what he saw in you.”
Littlefinger’s eyes drifted momentarily to the figure standing at the front of the room. Mance Rayder was there, dressed in the full motley of a fool, strumming a lute and gamboling to the tune of ‘The Bear and The Maiden Fair’ as well as the leg-irons around his ankles would allow. “We’ve not had a proper fool for the court in years, and you bring back the Wildling king for us!” said Baelish, lifting his glass in the air. The small crowd of people surrounding them let out an appreciative cheer and applause. “And yet you don’t seem pleased.”
The man who betrayed my father and sold my sister to Ramsay Bolton is talking to me. Of course I’m unhappy.
Instead of doing what he wanted, which was pulling a dagger and running him through, Jon smiled. “It’s the Southron heat. I’m soaked in sweat.”
“Ah! Well.” Littlefinger smiled. “You should spend some time in my establishments. Wearing too many clothes will never be a problem.”
Jon’s eyes narrowed. “The duties of the Small Council must be pressing, indeed, if you have forgotten that I am to be a married man.”
“So are most of my patrons.” Littlefinger shrugged. “Ah, well. You are a young man still, Lord Greystark; you will learn. In the meantime, we can find other ways!” another servant passed by carrying a wine jug, and Littlefinger snatched both it and a cup from him, pouring out a healthy dram. “Drink!”
Jon’s eyes narrowed. So that’s the play. The first servant was a feint. Jon took it from his hands with a measured speed. Littlefinger wouldn’t dare hand me a poisoned cup in front of everybody. I won’t die; it would be too obvious. Drugged, though… perhaps to knock me out, or lower my inhibitions. Embarrass me, or leave Mya defenseless. Ghost might not live through the day… if he was foolish enough to eat meat he hadn’t killed himself offered by strangers. Which he isn’t.
Jon smiled thinly, and raised his cup to the Master of Coin. “To King Robert. Long may he reign.”
Indulgently, Baelish lifted his own half-drunk wine. “To the King.”
Jon lifted the cup to his lips and theatrically tipped it back against his gaping mouth; from the corner of his eye he saw Littlefinger’s grin twitch wider for just a moment before lifting his own.
Jon felt the rush of the hunt thrum in his veins. Got you. With just a careful tip of his tongue, he reached out and delicately poked the unmoving, gravity-defying edge of the wine, and immediately felt a numbness. Milk of the Poppy. It’s masked by the strong wine, but I remember that taste. It was going to be sleep, then - a boy too deep in his cups to prevent whatever your scheme was. His eyes lingered on Littlefinger’s throat, watching and waiting for the moment he swallowed. After a long, taut moment, the Master of Coin’s Adam's apple bobbed.
Well, then, Baelish… Allow me to retort.
Jon lowered the glass from his lips, with not a single drop swallowed, and clenched his left hand. Littlefinger let out a slight hiccup, and then a soundless full-body cough. A confused look spread across his face, as his free hand balled to a fist and lightly pounded on his chest.
How does it feel, Littlefinger? Choking to death on invisible fingers. Joffrey deserved to die… but not like this. Nobody deserves to die the way you killed him.
“Lord Baelish?” Jon leaned forward. “Is something the matter?”
Petyr Baelish said nothing, as Jon knew he could not - the wine he had half-swallowed had frozen in place, a cupful of liquid now slowly expanding through his throat, down into his lungs. The man thumped his chest harder, letting out another soundless cough, as spittle sprayed from his lips. The cup he was holding dropped to the floor and bounced loudly like a gong, as the man clutched at his throat, nails tearing at his skin as he drowned in a single cup of Arbor Red.
“Lord Baelish!” Jon shouted. Now, people around them were starting to notice, as Baelish stumbled into the wall. With a swift flick of his wrist, Jon emptied the contents of his own drugged drink into a flaming brazier and dropped the cup as well. A woman let out a shrieking gasp, as the crowd backed away.
Petyr looked up at Jon, his eyes going glassy and bloodshot. He slowly lifted a shaking hand from his throat, and pointed an accusatory finger at Jon, before collapsing to the ground.
Jon knew the trick. It was how the dying Joffrey had famously accused Tyrion of his murder. The trick wasn’t going to work on him. “Lord Baelish!” Jon rushed to his side, clutching his side. “Someone call for the Grand Maester, he’s been poisoned!” he shouted. “He’s not breathing! Does anybody here know of the kiss of life!?”
The crowd stayed silent, as Jon knew it would. He snapped out a hand, pointing directly at Mance Rayder, who had moved closer with the crowd. “You! Come here! Grab his arm, and be prepared to move him when I tell you to!” To Mance’s credit, he reacted quickly, handing his lute to a nearby courtier and moving as fast as his manacles would allow him.
“When do I move him?” the King-in-motley asked.
“Now - I will force him to vomit. Let him down then, and if he doesn’t breathe, I will pump his chest. After twenty pumps, lift him all the way onto his side as I breathe into his lungs.”
With the pieces in place, Jon’s clenched hand relaxed, releasing his magical hold on the wine in Littlefinger's lungs as the liquid shrank and moved upwards. The King-turned-fool pulled him upward, and with strong movements, Jon shoved his fingers down Littlefinger’s throat. Immediately, the man flexed on the floor, and all the wine he had drunk came spewing back up onto Jon’s knees in a wretched gasp. Horrible, full-body convulsions shivered through Baelish’s body as hacking breaths pulsed through him. “He’s alive!” Jon shouted. “He’s breathing again!”
“What is this?” with a loud rattling of chains, the Grand Maester Pycelle waddled around the corner. Behind him strode the King, Robert Baratheon. “Someone called for a Maester?”
“Maester Pycelle!” Jon shouted, not rising to his feet. Underneath him, Baelish began to loudly vomit liquid bile onto Jon’s knees. “The Lord Baelish, he… he drank from a cup offered to me and fell down choking to death! Someone tried to poison me, and he saved me!”
“POISON!?” Robert roared. “A POISONER, IN MY CASTLE!?”
Pycelle’s eyes widened, and the comically slow gait of his steps shifted for just a moment into a sprint, before he began walking stiffly once more. Jon’s eyebrow arched. The Grand Maester is faking his infirmity. I would never have caught his slip if I wasn’t at eye-level with his feet. What else is he lying about?
He panicked when Robert mentioned poison; that’s why he slipped. Whispered Lodos. A maester would have access to all manner of reagents, and only their chain stops them from villainy. There was a reason we Ironborn didn’t trust them. But if he’s still competent, then how didn’t he recognize Jon Arryn was poisoned with the Tears of Lys by Littlefinger?
… Pycelle knows about Cersei, then. Which means he’s her creature, or at least a creature of the Lannisters. We don’t take anything that man has touched, ever. We find someone else in the city.
Pycelle knelt down to Littlefinger’s level, laying a delicate hand on Littlefinger’s chest, noting the man’s wince. “Interesting… it wasn’t just choking on his drink?”
“No, sir. He was completely unable to breathe, even to cough it out. It wasn’t until I forced him to vomit that he recovered.”
“Mmmm, yes, yes. No solid objects in the vomitus, either, so it wasn’t food that caused it.” Pycelle mumbled, a hand going to Littlefinger’s jugular. “Bloody from the mouth as well as from the vomitus… Laceration of the esophagus, perhaps…? Not the Strangler, but what, then…? Perhaps a new poison, with similar properties…” slowly, the Grand Maester pushed himself to his feet, exposing the putrescence that had soaked into his robes. “Fear not, Lord Baelish shall receive the finest care. Well done, my lord - it appears this man will live, thanks to your timely intervention.”
He nearly died because of it, too. But Jon didn’t say that - Pycelle was already suspicious enough of his faked aid technique. Instead, he smiled bashfully. “I only did what any decent man would. The innocent should not suffer from such a thing.”
The crowd was silent for a moment, before someone in the back began to clap. Jon looked up at the noise and felt himself grow cold. Varys was there, clapping slowly. “Well done, my Lord Greystark. Well done.”
The crowd swiftly joined in, becoming a raucous round of applause, but still, Jon was cold. There was no earthly way that the Spider could have known his trick- the planning never left his lips. And yet, there was a glimmer in his eye, and a tone in his voice, like he was congratulating him on the ruse of faking a poisoning attempt through magic, instead of saving a life. Or perhaps he was just imagining it.
A hand clapped onto his shoulder. “Well done, indeed.” Mance Rayder murmured. “These kneelers have never stood so close to death in their lives, I wager. They’ll be singing your praises for moons.”
Jon didn’t say a word, but lifted a hand to Mance’s on his shoulder, and together pulled the both of them into a bow. The applause grew even louder. “You asked me a question, once.” Mance whispered, as they were deep in the bow. “I have an answer, now - it is yes.”
Jon’s smile was no longer faked, now, as they came back up. From the corner of his eyes, he could see the furthest figures of the crowd now staring at their cups with apprehension. One man gingerly placed his own onto a table and backed away. Now, Jon had to control his expression so that his smile didn’t grow vicious. What now, your Grace? You and your underlings have lost the gift of secrecy. Try and poison the two of us now, with the entire castle on the lookout for an assassin thanks to a ‘botched’ attack.
I may not know courts, or the intricacies of spywork. But I know you, Queen Cersei. And when I need to be, I am a fast learner.
Jon knew through Ghost’s eyes the first moment that Mya Stone left her suite, five days after her first arrival. She stared at the beast that had not left its duty with wide, fearful eyes, but the Direwolf simply tilted its head at her, and laid down on its belly. With a single prompt from Jon, half a castle away, he rolled over for good measure, and that at last pulled a surprised giggle from her.
With the momentary distraction sorted, Jon once again closed his eyes, and dreamed of a man tangled in roots, a single bloody eye staring right at him-
He was soaring once again, an achingly familiar act - but why, when that was all he did every day? He let out a trill and banked sharply through the sky, beating his wings harder and harder to rise up through the hot winds. He spiraled higher and higher across the Red Keep, until at last he cut his wings and dived towards a ledge. The landing was graceful, and he let out a satisfied song.
“But why? She is from before you were married, mother!” Joffrey exclaimed, waving his hands around. “He’s not gone and legitimized her for the Stark bastard, so I don’t understand-”
“You are not to speak to her!” Cersei shouted. “She is an insult to our family - your rightful place on the throne!”
“She wouldn’t even get the throne in the first place, she’s a woman!” Joffrey scoffed. At the flash of anger that passed over Cersei’s face at her son’s insensitive remarks, the call that escaped his beak was slightly smug. “Tommen’s a crybaby and Myrcella is a brat. I want to see what this half-sister is like-”
“SHE IS NOT YOUR HALF-SISTER.” She all but shrieked, and He couldn’t help but feel even more smug at knowing how true the statement was. “You are not to speak to her or the upjumped bastard, do you hear me? If I so much as hear a whisper of it-”
The door slammed open, and his avian instincts commanded him to flee before he could rein them in. He took off into the air, and quickly circled back around to the ledge to see the two of them now standing for Robert Baratheon.
“Is there something you need, husband?” Cersei asked, voice tightly modulated.
“I need my son.” Robert rumbled.
“Father?” Joffrey sounded almost astonished.
“Come with me, boy. We’re going to the yard.” With his enhanced eyes, He could see with impressive clarity how Robert was staring past both of them to the jug of wine placed on Cersei’s side of the table, how his thick fingers trembled minutely. Robert seemed to notice the shakes, as well, because he balled his hands into fists and held them firmly at his side. “You and I are going to train. There’s an assassin about - can’t be too careful.”
Joffrey’s response was slow in coming, leaving Cersei time to butt in. “He’s a boy, Robert, and I won’t have him thrashed about like some barbaric-”
“Yes!” Joffrey exclaimed excitedly, cutting his mother off. “Yes, of course, Father! Can - can you teach me how to fight like you do? With your hammer!?”
Robert blinked, and then laughed. “You? You want to fight with my hammer? HA! You can’t even lift the damn thing - it weighs more than you do! But if that’s what you want, the castle blacksmith probably has a forge mallet that might work-”
Incoming.
Jon snapped back to himself with a minute twitch. An old man stood at the mouth of the Red Keep’s gardens, staring at Jon with a muted smile. “Forgive me, my Lord. I did not mean to disturb your nap.”
“You did nothing of the sort.” Jon quickly stood up. “I was simply lost in thought.” you were able to notice him while I was still within that songbird?
You and I share the same body, the same senses, Lodos whispered in return, but it appears that while you are away, I remain. I don’t have enough control to captain our body without your support, it seems, but when it comes to our eyes and ears, it is more than enough.
Jon suppressed his facial expressions at that. An invaluable trick, for a Warg. The task of Cersei’s assassins just got that much more difficult. Jon refocused on the old man - and, more importantly, upon the pin of a clenched fist upon his right breast. “Lord Hightower. It is an honor to meet you at last.”
“And you, Lord Greystark.” Leyton Hightower bowed his bald head. The gray-and-white cloak fluttered around his shoulders at the slow movement, trailing across the fingers wrapped tightly around the gnarled oak cane in his hand. The clothes underneath were a fine white, and capped with a flaming red collar - the Hightower itself, writ small in fabric. “I understand it is thanks to you that I was not bothered with a greeting ceremony.”
“You are referring to the business with Lord Baelish, I trust?”
“No need to be coy, young man. The assassination attempt.” Leyton glanced up at Jon through his bushy gray eyebrows. “It is all anybody wants to speak of. I do believe I was the only one that ate the servant’s cooking.” Leyton tugged on his shaped goatee, hanging down to his chest. “How are you faring?”
“You should ask that of Lord Baelish, instead.” Jon deflected. “He is still convalescing with the Grand Maester.”
“I see.” Leyton’s eyes followed one of the many strays as it edged closer to Jon, before bumping gently up against his leg. “I’m also told that you are the reason that Vigilance has been returned to us, after a century of loss.” slowly, the old man bowed. “You have my deepest, profoundest gratitude.”
“Please, raise your head.” Jon replied, a wavering smile on his face. “It was only right, once I knew what it was.”
“Hmph.” Leyton snorted. “You could have asked for any of my granddaughter's hands in marriage with that blade as dowry. Even my Tyrell granddaughter, Margaery - Mace has never said no to my daughter Alerie. Yet you return it for free, ‘because it was right.’ others would call you naive.”
Jon reached down and picked up the stray nuzzling against his leg, and dragged its suddenly-boneless body up to his lap. “If you require something more tangible for my services,” said Jon, running his fingernails gently down the cat’s scalp, “then encourage your family to increase trade with the North. You have a daughter in Lys, do you not?”
Leyton’s watery blue eyes snapped up to Jon, and they were suddenly hard, appraising. “If you know of Lynesse,” he said evenly, “then you know why that is a difficult thing to ask.”
“She was your favorite once, was she not?” Jon asked, not interrupting the scratches of his tawny stray. “Surely she must ache to reconnect.”
“She greatly wronged the North, and its heroes.”
“Then let it be her penance.” Jon said, sharply. Leyton straightened up, eyes narrowed. “By her greedy and perfidious nature, she robbed the North of the heir to one of its great houses, and a decorated war hero, and shamed House Hightower in the process. She will either reconcile with both of us, or she will reconcile with neither of us. It is her choice to make.”
The Hand of the King stared at Jon for a moment, before chuckling. “Well done. Well done. Your demand of me is to bring my family back in order? One could nearly call this another gift.” his free hand reached under his white-and-gray cloak to pull out a wineskin, popping the top off and taking a short swig.
Jon arched an eyebrow. “Is it the fashion to carry your spirits with you in the Reach?”
Leyton chuckled, and lowered the wineskin from his lips. A blue stain marked the bottom of his lip, before he wiped it away with his wrinkled thumb. “This is not alcohol, Lord Greystark. You can call it… medicine. An imported concoction, from beyond the free cities.” With that, he quickly reattached the wineskin to his belt, with Jon’s eyes following it.
“I had worried when I heard I was to be attached to you in exchange for my family’s legacy being restored. The bastard son of the man who killed my uncle.” Jon’s eyes snapped up at those words. Leyton Hightower had both hands on his walking staff now, spread in a powerful stance.
That’s right, Jon thought, Gerold died defending me. Defending what I represented. He didn’t know the war had already been lost, and the Targaryens overthrown, until Father appeared. What could have happened, had they simply stood aside?
“Forgive me, Lord Hightower.” Jon replied, instead. “It was not my intention to bring up old wounds.”
“Then let that be your first lesson.” Hightower replied, eyes sharp. “Everyone has old wounds, here in the South; we don’t have the luxury of isolation that the Starks have. The question of ruling, and of power, is how well you are able to both hide your wounds and control the infliction of wounds upon others. Your very name is a wound against your Lord father, unless there’s another defunct House Greystark that DIDN’T side with the Boltons in rebellion I’m unaware of.”
“... There is not.” Jon admitted. “Though I am unsure if the King was aware of the connotation. He… first had the idea in the North, while he and my father were on good terms.”
“If he wasn’t, then we are in more trouble than I thought.” Said Leyton, folding his arms. “You and I, against all reason, are in service to the Baratheons of King’s Landing now. You, who are a nameless bastard of a great house, and I, who served three Targaryen kings on the small council, are tied together in our fates.” The Hand’s eyes roamed around the courtyard, narrow and flinty. “I do not imagine this place has grown any less prickly since I was last here, in the days of king Aerys. So until you learn who and what the pieces are, do not go out and play the Game, and tempt ruin. As Hand, I wield much power by my office - you hold no such defenses.”
“The… Game, sir?” Jon repeated, as the stray in his lap began to purr at his fingers’ ministrations.
Leyton rolled his eyes. “The Game of thrones. A trendy name created by those with more style than substance, for a thing far older than they are. It is the projection of power, in all its forms. You may be the golden child at the moment, Greystark, but that simply means you have made yourself an irresistible target for players far better than you. Learn to dull your hues, or you may find your time in this city coming to an abrupt, unplanned end.”
Jon felt an abrupt rush of anger at the patronizing tone in the old man’s voice, but bit it back. He doesn’t know what I’ve seen. He couldn’t. “I… shall take your tutelage in the spirit it was given.”
Leyton snorted. “The second lesson is for you to spend some time in front of a mirror. You wear your emotions on your sleeve - a dangerous trait in our profession. Learn to smother yourself in your role, and do not let your true self arise.”
Jon slowly readjusted the position of the cat on his lap, but as he did so, the cat immediately twisted at the moment of Leyton’s hand and began hissing violently. Leyton’s expression fouled, and slowly backed away. “Not a fan of cats, my Lord?” Jon asked, pushing the cat off his lap as it began to writhe. In an instant, it darted away, into the halls of the Red Keep.
“It is the other way around, I am afraid.” replied the Hand. “I am ill-loved by all the beasts the Seven graced the land with. You will forgive me if I do not approach you with your direwolf present.”
Jon couldn’t help but mark that as odd. “Ghost is staying by the side of Lady Stone, for the moment. You will not be troubled.”
“That is well.” A wry smile appeared on Leyton’s face. “Congratulations on the betrothal, by the way. Do you find her agreeable?”
Jon closed his eyes, stretching his senses out to Ghost. What information he received back could not help but make him frown. “It would appear she is avoiding me,” he responded. “I am told she has finally left her suite, but walks whatever path is available to not cross with mine.”
Leyton snorted in laughter. “Women. Fickle creatures, when you first meet them. You’ll want to do something about that sooner rather than later; let that be my third lesson to you. You’ve never had to woo a woman that wasn’t already in her affections for you, have you, Lord Greystark?”
Jon blinked. “I…” the faces of four different women flashed before his eyes. “No. I don’t suppose I have.” The closest he came to that statement was Ygritte, but that had simply… happened. She would have laughed in his face, or punched him in the nose, if he’d tried to intentionally ‘woo’ her.
“I thought not.” Leyton Hightower chuckled, stroking his wispy goatee with his free hand. “You’re a young man, after all. Any romance you know of is shallow and fleeting, but earnest. Take it from a man who’s been married four times - the longer you take finding a way into her good graces, the more painful your home life will be.”
Val’s beautiful smile flashed behind his eyelids, and the angry barb came to Jon’s tongue before he could stop it. “Perhaps if you were better at it, you could have stopped at the first.”
Leyton’s expression moved as if Jon had slapped him. “You…!” Whatever Leyton was about to say trailed off, as the old man simply stood there, staring at Jon with a slightly slack jaw.
Jon quickly stood up, shunting the cat off of his lap. “Forgive me, my lord, that was ill-done by me. I have taken up enough of your time today.” he said, quickly. “If you’ll excuse me.” With a quick bow, he turned and walked away as fast as he could without it being called a run, his face burning with shame. He hadn’t lost control like that since he hid in the First Keep… and not since his first life, before that.
Lord Hightower stood there quietly, staring at Jon’s retreating back and rapidly blinking, before reaching down to his belt. With a shaking hand, he pulled the wineskin to his lips again, and the blue-black liquid stained his lips once again as his eyes dilated. This time, he didn’t wipe the blemish away.
It took only a moment of connection to Ghost for Jon to immediately jerk upright in his seat, snatching up the miniature journal he had been writing in and shoving it in his breast pocket. “Of all the fucking…” He stopped, and stretched out his senses.
There, behind the stone walls of his chamber, a faint mental presence he could not grip hold of was scurrying away, in a way that the masonry did not allow. Jon couldn’t help but grin. Varys finally had one of his little birds spying on him, and they’d given away the roost in his room. When he had more time, he’d have to destroy that passageway. Subtly, of course.
That was for another time, though. Jon raced through the halls of the Red Keep as quickly as he could without full-out sprinting, darting around the odd servant. He didn’t know the passages and halls at any level, but the presence of Ghost was an unshakable lodestone, and without fail he came to a halt around the edge of a corner.
“... Never been to the Vale. Tell me, are the Mountain Clans as vicious as they say they are?” Said the target of Jon’s ire. “I hear they’re cannibals who have killed kings before.”
“I… I will admit I’ve never seen a hill tribe raid before.” Answered another, female voice. “Though they have grown bolder since Lord Arryn tragically passed, they’ve never pushed past the Bloody Gate before.”
Jon let out a slow breath, before straightening his outfit from his frantic sprint. He knew this had to have happened eventually - only bad luck dictated that it happened with the Lannister prince involved. He would make due, though. He had to.
Jon stepped around the corner. “Ah! Prince Joffrey. What a surprise to see you here.”
Joffrey looked away from Mya Stone, eyebrows raised. “Ah! Greystark! What a surprise indeed. I certainly didn’t expect to meet either of you here. Such a coincidence.”
Jon spread out his senses - there, in the walls, was another human presence. Clever little shit. He knows his mother has forbidden him from seeing us, and has eyes in the keep. “Yes. I imagine the life of a prince is very busy. Meetings like this can only be in passing.”
“Well, I can hardly ignore you forever, can I?” Joffrey replied, shrugging theatrically. “After all - we three will be kin, soon. Not in terms of name, of course, but, well…” He turned to Mya with a wide smile. “Are you not my half-sister?”
Ghost, who had not moved from Mya’s side during all of this, slowly padded around Mya’s side and pressed against her shins with his large, furry body. Mya’s eyes immediately flicked down to the beast, and again to Joffrey, before kneeling down to ruffle his fur. “Indeed we are.” She answered. “But you’re the prince of the seven kingdoms, and I am but a simple girl who knows how to climb mountains.”
“And I am just someone who knew where an old sword was hidden.” Jon replied, freezing the smile on his face to be no more than a placid nothing. Mya was learning to trust Ghost’s guidance - that would keep her safe more than most things.
“Oh, please. Am I the only one here who knows his own worth?” Joffrey scoffed, leaning against the wall.
“Doesn’t the Mother smile on those with humility in their heart?” Asked Jon.
Joffrey arched an eyebrow. “It’s mercy, not humility. Don’t quote my own gods at me when you Northerners don’t even believe in the Seven. Not that my father does, either, really - he thinks it’s a load of rot.” He cocked his head. “What’s it like, worshiping trees? Can’t imagine that’s very fun.”
Jon couldn’t help but be irritated that he was still talking to them, even after he’d purposely swapped to something as conversation-stifling as unsolicited religious opinions. “The North doesn’t worship trees. The old gods are all around us, in the streams and the wind and the stone - The heart trees are merely the eyes through which they may see and hear the actions of man. They do not dictate character or morality - they simply state that which is offensive in their eyes, and let us decide our fates.”
“Well then, I suppose both of us have learned better than to judge each other’s gods incorrectly.” Joffrey gave a smug smile, and Jon felt a vein in his temple throb. “How will this work, anyways? Sister, you follow the Seven, do you not?”
Mya rocked back. “Sis-” she coughed. “Yes, I follow the Seven. Most everyone in the Vale does.”
“Then what is to happen when the day comes?” Joffrey asked, a thoughtful frown on his face. “Is one of you to convert, or-”
“I believe such questions are to be left to the lord and lady, young Prince.”
Jon turned to see Petyr Baelish walking slowly down the hall towards them. Wrapped around his neck was a thick layer of bandages, with wooden stakes held in place by the gauze. “Lord Greystark.” Littlefinger called, his voice weak and raspy. “His Grace, king Robert, has called for a meeting of the small council to discuss matters of state. Lord Hightower is looking for you.”
Jon kept his face placid, and stretched his senses again - the presence in the wall was gone. So it was Littlefinger's spy, and not the queen’s. “I see.” He turned and bowed to Joffrey as far as he was required. “It appears I have pressing business.”
“Yes, yes.” Said Joffrey. If Jon didn’t know any better, he would have said the boy was almost disappointed. “As you were.”
Jon held out an arm to Mya. “Lady Stone?” He said, low and steady. Mya visibly hesitated before gripping his arm.
“On our way, then.” Rasped Littlefinger, and the three of them set off, leaving Joffrey behind. Ghost prowled around their sides, his head rolling from side to side.
“... My thanks, Lord Greystark.” Mya murmured.
“It was nothing,” he answered, stiffly. “Joffrey is… best not handled alone.”
“I wasn’t talking about the prince.” Mya frowned. “My… half-brother. I was talking about the dog. He is yours, isn’t he? He hasn’t left my side since I arrived.”
“Ah.” Jon looked straight ahead, past Littlefinger’s shoulder. “Yes. I asked him to watch over you. And he’s not a dog - he’s a Direwolf.”
“A… Direwolf? I thought he was just a warhound, not a-” that was all she said before suddenly face-vaulting forward. It took all of Jon’s strength to keep himself upright as she pulled herself back up through judicious use of his arm as leverage. “Seven hells, these bloody dresses…!”
“Everything alright back there?” Asked Littlefinger.
“Yes.” Jon answered immediately, holding his arm ramrod straight for her. The older man didn’t look back, but shrugged and kept walking. Meanwhile, Mya kept up a quiet string of curses as she fought the folds of fabric entangling her. “Do you need help?”
“I’m fine.” She responded heatedly. “I just… hate these cursed things. Give me a pair of trousers over all this mess.”
Jon snorted. “You sound like my little sister. The septa has half her gray hairs from trying to corral her into her lessons. She’d rather learn to ride and fight than learn needlework.”
Mya looked at him with a surprised look. “And you let her?”
Jon smiled, wistfully. “Deny her anything and it becomes her heart’s desire. Besides, Sansa was enough to keep Lady Stark happy.” He closed his eyes, and a vision of the girl standing on the ramparts of Winterfell reappeared, hard and fierce. The smile left his lips. Arya should never have had to become that person. If the Gods are real, then what did these faceless men and their God of Death take from her, for her to become that way?
“I’d never ridden a horse before coming here,” said Mya. her expression flattened into a frown. “I prefer walking.”
“Most say that, the first time they ride.”
“I’ve ridden my mules before. Didn’t care then, either.” She replied. “You’re too far off the ground - you’re dependent on someone else for your stability, climbing the steep slope to the Eyrie. You don’t know where you stand.” She looked at him with hard eyes. “I am a woman of the Vale, a daughter of the mountain. I always know the ground beneath my feet, sure of my step. And so I tell you this, Lord Greystark - I do not love you. I don’t think I ever will. The man I love is Mychel Redfort, of House Redfort, who this man who calls himself my father took me away from. You may make me your wife, but you will not find a family with me - if you try, you will bleed.”
Jon could not help but be taken aback with the intensity of her words. She was more like her father than she even realized. Her siblings too, he realized - she and Gendry had the same furrowed brow when staking their position. After a moment, he settled himself. “As you wish,” he responded quietly. “You will find I have no designs on you in a husbandly way. In matters of the court, however, I would ask that you look to me for your own sake. This is a dangerous place for the both of us, more than you can possibly imagine.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Not here, you cannot.” He whispered. “Someone tried to drug my wine in my first week here, in the feast where Littlefinger was poisoned. That same day, someone pretending to be a servant tried to serve Ghost poisoned meat to get to you.”
Mya’s eyebrows shot up, her mouth open in a small ‘o’ of shock, but did not gasp.
“Ghost is with you to protect you from the same. Do not take anything he has not first examined. His senses are finer than ours. And do not agree to be alone with anyone without first telling me. Do this, and we will both make it out of King’s Landing alive. Understand?”
Mya quietly nodded, suddenly looking around with a nervous energy. “This man… has he been found?” She whispered.
Jon’s eyes narrowed. “I know exactly where he is,” he answered. “He won’t trouble you any longer.”
Jon had been stalking him ever since that day through the eyes of a Flea Bottom stray, watching his every move. He watched as the thug made his rounds, and finally made contact with his catspaw handler days after the failed attempt. Inside the journal in his breast pocket were the beginnings of unraveling the networks of King’s Landing - first among them being Littlefinger’s.
Six days had been spent on the rogue. Today had been dedicated to tracking the catspaw, before Joffrey had interrupted. Tomorrow… Tomorrow was dedicated to making sure the rogue met an unceremonious end. Jon had learned the plan hadn’t been to murder her, that day of the feast; it had been worse.
“I do hate to interrupt,” said Littlefinger, suddenly, and both Jon and Mya looked up to see they were standing before an ornate door, “but Lady Stone is not permitted to join us for the Small Council meeting.”
Mya smiled shakily and gave an extremely rough curtsy. “By your leave… my lord.”
Jon nodded to her silently, and watched as she walked away with her hand curled into Ghost’s fur. He then turned to enter the room, but Littlefinger held out a hand to block the way. “Let’s talk.” The man said, staring down at Jon.
“What is this?”
“A quiet conversation, before the Hand honors us with his presence.” With his throat as ravaged as it was, his whispered ‘s’es came out more like ‘sh’. “I wanted to express my gratitude for that day in the great hall.”
“It was nothing any honorable man there would not have done.”
“The number of honorable men in this keep is a number I can count on one hand, Greystark.” Said Littlefinger. “The number of people bold enough to attempt such a thing during a feast, however… that is also a small number. Did you know that your drink was tainted, as well?”
Jon fought the urge to go stiff - as Leyton Hightower had suggested, he’d been practicing his lying in front of a mirror. “Surely not.”
“Poppywine. I had a man of mine test the bottom of your cup while I was infirm.” Littlefinger glanced around him quickly. “I think we were meant to get each other’s cups, but the unwitting servants fumbled the attempt.”
Oh, you clever whoreson. Conflate your attempt with the ‘poison’ in case I looked into it, and then shift the blame elsewhere. Jon frowned. “I was exceptionally tired after the feast,” he lied, “but I thought it was merely the excitement of it all.”
“Lord Arryn thought he’d merely eaten undercooked pork as well, one day. The next, he was dead.” Littlefinger retorted.
“You’re not suggesting…”
“I am.” Littlefinger’s eyes locked back onto Jon’s. “He’d been asking questions, Jon Arryn, and reading books. Questions that the Spider caught wind of. And then he died.”
So that’s what Baelish thinks. He thinks Varys tried to kill him; he doesn’t know his game. Jon covered his mouth in false shock to hide any expression that might escape his control. He could use this. “Surely not,” he mumbled. “Why would he do such a… dishonorable thing, to another lord?”
Jon glanced at Baelish, watching as the edge of his lip twitched just slightly. The bait was too irresistible. “Perhaps you should first find out what Lord Arryn was asking before he died. He raised Lord Stark like a father, I understand. Finding answers may help to restore you to good graces.”
The counter-bait - trying to draw him into fulfilling the role of the Stark who uncovered the conspiracy and accusing the Lannisters. The spark to the pyre of the War of Five Kings. Littlefinger must have had at least one contact in the north if he knew to use his love of Ned Stark as a draw. He would have to spend time discovering this spy, so he could rip them out root and stem.
“Of course. My father…” Jon let the word linger in the air. He glanced again at Baelish, like a mummer on a stage. “Are you… one of those honorable men, Lord Baelish?”
Littlefinger grinned, his smile not moving his eyes. “Not in the slightest, Lord Greystark.”
An admission - Jon had him where he wanted. “Then perhaps you can teach me the ways of… dishonorable men. To protect myself from Varys, of course.”
Littlefinger blinked, and suddenly he was eyeing him differently. “Perhaps this is a discussion for another time.” he stated, more loudy. “The small council awaits us.” Jon feared for a moment that he had pushed too far and given away the scheme, until he placed a hand on Jon’s shoulder and gestured towards the door. “You really should come by my establishment. I’ll save our newest girl specially for you - a Northerner named Ros. a little taste of home here in King’s Landing, eh?”
Jon couldn’t help but snort. “I think I know her,” he answered. “She was one of Theon’s favorites, he mentioned her name all the time.”
“Even better - a ‘touching’ reunion!” Baelish clapped. “But come, the Hand will be here any minute.” the Master of Coin pushed open the door, strutting in as if he hadn’t been on the verge of death a week ago.
Varys was standing in the corner, arms folded into his sleeves and watching the two of them enter. Pycelle was propped up against the table, nearly asleep, and a man who Jon had never seen before but who could only have been yet another Baratheon was pacing absently. “Ah, Littlefinger!” The Baratheon called. “And our plus-one, I see. Then we are only missing a Hand!”
“Lord Renly.” Littlefinger bowed his head perfunctorily.
Maester Pycelle suddenly jerked awake - an incredibly false performance, now that Jon knew what to look for. “Lord Baelish, are you still feeling well enough to perform your duties?” he mumbled, faking sleep. “The, erh, poultices I prescribed are performing adequately?”
“Indeed.” Littlefinger replied. “Thanks to yourself and Lord Greystark here, I was only momentarily inconvenienced.”
“We can all send up a prayer to the Gods for that.” Said Varys, a simpering smile on his face. “Where would we find a master of Coin as masterful to replace you?”
“Are we not all irreplaceable, here in this small room?” Littlefinger exclaimed, spreading his arms wide. “We are the small council.”
“I wasn’t aware Lord Greystark had already been raised to fill Stannis’ seat.” Renly snarked. “Perhaps we will give it another week, or see if he decides to be Master of Ships from Dragonstone?”
“I would never dare to set my eyes that high.” said Jon, modestly. “Already, I have been elevated beyond my comfort.”
“Came here for a job and ended up with a wife and a name, eh?”
“We should all be so lucky.”
The entire room rose to attention at Hightower’s sudden remarks - and then stood ramrod straight as another figure followed him in. “Your Grace!” Varys exclaimed, his eyes especially wide. “We were under the impression-”
“That I wasn’t coming?” Robert Baratheon grumbled. His steps echoed loudly across the marbled walls and rich Myrish carpets. “It occurred to me that I’ve never once spoken to Hightower here until I put him in charge of my bloody kingdoms. I won’t be letting him go unsupervised.”
“We are, of course, always ready to welcome you to the small council at your leisure.” Leyton Hightower remarked, slowly closing the door behind him as the King stomped across the halls and sank into his chair like a puppet with its strings cut. “Now.” Hightower folded his arms in front of him, leaning forward on his cane. “Shall we dispense with the day’s business?”
“A-ah, yes!” Pycelle exclaimed. “We are, of course, happy to receive you both. And, may I say, Lord Hightower, what an honor and a relief it is to have you back in these chambers once more. Truly, no finer example of an, erh, an elder statesman, in the land.” he reached into his voluminous robes and pulled out a roll of parchment with a trembling hand. Taking an exaggeratedly long time to unroll the string upon it, he let out a long, rolling cough. “Eh-heh-hem-hem! His Grace has-”
“Oh, sod off, Pycelle.” Robert shouted, cutting him off. “I’m throwing a tournament in honor of getting a new Hand. This is about counting the coppers for it.” With that, he folded his arms across his belly, his fingers twitching a shaky nervous energy in the pose.
“I see.” Hightower smiled blandly. Jon stared at the man - he was in his element. He said he had served three Targaryen Kings in this place. Aerys, too. How much madness had he seen, and survived? “Lord Baelish. As you were incapacitated, I had a servant of mine bring me your accounting ledgers, and I must say I find myself concerned at-”
“You did what?” Littlefinger said sharply. “Lord Hightower, I really must protest. There was no need, I was more than capable-”
“Are we?” Hightower replied, with just as much edge. “I was Master of Coin for over twenty-five years, through winter and rebellion and the War of Ninepenny Kings, and never once was the treasury as empty as it is today. Am I to understand that the good Lord Arryn was a profligate with the King’s coin?”
“I-” Littlefinger glanced over at Robert, glowering in his seat. “I would not dare speak ill of the late Lord Arryn. Feasts and tournaments are expensive, however.”
“Expensive enough to put us a million gold dragons in debt to the Iron Bank?” Hightower rapped his cane against the ground again. “Three million pieces in debt to Lord Tywin, five hundred thousand owed to the Tyrells, hundreds of thousands owed to Tyroshi cartels - money inches away from the slave trade! - and now I see you’re borrowing from the Faith?”
He leaned forward over his cane. “And through all of this, not a single bent copper has come from the Bank of Oldtown, the largest institution on the continent. Are we to interpret this as exile from service to the Crown? So yes, Lord Baelish. I did see a need to examine the ledgers myself. I am not impressed.”
“We… do what we can, with the tools we are given.” Littlefinger said slowly. “And given your noted fondness for your… late uncle, I did not think it fruitful to engage you on this matter.” Jon had to lift a fist to his mouth and fake a cough to cover up the grin, as Leyton’s glower only grew deeper.
Robert slumped even further into his chair. “So you’re saying there’s a problem with the treasury.” he said, sounding as if he were sucking on a lemon as he did so. “That’s why you wanted me here. What does it mean, then? Nobody would dare call our debts due.”
Leyton Hightower straightened. “With the utmost respect, your Grace, that is where you are wrong.” he answered. The small council looked about at each other at the tone of the Hand’s voice. “Debts this large cannot be ignored by anyone. If the Seven Kingdoms cannot pay them back to our external lenders, they will demand restitution of a non-monetary kind. Do you think the Iron Bank is above funding a rebellion to overthrow you? You will recall your armies received the sudden reinforcement of the Windblown sellsword company after the Battle of the Bells, and who would not name their employer; it was the Iron Bank, turning against Aerys Targaryen after he proved too unstable an investment.”
Suddenly, Robert sat up in his chair. “How did you know about that? They came without banners!”
Hightower smirked. “The Bank of Oldtown is without peer in tracking finances, even if they are not ours.” he lifted an arm up, his white-and-red cape spreading wide. “The Tyroshi, likewise, will not allow their cartels to be taken advantage of. They will force a recompense - perhaps punitive tariffs, or demands to allow slave ships docking at our ports. Or perhaps the Starry Sept will demand we allow them to remilitarize in exchange for the jubilee - would you like to see the Faith Militant alive and well, your Grace?”
“I get it, damn you! I get it.” Robert shouted, leaning forward. Jon couldn’t help but be impressed - Hightower had known exactly how to frame economics in terms of war to get Robert to pay attention. “So. We’re trapped like a two-groat whore about to be fucked unconscious.” his thumbs began to twiddle over each other in his folded hands. “What do we do about it? I have no head for numbers. Do we cancel the tournament?”
“I did not say that,” said the Hand, gently. “Such an event will bring custom from across the realm and beyond. Inns will overflow, merchants will sell out of stock-”
“Whores will walk bow-legged.” Littlefinger chimed in. Hightower hit him with a withering glare.
“In a word, yes.” He reached over and tapped the paper with his pointer finger. “And yet, ninety-thousand gold dragons as the prize pool is too much. We can slash the jousting prizes by ten-thousand each, and the archery and grand melee pools by five. With a third of the cost already saved, we can prepare more to recoup the losses with a temporary tax on all goods and services for the duration of the tournament.”
“Scalp the travelers and the contestants both.” said Renly, an impressed look on his face. “Could have made back a lot of money in the last few tournaments and feasts if we’d done that.”
“Bait to draw them in, before encircling them economically.” Hightower replied. Jon glanced over at Robert, blinking rapidly in his seat before leaning back, resting his chin upon his meaty fist with a thoughtful look. Oh, he’s good. Hightower is VERY good.
“So…” Robert said slowly, as he shifted in his seat once again. The rest of the small council immediately focused upon him - Jon noted Varys’ invisible eyebrows rising ever higher into his nonexistent hairline. “Say we draw these merchants in, dash them against the shieldwall of the tournament and the light cavalry flank of our tax. Not a bad plan - works all the time. What then? You’re saying this is merely the opening battle of the campaign against the army of our debtors.”
Hightower smiled thinly. “As you well know, the first act in any battle is to prioritize your enemies.” he stretched out his hand. “And that, my king, is your part in this. Decide which potential demands of you are most offensive, and we, your small council, shall eliminate their ‘armies’ first.”
Robert’s eyes narrowed, and in the silence of the room they could hear his leg bouncing a quick nervous rhythm against the floor. “... How much do we owe the slavers, Littlefinger?”
“Your Grace, I made certain the Tyroshi cartels were not-”
“HOW. MUCH.”
Littlefinger fell silent, then, and leaned back in his seat with his eyes closed. “... one point three million gold pieces, approximately, across five cartels.” he said, at last. “I will check my ledgers for a more precise number.”
Robert slammed his fist into the table, setting the room rattling from the force of the blow as the entire council flinched away. “There’s your answer.” He growled. “Our second-biggest debtor is a bunch of filthy fleshmongers. I will NOT let it be said that Robert Baratheon brought back slavery in the Seven Kingdoms. Do you hear me!? I WON’T HAVE IT!”
The King’s gaze fixated upon Jon, staring at him with a blazing intensity as the small council said nothing. At last, though, he shook his head and rapidly stood up. “This council is adjourned. We’ll be having one of these every week, now, and it doesn’t start until I arrive. Dismissed.” Startled, the small council bowed as he stormed out. Jon’s eyes lingered as he did on the King’s hands; they were shaking as they walked, rings quietly clattering against each other until he quickly locked them at his sides in a parade march out the door.
“What in the world has gotten into my brother?” Renly breathed, as the small council slowly packed up.
“It would seem the king has been drinking nothing but boiled water every day.” Varys replied quietly, slowly pacing out the door. “Cups of the finest Arbor Red set out for his meals have been either returned to the kitchen untouched or splattered across the walls, according to the servants.”
“My brother’s gone teetotal? ” Renly hissed in surprise. “Since when?”
“Since he returned from the North with the wrong Stark in tow.” Littlefinger replied.
Renly’s head whipped around to face Jon, the question plain upon his lips. “... During the… royal visit to the north, His Grace had several drinks.” He said slowly. “He acted… uncharacteristically. Perhaps he blames it on the wine.”
“Say it plainly, boy. This isn’t the court, and we’ve all heard the rumors - Your father threw his childhood friend Robert out of Winterfell a day after he arrived.” Renly gently stroked his chin, mouth agape. “My brother is going sober,” he repeated. “Stannis will be thrilled of course, but if the court finds out about it, it’ll be a disaster. Imagine if he starts a trend. Half the alehouses in the city will go bankrupt! And if the High Septon hears? Apocalyptic.”
“I couldn't agree more,'' said Littlefinger. “Half the fun you can have in a brothel comes from not remembering it the next day.” The two men walked together out the door, still gossiping together. Varys followed, bowing silently to the two of them, yet his gaze lingered on Jon’s face. Pycelle went last, with a highly exaggerated waddle that set his maester’s chain jangling loudly as he went.
He must derive some kind of sadistic pleasure from being as annoying as possible without being punished. Jon thought to himself. He at last went to leave, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. “Wait a moment.” Hightower said. “You held your tongue well through all of that, young man. Now I would have your opinion on what you just saw.”
Jon hesitated. “... You were very skilled at reframing the treasury problem into something the King understood.”
Hightower chuckled. “Oh, ‘tis no more difficult than educating a small child. I've had ten of them, after all.” He reached into his cloak and pulled out his mysterious flask of medicine, which he had not touched all meeting, and took a long swig. Jon watched his pupils dilate, before refocusing and wiping away the blue stain. “No, I wanted your opinion on the matter of the treasury. Specifically, Littlefinger’s handling of it.”
Why does he care what I think, after I insulted him? But Jon closed his eyes, and carefully constructed his answer. “If the surplus was as large as you said it was, and he was surrounded by responsible advisors, then I find it hard to believe that King Robert alone could spend the kingdom into such poverty during the longest summer on record.”
“Very good.” Hightower smiled, like a cat who caught a canary. “The first step to leadership, young Greystark, is being present. The second is discernment - knowing instinctively when something doesn’t smell right. And Littlefinger, I’m afraid, carries a rather distinct odor about him. I was Master of Coin before I became Lord Hightower - the numbers I saw in his ‘official’ ledger make no sense.” Hightower lightly tapped the side of his nose. “The clue is that he never once borrowed from the Bank of Oldtown - likely because he knows that we audit our investments yearly. The Iron Bank only audits when complaints are raised by a keyholder or an envoy, to allow militaries more discretion over spending in war. You and I must keep a watchful eye on him.”
Jon frowned. An idea occurred to him. “Lord Hightower… the king declared the Cartels the largest threat as debtors… but can we do nothing about the Iron Bank? That seems to me to be the larger issue. Can the Bank of Oldtown not speak to them, one institution to another?”
“The Bank of Oldtown would not have standing to do so, as they hold no stake in the debt.”
“Then…” Jon paused. “Perhaps they can become the stakeholder. Pay the debt and transfer the ownership to your ledgers to service.”
Leyton’s eyebrows shot up. “Well.” he reached up to his beard and began to stroke it gently. “That would certainly be a hard negotiation. The Iron Bank would not like losing out on the interest payments… but the unexpected windfall would be significant. It could be attempted, and we shall see how it is received.” he looked down at Jon, smiling knowingly. “Well struck, my Lord.”
“Thank you.” Jon bowed his head slightly. “And… I wanted to apologize, once again, for my rudeness when we last spoke. It was wrong of me to speak about your family life.”
“You are forgiven.” he waved his hand. “I was merely… taken aback. You reminded me of someone I once knew as a young man many decades ago, at that moment.” He reached up and tapped the side of his temples. “You made the same expression he did, you see. I am an old man, and the older I get, the longer I spend thinking about old days of glory.”
“I… see,” said Jon, not quite understanding.
“It is of no concern,” said Leyton. “What matters is that you have proven you have a gift for discernment. It is not something taught easily without painful lessons, and so you are better placed than most. In the future, you shall be my shadow as I administer to the realm. Learn well.”
Jon bowed his head again. “Thank you. If you’ll excuse me.” The boy turned on his heel and left; he still needed to track the catspaw’s movements, to untangle Littlefinger’s network one thread at a time.
Leyton Hightower stood there alone in the small council chamber, staring at the entrance. A soft, slow chuckle escaped him, and he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his lashes were wet.
“High in the halls of the kings who are gone,” he sang softly to himself, “Jenny would dance with her ghosts. The ones she had lost and the ones she had found, and the ones who had loved her the most…”
The evening shadows helped to dull the sweltering summer heat of King’s Landing, but even still, Jon regretted the need for the heavy hempen cloak that concealed his face as sweat poured down his cheeks and neck. His chin was propped against his folded hands, staring into nothing in the small streetside teahouse. His mind, however, was drawn as tightly as a bowstring, connected as he was to the stray who he had been controlling for the past eight days. He thought of the man who had dared to try and poison Ghost -
She was there above the rooftops, staring down upon the Street of the Sisters-
Jon immediately pulled back, scowling. Too strong, yet again. Are you certain this is possible? Lodos whispered. Not even Varamyr knew how to do this intentionally.
It is possible. Jon replied, internally. Varamyr did not know how to do it because his understanding of Skinchanging is flawed. You taught me that, when Lady Black taught you the ways of the Rhoynar water wizards - magic flows from both understanding of the first principles and the correct rituals. Fail one, and you are handicapped - fail both, and you are without magic.
Then we must give thanks to Lady Black, one day… and her husband, the Drowned God. Whispered Lodos, even quieter. They are of the First Men’s gods - the ones they worshiped before they made peace with the Children, and accepted the Old Gods. What do we give to such old, forgotten deities?
Less forgotten than the rest of their peers. The Maesters don’t even know who they worshiped before the coming of the Godswoods… it is enlightening on the origins of the Ironborn, though, is it not?
A phantom sea breeze set Jon’s skin tingling, and cooled the sweat on his brow. Aye. Descended from the First Men, still worshiping a singular First Man god, at home on the notoriously infertile Iron Islands, ancient traditions of raiding and pillaging the mainlands… the Ironborn are the First Men who rejected the peace treaty of the Children, and took refuge where no Weirwood would take root. The answer is elegant in its simplicity. Lodos went quiet, for a moment. The Raven’s Hungry Tree, and the Ironborn’s Demon Tree Ygg… The Grey King was ‘the King in the North who was not Stark’, wasn’t he?
Does it trouble you, Pale Prophet? Unveiling the truth behind your faith?
I meant what I said, that day on Nagga’s Hill. If the past was forgotten, then it was not worth remembering in the first place. The past of my God and his favored son does not matter, and if you hadn’t forced yourself back into my life then you would have been no exception, Snow.
An emotion that Jon could not place passed through him, and when Jon opened his eyes, they shone pure white. A phantom sensation shimmered across his skin of fur that was not there, and half a block away, the stray tabby rose from its perch upon the roof, four legs moving in tandem with his two. Power thrummed behind his skin, an ethereal harp string playing a perpetual discordant note.
He knew without conscious thought where the crowds massed, and where they parted. He saw beyond his own eyes who walked the streets in the growing shadows of the night. And he knew, half a block away, that the thug that had attempted to rape Mya Stone to have her sent away in disgrace had ducked from one alehouse to another. Osney Kettleblack, son of a dubious minor Crownlands house - high enough rank to enter the Red Keep unmolested, but low enough to not mark his passing. His father, Jon had slowly gathered, had been Littlefinger’s man for a long, long time.
The man sat down at a table, and quickly flagged down a serving girl who clearly knew him for a flagon of beer. Jon leaned silently against the outside walls, as the tabby whisked between the legs of the patrons entering the building and stalked about the tables, watching the would-be rapist. Jon looked up and down the street with glazed eyes, and saw the Gold Cloaks march down an opposing street; they would not reappear here for minutes at least.
At last, the serving girl brought him an overflowing wooden tankard, and Osney slapped her on the ass with a grin as she did. The woman scolded him with a blush, and Osney merely laughed, as he lifted the beer to his lips. The tabby underneath the table meowed quietly - and then its eyes flashed white, before hissing and bolting away.
Osney Kettleblack had drained a third of the tankard before he realized something was wrong. Beer spilled from his lips stained red with blood as he clutched his chest. He coughed silently, stood up, and then collapsed to the floor. The serving girl screamed.
Outside the tavern, Jon slowly opened his eyes, his insides roiling. It was the perfect assassination, in one way - no poison with a ledger, no dagger with a history… he hadn’t even been in the building. Just a man choking to death in a seedy tavern. And yet, he still could not undo the sickness in him - the first time he ever killed a man in secret, without looking him in the eye.
Jon slowly sighed, pulling at his face with a sweaty hand, before pushing away from the wall to leave-
And felt a sharp point shoved into his side, as a hand clamped down upon his shoulder. “Not a move, Greystark.” a voice hissed. “Noble brat like you isn’t nearly as sneaky as you think you are.”
“Tried to ambush Osney, did you? Followed him after the Red Keep. You little prick.”
Jon felt the blade rip through his hempen cloak, but it had not yet pierced his belly. Perhaps his assailants weren’t willing to stab him in the middle of a main street. He reached out to the tabby once again, just for a moment. The vision filtered in behind his eyes, and he quietly cursed - the two were spitting images of Osney, the same black hair and hooked noses, and one with a knight’s chainmail peeking out from under his shirt. “Osmund and Osfryd, I presume.” Jon quietly replied. “Come to visit your brother? I didn’t think you were in the city until tomorrow. Did you brother fumbling the job make you think you'd steal Littlefinger's bounty out from undeneath him instead?”
“One more word and I’ll gut you here.” Osfryd hissed. “Go get Osney, tell him I’ve done his work for him.”
Jon clenched his fist. The streets were dry after the summer heat, and there was no way he could physically escape the hold without being wounded -
“By the Seven!” Someone from outside of the tavern shouted. “Guards! Guards! Come quick! Someone in the tavern has died!”
“What!?” Osfryd whipped his head around-
Jon grabbed the hand upon his shoulder and wrenched with all the strength in his body, and Osfryd slammed headfirst into the wall of the tavern with a sickening *crunch*. Osmund behind him let out a threatening roar, but Jon didn’t look back and instead took off at a dead sprint down the Street of the Sisters. The streets had cleared out from the heights of the noonday markets, but even now as the sun sank below the skyline the streets were filled with men and women, and Jon barrelled through them like a madman.
“STOP THAT MAN!” he heard Osmund shout behind him. Jon hissed, and ducked into a narrow side street and dashing through. A drunk fat man stumbled out of a hidden brothel, and Jon took only a moment to decide before grabbing the man by the collar and pulling him in front of him at a curve.
“Wha-”
“A dragon in your pocket if you hide me.” Jon hissed as he crouched down. That got the drunkard’s attention, and his fat body spread wide as if he were taking a leak on the wall as Osmund burst through the alleyway. His clumsy running slammed into the fat man, and Jon nearly let out a yelp of pain as he bit his tongue hard from the impact into his head.
“Oi!” the fat man yelled. “Watch your fuckin’ walk, pisser!”
“Fuck off!” Osmund shouted as he charged through.
Jon smiled grimly, and reached into his pocket and put a gold dragon on the ground. “You didn’t see me.”
“Drunk as a skunk, m’lord. Don’t ‘member a bit.”
Jon flipped his hood, which had fallen in the rush, back on to his head and walked quickly out back into the Street of the Sisters. The two Kettleblacks would be expecting him to make for the Red Keep, so instead he turned south, up towards Visenya’s Hill. he slowly exhaled, trying to steady his breath, as he passed by a great stone building of black marble. He would make a loop at the Great Sept of Baelor, and then return during nightfall. The Goldcloaks would be out looking for him, but the Kettleblacks would have lost him -
Jon stopped, eyes wide. “Others take me.” he hissed. The Kettleblacks would report to Littlefinger that he knew about Osney, even if they couldn’t possibly know he was the one who killed him. His play to grow close enough to learn his networks would be undone in an instant. They couldn’t be allowed to return alive.
Jon grit his teeth, and then flipped back his hood. “Come on, then.” he muttered to himself, as his hands went to the two daggers underneath his cloak. “Double back, you cretins. Backtrack. Find me again.”
Jon stood there in the middle of the street for what felt like an age, before at last a black head appeared on the north side. Jon grit his teeth as Osfryd snarled at him and broke into a dead run. Jon braced his leg against the rising slope of Visenya’s Hill, drawing the daggers from their sheath.
Osfryd was nearly within striking distance, Jon ready to counter his wild charge, when a second body burst from a side street perpendicular to the main and tackled the older man like a raging bull. The Kettleblack let out a cry of pain, as the stranger’s charge carried him through the air and the two of them slammed through the stone doors of the black marble temple. Jon stood there, mouth agape for a moment, before a second voice shouted in anger. Osmund had found him. Without any further thought, Jon ran through the doors the man had just broken down.
The windowless walls inside were entirely made of the same marbled black stone, lit by a procession of flaming green braziers. The green flames reflected off the polished walls, casting the two battling figures inside in an emerald green radiance - Osfryd against the stranger, a young man not much older than Jon who nonetheless wielded his sword with a deft hand. In the corner, a third man cowered in the corner, screaming. “LEAVE! LEAVE THIS PLACE!” he shouted.
“I’ll have your HEAD!” Osfryd shouted, slashing at the stranger, who deflected the longsword with a furious swipe and repositioned himself at the edge of a great black metal column. He spun about the column to dodge the next swipe, before swinging out and gashing the Kettleblack brother’s arm. “AGH!” he screamed, blood spurting from the deep arm wound.
“Ser Greystark!” the stranger shouted. “Behind you!”
Jon took only a moment to process that the stranger knew his name before lunging forward, as Osmund’s blade passed through where his neck should have been. He came back up in a power stance, daggers held out in front of him reverse-grip. “Hunting me was the last mistake you’ll ever make.” Jon snarled. “I’ll send your head to Littlefinger in a sandalwood box!”
The knight said nothing, but glowered furiously as he swung his sword about theatrically. More bark than bite, but dangerous enough because of his weapons and armor comparatively. He had the range, and his chainmail would deflect most of Jon’s daggers - and Osmund knew it. Jon hunched lower, as he watched the black stone doors slam shut behind Osmund on their own. He needed to go to the head or the neck for a killing blow; anything else would be wasted.
“THIS IS MY LAST WARNING!” shouted the old man from the corner, behind Jon. “LEAVE, OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES!”
“Not until the bastard here is dead.” Osmund snapped. “Got that, you-”
Jon lunged, daggers blades down. Osmund reacted instinctively, swinging wide, and the longsword slammed into the two proffered hilts. Jon shoved downwards, pushing the longsword down low enough for his boot to slam on the blade and trap it under heel. Osmund yanked on it once, but failed to destabilize Jon as he stabbed down. The Kettleblack, panicked, lifted his free arm to his face, and got a shout of pain as Jon’s daggers plunged halfway from the tip into his forearm instead of his neck. Osmund wrenched away and pelted Jon in the face with his backhand, sending him stumbling enough to free his blade.
“You little shit…!” Osmund panted. “Osfryd, hurry up and help!”
Jon whipped his head around to the other battle in fear - but the other fight was still ongoing, with the stranger holding a clear advantage. A bluff - Jon dropped to the ground, only dodging the true attack from Osmund’s blade by inches. Jon rolled sideways by inches before reaching out and pushing himself backwards onto his feet away from Osmund’s wild blade. “Hold still, you little shit…!” the Kettleblack seethed.
“AAAAAAGH!”
Osmund’s head lifted up. “OSFRYD!” He screamed.
Behind Jon, the stranger’s attacks had finally struck true - his longsword had found a home in Osfryd’s chest to the hilt. The stranger pulled it out with a slurping noise, and the Kettleblack fell to the ground clutching his chest in a futile attempt to hold his blood in. “One down…” said the young man, before sweeping his sword in front of him, clearing the blood from its edge. “Now, Ser Greystark - together!”
“You…” Osmund snarled. “I’ll kill you for this - I’ll kill you and fuck your corpse, and then I’ll find your whore mother and -”
“DOWN!”
Jon didn’t question the command, but instead dropped to his belly on the hard marble stone. Behind him, he heard the old man let out a breathy heave, and a soft whistling sound.
A second later, he heard a soft crack of glass. And then Osmund Kettleblack started screaming.
Jon looked up from his position and saw a vision of horror. Osmund Kettleblack’s entire head was engulfed in bright green flames, which spread like a spark through grasslands down across his body. His black hair had already burned away - his hook nose had already melted into a fleshy liquid dribbling down across his lips - and as the flames touched his chest, Jon could see with terrifying clarity as even the solid steel chains melted like wax across his body. The man screamed for only a few seconds before his vocal cords melted, and writhed standing for a few seconds more, before dropping to his knees, and then his belly, as the green flame engulfed the entirety of his body, melting even the steel sword in his hand.
Jon had never seen such a voracious flame in his life; not even dragonfire held such life-like malice. But he had read of such a thing - a favored weapon, and champion, of Aerys Targaryen, the Mad King. Wildfire.
“Mother have mercy on us…” The stranger whispered, staring at the burning corpse.
“I warned him.”
Jon and the stranger turned to the voice, as the old man lowered his arm slowly. The shadows cast by the iron pillars concealed his face, but his back was stooped, and covered with a thick ink-black leather forge apron, covered with pockets filled with iron hand tools. “Multiple times, I warned him, brave knights.” the old man repeated, voice shaking. “None shall name me aggressor when he broke into our guildhall and tried to kill us. No, no.”
“I…” Jon looked at the two bodies on the floor; one leaking its heartsblood onto the black stone, the other being devoured so thoroughly that he could see Osmund’s skull disintegrating into ash. He sucked in a deep breath. “Yes. You have my deepest thanks. These men were after my life, and you have saved it. Both of you.”
The stranger sucked in a deep, steadying breath, and bowed. “Why, ‘tis only my duty, Ser Greystark.” he lifted up his face, and his dark shock of hair helped to only accentuate the brightness of his smile. “Humphrey Hightower, Knight of the Realm. At your service, Ser Greystark.”
Jon gave a start. “Hightower? Then…”
Humphrey sheathed his sword. “Aye. My lord father asked me to watch over you. He had a feeling you wouldn’t be able to resist getting into trouble, playing the Game, and you send your great direwolf away with Lady Mya at all time.” he smiled wider. “As his youngest son, it was my honor to serve.”
“My…” Jon slowly sheathed his daggers. He could place his voice, now that his heart was no longer pounding in his ears - it was the same voice that had distracted the Kettleblacks at the tavern. “My thanks, Ser Humphrey. You saved my life.”
“You… are the son of the Hand?” said the old man. “Then - then, brave Ser, you must explain to your Lord father that these - these bodies are not the doings of the Guild! We acted in self-defense, in protection of yourselves who were under attack!”
Humphrey’s smile dimmed. “Indeed, you did help spare us further hardship, from these men who were attacking the Advisor to the Hand.” he turned on his heel, hand resting on his pommel. “But a greater concern remains - the weapon with which you dispatched the assailant. Where did you get such a thing?”
“The Substance?” Said the old man, stepping forward out of the shadows. “It is but one of the dread secrets of our order. It flows through the blood of every pyromancer - we respect its power, and do not use it lightly.”
Jon’s eyes widened as he stared at the old man. His face was old, wrinkled and liver-splotched, with a wispy gray beard spread across his chin as the rest of head was covered with a leather cap and eyes capped with darkened glass goggles.
He knew that face - had seen him in his mind’s eye at the Fever River, blowing on a spark as Jon had descended from above, glowing radiant as the sun. The spark had been dying, in that prophetic tableau, but leaped to Jon’s side as if it was alive.
“You’re a pyromancer. Of course.” Humphrey said quietly, hand not leaving the pommel of his blade.
“... What is your name?” Jon asked, slowly.
“Hallyne, my lord. Wisdom and Grand Master of the Alchemist’s Guild.” Hallyne answered.
Jon sucked in a slow, steadying breath. A prophecy has tied myself and the guild who killed my grandfather together. Gods help me. “Ser Hightower.” Jon said, slowly. “Did your father speak of what I was doing in the city? And did he give you any orders in regards to me?”
“He did, good Ser.” said Humphrey. “He said you were tracking agents of Littlefinger. He also said to assist you any way I could.”
Son of a bitch. How did Leyton know? Jon closed his eyes. “Then do you understand what I mean when I say that for the good of the realm, there can be no evidence that Osmund and Osfryd met their end here?”
Humphrey’s wide smile slowly disappeared, and he looked down. “Ser Greystark… what you ask troubles me deeply.” he looked up. “And yet, my father said that for as long as you are in King’s Landing, I am to put my sword at your disposal. So, yes. I understand.”
Jon stared at Humphrey for a long moment, before nodding. “Thank you. I won’t forget this.” He then turned to Hallyne. “Grand Master Hallyne. I can assure you that everything that has happened here will never reach the Gold Cloaks. But you must follow my instructions. Your Wildfire - how quickly can it consume a body?”
Hallyne stared at Jon for a long moment. “We do not need to speak of hypotheticals, my Lord.” he answered carefully. “Your second attacker is nearly ash - his arms and armor will soon follow.”
Jon pointedly did not look back at the remains of Osmund Kettleblack. “And do you have a chamber in your… guildhall? Where you can dispose of the second body?”
“You ask me to cover up a killing.” Hallyne answered. “There are certainly chambers where the Substance can be safely used upon various materials, for efficacy testing.”
“Then if you would ‘test’ your wildfire upon Osfryd Kettleblack, you would receive the gratitude of the Hand of the King…” Jon closed his eyes. “And myself. So much so that I should like to learn the secrets of ‘the Substance’.”
“You would what?” said Hallyne, shocked.
Forgive me, Uncle Brandon. Grandfather Rickard. But prophecy led me here for a reason, and I will find out why. Jon opened his eyes. “You heard me. Teach me the secrets of Alchemy, and you shall once again know a place of power in the Seven Kingdoms.”
“Ser Greystark…” Said Humphrey, a note of caution in his tone.
“You cannot promise that.” Hallyne replied, crossing his arms. “The King has made it clear that for our service to King Aerys, we are cast out from society. We have had no new acolytes in fifteen years that were not born into the art.”
“Then change his mind.” Jon folded his arms. “Impress upon me that your order is more than the keepers of Wildfire. You said it was but one of your secrets, yes?” He leaned forward. “Your order, in Aerys’ time, helped to kill my family and nearly destroyed the capital.”
“I was but an acolyte, then!” Hallyne protested. “Only the Grand Master and his cohort were part of that plot! it was a secret to the rest of us! All the men who plotted such things are long-dead!”
“Then prove it. Show me, your greatest critic, that you can change. Prove to me you have value in an age of peace, and I will bring your offerings to the world.” Said Jon. he looked about the dark, shadowed room, and the green flames burning all about. “The Gods led us to this chance meeting, and I will at least listen to what they have to say. Will you, Grand Master?”
Hallyne stood there, back bowed from age and weighty tools in his leather apron, staring into the burning brazier for a long, lingering moment. And then, at last, his expression hardened, and he stood as upright as his spine would allow. “Very well, my Lord. The dread secrets of our order are yours to unveil… if you have the courage to see it through.”
Notes:
Woo! I’m honestly impressed with how quickly I got this out. Maybe because I was inspired. Maybe because there was a lot of dialogue and head games, which I’m good at. Maybe I was born with it - maybe it’s Maybelline. Regardless, you guys were asking for quicker updates, and for once I have delivered!
Here’s an interesting question for you guys - if you didn’t find out about my story by just scrolling through the AO3 filters, then how did you guys find out about it? Did you get a recommendation from somewhere else? I want to hear what people are saying about me on other sites, if there are any - I’m nosy like that.
Talk later in the comments!
Chapter 22: Life Seven: Part 5
Summary:
Life in the Red Keep rarely stays quiet for very long.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Be with me…! Build the new world with me! This is our reason! It has been, since you were a little boy with a bastard’s name, and I was a little girl that couldn’t count to twenty. We do it together... We break the wheel, together…!”
“... You are my queen. Now, and always.”
Jon woke with a panicked gasp, flailing in his soft featherbed. His heart and lungs worked out of time as his unfocused eyes stared out at nothing. At last, clarity returned, and he wearily pulled at his face, as the morning sunlight filtered through his shaded windowsill and a merry songbird trilled on the ledge.
It was the third time in seven days that he’d had that nightmare. Until he’d come back to King’s Landing more than a moon ago, he hadn’t had that dream so vividly since before he’d stolen Val from the Weeper. This time, at least, he woke up with the sun out.
With a slow sigh, he pulled himself from his bed, freshened himself, and slowly departed from his small apartment. A servant of the Red Keep rounded the corner then, a platter of breakfast foods in her hands. “Oh! Lord Greystark, you are-”
“Awake, yes.” he reached into the platter and snatched up a single plump red apple from a plate not meant for him, intentionally avoiding the plate with his sigil on the cloth. “You may skip my room this morning - this will serve me.” he smiled, and she curtseyed before continuing on. The apple was already half-eaten by the time he descended the tower and exited out towards the courtyards. The sound of the city below was muffled by the high walls of the keep, but beyond, the bells of the Great Sept tolled the hour in the distance, and the birds and gulls above cried their needs to all.
The tower his small apartment was nestled in resided closest to the yard, and Jon made a point to stop by it most days. Today, as on most days, he saw a familiar sight - Robert Baratheon with a lumpy iron facsimile of his warhammer, dripping with sweat, and Joffrey Baratheon, laid out on the dirt with his two-handed wooden forge mallet dropped to the ground inches from his fingers. Jaime Lannister stood to the side against the pillars covering the weapon stands, while Ser Arys Oakheart took a more active pose on the opposite side near the tools of exercise. Sandor Clegane, Joffrey’s shadow, was sitting on a spectator’s stool and looked nearly about to fall asleep.
“You… You alright… boy?” Robert panted, black hair hanging limp across his face. “Watch your… your bloody footwork. You can’t defend… if your stance is shite…!”
“I’m… I’m alright…” Joffrey groaned. “Seven hells, my ribs…”
“Lannister.” Jon called out, as he slowly approached. Jaime glanced towards him, and then back to the field.
“Lord Greystark.”
“Is he improving?” Jon asked.
“Slowly.” Jaime replied. “The King, I regret to say, is not a good teacher. But Prince Joffrey is taking well to his training nonetheless, even if he gains some bruises from it.”
“I think having a trainer who’s not afraid of hitting the crown prince is a valuable thing on its own.” said Jon. “I get the feeling Joffrey’s never been laid out in his life until now. It’s a humbling experience.”
Jaime snorted. “Perhaps.” he glanced over. “As you say, being put on your back by your betters is enriching. Which reminds me that you owe me a chance to do just that.”
Jon bit into his apple once again. “Would that we were all blessed with self-confidence as immaculate as your cloak, Kingslayer. The world would be less tumultuous for it.” he quipped.
“Oh, I understand.” Said Jaime, leaning back. “Not every man is brave enough to be whipped like a mule in front of their future good-father.”
Jon’s eyes narrowed. By the time Jon had met him, all of the Kingslayer’s infamous arrogance and pride had been brutally beaten out of him, and besides his heinous crimes against the Seven Kingdoms was a relatively witty, pleasant man. He’d been proud to fight at his side against the Others. Now, however, all he wanted to do was to grind his face into the mud.
A foreign presence brushed against his senses at that moment, and instead of rising to the Lannister’s bait, Jon turned and smiled. “Lady Mya. Ros. Ser Humphrey. I did not expect to see you here today.”
“Her Ladyship was looking to catch some of the excitement.” Said Ros, wearing a handmaid’s dress likely worth more than half a year’s pay as a whore. Littlefinger spared no expense on his go-between’s cover story. “The spirit of the Hand’s Tourney is infectious.”
Robert perked his head up at the commotion. “Eh? What’s that?” He burst out into a hearty laugh. “Pick yourself off the ground, boy, your sister’s come to grace us!”
Joffrey slowly lifted his head, only to start at the sight of Mya and scramble off the ground. “Mya…!” he said, trying and failing to hide the pain in his side. “Haven’t… seen you here… before.”
“Because I haven’t been, Joffrey.” she replied. It was a remarkable thing, Jon thought, the change that had been wrought on the two royals. He wasn’t sure if it was the presence of Mya, his father’s incessant training whenever Robert got the shakes from his withdrawals, or some combination of the two, but Joffrey had undergone a remarkable change - Jon hadn’t heard so much as a single snide comment to him, and the boy no longer even pretended to heed his mother’s warning and sought out his ‘half-sister’ at all opportunities.
It set Jon ill at ease, as he watched Robert charge at Mya, setting her shrieking as he hefted her over his muddy, sweat-covered shoulder and tossing her around like a small child. Sansa made it perfectly clear what kind of demon the Boy-King became sitting on the Iron Throne. It couldn’t possibly have been this simple of a solution to his madness. Not… not a month of his father’s attention at the end of a warhammer, and a family member of a comparable age.
Remember how Joffrey ruled during the Conquest of the Stepstones, Lodos whispered. His position was degraded from all sides, and not a single lord offered him a daughter to wed because of Hightower’s letter, and yet he ruled far more even-handedly than in your time. Joffrey, it seems, is a boy who does not handle absolute power well and works best with heavy chains on him - and what heavier chain than love from a man who is so lacking in it?
Jon couldn’t imagine the idea of neglecting his children. The idea of Lyan not looking in his eyes with love, or Ragnald not calling him ‘papa’ with childish innocence… it hurt, like a cold blade in his heart all over again.
“One of these days, his Grace will have to listen to her,” Ros remarked with a wry grin, “that she is no longer a one-year-old babe to be tossed around like that.” She leaned in. “Know what I think? I think he’s using her as a test of how much muscle he’s put back on. He keeps trying to throw her higher.”
“Perhaps, Lady Ros.” said Humphrey Hightower, his hand resting lightly on his sword hilt. “Or perhaps he’s simply trying to make up for lost time as a father. It’s not our place to judge.”
Ros rolled her eyes, as Jon eyed the Kingslayer. “Does his Grace not have any other women to throw around for comparison, these days?”
Jaime’s face went blank. “I couldn’t possibly say.”
Not just drinking, then - the rumors were true. The Whoremonger King had sworn off whores. No wonder Cersei had been notably absent and Jaime in a foul mood; Neither could be happy that Robert was forcing his way back into his own marriage bed.
So many positive changes for Robert Baratheon - and all it took was Ned Stark telling him that he was a shitty person.
Joffrey snatched a proffered waterskin from Arys and poured half of it over his head. “Ugh…” he groaned, dropping his training hammer. “I’m going to feel that one for days.”
“You can always stop whenever you like,” said Jaime mildly.
Joffrey blinked. “No!” he blurted, before straightening up. “I-I mean, that won’t be necessary. A Baratheon can handle a little bruise.” he glanced over at the others. “Jon. Ser Humphrey.”
“Prince Joffrey.”
Joffrey glanced between Jon and Jaime with a curious look. “You two looked about to come to blows earlier.” he straightened himself up, and puffed out his chest. “Is there something that needs to be addressed?”
Jaime rolled his eyes. “No, your Grace. Just some banter.”
“Really?” Jon replied coolly. “Because before Lady Mya showed up, I was about to challenge you to meet me in the grand melee.”
The words hung in the air for a moment, and Jon couldn’t help but feel a sense of satisfaction as he watched Jaime’s eyes widen. “... You were?”
“Eh? What’s this about the melee, now?” Robert shouted, slowly setting a flustered Mya back on the ground.
“Jon and the Kingslayer are going to fight in the melee!” Joffrey exclaimed, an unexpectedly boyish excitement lighting up his face. Robert looked between the two men, eyebrows arched.
Jon merely shrugged. “Ser Lannister has been after a true fight with me since we were riding back from Winterfell. I figured it will be a spectacle regardless, and as the North has never once practiced jousting, why not make it the melee?” he glanced over at Jaime, eyes lidded. “Not just the king,” he said quietly, “but every man in the city will see you get knocked from your horse.”
Jaime straightened up at that, his jaw set firmly. “Well. I was planning on just entering the jousts, but after a challenge like that, who could say no?”
“None of that, now!” Robert barked, eyes narrowed. “This family feud shite is the dragonspawn’s schtick, not ours! I may not like you, Kingslayer, but you’re as much kin as Jon will be. I’ll not have a Dance under my watch! Be better than them!”
“Your Grace,” said Jon, “what better place to ensure there is no skullduggery than in front of hundreds of people? They’ll keep it honest.” he held out a hand. “Shall I swear on it, Ser Jaime? By whatever gods you wish, our animosity is buried after the melee.”
Jaime stared a hole in that outstretched hand, before slowly taking it. “No need for that, Ser Greystark.” he replied airily, and shook on it. “It’s a marvelous idea; a horse will be the perfect handicap for me. The fight would be over too soon without it.” he glanced over at Robert, who looked as if he still wanted to say something. “Your Grace, there is no need for alarm. You’ll be there watching. The only way you could be any more involved is if you joined the melee yourself.”
“Father will join the melee!?” Joffrey exclaimed.
“Hold on, now!” Robert said, taken aback.
“Do it, father!” Joffrey shouted, excitement taking him. “Why else have you been training all this time? Show them who won the Rebellion, and killed Rhaegar with a single blow!” Mya stood back from the crowd, arms folded tightly to herself, but her eyes followed Robert’s expression intently. Robert noticed this, and turned to her.
“You, too?”
“That rebellion was why you are the king,” she said quietly, “and I grew up without a father. I cannot help but be curious if you were as good as the stories say, to make that trade necessary.”
Robert’s fist clenched. “... Why not?” He said.
“Your Grace…” said Arys Oakheart, tense.
“Why the bloody hell not.” Robert repeated. “They all think I’ve gone to seed. The first fucking words I hear when I meet a foreigner is to call me fat. That I’d feed a clan of cannibal wildlings for a week! That I’m fat and cruel and stupid!” He grabbed the practice warhammer and slung it over his shoulder. “I’ll show them why they called me a demon.”
Mya watched with a slight frown as her father ran towards the training logs, hefted one over his shoulder, and began swiftly marching around the grounds. Joffrey practically vibrated with excitement as he followed after Robert like a puppy, mimicking his actions exactly. And Jon couldn’t help but feel that without the pleasures of the flesh to dull his senses, King Robert Baratheon was changing before his eyes into something else. Something harder. Something darker.
He wondered if the Seven Kingdoms could handle it, or would crack once more.
“You lied to me, Hallyne.”
“My Lord!” the Guild Master exclaimed, taken aback. “I have done no such thing!”
Jon rolled his face onto his upright fist, staring at the pyromancer with lidded eyes. “You told me that the Alchemist’s Guild was the heir to many dread secrets,” he said, “of which Wildfire was only one.”
“So I did! Not a word of falsehood was spoken!”
“Then why,” Jon spat, thwapping the rotten book spread wide in front of him, “am I a moon into this tutelage and only just finding out that you cannot REPLICATE any of these dread secrets?” He slammed a finger down into the page, setting the wooden desk clattering against the stone floor of the cell and the cup of wine next to him rattling. “This so-called ‘recipe’ for turning lead into gold is half-blank down the center. This ‘Golem’ concept is nonsensical GARBAGE. And this ‘Living Flame’? The entire page is a mash of words without rhyme or reason! A dozen ‘secrets’ I’ve seen in this book, and all of them are useless!”
Jon flopped back in his chair. “The more I see the inner workings of your order, the more I see you as charlatans coasting off of the secret of Wildfire, which you all but refuse to teach to me. Instead you give me history lessons full of self-aggrandizing propaganda and ‘dread secrets’ that are flatly impossible.”
“You go too far, Lord Greystark!” Hallyne shouted, puffing himself up. “You would not speak of us so if King Aerys was-”
“King Aerys was a madman who died screaming for the deaths of half a million people, including yourselves.” Jon replied frostily. “It is only by his paranoia that more of you were not involved, or you’d have been a stain on the Kingslayer’s blade as well. Invoke his name again and I’ll see that the Hand finishes what Robert started and casts you out of the city.” Hallyne shut up, then, but his face turned an unsightly shade of puce in his anger. “Now.” the boy sighed. “I shall give you one, and only one, chance to convince me that you have not intentionally wasted my time.”
Hallyne let out several soft growls, before going quiet, and sucking in several calming breaths. “As you have learned, our order predates the coming of the Targaryens in Westeros by several millennia.” he began, voice trembling. “We, the Alchemists, have a long and storied history throughout the land - petty kings from the north and princes from the south called upon us.”
“Until the Maesters, who have been your rivals since antiquity, supplanted you with Aegon the Conqueror’s aid, yes yes.” Jon waved his hand in the air. “You have spent the last four weekly visits of mine explaining as much. What does this have to do with your pitiful state?”
“EVERYTHING!” Hallyne shouted. Jon’s eyes widened. “You think us fools and incompetents? I can see it in your eyes! You do not even begin to comprehend!” Hallyne leaned forward over the table. “The Maesters,” he hissed, “are a bunch of doddering fools who despise anything that cannot be measured, quantified, and dissected before being pinned to a corkboard like a taxidermied corpse. Magic, the soul, even the very divine - their life’s work is to drag the mysteries of the world down into the mud and smother them, as they have since their very founding.”
Jon rolled his eyes. “Calumny and slander.”
Hallyne slammed an arched finger down into the pages of the book. “Five hundred years ago the recipe for Transmutation was whole - and then a bastard son of Archmaester Hugrid infiltrated our order hall and destroyed our repository! We know it because he confessed before we burned him alive!” he spat. “That ‘garbage’ recipe is copied from the only book we found semi-intact! A thousand years ago we ciphered the process for Living Flame out of caution - and then the Grand Master who ciphered it and all who knew it by heart immediately died of poison in their drink!”
A thousand curses I could lay against the Citadel for what they have done to us,” Hallyne hissed, “and have not returned in kind with the Substance! Because the forces we traffic in are not toys to be played with! We are craftsmen, sabotaged by decrepit idiots who refuse to believe we knew the ways of magic better a thousand years ago than they know how to cure disease today! ”
Jon felt the anger grow in him and nearly stood to leave; he thought of Luwin, kind and gentle and always curious even when teaching him everything he ever learned as a child. But then he thought of Pycelle, and the death of Jon Arryn, and the anger died unspoken. He took a slow, deep breath, and forced a calmness into his thoughts. “And you are certain of these accusations?” Jon said, slowly. “It wasn’t mere accident or chance, but deliberate sabotage that has led to the downfall of your order?”
“I know it as well as I know my own member,” said Hallyne. “It is the duty of the Grand Master alone to study the inner workings of our craft, to try and rediscover that which was taken from us. I have the records of centuries of failure by my predecessors to back me, safely stored in the most flame-resistant depths of this hall and accessible only by the Grand Master and his chosen successor. Not even the most dogged of saboteurs could reach there.” he leaned forward. “Even the dragons, my lord - the dragons died because of the Maesters. Every beast born after the Dance was smaller and more stunted, until the last was no larger than a dog, and died a whimpering death… poison, my lord! Poison!”
Jon went quiet, and slowly leaned back in his chair. If he had not met Pycelle, and learned the things he now knew about him (as well as seeing him far more naked through a bird’s eyes than he ever wanted to know), then he would never have believed it. But the old pyromancer in front of him believed fervently in the wrongs committed by their ascendant rivals… and Jon knew enough now to start to wonder. And the dragons… that was a more telling blow than Hallyne even knew.
Was it coincidence that Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion were born in Essos… or necessity?
Luwin took an interest in the magical, thanks to his Valyrian Steel link, and Jon knew of many maesters who had not a scheming bone in their body… but most of those maesters were in the North. The South, he knew, was an entirely different beast. He folded his hands across his lap and stared at Hallyne. “Alright.”
“M-My Lord?”
“I will give you the benefit of my doubt, in regards to the sabotage of the Citadel. Perhaps you are right, that the Maesters have a committed anti-magic agenda that has dedicated themselves to your destruction. That does not solve our current problem, however.” He cocked his head to the side. “What benefit can you provide in an era of peace, when the only tool that still belongs to you is one of war? Spare me the self-aggrandizement of the past four weeks - speak to me in plain terms.”
Hallyne straightened up. “Why, ‘tis the very reason we sought the patronage of the Targaryens! For three hundred years we exclusively served them in both war and peace! King Daeron the Good bid us study how to recreate the dragonroads of old until the cursed Blackfyres rose in rebellion! For twenty years under Viserys the First we unraveled the secrets of Valyrian Steel - it is we who rediscovered the spells required to manipulate the composite, and only the Dance prevented further breakthroughs! For Aegon the Fifth, we worked tirelessly to decipher the lost art of hatching dragons!”
Jon stood. “And you repaid him for that patronage with Summerhall!”
Hallyne seemed to shrink, then. “A… terrible tragedy, my Lord. one of our keenest failures. The magic was true, we are sure of it! I have read the records of the Grand Master of that time - he was painstaking in assuring safety, but he failed and burned for it. Magic is… fickle, these days, my lord.”
Jon felt his temper rise, and the impulsive urge to prove a point.
He stretched out his skinchanging senses - here in the deepest halls of the Alchemist’s Guild, no sneaks or spies could be found, not even rats. With secrecy assured, he returned to himself, and fixed the Grand Master with a withering glare. “No. Magic is not fickle, Master Hallyne. It is man that is fickle.”
Jon arched his finger in the air, and from the wine glass seated next to his hand, the frothing red rose into the air as an amorphous mass. Hallyne stared blankly at the feat for a long moment, before letting out an unmanly shriek and stumbling backwards, falling onto his ass in the process. Jon held his finger up, and the wine flew to it and reshaped itself into a perfect, swirling red sphere.
“Magic, Master Hallyne, is precise,” said Jon, walking around the table. “Magic is exacting. Magic is a hiltless blade - to use it without knowing down to the finest speck of rust, the smallest grain of iron sand how it is used is to cut yourself as well as your enemy. To use it without having a vise grip upon it is to court ruin. But what magic is NOT, in any age, is fickle.”
“You - You - You…” Hallyne stammered. “Please, spare me! I beg of you, my Lord, spare meeee…!”
Jon let out a sigh. “Pull yourself together, man, before you soil your breeches. You are embarrassing yourself.'' He reached down and grabbed the old man by the forge apron, and pulled the shrieking man to his feet. “This is not a threat - this is a demonstration.”
“I… I…” a shiver ran through the old man’s body, but he turned to Jon at those words. “What… what are you…?”
“I am a man who is giving you another chance to prove yourself to me.” Jon lowered the sphere back into the glass, and it filled itself back up without a drop spilled. “It would appear to me that while your order has striven to preserve the how of your techniques, you have quite forgotten the why of them, and that is something I can aid with. Tell me - what is the principle of Alchemy? What is the fundamental truth of this world that is manipulated and expressed through your work?”
“I…” Hallyne stared at Jon as if he’d been slapped with a wet fish. “I… I d-don’t understand what it is you’re asking, my Lord..”
“Yes you do.” Jon placed a hand on his shoulder. “Do you know what the blood mages say to those who seek them out? ‘Only death can pay for life’. That is a fundamental truth. Equivalent Exchange - nothing comes without a price. What is the fundamental idea of Alchemy? What principle turns a pile of disparate ingredients into Wildfire? What higher truth once allowed you to turn lead to gold, and create ‘living flame’?”
He shook the man. “Magic is performed through principle and ritual - concept and interpretation. It is a song, Hallyne - the lyrics and the voice. If you have not preserved the notes of the performance, then start anew with the ‘why’ of the words. What is the higher truth of Alchemy?”
Hallyne blinked rapidly, mouthing several words without sound. The Northern boy could see the wheels turning in his head as his eyes twitched about. The Grand Master pulled himself from Jon’s grip, pacing to and fro from the edges of the room, first silently and then quietly whispering. “The truth is…'' he mumbled after minutes of silence, his brow furrowed. “Truth is… it is…”
He stopped, and looked as if he was reeling. “Of course,” he whispered. “Life.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s Life. The truth of Alchemy is Life.” Hallyne whispered again, awestruck. “But not life as you or I know it - not life like the dragons.” his eyes widened. “The Dragons. The dragons were born from the Fourteen Flames of Valyria. Fire is life - true life - and we meddle in its workings. Pyromancy - no, Alchemy - grants life to that which was never alive to begin with.”
Jon’s eyebrows arched. It was quite a bold statement to make, as an outsider, but Hallyne was the expert in the craft - in this respect, Jon wouldn’t dare assume he knew more than the old pyromancer. It carried a heavy weight to it that resonated with the truth of the Rhoynish magic he carried. “You are sure?”
“The Alchemists of Lys - such poisons they craft, dead in a day, virulent and hateful for their crafted need. And Summerhall. Oh, Summerhall.” Hallyne had a hand to his brow, moaning. “Of course it failed - of course they didn’t hatch! The arrogance - the sheer fucking hubris of using false life to stimulate true life… oh, damn you, Glythard, damn your rotten eyes! And the Substance… born for such a short time, destined to die - ‘tis only fitting it burns with such cruelty! But what if, instead…!”
Hallyne gasped loudly. “Was… was that it? It can’t be. If Alchemy is artificial life, and the Substance is… but then to twist it - clay on a potter’s wheel! Add to it - mix! Teach! THE VALYRIAN COMPOSITE! OF COURSE! An ending to that which never began! YES! YES! All this time, the secret to the Living Flame was truly…!” he whirled on Jon, gripping the young man by the shoulders.
“My Lord…!” Hallyne hissed, and Jon saw a crazed spark dancing within his eyes. “Give me time, I beg of you, and all that I have promised you and more shall be delivered. You shall be the heir to an Alchemy not seen in a thousand years, but we need time to rediscover the reagents - I beg of you, give us time!”
Unbidden, the memory of the vision he had on the edge of the Fever River returned to him - Hallyne bent over over a dying spark and desperately attempting to save it, and himself walking down into the dark as incandescent as the sun. The spark was Alchemy - true Alchemy, Jon realized. The Seven Kingdoms would change forever for the things he had done today. Only time would tell if it was for weal or for woe.
“You shall have your time… if I have your service, your true tutelage and your silence.”
“If this works, then you shall have it for as long as I live… Lord Greystark.”
It was the heat of midday summer, and Jon had retreated to his stone apartment in the towers of the Red Keep. Balanced on the edge of his wooden stool, he raised his tool in one hand, nibbling on the wooden tip as he squinted. “No… it’s not right…”
A knock at the door. Jon didn’t turn around - he was expecting this. “Enter.”
The door behind him clattered and squealed. “Oh? Painting, my lord Greystark? I didn’t picture you as a man of the arts.”
Jon whirled around at once, brush held out like a weapon. Instead of his expected guest, Varys stood there, dressed in a flowing robe of gold and white and stinking of soft perfume. “V… Lord Varys.” Jon replied, stifling his instinctual anger. “You were not who I expected to see.”
“Not a hard thing to guess, given that you and I have barely crossed words even at the Small Council.” the eunuch smiled wanly. “One might draw conclusions that you are avoiding me.”
Jon gave him a flat look. “I would have thought you would dance around that statement with endless euphemisms and metaphors.”
“Alas, your touch of Northern bluntness is rubbing off on us.” said Varys, leaning against the doorframe. “You don’t appreciate subterfuge, and so I offer you none. I meet with you halfway, to humbly inquire what I have done to earn your displeasure.”
Jon swiveled away for a moment, staring at his canvas. A moment to school his expression, and think of a half-truth. “I’m not terribly fond of Pycelle, either, for the same reason.” he said as he set his tools on the edge of the table, careful to firmly seat his loaded brush.
“The Grand Maester?” Varys said, confused. “I’m not sure - ah.” Jon turned back, to see Varys looking at him in a new way. “You hold our service to the Mad King, and the death of your family, against us.”
No, Varys. It’s because you’re both scheming liars who will plunge this realm into war. But Jon didn’t say that, and instead shrugged. He stared at him for a moment, and then took a gamble. “The more I learn of Wildfire, the more I question why Aerys had any small council at all, at the end.”
“Your Pyromancer friends not impressing you with their worthless party tricks?” Varys replied with a giggle, and Jon knew he had guessed right - the Spider had someone tailing him on his outings, but had not penetrated the guildhall itself. “I won’t speak for the honor of the crownlanders I outlived during those days, but instead offer a simple question: were you willing to take the gamble that you could resign your seat and live? Lord Chelsted did, and lost in spectacular, fiery fashion.”
And yet you fight to put a dragon back on the throne - whether it be red or black, Jon thought to himself. He leaned forward. “Has anybody bothered to ask the Alchemist’s Guild about their service to the crown? Or am I the first to find out about the caches of Wildfire Aerys set underneath our feet that weren’t all cleared out?”
Varys blinked. “I… beg your pardon? Wildfire caches in the city?”
Jon put on a mock expression of surprise. “Oh? You mean to say that the master of whisperers didn’t know why Lord Chelsted resigned as Hand and was burned alive? You didn’t know why Jaime Lannister slew Aerys, before he could give the order?” Thanks to Brienne of Tarth, and Jaime himself, the Wildfire Plot was well known among the armies of the North, but at this point in time, the Kingslayer was still keeping his secret honor close to his chest. That gave Jon an opening. “That would certainly be embarrassing, should it come from any lips other than yours.”
Varys went very still. “Where? How?”
“I don’t know.” Jon shrugged. “No alchemist who worked on the plot still lives, thanks to Ser Jaime’s thorough work; the exact locations are lost. But the Guild Master’s duty is to keep meticulous records of inventory, and thousands of pots were unaccounted for at war’s end. They’ve been quietly hunting for them themselves, and continue to find more every year.” Jon looked at Varys pointedly. “Wildfire grows more unstable the older it gets. Much like old unhealed wounds, one ill-conceived movement can tear it all asunder. The Alchemists could certainly work faster, if the right lips whispered to the right people.”
Varys bowed graciously, a mask of courtesy Jon had seen broken too many times to be fooled by it. “Of course. Such a threat to the city must be swiftly removed. It was good of you, and your pyromancer friends, to bring this to my attention. Perhaps if King Robert is grateful enough, he will bring them in from the cold.”
Jon smirked. “If there’s one thing they need never fear in that hall, it is being cold.” Jon turned away, and faced towards his painting again. “Let us move carefully, and remove this… cousin of dragonfire from the city, yes?” His eyes lidded. “The realm has long grown tired of dragons and all things related to them.”
It was a calculated move to take his eyes off of Varys like that - even if he could no longer watch for his tells, neither could the Spider track his ticks with the veiled threat. He could practically hear him stiffen with the ruffling of his robes. Just plausible enough to pass off as an innocuous statement… But Varys, he was all but certain, had suspicions about him. And he would read into it exactly what Jon wanted him to read.
It won’t just be the food in the Red Keep I mistrust now. I will be sleeping very lightly from now on, I think.
“You-”
A knock at the doorframe interrupted whatever it was that Varys was about to say. “Am I interrupting something?” Jon spun around in his seat, to see Leyton Hightower leaning into his cane, a piercing look in his eye.
“No, I don’t believe you are.” Jon replied. “Lord Varys simply stopped in to discuss some business.” He turned to the eunuch. “Will that be all? If there is more to be said, we can discuss things with Lord Hightower with us.”
“Oh, perish the thought!” Varys simpered, leaning forward. “I did interrupt your planned meeting, didn’t I? I’ll just be on my way.” the spymaster stepped away, lingering at the door only long enough to give Jon a deep, meaning-laden bow. Hightower shut the door behind him.
“Trouble with the Spider?” Leyton murmured.
“Perhaps.” Jon replied. “He wasn’t one of your cohorts, was he?”
“No. I had long departed from the Small Council when the King brought him from across the sea. I know his works, however. Should I have Humphrey come back to guard you?”
“I’ll be fine,” said Jon. “I know what to watch for. She needs extra eyes more than I do; Ghost is enough for me.”
“As you say.” Leyton glanced at the painting in front of Jon, and chuckled. “You’ve never been, have you? The gate is a little stouter and squarer than that. But the Lance… that is made all the better by imagination. It will make a fine gift.”
“I had some time to think,” said Jon, “on the way life goes in the South. Too much time is spent on useless things, and meaningless ornaments. The North still has that right; I’ll never understand the point of tapestries. But… I’m beginning to come around on art like this. Beautiful things have a place.”
Leyton chuckled once again, and sat down on the chair set out for guests. “Well said. Man must have something to aspire to. Beauty is as good an ideal as any other.” he cocked his head. “Have you ever tried your hand at music?”
Jon shook his head. “No more than any man has, singing around a fire. Why?”
“Oh, no particular reason.” Leyton shrugged. “Your fingers simply look well-suited to an instrument. Long, slender. Dexterous. I can see you playing a harp well, with some practice.”
Jon snorted, and shook his head. “Never,” he replied instantly.
“Ah. I see.”
Jon turned around at that, and was surprised to see the Hand looking almost disappointed. “I…” Jon began, taken aback. “I merely mean that harpists have no place on the battlefield. Too ungainly an instrument.”
“Is that what you see yourself as, Jon Greystark?” Leyton gestured around him. “A soldier in King’s Landing? In a peaceful realm?”
Yes, Jon almost replied instinctively, but stopped as he opened his mouth to speak. He was a soldier, without question - he’d died a soldier. Now he was here, paintbrush in hand with a technique not a soul in the realm had ever seen before he created it. He could be more than a soldier - and had to be. What was music, compared to skinchanging?
“... Not a harp.” he said at last. “A lute, mayhaps.”
Leyton grinned. “A lute! An instrument of the people. One that the King-in-motley favors well. A sound idea, with him as a tutor.” He reached into his cape and pulled out a section of carved ivory as long as his forearm and a wick. He held out the bone to Jon. “Try again?”
Jon rapidly shook his head. “Your YiTish grass had me tasting ash for days the last time I tried, and I barely had the strength to leave my seat to sate my ravenous hunger. No thank you.”
Leyton laughed. “Because you sucked on the pipe too hard. The trick is to gently inhale the smoke, and keep the buds in the cup.” he stuck the wick into the desk candle and then held it to the pipe bowl, before slowly drawing on the long end. He held his breath, and then exhaled, as a large cloud of acrid smoke drifted to the ceiling. “Men in the far east set aside weeks’ worth of pay for this pleasure, and I offer it for free.”
“I’ve not met a single person in the Seven Kingdoms who inhales burning weeds. I shall take your word for it.”
Hightower only chuckled again, and reached into his cloak with his other hand to take a soft sip of his mysterious blue liquid. He leaned back, looking far more relaxed than Jon ever saw outside of this room. “I find it much more palatable than something like Sourleaf to calm my senses when my medicine sets them overactive. Very well. Now then… where did we leave off the last time?”
“The protections that Aegon the Unlikely implemented,” said Jon. “I noted that I had never heard of these laws, and you said we did not have the time.”
“Ah.” Leyton shook his head. “A grand dream, it was, and doomed to fail. Aegon loved the common man, from his travels as a boy, and wanted to protect them in law the way Ser Duncan the Tall had with his blade. He could not bend the lords to his will, however - he had neither the influence nor the military might with the death of the dragons, and what little he was able to negotiate was repealed upon his death. They speak of his laws only in the Citadel now.”
The old man looked up at the ceiling, smiling wryly. “It was because of the failure of those laws that Dunk refused to be king, stubborn prick that he was. Jenny was simply the final nail in the coffin.”
“Dunk?”
Leyton lowered his gaze to Jon, staring at him silently before taking another long, lingering drag on his ivory pipe. “... Duncan ‘the Small’ Targaryen.” he said at last, exhaling the cloud of smoke. “Husband of the famous ‘Jenny of Oldstones’, with the flowers in her hair. Dear friends, both, and well missed.”
The Prince of Dragonflies. The one who gave up the throne for love. All the young village girls sighed and swooned at the story, and played kissing games with boys while wearing their stolen names. Jon hadn’t realized until now just what it meant for the Hand to be as old as he was; he knew personally people that had practically become myths in their own right. “... I’m sorry for reminding you.”
“... Don’t be. It was my fault for interrupting your education with an old man reminiscing.” Leyton straightened up. “Now. back to where we were. The laws of Aegon were initially meant to be a great charter of rights for the smallfolk, in order to grant them some protections against the predatory lords and give them avenues for redress…”
Eyes up.
The soft knock at the post broke Jon from his distant vision. “Enter,” he said quietly, though the flap was already halfway open.
“Well, well.” Said Ros, staring at Jon in his half-dressed state. “And here I thought I was done with all this in this job. Are you sure you wanted her as well, though?”
Jon saw the angry expression of Mya outside of the tent and tried not to grimace. It was Ros’ way to answer unexpected situations with lewdness; he knew that when he made her the liaison between Littlefinger and he. “I need assistance,” he answered, sweeping his hand opposite him, “and I know that Mya does not want to be alone with me. So I sent for both of you.”
Mya slowly stepped inside to look where he’d gestured, and saw a half-full armor stand, with an imposing suit of armor hanging on the pegs. The body was painted in blacks and dark grays, with a single howling direwolf in white across the chest. The helm was by far the most overengineered part, a snarling wolf’s head with the jaws acting as a visor to lift the entire top half away. As far as tournament armor went, it was remarkably lacking in ostentatious flourishes. Yet it was imposing in its own right, full of jagged edges and rough lines, and the dark fur stapled to the back looked more like a mane than a cape.
He had given the idea to Tobho Mott a month ago, when the idea of participating in the melee first came to him, and the master blacksmith had not disappointed. When he’d told him of his experience with two-handed blades, he’d even created the massive five-and-a-half foot greatsword laying across the rickety table. The thing was almost as tall as he was, at this age.
“Oh my.” said Ros.
“You… need my help putting on your armor?” said Mya, slowly.
Jon shrugged. “I’ve never worn this much plate armor before. I’m much more used to chainmail and boiled leather. And…” he looked away. “I don’t have anyone else I can ask, before the melee.” he looked back at Mya, meeting her gaze. “Please?”
Mya stared at Jon for a long moment, before slowly nodding. Ros lifted a hand to her mouth to hide a small smile. “I’ll be outside,” she said, before backing out and leaving the two alone.
“Can I ask you for something, then, if you’re out there?” Jon asked. From the outside, a great cheer went up from the gathered smallfolk, perhaps at a side event. “Locate a stableboy and have him swap my tournament saddle with another. I’ll pay the difference for any kind of chaos this causes.”
Ros went still for a moment, the wry smile on her face dropping as it did. “I won’t be but a moment.” she said. “Keep your wandering little fingers to yourself, Snow, or I’ll give you hell when I get back.”
Jon watched her go quietly, even as Mya made noises of disapproval. It wasn’t often he leaned on the authority loaned to him by her true master - certainly not for something as banal as getting handsy with his betrothed - and she knew it. The code word told her more of the importance than anything he could say openly.
“Would you prefer the opening be held open?” he asked, keeping his voice level and soft.
“...I will be fine.” she asked, quietly. “You… have been a gentleman, as I asked you to be. What do I need to do?”
“There will be many straps and cinches on the sides, as well as sections of chainmail.” Jon replied. He gestured to his legs, already girded up to the hips in steel. “I’ve done what I am able to do alone. The upper torso… cannot be done up without a second person.”
Mya smiled wryly. “Just like the Reach, isn’t it? To make something as simple as armor into a two-person affair.”
Jon cocked his head, as the woman pulled the cuirass off the stand. “You know something of armor, my lady?” he asked, as he stood and obligingly held out his arms in a t-shaped pose.
“The boy I loved back in the Vale, Mychel Redfort, was squire to Ser Lyn Corbray, one of our finest knights.” she answered, as she strapped the cuirass onto his chest and cinched the shoulder-straps tight. “He spoke of the tools of a knight often, since he was tasked with maintaining them. When he became a knight, and I became his wife, I thought I would help him do the same.”
“Lyn Corbray…” Jon murmured, as she left to pluck the vambraces off the stand. “The one who was knighted by King Robert during the rebellion? The one with the Valyrian Steel sword who likes little boys?”
She stiffened. “That is a scurrilous rumor spread by the enemies of House Corbray.”
Jon winced. No doubt that was a line Mychel had given her. “Not according to Littlefinger, I’m afraid. With Jon Arryn gone, Baelish has designs on the Vale, and a spy network as good as anything the Spider could craft.” he wasn’t crass enough to ask how young Mychel was when he first began squiring for Corbray; he could tell the thought was already eating her from the inside.
She said nothing in reply, but instead fitted one vambrace on and stepped into his arm’s reach to get at the straps. It went quiet, for a long moment, until Jon could not stand it. “Did you get my gift?” he asked quietly.
“I did.” she said dismissively, turning to the other arm. “Who made it?”
“I did.”
She stopped. “Oh.” she whispered. “Oh. I… didn’t know you could paint.”
Jon’s expression lightened. “I needed a new hobby.” With as much as he had trained and fought in his original life, very little was gained by repeating the process - his instincts and reflexes were just as sharp, and all that was truly required for his body to realign with his prime form was physical conditioning. Now that he was finally staying in one place, he had reclaimed hours of free time, and unraveling the networks of Varys and Littlefinger only required so much daylight. “What did you think?”
She smiled, and shook her head as she began tightening the straps again. “You’ve obviously never been to the Eyrie. The Gates of the Moon are squarer and squatter, and the lower mountains aren’t as snow-covered as you made them. The Eyrie was also more of a squiggle of color than a proper castle, and the sky was the wrong shade of blue.”
“Ah.” Jon’s lips pulled into a thin line. “I’m sorry it displeased you. The way that you speak of the Vale, I… wanted to try and give you something of home.”
Mya tightened the last cinch on the vambrace and stopped. “I… didn’t say it displeased me.” she turned her head to meet him in the eye; as close as she was, it put her face inches away from his. “Had you simply paid an artist for it, I wouldn’t hesitate to slander it. But knowing you made it yourself…” a red blush appeared in her slender neck, and began creeping upwards. “I am… grateful. Truly.” she said quietly. “I noticed the little guide and donkey you had walking into the gate. She was wearing my old coat.”
The two of them simply stood there, armor momentarily forgotten. “I’m not as good with landscapes as I had hoped,” he said. “The man who taught me his technique was more concerned with portraits. Paintings of people and things. I have a little more experience there.”
With Mya’s impressive Baratheon height to her, she stood perfectly eye-level with Jon, and thus gave him the perfect viewpoint to watch the blush finally reach its destination and paint her cheeks a bright, pretty red. The contrast only served to highlight just how deep the indigo blue of her eyes were; noble daughters spent exorbitant amounts on cosmetics to imitate the breathtaking gaze that Mya had effortlessly. “... Would it be acceptable to join you? For a portrait?”
Jon smiled, and his nod brought his face within an inch of hers, setting her blush flaring brighter. “As you wish.”
A conspicuously loud rapping on the wooden tentpole had the two violently flinch apart. “Sorry to interrupt.” said Ros, not even hiding the smug smirk on her face. “Your saddle has been swapped out for a spare. You made a good call - they found some damage on the straps.”
“Ros!” Mya gasped, her blush fully covering her face. “I- this isn’t-”
“Oh, please.” the former whore scoffed. “You think I’m going to be shocked you’re trying to fuck a man as pretty as Lord Greystark here before your wedding? I’m starting to think you wanting a chaperone is for his benefit and not yours.”
“Stop that. That was uncalled for.” Jon barked immediately. “Our discussion was nothing of the sort.”
Mya glanced frantically between the two, stopped, and slowly took a deep breath. “Ros. you can handle the rest of his armor. I will be stepping away.” With that, she walked briskly out of the tent, not even looking at the two of them. Ros violently rolled her eyes.
“Silly girl.”
“I don’t appreciate your tone with her, Ros.” Jon said flatly. “Do I need to have a conversation with Baelish about your conduct?”
“Petyr wouldn’t care.” she replied flippantly as she walked in and pulled the rest of the armor off the stand. “I’ve spent more time with her this past month than you have, my Lord. Once you get her away from the prying eyes of the court, she is her father’s daughter through and through, irreverent and mirthful and lusty for life. No doubt that had she not been taken to court, she’d have that Mychel boy’s brains dribbling out of his-”
“Enough of this.” Jon snapped. Ros froze. “You’re deliberately trying to antagonize me. You only do that when you have a message. Speak his words, or get out.”
Ros shook her head. “It’s too easy to break your facade. You’re a good man, Lord Greystark, but if Petyr knows to use your anger against you, others who are against you will as well. Learn to only express the emotions your audience wants you to see.” she smirked again, as she belted up the rest of his arms. “You could say I’m an expert on that front.”
Jon snorted, and shook his head. You DO see only what I want you to see. “Go on.”
“The damage on your saddle was intentional.” she whispered quietly, mostly muffled by the clatter of Jon’s armor. “Another play on your life. The squire of Ser Amory Lorch did it. A Lannister man, through and through, and a childkiller. Threw the last Lord Tarbeck down a well, and mutilated the daughter of Elia Martell. He doesn’t act without Tywin Lannister’s orders.”
Jon’s face was carefully blank. “Littlefinger says Amory Lorch’s squire slashed my saddle.” he said quietly. “Then Littlefinger is saying that Tywin thinks I am a threat to his grandchildren’s rule. The danger to Mya should I die is implicit. Is there a plot against the King in the melee?”
“There is.” she whispered. “Six men. Lorch, Garner, and Stackspear from the Westerlands. Boggs, Langward and Pyle from the Crownlands. Littlefinger has seen to the Crownlanders, so they will not be a problem, but the Westerlanders will need to be dealt with.”
At least he didn’t lie about the number of assassins. He still wants me alive, for the moment. Jon kept his expression passive as he nodded. At last, the bevor was attached around his neck, the thick structure necessary to keep his unbalanced decorative helmet upright. Ros lifted the snarling black wolf’s head, and as it went over Jon’s head, his vision went dark as the mane rustle against his back.
“You cut a terrifying sight, Jon Greystark.” Ros remarked, as his eyes adjusted to what little light filtered through the slits and open mouth of the wolf. “You and that sword. Almost as big as you are tall. How do you even lift the thing?”
Jon gripped the top of the wolf’s head and ripped it open, hinging the mouth wide until he could see once more. “It’s not a blade I would use outside of mounted combat.” he admitted. “If I slouch even slightly while sheathed on my back, the tip drives into the ground, and you wouldn’t be able to defend yourself well on foot.” he looked up, lips pursed into a grim smile. “No. This is a tool of pure, unrelenting offense. Strike with overwhelming force, and do not be present for the enemy to retaliate.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” the former whore stepped back. “As long as I’m not forced to explain to Mya why her fiance died for not using a shield in the melee.”
Jon merely shook his head, and at last stood to his feet. “I want you to have apologized by the time I get back.”
“I’ll do it quicker than that.” Ros replied. “She’ll be in the stands, watching. Don’t make a fool of yourself out there.”
Jon closed his eyes. “... I won’t.” he said, at last. “They’ll tell stories of this melee all the way in Winterfell.”
The sun filtered strangely through the wolfshead helmet as Jon stepped out from his tent. He could feel the eyes of passersby lingering on him, see them stop and double-take at him as he made his way to the stables. When he reached his own horse, the beast reared in momentary fear before Jon’s eyes flashed white behind his helm. At once, the courser calmed, and Jon pulled himself up swiftly, a single hand pulling gently on the hilt of his greatsword to hold it away from their armored bodies as he did.
Jon didn’t say a word to anyone around him as he rode through the crowds, towards the fields set aside for the melee. He was already sinking into the role he had chosen for the performance. His eyes briefly lingered on Mance as the King-in-motley led the gathered crowd through a rousing rendition of ‘Six Maids in a Pool’. Mance turned to Jon, gave him a wink, and turned away; Jon didn’t need to think long before the words he’d whispered to the birds returned to him.
“The King’s been publicly goaded into riding in the melee by Cersei, as everyone knows,” Mance whispered to Him, as He pecked through the fluff of his wings, “But what they don’t know is that the King is meant to die.” His head snapped up at that, and Mance nodded. “Oh, yes. Six men out of the forty-one fighters are after Robert’s head - half crownlanders and half westermen, and queensmen all of them.
“They’ll make it look like an accident, but Varys had me sabotage the crownlanders so they’ll go down early - he wants it especially obvious that the king died on Lannister orders, I think. The Spider still thinks I’m his man, and my speaking to animals is merely a wildling trait. The ones whose saddles I didn’t slash are from house Lorch, Stackspear and Garner. Save the fat bastard from himself, if it be your desire. Oh, and…” Mance turned and looked him directly in the eyes. “Robert wasn’t the only target from the Spider. Replace your entire saddle. Ride well, goodbrother.”
Jon looked away, shaking his head, and rode for the field. Seven entry points led to the field for the Seven new gods; Jon thought for a moment, and joined at the point given to the Stranger. Across the field, he could see Robert in the Father’s point, astride a massive stallion and choking his grip high on his warhammer. Two men beside him were eying him suspiciously; one of them had Stackspear’s coat. In the Warrior’s point, Jaime Lannister held strong at the van, and met Jon’s gaze with an arrogant smirk; the Lannister, Jon knew, would be after him with a vengeance.
There was another face that Jon saw, though, and it was not one he was expecting; Thoros of Myr, notable for his simple chainmail. The shaved head was different from the topknot he remembered, as was the significant fat in his cheeks and chin. I was searching for him, the last time I was in King’s Landing, Jon remembered. The only other Red Priest in Westeros, other than Melisandre. He’ll have to use his flaming sword trick to spook the horses, if he’s not wearing plate armor like the rest.
Upon the raised dais, Cersei Lannister stood from her seat, her golden dress shimmering in the sun and hair bound immaculately high. “Brave warriors,” she called out, “the Seven Kingdoms honors you who are about to fight. Let all here remember your names, and may the Warrior grant you the strength of arm to guide you to victory!”
Her hand snapped up, and the grand melee began with a thunder of hooves, as the seven points of the arena burst wide with the initial charge. Jon held back, gritting his teeth as he did; even with armor as well-crafted as his, getting caught in the middle of the initial clash was a death sentence if he was knocked off and trampled. Indeed, he could hear Robert roaring with bloodlust as he pummeled his way through the tilt.
Instead, Jon whirled his charger and locked eyes on his first target- the Stackspear lingering in the back. He steadied his greatsword and charged, holding it down low and to the left as his eyes flashed. The horse underneath him needed no further direction, and charged with a fury, dashing past its peers whirling and rearing in fright. In the central mass, a great rush of air heralded the birth of flame, as Thoros of Myr lit his sword ablaze. Half the riders were almost bucked as their mounts reared; Jon’s horse was beyond such mortal concerns as fear.
The Stackspear whirled to defend against Jon’s attack, as he whipped his blade forward. The metal sang as it raced through the air, and as it hit Stackspear’s shield it sounded across the field like the bells of the Great Sept. The hit set the assassin reeling, as Jon’s horse jumped at the noise. The beast’s leg reared back as it arced through the air, and as the Stackspear was recoiling one way, the iron-shod hoof rocketed out and slammed into his helm from the other. The sound was a second gong, as the assassin was sent hurtling from his saddle, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle.
The crowd roared with bloodthirst, as a number of fighters disengaged and stared at him with shock. Jon lowered the tip of his blade low enough to scrape the ground, as his mount stamped and snorted with vigor. Robert, meanwhile, didn’t care in the least and continued to batter away at the rapidly disengaging initial melee. Seven fighters were down, their horses stampeding away in fear. All of them were rolling about in pain, but alive; only the Stackspear was unmoving.
Come on, then. Jon raised his greatsword in salute, to the crowd’s approval. Jaime stared at him from across the field, before raising his own arms in reply, before pointing a sword at him in challenge. Jon skimmed the field, staring at the assorted heraldry. Two crownlanders went down in the melee, saddles and all; another was still ahorse but struggling heavily to keep himself upright in the chaos of the melee. Half the assassins are dealt with, and another will be unhorsed soon. That leaves… Garner and Lorch.
Jon lifted his blade point to Jaime, and the crowd roared with excitement before Jon slowly drifted his target to the Lorch knight. The stout manticore-clad man in thick plate was howling with delight as his blade clashed against Robert’s warhammer - the man’s blood was up, and more than once missed the gap in Robert’s helm by inches. The Kingsguard stiffened in his saddle, before kicking his horse into a gallop.
Jon grinned and steadied his sword, and with a mental command the steed underneath him broke into a blazing charge. The rest of the melee saw them coming, and with a great panic broke apart. Lorch, however, did not, and only just reacted quickly enough to raise his blade to block.
All the force of Jon’s charge was put into his wild swing, sending the heavily-armored knight reeling in the saddle; he didn’t see the second blow from Jaime coming from the opposite side, slamming directly into his gorget. The metal dented heavily into his neck, and Amory Lorch only had a moment to react to the sudden difficulty breathing before a third and final blow from Robert Baratheon’s warhammer slammed directly into his crown. The thick bassinet crumpled inward, and Lorch fell from his horse bonelessly, blood leaking from the inside of his helmet.
The crowd screamed his name. The fighters, on the other hand, backed away as they felt the battle shift. Jon smiled grimly under his helm as his steed raced away. The North does not play at war; If you fight with live steel, you fight to kill. The South shall learn what we have always remembered.
Jon charged at another melee fighter, swinging his greatsword in a great arc at their chest. The fighter managed to raise his own shield in time, but the blow rocked through him, and the loud CLANG set his opponent’s horse rearing underneath in fear. The fighter toppled off in a clatter of metal, knocking him out of the melee - Jon had already rocketed away, wind whistling along the greatsword’s keen edge.
Garner saw him coming, or perhaps had spotted the pattern. The assassin-knight had his blade and shield ready, locked in position. Jon grinned underneath his helm, and raised up the slab of metal in his hands for yet another killing blow - until Garner’s blade twitched downward, and the point lay level with the breast of his horse. The sight had barely processed in Jon’s mind before his courser reared, prancing into an awkward side-hop to avoid the illegal attack.
Garner only let his shock stun him for a moment before he spurred into a charge, longsword raised high. Jon could not react in time, and instead raised a single fist against the attack. The sword impacted hard against his own plate, and for a moment Jon feared the worst; but then Garner’s blade bounced off, and the Northerner could see for himself why the Reach swore by plate armor, for while his fist was numb from the impact the armor itself was barely even creased by the attack. When your very body was a walking fortress, a shield was the topping on the cake.
Garner went back for a second strike, but Jon met this instead with a mighty swing of his greatsword. The strike set the air ringing, ripping the longsword from Garner’s grip and to the ground. The assassin let out a panicked shout, before Jon let out a loud roar and plunged the point of his blade through the eye of Garner’s helmet. The horse between Jon’s legs charged, ripping Garner off his mount; the weight carried the blade down, and impaled his corpse into the wooden barricade of the arena.
The crowd roared, but another voice came louder, more shrill. “STOP THIS BUTCHERY!” Queen Cersei shrieked, rising from her throne under the royal pavilion. “IN THE NAME OF THE QUEEN!” the fighters slowly came to a halt, Robert last of them all. The King glared furiously up at his wife, panting.
“What are you playing at, woman!?”
“I demand the expulsion of Greystark from the melee!” She shouted. “The Northman has turned a grand tournament into a charnelhouse for his savagery!” The crowd booed; it took Jon a moment to realize they were booing the queen instead of him. “Three lords are dead because of him now - I will not suffer a fourth!”
Jon scowled and ripped his greatsword from the wall. The screech of steel upon the shattered backside of Garner’s helmet set his teeth dancing. He was frankly surprised she’d taken the elimination of her assassins so poorly she’d move against him publicly. He’d accomplished the most important goal of protecting the king, in the end; he could suffer an expulsion with grace.
Before he could respond, however, Robert spoke. “I think not, wife of mine. Was any blow of Greystark’s an illegal one? Did he strike down a man on foot?” he raised his warhammer, spiked head covered in semi-dry blood, and pointed it at Jon. “Did you kill a man who had surrendered, or was eliminated from the melee?”
“No, your Grace.” Jon answered immediately. “The last was without a sword, but that does not qualify as either elimination or surrender.”
“Then the White Wolf has done no wrong!” Robert barked. “Every man here takes their life into their hands for glory! They’re not the first to die in a tourney, and they won’t be the last!” he lifted the warhammer into the sky. “What say you, people of Westeros? Has Lord Greystark wronged us? OR SHALL WE FIGHT ON?”
The crowd exploded. “FIGHT!” “FIGHT!” “BLOOD ON THE FIELD! BLOOD FOR THE WHITE WOLF!”
Cersei looked as though she was about to spontaneously combust in fury. “ENOUGH!” she called. “BACK TO THE POINTS! CLEAR THE FIELD!”
Robert sneered victoriously, and cantered away to the Father. As Jon flicked the blood off his greatsword and glanced around, he could not help but be amazed. Fully two thirds of the combatants were down, their horses being led away by anxious servants as dead and unconscious bodies were rolled onto stretchers. The only dead, it appeared, were those that fell at his hand.
As he rode back to the Stranger’s point, an unexpected figure joined him - Thoros of Myr. “Well done, you.” said the Red Priest. “I think more people were afraid of your hunk of iron than they were of my flames. You ride like a Dothraki, born in the saddle.” he reached out a hand. “Thoros, late of Myr.”
He wasn’t wrong. Many of the men here had spent far longer fighting on horse than he had - but those men were not skinchangers. He didn’t even need reins, for his steed knew his desires the minute he had them. “Jon.” Jon met his hand. “I’ve heard of you many a time. Your breach of Pyke is legend for my father and his bannermen.” As the two reached the point, they stood well apart from each other - nobody else had joined them there.
“As legendary as my hangover the next morning, I’m sure.” Thoros grinned, as un-priestly as possible. “You’ll be there soon, as well, I think - the King has graced you with a moniker. Keep this up, and tales of the White Wolf will be halfway to Winterfell by breakfast.”
Jon smiled, before tamping down his emotions. “I have been meaning to speak with you, Thoros.” he murmured. “It is important business. I am in need of a Red Priest’s guidance.”
“I was never much of a Red Priest, even on my best days.” said the older man, frowning. “Woe to you that I am your only option. Can your matters wait? I am forced to leave the capital for at least a moon for business, and it was only at His Grace’s insistence that I stayed for even the Melee.”
“What business?” Jon asked sharply.
“Red Priest business.” Thoros drawled. “What else? I’ve been summoned to Dragonstone by-”
Jon’s hand snatched Thoros by the shoulder and drew him in. “By Melisandre of Asshai?” Jon hissed.
“How do you-?”
[“Tell her nothing.”] said Jon, in perfect High Valyrian. [“She is forsaken. She serves the Shadow, and Shadow is cousin to the Night. Keep your council, O prodigal son, and return.”]
Thoros stared at Jon, eyes wide. [“I… will be the judge of that. But I will return for you, Lord Greystark.”]
Jon nodded, and looked back at the field.
What the - What just happened? Whispered Lodos.
What? Nothing happened. I was talking to Thoros.
Hmm… if you insist.
“Seems as though you have a challenger.” Thoros remarked conversationally. Jon glanced around, and saw Jaime Lannister pointing his blade directly at him from the Warrior’s point.
“He’s been after a fight since I came South.” Jon remarked.
“Then by R’hllor, why haven’t you given him one?” Thoros grinned jokingly. “Take your challenge, young lord - I’ll keep the rest of the field occupied.”
“Brave words,” Jon smirked, “for any man without a flaming sword to spook the horses.” Cersei called for the charge once more, and Thoros of Myr let out a wild whoop as he charged headlong into the fray. Jon held back with a leisurely trot, pulling the greatsword from his back and pointing it one-handed at Jaime.
The Kingslayer grinned, slammed his visor down, and spurred his horse into a gallop. Jon lowered the blade below the eyeline, and with his armored hand gripped the fattest part of the blade in a vise grip, leaving the hilt and pommel free. As the crowd roared at the confrontation, Jon’s courser charged at a single mental command, and Jaime’s blade had only just raised for the strike when he saw the deceit.
The greatsword in Jon’s hand came up the wrong way as Jon ducked under the headslice, and the Lannister only had a moment to raise his shield before the solid-steel pommel of the greatsword - the murderstrike turning it into an improvised mace - crumpled the gold-inlaid shield inward. The shockwave ran up Jon’s arm and nearly ripped his arm from the socket, but he kept the momentum going - his free hand grabbed the handle again, and his steed spun on a dime to grant him the speed to slice at Lannister’s back.
The blow hit true, and Jaime nearly was sent toppling from his saddle as the greatsword scored a deep gouge on the Lannister’s golden armor. Jon could barely hear the crowd as Jaime raced away and then righted himself. The man glanced down at his shield, the bottom quarter dented inwards by at least thirty degrees, before throwing it to the ground. Jaime looked up, then, and slowly reversed his grip on his own longsword, waggling it tauntingly at Jon.
Jon grinned underneath his helmet. He knew a fighter like Lannister would be fascinated with the technique just as he had been, all those years ago - only a wildling could come up with using a sword the wrong way round to devastate heavy armor. If it weren’t for that shield, Jaime would be out of the melee. Jon kicked into a gallop, bracing his greatsword as Jaime did the same.
Jon saw for a brief moment the tip of his black-iron steel slam into Jaime’s armored chest before - CLANG! The world went white. His vision returned, but only in one eye - the other could vaguely see the helm had crumpled inward on his left side, destroying the eye-hole. As he whirled about, Jaime was coming back in with another murderstrike. Jon grit his teeth, and couched the hilt of his greatsword in his armpit before charging.
Jaime only had a moment to realize what had happened, and it was a moment too late. The hilt of Lannister steel hit him in the wolf helmet’s snout, but not before the improvised lance slammed once more into Jaime’s chest. The hit was true, and Jaime Lannister was at last flung from his saddle to the ground.
Even as Jon forced his visor open with a grinding screech, the audience reached a fever pitch. After a moment, he could see why - Thoros of Myr had cut a bloody swath through the remaining fighters. Only two men stood against him - the King, and a man draped in a fine starry cloak. It took Jon a long moment to recognize him - he had never seen Beric Dondarrion whole.
The Red Priest grinned at the two men, dear friends both, before kicking his steed into a charge. The burning blade in his hand spun about menacingly, spinning too low to threaten the men but perfectly eye-level for his opponent’s horses. Dondarrion raced out with a slice at his belly, clashed once, and whirled. Thoros swung at Dondarrion, and the heat of the blade passed inches above the horse’s mane. An ember touched upon the horse, sending it rearing -
Just in time for Robert Baratheon to let out a wild roar, and sweep out a blow wild enough to nearly unhorse himself. The warhammer took Dondarrion in the chest, sending him flying to the ground, and Thoros only had a moment to react before the followup caught him in the side. The flaming sword slipped from his hands, and the red priest slowly slumped out of the saddle, unconscious.
The excitement of the crowd rose to a fever pitch. Jon glanced around - half were calling his new moniker - ‘WHITE WOLF! WHITE WOLF!’ The other half were calling something he didn’t expect. ‘DE-MON! DE-MON!’
The White Wolf and the Demon of the Trident. Nothing but stories to the smallfolk. Jon met Robert’s gaze, his helmet circled with a crown of bone antlers. The King raised his hammer to Jon, challenging.
Jon glanced around, face blank. Yes. This is enough. He slowly kicked his horse into a slow walk, approaching the King at nowhere near a battle pace. Robert, perhaps sensing the mood shift, did not respond with violence. The courser under Jon’s legs came to a stop several yards away, and with slow, deliberate movements, Jon unhooked his legs from the saddle and lowered himself to the ground.
The crowd’s mood immediately shifted, howling with displeasure at the self-disqualification as Jon thrust his greatsword into the dirt and knelt before the King. “Even in sport, I will not strike the man who has granted me so much in this life.” Jon announced. “Out of the love my father bore you, out of gratitude for welcoming me into your family, and out of loyalty to the crown, I withdraw myself from the melee.”
Out of everyone who was unhappy with his words, the crowd was the loudest - their boos set Jon’s ears ringing again. The queen, too, looked as though someone had swallowed something rotten as she stood from her seat and raised her arm. “By the surrender of Lord Greystark, the Seven have proclaimed a final victor. Hail to Robert Baratheon, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms!”
But the one most unhappy was the one who only Jon could see, as Robert Baratheon raised the visor on his helmet and stared at him with a choked, withering gaze.
Robert Baratheon cornered him at the doors to his tower apartment. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at, boy?” He growled.
“Your Gra-”
“Don’t give me that ‘your Grace’ shite.” Robert cut him off, eyes narrow. “You and my shrew of a wife goad me into riding, but you won’t even raise a hand against me? You think I’m going to reward you for such loyalty after you tore around that field like a demon? I’d sooner throw you in the Black Cells for the disrespect. One chance, Greystark.”
Jon stared at the king with a pensive expression, slowly choosing his words. “Perhaps you should question the motives of those who did strike at you instead of those who didn’t.” he said quietly. “You might find your answer where their honor lies.”
“HONOR!?” Robert shouted. “You killed three men on that field today! I defended you, but I know the difference between an accidental death and deliberate murder! Don’t talk to me about honor!”
“Aye, I killed three men.” he answered. “And only those three men. I assure you, it was not by accident.”
That stopped Robert. “What?” he asked. “What are you - oh for…” an irritated twist of his mouth. “More bloody assassins. Is that what you’re telling me? Lorch and Garner and Stackspear were after my head. That’s why you rode.” his eyes narrowed. “All Westerlanders.”
Jon said nothing in reply.
“No answer, eh.” he shook his head. “You and fucking Stannis. He refuses to come back from Dragonstone. I’m about to order him back to the Small Council, or he’s no longer Master of Ships. I doubt that will move the stubborn prick, but he won’t tell me what has him jumping at ghosts. And neither will you.”
“It’s… not my place to say.” Jon answered quietly.
“You’re my Hand’s Jewelry, Greystark, and on the Small Council. If I order you to tell me, you tell me.”
“... Does Varys tell you every secret whispered to him?” asked Jon. “Or only when it becomes important?”
Robert scowled. “Tch. Think you’re the Master of Whisperers, now, do you? Got secrets tucked away that not even Varys knows…” He trailed off. “Hmm.”
I think a long-overdue thought has just hit our fair king in the head. Lodos said, rather archly.
Robert straightened up from his threatening slouch. “Fine, Greystark. We’ll play this your way.” he paused. “Your words have not been wrong yet. Hightower tells me we no longer owe a debt to the Iron Bank, because of you. The Bank of Oldtown bought it all, and is selling it back to us with a fraction of the interest. Barely enough to pay the coin-counters, he says.” he folded his arms in front of him. “A question.”
“Yes, your Grace.”
Robert hesitated, drumming his thick fingers against the inside of his elbows. “My brother won’t return to King’s Landing.” he finally said. “I’m sure of it, now. I will need a new Master of Ships. If I had put the question to my Small Council returning without your blighted father, I know for a damned fact I’d end up with Tywin fucking Lannister in my court. You brought me Hightower, instead… and he’s done alright. So now I ask again. If you think you know as much as you do… then who do I replace my own flesh and blood with?”
Jon slowly closed his eyes. This had not happened before - Stannis was still Master of Ships when Robert died, far past the Tourney of the Hand. Apparently, a sober Robert was less willing to put up with the absence than a drunkard. “... first, you make it clear to Lord Stannis that this is not a punishment.” Jon said quietly. “Give him something, as you take away the title.”
“Why?”
“Because he clearly thinks you hate him.” Jon answered immediately. “Otherwise he would have told you what frightened him, without fear of your response.”
“... And who says he’s wrong?” the King replied quietly. Jon stopped. “I’ve never cared for any of my true brothers. Gods help me, but it’s true. I never loved them the way I loved…” he didn’t finish his sentence, but instead stared past Jon, at something only he could see.
“... And yet, neither of them abandoned you.” Jon said quietly. “When anybody could see what you just admitted. They wanted you to love them, while you spurned them. Reward them for their loyalty, at least.”
Robert simply stood there, staring at nothing, before shaking himself out of his stupor. “... and the Master of Ships?” he said, voice rough.
You don’t need to do this for me, Lodos whispered with the scent of the sea.
It’s not just for you. I made a promise, too. I would learn how to make things right.
… Thank you.
“... Asha Greyjoy.” Jon said, without hesitation. “Balon’s daughter.”
That caught Robert’s attention. “What? Why would-” he stopped. “Your ward is her brother, isn’t he?”
“Yes, your Grace.” he said quietly. “She and I have never been introduced, but I know of her. She is… not her father’s daughter, in all the ways that matter. Fearless and crude, like all Ironborn, but learned, and sees far more than Balon thinks she does. She would struggle initially to become accustomed to the office’s trappings, but leadership becomes her, and would thrive given time.”
“She’s also Balon fucking Greyjoy’s daughter.”
“And the heir apparent to the Iron Islands.” said Jon. “Tradition would state that you offer the position to Balon. To offer it instead to his daughter, the next generation of Greyjoy… would signal that you can forgive the Rebellion, but it is not forgotten.”
“To bring her here would be to invite Balon’s spy.”
“That’s why she’ll accept.” Jon answered. “She will want to say no - your retribution led to the deaths of her brothers. Balon will order her to say yes, once he has realized the insult. He’ll want her to sabotage the Royal Fleet. We shall instead pull her from his court to ours, and lash the future of the Iron Islands to ours.”
“And why would we want such a daft thing?” said Robert.
“Because for three hundred years the Targaryens were willing to let potential lie fallow over the idiotic notion that men cannot change their nature.” Jon stared Robert directly in the eyes, unflinching. “Prove them wrong, your Grace.”
Robert met that stare quietly, before snorting. “Aye. What would the fucking dragonspawn know of men? Their veins ran cold with slime instead of hot blood. Aye. We’ll show them how men change. I’ll show that bastard I can-”
Robert stopped himself, squeezing his eyes tight. Shaking his head once, setting his bushy beard jiggling, he reached into his cape and pulled out a thick roll of parchment and chucked it at Jon. “Here.”
Jon caught it out of the air, and noted with interest the wax seal was imprinted with the King’s signet ring. “What is this?”
“The winnings of the melee. It’s yours.” Jon’s head whipped up at that, and Robert barked out a laugh at the shocked expression. “HA! Consider it a wedding gift. Or a down payment. You’ll need it if you’re to build my daughter a proper keep to live in.”
He turned away. “Your wedding has been scheduled. It’s in two moons. Long enough for a raven to reach Winterfell, and for a band to come down the Kingsroad… if they desire. Be ready.”
With that, the King turned away, leaving Jon alone in the apartment tower. Slowly, the parchment in Jon’s hand crumpled into his clenched fist.
Notes:
Whew. Got this out just in time for Thanksgiving. My gift to all of you who need something to keep yourselves entertained while getting harassed by your aunties over cranberries. It ended up taking way longer than I expected - mainly because I underestimated just how many words it'd take to cover the topics I wanted to cover. the chapters keep getting longer. Pain.
It's an odd feeling, looking at hitting over a thousand bookmarks. It's an even odder feeling to realize that I've overtaken in statistics A Song For Dragons, one of the stories I so vocally talked up earlier on. It's humbling, certainly, but it sort of ties into my question from last chapter - where the heck did all of your *come* from?
Looking through some of my other fave stories, I can't help but wonder if you're all coming from the same mystical place that fanart comes from. Hope you're all having a wonderful time. I personally am not - I've already started hearing that harridan Mariah Carey crooning about what she wants for Christmas. Fuck your consumerism, we celebrate holidays in the correct order, dammit.
See you all in the comments.
Chapter 23: Life Seven: Part 6
Summary:
Old blood and new, mingle in the Small Council. Bad blood and good, spilt in King's Landing.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“There once was a woman, as fair as an evening, of springtime in old- shit.”
Mya laughed softly as Jon frowned at the lute in his hand, contorting his hand in a rapid repetitive movement over the neck. “You nearly had it that time.”
“Springtime in old - springtime in - springtime in… curse this chord, my fingers don’t stretch that far apart so quickly.” replied Jon, strumming the offending note several times upon the strings before leaning back in frustration. “Mance makes this look easy in the lessons.”
“I’d hope he does. It’s why he still has a head.” She drawled, slouching back upon her chair. The morning sun was not yet high in the sky, and sent long streamers of light through the window into Jon’s tower apartment, illuminating the two and their frivolity. “At least you sing well. That’s half the battle over - I have a voice like a strangled cat.”
“You’re too hard on yourself. I’ve been singing far longer than this other… artistic nonsense. These new things are difficult.” he replied. Jon refrained from mentioning that the vast majority of that singing had been after his banishment - when the blizzards of the decade-long winter piled the snows over even the trees, singing was one of the few ways to entertain yourself in the dugout shelters, and Val was a very good teacher.
“Says the man who invented painting with oil. Do you know that I’ve been getting hounded by letters ever since you sold that Winterfell piece? Your little secret material’s been driving them mad.” Mya grinned. “They think the Bastard Princess will be gullible enough to reveal whatever ‘alchemist’s concoction’ the White Wolf has that allows him to churn out so much work. One fellow from Lys has been particularly driven.”
Jon arched an eyebrow. “Not Vyrellio Sorren?”
“You know him? I’ve received three letters from him already.”
“An… old acquaintance of mine. I doubt he remembers us meeting. I wonder how he heard about it all the way across the Narrow Sea.”
“He seems to think you ‘plagiarized’ his technique, whatever that word means, and wants the secret of the oils in return.”
Jon snorted. “Of course. My ‘alchemist concoction’.”
Mya’s good cheer faded, and a hard frown replaced her smile. “I wish you’d told me about that deception, before I had to learn about it from the campaign of slander.” Jon winced; an attack on his reputation by Varys, without question. Tying him for the past month to heretic sorcerers in some ears, and lunatic crackpots in others, and most dangerously to secret Targaryen loyalists - all with the goal of diminishing his newfound public popularity. It’d been alarmingly effective so far, because when it came to the Pyromancers most of it was true. “I would not have minded you accompanying me to the sept as cover to visit the Alchemists had you only asked.”
Jon frowned, setting the lute down gently. “My apologies. I should have trusted you. This city… brings out the worst in me.” he paused, before his face twisted. “No. It has already brought out the worst in other men, and it forces me to stoop to their level or be destroyed. I… am glad I am the one that is here, and the rest of my family is safe in Winterfell.”
“Is that why you had Ros and Humphrey given to me?” Mya asked quietly.
“The Hightowers are one of the few we can trust - I don’t doubt they have some plan of their own, but Lord Hightower owes me and the King a debt that cannot be easily repaid, and Humphrey is a filial son.” said Jon. his eyes narrowed. “Ros, on the other hand, is Littlefinger’s, and your trust in her should only go as far as Littlefinger believes we are dancing to his tune. That won’t last forever - I know you are fond of her, but be prepared to cut her loose.”
Mya frowned, but nodded. The two sat there in silence for a long moment, before Mya spoke up again. “Would… would you like to come with me to the Great Sept someday, in truth?”
Jon looked up. “Perhaps,” he responded. “I should spend some time learning about my betrothed’s gods, shouldn’t I?”
She smiled. “Thank you.” her eyes went up to the ceiling. “I was never terribly faithful in the Vale, but the Sept of Baelor was one of the few places I did not receive scornful looks in the early days here. And… it reminds me of my mother, and the little songs she sang to me.”
Her finger began to swish about in the air, keeping tempo. “The Seven god who made us all~,” she crooned, far more sweetly than she claimed possible earlier, “are listening if we should call~, so close your eyes, you shall not fall~, they see you, little children~.”
“A lullaby?” Jon asked.
“Aye.” she nodded, and Jon’s eyes lingered on her red pursed lips. “I heard it every night before I slept. Seven verses, one for each of the Seven, except for the Stranger.”
“Why not?”
Mya looked at him askance. “Why not what?”
“Why no verse for the Stranger? Is he not part of the Seven?”
Mya frowned. “Nobody sings songs to the Stranger, or offers oaths. Few light candles to him, except when traveling far or making offerings to all of them. You… just don’t.”
Jon let out a chuffing laugh. “Afraid you might catch his attention? Seems a lonely godhood, to be ignored by your ‘children’.” he looked up, with a crooked grin. “Maybe I’ll make him a song. It might be terrible, but he won’t have anything to compare to, will he? I’ll be his favorite heathen.”
“Stop it!” Mya giggled. “I thought you were better than this.”
“And whoever would make such a slanderous claim?” Jon grinned. “I’m the bastard of a Lord Paramount. I might as well be a Blackfyre - can’t trust a word from my mouth, it’s only a matter of time until I murder Lord Stark in his sleep.”
“Well, I thought you were better.” said Mya, smiling. “You talk like a man thrice your age, and act like it. Even Mychel was trying to steal kisses from me, and he was a gentleman, yet you’ve not passed at me nor any maids. I appreciated the maturity from one as young as you.”
Jon snorted. “I could claim that sex is overrated, but that would be a lie. I’m just simply not interested in furtive trysts and overwrought courtships. I’d rather just flex my thighs until the blood flows north again. And have no fear about maids - there is nothing as unattractive as a partner who is laying with you out of obligation.”
“And you think you know something of that?”
Jon leaned back in his chair, stared at Mya for a long moment, and decided to gamble. “Since you’ve been so open about your relationship with Mychel, yes. I do. I had someone I cared for in the North, now lost to me. The worst times I ever spent with her was when she was ill, and thought I still needed to be ‘dealt with’.” He shuddered. “Horrifically traumatic. Never again. I’ve insisted on active participation ever since - I’d rather lay with my left hand than a limp fish halfway to puking.”
“Lord Greystark!” Gasped Mya, scandalized and delighted in equal measure. Her Baratheon-blue eyes nearly shined as she took his measure anew. “If you persist in exposing your worldly nature to a blushing maiden I shall have to call for Ros to chaperone!”
Jon grinned. Ros was right, back at the tourney - Mya was her father’s daughter. Any other lady of the Red Keep would have slapped him silly and stormed out by now. “Why? So we can compare bedroom horror stories?”
Mya threw back her head in laughter, not even bothering to stifle herself until Jon held up his hand, frowning. “We have guests.”
“How on Earth are you able to tell?”
“Ghost got up just now, and bumped the door with his body.” he lied. In truth, Ghost could smell them walking up the stairs. Ghost even recognized their scent, though Jon could hardly say that out loud. “Enter!”
The figure hesitated outside the door, before pushing open. A small boy, no older than ten and only just now eating well. “Message for lord Greystark.” the boy murmured.
Jon smiled and immediately stood up. “Aedrick! So good to see you again!”
The Flea Bottom urchin blinked. “You… you remember me, m’lord?”
“How could I forget?” Jon grinned. “You nearly made off with my coin purse.” and hadn’t THAT been an agonizing waste of a day to try and stage that encounter again. “I trust you and your little sister Teia haven’t been making trouble for the cooks?”
“No!” he shook his head. “Teia cries when she fetches wood, but that’s cuz she holds ‘em wrong and gets splinters! There’s no trouble at all!”
“Settle down, child.” Mya replied. “You’re not in trouble. You’re among friends here.” she smiled, and reached over to a woven wicker basket, bringing it in front of her. “Share your message with us, and you can take some of this fruit with you. One for you, and one for your sister.”
Aedrick’s eyes immediately went to a pair of ripe, round peaches, and straightened up. “M’lord Hand said that a Greyjoy sail’s been spotted, and re… reqe… re-kwests your pre-sense at the ‘arber, M’lord Greystark!”
“Very good.” Jon nodded. “I think you’ve earned those peaches.” Jon picked them out of the basket, but as Aedrick reached for them, he lifted them just out of reach. “Now, remember Aedrick.” he said, sternly. “You’re a trainee cook now. Don’t eat them too fast and give yourself a tummyache, or work will be hard. Be a good example for your sister.”
“Yes, ser…” Aedrick groaned. Mya chuckled quietly behind them.
Jon smiled slightly, reached into his coinpurse and pulled out a thick silver Moon. Aedrick’s eyes immediately fixated on the coin. “I don’t think that Varys needs to know about anything that you saw up here today. Do you?”
“... No, ser.”
“Good lad.” Jon quietly placed the silver Moon in the palm of the boy’s hand, and then laid a peach over it. “Go and buy your sister a pair of thick horsehide gloves, so she doesn’t get splinters from kitchen firewood anymore. Crook your elbow.” the boy obeyed, and Jon carefully slotted the second peach against his chest, before reaching down and ruffling his hair. “Off you go, now.”
The young boy dashed off down the stairs like a loosed arrow. Jon waited for the echoing footsteps to fade before turning around. “I don’t think anything up here would have been anything the Spider didn’t already know. I just wanted to pay for Teia’s gloves.”
“You handle children well, for a man who was talking about laying with vomiting women not a minute ago.” Mya smirked.
Jon closed his eyes. Lyan and Ragnald’s faces flashed behind his eyelids. “Children are a joy. I had many younger siblings in Winterfell. It is not so different if they aren’t blood.” He then smirked. “And I never said vomit.”
“You didn’t need to.” she stood. “Shall we make for the harbor, then?”
“If that is your desire.” he held out an arm for her, and the two of them walked side by side down the stairs and through the halls of the Red Keep. All the while, Mya kept quiet, seemingly lost in her own thoughts, before speaking up at last.
“Wait. before we enter the city. There is something I need to say.”
“Yes?” Jon turned to face her, just as the girl came in close and met his lips in a soft, chaste kiss.
Mya only held it for a moment, before pulling away, her blush already pink on her cheeks. “I… I just - thank you. For being open, and kind.” she said quietly. “Knowing that I wasn’t - that neither of us were…”
“That I wasn’t your first love,” Jon said quietly, “and that you weren’t mine? And neither of us expected otherwise?” Mya said nothing in response, but quietly nodded. Jon smiled softly, and squeezed her hand. “This city made liars of us both to survive. The least I can do is be as honest as is safe with you. This was never going to be a romance for the bards between us, and it never had to be. All it needs is kindness and honesty - the rest will work itself out.”
Mya giggled to herself. “You don’t know how relieving it is to not be responsible for breaking your heart. Young men fall in love far too quickly, their first time.”
“And you didn’t, Lady ‘I learned about armor to be a better knight’s wife’ Redfort?” Jon teased.
“Says the boy who invented a new style of art just for me.” she retorted. Just as Jon opened his mouth to reply, she darted in again, stealing his lips for her own for a brief second. Jon came away blinking rapidly, and she grinned, bright red from embarrassed triumph.
The two bantered back and forth as they walked through the city together. From the corner of his eye, Jon could see Ser Arys Oakheart tailing them at a respectful distance. Jon liked Arys; he knew how to read the mood, and the fact that in all of Sansa’s grief about her time in King’s Landing, Arys’ name rarely ever came up spoke well to his honor. He was fairly certain he could take him in a fight, though, but he’d never try to confirm that - he’d already publicly beaten one Kingsguard, beating a second would just create even more controversy he didn’t need.
At last, the two reached the docks, where Leyton Hightower stood at the royal pier. “Ah. Lord Greystark, Lady Mya. I wasn’t expecting you two together.” he remarked, before turning back to face the sea. “You arrived just in time.”
Jon looked up, and saw a figment from his past - the Black Wind at full mast, minutes away from docking. A grin began to spread across his face, before forcefully squashing his emotions. He was a different man, now - he led a different life. Greeting them as his whims desired would earn him a dirk in the thigh, and Qarl’s sword at his neck.
Asha Greyjoy stood there on the prow of the longship, in full leather and chain and festooned with arms in a way that Jon could tell was for making an impression. Before the ship had even come to a full stop, she leaped off the deck and onto the docks, as if she were boarding an enemy vessel.
Oh, yes. Lodos whispered, highly amused. She is definitely trying to manage first impressions. She doesn’t get that blatant except for when she thinks there are suitors she needs to scare off.
“Oh. Well.” Mya murmured at his side. “That’s a bit much, isn’t it?”
Leyton was unphased. “Lady Greyjoy. Welcome to King’s Landing.” he bowed. “I am Leyton Hightower, Hand of the King.” he swept his hand out to the side. “This is Jon Greystark, also on the Small Council.”
Asha cocked her head at that. “Greystark?” she repeated. “That’s a dead name, is it not?”
“It was, until the King legitimized me with it.” he replied, bowing slightly. “Well met, Lady Greyjoy. I knew your brother in Winterfell. He spoke of you often.”
“Theon?” Asha seemed surprised. “He remembers me?”
“It is why I recommended you to King Robert.”
At Robert’s name, she grew guarded once again, as her crew finished properly docking. “So you are why I’m here?” said Asha, folding her arms. “Because half the lords of Pyke expected this to be an excuse to send me back with a blue-eyed bastard in my arms.”
Leyton coughed into his fist loudly. “I… can assure you, on my honor as Hand, Lady Greyjoy.” he said, once his fit finished. “There shall be no… relationships you do not… reciprocate.”
“So, what?” Asha glared at the two of them. “Robert the Whoremonger decided to make me, the daughter of his most rebellious lord, the first-ever Mistress of Ships and the first Greyjoy ever to sit on a Small Council… because the bastard he legitimized asked him to?”
“In so many words… yes.”
Asha went quiet for a moment, before grinning at Jon lopsidedly. “Well. I know who to turn to now, to grab him by the ear. You sure your old name was Snow instead of Storm?”
“If it wasn’t,” Mya said frostily, stepping forward, “Then I shall be highly embarrassed.”
Asha glanced at her. “And you are?”
“Mya Stone. Daughter of Robert Baratheon, and Lord Greystark’s betrothed.”
The two glared at each other, and Jon couldn’t help but groan internally. Asha was always terrible at interactions with non-Ironborn women.
You know, said Lodos, with a smirk Jon could hear, in most circumstances this would be a man’s nightmare. The old mistress meeting the new wife -
Lodos I swear to the Gods if you don’t shut your mouth right now-
The inside of Jon’s mind was filled with cackling, as he refocused outwards. “I would recommend not repeating that epithet outside the harbor - least of all because it’s no longer true. The Iron Islands must have not yet heard that the King has recently gone sober.”
“Really?” said Asha. “Will wonders never cease. Perhaps my precious, inviolate chastity won’t be stolen after all.”
Now Jon really had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “Let me show you around the Red Keep. It shall be your home for the foreseeable future, and I know well how easy it is to get lost. We shall all be working together, for the good of the realm.”
Her curtsy in reply was dripping in sardonic wit only he could see. “After you, my Lord Greystark.” she drawled.
As Jon slowly entered the iron torch gallery of the Alchemist’s guild, he could see that Hallyne was already there waiting for him. “My lord…!” said the Grand Master, and Jon noted with some amusement that the old man was bouncing on his feet like a giddy squire.
“I take it there has been a development?”
“Development?” Hallyne cackled. “A breakthrough, more like! It is the Substance, my lord - we can change the nature of the Substance!”
That took Jon aback. “Change… the nature of Wildfire?” The pyromancers had danced around teaching him anything of actual value before his blow-up, teaching him history and minor party tricks like he was a bored noblewoman to be distracted, but even to his novice ears a statement like that didn’t sound right.
“Quickly, quickly!” Hallyne called. “It is in the deepest halls, with the strongest wards! Come, come!”
Jon followed the excited alchemist through the twisting black halls, further and further down past unlit halls. It told Jon much about how many halls there were that were covered in thick dust - the alchemist’s had been in decline for a long time. At last, they came to an open door, lit with flickering orange flame.
“Inside!” Hallyne waved him in. Jon stepped through and immediately noticed the wide, gaping pit before him, sectioned off by a marble railing. Several old alchemists were already there, down in the pit and appearing to argue over something. “My most trusted wisdoms,” Hallyne said, gesturing at the men, “have been tirelessly at work reinterpreting first principles, and we have discovered something astonishing!”
Jon folded his arms. “Continue.”
“It began when Herys went back and re-examined the spells we rediscovered for the forging of Valyrian Steel, in the reign of Viserys the First - may his memory be a blessing.” Hallyne gestured to one of the arguing pyromancers below. “We did not understand why it worked then, only that it did. But now, thanks to you we understand! That’s the secret!” Hallyne leaned forward. “The secret of Valyrian Steel is that it’s not steel - it’s a composite! A metal alloy that has never been seen in the Seven Kingdoms before, mixed with a non-metal mineral we cannot identify non-destructively. By all rights the forging should be impossible - but it is Life that made it so!”
“Life?”
“Life, Lord Greystark!” Hallyne repeated. “Life changes - life adapts. The Valyrians used their magic - dragon magic, songs of fire and blood - to imbue life in things that had never lived, and molded them closer to their heart’s desire - including the dragons, if you believe the ravings of Asshai madmen! The spells we rediscovered then brought back a spark of that initial life, and made the composite moldable!”
“Really.”
“Even the Qohoriks know this, after they stole the spells from us-” here, Hallyne violently rolled his eyes. “And now the heathens sacrifice slave children to try and turn iron into Valyrian Steel. Animals. Completely missing the point, as we did… it’s not actually steel, you witless clods, it’s too light, and the forging temperature is all wrong. If it weren’t for the mystery mineral I’d bet my left eye the alloy would be softer than iron, too. Blood magic doesn’t overrule the natural sciences, and you’d know it if you bothered to do your own research…”
“You sound invested in this.”
“My elder brother… he refused to become an alchemist and instead was a smith on the Street of Steel… before a forge accident took him. He taught me much about his craft - he hoped I would follow him, away from…” The Grand Master shook his head rapidly. “Never mind all that. Old family history. The point being that from that research, we found continuity with first principles! The Substance!”
“Show me.”
Hallyne whirled around. “Prepare the demonstration!” he screeched.
The alchemists scrambled at the call. Jon watched as they scurried around like ants, as his finger slowly tapped his bicep. “You have not explained to me what it is that you have found.”
“Patience, my lord.” said Hallyne. “You will see for yourself, soon.”
From behind them, a wisdom entered through the doors, clutching in his hands a small glass phial. Jon felt a pit grow in his stomach; the liquid inside the phial seemed to glow a sickly green, and he knew without question that it was that same amount of Wildfire that had reduced the Kettleblack brothers entirely to ash. The alchemists backed away from the Wisdom, bowing deferentially before scrambling away. The man slowly made his way to a long rope in the center of the pit and tied it around the lip of the phial, leaving it suspended in the air, before quickly pulling away. Hallyne looked to Jon with a barely contained excitement, before forcefully pulling on a lever.
The wildfire dropped into freefall, and as the phial shattered on the sandy bottom of the pit, a great blast of hot air buffeted the room. A great green fire exploded upwards, twisting and turning as if it were a demon alive. Jon felt something in his soul catch at the sight, some primordial emotion - the same he’d felt long ago, when he first saw dragons flying through the sky. Terror, and awe.
“NOW!” Hallyne shouted. From across the viewing platform, another Wisdom threw something that Jon could not see into the fire. The Wildfire caught the object, and let out an unholy shriek as it recoiled. The fire whirled, and twisted, and visibly shrank before Jon’s eyes. And as it shrank, Jon could see the color of the Wildfire shift and darken, sending dark shadows flickering across the walls, until at last only a small tendril of flame remained.
“What in the…?”
Hallyne practically vibrated with excitement. “Quickly, my lord! Quickly!”
The alchemists all but stampeded down the steps into the pit, and Jon was swept along with them. The sand underneath Jon’s feet crunched loudly - no longer sand, he realized, but fused glass. Hallyne led first, and huddled over the lingering flame like a mother over her newborn babe. “Come, my lord… see for yourself.” he said, before reaching into his apron and pulling out a small length of wood and catching the end on fire.
The fire, which Jon could now see was a ghostly, ephemeral violet, leaped entirely to the end of the stick and held there, almost trembling. Not a single spark was left behind on the ground. Jon reached out with a shaky hand to the flame, and marveled as it recoiled from his touch. “What… what have you done, Hallyne?”
“Living flame, my lord.” Hallyne whispered, reverently. “For a thousand years, we have sought to rediscover the secrets our ancestors knew. To bind the violence of the Substance to the will of man. It was not until you came that we understood.” Hallyne held up the flame to his face and let out a soft coo. “The secret was death. Strictures. Limits. Without bounds, life rampages and destroys, not unlike fire - like Wildfire. That is why death exists.”
He lifted his free, ungloved hand and slowly drifted his fingers into the fire, and Jon could not help but marvel as the purple flame shied away from his flesh. He pulled his hand away, unsinged. “And so we have given the Substance the same. Through our magic, we have taught it the meaning of life, and death, and with it, the fear of its own end. We have given it a purpose, and a name. Living flame - Bondfire.”
A wisdom slowly held up a lantern of iron and glass, and Hallyne reverently lowered the Bondfire onto the wick. The lantern lit up, casting the room in violet hues, and as he pulled the stick away Jon could see that the tip was unlit now, and barely singed. “This purple flame… is alive?”
“Just as Wildfire is alive.” Hallyne said. “Just as the virulent poisons made by our Lysene counterparts are alive, as all alchemy is alive. It is not true life, born of flesh and bone and blood. It is a false life, a feral life, but they are all the more potent and hateful for it. By going further… hate is countered with fear. A rabid dog does not heed a man’s words - but a hound that knows the bite of a whip does.” his hands gently stroked the sides of the lantern, like ruffling a hound’s fur. A tongue of Bondfire flame licked the glass, and Hallyne let out a half-mad giggle. “This should not be possible.”
“I… will not dispute you on that.”
“No, my lord, you don’t understand!” said Hallyne, eyes wide. “Such a thing should not be possible - not since the Doom of Valyria, and before the death of the dragons!” he jabbed a finger out at him. “And yet you arrive, and all at once our spells spring to life! The production of Wildfire has never come easier, and old forgotten spells answer us once more! Magic seeps from your very pores like sweat! It’s simply…” he trailed off. “Who… what are you?”
“Did you truly think magic of that worth came without a price, in this stunted age?... Your hollow soul has been filled with scouring light, and incandescent flame. Tell me your game, R’hllor.”
Jon closed his eyes, and cast away the words of the Raven. “I am simply a man who wishes to know the secrets of your order. Anything else is not your concern.” he slowly lifted a hand to his brow. “What can this living flame do?”
“Wonders beyond reckoning.” Hallyne breathed.
“... You don’t know, do you.” As Hallyne went silent, Jon sighed. “We’ve been through this, Hallyne - you know I am not here to criticize. Speak to me plainly.”
“... The living flame is mentioned many times in ancient texts, a vital part of old half-preserved rituals. The Golems, for example. Those shall need to be rediscovered - and not nearly as quickly as this was. This was… shall we say, a personal project of mine for many years, that you gave the final answers to.” Hallyne said quietly. “But the Bondfire itself?”
The Grand Master trailed his fingers across the glass, guiding the violet flame with his movements. “Imagine a flame that answers to the will of man - a fire that works to preserve itself, and only rampages on command. Imagine a winter where men only need to harvest lumber for a fraction of their days, for the hearth burns twice, thrice as long - the flame itself tempers the consumption, in order to live longer. Imagine a forge that burns at the forgemaster’s will, shifting from a simple cookfire to hot enough to melt steel on command. Imagine a wall torch that falls onto a plush carpet, and does not ignite, for the fire refuses to burn that which it was not told to burn.”
Jon’s mouth dropped open slightly. “You’re lying.”
“Not even in the slightest.” said Hallyne. “The dread secrets of Alchemy - of Pyromancy - made us essential to any petty king worthy of his name. The Substance was barely even an afterthought in those days - merely the base upon which we wrought our craft. You finally see just how far we have fallen.”
Jon stood there quietly, staring into the lantern. In the dim reflection of the glass, his face shimmered, reflected against the Bondfire. For a moment, the colors merged, and his eyes were no longer grey, but a pale, faded violet. “... You said you lost this to code, and poison.” he asked, after a time. “How did so few know such a powerful spell?”
“Many did, my lord, but not perfectly. Not by heart, as the poisoned Wisdoms did.” Hallyne replied instantly. “Many tried to recreate it from memory. All of them failed. We did not have the guildhall in those days, and such lavish protections against our own errors. Our decentralized nature worked against us, even as it saved some secrets from being lost entirely. To meddle imprecisely with the Substance often led to deaths, and so it was prohibited. If we hadn’t, there would be none of us left.” Hallyne looked away. “Even then, we had forgotten what the principles were…”
Jon wondered only briefly how many fires in the Seven Kingdoms were set by failed experiments by lone Alchemists. “Hallyne. You recall the King’s orders, when you were called to the Small Council meeting to explain your knowledge of the Wildfire Plot, yes? To select your best Wisdoms to work with the Gold Cloaks and work methodically through the city.”
“Y-yes, my Lord.” Hallyne nodded. “I have done just that. One of my wisdoms and his acolytes are walking Ser Slynt through where we previously found hidden caches as we speak.” his voice lowered, and he leaned inwards. “I have also passed them your warning about the… corruption of the Gold Cloaks. They shall keep especially watchful eyes for sticky fingers.”
“Well done. When you are next called to the Small Council, to report your results, make sure that you bring with enough Bondfire lanterns to gift to the each member of the Small Council.” Jon folded his hands behind his back.
“I… of course, my lord.” Hallyne hesitated. “But… the reagents are somewhat difficult to source in bulk. The costs…”
“Will be of no consequence.” Jon replied, coolly. “Your order swore itself to the exclusive service of the rulers of Westeros, with your profits and products at their first disposal. The Targaryens meant this to keep Wildfire from any hands but theirs - we shall use it in a more mercantile manner.”
“Profit?”
“Yes. You, Hallyne, are going to find the Alchemist’s Guild very busy in the coming weeks. When the Seven Kingdoms learn you can do this, every house, from the Lannisters to the Liddles, will break down your doors for one. And we won’t give it to them for free. They shall pay you for the privilege of your services, and the wisdom of your Wisdoms.” Jon slowly clapped a hand on Hallyne’s shoulder.
“You, Grand Master Hallyne, will single-handedly save the Baratheon dynasty from her debts.”
“The whore is PREGNANT.”
The bile dripping from King Robert’s lips took Jon aback as the shout reverberated around the Small Council chambers, so much so that he nearly missed Leyton’s response. “I… beg your pardon, your Grace? Who…?”
“Who else!? Daenerys Targaryen!” Robert shouted, pounding the table in front of him.
“Ah.” Said Leyton, grimacing. “I see. And we know this because…”
“Our spy amongst the Targaryen camps, the exiled Jorah Mormont.” Varys answered, tossing forward a written letter. Leyton picked up the letter gingerly in his hands, scanning over it with narrowed eyes. “He has been with them since the girl married the Dothraki warlord, Khal Drogo.”
“I want them dead.” Robert snarled. “Mother and child, both. And that fool Viserys as well, is that plain enough for you?”
Leyton’s eyes stopped, then glanced up half-lidded at the king. “I hear you, your Grace.” he glanced over at Jon, standing at his side, for a long moment before handing him the letter. Jon took the letter from his hands, stomach twisting into knots.
He felt like he was going to be sick. He always did, when he thought of her for more than a few moments, because his mind always went back to the way her eyes had looked at him, for the very last time. The way that love and madness had given way to confusion, pain and betrayal.
“We should have killed her years ago,” Renly remarked, brow furrowed in frustration, as Jon quickly skimmed through Jorah’s report. “Her and her brother. Now they have an army.”
“Then why didn’t you?” Asha asked, absently spinning a dagger tip-first into the wooden table with a pointer finger. “Didn’t we all grow up with the Blackfyres as bedtime stories?”
“Yes, well…” Pycelle murmured. “His Grace had other concerns at the time - valid ones, mind you. It is no small thing to stabilize a kingdom after war.”
“Yes, kingdoms to stabilize, armies to pay.” Littlefinger remarked, eyes sharp over his folded fingers. “And Lord Tywin demanded a bridegroom for his services, I hear.” he clapped. “Shall we get on with it, then? Does anyone other than Lord Varys have options?”
“Don’t look at me,” Asha drawled. “This is my first day.”
“There is, of course, the simple option of Jorah Mormont.” said the Spider. “However, he’s not nearly clever enough to take her head and escape alive, and he knows it well, so he surely won’t accept the task. Essos has no shortage of local assassins, so we could simply contract out her life, but that exposes the problem of loyalty. Which leaves the third option, of sending one of our men across the Narrow Sea.”
“Our hands would be exposed if they fail, but so would they be with the rest of them.” answered Renly.
“Why choose one?” Littlefinger asked. “Pick from all of the above. Let the Spider whisper to anybody who cares to listen that the man who ends the Targaryen line will find himself a lord.”
Jon could see from the corner of his eye Leyton Hightower turn and fix him with a piercing stare. Perhaps he’d seen something in his expression of what he was about to do.
“I don’t bloody care how it’s done, but I want it done.” Robert growled. “The dragonspawn dies.”
Varys bowed in his seat. “I shall arrange for it to-”
“Why?”
The room quieted.
Jon finally looked up from the letter in his hands, crumpling under his grip. “Why kill her?”
“Jon…” Leyton murmured.
“Careful, Greystark! Careful!” Robert rumbled angrily.
“I am being careful,” Jon lied. “Which is why I’m telling you that there’s no need to kill her. Your actions would only throw kindling on a dying ember.”
Littlefinger blinked in surprise. “The young lord must be confused,” he said, “if he’s forgotten that the Targaryens have bought a Dothraki army to reclaim their throne from the Baratheons. I’d hardly call that a dying ember.”
Jon shook his head slowly. The words he had rehearsed for weeks, and the schemes he’d plotted for months… all came down to a monologue of minutes. “You talk of kingdoms and continents, dynasties and thrones. Your focus is too broad - I would instead talk of people. Four people, in particular.” he lifted his right hand, and counted off his fingers with each name. “Jorah Mormont, Khal Drogo… and the Targaryen siblings. Viserys and Daenerys.”
Memories that he had repressed for so long, at last, came flooding back. The way that her hair shimmered in the snow, the way that her laugh twisted her lips, the way that she sighed in bed… the way that her eyes welled with tears, the click of her steps on the stones of the shattered Red Keep. The way that her flesh had shuddered, and yielded to cold steel. The stench of her heart’s blood, that never left his nose even after a hundred washes.
He’d loved her deeply and madly, once; part of him still did. And he’d failed her - they all had. Her and her glorious crusade against Mad Queen Cersei that had shattered upon the rocks the moment she touched the shores of Dragonstone. She sacrificed her children and her throne to fight for him, and he repaid her with death when she broke at last under the strain. He was no different, now - the voice in his head proved he was just as mad as she. He carried that sin with him for the rest of his life, and even beyond. Now, at last, he could begin to repay it.
“Enough of this! I’ll not hear a word-” Robert stood to his feet, but Leyton raised his hands placatingly.
“Your Grace, I humbly beg your patience in this matter.” he said, even bowing just a little. “Young Jon has said something that has piqued my curiosity, and now I wish to hear his perspective. He did not say to not do it; he said there was no need for it. Please, your Grace.”
Robert stared at Jon for a long, long moment, before sitting back down. “Fine. Speak your piece, then.” Varys could not quite hide his look of surprise at the acceptance, before quickly schooling his expression.
Jon took a deep, steadying breath before passing the letter to Leyton. “First, let us talk of the would-be king. Viserys. Who is he? Not as a symbol, but as a man.”
“By all accounts, he’s the son of Aerys, through and through.” answered Renly. “Mad and cruel.”
“Petty and arrogant.” offered Littlefinger.
“Weak and sniveling.” Robert rumbled, leaning back in his chair.
“A man only fit to be king for those who have never met him.” finished Leyton.
“Sounds like a proper cunt.” said Asha. “He’d feel right at home on Pyke.”
Jon nodded. “A boy-king who hungers for a throne he remembers from his childhood, but was never earned. We all know lords like that - we know exactly how they act. History tells us that boy-kings are very often the doom of their houses.” he looked up. “And what of Daenerys? The other dragon?”
The room went quiet. “She is…” Renly trailed off, frowning. “She is… Viserys’ sister.”
Leyton’s eyes narrowed. “We are not talking of families, Lord Renly. We are talking about people.” he folded his arms. “Lord Greystark raises a good point; Why do we know so much about one, but not the other? She would be second in line, should Viserys fall. Even the letter here from Jorah says little about her other than her being with child.”
Littlefinger glanced sharply over at Varys. “Your little birds have been slacking.”
Robert leaned forward, eyes narrowed. “Have you anything to say for yourself, Spider?”
“I can only beg your forgiveness, my King.” Varys bowed low in his seat; Jon noted a singular vein throbbing on the top of his scalp as it passed. He was holding back info on Dany to keep her a secret spare, in case Viserys failed. If they knew she was far more stable than he, they would peg her as a threat without intervention.
Or perhaps Varys knows about the Blackfyre, Lodos whispered, and is saving her as his bride. Can we assume her marriage to this ‘Aegon’ in my lifetime was only a coincidence? With her dragons and her womb, the difference between red and black heraldry becomes a question only for maesters.
“I have some information to share on that, at least,” Varys continued, breaking Jon from his internal dialogue. “Daenerys Targaryen is a young girl, quiet and demure. Sweet and naive by the accounts, and prone to extended melancholy. She is also, I am told, growing more beautiful by the year. So beautiful, in fact, that her hand won Viserys Khal Drogo’s army.”
Pycelle frowned. “A remarkable departure from Viserys, then. More like, erh, her brother Rhaegar, than her father Aerys.” Robert’s fist clenched, and Pycelle flinched. “I, ah, of course we all remember the terrible crimes Rhaegar committed, your Grace, so such traits are no compliment.”
Leyton folded his arms. “You will refrain from such inelegant emotional manipulation today, Pycelle. We are talking about dragons barely old enough to be alive during the war, not relitigating the causes.” he glanced at Varys. “Does she share her brother’s vehemence for reclaiming the throne?”
“... I cannot say.”
“If your spies never noticed it, then that’s a ‘no’. Let us assume for the moment that she cares because her brother, her only family in the world, cares.” said Jon. “Which brings us to our third name - Jorah Mormont. Lord Hightower, you and I know the exile better than most, here. I am from the North, and you were previously his good-father.”
Leyton’s face crumpled. “To my shame and regret, yes.”
“Tell me - bearing in mind what we have noticed before, and what is in that letter, does something stand out as a problem with Jorah?”
Leyton frowned. “Hmmm? I’m not sure what -” he stopped. “Oh. Oh, no.” he lifted the letter in his hands and skimmed it rapidly. “Oh, Varys, you ignorant fool. What have you done? Of all the men you could have picked…”
“I beg your pardon!?”
Leyton threw Jorah’s letter on the Small Council’s table in disgust. “Small wonder your new spy’s told us precious little about Daenerys Targaryen - you picked the one man most likely to fall in love with her. In both form and personality, she’s likely the spitting image of my daughter, his former wife, when he married her.”
The room burst open with noise, but none were louder than Robert. “YOU HANDED THE DRAGONSPAWN A COUNTERSPY!?” he roared. “I’LL HAVE YOUR HEAD ON A SPIKE FOR THIS, VARYS!”
Varys’ jaw was hanging open slightly, eyes bulging. He was shocked, Jon realized, but not because he’d never thought of this. No, he did this on purpose - he knew Jorah would swear himself to her Queensguard based on his history, and never expected anybody else to catch him for it. And nobody ever did, the first time - because Ned Stark is not Leyton Hightower.
“I… I can only throw myself upon your mercy for such an egregious failure.” said Varys, at last. The silence after Varys’ admission was broken by Asha’s uproarious laughter.
“So, Daenerys has a protector that is wise to the Spider’s ways.” said Littlefinger, not even pretending to hide his evil smile. “All three of the methods will end in failure, then. We can’t kill her without the Khal knowing it was us. Trust the eunuch to not understand the ways of the heart. What an incredible cock-up that was.”
“Well.” Asha grinned cruelly. “At least the Spider had the balls to admit his mistake.” Jon bit his tongue to hide the snicker Asha wasn’t even attempting to conceal. Judging by the glower on Varys’ face, Asha had just earned herself a knife in the dark.
“And with that in mind…” Jon folded his arms behind him. “Let’s talk of the final player in this - the Khal himself. What is known of him?”
“Not much, other than what Jorah provides.” Leyton answered. “Bearing in mind the tainted source… Drogo is the consummate warlord savage. Bold, brutal, powerful. Never once defeated in battle.”
“Do his men trust him?” Jon asked, already knowing the answer. “Does he possess what goes for morality among the Dothraki?”
Leyton stared at him. “... Yes. he leads the greatest warband they’ve ever seen. He could not do that without the trust of his people. He is a barbarous savage who looks upon rape and butchery with joy as all Dothraki do, but he must, in some way, be a great man.”
“Then let us speak of what happens when we put these four people together.” Jon turned back to the Small Council. “Viserys is small-minded and grasping; he wants an army and he doesn’t care how he gets it. And so, he sells his demure, sweet, melancholic sister to Khal Drogo for a horde. A better man would never have considered it; as Viserys is not, we can assume this is not the first indignity he has forced upon her. Given the Targaryen proclivities, we can assume the worst.”
Littlefinger is the first to catch it. “And now the Khal has a beautiful, sad wife.” he leaned forward. “The kind that songs are sung about. The kind of women that magisters beggar themselves over to see their eyes light up. Wars have been fought over less; Great men are drawn to brides like that like fireflies. Nothing to them is more devastating to a budding empire than that kind of woman. Drogo will go to any lengths to see her smile - To protect her from harm, and her brother, Just like Jorah Mormont.” he rubbed his chin. “And Daenerys will come to adore him for it.”
Renly’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. You’re telling me that… the reason Khal Drogo hasn’t sailed at Viserys’ command is because he’s too distracted with married life?”
“You said it yourself.” Jon replied. “The Khal is the consummate Dothraki. They have never set foot on a ship. Drogo could be the first one to change them, but only if he cared. Viserys is a weakling that has never earned anything in his life; Drogo has forged a legendary warband. He would not respect a deal with him. They don’t even believe in the concept of buying and selling, only gifts. He will take his time honoring the bargain. And that will infuriate the madman.”
Leyton’s eyes widened. “You think Viserys will gravely insult the Khal.”
“I think he’ll try to take his sister back.” answered Jon. “Find another army to whore her out to, if the Khal won’t honor his deal.”
Asha snorted, and shook her head. “Let’s all wish him the joy of that idea.” Nobody in the room said a word otherwise; nobody needed to. The result of that action was self-evident to every man there.
“And so, my Lords, I ask a simple question.” Jon turned and slowly looked them all in the eyes. “Do you think that Daenerys Stormborn will care enough about a land she’s never once seen, without her brother’s example guiding her, to push her husband to invade, and put her newfound happiness and unborn child at risk?” He then fixed his eyes on the King. “Or do you want to send an assassin you know is doomed to fail because of Jorah Mormont, and risk Khal Drogo swearing vengeance upon us in the name of the beautiful, sad Targaryen mother of his children?”
Robert sat there in silence, practically vibrating with repressed energy. After a long moment, Littlefinger began to slowly clap. “Well argued, Lord Greystark.” he said. “I, for one, am convinced.”
“We’re betting the entire Seven Kingdoms on your little story.” Renly frowned, folding his arms. “And yet… It's plausible. Damnably so. If Daenerys will actually stay in Essos with her half-breed child as long as we just leave her alone-”
“OUT!” Robert roared. “OUT, damn you! I’m done with you!” the Small Council jerked up as one, and began scurrying away. “Not you!” Robert pointed a fat finger at Jon, before tracing it to Leyton. “Or you!”
The two slowed to a stop as Pycelle, the last of the group, waddled slowly away into the hallways, and pointedly left the door agape. Robert growled and stormed to his feet, before violently kicking the door shut. Outside the room, Pycelle let out a pained yelp, and the muffled sound of a body falling to the ground reached them.
“You,” Robert seethed, whirling on Jon. “What game do you think you’re playing, boy?”
“No games, your Grace.”
“Fuck off.” Robert replied instantly. “This isn’t the first time you’ve done this. You think I don’t recognize that look in your eyes? The day you brought that fucking wildling to us - the day after you killed three men in the Hand’s Tourney.” He raised a hand in the air, and instantly Hightower pushed himself in front of Jon.
“Your Grace,” he said, tone sharp. Robert stopped what he was doing, a look of confusion on his face for an instant before glancing at his open palm.
“What?” his eyes widened, before lowering his actual hand and staring at his political Hand with shock, and accusation. “You… you think that of me?”
“I think your hatred of Targaryens is legendary.” answered Leyton instantly. “And you are a man who has only just dried out from his cups, when many habits are learned. I think you are capable of a great many things.”
“How dare you!” Robert shouted. “I should have your tongue for that!”
“You won’t.” said Leyton. “You know my history, and my family’s. Ours is a family that has birthed Hands, Kingsguards and even Kings. Everything you did in your rebellion put an end to that. By all rights, I should hate you, and yet you gave us back something irreplaceable. And so I give you something without price in return - honesty, to the man who needs it most.”
He glanced behind him. “And it is with that spirit of loyal opposition that I tell you that were you not blinded by ghosts long dead, you would see the wisdom in Lord Greystark’s words.”
“You…!” Robert stumbled in place, eyes widening. “You can’t trust a fucking Targaryen. Wingless snakes, all of them, not the dragons they play as. She’ll come for Westeros with her horde of Dothraki screamers and put thousands to the sword. Will you call it wisdom when they rape and burn Oldtown for your generosity?”
“Then let it not be generosity, but a contract.” replied Leyton. “Send a messenger to her horde, to await her brother’s death. If it plays out the way it was predicted, then offer it to her - renounce her claim to the Iron Throne and all those of her line, and she can go in peace.”
Jon stared at Hightower’s back quietly, thoughts buzzing in his head. “... make it two offers.” he said quietly. The eyes of the two adults turned to him, Leyton’s questioning and Robert’s accusatory. “Instead of two hard choices, we offer three, one of which we know she won’t accept - should she return to Westeros without the Dothraki and swear loyalty to the Baratheons, you will allow her and her son to form a new house under a new name. Her pride will not allow her to accept that option - and her fear for her family’s life will temper her desire to wage war.”
“And thus the third option, which is our desired goal, is more palatable by comparison.”
“No.” Robert snarled. “No deals. No offers. She dies. Her brother dies. Her spawn dies. You’ll do as I command, Hightower, or I’ll find a Hand who will.”
Leyton’s eyes narrowed. Jon felt his blood cool at the tension between the two men. Leyton reached up to his cloak, where the pin of the Hand hung…
And went past it, into his side pockets. “I had hoped to save this for a happier context.” said Hightower, blandly, and withdrew a small roll of parchment sized for a raven. “But it seems I must rely on the tools I am provided.” he held out the slip to the king, eyes still narrowed. “A raven arrived this morning. From Winterfell.”
Robert’s eyes went wide, and snatched the roll from the Hand’s hand. He held it wide, flickering across the words before his jaw went gently slack. “... He’s coming South.” he mumbled quietly. “For the wedding.”
“He is.” replied Leyton. “Along with half his family, and a full complement of his household guard.” He folded his hands behind his back. “And that is the telling thing, isn’t it? Eddard Stark comes south on request, but he does not trust being around his brother-by-choice with anything less than two-hundred armed soldiers.”
In his original life, Jon vaguely recalled, Ned had left for King’s Landing with a quarter of that number, even when they knew Jon Arryn had died suspiciously and Bran had fallen from the Tower. Neither of those things happened, in this life, and yet the Lord of Winterfell still shouldered the enormous costs of bringing the legal maximum of soldiers for a Lord Paramount to the capital. Such was the power of Eddard Stark’s broken faith.
“... I didn’t think that stiff-necked bastard would come.”
“And now, your Grace,” said Leyton, his voice even, “you have a choice. A singular chance to reintroduce yourself to Lord Stark. Who shall he greet in the halls of the Sept of Baelor, as his son weds your daughter? The man who has begun fighting his demons, taken control of his kingdom’s rule and proven that the hearts of men can change? Or,” his voice dipped, “will he meet the man who has once again ordered the death of women and children and named their corpses Dragonspawn?”
King Robert stared at the missive in his hand, eyes glazing over. “Fifteen years…” He whispered. “He said I hadn’t changed in 15 years. That was when it started, wasn’t it? With Tywin and his red cape. The little bodies wrapped inside.”
He rocked back on his feet. “I thought… I thought he would understand. They couldn’t be left alive - it would be the Blackfyres all over again. What they did to us was a blood sin. But he…” Robert looked up then, directly at Jon, and the king’s head rolled back to stare at the ceiling. “Of course. It was as simple as that, wasn’t it? You and his trueborn. Ned knew he would be a father twice-over soon, and his bloody bleeding heart took over.” His eyes squeezed shut. “His father’s heart bled for two dragon children, while I abandoned Mya in the Vale. I’m a Gods-damned fool.”
“You could have had all of them sent away.” Hightower answered. “Send the queen-mothers to the Silent Sisters. Send the girls to the cloisters, and send Aegon and Viserys to the Wall, or the Citadel. You could even have had one of the girls betrothed to your firstborn son - to Joffrey, to cement your rule with those still resistant. You had a number of compromises to choose from - but Tywin Lannister wanted revenge on Aerys, and he drenched your reign in blood as a result. He stole your options from you, in order to force you to align with his family.”
“... He did, didn’t he?” Robert continued to stare up at the ceiling. “And I didn’t question a thing, because I was drunk on blood and grief. Jon Arryn tried to help me, and I ignored him, because what boy listens to his father. And he let me, because I was the son he never had.” he raised a shaking hand to his brow and massaged his temples. “Stranger take me, I’d trade the Riverlands for a fucking bottle of strongwine right now… but that’s the problem, isn’t it?”
At last, he lowered his gaze, and let out a shuddering exhale. “Alright, then. You say you’re my loyal opposition, Hightower - oppose me. Tell me what I’m being a childish fool on. Tell me what Jon Arryn only wished he could.”
“Trusting Tywin Lannister, for one.” Hightower grimaced. “The man is no lion - he’s a gold-plated hyena. The only strategies he knows are gold and violence, and he prefers the latter. His only loyalty earned comes from his riches - and as one of his only Westerosi peers in liquid wealth, I say he has squandered it.”
The Hand leaned in then over his cane. “The Lannisters have hidden away a frankly absurd number of soldiers in King’s Landing,” he said quietly. “Combined with the openly-uniformed household guard of the queen, nearly four-hundred soldiers loyal to Tywin are in the capital at all times. More than twice the legal limit, and enough to match the royal guard.”
Robert’s expression grew stormy. There was a reason laws prohibited Lords Paramount from bringing any more than half the King’s own flagged soldiers to the capital, and vanishingly few good reasons for a lord to flaunt it.
Jon was impressed. “I had thought they had only three-fifty.”
Leyton’s eyebrows arched. “I’m impressed you found that many. Did you mark that warehouse on the Street of Steel, by Garion’s forge?”
“I hadn’t.” Jon admitted - the building was remarkably airtight, with no windows and no holes to slip cats or rats or birds through. “Nobody has entered that building in moons.”
“They haven’t. But fifty full sets of arms and armor were included in a manifest shipped there from a Lannisport coinhouse and have not moved since.” Leyton tapped the side of his nose. “King’s Landing’s main trade goods are arms and armor - importing into a net exporter was the clue. For not using any financial records, your investigation was remarkably close. My compliments to your agents, whomever they may be.”
Robert’s face was growing an unhealthy shade of red. “Why are you two the first to tell me this?”
“Perhaps Jon Arryn thought Tywin Lannister was the one lord he could not afford to cross. Perhaps it only just happened, with his death.”
“Or perhaps,” Jon said quietly, “he didn’t think you would care.” Robert’s eyes shut tightly as he visibly suppressed an emotional reaction. Now was the time to strike. “But there were others on your council who were obligated to tell you.”
King Robert’s eyes slowly opened, and a cold fury burned in them. “Varys.” he hissed. “That’s thrice now the cockless snake has failed. The Tourney, Mormont’s betrayal, and the soldiers.”
“The Spider is far too skilled for such a pattern to occur naturally.” Hightower immediately replies. “He is working against you.”
“I want him in the black cells now. I won’t take no for an answer this time, Hightower.”
Leyton straightened up. “Your Grace, call me Leyton. I’ll have my personal guard hunt him down.”
“We’re starting from scratch, Leyton. I’ve had enough of conspiracies and assassins and traitors. I’ve had enough of Tywin Lannister’s ballsack on my face.” Robert snarled. “I want them all burned out. I don’t care if it’s Varys or my shrew wife or the damned washerwomen - I’m the fucking king in this keep, and I want no rats in my walls!”
“It will be done.” Leyton bowed. After a moment, he looked up. “... And the Targaryen girl, your Grace? If Varys truly is working against us, then he wants us to provoke the girl, and her husband, with an assassin. Draw both of their gazes across the Narrow Sea.”
The King stared at his Hand for a long moment before turning and spitting. “Send it. Send the letter. If Viserys dies, then offer her a bent knee in Westeros or renunciation in Essos. If she refuses, I’ll destroy her and her barbarian horde. I’ll not offer the Dragonspawn such generosity a second time.”
Leyton couldn’t contain the small smile on his face. “As you wish, your Grace.”
Jon watched as Robert stomped out of the council room, his heart strangely melancholic. With any luck, the peace offering would be accepted… and the Khalasar would never set a hoof or boot on Westerosi shores.
Once, you told me in the halls of Dragonstone that Drogo treated you like a broodmare. Yet even after, you whispered on your pillows that those unkind beginnings changed to something gentler, and you had come to love each other before you cursed his memory. Find that love, Dany, and hold on tight, far away from these cursed shores. My atonement to you shall be to find a way that the world never needs the Queen of the Ashes. Be happy, Dany... the way that, underneath all your scars, I never could make you happy.
Leyton simply stood there, hands on his cane, staring at nothing in particular. “You have done a powerful thing today, Jon Greystark.” he said, at last. “A just thing, for a woman you have never met.”
“I know my father would have wished for the same.” Jon replied, shrugging lightly.
“And he would have failed,” said Leyton. “He would have lacked the perspective you have. Principles would not have convinced Robert Baratheon to lay down his feud. And Ned Stark is an honorable man… but an orator he is not.” He folded his hands across the head of his cane. “The king did not go to war for heady concepts like justice, or the broken contract of kings and lords; he went to war for Rickard, Brandon and Lyanna Stark. You found his level, Jon Greystark, and with the right words from the right man, he listened at last.”
Jon shook his head. “It would never have worked without your letter, and Varys’ slips. My plan did not push far enough.”
“You knew of Varys’ schemes, and instead of revealing him to gain middling favor and power, you held it back for ultimate effect, and changed the Seven Kingdoms forever. I know men decades older who could not play the Game as well as you just did. All I did was give it one final push.” he tilted his head at the boy. “You should meet my eldest daughter, Malora. Someday soon, she will return from a long journey to Essos; she will have much to teach you that I could not.”
Jon turned to look at the Hand. “I had heard men say that she was with you in the Hightower. You mean to say she wasn’t even in Westeros?”
Hightower shook his head. “No. That was a tale we spread. In truth, she was across the sea, tutoring someone. A young man named Griff. Young Griff, however, is no longer alive, and so she returns home.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” said Jon. “How did he die?”
Hightower’s face was blank. “Poisoned by the boy’s Septa.”
The phantom smell of the sea wafted across Jon’s nose. Why did this boy need both a Septa and a highborn tutor in Essos? Lodos whispered. One of the richest men on the continent would not take notice of some lowborn nobody. This ‘Young Griff’ was important, somehow.
Jon slowly clenched his fist. “... was Griff the son of a Lord?”
Hightower slowly shut his eyes. “... what does it matter? He’s dead now. And nobody in the Seven Kingdoms will mourn his death.”
A tingle of cold fear ran up the back of Jon’s spine, his fight-or-flight instincts activating. Leyton had never dodged a question from him so blatantly, in all their time together. “Then I shall mourn for him.” he replied quietly, fighting the rising unease. “Where did he die?”
Hightower opened his eyes, staring unblinkingly at Jon, who met the challenge. The two stood there, locked in a contest of wills, before Hightower shook his head. “He died on the river Rhoyne. In an old polebarge called the Shy Maid.”
Jon felt the cold sensation spread until it covered the whole of his body. Unbidden, a memory from a previous life - a vision - took hold of his senses.
The princess ran for miles and miles, clutching a babe to her breast, until at last she reached the edge of the river. From beyond the river, a hand covered in threads reached out to offer her shelter, and from the shadow of the threads formed a black wing. A puppet without strings is still able to dance.
His eldest was tutoring the Blackfyre, Jon thought with a heady realization. The man who stole the name of my half-brother. Varys’ silver-haired king. It was all he could do to stay upright. He’s lying to me. The false Aegon invaded in our past life - he was not poisoned then. Why did he die now?
His daughter, Lodos whispered. His daughter is the Septa. She has to be. He wants us to think they’re different people, but she poisoned Varys’ pretender. She would not do that without Hightower’s leave. Why would he -
He knows.
At last, Jon had to turn away from Leyton Hightower, sticking out a hand just quickly enough to stop himself from crashing into the wall. “Jon?” said Leyton. “Are you alright?”
“I…” all that practice with controlling his emotions in front of enemies was gone; he could barely hear the traitor over the heartbeat in his ears.
A gentle hand came to rest upon his shoulder. The boy looked up, at last, and saw the last thing he wanted to see - genuine, undisguised concern. “Forgive me,” said Hightower. “I should not have brought this up.”
A venomous bile rose up from his throat, nearly passed his lips to curse him and his line-
Don’t. Lodos hissed. Don’t. It was my life he ruined, not yours. My dream. My love. Hightower must have spared your first life, and this one. Do not make a powerful enemy for the sake of a man who never was. One day, we shall have it all - but first, we bide our time.
Jon stilled, before sucking in a deep, calming breath. “You are right.” he said quietly. “Today has been… a day of high emotions.”
Hightower smiled wryly, and placed a soft hand on Jon’s shoulder. “That they have, my boy. That they have.” The moment lingered, before the King’s Hand sighed. “I have a treacherous Master of Whisperers to apprehend. If the Gods are kind, this will not take long.” With those words, Leyton removed his hand and slowly began to walk away. Jon closed his eyes.
“When, sir,” Jon muttered quietly, “have the Gods ever been kind?”
Later that night, as the waning moon hung like a sickle in the sky, the stone wall of a tower’s central stairwell slid backwards with a low grinding of stone. From the yawning pit inside, a figure quietly crept outwards, dressed in dark colors and covered with a hood. He stood in the hidden passage for a moment, listening, before a loud hissing interrupted him.
A mangy, one-eyed tomcat stood at the wall, back arched and hackles high as it continued to hiss at the man. The man clicked his tongue, and then kicked out at the tom, his boot missing by inches as the cat raced away. Satisfied, the man slowly made his way upward, placing his steps carefully so they made no noise upon the stone. After a single flight, a door revealed itself.
The hooded man quietly drew a sharply-hooked lockpick and lever, kneeling down at the door and quietly bumping the pins. Click… click… click - the door opened, revealing a small apartment, with a filled bed across the room. The man quietly put away his thievery tools, and filled his hand with something more deadly - a wickedly-sharp curved dagger.
The assassin made no noise as he stepped across the threshold. He’d done this many times before. With a quick slice, the boy would be dead, and his payment in his hands. He glanced around absently, checking for the usual signs of danger - the Direwolf was gone as reported, the closets were all open, and both the boy’s longsword and infamous greatsword were across the room with the White Wolf tourney armor. Strengthening his grip, he took a step forward.
A splash of liquid caught his attention, and glanced downward. A spilled cup of wine had spread out onto the stone floor. He narrowed his eyes at this, and glanced up - he didn’t see the carafe it would have been poured from. A tingle went down his spine, and more carefully, he took a step forward -
A force like a clamp came down on his foot, and the assassin slammed down into the ground, hard and loud. He cursed, rolling over to push himself up, when the force around his leg swung him into the wall. Dazed, he only barely noticed as a blade appeared at his throat. “Shame. If you’d been missing a set of balls, you might have lived through this.” and then-
Jon quickly slit the throat of the assassin, as he relaxed his mental hold on the wine gripping the corpse’s foot. He had hoped, after all the deliberate provocations that Jon had given the Spider, that he would have come after him himself - it only begged the question of where Varys was now, with his cover blown. Despite Robert’s loud insistence when the Spider was never found by Leyton, he wouldn’t have fled the city without a way to receive word from the man now dead at his feet.
Quietly, Jon stepped out the door and patter-stepped down the stairwell to the open passage. He grinned as he saw it, still gaping open. “There it is.” he murmured. A loud meow caught his attention, and he quickly crouched down to scratch at the nape of the old scarred tom. “Good boy, Balerion.” he crooned, as the cat arched into his touch. “Good watch, you sour old puss. There will be milk and salmon tomorrow for this.” He quietly stood, stepping into the secret door, and felt around the sides with groping fingers until at last a loose brick revealed itself. “Ahaaaa…” he whispered, as he poked his head around to the stairwell, locating the opposing brick.
“You’ve finally exposed yourself, Varys.” said Jon, grinning victoriously. He knew the passages existed - it was impossible not to notice them, with his Skinchanging senses touching against the small creatures roaming the secret tunnels. He had never been able to find an entrance in, however; Varys’ little birds had been trained too thoroughly to expose themselves, and Littlefinger pretended he didn’t know to keep Jon dependent on him.
So Jon had provoked the Spider. Derailed his schemes and undermined his authority until at last he would tolerate it no more, and send a knife in the dark directly. Moons of failed poisonings and ‘unfortunate accidents’ avoided as he tore out the eunuch’s King’s Landing network, until he could no longer afford to be subtle. Jon would say this for Varys - he didn’t make it easy.
The thin stone cutaways that formed a ladder went down for what felt like an age, and led to a narrow that was more compacted dirt than brick. The assassin had left a burning torch at the bottom, for which Jon was thankful as the secret tunnels twisted and turned and branched out. Jon ignored all of them, and instead followed the singular set of footprints in the thick layer of dust on the ground. There would be time for exploration later - legend had it that Maegor the Cruel’s secret passageways led all throughout the Red Keep, but Jon only wanted to know the way out.
After many long minutes of walking, crouching and even crawling (which brought back unhappy memories of the Cave Dweller passages), Jon finally reached paved stone floors, and an open iron-barred door. Jon moved to push it open, only to realize there was a burning torch on the wall, and a bleeding pile on the floor.
Jon’s eyes widened, pushing the door open and running over to the corpse. The ground around it, which Jon could now see was a great stone mosaic of a dragon, had shattered from a mighty impact. The figure was dressed in black leathers and covered with a hood, completely soaked through.
Jon quietly rolled over the corpse, and blanched. The body had fallen head-first from a great height, and so the entire top half of its skull had been pulped, but there was no mistaking the hairless chin of Varys, the Spider. Neither was there any mistaking the single crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest.
“A fitting end.” Jon murmured. “Does anybody even know you died down here? This chamber would be filled with guards if a man had pulled the trigger on this crossbow.” Jon quickly began patting down his blood-soaked pockets, and found three things - a shattered vial, a ring of iron keys, and a strip of parchment. Jon quickly held it up to the lit torch, and found words.
“Hmmm… ‘Young Griff is dead. It was Lemore. Jon and the Half-Maester caught her. It was Hightower - he knew the entire time, used his daughter to infiltrate. He knows about our plans. Do not let him tell the Usurper. The Beggar may be our only option after all. Get out of King’s Landing. Illyrio.’ this must have come days ago, yet Varys didn’t flee.”
He wanted to know why he still had a head, if Hightower knew about Aegon. Why he was only now having him killed. Lodos whispered. Hightower’s information isn’t as good as Varys thinks… he still believes his daughter Malora is alive and returning westward.
Jon tried to keep his heart full of cold fury towards the hand, but even still, a pang of sympathy quivered in his chest. He looked up, instead, and saw a series of rungs leading far above him. “This is where Varys fell from. Where was he climbing?”
One way to find out.
Jon nodded quietly, and began to climb. Hand over hand, higher and higher into the dark. A dozen, and then fifty, and then a hundred rungs passed by, and still no closer to an end. Jon had counted over two-hundred before at last something revealed itself - a stone wall, rolled away and gaping open.
Jon slowly lifted himself over the edge - and found himself staring directly down the length of a crossbow. His heart leaped into his throat, and prepared to dodge… but paused. The crossbow was held aloft by a wooden post, and held on both arms with firm ropes, but the trigger had a loose string wrapped around it, and the groove was empty. Jon slowly craned his head to the side, and gaped in amazement - a snapped tripwire connected to the loose string, broken by the very sliding of the hidden door.
That tripwire was close to the wall, Lodos murmrued. The only way anybody would have tripped it was if they were coming up the ladder, and the door rolled back. The moment they saw there was a trap, it would already have been too late. Varys never had a chance.
And who would prepare for something like that, Jon wondered, before climbing up and seeing where he was. He knew this room - it was the chamber of the Hand. Leyton’s room, completely empty. “Leyton had a trap specifically for Varys.” he murmured. “That is… not natural. Again he knows something he should not be able to.” he paused, as his eyes fixed on the end of the room.
A large wooden cask sat upon a table, with simple wooden drinking bowls set next to it. The insides of the bowls were all stained a deep blue-black. “What ‘medicine’ do you know that comes in casks that big?” Jon murmured. “What exactly is it he’s drinking?” quietly, Jon crept across the room, picked up one of the bowls, and turned the spigot. The mysterious liquid slowly burbled out, a strange consistency twisted between honey and ink. The bowl filled halfway before he turned it off, and Jon held it up to the low light from the windows.
Don’t tell me we’re drinking that.
“If it wasn’t safe, Leyton would be dead. And this is no medicine I’ve ever seen.” Jon slowly lifted the bowl to his lips and tipped it back. A small dram of it touched his tongue - the reaction was violent, as he whipped his head back and immediately spewed it out. “AUGH! What the - this is rank! Tastes like-”
Like that time Aeron hazed us with the Drowned Men, and we had to eat that squid’s brain, Lodos retched.
Jon stopped. “... No? No, it didn’t taste at all like that. It tasted like during the Long Night, when we had to eat that rotten moose, where not even burning it black could get rid of the taste. We gave Lyan and the children all the half-edible parts, and the adults ate the rot.” he stared at the drink. “... You and I are the same person, yet we tasted different things.”
The only difference between you and I are the lives we lived. The memories we lived. Lodos whispered. And this ‘medicine’ is drawing from both of our memories. Things we barely even remembered tasting. This is no ordinary drink.
Jon stared at the bowl, expression blank, before shaking his head. “... Bottoms up,” he muttered, before he threw back his head and downed the entire bowl in three gulps. The taste and stench of rotten meat coated the inside of his mouth, setting his eyes watering, but as it passed down through his throat, a heady warmth seemed to seep through his bones.
His eyes blew wide, and suddenly, the taste on his tongue was different - now, it was vale honey and dornish wine and the mead at the King’s feast, like Ygritte’s tongue and Asha’s cunt, and roasted boar and pickled herring, and the snow that fell in his mouth as a dagger pierced his heart, and salty tears on his lips as he murdered a queen, like the milk from Val’s breasts as her dagger in his throat ended his-
Jon gasped, stumbling hard into the wall. He stared at the bowl in his hands, disbelieving. “That… is no medicine.” he murmured. “I remember… for a moment, I remembered everything. Everything I had ever tasted, thought, been. And he drinks this constantly. I never see him without it.”
This is magic. Without question. Whatever this drink is, it is empowering Hightower somehow.
Jon stared at the bowl, and then at the cask. Blackness coated the edges of his sight as fury overtook him then, and with a powerful stomp, kicked the spigot off the cask. The viscous blue liquid began pouring from the casket unchecked, coating the floor in a blue. “Try drinking that, you bastard,” he spat.
I feel something coming on. Whatever you just drank, it’s going to affect us soon, Lodos whispered urgently.
“Then we’ll need to work fast.” Jon quickly moved back to the ladder, slammed the hidden button to close the passage, and began to climb down. “We’re going to find which of those passages leads out of the city, and dump Varys’ body in the sea. The only one who will know his fate is us. We’ll see what comes crawling out of the masonry then - who tries to blame their schemes on a dead man.”
And what happens to Hightower when we take away his magic drink.
Jon gritted his teeth. “Like I said. We’ll see what crawls out of the stonework.”
That night, Jon dreamed.
He dreamed of a King who fled, and was given mercy as the water ran from his heart.
He dreamed of a Lord who flayed, and was given vengeance as the beast of lions was devoured by beasts.
He dreamed of a Queen who burned, and was given betrayal with hate and death with love.
With each death, a spark sputtered and grew until he was consumed, and as he burned, he dreamed more.
He dreamed of fading lights, and ancient pacts, and a star that did not belong. He dreamed of broken lands, and unbroken vows, and eternal vigils. He dreamed of shining horns to wake the eternal sleepers, and burning swords in the neverending darkness, and unbroken shields to guard all the realms of men. And as Jon dreamed, he heard the voices from far away.
“Defend the walls! Ready your arrows, and take up your spears! Take heart - Kayakayanaya shall not perish! The Patriarch walks among you again! On his blood, on my name as Aegon and on the honor of our house, the Zorselord shall fall - Jhattar Hottok dies today!”
“You think they only dealt in gold and silver? Oh, Jon - there’s so much more hidden away in those supposedly impregnable vaults… The girl will follow if you say yes, so what do you say? Shall we give the Iron Price to the Iron Bank?”
“Who… who are you? How have you come here? It’s been so long… where is Nymeria? Where is the Princess? She was supposed to be sending a ship… we should have never left Zamettar…”
“You’re a persistent one, aren’t you, nephew? Following me all the way here with your little friend. You’re too late, though - the Dragonbinder is mine, and soon, the Mother of Dragons will be as well. Hold them here - the wyrms will come for them soon enough.”
“You are a fool, man of the West, to have come here. Carcosa has sent you to your death. Curse your God-Empress and the heretic Emperor in Yellow with your dying breaths, for the Great I rules K’Dath, the First and Last City, and she shall have your soul.”
THIRTEEN CHAINS, ACROSS AN UNLOCKED DOOR. THIRTEEN SHIELDS, BEFORE AN UNBROKEN FORCE. THIRTEEN SWORDS, IN AN UNTESTED HAND. THIRTEEN NAMES, FOR AN UNDYING MAN.
More voices. More visions. More and more filled the space between, shrieking and whirling until a cry ripped from his lips -
The world went quiet, and still. Jon slowly lifted his head to see the blankness of his surroundings, except for a single figure. His feet led him forward to the figure, who turned to face him. It was a man, naked and covered in wounds that blazed like staring into the sun. where a face should have been, unbroken skin lay instead. He lifted a hand, and as he did the ring finger disintegrated into ash. The man tilted his head in a manner that Jon somehow interpreted as annoyance, and flexed his remaining fingers; when the fist uncurled, the ring finger was whole once more, made of incandescent light.
The man pulled him close, and laid Jon’s head against his breast. The warmth there spread out and down, like metal on a summer’s day, before he laid a tender kiss upon the crown of Jon’s head, and pulled back. Both of his hands clasped his shoulders, and as Jon looked him in the eyes, the visage changed from a blank slate, to someone different. A man he had never seen before, with mournful indigo eyes and long silver-blond hair, a blue rose pinned to his breast and a shimmering harp strung across his back.
[“Courage, Jaeherys.”] The man whispered, smiling. [“There is still so much left to be done.”]
Jon burst awake in his bed, heart beating unevenly and shivering with fever. He didn’t give his fever-glazed eyes a chance to recover before ripping the covers off of him and stumbling to the apartment window, knocking over chairs and utensils and all manner of sundry.
His fumbling hands found the lock, unhooked the latch, and pushed open the glass just in time for the wretchedness to reach his mouth. Jon lunged over the side of the window and vomited, watching as the blue-black putrescence fell down from the tower, and into King’s Landing. Jon hung there limply, halfway out of his tower, and dreamed no more.
Notes:
AAAAaaaaaa. Why did this chapter keep getting *longer*. I only intended for this to be 15 pages, a quick little thing, and now it's nearly double that. FML. It's done, though.
the plot continues to thicken like a bowl of oatmeal on a cold boston morning. Fun times ahead for - well, me. I'm the one having fun, watching all of you try and guess where this is going. That last scene is a tiny little piece of foreshadowing. Just a dollop, just a taste. Try and figure out the hints. Ah. Speaking of hints, I actually need to go back and update the tags now that Mya has officially played pattycake with Jon and it's not a surprise. Eh. It's 1 in the morning. I'll do it later.
Anybody read any good book series lately? My job has just decided to force us all back into the campus instead of remote work, and since I work second shift I get a lot of dead air. Could use a new series to pass the hours when I don't get the urge to write on the job. Drop your recs in the comments below. Ciao.
Chapter 24: Life Seven: Part 7
Summary:
Climb. Climb to the top of the world. And as you stand tall, you will see...
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Your Grace,” Said Hallyne, bowing profusely as he walked into the Small Council chambers. The clatter of his omnipresent Bondfire lantern bouncing against his tools cut echoed around the halls nearly as much as Janos Slynt’s armor did as the two walked side-by-side.
Robert Baratheon sat in his chair, cheek on his fist, eyes narrowed. “Grand Master Hallyne.” he rumbled. “Captain Slynt. What news on the Wildfire?”
“Another cache was located beneath the dragon pit.” said Slynt. “Fifty vials of the stuff. We were able to remove them all mostly without incident.”
“Mostly?” said Renly.
“That’s not what I heard.” said Littlefinger, hands folded in front of him on the table. “I heard one of your guards died. Set himself on fire.”
“A regrettable occurrence.” Janos replied, wincing. “He disobeyed my express order to only handle the vials under a Pyromancer’s direct supervision. The others say he was careless, and the Wildfire was overactive; when he dropped it, the shattering glass set it off. Thankfully, he was far enough away to not set off the other vials.”
“And thank the Drowned God for that.” said Asha, sitting at the edge of the table and leaning forward. “Otherwise you’d currently be short one dragon pit.”
“With how many caches we’ve found in just the pits alone this past month, we’d be short one King’s Landing.” Littlefinger quipped. “That was the plan, was it not, Ser Jaime?”
Jon watched from his seat at the end of the table as King Robert turned in his seat to face the Kingsguard in the back. Jaime Lannister stood there, side by side with Barristan Selmy, his face twisted in an emotion he didn’t quite recognize. “... That is correct.” he said, at last. “King Aerys planted enough to level the capital. He was quite clear on that.”
“The realm owes you a debt, Ser Jaime.” said Jon, leaning on his folded hands. “And more people know it by the day, as the ravens go out.” Barristan smiled and put a hand on Jaime’s shoulder, shaking him lightly. The expression on Jaime’s face only twisted further, and he turned away.
The Lannister hadn’t been quite the same ever since his Kingslayer facade had been ripped away - when Robert announced the existence of the Wildfire Plot and warned any who discovered a cache to contact the Alchemist’s Guild, the hatred for Jaime Lannister disappeared nearly overnight as men and women put the pieces together. Bards had songs written nearly overnight, though only one or two of them were any good. Jon quite liked the melody of ‘Green and Gold Debts’ himself, but the taverns all seemed to be settling on ‘The Price of A King’.
“Enough.” Said Robert. “That will be all, Slynt. You are dismissed.” the captain of the Gold Cloaks muttered some ingratiating platitudes, before turning tightly on his heels and marching out. Robert stared at his back, eyes narrowed. “That man is a problem. I want him gone.”
“We’ve known he’s been corrupt for some time, your Grace.” Littlefinger replied. Jon’s eyes narrowed at that - how easily Baelish pretended that Slynt wasn’t corrupt on his behalf. “You told Lord Stannis that it was of no concern how he lined his pockets.”
“That was before,” said Robert, curtly, “When I thought I had a loyal master of Whisperers. Now Varys has disappeared to only the Gods know where, and I have to look over my shoulder at night for daggers in the dark. I won’t have a man who is both incompetent and corrupt in charge of my Gold Cloaks. Find me a new captain, Leyton. Slynt is gone the moment you give me a name, and then we work down his lieutenants.”
Hightower was silent for a long moment, staring down into the patterns of the table before lifting his head. “Hmm? Ah… yes. Yes, of course. It will be done.'' The Hand shook his head and turned to Hallyne. “And, ah… What of the disposal? How goes the Bondfire production, Grand Master?”
“It goes slowly, my lords.” said Hallyne, after a long moment of glaring at Pycelle, who answered with his own irritated stare. “The old Substance is not as malleable as those freshly produced; it requires more reagents for the spell to function, along with far more delicate handling. The influx of apprentices has also slowed our work considerably; as we only allow the Acolytes to participate in the caretaking of the living flame and not the transmutation, our Wisdoms are being run ragged. The caches, however, are eliminating the need to craft new batches of the Substance, and we are progressing.”
He held up the lantern at his side, bowed once, and stepped forward to the table and the lit candle in the center. He quickly blew out the dancing orange flame before lifting the opened lantern door to the smoking wick. Obediently, the violet flame leaped out of the glass cage, and the room took on an ethereal tinge as the light began to cast. “This flame was born only yesterday, from part of a previous find.” Hallyne said, voice soft like a proud father.
“Let us hope that more Wisdoms will be raised soon, then.” Said Littlefinger, staring with rapt attention at the flame. “The new licensing to own a living flame is filling our coffers hand over fist. We’ve filled all interest payments for the month and over five percent of our debts to the cartels off the backs of King’s Landing and local apprenticeship fees alone.”
Baelish leaned back in his seat, fingers drumming a staccato rhythm. “The Street of Steel keeps trying to break down my doors, Crownlander lords are flooding my desk with letters insisting on their own Wisdom before winter comes, and demand only grows as word spreads to the other kingdoms. Revealing the business with the Mad King put a damper on things for a time, but the Bondfire is proving an excellent incentive to let bygones be bygones. Every Wisdom of your order, Grand Master Hallyne, will be as invaluable as a Maester, and they will make us rich for the privilege.”
“Your words do me great honor-”
“What rot.” Pycelle scoffed, leaning back in his chair. “These charlatans, as invaluable as a Maester? My lords, be reasonable. Ours is an order reaching back into antiquity; do not be fooled just because they made a flame change color.”
“Enough.” Leyton interrupted, as Hallyne opened his mouth to retort. “You… have made your opinions quite clear, Grand Maester, as have I. Regardless of your historic feud, the Bondfire has indisputably… erm… halved the cost of fueling the Red Keep, and the Street of Steel has never forged finer blades than with their, uh… their forges burning purple. King Robert has… welcomed them back to national service. The matter is… settled.”
Pycelle fumed in his seat, his ‘doddering old fool’ facade momentarily forgotten, until at last he bowed. “Y-yes, my Lord.”
“Good.” Robert nodded. “How quickly can you raise up apprentices, Grand Master?”
“It is not so simple.” Hallyne shook his head. “It takes years to train apprentices in the requisite arts to be an acolyte, and longer still to internalize the knowledge necessary to be a wisdom. Your stipulation that every man who wants a Wisdom must offer an apprentice has greatly improved our situation, but it will take time.”
“Really?” asked Renly, glancing over at Jon. “And yet you declared our new golden child an acolyte of your order just last week.”
“His circumstances are special.” Hallyne replied instantly. “Much of the work of an apprentice’s training is learning the proper fear and respect for the tools and creations we work with; a single drop of the Substance spilled on your unprotected finger and you could lose everything below the wrist. Lord Greystark, I am happy to say, needs no such training - all he needed was time to learn our ways.” he glanced at the boy with a knowing eye. “Royal favor only played a role in getting him through the door.”
“Tell that to all the crownlands lords offering us their bastards and leftover sons.” Littlefinger remarked. “Everyone knows you’re one of them, Greystark, and your meteoric rise has inspired envy; you’ve created an honorable alternative to the Citadel and the Wall nearly overnight. Once they learn there aren't any limitations on holding titles, they might even start sending their spare sons.”
“Precisely the problem.” Said Hallyne in a clipped tone. “The noble houses all want their own pet pyromancer, willing to sell them back the secrets of our order for personal use. It will take time to forge them into discreet alchemists first, and filial sons second - longer than it would take without the connections.” Hallyne bowed again. “We are, of course, eternally grateful for the unprecedented patronage your Grace has granted us, but we must be truthful about this.”
“Point taken.” Robert rumbled. “I remember the damage the Greyjoys did with their fake Wildfire during the uprising - Gods forbid they get the real thing.”
“If my father had real Wildfire ten years ago, you’d only be ruling six kingdoms.” Asha agreed. “Maybe less - he’d probably have burned down the Westerlands for fun.”
The king let out a grunt. “Do what you must to keep your order under control. If any lord has a problem with it, they can come whine to me and I’ll tell them to fuck off.” he leaned back. “You may go, Hallyne. Next order of business.”
“A raven from the Wall, your Grace.” said Pycelle, pulling a letter from his sleeve as the Grand Master bowed and quickly walked from the room. “Dark tidings. The Lord Commander is dead, along with half his command.”
“What?” replied Renly, leaning forward. “Why? Have the Wildlings broken through? I thought Lord Stark was keeping Mance’s army under control.”
Jon went cold, as he watched the letter be passed from hand to hand until it reached King Robert, who spread it in front of him. “The new Lord Commander, Alliser Thorne… pfeh. The Dragonlover. I remember him. Thorne requests an emptying of the realm’s prison cells to support the Night’s Watch. The First Ranger…” he went quiet.
“The man is a madman, your Grace, or a liar.” Pycelle remarked. “Such claims are-”
“Quiet.” Jon barked. The old man flinched at the unexpected hostility. “... what does it say, your Grace?”
“... He claims your uncle, Benjen Stark, went missing north of the Wall.” said Robert, flatly. “They found two of his men dead, and brought them back to the Wall, where Thorne claims their corpses rose and murdered everyone in the Lord Commander’s solar, Lord Mormont included. Mormont himself then rose, and was only stopped when they set the entire room aflame. He requests royal support.”
“It sounds like madness.” Littlefinger replied flippantly. “Ignore it and be done.”
“... Madness. Aye.” Robert replied quietly.
“Then why is this not the first time I’ve heard of the dead marching on the wall?” Jon said, loudly. The Small Council turned to him as one. “Your Grace, you have a man in this court who claimed the very same thing Ser Thorne is now, and Ser Thorne has a bodycount to back his claim.”
“What’s this about, now?” Asha whispered.
“The court fool, Mance Rayder. The former King Beyond The Wall.” Renly answered. “He claimed the Wildlings were marching south to escape the restless dead.”
“And now the Watch is claiming the restless dead have killed the Lord Commander.” Jon finished. “You’ve heard this claim from both sides, now. For all of his many… many flaws, Alliser Thorne would not send such an incredulous message to you, his former enemy, unless he was serious.”
“Utterly ridiculous!” Pycelle exclaimed, throwing his hand in the air. “By what mechanism would a corpse rise? This is no more than a- a- a lie meant to draw your attention away! A trick by your enemies, your Grace! A deceit by Varys, perhaps!”
“Oh, shut up, you bulbous windbag.” Asha barked.
“ENOUGH!” the king roared, and as one the Small Council went silent. Robert drummed his thick fingers upon the mahogany surface of the table, his rings clattering against each other. “... I ignored it once. Hearing it again, and from the Watch’s mouth, gives me pause. What say you, Leyton?” he asked, at last.
The Hand lifted his head from his stooped position. “... Lord Stark will be arriving soon.” he said, slowly. “Supposedly, he was putting his mind to the Wildling problem before traveling south for this wedding. If he should believe Ser Thorne’s claim… then the North may need far more from the Crown than we have given.”
Robert stared into the wall, drumming his fingers, before shaking his head. “Renly, draft letters to the great lords ordering the emptying of their prisons to take the black, but wait until Lord Stark arrives to send them. I like this news not one bit.”
The king then straightened in his seat. “One last piece of business, today.” he glanced around at the entire gathering. “We all know what happened with Varys. After we sussed out his loyalties from one too many lies, he fled the capital like a thief in the night. In all likelihood, the Spider is no longer in the Seven Kingdoms. He’ll be plotting something, and we need someone to plot back.”
“Have you found a new Master of Whisperers at last?” asked Renly.
“I think I have. And we wouldn’t have to wait long for him to fill the seat.” With that, Robert lifted a finger and pointed directly at Jon.
“... What?”
Robert laughed once at his aghast expression. “I told you, boy. You keep acting like the secret-keeper, you’re going to get the secret-keeper’s job.” he lifted his hand. “From the very first day I met him, he’s been scheming and plotting, and knows a damn sight more than he should. I don’t know how he does it, but he might as well do it officially.” he leaned forward. “Well, Lord Greystark? Care to stop being the Hand’s Ring and take a proper seat?”
The Small Council all stared intently at Jon, who had gone ramrod-straight in his seat. “I…” Jon shut his eyes. I should have expected this.
If there’s one way to make sure Robert doesn’t find out about Rhaegar, Lodos whispered, it’s by being the one who controls his information flow. It will help keep us safe.
The words settled his nerves, and Jon opened his eyes with a determined stare. “I will endeavor to serve as best I can, your Grace.”
The king nodded in his seat, but before he could respond, Asha began a slow, measured clap. With that, a smattering of applause broke out, and Jon bowed slightly. “If we’re all done,” said Robert once the applause died down, “I say we call this to a close. Lord Stark will be arriving soon. Be ready to greet him.” With that, the king stood from his seat and walked out.
As the Small Council filtered out of the room, Jon remained where he was, rubbing the bridge of his nose. How had things gotten so complicated, he wondered, before a soft cough drew his eyes upwards. Littlefinger was there, a smile on his face like the curve of an axeblade.
“Congratulations are in order, Lord Greystark.” said the man. “You’ve risen high indeed. I admire that.”
“See something of yourself in it?” Jon replied, pinching the bridge of his nose harder.
“I do, actually.” he replied. “I’ve never had an apprentice. Never understood the appeal before.” he slid into the seat next to Jon, and folded his hands primly. “Now you’re in a precarious position. You’ve convinced the King you have networks of your own in the city, and for that I commend you. It’s difficult to pass off another man’s intelligence as your own. Your challenge now will be what lies beyond the city, and for that-”
“It wasn’t your network.” Jon replied quietly. “Your agents were supplementary.”
Littlefinger’s eyebrow arched. “Really? I find that hard to believe. You spend most of your time in the keep painting, with Lady Mya or napping. When would you have developed your own network?”
“Believe it or don’t, I care not.”
Baelish stared at him for a long moment. “... Tell me what the rest of the Small Council is plotting, then.” said the Master of Coin. “I’ll know how accurate your information is from that.”
Jon suppressed a roll of his eyes. “Just that? Only the secrets of the most powerful men in the kingdom?” Jon leaned back. “Pycelle was a spy for the Lannisters, but has since become wholly consumed by undermining the Pyromancers. Hallyne complained about the noble sons, but ironically those are the ones we can trust the most. Any that come to us without a noble house’s backing turn out to be saboteurs on Pycelle’s payroll with the slightest investigation and are easily filtered out. Tywin is furious one of his highest agents is no longer listening to him, but his letters are drowned out by the deluge from the Archmaesters demanding action.”
“Very good.” Littlefinger murmured. “And your response?”
“Why should there be one?” Jon replied. “You and I both know how to destroy him. He’s tried to co-opt Varys’ network of little birds and mostly failed. He’s utterly distracted by the Pyromancers, and they are more than prepared to counter what escalations he can provide. If a man dies from his poisons, then we know where he buries his bodies and can have him in the black cells overnight. He’s the perfect level of ineffectual. To strike him down risks getting a competent replacement.”
“Well said.” Littlefinger gently tapped the table. “The Citadel did not send their best, when they sent Pycelle. He was just competent enough to justify the post, and yet utterly disposable should Aerys take offense to the ‘gray rats’. That Robert hasn’t demanded a replacement can only be chalked up to his… previous challenges with sobriety.”
“And if he’s demanding your man Slynt be changed, Pycelle can’t be far behind.” Jon said, wryly.
Littlefinger huffed at that. “Next. Lord Renly.”
“Lord Renly’s plans are in flux. He originally intended to convince Robert to set aside Cersei in favor of Margaery, but those plans were first ruined by my father not coming south and then by the King’s sobriety. Robert attempting to recommit to his marriage to disprove Lord Stark’s disdain has fully ruined that, and his attempt to bring his lover Loras’ family back into the good graces of royalty. Should Lady Olenna die, the Tyrells won’t maintain their grip on power without support.”
“You can do better than that.”
Jon scowled. “I can and will. He is still committed to breaking their marriage, but now he works from the other side. Half the men that Cersei sees on any given day are maneuvered there by Renly, trying to suss out what sort of man inflames her enough to horn Robert.”
Littlefinger leaned in, eyes glittering. “And do you think it will work?” he asked, intensely.
Jon knew exactly what Littlefinger was probing for - if Jon knew about Jaime. “Too soon to tell.” he evaded. “He’s tried to pull Lord Hightower into the schemes, but his relationship with his grandson does him no favors. He might have gotten results by now if he’d gone it alone.”
“Not a fan of catamites, is he?”
“You know as well as I that it’s because Leyton’s not a fan of two of his grandchildren fucking the family of the ‘usurper’ that killed his uncle Gerold Hightower.” Jon replied blandly. “Their close age meant they were more like brothers, and were raised as such. Returning Vigilance only mended the bridge so much; He tolerates Loras only because he knows no children will result. If the Margaery plan had a chance in hell of working he’d fight it harder than the Lannisters.”
Littlefinger leaned back, grinning like a cat with a canary. “Well, well.” he said softly. “You do know something after all. Next, the Greyjoy.”
“What is there to say?” Jon replied. “She doesn’t even bother trying to hide her movements. The King knew the agenda Balon gave her the moment she arrived. She spends her days analyzing the royal fleet and sending her reports to the Iron Islands. The ravens are allowed half a mile out of King’s Landing before they’re shot down and the message destroyed. She hasn’t realized yet that her father hasn’t responded, but she will soon.”
“That one was a bit easy, true.” Littlefinger shrugged. “She has even less friends in King’s Landing than you did, when you arrived, and a woman without friends is easy pickings indeed.”
Jon’s vision blackened, for a second. “You don’t touch her.” he hissed.
Littlefinger’s eyebrow arched, and lifted his hands in surrender. “I never intended to.”
Jon could have kicked himself for the slip. “I have… promises to uphold. Debts to fulfill.”
“I see.” Littlefinger replied, as he reached up to slowly massage his goatee. “You have a surprisingly strong grasp of your surroundings, and not from my sources. I have to wonder how you do it.”
Jon smiled thinly. “A little bird told me.”
Littlefinger chuckled. “Did they, now?” he leaned forward. “Then let me share what my ‘little birds’ tell me about the cat in the henhouse.” A reference, Jon knew, to Cersei Lannister. “It appears that a change in tactics is underway.” he whispered. “All efforts to remove the stains have failed, and have only highlighted it. Now, perhaps, the pattern shall be changed to highlight the blot, before burning the dress and shaming the dressmaker.”
Jon sat there quietly, pondering the words. Cersei was no longer going to try and kill him and Mya discreetly; instead, she was going to bring the pair to even greater heights before collapsing their support with some kind of scandal that would force Robert to cast them aside. “And how did the little birds find out about this?”
“Why, the cat asked the sparrow, the littlest bird of them all, for advice. He was ever so afraid of her claws, and so he obliged.”
Jon’s gaze immediately fixated on Littlefinger, his expression one of shock. The man was grinning widely. “Do be careful, now, my apprentice,” said Littlefinger. “I am, as always, a humble servant of the royal family.”
He’s pulling his support. I’m on the Small Council properly, now, and I've become a proper rival. But he told me, instead of hitting me from my blindside. Why?
It’s a test, whispered Lodos. He’s forcing us to burn Cersei before she can burn us. And the only way to eliminate Cersei permanently…
Was to reveal the secret of the Lannister twins. Now Jon understood, as a cold chill went down his spine. He was forcing him to reveal the true extent of his knowledge, the subjects he had danced around for moons.
Littlefinger has made a critical error, though, whispered Lodos. Even if he suspects we aren’t all that we seem, he has not the slightest idea what we are capable of. Hit him from outside his context, and destroy his test.
At that, Jon refocused on the Master of Coin, and smiled blandly. “Aren’t we all?” he asked. Littlefinger’s eyes narrowed, his expression just a little bit more gleeful.
“Just so.” he stood from the table, folding his arms behind his back. “Perhaps another time, once all distractions have been removed, you and I can continue our discussions. There are so many fascinating things to learn about in distant lands. King’s Landing is diverse, yes… but there is so much more to life than the capital.”
Eliminate Cersei even with my backing, and I will teach you how to maintain foreign agents. The message was clear. Jon felt his smile go even thinner. “Perhaps you’ll tell me about your home in the Vale.” he replied. “I’ve heard the Fingers are beautiful this time of year… in a bleak, inhospitable way.”
Littlefinger’s smile slipped. “The same could be said of Winterfell.” he bowed. “If you’ll excuse me.”
Jon sat there as the Master of Coin quietly walked away, clenching and unclenching his fist underneath the table. He waited until the door closed at last, and uttered a single, pithy curse.
The moon hung low in the sky above King’s Landing, only just beginning to rise, when Jon received a quiet knock at his door. “Yes?” He called, looking up from his work.
“A visitor, my lord,” said the servant’s voice. “A red priest. He says you told him to call on you when he returned to the city.”
Jon immediately stood. “Allow him in.”
The door opened, and through it a red-robed man walked slowly. Thoros of Myr looked much the same as he had when he left King’s Landing - still fatter than Jon remembered, still shaved bald. And yet, something was different. The look in his eyes, perhaps.
“Thoros.” said Jon, pointedly ignoring the frisson of tension that ran down his spine. “I expected you back a moon ago.”
“Lord Greystark.” he bowed. “Matters abroad were… more complicated than first assumed.” he straightened, and stared at the purple flame dancing upon the candlewick on Jon’s desk. “So. This is the infamous ‘living flame’. Word of this reached Dragonstone as I was leaving. You’ve caused quite a stir.”
“I cannot claim the credit, regardless of what the bards say.” Jon shook his head. “Grand Master Hallyne spent much of his life on this discovery.”
“I see. I see.” Thoros murmured, staring at the flame. His eyes flickered up. [“You are gracious indeed, my Prince.”]
Jon frowned. “Pardon?”
Thoros’ eyes closed. “Apologies. I’ve been speaking with my Essosi brothers in the cloth for the first time in a while. The tongue returns to me sporadically.” He opened his eyes again. “You… don’t speak High Valyrian, do you?”
Jon shook his head. “No. I was taught to read it, the same as my trueborn siblings, but I have never needed to learn to speak Valyrian, high or otherwise. My immediate language concerns came from a more northerly direction.”
Thoros stared at Jon for a long moment, before his lips quirked upwards in a slight smile. “I see.” he replied. “The Wildlings, yes? I’ve not had occasion to think on things beyond the wall, other than what the Temple of the Lord of Light in Volantis teaches about the Last Hero.”
Jon gave him a surprised look. “Volantis knows that old story? It’s a children’s tale, in the North.”
Thoros shrugged. “How could we not? It’s a local legend of the Long Night, and the hero that defeated it. We have… shall we say, a theological interest. The Hero and his twelve companions, along with his faithful hound, charging off to find the Children to learn how to beat back the Others… thrilling stuff.”
“Fighting through wights, and ice spiders, and all manner of horrors, until he is the only one left standing.” Jon frowned. “I heard that story more times than I care to remember from Old Nan. she told it to all the Stark children, to remind us what our words mean.” he rolled his eyes. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”
“Of course.” Thoros replied graciously. “May I sit?”
“Please.”
The two sank into their chairs, as Thoros focused once again on the Bondfire. “Congratulations on your continuous rise in King’s Landing. Your father must be proud. And your wedding - that is soon, is it not?”
“It is. Things have been busy.”
“Then I will not waste more of your time, and lay myself at your service.” Thoros leaned forward. “What can a humble priest of R’hllor help you with, my Lord?”
Jon folded his hands together across his waist as he leaned back. “I have… questions about your faith.”
“Do you?”
“I had… let us call it a dream, long ago. One that I believe was related to your Red God.” Jon tilted his head. “You must understand, I have no intention of paying tribute to your Lord of Light - the few encounters I’ve had with your clergy have been almost entirely negative. And yet, I believe firmly that a sign was left on me that points towards your faith. So… enlighten me.”
Thoros of Myr sat there, drumming his fingers slowly, before nodding. “As you wish. What would you like?”
“Anything. Everything. Start from what seems practical. I have my personal theories, but let me hear it from your own mouth instead of mine.”
Thoros cocked his head, smiling slightly. “Practical. A good place to begin. Then I shall start with the Lord of Light himself, and what he loves.” he spread his arms. “The Lord of Light is light, and love, and warmth, and for embodying all these things fire is his sign. All that lives is cherished, but mankind is cherished most, for we can make beautiful things, and the Lord loves beauty and innocence above all.”
Jon’s eyes narrowed. The anguished screams of Davos echoed in his mind, holding out a scorched figurine before Melisandre like a bloody oath. “Whereas his priests seem to enjoy burning such things.”
The smile left Thoros’ face. “Some more than others.” he admitted, with no trace of humor. “Such things are meant to be willing sacrifices. The Lord of Light understands the weight of such precious offerings, and honors men in turn for gifting him his favored treasures. To steal an offering and burn it unwillingly is to sully the offering and offend the Lord, and yet your tone says you have seen as much.”
Jon nodded slowly. “That and more. And if a Red Priest were to use sorceries of blood and shadow, and glamours that befuddle the senses… would these also offend the Red God?”
Now Thoros’ forehead was furrowed in a deep frown. “Heterodox, at the very best. Heretical at worst. Pagan, even. Deceit and glamour is the tool of the enemy, and shadow… Some claim shadow as the child of fire, and servant of the Lord. When High Priest Benerro took the tattoos of the Flame of Truth, he declared instead that shadow was the cousin of Night.”
His hand reached up to massage at his brow. “This was back when I was still just a child, newly given to the Temple and barely out of my slave chains. Though there was precedent for his word, most interpreted it as a strike against the Shadowbinders of Asshai. That was thirty years ago; his position is now indisputably entrenched in doctrine. If you encountered a Shadowbinder masquerading as a Red Priest…”
“Is it a masquerade if they are both?” Jon asked softly. “Both a Red Priest and a Shadowbinder?”
Thoros went quiet, then. “... I fear we won’t progress unless we both are honest with each other, Lord Greystark.” he said. “Be truthful with me, and I shall be with you. Are you accusing Melisandre of Asshai of being a Shadowbinder and Blood Mage? She and I are the only two servants of the Lord to set foot on these shores in your lifetime.”
Jon looked up at Thoros, who was staring intently into his eyes without blinking. The two held their gaze for a long, long moment, before Jon at last nodded his head. “I am. Melisandre of Asshai is a Shadowbinder, who would, as you claim is offensive to the Red God, burn men alive unwillingly.”
Thoros held his gaze for a moment longer, and then smiled and nodded. “Thank you, Lord Greystark. I appreciate your candor. Rest assured, Melisandre will not be a problem for you any longer. I have sent word back to the Temple in Volantis, and she will be recalled from Dragonstone upon pain of heresy. Should she refuse, the soldiers of the Fiery Hand will hunt her down. Though I don’t think it will come to that - the Lord has already made his displeasure known.”
“What?” said Jon, taken aback. “You… already knew she was a Shadowbinder?”
“I did, though not when we last spoke.” he stood, folding his arms behind his voluminous red robe. “You know, I assume, that the Lord grants his favored sons and daughters the gift of prophecy - visions in the flames. It takes years to learn to see the shapes, and years more to interpret them correctly. I lost my faith long before I ever learned the wisdom to see the future.”
“Melisandre is one of our most senior clergy - senior enough to begin questioning her enduring beauty, and joined long before the Flame of Truth’s abjuration of shadow. So imagine my surprise when I find myself called to her side, and find that she has lost the ability to see the future in the flame.” he folded his arms. “Instead, the Lord exclusively shows visions of her death in searing clarity. Melisandre, it seems, has offended the Lord in a way we have not seen in living memory.”
“... Has she?”
“She has indeed, and she will be called to account.” Thoros nodded, and folded his hands together solemnly. [“Melisandre knows your anger. She knows that she will die should she cross your path once more, oh Prince, and has removed herself to pay penance. She understands what it means that the future is denied to both of us in favor of the infinite past. She begs your forgiveness for that other her’s sins, and all other hers who labor in ignorance until at last she is welcome under your light once more.”]
Jon frowned. “Please stop that.”
“Apologies.” Thoros bowed quickly. “I felt the need to offer a heartfelt prayer to the Lord.” he replied. “To continue, then - on what we are.” he slowly began to pace. “The Lord of Light does not concern himself with earthly matters such as crowns or coins - however distasteful the actions a man might commit, such a thing springs from life, and he allots no punishments for them. He allows the living to decide the worth of a slave’s life, or the weight of murder.”
Jon’s expression only grew uglier. “So if a Magister were to declare every man in his city to be gelded and their wives taken to his own personal harem, your Red God would not consider that heinous?”
“That is not what I said,'' Thoros replied. “I said he allows man to determine the response to such things. If a man determines the punishment for such hubris is to assassinate the magister, that is well. If a man decides the punishment is to work to bankrupt him, that is also well. And if a man decides the punishment is a war to overthrow the magisters that is well. If a man should instead choose to forgive sin… that is also well.” The red priest lifted a finger from behind his back to point at Jon. “As a man, you and you alone shall decide the fates of sinful men, in the eyes of the Lord of Light. And so will others. R’hllor’s eyes are fixed elsewhere.”
“A permissive faith. Tyrants must love you.”
The Red priest grinned wryly. “On the contrary. They fear us greatly, in Essos. We may permit tyrants to rule as they will, but we also offer shelter and comfort to beauty and innocence, and do not threaten slaves with damnation should they strike down their taskmasters. The only thing the Shadow Council of Ib scours an incoming ship for more than our colors and tools is Greyscale, and if we cared about that backwater even that wouldn’t stop us. Not to mention our… personal stake.”
Jon folded his arms, expression neutral. “Really.”
Thoros nodded. “Every man, woman and child in the cloth, from the lowest temple prostitute to the High Priest himself, came to the Temple as slaves and were freed. Myself included.”
“... My condolences.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s my father’s fault for not pulling out before he had eight mouths to feed on a freedman’s wage. He loved me enough to give me to the temple in Myr for a pittance, instead of selling me for ten times as much to a magister’s whorehouse.” He folded his arms behind him. “What I am trying to say, Lord Greystark, is that if you have been touched by the Lord, then in terms of mortal affairs, he has but one teaching - Do as Thou Wilt. His eyes are fixed upon other things.” he snorted. “Or, rather, the Other things. The Great Other.”
Jon’s eyes narrowed. “We know of the Others in Westeros, but not an Other in the singular.”
“It’s very simple.” Thoros replied. “We do not speak of it except in the greatest of generalities. The Lord is light, and life, and warmth, and everything that springs forth from such things, both for good and ill. Everything that is born of this world and its light is his. Everything that does not is, well…” He smiled thinly. “In a word, Other.”
“Defining your devils by everything they aren’t isn’t remarkably helpful.”
Thoros looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “No, it isn’t, is it? Yet it is what has always been done. Perhaps…” he cocked his head. “Were I to engage in some heterodox thinking myself… as a man who only recently regained his faith, I may have cursed my Lord while deep in my cups. A foolish choice - for we know the Lord is always listening, and answers our calls. If I had known another name to call… I may have done it. But there is no name. There is only Other.”
Jon went very still. “Yes…” he said quietly. “A devil whose very name you have deliberately forgotten, known only by a title… it sounds very familiar.” he closed his eyes, and steeled himself. “Tell me about your hero. Tell me about Azor Ahai.”
Thoros went quiet, and folded his hands in front of him. “... it comes from a book of prophecy, from Asshai.” he began. “For their contribution, the Shadowbinders were named friend to the faith, until Benerro cast them away.” he closed his eyes.
“Azor Ahai was a mighty warrior, from far to the East. When the Blood Betrayal covered the world in an age of darkness, a mighty warrior rose up. His name was Azor Ahai, and he fought the agents of the dark with a mighty weapon called Lightbringer, who burned away the enemy and their illusions. Lightbringer, it is said, was a blade forged from his own hand… and a mighty sacrifice, of beauty and innocence willingly offered. Things that honor the Lord greatly.”
“What sacrifice?” Jon whispered.
Thoros opened his eyes again, and his voice pitched to a preacher’s chant. “Ye, and the Warrior did labor amongst the sacred fires of the temples, and forged a blade of iron and bone for thirty days and thirty nights, but dismayed, for the LORD was not pleased and shattered the blade upon the waters of the forge."
"And the Warrior began again, and did labor amongst the sacred fires of the temples, and forged a blade of steel and sinew for fifty days and fifty nights, and thinking to invoke the arts of his fathers did bring forth the pride of beasts, and selected the mightiest to wrestle down. And the Hrakkar was subdued, and the Warrior did plunge his offering into its heart. And again, the Warrior dismayed, for the LORD was not pleased, and shattered the blade in the blood of the Hrakkar.”
“What is a Hrakkar?” Jon asked quietly.
Thoros smiled. “A kind of lion, in all white. To be honest, it’s probably a localization - you only find Hrakkars in the Great Grass Sea, west of the Bone Mountains where the Dothraki ride. Certainly not in Asshai when the Long Night happened.” His timbre changed back. “And the Warrior asked, ‘what must I do, to forge the blade to end the night?’ and the LORD did speak, and the Warrior understood."
"Then the Warrior did labor amongst the sacred fires of the temples, and forged a blade of fire and blood for a hundred days and a hundred nights, and did summon forth his loving wife, Nissa Nissa. And the faithful woman did understand what was asked of her, and did willingly bear her breast. And the Warrior despaired at what duty demanded of him, and plunged the blade into her heart."
"And with the willing sacrifice was the LORD pleased, and bade the birth of Lightbringer into the world, who would cast aside the deceit of the Other and the enemies of the Dawn. And the Warrior took the name Azor Ahai, and fought the enemies with his virtuous companions, for Lightbringer cradled Nissa Nissa in its steel and smote the enemies of man with righteous fury.”
Jon sat there quietly. Thoros said nothing more, letting the tale of water, lions and love hang in the air. “Well?” Jon said, at last.
“That’s it.” Thoros remarked. “That is the tale of Azor Ahai. We have no more.”
“What?” Jon was aghast. “But- But she - but you have an entire religion around him! How can you do- how can that be all you have of him?”
“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” Thoros leaned forward. “We have a beginning, but not an end. Other lands have an ending, but not a beginning. Other lands still have a disjointed middle - a Patrimony forged, or a YiTish girl with a monkey’s tail. And none of them agree on the details, least of all the time period. We could almost have a complete tale, if not for the fact that the ending takes place before the beginning.” he smiled. “We believe as an article of faith that Azor Ahai was real, he ended the Long Night, and will return once more. The Lord has told us so. We only need to rediscover how he did it.”
The explanation almost offended Jon more than the lack of it. Let it go, Lodos whispered. We have more important things to cover.
Jon slowly exhaled, and then leaned forward. “One last question, then.” At Thoros' questioning look, Jon took out a loose paper and began to sketch. “Do the names of ‘Pnoth’ and ‘the Great I’ mean anything to you?”
Thoros shook his head. “No. Though their names set me uneasy, I do not know them.”
“What of K’Dath? Kayakayanaya? Carcosa?”
After a moment, Thoros nodded. “Two of those names I know,” he said. “Far, far to the east, where our bravest missionaries go and rarely return. Kayakayanaya is a city in the Bone Mountains, one of three - the last remnants of the Patrimony of Hyrkoon. We have an interest in the place - though dominated by warrior women, the Great Fathers claim descent from Hyrkoon the Hero, an alias of Azor Ahai. Carcosa, I know, is a land far beyond even Asshai that wars with Yi-Ti. K’Dath… that I do not know, but the name chills me, somehow. Perhaps it lies even further still.”
Jon nodded, and then slid the paper towards the priest. “Lastly, this.” upon the paper, a thirteen-pointed star was drawn. “Do you recognize this?”
Thoros went still. “I…” he trailed off. He picked up the paper, staring at it by the Bondfire light. “I know this sign.” he said, quietly. “Somewhere in my youth, I have seen it. In Volantis. But… it’s not right." He traced the sign with his finger, before shaking his head. “I remember this with something in the middle - instead of the lines crossing over, it was drawn with a gaping center, and something different filling the void. But what it was, I do not remember.”
Jon held back the irritation he wanted to voice. “And is that all you can think of of importance, in regards to your faith?” Thoros, after a moment, nodded. “Then I thank you, ser. You have given me much to think about. You may show yourself out.”
Thoros bowed low, then stopped, straightened himself up and stared into the Bondfire candle. “Wait.” he muttered. “This is… The Lord… he is granting a vision in the flames.”
Jon immediately straightened up. “What? What do you see?” he asked quietly.
Thoros did not respond, but stared unblinkingly into the flickering violet candlelight. His jaw slowly began to hang slack. “I see… a figure of fire.” he whispered. “Like someone bound flame in the shape of a man’s corpse, and then brutalized the body. He stands before a snow-covered hill, in the far north. He…” he went quiet.
Jon waited, and waited, until at last the Red Priest drew back and slumped to his chair. “Thoros…” he said at last.
“... I’ve never seen a vision in the flames so clearly in my life.” Thoros murmured, awestruck. “And yet, I do not think this was meant for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“The figure drew words in the snow, with burning fingers. Not in the common tongue - in High Valyrian.” Thoros said at last. “And then their form shifted. It became a woman with dark hair and silver eyes, with a blue rose, then a headless man. After that, a girl with red hair and furs, and another weeping in a bed covered by a wedding cloak. Then one with Targaryen colors, and what looked like a woman wearing a squid surcoat. And then it ended with a blonde-”
Jon didn’t hear the rest of his sentence, as he had forgotten how to breathe. The white-knuckle grip on the arm of his chair was the only thing that stopped him from an instinctual crumple inward.
“Get out.” he hissed.
Thoros stood immediately. “My Lord-”
“GET OUT.”
Thoros stared at him for a long moment before at last bowing. He slowly picked up the paper with the star and the charcoal stick it had been written with, and wrote something upon it that he covered with his hand. “These words are for you,” he said softly, as he folded it into his robes, “when you are willing to hear them.”
Jon scowled. “Thank you for your generosity.” he snarled. “I no longer need your advice. You may show yourself out.”
Thoros bowed, and made a sign in the air. “A parting prayer for you, then, Lord Greystark.” he clasped his hands together. [“Oh Lord, if it be your will that your Prince remain ignorant, then thy will be done. If it be your will that a lampshade be laid upon your flame of truth, then let us craft the shade. If it be your will that the ending come before the beginning, then let it be so. Let the light within your Prince find its own truth, and illuminate the way.”] his eyes flickered to Jon. “For the Night is dark, and full of terrors.”
Jon felt the need to curse, but instead felt his anger be restricted by his morals. Thoros had done all that he had asked; honor demanded civility in return. “For the night is dark, and full of terrors.” He repeated back, unthinking.
Thoros’ eyes lit up in restrained glee, and gave another bow, before turning on his heel and slowly exited the room. Jon crumpled inwards on his seat, flipping between sadness and rage, at a god remembering every failure he had ever made.
It was late in the afternoon, as Jon was making his way back from a covert expedition into the city tracking down which of Varys’ old agents could be converted, when a face that Jon did not expect to see in the Red Keep revealed himself. Qarl the Maid stepped out from a corner, dressed in what passed for Ironborn livery. “Lord Greystark.”
“Qarl.” Jon replied. “I didn’t think your crew came this far into the city, let alone the keep. Something I can help you with?”
“Capt-” Qarl caught himself. “Lady Asha has called for us, and I blend in better. She also mentioned that if I were to see you to bring you as well. Lord Hightower requested it.”
A private meeting with Leyton Hightower and Asha Greyjoy. An unusual pairing, and not one Jon was going to ignore. “Lead the way, then.”
As the two walked together through the halls, Jon couldn’t help but glance at the man, walking stiffly beside him. The image of the man trying so hard to protect Asha’s image tickled Jon fiercely, and he couldn’t help himself. “Enjoying shore leave, sailor?”
Qarl’s cheek twitched, but he kept his expression passive. “Well enough. King’s Landing has entertainment for us.”
“Aye.” Jon let some of himself slip away; the phantom scent of the sea drifted across his nose, and Lodos grinned. “Plenty of soft Greenlanders to scare with easy finger-dances and sailors to swindle on the knucklebones.”
Qarl couldn’t quite control the smile that came to his face now. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, please. I wasn’t born a lord, you know. I know how life is. Never a dry tavern in the city when it’s someone else’s stags paying.” he leaned in, whispering. “Have you been to the rat pits in Flea Bottom? There are fights every day, but if you go when they release the dogs, you can win good coin betting on who gets the most kills.”
Finally, Qarl’s professional facade cracked. “And how does a boy like you know about rat pits?” he asked, grinning.
Jon didn’t answer, but pulled away. The Lordsport rat pits only ran twice a week on account of finding stock, and Jon knew more than a few men on the Black Wind gambled heavily there. He’d been to the Flea Bottom pits more than a few times tracking Littlefinger’s spies, and one time as one of the dogs when a catspaw was too paranoid to approach directly. He’d tasted rat blood for three days after that.
“I’m the Master of Whisperers now. I need to know a great many things.” Qarl rolled his eyes, but the smile didn’t leave his face. and they walked the rest of the way in a companionable silence.
At last they reached the Tower of the Hand, and Qarl reached out to rap the door three times. “Enter,” called out Leyton Hightower from inside, and the two walked in. Asha was already there, swirling a pewter mug of brown ale in her hand she clearly brought with her.
Qarl bowed quietly and turned away, but Asha looked up from her drink. “No, Qarl. Stay. This involves you, I’m told.” she turned to look at the Hand of the King. “Though I don’t know why Greystark is here.”
“It is something he… needs to know.” Leyton murmured, pulling at his face as he slumped limply in the chair. Jon arched an eyebrow at Qarl, and the two men quietly took a seat. Leyton, as he had ever since the day Varys died, looked less like himself than he did the day before. Gone was the sharp, confident man that had greeted him in the gardens - now, he looked almost ready to collapse on himself.
Asha folded her arms. “Very well, then. What is it you want, Lord Hand?”
Leyton chuckled weakly, and slowly reached down to his belt. With a shaking hand, he pulled out his medicine flask and took a tiny swig. A relieved sigh escaped him the moment the flask lowered, and his eyes seemed to shine just a little bit more than they did before. “Ahhhh… apologies. I’ve… not been feeling well, shall we say.” Leyton took several long, steadying breaths and straightened up in his seat. “Lady Asha. We all know the laws against Ironborn reaving against the mainland, yes? Both how the spirit of the law is flaunted, and the letter of the law allows foreign action.”
Asha’s expression soured, her aquiline nose only making her glare more pronounced. “If you’re going to try and leverage me against my people-”
“Leverage?” Leyton cut her off. “In a manner of speaking, yes. I do want to leverage it, but not against the Ironborn. Your foreign reaving is precisely why I called you here - I have great need of it.” he glanced at Qarl. “Your crew has been shorebound for the past moon while here, yes? They must yearn for violence.”
Asha blinked, and grinned. “Well. This just got more interesting.” She took a long swig of her brown ale. “What does the Hand of the King need to pay the Iron Price for?”
“Something without price, because it is not sold.” he reached over to a small glass goblet, pulled out his flask, and carefully poured little more than a few drops of the viscous blue substance into it. “Has your crew ever made the journey to Qarth?”
“Qarth?” Jon repeated, surprised. Asha’s eyebrows shot up high.
“We’ve traveled far,” Qarl replied, just as incredulous, “but never as far as that. Roggon Rustbeard sailed a ship to New Ghis and Slaver’s Bay, once, but Qarth is a thousand miles beyond even that.”
“Then I ask for you to go that far, and return with what I desire.” he pushed the glass forward. “This is a substance made by self-proclaimed warlocks in that city, called Shade of the Evening. They profess it grants prophetic visions, but I care not for such mummery. What I desire is its medicinal properties.”
“Need something for the brothels, old man?” Asha quipped. “Can’t get it up?”
Leyton glared. “Something far more important - my memory.” Asha went quiet. “I am an old man, yes. And an old man has many failing parts. But in this time and place, I refuse to let my mind be one of them.” he leaned forward. “Shortly before Varys disappeared, he broke into my apartment and destroyed my supply. I have been rationing the rest, and poorly. I need more.”
Asha reached over to the glass and gently picked it up. “... This drink restores an age-addled mind?” she asked, watching the blue fingers trickle down from the rim.
“In moderation.” Leyton answered. “Too much softens the brain, makes it possible for even the slightest traumas to break you - not to mention the unsightly discolorations of the skin. The hallucinations can also be potent if you are unprepared. But limited to just the right dose…” he held out his hand to the Greyjoy, and reluctantly she handed back the glass to him, where he quickly slugged it back. “With the right dose,” he repeated, eyes blown wide, “a man who was bedridden for ten years can be restored with perfect memory and a spryness half his age, in time to become Hand of the King.”
Jon’s mouth dropped, just a little. Asha seemed equally stunned at the casual revelation. “... Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
“Because I knew that you would have a personal interest in this, and might take it for yourself if I was not honest.” Leyton answered. “Your mother, Lady Harlaw, is growing frail, is she not?”
“Don’t you bring my mother into this,” Asha spat.
“Really?” Leyton replied. “It never once crossed your mind as I talked of how miraculous this drug is, that you wish your mother could remember where all her sons had gone? You never thought of taking this for yourself and sailing to Ten Towers with it?”
Asha rose from her seat, her face a mask of anger, just as Jon slammed a fist on the table. “Enough!” he barked, dragging all of their attention to him. “That was unkind, Lord Hightower. Your situation does not grant you leave to forgo courtesy.”
“I…” Leyton seemed shocked, before pulling a hand over his face. “Yes. Yes, of course. You are right. That was… not kind of me. My deepest apologies, Lady Asha.” Asha remained standing, but made no further movement to leave. “I… grow unstable, while having to ration this. Which is why I need this resolved.” he leaned forward once again. “The warlocks of Qarth have thoroughly debased themselves over this drink, this Shade of the Evening and its ‘magics’, and formed a cult around it. They do not part with it under anything less than force. My own cask was taken from a mariner wreck carrying a warlock to Slaver’s Bay six moons ago, and sold to me for a king’s ransom. You, on the other hand, shall have to take it from the halls yourself. Do this, and a cask set aside for your mother will last her for the rest of her days.”
Asha went quiet, and folded his arms before glancing over at Qarl. “What do you think?” she asked.
“I think it’s a mistake leaving you alone in this city.” Qarl replied.
“You think I can’t handle it alone?” Asha barked. “I need a big, strong man around me to protect me from eunuchs and coin-counters?”
“The eunuch and the coin-counter are two of the most dangerous men in King’s Landing.” Jon replied quietly. Asha turned to him with narrowed eyes. “This isn’t a raid on Bloodstone. Power here comes from who and what you know.” he smiled thinly. “And you know nothing, Asha Greyjoy.”
“Oh! Well.” Asha bowed deeply. “All hail Lord Greystark, he of the enormous brain. Lady Stone must love your enormous brain. Leave her gasping and exhausted with your incredible knowledge, you clever, clever man.”
“It’s true. Such stimulating conversation.” Jon retorted back. “It’s my only option at the moment, though - I’d get thrown in the black cells if I showed off my other impressive bits as much as my wit.” Qarl snorted loudly through pursed lips and immediately turned away to hide his expression as Asha glared at her companion.
“If you’re quite finished.” Leyton said, eyes narrowed. “This rationed Shade of the Evening will not keep me sharp forever.”
Asha turned back to the Hand. “Qarl has a point, irritatingly enough. You send my crew away, I am alone in this place. My crew is my household guard.”
“Then attach yourself to someone else’s.” the Hand replied laconically. “Make friends - or political alliances if you feel the need to be needlessly obtuse and emotionally distant about it. There’s one woman I can think of who could use companionship and is always surrounded by servants and guards who won’t get you shooed away as a bad influence.”
Jon caught it about a half-second before Asha did. “Really?” Jon asked, as Asha pulled an ugly face. “Is that why you had me come? You want me to reintroduce her to my betrothed after she called her a brotherfucker?”
“I didn’t say brotherfucker!”
“Was there a different insult she was supposed to derive from implying I was Robert’s secret bastard?” said Jon. Qarl quietly palmed his face as the Greyjoy tried to come up with a convincing lie. “You and Theon are such… alright. I’ll do it, but I expect an earnest apology from you when it happens. I don’t expect you to treat her like fragile glass, but aim your cutting tongue outwards.”
“Tch.” Asha looked like she wanted to spit at his feet. “I’ll not debase myself over a pair of upjumped bastards. This whole plan can go rot.”
“Asha…” Qarl said quietly. The girl whirled on him, eyes ordering his silence, but the warrior stood his ground. “It’s a good offer. We saw what that sorcerer’s drink does. Your father might scream murder at us leaving you alone, but if a cask of this can bring your mother back… you think he wouldn’t shower you with honor for that? Don’t turn this away out of pride. Let the Greystarks cover our absence.”
“It’s not just me.” she replied instantly. “You’ll be gone for moons. You’ll be sailing the deep waters to get there and back, unless you want to cut through the Valyrian Peninsula by way of the Smoking Sea. You think you can keep those louts under control without me, when the prize is only a pair of casks? They’ll mutiny when they see their cut is nothing.”
“If reward is the problem,” Said Leyton, “Then I will happily provide a solution.” he leaned forward, eyes glinting. “I said I paid a king’s ransom for this cask, and so I offer the same to you. For every cask worth of Shade of the Evening you bring back from your reaving and deliver to me, you shall receive five thousand gold dragons to distribute among your crew.”
The two Ironborn froze. Asha turned to Leyton, eyes wide. “Five thousand dragons. Each.” she repeated. Jon was just as struck by the sum - removing the ship’s cut for repairs and the captain’s cut, that was somewhere around 80 dragons a man for a single keg of Shade. A king’s ransom indeed, he thought, as a hand came up idly to scratch a suddenly itchy point on his temple.
“Plus the cask for your own mother,” Leyton replied, eyes lidded, “and whatever other valuables you deign to carry off with you. I do not care if you rob all of Qarth blind - King Robert does not care to have normalized relations with anybody so dependent on slavery to function. We only barely tolerate the Free Cities because of their entanglements with Braavos.”
He held out his hand. “In addition, should you discover the source, method and components of creating Shade of the Evening… well. The Bank of Oldtown has been closed to all Ironborn commerce in the past, due to historical conflict. Your grandfather Quellon once attempted to reopen a line of credit with the institution; your father never bothered to continue the process when he passed.” The open hand closed into a fist. “Arrangements can be made to rectify that.”
Now, Asha’s jaw dropped. “A full line of credit.”
“Unrestricted.” Leyton’s smile seemed predatory now. “To be put towards whatever you desire. Food during the winters, or capital to expand industry. How long has it been since the Saltcliffe mines opened a new shaft? How many islands are left fallow for sheep grazing on lack of dragons to prospect? How many trade docks of Lordsport have been left to rot since Balon’s failed rebellion saw it burned to the ground?”
“Take care, Hightower. That’s my father, you're insulting.” Asha said sharply. It was a quiet reproach, though, more out of instinct than any actual familial love. Jon watched as her eyes flickered at nothing, and a hand went to her mouth.
“Asha…” Qarl hissed.
“... I want it in writing.” she said, finally. “Three times. One for me, one for you and one for my father to hold. I’ll not have them lift a single oar before I know we’ll not be chased out of the bank.”
“Your father would approve?”
“Hell no, he wouldn’t. But I want proof of this deal to exist on the other side of Westeros where you can’t pretend it didn’t happen.”
Leyton let out an amused grunt. “Well enough. Talk out what you need to with your man… I will wait.” the woman stared at Leyton for a long moment, before grabbing Qarl by the neck and dragging him to the corner of the room, whispering furiously. Leyton looked up at Jon, smiling thinly. “Thank the Gods she took the hook. If she argued much more, the Shade would have worn off.” he whispered, and lifted a hand for demonstration - a slight tremor set the rings on his hands shaking.
“Does the King know?” Jon asked, as he reached up again to scratch an itchy spot on his neck.
“No. And Gods willing, he… never will.” he shook his head. “When my body was flush with this… a mouthful would last half the day. Now I barely… last a meeting. I need your help to maintain my place, my boy.” his off-hand went to his beard, pulling on it firmly as if the pain centered him. “This place has… fallen apart since I left. I cannot… we cannot let it stand. Too many needles to thread. The Seven Kingdoms are… a hair’s breadth from ruin. We are pulling it back from the cliff, but there is… so much left to be done. So many divine blessings, but we must capitalize. Help me… keep us going just a little longer.”
Jon stared at the old man, thoughts running through his mind about plots and deceits and his own part in the decline. In the end, he replied simply. “Why me?”
Leyton let out a genuine smile. “Why ever not? Because you care. You are present when needed. That… is leadership, my boy. The rest… comes from experience.” he chuckled softly. “And of that, I have more than enough for the two of us. We are partners, you and I.”
Jon stared at him longer. The itch on the back of his neck returned - he ignored it for the moment. “Have you ever lied to me, ‘partner’?”
Leyton looked surprised, but after matching his gaze, he slowly nodded. “Yes. Yes I have. Never maliciously. Always with your interests in mind. You know… how dangerous secrets are in this place. If you aren’t involved… but you are Master of Whisperers now. Secrets… are your domain.” he closed his eyes. “You and I… should speak after the wedding. No more secrets.”
Jon closed his eyes, letting the emotions have their say in the privacy of his own mind, before opening them once more. “Fine. You share your secrets… and I will keep yours.”
Leyton let out a tired, satisfied sigh, closing his eyes. “Thank you. Now… I believe you wanted to pull… the girl closer to King’s Landing, yes? I don’t understand your tastes… but I’ve done my part. The rest… is up to you, Dunk.”
“Dunk?”
Leyton’s eyes shot open. “Jon. Jon. I meant…” he glanced at Jon with wide eyes, before pulling at his face with a groan. “I am sorry. We should hurry. I fear my lucidity… is fleeting.”
Jon frowned deeply. And it’s my fault. You’re a collapsing tower, and I’m the one who shattered your foundation. He turned away in shame-
And stopped. The itch on the back of his neck had shifted with the movement onto the side of his head. Directly in the direction of Asha and Qarl.
Jon felt every hair on his body stand on end, as he turned to look at the pair. Asha was turned away, whispering with her lover about plans. Qarl, on the other hand, was facing Jon, eyes locked on Asha. At Jon’s movement, though, the swordsman glanced upwards to meet the Northman’s gaze.
The man smiled widely, then, and his eyes flashed pure white for a pure second before the itch on Jon’s forehead disappeared.
The heat of the South was already reaching unbearable levels even before reaching King’s Landing, and Ned Stark was beginning to regret once again that he had not changed his outfit from riding leathers to something lighter and looser. Behind him, he could hear Arya and Sansa bickering in the wagon about something or other - upon further attention, it appeared to be about whether or not it was appropriate to braid the fur of Nymeria and Lady to be less ‘scary’ for southroners. He rolled his eyes and glanced over to his side.
Theon Greyjoy pulled back on the reins of his palfrey just an inch as it danced ahead of him. “This place reeks,” he remarked, wrinkling his nose, as he glanced about the cobbled streets of the capital.
“It does.” he replied back. “You never get used to it. You just learn to burn more incense to mask it.”
“Even Pyke has proper sewage drains. How can King’s Landing not know how to push their shit out to sea?”
“You’re the one who asked me to come, Theon.” he said.
Theon looked away. “... Thank you, Lord Stark. It would have been well within your rights to deny me.”
“I would have thought you would be more interested in staying in Winterfell, with Robb and Rickon.” Ned replied. “The South has never seemed much of an interest to you.”
Theon straightened up in his saddle, and fixed his eyes upon the Great Sept of Baelor upon Visenya’s Hill. “... I have words I need to share with Jon.” he replied stoically. “This may be the last time in a long while our paths will cross.”
Jon. At his son’s name, Ned’s mood fell. The stories that had reached Winterfell of his escapades already beggared belief, and only grew more outlandish the further south they traveled. It was the claims of sorcery, however, that stopped him cold. Lord Greystark (and didn’t that name set his hackles rising) had taken over the Pyromancers, saved the city from the ghost of the Mad King’s Wildfire, and single-handedly invented a violet flame that would not burn a man. A taunt against the old Targaryens, the bards declared, for their crimes against Brandon and Rickard, before launching into a rendition of a song dubbed ‘The Price of a King’.
The rumors were laughable, and Ned ignored them; likewise, the songs coming out were pure apologetics for the Kingslayer, and Ned assumed it was funded by Tywin to rehabilitate his reputation. It was hearing Jon tied so closely in topic to the Mad King, and Rhaegar by extension, that chilled him.
Promise me, Ned.
Ned shut his eyes tightly and lightly shook his head. The South was not safe. One way or another, he would see Jon north of the Neck once more. Howland already knew to have archers manning Moat Cailin the moment he returned up the Kingsroad, and he’d brought enough men for a fighting retreat from the capital. Now, he could only hope whatever fit of madness had overtaken Jon had subsided enough to listen to reason, that such preparations were unnecessary.
“Are we there yet?” Arya called from inside the wagon.
“The Red Keep is just up the hill.” Ned replied, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “Theon, do you see Bran anywhere?”
“He’s riding back with Jory. he should be up here.” Theon let out a loud whistle, and gestured wildly behind him. After a moment, the boy rode up on his pony, leaning forward dangerously in the saddle.
“I’m tired, father… my legs hurt…”
“You didn’t want to ride in the wagon with your sisters, but chose to ride in like a man grown. Well done - I’m proud of you. Now sit up straight for when we arrive.”
“Yes, father…”
“Are we there yet?”
Gods give me strength.
At last, the procession reached the gates of the Red Keep, which were already opened for them. Behind him, he could hear the majority of the household guard wheeling off as directed by the servants to a more spacious courtyard, as he himself followed the path he knew from memory was meant for lords and dignitaries. The heat only grew worse as the walls rose around him, stifling the wind, but the stench of human filth began to be interspersed with flowers and greenery. He rounded the corner-
And there he was. Standing in the middle of the receiving courtyard, with a woman at his side gently resting her arm in his. Mya Stone - he would have recognized her as Robert’s daughter from a thousand paces even if he hadn’t already known her as a babe. The vision of his childhood friend tossing a riotously laughing babe in the air overlaid itself in his mind upon the strong beauty standing before him - Robert’s piercing blue eyes staring out from a sharp, angular face framed by wavy, coal-black hair down to her shoulders. She didn’t stand like a princess, but instead had a wide powerful stance like a worker or a fighter, and stood tall enough to likely embarrass some men by comparison.
No matter how startling it was to see a female Robert, though, Ned’s eyes could only linger on her for a moment before locking back on Jon. He’d grown taller, the lord realized absently. He’d also let his hair grow out, and pulled it back into a loose ponytail, hanging against a soft gray cloak clasped with bronze. He wore colors of forest greens and shadowy blues, and hanging from his neck was a bronze necklace with the sigil of a direwolf at the neck. No sword hung from his hip, but a glint of sunlight revealed a dagger’s hilt - and Ned had to wonder when he’d gone and learned how to fight with a side-arm.
his other hand rested on Ghost, white fur sheared close to the skin and sitting tall enough to come up to Jon’s ribs. Lady and Nymeria leaped from the wagon with a swiftness and tackled their brother into a nuzzling pile, and Jon was not far behind - Arya let out an excited shout and nearly leaped from the lip of the wagon, forcing Jon to rush forward and snatch her from the air. An untroubled laugh escaped his son, and Ned felt his heart skip out of time. He laughs just like Lyanna, now.
“Jon!” Bran called out, wrestling with the straps of his saddle to clamber down to the ground, and rushed at the side not occupied by the clinging monkey that was Arya.
“Bran!” Jon cajoled, pulling him back and ruffling his hair. “Have you gotten taller?” Bran beamed at him in reply. “Still climbing around Winterfell? There will be none of that here - the walls aren’t nearly as sturdy. Believe me, I’ve looked.”
“Oh, have you now?” Mya Stone, his betrothed, replied wryly. Jon favored her with a quick eyeroll and smirk in reply. Ned couldn’t help but be struck at just how familiar they were.
Ned slowly lowered himself from his saddle, and at last, Jon’s eyes landed on him. His face went carefully neutral. “Lord Stark.” he called out.
Ned’s heart clenched. Titles, not familial names. “Lord Greystark,” he replied.
“Welcome to King’s Landing,” he announced. “Before we move inside, I wanted to introduce you all to my betrothed. Mya Stone, daughter of King Robert Baratheon.” she gave a quick curtsy in reply. “You must be tired. I can show you to where-”
Hang this.
Ned surged forward and grabbed his son by the shoulders before pulling him into a powerful hug.
Jon seemed to be momentarily stunned by the actions, his arms hanging out to the sides limply, before swinging shut and gripping Ned tightly around his back. “Jon.” Ned breathed, head tilted into his son’s hair. He’d grown taller again just a few moons away. His son was becoming a man.
“Father.” he replied, just as quietly, and pulled him tighter.
They had much to talk about, Ned knew. His actions, and why he’d come to King’s Landing. But that could wait.
The wedding was only a few day’s away, after all.
Notes:
... That when you fall, you will fall from a height most men will never reach.
Welcome back, everyone. Here’s a question for you all, since I apparently have been using the ending notes as an impromptu interrogation of my audience. While I was scrolling the internet to get all the impressions and criticisms of this story, I happened upon a related post in r/the citadel (shoutout to the people who consistently flog my work there, BTW, I don’t even know you but I appreciate it) where someone had made a Jon-wank bingo card. I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I wasn’t intending for this story to be any kind of wankery or bashfic, whether it be Starks or Targs or anybody else, but knowing there were enough stereotypes out there to even make a jon-wank bingo card made me curious. I was already straying dangerously close to trashfics by having Jon be with multiple women, even if it’s a far more normal ‘serial monogamy’ than a straight-up harem.
So, to all of my audience out there, my question to you is: on a scale of 1-10, how much of a jon-wank story do you think this is? Or what you THINK it’s going to become? And what makes you think that way? Or, perhaps, you think this is stroking off a different character undeservedly. Whatever. Hit me with what you think should be toned down, or maybe even toned up. I dunno. I personally don’t think this is much of a wankfest because half of my time developing this story is spent thinking about how many unique and excruciating deaths I could put characters through and still make sense, but it’s always good to have a second opinion. Let me know in the comments (on top of whatever praise you feel you want to offer, because if I suddenly get a horde of unqualified ‘god this character sucks you need to delete them immediately’ I will shed a single melodramatic tear).
EDIT: To clarify, nobody has accused this story of this, so everybody sending comments that the haters can go fuck themselves can relax. I appreciate the sentiment, but you are dissing imaginary haters. I just had the question because I wanted to stick my finger in the wind and see how well I was doing at keeping the dramatic tension up even with Jon's growing abilities.
EDIT: Fair warning to all - the next chapter might come later than expected. I've been laid off from my job, so lately my mental state has not been conducive to creative writing. Please wait warmly while I get my life situation back together.
Chapter 25: Life Seven: Part 8
Summary:
It's a nice day for a white wedding.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Lord Greystark. Welcome back to the Guild.” A stoop-backed Wisdom greeted him as he exited the newly-swept sidehalls of the Alchemist’s Guild.
“Please, Wisdom Corryn.” Jon waved him away, the sleeves of his Alchemist’s robes fluttering. “In here, I ask for no special address.”
The old man smiled. “Very well… Acolyte Jon.”
“I see the horde of apprentices have reclaimed more of the building from decay since last I was here.”
“Wisdom Ossifer has done his level best to herd them into productivity, and keep them from trouble.” Corryn paused, and his expression soured. “Not that some of them needed the help. We caught one of them attempting to break into the vaults. Ardyn Celtigar, Lord Celtigar’s fifth son.”
Jon’s eyes narrowed. “Ardrian Celtigar is a greedy, sour old man. His son didn’t attempt that on his own. Have you decided on a punishment?”
“He’s been confined deep in the guildhall, for the moment.” said the Wisdom. “There have been ideas, but… he is the trueborn son of a Lord. we wanted to be certain the crown would back us should we act as we desire, and so we waited.”
“Then let me assure you,” Jon said quietly, “that His Grace King Robert fully understands the seriousness of the matter. You, and all the Wildfire derivatives you can create, are considered exclusive military assets of the royal family. In his eyes, theft of the Substance is as unacceptable to the crown as the theft of any war galley, noble blood be damned.”
Corryn nodded. “Then he will be whipped and cast out, and Lord Celtigar will be informed that our services are no longer available to his house for a generation. An example must be made. The Lord can consider us generous,” and here the Wisdom made a sharp chopping motion with his hand, “for not slicing the boy’s nostrils or taking his thieving hands to make the shame permanent and public.”
“Good.” Jon began to walk deeper into the guildhall, the Wisdom walking alongside him. “How has the work gone?”
“Grand Master Hallyne has begun the work of deciphering further works from antiquity and left the study of Bondfire to the Wisdoms. He believes that the ancient creation of golems was tied directly to the use of Bondfire somehow, though how that factors in will be a mystery decades in the solving.” Corryn grinned slyly. “We are all eager to hear his insights. He’s more than made up for his grandfather’s folly with this.”
Jon stopped, and cocked his head. “His grandfather?” Wisdom Corryn paused mid-stride, and did not turn to face him.
“Ah. Of course you wouldn’t know.” Corryn worried his bottom lip with his teeth for a moment. “Then perhaps… it is not my place to say. You must not underestimate what it is you have done for us, Acolyte Jon. until you came to us, Alchemy was… very much a family trade.”
“Your lineage determined your place as much as your true talents did, then.” Jon replied. “And the Grand Master descended from a disgraced alchemist?”
Corryn hesitated, but eventually nodded. “Disgraced… would be an understatement.”
Jon sighed. “Not that different from being born the bastard of a great lord, then, I imagine.”
“... I couldn’t possibly say, young Acolyte.”
“Perhaps I’ll ask him myself.” he replied, as he lifted his gaze to find their walk had led them to the Grand Master’s hall. Jon turned and bowed to Corryn. “Your company was much appreciated. I look forward to our lessons.”
“The feeling is reciprocal.” Corryn smiled. “Had you the requisite knowledge of the Substance, I would daresay you would be the quickest the guild has ever ordained a Wisdom. Your…” and here Corryn lowered his voice, “shall we say, ‘gifts’, have taught us just as much as we can teach you. The Grand Master himself has discovered something fundamental; he will be eager to speak of it, I’m sure.”
Silently, Jon bowed his head in reply. Only a select few of the Wisdoms knew of Jon’s magical abilities - the ones Hallyne trusted implicitly to keep his secrets. None of them would ever speak outside of their hidden cloisters of his talents or what they meant in regards to the fundamentals of magic - yet Jon feared the spread of information even so, now that the eyes of the Raven were upon him once more. He’d maintained his cover very well this life, but if any stolen mind could reveal he knew things he shouldn’t, it was the alchemists.
“Should we continue our discussions another time, then?”
“Perhaps.” Corryn nodded. “I’ve work to do in the meantime. Wisdom Hugo is unusually late in returning from his search with the Gold Cloaks. I recall he mentioned searching in and around the Great Sept - perhaps he was held up by tripping over your wedding preparations.”
“I’ll save an apology for him, and will not keep you further.” With a quiet parting, Jon stepped away from Corryn and into the study of the Grand Master. Around the bends and through the narrow passages, Hallyne was there, standing before a large slate placard, a sharpened triangle of shale stone in his hand. Across the slate board, diagrams and ingredient names were etched and crossed out in light stone dust; one edge of the shale tool was notably worn away. “Master Hallyne,” he called. “I’ve returned.”
Hallyne turned. “Acolyte Jon. Well met, my boy.” he absently gestured the young man forward. “There’s been a development.”
“Wisdom Corryn indicated as such.” Jon replied, stepping forward. “Something ‘fundamental’. I don’t think he used those words lightly.”
“It may very well be.” Hallyne murmured, waggling his writing utensil in the air before drawing on the slate board; the softer shale ground away, leaving his mining scrap utensil less than it was. “Were you aware that in ages past, before even the Targaryens landed on Dragonstone, there was an age restriction on who could be Grand Master?”
“You may have mentioned it once, when you were trying to fill my head with party tricks instead of actually teaching me.” Jon admitted. “I can assume it was to prevent the top position from being held by one whose mind had left him?”
“It was not.” Hallyne remarked dryly. “In fact, it was the opposite. The Grand Master could only be named from those who were so old as to be one foot in the grave.”
That caught Jon off-guard. “What?”
“Indeed.” Hallyne frowned. “The Wisdoms were also required to be, in addition to their demonstrated skill, no younger than five-and-fifty with multiple children to their name. You could not become an Acolyte without being five-and-thirty with a wife at the minimum.”
“But…” Jon started. “There are lords leading major houses younger than those rules! How could they think a man would tolerate being a glorified errand boy for such a long time? It makes no sense!”
“You ask the same question my predecessors did, when the Targaryens landed.” Hallyne remarked. “With little outward growth, and our children humiliated by subservient roles, the Alchemist’s Guild was slowly dying even in those days. To counter the Maesters, the age restrictions were abolished, and skill alone determined advancement. It halted the decline for a time, while ignoring the underlying problems.”
“Now…” Hallyne stretched out his arm, and tapped his shale fragment against the board underneath a single word. “I begin to suspect a reason for it all. A fundamental reason. A magical reason.”
Jon arched an eyebrow. “Does it now… could this have to do with the apprentices?”
Hallyne frowned, and scratched a single word across the board - ‘experience’. “This is the first time in centuries we have had so much new blood.” said Hallyne. “Tests were done to determine their skill without any tutelage, how they take to the craft when they have not been immersed in it since birth. The results told the tale.”
He loudly tapped his shale against the board. “The older they were, the more the spells reacted. The more checkered their past, the more the spells reacted. The greater their investment in other skills, the more the spells reacted. The leftover sons who sat in their keeps like a mushroom and did nothing but subsist could barely produce a drop. The bastards who were sent here as punishment to get them away from busty servant girls and sharp swords nearly set themselves on fire with overactive substance.”
Now Jon was paying attention. “The spells changed… based on the quality of the lives they lived?”
“Correct, young Acolyte.” Hallyne replied. “You said once that magic is a song, made of the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of notes and lyrics.” He lifted a hand with two fingers extended, and slowly added a third. “I posit that you have neglected the third part - the ‘who’ of the singer himself.” Hallyne walked slowly over to his chair and gingerly lowered himself down, groaning as he did. “It makes a certain poetic sense, in a way. If alchemy is creating false life… then how can you create a fulsome imitation of something you do not understand? A bard cannot sing of a warm summer day unless they’ve seen it, cannot weep at soaring heartbreak if they have never known love.”
“You cannot speak of fire’s pain unless you’ve been burned.” Jon murmured, reaching up to muss his hair absently. “That is… an explicitly gerontocratic magic is…”
“No more outlandish than a magic that posits that the sea is the bulwark of secrets.” Hallyne replied. “We walk in the realm of elder, forgotten things, Acolyte. If we are to relearn what built the Wall and forged the dragonroads, we must forget what we think is true. Our forebears understood this, in a way. And since they could not control the quality of whether their children lived rich lives, they instead mandated quantity - with age.” his gnarled, wrinkled hand went to massage his brow. “Still… It raises disheartening questions. Not least of all about myself.”
Jon glanced at the Grand Master. Curiosity warred with propriety, and eventually triumphed. “Does this have to do with your grandfather?” he asked quietly.
Hallyne snorted. “Did Corryn mention that? The old billygoat doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.” he went quiet for a long while, before eventually sighing. “Yes. by all rights… and, apparently, by the very magic that earns our name as Alchemists… I should not be Grand Master. I should have heeded my brother’s advice, and left the guild. But I was a stubborn fool.”
Jon frowned, and gently took a seat across from Hallyne. “Forgive me for bringing this up. I did not realize this was such an old wound. But…” Jon realized what he was about to say, and cursed himself for a hypocritical liar. “Surely whatever your grandfather did cannot echo down to your generation. His sins are not yours to bear.”
Hallyne smirked. “That’s because you don’t know who he is.” he leaned back, massaged his temples, and sighed. “My grandfather… was Grand Master Glythard.”
Jon’s eyes narrowed. “... I know that name.”
“You should.” said Hallyne quietly. “He’s one of the only men in history to kill a Targaryen king. It was the Substance crafted by his hands that was presented to Aegon the Fifth, and destroyed Summerhall.”
Jon’s throat seized up. The day the King tried to hatch dragon eggs with Wildfire, and ended up killing half the royal family. The day Rhaegar Targaryen was born.
Hallyne noticed his reaction and smiled wistfully. “You understand, then. Some sins can’t be forgiven.” the old man slowly leaned forward, hunched over his hands. “The guild still stands because of the Targaryen’s infamous madness, and the mercy of Jaehaerys the Second. He told us that madness and greatness were two sides of the same coin, to his family, and his father finally flipped tails. We simply obeyed his commands; He let us go in peace.” a wrinkled hand went to the bridge of his nose, massaging tightly. “But just because a crime is forgiven, does not mean it is forgotten. And inside the guild… memories are long.”
The hand flopped down to the armrest. “My father never became a Wisdom,” Hallyne murmured. “He died a broken man. My mother wasted away from a sickness in the lungs the Wisdoms refused to pay a chirurgeon to treat. My brother, Herris, saw the signs before I did. He left the guild rather than denounce the grandfather he loved. He became a blacksmith, married a washerwoman, and had a son. When she was pregnant with a second, his forge exploded…” his voice caught, and he swallowed thickly. “... And left him a charred corpse. The stress… killed the child in Anise’s womb, and left her bedridden. They’re all I have left of him.” his voice dropped to a venomous hiss. “I’ll never have proof on how his forge killed him… but I know. I know.”
He shut his eyes tightly, squeezing away wet lashes. “And I stayed. I scraped and groveled and ground my pain into dust to fuel my pyromancy. I became twice the alchemist my peers were, yet only just became an Acolyte; Wisdom was beyond me, because my grandfather killed a Targaryen, and I refused to give up his family name. No guild stipend to find a wife; no tutelage to impart secret techniques from master to student. A rat-catcher in Flea Bottom had more dignity than I.”
Jon realized, with a slow epiphany, where the arc of the story was going. “And then the Rebellion came,” he whispered, raspily. “And nobody was left to lead.”
Hallyne snorted. “Oh, there were plenty left to lead. They just refused to take the seat. They may not have known exactly what Rossart planned with all his Wildfire… but they all had access to the storage ledgers. They suspected close enough, and that would be enough to damn them. They wanted a sacrificial lamb when King Robert stormed in, out for blood when his ancestral castle and two brothers both were naught but ash on the wind.” the Grand Master leaned forward, eyes narrow and glinting. “So they found the one person in the guild they would miss the least to save their rotten hides… And I gambled that they were all fools.”
He smirked. “I wasn’t Wisdom for more than 30 minutes before they made me Grand Master,” he said with a vindictive bite to his words. “After moons had passed and they realized the missing Substance had stayed missing, it was too late. Glythard’s get was in command once more with his head still attached, and he would not be denied.” he shook his head. “The youngest Grand Master ever at the tender age of four-and-fifty, and an old bachelor to boot. My predecessors must be howling in the seven hells at the outrage.”
Jon closed his eyes. The story, in some ways, felt painfully familiar to him - felt like his story. “Do you regret it?” he asked quietly. “Staying. Your brother Herris found an easier life outside, where none knew his name. You could have left, let your poisonous reputation rot where it lay, and found people who don’t care who sired you.”
Hallyne let out a long, breathy sigh. “Perhaps.” he admitted. “There were times that I looked at my brother and felt envious. Wanted that life. If I did what he had done… would I have a son who looks just like Derrik, and a wife like Anise?” he leaned back. “But to do that meant spurning everything that came before. My grandfather, who died like a fool because those who came before were fools. My father, who died a wretch because he was surrounded by wretches. And my brother… who had it all and lost it just as quickly.”
He slowly tapped his chest. “I am all that is left of them. I am the culmination of every man of my house who ever stared into the flames and saw the mysteries of the gods. Every weal and woe, every triumph and tragedy, every victory and defeat… I am all that is left of a thousand unbroken years of alchemy. How could I disappoint them all with my surrender? I owe it to them all to eclipse them, and greet them in the seven heavens with the words of my triumphs upon my lips, so that they greet me with apologies for the brambles they laid upon my path.”
The Grand Master slumped down then, and slowly shook his head. “Listen to me. An old man unburdening himself on a soon-to-be-married lord. I forget myself - forgive me.”
“No, Grand Master.” Jon said quietly, a tightness in his chest. “You have done nothing wrong. Now, or before. I forgive you.”
“Pfeh. I shouldn’t have-”
Hallyne.” Jon said more firmly, and at that the Grand Master took note, looking up. Jon met his gaze without blinking - the grandson of the man who killed his forebear.
“If a man should instead choose to forgive sin… that is also well. As a man, you and you alone shall decide the fates of sinful men, in the eyes of the Lord of Light.”
“I forgive you.” He said, quiet and low. “For everything. You, and your father, and your father before him.”
Hallyne stared at Jon for a long time, before slowly chuckling. “An easy thing, to forgive a sin that did not touch your family!” he replied with a feigned lightness, shaking his head. “But… Thank you. You have a kind heart.”
Jon did not respond to that with his immediate thoughts, but instead stared into the flickering purple flame dancing atop the candle. “If that is what you want,” he said, after a long pause, “then write to Castle Black on the Wall, to the Maester stationed there. Let Aemon Targaryen hear of your generational sin, and ask his forgiveness for what your grandfather did to little Egg.”
Hallyne’s jaw dropped open for a moment. “I…” whatever he was about to say trailed off. A lingering silence stretched out. “I… I believe I shall.” a disbelieving giggle escaped him. “Aemon Targaryen. What an idea! Yes. I will cleanse my family’s shame with the only one who matters.”
The Grand Master stood up and began to pace. “Let them come with their snide japes and underhanded plots. That letter will be a shield for us all. Then, at long last, there will only be our family’s legacy, and Derrik will accept his place here! Oh, what an idea! Confound this slate, where did I put my raven parchment…” as the Grand Master began to scramble all across his office looking for a writing utensil, Jon just sat in his chair and gently smiled.
“HrrraAAAAAGH!”
At Jaime’s uncharacteristic roar, Jon rolled across the hard ground, coming up to a braced kneel with his shield braced, just in time for the massive slab of steel to crash against his defenses. Everything below the shoulder went numb at once, but Jon rose up at once and swung wildly in response. The Kingsguard shoved his massive greatsword hilt-first, blocking Jon’s strike, before his off-hand grabbed his weapon by the blade and shoved the hilt into Jon’s face. With a cry, Jon fell backwards, stumbling twice. Before he could regain his bearings, a cool piece of blunt metal came to rest at his throat, hilt touching the base of his spine.
Jaime stood there, panting heavily but with a triumphant grin on his face. “I think… I’m starting… to finally get… the hang of this.”
Jon was panting less heavily, but allowed the training sword and shield to drop from his fingers anyways to massage at his forehead; his fingers came back red enough to indicate a small bloody scrape. “Ruining my face right before my wedding, Lannister?”
“Had to take… the opening.” Jaime pulled away the training greatsword from Jon’s neck, shoving it point-down into the ground and leaning into it for support. “I’ve lost against you enough times these past weeks… hoooooo… that my pride is bruised.”
“Hard to unlearn all your old habits, isn’t it?” Jon replied. “If you wanted to win more against me, you can just wield a regular sword while trying to learn the techniques.”
“Nonsense.” Jaime’s free hand went up to his head to sweep his sweat-drenched golden locks out of his eyes. When it came away, he was grinning widely. “I haven’t had a workout in the training yard this good in years.” Jon couldn’t help but grin back at the expression. He’d been pushing himself far too hard lately with trying to arrange his own wedding and maintain his Small Council duties. His time in the training yard was a precious opportunity to work off the stress.
“And you’re telling me you have entire mountain clans in the North who fight with greatswords like this all the time?”
“Not just the Northern clans. Mya says some Vale clans also do so, though their swords are made of weaker metals than steel.”
Jaime said nothing, but slowly lifted up the greatsword and swung it around to grip it by the blade. “It is damned heavy.” he remarked, giving a few test swings. “But I suppose that’s what makes it a menace on horseback - the horse does half the work for you. You know I heard a man won a tourney at Highgarden just the other day who also was using a greatsword? Nobody used these before you did. He didn’t wield it the wrong way round to become an oversized mace the way you did, but we’ll give it time.”
“I wasn’t looking to be a trendsetter, Kingslayer.”
Jaime snorted. “Go bandage your forehead. Your hair should cover the scab well enough for your big day.”
Jon shook his head, and wandered over to the small satchel of medical supplies hanging on the training board. With a groan, he unlatched the snug hauberk from his body and pulled it over his head, as his thin woolen undershirt clung tightly to his body and steamed from the heat. Pulling out a small roll of gauze and phial of spoiled red wine, he dabbed out a patch and began to wrap his head.
“Pardon me, ser, but have you seen- oh!” a feminine voice called out, and Jon turned to the source. A handmaid stood there, taken aback. “Lord Greystark. Forgive me, I was just-”
“Enough.” Jon fought the urge to reach for a blade as Cersei Lannister stepped around the corner. “Lord Greystark.” she said tightly. Behind her, a pair of guards (in royal raiment, but Jon knew both of their faces as Lannister transplants) moved in lockstep to her sides.
“Your Grace.” he replied, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on a point just behind the queen’s shoulder.
“Where is Ser Jaime? I was led to believe he trains with you at this hour.”
“He was here but a moment ago.” From the corner of his eye, he realized he recognized the handmaiden - she was one of Renly’s secret operatives, working to drive the queen to infidelity so he could depose her from the Red Keep. Does he know about Jaime? That could be why he maneuvered her here…
“If - if Ser Jaime was just here, then I will search for him!” the handmaiden declared. “No need to wander further, your Grace! Rest your feet, and I will return with him!”
“What?” both Cersei and Jon said at the same time, jerking to the servant’s voice as she rushed off. “You little-!” Cersei hissed quietly, before subtly recomposing herself. Jon, meanwhile, was a staggered mass of confusion.
You CANNOT be serious, Renly.
He must be down to the dregs of his plan if he’s resorted to trying us as bait, whispered Lodos, before cackling. On the other hand, we ARE currently greased up like a maiden’s fantasy. The man has immaculate timing for his schemes. Give it a go?
Not even with another man’s cock.
Coward. A beautiful woman is right there for the taking -
That ‘beautiful woman’ is Cersei Brother-fucking Lannister. I know you’re joking, but it bears repeating - NO.
“Your wedding is but two days hence, is it not?”
Jon flinched, and refocused upon the woman in front of him. “It is, your Grace.” he replied evenly.
“Congratulations are in order. I’m certain you must be excited.” Cersei replied. Her hands were folded gently in front of her stomach; Jon could see a single tendon popping in her thumb giving away how fake the relaxed gesture was. “Though I imagine you are more excited about the bedding than anything else; such is the way of young men.”
Jon had to hold back his instinctive double-take at the prying question. I expect a line like that from Tormund, not the Queen. “I… believe that discussion belongs solely with my betrothed, your Grace. If you’ll pardon me for saying so.”
“Are you not eager? She is a beautiful girl.”
What the hell is wrong with this woman? “Lord Stark raised me to be… circumspect in regards to women.” Jon replied slowly, a thin smile on his face. “And also in regards to flaunting family workings. Surely you understand, as a daughter of the Lannisters.”
“Of course.” Cersei replied flatly. “Family comes first. Though I find it curious that you speak of Lord Stark’s teachings. In my estimation, some of his children took to it better than others.” a single eyebrow arched gracefully. “Your sister, the red-headed one… Sansa, was it? She has been none too subtle about seeking out my Joffrey.”
Drowned God deliver us. That girl cannot still be on about that.
“... I see.” Jon replied neutrally. “I shall speak to my father about the situation. You may rest easy.”
“Good. It would be a great tragedy to see such a gentle girl suffer a broken heart.” said Cersei. A moment of silence passed as she seemed to mull something over. “You may consider this… a courtesy. For what you did for my family.”
“What I did, your Grace?”
“Varys didn’t discover the Wildfire plot,” said Cersei. “You did - A child could puzzle it out. And by discovering the plot, you redeemed my brother’s name and by extension the Lannister name. We are… in your debt.”
And a Lannister always pays their debts, Jon thought to himself, dumbstruck. The idea that Cersei felt some sort of obligation to him suddenly made the recruitment of Littlefinger crystal clear - if Cersei could figure out he was behind Varys’ revelation, then Tywin Lannister could, too. The way that Jaime and Tyrion had put it, nothing had kept the siblings’ plots in check like the fear of their father.
She couldn’t continue with her clumsy attempts on their lives. Now she needed something subtler. Something with another’s sign on it. Littlefinger’s sign. Her mistake was assuming that Littlefinger was loyal to her over Jon - or even loyal at all.
Jon allowed none of his inner thoughts to escape into his expression, and instead bowed slightly. “Pay it no mind, your Grace. What I do… I do for the good of the living.”
Cersei’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You sound like Varys already.” she said. “It was always ‘for the good of the realm’ with the Spider, and he betrayed the realm. And now you speak on behalf of all the living.”
Jon quietly bit his tongue for a moment, and bowed deeper. “I apologize if I’ve given any offense. It was not my intention.”
“No. I supposed it wasn’t. It’s simply the nature of bastards and eunuchs to be untrustworthy. It is why you perform your role so masterfully.”
The edges of his vision speckled black, and he could bite his tongue no more. “You pointedly leave off the third of the turnip-farmer’s trifecta of betrayal, your Grace - women in general, whores specifically. Are we a touch forgetful of our idioms today?”
Cersei’s eyes went wide as if he had slapped her. In the brief moment he had available to him, Jon’s consciousness went outwards, touched another, and then returned before his body could crumple on itself.
“Seize him.” she hissed. The two guards behind her stepped forward, drawing their blades. Jon fought down the urge to reach for the blade on his side, and felt the blade go to his throat as the other grabbed his arms and ripped them behind him. “You will learn to hold your tongue, wretch.” she snarled. “The Black cells will-”
“CERSEI! What are you doing?!”
The Queen reeled back as if struck, hands quickly waving away the two guards holding him hostage. The damage was done, however - Jaime stormed forward, eyes full of fury, as Cersei’s handmaiden stood there with her hands over her mouth, eyes wide in horror.
“Ser Jaime! I was just-”
“About to kill his Grace’s newest goodson, I see!” the Kingsguard snapped. “On the eve of his wedding, no less! Have you taken leave of your senses, sister?”
“And would you rather I be defenseless!?” she hissed. “This man was about to assault me - the wretched things he called me-”
“Are you out of your mind?” Jaime replied contemptuously. “I’ve seen the way Greystark acts around his betrothed, even when they think they aren’t being watched!” Jon snapped his head to Jaime at those words. “And now you think you’re such a catch that he was about to kill two men and ravage his new goodfather’s wife on the eve of his wedding? Do you think I’m stupid, Cersei?”
“He called me a WHORE, Jaime!”
Jaime’s eyes flicked over to Jon for just a moment, and Jon could see the fingers on his main hand twitch slightly around his sword pommel, before refocusing on the Queen. “And? If I went and cut the throat of every man who ever called me Kingslayer I could pile the corpses taller than Casterly Rock! We are better than this, sister!”
“Why are you taking his side!?” she shrieked.
“I’m on nobody’s side,” he retorted, “except the side of not attacking people on whims in broad daylight!” Jon nearly did a double-take at the sheer irony in that sentence. The Kingsguard straightened up. “I think you should leave King’s Landing for a few days, sweet sister. Go for a ride in the countryside with all the children, and come back when the festivities are over.”
Her expression turned murderous, then. “I will not stand aside and-”
“What is happening here?”
Jon let out the breath he was holding, as the Lannister twins turned as one to face the new voice. Ned Stark stood at the entrance to the courtyard, hand trailing through the fur of Ghost at his side. “Nothing that concerns you, Lord Stark.” Jaime replied graciously, his shining persona almost immediately back in place.
“I see my wayward son among you. If he has given offense, then it concerns me greatly indeed.”
Jaime grabbed Cersei by the wrist hard and yanked her back a step; Jon wasn’t sure that his father could see their entwined hands from his angle, but it was clear as day that the younger Lannister twin was not going to allow her to speak. A state of assertiveness that hadn’t developed in Jaime until well after being maimed, according to Brienne, Jon thought with wonder.
He’s not the villain anymore, Lodos whispered. This young egomaniacal Jaime needs to be humbled deeply to become someone who can truly stand against his sister, but we’ve done the next best thing - restored his reputation and honor. He’ll fight anymore to not stain himself publicly a second time, I think. He’ll demand subtlety, and that is where we can fight back.
Because Cersei was anything but subtle, and Littlefinger was known to him. Jon suppressed the lip twitch that threatened to become a smirk, and bowed. “I shall relay your request to my father, your Grace.” he said, not lifting his head. “I will make sure that your family is never shamed by the actions of House Stark.” with that, he turned swiftly on his heel and began to walk away. He stopped holding back the smirk, the further he walked; by the time he had turned the corner, his walk had turned into a strut.
Ned stood there, hand still tangled in Ghost’s short fur, staring at Jon’s back with hard, narrow eyes.
The moon was waxing brightly over King’s Landing. Its light shone upon Jon’s back, with the softly burning fireplace of his tower apartment casting enough light for him to work by his desk. The scratch of his quill on parchment and popping embers was the only break in the blessed silence; too much of his day had been full of dealing with priests and servants finalizing the last details, and his real work had suffered.
Lying across from his feet, Ghost quietly raised his head and stared at the door. Jon stopped instantly, setting the quill aside and moving the open ledger behind a shade. Several moments passed, before a hesitant knock at the door.
“Snow? Are you in there?”
Jon blinked, surprised. It was not a voice he was expecting to hear… but not one he was terribly worried about. “I’m here,” he replied. “You can come in.”
The presence hesitated for a moment, before the door handle twisted. Slowly, Theon Greyjoy stepped through the threshold, eyes scanning about the apartment. “... Huh.” he grunted. “I would have thought they’d have a better room for a man of the Small Council. Your old room at Winterfell was bigger.”
“It was,” Jon nodded his head. “But I shared it with Robb. and the view is certainly more interesting. I’ll relocate after the wedding.”
Theon’s gaze followed Jon’s outstretched hand to the window, and the sweeping vista of the sea on one side and the city on the other. “... it does beat the Winterfell courtyard.” he admitted, with a wry grin that lasted only moments. He squatted down to his heels, holding out a curled hand to Ghost. The Direwolf didn’t move and instead fixed the Greyjoy with a flat red-eyed stare, as if insulted to be treated like a shy lapdog needing to be wooed. Theon seemed to finally catch on, and reached to ruffle the Direwolf’s short fur.
Jon watched as the squid prince seemed to grow more taken with the non-shaggy beast, ruffling the nape of his neck more playfully. It would take time for Ghost’s natural biology to react to the heat and the shearing to molt off the remains of his winter coat and become a more natural summer sheen; with their natural habitats hardly ever ranging below the frigid ranges north of the Wall, it had taken Jon more than a decade to even learn that Direwolves had a summer coat that could be manually stimulated. Until it came in fully, he was keeping Ghost inside as much as possible, to protect his delicate skin from the sun.
“Is there something I can help you with?”
Theon’s pensive gaze moved up to Jon, staring at him for a long moment before letting out a smirking laugh. “Not really. I simply remembered that you ran away from that conversation you promised me.” with a breezy gait, the squid prince flopped down into the guest sofa. “You had more important things to do, I suppose - like stealing Vigilance out from under the Dustin’s noses, and shaming Lord Stark.”
Jon’s eyes narrowed. There it was again - the casual arrogance and cruelty that Theon fell back on whenever he was off-balance. He never stopped until Jon met him again as a ruined man. Jon shook his head and pulled his ledger back out and began writing again, saying nothing. This Theon still needed to learn that he was no longer the boy who fell for the obvious bait.
The silence dragged on, with the crackling fire and scritching quill wearing down the boy’s smiling mask, until at last Theon seemed ready to be honest. Theon slowly stood from his seat and began slowly approaching the writing desk. “Important work?” he asked.
Jon glanced up, lifting the quill away. “Very.” He hesitated for just a moment, becoming hyper-aware of every sensation in his own body - looking for that telltale itch. When nothing came, he released his held breath and spun the book around for Theon to see.
The Greyjoy stared at it with blank eyes. “I have no idea what that even says.” he said at last.
“And you wouldn’t. That’s the point.” Jon replied, spinning it back around. “Ciphers are meant to only be read by those who know the secret.” No man of the Seven Kingdoms would be able to read his notes other than himself - unless, of course, divine revelation led them to seek out the court fool Mance Rayder for answers. He might possibly recognize the jagged glyphs as the Thenn alphabet, the only Free tongue with a written counterpart. The Maesters didn’t even know the Thenns had an alphabet - Jon had double-checked that point before using it.
The Greyjoy seemed to stare past Jon’s shoulder for a moment. “... You’ve changed, Snow.” he said, finally. “And not just because you’re not a Snow anymore.”
“Then why do you keep calling me that?”
Theon scoffed. “Because you’ll always be a bastard to me. Getting a name and a wife tomorrow won’t change that.”
Jon resisted the urge to slam a satisfying fist into the desk; the wood was thin in places, and he didn’t want to crack anything by accident. “Are you going to keep trying to provoke a rise from me, Theon? Or are you going to be honest for once and actually tell me why you came here?” he met the young man’s surprised look with a narrow gaze. “Because unlike you, some of us have more work than just whoring and hunting, and I need to have it squared away before my wedding tomorrow.”
Theon stood there, visibly struggling to hold back an angry scowl. “You…”Theon began, then stopped. A full-body shudder went through him, and he stopped, closed his eyes and let out a low breath.
Jon froze. An itch on his eyebrow. A slow finger went up to scratch it… and went away with the physical relief. A false alarm, but now he was nervous. He gently picked up a handful of fine sand from the bowl on his desk and sprinkled it over the wet ink, before blowing it off the now-dry lettering and closing the book. His free hand went to the dagger on his waist.
Theon stood there, still silent, still taking deep breaths, visibly flexing his fingers. At last, he opened up his eyes. “I spoke to my sister. Asha.” he said. “It was the first time in almost ten years I’d seen her. She was all grown up… but somehow, she looked like I expected her to. Familiar.” he stared at Jon with an inscrutable expression. “She said you recommended her to be Mistress of Ships.”
“I did,” said Jon. “Were you hoping you’d get the position instead?”
“No. No. Hells, no.” Theon replied instantly. “I haven’t sailed in years. Can you imagine? There’d be riots in the streets of Pyke and Winterfell both.” He snorted at the thought, before calming again. “But… she said you told her… that I was the one you got the idea from. And we both know that is a lie - I hardly ever spoke of any Greyjoys other than my father.”
Jon’s grip around the dagger on his belt tightened. Ghost glanced once at Jon, and silently pushed himself to a ready sit - a lunge would take the boy down in a heartbeat.
Theon went quiet. He turned away, eyes glazing over as they stared into the fire. He looked about to say something, but it died unspoken. “Jon,” he said at last. Jon cocked his head softly at the use of his first name. “Have you… have you ever wondered what lives underneath us? In the depths of the ocean. In the bowels of the earth. In the deep, dark places. Have you ever dreamed of what could be down there?”
The change in topic confused him. “Not particularly.” Jon replied.
Theon’s expression twisted wryly. “Neither did I,” he said. “But… it’s right there, isn’t it?” He lifted his hand, gesturing at an invisible object. “In the Greyjoy banner. The kraken. The things they see… the things they do…” His hand went to his face, chin bracing in the crook of pointer finger and thumb. “It makes you wonder how we were so arrogant to claim them for our banner.”
Jon frowned, but slowly loosened the grip on his weapon. “Maybe,” he admitted. “But the Starks and the Targaryens would be just as arrogant, for claiming direwolves and dragons. And a host of other houses besides.”
Theon softly exhaled, and gestured to Ghost. “Was it arrogance that brought a wolf for every Stark sibling? Was it arrogance that tamed Aegon’s dragons? No kraken ever answered the call of a Greyjoy.”
Jon folded his arms. The vision of Drogon dying in a great mass of tentacles flashed behind his eyes, the Kraken he had known since its birth drowning it in a vice grip. “Maybe the Greyjoys have never simply thought to ask the right way.”
The Greyjoy didn’t respond to that, and instead lowered his gaze to his fingers. One by one, he curled each finger individually, first on one hand, then on the other, into a rolling undulating wave. This continued for at least several minutes, as Jon first stared in confusion and then shrugged and went back to logging Littlefinger’s latest secret investments.
Suddenly, Theon ended his finger motions, instead curling into a tight fist. “Others take me,” he whispered. Jon twitched upwards at that unexpected oath, as Theon stood up suddenly. “Jon-”
A rapping at the door. “Jon.” a voice called. “It’s me. Are you available?”
Theon froze. Whatever he was going to say died unspoken. Jon closed his eyes tightly, angrily massaging the bridge of his nose. “You can come in,” he called. The door opened, and Ned Stark took a half-step in before immediately noting Theon’s presence. “I grew so used to people respecting the schedule, here in the capital. Now everybody wants to arrive unannounced.”
“My apologies. I didn’t realize you were already busy.”
“It’s no trouble. What were you about to say, Theon?”
The Greyjoy stared at the Lord of Winterfell for a long moment before shaking his head. “I told you. Nothing important. It can keep.”
Jon thought it over for a moment, and ruled in favor of honesty. “You’re a terrible liar, Theon. Something’s troubled you your entire time here.”
Theon seemed taken aback at that. He turned to face Jon, with clear wide eyes. “... just something I needed an answer to.” he said, at last. “I think I know, but… I want to be sure. And you’re the man who answers questions now, aren’t you?” He slowly stepped around the great direwolf sitting in the middle of the room, giving his sheared-short fur a quick rustle and went to the door. “We’ll talk later. After you’ve been wedded and bedded. Drowned God keep you, Jon.”
Not a moment after Theon had closed the door behind him, Ned moved forward. “Have you ever heard Theon give the Drowned God’s name in oath before?” Jon asked mildly.
“What in the seven hells is going on, Jon?” Ned hissed.
“And hello to you as well, father.”
“Do you think this is some kind of game?” said Ned, growing angrier. “I walked in on the Queen’s personal guard drawing steel on you. She nearly accused you of treason to me when you left. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“It was under control.” Jon replied, picking up another handful of sand and scattering it on the wet ink. “Ghost knew to bring witnesses outside the queen’s control. Speaking of which, Sansa was noted to be in Joffrey’s company. That’s not a safe position to be in. You should keep her away-”
“Sansa’s not the one who is in danger here!” Ned shouted. Jon blinked once, and met his father’s angry gaze. “I don’t know what fit of madness has overtaken you to do all of this - to steal from your own family - but it ends. When the wedding is over, you’re returning home to Winterfell. End of discussion.”
Jon’s mouth hardened to a thin line. “Return home?” he repeated. The inksand was quickly brushed off with the flat of his hand. “Just who do you think you are talking to in that manner, Lord Stark?”
“Don’t you take that tone with me, boy-”
Jon snapped the ledger shut with a loud ‘snap!’ “No, you do not take that tone with me, Lord Stark.” he shot back. “I am the lord of a house not subordinate to yours and a sitting member of the Small Council. You will address me as you would any other lord not of the North, as Lord Greystark, as Lord Whisperer or as ‘my son’ - not ‘boy’. Do not forget yourself because we share blood.”
Jon was a grown man, in spirit if not in body. He tolerated that kind of disrespect from Varamyr only because he had been crippled - any Free man who spoke that way to King Crow was beaten down summarily. He would certainly not take that kind of dressing-down from his own father.
Ned’s expression darkened even further. “These airs you’ve put on end, now. You will not stay here in this place.”
“You forget yourself, Lord Stark.” Jon stood from his desk and gripped the spy ledger by the spine. “Lay a hand on me and you are assaulting a Small Councilman.” he chopped the book out like an extended finger, pointing it directly at Ned’s nose. “You talk about danger? Just what is it that you think I DO all day? Do you even realize the amount of spies I hunt down? The conspiracies that exist in King’s Landing alone? The agents left from Varys that I’ve taken down? My JOB is danger, Lord Stark. If I go a week without uncovering a conspiracy or assassination attempt, I start wondering what other plot I’ve missed. That is why I am HERE.”
“You do not belong here.” Ned insisted. “Not here, in this nest of vipers. You belong in the North.”
“Better it be me than any other.”
“There should not BE ANY OTHER!”
“BUT THERE IS!” Jon shouted. “There MUST be, or else the King would have died moons ago. You might not care about that anymore, but I do!” The cover of the ledger slammed into the desk with a loud, satisfying CLAP! “And now fully half the Small Council sits in their seats because of my words. That is power, Lord Stark. Or would you rather I freeze on the Wall, with only my oaths and a thin blanket to coat me? You talk about taking Vigilance - who do you think I GAVE it to? Lord Hightower and I are allies on the Small Council, thick as thieves. You think I cannot simply knock on his door and walk out with a grain treaty for the North?”
“What are you trying to say? That you think stealing from us was right? That running away was justified!?”
“I’m saying that I want you to be happy for me, Father!” Jon screamed.
Ned froze.
“I am getting married tomorrow! I am getting married to the daughter of the King, and I have risen higher than you ever dared dream for my life! So why can you not simply be glad that I was able to thrive outside your shadow? Why did you come all this way if you were only going to berate me and treat me like a child?”
Why can you not be proud of me, like you were the day you granted me Moat Cailin?
Ned Stark stood there, a stunned expression on his face. Jon squeezed his eyes tight, and set the ledger back on the desk. “Forgive me.” he said. “It has been... a long, tiring day, and I need to rest for the wedding tomorrow. If you have any reasonable points of discussion between us, I would ask that you wait until the ceremony.”
“... Yes.” Ned said, slowly nodding. “You’re right. I think… sleep will serve us both.” the Lord of Winterfell slowly stepped around Ghost’s body upon the ground, pulled open the door, and hesitated. “Good night… Lord Greystark.”
“And you… Lord Stark.”
The door closed behind Ned, and with three steps Jon slumped bonelessly into his bed. Ghost raised himself from his spot and padded over to Jon, gently rubbing his muzzle against Jon’s neck. The Master of Whisperers slowly wrapped his arms around the direwolf’s neck, and buried his face in the fur, and curled into a ball until sleep claimed him at last.
“You’re back from the hunt. Welcome home, lover.”
“... Lady Val. Please. You don’t need to do this for me.”
“A wife doesn’t need to make her husband food after he returns from a long hunt? You kneelers have strange customs.”
“I have told you, I did not fight the Weeper to steal you as a wife. I would have done the same for any man or woman of this band - honor demanded it. Please, do not feel obligated-”
*CLANK*
“Obligation? That’s what you think any of this is? Fool boy. You already know what they call this clan - what they call you.”
“... I do. They call me King Crow. Chief of the Blackwings.”
“You know our ways.”
“I did not ask for it, and have never meant to give offense-”
“Offense? You think this is offense? If it were meant as a slight you would be dead by now. You are being honored, Snow. By all the clans.”
“I came here to escape a crown upon my brow - I refuse. The Wall is gone. Let the King beyond be buried alongside it.”
“No man will pick up the crown upon my Goodbrother’s grave before you do. The pompous lordlings who cast you to us are blind, to what the Free Folk see so easily. You are the reason all of us still breathe. All of the tribes will never forget that.”
“I don’t… I don’t want to be special anymore. I just want to live quietly, and not have to worry about- MMPH!”
“... feel better now, stubborn oaf? Or will my tongue serve better elsewhere in shutting you up?”
“I…”
“I cannot be any clearer with you, Jon Snow. I think I understand your kneeler ways - you could have any woman of the clans, but you’ll never move first. So here I am - before anyone else figures you out and does what I’m doing now.”
“... Heh. I have been accused of not knowing things, least of all when a woman is interested.”
“Now you’re getting it. Mmph… Mwah. Haaah… You want to live quietly, and without worry. I cannot promise that to you - but I can promise you loyalty, and happiness. And not because of obligation, or your foolish kneeler honor. Because I want to. Understand?”
“... Father did always told me not to insult a lady’s honor. So… All I can ask, Lady Val, is to give me time.”
“I’m no kneeler lady, Crow. I’m your wife.”
“... Heh. No. I suppose you’re not. Then, please… Val. all I ask for is time.”
“... Don’t take too long, lover. I won’t be patient forever. But yes, Jon Snow… I will wait for you.”
“Are you ready, Lord Greystark?”
Jon sucked in a sudden breath as his eyes snapped open, straightening up in his regal wedding cloak. “In a moment.” he called. “Lost in thought.”
“Of course.” the voice from beyond the door answered. A pause. “If it sets your mind at ease, Lord Greystark… you are not the first husband-to-be to suffer from nerves, and I suspect not the last, either. Take heart; all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.” The presence stepped away, leaving Jon alone once again. The groom let out a shuddering breath before slowly palming his face.
“What am I doing…” he whispered, staring at his reflection in the silvered mirror. The scent of incense permeated through all rooms of the Great Sept, and the sun shone brightly through the window high above in the groom’s dressing room. It was ceremonial, and ostentatious, and utterly choreographed in the way that all worship of the Seven is.
Jon hated it all. Worship of the Old Gods was never this polished even on the highest days of religion, and the Free Folk tenets he had internalized were even less so. Nevermind the fact that he hadn’t been to a godswood in what felt like years - that was a problem with the Three-Eyed Raven, not his own faith. This wasn’t a place meant for him.
But today was not about him. It was more than that. His hand went to the fine clasps of bronze and gold around his neck and shifted the wedding cloak’s weight. Today, for the first time since his torment began, he was to be a married man once again.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror. For an illusory second, he thought he saw a second face over his shoulder, sea-fog gray and crowned with weirwood. It’s your time, Snow, Lodos whispered. Don’t want to keep the bride waiting. Jon said nothing in reply, and quietly turned away from the mirror.
From out of the groomshall, Jon crossed into the transept of the Father. Across the walls, frescos of the lordly man loomed with scales held aloft for judgment. In the main hall, Jon could already hear the noise of the guests slowly growing louder. He stopped just before the Father’s doors - a large pair of scales split across the frame - took a deep steadying breath, and pushed out.
There were far more people present inside the Sept than he had invited. Some of them he recognized by their heraldry as Crownlander households; others he could only guess at. The crowd grew quiet at his entrance, as they turned to stare. Jon slowly swept his gaze across them all, setting his jaw firmly.
This is not for you, he reminded himself. With that in mind, he turned and, instead of walking to the ceremonial altar between the Father and Mother, stood before the Father himself. With fingers that only lightly trembled, he picked up a lit incense stick and held it to an unlit candle.
“To the Father Above,” he intoned, loud enough only to be heard by the High Septon nearby, and reached inside his breast pocket. “I offer my justice, and plead it in return.” he laid a single arrowhead upon the altar - the same arrowhead that took Varys in the chest, the day he died. Head bowed, he crossed over the carpet, walked to the Mother’s altar, and lit a candle there as well.
“To the Mother Above,” he intoned, and held a slip of raven parchment over the lit candle, “I offer my mercy, and beg it in return.” he dropped it to the empty offering bowl; the flames curled around it, and slowly devoured the report by Jorah Mormont that Daenerys Targaryen was with child.
“To the Warrior… I offer my strength, and demand it in return.” a wax seal was placed upon the altar - the seal of the Baratheons of King’s Landing, separated from the promissory note of fifteen-thousand dragons to the grand melee champion.
“To the Smith… I offer my diligence.” a rounded cork was placed upon the altar, shaped perfectly to stop up a phial of alchemical Wildfire. “And trade for it in return.”
“To the Maiden…” a soft smile came to him, and from his cloak he took a glass vial, filled with a wet oily paint the color of a cloudless summer sky. “I offer my joy, and hope for it in return.”
“To the Crone…” before that stoop-backed old woman, Jon placed a single feather - plucked from the last beast he had skinchanged with, and bore witness to a secret meeting between Littlefinger and one of his agents. “I offer my wisdom, and seek it in return.”
“And to you…” Jon stood before the final altar - that of an indistinct figure covered in voluminous hooded robes, clutching a skull between stony gloved hands and an hourglass hanging from its wrist. “The Stranger, god of the grave and the outcast and the long way home. I, your most favored son, offer my death, and expect it in return.” he paused, smiled, and reached into his breast pocket to slowly place a small page upon the outcropping, filled with words and annotated with musical notes. “And for you, I give without expectation or price your missing verse. For no god should be without a song.”
His last gift given, he lifted an incense stick and held it to the altar, lighting the last candle to the Seven. “Seven who are One…” he whispered. “If you are here, then I open myself to you. If you are real the way the Red and the Drowned are real, then I invite you into my house. Help me. Please. Show me the way, for I cannot do this alone.”
Seven offerings. Seven blessings. Seven oaths, in the sight of the gods. Jon slowly closed his eyes and walked away, circling back around the edges of the grand Sept with the eyes of the entire congregation following him. Not many beyond the most pious included this station inside their wedding proceedings, even amongst the nobility. When Jon reached the wedding altar, he could see the High Septon greeting him with a wide smile. By his side, the High Septon subtly twirled his hand as stage direction, and Jon turned to face the congregation just as the Mother’s doors swung wide.
Robert Baratheon stood there, dressed in his finest regalia, crowned with a circlet of golden antlers. His raiment shimmered with gemstones, black bearskin cloak set against brilliant gold, studded with black diamond and golden heliodor. A quiet murmur rippled across the crowd as the King walked forward, arm looped tightly through the gentle touch of the woman by his side wearing a bridal cloak of inverse gold-on-black. Nobody thought Robert himself would have been there to give the bride away.
Slowly, Robert walked to the edge of the ceremonial altar and unlooped his muscled arm from the bride. His hand lingered on her shoulder for a moment, and her tiny fingers came to rest on his thick digits. Her expression was hidden from Jon underneath her golden veil, but King Robert smiled at her, tight but warm, and gently pulled away to take his place in the front row. Standing next to him, Eddard Stark stood ramrod straight with a face caught between emotions. Jon ignored them all as the bride slowly moved up the final steps of the altar, and his hands went to her veil.
He lifted away the golden silk and lace, and there Mya was, blushing from her neck up to her ears and smiling a mile wide. The joy in her expression was too infectious; whatever his misgivings, Jon could not help but mirror it back in turn. He held his hand out to her, and delicately lifted her up the last step to his side.
“Hello.” Mya whispered to him. The sun filtered down through the seven-colored stained-glass windows, landing perfectly on her pearl-white gown to practically glow.
“Hello.” Jon whispered back, a wry twist to his mouth. “No pressure, right?” his betrothed’s expression seemed to implode as she attempted to keep all traces of her nervous giggle above her shoulders. The High Septon smiled wider at the secret exchange and began to speak.
“We are gathered here in the sight of the Seven Who Are One, to bind together two souls for eternity. In the name of the Father Above, I challenge any present today to speak against this holy union.”
The Septon looked out across the gathering, seeking any reaction at all to the holy challenge. Not a single noise was heard; not a movement was made. He nodded gently, setting his massive crystal crown teetering dangerously, and turned to Jon. “Does the groom have any words to share?”
“Only that the Old Gods and the New are generous,” said Jon, “to have given us so much.”
“And does the bride have any words to share in return?”
Mya hesitated for a moment, lost in thought. “... that my father was wise,” she said at last, “to have found such a gentle man to be my husband. And that I cannot remember ever being as happy as I am now, standing here at his side.”
A muffled whoop from the crowd sounded out for a half-second and was silenced - it sounded like Arya. “You may now cloak the bride, and bring her under your protection.”
Jon’s hands went to his neck, undoing the ornate clasps holding his cloak in place, and swung it off his neck. In a single movement, the congregation was greeted with a new sign - a white direwolf howling upon a field of green and gray, trimmed with bronze and inlaid with red ruby eyes - before settling lightly upon Mya’s shoulders. The weight had left his shoulders, and yet Jon could not help but feel a load grow heavier upon him in some intangible sense.
“Hold out your hands.” the High Septon whispered. As the two did, Mya’s hand gently resting atop his, the Most Devout took a thin strand of silk and wrapped it around their stacked palms. “In the light of the Seven,” he intoned for all to hear, “I hereby seal these two souls, binding them as one for eternity. Look upon one another, and say the words.”
Jon felt, rather than saw, the moment Mya shifted her hand in the silk to lace her fingers between his. At his surprised expression, she nearly let out another giggle, but instead turned to face him, with a wide smile. As one, they spoke.
“Father, Warrior, Smith,” they chanted. “Mother, Maiden, Crone. Stranger.”
“I am hers, she is mine.”
“I am his, he is mine.”
“From this day, until the end of my days.”
I’m sorry, Val.
“With this kiss,” Jon whispered, “I pledge my love.” and pulled Mya Greystark flush with his body as he took her lips, sealing their vows and their fate.
“Let it be known,” The High Septon called, as Mya wrapped her arm around his neck and pulled him even closer, “That Mya of House Greystark and Jon of House Greystark are one heart, one flesh, one soul. Cursed be he who would seek to tear them asunder!”
The seven bells of the Grand Sept began to ring as one, as the congregation at last burst into applause. Jon ignored them and instead focused on pouring what emotion he could into his kiss, what love he could hold for a girl who came to this place with so little and found so much - a girl who he had doomed with his careless words, and adored him for that unkindness. All his love… and all his grief.
At last, the two separated, and turned together to face the congregation. The applause rolled over the two of them like a wave. “Well,” Jon murmured, from the corner of his mouth, “shall we go and meet our adoring fans, Lady Greystark?”
“If we must,” Mya replied, just as subtly. “After you, Lord Greystark.”
The two locked hands once again and began walking down the steps as one. While Mya stayed focused on the large Sept doors swinging open, allowing the seven bells to drown out even the loudest applause, Jon’s eyes scanned through the crowds. Faces and names were tagged, both who he saw and who he didn’t. The Queen, of course, was nowhere to be seen - she had publicly left the city with her three children and a contingent of guards to ‘go riding’ that very morning.
Jon’s gaze finally landed on the Stark grouping. Ned still stood there, back perfectly straight and clapping mechanically. Yet there was something now in his eyes… a kind of softness. His father met his gaze for just a moment, and nodded just an inch.
Any further interaction between the two was promptly interrupted as Ned was rocked on his feet by a small child using him as a climbing tower. Arya was grappling on Ned’s arm, using it as a launching pad to escape the forest of taller adults as she jumped about. At last, she saw Jon, and shouted something that he could not understand. The laugh building in his chest couldn’t be held back anymore, and he waved to her with a beaming grin.
A pair of hands reached out to grab the monkey off of Ned’s back, as Bran valiantly attempted to keep his sister from making a mess of things. Sansa, on Ned’s other side, met Jon’s eyes with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes and a red face holding back unshed tears. The joy in his heart lessened, just a little. He never intended to hurt her, but seeing her now… to the girl who had never tasted the bitterness of the world, it must seem like he had stolen her dream from under her.
The Sansa I knew would have been happy for me, Jon thought, and tried not to feel sad. If the gods were decent, he would never meet that Sansa, that cold and broken woman, ever again. If the gods were not decent… then he would make sure of it himself.
That’s why I came here, Father. I didn’t come here seeking a bride or power - those came later. I came here, because our family needs you alive more than it needs me. These children have never lived without you; I dealt with your loss two decades ago. So I will do the job you should never have accepted, and you can be where you are needed most.
Jon looked away at last from the Stark contingent, and back to his bride. Mya stood there, staring at him knowingly, and gave his clasped hand a reassuring squeeze. Jon smiled back and laced his fingers tighter.
As one, the husband and wife walked together, out from the Sept of Baelor and into the light of the sun.
The sun was blazing hot and bright over King’s Landing, and not even the large silk awning over the head table could save Jon from the sweat dribbling down his face. Too many bodies were gathered in the great pavilion where their wedding feast was arranged; even without the capital’s infamous stench, the heat radiating from so many unwashed bodies set his eyes watering. Not for the first time, he wished he was back home, where all you could smell was cold.
The feast was obscenely extravagant, by any Northern standards. Multiple causeways and roads had been closed off from traffic, setting aside entire corridors for class-based victuals and entertainments. Nearly-nude dancers and firebreathers flounced about the commoners - bardic ensembles filled the noble courtyard with their best impressions of Northern songs (they’d clearly only learned them just recently, and Jon winced every time they hit the wrong note).
A Small Councilman marrying the King’s firstborn daughter required nearly as much pomp and circumstance as a true royal wedding, he was told; and so Jon made do. The only consolation, Jon thought, as he lifted his chalice of ale, is that I am not the one footing the bill. My thanks, Varys; with your secret payments from your Essosi conspirators left unattended, you’ve done more for me in death than you ever did in life.
Robert Baratheon sat to the side of Mya, chin resting on his fist and grunting laconically. “Never understood the point of the giant bird cake.” he rumbled, staring at the minor lords milling about the latest attraction. “You can’t eat it after you cut it open and the birds are let out - it’s all covered in shit and piss on the inside.”
“I thought it was lovely.” Mya replied, threading her fingers through Jon’s hand. “It’s a symbol of the Seven’s love for us, represented by all the colors of the rainbow in the birds.”
“It’s a waste of good dough, is what it is,” said Robert. His free hand tapped a drumbeat on the arm of his chair. “Throwing away that amount of wheat is all well and good when spring is young and the fields are rich. We’re at the tail end of summer; the pageantry is nonsense now.”
Jon looked over at Robert. “You’ve been talking to Lord Stark, then.”
“I told you I would.” Robert answered. The king glanced over to Ned, who was standing together with his trueborn children instead of at the traditional seat at Jon’s side. Theon stood there as well, Jon noted, hanging off to Sansa’s side with a hand on his hip and a disinterested expression.
“And?”
“... Your father is still an honorable prick, Jon.” Said Robert, after a moment. “But cooler heads prevailed. You were right - Something stirs beyond the Wall, and it’s not just the Wildlings. That dragonlover Thorne wasn’t lying.” he lifted a finger, and pointed to the towers of the Red Keep. “I ordered Pycelle to copy the message out myself and send it to all the kingdoms. I didn’t leave for here until the first message to Storm’s End was on the wing.”
A relieved exhale. It was a good idea for Leyton and I to warn Robert about Pycelle’s secret allegiances. “What next, then?”
“What next?” Robert huffed. “We save the talk until the next council meeting, that’s what. I don’t know what in the seven hells you Starks are dealing with up North with dead men walking, but I’ll not spend a moment thinking about it at my daughter’s wedding.”
Jon quickly scanned the party, looking for any figures of note who might approach. The wedding gift table was haunted by a number of servants hauling things away to be stored; swords and silk rolls and other expensive baubles that Jon had no need for. It was almost comical how blatant the favor-currying was; any gift to Mya was from families needing Robert’s assistance, and any gifts to him were from houses looking to circumvent the Alchemist’s Guild rules on doing Bondfire business.
The most surprising gift, however, was one delivered by a servant. A cage had been brought to their table, and lifting away the cloth had revealed a mastiff bitch puppy, only a few moons old. When Jon had asked who was presumptuous to make such a gift (with the pup’s gender, the implication to pair her with Ghost to breed half-Direwolves was obvious), the servant had quietly answered that it was from Joffrey, the pup had been delivered from Tywin Lannister’s personal kennels at the prince’s request, and that he regretted not being able to present it himself. The fact he asked his grandfather instead of the royal kennels meant it was a secret from the queen - what Jon was going to do about this dilemma, he didn’t know, but the intrigue turned it from presumptuous to potentially explosive.
Jon’s mind drifted, glazing over at the thought of how to turn the piles of expensive gewgaws into something practical, when a voice called out. “Hark!” the voice boomed across the ensemble’s half-practiced music. Jon lifted his eyes away to see a man clad in an unadorned steel breastplate astride a destrier splitting the commoner’s corridor. Beside him walked a young man dressed like a squire, leading an ass pulling a wagon filled with barrels. “Is this the wedding of the Lord and Lady Greystark?”
“It is.” Jon called, frowning. “And who would you be?”
“I am Ser Redmont, of the Red Mountains.” Redmont declared, lifting his cap away to reveal his Stony Dornish features. “I have come as a knight errant to a marriage in the light of the Seven. Am I allowed at the wedding feast?”
Jon’s frown deepened. He was informed of the tradition briefly - to refuse a wandering knight a place of honor at a wedding of the Seven was considered foul luck. Still, something felt off. “I was not aware of the survival of House Redmont.” he called back. “House Blackmont absorbed their cadet house some decades ago, I was taught. Can you explain this?”
Ser Redmont bowed his head. “Lady Larra was not aware of the circumstances of my birth. I am the last of house Redmont, and I quest to prove myself worthy of reclaiming my ancestral keep. Ser Gerold Dayne of High Hermitage knighted me in recognition of my bravery. Now, may I join you at your table?”
Jon’s eyes narrowed even further. Ser Arys Oakheart stood taller at those words. “Your Grace,” he whispered to Robert, loud enough to Jon to hear as well, “I know the man Gerold Dayne. They call him Darkstar, and was cousin to Arthur Dayne. The day a villain like him knighted another for his bravery is the day the seven hells freeze over.”
Robert scowled. “Bold as brass, our hedge knight. Riding in with a false name and a false knighting. Is that even his own horse and armor?” he glanced to Jon. “It is your wedding, Greystark. Your call.”
Jon scowled, wiping the sweat from his brow. Something was telling him that the man was dangerous, but as he glanced about, he could see discontent growing through the crowd, who slowly began to notice the situation. Just as he was about to speak, Mya slowly squeezed his hand. “Subtlety, Jon.” she said quietly. “House Greystark begins today.”
Jon glanced to her and her piercing blue eyes, before gently smiling. “You’re right.” he whispered back, before turning to her father. “There’s nobody here from Dorne who could give the lie to him definitively, but Lord Dondarrion is lord of a land near the Boneway and the Red Mountains. He will know as well as any Dornishman if they speak of house Redmont still.” He jerked his head towards the city. “Send a rider to him at his lodgings and bring him. Once a Marcher lord gives the lie to his claims, we have all we need to cast him out.”
Robert nodded, eyes glimmering. “Barristan.”
“At once, your Grace.”
Jon turned back to the false knight. “You are a knight of the realm, ser Redmont, and I will not turn you away. And yet,” he called, holding up a finger to the air, “you are also in the presence of the King, and a stranger to us. Lay down your arms, and you are welcome at the wedding feast.”
Ser Redmont smiled and nodded. “You have the right to that, Lord Greystark. I thank you for your generosity, and come with a gift of my own.” his hand swept out to the boy and the donkey wagon. “Half a dozen barrels of good Dornish Red, for all here to enjoy!” The crowd cheered and whooped, setting the donkey braying nervously. “I would offer the first cup to his Grace, and the bride and groom!”
There was no way in the seven hells Jon would take a sip of anything the false knight offered, yet before he could think of a diplomatic response, Robert beat him to it. “None at our table are drinking.” he replied flatly. “I’m a sober man now.”
A wide-eyed shock passed through the man’s face. “I - of course, your Grace. Then… I shall arrange this for the people.”
“Let us help.” Jon called. “Ser Arys, go with him to take his weapons and help unload.” the Kingsguard glanced at Robert, who nodded sharply, and began to walk. “Ser Arys,” Jon muttered quietly as the knight passed, “search him thoroughly for hidden weapons, and check to make sure the barrels he is unloading are actually full of liquid. If you thump them and hear the clatter of metal, strike him down without hesitation.”
“Well thought.” Arys replied just as quietly before passing beyond his range. Jon merely grimaced as he watched; he wasn’t going to allow Qoherys’ ambush to play out a second time if he was able to.
Robert watched as the Kingsguard slowly began to pat down the knight, eyes narrowed. “Is this how that mad bastard Aerys felt, all the time?” he said quietly. “Staring at strangers and wondering if they’re the ones here to knife you?”
“Father, please…” Mya replied quietly. Robert glanced at her sideways, before grunting and looking away. Jon held back the grimace and instead focused on a figure pulling out of the crowds and walking towards their table, distinctive first by his red robes and then his face.
“My Lord and Lady,” Thoros of Myr said, bowing. “Your Grace. I commend you both on an excellent wedding. Though you do not ask for it, I offer the blessings of the Lord of Light to you both.”
“Thoros. You’re looking a damn sight more sober than I would’ve guessed.” said Robert, finally smiling.
“I’ve been enjoying the rosewater instead of my usual fare.” the priest replied, smiling in return. “I actually have a bit of business I need to attend to, with the Lady of the day. Might I trouble you to step aside with me for a moment, Lady Greystark?”
Mya’s eyebrow arched delicately. “And what business does a Red Priest have with me?” she asked. “I’m not looking to dance around a bonfire anytime soon.”
Thoros laughed. “Put your fears aside, my Lady. I may be here today on the Lord’s business, but His work does not include proselytizing. For now, I would simply speak with you.”
Mya glanced to her sides, Jon on her left and the King on her right, before nodding and standing up. “Keep my seat warm, both of you,” she joked, before squeezing between their bodies to escape the wedding table. Thoros smiled, held out a crooked arm, and met the bride at the end.
The priest walked for a moment, but stopped. “Ah. before I leave.” he turned to the table again, and pointed at Jon with his free hand. “My Lord. a gentle reminder, in regards to our last conversation.” the hand retracted, and patted his robes three times directly over his chest. “I carry the words with me wherever I go,” he said, “for whenever you are ready for them.”
Jon’s eyes narrowed. “Your diligence does you credit. You will be carrying them for a long time, still.”
Thoros met his gaze for a long moment, with a sad, knowing smile. “As you say. They will still be ready for you.” the priest turned away, focusing once again on Mya, and began walking with her to a quiet, uncrowded corner near a flight of stairs.
“What was that about?” Robert asked.
Jon shook his head. “I had questions for him. He had both more answers and less than I wanted.”
The King rolled his eyes. “Sounds about right. He’s a good fighter, and a better drinker, but the day a Baratheon prays to his god is the day we lose the Iron Throne.”
“Dunk…? Dunk, where are you…?”
Jon turned at the unexpected voice. Leyton was calling out in a weak voice, leaning into his cane with a wobbly strength. His eyes, Jon noted with growing alarm, were glazed and filmy, wandering across the pavilion with no sense of recognition.
He’s lost all lucidity. He’s calling out for Duncan Targaryen, a man decades dead. Jon’s heart twisted even further when he realized that others were starting to pay attention. I can’t let them see this. House Hightower will be shamed.
“Eh?” Robert frowned, craning his neck to see. “Who’s he calling for?”
“Excuse me, I need to take care of this.” Jon called quickly to the high table, before stepping out around Mya’s seat and quickly walking towards Hightower’s side. “Lord Leyton,” Jon called quietly, “So good to see you here. We thought business at the Red Keep would hold you away.”
“Eh…?” Leyton turned his head up slowly, staring at Jon with unseeing eyes. “I - I - I - I came to see… Dunk… the wedding… Where is Dunk…?”
Jon grimaced; every moment Leyton’s weakness was exposed to the crowd, the more people noticed. He needed to nip this in the bud. With a smile that did not match the sinking feeling in his stomach, Jon reached around Leyton’s shoulders and jostled him gently. “I’m here, Leyton.” he whispered. “It’s me. Duncan.”
Leyton looked over to Jon with unseeing eyes, and his face lit up like a child’s. “Dunk…! There you are… I - I came, for the wedding… wouldn’t miss it… is Jenny here yet…?”
“Not right now.” Jon cooed, and delicately began to steer the Hand to a seat at an isolated table. “She’ll be back soon. Just needed to freshen up. You can just sit here quietly, and she’ll come and see you.” he whispered, lowering him down while scanning the crowds for the Hightower crest.
“Oh. Good…. Good…” Leyton nodded, his head wobbling. “Th-the wedding, so nice. She was beautiful, with th-the flowers in her hair. I know… know your father is upset, but he-he’ll come around. He’ll know it was good wh-when he sees Jon.”
Jon’s blood went cold; all thoughts of Humphrey fled him. “Jon? What about him?”
Leyton giggled like a schoolboy. “H-have you met him? What… what am I saying, of course. P-practically your son. Any fool could… knew he was yours… moment I met him. He’s got your frown. A-a-and his mother’s hair. His mother’s hair, that’s h-how they don’t… forgotten a Targaryen w-with the Northern look. Like the Blackwoods. He-he’s your son. Your son, Jon.”
“Shh, shhh.” Jon hushed gently, fighting back the panic. “Yes, of course, Jon. I know him. A good lad, isn’t he?”
“O-oh, the best.” Leyton nodded. “One of your house’s finest. The Kingdoms… are in good hands. I…” Leyton’s hand on Jon’s elbow tightened to a vice grip. “I’ll protect him, Dunk. I promise. I promise. Promise…”
Jon’s heart twisted. “Of course,” he cooed. Leyton began to rise up again, and Jon gently pulled him back down by his thin, saggy elbows. “Please, sit. You’ve come a long way to be here. You must be tired. You’ve not been eating well; you’ve lost a lot of weight the past few moons.”
“Tired. Yes. Yes, I am. Why am I tired?” Leyton mumbled as he sank deeper into his seat. “It’s… it’s this wedding, I think. With Father and Orson dead from the winter, I… I shall be lord now. And Abigael shall be my lady.” he seemed to shrink. “Do… Do you think I shall be a good lord, Dunk? A good husband?”
Jon stood there quietly, before resting a hand on Leyton’s bony shoulder. “... Yes,” he said quietly. “Yes, of course you will. You love her, don’t you?”
“More… more than anything.” replied Leyton. A shy smile crept onto his face, an expression Jon had never seen before. “But… we’ve known each other… since children. How… how can I possibly… It's too much. I feel… like my heart will tear.” he giggled again. “Do you think… we shall have a son like Jon? They’ll play together. Like brothers.”
Jon swallowed a mouthful of dry spit, feeling his heart drop. Abigael Rosby, Leyton Hightower’s first wife. Humphrey had described her but briefly; with Leyton raised almost exclusively at the capital, he was betrothed to the crownlander waif to cement alliances, only to become lord when his father and eldest brother died in the six-year winter. She gave a stillborn son for their first child and died not long after; Leyton had never spoken of her to Jon even once.
With a light touch, Jon jostled Leyton back and forth. “I know you will.” he whispered, with an ache in his chest.
Leyton smiled, closed his eyes and quietly began to hum the melody of The Song of the Seven as if rocking a child to sleep. “This is… so exciting… I should see Mother about this… where is she? She should be here. Be at my wedding.” his eyes opened, now full of confusion. “Dunk… Dunk, where is Mother? I want to see Mother.”
“She’s not here, Leyton.” said Jon, quietly. “You need to be patient.”
“No… no no, I want to see her.” Leyton began to twitch and struggle against Jon’s grip. “Dunk, where is she? I want my mother, Dunk. I want my mother!”
“Shhh, shhh.” Jon glanced about quickly - people were starting to notice. “She’ll be here, Leyton. But first you need to take your medicine. Did you remember to bring your medicine, Leyton?”
“I don’t want to,” Leyton whined, piteously. “It tastes funny, and I remember bad things. I don’t wanna remember bad things, Dunk.”
“You need to drink it, Leyton.” Jon chided, and surreptitiously reached into the Hand’s cloak. As he expected, the flask was there within the hidden pocket, and a quick slosh told him it was more than half-full. “You’re the Lord Hightower, now. You have to take your medicine, and eat all of your carrots, or else your mother will be cross.”
Leyton pouted and whined as Jon quietly uncorked the flask and held it to his mouth, but in the end obediently pursed his lips. Jon tipped it forward, and Leyton began to drink. One, two, three, four gulps-
Stop, Lodos hissed. What are you doing? You’re giving him too much. He never drank more than a single mouthful. With panic, Jon pulled it back down and corked it. Leyton stared forward, eyes blown wide and unseeing - his lips were stained bright blue as a dribble of black spit threatened the corner of his mouth.
“Oh, shit.” Jon cursed, and quickly placed the flask back within his cloak, now noticeably lighter. “Leyton… stay here. You need to sit here, and wait for me to return. I’ll come back with your mother, okay? She’ll come with me, so you need to stay still.” He turned away, looking for someone to help him-
A hand latched onto his wrist like a vice and pulled him back. “No.” Leyton hissed, staring out into nothing as the iris of his eyes were devoured by black. “Stay. Do not leave me.”
“Leyton, I need to go.” Jon hissed, as his second hand came around to wrestle against his fingers.
“You cannot go. I cannot let you.” he mumbled. The veins of his eyes began to pulse bloodshot, and then faintly darkened at the edges. “Don’t go. The fire… the fire. The fire, and the king. You can’t save your father, but I can save you. I won’t let you go - not this time. I made a promise…”
Jon glanced up, and with a rising sense of panic saw that Ned Stark was looking at him, and advancing rapidly towards him. “Stay here!” Jon commanded, and ripped his hand free. Leyton did not follow, but sat in his seat, mumbling words to himself that he could not hear.
“Is something wrong?” Ned asked, as soon as he reached Jon’s side.
“Nothing.” Jon answered quickly. “Nothing. Lord Hightower is simply not feeling well. He wanted to come and pay respects, and I asked him to make himself comfortable.”
“Is that so?” Ned glanced over. “Because it looks more to me like the Lord Hand has taken leave of his senses.”
“Show some respect, Lord Stark.” Jon snapped. The Lord of Winterfell immediately turned back to him, taken aback at the formal address. “Lord Hightower is one of the wisest men in the capital. He is simply… unwell, at the moment, and will return to the fullness of strength soon enough.”
“I…” Ned stopped, closed his eyes, and exhaled. “You are right. That was not well done. You have my apologies… Lord Greystark.” he looked at Jon’s face, not quite hiding the mounting stress, and seemed to come to a conclusion. “I… do not believe that we ended our last conversation well.”
“No,” Jon replied tightly, “we didn’t.”
Ned went quiet then. After a long pause, he sighed. “I haven’t changed my mind about what I said. But I realize… that what you have here is real. And worthy of praise.” he gestured around. “You, on the Small Council. Married to a king’s firstborn. It’s… more than I ever dared dream for you.”
You would rather have me live a long life smothered in the shadow than grow tall enough to be cut down. Jon’s mouth twisted. Why does it take an act of the gods for you to have faith in me, father?
“You already know what the cost of your actions are.” Ned continued. “We need not bring that up again. But… maybe you can make it right. Be a new kind of Stark, a bridge to the south.” he waved his open hand across Jon’s fine wedding outfit. “It has been… strange, to see a man with Stark features in such bold colors.”
“Sometimes I feel like a greyhound playing as a kingfisher.” Jon admitted, twisting about to set his colorful raiment fluttering. His eyes snapped about wildly as he did, looking as subtly for Humphrey Hightower as he was able; Leyton could not be left alone.
“Has the king granted you a parcel of land for your keep yet?”
“No, we haven’t discussed that.” Jon was barely paying attention anymore; he could feel a vein in his neck thrumming with tension. “It was going to wait until after the wedding.”
“Then… I will make you an offer, like the one I made before. If the king does not grant you land, then come back to the north with your bride, and Moat Cailin-”
There! At last, Jon saw Humphrey’s styled hair passing through the crowds. “I really must go, I’m terribly busy-”
“Jon, listen to me!” Ned reached out and grabbed him by the elbow - without thought, Jon smacked it away, loudly. Heads turned; even the head table began to notice, as Mya turned at the sound of flesh. The head of House Stark stared at the hand that struck him for a moment. Now, at last, Ned lost his temper. “Do not think yourself so grown, my lord, that I cannot strap you over my knee. Your arrogance-”
“MY arrogance?!” Jon snapped. “You come here on the eve of MY wedding, order me to abandon MY position and return North like a disobedient pup, and call ME arrogant!?”
“What better description for what you are than that,” Ned said angrily. “You think you’ve escaped punishment for what you did with that blade by coming South? It was my grace that saved you, arrogant disobedient pup that you are.”
“Better that than a coward,” Jon spat, “who thought his grief more important than any other! Do you know what I have had to deal with, because of your weakness, Lord Stark? Here, and beyond? You would have sent me to die in a frozen penal colony because your sister was more important than the Kingdoms you just conquered!” he jabbed his finger hand into Ned’s chest, sending him staggering back. The strike was not strong, but Ned seemed to have lost strength in his limbs as his expression turned to one of terror. “Everything here is because of you,” he hissed. “All the rot, all the filth, all the death and corruption and suffering is because you were a coward who ran instead of staying to fight. By the time you start to care again, it’s already too late. And everything I made of myself was in spite of you being in my way.”
A clatter of wood on stone interrupted any further words. “What’s going on here?” Robert rumbled, moving quickly to intercept the two. “I’m not having the groom and his father come to blows while my daughter is getting married. Do we have a problem?”
“Y-Your Grace, I - this is-”
“Stop stammering like my damned squire Lancel and answer the question, Ned. Do we have a problem?”
Ned stared out into the distance, going quiet. After a long moment, He shook his head, and when he raised his head his face was a cold, blank slate. “No, Your Grace. Merely the final partings of a father and son. We shall depart the city within the day.”
Jon stared angrily at Ned, but Robert seemed to catch on faster. “You’re… leaving already? And what’s this about ‘final partings’?”
“Starks belong in the North. And the good Lord here has repeatedly made it clear that he is not a Stark.” Ned said quietly. “Nor does he wish to be. So this is goodbye.”
Jon made to spit an angry retort, but an invisible force caught his jaw mid-movement. You’ve been spending too much time inside bird brains, Lodos hissed. Take your mind off of Hightower for five seconds and pay attention!
The ego’s grip upon his tongue loosened, yet the retort he had readied did not come. He stared at Ned Stark with slowly widening eyes. “If…” a sudden light-headedness came to him. He had never once spoken with such animosity to his father in his entire life. “If I have given offense, and I believe I have, then I beg for the chance to make things right-”
“Make amends with the coward who caused all the suffering in King’s Landing, Lord Greystark?” Ned said icily. Robert’s head snapped to the Stark, and then back to his son. “No. I think I shall not contribute to such suffering by forcing my presence upon you any longer. Good day.”
Ned turned and began to briskly walk into the crowds. Jon raced after him, grabbing him by the wrist. “Father, please! I didn’t-” Ned snatched himself out of the grip; his face was reddening, and Jon could not tell if it was anger or shame.
“Ned, gods-dammit, don’t you walk away from me!” Robert called, storming after them. “Not again!”
“This was a mistake.” Ned growled. “I should never have come here-”
“I’ve worked too hard to right wrongs for you to storm away like a fucking child-”
“A child, is it!? And whose petulance was it that-”
“My Lords!” a voice called, louder than them all. “This is a wedding feast! Do not bring such enmity among us!”
The three turned as one to the caller. Ser Redmont stood there, leaning upon a tapped keg resting upon a wooden stand. It was one of the barrels of Dornish Red that the false knight had brought; Jon could see now that the others had been set up equidistant from each other, so that all corners of the pavilion could reach one. And not together at the tables for food and wine where they should be, Jon realized slowly.
“Let such rancor be put aside for the moment! It is a joyous day!” Ser Redmont called. He reached down with a silver chalice and brought it to the bung, slowly pouring a glass. The sleeves of his coat hid the contents from Jon’s sight, but for a moment, a reflection caught on his breastplate was the wrong color.
Something is wrong.
“Ser Redmont, this is not your place to speak.” said Jon. “You are an uninvited guest, and have not been offered bread or salt. The Seven are not my gods; do not test my generosity to their customs.”
“You need not remind me, my good Lord.” Ser Redmont replied. “Then, instead, I shall provide to you.” He lifted the cup in the air. “A TOAST!” he shouted. With the scene the three had been causing, he had nearly the entire party’s attention; a few scattered guests let out half-hearted whoops of encouragement. “A toast to the new bride and groom! A toast to the many quirks of life that brought us all together in this place! And above all else…”
He lowered his glass back down, coming to rest at his side. “A toast to the eternal health, wealth and dominion of the true and rightful Lord of the Seven Kingdoms!”
With those words, Ser Redmont swung his cup wide, sending the entirety of its green payload splashing all over Robert Baratheon, soaking his face and chest and arms. The crowd gasped. Robert sputtered and spat the foul liquid from his mouth. And Jon realized with dread clarity that the sweat on his brow from the hot summer sun had obscured the fact that there was an itch directly between his brows that followed wherever Ser Redmont moved.
“WILDFIRE! GET DOWN!” a voice screamed - Leyton’s voice.
Ser Redmont - the Three-Eyed Raven - grinned widely and smashed the base of his goblet into the spigot, tearing it from the body and allowing the glittering green payload to spill freely. “LORD VARYS SENDS HIS REGARDS!” he shouted, and pulled a single striking flint and stone from his sleeve. He raised his hands-
A body slammed into Jon from the side, sending him toppling to the ground. Jon only had a moment to see the swaying white-and-red cloak of Leyton Hightower rush by him - the same voice who had called out the warning - before another great weight landed on him. Somebody had jumped on top of him on the ground - Jon grabbed them by the collar to push them off, to stop the Raven from-
The world was engulfed in emerald flame.
Notes:
It's a nice day to start again.
Well. That took fucking forever to write. The curse of scope creep strikes again. Hope you enjoyed this behemoth. I wanted to get this done in time for my birthday, but I was off by a few days. Oh well. We got there in the end. I've been building to this chapter for ages.
You like? Come chat in the comments. Shoutout to Redwolf17 who apparently mentioned me by name on her tumblr as one of the stories she was most looking forward to reading once she finishes The Weirwood Queen. I appreciate that. I also appreciate the massive support. 4 thousand kudos, 1300 bookmarks, 200 thousand hits. Damn. That's a lot. Thanks a bunch.
Chapter 26: Life Seven: Part 9
Summary:
A spark becomes an inferno.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
He could not see anything but burned-in light.
He could not hear anything but the deafening ring of his own blown eardrums.
Could not smell anything but the acrid stench of afterburn, and charred flesh.
Could not feel anything but the heat of the flames around him, and the body on top of him.
But the fact that he could do any of these things at all… meant that he was still alive. And that meant that he was needed.
With all the strength of a newborn, he pushed the person on top of him to the side, and felt their weight shift with the telltale limpness of a corpse. His attempts to stand up were not as successful; his legs refused to obey him, knees giving way underneath him.
STAND!
The scent of charred flesh was washed away by the phantom spray of the ocean; his body obeyed him once more, as the imaginary weight of a weirwood crown floated on his brow. His vision cleared just a moment -
To reveal a scene of horror he had not witnessed since the Long Night. Burning corpses lay everywhere across the wedding courtyard, as green flames flickered and danced about the edges. About the edges, men and women screamed soundlessly, running about with varying levels of flame about their bodies. The Raven had placed his wine kegs in a wide enough circle to catch nearly all of the noble pavilion; dead Crownlander scions lay scattered everywhere, as the commoners ran for their lives. With his hearing destroyed, he could almost imagine he could hear a dragon’s roar as it circled around for another strafe. His knees began to give way.
FOCUS! The voice of his past shouted in his mind. SAVE WHO YOU CAN!
“I…”
LORD COMMANDER SNOW! DO YOUR DUTY!
The world clicked to the left three inches, and suddenly Jon felt like himself again. Without hesitation, he charged forward. “YOUR GRACE!” he shouted, rushing to where he had last seen the king. There was nothing but a greasy smear upon the ground… but across the pavilion, blown backwards, two bodies lay. One of them deathly still, green flames licking upon their back, and the other still moving.
Robert Baratheon was screaming, rolling back and forth across the ground as wildfire consumed his left leg. That he was still alive after the initial blast could only be attributed to the sacrifice of the burning companion next to him, but Jon had no time to identify their remains; if he did not act soon, the fire would reach the splattered remains of the cup tossed on him, and then the King of the Seven Kingdoms would disappear in a man-sized fireball.
Jon knew wildfire. He knew the first critical seconds after an accident would determine the bloody outcomes. Until the magic had burned away and became regular flame, Wildfire could be doused only while fully submerged; anything less and the byproducts would float on the surface and set fire to the oceans. Amputation was out - too many critical arteries in the leg meant he would bleed out long before a surgeon or the hack Pycelle arrived. Any attempt to beat it out would simply transfer the fire. The only solution…
Forget subtlety, Jon, Lodos hissed. The Raven has doomed us with this. War is inevitable now, one way or the other. Our duty now is to observe. Live long enough to learn from our mistakes.
Jon scowled. With a quick motion, he unstoppered the waterskin by his side and pulled the liquid out into the air with a simple thought. Just as Robert rolled onto his belly, Jon ran over and stamped into his flesh, holding him down. “This is going to hurt a lot.” Jon said, before clutching his fist and ramming the telekenetic water into an open wound in the flesh just under Robert’s knee. The King screamed, no doubt loud enough to deafen anybody who could still hear - a problem Jon did not have. As the water speared through in a circular motion, before driving downwards to split skin from flesh.
With a single smooth motion, entire layers of skin were peeled off Robert’s writhing body, until at last it reached the flames consuming him. It rolled, twisted, and as one curled away from his body, down across his calf and into his foot, until at last every inch of skin on Robert’s leg had been flayed from his body. The pink, twitching meat of robert’s leg began bleeding freely, without end, but as Jon tightened his fist and lifted away the detritus, all of the wildfire came with it. The remnants of Robert’s skin and subcutaneous fat crackled and crisped in the air like horrifying bacon, before Jon roared and flung the detritus far away.
The Master of Whisperers let out a few gasps, suddenly struggling to stay upright. Instead of fighting the urge, he fell to his knees next to the king. With trembling hands, he ripped the belt and sheathed dagger from his waist and tied the belt around the flayed leg's knee.
With gritted teeth, Jon shoved the dagger underneath the belt and twisted. Robert screamed. Jon twisted again, and again, pulling the belt tighter and tighter into the flesh of Robert's leg, until at last he wrapped a loose end around the handle. The pink flesh of his flayed leg trembled and flexed involuntarily, but the tourniquet held, and the blood began to slow.
Stand, Lord Commander, Lodos commanded. Your duty is not yet done. The King will not die for the moment - move on!
With unsteady hands, Jon pushed himself to his feet. “Who… who saved him from the blast?”
Move on! You have more to do!
Jon shook his head. “No, I… I have to…” he looked down to the charred corpse on the ground. The Wildfire had already consumed the upper torso. It had consumed all flesh, down to the skeleton. Yet the legs were still intact, for the moment, and as Jon’s vision swam before him, he could see a pair of fine leather boots, with a great flaming lighthouse stitched into the embroidery.
“Oh… Oh, gods… Leyton…”
MOVE ON! Lodos roared, and Jon’s legs began to jerkily move forward. There’s nothing you can do now. You are the highest-ranking Alchemist here until the Grand Master comes running - so save these people from alchemy!
Jon swayed in place. “Who… if Leyton was there, then who…”
I’ll not tell you until the fires are out. That explosion has bruised your brain; I’m the only reason you’re still conscious.
Jon stared off into the distance for a brief second. “Yes… I…” the world started spinning, and a violent retch was the only warning before he bent double and vomited the half-digested remnants of the wedding feast all over his own boots. “Fuck…” he wheezed.
You can pass out later. Prioritize. Where is your family? Where is Bran?
“Theon was…” Adrenaline flooded his limbs. “Bran!” he shouted, standing upright. “Arya! Sansa!” he ran ahead, forward momentum keeping him upright.
All around him, the pavilion burned. Where the Wildfire had landed on paved stone, the flames burned steadily in place, melting the hard surface to slag and glass but not spreading. Where it had landed on dirt, or green grass, or the wooden pavilion, it raged out of control with voracious hunger. The water fluttered and swept to clear Jon’s path, but even then the green flames resisted the enemy - by the time Jon had cleared a path, two-thirds of his waterskin’s contents had simply evaporated.
“BRAN! ARYA! SANSA!” he called louder, though he could not hear his own words. With a quick shove, he pushed a weakened tentpole to the side so it would collapse into nothingness - and stopped, eyes wide.
Down on the ground, four bodies lay, all in Stark colors.
“No. No, no, no.” Jon dropped to his knees, scrambling. His hand went to the smallest, to little Arya, and shook her. “Please,” he begged.
The body twitched. A vibration went through his hands; were he not deaf, he would have recognized it as a pained groan earlier. Sansa rolled next to her just the slightest. The only movement from Bran was the smallest of pained, unconscious breaths. All three were alive. A relieved gasp escaped Jon for just a moment, before at last he turned to the final, largest body.
The body was burned all across the back, its legs charred black by the explosion. Even now, green flames licked across its ankles. The body of Theon Greyjoy was beyond saving; within the next hour, there wouldn’t be enough ashes to fit inside a jar. His arms were spread wide, lying down prone. Jon reached a shaking hand to Theon’s shoulder. “Theon…!”
The body twitched. Theon looked up, his eyes blood-red from burst blood vessels. A thick bubble of blood leaked from his lips, before he began to say something. Jon could not hear a word of it. Theon seemed to realize, shuddered involuntarily, and began to enunciate clearly. He mouthed four words.
‘ Come… find… me… when…’
Before he could finish his words, a slackness came into his muscles, and the Greyjoy scion breathed his last. “Theon…!” Jon gasped. “Thank you…! Thank you…!”
Not much time left, Lodos hissed. Your brain is swelling; you're going to pass out soon whether I'm aiding you or not. Find who you need to find, and get somewhere safe.
Jon stumbled to his feet. If he only had one chance left… “MYA!” He shouted. “WHERE ARE YOU?” The world swam in front of his vision. “THOROS! ARE YOU ALIVE?” Staggering forward, the boy stumbled through the burning wreckage of his wedding, past the screaming guests and charred corpses. “MYA! THOROS!”
A pavilion collapsed in a spray of green sparks, revealing the hidden section of the courtyard. Jon's eyes widened. “Mya!” The floor shifted 45 degrees underneath Jon's feet; Jon fell into a flailing run, only barely keeping his own feet underneath him. His efforts failed, and he fell onto his face right in front of a burning corpse.
“Mya…!”
He crawled forward on his elbows, no longer trusting his balance. Jon gasped, suddenly struggling to draw breath. He reached out, wrapping his shaking fingers around an outstretched, unmoving hand… and reached his fingers to the inside of her wrist. He held his breath, and the world flashed red as the inside of his own skull…
Until he felt a faint, fluttering pulse, as his new bride twitched gently in unconsciousness.
He gasped once, then twice in exhausted relief. “Alive… she's alive…!” He reached forward once more, trying to pull himself forward.
Now, at last, his strength failed him. His head flopped onto the ground, staring directly at the corpse in front of her. The red robes across the entire back were burned away, along with the flesh, exposing a macabre view of his organs cooking through the back of his ribcage. But from the front, where the Wildfire inexplicably sputtered and faded away, Thoros merely appeared to be asleep. His arms were still outstretched, fingers wrapped around the edges of terrace rock, kneeling before Mya's form; where his body spread out, the wildfire had not touched. Where his shadow lay, the wildfire flickered and died. And on his face, his expression was frozen in the beatific smile of a martyr.
Jon could no longer fight his body. With a slow exhalation, and the slacking of his muscles, darkness took him.
When Jon awoke and felt the featherbed underneath his back, he immediately regretted opening his eyes as a searing spike of pain landed through his skull. The rest of his body began crying out in pain shortly after, and it was only then that Jon realized he had not died in his sleep. He was still alive.
He was still alive, when others were not.
The ceiling swam before his vision, but the room was blessedly dim with only the sounds of a low fire crackling far away. He moved to push himself up on his elbows, but a fission of agony ran down his spine, and with a moan of pain fell backwards.
From the far side of the room, someone gasped. “Jon!” Footsteps rushed to his side, and with gentle hands cradled his head to a soft chest.
“Mya…” Jon groaned. “I… I looked for you…”
“I know. They found you next to me…” Mya whispered. Her cheek lowered onto his forehead, sighing. “How… how could this happen to us…?”
“How… how long was I…?”
Mya was quiet for a few moments. “Three days…” she whispered. “They… they feared you wouldn't wake. Jon, my father hasn't…”
Jon went cold. Three days. Three days with no hand and no king, and nobody to stop Littlefinger. Nobody to stop Cersei.
Immediately, Jon forced his elbows underneath him, pushing himself up. Immediately, Mya pushed his shoulders back down. “No!”
“Let me go, Mya.” Jon groaned. “I have to leave… Cersei can't be allowed… to rule alone. I have to stop her.”
“Jon… the queen isn't here.”
That stopped him. “What?”
“Queen Cersei is not in the capital.” Answered Mya. “Neither she nor the royal children returned after the wedding. Half the royal guard has left King's Landing. Rumors have her traveling at speed along the Gold Road.”
The Gold Road only led to the Westerlands, and Casterly Rock, Jon realized with a grinding remembrance. The rumors had her running to the protection of her father, instead of to her wounded husband’s side. It was a political blunder of catastrophic proportions for her, if it was true. But perhaps she didn’t care.
“Who…” he groaned in pain. “Who’s been ruling… with no king, and no hand?”
Mya frowned. “Please, Jon. you only just-”
The door opened. “He’s right to be worried.” said a voice. Jon rolled his head gently to the side, just enough to see Mance Rayder’s face as he stepped in. his fool’s motley was looking dull with soot. They even had the resident wildling working in the wreckage, Jon marveled. “Renly’s been trying to hold the court together while the King convalesces, but Littlefinger’s agents have been spreading as much chaos as they’re able. Rumors grow more elaborate by the day of traitors and saboteurs, egged on by his people. A food warehouse went up in flames just yesterday; grain prices have skyrocketed. The gold cloaks are cracking down far more than necessary, and are provoking a backlash. The people are scared, angry, and now about to go hungry; a riot is almost guaranteed.”
Jon rolled his head back. “Damn it… that snake. What of the rest… of the small council?”
“Pycelle is blowing with the wind, and that wind favors Littlefinger. I wouldn’t rely on him for anything. Asha…” Mance grimaced. “I suspect that if the situation does not stabilize soon, she will take the fastest ship back to the Iron Islands. Gods only know what happens then. And…” He went quiet. “There are reports that Dragonstone fleets are on the move. Old reports.”
Jon went cold. Stannis. The first to stake his claim to the Iron Throne, when Joffrey first sat it. And if the reports were indeed old… then he could reach King’s Landing any day. “I can't stay here.” He said, and began pushing himself up again.
“Jon, no!”
“Mya, you don't know Stannis… like I do.” He answered, grunting in pain. “He's intractable. He never lets go once an idea takes him. If he gets it in his head that Robert is dying… even with you recognized as his daughter, Stannis is still first in line.”
“What?” Mya blinked. “But Joffrey is first in line. He is my father’s legal son.”
Jon went cold. “I… yes. Yes, of course, Joffrey is…” He trailed off, as Mya's gaze went hard.
“You're lying to me.” She said, flatly. “Not even a week married, and you are lying to me.”
Mance folded his arms behind them, glancing between the two. Jon shut his eyes, cursing the pain that loosened his tongue. “Mya… remember when I asked you to look to me in the court? That this was more dangerous than you could possibly know?”
“I remember it well.” She replied. “The very first time we spoke. You found me while speaking to Joffrey.”
“I found you BECAUSE you were speaking to him.” Jon said wearily. “I came running the moment you crossed paths.” Her eyes widened. “There are things that cannot be spoken of, even in confidence. Things that will reach other ears, without another soul around. You must believe me.”
“How can I?”
“Believe me, then.” Said Mance. Mya lifted her head. “Lord Greystark spoke to me once, when I was still in Winterfell. He gave me a name that cannot be said aloud in King's Landing, without risking death. I know exactly who he fears, and he is right to do so. I have been his agent here ever since.”
“His agent? But…” Mya stumbled. “Wasn't he… you…”
“He was.” Mance replied. His stance shifted just an inch, setting the chains around his legs jangling.
Mya fell into silence, trying to understand. Jon grimaced, and shook his head. "Is my family still here, Mance? Has my father gotten them out of King's Landing safely?"
Mance looked at Jon with a strange look. "... Your siblings are safely on their way to the North, with their household guard." He answered quietly. Mya glared at the Wildling, who winced. "There's... something else, but it can wait. We need to focus on this crisis, first."
Jon nodded. "Fair enough." he tried to rock up to his feet, and fell back with a painful gasp. "Dammit." He held out his arms. “Help me up, Mance. I’m going to need your shoulder. And a cane.”
The sound of shouting echoed down the stone halls of the Red Keep, as Jon hobbled towards the Great Hall. “Fuck me…” He cursed. “That’s Renly.”
“Steady now.” Mance murmured. “We can slow a moment to sort you. You’re not exactly set for a court appearance.”
“I have an excuse. If the court doesn’t know that I was blown up at my own wedding, I don’t care much about their opinion.” Jon snapped. Mance looked at him, eyes narrowed, before snorting.
“This is getting to be more and more like the North.” He quipped. “Give me Rattleshirt and the Weeper and I'd have this whole mess sorted out in an afternoon.”
“Fuck the Weeper.” Jon spat. “He tried to rape Val.”
“My own Goodsister?” Mance exclaimed. “I hadn't heard this one before.”
“Because I chased him all the way to the Icy Shore and fed him to Ghost for trying.”
Mance looked taken aback for a moment, before grinning viciously. “I've seen you in your ponce lordling outfits for so long I sometimes forget you were one of us. Once we get away, you'll have to tell me everything.”
“We have to make it out first.” Jon hissed, an errant step sending pain shooting all the way up to his thighs. “Not many pieces left on the Cyvasse board now.”
Mance glanced down at Jon, frowning, before reaching to the lord's belt and pulling away the dagger sheathed there. “Give me that. I'll use this better than you, right now,” He said, sliding it within his colorful jesters motley. Hand free once again, he reached out to Jon's hair and quickly smoothed out the sweat-damped locks with his fingers.
“Thank you,” Jon panted. “Keep that hidden unless it all goes wrong - then, go for crippling shots only. Let death be on my head instead of yours.” The shouting from the Great Hall was nearly intelligible now. With a steadying breath, a quick step away from Mance's side, and a subtle coating of water along his palms, he pushed open the side door with a thundering WHAM!
The water gave more force to the push than his body was currently able, slamming the door open and startling the occupants. The court was full of courtiers, held back only by a smattering of royal soldiers. At the head of the hall, Littlefinger and Pycelle stood together on the far side of the throne, with Renly standing opposite closer to Jon. he gave a quick scan of the room, and with a lump in his stomach realized that Asha was nowhere to be seen.
“Wh-” Renly startled at the sound, turning about with speed. “... Lord Greystark?”
“What is the meaning of this?” Jon demanded, projecting his voice as much as his body would allow. “Holding court without a king or a hand present?”
“Lord Greystark!” Pycelle started, so shocked that Jon could visibly see him drop his false feebleness. “You should not be out of bed!”
“No thanks to you, charlatan.”
“What-”
“Shut up.” Jon snapped. “Who do you think you are, to rule without the King’s presence?”
“I would ask the same of Lord Renly, myself.” Littlefinger replied, eyes narrowed. “Being a Baratheon does not give him right to sit that seat, yet here he is, trying to play in his brother’s crown.”
“You think I’m here to usurp!?” Renly shouted. “I’m here to keep this city from falling apart! I’m here to keep the people from starving! And you - Every word that oozes from your mouth is a lie, but you don’t care because all that matters is them hearing you say it!” he held out an accusatory finger. “Who summoned the public here today!? Not I!”
“The public has a right to know who tried to assassinate their king!” Littlefinger exclaimed. “The secrecy of the small council has caused chaos within the city!”
“Secrecy doesn’t burn down grain warehouses, Baelish.” Jon snapped. “Arsonists do.”
“Aye, arsonists.” Littlefinger retorted. “Arsonists on the payroll of Daenerys Targaryen!” the public gasped. “The same Daenerys that tried to -”
“One more word out of you, Baelish,” Jon snarled, vision blackening, “And I’ll beat you unconscious.”
Reactions rippled through the room as Jon glanced about. All around the room, soldiers were spread in unobtrusive locations, carrying blades instead of spears. Half of them part of the Royal guard, half of them Goldcloaks. At the head of the room, standing behind the throne in silence, Barristan and Jaime Lannister stood. Barristan, in particular, was staring directly at him, hand on his blade; Jon’s threat had likely set him on edge. At the end of the hall, two Goldcloaks stood at the massive swinging doors; with alarm, Jon at last noticed that the doors had been barred. The public could not be ordered out to limit perception damage.
Littlefinger’s eyes were wide, only half-theatrically. “Why? She is an enemy of the realm.” he grinned. “But then, you have a habit of trusting dangerous women that aren’t your wife. Where is Lady Greyjoy, by the way? Spotted boarding the first ship out of port the day after the wedding.”
Jon squeezed his eyes shut at the words, eyebrow flickering uncontrollably. Of course she left. Without Leyton, she no longer has a reason to care. He opened his eyes. He’s never this blunt. He thinks there’s enough opportunity here to not run, but not enough to avoid getting his own hands dirty. He has to handle it himself.
Like when he had my father betrayed.
Jon opened his eyes. “Don't change the subject. Who are you to call this court? Who are you to issue decrees with neither the brother nor the daughter of the king present?”
“He defends the King's assassins!” Shouted someone from the back of the hall.
“If the king died, the bastard would be a king!” Another rough voice shouted. Jon whirled.
“Step out and state your slander to my face!” He roared.
“He's a filthy pyromancert! They kill kings for sport!”
“Can't trust a pyromancer! Traitors, all!”
That last voice, Jon heard close enough to target. He whirled - a goldcloak faded back into the metastasizing mob. The fury leapt into his throat. He's trying to have them lynch me for my own assassination.
A great ringing slam on the Great Hall echoed, but was drowned out by the crowd.
We made their lives tangibly better with Bondfire. We were saving this kingdom from bankruptcy. And they are going to kill me for it.
“Have care, everyone!” Littlefinger shouted. “He is an Alchemist! They carry wildfire on them at all times!”
“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND, BAELISH!?” Renly screamed; his voice was drowned out by the howling for blood.
Another great slam against the Great Hall doors. The bar across the doors creaked.
“Kill him!” Shouted another disguised Goldcloak. “Kill the pyromancer!”
“Justice for Good King Robert!”
The handle on Jon’s cane creaked under the force of his grip. The world was narrowing to a point. Jon fixed his gaze on the front of the hall - Pycelle seemed ready to fall over, Renly had already drawn his sword and seemed ready to dash to his side, the Kingsguard were already rushing to his side…
And Littlefinger, the instigator of the riot, was already halfway across the room to the side door, slipping away in the madness. The Master of Coin spared one last glance at the hall, and met Jon's eyes. His narrow, pinched face split into a wide, victorious grin.
The fury in him could no longer be contained. “BAELIIIISH!” He roared. The Master of Coin laughed once, and turned to run-
But before another word could be said, a mighty shattering sound cracked through the air, as great arm-sized shards of wood scattered across the mob. The sound of splintering wood was followed by another strike, as the great hall’s doors buckled inwards. A third, final strike shattered the door, exploding outwards as someone let out a high-pitched shriek. From the shimmer of wood dust, a straight-backed figure emerged. Renly stood at once, hand on his blade, before freezing. Littlefinger went stiff as a board, his escape now impossible.
“Stannis…!”
Stannis Baratheon glared about with a lock-jawed scowl, as all around him soldiers filled in behind. From their back, a great battering ram was lowered to the ground with a clatter. Spearmen rushed forward to menace the court, driving them back against the wall in fear of their brandished weapons. At the head of the hall, Jaime, Barristan and Mandon Moore drew their blades as one. “My Lord,” Pycelle called, in shock, “What is the meaning of this!?”
Stannis did not immediately answer, but strode through the cleared hall like a parted sea. Seemingly at random, he clicked his fingers and picked one of his soldiers; the sound of his snap rang out like a whip crack in the dead-silent hall. “You. Begin interrogations on who blocked the door. For attempting to inhibit the King of Westeros from attending official court functions, have them thrown in the black cells for a month and have their left hand removed. If they are a servant of the Red Keep, terminate their employment and throw them out of the city. Arrest any man who attempted to instigate the murder of a member of the Small Council, and have them drawn, quartered and mounted on spikes. The rest of you, lock down the plebs and have them flogged for threatening Lord Greystark, a member of the royal family.”
“Lord Stannis, as a former member of the Small Council you no longer have any authority to give that order!” Ser Barristan exclaimed, standing forward. “Remove your soldiers from this hall at once!”
“I have all the authority I need.” Stannis replied flatly. “By blood and inheritance, I am next in line for the Iron Throne. But even without that…” he reached across his shoulders and pulled aside his cloak, revealing a single clenched fist pinned to his lapel.
“Preposterous!” Pycelle exclaimed, as the hall gasped.
“Stealing from corpses, Stannis?” Littlefinger spat. “Lord Hightower’s body isn’t even buried, and you swooped in from Dragonstone to usurp his place!?”
Stannis’ jaw flexed; Jon could almost imagine hearing the grinding teeth from across the room. “Keep that forked tongue behind your teeth, Lord Baelish. I usurp nothing.”
“You’re not Hand, Stannis,” Renly retorted, “Any more than I am. Robert has yet to wake, and I’ve been at his side since the day of the wedding! While you were hiding on Dragonstone, jumping at shadows as an Ironborn took your seat, WE have been doing the business of the realm!”
Jon could see the fury flash behind Stannis’ eyes, for just a moment, and he knew that the littlest Baratheon had struck a true blow. “Lord Renly, I don’t think-”
“Stand aside, Renly.” Stannis ordered.
“Lord Stannis, you will not approach the Iron Throne.” Barristan declared, lifting his sword.
“Stannis is attempting to usurp the Throne!” someone shouted. A panicked muttering began.
“Stand down, Barristan, by order of the king.”
“I will not.” Barristan lifted his shield, and Jamie immediately came to his side. “You are not the King.”
Stannis spat once, and stepped forward. Jon hobbled forward, hands outstretched. “My Lords, please-!”
Before another word could be said, a mighty clattering rang out as every one of Stannis’ soldier at once stood at attention, setting their armor ringing. A woman shrieked; another gasped. The crowds from the sides parted like water, as an uneven drag- thump pattern echoed out. Renly stood at once, hand on his blade, before freezing. “It can’t be…!”
One of Stannis’ flagged knights nearest the gate stood taller, then, as the grinding sound revealed itself to be a warhammer, scraping head-first across the stone floor. “King Robert of House Baratheon, the first of his name!” he boomed, as a hunched figure pulled itself through the hall, weapon reversed and stuck handle-first into his armpit and hobbling with the improvised crutch. “King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men! Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm!”
The Demon of the Trident spared a singular glance at the knight - a glance visible only through the eyes, as his entire face was covered in bandages and capped in a great golden death mask from straight out of a royal burial - and dragged himself forward. Every step of his was accompanied by a grinding SCREECH! Of a mass of iron wires in the form of a cage around his leg. The leg, Jon knew, that he had flayed entirely - yet a prickly-haired, grey-seeming skin had somehow come to be, covered in what appeared to be wax and held in place by the wires. Not skin, Jon realized belatedly, but hide. His entire leg is wrapped in pigs’ hide instead of skin. That can’t possibly work, can it? Half of the Bolton King’s victims died of infection instead of blood loss.
Renly stood from his seat on the Iron Throne, eyes wide and mouth gaping. The entire court had gone silent as the King pulled his broken body towards the Iron Throne, sparing only a glance at Jon.
“Your Grace…” Jon began, but Robert hissed in reply, like a wild animal, and he fell silent. The room watched as the king slowly moved, with all the pacing of a funeral procession, and nobody dared make a sound to draw his attention after such a rebuke. At last, Robert reached the foot of the Iron Throne, staring at the seat with hate. Renly quickly stepped down from the throne, reaching out to his brother’s shoulder. Instead of accepting it, Robert’s free hand slapped the offending appendage away. Rebuked, Renly shied away, a glimmer of fear in his eyes.
Robert huffed and snarled at nothing in particular, heaving the warhammer crutch over otherwise-unimpressive steps, until he was at last at the royal seat. A curse was muttered under his breath, unheard by anyone else. With a final screech of metal on stone, the King fell into the throne. The blades of the chair clashed against the casted limbs, setting the room’s teeth on edge. On his bandaged left arm, a small seep of red began to color the wrappings where an errant blade tip had jabbed; he didn’t even react in the slightest. His golden visage glared across the room, waiting a moment on what remained of his Small Council longest.
“Did you think,” he wheezed, with a strange wobbling lisp that Jon had never heard before, “that I was so incapable, as to not get out of bed… to rule my kingdom?” Robert braced himself against the warhammer, shifting himself higher upon the throne. Against his arm, another dull blade sliced through the sleeve of his shirt and nicked the outside of his wrist; blood began to well gently against his skin. “Nobody but my damned brother came for me. All of you. Left me there to die. He arrived. Now he’s my Hand.”
“Y-your Grace,” Pycelle stammered, “your wounds have still not healed! You should-”
“Let you run my kingdom… while you pour poppymilk… down my throat till I drown?” Robert rasped. “While traitors tried to murder me? I’ll not sleep until they’re dead.” He slammed the head of his warhammer into the floor, cracking the stone. “I want him dead.”
“Who, your Grace?” asked Littlefinger. The Master of Coin had slowly sidled back towards the throne as subtly as he was able, but his distance, Jon knew, had not gone unnoticed. Stannis had his eyes fixed directly on him
“VARYS!” Robert roared, and immediately descended into a wracking, wheezing cough. Jon and Pycelle took a step closer nearly in unison, but Stannis held up a threatening hand, and they stopped. The court sat utterly still, the only sound being Robert’s hacking cough, until it finally died away. “Varys.” he gasped. “That false knight… he saluted Varys, before he died. I want him DEAD.”
“Your Grace,” said Littlefinger, adapting quickly, “this was not the act of a spurned Master of Whispers. This was the first strike against the kingdom. He called out the health of the ‘true’ King, did he not? This is an act of war - from the Targaryens. Varys is merely the midwife of this treason!”
The court gasped in shock. Jon scowled deeper. None of this should have been in front of the public, even before the King returned. Now, everything said would be an ill-uttered word from starting another riot, or a revolution.
“Viserys still lives, thanks to the mercy of our late Hand and our Master of Whispers.” Littlefinger declared. Jon's eyes shot wide open. “He repaid that mercy with blood. All we have done is give him time to find ships for his dothraki army.”
“Oh come now!” Renly shouted, over the loud cries of panic. “There's not a man alive who would kill themselves so gruesomely for that mad lizard! You -”
“Can see the patterns, Lord Renly!” Littlefinger shouted. “What weapon was more beloved by the Dragonspawn than Wildfire? Aegon drank it like wine, Aerys loved it like a woman, Viserys was raised by its warmth in this very keep. And who should have brought it back to use, but the boy who replaced the traitor on the Small Council!” His finger pointed at Jon. “You told us that the alchemists were the only ones who had access to the weapon. How then does an assassin come by so much without your assistance? It beggars belief that your order was not complicit! You, and the man you so conveniently replaced!”
“Control yourself, Baelish.” Stannis snapped, vein throbbing in his forehead. “You will refrain from accusations of treason in open court.”
Jon stared at Baelish with naked hate. His fingers flexed, and the water in the wineskin on his hip sloshed in time with his muscles.
“L-Lord Baelish is right, Lord Stannis.” Said Grand Maester Pycelle. “Why, I saw the Lord Greystark speaking with men of swarthy complexion at the docks just last fortnight, under the cover of night! They must have been the servants of Varys, preparing the assassination!” The court gasped.
“Horseshit, he was!” Renly barked without hesitation. "A bald-faced lie!"
“You…” Jon snarled. It was a blatant lie, and even Littlefinger seemed taken aback for a single moment before quickly adapting.
“Did you think your treachery would go unnoticed? The Spider, you are not. What did Viserys promise you, bastard? Becoming Hand once his invading hordes took the capital? The first daughter from his whored-out sister?”
“You…” Robert rasped. He raised a shaking finger. “How… I trusted…” Renly stood there, gaze locked on Robert's expression of agony with disbelief. He lifted his eyes to Jon for only a moment; the look on his face said he could not fight the tide. Behind them all, the court's rising bloodlust was growing louder. They called for Jon's blood. They called for his head on a spike.
“KINGSGUARD!” Littlefinger called. “Arrest the traitor! Find out what he knows of the plot! Wring where Varys has hidden himself from his lips!”
“You are not in charge of the Kingsguard, Baelish!” Stannis shouted. “Any man who draws steel in the King's presence unprompted shall be given a hundred lashes.”
The room went still.
Situation pacified, he turned sharply to Jon. “Lord Whisperer,” said Stannis, hands folded behind his back, “as you have been accused of treason, you shall be arrested and kept until a trial may be scheduled. Your household will be detained in their chambers, but seen to. No harm shall come to them if you do not resist. Ser Barristan. Ser Lannister. Bind him.”
From behind the throne, two figures stepped out with blades drawn - both of the kingsguard. Jon stared at the calamitous drama playing out in front of him with dead eyes, until at last he could hold it back no longer, and began to laugh. Laugh, and laugh until his weak legs almost collapsed underneath him. The crowd went uneasily quiet at the cackling. Jaime, meanwhile, was unfazed, and after a single glance and nod from Stannis drew close enough to lay a blade against Jon’s throat.
“Is that how it is, Baelish?” he asked, an uncontrolled wheeze in his voice.
“Another word, Lord Greystark, and I’ll be forced to gag you.” Jaime said quietly, his voice flat. “Don’t make me do it.”
Jon glanced at the Lannister, eyes narrowed. His mouth thinned into a thin line. “Ser Jaime,” he said quietly. Jaime pushed the blade in closer; Jon let out a quiet hiss, but was undeterred. “For all that I have done for you, I would ask just one favor. Grant me a single sentence.”
“You’ve already had one just now.” Jaime replied. Barristan approached behind the two, a length of rope in his hands.
“I only need one sentence to clear my name,” said Jon. “If I have not convinced you, or the king, then you may have my head right here and now. Nothing I say will suffice if this does not.”
The Kingsguard stared at Jon for a long, lingering moment. Just as Barristan gripped Jon’s hand and pulled it behind his back, Jaime lifted a hand to Barristan’s arm, holding it back with a touch. With his other, he pulled the blade’s edge away just an inch. “One sentence.”
“Ser Jaime, I do not think-”
“Your Grace,” Jon exclaimed, loud and strong, “Lord Hand! Petyr Baelish is lying to you - Varys could not have commanded that false knight to gather that wildfire and assassinate us all at my own wedding feast,” before lifting his free hand in the air and holding up three fingers.
“Because VARYS,” he shouted, “Has been DEAD FOR THREE MONTHS!”
A shocked gasp ripped through the court in unison. Ser Barristan stopped where he was, the length of rope in his hands going slack. The smile on Petyr Baelish’s face froze and died. Stannis’s gaze only went colder, eyes narrowed to slits. And Robert…
Robert Baratheon had a look on his face like he wanted to kill a man.
“Three… months.”
“Since the day he went missing, Your Grace.” Jon declared. “He was not missing. He was rotting in Blackwater Bay. I threw him there myself.” he lowered his hand. “Though it was not my actions that killed him. Lord Hightower, Gods rest his soul, did the deed when the Spider came to assassinate him in his sleep.”
“Your Grace,” Littlefinger cut in, “Greystark can claim that the Spider grew wings and flew into the Eyrie for all the proof he has.”
“I can show you the very place he died!” Jon retorted. “The blood is still on the walls - the tiles are still cracked from the impact of his fall! Will you claim no proof, then?”
“It does not change the fact that the only ones who could have orchestrated this were the Alchemists. The treacherous swines already slaughtered one king, who is to say-”
Robert lifted his warhammer straight up and slammed it point-first back down, like a judge’s gavel. Littlefinger’s words choked away. “Why.”
“... Because King’s Landing is a filthy menagerie, Your Grace.” said Jon. “Filled with Spiders, and Little Birds, and Rats, and gods know what else. All the candles in all the kingdoms cannot control the waft of shit coming from the political animals at play. And Lord Hightower wanted to know who would come crawling out of the warrens to claim a traitor’s name as cover for their crimes. And LO AND BEHOLD!” Jon threw his arms wide. “Once again, the Hand's wisdom was sound, even beyond the grave, for someone tried to deflect their crimes onto a dead man.”
With a dramatic flair, Jon lifted his hand, and pointed a single finger directly at Littlefinger. “Because, your Grace, Littlefinger has lied to you again. There was one other group of people who had access to the Wildfire caches other than the Alchemists - the Goldcloaks who followed them at every reclamation site! The Goldcloaks, your Grace, who you know full well are corrupt - owned wholesale by the Master of Coin!”
The court gasped. Littlefinger, to his credit, held back any sign of guilt or fear on his face. “A slanderous claim. A demonstrable lie meant to save-”
To hell with you, Baelish. You underestimated me to your doom.
“Recall, Your Grace, that a number of Goldcloaks have been killed or maimed through handling unstable wildfire without Alchemist supervision. They were attempting to steal it for themselves, under direct orders from Lord Baelish.” His eyes narrowed. “He was stockpiling it to sell at extortionate markups to those whom the Guild denied for cause - untrustworthy houses and organizations with criminal or foreign ties. You will find his ledger inside the false bottom of the second safe in the Blessed Baelor tollhouse office, which can be opened through a Braavosi dial lock and key combination.”
Littlefinger's face blanched.
“You will find the key in the top-right bedpost in his quarters, which can be screwed off,” Jon continued, as the entire court stared at him in astonishment. “The dial code is seventeen left, four right, twenty-three left. You shall also need to arrest his mediator, a man named Deanis, who can be found this hour at the Tipsy Lizard wine house as its overseer. He knows where the rest of the stolen Wildfire has been stashed. The rest of his money has been invested into personal slush funds and investments which can be located with the Madame of the Only For The Night brothel, who has instructions to flee the city the moment anything happens to Littlefinger.” His eyes narrowed. “Her plan is to pretend to flee into Crackclaw Point as if seeking a ship to Essos while doubling back to hide out in the village south of Harrenhal, where her son lives. Don't fall for it. She knows roughly two-thirds of all his bribery targets; she cannot be allowed to escape.”
“A lie!” Littlefinger shouted. “A damnable lie, meant to save his own skin! He plotted this, your Grace, ever since he was betrothed to your daughter! The whole month before, he could barely be found anywhere in the keep!”
“He did nothing but plan for the wedding and the Stark’s arrival!” Renly shouted, drawing his blade. “I know it for a fact, and I’ll have your tongue for the lie!”
“And how do you know this, eh?” Littlefinger spat. “Because you were trying to get him to fuck Cersei?” the court gasped. “To get your catamite Tyrell’s sister on the throne instead of her? Hope that the King’s drunk enough that he mistakes her for his Stark fantasy maiden-”
“ENOUGH!” Robert shrieked, before curling inward, choking on his own tongue with hacking coughs. Stannis, instead, stepped forward. The disgusted sneer on his face could crack a mountain in twain.
“I’ve heard enough.” he drew his sword. Littlefinger’s stance slowly spread wider, his arms going horizontal. “Seize the traitor Baelish!”
Littlefinger bolted towards the side door, just as a pair of Dragonstone guards slammed their spears across the frame. Littlefinger snarled, drawing out a small hand dagger from his belt, and darted away. Jaime immediately bolted towards the opposite door, but Mance Rayder was already there blocking the path. Barristan broke into a dead sprint from Jon’s side to Robert on his throne, leaving Jon barely able to hobble in place. A soldier made to grab at Littlefinger’s cloak, but Baelish spun away, locking eyes at last with Jon.
The Master of Whisperers felt his balance give against his flimsy crutch, and Baelish let out a fierce snarl. He broke into a sprint, charging directly at Jon as he held his dagger in a lunging brace. Jon grimaced, grabbed his cane in a sword grip, and waited for the one moment he could block-
Before an entire squad of Dragonstone soldiers rushed from the side, tackling Baelish to the ground in a cacophony of clattering armor and weapons, audible even over the shrieks and screams of the crowd attempting to flee the Great Hall. Baelish let out a howl, thrashing about as every part of his body was stomped into the ground to prevent his fleeing.
Stannis had not moved an inch from where he was, glaring with hate at the captured man. “I’ve waited a long time for this moment, Littlefinger.” he glanced once at the throne, where Robert was slowly regaining his faculties. The King nodded once, before breaking into another wheezing cough. “By my authority as Hand of the King, I denounce Petyr Baelish of House Baelish, Master of Coin, as an enemy of the Realm and traitor. His lands and titles are hereby forfeit, and his property shall be seized by the state to obtain recompense for his crimes. Take him to the Black Cells. Arrest Grand Maester Pycelle for aiding and abetting a traitor to the realm, as well.”
One of the guards was finally able to wrench Baelish’s hands behind him to be wrapped, and he was hauled up unceremoniously, spitting and howling, his perfectly coiffed hair now matted and in disarray. Jon said nothing as he was hauled across the floor. The crowd had gone quiet to hear Stannis’ proclamation; now, at the end of it all, someone began to clap. Jon’s head lifted at the sound, just as surprised as everybody else seemed, but the remaining crowd seemed taken with the idea, until the entire Great Hall was filled with cheering applause.
This is… unbelievable.
Littlefinger looked around him at the crowds, threw his head back and began to laugh. “A masterful performance, Greystark,” He shouted. “Bravo, Bravo! Yet for an encore, you have not told him the greatest lie of all!”
“Be silent!” The soldier shouted, striking Littlefinger across the face. Jon paled. Littlefinger went limp in the Dragonstone guards’ grips, seemingly unconscious. At the edge of the court however, he jerked up, slamming his foot into the frame of the door, slowing his arrest for a moment.
“TELL THE TRUTH, GREYSTARK!” He howled, above the din, voice breaking as if he was putting his everything into his words.
“TELL THE KING THAT HIS BRATS ARE ALL INCESTUOUS BASTARDS!!”
A gasp, across the entire court. The applause died instantly.
“TELL THE WHOREMONGER KING WHERE HIS WHORE WIFE GOES WITH HER KINGSLAYING BROTHER!”
Jaime Lannister did not even try to challenge the words, but instead drew steel.
“TELL THEM ALL, GREYSTARK! TELL THEM THAT THE KING HAS NO SONS! TELL THEM HE’S A PATHETIC CUCK-”
The arresting soldier punched Littlefinger in the back of the head with a gauntleted fist, and the traitor went limp again. The room seemed to hold its breath for a long, pregnant moment…
Before Ser Barristan drew his blade from his sheath. “Put away your sword, Ser Jaime.” he said, even and low. “We will not believe the words of an avowed traitor from the start. As a Kingsguard, you have that right. But for now… put away your sword, and denounce these claims.”
Jaime stared into the distance for a long moment, before turning back to Barristan. “Denounce my sweet sister?” he said, as the grip on his blade tightened. “And why would I do a thing like that? The brats, I could care less about, But Cersei?” he smirked. “I love her.”
The Lannister exploded into movement, slashing directly at Barristan’s head. The old knight's blade flicked up to catch it, and as the two collided, a high-pitched shriek heralded the descent of madness. A stampede of panicked courtiers rushed forward, slamming into Jon's back as he watched the soldiers of Stannis get swept up. The cane Jon was leaning on gave way, and he toppled to the ground; pain enveloped him, and the Master of Whisperers curled into the fetal position as heedless feet trampled him.
Get up! Get up or we are going to be crushed!
Stars bloomed behind Jon's vision, but by his side, the full waterflask popped the cork free, and slid out in a slick sheen before him. The stampede paused, wobbled, and then toppled to the ground as the ground beneath them was no longer stable. The mob did not stop, but the flow of bodies split apart, like a great Boulder dropped in a river. The moment of peace was all Jon needed as he forced himself to his feet, clutching his bruised ribs.
The battle had gone badly in the short span of time he had been down. Three soldiers in Royal livery had joined Jaime's side, while a fourth lay bleeding on the ground. Three of Stannis’ soldiers were dead or dying, and the traitor Kingsguard had made significant progress in maneuvering himself towards a side door even while locked in battle with Ser Barristan. There was no chance of victory for the Lannister if the goal was a pitched battle against Stannis’ honor guard, but for a flying escape, he was well underway. Robert struggled on the Iron Throne, screaming unholy obscenities as he attempted to pull himself to a stand.
“STOP HIM!” Robert roared. “I WANT HIS HEAD!”
Jaime flicked his blade out with contemptuous ease, running a soldier through the brain and withdrawing in a single motion. His shield slammed against Barristan’s sword, before bashing it upwards to drive the older man back. “I always wondered if I was good enough to kill you,” said Jaime. “The man who ended the Blackfyres, dead at my feet.”
“You’re a decade too young to defeat me, traitor!” Barristan declared, before kicking at Jaime’s knee and swiping at his neck in a single motion. The attack sent Jaime twisting awkwardly, but before the Knight-Commander could capitalize, a sharp spear flashed out at his neck, forcing him a step back. Jaime glanced at the Royal Guard and gave a brief grin, before refocusing on the fight.
Jon watched the fight from across the room, scowling. “Dammit. I need to…” he stepped forward, and felt his body spasm. Without his cane, lost in the stampede, he had no kind of stability at all.
No matter. I’ll just- he reached down to his waist, and felt nothing but air. Wait. my knife. Where is my knife? His head whipped up. He’d given his knife to-
He saw Mance at last, standing in the corner closest to the exit Jaime was fighting for, back fully against the wall. In all of the chaos, nobody there had even clocked his presence. The King-Beyond-The-Wall was staring at the battle with wide, unblinking eyes, before his gaze shifted to Jon. His dark eyes narrowed, as the two locked eyes, while he slowly reached into his motley and drew the length of steel he had taken from Jon's belt.
“No…!” Jon hissed, though he knew he would not be heard. “You fool…!”
The wildling smiled grimly, held it down to his side, and without breaking eye contact wiggled the fingers of his free hand in a sign that Jon recognized as a mocking sign for magic. He took a steady side-step along the wall, eyes locked on the battle in front of him, until one of the traitor Royal Guard turned his back to stab unsuccessfully at Barristan.
With a Wildling yell Mance charged, sinking the knife into the leading elbow of the guard and looping his arm around his neck. The man gurgled, and then flailed as Mance whipped him around as a meat shield to take a blow meant for him, spear running into his belly. A third traitor made a stab at his exposed back. - he never got the chance, as his spear whipped up in his hands and whistled past Mance’s ear, slick with water. Jon gritted his teeth in pain, gripping the weapon halfway across the room with as much focus as he was able to muster.
Mance whirled, grabbing the frozen spear and yanking it from the soldier’s grip, dropping the body as it went. Barristan stumbled back past him, driven back by a stinging riposte from Jaime, as the traitor Kingsguard flashed a taunting grin. Mance glanced at the two, let out another war whoop, and charged. Jaime flicked his blade up, attempting to sever the tip, but the spear danced in Mance’s hands. A hard jab, a spinning slap with the butt end, and suddenly the jester was on Jaime’s side, and Barristan had regained his footing.
Jaime swiveled his head between his two foes, the grin disappearing. His shield inched up, aimed at the Kingsguard, while the blade in his hands fluttered higher towards Mance. Mance let his tongue loll from his face and barked like a dog, And Jon nearly laughed at the unexpected Nightrunner taunt. Mance charged at Jaime, and Barristan moved in sync, walloping the traitor’s blade hand about with wild spear strikes.
Jaime gritted his teeth, took a stance, and charged shield-first into Barristan’s strike. The clash rang loud, and Barristan did not move swiftly enough to avoid taking the metal slab to the nose, sending him reeling. Mance whooped again, stabbing in again with his spear -
Only for Jaime to spin around, trap the spear underneath his shield armpit, and run Mance through in the chest up to the hilt.
“NO!” Jon screamed.
Jaime made to tear the blade out in a swift motion, but a firm hand gripped onto his metal wrist. Mance grinned at Jaime, tongue lolling, as he dropped the spear, and pulled out the dagger once again. He knelt down, dragging Jaime’s blade through his body with a wet tearing sound, and as he did, he gripped the dagger and stabbed it to the hilt through the thin chainmail of the back of Jaime’s knee. Jaime howled in pain, as his leg gave way, a second before a heavy pommel strike from Barristan struck him in the head. Jaime rolled, and fell to the ground helpless.
Jon slumped as he released his mental grip upon the spear, and fell into a stumbling gait as he hobbled as fast as his body would allow to Mance. On the throne, Robert had finally pushed himself to his feet and began hobbling towards the Lannister, fury in his eyes. Barristan, now freed from the duty of taking down Jaime, quickly dispatched the last of the traitors attempting to fight their way free, and reached down to grab Jaime by the arm. As the Kingsguard hauled him out of the pile of bodies to a clear space, Jon slid on the slick blood to Mance’s side.
The King Beyond The Wall grinned at Jon on the floor, a hand clutching his chest as coughs wracked him. “Hell of a fight…” he gasped. “You did well… for a crippled boy. Heheh…”
“Why?” Jon pleaded, hunched over his body on the floor. “You great fool, why?”
“Was tired… of being a slave.” Mance wheezed. “One way… or another… I'm free again.” he chuckled darkly, blood leaking from his mouth. “You said… You said that blonde prick… took down your sire with… an ugly stab in the leg… didn’t you? Thought… he was owed the same…” he laughed wickedly. “Nothing but… crippling blows… eh?”
“Mance, this wasn't…” Jon began, but trailed off.
“You'll… be leaving soon… won't you?” The older man Mance gripped Jon’s collar with the strength of doom. “Promise me…” Mance rasped, coughing blood. “You promised me… Goodbrother…”
He was dying. There was nothing Jon could do. Jon grabbed the Wildling King’s hand and held it close. “I promised,” he whispered. “You, Dalla and the boy. As many times as it takes.”
Mance let out a wracked wheeze, as his free hand went limp. “... Aemon…” he whispered. “Aemon… Steelsong… my son…”
Jon swallowed the lump in his throat. “You, Dalla and Aemon. I swear, Goodbrother.” he lifted Mance’s limp hand, and laid it on his bloody chest. “Leave the rest to me.”
Mance’s lips parted a sliver, as if to speak again. A single breath passed instead, his eyes went dull, and the body went still.
A wild animal scream behind Jon rang out. He only just turned around in time to see Robert Baratheon smash the head of his warhammer into Jaime’s defenseless torso, flinging him like a ragdoll across the floor. The bloody king let out another bloody roar, and dragged the weapon across the floor with a ragged scrape, before lifting it heavily over his head and slamming it down into the Kingsguard.
“NO!” Stannis screamed.
Jaime’s head exploded outward, like an overripe melon bursting, coating Jon with all the inner bile and brain matter that was once the scion of the Lannister clan.
Notes:
So. You may be wondering why this took so long. Long story short, I went back to university. I also broke my arm. I also wildly underestimated how long this chapter was going to be. I also underestimated just how unwilling my muse would be to cooperate in writing some of the scenes I had planned. It’s hard to get into the mental space of someone who is spiraling into the depths when you yourself are on the rise. A lot of that story was split off for the next chapter.
I was intending for Chapter 26 to be the last chapter of this saga, and for that story to reach around 25-30 pages. My most recent count was closer to 40, and I wasn’t even finished yet. Ultimately, I decided to split this into two parts, so that people could actually be fed for once. You can thank BuMingBD for the final push to do that, instead of continuing on with the leviathan ending chapter.
The good news on this means that the next chapter, as well as the next two chapters that follow this, are at the very least more than half-finished. You will not need to wait another year to get a continuation. I very, very deeply apologize for taking so long, and don’t want to have this happen again. This chapter kept growing like an intestinal parasite, and it gave me the discomfort of one.
On to the next. See you in the comments.
Chapter 27: Life Seven: Part 10
Summary:
All you have is your fire, and the place you need to reach.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Deep below the cellars of Maegor’s Holdfast, across the Traitor’s Walk and down through a spiraling web of corridors, a man sat before a wooden door a half-foot thick, studded with iron spikes. The man was old, bent-backed, and uncomfortable in his uniform. From above, a figure approached, torch in his hand.
“My lord…!” The undergaoler reacted. “The prisoner is still there.”
“Of course he is. Where else would he be?”
“I - I merely meant that this is a trivial position that is not worthy of my talents. For a man with a little dragon in his veins to be subjected to drudgery-”
“This place is exactly where your talents have landed you, Lord Longwaters.” Remarked the man. “If you had more talent in you, you would have noticed that the undergaoler ‘Rugen’ in charge of protecting the Black Cells was, in fact, one of the traitor Varys’ many disguises. If the Chief Undergaoler will not utilize half the sense the Gods granted to birds to watch his subordinates, then the Chief Undergaoler will not remain so for very long. Now, open the door.”
Undergaoler Rennifer Longwaters grumbled and moaned, but slowly waddled to the spiked door. With a rattle of keys, the portal opened, and the man stepped through, into the deepest holding grounds of the Red Keep where the sun had not touched in centuries. The air turned chill, and his breath nearly frosted over even though it was the height of summer outside. Down through the passages, past rows and rows of cramped cells, some blocked with thick wooden doors and others with cross-hatched iron bars, he walked. The air stank of stale urine and rotting feces, and a decay that suggested people had died in here and never been cleaned up properly.
From a side cell, a single hand reached out, mottled and weak, clawing at the weak light passing by. “Let me out…” the figure inside the cell moaned. “Let me out…! I don’t belong here… I’m the Grand Maester, dammit! Let me out…!”
The figure ignored the calls, walking further and further down until the voice faded. It wasn't until the very end, the closest cell there was before the stairs to the final floor of the torture chamber ended the walk, that he found his target.
Jon lifted the torch higher over his head, to better illuminate the cell. Huddled against the black walls in a miserable ball, Littlefinger reacted to the light with a pronounced wince, shielding his eyes. “Is it that time already?” said Littlefinger.
“No. It isn’t,” Jon replied flatly. Littlefinger straightened up at that, and turned to face the cage with squinting eyes.
“Well, well.” said Baelish, with a croaking lilt. “Jon Snow, the conquering hero himself. I was beginning to think you would never show.”
Jon kept his face passive at the slight. “Events have kept me busy.”
Littlefinger smirked. “How tragic. Keeping a kingdom together isn’t as easy as I made it look, is it?”
“I would hardly consider starting a civil war against our largest creditor ‘keeping the kingdom together’.” Jon replied flatly. “Tywin has called in all his debts, attempting to bankrupt the Crownlands before Robert can pull together a supply train to support his army.”
Littlefinger’s grin grew deeper, taking a malicious tinge.
“You did this on purpose, didn’t you?” Jon asked. “Borrowed an obscene amount of money from Tywin, knowing about the children. You were planning this disaster for years.”
“Since the day I first saw one of Robert’s bastards.” Littlefinger hissed.
Jon’s eyes narrowed at the clear admission. “The assassins, too. You played both sides. Get Robert killed, and the Lannisters take power with crippling scandal; survive, and you start an international war against the Dothraki, bankrupting the kingdom while the vendetta against the Targaryens. Reveal the children instead as a backup, and Robert charges off like a furious aurochs, burning the kingdoms around him as debt is called true. And all of it would have been blamed on Varys, because he damned himself by believing in Aegon and Daenerys.”
“A truly marvelous grasp of the supremely-” Littlefinger stopped. “Aegon. So that was his ace in the hole. Varys found himself an imposter prince, did he? A backup for Viserys, I presume. I’d give anything to hear how he would have sold that.” The prisoner grinned, teeth shining like a crescent blade in the torchlight. “Kept that name from Robert, did you? You surprise me.”
Jon scowled. “... And the warning you gave me. About Cersei. That was never true, was it? She hadn’t changed her plan at all. You were going to try and create an incident with the wildfire, and blame it on her if I didn’t reveal the children quickly enough.” He lowered down into a squat, staring the traitor in the eyes. “Only your puppets decided they didn’t need strings anymore. Instead of a minor incident, they tried to assassinate the king.”
“And who says that wasn’t my plan, my good lord?”
“Because you don’t know about Wildfire. Don’t know how to use it, or guarantee maximum effect. You couldn’t be certain your finishing blow would work. And the last time you made a strike you couldn’t guarantee a fatal outcome with,” Jon growled, “my uncle split you open from hip to shoulder.”
The mocking grin on Baelish’s face died, as one of his hands involuntarily went to massage the massive, diagonal scar across the man’s chest. Now, for the first time, Jon could see the seething hatred he knew had been there all along.
“You’re a coward, Baelish. You hide behind contingencies and cats-paws to conceal your weakness. How many other angles did you have in mind?”
“Were you truly so poor a student, to not know?” asked Littlefinger, eyes narrowed. “All of them. None of them. I had plans within plans, and agents fighting my own agents to complete their vision of a scheme. Everything danced upon the head of a needle that I alone held.”
“You were nothing but a glorified arsonist.” Jon turned and spat. “Breeding chaos in your wake.
“Chaos breeds itself.” Littlefinger rasped. “It crawls, and grasps, and climbs like a pestilent vine.”
“... Or a ladder,” Jon replied, hollowly.
“A ladder.” The man snorted. “You think you know everything, because you grasped the first rung held out to you by a drunken whoremonger out of barren serfdom.” Littlefinger hissed, standing to his feet as the chains around his ankles rattled. “You look up and see that the climb is all there is - the bare minimum. but you do not see that others have been climbing ahead of you, and are more than happy to kick you off.” he sneered. “I thought I saw something of myself in you, Snow. But now I see that you’re the Spider, all over again. A pity.”
“You talk bravely, for a man in a cell.” said Jon. “Call me Snow again and you’ll regret it. Should I assume you won’t stay there long enough to see a headsman’s block?”
“Would I tell you if I was?”
Jon scoffed once, shaking his head slightly. “No. No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” his lip twitched upwards. “The chief Gaoler, wasn’t it? That cloth merchant that bought the position from you, what was his name…” Jon pretended to think on it, snapping his fingers as the smile fell from Littlefinger’s face. “Oh, it doesn’t matter, really. You won’t be seeing him again, I promise.”
Littlefinger glared, turned and spat. “Well done. You took care of my most obvious route. It wasn’t the last, I assure you.”
Jon felt the sneer on his face. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. I didn’t come here to gloat.” He reached down to his side, grasping a wineskin and popping the cork free. “I came here, at the end of it all, to know why. To hear it for myself, instead of secondhand guessing.” his eyes glanced about. “Because none of that should have happened.”
“Oh, please. ‘It shouldn't have happened’. Spare me.” Littlefinger scoffed. “Are you truly that naive?”
“It's because I'm not naive that I know it shouldn't have happened.” Jon's eyes narrowed. “Nobody who was part of that farce was acting the way they should have. Including you, Baelish.”
Littlefinger didn't respond, but his eyebrows raised in surprise.
“I know you, Baelish. You're an opportunistic coward. You don't put yourself in danger unless you control the outcome. Nothing about that day was set in stone, and your plan had failed. So why were you there, if you were in such peril?”
Jon took a swig of the wineskin. “Asha wasn't there. She didn't even do anything and had immense wealth promised to her in a death-proof contract, and yet she left with the tide, leaving her beloved crew in the lurch halfway across the world. Cersei wasn't there. She's addicted to power, and this is the seat of power. She would never flee the capital, even when - if,” Jon quickly corrected, “it was collapsing around her very head. The Starks weren't there. If my father’s household guard were present, the riots that led to that day would have easily been quelled, and he would have done it, if not to help Robert then because it was the right thing.”
Jon swirled the wineskin around. “But do you know who was there? You, who would flee in a heartbeat to Lysa in the Vale if you felt in danger of a plan backfiring the way the wedding did. Jaime, who should have jumped at the chance to follow his sister to the Westerlands in his role as a Kingsguard. Stannis was there - with a full household guard and no forewarning of his ships docking from the Red Keep’s servants who are to announce such things. The one who should have still been hiding on Dragonstone, instead arrived to inflame it all with his unflinching morality and stony persona.”
Jon’s eyes narrowed. “And the most important one of all… Robert was there. The man himself was there to witness the disaster his family had become under his watch. Robert, who Pycelle himself said had been dosed to the gills with Milk of the Poppy. Robert, who should not have even been able to rise from bed, let alone strong enough to carry that massive hammer of his. Say one thing for Pycelle, say this - the man does not get his dosages wrong. In a world that made sense, Robert would have been unconscious for all of that day.”
Littlefinger stared at Jon silently. His smug expression had slipped, just a little. A small amount of confusion filled his eyes, and a little bit of fear. “What are you saying?”
“I'm saying that I smell a rat, Baelish.” Jon answered. “And for once, it isn't you. Nobody who could have calmed things down was there. Everybody who was guilty and should have fled, didn't. Nobody was playing their part correctly - Jaime doesn’t ‘love’ Cersei, he sees her as half of his own soul, and would never have inconvenienced her by admitting his crime. Everybody lost their mind - you would never announce what you did while you were still in harm’s way, let alone try to kill me in a straight fight the way you did. The LAST thing you would ever do was try to kill a second Stark in a straight fight. Everything about that day was sloppy and wrong, driven all towards a single agenda of war. And I think I know why.”
His eyes narrowed. “A Wisdom went missing the day of my wedding. Hugo. Did you order that?”
Littlefinger blinked. “No.” He answered, simply.
“Was he your Wisdom on the inside?”
“No.”
“Hmph.” Jon took another sip from the wineskin. He exhaled slowly, and looked Baelish directly in the eye. “When did you get the idea for the Green Wedding? And why?”
Littlefinger hesitated, before grinning. “Since the tournament. And since you so kindly informed us all that there were hundreds of untracked bottles of Wildfire. It was simple.”
“Why?”
“... Because I…” He stopped. “Because I…” His voice trailed off, his eyebrows slightly furrowed. Finally, Littlefinger looked up, a sneer on his face. “I wanted to see you humbled. Because I wanted to see the Starks bleed.”
Jon stared at Littlefinger for a long moment, eyes softening for just a moment, before slowly shaking his head. “No you didn't. You just think you did.”
“If you want to second-guess my own judgment, be my guest.”
Jon sighed. “To think… all of this, because of one man’s greed, and ambition.” he lifted the wineskin to his lips and took a long drink. With half the skin left, he lowered it down, glanced at it sideways, and then finally held it out to Littlefinger. The man stared at it suspiciously, but eventually took it, threading it through the bars of the cell as well as his manacled hands would allow.
“A kingdom is nothing but greed and ambition, boy. It’s why you’re a lord now, and not a bastard. You should try it sometime.” Littlefinger lifted the wineskin to his lips, but paused. With deliberate movement, he stepped backwards from the cell doors. “You said ‘your father would have done it’, didn't you?”
He grinned maliciously. With the shadows of the dark cell, it only accentuated the sharpness of his immaculate teeth. “You do realize he died in the fire, don't you?”
Jon went cold.
“You spent all that time working on saving the realm, but never once asked about your own family. I expected better from the Starks. But then, you're not a Stark, are you, Snow?” Littlefinger put the wineskin to his lips and began to drink. One gulp, two, three…
“I warned you.”
Wine began to backfill and splash from Littlefinger’s lips as the wineskin dropped from his hand, as he began to soundlessly hack and cough.
“You may be right,” Said Jon, quietly, as Littlefinger looked up from his hunched position, clawing at his throat. “I may be naive, and believe better in people than I should. But you made one mistake. You assumed I never looked up on the ladder to see those who came before me.” Jon held up his clenched fist, crooking a single finger in a come-hither. From the spilled wineskin, a single thread of wine floated from the stone tiles of the black cells, and began to dance in the air.
Littlefinger’s eyes went wide, bloodshot and glazed.
“I looked up, Littlefinger.” Jon whispered. “I looked up, before you ever thought to look down. I’ve known since before you even knew me that one day I would kill you. And every day before that, you danced upon my strings.” Jon sneered. “There was no poison that day. It was me. You lived for as long as I allowed you, and not a minute more.”
Littlefinger tried to scream, but nothing but soundless bubbles escaped his throat. He lurched forward, grabbed the bars of his cell and shook the door, rattling it on its metal hinges. but these were the Black Cells - nobody other than Jon could hear it. The man’s eyes began to well up with tears, veins bulging blue and aggravated around his neck.
“I could say this is for any of the countless people you have destroyed in King’s Landing. Any of the names you’d actually remember ruining. Or I could say that this is for following through on the idea that monster planted in your head. But at the end of all things, I’ll tell you the truth instead.” Jon squatted down, matching Littlefinger’s slow slump to his knees.
“This is for my family, you son of a bitch.”
Littlefinger screamed without sound, gripping onto the bars for dear life. He lunged through the cage with a single hand, scraping the air just in front of Jon's nose. The Master of Whisperers stared back implacably, watching as the man slowly, ever so slowly slumped downward onto the floor until finally he went limp and unmoving. His one arm remained lodged in the cage door up to the shoulder, holding the body up at an angle. From the corner of Littlefinger’s lip, a single drop of drool fell, without a trace of the wine lodged in his throat.
Jon stayed there in that squat, staring with a blank expression at the fresh corpse. “Sansa… I know you had yours… but now, wherever you are… accept my vengeance, too.” he whispered, before at last unclenching his fist. The wine turned back into a liquid, and splashed down into a muddy puddle underneath his mouth. “You knew.” He whispered, dully.
… I did, Lodos whispered.
“When were you going to tell me?”
When you woke up from your concussion. I didn't have the chance before the throne room. And after that, you had to be strong. There was a long pause. He is the reason Robert is alive.
“... The body you wouldn't tell me about.” Jon mumbled, feeling a spreading numbness from his chest. “They all fled to bring his bones to Winterfell. They… they didn't even wait to see if I woke up.”
Stop it. You know why. The Starks might possibly be safe from Bloodraven’s puppeteer, but Jory isn't. He would be in command, with Lord Stark dead. Lodos whispered. There will be time for this later. Now, we must focus.
Jon closed his eyes, took a shuddering breath, and stood. “Thank you, Littlefinger,” he murmured, “for your final lesson. For teaching me… that I was wrong. Varys believed in reclaiming the Seven Kingdoms. I… can work with that. You believed in only exploiting it. When it comes to a choice between you and the Spider… you die first, always.” The quiet blackness of the dungeon heard his words and made no response, as he turned away and stepped away.
“Let me out… Let me out…! For the love of the gods, let me out of here…!”
They would not find Littlefinger’s corpse for days.
“It's war, then.”
Stannis tossed the raven letter upon the table. The letter was written in a maester's hand, but the author had titled it from ‘King Tywin Lannister the First’.
“He knows we are coming for him.” Renly stated flatly. “It will be only a question of whether his letters or ours reach the other kingdoms first.”
Jon folded his arms, staring at the declaration. “He has to know he will not win.” He said quietly. “His loans will only go so far to gather allies.”
“The North and the Reach will not even need to be commanded to call their banners.” Stannis nodded. He leaned forward across the Small Council table. The table seemed so much larger than normal, with only three figures around it. “They have deaths that will be answered for, from the Lannister's schemes.”
Jon twitched at the mention of Northern deaths. Renly looked up at that, and winced. “My apologies, Jon. Did you know?”
“... I did.” He answered. “I will mourn in time.”
“Your father was a hero.” Said Renly. “If Robert had died, Joffrey would sit the throne.”
“No he wouldn't.” Stannis sneered. “I wouldn't allow it.”
Renly turned to glare at Stannis. “And when were you going to tell him you knew his children weren't his?”
“When Lord Arryn was able to find more of Robert's bastards.” Said Stannis. “And then Lord Arryn died.” His jaw flexed. “And when were you going to tell him?”
“I didn't know they weren't his!” Renly protested. “I only suspected when I saw Mya for the first time. If you had just stayed here instead of running away, none of this would have happened! You could have put her and Edric together and made your case!”
“Edric?” Jon repeated. “Who is Edric?”
“Another bastard of Robert's.” Stannis replied, somehow even more sullen than normal.
“Lives in Storm's End.” Renly continued. “Everybody knows who his father is, but he won't be acknowledged. It would be… embarrassing.”
“To my wife and her family, you mean.” Stannis folded his arms tightly. “Robert doesn't have the capacity to be embarrassed.”
“Stannis…” Renly whispered, glancing at Jon.
“I won't hold my tongue. He's one of us now, is he not?” Stannis gestured with an open hand to Jon. “He gets to hear what he married into. He gets to deal with all the obstacles his good-father left for his wife.” he glanced at Jon. “You should be lucky the Tullys were half a continent away, or else he might have tried to sleep with Lady Catelyn's sister at your father's wedding, too.”
“STANNIS!” Renly shouted. Jon narrowed his eyes. It was not Stannis’ nature to voice his complaints so openly; his quiet stoicism and filial piety were his defining characteristics. The lack of an itch meant nothing, anymore; this was yet another example of how the Raven could subtly twist men’s minds. This was how everything fell apart, in those days so long ago.
Behind him, the door to the small council clattered and creaked open. A clatter of metal on stone echoed out, and Jon turned his head to see three figures shuffle in. Robert was there, golden death mask still hanging from his face, but leaning on the shoulder of Mya instead of his warhammer. A step behind, Hallyne followed, eyes locked on a great metal sheath slipped over the king’s flayed leg. From the top of it, the boar’s gray hide peeked, sealed across the inflamed red flesh with honey and wax. The Alchemists, Jon surmised, had been hard at work with what anti-burn techniques they knew.
Renly stood to his feet, as did Stannis. “Ro- Your Grace. How are you feeling today?”
“Agony.” Robert growled. The mask across his face set his voice echoing, wobbling from some unseen wound. Mya glanced up at her father, worry writ plain on her face. “The pyromancers know their work.”
“You honor us, your grace. The Guild knows the treatment of burns through hard experience.” Hallyne said quietly, bowing his head. “The disgraced Grand Maester was brilliantly creative with his use of false skin, but would have not prevented the wound from fouling without our salves.”
Robert hobbled slowly to the table, glancing across the remainder of his council, before weakly slumping into his seat. His blue eyes, the only thing visible, scanned the figures of the Small Council as they retook their seats. “So. The only ones I have left are the ones who can't leave. Blood.” He waved his hand dismissively, and Hallyne bowed low before quickly disappearing.
“Your Grace, a letter-”
“I know what that is.” Robert snapped at Renly. “The brotherfucker patriarch. Wants my head, does he?”
“He…” Renly paused. “He declared independence. Refuses to accept you as king.”
“He likely ran out of favors he could call in to prevent your response.” Said Jon, chin resting on a platform of his folded hands. “Money cannot protect you without a veneer of legitimacy, and you are still king.”
“Nobody will side with the enemy of the Demon of the Trident, you mean.” Said Stannis. “Mercenaries and vagabonds, but none with titles to lose.”
Robert just sat there for a while, breathing heavily and manually. “Doesn't matter.” He said, at last. “I've already called the banners. They know to meet at Harrenhal. We march from there, and drive them into the sea.”
“And who will lead?” Stannis asked.
“I will.”
“Father please-”
“You're in no condition to lead a campaign!” Renly protested. “You need to-”
“I NEED TO SEE THAT BITCH DEAD!” Robert screamed. “That whore, that fucking whore! She would have-!” He heaved over, hacking out a cough. Mya immediately grabbed him by the shoulder and leaned in to pull the mask from his face, but Robert roughly slapped her hand away.
“I'll not rest until I see it myself.” he gasped. “I need it. Her and all her infernal spawn!” He pointed a finger at Jon. “You, too. You ride with me.”
“No!” Mya stood. “You're not taking him!”
“He rides with me. End of discussion.”
“Your Grace… Robert…” Jon said, with a soft placating tone. “Be considerate. Our wedding was interrupted with the disaster. Surely you can-”
“You ride. With me.” Robert growled. “I'm not letting any of you schemers out of my sight again. You hid Varys from me. Dead for three months and you did not say a word, while I slept waiting for a dagger in my chest. No more. You pick up a blade, or I have the marriage annulled.”
Mya’s hand flew up to her mouth. Renly’s eyes went wide. Stannis went even more stone-faced, sitting ramrod straight in his seat. And Jon scowled deeply, as he focused on the feel of his own skin and noted, with dark emotion, the complete lack of an itch.
“... Very well. If this is a command.”
“Jon!” Mya whirled around, mouth wide.
“I am left without choice, love.” Jon said flatly. “His Grace commands I lead, so I must.”
Mya glared between the two, before standing to her full height. “Then I'm going too.”
“Mya-”
“Lady Greystark, you are the only legal child of the King's body, and a woman besides.” Stannis responded immediately. “The battlefield is not a safe place.”
Mya glared. “I am not some fainting city waif, uncle. I am a daughter of the mountain. I was raised strong.”
It doesn't matter if you're strong, Mya, it's war!” Renly replied. “if something happens to all three of you, the kingdom will collapse!”
“You dragged me from my home, all that time ago, when I wanted to stay, and now you think you can make me watch the life you forced on me walk away to die?” Mya glared. “I will be with my husband. I refuse to be moved again.”
Stannis turned to stare pointedly at Jon, the muscles in his jaw popping out. Jon, instead, focused on Mya, taking her in with all of his senses. Her mouth pulled thin in a scowl. Her eyes, always so blue. Her stance, standing proud and strong over the fluttering wisps of King's Landing.
The entire time, Jon took her in, without even a hint of warg-sense. More than that, though, was how he was not surprised by it at all. This was just who she always was. This was what she truly believed.
She would have made a fine Free Woman, Lodos whispered. Val would have loved her instantly.
Jon closed his eyes, and slowly let out a breath through his nose. “My wife has made her decision. I'll make preparations.”
“Jon!” Renly hissed. Mya whipped her head to Jon, eyes wide with surprise, and delight. Stannis straightened up.
“Robert, you cannot allow this.”
“And who are you to tell me what I cannot allow?” Robert growled.
Stannis went stone-faced. “You cannot leave the realm without an heir.”
“I have one, idiot.” He growled. He lifted a finger. “You. I gave you Dragonstone for a reason.”
Stannis didn't say anything for a long time. “... No.” He said, quietly.
“What?”
“You didn't… ‘give’ me Dragonstone.” He said, slowly, as if he wasn't sure of what he was saying. “Dragonstone, a worthless fortress on a barren rock in the middle of the frozen sea. You forced it on me.” Stannis took a sharp breath. “I didn't want it. You may as well have given me Harrenhal for all the good it's done me.”
Robert glowered at Stannis, bloodshot blue eyes set deep behind his mask. “You've never once complained.”
Stannis froze. Jon glanced between the two, and reached out to the older man. “Today is the day we air it all out.” he said, hand resting gently on his lower arm. “This family has bitten their tongues for too long.”
Stannis looked down at the hand on his arm, traced it up to Jon's face, and slowly nodded. “... If daughters are defying fathers today… then younger brothers will defy elder brothers, too.” Stannis’ expression of stone cracked, just a little, and emotion poured forth at last. “I have done everything I possibly can to serve well, and been insulted for the effort. I saved Storm’s End, and you took it away from me in favor of the boy who cried until he passed out to surrender.”
Renly's head whipped up at that. “You-!”
“Watched my soldiers eat their own boots to give you their last crust of bread.” Stannis spat, his tone finally rising out of a flat controlled monotone. “Watched them stand the walls after not eating for days, because they knew their duty, while you, an ignorant child, cried about trading our HOME for a plate at Mace Tyrell's table. And then after we win the war, what happens? I am sent to a barren rock, and you take a seat at Mace's table anyways. You'd sell him our home for his son because you have no idea what better men sacrificed for it.”
“Don't you DARE bring Loras into this!” Renly shouted. The youngest brother slammed his palms against the table, rising to his feet as his expression twisted in fury. Stannis’ lip curled into an open-mouthed sneer, his upper teeth glinting.
Robert slammed his fist down, setting the table rattling. “Renly.” he growled. The youngest froze. “What's this about the Tyrells?”
“You didn't know?” Stannis said cuttingly, but Robert's thick finger flew up to point at the man's face, and anything else died unspoken. The finger slowly moved through the air to point at Renly.
“Renly. Explain. Now.”
A horrified expression was frozen on the young Baratheon's face. “I… Loras is…” Robert's glare didn't abate, until Renly at last swallowed thickly. “I… I love him. I want nothing else in my life.”
“Hmph.” Stannis snorted.
Robert stared silently at Renly, squirming in place like a child. “How long?”
“... Ever since he was my squire.”
“But that was-” the King went quiet, as the quick math of years played out against sixteen-year-old Loras. A groan escaped him, and a hand went up to pinch at Robert's nose, but came to a stop against the Golden death mask. “Others take me…” He cursed quietly, the troubling numbers left unspoken.
It was at that moment, Jon realized just how young Renly really was. Compared to his elder brothers, the youngest Baratheon could only have been a year or two older than Mya. The way his face reddened in shame at Robert's reaction was much the same as he would have at his own father's disappointment. If he remembered their family history well enough, perhaps Robert was as much of a father as Renly remembered.
“... Stannis is right.” Robert said at last. “Storm's End must belong to a Baratheon.”
“I… I…!” Renly’s face flushed. “It's MY HOME TOO, DAMMIT!” his fist clenched. “You can't just - cast me away because I'm inconvenient!”
“And when are you planning on having a child, hmm?” Robert growled. “Keep the line going.”
“He was going to get you to marry Margaery.” Jon said quietly. Renly whirled around, betrayed. “Appoint one of your spare sons and marry a frigid woman. If that didn't work, he would have married Margaery himself. She is apparently aware of her brother's state. If his willpower failed, he could appoint one of your bastards.”
“Edric.” Stannis answered, eyes narrow.
“I didn't know that name before today, but yes.” Jon nodded. “Pick one appropriately young enough and say they were his instead of yours.”
Renly stood there, hands clenched. His face twisted in anger. Robert stared at him from across the table, unblinking. The silence grew longer and longer. The expression on Renly's face grew uglier. Robert kept staring.
“SAY SOMETHING, DAMN YOU!” at last, Renly roared. “I DIDN'T NEED YOUR INDIGNATION BEFORE AND I DON'T NEED IT NOW! YOU THINK YOU CAN JUDGE ME FOR LOVING ONE MAN!? YOU, YOU WHOREMONGERING PIG!? FUCK YOU!”
He whirled on Stannis. “AND YOU!” he shrieked. “YOU SANCTIMONIOUS BASTARD! YOU ARE HOLDING A GRUDGE FOR FIFTEEN YEARS AGAINST A CHILD! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO REACT WHEN CRESSEN TELLS ME WE CANNOT BURY OUR DEAD BECAUSE WE MIGHT NEED THAT MEAT!? I WAS SIX, YOU HEARTLESS BLOCK OF STONE! IF YOU CARED ABOUT YOUR OWN FAMILY LIKE YOU CARE ABOUT MY FUCKING CASTLE YOU MIGHT HAVE MORE THAN A SINGLE FUCKING MUTILATED DAUGHTER TO SHOW!”
Now, at last, Stannis stood. “How dare you.” His hand went to his belt where a dagger hung, drawing it in a single motion.
“Finally!” Renly spat, as he drew a dagger of his own. “We cut the bullshit at last!”
“NO!”
“Stop this madness!” Jon screamed alongside Mya, leaping in front of the two brothers. Stannis grabbed Jon by the collar, attempting to wrench him out of the way but struggling. Just as Jon began to wrench back and reach for the dagger…
A low, rolling laughter. Robert was leaning back in his seat, laughing with a malicious tinge. “Good. Good.” He declared. “This is what we needed. This is what we are. This hate, this rage.” He stood, leaning forward on the table. “This is what we should have been all along.”
Stannis did not so much as relax so much as roll back on his heels. “What are you talking about?”
“Ours Is The Fury. Those are our words. That is our way.” He lifted a finger to point at Renly. “I needed to see it. See that the fire burned in you the same. You're still a Baratheon, perversions or no. We need to make them remember that.” The purple of the Bondfire candlelight flickered across the expressionless mask. “Renly. You're going north.”
“I am?”
“He is?”
“I need eyes. Ned… he…” Robert paused. After a long moment, he thumped the table with his fist. “There's something up there. Beyond the wall. Something truly evil, the thing Mance was running from. I need you to deal with it. I don't have anybody else who can.” He leaned forward. “When you get back, Storm's End will be Stannis’.”
Renly grew red. Stannis’ straight-backed stance weakened, and his dagger-hand lowered a fraction. Jon glanced between the two. “... And where will Renly reside, then?” He asked.
“In the west.”
Renly blinked.
Robert's expression was hidden, but Jon could imagine that his lips were drawn back in a snarl. “I am going to eradicate the Brotherfuckers.” He rasped. “And when I do, they don't get to choose their next king. I will have the Tyrells put their armies to police their traitor neighbors, and you get to command that army as regent.”
Renly froze. “The… the Tyrell army.”
“Until the day you die.” Robert declared. “After your death, you lot,” and here he waved dismissively at Jon and Mya, “get to deal with who ends up hereditary lord. I'll make the Tyrells pick someone from their house to join you as co-regent. A spare son, perhaps, to keep your boots on their traitorous necks and the mines working.” Robert lowered his gaze, so that his bloodshot blue eyes were visible behind the mask. “Are we understood, Renly?”
Renly trembled in place. “I…” a quiet sniff. A hand went up to rub furiously at his glassy eyes. When it lowered, his face was locked in an expression of determination. “I understand, your Grace. I will not fail you.”
Jon, meanwhile, was staring at Robert in confusion. What did he mean, 'spare son'? Loras was the only Tyrell son there was, he thought to himself, because that was how Bronn became Lord of Highgarden. Then he dry-swallowed in fear. He was wrong - there was another, older son. Willas. He had completely forgotten about him - and so, apparently, had everyone else. Willas had disappeared off the face of the earth in his first life, and nobody batted an eye. He couldn't even begin to understand what was behind that - but one day, he would find out.
Stannis stared at Renly with an inscrutable expression. “Moving from Storm’s End to Casterly Rock. A generous offer.” He said, simply. “And all it requires is to defeat a keep that has never once lost in a siege.”
“That will be my job, not yours.” Robert growled. “You stay here, Stannis. Keep this place in line. Get a small council in place. Get your family moved to Storm's End.” The king paused. “Move Edric to King's Landing. Just in case.”
Stannis, after a moment, bowed his head. “At once, your Grace.” He straightened. “And what of Dragonstone?”
“What of it?” Robert rumbled. “It's for heirs, isn't it? I have one right here.”
Mya froze.
“Robert…” Renly trailed off.
“Are you sure about this?” Stannis asked. “The last time a king tried to name a woman to the throne…”
“I'm already at war with my own kingdoms.” Robert turned away, lifted his mask slightly, and spat. The fluid that came out onto the floor was tinged red. “The Dance holds no threats to me. Any man who compares my daughter to the dragonspawn Rhaenrya will answer to my hammer.” with that, he lifted his finger to point at Jon. “The first son you have that lives is a Baratheon. The rest are Greystarks. Am I clear?”
“I… I…” Mya stammered.
“Am. I. Clear.”
Finally, Jon stepped in, wrapping a comforting arm around his wife. “This is a lot to spring on us all at once.” He said, keeping his voice as level as he could, hiding the sudden pounding in his chest. “Can we not… take some time to think on this?”
“... Hmph.” Robert straightened. “You have until the end of the war.” He lifted his arm to wave at his two brothers. “Come closer. I ache…”
Jon quickly wrapped one of Mya's hands around his waist and guided her away. “Are you alright?” He whispered.
“I… he wants to make me queen…” she gasped, tightening her grip. “I don't want to be… I barely know how to be a Lady, how can I possibly…”
“I know.” He murmured. “I know. This thing he's offering… I don't want it.” He turned to glance at the three brothers, huddled around the edge of the table. “We are going to figure this out, Mya. It's going to be alright.”
Mya looked up at that. “Jon…” she fumbled at the neck of her dress, reaching into some hidden pocket. “I… I meant to give you this. It was for you, but everything just- it just became so crazy.”
“What is it?”
“It… it's something I…” she trailed off. Her eyes went glassy. “Something I haven’t had… gods.” she rubbed at her eyes fervently, sniffling. Jon immediately pulled her closer so her head rested on his shoulder, as she began to tremble. “It’s all just hitting me. We all just… oh, gods.”
“Sssh, shhhhh.” Jon soothed, gently stroking her hair. “It’s going to be fine,” he lied. “We’re going to get through this. One day, this will all just be a song.”
Mya sniffled, rubbing her nose against his shoulder. Jon pointedly ignored the thought of having to clean the snot off later. “Tell me you love me.”
“... I love you.” Jon said, after a moment’s heartache. It hurt the most, realizing that he wasn’t lying.
Mya quietly sobbed into his shoulder for another few moments before drawing away. Red-eyed and hair flying every which way, she let out a single steadying breath, before grabbing Jon’s head and pulling him in for a firm, quick kiss. “Thank you. Gods, I must look a state.”
“You’ve seen me at worse.” Jon replied wryly, to which Mya let out a single wet laugh.
She took several more steadying breaths, before closing her eyes. “I… I had something I was supposed to give you. From… From Thoros.” At Jon’s shocked expression, she smiled without her eyes. “I know. I haven’t… I… hooooo~. I haven’t told you about it because…”
“Because it reminded you of the wedding.” Jon said quietly. “I understand.”
She nodded stiffly. “He gave it to me right before. Said it was important for you. That you’d understand.” her lips thinned to a line, which then twisted into a moving wave as she fought back emotion. “He seemed… resolved. Like he knew something was going to happen. And then he…” her eyes welled up with tears again. “He shoved me into the corner. I didn’t even get the chance to scream, and…!”
And Thoros of Myr burned. He burned, yet did not burn - for the wildfire killed him, yet left his body intact enough to bury. Something wildfire will never do on its own - had his body burned the way it should have, he would have been nothing but smoke and ash, and Mya would have burned next. Jon saw the grave himself - marked with a wooden plank, temporary only until the stonecutters could give him something worthy of the martyr and the miracle that saved the new crown princess.
Mya tried to say something else, but seemed to choke on the words, and instead reached inside of her clothes again to bring out a single roll of parchment. Jon gently took it from her, stepped half a foot away, and unrolled it - to see immediately a familiar, thirteen-pointed symbol. Jon froze. It was the same parchment from the night he had spoken to Thoros. Slower now, he unrolled the rest. The symbol that Thoros had drawn was still there, with the vacant center - only, it wasn’t vacant anymore. A pointed ellipse had been drawn there and filled in black. Now, the symbol looked like nothing so much as a narrow cat-slit pupil. A singular, chained eye.
“What the…” Jon began, but stopped, as he unrolled it fully. Written across the bottom of the scroll, in soaring High Valyrian, were five words.
IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT.
The parchment crumpled in his fist. Jon’s jaw locked, breath seething between his teeth. He wrenched away from Mya, hobbling away to the nearest pillar. Immediately, Mya was back at his side. “What was it?” She asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Get away from me.” he spat.
“No.” she shook her head. “I am your wife, Jon Greystark, you don’t get to push me away.” her arms, so deceptively strong, wrapped around his waist. Jon wrenched at her, but she refused to let him, as she half-helped half-pulled him around the pillar out of sight. “Talk to me.”
“I…” Jon’s shoulders dropped, as he threw the paper at the floor weakly. His legs gave out, and the two slid to the floor. Mya’s arms moved from his waist to his head, cradling him to her bosom, as Jon finally gave in and began to weep.
“So that’s the Golden Tooth…” Jon remarked flatly, steadying the stallion underneath his legs.
Robert snorted derisively. All around them, the army was deep within the process of scoping out the perimeter for a siege camp. “Bastard of a location, and make no mistake.” said the King. “No wonder they say that to reach the Lions, you need to break their Tooth.”
Jon slowly pulled out a Myrish lens, stretching it out and lifting it to his eye. The ancestral castle of House Lefford was a small stone keep, but perched directly at the point of control over all passages through the otherwise-impenetrable hillroads of the Westerlands. All around, watchtowers manned with archers kept vigil - one particularly bold young man, Jon could see, was dry-firing his bow at their camp as though feathering them with imaginary arrows.
“Strong walls. Staggered vantage points. Unfavorable terrain.” Jon remarked. “This is not a fight I would willingly take.”
“No luck on your alternate route?”
Jon grimaced. “No, your Grace. My deepest apologies.” He knew, vaguely, the history of the War of Five Kings; he knew that Robb had reached the Westerlands without ever even attacking the Tooth by means of a secret mountain path. How he’d found said path, however, was a complete mystery. He could only assume Grey Wind had found it for him; Ghost had no such luck.
Robert didn’t bother replying, but instead turned to face the castle. The sun gleamed across the skin of his golden death mask, now integrated fully into his battle helm of great stag antlers mounted into the steel, wrapped around an angular crown relief. “No matter. I was hoping for a fight.”
“Your Grace…” Jon began.
“No negotiations.” Robert repeated. “No mercy asked, none given.” the horse underneath him began to stamp, setting his heavy plate armor clattering. “They know they are the only thing keeping us from the Westerlands. The brotherfuckers are diverted to the south by the Tyrells, and have a forced march to the north ahead to keep your brother out once he’s mustered. They’ll fight us to the death to keep a third army away.”
“At least let the men prepare a siege, your Grace!” Jon protested.
“And sit here for months on months? Shall we bring banquet tables and taunt them with roast boar, the way Mace did to my own Storm’s End?” Robert replied acidly. “No. We shall break the Tooth.” He reached down to his waist, pulling a banded horn off of its strap. Taking a deep, raspy breath, he put it to his lips and blew a single bellowing note.
From behind, a loud ‘THWACK!’ answered, and Jon turned just in time to see a wooden barrel not unlike the ones they had stored their perishables in go flying over his head. The barrel flew directly at the foremost defensive tower, hitting it square and shattering. The wood fragmented and split away, as a great green mass splattered all up and down the impact.
Jon’s eyes widened. “Others take me…”
Robert blew the horn again, this time longer. Overhead, the catapults that had trailed behind the army began launching their payloads at every single stone structure, towers and walls and gates alike. Wildfire coated all across the Golden Tooth keep wherever the barrels landed, unlit only by the grace of the heavens and sheer luck. Nothing of Robert’s expression was visible except his mouth, drawn back like a snarling wolf, as he lifted a knife-hand high in the air.
I can't let this happen.
Before he could drop that hand, Jon bolted, spurring the stallion underneath his legs into a wild gallop towards the Golden Tooth. Behind, he could hear Robert shouting something, and ahead, he could hear the Westermen’s panic. Jon ignored it all, charging up the hill towards the keep proper. His knuckles burned white on the reins; his vision fuzzed with black specks as rage fought with his panic. Up the hill he charged, faster and faster, until he could finally see the glint of arrowheads from the Golden Tooth murder holes.
“PEACE!” he shouted. “Peace!” his attention slipped just for a moment as his eyes flashed white, and the stallion drew to a hard stop. “Listen to what I am saying to you, as an envoy!” he shouted. “I am the only thing keeping at bay the deaths of you and all your families in agonizing flame! Bring Lord Lefford that we might speak!”
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?” shouted a man on the walls.
“That is Wildfire covering your keep!” Jon shouted. “Bring Lord Lefford! We only have so much time!”
As the army began the descent down the River Road, the panicked tension in Jon’s head began to dissipate. The gates to the Golden Tooth lay wide open, as soldiers collected the weapons of the surrendered fortress - each weapon handled gingerly and one at a time, to prevent even the slightest spark from lighting. Across the path, manned by a half-dozen lesser alchemists, large wooden tubs filled with water and violently frothing were set aside for every captured soldier to bathe in.
As Jon carefully pulled the fume hood over his face, a great beaked contraption reserved for only the most perilous steps of Wildfire production, he approached the tubs. Hallyne stood by one, a large bottle in his hand, as a soldier pulled himself out of the water. With a practiced hand, he tilted the bottle so that a single drop fell into the water. The water hissed and boiled the second it made contact. “Next!” he called, waving at the surrendered soldier. “Deep breath, submerge completely, do not open your eyes or unplug your nose, and count to fifteen. At fifteen, immediately exit or your skin will begin to burn away, and do not inhale the fumes when you surface! Now!” the soldier gulped, took a single step, and cannonballed into the solution.
Immediately, the tub exploded in a furious foaming, as the wildfire contacted the solution and immediately rejected it. The soldier burst to the surface again after fifteen seconds, screaming in pain. “FUCK! The water is boiling!” he shrieked, rolling himself over the edge onto the dirt.
“Get up!” Hallyne barked. “You’re not done! Run down the hill and join the sand pit. Every inch of your clothing needs to be coated in abrasives. Scrub yourself until you’re raw, or you’ll still be in danger. Move!” the soldier whimpered, but pulled himself to his feet and limped down the hill towards the dozens of Lefford soldiers already there. Hallyne took a deep steadying breath, pulling at his face with an exhausted hand, before turning to Jon. “Merciful Seven, Jon. I’ve never treated so many people in a single day.”
“Do we have enough to save them all?” Jon asked, glancing around. The day was growing partly cloudy as it progressed, just enough to partly obscure the sun and keep the temperature pleasantly warm. If it had been a true Summer’s day, they may not have even had this much time to recover from such Wildfire use; the ambient temperature would have set things off by itself.
Hallyne laughed once, lifting the bottle and giving it a slosh. “The Oil of Abjuration, you mean? We have an entire half-wagon of it. I thought I was being overcautious - that I was dreaming of a great failure on par with Aegon the Fourth’s false dragons. That we’d crack a bottle from overpacking and the acidic properties would eat through the floors. I never dreamed we could use Wildfire’s very presence as a threat. His grace was wise indeed.”
Jon felt himself go cold. “So Robert commanded you to bring this much Wildfire? He wanted this from the start?” He stepped close. “And you ALLOWED it?”
Hallyne turned to face Jon, his great hooded beak looking like some folklore nightmare. “If you are suggesting that we would deny the king anything he requested…”
“This is WILDFIRE, Hallyne!” Jon hissed. “We have turned a corner! We have redeemed the Pyromancers! Bondfire has made our order the darling of the Seven Kingdoms, and you would reduce us once again to purveyors of weapons of mass destruction!? I thought you were here to treat his wound, not… this!”
Hallyne stared at Jon. “You truly don’t understand, do you, Wisdom Greystark?” he said. “This is… indeed, our redemption. The Alchemist’s Guild has reached heights not seen for generations. Everything I am, I have put into this - I will not be the Grandmaster who tells the King ‘No’. not now. Not after we have finally reached our crowning glory!”
“But-” Jon stopped. “... Wisdom?”
“Aye.” Hallyne nodded. “You heard me correctly. Wisdom. If we were not at war, you would have been honored with a grand ceremony and a feast. When we return, we might have that anyways. But this is war. Who knows if any of us will make it back.” the Grandmaster placed a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “You’ve earned it, Jon. More than anybody. You understand our art as much as any man twice your age - more, even, with your understanding of the magical theory. All you lack is practical experience, and that will come with time. If you weren’t in line for the throne, you might even take my place, one day. It’s because of you that we are standing here.”
“But…” Jon hesitated. “But we shouldn’t be. None of us should be. We should be at King's Landing, deciphering the Golem texts. Perfecting Bondfire. Learning the secrets of the Dragon Roads.”
Hallyne stared at him, head tilted slightly. If Jon imagined just a little, he could see the sad smile on the Grandmaster’s face underneath the mask. “None of us should be here. This is a foul war, make no mistake. But none of it was started by you.” he shook his shoulder lightly. “It’s not your fault.”
Jon flinched. “I…” he hung his head. “I thought we were better than this, now.”
Hallyne gently shook his shoulder. “We are, Wisdom Greystark. We are.”
“GREYSTARK!” Boomed a voice from across the hill. Hallyne straightened.
“His Grace.” He glanced about. “You had best not keep him waiting. If you wish to speak more, the guild is at the very end of the supply train.”
Jon couldn't help the grimace as he turned away from the Grand Master. “His Grace is not letting me leave his side. If I could leave the command tents, perhaps the wildfire wouldn't have come as a surprise.” He lifted a hand to wave. “We will speak at the end, then.”
“Wait!” Hallyne called, catching Jon by the sleeve. “Before you go. If we cannot speak again, then I want you to know…” he reached into his robes, and pulled out a rolled slip of paper. “A raven came. From the Wall.”
Jon went still. He knew what that meant.
“He…” Hallyne swallowed. “He forgave me. He forgave Glythard.” the old man trembled, just the smallest amount. “I just… Wanted you to know. Thank you, Wisdom Greystark. From the bottom of my heart.”
“... No. Thank you.”
He finally turned, and began the trek up the hill. King Robert had not dismounted from his horse on the top of the pathway, and though Jon could no longer see his expression underneath the golden death mask, the shout told him everything he needed to know. At last, he reached the king, and knelt before him. “Your Grace.”
The Stag King stared at Jon. “You disobeyed my command.”
“Your Grace,” Jon said slowly, “with greatest respect, I cannot disobey a command that had not yet been given.” He did not lift his head. “The threat of Wildfire was enough to convince them to surrender. It was not necessary to follow through.”
The sounds of pained screaming from people bathing in the Oil of Rejection echoed up the path, as silence came between the two. Jon did not lift his head as the sound of hooves clipped to his side. And though he flinched, he remained silent still when the cold sharpness of Robert's warhammer dropped to brush against his cheek.
“This will not happen again.” Robert growled. “I've had enough of your independent streak. You obey me. Understand, Jon?”
Jon shivered.
“Understood… good-father.”
It was dark, all around him. So dark that he could not see the ground he was walking upon. He held up his hand to stare blankly at his fingers, and through the gaps he could see a figure staring back at him. A figure, dressed in brown burlap robes, with a crown of Weirwood embedded in his skull.
“What…?” said Lodos, not from within his head but from in front of him. “What is…”
He tilted his head an inch, allowing the figure to leave his sight for just a moment; when he looked back, he was gone. Instead, a single candle was lit, burning in the liminal dark. Without considering it, he walked towards the candle, and as he drew closer he could hear a voice begin to sing.
“The Father’s face is stern and strong,” sang the voice, as a figure slowly walked out from the dark. “He sits and judges right from wrong.” Leyton was there, with a bleeding seven-pointed star upon his forehead. “He weighs our lives, the short and long,” he crooned, before holding up a pair of scales, “and loves the little children.” The candle died, and Leyton fell, disappearing into the dark as if he had never been.
“The Mother gives the gift of life,” sang a voice behind him, and as he whirled around Cersei stood there, illuminated by another candle with hands cradled around three golden-haired children. “And watches over every wife.” her eyes narrowed, nails clawing into the mops of hair. “Her gentle smile ends all strife,” she sang, with a fierce scowl, “and she loves her little children.” the candle died, and Cersei fell into the dark. The three turned to face him, revealing their faces to be sun-bleached skulls.
“The Warrior stands before the foe,” rumbled a familiar voice, as he slowly turned to face the King of Westeros. Robert stood there, a single candle illuminating his unburnt body. He was covered in heavy plate armor, ornamented with wild Stag antlers, and covered from head to toe in bloody gore. With mighty hands, he lifted his weapon, the oversized warhammer. “protecting us where e'er we may go. With sword and shield and spear and bow, he guards the little children.” He swung the weapon out into the dark, and was retaliated against in kind with an invisible blow that caved in his chest with a single strike. Robert fell down, into the dark, and the candle snuffed out.
A candle flared to life, illuminating Ros, caked in the thick makeup of a whore. “The Crone is very wise and old,” she crooned, as she picked up the candle and lifted it to her face, “and sees our fates as they unfold.” The makeup began to melt with the heat, and her clothes with it. The worldly disguises faded, revealing just how old the courtesan really was, until even the flesh began to dribble like wax. “She lifts her lamp of shining gold to lead the little children.” She slowly leaned forward to the candle. With the last breath she had before her lips melted away, she blew out the candle, and fell.
“The Smith,” sang a voice, as a brilliant purple light filled the air, “he labors day and night, to put the world of men to right.” Hallyne sat before an open flame, face cast with violet and indigo as he cradled a flickering spark. “With hammer, plow and fire bright,” the guildmaster sang, and shoved his arm into the bonfire, “he builds for little children.” the spark took at last, as it consumed his body entirely, until he too fell through the dark, and swallowed him whole.
“Stop…” he gasped. “Please…”
A soft, sad voice hummed a wordless tune. He slowly turned, and saw a great metal birdcage, illuminated by candlelight. “The Maiden dances through the sky,” sang the woman in the cage, dressed in fine court silks and glossy hair, as a pair of mountaineer’s pants and donkey’s bridle sat just outside her reach. “She lives in every lover’s sigh. Her smile teaches the birds to fly, and gives dreams to little children.” Mya looked up at last, and gave him a soft sad smile. The chain atop the cage snapped, and she fell, unable to escape. The last candle flickered out.
But the singing had not finished. From behind, a new, old voice began to hum. He turned around, slowly, and saw him standing there- the man he knew best of all, in colors he had never worn before in any life. He’d killed his love before wearing those colors - he’d chosen exile and death over wearing those colors. “The Stranger leads the faithful home,” he sang, stepping forward out of the flickering candle’s light. “Across the fields and through the gloam. So that no one may walk alone…” he reached out, and gripped his shoulders tight. “He guides the little children.”
With those words, his double pulled him close into a tight embrace. He opened his mouth to whisper a word into his ear, but the voice that came out was not his own. “Don’t look down.” the unfamiliar man stepped away, and gave him a strange, toothy grin. Then, in defiance of all those who went before him, he did not fall, but instead began stepping away into the liminal dark. The shadows lengthened upon his face, looking more and more like gaunt bone, until the red and black faded into nothing.
Finally, he let out a slow exhale - and then a trio of voices began to sing. “The Seven Gods who made us all,” they sang, and their words shot a lance through his heart. He whirled around - and there they were. Two young, beautiful, sweet children, and a woman, heavy with a third. “Are listening if we should call,” they continued, and he nearly lost the strength in his legs before bursting into a run, “so close your eyes, you will not fall, they see you, little children.”
He swept the boy and girl into his arms, laughing joyfully, squeezing them so tightly it felt as though he might choke the life from them. Then, at last, he turned to the woman, who held open her arms. He rushed her, and buried himself in her embrace. He buried his head in the crook of her neck, and remembered just how she smelled after a day’s work. He could not help it; tears began to flow. “So close your eyes, you will not fall,” she crooned…
“You… I finally found you.” said a new voice. He went cold. “Please… help us. My name is Meera. Please… come back, to the south.”
“They see you, little children.”
“Only you can save us, Jon… no. Aegon.”
Jon’s eyes shot wide open, staring down into the abyss. The bodies were still falling, and as they fell, they forged a chain of links one at a time, until it stretched across the dark. But that single chain was not enough because there was not enough, and from the dark, it shifted, until the great eye focused on him IT WAS FOCUSED ON HIM IT COULD SEE HIM DON’T LET IT SEE ME -
His head was wrenched back by a cold grasping hand, and the woman stared at him with a wide, vicious grin and blank white eyes. “I see you, little children.” a sharp pain-
Jon woke up screaming.
Beside him, a soft body jerked awake, and Mya flinched upward. “What…? What is it…?” she asked blearily. Her hand instinctively went to Jon’s shoulder, holding him gently.
Jon stared at the bland walls of his tent, slowly getting his breathing under control. “I…” he murmured. “I don’t know. A bad dream.” he pulled at his face. “It’s… already gone. Don’t worry.”
I remember it.
Jon went cold.
You and I don’t share dreams, Lodos whispered. The fact that I was there means it wasn’t a normal dream. We… can talk about it later. Worry about Mya first; you startled her.
Jon grimaced in the dark, before reaching over and gripping his wife by the shoulder. “I’m alright,” he whispered, pulling her in for a brief one-sided hug. “Go back to sleep.”
“No… no…” she mumbled, brushing messy black hair from her face. “I’m awake now. Look, the sun’s coming up.” Jon followed her finger to the edge of the tent; underneath the edge of the canvas, what should have been nothing but blackness was instead a bruised shade of blue; even before his eyes, it was lightening with the faintest shade of orange.
“Others take me…” Jon rubbed his eyes, annoyed.
“Too early to do anything productive, too late to go back to sleep.” Mya smiled wearily. “Care to waste some time?” she pulled at the hem of her nightgown suggestively.
Jon laughed softly, once, and kissed her briefly. “Not this time. We might wake someone. Thank you.”
She pouted theatrically. “Since when does a boy your age say no?”
Jon snorted. “I will take that as a compliment.” She rolled her eyes, but watched with a small smile as he pulled himself from the covers and wandered over to the corner of the tent. With a slow hand, he picked up his lute, plucked a few errant notes, and began to tune the sound.
Mya lay there for a while, watching him fiddle at the head, before speaking again. “You’ve gotten much better. I think he’d be proud.”
Jon stopped tuning, letting a high E chord ring into nothingness. “I hope so,” he said quietly. “When next I meet Mance, I’ll have to show him the fruits of his labor.”
She stared at him for a long moment, a hand going to her stomach as his eyes went back to the lute. “Fruits of your labor…” she repeated. “Aye. it will be nice to show.”
“Hmm?” his head popped up.
“Nothing.” she shook her head. “I simply wondered… if you had thought of a song. For when we all meet Mance again, one day.”
Jon sat there quietly. “No. I haven’t.” he replied. “We’ve all been… busy.”
Mya’s expression drew thin, before slowly nodding. She pushed herself up to a seated position and quietly cleared her throat. “Well, there’s a girl living high-” she sang, before breaking into a cough.
“Mya?” Jon immediately pushed forward.
She waved her hand, as the cough trailed off. “Water.” she rasped. Jon immediately reached for the waterskin and handed it to her, as she took a short swig and swished it around before swallowing. “Aaah… I should have thought of that.”
“Mya… have you been writing a song?” Jon asked, amazed.
She turned to him and grinned crookedly. “Well, I couldn’t let you be the only one with musical talents.”
Jon grinned. “I thought you said you had a voice like a strangled cat.”
“I’ve been practicing!” she whined. Jon only smiled wider, and eventually she huffed and threw her pillow at him. “Prat.”
Jon laughed as the feather pillow caught him in the cheek and limply bounced off. “Go on, then. I want to hear.”
Mya pouted at him, only for a moment. Then she straightened up on the bed, clearing her throat. “Well…” she hummed. “Well, well, well~...” another sip from the waterskin. A quiet breath in… and Mya began to sing.
Well, there’s a girl living high, who used to be free,
No worries or care, no fears she would flee,
She was strong, she was bright ‘till a man came at night,
And said we’ve come to take peace from you.
For a man from afar, with a crown on his brow
Had known her good heart and laid claim to her now
Little more than a child, she was tricked and beguiled
‘Till she left behind all that she knew.
Oh, where did the roses go? And why do they bloom for men?
Love is the reason and love is the crime, for they will never bloom again.
So the girl found her voice, in the world full of pain,
And swore she would never be swept off again
Stand firm like the stone, one step from the throne,
And stand tall for the heavens so blue.
With the heart of a king lies the fate of a girl,
And she watched as the banners of war did unfurl,
Her soldier, her knight, rode forth in the night
While her teardrops did fall like the dew
Oh, where did the roses go, in this land full of nothing but sorrow and sin?
Love is the reason, and love is the time, when they one day will bloom again
She watched as her love rode on and away,
For the call of the king told him he could not stay,
So she smiled in her heart, as her world fell apart
That she’d loved a man so fierce and true.
Mya held the last note, long and low, quietly allowing it to fade away with her breath. Jon simply sat there, wide-eyed and jaw agape, as his wife slowly brought her hands down to her lap. She sat there, breathing deep and slow… until a half-hiccup caught her and turned into a hacking cough. Jon couldn’t help the surprised laugh that escaped him as Mya blocked her mouth with one arm and panickedly thumped her chest with her other. “Water,” she rasped.
“It’s right next-” Jon stumbled out of his chair and scuttled to her side, grabbing the waterskin and holding it up to her mouth. She quickly necked the offered opening, swallowing before one last cough could spew it everywhere. “Alright?”
“Augh.” she panted, thumping her chest one last time, before falling over. “Throat’s on fire.”
“A spoonful of honey will fix that.”
“I’ll get that at breakfast then.” she huffed. “I ruined it. Never doing that again.”
“I loved it.” Jon whispered. “I loved every second of it.” Mya lifted her head at that, eyes wide, as Jon slowly crawled over to her. “Did you write that? About yourself?”
“I…” Mya closed her eyes. “Yes. I did. But that is just for us. If I made that public it would scandalize. I want to make a few changes… so that I can perform it for my father. And say it is… about Lyanna.”
Jon’s breath stopped. Mother. “My… my aunt.”
Mya looked away. “... you know how dark he’s grown. The hate. I thought… he needed something to remind him of better days. When he had something he loved.”
He never loved her. He loved the idea of her, what she represented - being brother to Ned Stark. Your song is true to her more than you can ever know.
“It… it was silly. I just…” Mya sighed. “Is it wrong that I want to remember him differently? He forced his way back in. He could…” her expression grew guilty. “He could have the bloody decency to be a happy man, if he wanted to be my father again.”
Jon stared off at the tent walls, over her shoulder. He took a slow, steadying breath. “I… don’t think he’s been happy for a long time.” he responded. “But you met him… in a better place than he's been in a long time. If you need to remember him… remember him during the tournament.”
Mya didn't give an answer for a long moment, before stretching over to place a gentle kiss on Jon's lips. “Thank you, Jon. For being a good man.”
The prince-consort smiled. “even with every choice in the world… I would not choose to be anything else.”
Mya smiled, as she leaned on his head. “... we really should start deciding where we will build our keep.” She murmured.
“Do you really intend to tell him no?” He whispered. “You're the crown princess, now. Simply say the word to your father and you might be queen.”
“Mmmm. I don't like it.” She murmured. “Too much pressure. The lords hated Rhaenyra when she was legitimate. They will despise a bastard queen; there would be war as soon as my father passed. I'd rather just be a Greystark.”
“A queen would be able to travel, though. Have you ever seen the Giant of Braavos? It's inspiring.”
“You haven't either, Ser.” She bumped against his shoulder, setting him rocking. “Don't pretend you're more traveled than I am.”
Jon smiled, staring at the walls of the tent. “Together then. Once we are safe. Once all of this is over-” He lifted his eyes to Mya, and met her blank white gaze.
His heart leaped into his throat as he instinctively leaped away. The eyes did not fade.
The fear shifted into hate. “Get out of her.” He snarled.
“So it was you, after all, and not your father.” Said the Raven. “When your Usurper did not die, I knew. Your maester revealed the truth at last.”
“Pycelle knows nothing.”
“He doesn't. But a bastard boy would not have asked his maester of ancient K'dath.”
Jon froze, before feeling a swell of emotions. Luwin. “So. K'dath is real, after all.”
The Raven cocked her head. “... R'hllor would know better than to invoke that blasphemous city. More fool you are, that you seek its boundaries.”
“A fool that has struck you down twice now.” Jon stated flatly. The Raven stiffened. “And will do it again, because you did not learn your lesson.”
The Raven stared at Jon, motionless. “... What have you done?” he whispered, through Mya's lips. “You cannot stop what is to come. You know this, R'hllor.”
“The Red God doesn't give me orders, corpse-eater.”
“The Ink is dry.” The Raven snapped. “You cannot change what has already happened. You failed. There are no second chances.”
“You allow me nothing.” Jon glared. “It was you that day, wasn’t it? You and your subtle warging. You can barge into a man’s head, but he’ll know, and he’ll fight for his sanity. So instead, you slide in and plant thoughts. Tell Cersei to run instead of return. Trick Stannis into returning, thinking he has a chance now at the throne.”
Mya’s lips twitched into a smirk. “You think I lurk behind every misfortune in your life?”
“Don’t try to trick me. I know when these people are out of character, speaking someone else’s lines. Jaime would never put his sister in jeopardy, for that would jeopardize the other half of his soul. And yet he put her on death’s door with simple words. Your words.” Jon lifted a finger at the Raven. “You can’t look backwards anymore, and so you got sloppy.”
The Raven stared at Jon, blank and pupil-less.
Jon felt his anger flash hot. “But you didn’t care, did you? It was sloppy, but it got results. Because that’s all you care about, isn’t it? You want Westeros ravaged by war, and without a clear leader. You want us all to die to clear the way for you and your dead men. Your treachery dooms all life as long as you get to rule the frozen ashes.”
Now, Mya's face twisted in hate. “You speak blasphemy with your liar's tongue.” Mya's voice echoed, power thrumming through the air. From her nose, a thin trickle of blood started to well up. “You know what they did. Climb down from your lofty throne of ash to judge me, if you even can.”
“If I’m going to sit here and be lectured with sinister-sounding bullshit,” Jon snarled, “I’d rather it be Lady Black than a shriveled corpse like you.”
The Raven froze. His white eyes went wide. For the first time, an expression of fear crossed his face. “You LET HER OUT?” Mya screeched. She lunged for Jon’s neck, but he nimbly recoiled back and up onto his feet, letting her tumble to the ground. “You maniac. You’re actually doing it.” Mya stumbled to her feet; now her tears were welling with blood, at the corners of her eyes. “You will ruin everything. I won’t let you.”
Jon stared at his wife, hate in his eyes. [“Coward.”] He spat, a single sound like the crack of burning wood.
The Raven recoiled back as if he had been struck. “You-!” A flash of panic shot through the pale white eyes, and a single twitch, Mya slumped to the bed. Jon was there instantly, catching her as she fell. The daughter of Robert Baratheon looked up, staring with weak eyes the color of pure sapphires. “What…? What was I…?”
… There it is again, Lodos whispered. Something odd just happened, for only a moment.
“Shhh…” Jon said soothingly, pressing his lips against her feverish forehead. His thumb brushed against her nose, wicking away the blood before she could notice. “It's alright. It's alright, now. You're safe.”
“But, Jon …”
“It's alright.” After a moment of hesitation, he pulled her close, embracing her tightly. He let out a long breath; from his lips, a single spark drifted for a moment, before guttering out. “This will all… be over soon.”
The day finally came.
Jon had never seen Casterly Rock before now. He had thought that the stories of it were mere exaggeration - tales told of a mighty castle simply exaggerating the surrounding locale. They weren't. The ancestral home of the Lannisters, said to be unsinkable, was carved out of and into the very innards of a lone standing mountain. Towering higher even than the wall, spreading for miles along the coast, with a powerful ring fort standing upon the very peak, the Rock had crenellations and defensive positions hewn into its craggy side all the way down. Jon had never seen a more impenetrable fortress in his entire life.
Robert sat atop his stallion, glaring at the mountain fortress with hate. The king was dressed in full war regalia, gilded antlers flaring out from his ornately-crowned helm. Every inch of his armor was glittering with black and gold ornamentation. Even his flayed leg was in its proper sheath, instead of the more usual pigskin cast - and Jon could attest to how the king had howled in pain even as he ordered the servants to not stop dressing him.
“Your Grace…” Jon began. “Why are we here? The siege has only just begun. We would be better served supervising the catapults.”
“The catapults were set up overnight.” Robert rasped.
Jon did a double-take. “What?” he asked, surprised. “Then…”
Robert slowly reached down into a nook of his saddle, lifting free a slip of paper no wider than a twig. “The traitors want to parlay.”
Jon stared at the paper, unblinking. “And you accepted?”
“They’ll see us from up there. I hope whoever they send falls and breaks their necks on the stairs.”
“But… this is good news.” Jon replied, a flicker of concern in his tone. “We can end this without having to risk the mines.”
Robert snorted. “The mines.” he lifted his finger, pointing at the distant sky. “You know what that is, Jon?” Jon followed the finger to where he knew it led. There, just visible over the ‘head’ of the Casterly Rock ‘lion’, a bright burning red star began to streak across the sky.
“That,” Robert declared, “is a wandering god. The Seven in their bright heavens never came down to care what we think, so a new god comes to us at the climax of my vengeance. I’ll not repay them the courtesy by finishing this underground. I want them to see this.” a deep rumble echoed through his armor. “I want them ALL to see this.”
A chill ran down Jon’s spine. “Robert, what the hell are you talking about?”
Robert lowered his head, letting his finger drift down to level with his eyes. “Look.” he said. The gate of Casterly Rock was cracked, by such a small amount you could only see it through the light contrasts. “They finally got out.”
From the Lion's Mouth, a figure waving a white flag emerged. A very small figure even from this distance, Jon realized. “Is that…?”
“Hmph.” Robert snorted. “Bold of Tywin, to send his only remaining son to parlay with us alone. He's a fool if he thinks we will let him leave.”
A rock settled in Jon's stomach. “Your Grace… I think you are mistaken. Last son or not… Tyrion Lannister is the last person Tywin would care to keep out of danger. If we were to kill him, he might send us a case of wine.”
“Then why?”
“... Because Tyrion wants his father to approve of him.”
Across the field, the dwarf approached, waddling forward with the oversized white flag waving in the wind. The closer he got, the more Jon could see how keeping it upright was causing Tyrion to struggle. At last, he reached their side of the field, and with a feigned nonchalance, he cast the pole down to the mud, and took a careful even breath. “Your Grace. Lord Greystark. I have come to discuss terms on behalf of my lord father.”
“Hello, Tyrion.” Jon replied. Tyrion glanced up at him, face blank. Jon slowly lowered himself from his saddle, bringing himself more to the dwarf’s height.
“Lord Greystark,” said Tyrion. “It has been some time.” he glanced between the two royals, before seeming to decide something. “You've grown somewhat since last we met.”
“Not too much, I hope.” Said Jon. “Tailoring is expensive enough when it is only your width and not your height that changes.”
“I was speaking in more of a metaphorical sense,” said Tyrion, the corner of his mouth twitching, “but yes, I do seem to have to strain my neck more than I remember to meet your eyes these days.” Any more words he was going to say were cut off by the clack of metal hooves on stone, as Robert's stallion pounded the ground.
“Speak the words of the head brotherfucker, or leave.”
Tyrion’s expression twisted into a sneer, before smoothing back out. “Lord Tywin recognizes Robert Baratheon, King of the Seven Kingdoms. He recognizes the grievance that has led you to his realm, and wishes to express that it grieves him tremendously that his daughter has shamed our family, and the entire realm, thus. However much death your armies have caused the Westerlands, Lord Tywin is willing to negotiate to bring an end to the conflict.”
“What does he offer?” Jon asked quietly.
“Lord Tywin offers the surrender of his armies, and of Casterly Rock. He is willing to send a declaration to the realms that you fought a just war against him, and that no further repercussions should be chased. He…” Tyrion trailed off. His face squeezed in pain. “He has offered to remove himself, and every person of his line, from the seat of Casterly Rock. Kevan Lannister, my uncle, would take his place as Lord of Casterly Rock.”
Jon’s jaw dropped slightly. Tyrion hadn’t even done anything, and yet Tywin was unilaterally removing him from the succession. Even when he was the only son he had left, he refused to allow him to rise. Tywin really, truly loathes him.
“In exchange,” Tyrion continued softly, “Lord Tywin demands the safety of all members of his family and the ability to discipline them as he sees fit. You shall not have any of them to punish. In addition, he demands the blood price be paid for the death of Jaime Lannister, who was unjustly murdered without option of ransom. He demands the release and return of all captured lands and keeps to their rightful liege lords, and the blood price for any slain noble scions from the course of the War.”
“Jaime Lannister attacked the court when confronted with his crimes,” Jon said, frowning. “His life was forfeit even without discounting the treason of incest.”
Tyrion closed his eyes at the word ‘incest’. “It is because his crimes are indisputable that we are having this discussion,” he said quietly. “My brother… should have known better, in all respects. And my father regrets that he did not see this sooner. But even with his crimes, The Warden of the West has lost a son. And he demands recompense for that, at least.”
“And what of the abominations?” Robert growled. “What of them?”
Tyrion flinched. “They… are being kept under house arrest. No decision has been made as of yet. Should a deal be struck… they will not inherit anything, but you will not have them.” he hesitated, before pulling a folded parchment from his shirt. “This is a letter to… to Jon.”
“To me?” Jon repeated. There was a pain in Tyrion’s eyes as he nodded slowly. With a quick glance at Robert, Jon walked forward, leaned down, and took the letter from the dwarf’s hands. He unfolded it, and immediately knew that Tyrion had lied.
Father,
I know that I can never call you that again, because mother that woman did something even the gods cannot forgive. But I want you to know that the only thing I ever wanted in this world was to be a son you were proud of; to live up to your legend and your example, as warrior and king. Grandfather does not know I am writing this - they have not decided whether we are to be exiled, split apart or killed. My only salvation is the Wall; Myrcella may escape into a Motherhouse, or the Silent Sisters. Tommen hasn’t stopped crying; he’s the only reason they can’t decide. That woman will never see the light of day again.
We miss y
I am so sor
Please tell Jon to take care of the pup. She was the best the kennelmaster had. I regret every day that I was not at the wedding to present her myself.
Your s
Y
Joffrey B
Joffrey Lanni
Joff
Jon felt his heart clench; felt all the words that were left unspoken. It felt like something he could have written, the day he found out his father had lost his head on the steps of the Sept of Baelor. All the scratched-out lines, all the trembling words written by an unsteady hand. What irony, he thought, that the one who did that deed so long ago was capable of feeling such emotion himself.
“What is it?” Robert growled.
Jon hesitated for a long moment. “A letter from Joffrey.” He said at last. “He… asked me to take care of the mastiff pup. He said he wanted to present it in person.”
“Would that the abomination had,” Robert shifted on his warhorse, setting the metal leg cast screeching. “Better men than that thing were incinerated that day. Do not worry. I had the bitch drowned before we left.”
“You-!”
“That was not your decision to make, your Grace.” Jon interrupted, before Tyrion could say something rash.
“No?” the golden death mask glowered down at both of them. “Am I not within my rights to wipe your disgusting house and everything that comes from it from the face of the earth?”
Tyrion’s expression went stony. “You won't wipe Casterly Rock away.” He declared, firmly. Clearly he had expected this. “We could feast every day and still outlast your Storm's End. We are giving you a chance to walk away with your honor intact.”
Robert glared at the dwarf. “Until we break through underneath your beds and slaughter you in them.”
“Go ahead and try.” Tyrion said, eyes pinched. “Nobody but a Lannisterman can make their way through the mines. Every corner is a chokepoint. Every pick hole is an ambush. Every ladder is a murderhole. Your men will be stacked like firewood by the time you are driven out.” the dwarf clenched his tiny fist. “We gave you a chance to still have seven kingdoms at the end of this. Bent over backwards. And you refused us. Our next terms won’t be so generous.”
“... Terms?” Robert snorted. His gaze lifted from the ground, staring at a certain point. “You think I was here to listen to terms?”
“You have no other choice.”
The Burned Stag stared at the impenetrable tower of stone that was Casterly Rock. Jon thought those words had finally broken through the haze of vengeance, until he heard the king begin to hum. The Lannister dwarf immediately recognized it, as his eyes went wide.
“And who, are you, that gold lord said, that I must bow so low…” The king sang, in a low bassy rumble. “Only a king of a different court, that’s all the truth I know…”
Oh, no, whispered Lodos.
“Your Grace…” Jon hissed. “Robert, you can’t-”
“A throne of gold, or a throne of swords,” the King sang, louder, “a strong crown needs strong hands! And mine are strong, much more than yours, to drive you from my lands!”
Tyrion whirled around wildly, looking with terrified energy for the trick. His eyes landed at last where Robert had been staring, only just before Jon did. Robert had been staring at an old man, waving a green and gold flag in the distance. That old man, Jon realized with horror, was Hallyne, standing next to a wooden stand that marked an underground air vent.
“Robert wanted you to bring this much Wildfire? And you ALLOWED it?”
“And so he spoke,” Robert roared, “And so he spoke, that lord of Casterly, and now the flames leap o’er his hall, with not a soul to see!”
Hallyne lifted a lantern in his hand, glowing with the purple tinge of Bondfire, before unceremoniously dropping it down the vent. The old man immediately began to run, as fast as humanly possible.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?” Tyrion screamed. “THOSE VENTS GO ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM! WHAT HAVE YOU-”
The wooden cover disintegrated as a geyser of green Wildfire spewed its deadly payload hundreds of feet into the air. The land RIPPLED underneath their feet, as whole squadrons were lifted some feet above their neighbors. All across the plain, vents hundreds of yards away from each other began geysering Wildfire, splattering the ground and any soldier unfortunate to be close. The entire cliffside rumbled, and buckled, and roared. Waves thrashed against the shore, and toppled back out into the sea.
The ground shuddered, heaved, and bucked wildly underneath their feet before finally, inevitably, splitting wide. The miles-wide spiderweb of mine tunnels underneath their feet collapsed, every vein of unmined coal and pocket of flammable gas igniting as one. The very land itself disintegrated, as geysers of furious Wildfire spewed forth like dragon's breath. Screams echoed from within the towering mountain, as the tunnels underneath Casterly Rock vomited the deadly payload directly into the impenetrable fortress mountain. Smoke and virulent green flame spewed from the air vents drilled all across the range - the rock cracked and fractured, as the superheated air blasted through the halls. The ground trembled and split apart, as the explosion became an earthquake. The fissures raced most fiercely along the first vent, chasing after Hallyne. The Grandmaster took one look behind him, and let out a horrified shriek as the ground underneath him opened up and swallowed him whole.
The Baratheon army screamed in fear; horses reared and bolted, throwing their riders and trampling them; Jon’s own steed reared, neighing wildly, before bolting into the distance. The siege weapons groaned and cracked as the very firmament gave way. But nothing was louder to Jon than the wordless, keening wail that came out of Tyrion Lannister's mouth, as he flailed mindlessly at the sight of the destruction of the Rock. He didn't even see or hear Robert Baratheon kick his stallion into a gallop until the warhammer slammed into his back. The Lannister dwarf went soaring through the air, limp as a ragdoll, arcing into the air and slamming into the ground to tumble for yards.
“NO!!” Jon screamed. “HOW DARE YOU!”
Robert reached up to his golden death mask, pulling it away from his face and dropping it to the ground. Where once his face was defined by his great bushy black beard, now it was defined by the inflamed pink burns that reached from his chin all the way to his eyebrows, leaking pus from wounds that refused to heal. His icy blue eyes were bloodshot and wide, and his face was frozen in a wide grin that only made it obvious that the right half of his mouth was missing his lips.
“Burn…!” Robert hissed, the source of his lisp now apparent as his lipflesh wobbled uselessly. “BURN! BURN THEM ALL!”
The mountain of Casterly Rock shuddered, shedding massive fragments of rocks as they fell and crushed the field below. The earth shuddered, heaved, and cracked. The screams inside grew even louder, carrying across the field. Finally, a great CRACK! like the snapping of an enormous bone rang out, and the face of the mountain began to shift. The keep on the top of the mountain, ancestral home of the Lannisters, tilted, flopped, and fell to their deaths as the miles-high mountain cracked in half. Millions of tons of rock toppled, sliding as an avalanche to crash into the ground.
The soil gave way, and fire opened up to consume everything. Tyrion's body fell into the flaming dark, and was seen no more as an impenetrable cloud of dirt and fire consumed everything.
All that Jon could hear, as Casterly Rock was destroyed in a single blow, was the screams. Screams so similar to his wedding that his body froze. The air grew thick and hot, and he began to choke on the ash and dust. Toxic gas burst through the air, tainting everything, burning his eyes and nose, as he collapsed to the ground. All he could do, for the longest time, was clench his eyes tight and hold his hand to his mouth while trying not to choke. All around him, the sounds of secondary explosions of gas and coal popped and shook him like a leaf. The only thing he could hear over it all, was the wild, uncontrolled laughter of Robert Baratheon.
Finally, Jon could bear it no more. He lowered himself to the ground, crawling on all fours, backwards along the ground. He could hear Robert still standing there, laughing, but he moved away, out of the cloud, until at last he was able to breathe. With a weak, scrambling push, he became upright once more. He pinched his red, enflamed eyes open once, and beheld the destruction.
The scene had descended into a vision of the Seven Hells. Split in half, the interior of the Rock looked so much like a cross-section of an anthill lit on fire. Tiny figures wreathed in flame raced across, barely visible by the naked eye but for the Wildfire highlighting them. The battlefield was no more, as the catacombs of the Casterly Rock mines opened wide to spew their deadly contents out to the world. Veins of unmined minerals burned, melted, disintegrated and vaporized as the very roots of the world turned to hateful emerald flame.
It was unadulterated destruction and death, on the scale that Jon had only seen once before. His body froze once more, his limbs refusing to obey his commands. In his ears, the sound of bestial roaring echoed, amidst the phantom sound of ringing bells.
“ARCHEEERS!” Robert roared, unmoved from his position in the dust cloud, as he lifted his hammer in the air. “LOOSE AT WILL! TREBUCHEEEETS! RELEASE!”
The world held still for a single moment, Jon not comprehending what he had just heard. Then the volleys started. Arrows flew through the air, landing in the innards of the exposed Casterly Rock. Flaming boulders followed behind, slamming into the half-stable floor separations. Stone floors cracked and fell away, as the people inside fell to their fiery deaths, screaming in horror.
“No…” Jon breathed. “Stop…”
Jon! Snap out of it!
His body jerked, like a burst of lightning, and the phantom smell of the sea wafted across his nose. “HOLD!” Jon screamed, whirling around. “CIVILIANS IN RANGE! HOLD! DO NOT LOOSE!”
The head of a hammer came to rest against Jon's chest. “What do you think you're doing?” Robert hissed. A crusted welt opened again with the speech, as a trickle of blood and pus leaked down his cheek.
The audacity of the Thrice-Drowned infused him, and instead of freezing, Jon snarled, pushing the hammer away. “You…! You murdered everyone! Men and women who had NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY OF THIS!”
“They served the brotherfucking lions!” Robert shot back. “Their lives are forfeit, along with everything related to them!”
“RELATED!?” Jon screamed, backing away with an accusing finger. “So you would kill every blonde man in the Westerlands!? Every fucking descendant of Lann!?”
“I AM WITHIN MY RIGHT!”
“YOU - YOU ARE A MADMAN!” Jon screamed. “MADDER THAN AERYS! MADDER THAN VISERYS! MADDER THAN ANY DRAGON THAT LIVED! YOU ARE A DEMON!”
The sound of the battle faded away, as Robert's eyes blew wide. “How dare you.” The eyes of the entire army were fixed upon them; they seemed to have finally realized the confrontation taking place.
“YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE BETTER!” Jon roared. “Better than the madman! Better than the dragons! Why should anybody have fought against each other if you weren’t going to change things!?”
“It was YOUR family that burned, boy!” Robert shouted back.
“And now you’re burning the Lannisters! And everybody who ever touched their line!” Jon threw his arms wide, gesturing wildly. “Tell me what makes you different from the Mad King!”
“He's a rotting corpse survived only by his whore of a daughter!” Robert shouted. “And I am the King of Westeros!”
Jon went cold. The words came unbidden. “... A walking corpse. Legally survived only by your bastard daughter.” he lifted a gauntleted hand to his forehead, as a broken laugh escaped him. “Of course. A land ruled by corpses, destined to be conquered by corpses. I should have known.”
“Bite your tongue.”
“I should have known.” Jon moaned, rising into a scream. “I should have known! The moment you ordered the assassins on Daenerys, I should have known. The Demon of the Trident. It wasn’t just the Targaryens - Elia and Aegon and Rhaenys, Daenerys and Rhaego! Women and children, all! It wasn’t enslaving Mance that broke you - the Raven didn’t put that in you - it was that Ned Stark CAUGHT YOU DOING IT!”
“If you think I’ll shed tears for Wildling savages or golden brotherfuckers, Greystark,” King Baratheon growled, “you’re not as smart as I thought you were.” his eyes shifted, glancing all about at the multitude who were watching them, before his face hardened. “I’ll give you one more chance to repent. Bend the knee and beg forgiveness for your insult against the crown.”
Jon stared with wide eyes at the disfigured man that was his Goodfather, and then at the shattered form of the Rock. behind him, new barrels of Wildfire were being catapulted into the exposed halls. Burning bodies fell from the side, as screams echoed over the distance. The smell of charred meat drifted on the wind. Somewhere in the distance, a bell from Lannisport rang. For a moment, the roar of the wind sounded like the beating of mighty wings.
“Thank you, Jon. For being a good man.”
IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT.
Jon felt something crack inside him, and a rising chuckle escaped his lips. “Aha… ahahaha. I guess I am my mother’s son, after all. Ahahahaaaa… aye. And my father’s, too. The wheel spins on.” A hand went to his mouth. “So that's how it is. He can't plant a thought you couldn't believe yourself thinking. You're invested in this, but distraught over defying Ned. A good man would not have believed in the first place.”
“What are you playing at, Greystark?” Robert Baratheon shouted. “Bend the knee!”
“... No. No, I will not.” Jon gripped the handle of his greatsword, lifting it off its hooks and onto his shoulder. “I will never kneel to the hellsbound. I refuse to abide by evil. Lesser, greater, middling… the degree makes no difference. I will destroy all demons - be they men or monsters, I will smite them wherever they are. Aye. Let the world know that those are House Greystark’s words: Strike Down All Demons.”
He closed his eyes, letting out a long, rattling breath. “For the girl who bore me, that chose defiance and death rather than submit to you. And for the man that sired me, who fought against you until his last breath…” He opened his eyes, hard and resolute. “Aye, and for the man who raised me, my uncle, Eddard Stark, who chose love over revenge and took me as his own instead of handing me to the man who smiled at the corpses of babes.”
Robert stood there, frozen. His eyes bulged out, going red and bloodshot. A single tear welled up and fell down his cheek, as his jaw went slack in shock.
Jon lifted his greatsword from his shoulder, braced the long handle against the inside of his forearm, and pointed with one arm the huge slab of metal directly at the King’s head. “MY NAME,” he shouted, amid the burning and screaming and dying, “is Jaeherys Targaryen the Third! Son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, who you murdered! Adopted son of Eddard Stark, who you betrayed! Rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms, which you usurped! And upon the blood of the innocent spilled here and before by your words and deeds, I swear to you and before all the Gods: I will never serve you again!”
He sneered, and gripped the weapon with both hands. “Consider this my resignation.”
Robert let out a scream like a wounded animal and kicked his stallion into a wild charge. Jon widened his stance, gripped his greatsword in one hand, and waited. The Demon of the Trident barreled down on him, winding up a swing. Jon waited, and waited, until the horse was mere feet away, before sliding to the left. With a hard pivot, and a furious swing, Jon’s greatsword cleaved through the stallion’s neck, shearing clean through the protective armor and sending the horse’s severed head flying through the air. The carcass carried on for a moment, not realizing it was dead. Robert’s swing went wide, before the tons of horseflesh toppled, taking him down. The Demon screamed, as the body of the horse fell on his casted leg, the bones underneath shattering on impact.
Behind him, a battlecry rose, and the stampede of horses began as knights rode to their king’s defense. Jon snarled, clenching his fist. From his sides, vials of liquid wildfire uncorked and rose up in thin wobbling strings, before he lashed them out as a green whip. The knights’ battlecries turned to shouts of horror almost instantly as their bodies were sprayed with wildfire, stumbling and rearing on their horses so strongly the beasts stumbled and bucked. They did not retreat fast enough; the air was overflowing with heat and embers, and each man caught flame in staggered starts. Even the floating whip in Jon's telepathic grip exploded into green fire, a single arm of the Great Demon Jon had seen so long ago.
With a single thought Jon whipped the flame about, wrapping along the oversized blade of his greatsword like a vine. The greatsword caught fire as the last of the controllable liquid disappeared, before Jon chopped at another soldier charging him. The blade touched the man's mass-produced armor and burned clean through, before cleanly bisecting him at the waist.
“AIM! LOOSE!”
Jon heard the command before he saw where it came from. He didn't wait to locate it either, instead lifting the broad side of his greatsword high in the air in front of his face. A second later, the hail of arrows started - each arrow hitting him with bruising impact but unable to punch through his thick plated armor. His arm rattled. The greatsword shuddered as the flat protected his head and neck from potentially-lethal lucky shots. Arrows dropped all about him, shattered and sparking to flame.
The volley came to an end. Jon exhaled, his arms shaking, and swung the blade down to touch the ground. Grass sparked to life at the touch. The baratheon army assembled against him was unmoving - perhaps stunned, perhaps merely waiting for more orders. His narrowed, hateful eyes scanned across the field. “ALL OF YOU!” He roared. “ALL OF YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS! THIS ATROCITY AGAINST YOUR FELLOW MAN!” He pointed a finger against the hellscape behind him. “ NO MAN, BE HE KING OR GOD, CAN DEMAND YOU MURDER AN ENTIRE PEOPLE! THIS… THIS TRIBE MASSACRE!” The words failed him; he didn't know a word in the common tongue to describe what he knew from the Free People: slaughtering an entire region until not even a drop of their blood remains.
“WHEN A MAN TELLS YOU ‘SLAUGHTER THE ENEMY DOWN TO THEIR CHILDREN’, YOU REFUSE!” Jon screamed. “YOU RUN! YOU KILL HIM IN HIS SLEEP! YOU DO NOT FOLLOW HIS ORDERS! NOT EVEN THE WILDLINGS WOULD DO THAT, AND THEY FUCKING EAT PEOPLE!” another section of the ground collapsed into the ever-growing, ever-smoldering hellpit. “ARE YOU MEN!?” Jon screamed, whipping his head around. “DO YOU EVEN HAVE SOULS TO-”
Something flew out from the crowd, straight and true, and punched through his armor at his shoulder. Jon staggered back in pain. “Bodkin bolt was effective!” Somebody shouted. “Crossbowmen, to the fore!”
“You…” Jon snarled.
“STOP IT!” a feminine voice shrieked. “DON’T HURT HIM!”
Jon’s thoughts ground to a halt, immediately whipping to the voice. It was Mya. she was there, on the front. His wife was there, staring at the carnage and destruction. His wife could see the splitting of the Rock, and the Lannistermen leaping to their deaths to avoid the fire consuming all floors of the fortress mountain. She could see him.
“Mya… get out of here!” he exclaimed, waving a hand. Another crossbow bolt flew from the crowd, aimed directly at his head and missing only by inches. She turned to him, and opened her mouth to say something, but then she was surrounded by a pack of crossbowmen, aiming their weapons directly at him.
“Idiot. They are mine.”
Jon whirled around. Robert Baratheon was standing, free from the fallen horse. His leg was clearly broken, yet it was already encased in the iron of his flayed skin, and he leaned on the dented sheath as if he was never hurt. “They obey their king, dragonspawn.” Robert hissed, eyes narrowed to pinpricks, whites nearly consumed by bloodshot veins as his face wounds split apart. “I am the King, not you, not your insane father, not that traitor Ned and not YOUR WHORE MOTHER!”
He charged, hammer held high, screaming a bloody war cry. Jon swung his greatsword to catch it, but the Demon's strength was good, and with a single blow slapped Jon's flaming greatsword to the side. Robert twisted his arm, redirecting the backswing to send the handle jabbing into Jon’s helm. The strike hit true, and Jon’s head rang like a gong; he staggered backwards a single step, and with a roar, Robert spun the hammer around, ready to cave Jon’s chest in.
The ground underneath heaved. Jon felt the rock underneath his feet split, dragging him back by his heels. The hammerhead hit a second later, crashing into his side at an askew angle, and he went spinning through the air. Jon hit the ground hard, rolling like a top fallen sideways as the greatsword cut into the sod and arrested his movement. Jon gasped, wheezing, and he could taste copper as the grass beneath him was spotted in blood.
“STOP!”
“LOOSE!”
Jon moved on instinct, shifting the weight of the greatsword still clenched in his hands just far enough up and over to cover his upper torso. Bolt after bolt impacted against the flat of the blade - pain bloomed below his belt as a projectile lodged in his thigh through weakened metal.
With a grimace of pain, Jon levered himself up to a kneeling position, as the grass underneath him smoldered and sparked to life from the touch of his blade. He could see a struggle breaking out, as soldiers struggled against a figure wrestling through the crowd. Mya - refusing to be moved, daughter of the mountain that she was. “Mya…!” he called. “Go! I don’t want you… to see this.” a wordless scream answered him back.
“Looking to hide, traitor?” Robert snarled, resettling the hammer in his grip.
“Nobody… should be forced to choose… between family and love.” Jon replied, before spitting a wad of blood. “This whole blasted kingdom… is where it is… because my madman grandsire… forced that choice.”
Robert howled, charging forward. With a mighty swing, Jon brought the greatsword up in time to block the hammerblow aimed for his head. “I AM HERE,” Jon roared, whirling the blade in his hand to attack at Robert, “BECAUSE I MADE THAT CHOICE. I AM BEING PUNISHED FOR MAKING THAT CHOICE!”
He whirled, slamming the blade into the thick armor of Robert. The breastplate creased at the impact but held as the Baratheon went skidding backwards. “And you…” Jon snarled. “You made a choice, too. You chose neither. You threw away your family, and you never even pretended to love. You’re a selfish, stinking brute of a man bound only by the morality of your betters surrounding you. No wonder the Others want us dead!”
“LOOSE!”
Jon whirled around, but not fast enough - the bodkin crossbow bolt pierced through his outstretched wrist, punching through the armor. He howled in pain, flinching back to clutch his arm. Robert straightened, snarled once, and swung hard. The warhammer arced in a wide, thundering blow directly at Jon’s head, and impacted instead against the flat of the greatsword as the mighty weapon gave way at last. Flaming shards of metal exploded outwards, plinking off of Jon’s helm like hail. The loss of counterbalancing weight in his hand nearly sent him stumbling backwards. Robert let out another wordless battlecry, whirling around in a full circle to wind up a blow.
Jon clenched his teeth, and balled his fist. From his waist, the waterskin on his belt popped open and flew out straight as an arrow. The water caught the Demon of the Trident in the face, forcing itself into his nose and through the ruined seal of his lips, down his throat. Robert hacked hard, and the grip on his hammer slipped. Instead of slamming into Jon’s chest, it slid away and down, landing on Jon’s foot. Pain lanced up his leg instantly as the armor crumpled - what remained of his concentration absently knew that something in his foot was badly broken. But even as his concentration on the water lapsed, Robert still choked.
Jon lunged forward, slashing the jagged wreck of his greatsword’s hilt at Robert’s neck. The King flinched away, dragging the blade along his jawline instead of his jugular. He raised his fists in a fighter’s stance - but Jon was already behind him, arms wrapped around his thick neck. Robert howled, swinging Jon around - even with his recent growth spurt, Robert towered over him by at least six inches, and his feet dangled over the burning dirt underneath them. The Demon scrabbled against the jagged plates of Jon’s armor, as his eyes went red and bloodshot.
“Try shooting me now, fucker.” Jon hissed.
“You…!” Robert spat, before he flared his body wide and leaped into the air. Jon didn’t have time to think before three hundred pounds of muscle, fat and metal slammed directly into his chest. Jon’s thick black armor, weakened from all the fighting, collapsed at last.
All the air in Jon’s chest was forced out in a great heave as the metal crushed inwards into his chest and stomach. Every attempt to breathe was met with jagged metal stabbing into his soft flesh. On top of him, the body of Robert rolled away, a noise like a dying animal in the air as the Demon voiced his agony. Robert scrabbled on the hard dirt, baking as they fought under the kiln-like heat of the raging wildfire. The single functioning leg he had refused to maneuver underneath him, forcing great weight onto the flayed remains of his other leg to rise to a stand. “You…!” Robert raged, hobbling towards his greathammer.
“Bastard…!” Jon wheezed. A hand gripped at his chest, mailed fingers reaching underneath the breached metal to flail about in the negative space. Mere seconds later, they found their goal - a single clasp, holding it flush to his skin. With a two-fingered ripping motion, the breastplate went loose, flopping away from Jon’s chest and allowing him to breathe at last.
Behind them, another explosion from the ruins of Casterly Rock set the world shaking. Jon scrambled to his feet with uneven motions. Robert scrabbled forward on hands and knees towards his weapon, panting and gasping with ragged breaths. “No… you don’t!” Jon snarled, taking two steps forward with a great winding kick, before launching the tip of his broken foot into Robert’s face. The Demon and the Usurper howled in sync, as Jon lurched backwards the same distance as Robert clutched at his bleeding mulitated face. “Come on, you fuck…!”
“Fucking… traitor…!” the Demon hissed, pushing himself to his feet at last. He clenched his hands in a fighter’s stance, sky-blue eyes gone bloody and blown wide in adrenaline-fueled fury. Jon had barely a moment to react before the Demon’s bloody right cross rocketed to his face, dodging it with barely a moment to spare. The left hook followed - the jab, the straight, the cross- Jon didn’t have a moment to react as the king kept an unrelenting flurry of blows against him. “DIIIIIIE!”
Jonm wasn’t a hand-to-hand fighter; he didn’t know how to react to this kind of unrelenting assault in a way that would allow him to strike back. All he could do was keep his hands at the level of hiis eyes, ducking away from half of the blows while blocking against the other. All he could do is wait for a weakness, an opening - and at last, Robert provided him one. With a wide heavy wind-up, the Demon prepared for an uppercut to take Jon’s head off.
Jon did not provide him the opportunity. With a quick dash, he lurched forward, and with a single strike punched Robert directly in his scarred, burned face. The hit stunned Robert - set him off balance, sending his center of gravity off-kilter- which was enough for the tortured, maligned structure of hiis flayed leg’s metal cage to shear away in a loud screeching break. Any counterattack that Robert had planned disappeared as the weight underneath him gave way, as he fell-
TWANG!
The pain exploded, and then faded into a dull nothing. Jon slowly looked down, staring at the crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, before looking back up. There, across the field, holding a crossbow steady and unyielding, was Mya. Her hair was wild, covering her eyes from sight, as her mouth was set in an unfamiliar angry scowl. The soldier next to her, dressed in crossbowman’s livery but without a weapon, shouted something and wrapped his arms around the weapon before giving a great heave out of her arms. Mya shook with the force - and suddenly the hair was no longer covering her clear blue eyes as they widened in horror.
Jon took a single step back, his right hand clutching at his breast. If Robert had not fallen - if the cast had not sheared at exactly that moment - the bolt would have gone into Robert’s back. Perhaps it would have pierced through his armor. Perhaps it would have bounced off. Perhaps, Jon thought, with the clear voice of the dying, it wasn’t an accident at all.
He staggered back, as he watched the army behind the intimate brawl suddenly change course to prevent the Baratheon princess from racing forward. Jon wrapped his fingers around the bolt in his chest, gave it a single tug, and let it go, as his hands went limp. Robert lay unmoving on the ground, an unhuman cry of pain escaping him as his hands went to his flayed leg - now lying at a perpendicular angle from the rest of his body, snapped cleanly along the cast. Underneath the grey pig’s hide, pink and red bloody flesh oozed out with a light green pus, staining what remained of the grass.
Behind them all the mines continued to burn, gas pockets exploding in chaotic bursts as Casterly Rock turned into a vision of the Seven Hells. The ground shuddered underneath Jon’s feet, sending him to his knees. A moment later, a flurry of crossbows flew over his head. The world shrank to a ringing point in Jon’s vision, each beat of his heart bleeding weakly against the bolt piercing through it. He limply rolled his head to his target - Robert Baratheon, crippled on the ground. His hammer was well away from the tyrant’s hand, and within Jon’s grasp. He reached out, gripping it weakly in his hand.
Do it.
Jon’s face twisted into a sneer. With a dying man’s burst of strength, he pulled the hammer underneath him and forced himself to a stand. Blood streaking across his armor, hair matted to his face, teeth bared like weapons - to anybody from a distance, he must have looked like a disaster. But Jon didn’t care. He only had one thing left in him to care about. He shifted the grip on his makeshift crutch, took a step forward, and lifted it overhead. Pain exploded, and sight disappeared from his left eye - but the hammer lifted anyways. He took a wide stance, held the weapon aloft, and focused on the last enemy present, down upon the ground.
… Finish it, Lodos whispered.
Jon let out a howl of rage and swung with all the strength left in him. The hammer arced high into the air, and came crashing down. Robert’s breastplate armor, weakened after such a fight, could take no more.
The singular strike struck true in the center, caving in the King of Westeros’ chest. It crackled and ruptured, and from the ornamented filigree shattered shards flew through the air, glittering like golden gemstones. One shard hung in the air, and caught the light of the Red Comet overhead - for just an instant, it looked like a tiny ruby, and then disappeared into the flaming pits of the Casterly Rock mines.
The ground underneath the king ruptured and crumbled. Robert Baratheon did not stir as the landslide gave way beneath him, as his limp body fell into the fiery hell that was once Casterly Rock. Someone screamed - Jon couldn’t tell who, as the world bled into ringing silence. A green gout of flame burst upwards, blasting his body with heat and sending him stumbling, before another barrage of crossbow bolts slammed into his back.
The ground underneath him went unsteady with every heartbeat. Jon stumbled forwards, clutching his pierced breast. A mad kind of buzzing took hold of his brain, and he began to laugh. Another arrow flew from the crowd, fired by some stranger this time, piercing through his shoulder, but his laugh only grew more manic. All around, the tortured screams of the flaming dying set a hellish backdrop, yet he could hear none of it as the ground roiled and exploded underneath their feet.
Jon lifted a hand to the sky, grasping at some invisible thing, and watched as his palm exploded in a fountain of gore as a crossbow bolt pierced it. He laughed harder, howling. He stepped back another step-
The mines exploded once more as the wildfire touched off another gas pocket, splitting the landscape in twain. The ground underneath his feet gave away. And Jaeherys Targaryen, King-consort of the Seven Kingdoms by conquest, fell laughing into the fiery pit. The uncontrolled green flames consumed him as he fell, but even then, his laughter never stopped, until…
Darkness.
When Jon awoke and felt the featherbed underneath his back, his heart was pounding in his chest, bulbous and out of time as his laughter choked on his tongue. He pounded his fist into the sheets - once, twice, three times, as seething gasps escaped his clenched teeth. At last, he could restrain himself no longer, and let out an animal scream.
“Gods!” a voice exclaimed - Robb, startled awake by the scream. “What the hells, Jon?”
Jon rolled out of bed and began slamming his fist into the stone wall. He pounded against the rock until his fists were bloody. Nothing coming out of his mouth could even be considered an articulate word. Robb rushed to his bedside, grabbing his arm with his entire body and wrenching it behind Jon’s back. The screams continued, as Jon thrashed about, until the strength left him.
He went limp, then, and as Robb held him in an improvised hold, the howling turned into wretched, uncontrolled sobbing.
“Why…!? Why…!? Why…!?”
Notes:
Don’t you ever tame your Demons, but always keep them on a leash.
My apologies for taking so long to get this out. I had to focus on getting through one of the worst teachers I’ve ever had (I got her fired though, so I will consider that my great contribution to those who come after me). On the bright side, I finally have my degree, and god willing will have a job that allows me to have a life instead of shitty trenchwork. I also had significant problems getting this right - This was the culmination of this arc, the moment where it all goes wrong and we realize that as bad as Robert was as a drunk, he’s much worse when he’s sober. I needed time to figure out how to express in words what Ned once saw as a horrific vision when he came across Robert Baratheon draped in the blood of children.
Apologies once again. I’m glad to have this finally done. I won’t make any more promises about when I expect the next chapter to come out. I am currently writing this all in the aftermath of a nice party where I’ve had more booze than I’ve had in a liong time, getting through my hesitation about the final bits I was struggling with because I have lowered inhibitions - but I don’t intend to destroy my liver in order to write a fanfiction. If you catch any grammatical errors or weird things, I blame the whiskey. I’ll check it later in the week. All I can say about the future that the next chapter should not be as long as this one and I’ve already got 12 pages of it written.
On a more humorous note, somebody actually tried to plagiarize my story. No joke. Shout-out to Copy-Knight and whoever manually searched for my story before I joined for letting me know - every author on this site should opt-in to the service I have a link to on my profile. Some idiot took this story, ran it through a shitty AI voice generator, and then tried to post it on youtube as a series of monetized videos while trying to cut out everything that would have revealed it was my work, like titles and OCs. It wasn't even good AI, either. When I listened to it in order to make sure it was mine before I copy-struck his channel out of existence (his first channel, anyways - his second still exists, and straight-up has the entirety of The Dragon Cub on it, not even trying to hide the plagiarism when I know for a fact Alperez didn't give permission, but that's not my story so I won't fight that battle), it kept repeating itself and adding terrible purple prose. I actually got a little offended by it, but I sorta ended up appreciating the concept of it by the end.
Long story short, I'm curious now - how do you go and create podfics, as I believe they're called? What's the proper way to go about doing that, and does anybody know how to do that properly? Hit me up if you know anything about that sphere.
Hope you’re all having a wonderful time.
Chapter Text
It was strange, being back at Winterfell again. Being in a place where he was only treated as a noble child, instead of one of the most dangerous people in the Seven Kingdoms. Being in a place where people were not afraid to disrespect him, and did not guard their tongues in his presence.
It was strange being Jon Snow once more, and not Lord Greystark, Prince-Consort.
It took almost an hour of cajoling to convince Robb to finally leave him to his thoughts, but finally he was alone, staring at the bloody knuckles on his left hand. It was a dead-eyed stare. The blood slowed, and hardened to a crusty smear as time went by.
Finally, the silence was broken. So what is the plan? Lodos whispered.
“... Don’t have one.” Jon replied slowly. “I have killed the Raven, and failed. And I have saved Robert Baratheon, and failed. What other options are there?”
Don’t play stupid. You know just as well as I that there is more than that at stake, here. You’ve known that since Varamyr. The echo of the pale prophet took a sharp tone. You simply refuse to accept that to chase it means accepting that the Starks must suffer again.
“You can cast whatever stones you wish.” Jon mumbled. “You’re just a figment of my imagination. You don’t have any real family.”
And what would you call Asha, then?
Jon went quiet.
We are mad, Jon. But we all are a blessedly productive madness. We can see what you refuse to. And it is time to cut loose from the tether that binds you to Winterfell. Let the pain you feel wash away in salt, and stone, and steel, and then do what needs doing.
After a moment, Jon lifted his head by an inch. “... We all?”
We all.
After that, a smaller, quieter voice spoke. I don’t want to talk right now.
Jon blinked rapidly, before groaning and lowering his head into his hands. “Is my head turning into a boarding house? Do I need to make an offering to the Old Gods and New to hear myself think again?”
I would call it an incentive to not live frivolously.
“I have never lived frivolously,” Jon hissed, eyes narrow in fury. “All my life, I have lived for others. The Wall, the Long Night, the Blackwings… Daenerys…” the words caught in his throat, just for a moment. “Don’t you dare say I’ve lived without giving everything to others. Lived unseriously. Because you know it’s not true.”
… I do. Lodos whispered. And perhaps that is what needs to change. Live selfishly, just once. Do what you want, and not what is needed. Jon lifted his head slowly at that. Remember what Thoros said.
“... It was not your fault.”
It was not your fault. It was His. You owe no debt to anyone. You are not the reason Robert Baratheon killed Rhaegar Targaryen. You are not the reason Ned Stark died on the steps of King’s Landing. You are not the reason for the War of Five Kings, or the Long Night, or anything else. None of it could have been stopped with your better angels in charge because it was NOT YOUR FAULT.
Jon wanted to protest; he wanted to say that the splitting of the Rock, the Green Wedding, all of it was because he did not kill the Raven. It was his fault. What came out of his throat, instead, was a choked noise barely above a squeak.
We cannot keep going like this, Lodos stated, with finality. You know it as well as I. Not after that. For once in our unending blasted lives, Jon Snow… live for yourself, and nobody else. Be selfish.
Jon slowly lowered his head into his hands. For a long moment, he said nothing. “And you, Greystark?” he asked, lifting his head. “Are you of the same mind?”
The new shade did not speak for just as long. … I want to be alone. He said, at last. I want to grieve. And I… very much do not want to go South again.
Jon stared blankly into the distance, pupils slightly unfocused. After several false starts at speech, he finally let out a soft scoff and ran fingers across his scalp. “Well. The ‘I's have it, then. Just for now… I will live for what I want.” He closed his eyes. “And what I want… is the warm sun on my face. No chill in the air. And a place nobody will find me.”
Jon could hear a soft chuckle. Essos it is. This time, for true.
Jon paused. “Except…” he opened his eyes. “Before I go… there is one good act I can do.”
The voices in his head went quiet, then. … Yes.
Do it.
It was after many days of riding that Jon at last found the village. Just like he'd discovered, it wasn't on any maps - it only existed in the Winterfell tax records as a set of directions from a larger, more important landmark. It was seated deep inside of a nameless forest, thick enough to obscure it from others yet not enough to be worth the exploitation of logging. A small river flowed lazily by, a tributary of the Weeping Water that would eventually flow into the Shivering Sea. It was, all told, a place where men could live and die without ever seeing the rest of the world.
It was the kind of place where a secret bastard could thrive.
At the center of the village there was a building, larger than the others. A long rectangle tall enough for three stories, and wide enough to contain two cottages side-by-side, it marked itself with a sign not with letters - for who in this place would be educated enough to read? - but instead a tall bottle with a thin and narrow neck next to a bed. A public house - half tavern, half long-term lodge, and the place most Northern villages escaped to first when the winters grew colder than expected instead of working to fruitlessly heat their own homes.
The door to the public house swung wide with a loud creak. Inside, half a dozen men sat about at tables, drinking dark beers (and a single brown drink, Jon noticed out of the corner of his eye, that was in a short glass he didn’t recognize) and playing dicing games. The landlord looked up from his bar, wiping the leftovers from a wooden mug. “Welcome.” he said with a flat peasant’s drawl. “Don’t recognize you.”
“You wouldn’t.” Jon replied, tugging at the fingers of his gloves as he made his way to the counter. The men in the room tracked him subtly with their eyes. “I’m from far away.”
“Don’t get many travelers in these parts.” said the landlord, giving him a quick once-over. His eyes landed on the castle-forged sword, and the well-stitched cloak. “M’lord. What’ll you have?”
“Information,” he replied. “I came here looking for a man by the name of Ramsay.”
The public house went quiet, as the customers stopped even pretending to not eavesdrop. The landlord’s eyes went narrow. “That so.” he replied. “And who, m’lord, is askin’?”
Jon felt a shiver of tension run up his spine. He couldn’t tell whether this village was loyal to Ramsay, or afraid of him; all he knew is that they knew him, and wouldn’t give him to a stranger. Jon closed his eyes. He had an idea, but did not like it one bit.
The landlord leaned in. “Well?”
“... His brother.” Jon said at last. “Domeric.” he opened his eyes. “I’ve come to meet the rest of my kin.”
The landlord frowned, and leaned back. “... You don’t look much like him.” he said at last.
“I take after my mother. He takes after our father.” Jon said quietly. “It’s… not a happy story.”
The landlord snorted. “Not a happy story, he says. As if we all didn’t know it." He picked up his wooden mug again. “You’re better off riding back to the castle you came from, m’lord. Nothing good will come of you being here.”
Jon stared at the man. Was Domeric the kind of man who would take insult at this, or was he simply a believer in the better spirits of men? Because somehow, he didn’t listen, and died of poison. “Tell me something, good man.” Jon asked. “Is that a threat, or a kind warning?”
“Hmph.” the landlord snorted, but his eyes narrowed slightly, as if reappraising him. “We know who your lord father is. Ramsay’s manservant puts proof. You’ll find no loyal bannermen here, this deep in the woods. One man swingin’ from a hanging tree, a brother with a cut tongue, and a newlywed widow with a fat belly?” he scrubbed at the mug’s insides languidly with a damp rag. “Many strange coincidences, m’lord. Enough coincidences, and people start drawin’ wrong ideas. Enough wrong ideas… and people have trouble liftin’ fingers to help strangers.”
“... I see.” Jon glanced around the building, before reaching into his money pouch and surreptitiously drawing out a single gold dragon. “Here, then. Something for the trouble of… lifting fingers.”
The landlord's eyes went wide, and as Jon slowly laid the coin on the counter with a sharp CLACK he immediately placed the butt of the wooden mug over the coin to hide it. “You're better off meetin’ him here, if you're set on it.” He murmured, leaning forward.
“Thank you for your concern,” Jon muttered, “but all the same, I'd like directions to his home.”
“Tch.” The landlord spat. “I'll say it different, then - this is me liftin’ my fingers. You'll meet him here, m’lord Domeric, or not at all. That gold dragon just bought me savin’ your bleeding life.” he glanced furtively around. “Reek, his manservant, is a wretch who puts ideas in his head. Dead things are found, torn apart by dogs. His mother isn't better- never forgave what happened even as she takes his coin.”
“You mean being raped by my father.”
The landlord stared at him for a long moment, judging his flat expression, before at last nodding. “Aye. And the hangin’ of her man.” He scrubbed hard at the counter, looking away. “We all know your father took rights that the Starks outlawed long ago. Hector was the only one stupid enough to act on knowin’ about the Prima Nocta, and he lost his tongue for it. Reek is here to watch us all to see if any of us will go to Winterfell and reveal his crimes. She's been plottin’, though. Used to have lots of rats, her mill, every time I went to buy… things. Not anymore; clean as a whistle, that property, but they’ve no cats about. If you dine with her, you'll not ride again.” he scooted the mug along the counter to the edge, dropping the gold dragon underneath into his waiting palm, before pocketing it quickly. “Meet him here, where we can all see.”
Jon closed his eyes. The thought of seeing Ramsay again set his head ringing like wildfire had just exploded… but he could not admit he'd come here to kill Ramsay. Not when he'd stolen Domeric’s name. He took a slow breath. “Fine,” he whispered. “I'll meet him here… as long as Reek is kept separate. He was sent away for a reason.”
And he might be able to recognize I'm not Domeric.
The landlord stared at him through lidded eyes, before nodding. “Done. KRASS! Get your lazy ass up an’ go find Ramsay. Tell him his brother's come to town!”
“Ah, shove off, Rod!”
“Don't make me get your wife, Krass! I'll tell her you've been drinkin’ instead of huntin’, Old Gods as my witness!”
One of the drunks let out a drawn-out scoff, but slowly pushed himself to a stand and slouched out. The landlord nodded. “Rick. Go and keep Reek out of town. Fuck with his kennels or summat. Next one's on the house if he never claps eyes on m'lord here.”
The man with the short glass lifted it in the air and shook it around. “It'll be one of these, Rod.”
“Cheeky bastard.” Rod the landlord growled. “Shut your yap. You'll get it. Now move.” The patron grinned, shoved himself up, and moved out.
“Expensive wine?” Jon asked, glancing at the short glass. Shorter than he'd ever seen something alcoholic served in.
“Somethin’ like that. Limited supply.” Rod responded, suddenly evasive. “Wait here. You'll get your brother soon enough.”
Jon narrowed his eyes, but slowly made his way to a table next to the short glass. He slouched forward, hiding his hands. As soon as Rod turned his back, Jon crooked his fingers, and the remnants of the short glass slithered towards him. It was a dark drink, a dark golden brown, without a hint of foam. His brow furrowed, and with a swift movement slipped the floating liquid into his mouth.
The fierce overwhelming burn nearly caused Jon to choke and spew it all over the table. He coughed into his fist twice and swallowed, and nearly spat it back up from the burn down his throat. “Holy…!” He wheezed. “What is that?”
Whatever it is, Lodos whispered, it's stronger than anything I've ever heard of. This is powerful stuff. He paused. Oh… Oh that's very nice, actually. That's warm ALL the way down. I could get used to that.
Jon shook his head. A warm alcoholic buzz had already coated his head, extremely quickly. That's not any drink I've ever heard of. The king… he paused. He would have been all over this. He had entire cellars of drink going to seed, and not a single bottle of this. It must be a peasant liquor.
Some kind of moonshine. Untaxed, and stronger than ale. They don't want the lords to know about it, because they're making it illegally. Lodos paused. Oh, I LIKE this. Think Lord Stark would like it?
Like it? He'd export it. He'd make it the Northern answer to Arbor red and Dornish wine. Jon shook his head. Oh, wow. That’s verrrry nice. One of these days, we will need to find how many other villages are making their own version of this moonshine.
They’ll need the grains for it. We can start by locating all the mills in the north.
Jon sat in silence after that, glancing about furtively. The minutes passed slowly. His fingers began to drum a staccato beat against the table. He let out a soft growl. I’ve had enough of this. I’ll hunt through the village instead. He began to push himself to his feet-
The door opened, and Krass the layabout hunter walked back in. “Found Ramsay.” he announced, and stepped out of the doorway’s path. Behind him, a pair of worn leather boots led first before the cold, dead-eyed expression of Ramsay Snow followed the rest of his body.
Jon felt the breath be kicked from his lungs. He could smell the blood, and soot, and the vile effluence of death. He could feel the crunch of cartilage and bone shattering under his suddenly-clenched fists. He could hear Sansa weeping, quietly, when she thought nobody else could hear. He could see a smirking, blood-soaked grin as all sound but a piercing ringing in his ears disappeared. Everything in him demanded he act - scream or run or throw a chair or draw his blade or curl into a ball.
And he did nothing, as Ramsay turned to face him, blinked twice, and smiled. “Well!” he exclaimed. “You’re younger than I expected. When Krass said there was a brother here to see me, I didn’t know it was a little one.”
Ramsay sauntered forward across the floor, leaning forward slightly. He smiled in a pleasant way that never moved his eyes. And by the time he reached Jon, still frozen in place, he opened his arms and grabbed Jon in a loose hug. His lips came to Jon’s ears.
“Whoever you are, brother,” he whispered, “you’re not Domeric. You knew how to get my attention, though. Let’s talk, one bastard Bolton to the other.” he leaned away, clapping a hand on his shoulder.
“Touch me one more time,” Jon snarled softly, without even thinking, “and you’ll lose the hand you used.” Ramsay’s eyes narrowed, immediately flicking down. Jon’s hand had already gone to the handle of the dagger upon his belt, and drawn a sliver of steel from the leather. The bastard’s grin widened, just a sliver.
“Reek will love you.”
Ramsay stepped away, circling back around the table and setting down across from Jon. “Rod!” he called. “Bring us a bottle of whisky!”
The landlord went ramrod straight. “Don’t know what you’re-”
“The bottle, Rodrik.” Ramsay drawled. “Your grandfather’s recipe. Underneath the counter, behind the hidden panel. Now.” he glanced over at Jon, fleshy lips thinning to a bloodless smile. His voice dropped into a stage whisper. “You won’t tell, will you, dearest brother? It’s a local secret.”
Jon shut his eyes tightly, feeling a vein throbbing angrily in his temple. “... You have my word,” he replied to the Landlord. Rod let out an angry sound, but slowly reached down and pushed aside the mentioned hidden panel and brought out a tall, plain clay bottle with two short glasses just like the one Rick had been drinking from. With deliberate steps, he walked over, slammed the bottle down on the table, and set the glasses out.
“You’re paying double for this, Ramsay.”
“Highway robbery! When it’s our barley in this!” Ramsay exclaimed, but uncorked the bottle and poured it out anyways. It was the same brown liquor Jon had sipped before. “You should see what he charges the taverns he smuggles this to,” the bastard leered, clearly enjoying himself. “They’ll never admit they have it unless you go asking for the ‘water of life’, and then-”
“Enough.” Jon said, cutting him off. “Don’t antagonize the man over his business. I care not where he sells his moonshine.”
“Oh, but that is where you are wrong, brother Domeric.” Ramsay replied, grinning. “This is better than any moonshine. You’ll want this.” he reached over, grabbing jon’s cup with a wide palm. An unusually brusque move - Jon’s eyes immediately locked on Ramsay’s hand, and the way he held it. He pulled it back to his side, and lifted the bottle.
“So tell me, brother.” Ramsay continued. Jon’s eyes flicked up to Ramsay’s. “You still haven’t mentioned why you’re here.”
Jon nearly began to spit venom, but found his jaw locked tightly. Focus, Lodos whispered. You are not in control of your emotions. You have stepped into an act - now play your part.
Jon let out a soft grunt. “I… want Roose Bolton to suffer.”
Ramsay’s eyebrows arched. “Treason? Against our dear lord father? You're brave or stupid to say it aloud, or to think I'd help you.”
“Am I?” Jon asked. “My family, and my… my mother, kept faith with him, and he repaid them with death when they grew inconvenient. Do you think you are the only one he has hurt?”
“I'm not hearing this,” Rod snarled, clapping his hands over his ears and walking briskly away.
Ramsay snickered at the bartender, before turning back to Jon. His beady eyes stared at Jon for what felt like minutes, before leaning back. “You're lying to me.” Ramsay said, without inflection. “But not about what dear old papa did.”
Jon resisted the urge to flinch, keeping his expression passive. I can help. Whispered a quiet voice.
No. I have this, Greystark. Quiet.
The bastard kept his unblinking, shark-like stare on Jon, before at last cooking his wrist in an odd manner to lift the whisky glass he had not let go of in the air. With slow precision, he tipped the bottle and quietly began to pour, before handing Jon a half-full cup.
There, whispered Greystark. In his sleeve. When he hands us the cup, smell it but do not drink.
“Your secrets are yours, little brother.” Ramsay said gently. A disgusted shiver ran up Jon's spine. “What do you suggest?”
“... Lord Bolton only has the one heir.” Jon replied quietly. “He is returning north. If he does not return, you are the eldest child of his body. Domeric sent me a letter saying he wants to meet both of us.”
Ramsay's eyes narrowed as if smiling. “Really.” he said. “He didn’t mention you in my letter, but he mentioned me in yours. Curious.” He lifted his own cup and sloshed himself a small portion of the brown liquid. He held his cup up. “You should come to my home. Meet my mother. Break bread with us, brother bastard.”
Jon lifted his cup up slowly, attempting to keep the wire-taut tension of his hands from reflexively crushing it. The Bolton bastard moved the rest of the way to clink his cup, before leaning back and slugging the drink in a single pull. He let out a satisfied gasp, and gestured at Jon. “It'll burn more if you drink it slow like an ale. You either sip it, or slug it.”
And if we drink it fast, it will give us less time to notice whatever you tainted the drink with.
Jon nodded once, lifted the drink, and clenched his empty fist as he slugged the drink. The whisky stayed frozen at the bottom of the glass even as it was upended, just as his magical will demanded, as his eyes ran across the surface.
Greystark let out a barely-audible scoff. I knew it. No smell, no color. I'd wager no taste - but look at that residue in the corner of the cup, not yet dissolved. Ratsbane. The landlord spoke true - we'd be dead in five days from arsenic poisoning.
Jon let out a wheezing hack, just like the first time, and slammed the cup back down at a tilted angle to hide its contents. Ramsay laughed. “Kicks, doesn’t it?” he leered. Jon didn’t answer him, but swiped the bottle from the table and tilted it into the cup. The poisoned drink slid upwards against the raised side of the cup as the clean drink came out and pooled with the consent of gravity; with the same swirling motion, the poisoned liquid flew back up into the clay container as though it was pouring in reverse. Sleight of hand finished, Jon leaned back, stared at the cup with false anger, and slammed it back once more. This time, he gave no reaction at all, even as the burn ran up his nose and warmth spread throughout his chest.
Ramsay grinned wider. “Well done, you.”
“Your house,” Jon grimaced, fighting down the urge to cough. “Where is it?”
“By the river. North of the village by about a mile, attached to the mill. You'll be our guest.”
Jon straightened up in his seat. Got him.
The bastard’s eyes narrowed, for just a moment, at the movement. Ramsay picked up the bottle by the butt. “Care for another?”
“No,” Jon replied, slapping a hand on his chest. The burn he was feeling didn’t need to be faked. “If I have more I’ll end up coughing it out my nose.”
Ramsay laughed once. “True enough. The fire doesn’t kiss quite as sweetly the first few times. More for me.” He lifted the bottle in the air. “To family reunions,” He cheered, and Jon could only watch in muted horror as he necked the poisoned bottle with one, two, three long gulps.
With a loud, satisfied gasp, Ramsay stood. “Walk with me.”
“... I have to settle up with the landlord.” Jon said, quietly. “I'll meet you there soon, with my gear.”
Ramsay’s eyes narrowed. “Paying my tab, as well? I'd be a poor host if you didn't arrive on time. Walk with me, brother, and the two of us can-”
The door slammed loudly open as Rick, the other drunk, walked in with an exaggerated swagger. “Miss me, everyone?” he boasted. Ramsay turned to give him an evil eye, before facing Jon again - the minute he looked away, Rick straightened up and began rapidly dragging his hand across his neck.
Jon felt his stomach drop. Reek is on his way.
The landlord Rod caught the meaning, too. “He's right, Ramsay.” he said, standing up. “That bottle doesn't come cheap. I've words with your brother, and they'll be long.”
Ramsay let out a phlegmy scoff. “Ever the miser. Double my tab and you still charge the newcomer?” He turned, setting the bottle back on the table. “I suppose you know the way. Who shall I tell my mother is coming to visit?”
Jon stared at the bastard, eyes level. “... Rag.” He said quietly, to keep the landlord from hearing. “Short for Ragnar.”
Ramsay's eyebrow arched. “You must be half wildling for a name like that. ‘Keeping faith’ indeed.” he reached over and clapped Jon on the shoulder. “I will see you there for supper.” With that, he turned and staggered away.
… He was unnaturally friendly.
Because he already thinks he's lethally poisoned you, Lodos whispered. If he keeps you here with honeyed words long enough, you will never reach anyone with enough power to threaten him.
Rod the landlord stormed around the counter. “What in the Gods’ name were you thinking, talkin’ that treason in my bar!?” He hissed. “I should have you arrested for-”
“Make sure you throw out that bottle,” Jon interrupted, pointing directly at the whisky container, “and both of those cups. If you use them again you may have a corpse to deal with.”
Rod paled. “What? But…” His eyes blew wide with panic. “Oh. Oh, gods. You're not… what have you done? You'll kill us all.”
Jon didn't answer, but gathered all of his things together. Once his things were together, he took another gold dragon from his purse and placed it on the counter. “Thank you for the whisky. It was delicious.”
“You think that’ll save you, Domeric?”
“My name isn't Domeric.” he replied. Rod's eyes slowly bulged wide. Jon pushed the coin forward slowly, and met him with a firm gaze. “And Ramsay Snow will never trouble you or your people ever again.”
Rod stared at him, eyes glazing over. Jon kept his gaze steady, finger on the dragon. “Come on, get out of here.” Rick hissed.
At last, Rod grabbed the coin in a meaty hand and swept it under the counter. “Door out the back is behind the stairs.” he muttered. “Get a move on. I never saw you in my life.” he lifted his eyes. “Have we, Rick?”
“Not once.”
“Have we, Krass?”
“Who?” the man stuck a finger in his ear and waggled it. “Don’t ring a bell.”
“Go on then. Get.”
Jon nodded. “You won’t regret this.” he murmured, and dashed to the back of the public house. Rod grimaced, picked up one of the tainted glasses, and threw it into the trash.
“I’d better not.” he scowled, before looking up. “Welcome, ser Reek. You just missed Ramsay. He went back…”
It was evening when Jon first came upon the mill, on the edge of the Weeping Water. Off in the distance, the sounds of a small village filled the air, but here along the river, the sound of the waves and the miller’s wheel overpowered it. It was isolated from the village by a long dirt road, close enough to sell product but enough to hide it from public view. The perfect place for a villain to be raised uninterrupted.
Jon waited there, hidden among the surrounding trees, for night to fall. Throughout his time watching, only a single person went to and from the mill, an older woman who had once been pretty but had let age and stress break her down to something lesser. Jon remained silent as what could only be Ramsay’s mother worked alone through the evening, and then moved to the home right next door to begin preparing a dinner for three.
At last, though, his prey approached. Down the dirt road, a snickering voice carried, along with another. The sound of bells echoed through Jon’s head, drowning out all thought as he saw a young Ramsay Snow walk down the path clad in a peasant’s linen tunic, along with another who he did not recognize. The wind shifted, and a horrendous stink drifted by Jon’s nose, and he recoiled. The namesake ‘Reek’, he could only assume, as the two men disappeared into the building.
Jon shook his head. It was folly to think he would come around and just catch his mother in the middle of a heinous act. With Reek and Ramsay, he had not the slightest hesitation, but her… he shook his head, and began to bind a strip of rags around the wooden head of an arrow, and dipped the head into the melted remains of rabbit fat from his dinner.
Ramsay Snow did not become who he was with the gift of a name, or else Domeric Bolton would have lived. She cooks the meals in their home, not him, and ratsbane is a controlled substance sold only to food businesses. She either participated in or helped cover up the poisoning of a noble heir. My conscience is clear.
A sure strike of flint, and the arrow head was blazing. The bow pulled taut as Jon aimed the burning arrow at the home. Along the shaft and into the window, Jon could see Ramsay Snow, the bane of his family, smiling and eating a home-cooked meal with his mother. The incarnation of evil was happy.
A scowl crossed Jon’s face, and the arrow shifted left as he loosed it directly through the window of the mill. It didn’t take even a second before the building, and the home right next to it, was engulfed in a massive fireball.
Jon didn’t look back, and instead ran full-sprint to his horse. Flour mill explosions crossed Ned Stark’s desk every year - poor fools who grew too careless with flame and unventilated dust, and killed their entire family in the process. With no metal arrowhead left once the fire consumed everything, nothing would indicate anything but a tragic accident. Nobody would see a charred corpse and look for evidence of poison.
With a swift hook of his leg over the saddle, Jon kicked his horse into a swift canter. His heart grew just a little lighter as the fire grew behind him. Ramsay Bolton was dead. Nobody else would be hurt by him, ever again. Now that he knew where the mill was, he could do this as often as he needed, without having to meet the villagers. He could do this as often as he needed, to make sure nobody heard the name Ramsay Bolton ever again.
Someday, Jon thought to himself, as he disappeared into the woods, you and I shall meet, Domeric Bolton. And we shall see what your father is like when he has a true heir to protect.
The port city of White Harbor was far and away the largest city in the North, eclipsing Winterfell by magnitudes. Even with its status as the smallest of the five great port cities of Westeros, Jon felt a frisson of anxiety run through him as he entered through the well-guarded gates. It reminded him uncomfortably of King’s Landing, where plots and dangers waited around every corner. Nevermind that the air was crisp and salt-laced instead of rank with human waste - nevermind that the buildings were all clean and beautiful whitewashed stone instead of wooden huts or grey granite. It was the energy that remained.
Jon lifted the hood over his face just a little bit further, as he passed under the gates. With his horse sold to a well-off stable outside the city, he was committed to his path - he either found a ship out of the harbor, or was eventually arrested when the stablemaster realized he’d been sold a Winterfell horse he had no right buying. He shifted his pack, and walked a little faster.
He made his way through the city, only occasionally glancing up to orient himself by the presence of the New Castle. The seat of House Manderly, one of the Stark’s most loyal bannermen (and certainly the richest), loomed over the city from the high hill it perched on, as everything sloped down to the harbor. Just before the harbor, the main market lay, a good central position. It made sense, it was good city planning. It was everything King’s Landing wasn’t. Yet even still, it felt like a tight string was vibrating behind his ear - a feeling of paranoia.
He made his way quickly through the streets, keeping his eyes low and straight, avoiding looking at the shops and stalls, until he reached the harbor. All along the docks, ships of all sizes and shapes were strung up and in states of organized chaos. One had the first mate howling at a merchant and gesticulating at a cart full of woolen rugs, no doubt some pricing argument - another was fighting a wobbly cargo hoist overloaded with crates. He didn’t stand out in the slightest. Yet even still, Jon kept glancing about.
Stop it.
Jon froze, eyes locking forward. “You, of all people, are saying this?”
Yes. Greystark replied. You know better. This isn’t King’s Landing. We are nobody here.
Jon closed his eyes. He took a deep breath in, let out a slow exhale, and straightened his posture. “Alright.” he lifted his eyes, relaxed his gait, and began to survey the docks. All kinds of ships were at port, of varying levels of seaworthiness. Some had shallow bottoms, only good for hugging coasts. Others were wide, ungainly things, with sharp metal prows, built to withstand harsh northern seas and break through icy floes around Ib. Jon, meanwhile, sought a different type of ship, until at last he had it.
On the furthest left of the docks, a great floating hulk was anchored in place - painted in garish colors and missing any form of sails, with music and laughter floating up from it. Hanging off the bowsprit, a wooden sign hung, well-crafted yet crusted with salty spray, with a great whale lying upon its side etched in wood. From the dock next to it, a ship of equal size, with full rigging and more sails than Jon was used to from the Iron Islands, bobbed and rocked. From the deck, Jon watched a man with a brightly-colored thrum cap walk off the deck and into the hulk next door. His eyes firmly set on the man, Jon moved forward across the docks.
Just as Jon made it to the hulk, a man stepped out in front of the gangplank. “Excuse me, ser.” he held out a hand. “No weapons.”
Jon arched an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“The Beached Whale is a tight space.” said the man. “You get drunk and swing that thing, you’ll hit three men. No weapons.”
“This is an alehouse, then?” Jon looked down at the ship, kicking lightly at the gangplank. “Clever. A dock fee beats having to pay land taxes.” he reached down and grabbed his blade by the sheath, handing it to the man. “I’ll want it back. I’m just here to talk to a man.”
“You’ll have it back.”
With that sorted, Jon stepped down into the bowels of the ship. A wall of sound hit him as soon as the doors opened. The walls had all been knocked down to make space, which were filled to the brim with people absolutely plastered on cheap beer and black-tar rum. He squeezed through the bodies, eyes focused upwards, until at last he came to a wall in the back, where the man in the brightly-colored thrum cap stood, nursing a cup.
“Afternoon.” Jon called, stepping forward. The sailor looked up, met Jon’s eyes, and grew confused.
“Can I help you?”
“You came off that carrack ship docked next space over.” Jon replied. “Are you the captain?”
“Bosun.” he answered tersely, taking a swig. “Captain’s with his family.”
“You’re not from here, are you?”
“No. I’m from the other side. Captain’s a local man.”
“You’re his third man, though, aren’t you? You can make decisions.”
The Bosun rolled his eyes. “I see. Perrin! Got someone what wants business.”
Another man further down raised his eyes. This man had a waxed leather coat on, and a leather cap instead of wool. “Aye, I heard. You’ll want me.”
“And you are?”
“First mate of the carrack Cold Rider. I speak for the captain. What do you want?”
“Let me pay for drinks, first.” Jon reached down and pulled out a single silver stag. “That will cover your night, won’t it?”
The first mate glanced down at the coin, picked it out of his hands, and gave it a quick bite. With the metal tested, he grinned. “Aye. that’ll pay. What can I do, milord?”
“Where’s your next ship leaving?” Jon asked. “With the amount of sails you have, you cross the sea regularly.”
“Tomorrow.” the first mate replied. “You didn’t ask where.”
“I don’t particularly care, as long as it’s not Westeros.” Jon replied.
The first mate’s eyes narrowed. “You on the lam?”
“No. Just… running from bad memories.” Jon shook his head. “Nobody will punish you for taking me.”
“Good. I’ll not have criminals stowing away.” the first mate nodded. “But you’re running from something.”
“... I am.”
“Family?”
“... in a way, yes.”
The man nodded. “Runaway, eh, boy? Understood. We’re a cargo ship, but we have a cabin set aside for passengers. I know you can pay,” and with this he lifted the silver stag for emphasis, “but are you asking us to go anywhere in particular?”
“No. You don’t need to go out of your way at all. Just drop me off at the next Free City you dock at.”
“Simple enough.” the man cracked his neck audibly, before reaching up his hand. “We leave late in the morning tomorrow. I’ll have you pay then.”
Jon shook his hand, then looked around. “Beached Whale, eh? Clever.”
The man chuckled. “Aye, but it carries no rooms. You’ll want another place. Try up the road, past the shops. There are places with more expensive ale, but they’ll have beds too.”
“My thanks.” Jon nodded. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.” The first mate gave a lazy two-finger salute, and went back to his drink, leaving Jon to squeeze past the crowds and escape. With a quick stop at the greeter, his sword was once again on his belt, and he disappeared into the crowds.
That went well enough.
They knew better than to ask big questions, Lodos whispered. We wouldn’t be the first one asking for a quick escape at port, and we will not be the last.
Jon didn’t respond, but let out a slight smile as his feet led him into the market district. This late in the afternoon, it wasn’t as busy as it could have been, allowing the man to glance about at all of the locations and their goods. Some of them were standard sundries, others more exotic. None of them really caught his attention serving as more distraction from his own crowded thoughts, until one. A small shop, wedged in between two buildings, but finely adorned with bright cloth and muddy glass windows. The glass alone was proof they did good business - but then he caught a glimpse of their goods.
Jon’s steps slowed, as his head rubbernecked across the street at the small shop. His fingers twitched, and an unbidden smile threatened the corner of his lips. He turned, stepped quickly through the last of the lingering crowds, and entered the shop.
“We’re closed.” shouted a voice behind a wall. As Jon stepped in, he shut the door behind him. The impact set the goods upon the walls rattling, wood bumping against wooden backings. A twang of strings set a discordant note ringing in the air. “Didn’t you hear me? We’re closed. Come back tomorrow if you want to gawk.”
“I sail with the morning. I won’t be here tomorrow.”
“Bah.” the shopkeeper scoffed. “Another blasted sailor, thinking they’re a musician. Go on and stop wasting my-” the man finally straightened up from behind his counter and stopped. “Oh. A thousand apologies, Milord. How can I assist?”
Jon wasn’t impressed. “You made your opinion quite clear. I shall stop wasting your time.”
The old, bald man quickly scrambled out from behind his seat and quickly approached. “Milord, I offer my deepest apologies - my store offers the finest goods and instruments! Many ne’er-do-wells and drunkards think they can walk in with two groats to their name and walk out with my hand-crafted work! I have had to chase away a dozen gawkers just this afternoon! You, however, are cut from a different cloth!”
“You think I’m an easy mark.” Jon replied, scowling.
“I would never dream of such a thing! A man of your fine standing is clearly a shrewd and discerning customer!” the old man backed away quickly, holding up his hands. “What can I interest you in? A flute? A fiddle? A- a bagpipe? No, no! I can see by your hands! You,” he shook his fingers with a nervous laugh, “you are a harpist!”
Jon glanced about the shop with a jaundiced eye. Hanging from the walls by countless wooden pegs, musical instruments and and tools of all shapes and sizes of admittedly fine quality were displayed. “I play the lute.” he answered flatly.
The old man stopped. “Really?” he flinched. “I mean, an excellent choice!”
Jon lifted his gaze to the ceiling. “Are you incapable of not insulting me with every word from your mouth?”
“I did not mean to-”
“Broden…”
The old man whirled around at the voice. “Dearest!” he exclaimed. “You shouldn’t be-”
“Are you arguing with the customers again… you big nit?” the old woman said breathily, leaning heavily on a fine, well-polished cane. “I can hear you all the way in bed. Get on, silly man.”
“But-”
“Get!” she exclaimed, before coughing wildly. The old man, Broden, rushed to her side, cradling her side and shoulder before she slapped at the offending hands. “Go on, you’re useless here. The hurdy-gurdy… needs a coating.”
“Damn the hurdy-gurdy, you…” Broden trailed off as the woman glared at him. “Bah. fine.” the shopkeep stormed away into the backrooms. The woman shook her head, a wry smile on her face, and hobbled forward.
“Forgive… my pig-headed husband, Milord. He’s usually… in the back.” she wheezed. “Did I hear you say… you’re looking for a lute?”
“I am…” Jon replied, hesitantly. “Are you well?”
“It’s nothing within your power to fix.” she waved her hand absently. “Kind of you to ask… but one man fussing is enough. Too much sea air.”
“I’ve heard sea air is good for the lungs.”
“Not when you work… with wood all your life. Things grow.” she replied, smirking. “Now… how long… have you played?”
“... Almost all of a year, consistently.”
Her smirked softened into something kinder. “Well done, young man. Come to find your own… after wearing out your teacher’s lute?”
“More like… I will not see my teacher again for a long time.” he answered. The sun glimmered through the windows of the shop, the last fading rays of the summer day illuminating them both. “I… wanted to honor him, by not losing my talent.”
“... will you ever see him again?”
“Maybe. One day.” he shook his head. “But I do not know if I will be able to call him teacher, then.”
The old woman looked at him for a long time, then smiled. “You have a good heart.” she pushed hard on the cane and wandered to the back of the shop, reaching down to a locked chest with a thick, heavy padlock. “Pray you do not lose it, milord Stark.”
Jon flinched. “I’m not-”
“Posh. I know a Stark when I see one.” she rebutted, unlocking the chest. With a loud creak, she pushed it open, hand sorting through several carefully stacked instruments that Jon could not see. “You have cousins in the city, boy… you have their eyes.” she stopped at last, and sighed. “There you are…”
She reached down and gripped something by the neck. Jon’s breath hitched. “Oh,” he cooed, involuntarily.
The lute she held in her hand was the pale bone of weirwood, wide at the round body and narrowing up the neck. The deep bowl of the body was striped vertically, alternating between bone white and a vivid blood red, while the pegs upon the sharply-cornered pegbox were entirely red. The soundboard was entirely white, sanded and polished to a gloss that almost shimmered in the sun, and upon the sound hole at the center, the geomantic symbol of the rosette looked like nothing else but a copse of weirwood trees, seven faces etched in negative space made all the more vivid by the white-on-black of the wood.
The woman grinned, as she lifted the instrument to grant a better view. Jon immediately stepped in closer. “Thought you might… like this.” she whispered, before turning her head away and coughing violently. Jon quickly took the instrument from her hands and cradled it like a newborn as the woman worked through her illness. “Haaagh… apologies, Milord. This was… in our pride of place for quite a while as a display piece. Had to lock it away… when we got broken into twice to steal it.”
“It’s beautiful.” Jon breathed, hands immediately fixing into place around the neck and body. “how did you get such a vivid red?”
“Mahogany wood, imported… then coated in a wood stain made from Weirwood sap.” she grinned. Her fingers traced across the soundboard. “We weren’t sure if the wood would take… but a heart tree is a mystical thing. The trunk was sturdy enough for the body… but the branches were soft and supple for the soundboard. The entire thing could have been weirwood… but he made it a mix at the end for style.”
“Not a soul would argue against that.” Jon frowned, then quickly traced his pointer finger across the gut strings - too many of them, by his count. “But… what is happening with the courses? There are ten of them.”
“Aye. Ten courses.” the woman nodded. “A new stringing technique from Braavos. You likely only learned on a six-course lute… the standard of Westeros. More opportunities for pitches. Think you can adapt?”
“For a magnificent piece like this?” Jon asked rhetorically, plucking at the strings experimentally. The sound rang out clear and long, but the echo almost seemed to his ear to be tinged with melancholy. “I will learn.”
“Just so.” the woman grinned. “I would not sell this to anybody… but for a Stark? You would be worthy.”
As Jon made to answer, a long, musical drone interrupted him. He froze in place, as the sound of strings echoed and fluttered across the room, long and uninterrupted. “What is THAT?”
The woman snorted. “That is a Hurdy-Gurdy. It is like a fiddle and a pipe organ had a bastard child together and dropped it on a dock crane’s doorstep. A Volantine contraption… and another experiment.”
Jon stood there, hands wrapped around the lute in his hands, fingers in position as the droning of the hurdy-gurdy echoed out. He stood, and listened, and waited… and then began to play. Plucking at the strings of the instrument in his hands, playing in time to the invisible player, synchronizing in time. The player stopped, but jon kept playing, a slow and sad solo. Then, through the door, the shopkeep broden slowly walked, carrying a massive instrument - shaped like a lute, but dominated by an enormous wheel in the center, one hand wrapped around a forged hand crank to turn the wheel and the other resting along a double-string of black and white keys as a half-dozen strings rippled against the turning wheel. Unfinished as it was - the wood was clearly still freshly carved, and without treatment - it was that nevertheless fascinated Jon.
Broden the shopkeep stared at Jon playing upon the weirwood lute for all of eight beats, and then his hand began to turn once again, setting the hurdy-gurdy’s wheel in motion. The droning melody started again as the strings pulled against the wheel, and the two played in harmony. Broden’s wife stood there, one arm upon her cane and another wrapped around her torso as if to hug herself. The sun sank lower into the sky, settling the city of White Harbor into dark, before at last Broden let the notes hang, and dropped his hand away.
“You play well.” Said Jon, as he lowered the lute to the ground.
“As do you, Milord.” Broden answered. “I want to offer my deepest apologies. I offended you with my assumptions - I thought that a man of your breeding would have only a trifling interest in those instruments deemed ‘appropriate’ for a great house, and not the common man’s lute. I see now that though you are clearly new to it, your dedicated practice is evident. I would be honored to part with that lute, Milord… Robb?”
Jon smiled. “Jon. My brother takes after the Tully side of the family. I take after the Starks.”
Broden’s eyes lit up with understanding. Clearly, his bastard infamy followed him everywhere in the North. “Ahhhh. Lord Jon, then.”
“This is why you let me… deal with the customers.”
“Enith, please.”
Jon chuckled, reached down to his belt, and took out the coinpurse hanging there. “Now… how much do I owe?” he smirked. “Don’t think I didn’t catch you. Am I worthy of this fine instrument by my blood, or am I the only one whose blood could afford it?”
Enith, the shopkeeper’s wife, only smirked in response.
The night was well and truly settled in as Jon walked into the tavern. Lights and uproarious laughter spilled out into the streets the moment he opened the door, and as he walked in, the weariness of the day only just began to settle in. He walked over to the counter, where the publican stood in a fine apron and two-colored shirt.
“Welcome, ser!” he said, eager to be heard over the din. “What can I get you?”
“A room.” Jon answered. “And a drink.”
“A room, I can do. You’ll have the last one of the left, second floor. Anything in particular for the drink?”
Jon nearly answered something standard - a small beer, something just alcoholic enough to sterilize but safe enough for even children to drink - when his eyes landed on an inconspicuous item behind the owner. He glanced around, saw nobody near, and leaned in. “Tell me something, good man. How’s your stock? Got a wide variety?”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Wide enough.”
“Good. then I’ll be having some ‘water of life’.” said Jon. the Publican’s expression grew shocked, for just a minute, before he straightened.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh come now.” Jon protested. “I’m not daft. Fetch me a short glass. The one you have set out right there.” he pointed to the glass, finger waggling. “It’s there to let men know you sell it, isn’t it? I recognize it from Rod’s place.”
The man’s glower faded. “You know Rod?” he asked.
“I just came from there.”
“You should know better, then. We don’t call it the Water of Life, anymore. We call it after his grandfather.”
Jon frowned, thinking for a moment, before realizing. “Ah. you’re referring to old Whisk, then.”
The man relaxed. “Be more careful. Nearly threw you out as a taxman trying to string me up.” he wiped a hand against his head. “Your clothes are too nice.”
“You think a taxman could afford this as a cover tool?” Jon asked wryly, as he lifted the weirwood lute from his back.
The publican laughed. “Fair enough. Lord Manderly would throw any skimmers in the dungeon. One whisky, coming up.” he reached down, pulling out another short glass and moving aside a hidden panel. Out came another tall bottle, and out came another pour of the golden brown liquid, filling only a third of the glass. “How’s Rod doing? Haven’t heard from him.”
“Might be preoccupied. The mill in his village exploded.”
“Damn.” he cursed, thumping the counter with his fist lightly. “That’s going to interrupt production, and no mistake. I’m going to have to keep going north to his competition at Long Lake, then. Hated the ride, and the men there are swindlers, but nothing for it, now.”
Jon lifted the glass to examine it. “This is from Long Lake?” he lifted it, taking a slow sip. The flavor difference was immediate - it tasted almost like drinking a layer of smoke on top of the alcohol. He let out a quiet cough. “Hooo. that’s good. How’d they do that?”
“Who knows?” the publican shrugged. “Good, though, isn’t it?”
“And you had to ride all the way to Long Lake to get this? Why not somewhere closer?”
“There could be dozens of distilleries around, and I’d never know them unless I’m introduced. If any of them are caught they’ll be lucky to see the outside of a prison cell again.”
Jon swirled his drink. “Seems a shame, that. Imagine if they could serve this at Ned Stark’s table.”
The publican snorted. “The Honorable Ned Stark, drinking bootleg whisky? That’ll be the day.”
“No, imagine it.” Jon continued, leaning forward. The alcohol was already a warm buzz in his brain. “Put a stamp on it, and sell it to all and sundry. The northern answer to Arbor Gold and Dornish Red - tell me you couldn’t sell this to a Braavosi laying over for a week in a trading ship.”
The man laughed now. “You’ve a grand imagination, boy. I could more than do it - I could thrive on it.” he leaned forward. “Let’s talk about your payment. Are you good for your stay?”
Jon shook his head. “Of course I am.” he leaned down to grab his purse.
“Good. then I feel comfortable offering you a choice. Do you know how to play that thing on your back?”
Jon stopped, shrugging the leather case covering his new instrument higher. “I do.”
“Can you sing?”
“I can.”
“Then entertain the room for the night, and you’ll have your room and board paid for.” the publican reached over and tapped the short glass. “Do well and you’ll have your drinks paid for, too.” he looked around the room. “Tonight will be rowdy, I can feel it in my gut. A bard on hand will help focus the rowdiness towards you instead of my furniture… or my girls.”
“Do you care what I sing?”
The publican rolled his eyes. “I’m not fussy. I don’t care if you end up singing ‘The Bear and The Maiden Fair’ for two hours straight as long as the drunks stay happy. If I could make a request… save the sad songs for the end of the night. When it’s time to calm them down.”
“Fair enough.”
The publican swept out an arm, gesturing at a single seat on an elevated stage in the corner. “The floor is yours.”
Jon grinned nervously, quickly slugged the rest of his whiskey, and slid the rest of his gear onto the counter. “Watch that for me. And have another one of those ready in a bit.” he made his way over to the stage, unstrung the leather sheath, and lifted the lute free. One of the patrons immediately noticed and let out a wolf whistle.
“Gonna play a ditty for us, ya brat? Give us a song!”
“Pay me if you’re making requests!” Jon shot back, grinning, before flicking a silver stag into his own open case. “Otherwise, you get what you get!” the patron laughed in reply, as Jon quickly tuned the pegs on his lute. A few experimental strums caught the room’s attention further, as more and more heads turned his way. Jon plucked a few strings - ba-da-ta-da-ta-daaa - before looking up. “Evening. The name is..."
He paused, and thought for a moment. Ned would tear across the North looking for him - better to not give others that could chase him a clue where he had gone. "The name is Ragnar. Here’s a song you won’t have heard before - I learned it from a wildling.” A few hooted in the back. “Now, I’m going to need you all to help me with this - this was meant for a whole tribe singing along. When you pick up the beat, join in as you can. Make a ruckus, alright?” his fingers picked along the strings quickly, jumping into a lively beat as his heel thumped a steady heartbeat.
“Well, under the merry moon I may have started and left me home~
left all the girls of Thenn near brokenhearted~
Saluted father dear and kissed me darling mother~
Drank a pint of beer, my grief and tears to smother~
Then off to hunt the horn, leave where I was born~
I cut a stout blackthorn to banish snarks and grumpkins~
Brand new pair of brogues~
Rattlin’ over the bogs~
Frighten all the dogs~
On the rocky road to Hardhome~
One Two Three Four Five~”
The crowd whooped and started beating the time into the floor as he launched the chorus. The tavern quickly picked up the tune, whooping and pounding on the tables To Jon’s echoing voice. With the third verse, the whole building was rattling. By the time the fifth verse had rolled around, they were singing together in glorious, off-key synergy.
“Oh the dogs of foul Tyrosh, when we safely landed~
Called meself a fool, I could no longer stand it~
Blood began to boil, Temper I was losing~
And poor old Raven’s land, they began abusing~
‘HURRAH me soul’ says I, Shillelagh I let fly~
Some Frostfang boys were nigh~
they saw I was a hobblin~
With a Loud HURRAY and joining in the affray~
We quickly cleared the way~
To the rocky road to Hardhome~
One Two Three Four Five~”
“HUNT THE HARE AND TURN HER DOWN THE ROCKY ROAD, AND ALL THE WAY TO HARDHOME, WHACK FOL LOL LE DAH!” answered the crowd as one, as Jon let the final note flutter in the air, before the tavern exploded in cheers and applause. “Thank you,” said Jon, heart thumping wildly in his chest, head ringing like he’d been in a battle.
The first patron who had heckled him leaned over, laughing wildly, as he flipped a silver coin into his lute case. “Give us another, man!”
“Another, he says!” Jon laughed, as the doors to the tavern fluttered open again and again, as more people were drawn in by the clamor and music. “Let’s have something a little more familiar, then! The Bear and the Maiden Fair!” he strummed the strings once as the crowd cheered, and launched again. “A bear, there was! A Bear, a Bear!”
“All BLACK, and BROWN, and COVERED WITH HAIR!”
And so it went, all through the night. At some point, the publican made good on his word - but instead of bringing him another glass, he brought him the entire bottle. Every other song, Jon took a small swig, as his fingers loosened up - partly to soothe his throat, and partly to dull the growing pain of his uncallused fingertips against the twangy gut strings - all twenty of them. Even as the night grew long, and the tenor of the songs changed from bawdy, upbeat tunes like ‘Iron Lances’ and ‘Off to Gulltown, ‘Fifty-Four Tuns’ and ‘A Cask of Ale’ and intermittent requests for ‘Rocky Road to Hardhome’ encores to the sad, pretty songs, still they came and put coins in his case. First, ‘Jenny of Oldstones’, and ‘Ride of the Seven’. Then ‘The Last of the Giants’, yet another Free Folk special that quickly became beloved, and ‘Brave Danny Flint’.
Finally, As Jon finished the last lingering notes of The Seasons of My Love, he looked down at the ground, and realized it was far fuzzier than he expected. “Mmmm…” Jon frowned. Only now was he recognizing his mistake. He looked up slowly. “Ladies… and Gentlemen… you’ve been a wun-wonderful audience. Buht I think… a featherbed is calling my name at last.” a disappointed noise echoed through the tavern. “Thank you, th-thank you. I know. We all… had a lot of fun. A lot…” he cocked his head. “But… before I go. Let’s have one more song. A new one. How-how about that?”
The room cheered. He grinned, head slightly wobbly, and twisted a peg a minute fraction. “This one… was given to me by a very dear- *hic* - dear person to me. Her name was Mya. Everybody say, ‘thank you Mya’.”
“Thank you, Mya!” intoned the room dutifully.
Jon giggled. “Here we are. This ish her song. It’s called…” he paused. She never gave him a name. It was all he had left of her, now. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, both in volume and in tone. “This song is called, ‘Where The Roses Go’.” he twinged a pair of courses in quick succession, and began a low, deep hum. The melancholy sound carried across the room, as the patrons stilled, until at last Jon began to sing.
“Well, there’s a girl living high, who used to be free, no worries, no cares, no fears she would flee, she was strong, she was bright, ‘till a man came at night, and said we’ve come to take peace from you…”
The sounds of the dockside inn had settled into a softer murmur, as Jon staggered into his room. With a weary hand, he laid the lute against the wall and slowly began to unwrap the cloth bandages around his fingers. Even with the protection from the rough string, his fingertips were beginning to swell up red and angry. Jon grimaced, before walking over to the small table where a bowl and a jug of water lay. Gently, gingerly, he poured out half of the jug into the bowl, set himself down upon a stool, and placed his fingers into the bowl.
A hiss of pain escaped him, as the sensation ran up his arms. “Gods, I wish I kept my calluses.”
Such is life. Lodos whispered. You’re going to regret the hangover in the morning, but that can wait. Jon cocked his head. The phantom sounded pensive. We need to talk.
“Sho talk.” Jon replied, slurring. “You’ve never asked permission before.”
Do you remember the night the Raven took Mya? You had a dream, then.
Jon’s mood soured. “... Ish this important?” he murmured. “I dun wanna remember this.”
I think it is. You forgot the dream when you woke up, but I was there, too, and I remember. You and I don’t share dreams.
Jon’s frown deepened, but he straightened in his chair all the same, fighting the urges of a drunken slump. “Wut-what was the dream, then?”
It was a dream of the Seven, whispered Lodos. A nightmare, really. It was all the people surrounding you, singing the Song of the Seven before plummeting into darkness. At the end, there was Val and the children, but underneath, the bodies disappeared to form a single chain… and a single eye looking back up at you.
The room was quiet. Jon slowly lifted his hands from the water bowl, brushing them absently against his shirt. The touch made them flare with pain again, but now he barely noticed. “... was there anything else?”
… A voice. One that I don’t remember ever hearing before, said Lodos. A woman’s voice. It asked for you to return South… and it called you Aegon.
Jon’s mouth thinned into a line, as his eyes dilated. “Aegon… nobody’s called me that shince…” he hiccuped. “Since before any of this started. Cuz it'sh not my name... Jaeherys is. My..." he hiccuped. "my dad told me that. Jusht a... Jusht a trick from the Raven, to be confushing. And no figure… to go with the voice?”
No. but there was a name. Meera.
His fingers began to drum against the table, sending flickers of pain through his skull. Right now, he rather liked that - it was helping him sober up. “Meera… I know that name. Once, perhaps, long ago. I… dunno where from. But I don’t remember ever… not before exile, and certainly not after…” a throbbing pain formed at his temple, and he scoffed as a hand went up to massage it. “Bah. Why are we so worried about this dream? Something as vague as that…”
Because you know the Stranger doesn’t have a verse in the song, but for the one you wrote. Across Jon’s nose, a breeze of salty sea air blew, though the windows were shut tightly against the cold. Someone sang the Stranger’s Verse in this dream, Jon, and it wore our face. Our face, and your grandfather’s colors. it spoke to us - it said, ‘don’t look down’.
“... To where the great eye was, and the single chain.” Jon whispered. He shut his eyes, took a shuddering breath, and reached for his backpack. From there, he took a journal from Luwin’s library, flipped it to a blank page, and took a stick of charcoal. With quick motions, his artist’s training came back quickly as he sketched. Finally, he set down the stick, and stared at what he had drawn: a thirteen-pointed star. The lines were a little wobbly, but it was nevertheless wide enough in the center to hold an enormous, cat-slit pupil.
“... Thoros of Myr gave me this… from a vision in the flame.” Jon murmured. “From a vision of the Red God. And a dream with the Seven shows me this again… but without the star. Only a chain, forged from falling bodies.” a sick feeling was forming in his stomach - only part of it, he was certain, was from the liquor. “I don’t like this. I need answers.”
Answers are not easily forthcoming.
“No. That’s why I will make them come to me.” he straightened up in his chair, gripping the sides of his water bowl. He needed a secret - a big one. One of the biggest he knew, really, one that he had never once tried to give away. The idea of allowing such a thing to go forgotten was… unthinkable. Now, however…
Now I know I’m trashed from the drink. But if I’m truly never coming back to Westeros, this life… then it doesn’t matter what happens, does it?
Jon breathed in deeply, and with a violent whoosh forced out all the air in his lungs, before fixing a single thought in his mind.
Joffrey Baratheon is the secret bastard of Jaime and Cersei Lannister.
He plunged his head into the water, submerging himself completely, and held the bowl tightly to his face. The water rushed up his nose, through his sinuses, and pooled in all the wrong places, setting his face burning with pain. He let it burn, let it soak and diffuse himself even as he kept repeating the secret as a manta - Joffrey Baratheon is the secret bastard of Jaime and Cersei Lannister - before taking a strong, agonizing inhale.
The water rushed up through both his nose and mouth, flooding his esophagus, his stomach, his lungs, as he drowned in a puddle of water. His chest heaved in panic - Joffrey Baratheon is the secret bastard of Jaime and Cersei Lannister - his arms flailed about as his body rejected the command to keep the bowl to his face - Joffrey Baratheon is the secret bastard of Jaime and Cersei Lannister - and as the light began to draw away, until all the world started to lose any color other than deep, abyssal black…
Take it…! Please!
A small, feminine giggle echoed in his brain.
Jon reared back, hacking and gasping as he flopped to the side. The stool underneath toppled down, sending him to the floor as he spewed everything from his lungs and stomach. Everything burned as the alcohol forced itself out of every orifice it could, his lungs heaved as they tried to breathe even as they were full of liquid - but Jon could not feel his body’s agony as his eyes blew black as the abyss.
A man stands at the altar of steel, fire from his fingers striking sparks at last. From a single strike, two sparks the color of royalty, of loyalty emerge. From another, two sparks the color of blood. A third, two sparks the color of betrayal. The Sun rises upon the Horned One’s eternal wake, and in his sparking hand the Secret begins to take shape. What is given may yet be returned.
Fire in the sky, blooming like an unveiling flower. Fire in the stone, hidden behind Iron walls and Golden seals. Fire at the gates, as the Groom seeks his Bride. Fire in the heart, as the Bride falls away. But never, never fire in the Pattern. Never fire at the Shadow. To be seen is to be known, and beneath the Land of Dreams, in the Valley of Pnoth, to be known is to never be free again.
Jon shuddered violently, hard enough that he could hear the teeth rattling in his skull, as he hacked up water upon the floor. “Wai…” He gasped, before his arms gave out.
Pnoth…
He knew that name. He knew that damned name. As the faint light of a candle burned his retinas like the light of the almighty sun, his brain shuddering in time to his heartbeat like a war drum, he scrabbled along the floor, reaching for his journal, because HE KNEW THAT NAME.
Jon, stop, Lodos whispered. You’re done. Rest.
“But…”
Stop it. That’s the hardest I’ve ever seen either of us struggle to give something away. You nearly died. Breathe. Sleep.
Jon slowed, then slumped limply to the floor. Ragged coughs and retches rippled through him as his body worked to reject the ritual. Every inch of him ached. The energy left his body, and he slumped to the floor, as his mind gave way to the blackness of sleep.
The cold fog of the morning hung over the city of White Harbor as Jon slowly broke his fast in the tavern on a hearty portion of herring pie drizzled in savory gravy and a rasher of extra-greasy bacon. All around him, sailors gossiped in muted voices, still hungover, but every once in a while someone would raise their voices enough to catch his attention.
“... ever FIND that bearded ax-fucking priest I'll rip his shriveled balls off and shove them down his throat!” A man exclaimed, thumping his fist on the table.
“Yeah? And when are you gonna find him again, eh?” the sailor across from him snorted, waving a piece of egg speared on a fork absently. “Like as not he’s already gone back to Norvos. What are you gonna do, eh? Swim up the River Rhoyne after him?”
“Catch Grayscale on the way and cough on him for revenge.” said the third, before the two burst out laughing. The aggrieved sailor growled, but said nothing and shoved more of his food into his mouth. “Let it rest, friend. Now is not the time. Word is the Three Sisters are warring again. Better to stay north of the Stepstones and make the Ibben run. I’ve heard Whale oil is cheap these days.”
“Makes sense. Summer’s gone so long that there's constant calves. Shadow Council can't fit any more in their storehouses, I'd bet.” The second nodded his head in appreciation. “Haul some shipments down to Pentos a time or two and the fat magisters will pay our fares.”
“I'd steer clear of Pentos, all the same.” Said the first. “Barton told me there's a massive dothraki horde bearing down on their walls…”
Jon couldn’t but groan, and felt his head flop over to his side. His head pulsed like someone was beating it with a bellringer, and his entire arms ached like the bones were trying to turn themselves inside out. “Fuuuck…” he moaned to himself. “I haven’t been hung over like this in… decades. Not since my wedding feast, at least.”
Wasn’t that a party, though?
Jon grinned, shoving a piece of bacon into his mouth. “Heh.”
Are you able to talk about last night? The visions.
The grin faded. Jon speared a chunk of his pie, smearing it in the gravy before shoving it in his mouth. “It was… different,” he muttered around the food. “The second vision… How can it be so much more vague… yet more direct, at the same time? It nearly felt like I was being commanded, but I couldn’t even tell the shapes of the mural I was looking at.”
He reached over to his mug of table beer and took a swig - the quickly-made quickly-spoiled drink of choice when port town water was suspect, while remaining not even a quarter as alcoholic as a true ale. “The first vision… the sparks looked like people. Two of the color of royalty, two the color of fire, two the color of betrayal… What is the color of royalty?”
Purple, Lodos whispered. Purple fire, the color of loyalty?
“... Bondfire.” Jon finished. “Something that, as of now, only I know how to create. It cannot then mean I would have alchemists with me, especially not in Essos. Two the color of betrayal is simple - I will have traitors with me. I suppose I will find out if that is supposed to be a secret or not. And then…” he went quiet. “Red. the color of blood. Fire, and blood.”
He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “I suppose I can’t keep ignoring it forever. Especially after… everything that I said.” he groaned. “Of all the things I could have said, I swore to the gods… I halfway didn’t mean any of it.”
Would you take it back, though?
Jon’s expression soured. “... No. I wouldn’t. Not after that. To know somebody is capable of such a thing…” his jaw wiggled, as he filled his mouth with a piece of pie. “It wouldn’t matter if it only happened once. I wouldn’t trust Ser Thorne with my back if I was given a hundred good lives.”
And we’ll never give Robert a chance to sober up again, if that is what can come of it, Lodos whispered, darkly. Let him die a wine-sodden disgrace, on a boar’s tusks.
“Two sparks, though… not sure how I’ll cross paths with those two.” Jon muttered. “Didn’t he die, rather quickly? They should be with the Khalasar, after the wedding, whenever that was… am I going to meet Drogo?” he didn’t like that prospect.
… The timeline is suspect, whispered the quiet new voice in his head. Jon straightened up at Greystark’s interjection. Varys was the one who controlled information about Daenerys. We don’t know where they actually are in the Free Cities, or when they got married.
“And she never liked talking about things, back then.” he murmured, to himself. “So…” his head lolled back, staring up at the tavern ceiling. “If this is something I have to look forward to in Essos, whatever it could mean, then I very nearly want to stay here, after all.”
We will be nobody there. Just itinerant vagabonds. Maybe we can be a wandering bard, playing for our supper. None of this is set in stone. Simply refuse to get involved. This is a vacation, Jon - let it be nothing more. Don’t let a prophecy we might be misinterpreting ruin this.
A clink of wood drew Jon's attention down to his plate to finally realize he'd eaten his fill. With a quick motion, he slugged back the rest of his breakfast small beer - He was definitely not looking to get drunk again any time soon after last night, but it was better than risking bad tavern water - and made his way over to the counter.
“Here’s the key to my room,” he said, dropping it in front of the publican. “Thank you for letting me play for my room and board.”
“Hmph.” the publican scoffed. “I should be thanking you. I had regulars asking when you’d be back next after you went up. Business hasn’t been that good in moons. Though I’d rather you didn’t down as much of that bottle as you did.”
“Urgh… I wish I didn’t, either.”
The older man laughed, and leaned in. “Tell me something. Did you really learn that song from a wildling? Or did you just make that up?”
Jon cocked his head. “Why would I lie?”
“Cheerful song like that? About going to Tyrosh? How would those savages even know about the Free Cities?”
Jon’s good mood slipped. “Who said it was a cheerful song? That was a song to raise the fighting blood. A song of rebellion.” The publican’s expression screwed up in confusion. “The Free Folk may not know the Free Cities… but they know Tyrosh. There is not a soul alive that has left the True North to that den of slavery and returned to tell of it… but the Free Folk know Tyrosh.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
He glared at the publican. “It means that it’s both a Thenn fighting chant, and a wish cast, that every Free man who is captured by the slave traders of Tyrosh remember to never let them break your will. Get free and return to Hardhome, or die trying. Never surrender to the yoke of tyranny from man or nature.”
“What-”
“Excuse me. I have a ship to catch.” Jon shifted the pack over his shoulder, and disappeared out the door. The markets were already in full swing, but Jon paid it no mind, annoyed as he was by the slanders against the Free Folk. He did not get distracted as he had been during the previous day, and made his way to the docks.
All across the docks, sailors called out commands and insults to each other as cargo was loaded by the ton onto carracks and tall cogs with wooden cranes. Stacks of Northern timber destined for the insatiable arsenal of Braavos, who is said to be able to build a warship in a single day; barrels of wool and mutton passing down the coast to the capital; smaller ships filling with the modest output of the few northern silver mines bound for southern mints. White Harbor was the only port capable of even handling the North's meager trade, and it had made house Manderly a rich and powerful ally to Winterfell.
And yet they were nowhere to be found when Ramsay took a butcher's knife to the North, Jon thought sourly. Roose butchered his heir Wendel at the Red Wedding, and yet fat Wyman Manderly stood to the side until we had all exhausted ourselves. If he had acted, mayhap Ramsay would never have taken our home in the first place.
Do not hold grudges against him, Lodos whispered. Wyman adores his son, you know this. He would never side with his killer willingly. We already know the culprit for such insanity.
Jon scowled. It was obvious, after his alter-ego said it; he was annoyed he didn't realize it first, in fact. Then the Manderlys are not to be trusted unless the Raven is dead.
He shifted the weight of his pack upon his shoulders and made his way to the dock of the Cold Rider. “Ho, there,” he called as the bosun came into view. The sailor looked up at him, turned and spat a wad of sourleaf into the water, just barely missing the foot of a hooded figure next to him, face buried in a book.
“Good morn to you, m’lord. You ready, then?” Asked the bosun. At Jon's nod, he smiled, his teeth bloody pink from the sourleaf. “Good. We had a change in plans. You won't be the only passenger.”
“What?” Jon blinked. “What do you mean? You said you couldn't take passengers to begin with, and now there's a second?”
“I told him we weren't strangers.” the hooded stranger called out. Jon froze. “I didn't think you would mind if we bunked in the same room.”
“What…!?” Jon hissed. The stranger closed the book, stowed it inside his cloak and stood up; Immediately, Jon's hand went to the dagger at his side. “How did you find me?”
“It wasn't hard. I've recently realized that cowardice comes easily to me; I just thought of what I would do, instead of what you would do.” a hand went up to the hood, drawing it back to shake out his slightly-overgrown hair. Theon Greyjoy fixed his gaze on Jon and sighed. “I'm not here to take you back, idiot. Ease up.”
The bosun's eyes flicked between them, grimacing. “Problems? I'll not have fights on my decks. Work it out now or neither of you are setting foot on board.”
“No problems,” Theon replied. “We'll be traveling together.”
“If you think I'm going back-” Jon bit out.
“I already told you. I'm here alone. Nobody else knows where I am.” Theon shook his head. “To be honest, I got here before you did. I was worried I had guessed wrong, but then I saw you come out of the hulk. You went on a detour somewhere, didn't you?”
Jon stared at the squid prince with hard eyes, and tried to shut out all other sensations. Everything except his own body faded to dullness… and at last he felt it. A single flickering hint of a tattletale itch. Far, far subtler than the Raven had ever been before, but there all the same; Theon, of all people, was the chosen puppet this time instead of a nearby stranger. “How did you find me?” He asked, voice growing hard.
“I think it would be better if that waited until we were at sea, going… wherever this is headed.”
“Pentos.” Answered the Bosun, adjusting his colorful thrum cap to scratch at his ear.
“Pentos it is, then.” Theon replied. “I've never been to the Free Cities before. Not on land, anyways. You haven't either, have you?”
Jon, unsettled, nearly corrected him, but remembered at the last second where he was and bit his tongue. “No.” He said. “I haven't been.”
Theon’s eyes lit up. He leaned in and gripped Jon by the shoulder - he was half a second from drawing the dagger and plunging it into the Greyjoy's belly, when he brought his lips to Jon's ear instead.
“Liar.” He whispered. “I can see it in your eyes - We have been to the Free Cities, together, Lys and Tyrosh both. You were much better at lying before you got married to that Baratheon girl.”
Jon froze.
Theon pulled away, a triumphant and relieved smile on his face. “I wasn't going crazy, after all.” and with a hand still on Jon's shoulder gestured to the ship. “We should get inside. We have a lot to talk about. And I did tell you to come find me when you wake up… Lodos Palecrown.”
… WHAT.
Notes:
Well, here we go. All the stuff that I was working on when I was agonizing over how to kill Robert the right way last chapter. Bet you're surprised to see this back so quickly. A very musical chapter, both in-text and out of it. This is a story about the SONG of Ice and Fire, after all. Some of you caught the hints I was dropping leading up to this little reveal more thoroughly than others. I wish I could namedrop the person who actually gagged me literally years ago (god, has it been that long? I need to get faster) by making a crack prediction that was completely correct, but their name is gone. Waaaaah.
Don't have much to say. Go read Kagurabachi, I guess, it's peak. Enjoy.
Chapter 29: Life Eight: Part Two
Summary:
One becomes Two.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The ship rocked underneath their feet gently, as Jon watched Theon settle in against the walls of their shared cabin. Above their heads, the sailors of the Cold Rider shouted and hollered with the efforts of disembarking. His focus never wavered.
Theon let out a long sigh, before laughing once. “I thought I was going crazy. Couldn't understand why things were so different. It wasn't until I woke up again that I realized.” He looked up, with a wry grin. “You know what I'm talking about, don't you?”
Jon stared at the Squid Prince with hard eyes. The faint itch on his forehead hadn't gone away. “... I don't have the faintest idea.”
The grin disappeared. “Don't you pull that shit with me, Snow.”
“You think I'm stupid?” Jon retorted. “I can see you plain.”
“Oh for the love of-” Theon made to stand up and put a hand down to his belt, and immediately Jon rushed forward with his dagger in hand. The smaller boy slammed Theon against the wall, point jabbed against the apple of his throat. “Ghhhk!”
“You're not clever, Raven.” Jon hissed. “I only followed you to separate you from other bodies. I can sense you every time - Theon isn't a warg. You have until the count of three to exit him before I give you death.”
“Jon-!”
“One.”
“You fucking maniac-!”
The dagger inched in close enough to draw blood. “Two.”
Theon's throat flexed involuntarily, pushing it into the blade as blood welled. “Th-”
“Lodos please-!”
The dagger slipped, and drove into the wood of the cabin walls. Theon gasped, pushing Jon away and scrambling for space as his hand pressed against the thin line of the wound. “Oh thank Mother,” He rasped. “You absolute bell-end, Jon!”
“How do you know that name?” Jon growled, pointing the blade directly at Theon's forehead. “That’s the second time you’ve said it. It’s a new trick for you, I’ll admit.”
“What… don't recognize me?” Theon hissed, before flopping back to lean against the wall. “I'll admit I looked a little different after you murdered me with the stable boy's body. I wasn't going to hold that against you until now, what with the handprint and all.”
How the HELLS?
“You… you shouldn't remember any of that.”
“Because nobody else does?” Theon replied. “Not even the ragged corpse underneath that tree.” His head flopped back, thumping against the wood. “I thought I was going mad, when I woke up again in Winterfell. Tried to move with limbs I didn't have anymore. Took me half the day to speak with my lips instead of the stars underneath my skin.” Jon’s eyes shot wide. “Recovered faster than you did from the bird, really, but in fairness I had a far bigger brain to live inside than you did. After a few days I thought it was just a bad dream…” his head rolled back up, staring at Jon with steely eyes. “Until you started talking to me about the Iron Islands, and my fucking uncle Euron.”
Jon felt the breath leave him. “No…” he wheezed. “It can't be.”
“Do you remember, Jon?” Theon pushed himself up. “The day we first met my sister again? I was so young, barely even a few moons old, not enough to comprehend. But when you pushed your mind into my body, and I remembered at last what it was like to breathe air, what it was like to have solid bones, I wanted to make it a spectacle. I wanted to announce my return with the shattering force I never knew in this frail, lanky body.” He held his arms out together, undulating from the wrist into his shoulder like a wave, or a tentacle. “Power enough to drag a dragon down from the sky and strangle him.”
“And when we were one, Jon, it didn’t just go one way.” Theon’s arm rippled upwards, into a gesture drawing an invisible line through the air. As far as Jon was concerned, that line was as taut as a garrote wrapped around his neck.
“Theon…”
“I saw everything, Jon. When we fought against the Golden Company… When you saw Dany for the first time, and you finally knew yourself again, I saw everything you did. I saw the Wall. I saw the dead. I saw…” Theon trailed off. When he began again, the voice that came out was weaker. Less certain. “I saw Reek, Jon. What you saw. What it did. How that… creature ended. And then how everything else did. I know everything, Jon.”
The ship rolled underneath them with a rogue wave, and Jon flopped backwards with it into a boneless slump. “That’s not possible.” Jon mumbled.
“Is it?” Theon shot back. “You know the Raven doesn’t remember a thing, or he would have been waiting for you at the cave after Varamyr.”
“... But how?”
Theon folded his arms, leaning back against the wall. “Unless you discovered something about your Red God in the Capital, your guess is as good as mine as to why I’m here now. But the rest?” he smirked. “Mother told you, didn’t she? You were going to give a son back.”
Jon slowly looked up, eyes wide. “Lady Black.”
“And now I’m here to stay.” Theon nodded. “A little older, a little stranger. Although, I don’t think it was entirely her work." He reached down to the beltline of his outfit once again, but instead of reaching for a weapon as Jon had originally thought he grabbed his shirt and pulled up. Near his belly button, off to the side, a gnarled, ugly circle of pale tissue the size of a silver moon deformed the otherwise unremarkable expanse of his midriff; when he spun slightly to the side, a matching pair - an exit wound - was visible on his back. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have this.”
Jon’s jaw dropped. “That’s…”
“A killing blow,” said Theon. “My first. You saw me lying there with this, when I supposedly charged that freak Night King and was run through for it. Not quite as blatant as your dozen stab wounds, which is why I didn’t spot it the first time I took a bath, but an ending just the same.” he looked up. “I didn’t realize what this was until after you’d run away with Robert. Jon, if you believe nothing else, believe this. The Raven can’t fake a scar for a wound I haven’t taken yet. I don’t even remember that life - it’s only through your eyes that I understand what I’m looking at.”
“I…” Jon began, then trailed off. After a long moment, a scoff. “I can’t… don’t believe this. I…”
Theon stood there, still with his shirt yanked up provocatively. Jon shook his head slowly, pushed himself to his feet, and began to walk forward intently. Theon immediately dropped his shirt and put up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, don’t you-”
Jon raised his arms out and grabbed Theon, pulling him into a fierce hug. The Greyjoy stood there, arms raised like he had no idea where to put them. “I- oh.”
“I can’t believe it…” Jon mumbled into Theon’s shoulder. “You of all people… this is real…”
The squid prince slowly lowered his arms, and one hand awkwardly came to rest on Jon’s back, patting it lightly like he was trying to soothe a colicky baby, or a wild jungle cat that had decided to nuzzle him instead of eat his face. “I, uh… I’m sorry about, ah… the direwolves. I didn’t know. I’m not even mad about the Hodor thing anymore.” The mood instantly flipped, and Jon pushed Theon into the wall hard enough to smash his head against a shelf. “OW! You bastard!”
“Theon, please. For the love of whatever meddling gods exist - please, shut the fuck up.”
The ship rolled underneath Jon’s feet in a comforting rise-and-fall, as he stared out across the blue expanse from the prow. Behind him, the sounds of industry and mildly angry men rang out; someone threatened to box another man’s ears for dropping a barrel of salted cod on his toes. The commotion was so loud, he almost didn’t hear the footsteps padding softly to him. But the itch on the back of his skull gave him away all the same.
Theon stopped at the edge and languidly rested his elbows on the rail, striking a 45-degree forward slump. His dark eyes stared out at nothing, and Jon felt content to let the moment linger. The arguing behind them got louder, but neither of them said a word.
“So.” Theon said, finally. “You’re a dragonseed, after all.”
Behind them, the fleshy SMACK of fist against cheek signaled the start of the fight. “Don’t ever call me that again.” Jon replied flatly.
“Is it not true, though?” asked Theon. “You’re the last scion of a deposed dynasty. Barring the ones we already know about, and that fraud Aegon, of course.” He shifted his back leg as the roar behind them got louder. “Of all the players that made it to the end of your true life-”
“The Red God picked me. I know.” Jon scowled. “The decision is not lost on me.”
“Then…”
“You’ve been in my head. You know why.”
Theon fixed his gaze upon the horizon. “... It wasn’t your fault,” he replied. “And it wasn’t hers, either. You know that, right?”
“Was it the Throne, then?” Jon snarked. “The Raven? Society? I’m a kinslayer, all the same. Nothing will change that blade in her heart.”
Theon cocked his head sideways. “What? I wasn’t talking about-” his eyes widened, and he turned to Jon with a look approaching horror. “Oh. Oh, no.”
“What?”
“You don’t remem- no. No, forget I said anything.” Theon backed away from the railing, as a roar rose from the fighting sailors.
“You don’t get to say that and just walk away like I’m going to forget!”
“No, we are not having this out here. Not on this ramshackle raft in the middle of the Narrow Sea.” Theon threw up his hands. “I know you, Jon Snow, about as well as any person possibly can now. I know exactly how you will react to what I say.”
“Theon…”
“Ask me again, Jon, in the middle of nowhere.” Theon said, lifting a single finger. “Surrounded by nothing, and not a soul for miles. Where your black rage can’t hurt anyone else. Then I will tell you.”
Jon stopped. He’d never described the way his anger felt to anybody else. Never told anyone the way that everything went dark from the sides of his vision until he’d exhausted himself, or regained control. But Theon knew. Of course he knew, if they’d shared consciousness among the Ironborn. A chill went down his spine. Have I truly forgotten something so devastating? Then how does he know, when I don’t?
Jon closed his eyes, and took a steadying breath. “... Swear to me.” he said, quietly. “Swear to me that it’s as serious as you say, and you will tell me then.”
Theon stood there, staring at Jon with intense eyes. “... I swear.” Theon whispered, barely audible over the waves and the fighting. He walked over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder - with the age difference between them, Theon towered nearly a head taller. “We are together now, Jon. through thick and thin. I can’t get rid of you any more than I can get rid of my hand, and you can’t either.”
The Greyjoy gently shook Jon. “So we work together. Alright? Whatever happens, we stick together, and we beat this fucking curse. No lies, no backstabbing. Any problems, we hash out like men grown, and then we shake on it. Instead of that troupe of jesters over there.” He nodded his head over to the fight; Jon turned his head to see one man down on the ground, getting his chest beat in by the other’s fists as the rest of the crew was pulling him away. The captain was tearing at them from across the ship, screaming bloody murder and carrying a lash in his hand. “Clear?”
Jon turned away from the fight, staring at Theon for a long moment. “... Clear.” he held out his arm, and Theon gripped him up to the elbow. It was then that Jon gave him a sideways grin. “Since when were you so fucking mature? I don’t think even Robb could get an oath like that out of you.”
“Well, you took over the consciousness of a very impressionable young sea monster multiple times. I couldn’t help but pick up some traits from you, old man.” Theon smirked. “And I distinctly notice you were a far more dramatic bastard in King’s Landing than before. Didn’t learn that from anybody, did you?”
“Ah, piss off.”
It was night time once again, when all but the watch shift had gone to their hammocks for rest, when Jon next took out the weirwood lute and began to quietly tune the pegs. Theon glanced up from his silent whittling project, some kind of mermaid impression going by the half-formed breasts he was focusing on, and arched an eyebrow. When Jon finished tuning and plucked out a simple chord progression on the instrument, he finally whistled.
“I was so keyed up on finally having answers I didn’t even ask about that. Where in the seven hells did you learn to play, Snow?”
“I learned from Mance,” Jon replied, humming a note. “I love a maid, as fair as spring, with flowers in her hair…”
Theon shook his head. “I can’t believe this. Being an all-powerful wizard and one of the best swordsmen I know isn’t good enough for you, so you have to learn how to play an instrument, too. I would be afraid if I didn’t know you.”
“If you've been in my head, then you'd remember that you were the one who recommended this kind of thing.” Jon hit Theon with a sidelong stare. “You don’t have to sit on the sidelines and mope, squid-brains. You’ll have more than enough time to follow your own advice.”
Theon didn’t react to the insult, but instead raised his eyebrows as his eyes widened. “I… didn’t even think of that. You really think I could learn to play?” He set down the stick of wood and moved over to Jon’s side.
“Not this.” Jon moved the lute an inch away. “This is mine. Learn something else.”
“Oh, lighten up.” Theon snarked. “Big bad wizard afraid I’m going to take his toys away. Let me have a go on it.”
“This lute cost more than a smallfolk’s cottage, Theon, I’m not letting you break it!”
“Pfft. Don't buy an instrument made out of weirwood, then.” Theon held out his hands. “Come on.”
“No.” Jon remarked flatly.
“Spoilsport.”
“If you're that interested, then watch me play. Pay attention to my fingers, instead of just listening.” Jon shifted the lute back on his lap, as Theon leaned back. He plucked out a swift chord progression across the courses, as the squid prince sat there with a frown. His fingers danced back and forth, and upon the neck his middle and pointer fluttered, held and wobbled out melancholy, lingering notes.
“... you don't touch the middle strings much.” Theon asked eventually.
“Middle, as in…” Jon mumbled, still focused on playing.
“The ones in-between. Why?”
“They're the same note… but pitched on a different octave.” Jon answered. His grip shifted, and suddenly he was plucking the same string again as his fingers worked down the neck. The sound tangled down, lower and lower.
“... What's an octave?”
“The range. When I want a pitch too low…” his neck hand at last hit the body of the instrument. He let the note hang for a moment, and then jumped up to the top of the neck as he plucked the brother of the course. The note progression continued on as if no shift had been made. “... I move to the course pair.” He stopped, and looked up. Theon's eyebrow had arched.
“Oh. Huh.”
“This is why, if you want to learn, you need to understand how to read music first. Mance didn’t let me touch a lute for weeks, when he started with me.” Jon suddenly smirked. “Not quite like learning to wield a sword, is it? Though, as I recall, you didn't much care for that anyways.”
“Bah.” Theon shook his head. “If I ever tried to practice with swords, Robb would come along with his great big biceps and make my hands go numb with every clash. You're not much better, come to think of it, but I didn't spar with you nearly as much, you auroch.”
Jon grinned, and hit a broad double-bicep flex in teasing response. Theon leaned back, hands outstretched behind his body for support. “... I can learn, though. I will learn.”
Jon stared at Theon, with a strange, almost-but-not-quite nostalgic feeling in his chest. “I don't think I've seen you so humble before.”
Theon lifted his head, and a dark look filled his eyes. “... You have.” He replied quietly. “Only once. When you met the thing called Reek.” His fists clenched against the wooden floor, as the ship rolled gently underneath, and scoffed. “Humble? What pride do I have left? You… you had everything. You had it all, gave it up in the name of duty - no, not even duty, justice…”
“Theon, no-”
“You gave up the Seven Kingdoms, handed to you on a silver platter, and walked away. And even still - even still! - you managed to find a life more joyful than I even dreamed possible.” Theon sat forward, threading his fingers through his hair and pulling it taut. “I saw what you had, Jon. I felt what you felt, when you looked at Val. Even now, I have to fight to remember that Lyan is not my daughter - Ragnald is your son, not mine. That Val was yours, not-” He sniffed, and then scrubbed furiously at his nose and eyes. “... She was beautiful, Jon. Beautiful. And you loved her like - like I've never loved anybody or anything. How the fuck am I supposed to handle learning that I can’t even love properly?”
Jon sat there, silently, his hand clenching tight enough on the neck of the lute that the strings began to strike, and the wood began to creak. Neither of them spoke, as the greyjoy worked through the emotions.
“... You had all that.” Said Theon, at last, lowering his arm down and hunching forward. His hair hung limply, not quite obscuring his gaze fixed on the floor. “... And what did I have, in return? I had Reek. That is my destiny. That is what the Gods set out for me. How can I be anything but humble when that is my shadow? When my legacy was that… thing? That monster, that grotesque, that parody of a man and all his hateful works?”
“You tried to make amends.” Jon said, quiet but flat.
“Don’t you dare.” Theon hissed, head flipping up. “Don’t you dare say that. Not when I’ve been in your head. Not when I know what you really think. I know what you thought, when we escaped Dragonstone and made it to King’s Landing.” he jabbed a finger out. “You twisted the knife in me, because it made you feel good. And you swore you would bleed me every time you told me the tale of Reek, because you wanted to see me hurt.” His hand reached out, thumping against his chest twice. “And you were right to do so.”
No.” Theon shook his head. “What I did was run away, because I was a craven. I saved Asha, just to make sure that Euron - fucking Euron - wasn't the last of us. That I wasn’t leaving the Greyjoys to my kinslaying uncle. And then I took the easy way out. The coward’s way out.” His hand rested upon his belly, right over the death scar. “Charging a White Walker with nothing but a spear? I've never held a spear in my life, Jon. I'm not a fool. That wretch had to have known what would happen.”
Jon didn't have anything he could say to that.
Theon clenched his fist, balling his shirt up between his fingers. “And then one day, in my ignorance, you beat me to death with Hodor's hands. And I woke as a kraken, a moon later.” He shook his head furiously. “And I saw firsthand just how wrong everything I lost it all for was. How can I hate magic, when Mother gave of herself for me? How can I love my family, when Lodos proved just how deluded they are? How can I accept my people, when they would never accept who I am now? How can I go back to such small things, when I have been so much MORE?”
His fist unclenched, and his hand fell. “But I failed the first test life gave me. All I had to do was tell you ‘I know’. All I had to do was tell you I knew exactly whose face you saw when you looked at me, and I couldn't do it. First at Winterfell, and then at King's Landing.” Theon's voice grew unsteady, like he wasn't taking full breaths anymore. “You can stand the breach against wildling hordes and unholy abominations and the frozen apocalypse, and I can't even tell the truth, because I am a-a- a gutless coward. But no more.”
He lifted his head, at last. “I have no pride, Jon, because you saved me from a hell I didn't even know existed - and a father that would burn his Gods-damned kingdom to the ground over his ego - and showed me more of this- this fucked-up world than I ever dreamed existed. And you did that, by losing everything I never even knew I wanted for myself. I will do everything I can to make you feel that demented trade was worth it. I will never, ever let… that thing wearing my face come to be. Everything I do from here on… is to kill Reek.”
“... Reek is dead, Theon.” Jon replied, quietly.
The Greyjoy lunged forward and grabbed Jon’s shirt collar, face twisted in hate, hissing like a curse. “Then I will bury him.”
Jon stared at Theon head-on, unblinking. He looked him in the eyes, and saw a sickly fire burning within them - he was not taking the foresight well. One day, Jon knew he would have to deal with this. That day was not today.
He slowly set the lute down to the side, gently laying it strings-up. He held out a single hand, fingers spread wide. And when Theon slowly backed away to stare at that hand, then at him and that hand and finally took his forearm in a shake, Jon pulled him forward into a firm, one-armed hug.
“Well met, then, Theon Greyjoy,” Jon said, as his free arm thumped a firm tempo against the squid prince’s back. “Your Mother raised you well.”
Theon scoffed, shaking his head, but his free arm went up to match Jon’s one-armed hug all the same. Just as quickly as it happened, the two separated, and Theon shuddered with a long drawn-out exhale.
“I don’t think I’ve been that open in… I don’t know when.”
Jon shook his head, and a single low chuckle escaped him. “Feels raw, doesn’t it? Uncomfortable.”
“I hate it. How do you put up with it, you big bleeding heart?”
“If I recall correctly, I died of that bleeding heart in the middle of Castle Black. So, not well.”
“HA!” Theon barked out a shocked laugh, shoving a fist up to his mouth. “Dammit, I shouldn’t have laughed at that.” Jon grinned, slouching back against the wooden walls of the hull, as Theon’s eyes went to the instrument. “So… teach me to play?”
“Fuck no, that’s mine.”
“Prat. I rip myself open, bleed all over the floor, and you still say-”
“We’ll buy a different instrument for you in Pentos, you big baby. Don’t shit your smallclothes. Something to accompany, maybe.”
“... Fine. So what’s all this nonsense about octaves?”
“Right. So, as Mance told me when I started…”
“Land ho!”
Jon and Theon stood upon the deck of the Cold Rider, faces performatively unimpressed, to watch the massive walls and high square towers of Pentos overtake their view. The First Mate was standing there with them, arms crossed.
“We’ve made good time.” he remarked.
“My thanks,” said Jon. He held out a handful of copper Stars to the man. “Payment for the two of us.” The first mate took the coins from him with a nod of gratitude. “What news about the city?”
“Last we heard? Some exiled noble’s get was roosting in a magister’s manse, begging for an army.” the First Mate replied, crossing his arms. “There’s a Dothraki horde bearing down, too, directly for the city. By now, they’ll have reached the hinterlands, if not the city walls itself.”
Theon raised his head. His eyes narrowed. “... Will the walls hold?” he asked slowly.
“Against a warband of horselord screamers?” The first mate scoffed. “The Magisters would let them in rather than risk the few fighting men Braavos permits them to wield. Shower the Khal with gifts and send them on their way.”
“Right, right.” Theon slowly nodded his head; it took Jon a moment to remember his histories about the Free Cities. Braavos, ever the warlike emancipationist, had waged and won many battles against Pentos, and inflicted the abolition of both a standing military and true slavery within their borders. Pentos, then, was a city of facades: its high walls were for show with no men to stand posts, and its abolition of slavery was a pretense made meaningless through ludicrous indentured servitude contracts taking its place, functionally slavery in all but name.
The ship docked, and with a final parting, the two Westerlanders were left upon the harbor with their packs in hand. Jon glanced around, a contemplative frown on his face. “We’ll need to find a place to pick up new horses while we figure out a plan.”
“Still wish we could have kept them.” Theon groused.
“And risk being accused of horse-thievery when someone spots a noble house’s brand on their flanks?” Jon shook his head. “No. Those horses will make their way back to Winterfell eventually, when the stablemaster does an accounting. I’ll not have Lord Stark think we left home as criminals.”
“... Fair.” Theon admitted. “You might get away with it, golden boy, but I’d be lucky to escape with just being lashed. Did you have a plan?”
“Not until you showed up.” Jon shook his head. “I was just… going to wander. Go where the wind took me, relax, and not think about anything back home at all. You’re here, though, so now I need to figure out a plan.”
Theon’s eyes narrowed. “I see. Then, do I get a say in the plan?” Jon looked at him askance. “I’m asking if you’re the Lord Commander and I have to follow orders, or if I am your companion, and I get a say.”
“... I’m not the Lord Commander anymore.” Jon said quietly. “And you’re not a Brother of the Watch. Speak your mind, Theon.”
“Then… Give me the money for the horses.” Said Theon. Jon reached down to his belt and tossed him the money pouch he’d set aside for just that, and the Greyjoy snatched it from the air deftly. “I think… I suspect, rather, that there’s someone here in this city that you and I have unfinished business with. And that once that Khalasar gets here, they’ll be out of our reach until it’s too late.”
Jon frowned. “Who?”
Theon stared at Jon in disbelief. “... I know you’re not thick, Jon, but you’ve developed a rather disturbing blind spot.” He pointed deeper into the city, towards the Essos mainland. “Which Khal do you think is currently riding our way?”
Jon squinted at Theon, annoyed. “You say that like I know any of them. The only two I know who have led Khalasars are Drogo and -” he stopped. “Drogo.” he repeated, with a slowly dawning horror. “That’s Drogo’s Khalasar.”
“Aye. Ser Undefeated himself.” Theon said, with a heavy drawl. “And there’s only one reason he would approach a Free City, this time of the year.” Theon’s expression drew tighter, more grim. “I ask again, Jon - do I get a say in how we act, or is your word law? Because I have unfinished business.”
“... Don’t ask me to do this, Theon.” Jon whispered. “You know I can’t…”
“I ask again - do I get a say?”
Jon squeezed his eyes shut, and let out a shuddering breath. “... Gods help me. You do, Theon. You get a say.”
Theon stared at Jon blankly, before laying a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “Remember what I said. You will not regret the trade.” he glanced up at the city, all high-rising square towers and tight streets. All around, the strong scent of spice hung in the air, and indentured servants trailing after the Magister traders that made the city run. “This place has a Red Temple, doesn’t it?”
“... A large one, I think.”
Theon nodded. “Let’s meet up there, then. I need to get these horses purchased, and I need to figure out what we need to know. Let’s say, sundown?”
Jon glanced up at the sun beating down on them - it was hot, bright and near to its zenith. “That’s fine. I’ll find something to do.” He reached down to his main money bag and took out a gold dragon, before flipping it to Theon. The Greyjoy snatched it out of the air, glancing at it cursorily. “Go trade that for the local coins, then find an instrument shop. Bring back the change.”
“Tch. They’ll try to swindle us, won’t they?” Theon stared harder at the coin, examining it from all angles. “Hmm… at least they can’t say this one has been shaved or clipped much, though they’ll try some scheme about metal purity.” he quickly pocketed it, and turned away. “Sundown at the Red Temple. I’ll see you then.”
“Right.” Jon answered dully, as Theon lifted an arm in a lazy farewell wave. He looked down at the dry packed dirt of the Pentos harbor, and the place where it merged into the hard stone tiles of the streets. “She was in Pentos. Of course she was. Varys was recruited by Aerys out of Pentos, wasn’t he?”
That’s why he never made mention of it, whenever he reported on her. A clever man might have made the connection to the Spider’s old power base.
Jon didn't respond to that, but instead wandered off into the streets of Pentos. He kept his head down, mostly only glancing about through the corners of his eyes. Walking about googly-eyed and open would only advertise himself as a mark for thieves - he was already conspicuous enough with his well-made foreign clothes. The moment he opened his mouth and revealed he didn’t understand the Pentoshi flavor of Bastard Valyrian, he would be in danger.
Down a narrow street, underneath strings of colorful banners, around processions of Magisters and their indentured slaves, Jon wandered the city. There were many sights, many market stalls with goods that Jon had not seen. But he ignored them all. He simply wandered, head down, as the sun moved across the sky. None of it appealed, until at last he reached a place. A somewhat busy plaza, with a woman at two large jars and a ladle. A great line of people, all common folk, were lined up. One man reached the front of the line, pulled out a single copper coin, and placed it in the woman’s hand. With that, she lifted the ladle to the man’s mouth, and he drank greedily. At the end, he reached for her, but she slapped his hands, and he walked away scolded.
Jon smiled lightly, unstrung the case from his back, and revealed his instrument. Some of the people in the line took notice - most stayed resolutely focused on the water woman. Jon walked past them all, to the front of the line, and to the water woman. She shouted something at him, gesturing rapidly with the ladle at the line. Jon instead strummed a pair of chords. She paused. He gestured between the instrument and the jars. She said something else in her Bastard Valyrian - something that Jon almost might have recognized, with his tiny High Valyrian experience, as an insult of some kind - and turned away. He smiled lightly, sat down by her, and laid out his case. A twang of chords, and a small adjustment of pegs, before Jon began to play for his water.
It took some time for Jon to locate the Red Temple. Truthfully, he wandered for some time, keeping his head down and not making any progress at all, before somehow making his way back to the docks. There, he finally found someone who spoke the Common Tongue. It had been some time, Jon realized, since he had been in a situation where he could not speak with someone at all. Not since his banishment, at least.
The Red Temple of Pentos was a large enterprise, out of place with the city’s square and stooped stylings. Settled deep by the western walls, it was set well apart from everything else. Where the paths up to it were hard tiled stone, the land around it was packed dirt, speckled black and white with deep layers of old ash. Ditches were dug, piled with scrapwood refuse, along all three available sides. Braziers were lit along all four corners, burning so bright that the very iron of the holding cup was glowing faintly red. And the building itself - that was the strangest. Just as the name claimed, it was built from a dark, blood red marble, speckled with veins of white and gold. Towering pillars, spiralling domes, minarets reaching over even Pentos’ towering walls from which flames spewed and crackled. Twisted gargoyles sat hunched on the sides, empty mouths open in angry screeches, beside geometric symbols and hexagons all over the sides, all while the flaming heart that was the symbol of R’hllor blazed in shadowed relief at the very center.
It was a grand, opulent building, every bit the equal of the Great Sept. and Jon knew that this couldn’t even be the biggest - That claim had to belong to Volantis, the administrative heart of the faith. Even the foreign temples were bigger, east of the Narrow Sea. and in the middle of it all was the teeming throngs of people gathered amidst the scrapwood ditches. This part he knew, at least - the evening prayers to thank the Lord of Light for the day.
Jon clenched his fist. He’d heard Melisandre lead the prayers often enough, on the Wall. Stannis Baratheon’s zealots had made themselves at home, in that other life. He wondered if the man he had met before, that man who confessed his deep grievance over his usurped home and sharp defense of his daughter, would have even recognized the man who allowed Shireen to be burned alive. He wondered if all the people gathered before him were just as fanatical. He folded his arms, disgruntled, as the priest began.
[“Lead us from the darkness, O my Lord.”] called the Priest in Pentoshi Valyrian. Even as Jon could not understand the words, his mind recalled the same chant, spoken in the Common Tongue. Melisandre’s low, seductive tone filled his ears like an echo, and the words became clear. [“Fill our hearts with fire, so we may walk your shining path. R'hllor, you are the light in our eyes, the fire in our hearts, the heat in our loins. Yours is the sun that warms our days, yours the stars that guard us in the dark of night.”]
[“Lord of Light, defend us! The night is dark and full of terrors! Lord of Light, protect us.”] called the crowd in response. Jon frowned, folding his arms.
“But only when the night is dark do the stars truly shi-” he began to mutter to himself, but stopped. His eyes went wide. The words fit almost perfectly, as a rebuttal - but they weren’t his words. They were the words of Tiras. They were the words of the only man who helped him aboard that slave ship, so long ago. They were the words of a Starry Cultist.
“What I am trying to say, Lord Greystark,” echoed the memory of Thoros in his mind, “is that if you have been touched by the Lord, then in terms of mortal affairs, he has but one teaching - Do as Thou Wilt. His eyes are fixed upon other things. Or, rather, the Other things. The Great Other.”
The worship of the Lord of Light, and the Cult of Starry Wisdom. The Red God, and the Thirteen-Pointed Star. R’hllor, and the Great Other.
The Wayward Star is the Great Other.
In a sense, Jon wasn't sure why he hadn't put it together before. It made sense. It was almost obvious, even. This did not feel like a grand, dramatic revelation - more like a thought that was connected while stumbling around the Winterfell kitchens for a late night snack. He had known for some time that R'hllor had no interest in dictating the lives of mortal men, and yet he kept bringing Jon back. It wasn't in order to fix the Seven Kingdoms. He knew that; he'd known that for a long time. R'hllor only had one care in this world - one enemy.
But what did it mean, that the man who had saved him from being sold to Tyrosh as a slave worshipped another God's sworn foe - that the man who served a devil seeking the cold death of the world had been kinder to him than any of the so-called ‘holy men’ of R’hllor? What did it mean for the world if both sides were true? What did it mean, when you put both pieces together?
What did it mean, when the cult described it as ‘a power from beyond the stars'?
Jon slowly lifted his eyes to the darkening sky. The last vestiges of color still remained, letting the night be streaked purple and bruised blue. But the stars were coming out, all the same. They speckled the sky, twinkling in the night. The maesters held that the organization of the stars held sway over a man's destiny when he was born. People looked to the heavens for guidance. And the Great Other was real… and from a place beyond the heavens. It was real, and it wanted the whole world dead.
The White Walkers served the Great Other… except, that wasn’t wholly true, was it? They answered to the Raven once, in his dying hatred. And I remember something about the Children being involved somehow… yet they hid from them still. Jon rolled his head about on his shoulders, hearing the bones of his neck crackle softly with the motion. The Great Other is insidious when it desires, and bold when it is slighted. That is what the Starry Cultists believe. And the White Walkers serve the Wayward Star, but killing their servants is not even a part of my task. So… what task is being demanded of me, to thwart the great enemy of Mankind?
“You look troubled, my child.”
Jon’s head jerked up at those Common Tongue words, startlingly close to his ear. He spun on his heel to face the woman who had spoken, as her rose-colored lips curled into a knowing smile. High cheekbones, dark hair, piercing eyes - the woman who spoke to him was a striking beauty, making the distinctive dress hugging her ample curves and unforgettable choker around her neck all the more troubling. She was a priestess of R’hllor, and she wore the same choker that Melisandre did.
Jon took all of this in within a second, and did not unclench his fist. R’hllor may no longer technically be his enemy, in the grand scheme of things, but Thoros did not cancel out what the rest of his cadre had done and condoned.
“Your people preach a weak faith,” he said, instead.
The priestess arched a delicate eyebrow. “You would be the first to say such a thing.”
“You fight a war against the dark. Against the cold.” Jon crossed his arms. “It seems to me that you are losing that war.”
The priestess folded her arms delicately, such that her draping sleeves covered her hands seamlessly. “Is not the new day a victory won? Every sunrise is the chance for life to thrive. That the dark returns only entails the return of duty.”
“Until the day that there is no new day.” Jon replied. “When the night comes and does not leave. The Lord of Light is a summer god. You have no answers for when the dark swallows a man’s heart. When the dark is all there is.” he flicked a hand up at her neck - at her choker. “All you have are beautiful lies. Shadows on the wall, and you call it prophecy.”
The expression on her face softened. “The Lord cannot personally grant you succor, just as a king cannot comfort every common man in his arms. But that does not mean he gives us nothing but lies.” She reached up to her neck, reaching to a clasp at the back, and clicked it quietly. Jon watched with amazement as she lowered it down, and as she did, her face changed. Her perfect skin turned leathery, and wrinkled. Her hair shimmered, and the black bled out into grey. Her proportions deflated, and shrank, as the tight robes now fell limply about her. But her eyes, so deep and piercing, did not change, even as crow’s feet sprang into existence around them.
“Even a beautiful lie is permitted,” she whispered, her voice losing her husky allure as it faded to dust, “in the great battle.”
Jon glared. “I thought Shadowbinding was banned by Benerro.”
“It is, Jon Snow.” she whispered. Jon fought the urge to flinch. “For all that are not bound as tightly to the Lord as I am. As Melisandre is.” she looked him in the eye. “Do you know how old she is, truly?”
“With that kind of question? Old enough to be my grandmother.”
She chuckled. “Old enough to be Aegon the Conqueror’s grandmother.” Jon sucked in a shocked breath. “You understand now, don’t you? Why she is granted such a long leash? Her very life is a sign of our Lord’s favor. The Shadow merely hides what is disquieting to small minds, instead of distorting truth. She was one of our most trusted missionaries. We never meant to offend you, Jon Snow.”
Never fire in the Pattern. Never fire in the Shadow.
“How do you know she offended me?” Jon asked, hand shaking slightly. “I’ve never even met her.”
The priestess smiled thinly. “We all know. That is, those of us who can see Truth within the flames, which is few enough. There is nothing left.”
Jon’s eyebrow arched. “Nothing left? What, don't tell me… are you trying to say your prophecies are broken?”
“And they have been, ever since your journey began. The Lord of Light retreats from us all. We have no future.” She reached up a delicate, skeletal hand to gently brush back a limp curl on Jon’s face, fingers stroking against his skin. Jon flinched away instinctively, and she hesitated, before lowering it down with a sad expression. “Only your past.”
“My past? What does-” Jon stopped himself and thought about it. When he began to speak again, it was with a rising note of anger. “You are spying on my past through your Gods-damned flames?”
“Not willingly.” she replied. “Not even High Priest Benerro can see forward through the Lord’s grace. It is lost to us, but not to you.”
Jon snarled, stepping forward and grabbing the hem of her cloak and dragging her in. “Never again.” he hissed. “It is mine, and mine alone.”
The Priestess glanced down at the hand gripping her, and met his gaze. “You should unhand me, before someone sees and misunderstands. No one from the Temple would harm you, but the faithful masses are not so sophisticated.”
Jon held the grip for a moment before unclenching, his body so tightly wound that only his fingers moved. The Priestess stepped away, out of his range, and he pointed a single finger at her. “You priests stay out of my head. Out of my past. That was mine, scars and all, and you took it from me.”
She smiled thinly. “We would, if we could.”
“Jon!” called a voice. Jon turned only slightly, never letting the priestess out of his sight, as Theon approached. The Greyjoy was half-a-dozen paces away before the lazy grin on his face dropped, and his eyes went narrow. “Jon, who is this?”
“You are…” The Priestess began, piercing eyes taking in the Greyjoy; the ever-present smile finally slipped. “Ah. I understand, my lord. The minor role I am to play.”
“Is everything ready, Theon?” Jon asked, focusing back on the priestess.
“Yeah, but…”
The Priestess reached up to her neck and reattached the choker; with a soft ‘click!’ of wire, it seated back into place, and suddenly she was no longer a decrepit half-corpse, but a stunningly beautiful woman again. “My name is Kinvara,” she answered, voice now husky and alluring, “first servant of High Priest Benerro, the Flame of Truth. And you are the first of twelve, Theon Greyjoy.”
“How do you know - hang on, the first? The first of what?” Theon repeated, confused.
“Ignore her. We’re leaving.” Jon replied, and turned away.
“The Last Hero had twelve companions when he went out to fight the coming end.” Said Kinvara. “Did you think our Lord would make you struggle alone, oh Prince?”
Jon stopped mid-stride, his eyes widening. The Last Hero. Thirteen companions, and a hound, against all the armies of the White Walkers. Always with the fucking number thirteen. “... He did until now.”
“Because you did not understand.” Kinvara swayed closer to Jon, and then brushed past him, to trail her fingertips across Theon’s bicep. The Greyjoy nearly leered at the touch but corrected his face into a stony expression at the last moment. “When did this boy tie himself to your fate?”
"You don't know that answer?"
"No. That truth lies within the shadowy maybes, and is beyond us."
“... Two turns ago.”
“And did you serve the Lord well, two ‘turns’ ago?” she turned, fixing Jon’s gaze in place. “Did you do what it is that is required of you, two ‘turns’ ago?”
Two lives ago… was Lodos. Two lives ago, he was insane - he didn’t even know who he was half the time. But two lives ago… was when he burned the Altar of the Cave Dwellers, and struck down the Seastone Chair. Both Bloodstone artifacts. “... I think so. Twice.”
Her eyes lit up. “Twice. And yet you have only found the Greyjoy.” Her knowing smile returned. “You have not been looking hard enough, Jon Snow.”
Jon’s eyes widened. “Are you saying-”
“That somewhere in this world, there is someone waiting for you to find them. Someone who has been blessed as you have, and with no understanding of why. They might think it a curse, instead of the calling that it is.” Kinvara folded her arms again. “That is why I am here, Jon Snow. To teach you that, as Azor Ahai, that you are only as alone as you allow yourself to be.”
Jon pinched his eyes shut tightly, feeling his face twitching in indescribable emotion. Always with the fucking prophecy. Always with Azor Ahai, the Promise, the fucking Last Hero. He put both hands to his face and violently dragged it down - his palms came away sweaty and covered with floating ash.
[“FOR THE NIGHT IS DARK, AND FULL OF TERRORS!”] called the celebrants behind them.
“We will see.” Jon said, at last. “I have a retort, then. As Azor Ahai.” he drawled the title, his disdain clear. “Your High Priest is right. Fire and Shadow are enemies - truth and lies are enemies. You think you walk in truth, but the more you cover up a flame, the more room you give for dark - the more the lie lives in you. A lie only works when you know all there is.” he pointed a single finger at her face. “And you, Kinvara, know nothing.”
Kinvara stared at Jon with wide eyes. She blinked slowly, once, twice. “Better to let a fire burn free, and deal with the twilit edges, then to cover up the truth, and have only dark.” her hand went up to her neck. “If you want more shadows… then simply build a bigger fire.” her hand went down within her dress, and came away with a knife - a knife that immediately went to her throat.
“Wha- wait!” Theon exclaimed, hands reaching out in alarm.
The blade was sharp, and cut right through - the choker on her neck came away in her hand, permanently severed. Kinvara gave a small smile, as her beautiful looks faded again. “I hear you, Azor Ahai. I hear your words, Lord. And I obey.” she lifted the choker into the air, and the gleaming gemstone at the center dissolved in a shimmer of dust. “And with it, I hope you hear mine. We are not your enemy, Jon Snow. Melisandre, foolish woman that she is, is not your enemy. The Lord of Light will never be your enemy.”
Jon slowly dry-swallowed. A bead of sweat dribbled down from his cheek, and over his Adam's apple. “Then tell me who is my enemy. Because your Red God has been damnably silent on what he wants.”
The ancient woman’s thin lips threaded into a knowing smile. “You already know the answer. The proof is standing right next to you.” she gestured grandly at Theon. “A child of the Drowned one, claimed by the Seven and the Weirwood. And yet the Lord set him by your side all the same. What do you make of that, I wonder?”
“That he doesn’t respect boundaries by other gods.” Jon snarked. “He takes what he wants.”
“Can you take that which was freely given?”
“Excuse me,” Theon snapped, before Jon could process the implication, “I don’t appreciate being talked about like a stud horse on loan to a farm!”
Kinvara chuckled. “As is your right, Greyjoy. Then I leave you with this.” she bowed. “We are not like you, Jon Snow and Theon Greyjoy. We do not remember that which has transpired. We can only be reminded. And thus, we will never act without your say. Should you decide to never speak to me again, then I will never know we had this conversation. If you never forgive us for what we did against you in that other life, where I took Benerro’s seat, then we shall do what we have always done, and nothing more. None of the Priesthood will even know something has gone wrong, until they look into the flames and see nothing but you - if you remain a stranger to us, then not even Melisandre will admit the change.”
“But,” and here she lifted her head, staring at Jon over lidded eyes, “if your wrath against us cools, Jon Snow, seek us out. Our power may be diminished, but it is not without use. We only see your true past, now… but there was much of that foreign country that you missed, out along the watchtowers and the cold. With your word, we can see beyond your boundaries.” she straightened, as well as her old crooked spine would allow her. “And never again shall we move against you.”
Jon glared at her. “I spoke to Melisandre, long ago. She looked into the flames, and she burned to death. And you tell me she is not my enemy, when your own God rejects her?”
“You wanted her dead. The Lord answered your desire.” She answered flatly.
“Hang on,” Theon interrupted, “You just said your god is missing. How could he then burn her?”
“Because he willed it so.”
Jon let out a scoff and rolled his eyes. Instead of telling the truth, she tried to flatter his ego. “Fine. If you won't admit it, then tell me something I don’t know. About my real life - about the War of Five Kings. Tell me something I would know as truth, but could not possibly have known, along the Wall.”
Kinvara’s eyes lit up. “As you wish.” she took three steps to one of the outer braziers, placed her hands around the bowl, and stared deep into the flame. In the background, the citizens of Pentos continued to chant, proclaiming the glory of a god that Jon now knew had somehow gone missing.
Three chants, three crowd responses, before the Priestess raised her eyes once more. “It wasn’t the mockingbird that killed the boy-tyrant.”
“What?”
“You know him.” she replied, not moving from the brazier. “The poseur. He claimed dominion over plots, but like a cuckoo, he laid his eggs in another’s nest. It was not by his hand that the boy-tyrant died choking on a toast.” Kinvara smiled. “The Tarnished Lion knew. He heard the words whispered from within the brambles, at the end of it all. ‘You don’t think I’d let you marry that beast, do you?’ the endless fight for family, and in the end, all that remains is a cuckoo nesting within another’s high garden.”
High garden…? Highgarden. The Tyrells. And Brambles? No. Thorns. The Queen of Thorns. Olenna Tyrell. Olenna Tyrell poisoned Joffrey Lannister to protect Margaery, and Littlefinger pretended it was his idea. Jaime knew, and told nobody. And in the end, the Tyrells went extinct, with Bronn taking their realm - the cuckoo bird in another’s nest he had no right to.
It was exactly as Jon had asked. There was no way of knowing this… but everything about it rang true. Littlefinger took pleasure in claiming the schemes of others for his own glory. Jaime had and would continue to take shameful secrets to his grave. He had never met the Queen of Thorns himself, diminished as the Tyrells were by the time he went south. But if she was anything like Leyton Hightower, the other Reach hierarch he knew, in playing the Game… then he could not help but believe.
Jon could hear a sharp inhale behind him. He turned, and could tell by the expression on Theon’s face that he was making the exact same connections. “Jon…” he murmured, eyes wide.
“I know.” he whispered back. This wasn’t the power of R’hllor, by every measure he could think of. Red Priests could not do what Kinvara had just done. The only one he knew of that could see the past like this -
“The Ink is Dry, R’hllor. You shall not subvert the planning of eons. Die, and return my Sight to me.”
Were the Greenseers. Was the Raven.
The Red God didn’t just blind the Raven, Lodos whispered, in awe. He stole his power. Took it from him, cast away his own domain, and crippled his own priesthood. All to aid us. I… didn’t know they could do that.
“... But why?” Asked Theon, quietly.
Kinvara just kept smiling, as she stepped away from the flame. “Why indeed.” She bowed, low and slow, hands folded in front of her once more. “We are praying for you, Jon Snow. You hold our future in your hands. All of us.” She straightened up, and the ancient woman backed away into the crowd of worshippers.
[“Lead us, Lord of Light, to safety and love.”] Called the priest.
[“FOR THE NIGHT IS DARK, AND FULL OF TERRORS,”] called the crowd, shifting in place, and Kinvara was gone.
When Jon opened his eyes, the city was dark. Quietly, weightless, he rose from his bed and stepped across the room to the door. With a loud creak, he opened the door to a winding set of large stone stairs. He looked at the stairs, blinked thoughtlessly, and began to climb.
Up, up and further up he climbed. Through the sky he climbed. Through the clouds, he climbed. Into the dark, he climbed until there was nothing around him but dark. He climbed the stairs until there was nothing left to climb, and a simple high-backed wooden chair lay before him. Weariness overtook him, then, and with a grateful slump he sat in the chair.
The throne underneath him smoldered at his touch, sparking to life at his touch, until it blazed in bright glory. The dark receded around him, and at last he could see the ground underneath him, so very far away. His vision cleared, and the world shifted as if his eyes were magnified until he could see.
A horse was running free across an unending grassland. Or, perhaps free was not the right word - no saddle or tack lay across its back, but tangled in the mane and tail, stone faces clattered and jangled. The horse - a stallion, Jon could see after a moment - ran on and on across an endless sea. The stallion ran, as the stone faces beat hard against its flesh, and dug deeply into the soil. The stone faces were bound to it, but were slowing it down, as the grass was smothered all around it.
From the furrows dug by the stone faces, another grass grew. Slowly at first, then quickly, until it was as tall as the horse - then higher. Tall, pale grass, as pale as moonlight and devouring all life upon the plains. The stallion rode on, and now Jon could see that the grass was alive, grabbing at the hooves of the horse as it kicked away. It feared the grass, and ran from it, but everywhere it went, the stone faces spread more. Soon, the entire world would be covered in it. And then the stallion would be consumed.
Jon nodded slowly, and leaned back. His chair had been consumed by the flame. All around him was fire, and yet he did not burn. He reached down to the armrest of the chair, and broke off a small piece. In his hand, it spread and smeared, as the wood disintegrated into ash. Jon gripped the ash in his hands, held it out in front of him, and lightly let it go -
As each flake fell from the sky as a bolt from heaven, as arrows striking ruin and devastation upon the land, as mighty comets engulfed the grass in an all-consuming blaze. The fire raced forward, faster than the stallion, and the horse howled in pain as the flames consumed it whole. The outline of the beast writhed and twisted, as the body was consumed.
And then, suddenly, the horse bolted free. The flames had wounded it - it’s mane was gone, and the tail, and the hide was blackened with burns - but it ran, faster than ever before, its very hoofbeats leaving fire in their wake and thunder in their strike. It ran, and ran, and ran until it outpaced even the grass, leaving nothing but fire. It ran until it reached the very sea, and there Jon wondered if its running had finally come to an end - but no. the stallion reached the sea, and leaped up.
Higher, and higher, and higher it went, until Jon realized it was leaping to him. Larger, and larger, and larger it grew, until the beast was greater than the dark. Closer and closer and closer, until at last it reached him upon his throne, as the flames had finally begun to die. The stallion was there, larger than the mountains, and it stood athwart the world as a giant, proud and defiant even as the flames writhed upon the skin. The stone faces, Jon realized, were gone, claimed by the fire. Jon looked at the horse, unbroken, defiant to the last, and then looked down upon his seat. It was nearly gone now. The flames were fading. Only ash remained, and that was disappearing with the dark.
Jon looked up at the horse again, face passive, held out an upraised, flat hand at arm’s length and moved no further. The stallion stared long at the hand, letting out a low nicker; Jon noted with detached interest that his ring finger was gone, replaced with a flame in the shape of the digit. Something about that seemed familiar. The seat underneath him shifted, crumbled, and fell away.
At last the stallion let out a strong blow, and Jon's throne of ash fell away. The world surged and gravity claimed him, but he remained still, his hand outstretched - and then the stallion bent his head and snatched him, teeth sinking deep into his forearm. He watched all of his arm below the bite crumble away as so much ash as the stallion whipped Jon about onto its back, flames leaping upon the crest in the place of a mane. The great stallion reared, wreathed in fire and let out a bellowing whiny. The darkness receded in fear, revealing a sunless sea, and eternal blanket of stars -
And the stars were devoured, as The Eye shifted to focus on them.
Jon up from his featherbed with a ragged gasp. His heart was beating out of time, and his lungs could not hold air for more than a second. He dragged his palm down across his face, more for the centering sensation of it than anything else, and glanced out the window.
The light of the sun was starting to rise over the city of Pentos, leaking through the window. Theon was awake, sitting on the edge of the other bed in his shortclothes. “Bad dream?” he murmured.
“Mmph. Maybe.” Jon whispered in reply, pushing himself to a seat.
“You sure have changed.” Said Theon, picking up a shirt and sliding it on. “I remember you used to sleep like the dead. Now it’s a question if you wake up quietly or not.”
Jon rolled his eyes. “Shut up. Where’s my left boot?” Theon gestured at the place it had been kicked off, and Jon slowly got dressed. “Hard to live the life I have without bad dreams.”
“I don’t know. I don’t even have dreams where I’m the main character anymore. It’s all your memories. Most of them are good.”
Jon stopped, looking back at Theon as he tugged at his leathers. “Theon, I’m sorry-”
The Greyjoy lifted a finger. “None of that. At least I immediately knew what had happened. Some other poor sod is out there living like this and with no explanation at all.” he shook his head. “If it wasn’t for this, you wouldn’t even know there were others to look out for.”
Jon let out a single quiet half-laugh, looking down. “The fact that there is more of us out there… The Red God couldn’t have made this easy and told me outright, could he?” he glanced over. “Who could it be?”
“Nobody from the North, that’s for sure.” Theon remarked. “They would have immediately noticed something different in how Lord Stark stayed in Winterfell. You wouldn’t have known, but you could not escape the rumors anywhere. People were afraid we were about to have a royal army attack us, smallfolk and lords alike, until your name appeared again. If somebody had lived through Lodos and the Stepstones - the first time the Seven Kingdoms went conquering since the Dance no longer happening - they would have gone to Winterfell to see what had changed.”
Jon leaned back on his hands, staring up at the ceiling. “That could apply to almost anybody in the Seven Kingdoms. I was the subject on everybody’s lips - I was the bastard boy one foot away from the Iron Throne. I was the one they credited for the creation of Bondfire, instead of Hallyne. I was the White Wolf.”
“But hey, other than that, low profile, right?”
Jon glared at Theon as the boy snickered. “The point being, if somebody had enough frame of reference to know those two lives, they would have known I was not supposed to be there, and sought me out. Just like you did.”
“But they didn’t.” Theon replied, as his humor faded. “Which means that either our second new friend is somebody without the power to approach a Master of Whisperers in the Red Keep… or it was somebody who never heard about any of this.”
“Not many places you would miss the noise I was making, in Westeros.” Jon remarked. “Not even beyond the Wall - Mance Rayder disappearing would mean the collapse of the Wildling invasion. They couldn’t possibly have missed that.” He pointed a finger downwards. “But here? In Essos? They have an entire continent to be hiding in.”
Theon grimaced. “Damned convenient we came, then. Almost like it was planned. Eugh. I already hate this prophecy nonsense.”
Jon shook his head. “It’s not. It’s persistence. We’re locked in this. Give a squirrel enough trees, and he will find a nut. You can’t let yourself think it’s all destiny.” he stood from the bed, finally dressed. “You heard her. There is no more future.”
“A saner man would call that an omen of doom.” Theon quipped. Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet. “Well. Suppose we move on. Turns out I had the right idea after all.”
Jon turned to him. “And what is that idea?”
Theon grinned. “With all the noise you made in Westeros, our new friend didn’t come running. So now that we are in Essos… let’s make some noise.”
“So. That’s the home of Magister Illyrio Mopatis.” said Theon, whistling slowly. “You certainly don’t see that kind of money in Westeros outside of a House.”
Jon didn’t respond, but instead passed his dead-eyed gaze over the thick, twelve-foot stone walls. A faint buzzing rang in his ears, as he shifted his shoulderbag slightly.
“And those guards… Just what I was hoping not to see.” Theon whispered. “Unsullied. The armor is different, but that spear looks like the one that man from your memories, Grey Worm, carried.”
“Correct.” Jon replied flatly. “These ones were bought long ago, though- look.” he gestured at the four patrolling the outer perimeter - more specifically, their wobbling bellies. “They’ve gone to fat. Illyrio keeps them on nothing but guard duty, and does not allow them to train well.”
“And so the remnants of their manhood leech out of them.” Theon remarked. He squinted. “Rather a lot of them, though. The smallest batch they’re sold in is a hundred, isn’t it? That’s what Grey Worm said to you, that one time on the march. And this is the gate that isn’t supposed to be guarded at all times, since it’s supposed to be secret. There will be more at the other two guardhouses that come running, and whoever’s in the house. What do you think?”
Jon stared quietly for a long moment, before nodding. “The Unsullied I knew were peerless on the battlefield… but these ones haven’t seen a battlefield since they were sold. And Illyrio has to hide them - Training them would let Braavos’ spies know he has slave soldiers in Pentos.” he frowned, rubbing his chin as he pondered further. “A full century is as unmistakable as the armor he made them ditch. He probably split them with other magisters once they were in Pentos. I’d bet he kept thirty, at most. Alone, I might have trouble… but with your bow, I’m not worried.”
Theon nodded, and pulled the bow from the loop on his bulging pack. “It’s your choice how we do this.” he said softly. “Quiet, or loud.”
Jon stared out at the patrol, before slowly reaching into his own pack. When it emerged, it was grasping a tiny phial of freshly-made murky green Wildfire.
Theon shook his head ruefully. “Of all the secrets to miss out on stealing from your head, and it’s the secret to making Wildfire. What rotten luck.”
“I was named a Wisdom before I died, Theon.” Jon drawled. “Be a good boy, and I might make you my apprentice.”
The Greyjoy flipped him the bird in response. “Fuck off.”
Jon slowly twisted the phial around in his hand, looking at the Substance. “Theon… I ask, one last time. Don’t make me do this.”
Theon glanced over at Jon, and shook his head. “No, Jon. We are doing this.” He lifted his finger, pointing at the manse. “We are going in there, and settling things.”
Jon squished his eyes tightly.
You are my queen. Now, and always.
“... I suppose I’m already a traitor and a kinslayer.” he murmured. “Nothing I do here will change that.”
“You might even feel better after.”
“Shut up.” Jon slid the phial into his pocket, and as he quietly drew his sword, the waterskin on his hip uncorked itself as a strand of water forced itself free. “From here on, no names. When I make a move, take down the one on the left. If we’re lucky, they won’t make a sound."
“I don’t think luck means much to us anymore.” Theon muttered, but drew an arrow anyways. The two boys watched the patrolling Unsullied march in perfect formation towards the gate. They met at the center, stomped once, and twisted about on their heels.
The guard on the right stepped forward once, into a puddle that wasn’t there two seconds ago. The water surged up, gripped his leg, and twisted. The unman fell to the ground with a surprised yelp. The guard on the right immediately turned, saw the fall, and laughed once -
An arrow sprouted from his right eye, and he fell to the ground in a clatter. The one on the ground heard this, turned, and let out a single syllable of alarm, before Jon was on him shoving his blade into his neck.
Theon was there two seconds later. “Not bad.” he remarked, eyes roaming vigilantly. “Not good, either.”
Jon clicked his tongue, leaving the sword stabbed into the Unsullied as he quickly dug about for the Wildfire. Theon, to his credit, immediately pulled out his hunting knife and started hacking a wide clearance in the ivy that smothered and hid the gate, until the chains and padlock were revealed. With steady hands, Jon unstopped the phial, gripped the thick and ornate padlock on the back gate, and measured out a delicate two drops of green into the keyhole. Jon let out a quiet, steadying breath, and waved over Theon. “Now.”
The Greyjoy stepped up, a flintstone and iron striker in his hand. He hit the stone against the unyielding iron into the keyhole once, twice, three times - and then the insides of the padlock spewed out green fire from all crevices, and the two immediately flinched away. The padlock sparked and hissed, as the metal slowly began to glow red, as Jon picked up his blade. With ginger movements, he threaded the sword blade through the shackle as thick as three fingers together, and with a single move yanked downwards. The lock gave without any pressure as the melted innards pulled away, the thick chain upon the gate fell off in a loud clatter, and the gates swung open - Jon gave the lock a good bunt along the ground for good measure, leaving the metal to spark and spit in the dirt road away from the flammable plants.
“Hell of a trick.” Theon murmured, as he grabbed one of the Unsullied by the armpits and dragged him inside the gate and out of sight. “They didn’t teach you that at the guild hall, did they?”
“No,” Jon admitted, as he sheathed his sword and grabbed the other corpse to hide, “but I got the idea from the Street of Swords. A locksmith was asking about how much precision Bondfire could have in forging delicate things, so that he could craft more complex lock insides without weakening something by accident. Don’t even remember his name.”
Theon finished dragging his body after Jon, even though he’d started first, and straightened up with an annoyed grunt. “Let’s move.” Jon quickly turned, closed the gates behind him, and left the bubbling padlock on the ground. The two dashed inwards to the gardens of Illyrio Mopatis.
Although, in Jon’s eyes, ‘garden’ was underselling it. It was more like walking into the Winterfell Godswood. All around, vibrant flowers and bushes grew in between the cobbled stones, circling around a central fountain. The trees grew thick and bunched in a facsimile of wildness, laden with fruits. Theon reached up to one and plucked a ripe pear from it, took an investigatory bite of the fruit, and retched, spitting out the chunk. “Blegh. Don’t like that.”
Jon rolled his eyes, shuffling forward in a half-crouch. Sidling up to a wide apple tree, he waited, eyes closed. Silence greeted him - nothing but nature sounds, the wind rustling through the leaves. Another man would have moved on. Jon didn’t. He braced himself against the tree, stretched out his senses, and thought of a man who laughed as he condemned an entire kingdom to extinction -
He let out a trilling call, plucked his colorful plumage with a short beak, and took off into the air. With quick wingbeats, he circled around the forest underneath. A pair of two-legged figures hunched behind a tree, one holding up the other as the body slumped - not unusual. He swooped and swirled around, diving under the awnings and through the passages, looking for anything he could not see.
And find it he did. A familiar face, a pair of metal shears in his hand, quietly waving on four more figures with weapons. The armed figures crouched, moving in such a way that their metal skin did not make so much as a sound-
Jon came back to himself with a quiet gasp. “The gardener heard us,” he whispered, as a bird twittered loudly in the distance. “Four Unsullied coming in from the west.”
“Damn.” Theon whispered. “And here I was hoping I’d overprepared. Go loud?”
Jon lifted his head to the voice - Theon had already pulled a blank wooden mask and hooded cloak from his pack. “No. Head north.” Jon shook his head firmly. “They’ll find the bodies, but we’ll be inside. I won’t kill the help - they don’t have any choice being here.”
“Neither do the Unsullied,” Theon groused, as he settled the mask on his face, “but I don’t hear you complaining about that.” Jon rolled his eyes, reaching around to his pack. Theon shook his head and held out a second mask. “Got yours out while you were away.”
“My thanks.” Jon quickly settled it on his face. The world narrowed within his sight, barely more than slits - narrow enough that not even eye color was not easily discerned. “Move.”
The two interlopers darted forward through the bushes and trees, taking pains to always remain hidden from the west. They were almost at the entrance to the manse proper, when Jon heard a single metal ‘ting’. Something as quiet as a single scale shifting, perhaps - but it was close. Far too close. Jon steadied himself on the ground, so that he would not slump-
And immediately dove for a pebble from his perch among the branches. A smooth, round rock nearly too big to fit in his beak, and unbalanced enough that had his neck craning to remain upright, yet he rose high with it even still. Higher, he rose, and to the south of the garden, until he judged it right and let the rock drop-
-to come back to himself with a faint clatter of stone on stone. He sat there, holding up a subtle finger to hold Theon back, and did not dare to even breathe. They waited, and waited, until the breath burned in his lungs and his vision blurred, until finally he heard another stray armor scale slip, moving towards the south. He let out the breath as quietly as possible, but it still came out sharper than intended.
A hand reached out from behind the tree. Jon didn’t even think - with split-second reaction, he grabbed the hand, twisted it, and flung the body attached to it over to Theon. It wasn’t an Unsulled- the dirty gloves and poorly stitched workman’s clothes marked the interloper as the gardener. Theon took a second longer to process, but before the gardener could let out a cry of alarm, the Greyjoy had his hands wrapped around the servant’s neck in a chokehold. Just as the civilian began to flail, Jon rushed forward as quietly as possible, wound up his arm, and slammed a solid fist into the man’s gut. What little breath the man had left was forced out, and within seconds, his eyes fluttered shut.
Theon’s eyes were blown wide with furious anxiety, gesturing silently with his free hand at the older man’s general person, as Jon silently laid him out. A quick two fingers at the neck - still alive, thank the gods, but he’ll wake with a nasty headache - and a gesture of direction at the house shut up the flailing. Theon flipped him a middle finger for good measure, but followed in his footsteps all the same as they quietly infiltrated the manse proper.
“Did he see you?” Theon whispered.
“I had the mask on,” Jon whispered back, as he reached for his pack, “but he’ll have seen my hair and skin.”
“Your nice clothes are the more important detail,” Theon muttered as Jon finally got the cloak around his shoulders.
“Illyrio!” called an unfamiliar voice. The two stiffened, then quickly crept around a wall. From above, a pair of impatient footsteps pounded closer. “Illyrio! I demand to speak with you!”
Jon glanced back at theon, held a finger to his mouth, and pulled out a mirror-shine knife. Slowly, he angled the blade around the corner, sweeping the hall with the reflection in the metal until finally he caught the speaker. His breath caught. Jon had never seen him before, that man tromping across the upper floor, but his silver hair and violet eyes were unmistakable. It was Viserys Targaryen. The Beggar King. One of the worst examples of the royal house ever produced. His uncle.
A man I condemned to death not a few moons ago to save Daenerys is now here in front of me… a man who, for all his flaws, would fight to save Daenerys if he caught us.
“Your Grace.” replied another voice, coming in from the opposite side. Three pairs of footsteps - two metal. Jon glanced up at the railings - solid stone, and high enough to hide them from their angle. He crouched lower all the same. “How can I assist you, this fine day?”
“The Dothraki are nearly at the walls, and my sweet sister does not have suitable attire!” Viserys complained. The man had a gaunt appearance to his face, concave cheeks that looked like he’d starved once and never quite recovered. He was all hard angles and sharp lines, and even within a magister’s home as his honored guest, his clothes seemed shoddy and ill-fitting, without any colors of his house other than a dull faded black.
Jon knew, from second-hand stories, the battles Viserys had fought to get to this place, and what he’d lost. He knew what he’d done for Daenerys… and what he’d done to her. He knew, without any doubt, that the man above him was as mad as any Targaryen king. Jon only wondered if he knew it, too.
“Let not your heart be troubled, your Grace,” Illyrio said soothingly. “I have made arrangements for just such a thing. A gown of the latest fashion, made with the finest silk from distant Yi Ti, and dyed to a deep plum color to bring out her eyes.”
“Oh.” Viserys sounded legitimately surprised. “Well done. Why have you not presented it, then?”
“I would not dare to do such a thing without your approval, Your Grace.” Illyrio simpered. Jon heard the echo of Varys in the tone - clearly they learned how to placate little tyrants from the same source. “If I have your permission, I shall give it to her now.”
“Yes- no! You will do no such thing.” Viserys caught himself. “You will bring it to me. I will give it to her. She will appreciate it best from me.”
“It will be done.” Jon heard a clatter of metal - perhaps the magister was bowing, up above - before clapping twice. “Lead his Grace to the dress.” a shift of feet, and more clattering of metal, before two footsteps wandered off. The noise faded into the distance, before Illyrio sighed. “I don’t like that look in his eyes.” he snapped his fingers. “Inform the barracks that the girl needs a watch outside her bedroom from now until the wedding. Do not allow Viserys to be with her unattended, no matter what he says. I won’t sell her to the Khal missing a maidenhead.”
Jon’s fist clenching the mirror knife trembled in fury. A hand landed on his shoulder; he turned back to see Theon looking just as disturbed, but shaking his head. He lifted two fingers together and gestured down the hall with them. Jon thought about it for a minute, before shaking his head. He lifted the knife, gestured up above them, and drew it across his own throat. Theon’s eyes widened, pointing with urgency down the hall; Jon merely repeated his previous pantomime. Theon started a third time… and stopped. He took a slow and steadying breath, and then nodded once before drawing a single arrow from his quiver.
Jon smiled grimly. Killing Illyrio hadn’t been on their mission plan… but after hearing the way he spoke, he wasn’t about to let the magister walk out of here alive.
As they began to move, a cry went up. Something in a growling Bastard Valyrian was shouted, before changing to something more intelligible. “Intruder!”
“What the-” Illyrio muttered, lifting his head over the railing, exposing to Jon for the first time just how morbidly obese the cheesemonger really was. His eyes focused on the call… and then drifted, and landed directly on Jon. “GUARDS!”
Behind Jon, a bowstring TWANGed right by his ear. An arrow flew by close enough to ruffle his hair, and Jon watched as the arrow sprouted from the right side of the magister’s face. The fat man shrieked and fell backwards. Theon snarled. “Too much padding to kill him!”
“Hell with it - we’re loud now!” Jon called. “Boost!” Theon rushed forward to directly underneath the upper railings and braced himself with fingers threaded. With a running start, Jon leaped into that cradle, and Theon threw him upwards, high enough to grip the railing and pull himself over. The bastard ran as quickly as he could to the fallen body of the Magister, who, even as he was howling in pain, was pulling himself up to his feet. His bright orange robes were splattered with his own blood, and his twin beards were stained red as his cheek bled freely from where it was split open. Jon ripped the sword from his belt, and as the magister ran as fast as he could - not nearly fast enough, with all the fat wobbling about - the steel took him in the back, piercing all the way out through his saggy chest.
“Varys says hello.” Jon hissed. “Death to slavers.”
“A little HELP down here, Milord!”
Jon swiftly ripped the sword from Illyrio’s back, allowing the body to fall with a thunderous flop. Down below, Theon was firing arrow after arrow into a quickly forming phalanx of Unsullied advancing inwards from the garden - at least ten of them. Two of them had fletching sticking out of their chests, but Jon marveled at the fact that they barely even seemed to register the pain. Only one body was on the ground unmoving, with a hit directly through the eye.
“Squid! Up here!” Jon shouted, gripping the hard stone railing and flinging himself over the side. Theon glanced up at Jon, hanging from the railing with one hand outstretched, before shouldering his bow. One step back, two steps back… and then the Greyjoy went running full-sprint, before jumping as high as he could.
Jon let out a solid grunt of pain as his hand clasped with Theon’s, sharp stone cutting into the flesh of his fingers even through gloves. He let the momentum carry Theon forward, then swung him high on the backswing. His fingers were not nearly close enough, and Theon went back down, moving like a clock’s pendulum. The Unsullied let out a call, and rushed forward. One of them in the back reeled his arm back and threw his spear at the moving target, and missed Theon’s back by inches.
“NOW OR NEVER!” Theon screamed.
Jon clenched every muscle he had, swinging Theon as hard as he could. The Unsullied stabbed forward as his legs, gouging a furrow in the sole of his boot… and then Theon was up, scrabbling up over the railing with a gasp. Jon followed him over, shaking his numb hand frantically. “You’re welcome,” he panted, as spearpoints clattered off their new barrier.
“These Unsullied don’t die when they’re supposed to,” Theon gasped, pointing at the otherwise-fatal wounds down below.
“Wine of Courage.” Jon panted. “Kills off their sense of pain.”
“Fire will kill them dead.”
“No!” Jon snapped, even as he watched the guards charge off in lockstep towards what Jon could only assume was the direction of a staircase. The two injured guards, however, stayed behind, bellowing loudly in Ghiscari Valyrian. “I won’t do that to another man!”
“Of all the- is that why you made so little!?” Theon cursed, then shook his head. “Fine! Fine. We'll do this the hard way.” Theon grabbed another arrow, strung it quickly, and fired it downward; the Unsullied collapsed to the ground gargling blood, as the feathers of the arrow twitched in his throat. The second guard went down just as quickly. “We’ll just fight our way through somewhere between ten and a hundred bodies by ourselves, without the easiest weapon possible!”
“We can do this.” Jon remarked flatly, clenching his fist. From all the bodies around them, the arrows wrenched themselves free, floating to Jon’s outstretched hand through tendrils of blood and depositing themselves gently. “Fire is no way to die.”
“What a terrible dragon you’d make, having a hangup about fire…” The Greyjoy snatched the ammunition, shook off the blood, and re-quivered them. “You’ll need to tell me what happened after the wedding, one of these days. Come on then. Let’s go after Viserys.”
The two jogged down the halls at a steady march, weapons at the ready. The manse was full of pathways and rooms, and every other room was locked. They fell into a strategy, soon enough, when they realized that a drop of wildfire in the keyhole was enough to melt the mechanisms without setting fire to the doors. Break into a room, oftentimes a storeroom full of lavish goods and spices, and wait for a patrol of Unsullied to charge past seeking their heads. Theon would burst out, putting an arrow in the back of a skull before anybody could react, and Jon would charge in to further lop heads.
It was a strategy they’d worked out ahead of time, when Theon had first made explicit his intent to raid the manse - the best way to beat an Unsullied phalanx was to never be directly in front of one.
They’d taken out three five-body patrols like this before the halls went still. Jon finally came to a stop in the middle of yet another hallway, hand resting on the pommel of his castle-forged blade. “I think they’ve figured out our trick. They’re not sending out more patrols.”
“And we still haven’t found Viserys or Daenerys.” Theon added, quickly examining one of his reclaimed arrows for breakages. “I swear I’ve seen that brick before, that one with the crack in it. Think they’ve grouped up?”
Jon frowned, put out a hand against the stone walls, and braced himself. “I’m going to take a look.” he closed his eyes, extending his skinchanging senses, and groped about blindly for a consciousness to hold on to. He found a bird at last, and thought of a mountain splitting in two-
“Stay here!” said the man. “Do not come out, no matter what you do! The assassins of the Usurper have found us again! They are coming for us!”
“Brother, please, we need to run-!”
“We have nowhere to run! Daenerys, if he’s willing to fight the magisters, he’s willing to hunt us anywhere! Sweet sister, this is our moment. He’s come for us because he knows we are on the verge of finally reclaiming what is ours. With the Dothraki army, we can go home at last! You must reach the Khal, no matter what happens!”
“Viserys, I can’t-” He let out a trill and rose from his perch upon the balcony, higher and higher until he could see at last where he was-
Jon flinched back to himself. “They’re on the west side. They were facing the shoreline.”
“Of course they were. Wanted to stare across the Narrow Sea at the Seven Kingdoms, I bet.” Theon quipped. “Which meanssss…” he turned around to stare out the windows at the scenery. “We are on the wrong side of the manse. Up and at it. How many were with them?”
“I don’t know. But there were many.”
They ran, together, through the house. They heard, along the way, a number of doors open and close, with the shrieks of fear that told them they were servants instead of soldiers. One, a willowy blonde girl who could not have been older than sixteen but was dressed like a bed wench, nearly passed out from fear at an angry command from Theon to leave. They stepped over the bodies of the Unsullied they’d dropped, the blood spattering up their ankles as they moved. Door after door, hall after hall, they ran. The closer they got, the harder Jon’s scowl grew, behind his mask, until finally -
They rounded a corner, and there they were. A phalanx of spears pointed directly at them, with Viserys standing in the center, hand filled with a sword that looked like it had never been wielded before.
“KILL THEM!”
“Whoop!” Theon cried out, stepping back around the corner. Jon was not so well-positioned, and was forced backwards as he blocked a spear aimed directly for his stomach. Another lunged forward, with Jon blocked in - and thudded to the side, arrow sticking from his temple. Opening made, Jon quickly dashed back out into the greater hall, as the Unsullied harried their retreat.
“You think you can kill me, dogs of the Usurper!?” Viserys howled, waving his sword around. “I am the Dragon! I am your death!”
“Bold words, for a man surrounded by twenty men!” Theon called, shaking the numbness out of his bowhand. “Hey, Milord! Your guess was off by ten!”
“Not the time, Squid!”
The Unsullied, Jon noted with grim sourness, had learned from their compatriots’ mistakes and claimed their shields and armor. They’d gotten lucky with the first twenty, armed with only their spears. Now, they were clad in all black armor, with their rounded shield held center and their faces guarded. They advanced as one, spears out front, as Jon and Theon backed up over their cloaks. This was the one position they didn’t want to be in - here, they could break a horde.
“Die, dogs!” Viserys yelled, waving his sword about. He stood a good head taller than the phalanx, giving them a great view of his bright red spitting fury. “You’re going to die here! Tell your Usurper that I’m coming for him! I will take back everything he stole from us! I will-”
THWIP!
An arrow went into Viserys’ mouth and burst out the back of his neck, and the Beggar King fell backwards, dead. Theon grimaced. “Sorry, Milord. He was getting annoying.”
Jon grimaced, behind his mask. Better you than me - you’re not his kin, thought a traitorous part of his brain. “One less to fight,” was what he said instead. He looked at the phalanx, moving forward with certainty and unrelenting pressure. If they didn’t do something soon, they would be cornered, and then it would be death.
Jon exhaled slowly, reached down to his waist, and uncorked his waterskin. “Be ready to fire, Squid!” he called. He stepped back once - the Unsullied stepped twice. Another step back - another two steps forward. One step back -
And as the phalanx grew close enough to menace them, the water flew out of the waterskin, gripped the boot of the middle leading spearman, and twisted. The Unsullied let out a cry of pain, tripped backwards, and knocked over the left half of the front line. The Unsullied behind them did not have time to lower their shield from their turtle-like arrow defense before Theon put a projectile right at their faces. Jon heaved, and the middle man still gripped by the water slid along the ground into the right half, as the Unsullied slammed into the railing. One in the middle let out a cry and toppled over the side, landing on his head with a loud CRACK!
Jon didn’t hesitate - even as he continued to thrash about the man by his foot, he charged in, swinging wildly at the now-unprotected necks. One dead. Two dead. Someone went to stab at his unprotected back - THWIP! - and fell dead.
Hack. Hack. THWIP!
Hack. hack. THWIP!
It fell into a surreal rhythm, until Jon went to hack at a neck and found there was nobody left standing. He was splattered with blood all along his cloak; his hands were numb from hacking through bone and armor. They had taken down a phalanx of Unsullied and not suffered a single hurt, something that even the mightiest armies and largest hordes was unable to boast.
“... Damn.” Theon said, quietly. “And here I thought you were screwing with me about not using your Wildfire.” he stared at the waterskin on Jon’s hip with a grimace. “Magic is terrifying.”
Jon let out a long sigh, and sheathed his blade. “Come on,” he said, as he took off his cloak and began reversing it to conceal the bloodstains. “You’re the one leading the charge. Lead the way.”
“No need to sound so grouchy about it.” Theon remarked. He took several creeping steps through the pile, before stopping at the back. “Mm. Right.” he pushed a toeboot into the shoulder of Viserys. “All hail the King.” he quipped, before moving on. Jon stopped by his side, reached down, and quietly closed his eyes.
“Come on, get a move on.” Said Theon. Jon scowled, and flipped Theon off. The Greyjoy shook his head, gesturing at the door. “We’re on a limit. Time is wasting. On three.”
We shouldn’t be here.
We could have said no. We did not. Now, we accept the consequences.
“One…” Jon said quietly. “Two…”
Theon did not wait for three, but instead burst into the room with an arrow nocked upon the string. Jon scrambled after him, shocked, and froze.
There she stood, huddled against the farthest wall, half-hidden behind the luxurious canopy bed with decadent numbers of pillows. There she stood, dressed in a thin silk nothing he had only seen in his wildest nightmares. There she stood, frail and wide-eyed and beautiful in a way that he didn’t know was possible.
There she stood. Daenerys Targaryen. Daenerys Stormborn. Daenerys the Breaker of Chains. Daenerys the Mother of Dragons. Daenerys, the Queen of the Ashes.
“Wh-who are you?” She stammered, dainty arms wrapping around herself and her too-thin shift. Gods, he could see everything.
“We do it together… We break the wheel, together…!”
“... You are my queen. Now, and always.”
“I…” Jon froze. He felt a sudden dizziness come over him; it was only an arm on the wall that kept him upright. He felt something rising in the back of his throat. “I can’t. Th- Squid, I can’t do this.”
Theon glanced over his side, not releasing the slack in his bow. “Why stop now? We’ve done the hard part.”
“Squid, I…”
“Hush up, Milord.” Theon replied. “I’ve known what I wanted to do here since I landed in this city. I can handle this” And with that, he pointed the bow directly at Daenerys. And Daenerys… trembled. And Jon could see frightened tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
He’d only ever seen her cry once. At… at the end of it all. And now… it came so easily to her.
Theon tightened the bow even further, until the very wood began to tremble… and then gave it slack. The arrow in his hand went loose, and then was pulled from the string. “So sorry to scare you, Princess,” Theon said, flippantly. “But we needed to show we mean business. For we are the sons of traitors to the Iron Throne. And this, in a very loose definition of the word, is a kidnapping.”
Notes:
Praise be, I appear to have finally picked up a work ethic again. If only that work ethic could correspond with actually having work. Somebody hire me, please. Local starving artist wants to use his cybersecurity degree before it gets deleted by AI.
Theon is finally here. I have been planning this since goddamn chapter 3. I have had the hook and the entire system for why he is here in my back pocket for over 6 years. I have been dying, not being able to just beam words from my brain onto a piece of paper so that I could get to these cool things. So now you get to sit and theorize about even more things coming up. We’ll see if I can keep up the reasonable pace for a while longer.