Chapter Text
In the private godswood of Winterfell, a young boy sat at the heart of a heart tree. He was busy rubbing his bleeding wounds with the water of the black pond while trying to rub away at the tears of his face.
The water gave a cooling feel as he washed his scrapes and cuts, but the scrapes and cuts were not the source of his tears. The pain that caused them was much more emotional in nature, and the weight of that toll had finally been too crushing for the boy to handle.
The boy was Jon Snow, and he was the bastard of Winterfell.
From an early age he knew he was different from his brother, Robb, the trueborn son of his father. The servants never granted him the same respect as they did Robb, nor the same attention. They didn’t mistreat him, lest they suffer the consequences of his lord father, but if they had the opportunity to ignore his existence then they were quick to do so.
And that was very hurtful to him.
However, it was the fact that he was a bastard that hurt him most of all. The son of one of the great lords of Westeros, yes, but cursed to never know the love of a mother, especially not from Robb’s mother, Lady Catelyn. Oh, how he’d learned to never make the same mistake of calling her mother, and how he’d learned it very early.
She was the cause of his pain, free to berate him when he didn’t have his father to shield him from her cold persona. Lord Eddard had been called to war, some house that had rebelled against the crown, according to Maester Luwin, and had thus been away for a few moons already, leaving two sons and one daughter, with one more child soon to be welcomed into the world.
One more trueborn child, Jon thought to himself.
Why couldn’t he be a trueborn child? Why did he have to be a bastard? Then Lady Catelyn wouldn’t be so mean to him by blaming him for everything that ever seemed to go wrong. He and Robb were only playing. It wasn’t his fault that Robb had tripped on a tree root that made him tumble backwards and hit his head. Was it not Jon that called for a guard so that Robb could be looked after by Winterfell’s maester?
Apparently, that meant nothing to the Lady of the castle, yelling and laying the blame at Jon’s feet as she used that word that hurt him so. Even when Robb tried to weakly come to his defense, still dazed from the tumble, Lady Stark would not hear it and had ordered Jon away without a possibility of supper for the night. By then, Jon couldn’t stop the welling tears in his eyes, dashing away and towards the godswood where he knew no one would bother him.
He missed his father. How long would this war last? How long would his father be away? He wished his father could come home, and soon. He wished that he could be strong, that nothing could ever hurt him. But most of all…
“I wish I wasn’t a bastard,” Jon sniffled, wiping away at his eyes for what seemed like the hundredth time that very night. “I wish I could be strong. Strong like-like…”
Like whom?
And suddenly, it came to him.
“I wish I was strong, like King Daeron, The Young Dragon, the boy king who conquered Dorne,” Jon proclaimed into the night. “I wish I was strong like Prince Aemon, The Dragonknight, like Aegon, The Conqueror!” Each name fell from his lips with increasing fervor and confidence, until his breath hitched on the last one. “I wish I was strong like-”.
He paused. The name that hung on his lips was one in which he was too afeared to mention. What would happen to him should anyone here what he wanted to say? Gods forbid if Lady Catelyn were to ever catch wind of it.
The names of his heroes from before were from the stories of House Targaryen, from the stories that he’d heard from Maester Luwin and Old Nan. But even Old Nan did not speak of the next man, Maester Luwin only mentioning him in passing and with no goodwill to speak upon the man’s name. Did Jon dare mention the name, especially in the godswood where the Old Gods were always witness?
No… he must not fear. He must be brave.
“I wish I was strong like Daemon Blackfyre, The Black Dragon,” he whispered to himself.
Jon turned his head, searching to see if anyone had heard him or his proclamation. But there was no one, only the wheezing winds of the cold that nipped at his cheeks, the dark water of the pond still and unmoving, and the unnerving face that was carved onto the weirwood heart tree.
Jon stood up from his place, wiped at the dirt of his trousers, and turned to make his way back to the keep. He walked the godswood by himself, until he reached the gates that led to the courtyard of Winterfell. Two guards stood stationed at the entrance; the very same ones that had seen him dart past them earlier in the day.
Only the members of House Stark were allowed within the godswood and, while Jon was not a Stark, they knew that he held his father’s favor and treated him as such. However, Jon had also disappeared for several hours and was unsure of what reception he would receive once he had made himself known once more.
Had Lady Catelyn ordered a search for him? The idea was almost laughable. No, it was more likely that Maester Luwin, or even Jory Cassel, the captain of guard, would order a search for him. Now, the question was, had they?
Jon sighed to himself, there was no point in hiding any further. There either was a search for him, or there wasn’t. Given the fact that the two guardsmen had seen him making his way into the godswood and no one had made the effort to retrieve him, it was most likely there hadn’t been a search for him. And sure enough, the guardsmen did not bat an eye the moment he walked past them on his way towards the Great Keep; neither did the various servants that worked the outside of the keep, nor the servants that worked the inside.
It truly was as if he didn’t exist.
He’d made it to his chambers, the room alongside Robb’s, and was tempted on checking whether his brother had recovered from his earlier injures, but ultimately decided against it. The inside of his room was cool, not cold like the outside – due to the natural hot springs that ran through the walls of the keep – a moderate sized writing desk in a corner, a large chest where for his clothing, a nicely sized bed for sleeping, and a hearth at the end of the room for a fire should he desire a warmer temperature.
However, it was his writing desk that caught his attention, for on it was a plate that consisted of a bread loaf and a boiled potato, with a large cup of water at the side. Jon walked up to it tentatively, his stomach rumbling louder as he neared the food. The food looked bland, and unseasoned, but his stomach growled all the same in seek of anything to consume. Though, Jon did not touch a single morsel and instead picked the loaf of bread to sling across the width of his chambers.
Lady Stark forbade him a bite of supper, so if the food had been presented to him by some rogue staff of the castle, then the last thing that Jon wanted was to be caught in her ire should she find out he had disobeyed her command. And if the plate had come from her directly, in some sense of apology, then Jon would rather go to bed starving.
So, he did. Pushing all thoughts of food to the back of his mind, and ignoring the grumbles of his stomach, Jon closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.
Jon paid the price of his actions the following morning. He winced when he arose, clutching at his abdomen as the pain of hunger took his senses. Glancing over to his writing desk, he saw that the plate with the boiled potato was still present along with the glass of untouched water. Moving his eyes across his room, they stopped when they saw the loaf of bread that he’d flung the night prior.
He stared at it for seconds, wondering if he should go over to pick it up and eat but he quickly shook his head at those thoughts the moment he’d thought them. It was the next morn, which meant that Lady Stark’s ban had been completed. Jon was free to go exploring the kitchens to break his fast, and what a hearty meal he would make sure it to be. Sod what the cooks thought of him, he would get his due.
Throwing the fur covers off of him, he rolled from his bed and went to retrieve a set of clothes from his chest.
He paused.
The chest at the foot of his bed was wholly unfamiliar. It was a larger chest than the one he’d had prior, made of a heavy wood and wrapped in what seemed newly tanned leather in a rich reddish-brown finish. Had the servants changed his trunk in the middle of the night while he lied asleep? Opening the chest to retrieve a set of clothes, Jon was left dumbstruck once again at the garments that laid inside. They were of a fine quality, not to dissimilar to the clothes that he’d worn before, but these clothes were sewn in the colors of House Stark, grey with blacks and whites. Even when his father had allowed him the same quality of garments that were afforded to Robb, Jon had never received a single article of clothing that would be sewn in the official colors of his father’s great house; at least not obviously, lest it offend his lady wife. The clothes that Jon usually wore were more blacks than grey, and the coat of arms sewn on his clothing was the inverted coloring of House Stark’s sigil. Had the servants mistaken Jon’s room for Robb’s? Surely, that must be what had happened.
Yet, when he raised the clothing to himself Jon noted that already they were a perfect fit. Even young at a tender age of six, Robb had a much broader build than Jon’s lean, while also being taller, which meant that there was no possible way that this clothing had been meant for Robb. Had the seamster made a mistake, and the servants had thus decided to give the clothing to Jon in order to not let a fine garment go to waste? That certainly was a possible scenario, yet as Jon looked further into the chest, he realized that all the clothes within were sewn in the colors of House Stark and to a perfect fitment on his body.
It was no mere mistake, the clothes insides were meant for Jon.
With shaky hands, Jon chose the least affluent of the clothing and donned it for the day before making his way to the Great Hall to break his fast. While exiting the keep, Jon noticed a few of the servants bow their head in acknowledgement, first a few and then others pausing in their duties to acknowledge his presence as he passed. It was a strange sight to him, making him stutter slightly in his step before resuming on his original task.
The entrance to the Great Hall was flanked by two guardsmen, both donned in a steel helmet and dressed in heavy mail with the sigil of House Stark emblazoned in a cloth over their breastplates. It seemed that it was not only Jon that had received a new attire.
“My lord,” One of the guardsmen acknowledge when Jon neared, moving to open the door for him.
Jon stopped in his tracks, dumbfounded at the words that came out of the guardsman’s mouth. No one had ever called Jon a lord before. Jon had never dared thinking of himself as a lord either, not since playing in the snow with Robb when he’d proclaimed himself as the Lord of Winterfell and his brother had swiftly reminded him that a bastard could not inherit. Jon looked up towards the guardsmen and noticed that he did not recognize either of the two, which meant that they must have mistaken him for Robb; an easy mistake, as Jon took after their father, and the Starks of old, whereas Robb was a bred Tully through and true.
The guardsman was still holding the door open for him; and Jon made to correct him on his mistake, but a selfish part wanted the feeling to last and to continue. So, he walked forward and made his way to the inside of the keep; Jon could already smell the aroma that wafted from the kitchens, the unmistakable scent of bacon overpowering all other smells, though he could hear the sizzling of the food on the frying pans. Walking the ever-familiar route, he did not stop until he was greeted to the sight of the Winterfell staff working busy to prepare the morning’s breakfast – immediately Jon saw the bacon, but he saw a pot of porridge, loaves of bread, eggs, and sausages as well.
A rare mischievous smirk found itself upon his lips, as his eyes immediately darted to the stack of plates along with cutlery to fix himself a plate – both of which were also new in appearance to him, but he was too starved to ponder the thought. Walking forward, he was lost in what combination of a plate he’d create for himself, eggs with bacon and bread, or perhaps bacon and sausages and eggs? Oh hells, why not grab a bit of everything, and extra, while he was at it? It wasn’t as if there no food leftover once everyone had been served.
“Milord, you should not be here,” one of the cooks said.
Jon blinked. There it was again; another servant of the castle had referred to him as lord. And just like with the guardsmen outside the doors of the Great Hall, he did not recognize the face of the cook that spoke to him. He did not recognize any of the faces of the other servants and cooks that worked the kitchen.
“I’m starving,” Jon said dumbly, unsure on what else to say.
The cook smiled, a warm face as she regarded him. “The breakfast is almost complete, milord. We will begin plating soon for the servants to place at the table.” The cook gave him another warming smile. “Don’t you worry, I’ll make sure to serve extra for yourself.”
She went back to her duties, tending the sausage links, and Jon felt a numbing feeling at her words.
“I-I’m not…” he tried to say, but the words seemed to catch in his throat. His voice had been too low, a whisper drowned by the sounds of the bustling kitchen. He could do nothing but turn in his step to make his way to the dining hall.
As Jon stepped into the hall, his eyes picked up on what he’d missed earlier. The flooring of the hall seemed… newer, polished and a rich color as if the boards had recently been replaced. The decoration of the hall was also different than he was used to, exuberant colors donning the walls instead of the usual muted tones that he was so accustomed to. Had Lady Catelyn ordered a renovation? But how had it changed so drastically in such little time? Surely, the carpenters could not replace the flooring in one day.
There were few tables, not many like there had been before; his father had deigned to share the hall with the staff, and they all dined within the Great Hall of Winterfell at the same time as when the Stark family ate. At first, Jon sat at the great table with his father and brother, but he’d been relegated to sitting at one of the lower tables ever since his father had been called to war. Now, Jon was unsure of where to sit. He could see the great table at the top level of the hall, seven chairs placed around with one larger than the other.
The chair for the Lord of Winterfell, Jon thought to himself.
It seemed that Lady Catelyn had eased up on him since his punishment the previous night. Perhaps Robb had gotten to her, and the guilt had begun to wrack at her nerves. Jon couldn’t help but feel a smug grin at the thought. Though, he was unsure of how much her newfound grace extended. Should he take a seat at the great table? Or should he sit at one of the few tables of the lower level?
“My what a surprise. A small pup out of his bed, and so early in the morning.”
Jon turned around with swiftness at the voice – he was not sure why, but there was a fondness and warmth in it that commanded him to find the owner. What he saw nearly took his breath away; she was tall, and elegant, with pale skin, and her long, aristocratic face was framed by luscious long dark brown hair. However, it was the eyes that gave him the most pause; they were grey, so light that they seemed silver – a heavy contrast to his own grey eyes that were so dark they appeared black. Overall, however, she was the spitting image of a Stark. She was the spitting image of what Jon thought a Stark Lady should look like; a part of him would have even thought that she resembled the statue of his late Aunt Lyanna in the Winterfell crypts if it weren’t for the fact that his aunt’s statue had a certain softness to her features compared to the woman’s sharp.
Who was this woman that bore the appearance of a Stark, that stood in the Great Hall as if it were her very home? A Karstark perhaps? He hadn’t heard word of a visitor from one of the houses of the north. Was she the reason why Lady Catelyn had deigned to redecorate the castle?
He must’ve had an odd look on his face, for the woman in front of him soon took a look of great concern upon her face.
“Jon, sweetling, are you alright?” she asked.
She knew his name. How had she known his name? Was it common knowledge that his father had another son? He thought only Robb’s existence would be important. Jon was so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn’t noticed the woman step swiftly towards him, raising a hand to rest her palm on his forehead.
“You don’t seem to have a fever,” she muttered to herself. Her hand then went to one of his cheeks before moving onto the other. “Are you alright?”
Jon simply stared at her; lost on what to say.
“You know my name,” he finally settled to say.
The woman furrowed her brow. “Of course, I know your name. Why wouldn’t I?”
Why wouldn’t she? Why would she, Jon thought to himself. Apart from his father, his brother, the maester, and a few of the guardsmen, no one had ever bothered to know his name; or at least he didn’t think they bothered to know his name for they never deemed to speak to him.
“Come,” she said to him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, “take your seat. Your aunt and uncle will arrive shortly, and we can break our fast together.”
Aunt and uncle? Uncle Benjen was serving at the Wall, and there had been no raven announcing his visit. As for his aunt, well… she was dead, and had been dead since the end of Robert’s Rebellion six years past.
The woman steered him towards the table, but Jon put up a slight resistance as the oddness of the situation left him confused beyond measure – from the different furniture and apparel in his room, to the newfound faces of the staff, and the redecoration of Winterfell. What was going on? Where was Robb? Where was Maester Luwin, or Jory? Seven hells, where was Lady Catelyn?
“Where is father,” Jon found himself asking. It was the only thing he could bring himself to ask. With everything that seemed so wrong in this world, his father would surely have the answers.
He felt the woman’s grip tighten, enough to elicit a small wince from him, though she quickly relaxed it as she stopped both of them in their walk to place her other free hand on his free shoulder.
“I’ve told you before already that your father is away. He is in King’s Landing,” she told him gently, though he could see the smile on her face did not reach her eyes.
Perhaps that made sense – it seemed that father was still currently at war, or perhaps the war was already over and he was in the capitol for other business – except that no, it didn’t. He had never spoken to this woman before, nor had he ever seen this woman before. How could she have ‘told him before already’?
“When will he return,” he asked.
The woman’s smile tightened. However, before she could answer, the doors to the keep opened, and a man covered in thick furs and leathers entered. He had a large and burly frame that moved with strength, yet he was betrayed by his grey hair, that was nearing white, and his oldened face grizzled with age. He walked with confidence, the servants bowing as he passed them, though he made no acknowledgment of them. Behind him walked a dainty, yet proud woman with light brown hair and blue hazel eyes. She, on the other hand, did acknowledge the servants with a soft smile.
“Brother,” the grey eyed woman said, her hands still on Jon’s shoulders.
“Sister,” the man replied in a gruff voice. He then turned to Jon with a strong piercing gaze. “Nephew.”
Jon felt his blood run cold. The two had just regarded each other as brother and sister, while the man had also regarded him as his nephew.
This isn’t possible, Jon thought to himself. This man was far too old to resemble his uncle Benjen, and the eyes were different as well, a strong grey that differed from the blue grey of his uncle – his real uncle. And his aunt had passed years ago, young and barely a woman. No, this must be a dream; it would explain the oddities that had occurred since he’d awoken in the morning.
“Jon,” his apparent aunt said with a firm voice. “Greet your uncle.”
“I’m sorry,” he apologized to her, before turning to his “uncle” with an apologetic look. “Good morning, uncle.”
The man simply nodded in response, before making his way to the large seat at the head of the table. The woman that walked behind him took her seat at his side, but not before giving Jon an easy smile as she passed him. Jon simply bowed his head in response. It was a mistake, his reward a flick on the ear from the grey eyed woman.
“Have all manners and sense left you this morning, boy?” She asked with an exasperated tone.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Lyanna,” he regarded her, rubbing at his ear with a slight grimace.
The woman stopped in her step, turning to him with a confused look. “Who is Lyanna?”
Jon blinked.
“I think there may yet be some slumber in him still,” his uncle’s wife teased. At least, Jon assumed the woman was his uncle’s wife, given she took her seat directly to the man’s left.
The woman standing next to him, on the other hand, still gave him a piercing look as she still expected an answer from him. However, it was his uncle who spoke next by telling her to drop the topic and sit for their meal – he didn’t want to have an uncordial breakfast.
“He speaks to me with a different name, I am in the right to wish to know, Rickon,” the woman said in an incensed manner.
“My lady wife speaks true, Alysanne. The boy is merely addled with sleep.”
So, the man’s name was Rickon, while his aunt was not Lyanna but Alysanne? What a strange yet unique dream his mind had created. Rickon was a common name for a northerner and common for the name of a Stark. Alysanne, on the other hand, was only known to him from the histories that Maester Luwin had spoken of. A Targaryen Queen that had visited the north. Jon was sure there was more to it, but he hadn’t paid much mind, too focused on wanting to learn of the warriors of the house of the dragon. His aunt and uncle began to speak once more, and Jon drifted into his thoughts. If his uncle was named Rickon, not Benjen or Brandon, and his aunt was named Alysanne and not Lyanna, then was his father still Lord Eddard Stark? Probably not, considering that his uncle took his place at the lord’s seat, still Jon was curious to know.
“Where is father?” He asked once more.
The hall fell silent at his question, and Jon would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a flicker of trepidation at the looks upon the faces of his elders. His aunt pursed her lips as a sad look crossed her face, his uncle’s wife simply looked at him with pity in her gaze, while his uncle’s face showed nothing but contempt and loathing. However, before his uncle could explode, his aunt took his shoulders within her grasp as she leaned slightly to regard him with warm eyes; Jon did not know why, but her soft grip was comforting and each of his senses screamed to let himself come closer into her embrace.
“Your father,” she started, “is away, as I’ve told you before.” She offered a small smile in an attempt at comfort, but Jon could see in her eyes that it was not genuine.
“When will he return?” Jon asked. Was his father at war in his dreams as well? It mattered little, for he knew he would soon wake to reality before his father ever returned in this dream of his.
“He is busy in the capital.”
Did that mean the war was over?
“For how long?” Jon pressed.
“For good, if the gods grace us” His uncle cut with a gruff tone, and Jon found himself flinching in his aunt’s grasp – her own smile disappearing as she looked at her brother with a cool gaze.
“Peace, brother. Your offense with my husband does not continue with my son.”
Jon froze. The first thing he’d heard was that this woman had referenced his father as her husband. Though, that could not possibly be correct for it was clear that she was the sister of the current Lord of Winterfell, which in turn would have made her a Stark. That, in turn, meant that she could not possibly be married to Jon’s Lord Father, who himself was a Stark of Winterfell. The Starks did not wed brother to sister, only the Targaryens did so. Then again, Jon’s father was not the Lord of Winterfell in this dream.
And suddenly, it had hit him what the woman had said. My son. Son. She had called him her son. Jon, the bastard of Winterfell, was her son. He blinked once, and then twice. He had thought, fantasized, and dreamed of this moment for the near of two years; and though he knew this was a dream, Jon could not stop the rapid beating of his heart within his chest. He turned his gaze upwards to take a better look at her, confirming the woman’s brown hair, as well as her Stark-grey eyes. Had his mind created an image of his father to look like that of his mother? Or was this dream a sign from the Gods, telling him that his mother had been a lady of the north? Either way, Jon could only move forward to wrap his arms around the woman’s waist in a tight embrace.
“Oh,” Alysanne breathed out, unexpecting of his sudden hug. Soon after, she snaked a hand to the upper of his back as the other comforted the back of his head. “What has gotten into you this morning, Jon?” She asked with a light laugh. It was a sweet laugh, one that he could listen to forever.
“You coddle him too much,” Rickon said, though it fell on deaf ears.
Everything fell on deaf ears, to Jon, as everything in the room was unimportant save for the woman that he could finally call mother, if only for a moment. He did not pay heed to his uncle’s scornful ramblings of Jon’s father, nor the various news that came and went from the servants and staff of the castle. As a matter of fact, Jon had completely forgotten that he’d been hungry, though his mother certainly had not.
He answered questions as best he could, with limited yeses and no’s, trying to speak with Alysanne Stark, his mother, as much as he could. He displayed as much decorum as he could afford, but the ear-splitting smile upon his face would not leave him. His mother smiled merrily, content that his seemingly earlier mood had vanished, happy that her boy was content once more. And even when his uncle, Rickon, made more disparaging remarks of his father, Jon did not press the issue further or deem to know as to who his father in this dream world was. After all, he knew who his true father was, and that he would not spend much time in his dreams before the crushing reality woke him up once more.
Except, he did not wake from his dream – not when he’d spent the entirety of his day with his newfound mother, nor the morning after or the many mornings after that. No, Jon’s dream had instead become ever eternal. But dreams were not meant to last, nor the joy that came with them. Soon, his dream had once again turned into a nightmare.
104 AC
