A/N: Well, I wasn't planning on revisiting this one from Jon and Dany's POV...but here we go! You crazy kids convinced me (I'm not difficult to convince when it comes to writing MORE).
So, first up is Jon. Right now, I'm planning just two for each of these lovelies, so Dany will follow this, then swing back to Jon, then one more time with Dany. A dance with dragons, as the good writer says, haha.
These will cover roughly the same time span that the original piece did as Tyrion's POV. Also mentioning this here since it's much more pertinent when I get into Jon and Dany's POVs, but I'm using a mixture of show and book canon. It's just more fun that way.
Cheers and enjoy!
JON
Winterfell's crypts were gloomy solitude for the dead. Grim as its lords and the ancestors who'd built it, and full of dark alcoves with towering stone men and snarling direwolves.
As much as he'd longed for Winterfell to be his true home, it never had, no more than the final resting place for the Starks was welcoming. Around him a frigid dampness made the packed dirt harder than steel. Shadows crept around the stone likenesses, dancing in the light of the torch guttering at his feet. Still, Jon Snow sat huddled amongst them instead of the living, in an empty crypt that had been skipped over.
Robb's place, he thought, right across from Father.
They'd had no bones to lay Robb to rest; had wished they hadn't needed to place Rickon's mangled body in the crypt beside it. Sansa had wanted a statue made for Robb with Grey Wind at his side. No stone mason alive could recall Robb's face, however, not as a child nor the king he'd been when he died. Neither of them had wanted another statue that looked nothing like their memories, so Robb's crypt remained pointedly empty. Another glimpse of what was lost, of a whole person who could never be found again.
Jon stared out from Robb's place at Lord Eddard Stark's solemn face and then toward the sad, young woman to his right. Aunt Lyanna, he'd been told, yet the truth grinded heavy in his head, like a corkscrew digging deep.
His mother. Here, all the time, right beneath his own bastard feet. Hidden in a chasm of his nightmares, old and new and unopened. Near all of his nightmares dragged him down here. It seemed only fitting that his waking one would, too.
What would you think, if you could see the life I've had? Did you ever think at all?
His mother stood stiff before him, colder than the Wall had ever been. Jon rubbed his temples and looked away from her worn, stone eyes.
As a boy, he'd always imagined his mother as beautiful, highborn and kind. He'd gotten his wish, it seemed, but no fantasy had ever felt so barbarous. At the Wall, Jon had accepted the truth he'd expected to hear, but never been told. His mother had been some common whore or fisherman's daughter that Lord Stark met on campaign. Or the Lady Ashara Dayne that he'd heard whispers about as a child. Perhaps, she'd been one of King Robert's camp followers, though he hadn't been a king then.
Instead, she'd been a she-wolf of the North, a woman grown and flowered, who'd run off with a married prince and eloped. She'd birthed him in a tower in Dorne, then promised him off to her brother with her dying breath. Her brother—his father, in all but blood.
His father.
Jon gazed at the man's stern, long face. Ned Stark's eyes stared right over him to the empty crypt where his son should stand. Or rather shouldn't. Robb had been far too young for a knife in the heart and mutiny. He had been as well.
Father. And Mother. Both down here together. My brothers, too. Cousins, in truth, and me in Robb's place, half as dead as him. One day, I'll be twice as dead as every Stark here.
His sharp bark of laughter echoed down the rows of crypts, mirthless and high-pitched, then chased itself back to Jon. He shook himself, but even then, he couldn't escape his last, most ridiculous wish.
"I'd rather be your incestuous bastard than anything else."
Such a truth would have been abhorrent. And near impossible considering how long Lyanna had been missing, but Jon still wished it. He could still be Lord Eddard's son, his bastard just as always, only he'd have a Stark mother, too. He'd be more Stark than any of them, no matter his name.
"Eddard Stark is not your father."
He felt half mad sitting there, stewing with grief and pain and a dark knot of fury twisting in his gut. Everything was a lie or a war or a mistake. Somehow, he was all three and left to deal with the consequences.
Jon drew his knees into his chest, burrowing himself into Robb's empty crypt. He pressed his forehead to his cold knees.
Foolishly, he'd expected the crypts to be quieter than the world above. With every Northern lord and lady demanding to see him after Bran's revelation, Jon's introduction of Daenerys had become an unproductive whirlwind. All evening and well into the night, Jon and Davos had met one shouting lord after the other in their makeshift council chambers. Most had been full of rage and spittle and near as much disbelief as Jon.
Only two had been quiet. Lady Mormont had welcomed him back with dignity, inquired about the dragonglass expedition, then departed. Lord Manderly had been a gentle way to end the midnight hour, calm and easy. As usual, he talked as much as he ate, but what he'd said had settled some of the tension thrumming through Jon.
"You're as much Stark now as yesterday, Your Grace. House Manderly will support you. Ignore the lot until they've had a few days. They all saw your face when Brandon spoke. Nothing holds as true as that."
Blood does, he'd thought at the time, but Jon hadn't said anything. He'd been too exhausted.
Despite the hour, Jon hadn't returned to his chambers afterward. He hadn't wound his way across the castle to the guest house where Daenerys slept either. Instead, he'd thought to seek out Ghost in the snowdrifts beyond the main gate. But at the first blossom of dragonflame warming his chest, he'd turned instead for the crypts.
Rhaegal was out there. Lighting the glittering moonlit sky with yellow-orange flame veined with green. Even from Winterfell's training yard, Jon flushed with the heat of the dragon's breath churning in his chest. Like with Ghost, he'd already begun to feel that melding of the dragon's mind with his own. It had been a powerful feeling, at the first. More abrupt and urgent than the gradual sense of Ghost in his mind, but from that first touch, Jon had felt it so deep it rattled his bones.
Now he knew why.
"Eddard Stark is not your father."
But surely he was. He'd been everything a father could to his bastard son. Ned Stark was the only father he'd ever known.
But I'm not his bastard, just his promise. He sent me to the Wall without a word. I'm an obligation and an oath he swore, nothing more.
He was someone else's son.
Jon curled himself back in the crypt as far as it went, but both Starks were still visible in the guttering flame of his torch. A father and a mother, though neither felt truly his anymore. He squeezed his eyes as tight shut as he could, and focused on his foggy puffs of breath warming his face. Several levels below, he could feel Ghost loping through the old Kings of Winter, curious and lonely. Or perhaps that was him. Or even Rhaegal, somewhere on the surface, awaiting the dawn and keening at the departure from his and Daenerys's nightly visits.
Everything muddled together once again, and Jon let himself drift off with it rather than fight.
Perhaps he was all three: albino wolf, jade dragon, himself aching and exhausted. Then nothing, or just lazy snow spiraling out in the wolfswood, melting on his boiling flesh. Not Snow or a Targaryen. Not a Stark either, the old kings whispered around him. You don't belong here. Nor anywhere else, Jon decided as he stumbled through the dark rows of crypts, past the old kings groaning and creaking in their tombs. His paws dug into the hard earth as he raced along.
A man can't be anything when he's only half of something.
You don't belong here.
But the voice wasn't the rasp of wind the old kings always spoke with to him. Jon tripped on his failing torch, his knees slamming into the steel dirt, and found the he was back amongst the crypts of his adopted family. Lord Eddard Stark, stone-faced and firm, gazed down on him.
You don't belong here, his lord father whispered. You have our blood, not our name.
"I'm not a Targaryen either! You never taught me to be a dragon!" Jon wanted to shout, but he found his own mouth couldn't move. He made to reach for it, but found his hands were grey and stiff. Stone. His knees were rooted to the frozen ground, his arms heavy like he'd draped a dozen oak shields on each. Only his eyes moved.
His father's judgment was absolute. As shadows molded into figures all around him, and dusty, warm breaths brushed his neck, Jon tried to scream and free himself. Then she stepped forward from the mass of solidifying bodies. Lyanna's face was stone like all the rest, but blood ran down her cheeks where a crown of dead, black roses cut into her head.
Her stone hand caressed Jon's face. He felt nothing of the touch. She turned to Ned as the blood ran down her neck. The old kings swarmed closer.
His name is Aegon, his mother said, her voice resolute and clear. A fierce buzz of anger hummed around Jon. The dead Kings of Winter drew closer still. Death rattled in their chests. Decay hollowed their eyes to the black pit Jon had met beyond this world before the red woman had dragged him back.
His name is Aegon Targaryen.
Jon jolted awake, gagging.
Ghost paced before him, warm and familiar, and hungry. A hunger that flooded Jon's mouth and made his stomach clench. He wretched and came up empty.
"The crypts are an odd place to sleep, even for you."
As Ghost nudged Jon's chest with his saggy, white head, Jon glanced past him. The hall of crypts was brighter than when he'd dozed off. Most of the candles and sconces had been lit. His torch was a charred ruin on the ground. He'd fallen asleep, but for how long, he couldn't say. Time was irrelevant and mindless amongst the dead.
Ned and Lyanna weren't the only Starks watching him now. Arya sat at the foot of Lyanna's statue. It was jarring to see how much his little sister looked like the worn stone carving of his mother.
"Is it morning?"
Arya gave him an uncertain look. "Dawn. She's looking for you."
Jon didn't bother asking whom. Daenerys. He'd left her alone on her first night in Winterfell. All the way north, he'd told her about his childhood home; about the crypts and the wolfswood, the steaming pools and the godswood with its vast weirwood tree, the winter town coming to life and the glass gardens. He'd meant to give her a tour of it all after the meeting. Instead he'd dealt with howling lords before stumbled his way down here where he'd hoped to find a sliver of peace.
As guilt surged through him, Arya approached.
"I told her you were down here," Arya said, one hand on the hilt of a dragonbone dagger on her belt. "She said that she didn't want to intrude on a sacred Stark place."
Like I am. A stone hand reached for him, gnarled fingers grasping… You don't belong here.
"You do belong here. As much as me and Sansa and Bran."
Jon was certain he hadn't spoke, but somehow she knew. Her eyes were colder than he remembered, but it was Arya's warm, thin smile that greeted him. She reached out and mussed up his hair.
"You're still a Stark, big brother. So don't be stupid."
"More so than usual?"
She nodded, and together they returned to the surface, Ghost silent at their heels. Winterfell was just beginning to wake around them. The guards at the main gate were hacking ice off the great wooden doors, and a few people were already at practice in the training yard. Beyond the walls, Jon could hear the camps coming to life. Steady streams of smoke rose from their cook fires. The echoes of Dothraki horses neighing reached him across the pale landscape.
On the bridge between the guest house and the main keep, Daenerys watched it all, wrapped up tight in every article of fur she owned. He'd warned her of that, but she'd insisted she'd be fine.
"I've got you to warm me all night, Jon Snow. That's more than sufficient."
Her gentle teases loosen some of the stiffness in his chest. Just the sight of her, red-cheeked and beautiful with her silver-gold hair twisted into half a dozen braids set him at ease. Her Dothraki bells chiming softly as she turned to him.
Arya was watching him when looked away. Her teasing smile wasn't nearly as comforting as Dany's.
"I'll inform Lady Stark that you're available, Your Grace."
Jon glowered at her sparkling gray eyes. "Shut up."
This time, he mussed up her hair and sent her on her way. Ghost trailed after her and Jon was alone. He took the nearest stair up to the bridge.
"You were right," Daenerys said as he joined her overlooking the crisp dawn frosting the yard. Her voice was as soft as the snow flurries falling across the yard. "Winterfell is quite beautiful as the sun rises over the godswood."
Jon eyed the distant weirwood stretching out over the pines and sentinels. Blood red leaves canopied the godswood, little stains of color as the sun crept its way into the sky. He'd promised a tour of that sacred space, promised to walk hand-in-hand with her to the best tower window to see it at dawn. Empty promises were all he'd given. A true son of Eddard Stark would do better than that.
"I apologize, Your Grace. The tour I promised… Yesterday was unexpected."
"It was," she agreed. "We both knew your obligations here would create difficulties as everyone adjusts."
Daenerys turned to him then, a tangled mixture of the queen he'd first met and the woman he'd grown to adore in private. She hesitated to speak, her hand shifting closer to his on the battlement. Jon swallowed at the tentative gestures. Another axe of guilt knocked into his gut. As quick as she'd opened up with him these last few months, Daenerys had already begun to close off, anticipating the worst. He'd given her every reason to expect it, too.
Swift and sure, Jon grasped her hand and threaded their fingers together.
"We're together in this," Jon said. "No matter what happens."
Dany gave him time to pull away as she stepped closer, but then she was in his arms, her head resting against his neck. Jon wrapped his cloak around them both, and his arms tighter around her. Underneath all the fur and armor, Dany's hands found the firm skin of his belly. She rubbed slow circles against the ragged scars.
"Rhaegal was very cross with you last night," she murmured against his neck. "I half expected him to torch the castle until you came out."
"He should scratch his own chin."
"He likes your scratches the best."
But just the thought of the vibrant green dragon—the dragon named after him—made Jon tense. If Dany felt it where her fingertips rubbed his skin, she didn't say anything. For a time, they stayed liked that, drawing a number of eyes from Winterfell's waking inhabitants, but Jon didn't pull away. He sunk into the comfort of her presence, and rested for the first time since Bran had spoken.
"Eddard Stark is not your father."
The words plunged into Jon like a cold knife. He held Daenerys tighter as her fingers slipped from under his layers. She kissed his neck, and spoke the only words that could have twisted that aching knife further.
"I'm glad I'm not the last. I'm thankful it's you," Dany said, her voice soft against his neck. "You and I are the last dragons. The last Targaryens, together."
I'm not, he wanted to say. To be a Stark was all I ever wanted. Now I'm Targaryen, and I'd rather be anything else.
Joy shined bright in Dany's eyes as she leaned away to looked at him. Jon kissed her forehead, and kept his silence.
