Jon
He sat on the roof of one of Iron Pointe's tallest towers, a bottle of wine beside him and the beauty of the Sunset Sea filling his eyes. Night had long fallen and the stars now blanketed the sky, each a small point of light that only added to the majesty of the view. The moon hung nearly full above him, so bright that it might as well have been a bonfire, and the torches lit around the outer ring made where he sat brighter than some of the rooms in the castle proper. The night was quiet, with only the occasional murmur of distance conversation from the courtyard below reaching his ears. Jon picked up his bottle and considered pulling the cork out with his teeth like he'd seen some hardened warriors do only to decide to stick with the corkscrew; after all, the last thing he needed was to lose his grip and send it tumbling down into the darkness beneath his feet. That would mean having to trek down to the kitchens to fetch aother bottle and at the moment he didn't want to risk running into his family.
Tony had barely noticed when Jon had left the table after their evening meal, pleading that he wasn't feeling good. Pepper had noticed but been unable to say a word as Tony had dragged her into the conversation he was having with Oberyn. The prince had gotten it into his head that they could convert part of the tourney grounds outside of Casterly Rock into a race track and could feature chariot races, the new fashionable sport in Dorne as it were, for the entertainment of all that attended Jon's wedding.
"My wedding," Jon said to himself, shaking his head at the thought. "Of all the things."
He'd thought it was supposed to be women that became obsessed with weddings but Tony and Oberyn were proving that theory wrong. Once the marriage pact had been settled the two had begun the all important task of turning Jon's wedding feast into the biggest party Westeros had ever seen. While most of the noble lords were at war and unable to attend they had heirs and second sons and daughters and of these Tony would gather the makings for a grand party. He spoke of having clowns and performers and tests of strength and valor… to Jon it sounded more like a tourney than a wedding but Tony had merely patted him on the cheek, told him 'the big kids are talking' and told him to finish his pudding (which there hadn't even been any, leading to even more confusion). Pepper had pulled himself aside after that and explained that Southern weddings did end up having tournaments to celebrate the marriage and Jon had just shaken his head, thinking the North made it so much easier. Oaths before a Weirwood, a feast, and that was that.
Tony and Oberyn, Jon had found, fed into each other. One would come up with an idea and the other would instantly pounce on it, talking about how they could make it grander. This would lead to the first joining back in, taking their original idea and expanding it even more. Back and forth, cycling onto itself until the simple pigeon pie (which Jon didn't even want to begin with for it sounded utterly disgusting) had transformed into a massive cake in the shape of Iron Pointe. He half wondered if the two men remembered that it was Jon and Natasha that were getting married and not them.
Jon paused, thinking on his future wife before taking a long pull off the wine bottle. It was so odd to think about, that he was going to marry a woman he barely knew. He knew it was the custom, that most noble families in Westeros married for political reasons rather than love, hoping that would come later. Robb had admitted his fear in that, frightened that his parents would reveal some horse woman that weighed 500 pounds was to be his bride because her family had a glassblower living in their castle that Lady Stark wanted to get some items from. But Jon had never feared that for he knew that he was a bastard and no person in their right mind would want to marry their noble born daughter to a bastard.
And yet here he was…
At the very least Natasha was beautiful but it still seemed so odd to Jon that soon he would wed and bed a woman he'd only just met. And he felt like he couldn't say a word because it would come off as being ungrateful. Tony had done so much for him, given him a whole new life, and Jon didn't wanted to make trouble by complaining. If being Lord of Iron Pointe met marrying Natasha Martell then Jon would do just that.
It didn't mean he wouldn't brood a little over it. Thus why he'd escaped to the tower roof to sit alone with his thoughts.
"There you are," Natasha said, pulling herself up through the trap door and onto the tower roof.
"We'd wondered where you went."
It appeared the Old Gods weren't in the mood to grant him any favors.
She moved to sit down next to him, showing not the slightest bit of fear over the height. Natasha had forgone wearing a dress or the robes of the Dornish and instead opted for what he'd learned was the favored garb of her sisters, the Sand Snakes: a pair of black leather pants that hugged her legs like tights, a form fitted black top, and a sleeveless black coat that hung just past her hips. It was an appealing outfit, Jon had to admit, but it still felt strange to stare at her even if she was to be his wife in a few weeks. In fact her being his future wife made the oddness of it all even worse.
"I doubt it," Jon said with a shrug. "Tony and your father were pretty involved in planning out the pig races."
"They moved up to greased cows," Natasha said. "My father suggested greased whores but Lady Stark smacked him upside the head and that convinced him to end that thought."
"She managed to smack the Red Viper. That's one for the songs."
"What are you doing up here, Jon Stark?" Natasha asked, looking up at the stars. "A man seeks solitude when he needs to think."
"And I need to think," Jon admitted. "It just feels like things are spiraling out of control and I don't have a grasp on anything."
"It is our marriage, yes?" Natasha asked. "Did not expect to marry a Martell, even an only-recently bastard one?" When Jon raised an eyebrow at that Natasha smirked. "In Dorne we do not care about things like that as much as the rest of you do."
"Yeah, I guess so," Jon said, taking a sip of wine. "And honestly I never expected to marry."
"No? And why's that?" Natasha asked, tilted her head slightly. "Because you are a bastard?"
"Because until Tony showed up I thought I'd be on the Wall, serving as a Brother in the Night's Watch."
"Hmmm," Natasha said.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"No, it is something. What is it?"
She shrugged. "I don't see it. You don't have the makings of a Crow. There is something else in you. Something that wouldn't work for a Watcher on the Wall. Maybe in another life… but not this one."
Jon mentally scoffed. 'It's called "I discovered what it means to be a true hero".' Ever since the Martells had arrived Jon had been forced to cut back on his trips as Centurion and truth be told it was making him a touch stir crazy. He'd gotten used to the freed of it, the thrill of delivering justice and protecting the innocent. It had been the feeling he'd hoped to find on the Wall but now understood with his time away from Winterfell that the tales of the noble Night's Watch had been just that: tales. He was living what he'd truly been seeking and it helped him feel as if he were truly finding his place in the world. Others would have scoffed at the idea that hurtling through the air with the aid of magic with only a metal suit to protect him being a stabilizing factor for his life but for Jon that was the truth.
Out loud he said, "I just never thought marriage would be something for me. My f-father, Lord Eddard-"
"King, from what I hear," Natasha said. "Should I call you Prince Jon?" she teased.
"Please don't," Jon grumbled. Nothing against the man that raised him but having people call him 'prince' would only remind him of his true origins. "And my father never allowed me to leave Winterfell unless I was with him so the chance to squire under a knight and perhaps be knighted myself never came. I would never be given a keep of my own and I couldn't spend my entire life at Winterfell... so the Night's Watch was my only option."
"Until Lord Antony."
"Until Tony. And a man of the Night's Watch doesn't marry so I never thought about it. But now... now I find myself marrying someone I don't even know." He stopped, blinking as he realized just who he'd said that too. "My apologizes-"
"It is true, though," Natasha stated with a coy little smile. "Never apologize for saying the truth, Jon Stark. There are too many liars in the world."
"I've noticed," Jon said, wondering if Natasha realized that he and Tony were the biggest liars of them all.
The Black Widow of Dorne snatched the bottle of wine from his hand and inspected it before taking a drink. "You have shit taste." She took another sip.
"Then why did you steal it and why are you still drinking it?" Natasha merely smirked and took another pull. "Are you doing this just to annoy me?"
"You complained you did not know me. You just learned something about me."
"That you're a little shit?" Jon groused.
Natasha laughed. "Oh, there's hope for you yet." She looked at the bottle for a moment before she narrowed her eyes, a smile forming on her lips that had Jon afraid he'd wake up in a barrel of cold water hours from then with half his organs stolen. "You want us to know each other better? I have a way." She lifted the bottle up and looked it over with a critical eye, finally nodding when she saw how much was left in it. "This is a game my old nursemaid and I played when I was small. I will ask you a question and you may answer or drink. They you pass me the bottle and ask me your question."
"...you played this with your nursemaid?"
"She was an odd woman," Natasha teased before passing him the bottle. "That was your turn. As for me... who was the first man you killed?"
"A bandit," Jon stated. Natasha shot him a look, clearly wanting more, and Jon sighed but obliged her. "He attacked our party and I shot an arrow through his throat to prevent him from hurting Pepper." Deciding that it couldn't hurt to play Natasha's game he passed her the bottle. "Who was the first man you killed?"
"How do you know I killed anyone?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You don't earn the name The Black Widow by working on your knitting," Jon reasoned.
"Fair enough. He thought because I was a bastard that meant he could do as he pleased with me. My father found me tying his intestines into knots." Jon scrunched his face up and the woman shrugged. "It got the point across to the rest of the men within ear shot. If you could have chosen any profession to have, what would it be?"
Jon considered this carefully. "Master of Arms." When the Dornish woman gave him a look of consideration Jon chuckled. "I have a brother and sister who want to learn everything there is to know about fighting. How to shoot a bow, how to swing a sword. I'm not a master in any one weapon but I'm good with most and I have the patience to deal with young minds."
"Sometimes it is better to be skilled at many things… men, I have found, are too concerned with being good at a single thing. A great swordsman, a great rider. Being good at all things will win out in the end. It makes you flexible."
"How did you come to know that?" Jon asked.
Natasha flashed a smirk that would make her father proud. "Women can never be the greatest at anything that truly matters… so we make do with being good as many things. And those that apply to be skilled in death…" she gave him a lazy shrug, "…well, there is a reason that in nature the female is always the most dangerous." Jon snorted and she just chuckled. "What else do you wish to know?" Natasha asked, swinging her legs back and forth, the bottle resting between her thighs as she glanced up at the stars. In the moment she was the epitome of confliction. Her actions were so childlike and loose but Jon could tell, just by looking at her half closed eyes, that the 'innocent young woman' persona she was trying to project in that moment was fake. Very convincing... but fake. But he also sensed that the dangerous and deadly Black Widow persona was just as fake, which made him wonder just who his wife-to-be truly was.
Because that was the irony of the game they were playing... much like life itself it required Jon to trust she was telling the truth.
"What will you miss the most about Dorne?" he asked, finally settling on something easy.
"The freedom," she answered without hesitation. "But that was lost the moment my father made me a Martell."
Jon stared at her, startled. "It sounds like you wish you were still a bastard."
"I do, in small ways," Natasha admitted, picking up the bottle and taking a long swig. "Oh, I know what you are thinking. With a family name the shame is wiped away. Except it really isn't, at least not in Westeros. Your nobles know that I am a bastard and they know you are one too. Nothing we do will ever change that. The names... they are just comforts, like a blanket. They don't mean anything but like children we make them have meaning. But the funny thing is... names don't offer protection but they do create chains. We are restricted, each of us. As a bastard I could have done anything I wanted and no one would have been shocked or scandalized. 'She's just a bastard, that's the way they are'. I could have stripped naked and ran through the streets. I could have walked into a tavern, ordered a drink, and then thrown the bottle at the nearest man I found. I could have become a pirate or a thief or a catspaw. Because as a bastard no one expected anything of me. But now? Now I must follow the rules. The name Martell has chained me down." She paused, looking at him. "There is a riddle I am fond of. In a modest room there is a king, a rich man, and a priest. Between them stands a common sellsword. Each man commands the sellsword to kill the other two. Who lives and who dies?"
Jon frowned. "We in the North aren't fans of riddles."
Natasha's eyes flashed with amusement. "The answer is that any of them may day but none of them truly live, for they have allowed themselves to be entrapped in the great game of thrones. And the only way to win… is not to play. Being a bastard allowed me an out. But not anymore." She considered him for a moment. "But you don't see it that way, do you?"
"No," Jon said firmly. "I don't." He made no move to answer her; he knew she'd never understand. She'd grown up loved by her father, taught and trained and treated no differently than any trueborn child Oberyn might have had. He had been forced to forever be on the fringe, watching but never a part of the family. Being a Stark now meant that no one could ever take away his family.
And he didn't know if he should smile or sob when he realized it wasn't Robb or Arya or Bran he thought of in that moment but Pepper and Tony and Rhodey.
Natasha shrugged and passed him the bottle. "What is your greatest accomplishment?"
Jon took a swig and passed it back to her.
"Now that is interesting. Biggest secret I could understand, but biggest accomplishment? That... is very interesting."
"I swore an oath. I am proud of what I did but I can't speak of it."
"Hmm," Natasha said. "I'll enjoy making you break that oath."
Jon looked at her carefully before asking, "Do you truly want to marry me?"
The woman bobbed her head back and forth. "I don't want to toss you away, if that is what you are asking. How many women have you been with?"
"None."
"Liar."
"I'm not."
Natasha scoffed. "You are. You are a man. You feel the urge." She let her eyes slide down to his breeches. "Unless-"
"It's not that," Jon stated. "I tried. My brother Robb, he took me to the brothel in Winter Town. There was a girl there, Ros-"
"What did she look like?" Natasha asked.
"Like a whore," Jon snarked.
"You know what I mean. Whores in Dorne might be different from the ones in the North."
"Shapely. Curvy. Large breasts. Red head."
"So you have a type!" Natahsa teased. "So why couldn't you?" Jon went to take another drink but Natasha snatched the bottle away. "Not this time, Lord Stark. I want an answer."
He just shook his head but, seeing she wasn't about to give up, he finally relented. "I kept thinking... what if she gets pregnant?"
"That's always a risk," Natasha said. "And men fear as much and still go through the deed."
"But they haven't been the child born of such a union. They haven't been the bastard of a whore and a powerful man. They haven't been the sad little boy with the name Snow."
Natasha's smile fell at that and Jon suddenly just wanted her gone. He didn't want her pity.
"Jon-"
"Leave it," he said. "Let's... let's just sit here and drink." He took a long swig from the bottle. "Let us drink to a cruel world that judges children by the sins of their parents."
To her credit they did just that. The two of them just looked out at the Sunset Sea and the stars that bathed it with their light and drank in silence. And Jon found that in that moment he'd never felt so close to someone he didn't see as family as he did to the woman that, for all he knew, had lied about everything she'd just told him.
And he didn't know how to feel.
~MC~MC~MC~
Author's Notes: And we're back after the Thanksgiving Holiday!
As an apology for making you guys wait for this chapter I thought I'd share a few plot bunnies I have. One I want to reserve for myself but the other is absolutely up for grabs.
First off, the one I want to do someday. I have had in my head for a while the idea to do what many Dragon Ball fans have done and write up my playthrough of Xenoverse. Called 'The Pastola Saga', Part 1 would focus on Pastola Noodla, a woman from the future. In the year 889 the wizard Ocus, a follower of Bibbity and Bobbity, has managed to create new Majin warriors similar to Buu with the goal of taking over the universe. Unlike the standard Majin race, which has over the last 100 years slowly lost power with each generation till they are roughly at the base level of a standar Saiyan, his new warriors rival Son Goku at the end of the Buu saga and will only grow in power. He originally planned to release his first Majin, a blue colored monster, during the 25th World Martial Arts Tournament, but when he was going to get a cup of coffee he became annoyed with the barista put too much foam in his cup and released the Majin Warrior he had with him, who promptly absorbed the barista.
Unfortunately for Ocus, the barista, Pastola Noodla, had a rare genetic trait in her family. One found only in 1 in a trillion beings: When in an absorption or fusion they always become 100% dominate, erasing whoever joined with them.
Thus Noodla found herself turned from a normal human to a powerful Majin warrior… except her apathetic view on life meant she wasn't in the mood to do anything about it. Thus for the next three years she continued on, ignoring those that started at her in confusion wondering why she suddenly was a Majin, wearing her stupid uniform and doing her job.
Unlike Trunks asked Shrenron to summon forth the ultimate warrior, bringing forth Noodla and causing the events of Xenoverse 1.
The second part, covering the next game, would focus on Noodla's sister, Caroni. Caroni was always the wild child in the family. After Noodla visited for a dinner with her family Caroni did some investigating, found Ocus' abandoned lab, and allowed herself to be absorbed by another majin (a deep purple one). She tried to join the time patrol but Noodla, who had become second in command under Trunks, refused. But Elder Kai took a shine to her and decided to bring her in, starting the events of Game 2. This story would take Game 2 and change some things about it, mainly to strengthen the plot but have wonderful humor.
Part 3 (for now) would begin at the very end of Part 2, with Noodla and Caroni finally settling their differences (Noodla now head of the Time Patrol after Trunks decided to save Gohan and Caroni being recruited by Beerus and Whis to become Beerus' Assistant God of Destruction) only for their 5 year old baby sister, Penne, arriving to reveal she was not only a Majin as well (Caroni gave her a yellow one as a gift) but also had absorbed the future version of Zen-Oh and was now the Omni Queen. Part 3 would jump to Dragon Ball Fusions and reveal just how the giggly baby of the Pastola family became the Omni Queen.
Now, as for the plot bunny that is up for grabs. This is another insane crossover/fusion that would be filled with fun and humor. I'd love to do it but honestly I have enough on my plate!
It would begin shortly before Episode 1 of Game of Thrones. While on a patrol in the Haunted Forest the Nights Watch Rangers would be attacked by an Other… only for the other to accidently strike a strange large ornate container… also called a dumpster. The Other would be destroyed as an evil witch with great power would emerge, crying out:
"At last, after 10,000 years I'm free! It's time the conquer Westeros!"
Cut to a command center, where the ancient leader of the Children of the Forest, Zordon, now trapped in a mystical field, commands his servant to assemble 5 young people with attitude to become his Rangers… his Power Rangers.
Yeah… Game of Thrones meets Power Rangers.
For the team itself I see it as follows: Jon Snow is selected as the Red Ranger, Gendry is the Blue Ranger, Lancel Lannister is the Black Ranger, Margaery Tyrell is the Pink Ranger, and Wilding Ygritte is the Yellow Ranger. What we'd get is Game of Thrones but with Super Sentai fights and zords.
Oh, and before anyone asks… yes, Dany would be the Green Ranger.
Of course, the alternate way one could do it is a future fic where Westeros has become like our world and the rangers are the descendants of the noble houses. Only because I love the idea of Tyrion's head in Zordon's tube yelling, "Alpha, Cersei's escaped!"
