Thank you DrHolland for help with language and great suggestions :-)))) And to TopShelfCrazy for a second read :-)))
Thank you for reading.
On we go.
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Jon
The night belonged to ghosts and he was one of them.
The darkness was thick with grey, thick with black, white with wet snow, obstructing the dragon's flight.
Jon had forgotten where Winterfell was.
Or rather, he had never known his way home across the sky…
High up in the air, higher than he'd ever dared fly before, Jon saw a shapeless shadow conquering the world. A soulless blackness rose over Castle Black, spreading slowly eastward; thicker than the night. A jittery green being touched Jon's soul and told him, or better, showed him, that not even a dragon could brave it without risk. Besides, Jon would never be able to spot the kingsroad in the unnatural gloom, and follow it South as he intended, when he had taken off from the Shadow Tower.
Deliberately, Jon began thinking of flying safely Southeast, over the wilderness inhabited by the northern mountain clans, painting images of a dragon gliding low above the high peaks in his mind. The familiar green shade lurked into his head, slowly consuming the depictions of the new, unknown path home that his rider wanted him to take.
Home, but not of me, the dragon pondered in winking flashes of green and was sad. Never of me, he thought, chasing the snow away with his tail, as a horse might a fly.
Jon wondered what place on earth the dragon considered his home. Then, rapidly and sharply, without painting any answer for his rider, Jon's scaled steed veered swiftly south and east, much like a good horse would, reacting promptly to the tightening of his reins. Just like Jon wanted, the dragon hovered low, almost touching the rocky mountain tops with its hard belly. Low was safe.
For the rest of their short journey, Jon observed and tasted the increasingly angry, bronze-stained images projected by his mount. Inside of them, Drogon was a dangerous enemy. His green brother suffered from the overwhelming desire to harm his huge black sibling and rip him apart. The sensation was unearthly, different than human desire for glory and battle; ineffably strong. Jon's dragon wanted bloodshed. He wanted Drogon to burn…
Don't. Jon imagined Daenerys and Drogon, together, a slender, petite woman on a beast larger than a castle tower. He belongs to Daenerys.
The green mind accompanying Jon disagreed strongly, thinking of treason, thinking of courage, but could not or would not explain more, enraged and bloodthirsty.
Perhaps it was the will of the gods that Jon's dragon was smaller, though still much larger than any other animal in existence. Otherwise, the dance of the dragons at the western edge of the Wall would have had a very different outcome before Jon warged into the black dragon and convinced him to leave.
This way all dragons are still alive.
All except one.
My father.
Jon tried not to think about it, striving not to remember his father's curious eyes during their duel.
Rhaegar. He found a way to spend time with me.
Jon's certainty hardened with every waking hour after his illness, grew into a burden he would have to bear, became a treasure he wanted to keep. The only time they were together. The only real memory he had of his real father.
When the mountain slopes under the dragon's body softened and lowered, first into hills, then into thick, evergreen woods, Jon let himself think of the wolfswood surrounding Winterfell… He recalled all the paths leading to his childhood home he had walked on or ridden through as a boy, with his adoptive father or siblings for company… Father… Lord Eddard with Ice on his back. Arya, underfoot, faster than Jon. Robb, brave, reckless and courteous at the same time; a lord in the making. Theon, not a brother, but always present, with his bad jokes. Sansa, who could not ride. Baby Rickon, toddling in the summer snow. Bran, who had just learned to sit a horse and began enjoying it before… before he was crippled forever.
When Jon remembered Bran, tears finally came. He let them fall, for everything and everyone he had lost, unashamed of his sorrow. He would not hide them had there been people who could see him. Before the end of his flight, he felt much better in his skin and his eyes were almost dry.
The dragon predated quietly on his rider's thoughts about his past. Calmer than before, as a wild horse able to tame himself at need, he harrumphed into the night air and tried to… appease Jon. Jon wiped the last tears and the snow from his eyes, tapping the nearest green scale with gratitude. How come that you are not angry with me? I did kill a dragon, didn't I? The greenness remained poised and calm, projecting no image, giving no answer.
Fly fast, dragon, would you?
Jon knew the dragon's name well, but it was too painful to use it, sounding so bloody much like his real father's name…
Rhaegal-Rhaegar-Rhaegal-Rhaegar.
The dragon… did not mind his rider's reluctance, despite that he preferred being called by his name. Suddenly, images of fields of grass, rare forests and great rivers from the faraway lands flooded Jon's awareness. Home, the dragon may have said languidly. Jon rejected watching them, growing more and more restless with every moment of their journey. Some other time, dragon.
Arya had said Jon's mother was in Winterfell…
Jon could only hope she was still there. In his illness, in his dream, his mother had jumped from the highest window of the highest tower; mourning for his father. Her dead eyes had blamed Jon in his fevered sleep, telling him he should have done something else. A real hero would have found a way to keep Rhaegar alive. Jon sweated in his dream, fearing he would never see his mother in life, just like he had not seen his father. Yet he would undeniably know who they were this time… All his new losses would be his fault, for continuously doubting, for not being able to believe.
The dragon screamed and stormed over the dark-green mantle of the wolfswood, splotched indecently by snow. Pained, angry, betrayed, confused, Rhaegal brought his rider safely to Winterfell.
Jon had thought he would never see his childhood home again. He had thought he would die one day, in old age, defending the Wall… And in the end he did die…. But he nonetheless also came back, back to Winterfell; and he might have a mother still.
He wished he had a mother… Forgetting his refusal, his fear to believe in it… For how would it feel if Jon was ready to accept it only to find out that it was all a lie? Well, it wasn't a lie, and his mother might have taken her own life in the time it took her son to acknowledge her.
His father's harp was a burden in his shield arm, heavier than the magic sword of heroes on his hip. Jon almost wished he could play it, to give his mother the comfort brought by music, knowing he might not be able to give her his love.
Personal devotion to music was usually not the pursuit of kings and princes; they would hire singers for that. Rhaegar had been an exception, known for his prowess with the high harp and the uniqueness of his voice in all Seven Kingdoms. Mother must have had a fondness for songs… if she had fallen for father… The odd dragon among the dragons as Jon was the different wolf among the wolves… Though Jon could not play for the life of him, and he sang best, though a bit badly, when slightly drunk.
He did not know if he could love his mother. But he still wished to ease her pain… The eagle had been out of her mind when Rhaegar died… Ghost was still looking for her beyond the Wall.
Mother, please, stay alive, will you?
Winterfell was the castle of ghosts and Jon was one of them.
Instinctively, he knew his dragon should not accompany him inside. The castle brimmed with fresh anger. The old enmity between the wolf and the dragon was resurrected, the kneeling of the Starks set aside and forgotten.
Jon dismounted and bid Rhaegal find a safe place where he would not be seen, melting into the dark greens of the wood.
Time to see if I am wolfish enough. Jon thought unreasonably, wondering if the castle would let him in or strike him down. Wolf or dragon, in he would go, and see his mother.
Dead or alive.
The great gates of Winterfell loomed open, unguarded. The portcullis was up, the drawbridge down.
Jon knew that no guard was needed. The castle had come to life in winter. Much like the Wall, it defended itself now. Defiant, the odd wolf stepped on the bridge. The wooden boards thrummed under his feet as if there had been an invisible drummer underground. A deep subterranean beat followed him through the gates; a drum… punctuated by some some queer, low-key instrument with strings. A woodharp, perhaps, not the high harp he was carrying. The music boomed slowly at first and increased in tempo with the steady, decisive rhythm of Jon's steps. In the courtyard, he understood that the castle had let him pass, but it did not approve of him. The seat of his mother's forefathers challenged him.
Who are you? Winterfell asked silently, in a voice made of grey stone. What are you?
Jon often wondered the same, unable to give a straight answer to either the castle or himself. What stuff am I made of? He was a creature in the making and he did not know yet what he would become.
"I am Jon Snow," he whispered stubbornly to the night, continuing with his advance. As he said that, all music stopped in his head and under his feet.
Jon tried to forget the infernal beat and looked around. The courtyard was empty and the hour very late; almost of the wolf. The only sound of human commotion came from his right hand side. His ears pricked and he followed them, unsure where to begin looking for his mother.
A small company of men tried to force open the door leading to the crypts of Winterfell, unsuccessfully. Jon knew one of them. Greatjon Umber. Tall as a giant. Perhaps shorter than the Hound is now. And next to him-
"Dany!" Jon called out loud to his silver-haired lady, clad in back like himself, not caring for propriety of address before others. Daenerys was his, not Greatjon's or anyone else's. His own voice sounded deeper than he remembered it; almost like that underground rumble that had welcomed him home.
Daenerys turned around faster than the dragon flies and ran to him over the ruined snow. Many feet had stepped on it, just like on the snowfield where his father had fallen. Has there been a battle? Against whom?
Jon forgot himself in their kiss. First a timid and then a brazen one, openly given and received; wet and warm, hinting at more, promising everything. One tiny hand tugged at his left cheek and chin, overgrown with sparse black stubble. He did not shave in his illness and he would do it as soon as he had a moment to spare. Jon mostly let his hair grow at will, but he never did the same with the beard. He could not understand why Dany would suddenly be attracted to its unwanted appearance.
"What, do you want me to look like Old Wull here?" Jon set his father's harp gently in the snow and lifted Dany off the ground in their embrace until their faces were level. He nuzzled her neck and face, smelling her, feeling wonderfully calm from being able to inhale her scent, not caring that the gesture always embarrassed her. Slowly, he made her head turn with his nose until they were cheek to cheek, looking at Old Wull; the head of the most powerful of the northern mountain clans. His beard fell almost to his stomach, thick and curling. Jon wondered what the man did in Winterfell. Last thing he knew, the mountain clans supported Stannis because Jon counselled him to seek them out.
"It is you," Dany spoke feverishly, pressed to him. "Gods be good, it is you, Jon."
Jon hoped that her uncharacteristic, overly emotional reaction was an expression of love and not the first sign of Targaryen madness or the announcement of some dreadful news he did not yet know about.
"Who else?" he asked, observing her, setting her gently down to the ground. She acted as if she had seen a real ghost, pinching Jon's chin and cheek between her elegant fingers, confirming he was real.
"There has been a… A stone army came forth from the crypts of Winterfell… There was a man wearing a crown who looked like you and called himself Jon Stark," she breathed out. "He had a long beard and sounded like you. He looked at me… as if he were you. It's just that… he didn't seem kind at all. He didn't wish me well."
What stone army? How am I looking at you? Am I kind? Do you want me to be? Jon could not grasp or judge the magnitude of Dany's distress, oppressed heavily by his own, concerning his mother. "You'll tell me everything later, won't you?" he whispered with adoration.
"Because now, now… I do need to see my mother," he announced, hoping she would understand, feeling colder than ice and far more dead than alive. "Where is she?"
"She retired to the Great Hall a while ago," Dany replied instantly in her best queenly tone. Warm and flushed from their kiss despite the cold, she was everything he was not. "She asked to be left alone. But I have no doubt that she will see you."
Jon changed his mind and embraced his woman properly, running his arms up and down her body. Mother was alive. He could afford to do this for another brief moment. "Where is your cloak?" he asked, realising Dany missed it. Have you been flying? Is Drogon in the woods as well? It was the only explanation why she still didn't freeze to death. The effect of flying warmed the dragonrider for some time after landing.
"I'll find one," Dany shrugged. "It was too busy here to feel the cold until now."
Jon… didn't want Dany to wear another man's cloak and didn't have one to give her. Hastily, he pulled off the black woollen goblet of the Night's Watch he was wearing over his tunic, never feeling the cold. "Here," he said, "it is too big but it will do until you find something then." He helped her dress and fasten the garment around her slim waist.
Greatjon hurried to offer his furry cloak to the lady, but she… waved it away. "I shall go inside as soon as we are done here, my lord," she said frostily, wriggling her way back into Jon's embrace, unwilling to leave it. She now smelled of both of them in his clothing, deliciously so.
Just as it should be.
"Done with what?" Jon decided to find out what was going on since he was in any case impeached to leave.
Lord Umber gave Jon a queer look and no answer. Old Wull appeared unimpressed by the question, too old to be impressed by anything, Jon guessed, and equally unwilling to answer it. A company of men-at-arms Jon did not know, some in Bolton pink, stared at him with palpable fear. Jon resisted as best he could the sudden temptation to grope his body for the growth of new limbs, additional pair of eyes, white wolf fur or green and bronze scales.
"The late Lords of Winterfell and Kings in the North have come forth to defend Winterfell from the false Southron king and the northern traitors who have bent the knee to him for promises of lands and riches," Old Wull finally growled in a voice deeper than time, the only man present not afraid of Jon's sudden arrival and looks. "It is said they shall walk again when the end of the world is near. That is why they are all buried at the same place and why the statues are made over the years by the stone masons who knew their likenesses well, to look as faithful as possible. A sword is placed over their knees, a stone wolf carved at their feet. So that they can walk as themselves when the day comes for them to rise, armed, accompanied by their wolves. Winterfell will end when the world ends, not before. No power of this earth shall conquer it. Not even the Others from beyond the Wall. I have come here with the false king who deceived me, promising to bring a Stark to Winterfell, not saying that there already was one. The wolves have returned! The castle had seen the truth of my allegiance and did not banish me."
Jon had never heard this story. Apparently Old Nan did not know all of them. "Wait, you mean that the statues-"
"The statues looked quite alive, Jon, trust me," Dany said, shivering, and she was not easily afraid, Jon knew. "The one that had your face, he stared at me… he looked as if he were about to kidnap me and take me with him to the underworld."
"Well I'm glad that he didn't," Jon said warmly. "And the false Southron king would be… Stannis?" he guessed.
"Yes," Dany said, sounding defeated. "Flying Drogon. My dragon has either betrayed us or is enslaved by the sorcery of his red witch. I was not able to tell. Stannis ordered Drogon to burn down the castle. Your namesake, King Jon Stark, sucked up the dragonflame in his sword and nearly killed my dragon for it. But in the end he did not, when I pleaded for Drogon's life."
Those news were not good. The realm needed all dragonfire in the world if men were to prevail against the Night's King and his army.
"And then what, the statues just went back to crypts?" Jon wondered aloud.
Greatjon nodded gravely, giving another hearty attempt to open the door.
"As if by magic, the dead sealed the crypts behind them when they were done throwing all men loyal to Stannis out of the castle. Three people are trapped inside. One of them has opened the door to the dead when it all began, it seems, but we don't know who it was," Dany explained. "Ser Barristan, Lady Mormont and another northern looking lady have not been seen. They must be down there."
"The second lady, if she can be called that way with her foul tongue and axe is not of the North, she's ironborn, Theon's sister," Greatjon explained with revulsion, continuing to fight a losing battle against the crypt door with his arms and massive shoulders. "Little Asha Greyjoy. Stannis forced her to help him retake Winterfell, saying he would kill Theon if she did not. When Stannis' red witch told Asha that Theon the Turncloak died on his own… imagine, Others took the boy, the girl bolted off with Maege Mormont on her arm. Glover, the traitor, had them chained together."
"The ghost of Lord Eddard Stark decapitated Lord Glover and several of his followers for treason," Dany added. "It was most deserved. Stannis only managed to run away… because of Drogon."
Jon took in fast the incredible piece of news, comparing it to his uncanny experience when entering Winterfell… Magic, magic, magic. A hiltless sword. He shuddered. The castle had nonetheless spared Daenerys, who was surely the blood of the dragon, much more than Jon had ever been. Why? Because she is mine or because this… Jon Stark wanted it?
"Step away, Lord Umber," Jon commanded Greatjon with newfound authority, possessed by an unwavering certainty that if anyone could unseal the bloody door, it was him.
Winterfell was the castle of ghosts and he was one of them.
He strolled to the crypt door and pulled it open effortlessly, where Greatjon, a much bigger man, could not. The fetid breath of death came out of the tombs instead of tepid air.
"Find them," Jon commanded briefly to no one in particular, trying to ignore the looks of fear and subservience he now earned. Even Old Wull seemed somewhat impressed.
With as much dignity as he could muster, Jon returned to Daenerys, and took her hands in his, reining in the desire to do more.
"I was afraid," he stuttered as silently as he could, hoping the others were too busy to listen, descending one by one into the crypts. "I was afraid mother might take her own life."
"She is… devastated," Dany commented very cautiously. "She seems to have witnessed Rhaegar's passing as a… as a warg."
My mother is a beastling, yes, my love, just like myself.
"And then, earlier today, Stannis…" Daenerys lacked words to describe what had exactly happened.
Jon couldn't care less about what Stannis did or did not do. If the dead Starks saw fit to chase him away, so much the better. One trouble less for Jon.
"Did mother say anything about me?" Jon interrupted, dreading the answer to that question.
"You? Why?" Dany said, clearly not knowing about Jon's role in Rhaegar's passing. "You went to the Lands of Always Winter. Wait. How do you know that Rhaegar…" Jon's meaning slowly dawned on her. "You were there, weren't you?" she said sadly. "I'm so sorry that you had to be there, Jon."
"Not only was I there," he said quietly. "Do you truly not know?"
She stiffened and dropped his hands, straightening herself to stand taller. "What happened?" she asked, sensing a blow before it hit her. "I only know from your mother that Rhaegar truly is dead. I could not believe it until I heard it from her mouth and saw her grief." Daenerys had never looked more like a dragon in human skin to Jon, pretty and deadly. She stared at the harp in the snow, seeing it only now.
Jon slowly drew the magic sword half-way out of its scarf, showing her the dull, wasted colour of it.
"It is not burning any more," Dany said, struggling to comprehend.
"I had to do it, Dany," he said seriously. "Father challenged the Night's King and won a victory, but as a revenge the Other took him and made him one of them. I had to kill him. And now I have to see mother while I still can." He turned away from his pretty liar, unable to wait for her honest reaction. Daenerys might very well hate him for what he did, just like her runaway black dragon; instead of consoling him in his pain as he secretly hoped she would.
Maybe it is my fault that Drogon has turned to Stannis, for losing his second rider. Stannis had to have a drop of dragon blood, somewhere, if Jon remembered his history lessons well, though this was very hard to believe, seeing the stiffness of the man in question. The true dragons were… different, Jon knew. Free. Warm. They didn't need the light of R'hllor to heat up their existence. The blood of the dragon may have been more visible in Stannis' brother, King Robert, a dragonhater.
Overcome by too many different emotions, Jon trod to the Great Hall. A stinging gaze of violet eyes followed him, but he never turned back. It was past time he did his duty. What was done was done. Daenerys could not love him now.
Could she?
Maybe later, when she is done mourning.
Will mother love me?
Jon felt stupid for wondering about this when he wasn't certain at all if he loved his mother.
He forced himself to halt all thought and advance; a black shadow carrying a harp and the sword, lost in the thickness of the night, among the smoking, hot pools of the great castle. Fire in ice. Why have I never seen this before? Fire was under Winterfell, in its roots, thousands of years old.
The great door of oak and iron threatened him; closed tight. Unlike the crypts, it offered resistance to Jon, emitting an ear-breaking, ugly creak, when he finally slid it open. The first glimpse behind it revealed nothing but darkness. Jon entered, quiet as a ghost, holding his dead father's harp, closing the heavy door behind him. Lyanna had asked not to be disturbed and her son was coming to offer his respects.
In the Great Hall of the Starks, his mother sat alone. At a trestle table, away from the high seat of her forefathers, with a single candle illuminating her features for company. Despite the gloom, Jon could see she was very beautiful. Much more beautiful than Lady Catelyn had ever been. Lovely as the young wilful lady from the indecent songs sang in secret in the North when Jon was a child, during the reign of Robert Baratheon. The songs where Rhaegar… The songs where his mother ran with his father willingly out of love, thwarting her betrothal and throwing the legendary honour of the Starks to the wind. Unwillingly, Jon remembered the verses, even the unspeakable parts Theon always repeated. The bawdy words from the past acquired a new meaning now that Jon had done his share of ineffable feats with women.
The unseemly memory did not last, erased thoroughly by his mother's soulless expression. Lyanna Stark was a chiselled image of grief. Very slowly, she stirred in her palpably dark mood. Even slower, she stood up, facing bravely the blackness in which Jon was immersed. Pale of face, very short of stature, straight of spine, she commanded respect.
Jon was drawn towards her, a black man clad in black. Black for the Watch and black for the House Targaryen… A ghost in the castle of ghosts, walking sleepless in the hour of the wolf.
"Rhaegar?" Lyanna whispered with hope.
Stunned, Jon did not speak. What could he say? He could not bring his father back. He would never be able to compensate for that loss.
Mother laughed briefly, desperately, sat down, sobbed and spoke with familiar bitterness. As Jon might, at times. "Of course not. My pardons, my lord. Whoever you are. The widow is rambling. Do leave, if it please you. I asked to be left alone tonight."
"It's me," Jon said, lowering father's harp to the floor, realising that its recognisable shape, despite the gloom, might have prompted mother's unfounded hope. Jon was not his father. He would never be. Nonetheless he hurried to step out of the shadows and into the weak candlelight, with his heart in his heels. "I've only just arrived."
His mother pressed both of her hands to her mouth. She remained very still, unable to laugh, cry or utter a word. Her eyes were larger than his and terribly black, staring at him; her eyelashes much longer and curling. Her hair was down in northern style, tremendously long. Familiar black waves mingled with silver, less prickly than Jon's own. From nearby he could see the almost imperceptible wrinkles in the corners of her eyes, and, most of all, how much she had been crying.
"Mother," Jon said and went to her without thinking. His arms closed around her short frame, and her face ended up buried in his shoulder. She was shaking from muted sobs. Jon forgot everything, his resentment, his disenchantment, his doubts. Never having a mother. Being forced to murder his father. Having been dead. Possibly being a ghost of his former self.
Lyanna exhaled a very faint scent of a northern flower, a rare one. Jon could not remember its looks, nor its name. Boys did not care for flowers, and men of the Night's Watch had no use for them.
"Others take me," mother cursed softly against his shoulder, looked up at his face and gave him a small, valiant smile through all her tears. "But you are much more handsome than in my eagle dreams. My big, strong son. Forgive me for saying so but your father… Rhaegar would be proud..."
It was terribly queer to hear all this, almost embarrassing for a man of his age. Yet the embrace was real, the woman, no, the lady, she was real. She was a Stark. She was his mother... she loved him.
"He was, I think," Jon said shyly, dropping his arms down, meeting his mother's questioning gaze from a safer distance than the terrifying closeness of an embrace. "Proud I mean."
"How?" she wondered, at loss for understanding. She sat down and Jon let himself sink on the bench next to her.
"He was left-handed, wasn't he?" Jon asked, needing to double check the truth, for as much as he already knew it in his heart.
"Yes," mother said, "he could fight with both hands because they forced him to train and write right-handed in childhood, but left was his preferred one. The harp… you had it in your left arm as he would carry it."
"My shield arm," Jon mentioned.
"His sword arm or lance arm, if he could choose," Lyanna said weakly. Fresh tears ran down her cheeks. "Wait, he fought against you with…" The eagle in her remembered.
"Yes," Jon said. "With the wrong arm. He must have been resisting the curse that was overtaking him and helped me end it. He… I think he knew who I was. I wish I could bring his sword back to you-"
"Better not," mother cut him off. "Ned brought me Arthur Dayne's sword from the battlefield, thinking I was his sister, Ashara. Ned told me you died then. I nearly took my life with that blade, but then I heard that Ashara's son lived through the slaughter of Rhaegar's family and thought better. I ended up keeping it hidden for almost twenty years."
"The Sword of the Morning," Jon said, guessing, knowing. "Dawn. A good blade."
"That one." Lyanna agreed. "But… there should have been a lance," she mentioned. "A very special one."
"There wasn't," Jon said curtly, pointing at the bloody harp. "There was only this left in the snow."
Mother shook her mane, pointedly not looking at the instrument. "He sang to me about Jenny of Oldstones just before leaving," she blurted. "It was our song. He was always leaving me. Ever since we met. Serves me right for falling for the prince."
"I am here," Jon offered.
"We are here," she admitted. "But you will be leaving too, eventually."
"That may be so," Jon could not lie. "But we are both here now. After everything."
"Indeed," mother nodded knowingly, made a Stark face Jon would make. Not even Arya could make it that long. Yet in Lyanna the expression didn't take away any of her beauty.
And when she stood up, to go and pick up father's harp, Jon saw it. The swelling of her middle. Small, but present.
"I'll bring it," he reacted. "Please sit," he said and carried the harp to her, so close that she could touch it if she wished.
"You are-" Jon finally dared say when Lyanna sat down, not knowing how he felt. "There is more than the harp left from father."
"There is you," mother replied to him lovingly. "There is you, Jon," she repeated. "And there is-" she stuttered, caressing her belly. "Your new brother or sister. Rhaegar and I weren't that old when we were reunited. It happens naturally between husband and wife."
Jon remained silent as a tomb.
"And," Lyanna continued, somewhat happier than before, "besides the ghosts you must have heard all about, you will find that there are many guests in this castle. There is one guest in particular you must be longing to see. I have to tell this to you as your mother, my son. It is not proper to court a young highborn woman for long. You risk losing your honour."
"What?" Jon was embarrassed, not believing his own ears, which were perhaps getting red under his hair. Does she know? She must. Jon and Dany did much more than courting, to put it very mildly. Has Dany told her? Did women know? Do mothers see when their children love someone?
"Or is it your intention to dishonour your lady and find another more to your liking?" Mother sounded terribly disappointed all of a sudden.
"No, but-"
"I do not want to hear any of it, son," his mother admonished him sternly. "And don't you ever believe the stupid songs about your father and me. We have said our vows well in time. We carry our share of guilt for the Trident, and for handling Robert's Rebellion poorly, but not for dishonouring each other. The world has changed in the past twenty years but not that much. I ask you to think of who you are and honour your inheritance. What if there is a child?"
She wants me to propose a match to Daenerys? Jon never presumed that much. There was the War and…
"Stannis is sending around some silly missive, to all noble houses of the realm," his mother went on. "By the poor expressions he uses, it would seem that he has not learned his letters as well as he believes in his young age. No, I won't let you see it because I burned it and it would have only upset you. He is robbing you of your claim by means of ugly slander. I… As Lyanna Stark, I mostly don't give a damn about the remaining Six Kingdoms, nor about their Iron Throne. We have more land than we need in the North. But… I was with you, remember. In the Lands of Always Winter. You will need men to carry obsidian blades if we are to prevail. Many men. Also, when I married your father, I knew a day might come when I was to be… one of his two queens… and bear that role as my duty. I cannot betray his memory. There is one way to contrary Stannis' letter and assert your claim in deed, and not in word, which could also give you the swords the North needs."
"The realm needs those swords, mother, not only the North," Jon said quietly.
"The Others won't stop here if we are defeated, I'll give you that," mother turned pensive. "I just wish we did not need Southron help. And they will not want to help us, nor see that the peril is theirs as well. But they might follow their king to any end as the Trident clearly showed…," Mother swallowed a huge sob, burying it in her chest, making Jon feel as helpless as a crawling baby. The burden of that past was not his. Until now.
Lyanna Stark wiped her nose with dignity in the grey sleeve of her gown and did her best to continue with the levity she did not feel. "Son, I was telling you-"
"You are telling me that I ought to marry," Jon finally guessed, flabbergasted. It was what parents did, sealing marriage alliances for their children.
"Yes," mother said curtly, "And not in secret as I did. We ought to have a wedding here in Winterfell," Lyanna went on, between serious and gracious, "Little food, not to waste any, and plenty of music and dance. Invite every lord in the realm, those we love and those we hate, including Stannis and the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. Give everyone six to eight weeks to travel north by land or by sea, as they prefer. I do hope though that the Lord Baratheon will politely refuse our kind invitation and continue writing stupid letters on his own. I might kill him if I see him any time soon, the guest right be damned."
"Why?"
"I'll tell you that last part on the morrow," mother said, giddy and almost playful, though her sadness still lurked within her, set aside, but not vanquished. "But first you will promise me not to kill either Stannis Baratheon or Jaime Lannister out of spite and revenge, not matter what they have done and that you still don't know of."
"Why-?"
"Promise me, Jon," his mother said adamantly.
"I promise," Jon did not find it in him to refuse her.
"Good," Lyanna clapped her hands.
"Why Jaime Lannister? He is not here, is he?" Jon's head swam with green, with white, with black, with grey and blue. "He is the third dragonrider!" he blurted, recognising that he had known it for a while. He had seen it through Rhaegal's mind and refused to believe it.
"And he did push Ned's son, Brandon, out of the window, crippling him for life," Lyanna said mercilessly.
"He has to respond for that, hasn't he?" Jon thundered hatefully.
"Your father spared him," mother insisted.
Jon's lips thinned and he looked away, angry, not understanding. "So he ignored that crime, being king, in order to keep a dragonrider on his side. And you.. You…"
"Jaime is Rhaegar's half-brother," Lyanna said, "Rhaegar had no proof but he believed firmly that Aerys fathered Jaime and Cersei, and was in love with their mother, not with Rhaegar's. It explains everything. The incest, Joffrey's madness, Jaime being chosen by a dragon. And Rhaegar remembers him… he remembered him as a young knight who had honour. Did you know Jaime was the only Kingsguard that dared voice objection to his sworn brothers after Aerys cruelly slaughtered my father and my brother Brandon? The only one who was sickened by watching?"
Jon stood up and paced as a caged wolf. "Sickened and did nothing."
"Nothing?" Lyanna asked in disbelief. "He later killed Aerys, being one of his Seven. He had sacrificed his honour then, he did not lose it. He became a Kingslayer and a kinslayer so that Aerys wouldn't burn the entire city of King's Landing. There is now ample proof of this; the words of the surviving pyromancer, the stocks of wildfire under the Red Keep... Even so, Lannister accepted the hatred of all the realm for decades, never revealing the circumstances of his so-called crime, believing he deserved to be treated thus for betraying his vows!"
Lyanna paused and continued very quietly. "Jaime killed his father, Jon. And Rhaegar… he had pondered rising against his father many times, but he never had the strength, until it was too late. In the end he could not judge Jaime for his choices."
"But Bran!"
"Brandon saw Jaime and Cersei. What do you think Robert would have done had he found out about the incest? The king who welcomed the dead, mutilated bodies of Rhaegar's children when Tywin Lannister presented them to him covered in Lannister cloaks? Robert would have Jaime, Cersei and the children killed."
Jon seethed. "What of Jory Cassel and father's… Lord Eddard's guards butchered lawlessly in the capital by Jaime's men? There was word of that atrocity even on the Wall! I wish Jaime's dwarf brother was a dragonrider! At least to him I could talk."
"Rhaegar sent Jaime to Essos to fetch this dwarf brother, who ended up serving Daenerys in Meereen. The Imp seems to be the most knowledgeable man alive concerning any writings about the dragons, preserved or lost."
Jon's rage emptied itself, but only for a while. "You are asking too much."
"You promised," Lyanna said calmly, victoriously, knowing her son would not go back on his word. "One last remark on Jaime Lannister. He is not his sister, Jon. Her, I could kill her with bare hands after seeing her but a few times in my life. All she ever truly wanted was power."
"Why didn't you?" Jon asked brazenly.
"She turned mad and her son Tommen took her to Casterly Rock," mother sounded almost as bloodthirsty as Jon's dragon, as if not killing Cersei when she had a chance was something she deeply regretted. "The gods do not approve of sentencing mad women to death," Lyanna told Jon dutifully, but she also seemed to be reminding herself of that law, bringing down her own hatred with great difficulty.
Strangely, it was Lyanna's loathing of Cersei and not all her wise, moderate words in favour of Jaime Lannister that made Jon able to seriously consider what she told him, if not to have fondness for the man in question. Mother, there is so much of you in me. He had suspected it before, but to see it made him feel proud and strange and happy at the same time. I am not alone.
"Jon, what do you think of Mance Rayder?" Lyanna continued after a while.
"I trust him more than most people," he replied instantly. "I'd have him as my counsellor in what is to come."
"As you well should. And would this change if I told you he killed Ben shortly before you made his acquaintance?"
"Ben?" Jon did not understand.
"He would be Uncle Benjen to you," Lyanna said sadly. "The wildlings would have challenged Rayder's leadership if he did not slay Ben. After, Mance left my little brother in the woods without burning him, against the most sacred customs of his people. He could not burn him out of guilt. Ben is probably still alive… Well, not alive. He must be a wight, ranging forever. Don't be surprised if you meet him next time you go North."
"That is… that is…" Jon could not even tell how it was. His guts churned. Will I have to do for my uncle one day as I did for my father?
"Tell me now, Jon, and tell me truly, does hearing this change what you think of Mance? Do you wish to condemn him to death for this crime?"
Jon blushed. Effectively, he did not. He had lost hope long ago that his uncle was alive. Benjen was a ranger. Being killed by the wildlings was one possible destiny he could have encountered.
"Exactly how I feel about both Mance and Jaime," Lyanna said, not needing his answer, knowing it in her soul. "I want to rip Jaime's belly open for what he did to Ned's son... But then I remember the youngest knight of the Kingsguard shamed publicly by Aerys before committing any crime... He was always different than his sister… With Mance... I remember the young crow skinny as a corpse I met in Shadow Tower. He has a few years on me, like your father, but back then he was just a famished wildling boy. This boy gave me, a well-fed lord's daughter, a unique gift, an obsidian knife he had been crafting for months in his lonely cell. I am still carrying it. He did not recite empty words, he did not ask for any lady's favour in return. He just said he rarely saw something beautiful in his life and that for this he would wish me to have a memory of him."
"I don't know mother," Jon said honestly when she was done talking, "I do see your point, but I do not share it. When it comes to Jaime Lannister, I cannot. I won't lie to you. Mance… Mance is different, I agree."
"Fair enough. You promised, remember."
"That I did," Jon admired his mother's cleverness and tenacity.
Lyanna remained very calm. "You should go now. I trust that you have a matter to settle, concerning a lady's honour."
Jon tried not to blush and succeeded only by half. "I shall see to it," he said as carelessly as he was able. "But you-"
"I shall hold vigil here. I do not think I can sleep tonight," Lyanna said, overjoyed and sad at the same time. "Do not worry, son. I am much better now that you are here than I have been for days. But…. it will take some time before I am well. Can you understand this?"
"Yes," Jon said, seeing her sorrow stalking her, mounting, waiting to emerge and take over. You still want to jump from the tower when your duty is done, don't you? "Promise that you will live out your natural life mother. Promise me."
"I had thought-"
"To do your duty, I know," Jon said bitterly. To live only until my brother or sister is born and weaned, he assumed wildly. "I'm sorry but this is not enough for me, mother. Promise me!" She had forced his hand about Stannis and Jaime Lannister; surely he deserved a promise in return, after twenty years of living a lie.
"I promise, Jon," Lyanna Stark said sweetly, giving her son her most honest smile that night.
"I'll be going, then," Jon said, reluctant to leave. There were so many questions he still had. However, he sensed she had told him enough for one evening and that her strength to put on a brave face was at the end. "I shall let you know on the morrow if the wedding preparations are to begin."
"Very well," mother said primly, and faced her solitary candle once more, with non-seeing eyes.
Jon wondered if she saw father's face in the flames and if the promise he had obliged her to make was not too cruel a demand.
He strode out of the Great Hall through the back door, leading to a faintly lit gallery. This part of the castle looked as if he had never left it. Daenerys should be inside by now, but he had no idea where her chambers were or if she had any, especially if she had just flown to Winterfell like he had. But how, if Stannis has her dragon and I have mine?
And Jaime Lannister has the third one… The thought was stuck in his throat, stinging him like a wasp. Maybe Jaime can die on his own, like they said that Theon did. Then Tyrion could take over… Unless blood of the dragon is required… Jon would bet that it wasn't, if Rhaegal had chosen him who still felt more wolfish than anything else. The dragons were not only after those riders who shared their blood. What are they after? Jon wished he knew.
Wandering aimlessly down the empty corridors, with his head full of dragon nonsense in many colours, Jon's legs brought him… to his own door. To the room he had as a boy. He pushed it open, curious. Behind it, fire cracked merrily in the hearth and the bed was made.
"I thought you'd stay with her," Daenerys surprised him completely, stepping out of the shadowed recess near the window.
"She… she chased me to you. She wiped and swallowed her tears and sent me away."
"That would be your mother," Dany said knowingly. "She will cry all night in the corners now. That's what she did on the journey north from King's Landing when she worried about you and thought my brother wasn't watching. Rhaegar didn't know how to console her."
"How do you know?" Jon wondered. "I'm sorry to say so, but we… I mean the Starks. We don't really talk about this. Has father… has Rhaegar told you?"
Daenerys blushed. "No," she said shyly, "my pardons. It is just something I glimpsed through Drogon's mind. Your mother's tears and Rhaegar's constant worry for her. Haven't you ever seen hints about what other dragonriders were doing through your dragon's mind?"
When Jon thought back on it, he grew more afraid that Lyanna would take her own life on Rhaegal's back than in his feverish dreams. It was as if his dragon, or, more accurately, the dragons altogether, knew Rhaegar's wife better than Jon possibly could, just from knowing himself and the stories about his mother. And there was the occurrence with Jaime Lannister… The knowledge Jon had acquired and locked up in his mind.
"I've seen too many things," he answered Daenerys. "Frankly, the dragons are just strange beyond count. I discover something new every day. Half of the time I don't know what I'm seeing."
As he spoke, Jon allowed himself a good look at Daenerys. Instead of galloping desire he expected to feel, he found her… teary-eyed like his mother. "You have been crying as well," he said reproachfully.
"I have," she said timidly.
"Is it because of what I had to do?" he had to ask. "Do you want to go back on us? On our promises?"
"No," she shook her head and Jon was immensely relieved. "It's just that… I am the only one again. Rhaegar was the last one like myself. To lose him is terrible. And yet, I have foreseen it. I have seen my brother as a dead king with blue eyes in a vision, years ago. It was destiny, I think. If it exists."
There was manifestly something wrong with Dany's views of destiny. Father's eyes were blackened when he was becoming a monster and turned back to indigo when he died. Jon would never forget any of it.
"What of me?" Jon couldn't help asking.
"Most of the time you are everything I am not," Dany said, her tone going from sad to loving...
"Mother is right," Jon said firmly, coming closer to her.
"About what?"
"The Night's Watch killed me for as much as I wish they didn't. I say that counts as unsaying the vows of not taking a wife from the life I lost to them. This is what I should have asked you in the beginning," he snatched her hands, kissed them wolfishly.
"Ask me what?" she breathed out, staring at his lips, as she did for days when they had just met and he felt that he was going mad and wild from too vivid imagination.
"Marry me." Jon did not ask, he demanded.
To his surprise, Dany turned his back to him. What? Am I not enough in the end? You have surely made me think I was. A many-headed monster began waking in his soul, choking him. Has there been another while I was away?
"If you want to follow in your father's steps, you will need an heir," she said flatly, feigning indifference, informing him. "I do not think I can give you one. I am barren."
Her frightened words put the monster in his soul back to sleep. He did not care about having a child. He wanted her.
"I am far from claiming anything," Jon said, not giving up, "and the winter is far from over. Mother is keen on throwing us a wedding, I think. She believes it might bring us swords in winter and she may not be wrong. We need men. The enemy has greater numbers than you can imagine. I've seen them. Mother too. In… in her eagle dreams."
"I hate weddings," Dany said poignantly.
"I have yet to make up my mind about them," Jon remarked, "It will be the first one for me."
"And a third one for me," Dany added darkly, spying Jon for reaction. "I was sold into my first marriage for a promise of an army and I sold myself into the second one for a promise of peace. None of the promises were kept. Why should ours be any different?"
Because they concern love. No army and no peace.
"Are you married?" The monster in Jon's soul galloped, wishing to cut down all Dany's husbands with flaming magic swords.
"I am widowed," she said calmly. "Twice."
She didn't seem willing to share any more information about her late husbands, nor did Jon want to hear it, just like he would never tell her about Ygritte. Somehow, this would be terribly unfair, both to Daenerys and to Ygritte's memory.
"Marry me," he demanded again. "As soon as it can be arranged."
"Love me," she demanded back, denying him a straightforward answer.
Jon was torn between two instincts, to love her madly or to make her agree to the match first, with cold head. Contraried, he paced nervously up and down his old room. "Why of all places did you choose to wait here?" He could not understand.
"I found it unoccupied," Dany said simply. "The bed was dusty on top, but made. I took off the furs, shook the bedding a bit. The fire… had been made by someone," she said hesitantly.
A ghost, Jon thought. Or a very diligent servant.
"Did you hear any odd music?" Jon wondered, suspicious, listening hard. Thankfully, the only sound was silence.
"Not now," Dany said. "Only before when the statues woke and marched to defend Winterfell. At first, I was going to wrap myself in dusty furs and sit in front of the Great Hall, to see if you would come out and when, but then you showed here."
"Ser Barristan and the ladies?"
"Fast asleep and seemingly in good health. We should be able to ask them questions on the morrow."
Jon picked up his old pillow, turned it around, suspicious. "I slept in this bed the night before I left for the Wall," he told her. "I think it's the same bedding. No one bothered to clean after the bastard. Or they washed it once a year and put it back."
"You know that I don't care about any of it, your past, a bit of dirt," Dany declared, "I have been ill for a week fearing you would not return. When the fever stopped, I discovered Stannis had my dragon and planned to use him to take Winterfell from your mother. Ser Barristan and I had to steal a ride on Drogon's paws to come here and try to do something… And we would only end up captive or dead if your castle didn't turn out to be haunted."
You were ill as well? What have you dreamed about, Dany? Losing your brother?
"Love me," Daenerys asked of him, so very sweetly. "Now. Quit being the honourable Stark for the night. Be my Jon. Jon Snow. That's who I fell in love with. The one who lived alone in this room. It's a nicer one than many lodgings I was given as a beggar princess," She struggled inefficiently to get out of his doublet.
Jon lost the wits he still may have had after talking to his mother. He helped Dany unburden the upper part of her body, cupped her small, firm breasts, kissed them, licked them, somehow stepped out of his breeches at the same time. Suddenly, she pulled his smallclothes down and went to her knees, grabbing his arse for support, kneading it.
Jon wanted to refuse this, not wanting it to be the first thing they did after their separation, but saying no to women who loved him had never been one of his strengths. His flesh parted ways with his spirit. She was tasting him with a generosity that frightened him. All he could do was keep his hands in her hair, thrust involuntarily and wait until his legs became weak, gasping helplessly in the end.
After a moment, Jon gathered himself, scooped Dany into his arms and dumped her unceremoniously on his old bed. Dany laughed at his insolence, pulling him down with her. There, on his sheets, he caressed every part of her. She let herself be lost in his touch and guided his hands to her most private places. To his marvel, this time she showed him what to do and how with more openness and detail than before, occasionally kissing his chest and waking his manhood back to life.
He, Jon Snow, had a princess in his bed. It was unbelievable. His eyes were lost to her beauty and his heart to the tender and fearless woman behind it.
"I can't wait," he warned her when he was ready again, wanting to have her badly in the most common way. Perspicacious as the gods had made him, Jon always suspected Dany sometimes only tolerated that out of love… and found the peak of her pleasure before or after when he touched her or kissed her between her legs.
She purposefully rolled away from him, lay on her back and spread her legs impossibly wide in the light of the fireplace. She placed her hand in her opening, stirring her wetness. Jon's eyes went wide. A fresh wave of desire in him felt almost painful.
"Come," she said, touching herself as she had made him do before. Her smell drove him mad, sweet as summer.
He covered her with his body and buried himself deep inside her, harder than he would have wanted. His face ended up on her tiny shoulder, but she quickly yanked him back, made him look into her eyes.
"As far as it goes and as long as you can take it," she said. It was not a plea, just like his marriage proposal hadn't been a question. It was another demand, a very serious one. "Like this, looking at me. I need to see you every moment."
Jon rose on his arms, not parting his dark gaze from Dany's violet one, and gave in to her request and his desire to move freely. At some point he understood why she did what she did in the very beginning. If she did not, he would never be able to go as long, not after having been apart from her.
Soon after, he saw the obvious signs of her trembling with pleasure under him. Dany looked dazed, changed, as if she had found bliss from sheer looking at Jon's face and body, and not only from his best efforts to please her. Before, she would urge him to stop when she was this far, no matter what they did, too sensitive to continue for much longer. And mostly he would be ready to spend himself after having her so freely. Yet now she continued meeting his hips, reaching farther; beyond the limits of her strength, or his. Their coupling lasted forever. His own satisfaction eluded him. He chased it for awhile and then forgot about it, thrusting, thrusting, thrusting mindlessly.
"Yes," she pleaded, always meeting him halfway.
He had never been deeper inside her or done it harder from the beginning. But now, somehow, she was inviting him to go beyond. She was searching with her hips, searching… until their bodies connected so that he was both buried inside her and reaching the outer parts of her woman's place at the beginning and at the end of every thrust. Her body became taut as a bowstring, as he had not seen it before, stiffening with expectation.
Tensing to the extreme, insistent in clinging to Jon, Dany took him in deeper than he thought possible, striving to have him arrive every time exactly at that place where he kept touching her inside and out.
"That's it," she said helplessly, tightening...
Then, slowly letting go, Dany began writhing as an angry dragon in his flight. As she soared, she did not thirst for blood, but for an exquisite kind of pleasure. She completely lost her pace when her body contracted wildly, from her back to her pretty legs.
Jon continued thrusting with abandon, and heard Dany sob, heard himself moan, felt himself tense. Unexpectedly, he burst from his own pleasure and went limp. She was hanging onto him and he never pulled out. She kissed him and… smelled him. She had never done that before. He nuzzled her face, sniffing her back. Sweat was everywhere, hers and his. The winter was a distant memory. Their bodies remained joined; two heads of the dragon, intertwined.
The wights do not sweat.
Do they ?
They remained as they were, breathing, kissing slowly, grinning at each other in-between.
"Jon," Dany was the first one to speak after a long while; her voice weak and sweet. "Just make certain that I don't have to wear floppy ears. I hate those much more than weddings."
Jon nodded, not quite knowing what she meant. "No floppy ears," he said decisively, eager to satisfy her every wish. "But we are going to need proper cloaks with all the guests mother means to invite." He preferred not to dwell on the sigil he would surely have to use.
It mattered not.
When he died a second time, the chances were he would die a married man.
Xxxxxx
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Next up: Jaime, Sandor, Gendry
Any feedback is appreciated