Epilogue – Samwell – Spring
.
The mighty Jon then plunged his heart and haun-
ting screams filled through the night. The Night King left
this world for good, and spring returned to Wes-
teros. King Jon and Queen Daenerys sat
along the Iron Throne, and peace refilled
the lands, and all was fair and good and hope.
.
Sam looked at his family expectantly after he had read his poem The Song of Ice and Fire. He had worked on this epic poem for the last few years, and now it was finally finished. Since Jon had made him the librarian of King's Landing's national library – one that one day would hopefully rival the one in the Citadel – he had enough time and resources for his epos.
Gilly smiled at him and nodded. "I like it," she told him. "Although the end is a bit too happy for my sake. I mean, not all of our problems vanished with this one fight."
"Yes, well," he admitted, "but epic poems end like this."
"You should write a sequel, Dad," Little Sam (who wasn't so little anymore, since they had just celebrated his tenth nameday) suggested. "You missed all the important stuff."
"Like that I'm here now!" seven-year-old Dickon claimed.
"Or that Aunt Talla lives now with Uncle Tyrion in Casterly Rock and how sweet our little cousin Joanna is," Little Sam listed.
"And that King Jon and Queen Daenerys have a new super cool Throne," Dickon added enthusiastically.
"And don't forget Prince Rhaegar and Princess Lyanna," Little Sam insisted.
"Or that Gendry's now a Baratheon and lives together with Arya in Storm's End," Gilly then smiled at her husband.
"Or the Ironborn Rebellion," Dickon's eyes widened with anticipation.
Sam sighed. Yes, even after the second Long Night in the history of Westeros, many things had happened. But nothing too disastrous, except for the Ironborn Rebellion, but even that problem had been handled with quickly. Yara had taken the Iron Islands as their Queen, and Theon managed the estates that used to be the Freys'. He still lived most of the time in Winterfell, where Sansa ruled the North wonderfully. Ideally, he would have changed his home between Winterfell and the Twins every few months to see if everything was alright, but since his wife refused to set one foot into old Frey territory, he had to spend a few months apart from her. The women and children that had been spared when Arya had killed the Freys, now lived in one of the Twin Towers and were happy that no one bothered them anymore.
It was a few years after the War had ended when some of the Ironborn couldn't stand it anymore that Yara had promised Queen Daenerys no more sacking and raping and stealing. A resistance group had been formed (unknown to Yara or Theon) and had started to terrorise the mainland near the Iron Islands. Jon had sent out Northern army forces and most of the resistant fighters had died in a short battle while the Ironborn under Yara once more swore to liven from farming and fishing from now on.
Sam looked out of the window of their house, which lay next to the library, and saw the Red Keep. King Jon had told no one after the War who his true parents were, still only he, Sam, Bran, and Dany knew, and when he had married the Mother of Dragons, he had taken her surname, so he was now known as Jon Targaryen. This was unusual, of course, but no one dared to question their new King's decisions, and Sam knew that Jon was content with this compromise.
Jon had also told him about his conversation with the Night King and his friend sometimes wondered if he had acted wrong, if the Night King maybe had been right after all, that it was his hubris to go against the Gods.
"No, Jon," Sam had told him and would tell him every now and then when the bad consciousness would tear on his best friend again. "The Night King lied." He would always show him how much better Westeros was under Daenerys' reign and that the Night King would have killed them all if he had won the battle.
"And about the shortest winter in a few centuries!" Little Sam continued to list. That was true, the last winter which had been feared to be one of the harshest in over 100 years had only been 3 years long. The maesters of the Citadel had declared that this was probably due to the demise of the Night King and his army. Hopefully, from now on the winters would never be longer than five years. This spring had been one of the most beautifully Westeros had seen in a long time, and the summer they had now was even better.
"Oh, and of course, you should write about Lyanna Mormont, who still rules Bear Island gracefully and fiercely although she lost her right arm," Gilly joined.
Sam finally sighed and looked at his family. "Alright, I'll start tomorrow," he said in defeat and his children cheered.
At least they liked my poem so much that they want more, Sam thought smiling and took Gilly's hand in his. And besides, what would he do if he had no more poems to write? His everyday life would be boring, with nothing else to worry about than Little Sam hating history in school and Dickon trying to climb every wall in King's Landing.
Life was finally peaceful and would hopefully stay for a long time.
THE END.
So, this is it. I'm quite happy that I've managed to publish all chapters till today (this is by far my longest story in English and I put a lot of time and effort into this) and I'm very excited of the real season 8. The trailer already suggested a few things incorporated in this story (like Jon and Dany, and also Jaime, coming to Winterfell) but well, this wasn't hard to guess, I believe. I also dearly hope that my favourite characters Tyrion and Sansa will survive and find love because they deserve it (whether with each other or with Dany or with Theon or with whoever is not important, just finally genuine love). But I think that with Game of Thrones all of our favourite characters have slim chances of surviving… (Maybe all of them die and only a handful of people can flee on a dragon to Essos… this would be the "bittersweet" ending George R.R. Martin promised us and would send a wonderful message concerning climate change…) Well, we'll see today/tomorrow. Until then I wish you all good fortune in the wars to come!
