In addition to the short explanation I put up in the first chapter, I will elaborate a bit more here, in the second. I don't want to write much, because I'm sure you'd rather read the story, but it seems some clarifications are needed.
1. This story is my idea of fixing the horrendous show ending. I will go off of where D&D left us, BUT add many things that are book complaint to the best of my knowledge and power. I am rereading the books now because a lot of time has passed since my last read and things have been forgotten.
2. I don't like giving away the plot from the first chapter, or worse, in my author notes. I will reveal it as the story unfolds. The story is full, from the beginning to the end, in my mind. I have all the details, which is very unusual for me, as I usually just get a glimpse, a prompt and I need to weave off of that. This time, everything is ready and overall makes sense, so chances are higher for me to finish this story. Ahem...
3. It may be a slow burner and for that reason confusing at times, so if you do like it, have patience. I promise I will do my best to make it as compliant with show and book canon as I can. It is a mix of both because I don't see any other way of redeeming what the show has done.
4. I'm an unapologetic Targaryen/Valyrian loyalist. Keep that in mind as you go forth. If you are not a dragon banner-man, I'm certain there are other stories out there for you.
5. Things are not as they seem...
JON
The green beast again.
He was falling fast, his hands clenched the sharp spikes and his thighs flexed painfully around the wide back, holding on to it with all his might. As it stopped its descent, he closed his eyes and touched Rhaegal's neck, feeling the thick, scaly hide and the pulsing, fiery life beneath.
Flaming green, burning green.
It wasn't unlike slipping into Ghost, and yet different. The dragon did not step back, did not retreat, but stayed there with him, speaking to him, wise and willing, opened and even joyful. He never lost control over his own body. Both dragon and rider were independent and sovereign over their own selves, yet operating the same vessel. The dragon's body was the ship and both he and the dragon were sailing it. Nothing made him feel as powerful. Powerful and indestructible. And free. So free. Up here they were gods.
He pulled up on the spikes, making Rhaegal soar higher again, away and far, above the clouds, where no one else was.
The beast roared and shot up to the blue skies and he again, hung on to everything he could.
They stopped and floated there, above the clouds, above the earth and the sea. Above everything. The flapping of the large, leathery wings was the only sound he knew.
The horizon was kissing the infinite sea as the dawn broke across the milky water. The air was sharp and balmy and he smiled. There was a faint smell of iron mingled in the air.
The reverie was roughly banished by a blaze of fire that grew and covered the water. It looked as if the sun itself had exploded and was spilling all over the sea. The sea... There was no more sea bellow them. Only fire. Can water burn?
There was nothing but fire. No spot to land or even swim. An infinite of blazing death, with the sky still clear, blinding, harsh azure above them.
Rhaegal screamed and the sound vibrated through his entire body.
He awoke and as he turned on his side to stand, his hands sunk into deep, fine ash. Thunder crackled behind him and the croaking of crows accompanied it. Not awake.
He got up on his hands and knees in the thick ash and looked in the direction of the sounds.
The Throne. It stood untouched by Drogon's wrath and was overwhelmed with crows and ravens of all sizes and all kinds. They were so numerous that their shiny feathers blended with the melded in swords. The throne seemed made out of dark, shiny birds.
And there, next to it, she stood. Pale and beautiful and covered in blood and ash. Beautiful in life, beautiful in death. He stood as well, his knees shaking as he rose. She looked at him, only him, as if no one and nothing else mattered and tears left trails upon her soot covered face, like river gorges on a dried plain.
His eyes stung and he bit painfully on the insides of his cheeks.
"I'm sorry."
A cry, beastly and guttural, woke him.
He threw the thick, hot fur off and sat on the side of the bed in one swift motion. He was truly awake now.
The leather flaps of the tent were blowing in the hot summer wind and he was covered in sweat. His heart beat wildly and the furs and blankets were a mess, strewn about on the bed. He had dreamed again and that cry had been his. At least he didn't yell loud enough for the wildlings to hear him again. Or so he hoped.
He looked at the empty wine skins laying pathetically around his bed and not for the first time, he felt disgusted at himself.
"Damn it, Dany, how many times do I have to apologise?" He heard his own hoarse voice addressing no one.
Always. No amount of nightmares, torture and apologising to her bloodied, pale ghost would suffice, queenslayer... kinslayer. A harsh voice, his own, hissed at him from his very mind.
He ran his hands through his hair and down over his thick beard and stood up. He walked, nothing but his small clothes on, to the water pitcher and mirror on the side of the tent.
He plunged his hands into the basin, scooping up lukewarm water and washing his face and thick beard thoroughly. He pulled his hair back and knotted it with a leather band. That would do.
In this absurd heat he often thought of completely chopping off his hair, but changed his mind all the time. His hair was the last remnant of his old self. The hair that Robb teased him about and girls swooned over. Now it had turned grey. It still held onto its darkness at the back of his head and on his crown, but the front and sides were bright silver. Old, tarnished silver.
Old age and wisdom were not the culprits this time, he knew. At only 38 so much gray hair was rare. Many of his men that he had brought here after the War had greyed before their time. Indescribable terror, pain, torment and absolute hell does this and much more to a man.
The scars on his chest looked red and irritated. They pulsed and itched as they often did in the heat.
Grim, he thought as he looked at himself in the mirror. He pulled a rough linen shirt over his head and tied the strings that held it together at the neck. It was a simple thing, loose and sleeveless. Perfect for the heat.
No one would have imagined that the infinite expanses of snow and dead things would one day be scoured of the ice so thoroughly that they were more akin to the South. Nonetheless, he had often wondered when did the large oaks, birches, aspens and countless other summer loving trees had grown on that side of the Wall. As a young man he would look at their naked limbs, cracking with frost and know that there had once been warm here and lush vegetation had grown on the hills and mountains and around the then freezing ponds. He had lived to see it with his own eyes and it was beautiful.
The Wildlings bemoaned the weather the first years, but they started to grow accustomed to it. They couldn't deny that the clean, merry streams, the fat boars and swift dears, or the boughs hanging heavy with fruit were better than the never ending snows and whitewalker infested plains. They had replaced their thick layers of furs and hides with flimsy, badly sewn linen and leather clothes, their lack of modesty that could be seen even in the deep winters, now displayed freely and unabashedly. They would ride their horses through the hills and forests to hunt for days and they would hold long, wild feasts and he would often join them in almost everything they did. They were slowly turning into Dothraki. Such similar, stagnant peoples, both of them. They both kept what they had and requested nothing more than to hunt and live peacefully in their tents. The only difference was that one group was of the ice and the other of the fire. Now both were the same. He smiled bitterly.
The tent was horribly stuffy and hard to air, despite its size. The nights were cold, contrasting with the scorching days, so at least during sleep the tent was good to him.
The wildlings had treated him like a king. They gave him the best, largest tent, truly fit for a king, they cured the best skins to make him blankets and seating areas, he had the best foods and wines and they would answer to his every whim, though he never had many. Chiefs from far and wide and even lowly peasants had brought their daughters. He saw them all - tall and willowy, stocky and strong, fair or dark. He received them all and spoke to them and consoled them and their parents the best he could, but he accepted none. He didn't want the blood of another woman on his hands.
They had all sorts of names for him, the Undead Wolf, the Soaring Wolf, the Ice Dragon, the Wolf Dragon, the Dragon King and other such ironic variations. All more pompous and embarrassing than the other, the wild men loved him in truth. Probably the only ones who fully, openly loved him. Ned, Uncle Benjen, some of his Nightwatch men and Her were the only people who truly cared for him and looking back it was enough. Better men can't even boast half that number.
He, on the other hand, couldn't feel anymore. Feelings had first left him after he was awakened by the Red Woman, then she came and awakened him anew, but then the dagger had been plunged in his heart as well as hers, and so he had felt no more, again.
With all the affection and respect of the Wildlings and with all the certainty that he was one of them and belonged here, he had always been an outsider. It was stupid and naive to think that he would ever truly be one of them, as if he had been brought into the world here. Perhaps if he had taken a wife and produced heirs, he would be more of their blood, but that would never happen. He was of nowhere and belonged nowhere fully. An outsider anywhere and he had accepted it now. Even she had regarded him as a stranger and ironically even more so when she found out he was of her blood.
Don't be a fool. She had accepted you with everything you were and stood for, then, before you plunged the dagger into her heart.
An expression of disgust contorted his face.
He had to go to the rookery yet again. Maybe this time the Queen had wrote back, though he knew she didn't. He scoffed to himself grimly and drank deeply from a wine skin. He would find water later. Wine was always better.
The camp was empty, safe for a few women and laughing, running children. They were probably all out hunting, leaving him behind because he was too drunk on wine and dragon dreams.
Many "my lords" and a couple of "my kings" echoed all around him, but he just nodded his head in acknowledgment and walked on purposefully. He had convinced them to stop calling him "king", though there were some who still did. A small, odd part of himself enjoyed it, for reasons he couldn't understand. As a young boy he had dreamed of being a knight, a prince or a king, but after the horror he had seen and done, the very idea tied a knot in his chest. Perhaps the young, stupid Jon still living in him liked being called "king". That's where the satisfaction at hearing that word came from, surely.
The rookery was a tall house on beams and during the day it was guarded by a child, too young to go hunting and too old to play with the others. This time, a skinny, leggy boy was asleep at the foot of the construction, under its shade.
"Boy!" he called. This one's name was escaping him. There were too many to remember. The Wildlings would breed like rabbits in this season of plenty.
The skinny, pale thing opened his eyes and pushed a mop of sandy hair from his face.
"Umm, your Grace!" He all but squealed and stood up so quickly that Jon feared he may topple over.
"Don't call me that..."
"Sorry... I just... This is how many call you and so do my parents..."
"No matter," he waved a hand and looked up at the ravens perched everywhere on the wooden structure. "Is there anything for me from these demons?"
For some time annoyance at the haughty, curious birds, had started to build up within him. He couldn't explain it, but their searching eyes, audacious behaviour and nerve they had to take things and do whatever they wanted, irritated him.
The boy's large, blue eyes starred at him for a while and then he turned to look through the wooden chest that held all the correspondence. He rummaged and flipped through them for quite some time, sometimes huffing and puffing and making efforts to read the names on the scrolls.
"May I? I can read." He cracked the smallest of smiles at the flustered boy.
"Of course!" The boy handed him the box.
He read the names on each, checked the seals carefully, wishing, hoping to see the Stark wolf.
Nothing, of course. He sneered bitterly at the innocent scrolls and passed them back to the boy.
"Is anything the matter, your Gra... Lord?"
The boy looked at him as if he were in truth the king he imagined. He knew that look. Eons ago, in another life, he had looked at king Robert's procession the same way, excitement pumping through his veins seeing all the legendary warriors and lords he had only heard or read off. Then came the disappointment of being sat at the back of the hall, like a shameful thing and getting angry drunk.
"What is your name, boy?"
"Bael, your...My Lord!" The boy stammered as he placed the scroll chest back in its place.
"Ah, well you're named after a king. Did you know that?"
"Oh, I know! Bael the Bard, King Beyond the Wall and greatest raider the Freefolk ever seen." he recited proudly making Jon smile.
"Killed by his own son..." Jon added bitterly.
The boy's face fell for a second.
"Oh, I know, but that part isn't the one I like to think about," he added, enthusiasm back in his cracking, changing voice.
"That part is the lesson." Jon said and gently patted the boy's scrawny shoulder.
"How old are you?"
"Just had my twelve name day, my Lord." Bael answered proudly.
"Start training, Bael. Find your weapon. Sword, bow, even dagger. Find what suits you and train."
"I already am. With Tormund!" that was said with even more pride.
"Good." Jon nodded at the twinkle eyed boy and turned away from him. He needed to lay around somewhere and eat something until the hunting party returned. He felt Ghost closer, approaching, in the back of his mind.
He wondered why he said those things to the boy. It was an impulse he couldn't explain, but it did stem from other, deeper urges that had been stirring within him for some time.
Something is happening.
The tavern was close and it was one of his favourite places to just let the day pass. It was a large building, with a large yard sprawled beneath pine trees. It was very old and they had rebuilt it years ago, when they returned here.
Dragonfall.
He hated the name when he first saw it. He tried convincing them to find another. Now, it had grown on him. It was a remembrance of the first dragon that had been felled close to the pine tree forest that the tavern had been built into.
The tavern yard was empty, and he sat in a far corner at the fragrant shade of the evergreens. A lone red haired young woman was inside. He had seen her as he passed, but she took her time coming to serve him.
"Ale." He announced as soon as she walked in hearing distance of him. She nodded and scurried back in for the order.
He didn't want company. He had to think.
Sansa... He had been trying to reach her for months but she never answered. He was tempted to console himself with the worrying thought that something happened to her or that she was in some sort of danger, but no. Something in the back of his mind told him it wasn't as simple. Yes, he would have preferred to know Winterfell was attacked and she was kidnapped, than what he knew in his gut was happening in truth.
She had done something.
He heard news from travellers or merchants coming in from the South that Sansa was fine and well, managing the famine caused by the drought that had scorched the land from Dorne to Winterfell. She was rationing grain, digging wells, trading even with some cities from across the Narrow Sea and obviously not in danger.
Why then not answer, dear sister...dear cousin?
He took a deep swig from the fresh mug the redhaired girl had brought. Bitter, cold and frothy. Perfect.
"Some dried venison too, girl."
She nodded and left.
He hadn't had anything to eat since the day prior. His stomach twisted from all the ale and wine he had drowned in all night.
It took him three mugs of ale to bring back some life into his bones and to see the hunting party return. His spot in the tavern's yard gave him the perfect view upon the road that twisted down into the forests where the best game was found.
He was still chewing on the last piece of dried meat as Tormund came galloping up the hill, red of face and hair, howling and yelping with joy like some sort of animal. An immense stag was strapped to his horse and Ghost was padding at his heel. Thank the gods for Tormund.
Had this man ever been sad or worried?
Ghost didn't even look at Jon, but ran straight at him, sniffing the ground, certainty in his direction and goal. Tormund watched the wolf and when his eyes reached Jon's, he grinned and pulled the horse to a stop.
Ghost sat at his side, panting and greeting him with wide, red eyes. Jon sank his fingers into the warm fur and felt a little better. The wolf had grown to the size of a small ox. An awe inspiring, frightening creature that few dared approach.
As for Tormund, there was no escaping him, ever. He repaid the man's wide grin with a nod.
"Har, my man! Feelin' better?"
He sat on a chair opposite him, breathing heavily, shirt opened, his wide, ruddy chest glistening with sweat.
"What the king had!" he snapped his fingers at the girl who was hovering behind him.
Jon looked at him with annoyance.
"Man, you never stop, do you?" he laughed bitterly.
"Nah, you're a king. Imma call you that. Only way to stop me is if ya chop my ugly head off. But you won't, 'cause you're a good lad. If ya didn't get so angry, I might have stopped years ago" He winked and took the beer mug and plate of venison from the girl's hand before she even had the chance to put it down. He gulped half of the contents of the mug in a breath and when he put it away his ginger moustache was white with froth. He promptly wiped it with the back of his arm.
"Good, brew. The fools spilled a few water skins on the way back and I was thirsting for a drink like an old maiden for cock." He belly laughed and sat back in his chair, drunk on the hunt and horse-ride.
Jon joined him, cracking a laugh at his joke just to not be forced to explain his sour mood.
"King Crow, you don't do well with drinkin'. We all drink, but none lie around the whole day, half dead in the tavern."
"I'm feeling better now. I had a rough night."
Tormund laughed.
"You always do."
Jon didn't laugh.
Tormund's face suddenly got serious and he looked around for others who might hear and then he leaned over the table towards him.
"Your sister again? No raven back?"
"Nah. Of course not." He threw a dark look at Tormund. The man's face tensed in thought.
"You should have stayed last night. You missed something you would have found interesting." Tormund whispered, a strange smile on his face.
The night before, a few wildling men had gathered around a small fire and drank. He drank with them until he numbed the dark place he had been in for some time and then, unable to stay awake he shambled and stumbled his way to his tent where he finished a couple more wineskins and then passed out.
"Tormund, did you see the state I was in? Still surprised I didn't fall in the fire trying to warm my hands."
"A man came into the camp a bit after you left." Tormund continued completely ignoring Jon's complains. "A stranger."
"From where?"
"The South."
He felt the familiar pump of adrenaline coursing through his body. It was something significant, otherwise Tormund wouldn't have been so strange. He knew that look in his old friend's eye. It was intense, fiery, making his eyes wide and crazy, like those of a spooked horse.
"What did this man say? Where was he from?"
"He's a soldier to one of them houses in the South. O' he was. Not anymore since that house is gone. Wiped off by the Northerners, as he put it. He was beat up good, limping, raving like a lunatic. Said he had his horse eaten up by some bear close to the Wall and had ran for two days eating roots and bugs and drinkin' water from puddles and streams. Can't pledge for the bugger's truth though. He was mad with hunger and thirst as he could be." Tormund said as he ripped into a piece of venison with his large teeth.
Jon felt a knot in his stomach. He drank again, finishing his fourth mug. Or was it the fifth?
"Where is he now?"
"Took him to the healer tent. The boys complained that he'll be fine and there's no reason to waste supplies, but I saw his leg. Rot would have got into his blood and I felt sorry for the poor fool. I think the bear took a piece of him too, when he ate the horse. Bears, my man. Bears! Ha ha!"
"I need to speak to him." Jon said as he stood up. Good timing to leave, before Tormund started his bear tales.
"He's asleep. At least he was in the morning when we left. Go look at him if you want. There likely won't be any speakin'."
"Just by looking at someone you can tell many things about him." Jon said and left the table, Ghost nudging him with his nose.
"Don't I know it." Tormund laughed. "You return here, you hear? Speaking is to be had between you and me too. We have the Summer Feast in half a moon. Preparations need to be done." Tormund all but yelled after him.
Jon stopped and frowned at the beaten path of dirt that winded between tables and chairs and led to the exit of the tavern yard.
"You forgot? Drink is eating your brains, king crow! Told you you were too fancy a lad to survive it like we do. You're still a prince. Your dragon ridin' ancestors have been getting fat on sweet wines for ages and so have your wolf ones. Our tough brews will eat your princely brains out." Tormund laughed his deep, belly laugh again and Jon sighed.
"I'll return, Tormund. Enough of this. I haven't forgotten anything." He did forget. At least for a few hours this morning, as he was nursing his hangover and thinking about Sansa.
It was the peak of their second summer since the War. The celebrations were a tradition lost in the shadows of time for the wildlings. They worshipped the summer, sang to it and prayed for it, loved it and hated it at the same time. He had always helped them settle here, built their lives. It was expected of him to help them again, though with every year that passed, his will for anything dwindled and extinguished.
He quickly left and Tormund's laugh followed him up the hill to the healer's tent.
"Stay." He commanded Ghost as he approached the tent. The healer, a tiny, ancient woman was very strict on who entered the tent. Animals in particular were forbidden, unless they were part of some of her healing rituals.
The wolf quietly sat on his haunches, looking into his eyes with understanding.
Somehow the inside of the healer's tent was cool and pleasant. The smell of unknown aromatic herbs saturated the air and thin arrows of sunlight illuminated some areas. The tent was different, special. The thick leathers were dotted with tiny holes that together created spirals through which the sun and air could penetrate. The glaring similarity to the symbols that had followed him from the Wall to Dragonstone didn't escape him, but he chose not to dwell on it. Just like the rest, he too knew that the healer was not like them. That she was not human. It did not matter. She was treated like one of them and no one talked about her origins, though they all knew what she was.
Yes, because she is one of them. Unlike you...
This odd, ensnaring place was making him drowsy, so he walked pass the wooden panel that separated the entrance from the area where the sick were laying. Several wooden beds pilled up with soft animal leathers lined the walls, each separated by thin gauze curtains. The fabrics that were there for intimacy were very thin and some even torn in places, so it was easy for him to immediately spot the one bed that was occupied. On the opposite wall cabinets, chests and shelves of all sizes crowded into each other, stuffed with herbs, scrolls, tomes, bones, pieces of wood, iron utensils, pouches, bags and bottles and jars of all kinds. At the very end there was another room and he knew that's where the woman spent most of her time when she wasn't treating someone.
He would go straight to the man. If she comes, she comes. For some reason she unsettled him and he knew how stupid that was.
The man was curled on his side, back to the entrance, his rib cage rising and falling with each ragged breath.
As he approached he could smell death, decay, mingled with the herbs and flowers. Tormund was right. This man was dying.
At the foot of his bed, on a stool his belongings laid, folded carefully and neatly. There was armour, there was a cracked sword and old, worn boots. The armour was southern, that much he could tell.
He stopped right there, at the foot of the bed and looked at the man's face. An ordinary soldier, half balding, gaunt face that carried the pain he had seen countless times before. Nothing that would give Jon any ideas about who he was or where he came from. His eyes fell downwards, upon the scraggly, leather armour and his hand immediately touched it, lifted it, unfolded it, searching for anything, a coat of arms, a scroll, a smudge of dirt that would tell him the story of where it came from. Nothing.
A small shuffle and a cracking in the wooden floor roughly pulled him from his thoughts and he quickly turned around.
The woman. She stood there with a small, questioning smile on her face. She was gaunt and old. Very old. Her bent back only made her smaller and gaunter, but she had a presence that could command even the roughest wildling warrior. He wondered how old she really was.
"Looking for something?" Her voice was like that of a child with a deep guttural rasp. An old, aged child.
"Is this all he had on him?" He asked and waved a hand towards the man's belongings.
"Almost, yes..." The woman gave a knowing smile and looked straight into Jon's eyes. It felt as if she was searching through his thoughts, so he looked away from her. He fixed his eyes on the back chamber, the old woman's chamber. The place very few were allowed to see.
"Almost?" he whispered. "What else was it? You have it back there?"
The woman giggled. Really giggled in a playful, carefree manner.
"It's just a dagger, young lord. It had the bear's blood on it and I needed it for the cure." She turned towards the tiny entryway to her chamber. "You want to see it?"
He almost laughed. He hadn't thought of himself as "young" in years.
"I'd very much like too... I need to know where he's from. So if there is anything that has any kind of symbols, a crest, writing, I would like to see."
"Its just the dagger and it does have something on it." The woman smiled a toothless smile and turned her back to him. She slipped and disappeared under the heavy leather flap that sealed the entrance to her chamber. She reappeared as quickly as she disappeared and this time she did indeed hold a dagger, too big for her tiny, wrinkled hand and still in its leather sheath.
Jon took it from the woman and turned it on all sides and then he saw it. Just as he was preparing to unsheathe it, right there, bellow the pommel on the leather binding there was a house crest.
Jon's jaw clenched and he let out a breath he didn't even know he was holding. Small crabs were printed into the leather of the pommel, strewn, crawling like tiny bugs. He knew this house. They had joined them during the great war and fought with them in Winterfell and in King's Landing. Celtigar. An island close to Dragonstone. Part of the dragon isles.
His dreams, strange feelings and suspicions were more than just a drunkard's ravings.
"Will he awaken?" He asked the old woman.
"I am not sure. He is not good. The rot has taken over his body and his blood is poisoned. Bear spit is as poisonous as nightshade and this one got him good." She looked at the curled man with an odd tenderness.
"Do what you can. Call for me if he awakens. Do you still need this?" He offered the dagger to the woman, but she waved it away.
"No, I took what I needed from it. Keep it if it makes you any happy." The woman looked at the dagger with disinterest.
Jon nodded, slipped the sheathed dagger into his belt, took another look at the wheezing man and left the sleepy, inviting death tent. Many had died in that tent. He could feel it. Death had a way of clinging to certain places and he, more than others sensed it. He was after all, dead too. But again, this was something he chose not to dwell on too much. Not now.
Drinking with Tormund and discussing the festival sounded better. He knew that the stench of destruction and war would return with a vengeance come evening and he rather not have it around in the light of the day.
All things at their own time.