The Unquiet Grave
"Cold blows the wind to my true love and gently drops the rain I only had but one true love and in Greenwood she lies slain I'll do as much for my true love as any young girl may I'll sit and mourn upon her grave for twelve month and a day When the twelve months and one day had passed her ghost began to speak "Why sittest thou all on my grave and will not let me sleep?" There is one thing that I want sweetheart, there is one thing that I crave And that is a kiss from your lily white lips, then I'll go from your grave My lips they are as cold as clay, my breath smells earthy strong And if you kiss my cold clay lips, your days they won't be long"
Bravos
6 months ago
In the dead of night the waterways and canals of Bravos run as dark as newly spilled blood. It's an entire city in the shadow of a colossus, shifting and grinding in lantern light. The shimmer of the black water reflected the dimmed glass light, casting odd shapes down alleyways. The sound of faint accordion music, the hisses and moans of the cats of the canals, and the rustle of a stranger's cloth curled in the forgotten places of night echo hollowly. Through shambled and ruined buildings that are half sunk into the still and stagnant waters of yesterday was a passage that was seldom known anymore.
Through a sunken mansion there were cobwebbed furniture of the like never seen again, and mold covered brass that lay obscure forever. Dust from tinkling crystal fell in mats like dirty snow at the rare tremors of feet walking across rotted floor boards. A woman with silver hair is painted on canvas that is hung on the far wall. Her gentle and sad violet eyes follow across the room as the stranger's shadow pass over her portrait. Her silken covered breasts and pale neck savaged by talon gauntlet. The wielder's anger and sorrow was seen in the furious gashes that shredded and obscured any clear picture of the beautiful woman. Yet, something deep within this man possessed by the power of such a great evil could not scar her face so. Only when the ribbons of canvas were returned to their proper place could you see such as the ancient beauty of Valyrian in her prime.
Through the marble floors and twisted halls of this cold water mansion, the corridors go on forever and ever. Dusty ruins of an age long past echo the cries of lost loves, loneness, and revenge on lovers that had no business being together. Slashes of a Water Dancer's blade carved into walls and hall tables, centuries of dust filling in the scarred trenches. A sapphire that hung from a cut chain of a sacred necklace crunched under boot tread. The silver tarnished by a pooled brown stain of centuries old blood, like rusted sap. Mixed within the western wind that bends and twists through the ruins is a soft voice that forever cries in rage and hopelessness as she dies the arms of a man in black plate who did not mean to cut her open. Every whisper hidden within the groan and creak of the old mansion calls to a lost lover and breaths a curse on those who would take and steal the ancient crafted beauty from this sunken mansion. It was a home, a secret place, which like their love, every year brings closer to oblivion under the waters that only a cat's curiosity now knows.
Eventually these cracked and rotted halls lead to an open panel within the wall panel itself. The secret entrance now hung open and corroded like the skin of leper. Beyond the wall, made of eroded stone, was an ascending staircase. Each step was slippery, bound by rotted river weeds that have had centuries to push its way through stone. It never fails to startle when flocks of birds, sneaking into the holes of a broken stained glass window, panic in the sight of a newcomer. They clear the way in a storm of feathers and alarmed cries for the stranger as he ascended.
Beyond the secret path's gilded door was a bedchamber. Ivy had wrapped the walls and ivory idols of a lost religion of a doomed civilization. Dusty sheets covered a sofa and bench. Vegetation spilling from the windows entangled the pieces of a broken chair smashed against the wall, burying an innate scabbard of a swashbuckler's blade. A king sized bed collapsed by its posters. Ancient silk crushed under the weight of see-through curtains and hollow rods. Something old and tortured stirred when he finally enters the hidden room. This unseen presence that lingered in the ruined halls and haunted each item within this sunken refuge flooded the room with anticipation, longing, and desperation.
There's was a feeling, like the pull of a magnet that drew this newcomer toward the vanity. A mahogany table mounted by a large stained mirror. The bordering was made of silver and fashioned like dragon scale. The top of the mirror was guarded by the creature's head. The beast's ruby eyes forever watched and guarded its mistress. On the dusty surface were over turned and emptied bottles of perfume and creams that long since dried and fossilized. A hand reached down and drew a line in the dust curiously, when a deep cold rushed through him. In a sudden concentration of invading synapses, this intruder was filled with intimate feelings of a foreign love. Feelings of longing, hurt, heart ache, and fear ripped through him.
This room, this place, was theirs. This was where she waited for him, her hidden sanctuary, her alter in this temple of star-crossed love where she prayed to the only god she knew. He felt the cold hand of this silver maiden touch his curls, hoping after all these long years that he was who she thought he was. That her lover had returned for her, sought forgiveness for what he had done. In his ear there was a sweet and gentle voice whispering a name he did not know. But when he did not answer to it, all the uplifting emotions faded in the flickered moment of disappointment, when this phantom was reminded of what was and never will be again. And in the crushing defeat of inevitability, this spirit would have her revenge.
When he looked into the mirror he didn't see himself. Within this ruined bed chamber was a reflection of another that was lit by candles. The soft light bathing the room in rejuvenation, the dust and ruin of centuries disappeared. Polished and pristine, the chambers seemed brand new in the glow of this ghostly vision of yesterday. Surrounded by this opulence, sitting in the chair, is a solitary girl whose beauty was beyond compare. He watched as she brushed her silvery blond tresses with a silver dragon comb, her violet eyes alight with the gentlest of pleasant smiles. The stranger had never seen anything like this young woman in all of his life. Every second she was in his sight and mind haunted him, filled him with longing and sorrow that is portrayed by this ghostly woman in white that haunted these ruins. For this ancient Valyrian poltergeist that dwelled here did not show herself, but took to form of what was to come in the future of this young intruder.
He watched the princess hum some savage song spoken in a savage tongue, while her steely eyes watch him as if she knew he was there. He felt her smile and knew it was for him, her attending and fussing, all of it was for him. And though he was smitten with this nameless regal, the intruder knew something wasn't right. But it didn't matter as he reached a hand out to touch the mirror, to touch this angelic girl waiting for him in some time and place many years from now.
But a hellish screeching ripped through the silence as razor talons of an armored gauntlet cut through the mirror. Bleeding gashes appeared on the violet eyed girl's face as his hand strafed her soft skin. She forgives him even as a single bloody tear falls. He knew now the anger within the room, what had happened to this woman.
A fearful gasp escaped him, echoing through the ancient lover's chamber. He quickly pulled away his hand. Suddenly the candles blew out and the beautiful princess disappeared. Shadows swallowed the room.
Suddenly his horror was drawn away as the rolling of stone echoed through the secret bed chamber. Creaking open on the far side of the room was a door hidden behind a large, man sized, portrait of a great city of domes and spires surround by dragons in flight. This entire great city of magic and wonder was afire. Glowing liquid flame burst forth from the earth. Fiery rock fell from the sky, smiting fire breather and rider all the same. In the back of the painting groups of shadowy creatures, monsters and demons of the world below crawl over fallen columns devouring children, and raping fair haired maidens. Behind the frightening portrait of the last days of this Poltergeist's world, lay a small chamber. The stranger moved forward till he saw what was inside.
Covered in hundreds of years of dust and cobwebs was a suit of armor on display. It's scaled black plating highlighted in crimson. It's helmet black winged and sinister. A foreign mask of war, terrible to look upon served as it's visor. The gauntlet's fingers were long and razor sharp, as where the fins on the forearms.
He was captured by it's sightless gaze of the eyes slits. The longer he held it, challenging its power, the more violent the rush of his sins fell over his heart. Soon he could hear voices calling to him. A step-mother's final words of hatred, her final gasp as blue eyes fell to darkness. Swirling in his mind was a fire-kissed spear wife, heaving for air in his arms, as she smirks defiantly at his proclamations of love. A sword in the darkness bought for gold and a raven's note. An old Lion's promises bought cheaply with a bastard's honor. A golden queen chained to a dungeon wall, rats nibbling at her toes as she says his name. But most haunting of these visions were the solemn eyes, gray and melancholy, ever watching him in shame for every mistake that led to this moment.
When he slipped the helmet from the case, he looked into the abyss and only saw himself looking back. Ever present was the sound of a princess and her savage song humming over a spear wife's dying moments with a look of betrayal in her eyes. Wondering why she wasn't enough, why she had been so easily replaced. Who was this silver haired princess that he longed for? Why did he dream of her, his heart hot for her touch? Had he forgotten his own Wilding wife so easily? In his guilt he thought himself nothing but the stain of Eddard Stark's sins that forged the soul of a boy who only wanted to be a hero. Now he was everything he'd fear he'd be.
The longer he held the helm, the more violent the guilt and voices of his past thundered and crashed like a hurricane in his mind. Lapping waves carrying pieces of him and all he saw himself as with each receding reminder of one great sin after the other. Pained and half crazed he had only one choice and the voices finally ceased when he donned the terrifying helmet.
For a long moment there was blessed quiet within his mind. But slowly, like the pounding of a battering ram from far away, a loud and terrible noise began to echo forth from his mind. They were sickly, greedy, and lustful voices that grew louder and louder. He reached for the helmet and tried to pull it from his head, but he couldn't. It seared his fingers with a dragon's heat. With a roar from his throat he stumbled backward till he came face to face with the portrait of the great doom. Noticing all the creatures had now conquered the landscape and were standing in hordes in front of the scenery. Their blank, evil eyes, watched him in dark anticipation.
The Black Knight could hear them chanting the princess's name. All of the evil creatures manifested in this world that ambition and greed called forth from the smoking ruins of a fallen civilization. They all chanted to the armor as if it was their god, if he was their god. They all say the name of the one that escaped, the one that they wanted. He could feel their urges like they were his. They wanted to tear the flesh from her bones, to spill black seed within her, to taste her tears, and lap the blood between her thighs as if it were wine.
"Targaryen, Targaryen, TARGARYEN, TARGARYEN, TARGARYEN!
Somewhere in the rolling fog of this grand city a scream pierced over its dark water canals. But there was no answer but for a single accordion that played through the night.
Now
With a startled soundless scream, Jon Snow shot up from a lying position. His breath was ragged and frightened as he sat in the darkness. He sensed a presence around him and in a mad rush he fled from it. His feet padded across tiles of stone as items bumped into him. He crashed through polished chairs and over turned wash basins with a mighty calamity. The darkness was like some otherworldly force choking the life out of him as if he could feel the cold dead fingers around his throat.
At the edges of the room, he saw slivers of light peaking and slipping through the edges of material at the end of the room. With all his might and effort he pushed toward the slivers. One could only imagine what might have been going inside the room when the young man burst through the balcony doors and out into the frigid mid-morning. Snow winced in pain and surprise when faced with the morning sun and all of its glory. It was not just the initial blast from the glowing orb itself but the glaring reflection off the Black Water Bay. The young man shielded his eyes and groaned as a man hung-over after a night in his cups.
His scared chest heaved violently, his breath frothing clouds, as he let the cold bite his hardened layer of skin. The sensation was painful, shocking, and just what he needed to reclaim himself. Eyes squinted shut, while boy walked to the edge of the balcony and braced himself against it. Somewhere in his mind he could still see the mansion, the painting, and the girl. She was still so real he could touch her, feel her. But he'd recoil as he always did, talons gashing her supple skin. It was the same dream every night since they left Bravos. But not a dream, a nightmare, and a memory he could not shake.
"You were warned, Jon Snow."
The young man twisted alertly, defensively, at the voice that echoed from the shadows behind. Stepping from out of that darkness was a figure cloaked and cowled in a velvet material made of pure midnight. Her eyes seemed piercing and all seeing, colored in something other than human. The only thing that could truly be seen was the ornate mask made of golden grating.
"Quaithe?" Jon frowned in confusion.
The Shadowbinder acknowledged her name by continuing. "If you stepped into those halls you would find only pain in the alliance you broker." Her voice was harsh and whispered as she spoke.
His breath was still harsh, his mind still reeling from the memories. "When you came to me in Bravos, you said you had answers for me, you said you'd help me, but you failed to tell me what was in that place." He stepped toward the woman.
"I told you only that the answer's you sought was inside the mansion. I falsely believed that you would realize the danger in your pursuits and go east not back west. Nor that you would pollute your own destiny by finding and making pacts with something that should've been forgotten." She challenged.
"I made a promise. And I would not and will not abandon the Queen or my word to her!"
From the shadows the woman turned her head. "Because you've never broken your oaths, Jon Snow?" She snipped.
Jon gnashed his teeth at the woman from Ashai. "The girl I love died, my friends died, my father's wife was murdered!" He snapped. "They all died on my way to rescue Cersei Lannister, they all died because Cersei Lannister was in danger and I will see her back to safety before I let some cheap fortune teller in a mask sell me anymore false truths of a future I cannot see!" he came face to face with the emotionless woman.
"You live in the past, Jon Snow." She countered. "All your life, you've looked behind you, hoping that it will reveal your destiny. But all it's done is give you pain and breed more questions." She spoke softly. "I came to you that night before you sailed away with Sallador Saan, offering you an alternative …"
"By going to Slaver's Bay? I'm of the North, I'd rather die than deal in slaves."
There was a long knowing pause. "You're lying to yourself." Her gaze went right threw him, as if it could pierce flesh, bone, marrow, and soul. "You now know my truth, and who I spoke of." She was immoveable. "The silver woman that haunts that place showed you the future, and instead you chose the quick and easy path back into the past."
"Nothing about what I did in that mansion was easy …" He said suddenly quiet. The horrible, terrible, and nightmarish faces and forms of the shadow beasts took a hold of everything inside him. It made him parish in their very manifestation in his mind. To think of them, to hear their voices only made their presence stronger within himself.
"But I had no choice." He finished hauntedly. He was determined and resigned in his choice and responsibility in it.
"There is always a choice, Jon Snow."
"Not for me …" He argued. "I couldn't have done what I did in that tourney without help. You know it and I know it …"
"And so did it."
There wasn't more he could say to her but to nod his head. Being on that stallion, in that bedlam, all he could remember was the blood lust, the violence in him that he could not control. Jon was no stranger to the rage of battle, and the fever that takes all men with sword in hand. But it had been different the minute he donned the armor and became the Black Knight. It wasn't like anything he had ever felt before. To ride against those high born Lords filled him with a savagery he had never known, a deep and seething hatred that bred a type of cruelty that knew no bounds. He didn't just want to unhorse them, he wanted to beat them till their head was scrap metal and pulp, to humiliate them, to tear them apart limb by limb and taste their blood. When it was all over … he couldn't shake it, could not leave it behind him. Forever did this evil of the day leave a blackened scar on Jon's very soul.
Inhuman eyes watched from the darkness as the young outlaw paced away. His bareback was her sight as he looked out to the horizon for some comfort in the light on this cold day. But when she spoke there was no comfort to be found.
"You have armored yourself in an old evil forged in the last days of a dying civilization to exploit its savagery for your own purposes. But it's a power you cannot control and will extract a price you cannot quantify, Jon Snow. You have used it to vainly chase after a pair of phantoms that dwell at the very roots of this city's Godswood, but their truth will not change the outcome of what is to happen tomorrow. The only thing that has changed is that you have perverted your own future and that of the worlds in trying to change what you cannot."
"I refuse to believe or accept my friends have died for nothing, Shadowbinder."
"Believe what you will, Jon Snow. But know only this. Your destiny lies far from here with another queen, and her life and the continued existence of those you still hold most dear leans now on one question."
" …?"
"When you find her, who will she meet? The monster or the man."
With a startle grey eyes flew open. The sun had barely risen on the purple and orange horizon past the open doors to the room's balcony. The young man was shaken by the bite in the air and the warm sheets pulled to his waist.
Jon Snow sat up quickly in the dimly lit bedroom. But there was no mansion, no midmorning sun, and no Quaithe the Shadowbinder from Ashai. There was only a four poster bed. Next to him, was the figure of a slender girl with auburn hair and a silken slip sleeping peacefully. He scrubbed his face and gently placed a hand on the girl's hip.
But just as he was coming to grips of everything happening a hand fell on his bare shoulder. He reacted quickly, turning, while quickly slipping away from it. But his smooth defensive action fell short of follow up when grey eyes met grey in the chill of the early morning.
"Easy."
It was a tired and solemn voice that narrated to the greatest and worst moments of Jon's life. It was a voice he knew from anywhere as it spoke gently to the sudden fierce nature of a young man on a swivel after the night he had.
"You're alright, Lad." Eddard Stark assured his son.
"Father …" There was something emotional in the way the young man had greeted the man. It was the way that a child lost in the woods or the markets greeted a parent when they were finally found. For the first time in that morning, Jon Snow didn't feel alone. He didn't feel like he had bare everything on his own.
But the feeling was cut short when the young man noticed a shadow at Sansa's chamber door. He was a quite round and heavy set man. His head shaved bald, with blue eyes, and clean shaven face that was supple. But what was most recognizable was the gleaming shine of the man's bald head. The Master of Whispers, Varys, watched the young man. His soft face seemed creased in scrutiny and study, as a farmer studying a plow horse.
The appearance of the spy master caused Jon to turn back to his father who was sitting at the seat next to the side of the bed. If Varys' face was a blank page, than Eddard Stark's was a biography. It was filled with indecision, worry, weariness, and sorrow, all of which were dwelling on the subject of his bastard son.
"Father?" He looked from the Hand to the Master of Whispers, then back. The man paused as he hunched over in his seat, rubbing his beard with his hand in deep thought. After some strokes he looked up at his son. Grey eyes had never been more serious.
"We need to talk."
Inn at the Crossroads
Eight Months ago
The Inn air was thick with broth, blood, ale, and death. Tables were turned over, tankers shattered and spilling their contents on the floor like the wounds of the broken bodies of men on the soaked rushes. Mouths were still filled with unchewed bread and cheese, the half swallowed food slipping out from the deep slits covered by their neck-beards. Soldiers with the sigils of the leaping trout and the twin towers lay slain mixed with men dressed in black and metal studded surcoats of brown boiled leather. Their conflict, unbeknown to them, had started some twenty years prior, when a Lord brought home another woman's son. A betrayal finally settled in needless bloodshed caused by a Wilding spear wife's hot words to a high-born lady and the machinations of a crazed woman and ambitious men thousands of miles away.
There had been a terrible noise of clatter and clang of weapons meeting when the two sides had come together. Some wore Lannister crimson, some wore Tully blue, and some wore crow black. But now there was nothing but a terrible silence to meet the end devastation of twenty years of crawling inside two people that had no say in the heart break that pitted them against one another.
Amongst the wreck of the great and famous tavern at the crossroads on the Kingsroad, surrounded by tipped over tables, was a girl. Her hair was kissed by fire and soaked in brown broth as she lay in the ruins. The dying girl's breath was ragged, gasping, as she looked into the colorless grey eyes of a young man who loved her. He had blood on his cheek and on his open leather doublet dyed black. His calloused hand lay over the thin layer of material she wore over her upper body. She had taken off her fur cloak, nearly going naked if she could. The southern heat was something she couldn't abide, even when everyone else in her company wore their cloaks and coats, bracing for what they considered the cold. Now she only wished that she had her clothing back, because in this blackening world, the fires blur to red and orange in her failing eyes …. She was so cold.
The young man with long black curls held her close. "Ygritte! No, no … it's alright, you're alright … SAM! Stay with me!" He begged. The girl gazed into the fading colors of his dark eyes and felt a pang of sorrow for the way he looked at her. She found it funny that anyone would ever look at her the way the boy was now. It made her want to live, and made her want to cry out in frustration because she knew she'd never get what she wanted now.
"Your lady-kneeler-motha is vicious cuent, you know that?!" She coughed, bitter laced words spewing with hate over all the things that the auburn haired woman, walking on airs, took from them, took from Ygritte.
The young man paused quietly. He knew what the pretty red head was thinking, what she was feeling. But knew she'd never say it, never let him know she felt it. They'd take it on faith, take it on instinct that what one another felt was on the surface to be seen, to know, and never be spoken. These dramatic scenes weren't his Wilding wife's way, so he'd let her have her dignity from fighter to fighter and not lover to lover.
He smirked sadly. "She wasn't my mother." He corrected her.
The girl let out an ugly gasped noise that was ironic laughter. It lasted only a minute and then she went quiet. Blood was now staining her crooked teeth. "Good …" She swallowed painfully, looking to the ceiling. "Then I wouldn't have felt guilty … ugh, foocking her tight Arse with me knife!" She coughed, teeth grinding in part pain and part helpless rage.
Suddenly a large shadow consumed both youths and their moment of pain. "Gods Jon!" She recognized Samwell Tarly's gentle and wavering voice, though she could not see their fat friend. Gods know it would be the first time that ever happened. The thought made the girl cough blood when she laughed.
Both boys glanced at the girl, before her lover broke his stoic face to look up in desperate alarm at his best friend who was frozen in fear of the gruesome sight in his arms. "Sam … SAM! Listen to me. Go get all the wine you can find, have Tommen and Tyrion heat up that caldron!" He ordered desperately. The girl liked that about her Crow husband, liked the way he commanded men, commanded her. She'd never tell him and she'd sooner die than let him know that about her.
"It's going to take more than wine … to get me to foock you tonight, Jon Snoew!" She gasped. The world was no longer visible, no longer even existing to her. Everything was going black, everything but the boy's face the loomed above her. He had tried to be strong for her, but his face betrayed the sorrow and the anger she felt inside.
"Don't talk! Just save your strength, I can save you!" In that moment she could believe anything he said, believe in anything that was the man she loved.
But she'd never let him know that.
"Heh … You know … nothing … Jon … Snoew!"
Then the world got very still and quiet. Under Jon Snow's palm he felt the girl's implacably tight and flat belly muscles relax forever. She lay limp in the young man's arms, her crystal eyes looking through him, through the wall, through the mortal world itself. It was a blank and ceaseless stare robbed of everlasting life.
And on that night Ygritte died.
Jon Snow held his lover, his wife in every fashion in the customs of her own people. He held her maybe for years, maybe forever as the world, as time stopped around him. Shadows of friends and allies walked over to stand around him, Tyrion Lannister, Jon's squire Tommen, Bronn the Sell-sword, and finally Sam. Bronn cleaned his weapon with a Frey man-at-arms surcoat. The dwarf placed a hand on his young nephews shoulder as tears fell from the young boy's emerald eyes. As for Sam, he knelt next to Jon, his eye stung with emotion.
"I'm sorry, Jon." He said shakily. "I'm … sorry." He made to reach for his friend, but he recoiled.
The black haired youth looked out at the devastation, the mutilated bodies lying in heaps around the hearths, and yet he didn't see anything. "Grenn, Pyp, Ed … Ser Roddrick?" He asked quietly. The large boy was quiet for a long moment, unable to speak as a single tear fell down his stained cheek. Jon watched his friend look to the floor in mourning. He nodded in understanding and buried his face into his wife's freckled stained chest of palled supple skin. He hid his pain in the cold beautiful corpse that encompassed all the boys' dream of freedom and happiness that were now as dead as their vessel.
Then they heard it, he heard it. The solemn of their moment of guilt and sorrow, their recompense for all the arrogant oath-breaking and fools excitement of adventure, and all the regret that a raven ever came from Kingslanding with a note for Jon Snow. It was all broken. Fore above their heads boots paced and a bed creaked. And in their mournful silence the faint of a raspy voice moaned and cried in pain and suffering with the rhythm of a bed's creaking.
And then all of Jon Snow's sorrow turned to hate as the fires of the Inn's hearths reflected in the blood red rage of gray eyes.
Now
Red and oranges filled grey eyes that looked out over the water colored horizon of the late afternoon sun. Its autumn colors filled in like background to the majestic red fortress covered in ivy. Jon Snow had grown up in Winterfell, a fairly large castle, the largest Jon had ever seen … but it was no substitute for the capital, for the Red Keep. When they had arrived at the smugglers cove the night before the tourney, the young man had spent many hours just staring at the size and majesty of the structure. He had remembered all of Old Nan's tales, sitting by her fire as she sewed in her chair. Tales brought to life by Robb and his imaginations of things that they had never seen, and in Jon's case, would never see. It was seldom in his life that anything lived up to the stories, but by the gods he'd never imagined that Maegor's red stones would be more than he could ever dream of.
The air was stiff and unforgiving in the brisk cold that was unshakable since he arrived. He thought of Sam and remembered the boy disappointment, hoping to one day feel the southern heat again, only to lament bringing the winter with them. Jon couldn't see his breath yet, but by the morning there would be frost on every market stall and naked piece of metal in the city. Someone like Jon, who grew up in the north and spent months beyond the wall, could feel it in his bones, in the gut, the kind of cold that was about to greet him. He tried not to think of the bodies piling up in the streets, the orphanages emptying by the day as no one dressed for the cold in this city. He had heard a Gold Cloak mention that it had been so cold lately that even the whores had icicles hanging off their tits. If they thought that this was cold, the former 998th Commander of the Nights Watch pitied either of the peace keepers if they ended up on the Wall.
Boots scraped against the stone yard as the young man approached the stables. His pack jangled with every last thing he owned, his Valyrian sword strapped to its side. It was time to leave this place, this fortress where so much history had been made and legends had been born. In his heart he knew he didn't belong and tomorrow was only enforcing that belief. King Robert was hosting a feast for all of the Lords and their Ladies, his last feast before he fought the Black Knight on the next sunset. From what Jon heard it would be a boisterous affair. Lots of ale, women, song, and capped off with wine. Women will be fucked, men will be drunk, and it was safer for Jon if he was a city away from the festivities according to his father. Men found stupidity in the cups, and passed if off as bold bravery. He was afraid of Jon being pushed into conflict with the King's Men.
The notion stung Jon. It wasn't the knowledge that tonight highborn men would call into question his manhood when they found he had left for the night. It wasn't that he felt like a coward for fleeing their contemptuous words. It was that his father believed that Jon could be pushed into a fight because of a drunken man's words. It hurt the most, because, his father had not forgotten what had happened at the Inn at the Crossroads. He hadn't forgotten about what he had been told of what happened. Jon took responsibility for that bloody night, and no one alive would know that it wasn't Jon, but Ygritte that drew first blood that sealed their fate. It had been her dagger driven into the heir of the Twin's throat. And though Jon had only learned very recently that it had all been a staged show to assassinate The Tully claim, it did not change Eddard Starks opinion of his boy's supposed rash actions.
His horse was waiting for him when he arrived. Harwin gave him a parting word of luck as he disappeared. But as Jon checked the saddle, restringing buckles and tightening reigns, in the distance, a smith began pumping air into his fire to shoe the king's stables. Over and over he cranked and cranked, the pump creaking and wheezing. Then, he could hear it again.
He could hear her voice, her cries. His hand clutched the leather strap around the charger tightly as a fiery rage lit kindling inside him. The creaking of an oxygen pump became the creaking of wood slamming against the floor. A horse's whicker became a raspy voice of a high born woman. Slowly an old hatred seeped into him. Murder and an addictive need for brutal violence coursed through his veins coldly. His memories were flooded of a dying wife, of buried friends, and a creaking bed, always a creaking bed. It all ripped scabs of wounds that bled black poison being pumped by a heart of ice. And far across the city he could hear it calling to him, the pulsing black metal filling his mind with his darkest notions of vengeance. He could feel the metal talons scraping into flesh, ripping out bowels, smearing inferior blood over his face as he showed the weasel faced brothers that their youngest brother died suffering … as would they.
"It calls to you doesn't it?"
Grey eyes flashed quickly, dangerously, toward the figure standing outside the stall. For years afterward it would bother Robb Stark, in times of doubt and long nights jumping at shadows, he would remember the split second his brother's eyes were golden and slit like a wild animals, his shadow cast in the very shape of his demon armor.
"Jon?"
The young man swayed in a sudden of moment of weakness. Tully eyes of crystal brought back happy childhood memories of Winterfell for Jon. The dark world that filled his lungs with fire, and his blood with hatred fell away, and a man reclaimed what a monster had taken in a moment of the dark reverie of the blackest night ever lived in a young man's life.
"Did you say something?" Jon asked leaning into the side of his charger.
The moment of fear was pushed aside and Robb came to his brother's side. "The sunset, I was asking if it still calls to you?" He placed a hand on his brother's shoulder.
"Not like it used too." He nodded. When he turned he saw the immediate concern in his Robb's eyes. Jon might have been dressed for cold, with his black duster and shoulder cloak, but sweat was on his brow, and the boy was weakened from the pulsating call of something evil, something that he knew now that he should left in obscurity.
"Robb …" He shook his head and moved on, beginning to lead his horse.
The Lord of Winterfell pursued. "You shouldn't be moving around, much less going across the city by yourself." There was a long pause before he reached his real concern. "And you defiantly should not be fighting tomorrow." He chastised.
The clops drowned out the creaks in the yard and in Jon Snow's mind. "I'm fine, there's a promise to keep, and … I can't wait any longer." He answered every question. He sighed and stopped, making sure that no one was around before he spoke. "While I was laid up in Sansa's bed, Robert was getting ready for our duel, every week, and every month I've been here. The longer I delay the better fit he'll be for our fight." He tugged his horse.
Robb shook his head. "King Robert is past his prime, and a Dornishmen nearly turned your blood to black pudding two months ago." There was a strong authoritative protectiveness in the handsome youth's voice. It was the kind of strict devotion that only the oldest of six siblings could have.
Jon didn't stop his horse. "You know as well as I do that war, fighting a man, it's muscle memory, more than skill. I can't afford to give the King any longer to remember it." His voice was stubborn and unmoving in its determination. The exchange left no ground gained on either side, only tempers starting to show. It was par for the chorus between the old jovial rivals.
Both young men were quiet as they closed in on the Red Keeps drawbridge. Their reunion had come months ago when Jon had finally broken free from the poison that had nearly solidified the blood in his veins. There were several nights in which Jon could've, and according to Grand Maester Pycelle, should've died. But by the time that they had found the antidote for the venom in his system, it was found out that Jon had already ingested it, prior to his fight with the Dornish prince. The last moment precaution had saved his life. While no Justice would be served as the viper responsible had fled across the sea with his paramour before the Hand's Justice could find him.
At first the Stark reunion was happy as Jon's strength returned slowly at first. Years of separation brought happy gatherings, even between Sansa and Jon, who had never been very close since they were small. Falling into old habits, old jokes, and picking up conversations left behind on the day before they had all left home. But eventually the recent past had begun to catch them, helped by Jon's recovering strength and the ever growing presence of Jon's squire Tommen. Questions of sea fairing adventures to Bravos on a pirate ship had led to questions of The Wall, of Bran's blessing of a Tywin Lannister funded rescue mission, and eventually … what had happened at an Inn at the Crossroads. Then what had been happiness, a taste of home in the stink of a dangerous capital, turned sour. Secrets plagued the arms around shoulders, jokes, and nights spent with a sister between them. Questions of a mother and uncles murder, of the how's and whys driving wedges between siblings that had been so desperate to be around one another. By the time that Jon had decided to leave the Red Keep, he couldn't take one more night of suspicious looks, the growing private bitterness that Sansa and Robb felt the longer they were kept from the truth of what had happened to their mother.
"What did you and Father talk about?" Robb finally asked as they reached the drawbridge.
Jon was quiet and he refused to look his brother in the eye. "A little bit of everything …" he replied stiffly.
Robb nodded distractedly. "He gave you advice?" He asked.
There was a wily smirk on the black haired youth's face. "You know I don't fight like you and father." He replied with a teasing jab.
"You mean like being in a sword fight and not in a back alley brawl?" There was rivalry in his white grin.
"It's a hell of a right-cross."
"And somehow I never see it."
"That's because you're in a sword fight, and I'm in a fight period."
"Sleeping with a Wilding sure hasn't made you anymore respectable, Snow."
"Aye, you be respectable, Stark, and I'll toast your highborn honor at your funeral."
The boys traded a charged glare back and forth. But slowly grudging smirks grew to grudging chuckles, and soon there was nothing grudging about the brothers' laughter. For a moment it seemed like old times again. They were Eddard's boys out there looking for adventure, finding trouble, and carrying a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair around, their princess to protect. But as always, bitter, Tully eyes of a high born woman from the lowest levels of the highest cold towers of Winterfell gazed over their happiness. Twenty years later and Catelyn Stark was still the darkest cloud between them.
There was something troubled in the way Robb's laughter seemed to die away. Jon saw the mood in him change and there was emotion inside him trying to escape. The war hero sighed and looked to his scuffed boots before he spoke.
"Did she die …" He cleared his throat. "Did my mother die well?" He asked quietly.
The cold in Jon's chest seized him, and the color drained from his bearded face. He matched Robb's body language as the emotional blue eyes found him. He avoided his brother's gaze at all cost after absorbing the blunt question. It was unlike Robb to ask so directly. But both young men were soldier's now, veterans of half a dozen battles, and somehow asking as a battle commander, as a soldier, he thought it might have made it easier on Jon and himself. But as Robb waited Jon was attacked by the sensations of a night he could neither live down nor escape.
He felt Ygritte's sleek sinewy muscles relax, smelt her bowels release in her trousers, and the creaking of a bed overhead. He felt the anger, the rage of that moment.
"This was your fault, bastard … your fault …you remember that as long as you live."
Jon Snow met his brother's eyes.
"It came so suddenly, she didn't feel a thing." There was a long pause in the setting sun of the late afternoon. "I'm sorry I couldn't get to her in time." Jon said with the sincerity and trauma of a night that would never be forgotten.
Robb cleared his throat as a wetness started to stain his cheeks. He didn't say anything, he simply nodded. Robb Stark had known for most of his life when his brother was lying to him. He knew it now. He should hate him for thieving him of the truth that haunted him most nights, hate him for leaving him unfulfilled. But he had been on the battlefield and seen the Kingslayer's carnage, the Mountain's delight in the burned towns and fishing villages all along the Trident. He'd seen the faces of the wives, the mothers, and the beloved sisters of the men who died so terribly for the Stark banner. The half-truths he told them, rather than burden them with what really happened and the haunting images that would ruin a young life. Robb Stark had told himself that he was stronger than most. The Lord of Winterfell should be able to live with the real truth, the hardest of them. But in that moment, he saw the warmth in his mother's eyes, the stern love in the strong playful hands at the teasing jests at her fashion sense. When he thought of her that was what he saw, even now. But if Jon had told him about what really happened, what she looked like as she gasped for her last seconds of life, he knew he'd never see those memories again. She wouldn't be his mother, she'd be a cold corpse that would forever haunt him. And Robb was not sure he would be strong enough to live with that image for the rest of his life.
The young Lord sniffed and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. Out of respect for a man's private moment, Jon mounted his horse, disappearing in shadows as Robb collected himself. A cold wind stung their bearded cheeks as finality swept between them. Robb eventually sighed away the tightness in his throat and looked up at his brother.
There was something imposing and yet oddly majestic about the man that sat eight feet high in the hard orange and violet of the dying day. The shadows of the red walls of the fortress shaded the former Lord Commander's features as he sat astride his horse looking down on his older brother, possibly for the last time. Robb hadn't failed to notice that all of Jon's worldly possessions were with him, and that his horse was saddled for traveling. It was something that had only been set in motion after he spoke with their father in private.
There was sentimentality in the way the young war hero took the reins of the dark stallion. The two brothers traded one last gaze. Living in the final memories of triumphs, sorrows, and a thousand other shared experiences that made them into the two men they were now.
"I guess when I see you again, you'll be all in black." There was a knowing look in the last boyish grin Robb Stark's ever gave.
"It was always my color." Jon replied to the script, the emotions welled inside him, the words not as playful as the first time they were spoken to each other.
Robb looked down at his boots one last time. "See you in the seventh hell, Snow." The soldier said to his brother.
The shock only lasted a fool's second, before a grudging smirk touched Jon Snow's face. "See you there, Stark." He gave his brother a two fingered salute.
There gaze lingered a moment longer before Jon wheeled his charger around and trotted it out of the shadows. Robb placed a hand over his eyes to shield them from the last flare of the afternoon sun. He watched with fascination as Jon exited the Red Castle. His mounted shadow was cast tall against the keep wall facing the sun. He seemed a giant, an imposing figure on the greatest structure in Westeros.
Jon Snow was leaving the Castle, but Robb knew that someday the Black Knight's shadow would return to the Red Keep.
And since I lost my one true love, what can I do but mourn When shall we meet again, sweetheart, when shall me meet again? When the old dead leaves that fall from the trees are green and spring up again When shall we meet again, sweetheart, when shall me meet again? When the old dead leaves that fall from the trees are green and spring up again"
-The Unquiet Grave (StephanieSings)
Author's Notes
Before I even address the elephant in the room. I want to say that for the first time in my writing career, professional or otherwise I was shaken badly. That first section in Bravos completely and totally fucked me up. It's hard to explain but to say … I might have touched something I shouldn't while writing it and was tormented by some really weird shit and anxiety while I was writing it. So much so that I spent almost the entire run of Season five and the months afterward sitting on it, wondering if I should put it out there. I've written horror before, but never in my life have I gotten fucked up over something that came out of my head. So whither it translates to you from what dark stuff plagued me or not, just know I just had to get it out of my life.
So now for the elephant.
"Mother'fucka, you said you were going to finish the story by the "Walk of Shame" and now we look like a bunch of assholes while you's scared Scooby-Doo ass hides behind Lena Headey's Sarah fucking Connor, like pussy ass bitch! And why are you telling flashbacks backwards you fucking piece of shit!"
First of all, Staten Island reader (which is everyone), this story had three chapters left, then I got complaints and general shit talk by people who complained that they didn't understand what was going on. So while the original concept was to push on without them, I decided to just give the important cliff notes of how Jon got to Kingslanding. I'm also telling the story backwards, because the next three chapters will tell the story of how Jon got recruited to save Cersei. And in Part Three I have a nice scene that is poignant to what happens in that third part in Real time of what's happening. Basically what the Raven Scroll said.
Finally, before I take more of a beating about how this story takes too long and how I don't include more characters. (No, I'm not restating where Arya is, it's in Chapter Four.) Remember one thing. While I treat everything I write like it'll be published. I'm not George RR Martin. When I wrote the first four chapters of this story, no one gave a shit, and I was content that no one would. So you can only imagine my surprise when it blew up and ever since I've literally been making this up as I go, okay? You're looking at a guy who wrote an entire medieval/Fantasy tourney fight chapter to a 15 minute loop of "Big Blue" from the Mario Kart 8 soundtrack. Yeah, listening to that while rereading through the big epic GOT fight scenes are either going to enhance or ruin that experience for you.
So just play it cool, guys, we'll get there. I promise.