Euron

"I am happy."

The thought brought a genuine smile to his lips.

"I am happy." The thought was so real that he had to repeat it again. His smile stretched.

"Everything is falling into place. Everything going according to plan. I had no doubt, of course. I am always right. But it still brings me soooo much joy."

Euron had always been a thinker his brothers wished they had been. They had died for the lack of it. "Umm, more accurately, I killed them for the lack of it." He chuckled to himself. He liked to see things, thinking of ways to make them better. There's not a thing in this world that is immune to improvement. The world is filled with the ignorant who think that, however. It just makes him happy to prove them wrong further. "This one is my latest evidence."

The source of his pleasure stood a few feet away from him on the deck, silent as the dead Valyrians of old. Jon stared up at the red sky, an unreadable expression on his solemn face. "He is getting taller," Euron noticed. "If he is anything like his dead father, he will be tall as well."

"Smarter too. Rhaegar was a fool." Euron knew Jon has a sharp mind on him. When he said that those with glass candles have the capability to enter one's dreams, the boy almost snapped his neck. Euron had seen the dots connect in the boy's grey eye. "There goes my game of suspension. Though it will be fun to see how he combats it." Euron had been using his eye to travel in Jon's dreams. He did it to weaken Jon's resolve, to make him more unstable to make him more susceptible to Euron's deceptions. "There is a prophecy of a song of Ice and Fire. It has to do with him, being the prince that was promised…to bring the dawn and hope. But I want him to be a monster…a monster that will bring destruction and despair. He will be my monster. He will only obey me. If not, I will finally have a worthy adversary."

Euron turned his eye to Jon's burnt hand and the newly acquired eye patch that lay beneath his brown locks. His breeches tightened. "It looks so beautiful…so right." The product of Euron's intelligence. The thick eye patch gave Jon an edge to him his old eye never did. Jon inherited Lyanna Stark's eyes, grey orbs of stormy clouds you could get lost in and never return. The black eyepatch is mysterious and dangerous, leaving his foes confused about what lay beneath it. "What's beneath is the first phase of his rebirth." Whenever the glass candle is in use, the eye will burn in a mixture color of red, white, green, and black, all colors that represent the magic of the world. The thick eyepatch will conceal most of the light and will conceal most of the monster that Euron was building inside of Jon.

"Are you using the eye right now, Jon?" Euron wondered. "You have no true grasp over it. But that did not stop you from instantly traveling to somewhere, someone's dream I assume. You wanted to get away anywhere to escape the pain, no matter where and you traveled by instinct…that is incredible. It took moons for me to use it just once."

It reminded Euron of a memory from a long time ago. He did not remember how old he was, only that he was somewhat near Jon's age. He had the strangest dream of a crow with three eyes. And he had been falling from heights unreachable. "Fly or die, fly or die," the crow had kept crowing and pecked him hard between his eyes. Euron's forehead had burned…and he fell to the ground. "But I survived and lived. But the crow has left me for dead, threw me aside like scraps." Curiously, outrageously, something ugly clawed at his chest. Euron felt his lip curl. "Look at me now crow. Not so useless now, am I? I am the Crow's Eye."

Euron turned his gaze back to Jon. "This boy will give me what I want. That monster, who left this place in tatters, I MUST have it. The world would crumble at my feet." He licked his lips. Suddenly his mouth watered. "A boy of Ice and Fire and the monster of Valyria under my grasp…everything will burn."

It will be his highest accomplishment. "I will have it all."

"What a god desires he shall receive."

What Euron wanted right now this moment was to mold Jon further, to beat his mind and soul to the standards Euron wanted. "It depends on me, to fix the errors of mankind. It falls on me to bring perfection in this damned world."

In two or three quick strides he was there where Jon was standing. Euron smirked when he saw the boy tense his shoulders, refusing to look at him. "Fear…fear is for the gods. Or…is he feeling hate?"

Euron didn't say anything and neither did Jon. He just stood there, watching his ships transverse through the charred ruins, soaking in the hate rolling of the boy next to him. "His transition will be effortless. He has known anger all his life for being a lowly bastard. That anger will unlock pathways to his abilities quickly."

"And the pain. Pain is the most important aspect."

"Let us use your eye," Euron said at last. Jon glanced at him from the corner of his grey eye. "I assume that you dream walked. However, that person that you invaded wished you gone, and you were ripped away from their dreams. You are new to this; therefore, it was easy for them to banish you." Jon took this all-in silence. "Whose dreams did you enter?"

Jon's face scrunched. "I don't know."

"What have I told you about lying?" Euron made sure Jon can see his warning smile. "Do you need a reminder?"

"I do not."

Euron gripped the nape of Jon's neck, making the boy still. Euron squeezed to get his threat across. "You must have known the person you have seen. You traveled as soon as the glass candle was activated because you wished it. You will tell me the truth now."

Jon's words came slowly and carefully. "I wished to go home to my siblings. I saw strangers instead."

"I will take that," Euron allowed and released Jon. "You will work on that. You will try again."

Jon

"You will try again."

"How?" Jon thought. "What I did was by accident. Surely, he does not expect me to do it again at a whim?"

Euron saw the look on his face. "You do not have to travel to a dream. I just want you to see. Think of a place, word, or person. Let it fill your mind until that is all that you see in the front of your eye." The hand returned to the back of Jon's neck, soft and loud in its promise. "Please do your task. I do not accept failure."

"It is easier said than done. You just want to torture me," Jon wanted to say, but he was far too smart to do that. "No matter what I do, it all ends in pain." Jon forced his grey eye closed.

He thought of a single word. "Siblings." He yearned to see Arya's messy hair again. Nothing happened. Jon's breath quickened when the silence stretched.

"Huh." Euron's voice was light. "I guess the only way for you to learn is through pain."

There was a crack of a whip followed by a blinding pain in his back. Jon howled in pain and fell to his knees. Meanwhile, Euron hooted joyously and brought his arm back. Another CRACK and Jon was sprawled on his stomach. "No. No. No. Not again." His body trembled. Jon can feel the old wounds on his back reopen with fresh blood.

Euron reached down and ripped Jon's rags to where he was topless. The air was very warm, but Jon shivered as if a blizzard swept through. The Greyjoy leered down at him with naught but glee in his blue eye. "Give me a reason to make me strike you again. It will not take much, I assure you. Go. And. See."

"See!"

Jon tried to close his eyes but wasn't quick enough as the whip came snapping down again. Skin and Euron's maniac laugh split the air. Tears came to the front of Jon's grey eye. "Enough," Jon gasped out, trying to crawl away, from the pain, from everything. "Enough…Enough…"

Euron giggled and shook his head. "No, I don't think you had enough." He caught up to Jon easily and slashed at his back with another vicious blow that made Jon see stars.

Another CRACK and Jon whimpered, tears down his cheeks. "Enough…enough…"

CRACK.

CRACK.

CRACK.

Each pause between the blows was filled in by Euron's laughter. Each blow fed to the flame burning in Jon's heart. "I will kill him!" He snarled.

"See!" Euron roared, a laugh on his lips. "Feel the pain, Jon! Feel the PAIN!"

CRACK.

"I HATE you!" Jon screamed in his head, hate pouring through his body as strong as the pain. "I want YOU TO DIE." The source of his pain laughs as he chips away his sanity. Jon wants it to stop. He closed his eye so hard he thought they would pop. With every muster of his being, Jon thought, "SIBLINGS!"

Then his glass eye burned beneath his eyepatch.

The glass eye opened.

While his grey eye stayed on the deck, the glass eye soared away from the ships, from Old Valyria, from Euron, and from the pain. It skyrocketed to the puffy clouds, crossing over leagues of open oceans and whales the size of warships, crossing over the peaks of mountain tops, crossing over hordes of Dothraki screams until it came upon a city where it was bright and colorful. Then the vision of the eye narrowed into a room with a scope-like view. The two strangers Jon encountered sat across from each other. The beautiful olive-skinned woman stared sadly as the purple-eyed man with the blue dye in his hair fingered a harp on his lap. Sweet sad music filled the air as he ran his slender fingers over the strings.

"Why do I see them again?" Jon growled in his head. He had to think of something else.

Home.

"Winterfell," Jon thought. The eye slowly zoomed out of the room, too slow for his liking. "Winterfell!" Jon thought more strongly, anger and pain were his driving force. The eye snapped out of sight of the room. It zoomed back across the span of the ocean, crossing over woods packed with deer and wolves, crossing over orchards blossoming with growth, crossing over holdfasts and castles, until his sight loomed over a huge granite castle. Jon's heart skipped at the sight of it.

Then it zoomed into a solar Jon know all so well.

Ned Stark sat behind his desk, his hands tight and white around a parchment with the broken seal of the crowned stag. Catelyn Stark stood before him, hands wriggling with anxiety.

"What does the king want with the boy?" Catelyn asked.

"I do not know, Cat." Ned's face was tight.

Catelyn took a deep breath to clearly summon some courage. "Is it concerning the boy's moth-"

"Damn it, Cat! No!" Ned's eyes grew as cold as steel. "Do not mention her again."

Catelyn grew rigid. "There is something about the boy that you are not telling me, Ned. The king commanding your presence in Kingslanding about the boy is proof of that." Suddenly the women looked afraid, no, terrified. "Oh, Ned. What did you do?"

Ned came around the desk to take her in his arms. "There is nothing to worry about, my love. The king calls me. It is my duty to go. Robert is my dearest friend and a brother in all but name. We will clear this." The scene slowly blackened.

Jon's grey eye blinked. The glass eye closed its lid, colors slowly disappearing beneath his eyepatch. Euron stared at him, whip in his grasp. "Good…. Good…Good."

Jon was trying to get a hold of his bearings. It was hard with the blood oozing down his backside. "Who is the boy they spoke of? Is he the reason why father is being summoned to Kingslanding?"

"And who is this man and woman I keep seeing? Their faces don't ring a bell."

Euron caressed his whip, a sly smile on his face Jon did not like. "I have another task for you." Those words Jon disliked even worse.

"On your feet."

When Jon moved to get up, his back spasmed with breathtaking pain. Jon bit his lip so hard it bled to keep him from screaming as the gashes on his back stretched and seeped.

Euron sighed in contentment at the sight. "Pain…Pain is the greatest thing there is. It gives you focus. It gives you anger. Your anger will lead to strength. And your strength will lead you to power. And power…. power will give you the world. Blood is the gateway to many abilities, whether it is yours or someone else's."

He laid a hand on Jon's bloodied cheek. "I love seeing you suffer. You are shedding your stink of ignorance and mediocrity to wash your self with profound knowledge and power. The more blood I shed from you, the more you learn."

"I want to see you wash in a pool of your own blood." Jon tried to keep eye contact with the blue eye without breaking from Euron's ghostly touch.

Euron gripped his chin and moved his head up to look at a bird soaring in the sky. "You have magic in your blood from the ancient blood line of the kings of Winter."

"I will never be a king or lord. I am a bastard," Jon thought, but he felt a guilty bit of pleasure at potentially having the same ancient power in his veins.

"Wargs and greenseers are a direct descent from your bloodline. A warg I am most certain you are." A rueful smile emerged on Euron's pale blue lips. "However, I am equally as certain that you being a greenseer is out of this world."

"You want me to be that to use me to your own ends." Jon can assume that him not being a greenseer is for the greater good. It would lead to more pain.

Euron pointed to the bird. "I want you to warg into that bird."

"You want me to do many things."

"How?" Jon asked lowly.

"Look at it. Hard. Track its movement. Put yourself in its position, have a feel of its eyes, its flapping wings in the air. Wish that you were that bird. Your mind will immediately be attracted to it."

Jon trained his eyes on the circulating bird. He squinted, observing its black wings, dark eyes, and its beak.

He stared.

Stared.

And stared.

Nothing happened.

"No." Jon mentally embraced for the punishment.

Euron didn't disappoint. The Crow's eye whispered harshly, "The pain will be your lover for you will never be without it," and shoved a finger into one of the gashes on Jon's back. The pain was instant and staggering. Jon tried to push off, but Euron was stronger and held him in place, pushing his cruel finger deeper into the wound without remorse, twisting and turning, staining his hand red. The joy from Euron's lips was drowned out by Jon's screams.

Jon hollered in agony. "Gods help me! Save me!" He wanted to escape this prison of pain. He looked up at the bird through veils of tears, desiring he was anywhere but here. "I want to leave!"

His consciousness slipped. Then his consciousness was in another body, trying to grasp something to hold. It was slippery and kept moving out of his reach. But the pain drove his consciousness to desperation. And it gripped the hold and never let go.

Then he was in the air, soaring through the red sky. Immediately he flapped his wings from the danger, from the dangerous man with the eyepatch and the crazed laugh.

Danger. He had to go away. Danger. He had to get away.

He beat his wings faster. Something shifted in the corner of his eyes, a different beat of wings. There was a high screech. Suddenly jaws with teeth of death clamped on him with a death rattle.

Jon blinked rapidly. "What in the hells!" He wobbled on his feet. He snapped his head to the sky only to see a winged figure disappear in the black clouds. "I just died." Jon gasped out, tears falling. His body was shaking. His heart was beating in his ears.

"The bird did," Euron corrected merrily. "The connection was broken with its death. Your consciousness only returned to your body."

"What was that creature?" Jon whipped his head in all directions for any sight of the mysterious creature. He clenched his burnt hand.

Euron shrugged. "Who knows? Any information on that creature burst into flames with the Valyrians. It remains with the rest of the beasts that are lurking under the ruins. And there is the one that caused all of this that we are destined to encounter." Euron gave him a sharp smile. "That is why maybe you should be more eager to learn from me. it is your only chance at not being eaten alive like that bird."

"You wanted to come to this deathtrap, not me!" Jon wanted to scream at him. But there was no point. The Greyjoy was hellbent on being out of his mind. "I don't want to die. I want to live. I will do everything I can to live and to kill Euron Greyjoy. If I have to become him, I shall."

It was when he was back down in the bowels of the ship chained with the decaying bodies, did he start pondering. Jon stared at the dead faces in the room, trying to keep his eyes open. Now that he knows the causes of his bizarre dreams, he refuses to sleep. The sting on his back helps too. But the torch on the wall was fluttering, and Jon knew it will not be long before the room dissolved into darkness.

"Why is the madman interested in me?" Jon thought. "How did he even know of me? That's foolish. All the souls in the world know of the famous story of the great Ned Stark staining his honor with the birth of me. Bastards are told to be evil and deceptive creatures. Maybe Euron wants to make it true tenfold."

It must be true. Jon can feel himself slipping every day that passes. He struggles to recall his father's teachings of morals and honor. He is forgetting the difference between right and wrong. As he looked at the decaying bodies of the women and children, he can't help but feel glad that it had to be them instead of him. And he fantasized that Euron was one of them, dead and bleeding from multiple holes, and wondered how Lord Stark will look at him the same if he knows his thoughts. "What do you think of me father? Killing a warlock that was manipulated by Euron? By your terms, he is innocent. But I killed him…and I am happy that I took his life to save my own."

It was hard to feel guilty with the blood drying on his back or with the gaping absence of an eye filled with the monstrous glass candle and hidden by the thick eyepatch. "To hide the growing monster within me."

"But is it such a bad thing?" Jon caught himself thinking. "All of my life I have been mocked and scorned for being a bastard by the highborn. That is out of my control, but they still shamed me. They do it because they have the power to do so without consequences. Would it be wrong to do the same?"

"It will not be fair if the rabbit had the crossbow, huh?"

Euron Greyjoy is the prime example. He is highborn with power. He uses that power to pull Jon through stretches of pain he has never experienced. He has more power than Jon and uses it to abuse Jon in any way he wants. Jon didn't ask to be captured and chained. He didn't ask to be whipped. He didn't ask for his hand to be burnt. He didn't ask to be tormented in dreams. He didn't ask to lose an eye. He didn't ask for these physical and mental scars.

Jon's anger spiked. "I didn't for any of this shit!" He curled his burned hand.

He was tired of being mocked and pushed over. He was tired of not having control over his own life and destiny. He was tired of being a plaything. He was fed up. Jon's anger was hot and fresh.

He can feel the lighting of his glass eye, ushering him to welcome the darkness gathering in him and abuse the power it was eager to give him.

The torch guttered and blew out, leaving the room as dark as Jon himself.

"I will be the dark. I will have justice. I will be the monster they created," Jon thought, accepting the darkness within himself that was conceived by the injustices of this world. His glass eye soared out of the ship and into the world beyond.

Arthur: That doesn't sound good does it? Lmao Jon's transformation starts. How will that bond for Westeros? Tell me what you think the monster that caused Valyria is? Or what you wish the monster will be. And how Euron is going to tame it! And who are those strangers Jon keeps seeing? And what would you like to see further in this story? Please let me know your thoughts in the review section! Feedback will be greatly appreciated.