Author's Note: Hello hello! Not too long of a gap this time haha.
We broke the 900 review mark chapter; go team! Seriously, thank each and every one of you who have read and left reviews. Even ones calling Damon a weak beta mc and me a child ;)
Quite a bit is about to go down, see you in the second a/n. As always, I hope you enjoy and review this update!
Tyrek was dying.
Damon's left hand gripped the neck of his cousin's shirt, dragging the bulky body of his best friend along behind him beneath the shadow of the Wall. Snow fell thicker than the Wall itself, covering the dead bodies in Stark furs and Lannister reds with the blank slate of white as the King slashed and hacked his way through dozens of walking corpses, their horrific screaming beating against his will just as their blades and fists beat against Widow's Wail and his armor.
They'd swarmed them, like ants from a disturbed hill, sweeping over the Wall and it's arrayed defenders like a wave of death. He'd lost sight of Robb ages or seconds ago, the former King of the North going underneath the avalanche of bodies. His wolf had howled manically, Grey Wind fighting towards where his master had gone under, until those cries had ended abruptly and definitely. Jon Snow was atop the Wall but it was no better up there; screaming bodies, alive as they fell, had been periodically crashing to the ground.
Margaery, Bella. Damon, dragging the dead body of Tyrek behind him, fought in the instinctual direction he knew the women of his life to be. He killed as he had never killed before, but no matter how many he slew more and more kept coming, trying to drag him down beneath sheer weight of numbers as they nearly had north of the wall.
A riverman with a once-broken nose came at Damon, eyes icy blue and swinging a sword. Damon knew he had been dead for years—he had killed the man himself, the first life of the many Damon Baratheon had taken—but on he came anyway, ignorant to sense or mercy. Damon killed him again, sending him back to whichever of the Seven Hells the riverman had been since the Battle of the Three Hills.
Another was on him at once, a young girl with a quiver of arrows slung across her back. Her petite torso had a gaping hole in its middle, one caused by Damon's own lance when he'd ran her through and carried her like a sick marionette for several lengths onward. The king stopped, Tyrek's body falling to the side, as the dead girl screeched and charged at him. He slew her again, just as brutally this time as it had been the first, by cleaving her through the head with a two-handed blow. He then used the momentum of that swing to decapitate a corpse with an even more mangled and beaten face than the others. He recognized it, to, or at least who it had been; the black-haired wildling he'd killed not long after the girl, the same man whom Damon had straddled the chest of and beaten to death with only his armored fists. Other dead men, wildings and Northmen and Riverlanders, escaped their graves to again try and take the king's life, a wave of faces from his darkest memories, the eyes that Damon had thought he had permanently closed replaced with icy blue.
They failed again, as they had the first time, Damon cutting them down in ones and twos, building a smaller Wall in the shadow of the true one with the corpses. Damon began to curse as he killed, growls becoming shouts becoming roars, cursing these wretched beings for trying to take their revenge from beyond the graves he'd placed them in.
But as Lord Allard Vance fell again, this time to Widow's Wail through the guts rather than a dagger through the eye, both Damon's curses and his heart stopped. Charging him, arms held out with a dagger in the right hand, was Tommen. His body was desiccated, his eyes icy blue, but the King recognized him at once, even without the Lannister red doublet covered in stains or the gold lion pendant hanging from his neck.
Pain of all kinds erupted out of Damon with a tortured cry as his baby brother, face a vicious snarl, darted past Damon's unmoving blade. The king couldn't move to parry, couldn't harm his sibling even to save his own life. The dagger sank into his belly once, twice, three times. He fell to his knees before Tommen, their faces level, as the youngest of Cersei's children withdrew the dagger once more and thrust it again into the second's guts. Tommen stabbed him again and again and again, turning Damon's belly into a mess of blood and gore as Tommen screamed, for the first time exhibiting the ferocity of his elder brothers.
Damon made no move to stop him, green eyes staring as the pain built with each blow from the boy he had failed.
His eyes, swimming with tears, suddenly found themselves focused slightly behind the dead body of his youngest sibling. There, beautiful in a dress of Dornish orange unsuited to the cold, was Myrcella. Despite the screams of Tommen and the blackness dragging him down, Damon felt a moment's joy at seeing her again after these horrid years, and at seeing her unharmed despite the war waging around them. Her profile was as beautiful as it had ever been, untouched by the rot all around. While Damon knew she was in a danger and knew he was not able to protect her from it, at least she was whole at this moment. Maybe, his foolish, dying mind said, she would find her way out of this mess.
That joy was snatched from him a moment later, though, when she turned to face him. The other half of her face, the one that had been facing away from him, was gone, the cheekbones they'd both gotten from their mother now grisly white and visible. Her brilliant green eyes were gone, replaced by an awful ice blue.
Damon's heart, already broken by what had become of his brother, shattered as if struck by an Other's blade.
With a vicious snarl of her own, sounding nothing like the lovely girl he had known, she shuffled into range with Tommen, both her dainty hands around the hilt of a rusted dagger that she brought down into her brother's upturned, tear-streaked face.
Damon jerked awake with a gasp.
A hand was on his cheek, a voice in his ears. With a cry he brought his arm up to knock the hand away, even as he shoved off the ground to the right. His legs became entangled in something, throwing him off balance and dropping him down in elevation until his right knee slammed into stone, but he paid it no mind. His groping hands could find neither his sword nor his dagger, but his eyes focused on a candlestick with a single burning taper. He had gained his feet, grabbed the candlestick—the taper extinguishing as it fell to the stony ground—and spun on his attacker in a blink. The figure had started to follow him on hands and knees, but seeing the man they pursued suddenly step aggressively towards them had them scrambling backwards with a shriek.
The shriek, one of fear instead of the usual hate and malice the dead hurled at him, slowed Damon. As did the sight of a naked woman jumping off the far side of a bed in the light of the other candles around the room, landing on one knee, hunched down against an attack. He stood there, one foot on the bed where he had begun pursuit iron raised in one hand and muscles bunched from where he was going to bring it down hard atop her head, and stared at the corpse in front of him. This one looked unlike any he had seen before, more whole than any of the others. Beautiful, even. "Damon?" It asked softly, confusing him more. He'd heard them scream and screech and snarl, but never speak.
The brown-haired dead woman began to rise and take a step towards him, causing the king to raise the hunk of iron again with a warning grunt. It immediately stopped, sinking back to a knee and raising both hands palm out conciliatorily. "My king," it spoke again. Slowly it lowered to the other knee and leaned back to sit on its calves with hands still raised, the very image of harmless. "Damon? Please, Your Grace. It's your wife. It's Margaery."
Finally the king shook free of the effects of the dream. He stumbled back and tossed the candlestick aside, finding he was breathing in deep, gasping breaths, his golden skin sweat soaked. Margaery watched him go, not daring to move, fear and concern evident in her eyes and expression.
A pounding at the door made Damon whirl towards it, fists raising. "Your Grace? Margaery? Is all well?" It was Loras' voice, the Kingsguard on duty outside his chambers likely having heard the commotion. No, it is most certainly not all alright. But Damon could neither call the man in nor call him off, his breathing too labored, and even if it hadn't been Damon wouldn't have been able to find his voice.
The Queen, never having moved from the floor or her eyes from Damon, called out for them both. "We are fine, Loras. Remain where you are." Slowly, as if Damon were an animal that would spoke if she moved too quickly, she rose to her bare feet, dark eyes never leaving his face. When she spoke again her tone was much softer. "Was it a nightmare, Your Grace?" He could only nod his head, still fighting off the sight of dead Tommen and Myrcella killing him. His breathing had slowed but his heart was still racing, his body still tensed and ready for a fight.
Margaery made it clear she wasn't going to give him one. Moving slowly, she moved to the candelabras still standing and, using one of those left burning, lit the remaining candles, brightening the room. Damon watched her as his body fought to regain control of itself, embarrassed and ashamed and somehow entranced by her movements. Quietly, eyes remaining on those of her king, she crouched and picked up the one Damon had nearly bludgeoned her to death with.
She stood there holding it, needing to move past the bulk of her husband to replace it but unsure if he was in any condition to allow her. Her voice came out soothing, though she didn't move to touch him out of wariness. "It's okay, Damon. Whatever you dreamed was just that, a dream. You are safe."
The king's heart had finally stopped racing, slowing as he'd watched the gracefully slow movements of his wife. He felt as if he were in the comedown from battle, weariness beginning to sink into his bones but still ready to whirl and fight at a moment's notice.
Bella would know what he needed now that he knew he wasn't being attacked by beings alive or dead; the calming effect the feel of skin against skin had on Damon, be the situation sexual or not, was something the pair had discovered early into his military career. He didn't know if it made him the worst type of a son of a bitch to now seek that comfort from Margaery, but at the moment he didn't care. No words would come, Damon too embarrassed at his night terror and overwhelmed by the rush of feelings the dream and that reaction had left in him to say anything, but he held his arms open hesitantly.
To her credit, or perhaps her detriment, Margaery didn't hesitate, despite the fact that Damon had nearly killed her mere moments ago. She dropped his impromptu weapon, iron once again clattering to the stone floor of the chamber, and stepped forward to fold into his chest. Her smooth hands instantly began running up and down his back as his calloused ones gripped her hips, nearly engulfing them as he pressed his face into her rose scented hair.
It was some time later, after she'd felt the tension slip from him, that she spoke. "Was it of what happened north of the wall, Your Grace?"
Damon's voice was rough when he answered, speaking into her hair. "You just called me Damon a moment ago. That's the second time you've done it. I prefer that."
He felt the shift of her face pressed against his chest when she smiled. "Very well. Damon."
Nodding once though she couldn't see it, he answered her question. "No. Not entirely."
The Queen murmured an acknowledgement of the vague answer. "We haven't spoken about it. I know that's partially my fault." She'd left the statement open, either to invite him to refute it or to open the subject for the conversation they hadn't had. The king did neither of those, simply holding her form to his. After a minute of his silence she spoke again. "Was it a close thing? For you, I mean. And for the others that came back."
Gods what a piece of work I am. Margaery had been the one to lose a brother. Damon had lost one before, true enough, but he'd only loved Joffrey for that relationship. Margaery had loved Garlan both for blood ties and for his person. Yet she had spent the last Gods-only-knew how long comforting him for having a night terror like a child, not him comforting her for the lose of one so loved. "It was close enough, my lady."
"Margaery."
He grunted. "Margaery."
There was a another pause before she said what he'd been expecting her to say since before he'd returned. "It was too close for Garlan."
Damon swallowed hard. "Yes."
"Did he die well?"
Damon's mind raced to find an answer that was both true and, hopefully, comforting. "I think he would say that, yes."
He felt her take a deep, silent breath. "Was your dream about him?"
The answer to that was, on the face of it, no. Garlan Tyrell had not been one of the many he had killed trying to take their vengeance during that horrendous nightmare, although part of Damon held himself just as guilty of Garlan's death as any of the others. When he spoke his own voice was rough and defeated, too tired to explain. "More or less."
She said nothing in response. Her breath continued across his chest and her hands continued their soothing path along his back, but no words came forth. For an irrational moment Damon felt anger at her, judging him when he'd made the best call he could in the latest of a thousand shit situations he'd been in. "I tried to save him. Risked the rest of us dying to do it." It was true; Damon was partly responsible for the loss of Margaery's brother, that could not be denied, but he had done all he could to save the man after Bedwyck's blade had done its work. His hands went from her hips to her shoulders, all of the sudden needing her to hear him, needing her to understand. Pushing her backwards slightly to face him, his tone turned harsher. "I did all—"
The king's words and uncharacteristic flash of anger died at the sight of tears shining on her cheeks.
Damon the Daring wished he could say he soothed her then, as she had soothed him. He wished he could say he told her what she needed to hear, eased her through that pain, did for her what she had done for him. But all he could think to do was to scoop her up into his arms, the Queen breaking into full sobs as carried her to the bed and deposited her, crawling in beside her and wrapping his arms around her small form.
She wept into his chest for what felt like hours. Damon said nothing the entire time, merely holding her to him as her tears mingled with sweat and soaked the furs of their bedding, and wondered how he could ever make it up to her.
By the time she'd cried herself out Damon was on her back, Margaery sprawled atop him with her head in the crook of his shoulder. He'd thought she had been asleep for a long while when she abruptly spoke, voice as soft as the breath against his bearded jaw. "I know you did, Damon. I never doubted that."
Damon swallowed. "I am…sorry, Margaery." He cleared his throat. "More than you'll ever know."
"You didn't kill Garlan."
He closed his eyes in shame. "I didn't keep him alive, either."
"No." Finally she pushed herself up to face him, face hovering over his. "You can the rest of us, though." She placed a gentle kiss to his lips, then snuggled back to his chest.
The king of the iron throne thought of dead children and icy blue eyes. "Yes," he said as he tightened his arms around her, not at all sure.
Bran Stark disturbed him.
King Damon Baratheon, First of His Name, strode across the top of the wall towards where the chair-bound Stark sat, eyes peering north. Damon, not breaking stride, turned his head to peer that way as well. It was a breathtaking view, miles of evergreen trees, mountains, and pure white snow glistening in the weak sun. It was a beautiful day all around, considering that winter was gripping Westeros tighter and tighter every day. But, as Damon now knew, a danger unlike any he'd ever thought to exist approached from that direction.
He glanced back at the boy seated to his front. To tell the truth, he wasn't certain the cripple wasn't a danger himself.
The story of the believed-dead Stark was an astonishing one. Most of what they knew, which was not much to begin with, had come from the young woman they'd found with him. Meera Reed, daughter of one of Robb's bannermen, had told them what she felt she 'had the right to say', as she said it. As it turned out that wasn't much, but it boiled down to the following; her brother, a lad named Jojen, and the slow giant from Winterfell, Hodor, had gone north with them and subsequently died, as had the last of the 'Children of the Forest'. All had fallen to the same menace that had wiped out most of the King's scouting party, though not in vain. The main target of this Night's King, as she called him, was Bran himself. Damon didn't understand why. Truth be told he didn't think Meera herself did, but she was adamant that he was the target.
For his part Bran had offered little explanation to anyone, including his brothers, both of whom currently stood on either side of the chair bound Stark. Robb, arm in a sling, glanced up at Damon as he approached, eyes uneasy. He had taken the…change in the brother he thought he had failed hardest. Jon Snow looked no more pleased than his trueborn brother, standing on the other side of the Stark.
Damon slowed before they drew too close. The two men walking behind him stopped at once, straightening as he turned to face them. Since before Damon had gone north of the Wall, Jaime had been going through candidates to fill the thin ranks of the Kingsguard. Two of the better prospects had been shadowing him in something of a 'trial'.
Ser Alex Bulwer was the twice widowed brother of Lord Jon Bulwer of Blackcrown, bannerman to the Hightowers of Oldtown. Forty, he was as thick through the shoulder and neck as the bull of his house sigil and likely just as strong, with a hawk nose and intense dark eyes and hair. His compatriot, Ser Alex Rollingford, was of the Crownlands, a young knight of four and twenty who had attached himself to Jaime's army in the very beginning of the war and fought with distinction ever since. Captured at the Whispering Woods, he had been held in Riverrun until the peace was struck. Tall and thin as a fence post, he was lefthanded, the rarity of which gave him an advantage of other knights of equal skill. Jaime had requested Damon train against the man whether he made him Kingsguard or not, just to grow accustomed to someone fighting with skill from that side; it had gone unsaid Jaime did not yet consider himself in the category.
Damon cleared his throat. "Ser Alex." Both men responded, then looked at each other. Damon paused a moment, then pointed to the red surrounding the white bull of Bulwer on the older man's surcoat. "Red Alex, wait at the lift. No one save Ser Tyrek or Ser Jaime are to approach." The King shifted his finger to the blue of the six roundels fountain of Rollingford on the shield of the younger. "Blue Alex, find them both. Have them attend myself and the Starks at once."
Both men nodded and moved to obey. Damon turned, confident that both men would make it as Kingsguard and that his impromptu names for them would stick.
He quietly came to stand next to Robb. Bran, eyes entirely white, continued staring north, unblinking, causing Damon's skin to crawl. His direwolf, Summer, sat stoically at his master's side as it usually did, though it glanced at Damon in what he swore to be recognition. Ghost and Grey Wind were also near, laying on their bellies and watching the men as they stood. "Has he said anything more?"
Robb shook his head. "No. He's been…watching all morning." Damon knew Robb had a thousand questions for his brother; where was the youngest, Rickon? What had happened that night in Winterfell? Who the hell even was he anymore?
Bran had given next to no answers, and those he had were cryptic.
Jon spoke up. "He again said he needed to speak with you. I'm not sure if we should let him know you are here."
The king shook his head. "He seems to be looking for something. I don't understand how, but I've learned not to question you northerners." He glanced briefly to Grey Wind, then Robb. "How is your arm, Robb?"
The Lord of the North grunted, eyes still on his younger brother. "It will heal. How is the Queen?"
The image of Margaery, finally having fallen asleep in the lightening of daybreak, crossed his mind. He swallowed. "As one can expect."
Robb finally looked up to meet Damon's eyes. "We'll need to be organized." He gestured towards the direction his younger brother sat staring. "If that is only a small portion of what we face…"
Jon grunted. "There are more. Many more. And the more of us they kill, the more of them there will be."
"In which case we need to get organized now. Our own men are prepared, or as prepared as we can make them. They've been fighting long enough now that they know what they are doing. But distracting them with wildlings running amuck, fighting everything including each other?" The former king shook his head. "It is a recipe for disaster."
Jon, as Damon expected, jumped to their defense. "The Free Folk want to live as much as you or I. Mance can hold them together. Perhaps, with our help, he can make them fight together as well. They did that well enough when they took the Wall."
Robb turned to face him, face not quite hostile but certainly leaning that way. The two brothers clearly had things left to work out between them; Damon had found it best to let them do so. "Train them to kill even more of our people once this fighting is over? I understand it may be necessary, but I don't like that thought."
Jon, ever calm, met his brother's eyes. "They have a right to survive this fight, Robb."
"Do they?" Damon didn't think even Robb believed what he was arguing, but the Lord of the North was angry. "Once I would have agreed, wildling or not. But after what they did to the folks on the Gift? In the upper reaches of Last Hearth and Karstark lands? Let them die for the home they abandoned. Those that live can return to it and stay there."
"You just fought side by side with them, Robb."
"A few, yes. Any bunch has good and bad apples. From what I saw on Last Lake and of my people fleeing south, I'm not willing to wade through the worms for a few good bites."
We were the bad apples at Last Lake, Damon thought, reliving the dream and the girl with a quiver and a hole in her guts. Out loud he said nothing.
"We need them, Robb, and you know it. They killed my black brothers; I want revenge, trust me. But I want the world to see next year even more."
Robb took a deep, steadying breath. "Yes, I do. But what happens when its over? What happens when we win?"
If we win, Damon thought. This time he did speak. "At the end of it, they return north. North of the Wall."
"And if they won't go?"
Damon met Robb's eyes then. "Then we make them."
Jon cleared his throat. "We've gotten off track. We may only have a few days to get ourselves sorted. We need wood, pitch, anything we can use to make flame a weapon."
Robb, still angry but calming, nodded. "And food. I will take no raiding of my people; if we're going to fight with them, we'll have to feed them too."
Damon gestured towards the camp miles below. "Our supplies are still sustainable, as are those of the wildlings themselves and the Watch's larders. And more can be brought from the south as needed."
"Perhaps not."
All three whirled to face Bran Stark, who was watching them with Tully blue eyes as ancient as time itself. Damon swallowed three times before speaking. "Say again?"
"The south is not as you left it, King Damon."
"I know of Stannis, Lord Bran."
Neither the man's eyes nor his voice wavered an inch. "It is not him I was watching."
Oberyn Martell stared up at the dead king on his throne.
Stannis Baratheon, who had been tall and broadly built, had made a fight of it. Seven men lay dead at the base of the Iron Throne, felled by the pretender's blade before the sheer number of foes had overrun him. Those foes were in a motley of mercenary colors, as were the dozens of men and women in the throne room. The former king, Baratheon blue eyes open and glassy, had suffered at least eight wounds, each capable of killing a man on their own, before slumping back into the seat he had coveted. His blood trickled down each step like a river, pooling amidst the corpses of the slain at the very foot of the Iron Throne.
Stannis' daughter, who had remained unharmed due to Oberyn's very real threats against any who let otherwise happen, was in the custody of his paramour Ellaria. The man's crazed wife, Selyse Florent, was dead, having thrown herself from the wall of Maegor's Holdfast to the spikes below when the extent of the treachery had been made clear. The Red Woman, Melisandre, had simply disappeared.
The city was in absolute chaos, fighting everywhere in the streets as it had been the night Stannis captured it. The loyalist houses, a few Stormlanders and the Florents themselves, were being exterminated by the army of mercenaries Stannis had tried to claim a kingdom with. The captains of those companies were now awaiting Oberyn's further orders; they were also all, to a man, newly elected. Oberyn would almost say it was hard work, conniving with the officers of each company, weeding out who would be loyal and who would turn on their contract for offers of more coin or power. Men whom he had doubts about were removed in a rash of assassinations and killings, mostly carried out by him and his men but occasionally by the underlings themselves and pinned on Oberyn's shoulders. He didn't mind that; it merely added to his reputation, and it kept Stannis looking to him as the source of his woes instead of those around him.
When the order had been given, when the true king had arrived, the seizure of the Red Keep had been quick and bloody.
Borraq, a hulking Tyroshi and newly minted Captain of the Iron Shields, appeared at his side. The man was proving to be imminently useful. "Most of the Westerosi have been dealt with, Prince Oberyn. A number have fled to the Sept of Baelor to seek refuge with the High Sparrow. He seems to have granted it. Do I order our men to move in?"
The Red Viper of Dorne shook his head. "Not yet. Secure the Keep and get these bodies cleaned up. Send for the King."
Hours later, Oberyn Martell felt chills as a figure in black and red armor strode confidently through the doors of the throne room. On one side walked the shapely figure of his own niece, Princess Arianne of Dorne. On the other was Jon Connington, as red and unruly as ever. Behind them came a eunuch who had made a great deal of this possible, the Spider, Varys. Then Harry Strickland, Captain of the Golden Company, and those of that band who claimed Westerosi nobility.
Silence fell on the surrounding mercenaries as the youth removed his helm, revealing silver hair. The lad stared at the throne of his ancestors for a moment, then began to climb.
"Hail," called his niece in her husky voice. "Hail King Aegon Targaryen, the Sixth of His Name!"
"Hail!"
A/N: *tease* Well fuck.
If you are here based only on the show and have no knowledge of the base material, you are likely very confused. While I don't have the space or inclination here to explain in depth, there is (spoiler) a plotline in the book of a young man claiming to be Aegon Targaryen, son of Rhaegar and Elia, having survived the butchery of his family by being swapped out with another baby. I won't go into it beyond stating portions were cannibalized from it for the show, but that it is still ongoing as a POV plotline of its own in the books.
Lots just happened, but I promise more detail will emerge as we go on. Hopefully my attempt at writing something other than death and destruction in the beginning was at least moderately successful! Also, side note of something I enjoyed, if any of you read my spinoff of the Dragon of Duskendale (titled The White Dragons, Lords of Duskendale) you might recognize a few names dropped in periodically. Hopefully any of you that loyal enjoyed it haha. See ya next time kiddos.