My body did not feel like my own.
My senses did not feel like my own.
The only thing that felt like my own were my thoughts, and those were completely cut off from my body.
It was hard to keep my eyes open. Not that keeping them open helped, not when my vision was a blur. Evidently, death did not cure Myopia.
I decided to stop trying to keep my eyes open and let my fatigue take me over. Not even the feel of large hands on me shook my tiredness away.
When I opened my eyes again, my vision was a lot clearer than before. I was lying on something soft, staring up at a ceiling made of stone. Was this… heaven? Or maybe this was hell? It felt like neither. Not that I would know what either felt like. This was my first death after all.
I heard the shuffling of footsteps and no sooner a woman was bent over me. She had a plump tanned face, dark hair she kept up in a bun and rich brown eyes.
And she was a giant.
With those giant hands, she scooped me into her arms, cuddled me close to her body and began to walk. Where exactly it was that she took me I did not know, and my attempts at asking led to incoherent noises at best.
I realized I could not speak.
I saw a wooden doorframe pass overhead, the woman had moved me from one room to another. I could hear a weak voice mumbling, a feminine voice. There was another voice, rougher and lower, a male voice.
I strained to hear but I could not make out what they were saying.
The woman carrying me stopped and passed me to another pair of hands, these ones larger than the woman's and a lot harder.
A man was staring down at me now, holding me tenderly in his arms. He had brown hair, fair skin and grey eyes. There was a light covering of beard on the lower part of his face and a wispy moustache.
His mouth was moving but no words came from it, only sounds that I could not make out.
He passed me back to the woman and she began rocking me gently. It was a nice movement, easy and calming. My eyes began to drift close once more.
When I woke again, I was outside of wherever it was I was being kept. The woman was still holding me, but now she was sitting down. The open skies were above us, dark and twinkling with stars.
"We shouldn't bury them here like this, my Lord. Their families would want their bodies back."
"I don't have a choice here. We do not have the men or the equipment to carry them all back home."
I can hear them now, clear and loud. Perhaps a little too loud. Their words were hurting my ear.
"I could head to the town nearby, and see if I can gather people for the journey."
"It's too far for too many of them to agree. We won't be able to gather enough people for five bodies."
The two voices quieted.
"We are running low on supplies."
"Tomorrow we sell what we don't need and buy supplies for the road. And perhaps find a ship to take you home."
"My Lord? I do not understand."
"I would need to go to Kings Landing. Robert's crowning I need to be there for, and a blasted wedding too. With Lyanna gone…"
"I understand."
"I would need you to take Jon to Winterfell, Howland. I can't take him to King's Landing. Gods know what Robert would do if he found out about the boy."
"You said you'd claim him as your bastard, My Lord."
"Aye, and Robert would believe it. The rest in that viper's pit might not. I will not take the chance of someone like Tywin Lannister even pondering the thought and doing what he did to Rhaegar's children. What he and his dogs did to the babies… Howland those images will haunt me for the rest of my life."
A pause.
A pause in which I tried to make sense of what the two men were talking about. Robert? Lyanna? Tywin? Howland? Those names were very familiar to me. How could they not be? I read that series of books so many times the entire event of those books was imprinted in my brain.
"I will take him to Winterfell as you wish, my Lord. And stick around until you return. And the boy's secret will remain safe with me. I owe Lady Lyanna at least that."
"Thank you, Howland. You're a true friend."
My belly twisted and a cry left my lips before I could hold it back.
Hunger? In death?
The conversation died and the woman holding me smiled down at me.
"Are we hungry?" she asked in a heavy accent that I could not quite make out.
She then popped her blouse open. I stared at her tits for a moment before taking it into my mouth.
Maybe I was in heaven after all.
It was a long journey to wherever these people were taking me, long enough for me to clearly think about everything.
I was dead. Or at the very least had died.
I met death.
I woke up in this world and heard two dudes talk about Robert, Lyanna and Tywin.
I was being taken to Winterfell.
And I was being breastfed.
It all came down to one answer. I was a baby and in Westeros somehow.
Did it make sense? Absolutely not. But it was the only logical answer as far as the word could be stretched. Maybe this was my afterlife. Was this how it all worked? Birth, struggle in life, die, be reborn in the afterlife in a fantasy world.
I had many questions, but nobody to answer them. I was certain these people would think I'd lost my mind and do something drastic if I ever asked them.
Well, there was one person that I could ask. But not as I was now, a shitting in my own clothes and needing to be breastfed baby. I had to wait for that day, for my answers.
With that decision made, I decided to observe for now. Reading the books and watching the show about this world might have given me plenty of knowledge, but living through it would give me a whole new perspective. Like how Howland Reed seemed to be smitten with my nurse. If I could, I would gag at his attempts at flirting.
It was not bad, just non-existent.
The journey otherwise was eventless.
The small ship taking us to Winterfell sailed without any issues.
We reached White Harbour without any issues.
Even the journey to Winterfell was eventless.
Even our first few weeks at Winterfell were eventless.
It wasn't until Ned Stark returned with wife and son did things got heated.
They would not share a nursery Ned!
The bastard does not belong here!
He's an abomination and a sin!
Why must you insult me in this manner, my Lord?
What have I done to deserve this?!
It was always the same words from Catelyn Tully, on and on trying to find some way to send me away. Ned on the other hand was stubborn about my being in Winterfell, that I was a Stark and Winterfell was my home.
I was Jon Snow if that wasn't obvious.
I wished Ned would just tell the woman the truth. Family, Duty, Honour, those were her family words. And Catelyn Tully was a woman who took those words to heart. She wouldn't speak the secrets her husband would tell her, secrets that could harm her family.
Perhaps when I'm old enough I'd lay some breadcrumbs for her. She was curious and if it was something concerning her family, she would dig it to the end. Like that time with Bran and his fall.
That day wouldn't come for years still, which gave me plenty of time to plot and observe.
Howland had departed not long after Ned returned with his family. The man had not even stuck around for the funeral. But the nurse caring for me had. Wylla, that was her name. She spent most of her with me, occasionally talking to the woman taking care of Robb. Nurses and nannies did all that work here. I forget the exact title of the work they did.
But Wylla did not seem to settle well with the North. She was Dornish, used to the sun and the heat. The sudden cold seemed to affect her. She always ran a cold, sneezing and coughing.
The only other person I had any contact with was Ned, who came to visit me from time to time all through the day. He would whisper little stories about his sister, compare the two of us in looks and thank the gods he worshipped that I looked nothing like my father.
And that was it, my life at Winterfell, boring and slow. At least for the first few years anyway.