Rodrik remembered the day Lord Stark first brought his sons to the courtyards to begin their martial training, just as he remembered a similar day, decades ago, when it was the young Eddard's first day in the yard, and his older brother's first day before him still, the memory made him feel his age, and a sense of dulled grief lingered in his mind.
He considered it an honor to train not one, but two generations of Starks, a line as ancient as the mists and the rivers, and him, nothing more than an old soldier of a minor house with his best days behind him. There was the five-year-old heir, bright blue eyes wide with curiosity and head of auburn hair held high, then there was the lord's base born son, though the lord told Rodrik to treat them both equally.
He never thought young, quiet Ned had it in him to betray his marriage vows, but war was hard and men were weak, even Starks. At the very least he had taken the boy in and given him a family, most men would have ignored the consequences of their lusts, others would have taken far darker paths.
At the time, he thought him quite unremarkable, a waif of a child, an inch or two shorter than his trueborn brother, in his first month, the boy struggled with the weight of the short wooden blade, his movements were clumsy and uncoordinated, and he failed to take to even simple instruction. In truth he imagined the boy would put down the blade after a year or two, mayhaps find himself better suited to letters or sums.
His trueborn brother was a different story, now there was the making of a lord, both kind and intelligent, strong and quick, the delight of both his family and the castle staff, and he took to swordwork like a fish to water, but as a further testament to the young boy's character, he did not lord his skill over base born brother, none cheered louder for young Jon in his spars, and none sooner rushed to his side when he was bested time after time.
Then one day, after war was called and won and winter had gone as quickly as it had arrived, a Greyjoy would become the newest addition to the training yards, a most despicable house, but Rodrik tried not to hold the child responsible for his family's black past. He was a few years older than the boys, but still far too young to train with the men-at-arms or adolescents, and he gave the bastard something he seemed to need more than a helpful hand or a supportive word, he gave him a villain.
For the young heir of the iron islands was unlike the heir to the north in every way, arrogant where the other was humble, harsh where the other kind, he took no small pleasure in demolishing the mediocre young swordsman as quickly and efficiently as he could, and took even greater pleasure in mocking and ridiculing the boy, no matter how many times Rodrik told him off.
Some would have folded under the weight of his presence, taken any excuse to avoid training or even the yard itself, but pressure seemed to be where the young son of Lord Stark thrived. He kept coming in day after day, no matter what the ward did or said, only, he started paying attention to the lessons rather than mindlessly gazing off, he would freely consult the other boys for advice, and he would be in the yard hours before the other boys, sometimes before even Rodrik managed to drag himself out of bed, endlessly honing and repeating the movements and routines until they became second nature.
He tried to foster the growth, but he still did not expect much to come of it, most likely the boy would give up, or at least slow down after a month, when he saw that the results were not immediate, and they were not, he would still occasionally lose to boys a couple years his junior and Greyjoy's laughs still echoed through the yard.
But he maintained the pace far longer than Rodrik could have hoped for, driven by something or another, soon he stopped loosing bouts to boys younger than him, but still Luwin told him that the boy spent hours in the library studying ancient fighting manuscripts under candlelight, he perfectly executed a flurry of footwork for the first time, but still the servants told him that they saw a shadow dancing in the training yards under starlight, he bested his brother for the first time, but still the boy could be seen balancing along fences and the stables and climbing back to his feet no matter how many times he tumbled into the mud and summer snow.
And the better he grew, the more Rodrik noticed the talent that had been shrouded under bad form, talent that he should have spotted sooner, reflexes that were almost animal in speed, a natural inclination towards explosive movement, an instinct that did not allow him to hesitate in a fight, he did not relent, nor give his opponent a chance to think, something which was impossible to teach some but that came to the boy innately, combined with his growing technical skill it made him a terror on the fields.
Soon even Theon would find himself choking on his words, but Jon did not stop, it was blend of dedication and potential that Rodrik could not resist fostering, he found himself spending more time with the boy, walking him through styles, feints and routines that would make any other boy his age give up after being told they were nowhere close even on their twentieth attempt.
But Jon was not other boys, he relished in trying to learn them, there was a mania in his eyes when practicing an impossible flurry, and while he would come nowhere close to mastery, not at this young age, he still learned from his countless fails, be it explosive attacks, a superior understanding an opponent's range or near effortless movement, that much was clear when one watched his spars.
There came a day where he lost a bout, and then he did not lose again, no matter who or how many Cassel put him up against. It was not brought about by one single thing, he had not learned a secret technique that brought him victory in every contest, he had not harnessed his natural talents to the point that they made him unstoppable, nor had the countless hours of drilling his fundamentals made his footwork impossible to best, rather it was a combination of all those things, the fruit of talent, determination and work that put him a league above the other kids.
That was when Lady Stark approached him and politely asked him to consider paying less attention to the boy, Rodrik respected the woman greatly, and there many things he liked about her, but the boy was his father's ward, and thankfully he had decades of experience dealing with upset mothers, and tried quelled her worries as best he could.
She said something about Daemon Blackfyre being a better swordsman than his trueborn brother, but Rodrik had openly scoffed at the thought, when he looked at them, he did not see the seeds of Daemon and Daeron, rather a young Lyanna and Brandon, or Benjen and Ned, siblings that grew up together and bled for each other, Lord Stark understood that well enough.
What did worry him was the youth's wolfblood, when he was young, he was a tame, timid child, but the growing skill had left him with an aggression that reminded him more of young Brandon than of young Eddard, more of Theon the Hungry Wolf than the King who knelt.
The one thing that alleviated his concerns was that the boy's kindness remained his most defining feature, he might fight with a certain brutality, but Rodrick never allowed him to be harsh or condescending towards his downed opponents, and as long as that remained, his confidence would never turn to arrogance nor cruelty.
The next day, the lord himself had taken some time to come see the boys spar, he nodded when Greyjoy felled a boy, offered a rare, warm smile when he saw Robb holding his own and eventually besting a far larger boy, but was absolutely gobsmacked to see Jon carve through three other boys as though they were wielding spoons. Rodrik worried for a moment, but then the lord's surprise would turn to pride and respect, genuine happiness that came to any father watching their blood excel.
The boy only gave his father a wink, then turned back talk with his brother and peers.
The boy does not lack for flair. He thought, if the gods were good, it would not lead him to an early grave.
Soon, the youngest Stark girl became a regular at the training fields when her mother grew pregnant again, Sansa would come and go with his and Poole's daughters sometimes, and he entirely disliked the giggles he heard when the boys teased the girls, but thankfully their visits grew rarer as they began their education of the womanly arts. The wild little girl however lived on the field, and always tried to play with the swords and padded armor, and she held none of the reservations her sister had about screaming at the top of her lungs for her brothers.
The girl kept up Jon's sprits for a time, but the longer his reign of terror lasted, the more Rodrik started to see it, the regression of old habits, the slow erosion of discipline, every day he showed up a little later and left a little sooner, he asked fewer and fewer questions, and when there were none left who could even scratch him, the embers in his eye had faded.
Rodrik could have left it at that, he had already spent much effort on the boy, more than his lord had asked of him, and he would still make for a great swordsman regardless, perhaps something would naturally come along and motivate him anew.
But he had seen something in the boy, something he had hoped to see in Robb, or in a young Lord Stark, even in his own nephew Jory or the countless boys he trained, he saw it in young Brandon an age ago, though in Jon it was as potent as wildfire, it could mature into a whirlwind that could carve through great swordsmen like butter, but if left to stagnate, especially at such a developmental age, the potential would remain forever unfulfilled.
Lord Stark had said to treat them equally, and were his and Robb's positions reversed, he would not hesitate to afford the heir the effort.
So, one day, Jon would come in late once more and Rodrik would inform him that his training would start in the afternoon, and that his lessons with Luwin would be in the mornings instead. When the boy returned a few hours later, the field was filled with armored men who towered overhead, alongside their sons of thirteen and fourteen who would soon join the household guard and men-at-arms.
Part of him was expecting the child to be afraid of the new, older people, of the absence of his brother and friends, but another part knew the boy's spirit well, and when an older boy of fifteen threw the young ten year old Jon off his feet, he saw the fire in his eyes alight anew, and Rodrick knew that he had made the right choice.
He soon returned to his fanatical training, but now he was bigger, quicker, stronger, and the grown men with many wars behind them had more to teach the lad than the summer children he was used to facing, as such his growth was faster and the ceiling seemed higher still. He even surpassed Rodrik's expectations for him, he had given him a month before he won his first bout, but he bested a chubby boy of thirteen in his first week.
And it was much the same for the next few years, in his first year he would manage to fell an adult guardsman, something that earned the man no small amount of ridicule, but he would not have to endure it for long, within another year more guardsmen had fallen to him than not, though that outcome remained a rarity until the year after, where he started winning more fights than he lost.
His body and strength also grew rapidly in this time, as he reached that age where boys grew into men, he ate enough for two, and he took some hours helping the stonemasons carry stones from the quarry and lumberjacks haul timber from the woods to grow his strength further, as well as helping Mikken hammer away at his steel.
The household were not the only ones he sharpened his skill against, the north was a sparsely populated kingdom, but Winterfell was its capital castle, and many a traveling swordsmen would pass through the castle and town, it became a frequent jest among the men to employ some of them to give the lad some lessons, only to fall to him in a duel.
It was also during this time when he started trying different weapons, axes, hammers, spears, greatswords and maces, and as time wore on he started experimenting in his spars to find his own style, perhaps a spear like the Viper, or a greatsword like Arthur Dayne, perhaps a sword and a dagger like the kingslayer, or a greatsword and a shortsword, a particularly devasting combination that Rodrik barred him from sparring with after he nearly gave a grown man a concussion.
He had also been taught the basics of horsemanship when he was younger, but he reapplied himself during those years, crushing lances into stationary targets at first, then to bags of pebbles that swung loosely from tree branches, his relatively average riding was holding him back from being truly extraordinary with a lance, but perhaps he would address that as he grew.
Then there were those days that started to occur, rare at first, but growing more frequent with time and age, the days where the potential Rodrik saw hints of a decade ago manifested into being, and the boy managed to integrate everything he had learned, the thousands of hours of practice, the countless words of instruction, the dozens of clashing styles and rhythms all morphed together into mastery, his weapons turned into limbs and instinct pulled at his strings. On days like those no sword in Winterfell could match his, not Joer, a man who had felled a dozen royalists during the rebellion and a hundred ironmen in Pyke, nor Hugh, a tower of a man with enough strength to toss about men around like dolls, some days he even bested Jory or Rodrik, who were among the best swords in the North since before the youth was born, the only thing he lacked was experience.
On one of those days, the Lord of Runestone himself was passing through the castle, escorting his youngest son to the wall, the boy had bested Robb in the field, but the less said of how the boy faired against Snow the better, but the duel between the lord and the bastard would be talked about in Winterfell for years to come.
The man had already bested both Rodrik and Lord Stark, he offered to spar against young Robb, and after his defeat, the boy quickly pointed to his brother, who the lord offered to fight all the same, perhaps to redeem his son Waymar's honor, he wielded a longsword and shield, while Jon, who had grown near as tall as the older man at four and ten, fought with a greatsword in hand.
The man went easy at first, then quickly realized the skill of his opponent, he fought harder and harder, until he was holding nothing back, by that time almost every soul in Winterfell had flooded the field to witness the spectacle.
Royce's shield was impenetrable, and his young opponent could not find any opening, and when you least expected it, he would use it to ram forward and create space, he used his sword to help compliment his defense when necessary but otherwise he wielded it as a scorpion's stinger, the slashes were impossible to predict, and they came faster than any knight's lance while somehow never leaving the old lord exposed, it was a greater mastery of the Andal style than Rodrik had ever seen before, one perfected over a long life of conflict and war.
But young Jon kept up longer than he or anyone else was expecting, instead of a shield he used his greatsword to block or batter aside blows, but for most part he seemed to dance around the older man's blows, and instead of shield bashes he swung the big lump of dulled steel in an unstoppable arc to force the old lord back and create space, it was riskier than the shield, but it created far more space, and Jon's depth of skill and strength allowed him to weave the sword in ways Royce had likely never imagined possible, maneuvering it expertly to clash against his shield and sword to the woos and waas of the hundreds watching them.
Royce jabbed his sword forward faster than most men could see, but Jon was not most men, he casually side stepped it, then swung the blade in a wide arc ahead of him while leaping back, the combination was meant to create space for the youth and made for quite the spectacle, something echoed by the crowd's squeals.
Only Jon. He thought, No other man would ever think of such a move, let alone have the technical skill, coordination or plain confidence to execute it, how many hours did it take him to perfect I wonder?
It worked, and Royce wore the same stunned expression he had the entire fight, Jon continued with a small crouch, and lunged the sword forward like a lance in a tilt, the lord of runestone blocked it with his shield, but it took every ounce of strength in his old bones not to fly backwards.
The old man did not stand straight on his feet however, and Jon pounced on the fact, he rested the greatsword on his shoulder, then swung it in an effort to force the shield out of his hands.
But Bronze Yohn had been fighting men since before Jon's parents were even born, he drew on that wealth of experience to find his footing, and tightened his grip on his board, and Jon's blade clanged uselessly against the shield as though it was a castle wall.
Royce moved to punish the youth's overextension, but the movement was sloppy and none noticed it more than Jon, who easily danced out of the way and turned it to a counterattack.
The old man still hasn't recovered from that lunge. Rodrik realized, and dared to hope. Momentum's still on his side.
Jon seemed to also smell the blood in the water, and he launched an unbelievable flurry of blows, one even Rodrik had never seen before, devastating strikes from his greatsword endlessly battered his shield, and every move in the combination flowed seamlessly into the next allowing no room for punishment, it was both brutally efficient and completely spectacular, the screams of the crowd were so loud that Rodrik was sure the younger Starks would lose their voices come the morrow.
All until the old knight found the presence of mind and speed to dash out of the way of a blow rather than blocking it, then he bashed his shield into the youth's wrist, taking the boy and everyone watching by surprise, with Jon's balance faltering, Royce struck the sword out of his hand, then held his blade to the boy's throat.
A moment later, Jon raised his hands and yielded, an unfortunate, but likely outcome, it looked close and Jon was fighting out of his mind, but if they were to fight ten more times, Yohn would win nine of those bouts, experience made all the difference when skill and talent were evenly matched, the old lord had it in spades, while the boy had little to none. The gap between a prodigy and a master is truly remarkable.
But even still, Rodrik saw in Jon's eyes the same cinder he had seen when the boy was first bested by Greyjoy and then again when he first started training with the men at arms
A new mountain to overcome. Rodrik thought, and he couldn't be the one to help him climb it. I've nothing left to teach him.
And he could not be prouder.