Weeks turning into months had passed since Jon Snow had left Winterfell.
He was now working his way through the forests that lay nearby the Hornwood keep. He was sticking to the shadows, traveling when he had the energy and resting when he had gone far enough to need to rest. He had discovered early on that the more time he spent absorbing the rays of the sun, the longer his stamina could last. He had recently begun to experiment with how his ability to call and use the flames was affected by absorption of the sunlight.
The results had been encouraging to say the least.
But it was nightfall now and the darkness was coming. As he began to settle down for the night, he reflected on whether he should've at least told Lord Stark the truth of what he had intended to do. Though he had tried to tell himself he hadn't actually lied to the man who had been a surrogate father to him literally since the day he had been born.
It was true that he could learn more of his father and the beliefs that had sprung up around him across the Narrow Sea in Essos. Just as it was also true that he could speak to his father through any open flame if he was able to concentrate enough.
'If you must have your enemies know something, have them know something which might be true. Do this and you shall allow them to convince themselves of their own cleverness.' R'hllor had told him in White Harbor when he had asked his opinion.
Jon wasn't so sure it would work. If these enemies of his and his fathers were truly determined to find him, couldn't they discover that he had indeed made it to White Harbor but that no captain or ship had any record of him boarding with them?
His father had reassured him that even if his enemies took that step they could never be sure he hadn't boarded one as a cabin boy, as an oarsman or as something else entirely inconsequential to captains who just wanted warm hands to help them leave port.
When given a choice between two lies men often preferred the slightly uncomfortable to the comforting. Believing that he had boarded a ship as an oarsman was a slightly uncomfortable thought, but it was also a much less severe line of thought than that there was no way to know where he had been after getting into White Harbor after all. And the most convincing lies were the ones people told themselves.
But his father had been concerned with a more practical teachings as well.
'If you are to illuminate the darkness, you must first learn to see within it.' He had said when Jon asked what exactly he was supposed to learn by sneaking through the alleyways and finding his way around the guard patrols of the docks.
That had turned out to be a mystical way of telling him he needed to learn to sneak, remain hidden and be the shadows he encountered among the trappings of civilization when he had the chance. In the night, R'hllor had him learn to become one with the darker areas off of the streets. To appear to belong to them. To let them cloak him as a well-worn garment. His memories of Bran's climbing served him well here, the memory of his little brother's nimble fingers finding the smallest handhold and feet following closely but not too closely after to give him just the right balance between caution and speed.
He had been spotted several times in the beginning. But always he managed to lose his pursuers even as the city watch grew restless with the whispers of a prowler lurking in the streets at night.
Step by step, stride by stride he had been improving within the city limits. Now he was in the wilderness on his father's instruction, having held onto the underside of a trade wagon as disinterested guardsmen had waved the unwitting merchant through. After rolling out from under the wagon during its first stop on the way to the Kingsroad, he had been relying on his wits and everything about hunting he remembered from Farlan and both his Uncles to find food and be sure he wouldn't leave too obvious a track.
Should he be caught doing any of these things he needed to learn to survive now, he would be rightfully labeled a poacher, a thief of the wilds. And considering he was a bastard to begin with…Well, Stark bastard or not Jon wasn't sure he should rely on the kindness of nobility when they discovered him hunting game that rightfully belonged to them.
He had asked his father why it was he needed to live out in the wilderness. Would he be required to survive without civilization from now on? He had been floored when his sire's voice had answered with a tone of amusement that it honestly didn't know. He had paced the same line in front of the campfire again and again, unable to help the feeling that the merrily crackling flame was watching him in the darkness of the newly fallen night.
"How can you not know?" Came the question, tumbling past his lips without his conscious thought.
"How can you not know the movements of all of the wolf packs that hunt in all forests?" His father asked him in turn.
Jon stopped short at that. It was impossible for even a skilled hunter to predict how every individual pack of wolves was going to move. Sure, they could have an idea of general migrations and how a great many of them would move from hunting ground to hunting ground. Or perhaps if they were focused on a singular individual they could predict their behavioral patterns with some time. But from there, it was all a question of trying as best you could to understand the wolves as a species and hoping either the gods or luck was on your side.
"That's not the same thing." Jon objected as he settled in front of the fire. He had sat close to the open flame both because the heat washing over him gave him a sense of comfort and out of not wanting to give the impression he was more focused on his pacing than on what he was being told. Despite the odd echoes and shifts of voice in his sire, Jon felt he could still read the general tone. And despite the laugh in the voice that had answered him earlier his sense of his mystical father's tone at that point sounded more akin to Maester Luwin when you had given an incorrect answer that he wanted you to discover for yourself.
"Why?" The fire crackled back.
"Because…" Jon started. He was forced to cut himself short. He could not honestly give a reason why the comparison was not an apt one. He sat still for several moments, carefully thinking. He did not want to disappoint his newly discovered parent so soon after finding him; especially given how unlikely it was that he would get to see his mother anytime soon.
He ignored the involuntary pang his heart felt when he thought about that fact.
"Do not fear to speak your mind child." The voice coaxed in a voice that reminded Jon of a bard he had once heard on a those rare occasions when a singer had ventured North far enough to be heard at Winterfell. "We would not see shadows between us, not when there is no need for it."
"Because you're a god. Doesn't that mean you're more aware of the world and what happens?" He asked, feeling a bit impertinent for asking such a question of such a mystical entity.
"Very good," His father answered, a small shower of sparks shooting in the air as he paused. "You are learning one of the most important lessons we can teach you." Jon was confused. What could he mean?
"You are questioning. You are beginning to seek what is, not simply what is true." There was a warmth in the tone that did not simply come from the heat of the flames Jon thought.
"Isn't the truth what is real?" Jon asked, unable to discern what that was supposed to mean. If something was true, surely that meant it simply was what it was. There was no subjective aspects to something that was true. Was there?
"If you simply define things by what is real and what is true, you would have a very limited idea of the world child." The voice answered. "You, our young spark, are a bastard." It declared. Jon opened his mouth to angrily call his father on that. He was his son, not just a bastard. "Humans as a whole have decided that bastards are an expression of some of their worst weakness. Whether through lust or conniving or carelessness, these children come into the world born to parents who are not openly committed to each other in a way the other humans recognize as legitimate. Individuals may be kind, but packs and wholes are not so inclined."
"What does that have to do with truth?!" Jon asked angrily, leaning forward as though he could stare down his father through the fire that spoke with his voice but did not show his face.
"Are you simply a bastard?" The voice asked him.
"No!" Jon answered forcefully.
"Then you are not an expression of our own as well as your mother's weakness? We were not foolish or selfish to leave you behind to suffer for our transgression in the eyes of others?" The voice asked him.
Jon could not say they weren't those things. To say so would be to claim that they had not brought suffering on his head for what other people thought would be to lie. And to claim that all bastards were not what people believed them to be would be a lie and he knew it. What was the point of this?
"What does that matter?" Jon answered in a subdued tone. "I am Jon Snow. I am not just a bastard. I am who I am."
"That is the difference between what is true and what is." The voice told him as it shifted into that of a young child reminiscent of Bran when he had first been learning to speak. Jon's eyes widened at the simple sentence.
"So are you saying I shouldn't believe anything I think is true?" He asked, calmed somewhat by the fact that his father had been using something personal to him to demonstrate what he meant while confirming that he did not see him as any less because he was a bastard. It was irrational Jon knew. But after so many years of having to wonder with the Uncle he had believed to be his lord father, it was hard to not think it.
The edge of the flames shifted with the breeze for a moment. The voice of his father returned.
"We are saying that men can spend their entire lives willfully blinded simply because they only seek to know what is true." The voice answered. "What you believe and what you question is entirely your choice. That is the intrinsic beauty and the base ugliness of humanity's core."
Jon was quiet for a moment as he remembered his father's explanation for why most if not all would believe he had crossed the Narrow Sea to Essos.
"The easiest lies to believe are the ones we tell ourselves." Jon repeated aloud. He bowed his head as he attempted to take all of the implications of this fundamental shift in his world.
His father remained silent. Jon was glad of it. It was hard to accept that he could never truly trust anything he had thought to be true. As he did, a thought passed through his mind that made his eyes narrow and his head inch its way up toward staring at the fire again.
"How can I trust the things you tell me then?" Jon asked.
"How did you trust the things we said when we told you how to save the young girl?" the voice asked him in turn.
"Because…I had no other answers. I was desperate and you showed me a solution." Jon explained. "For all I know, I have sold my soul to a demon and you're simply waiting to collect payment."
"Very good." The voice praised, shifting again into a distinctly bravosi inflection. "We could be. We could be telling you things that will make you question everything you trust in an effort to have you rely on us and our wisdom. But if we did so want that, why would we tell you to question us just when you were beginning to trust our word?"
Jon's mouth opened and closed as he tried to find an answer.
"You cannot know. Only suspect." The voice continued, unperturbed by Jon's silence. "This is why we tell you that you must discover for yourself what is: not simply what is true."
"But as to your original question," It started abruptly. Jon wasn't sure what it was talking about. His original question about what? "Just as you cannot know what each individual wolf or wolf pack is doing within the North, so too is it the same with beings such as we. We are powerful yes. We are aware of much more than humans yes. We have great upper limits on what we are capable of yes. But we are not all powerful, despite what you would like to believe of us. Only more aware and more able to act."
"Then you are not a god?" Jon asked quickly.
"No more than you would consider yourself a god in comparison to a newborn wolf." The voice answered easily.
"Then those people who pray to any gods, what use does it serve them?" Jon returned. He couldn't believe that people believed in something that was fundamentally useless to have faith in.
"It keeps them in view of the gods they offer their prayers to. It allows the ideas of gods they trust some measure of influence upon them. And in return, the gods themselves have their powers strengthened and weakened by the strength and weakness of their followers." The voice answered.
Jon wondered to himself what he had gotten into by agreeing to follow the voice that claimed to be his father. He could feel there was a sincerity and conviction behind its words no matter the strangeness of its voice. But still…it was quite something to wrap his head around a deity telling him he could not trust gods or men. Not even itself.
The fire was dying down at that point in the conversation, lengthening the shadows surrounding Jon's makeshift campsite.
"Rest for the night child. Another day will come. We shall speak to you then." It said quietly.
Jon was not going to object. As he lay down beside the fire and felt it reduce slowly to a small pile of glowing logs and heat, he wondered at what he was doing. And what would become of him now that he had truly put himself at the mercy of this mystical father's voice.
He was awake for a long time.
The pondering had not done him much good. But true to his word, R'hllor had spoken to him whenever he projected a bit of his power into the fire: whether he made the blaze himself or simply encountered it in a torch bracket.
"Am I simply meant to wander the North hoping no one encounters me?" He asked now, in a concerted effort to not wonder whether or not he could trust the answer his sire gave.
"No. You are meant to wander the North while looking to control your powers. And unless we are much mistaken, an opportunity to do so is approaching through the woods now." The voice answered, a smile in its highborn lord's voice.
"What are you talking about?! What opportunity?!" Jon hissed, eyes casting around the trees that suddenly seemed longer in the shadows, every twig snapping and moving branch sounding like a stalking predator.
"Use your eyes child." The voice chastised. "You needn't ask us if you can see for yourself."
With a start, Jon realized that he could use the vision he had learned of during his trials. He wasted no time with self-recrimination, instead choosing to close his eyes and focus the strength of the flames outward, trying to feel the surroundings.
The woods were awash in light blue shadows, every tree outlined vaguely outlined and getting clearer the closer to his fire they came. And among the less distinct trees, moving as quietly as they could perhaps fifty feet away was a group of five men. Their silhouettes were bright orange and yellow against the pale backdrop, making them as obvious as if they had started shouting where they were.
Jon jolted when he remembered that he had left the campfire burning, making it almost child's play for whoever these men were to find him. He hurriedly attempted to exert his power over the campfire to put it out. It snuffed out as suddenly as a candle wick in an errant breeze. Curses began to filter through the woods as the men increased their pace to get to where they had seen him last.
Jon could tell he wasn't going to get far now. R'hllor had told him this was a chance to use his powers. And he had to admit that if these men were bandits, it would certainly prove his father right in thinking that this was a chance for him to test his powers in a way that would benefit the north and the realm. Though he doubted that it would be viewed so generously if he were found.
As Jon scrambled further into the trees, his feet trying to keep from making too much noise; he wondered to himself how his family was doing back at Winterfell.
'I hope they're doing better than this.' He thought ruefully.
Jon stalked closer and closer to his first target as the others came closer to converging on his campsite. This one appeared to be hanging back, trying to see if it could spot him. A lookout or perhaps he was simply more cautious than his fellows.
Jon slowly drew the blade that hung in the scabbard on his right, the dagger whispering as he drew it.
Jon could smell the man from the scant feet to his right. He obviously hadn't bathed in some time. Jon counted a broad axe in his hands, at least two smaller dirk shaped weapons in his belt and a longer rope that if Jon had to hazard a guess was likely a sling. The pouch hanging from the man's left leg appeared to bear out this theory.
As he approached a silently as he could, Jon noted the man apparently had some kind of paint adorning his face and arms, his leathers and furs doing much to conceal his torso, legs and not much else. The boots appeared to be of good make, the kind a merchant might wear for a long journey. Jon's stomach churned a bit as he wondered what unfortunate soul had been volunteered for giving up such a basic clothing piece. And whether or not they had done so willingly.
So engrossed was he in trying to sneak up on the man that he didn't notice the rabbit nearby until he startled it by moving too close, alerting his target someone was here. The painted man whirled in place, trying to track where the rabbit had run from, his gaze only about a foot to Jon's left. Jon held as still as he could, hardly daring to breathe.
"Come out come out wherever you are." The man called softly. "The Grimwell clan doesn't take kindly to no sneaks." He warned, axe raised threateningly as his beady eyes kept darting all over Jon's general direction without appearing to see him.
Jon was trying to keep calm as he racked his brain for any mountain clan named Grimwell. Off the top of his head he couldn't recall Maester Luwin ever discussing one. But then again, if this was a bandit clan, than perhaps they weren't considered a clan so much as a rabble by everyone except themselves.
The painted man started stalking toward Jon's direction, axe raised higher again as he appeared to be searching, ears almost visibly twitching as he tried to see if he could find any sign of what had startled the wildlife.
Jon remained as quiet as he could, crouching low to the ground so that if the man did find him, he might be able to take him by surprise by coming in from too low an angle to guard.
As he tried to steady his hand, the painted man came closer and closer, the others at last reaching his campsite just as its last embers were dying out.
"Tarik!" They called, halting the man's advance as his head swiveled in his companion's direction. "We found the fool's sleep spot! Get over here!" A different voice demanded.
Before Tarik could response, Jon struck. He leapt forward, his right hand bringing the dagger downward into the junction between the man's throat and his shoulders as his left hand attempted to grab the man's mouth.
But Jon had miscalculated.
Instead of hitting that spot between the two, it had landed squarely in the meat of the man's shoulder between the front and back parts of his left collarbone.
Tarik let out a shrill screech even as Jon's left hand hastily grabbed the axe that he was attempting to bring to bear against the unseen assailant Jon had been.
"Tarik?!" They called, all breaking into a run toward Jon even as the now sweating bastard wrenched the dagger through more of the muscle to bring it toward the outer point of the collarbone. The blood spurted briefly onto the ground and almost soaked Jon's hand up to the wrist as his now flailing victim managed to buck him off, dagger still embedded in his shoulder.
The man leapt to his feet, left hand clumsily swinging the two-handed axe down toward where he thought Jon had landed. Panicking, Jon rolled to the right, his right hand instinctively brought up before a gout of flame erupted from his open palm.
If anything, Tarik's screams grew worse. He dropped the axe even as the men with him briefly stopped in horrified awe as his body lit up by Jon's frightened reaction. Tarik flailed worse than ever, his hands attempting to beat the fire off his clothes, his skin, everything. He stumbled into trees as he attempted to get away from the pain that was everywhere on his body.
Jon scrambled backward in an effort to regain his feet as Tarik's four fellows charged even faster. Their weapons were drawn ready and their shouted threats would've curdled milk had Jon happened to have any with him.
Jon grabbed the axe as quickly as he could, the weight and balance of it unfamiliar in his hands. Just as he adjusted his grip so that his left hand gripped the lower part of the longer shaft and the right came closer to the head, they were upon him.
They wasted no time in attacking, the two on his left side slightly faster in thrusting their blades at him. Jon quickly whirled to his left, hands coming to rest togeather near the bottom part of the shaft before he used the momentum to sink it into the back of his closest attacker.
He screamed in agony before collapsing on his front, weapon forgotten from his hand as both appendages scrambled to dig the massive weapon out of his back. Jon Snow however barely registered this as he immediately sprang for the other attacker that had been directly next to him. The dark-haired man swung a hand axe in his right hand which Jon ducked to get close. He hadn't anticipated the bandit bringing a dirk to bear as it stabbed into his side harshly, the sudden pain of it almost forcing Jon to relinquish his left hand's hold on the back of his attacker's head.
Jon slammed his forehead into the man's nose as quickly as he could manage before he lost his grip. With an audible crunch of a breaking nose, the man's left hand attempted to stab Jon in the side again even as he shouted in pain. But this time, the bastard of Winterfell was ready for it. His right hand grabbed the assaulting wrist, focusing the pain in his abdomen to flare fire into life. His assailant's wrist and forearm caught fire where Jon's flesh touched him, his hand forced to drop the dagger with this sudden onset of pain and light and sound.
As his companions directly behind him quickly changed direction, they once again hesitated as they saw their friend's hand aflame. One recovered quickly enough, using this opportunity to thrust his spear at Jon. Jon recognized his footwork even before he had done this however and so moved his entangled assailant into the spear's path.
It was a more solid thrust than Jon was anticipating however.
The spear point managed to penetrate both layers of the dark-haired man's armor as well as his body as it angled upward toward Jon's face. Jon hastily tried to move to the left, his left hand grabbing the dark-haired man's hand axe from his loosened grip as the point harshly grazed his right shoulder.
Jon's right hand pushed the dark-haired body further down the spear toward the wielder even as the inadvertent victim gurgled in surprise. His shocked comrade turned backstabber barely saw Jon swing and bury the axe in his exposed neck. Jon moved back toward where the dirk had fallen as the final member of this band let out an angry cry as he thrust the point at where Jon had been, the fires still burning bright on Tarik and the dark-haired man's bodies.
This final man was a scraggly blonde, with green eyes that seemed dull in the firelight. Jon could see how crooked and grey his teeth looked in the fires of death he had conjured as he thrust the sword at Jon again, this time barely missing his chest.
As Jon's hand alighted on the dirk handle, the blonde man snarled at him: "I'll wear your guts for garters before I kill you ya little shit!"
As the man brought the sword up for an overhead swing, Jon used his arms to push himself forward as hard as he could, sliding on the forest ground. He managed to slide between the blonde's legs. Before the man could react, Jon hastily cut the back of his right knee. Then spun into a crouching position while the dagger flashed into the back of the man's left knee.
Now acting entirely on instincts he wasn't aware he had, Jon stood himself up even as the blonde's legs gave out. As he rose his hands took the handle of the sword that was falling backwards while the man lost his balance. He quickly ripped it out of the now slackening grip before bringing it in a quick half circle that saw the point stabbing through the blonde man's back and out the front of his chest in a messy spray of viscera and a sickening squelching noise.
The man's eyes widened in shock even as he looked down at his own blade sticking out of the front of his chest. He tried to draw several futile breaths before his heart stopped beating and his head slackened while trails of blood emerged from the corners of his mouth.
Jon let go of the sword, allowing the cooling body to fall to the ground. All that remained for a moment was the sounds of the moving forest and the continued cries of the last survivor, his efforts at digging the axe out abandoned in favor of dragging himself away from the opponent who had just slaughtered all of his fellows.
Jon heard his father's voice emerged from the lowering fires of Tarik's corpse.
"Now child! Speak to the survivor. Find what is in all this."
"What?" Jon asked numbly, his spoken question to seemingly nothing ignored by the terrified Grimwell bandit who still dragged himself away even as the axe weighed heavily upon his back and his useless legs left a bloody trail in the soil.
"Unless you want their deaths to have been for nothing, you must question this survivor. Gain the information you need to illuminate the darkness of your own ignorance."
Jon stepped slowly toward the crawling man in a trace. He would lose himself later, when there was time and he was alone with only himself for company. With a wrench, he pulled the axe out of the crawling man's back.
Even as a howl erupted from the man's lips, Jon had turned him over on his back.
"Tell me what I want to know and I promise you a swift death." Jon whispered in a daze, unable to look the hoarsely panting man in the eyes.
"Wh-What do you want?!" He asked, voice scratching from his cries of pain and agony.
"Tell me about the Grimwell Clan. Who are they, where are they and why did they send you here?" Jon asked.
"T-They're marauders!" The man groaned out in agony. "Th-They stay up by the-" He hissed sharply as the pain in his back flared unexpectedly. "The Last Lake!"
"Why did they send you?" Jon asked again, grey eyes only looking at the man out of his peripheral vision.
"T-To find a w-weakness in Hornwood." He answered, breaths coming in shallower gasps.
Unable to bear watching him suffer any longer, Jon stood and picked up the axe.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry." He whispered as he looked the man in the eyes one last time. The axe flashed and in a thrice the head was separated from the body. As the blood painted the ground crimson and the inner heat faded from the headless body, Jon remembered when Lord Eddard had brought him and Robb to execute a man who was guilty of selling to slavers. He had tried to look away, but somehow their father had known and had him look so he could understand what it meant to take a man's life.
Jon quickly dropped the axe before stumbling over to a nearby tree and immediately emptying his stomach onto the forest floor.
His father spoke to him again.
"It is time to use your healing young spark."
"Not now." Jon heaved dryly. He still felt sick as to what had happened.
"Where there is death, there is always a chance for life. Burn the bodies so that the scavengers may eat and you may heal." His father instructed, sounding a gruff tradesman in his tone. Jon was briefly reminded of Mikkan.
As Jon knelt before the fire on the dark-haired man's wrist, he couldn't help but wonder how it had come to this. He drew the energy from the fire and used his open palm to spray a small cone of fire at each corpse to light them up.
As he drew the heat and fire inward, he felt it knit his skin and his bones back to the way they were, the blood drying even as his cuts and wounds closed and sealed over.
Slumping against a tree as the first dead fires burned bright while the others faded out, Jon wondered to himself what he would become by doing this.
For the first time since beginning this journey, Jon was afraid of what answers the future might hold for him.