Jon had been walking for such a long time now. His empty eye sockets were still throbbing, his body was so far past the brink of exhaustion that it was practically numb and his spirit was feeling worn from constantly maintaining the flames that engulfed both of his hands and reigniting them when they occasionally sputtered out. But still he continued following the path. Telling himself with each step forward that with this last test it would be over.
'One way or another.' His subconscious chimed in. Jon couldn't deny the truth of the statement. Though he didn't like to think about the implications of failure.
Still, at least he still had only this one test remaining. Even if he had to wonder how he was going to function with only his sense of fires and his ears to guide him through the real world.
Without warning, the path ended. Jon's improved hearing could hear something forming. Even with his newfound sense of heat and flame, he could barely make out what it was. He flared the fires in his hands to create both a brighter source of heat and a hot breeze that might tell him what the area around him was becoming. As far as his functional senses could tell, it was a long grand hall with columns that lined him on either side. But there was always something just beyond the range of his fires that was moving.
He did not feel clothes form themselves on his body as it had the previous two tests. The lack of any protection and the knowledge of the dark presence put his nerves on edge. Whatever the thing was, it always managed to keep just beyond the reach of his mundane and extra senses. It acted as though it knew he was looking for it. Jon moved behind the closest column on his right, holding his flickering palms to the surface. As the column heated up on his bare back, he heard the thing shifting all around him.
It sounded like nothing either animal or human. It was more of a dark mass that radiated malice and sounded akin to some cordlike material being dragged across the floor. Jon decided he had to flare his hands again to keep it away.
As he did, there was a sharp crack followed by a stinging stripe of pain across his chest. He cried out as a strange series of someone else's memories flashed across his mind's eye.
A small urchin shown no kindness by the passing knights and lordlings. As rain fell on his head and his stomach gnawed at him, he hates these pompous cunts who sleep in their houses of stone and iron that looked down upon people like him and didn't give a flying rat's arse cheek about them unless it affected their lordship's comfortable lifestyle.
Jon's left knee hit the stone floor as he held his burning hands to his head in an effort to soothe the pain in his empty sockets and his mind from the foreign images. There was a shift in the darkness. He tried to roll to the side, but it still managed to graze his shoulder.
A highborn young woman raucously stripped and manhandled on what was meant to be the most wonderful night of her life. As she was shoved unceremoniously into the room by the rowdy crowd, she nervously places herself on the bed to await the man she has been arranged to marry. When her husband arrives he is drunk, though unfortunately still able to perform the act. He pushes in without a care as she stifles her cries of pain and discomfort. As he falls asleep atop her, his breath smelling of wine while her loins and her pride ache, she hates this society that treats her as a piece of meat to be bought at the highest price only so long as she's fresh enough.
His brain was starting to pound and the whispers were getting stronger. They spoke of death. Of fairness. Of justice. Of vengeance. All of these things and more they spoke. Jon managed to slide away as the next whip strike impacted the tile he'd just been, the stone floor audibly cracking in response to the force behind it.
He tried desperately to get a sense as to what these things could be a part of and how they moved. But before he could even begin to figure it out, another sharp crack echoed as another strike landed on the broken ribs on his left side.
A bannerman who dared speak his mind. He watches as the banner that had once belonged to a kind well-meaning lord pass to the power-hungry war-mongering hands of his ego-obsessed whelp. He sees the soldiers who slaughter his family without question or humanity. And as he dies, he hates that there is no justice to be had that is not found at the point of a sword. And more often than not, the greatest monsters are also the ones who possess the least hesitation in wielding a blade.
Jon felt his temper rise to the surface. What is the point in showing him these images, these things he can do nothing about? To show him that the world is not inherently just? He had known that from the moment he learned what the word bastard meant.
This time, he heard it before it came. He leaned his body so that it is partway coiled around the column. The sting of the impact cracked where his chest would've been as the displaced air blew mightily in his face. He flared the fire in his right hand at the thing, trying to light it up. All that resulted was an angry shriek from inside the shadows as it cracked yet another whip like appendage across his open palm, cutting him almost to the bone.
A sellsword hired to supplement some highborn prick's limited forces. As he wanders the bloody carnage that is always the aftermath when the highborn take their games of intrigue too far yet again and knows he will be derogatively looked down upon by the so called knights and lords without whom this death and destruction would not exist, he hates that being an honest vulture is considered less honorable than a braying ass who drapes themselves in finery and then call themselves a noble stallion.
Jon tried to scramble out of the way of the next strike as he cradled his right hand to his chest, relying almost entirely on his ears now since the darkness had proven all but impenetrable to his fire. The whip cracked across his back, opening the skin from left shoulder to right hip. The shock of the sudden strike causes him to fall forward, his left hand only just managing to catch him before his face kissed the floor.
A bastard son of a noble lord. As he hears almost every person of his noble father's household in and out of his hearing remark at one time or another how lucky he is that his father took him in at all, he hates the trueborn family that always looks to him as an outsider. He hates the household that calls him unnatural because of his father's weakness. He hates that he has no other family that he can turn to so that he may leave these wolves who would leave him to die alone in the cold without hesitation were it not for his highborn sire's half-measure shows of favor and affection.
Jon cannot deny he has felt that hatred before. That he has felt so strongly against Robb, against Lady Catelyn, against even his father Lord Eddard Stark. As he admits that, the darkness encroaches further. But he also feels the fires of his hands become drawn to the darkness around him, showing him a way of repulsing them at last.
As Jon let go of the emotional restraints he had placed upon himself, the fire in his hands flared again. Without his eyes, he couldn't see that it had changed color to suit the fuel that fed it: dark and grey. The color of smoke and ash, the utter blackness of the central flames around his palms made it seem as though they are shrouded in the surrounding shadows.
As another extension of the darkness cracked toward him, he abruptly pivoted his body sideways so that the whip would hit the ground instead. Before it could retreat again, he brought his left foot down on the tip of it. His right hand rises toward the source his sense of the shadow had discerned before he let a blast of his darkfire loose.
A poor man turned brigand. As he and his men are caught poaching simply to feed their families, they are sentenced to execution. As he awaits his turn with the headsman, he discovers a newfound hatred for these high-born cockholes that don't give a damn who starves so long as they get what they want. As the blade cleaves his head from his neck, he curses their name and the day they believed themselves so much better than all the rest simply by virtue of their being born into the world.
He felt a visceral satisfaction at the squealing he heard from the thing and heard it scuttle backward in a clear retreat even as the tentacle beneath his foot dissolved into nothing. Jon let loose another blast even as it scampered, allowing his own rage and hatred to dictate his power. He heard them strike again and again. Just as he heard that thing squeal in pain and fright each time. As he exorcises the memories of hatred, apathy and anger, Jon feels the flames grow stronger and stronger: their fuel source continually renewed through his reliving the memories and dredging up the feelings.
And then the whips returned.
They were much faster now while still almost impossible to predict, but Jon dug deep within himself to find those resentfully destructive thoughts that he'd kept firmly in check ever since he'd come to the conclusion that Winterfell as a whole would just as soon pretend he didn't exist. He continued hurting and injuring it with each movement and blast, his pride and his ever-growing wrath forcing him to keep up the onslaught regardless of the cost.
Yet for all the times he struck at the shadows the whiplike extensions would strike him in turn, cutting deeply enough to draw blood and expose muscle and bone. And each vision it presented would serve only to feed his flames and thus feed the whips in turn.
A young slave who enters the grave having never known freedom. A grieving parent whose children are struck down by illness and war one by one until only they are left. A maester who serves the assassins of his lord because of his order's oath of neutrality. All of these and more flash as the whips crack across his skin, beating down his will to continue on even as he tries to rally himself.
Jon screamed in impotent fury as he unleashed his accumulated rage and darkfire in one humongous blast radiating outward from his body. It succeeded in driving back the beast. But at the cost of destroying and weakening the columns lining the place that were nearby him. He fell to his hands and knees, his breathing coming in heavy pants as he felt his energy desert him.
Jon thought he would feel triumphant at driving the darkness away. Instead, he felt emotionally empty. He had relieved so many of the worst thoughts he had ever had cross his mind. Forced himself to experience numerous others in the process. And for what? All too soon, he knows the answer. For nothing. And so he begins to despair. For the creature is returned. And his newfound sense of the shadows tells him truthfully that it is stronger than ever.
The voices are all perfectly clear now; their combined contradicting noises a cacophony that could only be imagined in the rankest pits of the seven hells. A figure stepped out of the darkness, the countless extensions writhing off it like sentient tendrils of death. As it approached, Jon heard its voice.
He supposed it was meant to sound like Lady Catelyn. But yet, it clearly wasn't Lady Catelyn. Where Lady Stark's voice could be gentle or harsh as needed, it was always fairly pleasant to listen to. This sounded as though a serpent had taken control of Lady Stark's tongue and made no secret of what a forked tongue it had.
"So, have you at last learned the truth of yourself now bastard?" It hissed angrily, right hand roughly grabbing his chin.
Before he could respond, two more tendrils wrapped around his prone arms before pulling them in each direction. They pulled until it felt like they would rip them from their sockets. When his arms were at their limit, the tendrils grew spikes that stabbed directly into them from every angle the tendrils touched his skin.
Jon was too tired to scream anymore. He could sense the shadows creeping further and further into his blood, corrupting him. Too late, he realized what had happened. By giving into his worst impulses, he had made it easier for this thing to take control of him. And now, he was going to become something else. Something twisted. Something angry. Something born of darkness. The poisonous shadows continued to creep through his veins, causing the previously coherent memories and visions to become garbled and chaotic, overwhelming his already taxed mind.
"Hush little baby." She cooed in a sick parody of the soothing tone Lady Catelyn had used to calm her trueborn children when they had been babes. "Soon enough it will all be over. Embrace the shadows of your fire, and never again will you be alone."
It was a tempting thought. Jon could feel his arms growing numb as the poison spread to the rest of his body. Coming all this way, only to fail because he wouldn't let go of his own hatred…
'Arya will never forgive me.' He reflected, his sense of fire watching with a profound sadness as it began to encroach on his heart. As he thought of his little sister however, the fire in his heart flared for a moment, driving back the shadows a few inches.
Hope flared inside him, causing the fire's strength to grow. Despite the visions and the shouting that echoed from every part of the shadows, he concentrated as hard as he could on his memories of Arya. How she had sought him out for games she could play. How she would smile for him when he warned her not to tell Sansa about another of their secret adventures around Winterfell.
"What do you think you're doing?! Stop it!" The shadowy Catelyn shouted, her grip on his jaw tightening. He ignored her as he thought of his other siblings as well.
He thought of Bran. Of his boundless curiosity. Of his natural inclination to explore. Of his laughter when he joined him and Arya in finding entertainment for themselves in Winterfell.
He thought of Robb. Of his willingness to embrace him as a brother despite his low birth status. Of his vocally desiring that Jon be treated as one of the family whenever Lady Catelyn acted too overtly toward him. Of his ability to express so much with a simple hand on the shoulder.
He thought of Sansa. Of her unwillingness to disrespect him despite his bastard status. Of her speaking to him of the minds of women and girls without judgment nor lies when he asked her advice. Of her inherently gentle nature that lent her a certain delicacy in every movement.
With each memory of laughter, of happiness, of love, his flames grew stronger. The tendrils and the shadows sought to escape the newfound bright blue fires. Before the whiplike things could leave his arms, he grabbed them with his hands held them fast as he embraced the creature that was pretending to be Lady Catelyn.
He willed the flames to spread their joy in the darkness that so desperately needed illumination. Without question they began to consume everything that surrounded them. Pillar and shadow and creature alike. The Lady Catelyn struggled in his arms as the fires of his happy memories spread to her body.
"No, no! Your shadows are strong! Why have you rejected them?! They will follow you no matter where you go!" She shouted desperately, her hands attempting to reach past his bear hold on her to strangle him in a last ditch effort at preventing the inevitable.
He did not respond to her. The warmth of the love his siblings had shown him was enough to drive away the darkness and the despair for now. However, he knew she was right. So long as there was a fire to illuminate the darkness, the shadows would always return.
The trick was not to seek the emptiness of the places without light, so as to avoid being burned. But to instead seek the horizon for the coming of a new dawn that drove away that starless night. He internally acknowledged that so long as he could feel passion, he would always be capable of holding hatred and rage in his heart. But that did not mean he had to define himself by it.
The creature let out one last hideous screech before the fires returned to Jon, burning him away from all of this. It was a soothing burn: like the last of the deadwood being consumed so that the forest would not choke itself on its own accumulated debris. Instead leaving it free to create new life and see new growth.
As the creature disappeared from his arms, another body replaced it. It was an adult female, at least half a head taller than he was. As her arms encircled him, he felt as if he were a small child coming home to a mother's embrace after a very long day.
His eyelids opened fitfully as he slowly registered that his body was now whole and unmarred. He gasped in astonishment as he pulled away slightly from the mystery woman only to look into a face that was unmistakably Stark in its solemn longness, dark hair and distinct grey eyes.
His first thought was that the imitation Lady Catelyn had been replaced by a grown version of Arya. He had always imagined the little sister Sansa's friends snidely called Horseface would one day grow to be more beautiful than them all. His thought immediately following was that he was glad to have been proven right.
His eyes raked up and down her form. She was dressed in a simple combination of leather riding pants and woolen jerkin, her dainty feet bare. Her dark hair came down to the middle of her shoulder blades in waves that emphasized the roundness of her face and the structure of her graceful arms. Jon gulped in his mind. She was by far one of the most attractive woman he had ever seen. His mind told him that this couldn't be Arya, only a Stark woman who looked like her. But if she was of obvious Stark blood, the only other female Stark who had been close to Lady Catelyn's age would've been Lord Eddard's sister Lyanna. The Stark that Arya had been whispered to resemble before.
Her eyes drank him in, a happiness in her eyes that made her seem to radiate an inner light that he couldn't resist smiling in the face of. She embraced him again, pressing his face into her chest as her right hand rested on his back and her left hand soothingly stroked his hair.
"I could never stop looking at you my baby boy." She whispered, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head.
Even as his arms had once again embraced this woman, he pulled back abruptly to really look at her. His eyes felt comically wide, yet he couldn't bring himself to care about that. If she had called him son, then that meant…
"Mother?" He whispered, not caring if he sounded a young child again.
Tears sprang to the corners of her eyes as she nodded. "Yes little Jon." She answered.
He threw himself into her arms again, not resisting his urge to cry into her tunic. Years of wondering, of hoping, of dreaming. Even if this was not real, even if she was dead, he didn't care. He felt he was justified in being selfish and wanting this to himself even if it meant he had lost Lord Eddard as his father and his siblings as his brothers and sisters.
Jon didn't know nor care how long they had stood there: Mother and Son simply holding each other in this in-between place as they had never been allowed in life. Eventually they drew apart with extreme reluctance.
"I suppose you have questions?" She asked him, left hand wiping at her watery eyes just like Arya would when she didn't want anyone to know she had been crying.
"You suppose rightly." Jon answered, not bothering to hide his own shining eyes.
"Where should I start?" She asked, sitting on the ground that had become the clearing in the Godswood at Winterfell. She patted the ground beside her in invitation.
"The beginning would be good." Jon answered, taking her up on her offer without hesitation. As he sat down on her left side, her arm rested across the back of his shoulders. He could feel her smile into his hair as she kissed his head again while he leaned into her solid warmth. "If you're my mother, than Lord Stark is not my father?"
"No Little Jon. The Stark family has never been one to practice Targaryen traditions." She said. "Your father is the one who brought you here."
"The voice in the flames?" He asked, honestly surprised and unsure how to feel about the revelation. He had thought perhaps it was an unknown power that had taken an interest in him for some purpose or other, but to think that it was his father. It changed everything about what had just happened to Jon yet at the same time changed nothing about it at all. Because unless he could talk to this hitherto unknown sire himself, he couldn't even begin to ponder all the possible reasons and justifications behind all of this.
"That is often the stand-in description mortals use until they can decide what they wish to call us." A male voice answered from in front of him, a distinctly mischievous tone to his words.
Jon jolted where he sat, eyes locking on the figure who hadn't been there a moment before when he and his mother had settled under this imaginary Godswood. He instinctively tried to move in front of his mother but her arm held him fast to her side even as she chuckled to herself at his attempt to protect her while the man gave an appraising look paired with an enigmatic smile.
"Well met young spark." The man said. Jon could hear the faint whispers of other voices underlying his words, the conflicting undertones and the odd contrast they made to any given voice by now a very familiar sound to his ears.
Jon's eyes focused intensely on the man once this mystical figure inadvertently confirmed his identity to him, Lyanna Stark's proclamation that this person was his father acting to increase his interest. Jon had always known he was a Stark even if he was a bastard. Now that he knew it was mainly his mother he took after, he couldn't help but be curious as to what he might've gained from his sire.
As he came closer, Jon saw that his father was tall: likely a small amount taller than Lord Stark at just a bit over six feet. His hair was a dark grey that reminded Jon of the ash that gathered by the cooling embers in guttered fireplaces before the household servants had managed to light a new one. His skin was bronzed and weathered, with some visible scars on his fingers and forearms as though he worked with his hands for a living. His tunic and his pants were darker in color, with reddish undercurrents that highlighted the tone of his muscles and simultaneously made him seem both garish and dangerous. Much as the most colorful creature is often the most whimsical or the most deadly, as Maester Luwin would say.
His eyes however distinctly gave him away as being inhuman. They were almost reptilian in appearance: narrower than most men with amber where most humans had white and pitch black pupils that possessed the beginnings of slits at the top and bottom with only a small rounding in the center instead of just circles inside of a darkish brown iris that was closer in color to the pupils than anything else Jon had ever remembered seeing from another person.
Jon couldn't help the thought that crossed his mind at that moment.
'He looks like a dragon trying to play dress up as a human without any idea how much he shows through.'
As his father came closer to the Godswood, he knelt in a gesture of respect and to be at around level with his own and his mother's heads.
"The young pups are kind indeed to allow you the use of their image for this meeting dear one." He murmured dryly as his right hand reached out to touch the ground, fingers splayed to seemingly get a feel for the grass.
"Only for a short time my Wicker Man." She laughed in acknowledgement.
Jon looked at his mother akenstance, unsure of how to inquire about the nickname for what was apparently a supernatural entity powerful enough to sire children with a human woman. Or if he honestly wanted to know.
"When we hinted at our shell's abilities to your mother, she thought it made us be as though we were made of candle wicks to become enflamed so easily." His father explained while smiling, having clearly caught the confusion in Jon's expression. He turned his head to look directly in his mother's eyes. "Though we have always so enjoyed it when you use our mortal name."
"By your leave R'hllor." She nodded, kissing Jon's forehead again. Jon was still unsure how to deal with the being in front of him, especially since the name she just used for him felt familiar for some reason. His mother didn't seem concerned however, her arms still firmly attached to Jon's shoulder as though if she had her way, they'd be here for as long as she could have them.
Rather like Arya the few times she had actually wanted to just be held and be still with him, Jon absentmindedly reflected. His little sister really was a lot more like her aunt than he had known.
"Lord…R'hllor?" Jon stated tentatively, feeling unsure about confronting this being of obvious power and unknown intentions about the tests he had recently endured. He knew he must, if only so he could know their context and so see what his father thought of him. But it didn't lessen his trepidation any.
"Yes young spark?" The man asked, now sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of them, his smile unfazed as his eyes alighted on Jon as though he too was taking in his child's appearance for the first time.
"Why did I have to undergo those tests?" He asked outright. Jon knew there was probably a better way to ask that question. But he couldn't think of it here and so would just have to be forthright and hope that if his father was not the same with him, that his mother at least would be able to shed a bit more light on his motivations and thoughts.
His mother. His father. Though he had only just discovered the truth of who they were, Jon felt he could never be tired of that feeling that came from knowing. From being sure enough to call them his own even if it meant that he could no longer call himself brother to Robb, Sansa, Bran, Arya or Rickon.
"Your power has been awake for some time now young spark," R'hllor began explaining. "But in the House of Stars, you did not have the control or the understanding to do what was necessary without destroying yourself. So we did what any concerned parent would do. We showed you the way. And then set you the task of discovering how to do so for yourself."
"But how-" Jon started, only to have his father interrupt him.
"To fully awaken and then direct the power of the flames child, one must understand every aspect of them. Good and ill alike. Else their wielder shall only ever hold incomplete knowledge of their workings. And that young spark, can be even more dangerous than ignorance alone." R'hllor softly told him.
"We have seen it far too often where some foolish tender of the light thinks only of the danger or only of the benefit and so does not use it to full effect. Great and ignoble similarly." His father continued. "Did you not find it so when you called the fire to your hand?"
Jon recalled how he had warmed his hand by only thinking of the positive sides of fires. How it was only once he remembered the pain and the danger and had as complete a picture of the flames as he could that he could call it to his hand.
"Yes." Jon answered simply, waiting to see where his father was leading.
"And did the tests grant you a greater understanding of yourself?" R'hllor continued as Lyanna continued holding him at her side.
"Yes." Jon answered again, thinking to his imagined Robb, his animal instincts and his twisted reflection of Lady Catelyn.
Confronting Robb had allowed him to acknowledge his mixed feelings on being denied a place in the line of responsibility for the North simply because of his birth. It would take him some time to truly accept the idea the fight had planted in his head, but it was worth exploring what else he could be outside the confines of Winterfell.
Being pushed to the brink of death by his most basic instincts had forced him to understand that while an enemy could be destroyed with such force if he simply gave into that desire to dominate and to annihilate them, it was the ability to direct and focus that kind of ferocity that made it into a truly formidable weapon in any arsenal.
And his use of multiple types of fire against the accumulation of most everything negative he had known to be in the world had allowed him not only to vent his own demons against it, but shown him that his love and compassion could always overpower that darkness if he was willing to endure the hardship it took to reach it.
He shivered a bit as he recalled the phantom whips that had stripped him crimson only a short time ago.
Lyanna kissed the top of his head again in a gesture of motherly reassurance.
"Good." R'hllor stated with obvious approval. "Now you are ready to begin your lifelong journey."
"My what?!" A startled Jon exclaimed.
"For all your life, you will need to constantly work at improving your control over your powers. Do you imagine you will be satisfied with keeping them a secret, only using them to occasionally cook your meat or light a hearth?" R'hllor asked, eyes twinkling in amusement.
Jon had to admit that he did not see himself not using these powers, if only because of the potential they represented as a whole.
"So what then has to happen?" Jon asked, looking from his mother to his father and back again.
"As of now, you are not ready to wield them openly." His father said bluntly. "You have made progress young spark, but you are not where you must be if you are to defend yourself from the ills of the closed world."
"Where are you known Lord R'hllor?" Jon asked, thinking he might be able to learn more of his abilities and the beliefs of those who knew of his father.
"Your father is worshiped mostly across the Narrow Sea Little Jon." His mother told him. "But unless you intend to leave everything in Westeros behind, I would not suggest it."
"What, why?" Jon asked. "Would I not be able to return?" He didn't understand. Surely it was not so unusual for a bastard to seek to make his fortune outside of the Seven Kingdoms. Why then was it such a bad idea for him to do so under similar pretext?
"Because of our descendants that live across the water in the lands of shadowed sun." R'hllor answered.
"What your father means is that the last Targaryans are across the Narrow Sea as well." Lyanna interjected, rolling her eyes at Jon's father. "If you go across the sea: it will be assumed that Ned sent you for his reasons regarding them, not that you are going for your own."
"Well, then do I go south?" Jon asked. "If you said mostly across the Narrow Sea. Does that mean I could go there to find places of worship for him and learn there?"
"If you would be unsafe seeking our origin across the sea far away from your enemies, what makes you think you will be safer placing yourself upon their plate and offering yourself for the meal?" R'hllor asked dryly.
"Well, all that leaves is the Wall or the North." Jon answered him. "Somehow I don't think the Night's Watch will be too happy to let me go to the North to train powers I barely understand myself. And I imagine the wildlings will be even less sympathetic than that."
"Which means you must stay here in the North." Lyanna said. "But you must strike out on your own. Learn to use your powers outside of Winterfell where you can be easily found and where the other Houses could learn of you if you make one mistaken flare."
"While your mother does not wish her child to sever his ties to his remaining family guiding her decision, she is right to suggest this. But you must not allow your mortal family to know of your plans." R'hllor stipulated, his voice changing from youthful to rough and gritty within the time it took him to speak the sentence.
His mother was visibly unhappy about that.
"Do you imagine Ned would put Jon in danger R'hllor? He has tried to keep him safe all these years even thinking that he's a Blackfyre!"
"And yet your brother cannot force others to adhere to his honor dear one." R'hllor responded, his expression barely changing from the thin smile it had slid into during the discussion of what Jon was to do now. "If the young spark is to become a young blaze, he must learn to seek his own fuel."
"Outside of Winterfell, he's in danger! The hill clans, the other houses of the North, the bandits, the smallfolk, the animals! He has some training but he is still a boy of fourteen!" She objected, her left hand reflexively gripping Jon's shoulder.
"That will not matter to his enemies." Was all his father had to say.
"I'll do it." Jon resolved quietly, startling both of them with a small jolt. His mother started to say something, but he quickly cut her off before he could lose his nerve to say this.
"I…I think this is for the best mother." Jon said, his insides twisting a bit at the thought of leaving Winterfell like this, but his memory of his duel with Robb telling him that sort of feeling was the kind he should be trying to overcome. "I need to find who I am outside of Winterfell's safety. Unless I go to the far North beyond the wall, this is the best way to do it."
As she looked from her son to her child's father, Jon could see the wheels turning in her head, could almost feel her disagreement with his decision. But he also saw conflict in her eyes, as well as pain. He imagined the conflict was feeling that Jon was siding with the father who had placed him in these tests instead of her, but what pain could she feel at disagreeing with him?
"She wanted you young spark." R'hllor quietly spoke, causing Jon to look at him with narrowed eyes at this apparent non-sequitur. "Your mother loved you even before you were born. She has been in this place inside of us for so long, hoping against hope that she would be able to see you. To speak to you. And now that she can again, she finds you talking of leaving the safety of her brother's keep to venture into the unknown."
Jon pondered that thought, asking absently: "How would you know this?"
R'hllor's smile turned brittle in the blink of an eye.
"We are not the first nor the last. We are but the next in a line that stretches endlessly from the original abyss heading towards the final horizon with naught but the comfort of the voices of those who have been for comfort."
The god paused.
"We are called the Many Faced God for a reason child."
The three present were silent as the branches above them whispered for a moment in a non-existent breeze. The shadows lengthened as they sat there.
"Your time of allowance here is coming to an end young spark." R'hllor said, slowly standing even as he bowed his head toward the Godswood.
Jon and his mother began to reluctantly stand as well.
"If ever you should seek our voice, hold the heat of your soul forth to the fires and speak." He advised before turning and walking away. As he left, Jon thought he saw a faint outline of a tattered belt flow behind him much like the dragging tail of a lizard.
"Tell your uncle to let Arya learn a bit of horsemanship, see if she takes after me in more than just looks." She joked, face brightening for a moment before her expression grew serious again.
"And please remember this Little Jon." His mother said as the shadows grew longer and a wind started to pick up. She kissed his brow one more time as her eyes grew misty at their imminent parting. "No matter what the world may bring: You are my precious son. And I will always love you."
"I love you too Mother." He said, his face muffled in her jerkin as he tried to hold onto this feeling of holding her. Of being with her as he would never be allowed in waking life.
"Time to go back." She said, giving his shoulders a gentle shove as the ground beneath him faded away. The last thing he saw before he fell through darkness was her watery smile.
He fell for a long time.
As he felt was about to reach some kind of bottom, he jerked awake with a sharp gasp. He immediately noted the wrappings that covered his eyes. Yet he found that if he concentrated, he could look over to see a small human form emitting heat from its curled form taking up a chair by his bedside like a dozing kitten.
He sniffed the air, detecting a faint scent of Winterfell's grounds mixed with some faint hints of more flowery scents he had come to associate with Sansa. Yet the form was too small to be her, leaving only one option for who it could be. He reached out with his right hand to ruffle the sleeping head of what he believed was Arya. As he moved his palm rapidly around in her bedraggled hair, she swiped at his hand with sloppy half-asleep movements.
"Quit it Jon." She mumbled.
"As you wish little sister." He answered, a grin forming on his face as her voice gave her away. It was so good to be back in this world thought as he mentally counted to see how much time it would take. He didn't have long to wait.
He heard her head shoot up and saw though the shifting of her body's outline as it swiveled to lock onto him.
"Jon?" She whispered, her tone plainly telling that she couldn't decide whether she was still dreaming or not.
He opened his arms. Even with bracing his back, she managed to knock him flat down to the bed as she shot into his arms faster than a crossbow bolt. Her arms were squeezing him so tight that he knew if his ribs had been in any way injured, she would've broken them all over again with her steel grip.
She hugged the breath out of him for a few minutes before letting go and having her fists begin impacting his chest. As his hands caught her wrists after a few clumsy misses, he tried to have her look at him so she could say what she meant to say.
Her face turned upward to face him as her body heat joined with his own even through the covers. When she spoke, her voice was blazing with a multitude of unnamable emotions.
"Don't you ever ever ever scare me like that again." She commanded as she gently lay her head on his chest over his beating heart.
"I will do what I can." He answered honestly, drawing her into a soft embrace once more. She curled up against him as she had when she had still been a babe, plainly happy to have him back again.
The door opened to reveal a distinctly male and female form. The male one uttered a soft oath of: "By the gods!" in Maester Luwin's voice while the poultices and bandages slipped from what he assumed by extension to be Lady Catelyn's suddenly nerveless fingers.
"I think someone should fetch Lord Stark. I have much to discuss with him." Jon remarked.
Author's Note: So comes an end to Jon's initial trials! My thanks to all seven Guests who were kind enough to leave a review as well as Caelleh, Quindecim, falseproffitt, Charybde, thesnakesofthesouth, Legend 3881, and BicolourRaptor. You guys being good enough to leave feedback has really given me the push to keep going with this story and to keep the quality as high as I can. I sincerely hope this chapter doesn't disappoint; be sure to let me know what you all think! :)