Daorun Dreje. Tolvie lir Gaomagon.
Only now did Jon think he could begin to claim some sort of an understanding as to what his half-brother had said upon that accursed ship of iron and smoke even if what he meant was a beast of a different color. It was an expression of everything his father had been telling him about men and gods alike. A power in freedom: the likes of which placed a heavy burden upon he who carried it alone. One he would have to be cautious about exercising if he wanted to prove his worthiness for the responsibilities he'd been made abruptly aware of.
As the salt wind brushed his face gently as a lover's caress, Jon couldn't help but remember the encounter with his father that had come after he lost himself to the bliss of unconsciousness.
He'd only barely been aware of the feeling like he was floating after closing his eyes. He didn't know where it was nor did he know what it was. He only knew that it was both irritating and soothing. Like liquid sand, as contradictory as that sounded. And then he had felt his father's warmth again. The burning. The heat. The feeling of all the grime and uncleanness of his physical body being gently worn off of his spirit by the flames so that he was his own essence in this place. As he opened his eyes, he couldn't help but look around where he was.
Jon found himself at the edge of some kind of enormous pool. The water lapped just beneath the lip of the pool's marble edge, the depth increasing the further in one went. The pool looked to be the center of a bathhouse of some kind: intricate carvings with languages and pictorials long gone yet oddly beautiful adorning most of the space upon the walls. There were pillars spaced evenly along the corners of the room and the corners of the giant pool. And leaning back in the water, only the upper chest and head above the water, was a woman.
Her skin was the color of dark oaken wood, the sort that he'd remembered being used as the shafts of the spears and pikes in Winterfell's courtyard. Her hair however was a dark blonde: a sandy color that seemed to draw some lighter shades of minor brown from her skin. Her eyes were closed and her long hair was fanned out in the gently undulating water, making it difficult for Jon to estimate just how much of it there was. Steam wafted from the water's surface as though the bottom of the pool were being heated by burning coals. The humid air was both oppressive but somehow liberating as Jon felt moisture beginning to bead on his pale skin.
As though in a trance, he stepped one foot in the water. An involuntary hiss that was more shock from the sudden temperature change than pain was drawn from his lips as the nearly scalding water eagerly swallowed his appendage. The heat and the soft embrace of the water would've been practically cooking him had he still been in his physical body he knew. But he couldn't help stepping another foot in the water, looking down at his feet as his toes flexed slowly as though looking to circulate the liquid warmth everywhere and anywhere.
"Enjoying yourself young spark?" Came the woman's voice in a tone that was at once amused and affectionate. A warmth infused in its words that was as gentle as the steam upon the water, the underlying whispers and echoes that lay just beneath the surface signifying that his sire had chosen to appear before him in a woman's body this time. Jon would've said something about this, but mostly he was too focused on walking further into the water until it had submerged him up to his chest. He hadn't wanted to think about what had just happened to him. About the Doom of Valyria. About what the Doom could've meant about the Other. About anything. But that effort was rendered moot as soon as he looked down at his reflection in the water and saw that his eyes were Stark grey where they'd once been white and only the black slit of a dragon's pupil where before it had been an ordinary circle. He couldn't ignore that any more than he could ignore the small patches of scales making themselves known in the corners of his eyes and on the curve of his shoulders or the talons his hands now possessed instead of claws.
"Not in the least." He answered, closing his eyes so that he could pretend for another moment that this place hadn't revealed what he was to his unwilling gaze.
"We expected not." She said, the water sloshing as he heard her stand up in the pool. He heard the water shift as she came closer to him.
"What did Cularis tell you?" She asked in a resigned tone as she came beside him, hand resting on his left shoulder.
"Why don't you call him what he is: The Doom of Valyria?" Jon asked, unable to countenance why his father hadn't told him about that. "Hell, why didn't you warn me about him? Why didn't you tell me I had to face him? Why didn't you tell me I was expected to take your place?! Why didn't you tell me what the Other is?! Why didn't you tell me that I did something to Arya?!" He demanded, voice growing louder and louder as his eyes opened. He abruptly turned his head to face his father at his right side before he looked straight ahead again: his sense of propriety forcing him to avert his eyes from the attractive female form his father had chosen to take.
The soft skin of the woman's hand rubbed a small circle on his left shoulder in what Jon figured was meant to be a soothing manner for a few silent moments before R'hllor answered him.
"Cularis is the name his mother gave him when he was born. No matter what small ashes remain after he tried to burn away what he was, it does not change that aspect of what his flame once had been to her or to us." R'hllor began, a melancholy in her voice that Jon had only heard right before he'd been forced to undertake the three trials after helping Arya. "Just as no matter what you come to be known as to others, your mother named you Jon. And so you shall always be Jon to us."
Jon felt her lean against him, the side of her left breast pressing into his right arm as he stood rigidly in the water. He involuntarily swallowed. This was the closest he'd been to a naked woman in his life. Even if his intellect told him that it was his father was speaking to him through this form, all his subconscious mind could register was 'soft flesh' 'attractive' and 'female' aspects of her form.
"Why didn't you warn me about him?!" Jon hissed quietly, telling himself the redness in his face was simply the steam off the water and his own anger at his father's keeping secrets affecting him.
"And what might you have said if we had?" She asked him, head cocked against his shoulder curiously: her ear upon his clavicle as though she could hear whether he would tell her the truth based solely upon his voice as it reverberated through his body.
"I-I…" Jon couldn't think what he might have said. Even now that he had witnessed his brother first hand and experienced him, he couldn't think what it meant. What he felt about it. He couldn't honestly say that with everything else his father had been trying to teach him and show him that he would've taken him announcing that by the way, he had an insane and extremely powerful half-brother who was responsible for the destruction of Valyria well or at all.
"I…I don't know." He was at last forced to admit, his Stark upbringing not allowing him to lie simply to win an argument. Especially not when his father's answers could mean the difference between life and death.
"You would not have believed." R'hllor said to him. The god continued even as Jon opened his mouth to object. "You have swallowed all that we have fed you thus far. But asking you to believe that there is immediate family in the world from our power that would wish you dead? That was asking too much. Especially of a spark who values the warmth of his family's hearth as much as you."
Jon swallowed his objection. His sire was likely aware of what his third trial had been: how it had been his memory of the love he shared between his brothers and sisters that had allowed him to illuminate the darkness of his own hatred and rage.
"What was he talking about? When he said those words? When he said I had…" Jon's throat closed off momentarily as he contemplated what it would mean if his insane brother had been telling the truth. "When he said that I had done something to Arya?" He finished in a whisper.
A sigh brushed the skin of his shoulder as the woman's head was lifted off of him. She moved away from Jon's side, his mind instinctively feeling the gap her presence by his side caused. He had grown to have a higher and higher natural heat to his own body. But so close to his father's avatar, he had felt a sort of contentment. A settled and soothing feeling to the deity's inner fire that seemed to exude from every imaginary pore.
"Daorun Dreje. Tolvie lir Gaomagon." She repeated softly as she walked away from Jon, her blond hair dragging upon the surface of the water behind her like a bride's golden train.
"It is the culmination of what we have been trying to teach you: the things that we have shown. Taught. Asked of you." She said, turning to face Jon again, breasts barely touching the surface of the water as if she had abruptly added height to her body while walking.
"It is a high valyrian saying one of our previous children coined. When they became us, we kept the meaning and the idea behind it. In the westerosi tongue, it roughly translates: Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." She explained.
Jon's mind raced to connect the previous lessons his father had taught him with what he was being told here.
"So when you asked me to think on the difference between the Boltons and the Starks-" he started.
"We were asking you to consider it from a position that looks beyond right and wrong. From the idea that all things are permitted." She answered, her right hand coming up to gesture at him as though asking for his answer. As the water dripped from her olive skin, Jon at last thought he understood what R'hllor had been driving at.
"The Starks restrained themselves with their idea of honor. The Boltons were merciless, but they couldn't kill them faster than the Starks could gain allies. There was nothing inherently good or right about the way they fought. Only which way appealed to more of the people of the North." Jon hypothesized. "When the people under the Starks and the Boltons were given a choice between lords who seemed to care about them and lords who didn't care about anything but victory, they choose the Starks. And by choosing them, they put power in their hands that they hadn't had before. Because it gave them the feeling that they had put power in their own hands as well."
Jon considered the first part of the saying now, trying to find for himself how it fit in with what his father was telling him from this new perspective.
"Nothing is true…" He mused aloud, not even seeing his father's female form anymore as his eyes subtly darted from side to side while his mind busily worked through the possible meanings this opened it up to. If there was one thing his father had been sure to encourage in him, it was the willingness to ask questions and to truly think on the answers he thought he was finding.
His eyes came to refocus on his father's form. Her right arm had returned to the water as she watched him with a bemused expression. Her own dragon's eyes were blue with white slitted pupils, making for an interesting contrast with her very human smile.
"There's always something behind the things that happen, the ideas we have, the world as we see it." Jon realized, speaking aloud as he focused on his father's eyes. "More than what is: what we choose to believe is what defines us. As people and as ourselves."
A satisfied glint appeared in his father's eyes.
"But what is the Other he spoke of? How does it relate to Arya?" Jon asked, remembering his brother's rage over someone called the Other. How he had said that Jon carried a touch of its dark magic. But in the blink of an eye his father was before him: her right hand gripping his forehead as her left held him by the neck. He felt his father's magic flare mightily once and he was experiencing a vision.
A hulking wolf whose presence seemed to fill the entirety of an unending shadow as its bloodstained teeth filled the air with demonic sounding growls. Reaching feelers of a decaying spider as maddened clicking echoed in the dark. An emptiness that filled all the presence outside the range of the burning fire. As the flame continues to crackle a figure emerges into the view of the orange light with a wide and unsettling grin as it watched with blind eyes that lay all of Jon's soul bare upon the ground at its feet.
As her hands let go of him, Jon couldn't help the deeper breaths he instinctively took. That thing had felt intrinsically wrong to him. And yet he couldn't help the feeling that it was familiar as his Stark siblings to him. As though he had glimpsed another view of himself he hadn't wanted to acknowledge was and had always been a part of him.
"When we were first made, we emerged from Nothingness. We were a being of fire and so too of destruction: for we cared not what we took in return. Only that we had what we needed to continue burning." She said, her head briefly looking off to her right side as though her mind was being drawn back to a distant past whose memories she desired yet didn't dare to forget.
"When first we burned through the mind of a human that worshipped us, we left ashes in its wake. From those ashes arose the Other. It is nothing more or less than the unknowable face of they who stand just beyond our power and the sibilant whispering that emerges from the death and ashes left behind as we burn. It is the unknown and the quiet and the dark. It is the final sign that there is life and there is something left to illuminate. To consume." She told him.
"Though it took us some time to understand what they were to us, we came to see that for us to keep ourselves in check, we would always require the Other. And so to keep the Other from losing sight and forgetting what is necessary for life, they would always require us." Jon couldn't help but think of the images he had seen. Nightmarish, otherworldly things that would've awoken him in a cold sweat had he seen them even during the last winter the North had suffered through.
"They are our reflection. Our twin. Our half. The thing that keeps us from becoming them and they from becoming we." She said to him.
"And so it has proven for every iteration of ourselves that has taken up the mantle that is Fire. For every one of us, there is another who stands beside us: willing to face even the darkest abyss if only to see us through to the end. Whose love and connection to us extends beyond passion, beyond reason, beyond morality."
"When you healed the young one in the house of light surrounded by the dead of the forest, you sacrificed the connections she held to them in order to heal her. But in doing so, you also drew upon our power and forged out of an already steeled connection between your souls something greater. Something whose power extends to the world you speak to us in now."
She paused as Jon's mind raced ahead. He sincerely hoped he wasn't right now of all times.
"When the last connection her soul had to this open world found magic that could strengthen your already strong bond, it instinctively sought to deepen it. And in doing so it awoke the magic of her blood in the name of the Other. Where once she may have been under the domain of the Young Pups by her heritage or the Fallen Stars by her upraising, now she is connected to us and to our Other by her love of you and the magic of your shared blood that sang to each other in that moment of desperation."
Jon swallowed deeply. Why did he even bother trying to come to conclusions in these sort of matters? It never seemed to work out well for him.
"I…I made Arya into a possible Other." Jon concluded aloud. He felt as though he were confessing a great transgression. Which seemed appropriate to his own mind. Forcing his beloved little sister into the role of literal darkness incarnate: inadvertent or no? Not what he'd envisioned as the best possible future for her.
"Just as you are being shaped as a potential R'hllor." His father reprimanded. "If you gain sufficient strength to take the mantle for yourself, we would certainly look forward to it." His female form smiled enigmatically. "But if not…Well, that is the beauty in how humanity imagines things like us. There is always a next time."
Jon calmed himself by remembering the creed his father had given him.
'Tolvie lir Gaomagon.' He thought to himself, taking comfort in R'hllor's offered comfort of the fact that Arya would not be forced to become the Other any more than he himself could be forced to become a god. It was a choice they had to make for themselves. But now that he thought on that…
"Why did you not tell me R'hllor was a mantle? That it was a role to be taken by people like me?" he asked, his mind refusing to think on the full implications of that potential future.
The woman's mouth quirked in a crooked smile, crossing her arms in front of her as she shook her head ruefully.
"You know, before this flame became the Great Fire, this one asked the exact same question." She remarked as though speaking of the weather.
Jon was startled to say the least. He wasn't sure what the voices and bodies had been when R'hllor had spoken to him and on the two occasions now appeared before him. He had honestly never expected them to be anything like this. Aware. Awake. Alive.
"And do you know what we told her?" R'hllor continued, uncrossing her arms and moving closer to Jon again.
Jon kept his eyes fixed on this woman's, his predecessor's, knowing that he would blink if confronted with a naked body like this. He minutely shook his head as she came within touching distance of him, her spicy breath washing over his hair as she looked down into his eyes.
"We told her this:" she leaned close to his right ear. He could feel something soft and wet brushing his own chest. He kept his eyes fixed firmly forward. "That is for you to discover yourself." She finished before leaning back, turning around and striding toward the edge of the pool as though nothing had happened just now.
Jon stared incredulously after her retreating curtain of golden shimmering hair before moving through the water after her.
"That cannot possibly be it!" He called in exasperation.
"Of course it isn't young spark." She casually called over her shoulder as she reached the lip of the pool and pulled herself out of the water onto the tile. "Daorun Dreje, remember? But there are more important matters we need to discuss before we must send you back to the closed world." She continued as she turned to face him.
Jon was forced to take in the entirety of her nude body as it glistened invitingly in the ambient light surrounding them without the wavy filter of the water or the preparation time he would need to be able to look away before seeing anything. And as such, he felt he reacted quite reasonably to the unexpected vision.
"Ah!" He called, his right hand covering his eyes abruptly as he came to a halt in the water, turning to the left so that his father wouldn't see his body's long suppressed reaction to a naked and attractive woman standing in front of him. "Would you kindly put something on her, father?!" He demanded, unable to pretend his blush was due to the steam or the water anymore.
A sinful chuckle came from the dusky skinned avatar.
"Why? Does the human form truly disquiet you so much child?" She asked innocently as her wet footsteps echoed in the small chamber. "You'll need to find a way around that least your enemies use it to their advantage." She said, as she stopped some ways down the side of the pool.
Once Jon felt he had sufficiently…calmed…his lower self, he took his right hand off his eyes and turned to face her again. She was leaning against a pillar, arms crossed beneath her not insubstantial chest while her right leg was crossed over her left in a seemingly unconscious emphasizing of her femininity in all aspects.
"But to the matter at hand." She said, eyes and expression turning serious. Jon, picking up on the somewhat abrupt change in atmosphere and tone, slowly pulled himself out of the water onto his knees before standing.
"What precisely is the matter at hand father?" He asked politely.
"You have gained the attentions of two others like us." She said without preamble. She could obviously see the question in Jon's eyes and so she continued with no pause. "The first because you have returned something to him and the second because you represent a possibility for their future."
Jon nodded once to indicate his understanding thus far.
"The first is more commonly known to the salt water dwelling humans as the Drowned God." She said to him. "When you killed Cularis's puppet and returned it to the sea, the body's previous patron was able to claim his spirit for his own watery halls. In gratitude, he has arranged for you to be discovered by more of his chosen people. It is a repayment of a boon and a test of worthiness." She told him.
Jon frowned, his eyebrows knitting together as he considered what scant few things he knew of the Ironborn. Considering his feelings on the subject of Theon, he could likely count up what he knew on two hands with fingers left over. Jon couldn't resist saying the first thing that came to his mind at that moment.
"Shit."
She nodded back at him, acknowledging his feelings on the matter.
"And the second?" He asked, not wishing to dwell on how he had somehow gained the interest of the Drowned God of the Ironborn.
"The second have been the patrons of what you would call the North for many years since they came across the eastern sea. Your mother's family prayed to them and knew them as the Old Gods." She answered easily. "Due to our own somewhat…" His father was now visibly struggling to find a tactful term to describe what they and the Old Gods were to each other.
"…Complicated…history with them, they are understandably reluctant to entrust the potential future of their greatest worshippers to what they see as a living violation of the bond between worshiper and patron that your mother and I's love represents to them."
Jon's mouth couldn't help starting to bear his teeth into an unconscious snarl, his anger at once again being looked down upon for being a bastard even in the realm of the gods bringing his normally controlled frustration to the surface more easily in this place of spirit and mind instead of body.
"However," R'hllor preempted, holding up a dark skinned palm to prevent Jon from giving voice to the outburst brewing in his throat. "They also understand that you are not the Horned Sorcerer come again. That you have known them and respected them before all of this. And so they too will test you when you return to the land of your mother's ancestors."
"How?" Jon asked. What test could the Old Gods possibly put before him once he came back to the North?
R'hllor quirked her lips in a sardonic smile.
"It wouldn't be a test if you already knew the answer. Would it, young spark?" She said rhetorically.
Jon's right palm met his forehead with a loud clap.
"Of course not." He muttered sarcastically. "Why make things simple for once? That'd spoil all the fun."
"And now you're starting to catch on." R'hllor observed cheerfully, moving forward to lovingly pat Jon's left cheek with her hand. Jon felt something shift in the world surrounding them. Like there was something happening just beyond the walls that he couldn't tangibly see but could just feel was there.
"Before you return Jon, we would ask you to remember two things." She said before drawing in close to him. Her warm forehead rested against his as his right hand inadvertently came down to rest at his side.
"First: one cannot build a tolerance without exposing themselves." She said quietly, kissing his forehead as gently as a summer breeze while the room started blurring at the edges and fading in and out of his vision. "And two: fire can be used to obscure as well as illuminate. Remember that when the time comes and you require the fuel that shall make you into what you are not." She finished with another enigmatic smile before he was fading from the sauna room and returning, aching limb by aching limb to his own body.
When he awoke with a groan, it was to find that he was chained to the mast of a ship. He could only assume it was an Iron Island ship since those were the only people he knew worshiped the being known as the Drowned God. A red haired girl was in front of him, her leather armor worn but well cared for as it hugged her bust and body shape, a dirk and hand axe on her belt as her green eyes observed him with visible interest.
"Captain! Prisoner's stirring!" She called in a surprisingly musical voice while barely moving her eyes away from Jon as he attempted to shift his arms and discovered that they had in fact chained his hands behind the mast so that he couldn't do much more than stand and sit. He decided it would be best to wait and see what this captain wanted. He had only managed to school his expression just as the captain stepped into his view.
Jon couldn't help but think of his little sister Arya when looking at the captain's confident expression and easy sense of physical ability (more refined due to her age) when moving about the ship. That and the similar impatience that had her gripping his jaw almost painfully and slamming his head against the ship's mast as she demanded to know who he was.
The interrogation proceeded more amiably than Jon thought it might've, dislocated finger from him being momentarily unable to resist mouthing off aside. And he felt he'd learned much more from her than she had learned from him.
For one thing, he was fairly certain from her reaction and subsequent questioning about the man his brother had possessed as well as the way she'd said House Greyjoy when telling the crewman called Hagen to guard him that she was Theon's kin. Most likely his older sister. Jon couldn't much see the resemblance personally, but that had also been true of the one-eyed man and Theon. Though that was probably more due to years of having to endure seeing Theon's insufferably smug half-grin everywhere around Winterell for almost as long as he could remember. For another, she had never witnessed anything akin to himself or his half-brother's open displays of power before. He could tell because she had barely believed him when he told her his highly edited account of what had happened during that chaotic night. She'd have been more likely to laugh in his face than believe him if he attempted to tell her that the Drowned God had brought him to her ship and that he had to get back to dry land.
Though he also had felt there was something sinister in the way she said the word hospitality when telling her man to guard him that likely meant he could expect to be a ransom hostage in a best case scenario. Which was likely an optimistic guess even then.
Whatever the case she'd been careful about who watched him and ensuring he remained bound to the mast. The ship didn't have much of a cargo hold, seeming to be made mostly to carry their supplies and to give the rowers shelter from the elements rather than transport truly great amounts of anything. But by now he had a fairly good idea about where they kept the swords, the food and the chains that had been used to bind him to the mast as well as where the limited number of cabins were. Mostly by pretending to doze in the sun and moonlight and by using his fire vision in order to track the crew when they moved around below decks for anything substantial.
His mind busied itself with cataloging all of this while he considered his position with the deity who favored the Ironborn. In the process of reaching landfall, he came up with and discarded plans as they traveled back to Pyke.
He had instantly rejected any immediate plans to destroy the ship he was on. He was surrounded by ocean with no other friendly ships nearby and the crew was almost all entirely the Drowned God's people if the deity had brought him to them. He had grown up with too great a respect for the idea of guest right to be truly willing to test the Drowned God's affection for his favored.
His next idea of fighting his way off when they reached Pyke was similarly discarded, though that one was due mostly to the practical reason of being sorely outnumbered once he did get there. He had been able to take down the Grimwells that was true but he was also well aware that he'd been ambushing less than fifty marauders and lightly armed thieves on open ground in the dead of night: not hundreds of trained soldiers in a claustrophobic landmass in broad sunlight who dreamed of the day when they could die a glorious death with blood slicking their weapons or crushing their enemies before them.
Jon had thought (uncharitably) the few times he bothered to listen to Theon talk fondly of the 'Iron Price' and 'We Do Not Sow' that the Ironborn sounded (to his ears anyway) as a more water-oriented version of the Dothraki that Maester Luwin had spoken of living across the Narrow Sea. Now of course that comparison seemed more daunting than derogative.
He had an advantage however. He had been using the gathered heat he absorbed from the sun by channeling it into his fingers to very slowly but surely warp and deform one of the weak links in his iron chain that kept him bound to the mast bit by bit. When the time came, he would likely be able to snap the link altogether and surprise whoever was guarding him. But then the question became: what after?
How then would he get off Pyke, assuming that was the island they came to? How then would he hope to escape scrutiny with manacles on his wrists and presumably causing a commotion once it was discovered he had escaped?
He was looked upon with suspicion and derision in equal parts by the rest of the crew. Partly for the fact that they tried to only give him the hardest bits of bread or small swallows of water in order to weaken him but only ever earned his unblinking gaze in turn. Some had turned violent, others had tried to shout him down, but for the most part they all attempted to force him into blinking first. There wasn't a whole lot he could do about being kept out in the sun day in and day out or the crew's treatment of him. He did however take some small comfort in refusing to answer any of them that wasn't the captain who in turn still hadn't told him her name after all this time. Part of some subtle way for her to remind him that she held the power here and so didn't have to even deign to tell him her name if she didn't want to no doubt. Or maybe she had simply forgotten. After all, she was kin to Theon.
'Stop that.' He sternly rebuked himself. It was one thing to be dismissive in his thoughts toward someone, it was another to let it color his judgement and honest assessment of the situation. As he thought of that, he thought back on the things his father had said before he left. Specifically, he thought on his advice that fire could be used to obscure. Perhaps there was a way he could use his powers to disguise himself. It seemed a long shot, but it was a shot nonetheless.
As they came within shouting distance of Pyke, (as evidenced by the bird calls that were unmistakable to just about any port town) Jon knew his time was running out. But he remained calm. No good would come of him panicking.
The gulls crying overhead made for a noisy welcome back for the returning ship. But Jon was more concerned with the fact that night was starting to fall upon the island, the washing of the nitter and bird dropping encrusted outcroppings in the reddened light marking an interesting contrast to the setting sun that made the cresting, lapping waves appear to be carrying hints of gold toward the dark blue shores and barnacle laden piers.
It was appearing more and more likely that he wouldn't be able to escape before Balon Greyjoy saw him. And if that came to pass…
"Tie off!" The captain called to the crew. "Get those sails pulled in, all prepare to disembark!"
As Hirda and her father Hagen moved to do so as well, the captain stopped them.
"Not you." She said as she stepped in front of them, her commanding air briefly reminding Jon of his father's bronzed female form. "Hagen: you, Hirda and Cromm will watch the prisoner while we move the goods and I let the Lord Reaper know we have something of potential value onboard."
The man called Hagen nodded and went off to find the crew member she called Cromm while his daughter remained behind.
"He's one chained up green boy Asha." Hirda said quietly when her father had gone, glancing at Jon only out of the corner of her eye while Jon stared resolutely ahead as though his mind were miles away. "How much trouble could he be?"
"Maybe he's weak and lying." The captain he now knew as Asha answered. "And maybe he's supposed to be a northern spy. Or maybe he's telling the truth, far-fetched as that seems. I don't know one way or the other. And I'm not willing to chance a member of my crew on maybes." She concluded, her tone speaking to the finality of her pronouncement.
She placed her hand on the red haired girl's shoulder.
"Watch him carefully Hirda." She instructed. "And don't be afraid to knock his arse to the wood if he so much as looks at you cross-eyed."
Hirda nodded, right hand absently fingering the hand axe that hung from her hip. That would make things difficult. Jon thought he saw Asha glance at him out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn't be sure without turning his own head and revealing that he was listening to them.
He closed his eyes as though fatigued, looking at the world through the fire of their bodies. He saw that the crew was gone from beneath decks and had almost finished tying off the ship and emptying it out so that when the ship was dry docked for repair and maintenance, there wouldn't be any problems.
As Asha led the rest of the crew off the ship, Hirda settled on the deck across from Jon while Cromm and Hagen settled toward the bow: the one sharpening his knife while the other stood in silence, occasionally glancing toward Jon and Hirda as though making sure nothing was happening. After an interminable amount of time passed, Hirda stood and moved over to his left side. She prodded his leg with the toe of her boot. He kept his leg appropriately limp so that it moved when she kicked it. He made a minor groan in the back of his throat as he did, attempting to make play at waking up. His unsure heart was beating louder it seemed to him, sure to give away the subterfuge even as he blinked his eyes with careful sluggishness.
Hirda prodded his leg again, this time with some more force as though impatient for him to be awake. Jon's eyes shot open as she did, his head swiveling to look up at her.
"Yes?" He asked as politely as he could muster.
She cocked her head to the left as she looked at him, a curious look in her eye as she looked so down at him. Jon couldn't articulate to himself what it was, but he knew he didn't like it.
The red hair that surrounded her pretty face was highlighted by the setting sun as they looked at each other. Without looking away, she called up to the two at the bow.
"Da! Cromm!" She said, her voice pleasant even in higher volume. "Go get a drink, I can handle him for now." She instructed.
Her father Hagen squinted at her with some suspicion.
"This wouldn't be you aimin' to get his green lil peck in you would it?" He questioned.
Jon's face felt like it was starting to burn at the insinuation as his eyes involuntarily shifted to the railing and the deck behind her. As it did, he had to concede that maybe his father had a point. If he could barely handle sexual innuendo like this, maybe he really did need to get himself more used to the idea of naked flesh once he got out of this. Then his mind caught on to what Hagen was asking and his eyes quickly darted back to Hirda incredulously.
Her eyes had that look again in them, only this time Jon recognized it for what it was. It was the gaze of a predator he had seen on some of the wolves around the North when they caught a scent on the air. There was only one thing he could think to summarize his situation.
'Damnit!' He thought with an edge of panic, watching out of the corner of his eye as Hagen sighed and nudged Cromm with his elbow. The man jolted awake with a snort, his bleary gaze questioning Hagen as he gestured for them to go. They walked toward the dock without a second glance, their desire for getting drunk and/or confidence in Hirda being able to handle one green boy apparently overwhelming any concern they had for Asha finding out.
He looked back at the red haired young woman, who hadn't even bothered with anything more than unclipping her belt before she carefully placed it out of the reach of Jon's legs but within arms length for her as she moved to straddle his prone lower half.
Jon remembered the good-natured teasing by Robb and Theon about not wanting to visit the brothel near Winterfell before now. He'd cited Lady Catelyn and Lord Stark's disapproval as his deciding factor in not wanting to go with them, but the truth was that he didn't think he could go through with it: sleeping with a woman just to get the experience out of the way. Especially not when the result might be another Snow like himself. A bastard to be looked down upon by the rest of the world and having to share his shame because his father had been too weak and too stupid to be sure of having him legitimately. The one time he had thought to broach that kind of subject with the two Theon had joked that perhaps that was the reason Jon's face was always so long and severe: it kept trying to catch up to the misery he had already decided he was destined for.
Her right hand had reached into his pants as Jon's mind raced through all this, touching his soft length. And just as dream imitated reality, Jon's cock started responding to her rough but capable ministrations. He didn't want this, he didn't want his first time with a woman to be an exercise in scratching an itch before he was made into a hostage or worse. But her grip was sure and sensual, even as her other hand grabbed the back of his neck and her lips met his.
Jon could admit that in other circumstances, he might've found Hirda a tempting girl. But that didn't change how profoundly unwilling he was to have this happen.
He frantically tried to channel heat into his weakened chain link even as his concentration kept slipping due to her ministrations as well the sudden pain of her biting into his lip hard enough to split it and draw a small trickle of blood.
He furiously bit her back. She chuckled in response as her grip tightened on the back of his neck.
"Good, you've got a little fight in you. I like that green boy." She whispered as she shifted his cock to line him up with her.
At that moment Jon felt the link give beneath his fingers. His eyes met hers only or a moment as he gave a response.
"Than you'll love this." He hissed back, his hands wrenching the chain apart as they came around the front to slam onto both her ears, temporarily deafening her. His fingers of his left hand instantly transitioned to the instinctive claw grip on the back of her head before he moved his head to the right, bringing her forehead slamming into the mast next to him. Her right hand scrambled to retrieve the axe or the dirk from her belt to deal with him while his own rabbit punched her front left side before he halfway rolled them so that they were both on their side on the deck. She attempted to bite him as her hand moved around to the front of his windpipe in an effort to strangle him.
Jon pulled her head off the deck only to slam it back down on the unyielding wood once. Then twice. Her grip loosened and her eyes were unfocused now from the quick succession of hits to the skull she had taken. He slammed her head down on the deck one more time to be safe. Her eyes shut abruptly as the cut on her forehead from the initial meeting with the mast bled down her nose and left eye, making it look as though she were crying tears of crimson from one closed eye.
Jon pulled her over to the mast, the shackles still firm around his wrists as the loose chains clinked slightly with each movement. He knew he should make this quick, but how was he going to get off this ship without arousing suspicion.
His mind came back again to his father's advice before he left the other world.
'Fire can be used to obscure as well as illuminate he said.' Jon thought to himself. 'But what did he mean the fuel that makes me what I'm not?'
Jon thought back to the only other ritual involving fire and fuel outside his own magic that R'hllor had guided him through: the healing of Arya. Jon thought back to before the flames themselves that drove the dark sickness out. Jon remembered R'hllor had specifically had him use wood from the Godswood and the wooden carvings of the Seven Gods to use as food for the fire. With a jolt, he remembered his father's explanation for why the ritual had healed as it did: by sacrificing the power the Old and New Gods had over Arya in exchange for giving R'hllor's magic greater strength. The symbolic power of the human world translated to real power in the open world.
Jon eyed the strands of Hirda's bright red hair that had accidentally gotten tangled in his fingers from the grip he'd had on her head. Thinking quickly in case anyone was going to see them, Jon grabbed more of her hair, pulling them out by the root more roughly than was needed. In the face of what she and her captain had planned for him he found himself strangely unwilling to sympathize with the headache she'd have upon waking. His palm carefully laid itself upon the cut on her forehead, allowing some blood to congeal on its surface before he carefully placed his right hand atop his face, his imagination briefly making him feel that he was putting a mask on in the process.
Involuntarily, he closed his eyes as the blood stained fingers settled atop his face, his hair filled left hand igniting as he said a silent prayer to R'hllor.
'Please father.' He mentally asked. 'I do not know the way of this yet, but I require your help. Allow me to take Hirda's appearance that I may illuminate a way off of Pyke back to the North. I do not ask your intervention in this test, only your blessing. Please. Please.'
His flesh felt warmer, more heated. He felt as though another thin woolen tunic was pressing down upon him, its very fabric the fading rays of the sun as the lapping waves made for a soothing rhythm upon the shoreline. It covered his arms, his torso, his legs, his face, even his hair. It would almost be suffocating to move in if its fiery caress didn't feel so much like his father's embrace. He opened his eyes before he brought his hand away for inspection. There, like a thin film of water, was an exact copy of Hirda's skin overlaying his own.
He looked down at himself and received a jolt when he saw an unconscious version of himself overlaying Hirda's unresponsive form. He looked at his form underneath the obviously women's clothes she was wearing and saw how the rags he was in hung off of Hirda's frame. It was the strangest sensation Jon had ever experienced. He knew how long his own limbs were and he could see them as they moved, but at the same time, this solid version of Hirda he had become was the one the clothing reacted to.
"Don't tell me I have to-" He started, hand clapping to his mouth abruptly as he heard his own voice emerge from his false Hirda mouth.
"What is happening?" he whispered to himself, still hearing his own voice even at this low volume. His survival instincts pushed him to act now, before he became paralyzed with indecision and confusion. Jon gave himself a shake that was physical as well as mental before he quickly disrobed below the view of the railing, hoping he could do this quickly before anyone decided to check up on whether Hirda was done having her way with him.
He got Hirda's clothes off of her now and put her in his rags while he tried to awkwardly don her own clothing. In the meantime, his mind was busily trying to work out where he had gone wrong with the magic. Had he not asked to take on Hirda's appearance so he could make his way home? Had he not sacrificed enough to look like her?
With a start, Jon thought he might understand what had gone wrong. He had only asked to look like Hirda, not become or be her. So his father had given him exactly what he had asked for. He took a few seconds as he attempted unsuccessfully to fasten the bodice to glare at the setting sun.
"You've got shite for humor you know." He swore at his father, already imagining the laughing expression R'hllor would likely fix him with in any form he cared to take.
Soon enough, the clothing was on and after a quick nip below decks he was fastening chains on her hands so that she was bound to the mast as he had been. She looked like him and she was bound like him, but what if she sounded like herself when she awoke? In a fit of improvisation, Jon tore a long piece of his tunic on Hirda off before stuffing it in her mouth and tying it the ends together behind her head. That ought to at least make it slightly less obvious it wasn't his voice she was using. Hopefully.
He thought quickly about what he could do to explain his own voice. He couldn't possibly coach himself to sound like a woman, much less Hirda herself when he didn't know when her father and Cromm would be returning. So how could a woman sound more like a man? Jon looked over at his unconscious form (and wasn't that a strange sight for him) before he thought of it. Jon brought his hands up to his throat and squeezed with as much of his strength as he dared. He grew light headed quicker than he'd expected but kept squeezing until he started seeing spots in his vision.
With a loud gasp, he let go of himself and collapsed to his knees as he greedily sucked in air between violent coughs. When he had some of his breath regained, he spoke aloud again.
"Green bastard attacked me." He rasped, his mouth feeling dry and his throat ached even as he said the words.
He nodded to himself. It was far from foolproof, but it would have to do until he found a way out of here. Striding with as much angry purpose as he could down the gangplank onto the dock, he made his way toward the noisiest building he could find. He was assuming of course that if the Ironborn were drinking away their time, so too would other sailors. And thus he could find one of them and perhaps make his way out.
The dock itself was a fair reflection of what he had observed of the Ironborn thus far: a focus more on practicality with some showmanship only toward martial prowess. This was aptly demonstrated by the Ironborn populace that walked around with their weapons openly displayed making up a good number of those walking the docks while the gulls, merchants and captains cried their wares to the open air.
There were less than expected however since nightfall was rapidly approaching. Harder to dock when one had to contend with the unpredictable shallows and naturally suspicious nature of the Ironborn themselves. Jon hurried into the alehouse where the noise had only increased in the time it had taken him to get from the deck of the ship to inside the door.
The inside was worn with only a few candles dotting the tables around the place. It wasn't a place one could feel safe in, the rough characters seemingly everywhere he looked. But then again, Jon wasn't exactly in a place to trust anything quite yet. He quickly scanned from Cromm and Hagen, hoping he had missed them.
No such luck.
"Tha fuck ya doing ere girl?!" Hagen slurred angrily at him as he spun what he thought was Hirda around by the shoulder. He took in Jon's appearance as her as the Stark-blooded Snow prayed his disguise held.
"Wha happened ta you?" Cromm inquired a moment later as he squinted at Jon's appearance.
"Pathetic green bastard tried jumpin' me." Jon rasped, his attempt to pitch his voice a bit higher even while his throat ached again making him want to wince. "Knocked him on his arse. Thought I'd get a drink in while he sleeps it off."
Hagen and Cromm nodded approvingly, though Hagen still looked particularly murderous.
"Ya mind taking over while I wash the grass out of my mouth?" He asked, trying to sound impatient as he did so. Cromm turned to go but Hagen lingered for a few moments.
"Don't take too long." He warned quietly. "I'd like you there when I wake him up to teach some respect."
Jon knew he shouldn't let Hagen do anything too bad to Hirda, especially considering it wasn't likely they'd understand what had actually happened and so would have a rough time of explaining it to Asha Greyjoy. But he knew Hirda also shouldn't display hesitation toward vengeance or violence. So he tried to compromise.
"Sounds promising Da." He got out, his right hand resting briefly on Hagens left shoulder in what he hoped came across as an appreciative gesture. "Though I think the Captain would be better suited to decidin' what to do with im."
Hagen grinned at his suggestion. He nodded in agreement. "You might have something there girl." He concurred as he made his way out. With a negligent gesture toward her behind his back, he called: "Hurry back!"
Jon nodded even if Hagen couldn't see it. He didn't intend to stay any longer than necessary.
As soon as Hagen was gone, he was hailed from one of the nearby tables. Jon looked over to see who was there. The man was in his late twenties or perhaps early thirties. He was grinning as he looked at Jon, though the smile didn't reach his cold brown eyes. It was likely a very bad idea to push his luck by answering the greeting.
Jon sat down at his table.
"Greetings Iron Woman. You seem in need of a game to take your mind off things." He offered, genial tone and almost insolent smirk lending Jon an instant dislike as he was reminded of Theon when he got it into his head to needle the bastard of Winterfell. Jon took the man's mug of ale in response and maintained eye contact as he took a swig from it. His attempt at intimidation was ruined by the bitter liquid irritating his throat into coughing.
The man let out a short laugh with a slightly widened smile before he withdrew a dirk and placed it on the table between them.
"The game is simple. We place our hand on the table like so." He demonstrated with his right hand laying flat on the table: fingers spread out so that it appeared almost as though he were ready to push down on the surface at a moment.
"Then, we take the blade like so:" he continued as he picked it up in his left hand. He stabbed it down next to his finger, blade seemingly brushing against his skin without breaking it. "First to flinch loses."
"And how do I know you won't stab my hand if I put it down like that?" Jon inquired, his sarcasm somewhat lost in general din of the atmosphere and the low volume he was speaking at in case his throat became better too soon.
The man shrugged carelessly.
"You don't." He said. "But then, isn't that half the fun for you Ironborn?"
Jon had no idea whether he should play along with this, but he knew this was the only thing that had presented itself as a possible way out.
"What stakes are we playing for?" He asked to subtely stall for time.
"You win, I give you anything you want short of the money in my pouch. The same I expect if I win." He said, the gleam in his eye sharpening.
Jon's eyes narrowed. There was something he hoped to accomplish here, but what. Did he hope to fuck Hirda? That was likely it. Well, that meant he had all the more incentive to win then.
"Ladies first." His opponent said, placing his right hand flat on the table. It appeared as steady as a rock. Jon picked up the dirk in his right hand, the handle worn and used to the touch. He established eye contact with this man as he moved his seat so that it was directly across from him.
'Why are you doing this?' His sensibility asked him with an incredulous tone. 'Do you expect it to accomplish anything at all?'
He knew it was irrational and stupid to do this. He really did.
But after everything he'd been through with two encounters of Ironborn, normal and possessed alike, Jon was feeling extremely frustrated and worn. He was in enemy territory, he was constantly waiting to see if his half-done illusion would come apart and he had no idea what was going to happen if he got back to the North. Especially in the face of his unknown and very unlikely escape into a future that had never looked more uncertain.
That and this arse had been laughing at him with his eyes since hailing him.
He knew it was nothing to do with Jon Snow personally seeing as how Jon looked like an attractive red-headed woman, but he was also sick and tired of one thing on top of the other being piled onto his head these days and weeks past. Jon felt it was due time for him to be able and allowed to do something that made him feel better for the sake of feeling better rather than because it served a higher purpose or greater calling. And if this was the only thing available to him, then so be it.
His grey eyes were fixed on this stranger's brown, the knife handle a comforting feeling in his palm. He remembered where the man's hand was on the table: in front of him and slightly to Jon's left. The fingers would be spread pretty wide but the hand was kept close to the edge of the table. As he brought the knife forward in a flash he kept his eyes on his opponent, his eyes looking for any uncomfortable twitch.
The brown eyed man simply smiled benignly as Jon brought the point of the blade between the thumb and the forefinger, a thin cut to the connective webbing between them the only testimony to just how close Jon's strike had been. Jon's grip released the knife slowly, disappointed he hadn't managed to win against this man so soon into the game.
"Nicely done." Brown eyes said to him, grunting a bit as he withdrew the knife from the table.
"Your turn." Jon said, placing his right hand on the table in front of him, maintaining eye contact with him still to try and see what he was going to do.
The man's hand with the knife twitched toward Jon twice before making his move the third time. When at last he attacked Jon discovered that he had steeled himself too well.
The blade was sharp enough to drive through the skin and muscles of the back of his hand and out his palm, pinning his hand to the table as he felt a scraping along the bone of his middle finger. Jon yelled in pain, his nerves flaring up as his enemy brought his right hand toward his throat.
And just like a frayed rope asked to bear too much weight, Jon felt his temper snap.
His left hand came up in a flash, slamming Brown Eyes' right hand away before his fingers gripped the back of the man's neck. He pulled his head forward by the neck, his left eye slamming the handle of the dagger. Jon felt the dagger scrape his finger bone as it was jostled. He brought his attacker's head down a second time on the dagger, this time moving his head so that the hilt impacted the right eye.
The knife was now loose from its previously fixed position on the table. Even as his hand throbbed and his nerves shouted, Jon yanked upward. The knife was briefly still fixed in the table, before the back of Jon's bleeding hand met the handle guard and the force pulled it out of the table.
Brown Eye's right hand had come up to guard his ruined eyes as the rest of the room had their eyes drawn to them by his screaming as his left hand tried to push him away from the table. Jon's right hand came up to grip his throat from the front, embedded blade and all. The screams quickly changed to frantic gurgles.
Jon moved his right hand around the throat so that it was gripping the left side of it, the dirk resisting the movement even as it cut through his enemy's flesh. Jon's uninjured left hand pulled the blade out as the right hand slammed him face first into the table again, this time driving the dirk into the back of Brown Eye's skull.
At last he was still.
Jon was breathing heavily, his anger coming back under control again as he felt so many eyes on him. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed some of the nearby patrons take one or two steps back from him.
What he had just done caught up to him all at once. He'd never been this violent before gaining these powers from his father. He'd generally had a good hold of himself and could keep himself from acting hastily. If this was not rashness personified, he didn't know what else it could be. But he was also well aware that despite his pain, the illusion didn't appear to have wavered as he glimpsed illusionary threads of red hair coming into his face as he whirled to face the rest of the room.
"If any other man thinks himself better than me," he shouted, left hand pointing at the still body of Brown Eyes at the table. "Let this stupid cunt be a lesson to ya!"
He stood up and moved around the table, his right hand held close to his abdomen. He pulled the money pouch off the cooling corpse before he was struck with a desperate fit of inspiration.
"This arrogant berk is going to feed the gulls now! If any of you sorry louts has a problem with that, you're welcome to tell him!" Jon finished, right hand yanking the knife out of the back of his head before slamming it point first into the table again. As the body collapsed on the floor, Jon used his left hand to get the limp right arm over his shoulder before bringing the entire body over his back like a sack of potatoes. He hoped to high heaven they wouldn't call his bluff or try to stop him. He wasn't sure if he could back it up if they did.
Fortunately, the apparent sight of red haired Hirda brutally murdering a man with the knife he had stuck through her hand while it was still in there was apparently enough for no one to think it was a good idea to stop her.
As Jon walked outside, he quickly increased his pace but ducked behind the buildings before anyone had a chance to take close notice of the blood staining everything the man dripped on. As he came behind the tavern, he disrobed with a sense of urgency he could only compare to that of a Night's Watch deserter knowing that he was about to be caught and executed. As he changed into the dead man's clothes and ripped some more of his hair off before using the blood on his hand to touch his own face in a repeat of the semi-improvisational ritual he had used before, he watched as the illusion shifted into the dead Brown Eyes and Brown Eyes shifted into Jon's form. It was now more urgent than ever that Jon manage to find Brown Eyes's ship and get the hell out of here. He decided that if the crew were going to be searching for him, he may as well cause some chaos in the process.
He set fire to the body that looked like him, watching for a few moments as the fire caught onto some of the wooden debris behind the buildings and started to create a visible heat.
"Fire!" He yelled, voice almost back to normal from his self-strangulation earlier. He backed away through the alley as though frightened by the fire itself.
"Fire!" He called again before he quickly made his way toward the docks and through the throngs of people who couldn't seem to decide whether they wanted to escape or put out the rapidly building flames.
As he came to the third dock down from the one Greyjoy's ship was anchored, he made eye contact with a man aboard what appeared to be a sloop similar to the ones bearing the Manderly merman in White Harbor.
"Tha fuck's going on Belwin?" The crag faced crewmate called to him.
"Some Iron shit didn't like some idiot's attitude. So they got to fightin' and managed to set the place to go up." He responded in as convincing a non-chalant tone as he could.
The crewmate seemed surprised by his easy answer but didn't openly question him, instead asking: "You think the captain'll let us cast off then?"
"He better." Jon muttered as he walked aboard, fingers of his left hand involuntarily curling into a fist.
'Otherwise, who knows what'll happen?' He added to himself mentally.
A/N: Well, that took longer than expected. Though to be fair, it's quite literally the longest thing I've written thus far. My thanks to lilnudger82, iitrnr, Tangoo43, jman007, invinoveri and A Ghost in Winterfell for their feedback on the story. Hope you all continue letting me know what you think.