The difference between the Stark ancestral home of Winterfell and the Red Keep of King's Landing could not have been greater in Jon's mind.
Winterfell had always felt very self-contained to Jon. The initial drum keep from when the Stark ancestral home had first been built remained where it had first been, perhaps the only complete building from the Age of Heroes or earlier. While everything else rose around it like weeds in a garden, as a whole Winterfell had always felt more like a fortress; with the additions of the towers and walls limited and encompassing only what it needed to.
Even the smallfolk dwellings that loosely constituted what they called Wintertown were for the most part a smaller, self-sustained area that didn't have much beyond the whorehouse, some of the farmer's dwellings, a granary and other smaller homes that were only ever occupied when the Stark family words proved true and winter swept across the realm.
By contrast, the Red Keep was a dizzying structure: seeming to have been built to reach as high and as wide as it could across the hill it was situated on. Relatively speaking, the tower of the hand where Lord Stark's quarters resided was a small part of that. But even that was enough for all of his lord uncle's retinue plus his sisters and himself to sleep comfortably without being cramped together.
Jon could easily believe the stories that circulated about Maegor the Cruel and his desire to have all the greatest builders in the land construct the keep as a monument to the ruling dynasty and reminder of the power the Targaryens wielded. Though he supposed the Targaryen king's decision to murder all the builders after they had completed its construction should've served as an early warning that maybe the royal family was not altogether entirely sane as they perhaps should've been.
'Then again, I suppose one must be somewhat mad to believe themselves destined to rule over others.' Jon reflected as he continued his wanderings through the streets of King's Landing, his footwork sure even in the face of the heavy flow of bodies all around him that darted to and from seemingly everywhere and nowhere as they all bustled about to live their lives another day.
'It would certainly explain some of father's way of thinking.' Another part of his brain couldn't help but add as he thought back to the discussion with R'hllor that had prompted this repeated exploration of the capital.
"Why must I map the city out Lord R'hllor?" He'd asked the burning brazier as the flame flickered.
"Do you truly think it useless to become familiar with this city whilst your Lord Stark attempts to play politics?" The fire god had asked in return, his voice scratchy and almost laconic sounding.
It still unnerved Jon on a subconscious level how he rarely heard the same voice twice when his mystical father talked to him and how his voice shifted so seamlessly from one to the other as easily one might put on and take off a set of riding gloves.
"No, but that cannot be the only reason you would suggest this." Jon answered.
"Of course it isn't young spark." His father confirmed. "But it is as good a reason as any to give when they who command your unseen minders inevitably ask."
Jon leaned closer to the brazier, reminded by his father's answer that the walls of the Red Keep likely had unwelcome ears listening even as he spoke.
"And what am I meant to be seeking that I must chart the city within my mind?" He asked once more, though quieter than he had previously.
The fire flickered briefly, giving Jon a brief impression of a single slitted dragon's eye gazing back at him before his father's response came.
"The place where unnatural fire slumbers in the shadow of our natural fire's death." Came the almost whisper. "Listen for their crackling echoes amidst the smaller sparks. And when you do, you shall find a glimpse of our intentions."
And so Jon had wandered, his fire vision occasionally turned on as he gravitated toward the areas of humanity that shone brightest with heat under the sun's relentless rays. The docks, the areas where a tournament was apparently being set up in honor of Lord Stark's appointment as Hand of the King, the Great Sept of Baelor. And now he came to a large but obviously neglected building: the sad remains of the Dragon Pits.
Jon stood before the entrance, seeing that what remained of the once large and solid doors was rotting away to nothing. The entrance was wide enough that ten men could comfortably walk abreast into the pits though the height of the building not nearly so impressive as the Sept of Baelor. Jon understood that this was primarily due to the fact that the bulk of the Dragon Pit was located below ground and had been built that way so as to make it easier to contain the dragons. After all, dragons were far too large to be held back by cages that were out in the open air and were unlikely to be tamed long enough to come and go on command as the ravens of the citadel were.
Though it had proven the death of them during the civil war that the maesters and noble houses alike now referred to as the Dance of Dragons.
Jon slowly made his way inside, observing the dust and the dirt that darkened the insides of the building save for a few out of the way areas where recent tracks suggested people had come recently. The silence in this place was deafening. Even the light that shone through the partially collapsed dome that once served as the ceiling did little to alleviate the sense of emptiness that resounded through this open area.
It almost reminded Jon of the few descriptions Maester Luwin had given them of the gladiatorial arenas in the Free Cities: the raised walls off the main floor where he stood, the circular design of the building, the seats that were partially hidden in the gloom but would've provided great seating for all who would've desired to see what was to occur in the arena below. Even the bulk of the area being kept underground in order to keep the fighters and the pit animals out of sight of the crowd until they were to be brought up and so serve as a surprise as well as blood-stained entertainment.
As Jon closed his eyes and extended his fire sense around him, his magic resonated through the walls and floor, making him draw a sharp involuntary breath. He could see faint impressions: old residuals of once extremely large dragon foot prints all around the floor, and even what appeared to be residue from the time Dreamfyre had attempted to escape the death of her draconic brethren upon the remains of the roof.
Over to his left he could see what appeared to be a gigantic tunnel sloping down into shadow behind a great pile of rubble. Instinctively he opened his eyes: physical world and fire sense creating a mishmash of images that was at once beautiful and chaotic to look at. His footsteps barely disturbed the black sand that remained upon the abandoned floor of this place. His training under the gaze his father's crackling fires had done wonders for his movement and coordination even for so simple a thing as walking.
As he reached the rubble, he deftly moved up toward the top of it and then leapt down the other side of it, the gloom all but impenetrable to the light of the noonday sun that did manage to make its way through the cracked dome and non-existent door.
The residuals of when the dragons had lived and stepped across the floor here still shone on the ground, somewhat muted and faded. But there had been too many of them for it to fade entirely. He watched his footing as he made his way down the colossal steps, only coming to the edge of one step for every five he took.
As he traveled in a slow circular path down the hall that had obviously been meant for other dragons to traverse from beneath the pit to the top of it, he noticed that the larger footsteps grew dimmer as he went down. He'd known the Targaryen dragons had never been numerous to begin with and had decreased in size for some time after they'd come to Westeros. Dramatically so after the Dance of Dragons. But to see how large they'd once been and to remember that Maester Luwin had told them how the last few Targaryen dragons hadn't been bigger than fully grown dogs…
It brought a pain to his chest to imagine them growing weaker and weaker generation by generation. To bear their young and live and die, never knowing that with every successive breeding they grew weaker. Each iteration a paler copy of the one that had come before them until at last they were gone altogether.
Like a fire slowly burning lower and lower until only embers and then finally cold ashes were all that remained.
Jon supposed that perhaps with Prince Rhaegar's brother and sister across the Narrow Sea in Essos, the Targaryens were only in the ember stage. But still they were dying. And for all their attempts at hoarding and growing their power, the Targaryens had never seemed to understand that fire had to expand if it was to grow stronger. It couldn't cannibalize itself forever without fresh fuel.
Though perhaps Jon himself wasn't precisely an objective observer ever since R'hllor had admitted during one of their private talks that the Targaryens were descended from one of R'hllor's demigod children and so were technically Jon's great many times over nieces and nephews. Which in a strange way made Jon a great many times over uncle to King Robert if the rumors of Orys Baratheon's status as a Targaryen bastard held any truth to them.
It gave Jon a headache trying to contemplate just how complicated the family tree was on his father's side of the family and so he studiously avoided thinking about it anymore than absolutely necessary.
But now he couldn't have that luxury.
Not when he at last came to the completely dark area beneath the floor level of the dragon pits and saw the enormous alcoves that had been constructed to house the dragons. Jon counted roughly forty of the things. An optimistic thought on King Maegor's part. Though considering the temperament that had earned him his moniker, perhaps ambitious or ominous would've been the better term for it. Though unrealistic couldn't be ruled out either.
Now his physical eyes could discern nothing in the pitch blackness here. It felt more like a tomb here than Winterfell's crypts ever had. Especially when the very faint impressions of the dragons he could see in the stone made it feel like he was watching the last wisps of their ghosts as they slowly faded from the physical world as their spirits faded from living memory.
These had been where dragons lived. These were the creatures that R'hllor had helped to create when first he and the Other had become aware of their own nature. The dragons had thrived for a long time, continued to do so on a place somewhere between the Iron Islands and Yi Ti if the amused but indirect answers he had given Jon's questions on the matter were to be believed.
Jon thought back to Ghost and the direwolves. How would he feel, watching them bear their litters, only for their children and their children's children to grow smaller and remember less and less of their parents with each breeding? To one day look upon the descendants of what had once been his friend, even distant as the direwolf had become since Frost's death, and see a fraction of the watchfulness, of the cunning, of the strength that had so called to Jon?
Jon's right hand involuntarily ignited as he held it aloft toward the center of the circular area. He was a lone flame in the darkness, trying to act as a beacon to something that was near dead in this part of the world.
As he strode to the center of the area, he thought he heard something shift. He turned toward it, moving forward cautiously. And as he came closer, he found his blood running cold.
Wildfyre. Barrels of the stuff.
He hurridly tried to ascertain if he could see any of the signature green substance leaking out of any of it. But a check revealed that miraculously, none of the barrels had leaked. And a good thing too, considering that one spark could prove enough to set them off. And in light of the stories of wildfyre managing to melt stone, burn upon water and continuing burning for days when lit, Jon didn't think it an exaggeration to say that this stuff going off would be catastrophic.
With a start he remembered what his father had said he was looking for.
"Unnatural fire slumbering in the shadow of his natural fire's death." Jon whispered incredulously.
"Lord R'hllor!" He called to the fire in his hand, reaching out with all the prayers he could muster.
"Yes, young spark?" Came the whisper from his hand.
Jon couldn't even properly formulate what he was thinking or what he had just discovered and so said the first thing that came to his mind.
"How?!"
"You would ask a god of fire how they know of a fire being made that so closely resembles the one which they created and bestowed upon living creatures so long ago?" R'hllor asked in response. Jon could practically hear the raised eyebrow in his voice.
"Why?!" Came the second instinctive response.
"We admit, we cannot interpret which why you ask young spark." Came R'hllor's chuckling answer, now a scratchy woman's voice.
"Why didn't you tell anyone of this?! Why didn't you tell me!" Jon asked, angry that R'hllor didn't appear to be taking this seriously.
"We did tell you to find this. Or are you prepared to claim you would have searched what these people call the Dragon Pits if we had not told you what you were looking for?" R'hllor asked.
"But why didn't you-" Jon tried to ask before his father overrode him.
"And who else would we have told of this? We only have one true believer, one faithless worshipper and one true expression of our power within all of Westeros. None of which put us in any position to act upon what we knew until now." R'hllor explained.
"And even had we tried to contact the believer or the faithless, they cannot hear us as you can. They can only hear us as they imagine us to be. And so we cannot tell them anything they are not prepared to hear and we cannot show them what they will not see." He continued before Jon had a chance to say anything.
Jon felt some color rise in his cheeks at that. He kept forgetting that he and Arya were the only people capable of hearing R'hllor's…voice, such as it was, instead of seeing only visions or hearing only whispers that were reflections distorted through their own reflections of their sight and voice. Hence why his presence was so chaotic and so strange yet so familiar.
"But why couldn't you have just said there was Wildfyre and you wanted me to find it?" Jon finally asked, tacitly accept why R'hllor had only told him if not agreeing with the assertion that he had been direct.
"There is only so much we can tell you child." R'hllor answered. "The exploration was meant to be as much a part of your discovery as this place was."
"What do you mean?" Jon asked as he came back to the center of the underground pit, looking around at the faded impressions of the dragons who had once been here.
"Had we not told you to explore the city looking for something you did not know what, how much of it would you have sought out on your own?" R'hllor asked him.
"Near none of it." Jon answered.
"What then would you know of this city and its people?" R'hllor prompted.
"I wouldn't know how many are watching every step people take, wondering if they can steal a few silvers for a meal they never know if they will have that day." Jon answered, thinking back to the poverty and suffering he saw as he had explored. Closer to the Red Keep the nobles and wealthier merchants kept their manses whilst there was many an almhouse or charity building by the Great Sept. But here by the Dragon Pits, where the brothels reigned supreme and the people had neither access to the Kingswood nor Blackwater Bay?
It was a truly wretched place in many respects.
And yet Jon had seen kindness too. Children who picked others out of the dirt even when the crueler ones had pushed them down. A few men who had left an extra coin that in all likelihood they couldn't spare for the whores they paid. Whores who looked after each other's families even in the midst of the squalor that surrounded them. Even a beggar who had pulled an inattentive bastard boy away from the falling contents of an emptied shitbucket. It all reminded him strongly of the vision he'd briefly had of the urchin during his second trial.
"But I never would've seen that there are so many who need help. Who can but haven't the power to do as much as they wish." He continued.
Jon looked around him, his mind's eye not seeing the tomb of dragons who had once been nor the fading light of their life that could never come back as it once had. This had once been a place of the fiercest fire, the powerful inferno.
But the inferno was ash now. Perhaps it was time to see what warmer, gentler fires could be kindled from the remains.
"You wanted me to preach to them, to grow you power here." Jon at last concluded, his voice barely above a whisper.
"We had hoped for conversion, but felt you would be more comfortable with providing haven and protection than spiritual guidance." R'hllor answered easily in what sounded somewhat like a Dornish man's voice.
"But the Doom-" Jon tried to say.
"Without belief, there will be no awareness. Without awareness, there will be no preparation. And without preparation, there will be no strength to call should your own not prove sufficient." Came R'hllor, sounding saddened.
"Already he has moved throughout Essos, his shadows creeping most everywhere like a vine that grows between the cracks in the stone of even the strongest castle." His father said.
"To the North of what you would call the Wall lies the unchecked power of out Other, unleashed but laying dormant for so long by the influence of the spirit who was once your predecessor's father. You cannot face such a thing alone. If you are to rise to the challenge, you must kindle more than your own flame. And to do so…"
"I have to kindle your flame within the spirit of others." Jon finished, the enormity of his task seeming even moreso with this newest wrinkle.
"But how would I use the Dragon Pits for that father?" He asked.
"Well…" Came R'hllor's innocent reply.
In that moment, Jon felt certain that even though his situation demanded he seek this advice that he really wasn't going to like the answer.
As his father elaborated on the course of action that would serve him best going forward Jon absently wondered if it was normal to hate your intuition being right.
A/N: Extremely grateful Memorial Day allowed me some time to put the finishing touches on this. Hope you all like it. -Mx4