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Chapter Text

The last thing Jon felt was the cold.  

Darkness engulfed him. And he no longer felt the pain of a dozed knives piercing his flesh. There was nothing. Nothing, but everything. He felt that he was flowing – flowing in what? He didn’t know. He felt that he was on a raft, spinning in a whirlpool. Circling closer, closer to the center. 

And then he felt his eyes open. Colours. So many colours – a thousand different shades and hues blinding his eyes. He tried to hear, but it was so difficult. He heard noises around him but could not make out any language. He tried, putting all his effort into making out a single word. He needed information – he needed to know. Where was he? Who was he? 

“Jon,” he managed to hear a woman’s voice say. It was delicate and unbelievably soft. As if a gentle breeze might annihilate her. “His name is Jon...”

Jon! That was his name – he remembered now. He was a brother of the Night’s Watch – no, not just that. He was Lord Commander Jon Snow... But where were his black brothers? Where were they now? Where was the Wall? Nothing made sense. He strained to hear more. 

“Promise me... Promise me...” Her delicate voice said. He could make out her face now; it was a woman’s.  

At once it became clear to Jon that he was no longer at the Wall. He remembered now – his fellow brothers had killed him. He had failed. He had failed to prepare the North for the coming night - the Night that will end all nights to come. He barely had any time before his sworn brothers betrayed him... And now, this moment must be part of one long death dream; his life flashing before his eyes before he finally fades into his final sleep, and it all starts with this one face. This one woman. Was this his mother? He could see her eyes. 

Kind, Jon thought. Kind eyes. I was right... I always knew her eyes were kind.  

“Look at him, brother...” She was smiling ecstatically through the tears that streamed down her face. “...How wonderful,” she said, “how beautiful...” The tenderness in her smile was still growing. “Promise me...” He heard her say. “Oh, promise me...” 

She’s dying, Jon realized. Instinctually, he wanted to shout for help, but all that came out was a gurgle and a childish cry. Whose voice was this? 

Before he could see more, a great exhaustion suddenly washed over him. The brief crack of light which he had glimpsed between the two eternities of darkness he found himself falling in between. But now, he viewed this new abyss with far more calm than the one which he had just awoken from. 

A sister dead. A house dishonoured.  

Jonnel Stark had been drinking last night. The stresses of governance weighed heavy on him these days, just as it did every day. He was left to himself to deal with the trials of the past year. His elder sisters had been married off years ago. Brandon was being fostered with House Karstark. Barth was off in Essos, doing who knows what. Edric was sent to deal with some dispute amongst the Mountain Clans; he wouldn’t understand anyway – Lyanna was never as close with him as she was with Jonnel. And Rickon...  

Where the hell was Rickon? While his father wasted away on his death bed and his younger brother ruled Winterfell by his own? No – Rickon preferred the company of his Targaryen princeling rather than his own blood family. Where was he when the cousin of that same Targaryen prince raped his sister? Did he know that he was partially to blame – for allowing that animal into the halls of their home? Her rapist? Her murderer?  

A sister dead. A house dishonoured.  

A daughter of House Stark, raped in her own home. A daughter of House Stark – dead; killed by the product of her rape. Jonnel's father – The Old Wolf, the Lord of Winterfell - on his deathbed, soon to follow his daughter. How many more tragedies could House Stark possibly bear? 

A sister dead. A house dishonoured.  

Sleeplessness wore heavily on Jonnel these nights. Every night. He could not stop hearing poor Lyanna’s screams in his ears. When he closed his eyes, he could only see her pale face, tears streaking down her eyes, life leaving her body as the strain of her birth tore it apart.  

A sister dead. A house dishonoured.  

His figure skulked through the halls of Winterfell, empty of servants and guardsmen. It was the hour of the nightingale. In a few hours it would be dawn. Another night where rest has escaped him. How many more will he have to bear? Many more. Infinitely more. He can never rest while his sister’s rapist – her killer – still breathes. 

A sister dead. A house dishonoured.  

Rape. That fucking rapist. Aegon Targaryen. Aegon the Rapist. If only Jonnel could get his hands on that bastard...  

A sister dead. A house dishonoured.  

He approached the doors to the chambers where the baby’s cradle laid. The boy who killed Lyanna.  

Oh, Lyanna. Poor, sweet Lyanna. He remembered her laugh, her smile. He remembered chasing her through these same halls as they both laughed and laughed. He remembered packing snow in the palms of his hands until they were hard and dense, and he remembered her rage and cries when they hit their mark. He remembered her cries... 

A sister dead. A house dishonoured.  

The doors creaked as Jonnel pushed them open. 

Rape. The rapist, Aegon Targaryen. A child of rape. The rapist’s baby. Raped her. He raped her. Rape-child. Rape.  

The blade of his knife hissed as he unsheathed it from its leather. There was a creak with each step he took, his weight straining the wooden floor. He was looking over the boy, now. He saw him, tufts of silver already growing out of his round head. He even looked like that rapist.  

The squeak of the door woke Jon from his slumber. He had begun to deduce what was truly happening, and the peculiarity of his situation had begun to settle on his mind. He was born anew. This life he had now was no longer the one which he once knew.  

As his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, he saw the man looming over him, his body casting a threatening shadow over Jon. An acute stress surged through Jon’s mind.  

By the Gods. Jon had never seen someone so angry. He had never seen so much wrath on one man’s face. Look at him. Look at his eyes. There’s something in them. He looks insane. He looks like he's going to -  

The knife gave a loud thump as it fell on the ground. His hands were shaking as Jonnel lifted them to his face. He felt the bitter tears streaming down his cheeks. They tasted salty on his lips.  

He had to remove his palms from his face as he nearly collapsed on the cradle before him. He looked again at the child laying before him. He felt the boy’s gaze piercing through to his soul. 

Grey eyes, Jonnel thought. Those are Lyanna’s eyes. He looks like her.  

He choked, a cry escaping his throat. His shoulders quaked as his arms reached out to lift the boy. To lift Jon – he remembered what Lyanna named him; she told him he was named after him. 

Jon felt heavy in his arms. He would grow up to be a strong man, Jonnel knew, as he pulled him into his chest. He held the boy, his weight shifting from one foot to the other as he rhythmically rocked his body. The serenity of his movements seemed incongruent with the string of cries and weeps leaving his lips. Dignity urged him to pull himself together, to cease this farce – but the cries came all the same. 

Soon, the man’s cries were joined by the smallish cries of the boy. They cried together, their voices harmonizing into one common mourning.  

Jonnel missed his sister. He missed Lyanna. 

Chapter Text

The year was 155 AC. It would soon be one hundred and fifty-six years since Aegon the Dragon’s conquest of Westeros. 

The rape and subsequent death of Lyanna Stark strained relations between the Iron Throne and Winterfell. All the North cried out in collective anger, for this country had birthed her and loved Lyanna as if she was their own daughter. From White Harbor to Bear Island, her homeland called for the head of Prince Aegon Targaryen. But the bugles remained silent. 

In a different time - perhaps if only a decade or so earlier, when the Old Wolf had been of better health and constitution - or maybe even just another year or two later, when the North had finally begun to heal from the horrors of the Great Winter of 133 AC  – House Stark may have indeed called up arms, and the full might of the North would have been brought upon the South...  

But these were not those times.  

The Famine of 133 AC doomed one-fifth of the North’s people to starvation, and the Winter Fever took another two-fifths. The Fever was merciful to the south and instead preferred the hospitality of the North, for after it finished its tour of the Riverlands and Vale, it returned to those snow swept lands and wrapped many in its deathly embrace.  

Despite not participating in the conflict, the years after the Dance of Dragons was an apocalypse for the North. Twenty years past, White Harbor and Barrowton were still not yet back to their pre-Winter populations. Many noble houses were still beggared by the usurious loans they had taken out to stem the famines in their lands. Regardless of their pride and rage, all knew that the North was incapable of mounting an army, let alone a band of peasants with pitchforks. Cooler heads prevailed, for they had no other choice. 

After a series of exchanges between Winterfell and King’s Landing, and a great amount of effort made by Rickon Stark (who had been acting as an intermediary between the North and the capital for several years at this point, and had begun to develop southern sympathies), the issue eventually dissipated into the obscurities of history. All that was left was Lyanna Stark’s infant son.  

They say the eyes are a window to the soul. Jon Snow inherited nearly all of his biological father’s physical qualities. He had his hair of silver-gold. He had his comely face. He had his robust health. But his eyes were those of a Stark.  

With these eyes, Jon would observe the passage of history. Half-lidden, tired eyes. What he tried to observe bled together like unintelligible whispers. His childhood would have no narrative; it would just be a combination of air and no air: waiting for life to happen, the body to get big, the mind to grow fearless. There were no stories, no ideas – not really, not yet. It was liquid, like a song – nothing much. It was just a space with some people in it. 

The days and years passed in the ruins of sleep, and every waking moment still proceeded in a trancelike state. Noises swam around Jon, but he did not hear. What he heard was the melody of life, even when there was silence. Everything felt so clear and so new; so limpid was the air on this skin that he now wore felt as if he could feel the vapor of blended voices on it. Majestic, remote, and enigmatic – and from time to time, an unbidden spurt of vivid laughter would release itself from his lips. 

Sometimes the man – the same who visited him that night – would find him and lift him in the air to elicit one of those laughs. He laughed too. Jon would look into that man’s eyes, see the joy and humour in them. 

But he saw more than that. Looking into those eyes, he had the vague sensation of finding the mere dregs of a boy who was once also called Jon Snow – odds and ends of an evaporated identity which was taking more and more effort for him to gather again into the reasonings of his mind. 

Years pass. History progresses. The year 157 AC would come. A new king dies, and another is crowned. King Daeron the First would call upon his lords for the Conquest of Dorne. 

The five sons of the Old Wolf would answer, though it would take much cajoling by his eldest, Rickon. The fourth son, Barthogan, was the quickest to convince; only seventeen but already developing a taste for mindless violence, having ran off to Essos to serve as a mercenary when he was only fourteen. The fifth son, Brandon, soon followed; he was the youngest, and thus the most hungry for glory. The third son, the ever-dutiful Edric, saw his oath to his liege lord as more important than any slight to their family. The second son, Jonnel, was the hardest to convince; but outnumbered 4-to-1, he had no choice but to follow for the good of the pack.  

House Stark marched south to aid House Targaryen. It was as if the tragedies of two years past were truly forgotten. 

Still troubled and sickly, the North could only send two thousand men while other kingdoms provided ten or twenty thousand. The health of the North reflected that of the ailing Old Wolf; it was Lady Jeyne Manderly who was left behind to nurse both. She, along with her two daughters. 

At five-and-ten and four-and-ten respectively, Sansa and Serena Stark, were both cheerful and playful young girls, equally prone to giggle. Serena was perhaps of slightly greater humour than usual, in spite of (or perhaps, because of) the recent death of her late husband, Lord Jon Umber; it was no surprise to anybody that she outlived her husband - he was fifty years her senior, after all. 

While their mother ruled, Sansa and Serena doted on the new member of their family; his silver-gold hair lent him an exoticism which made him preferable to any doll. They would tie bows into his hair and dress him in frills and lace. Jon faced these tribulations with grim determination. 

History progresses. The five brothers would eventually return. 

Rickon returned in a casket, having died serving the Targaryens whom he loved so dearly; his lady-wife collapsed in horror when his bones were presented to her. Jonnel lost an eye, cut out by a Dornishman during the Storming of Wyl. Edric was perhaps the least changed. Barth gained a new name; they called him “Blacksword” now, for the hue his blade was said to have been stained by Dornish blood. Brandon’s eyes were no longer as bright as they were before. 

The Old Wolf finally passed within the year. It was said that he died of heartbreak upon learning of his firstborn son’s death (the reality was that he finally succumbed to his failing lungs). Jonnel was now the Lord of Winterfell; he married Sansa to secure his rule. She would be his first wife. 

She passed after five years, from consumption. Sansa never stopped smiling, even as she grew leaner and her coughs turned more violent. She was surrounded by her family in her last moments. She told Serena to stop crying so much. She told Jonnel that she was sorry. She told all of them that she was glad for the life that she had lived. She never stopped smiling. 

Lord Jonnel Stark barely has any time to grieve before his maester urges him to take another wife. He recommends Lady Robyn Ryswell, so that she and Jonnel might produce an heir; they would fail. History progresses. 

A decade has gone by. It has been one hundred and sixty-nine years since Aegon’s conquest. 

Years of failing to conceive a child only largens the paternal feelings Jonnel had for his sister’s son. He was watching over him now, leaning his forearms on the balcony’s guardrails as Barth trained him, along with Edric and Brandon’s boys. Just as Jonnel, Barthogan had no children, but in his case, it was by choice. He refused to even entertain notions of taking a wife. 

“I’m married to war,” Barthogan told him. Jonnel didn’t see the point in pressing the issue. 

Jonnel never entertained notions of separating the boy from the rest of his trueborn relatives – not that there was any true protest (the Targaryens paid too little attention to the boy for him to be a southern pawn or a threat to the rest of House Stark). Even as Jon knocked his trueborn cousins down in bout after bout, none looked at this as any type of mark against House Stark. Everybody loved his mother, when she was alive. To them all, he was a Stark, and so his abilities were considered the inevitable result of his excellent upbringing. 

Swordsmanship came naturally to the boy; he fought with a certain shiftiness that lent him a wildling quality. Though only four-and-ten, Jon already fought with the instincts and technique of someone twice his age (Old Jonnel did not realize that this was the case; how could he?). Yet, the boy did not become arrogant, like some would have let themselves be; if anything, he was perhaps a little prone to melancholy. As if already, there was a sad irresolution in him, something lost and heartbroken. But how could that be? He was only four-and-ten. Still, it seemed at times that something deeply sad had been born buried in him, stirring occasionally like a creature moving in sleep. Did the boy miss his mother as much as his uncle did? 

Lyanna would be proud of the man his son was growing into it. Was she watching over him, now? 

Jonnel’s eyes went to the pale sky – the clouds which had covered the sun were slowly unveiling the bright mother in all her glory. The sun in splendor. The son in splendor. Lyanna’s boy, her song in splendor; her door was open, and she was singing alone in her chambers when she first learned she was with a child. Memories beset Jonnel’s brooding brain. Silent with awe and pity, he had gone to her bedside; he asked her why she was not furious at everything that had happened to her. She was crying in her wretched bed, but she was not sad. She told him to look at the boy, look how beautiful he is. She told him that love was a bitter mystery. 

His eyes returned to the boys sparring in the training yard. His lips crooked into a small smile as he watched Jon down Rodwell for the second time now, and the other boy pushing himself off the ground to demand another bout. Fatherly pride warmed in Jonnel’s heart. The sweet scene gave him a reprieve from the troubling situation developing elsewhere in the North. 

Ironborn raiders had invaded northern soil. Leading them was Urrigon Greyjoy, wielder of the Valyrian steel sword Nightfall and younger brother of Lord Balton Greyjoy. Jonnel had written to Balton as soon as word travelled of his brother’s actions, but the ironborn lord replied that he knew nothing of his brother's intentions, and that Urrigon was acting on his own. Lord Greyjoy spoke a little of the political situation in the Iron Islands; apparently Urrigon had become popular with many of the old supporters of their father, the Red Kraken. These men were the types who kept six or seven salt wives and cared more about dying a 'warrior's death' rather than living a good life, and they chafed at Balton’s attempts to reform many of the unsavory parts of ironborn culture. And so, they were more than happy to rally around his brother when he offered them a return to the old ways.

Jonnel believed him, but any doubt in his mind quickly evaporated when further word travelled that Urrigon had proclaimed himself “King of the North.” Jonnel doubted Balton to be capable of such stupidity. In their correspondence regarding this madness, Balton did his best to rationalize his brothers actions; he speculated that such rhetoric was only a means to impress the old conservatives back home, and Urrigon was only using his base in the North as a rallying point for his supporters, and to pillage enough resources before sailing for richer and farther lands in Essos and beyond. Jonnel thought that Balton was putting more thought into Urrigon’s actions than Urrigon himself; he knew who these types of men were - all they cared about was pleasing their Drowned God, they did not care much about the long-term feasibility of the plans they concocted in their ale-addled heads. He had met many of them before, whilst in Dorne.

That was where he first met the Greyjoy brothers, as well. Veterans of the Dornish campaign, just as he was. Memories of sitting under the walls of Yronwood, a circle of lordlings and noble sons surrounding a fire. Mosquitos and sweltering heat. Jonnel remembered liking Balton, and thinking him a sound mind, though perhaps lacking a natural gift for arms. Urrigon, less so; he was the opposite of his brother and often raved about the “ironborn way” and how the race of men needed a mass bloodletting to cull it of the weak. Perhaps Jonnel might have been more concerned at his words if not for Balton, rolling his eyes and constantly muttering “this fucking idiot” under his breath.  

Soldiers and men-at-arms were gathering at Winterfell for a campaign against the ironborn positions. House Stark was to raise four thousand soldiers, and collect more from House Cerwyn, Dustin, and Manderly during their march. Word was that Urrigon had five thousand ironmen with him; they had sailed up the Saltspear and had managed to capture an important fortress at the mouth of the Fever River, and they were now conducting raids on Barrowton and Moat Cailin. Nearby houses were slow to respond to the initial invasion as the land the ironborn occupied was directly held by House Stark; Urrigon seemed to have given at least some thought to his idiocy. Some. 

That night, Jonnel took council with his brothers. 

“Rodwell isn't ready,” Barth said, matter-of-factly. 

Brandon sputtered, indignant. He was to remain in Winterfell but had floated the topic of his son marching with them. “What do you mean to say?” 

“His development is slow. It’s best for him to refrain from this march.” Barth shook his head. “He isn’t ready for real battle.” 

“It’s your job to make sure that he’s ready.” Brandon’s face was flushed red. “If he isn’t ready, as you say, then is it not reflective of the failings of his teacher?” 

Barth narrowed his eyes at Brandon. “What did you just say to me, you little shit? I’ll have you know, I -” 

“Enough,” Jonnel intervened. “So Rodwell stays behind. That’s fine, there is no shame in that. He should be with his father. What about Torrhen and Cregard?” 

Barth took a moment to consider, rubbing his chin. “I’d put them in the rearguard.” 

“What? Rodwell couldn’t be in the rearguard, but those two -” Edric slapped Brandon on the back of the head before he could start again. 

“Thank you.” Jonnel nodded at Edric, while Brandon sat with a deep frown on his face. After a moment of silence, Jonnel turned to Barth again. “And...” he hesitated a bit. “What about Jon?” 

Barth’s eyebrows raised. “He could be in the vanguard.” 

Jonnel nodded, and shifted topics to the recent correspondence received from Lord Dustin. But in his mind, he chewed on what Barth said. He already knew the answer to the question before he asked, but he did not want it to be so. His sister’s son... to bring him along for war... Jonnel would not be able to forgive himself if something were to happen to him during their campaign. 

But alas – he knew it would not be fair to the boy if he decided to keep him in Winterfell simply because of that. Despite what Jonnel might have wished, the boy was not his son, and he was still a Snow, not a Stark; set to inherit nothing.  He was already considering the possibility that the boy might one day set off on his own, and Jonnel would have no choice but to let him forge his own path, just as his father did with him and his brothers. 

Near the dawn of day, when there were no servants or men-at-arms roaming around, Jon liked to wander around Winterfell. This was something that he began doing as soon as his legs were long enough to walk again.  

When he first left for the Wall, he never thought he would ever see these grey halls and walls once more. But where was Robb? Where was Arya? Where was Ghost? Names that were fading and would only fade further.  

Fourteen years have passed since Jon opened his eyes again. How was that possible? Time could not have possibly gone so fast. Already he had begun to wonder whether it was this life that was real, and his past life as the son of Eddard Stark that was a falsity. Was anything real at all? He had made sure to write down all he remembered from his past life, as well as everything he knew of the period he found himself in. He kept that parchment and its contents with him everywhere. That was the only tether he had to his reality. 

But this was reality. Here he was, walking once again through the halls of Winterfell. With memories of another life.  

Once there was a boy named Jon Snow who lived in this castle. He used to stand in the shadow of his trueborn siblings and lived softly under the gaze of spiteful eyes. Once, this boy had left his family home to go north to the Wall to grasp something but while also leaving behind another thing... A thing which could never be grasped again. Not be made right again. In the cold snow where he died, all things disappeared; but this new life still hummed of mystery.  

But will this sadness last forever? Waves of bitterness rocked against the walls of his heart, even as he marvelled at the miracle that he was alive. That he was once again drawing breath in the walls of his childhood home. Here he stood now in the courtyard, the same one he stood in day after day, two decades ago, and waited again for Robb to find him. For Jory to put blunt blades in their hands and set them against each other. For Arya to come running out of the halls and crash into his arms. But they don’t come. They never do. 

As Jon crossed the courtyard, he stumbled and fell face-first into the snows. Harsher memories came, of blades etched into flesh. How easy it would be to stay this way – these snows and harsh earths would have been his home. It’s only natural then - why doesn’t he stay? Have a sleep. Forever. 

No. Get up. This is somewhere to be. This life is all he has now, but it was still something. Winterfell and the cold air. The sky, the world. Jon Snow was still alive.  

Chapter Text

They were an army of eight thousand marching down the Kingsroad, to evict the treacherous ironborn from the lands which they occupied. Lord Dustin’s and Lord Manderly’s army had merged with the Stark host in the previous night, and now the northmen army were in lockstep, going through the southern forests, hugging streams and heavily worn dirt paths. 

Torrhen and Cregard were assigned to the rearguard, kept under the command of their father’s share of the army. Although Jon had been in the vanguard, he was at liberty to ride with them at his own discretion. The night before they set out, the two boys were beside themselves with excitement for the upcoming march, but as the days progressed, their giddiness turned to a rising anxiety. 

As for Jon, he showed no signs of concern. He had spent several moons living with the free folk. He had scaled the Wall and set his gaze across the horizon of the Far North from its highest peak. He had prepared for war against the unspeakable. A march against a couple hundred ironborn pirates seemed almost quaint.  

In a strange way, the contrast of these circumstances between his two lives allowed him an inexplicable levity; as if a burden had been unshackled form his mind and he could allow himself a new childish freedom. To the outside, it would have seemed as if the possibility of violence had bloomed a bizarre arousal in him. Perhaps it was that famed Targaryen madness that was beginning to take root. 

Indeed, Jon’s attitude verged on carefree to the point of insanity. He became uncharacteristically animated, gone was his usual melancholy. Those who would have gotten to know him in his new life would have commented: “I have never seen him like this,” or perhaps even, “what the fuck is wrong with this kid?”  

As the soldiers sang marching chants, Jon’s voice merrily joined them, a swagger in his intonation. “Where the hood, where the hood, where the hood at?” he hollered, “have a brother in the cut, where the wood at?” 

Torrhen and Cregard watched their bastard cousin, giving intermittent glances towards each other as they did so. From anyone else, this behavior would not be any sign of worry. But with the usually sullen Jon, it was a display of potential mental derangement brewing. Further confirming their bastard cousin’s suspected insanity was his fixation on an individual crow which he had noticed was following their party since the second day of their march; it was scavenging off the charred remains of the campfires they left behind each night, and he identified it by a peculiar lack of pigmentation in its tail feathers. Anytime he saw it, Jon would click his tongue at it in a rudimentary attempt to communicate, and he began keeping a pocket of corn with which he would try to lure the bird into closer contact. 

His efforts began to bear fruit after a sennight of continuous march; the crow had finally allowed Jon to feed it directly from his hand while it perched on his forearm. When he had first managed to gain this privilege, he rode with haste down the army to show Torrhen and Cregard. He wiggled his pale eyebrows as he silently gestured at the corvid rested on his arm, as if to say: See? See? What do you think? 

Torrhen and Cregard, for their part, regarded all this silently.  

After the crow was done feeding, it began flapping its wings with a sudden fury, rising, and then disappearing into the canopy of the woods from whence it appeared. Jon waved it goodbye as it flew off. Torrhen and Cregard gave each other a look, silently agreeing that they would have to report their cousin’s mental deterioration to their father later that night. 

As they neared the ironborn positions, the Northman army ceased their singing and grew cautious. Units of the advance guard were sent up ahead. Jon went out as one of these scouts, riding through sun-up until high noon through the woods. In these thickets of the lowlands, scouts and rangers from both sides held high carnival over the progress of the conflict. 

They believed that the ironborn had taken fortified positions at the mouth of the Fever River - in the fortress-town of Revall, on the river’s northern shore. The castle had been founded long ago, by Theon Stark, to guard the western flank of Moat Cailin (and along with it, the southern approaches of the North, and any potential strategy to split the kingdom in two). It had been long abandoned by the time of Robert’s Rebellion, but in this century, it still stood, and the scouts of House Stark and House Dustin engaged each other in a silent race through the forests of Krazswald to see who would reach the settlement first. 

The woods and trees of Krazswald, too, had been completely gone by the time of the fourth century; the disappearance of Revall and the Krazswald were two stories intertwined. Jon remembered Maester Luwin teaching him and Robb about the decline of Revall and the Krazswald, using it as a lesson in the price of greed and avarice. It had been the second son of House Stark who had cut down the last trees of the Krazswald, doing so to build his own personal wealth. But Revall’s main economic engine was its lumber industry (and its limestone mines were but a distant second), and by clearing the forests of the Krazswald, the smallfolk began to leave the region. Deforestation doomed the citadel, too; without the woods to keep the waters at bay, the Fever River and Saltspear flooded the lands and turned it into a swamp. The supply lines and roads of the castle were sunk, the citadel became an island, and subsequent Lords of Winterfell decided that the citadel had become impractical to man and maintain. 

But in this life, the Krazswald was still dense and green. It rivalled the Wolfswood in its richness – it was strange to think that in just another century, it would be completely gone. Yet here it still was, and in its thick heartlands the scouts of the northern army followed game-trails and streams to navigate its vibrant and evergreen body. 

Jon’s past experiences with the freefolk and the Night’s Watch carried over into his instincts and muscle memory. His eye for forest trails was strong enough to keep up with some of the more experienced soldiers in his party. He felt Ygritte’s voice whispering her lessons into his ear as he rode on.  

They had been mounted since dawn, and up and down from their mounts, looking at tracks and traces and rubs for signs of enemy scouts, and then up again – riding down steep hills, up rocky defiles, or over downed trunks of ancient trees.  

They had come to a muddy ditch where the trail crossed a stream – the passage of men and animals had worn the end of the trial into the ditch. Jon dismounted and looked into the ditch for a long time.  

“Tell us what you see, boy,” one of the old veterans of his party asked.  

“A great many men passed this way,” Jon said. “And recently.” His eyes became alive, and he slowly moved his head around like a hawk does when searching for prey. He saw only green around him in this dense forest; the great, beautiful, and doomed Krazswald – the North’s verdant blush. One could barely see an inch in front of him with all the branches and bushes and tree trunks. The evergreens and the pines – but there was something else. That wasn’t all that Jon saw. “Oh, shit.” 

“What’s wrong?” 

“There’s a raiding party on the other side of this stream.” 

The old man’s eyes bulge in their sockets, his hands scramble in a panic before finally settling on the handle of his sword. It takes him a moment to compose himself. “Have they spot us?” 

Shouts were heard from the distance. Swords unsheathed, but not theirs. Jon did not need to answer. 

The old man clenched his teeth. “Go warn the others. We’ll screen your retreat.” 

Jon nodded and climbed back onto his horse. He gave the animal a slap on the rump, and he sprang forward, back to the army. 

It was difficult to make haste riding through such dense forests. In the Krazswald, even the most travelled roads were dirt paths at best. He guided his steed and dodged branches the best he could. At some parts, he had to dismount and lead his horse across a rocky trail or two. It was about sunset when Jon heard the distant neigh of a horse, and he realized he was being followed. 

How? were the first words Jon thought of when he had. The ironborn were not particularly known for their horsemanship – and in these dense forests? It was Jon who should have had the advantage; this was his home soil, so how could it be possible that his pursuer managed to close the gap and shadow him without his noticing? 

Jon tried to give nothing away with his body. He had to consider what to do. He needed to find a way to either shake him off or – if necessary – neutralize him. 

His horse quickened into a brisk trot as the heels of Jon’s boots ground into the animal’s sides. Finally, he came onto a clearing with relatively open terrain, where the trees were further apart and thinner, and Jon pushed his horse into a gallop across the road.  

All he heard was the sound of the wind breaking – and suddenly Jon had been thrown on the ground. He lifted his head to see a javelin protruding out of his stallion. Quickly, he scrambled to his feet and unsheathed his sword. As he stood, he was met with the sight of a man in leather armor on a northern-bred quarter-horse (likely stolen, Jon decided), with a scimitar in his hand raised ready to strike. Jon muttered “fuck” under his breath a couple of times as the soldier approached. 

The two men met, the horseman leaning slightly to the side to slash at Jon, who ducked forward; that duck saved Jon only barely, the man’s blade slightly chipped where Jon's neck met his shoulder. Pain flowed through his body and adrenaline rushed his veins as Jon took his sword and sunk it into the man’s quarter bred, dragging the blade across as the horse fell, eliciting a tortured groan from the animal as he did so. 

The man recovered much more gracefully than Jon did when he fell from his horse, and Jon had effectively no time to capitalize on his advantage. When he stepped forward and tried to slash the man at his back, he rolled to the side and rose to face him. A sharp little twinkle of light was all Jon saw, and Jon lifted his blade and caught the man’s scimitar on it. 

The man retreated, and the two circled each other. Then, he dashed forward and slashed thrice. Jon fended the blade away stumbling, and when he recovered the man had retreated already. Jon breathed heavily – the man’s attacks were fast and strong.  

The two circled. Once again, the man stepped forward, lunging his sword; Jon lifted his own and their scabbards caught on each other. The metal grappled with each other, and Jon glanced at his sword, and gritted his teeth as he tried to free his blade. In the corner of his eye, he saw a mailed fist swing wildly. 

Suddenly his ears were ringing, and the right side of his face was stinging with pain. He was facing the ground, his arms trying and failing to lift himself off from it. There was darkness in the corners of his eyes, and he can feel his head rocking still from the strike. Behind him, he heard the man’s scimitar lift as the wind broke upon it, ready to deal a final, mortal blow. This was it. Jon was done for. The darkness was beginning to take him again, and this time, he may never wake up. 

And then suddenly he was in the air. His dark wings carrying him through the canopy of the Krazswald, his thin and nimble body easily navigating through its busy green awnings.  

He saw him. He saw him. He saw himself. He saw himself, collapsed in the dirt. And he saw the man with the scimitar, his blade in the air, and descending, descending, descending. 

He let out a cry, and that was enough to cause the man’s swing to waver. Just as he shifted his wings so that he may swoop lower, the man turned to look for the source of the noise, and was presented with the sight of his black talons - 

Jon’s eyes were blurry when he came to. His ears were still ringing, but he could make the vague and distant cries of the man behind him. What had just happened? No, that didn’t matter. Seconds were passing, and seconds were all he had. The Gods had given him another chance, on top of the one he was still living, and he didn’t know how many more he had remaining to him – best not waste this one. So, get up. You useless bastard - GET UP! 

His arms strained under him, his head still dizzy as he pushed himself up onto his feet - but he could not afford to do anything less. More seconds passed. He did not have many more left. His legs wobbled and he forced his eyes to focus as he glanced around him – there his sword was, just a foot away from where he had collapsed. And there was his would-be killer, a few more feet away from him in the opposite direction, screaming and writhing on the ground, clutching his eye, its contents slipping through his fingers. His scimitar had been abandoned on the ground.  

Still unsteady, Jon forced himself to move quickly. He carried his own body towards his sword and clumsily lifted it from the dirt with loose fingers. He gripped its handle as tightly as he could. Stumbling, he turned himself around and began his approach towards the soldier.  

The man was slowly recovering himself; he could hear Jon approaching, soft crinkles as his feet stepped over leaves. His scimitar was on his right, and he quickly lunged for it, his fingers wrapping around the handle. But just as he was about to lift it and stand - a black boot came down onto the hard steel, keeping it tight on the ground. The soldier whipped his head around to stare dumbly at Jon, his left eye still dripping with blood. Jon brought his sword down. 

The man’s head rolled a few inches before settling in a depression in the soil. Jon stumbled back and leaned on a collapsed tree trunk. He was heaving, his head still dizzy, a vague urge to vomit growing. 

A familiar sound came from above him; a corvid's caws. He instinctively held out his arm and was soon met with the sight of the crow with the pale tail-feathers perching on it. It sang its hoarse song at Jon’s face. Jon smiled and remembered he still had some corn in his pouch. He held some towards the bird’s beak.

“Good boy.” Jon’s voice was tired and shaky. 

What had happened just a moment ago – he remembers what it is. It was the same thing he had with Ghost, once. But what did it mean? Jon shelved that issue into the cabinets of his mind. No time for that. He needed to focus on the matter at hand.  

His eyes focused on the soldier’s corpse. His head detached and laying in the soil. Hair dyed an unnatural hue of red – Essosi? The roots betrayed his hair's true color, a sandy blond; that and his fair skin indicated likely origins from Pentos or some other northern Free City. A mercenary, without a doubt. A professional killer – that explained how he was able to catch up to Jon so quickly. He was trained; no mere foot soldier, but a veteran of many campaigns and battles. 

Jon considered what this could possibly mean for the coming battle between the ironmen and northmen. No reports had spoken of mercenaries among the ironborn ranks – at the very least, that meant that they could only be a small section of Urrigon’s army. Bad news, nonetheless – the northmen’s march against the ironborn would likely prove to be more difficult than initially assumed. 

Then his thoughts turned to his own abilities. His performance during this confrontation was poor; he had been a bum. He failed to detect that he was being followed, and his horse had been killed during the ensuing scuffle; he would have to make his way back to the northmen army on foot. He managed to win and live another day, but he had been sloppy. He was only saved by the intervention of the Gods; if the fight had gone any other way, it would likely be Jon lying with his head detached from his body instead of the soldier’s. The progress of events had been far too close for comfort. 

In the past fourteen years of this new life, he had learned nothing new and experienced little difficulties. His skills and experiences from his previous life as the son of Eddard Stark had carried over and he was able to mark himself as exceptional without truly needing to try. He allowed himself to grow complacent, and now, he struggled when faced with real adversity.  He did not know why the Gods had sent him back into history, but he knew he could not afford to waste this new life by sitting on his ass. He would have to push himself. To keep going forward, for this life and all the lives beyond him. 

The crow flew off into the trees. Jon dusted himself off and lifted himself off from where he sat. He slowly walked the lonesome long way back. 

Chapter Text

The northern army’s first storming of Revall did not go well.  

Through the entire day and night, they threw themselves against the citadel, to no avail. The town's position atop a hill and the way the dense forests seperated the villages and hamlets around it made these waters of the Fever River the graves of generations of ironborn raiders ever since its founding. The origins of its name were unknown, but the smallfolk say that it was named after Erich Hoare's rock wife, who Theon took as a mistress after he cut down her husband. 

After Aegon’s Conquest, its garrisons and upkeep had fallen greatly, for subsequent Lords of Winterfell no longer saw reason to maintain the fortress-town if Westeros was meant to be united as one kingdom. But it was this that finally allowed the ironmen to take the stronghold, for the first time since its founding (no doubt the Essosi mercenaries among their ranks helped them greatly). 

It was now that the northmen had learned of Revall’s formidability first-hand. Anxious to evict the ironmen from their lands, they had underestimated their enemies as well as their own castles, and by the morning, they had lost nearly three hundred men; their vanguard had become depleted, and they were forced to move up ranks of their middle and rear guard. They withdrew to take up fortified positions in the woods and villages surrounding the castle.  

“Damn Theon Stark and his kin!” Jonnel roared, hacking his sword against the bark of an ironwood.  

“Rage will get us nowhere.” Edric remained as calm as always, as they discussed the previous night’s battle in a secluded part of the woods. “We need to take council... Clearly, a full-frontal attack isn’t going to work. We need to identify where their defenses are the most lightly manned and concentrate our attacks at those points.” 

“There were definitely Essosi at my section of the Wall,” Barth said, as he was playing with the bandages on his left forearm, which had been showered by a flurry of burning oil during the storming, “and the smallfolk talked of strange-looking foreigners amongst the ironborn rank...” When the ironborn captured Revall, most of the town’s smallfolk had fled the area and took refuge further inland, into other hamlets within the Krazswald. Barth continued. “Most of them seemed to have thought them a strange breed of ironmen.” He shrugged. “So - what our scouts reported is true... if there was still any doubt to be had.” 

“Where would you say these mercenaries are from?” Edric asked. Out of the three brothers who had participated in the campaign, Barth was the only one with experience dealing with the people of the Free Cities. 

Barth shrugged again. “Based on the dialect of Valyrian I was hearing? It was hard to make out with all the blood and carnage, but... Norvos? Maybe Qohor? One of those two. Couldn’t be Pentos or Braavos – I would have known for certain.” Barth finally seemed to have been done finicking with his bandages. “Tough bastards, those ones are. They’ve been dealing with the Dothraki for centuries since the Fall of Valyria. And Norvos had been going through a civil war during the time I was serving in the Disputed Lands. I never travelled that far, but I’ve met plenty of other sellswords who were either from there or had served on one side or the other... Apparently it wasn’t pretty.” 

“Aye, aye – so we’re fucked? Good to know.” Jonnel rubbed his brow irritably. The socket of his missing eye was aching. “Fine, fine. Enough of this speculating. We came here to kick these goatfuckers off our land, yes? So, let’s figure out how to do that.” 

Jon sat on the roof of an abandoned roundhouse. In the distance, he stared looking at the citadel of Revall. On his outstretched arm, he was feeding the crow with the pale tailfeathers; he had come to call it ‘Ghost’ for no reason in particular. It had nothing to do with those persistent yearnings for memories long lost (well, perhaps a little). Even now, Jon never knew what to do with all those years of his past life: trot around in them forever like old boots – or sever them, let them fly free? Of course, he couldn’t truly do either. But there was always the trying, and pretending. And then there was finally someplace in between, where he usually lived.  

He had been in the vanguard when the northmen army made their initial assaults on the town. Jon could not even count on his two hands how many times he nearly died attempting to scale those tall limestone walls. His body still stung from cuts and bruises of the previous day’s battle. He had experienced similar strain in his previous life - when he climbed the Wall and defended Castle Black against overwhelming forces. He didn’t doubt that this would be far from the last time he would have to go through such trials – but still, that didn’t stop Jon from hoping he’d never have to again. 

His trueborn cousins had different ideas (it was still a little bit funny to Jon that despite being magically transported to the past, he yet remained a bastard – as if the Gods ordained that he couldn’t possibly ever be anything but). Athough they were moved up to the middle guard due to the army’s depleted manpower, they saw little action during the intial stormings of Revall. After their army withdrew, Cregard and Torrhen were quick to find Jon and ask, “what was it like?” 

Jon thought for a good hard moment, trying to put his experiences into words. Ultimately, he settled on the following: “it was pretty fucking shit.” 

A lull would begin to take place during the siege of Revall. The ironborn stayed in their positions instead of sailing off, which would have been wise to do (perhaps their initial success at defending Revall emboldened them). Lord Jonnel Stark did not remain so idle; he would begin ordering more scouting missions in an attempt to identify any weaknesses in the citadel’s fortifications, though it was all for naught. The Hungry Wolf, Theon Stark, was likely laughing in his tomb at his descendants’ follies.  

It was during these scouting missions, when Jon could see Ghost following him in the sky, that he would often take a moment, dismount from his ride, and lay on the North's cold soil. He would close his eyes and try to see through Ghost’s eyes again. He would concentrate, slow his breathing, and try to let his consciousness flow from his body. He would stay like this for a long time. After a while, he would give up and get back on his horse, and shake his head at how much of a fool he was. 

A sennight would pass before Lord Jonnel and his war council would give up on finding any miraculous weakness in Revall’s walls. He would order battering rams to be brought down Cerwyn via the Kingsroad, and reinforcements from Barrowton and Winterfell. The men were ordered to cut down ironwood and oak for lumber and begin constructing siege towers. Manderly engineers built riverboats to sail them down the Fever and burn the ironmen’s longships, cutting off their last chance to flee these lands. 

They worked through days and nights to get these weapons ready, Jon earning a few splinters for his efforts. A fortnight would pass before the northmen army were prepared for another storming. 

Jon’s unit had been merged with his uncle Edric Stark’s command due to how undermanned it had become; Cregard and Torrhen would finally get their wish and see combat. Lord Rodion Dustin’s command neighboured theirs, assigned to take the wall’s northeastern corner-tower. They all marched towards Revall, and pushed their siege engines forward.  Arrows begin flying towards them, but they ignored them. They stopped their siege tower just at the slope of where the citadel’s hill began to steepen, and their archers began loosing arrows onto the ironmen on the walls’ battlements. Hot oil and bricks were being showered on the men below. 

The first wave of men was called up and they began climbing the siege ladders. After the second and third, the fourth came forward and Jon began scaling the escalade, only being narrowly missed by a couple bricks and rain-showers of oil. Soon, he joined the men on Revall’s walls.  

The battlement became a no-man's land and the air reeked of blood and shit and burning oil. A scuffling of feet, blades clashing. Long endless crash of steel and intermittent whooshes crossing the air. The limestone floors were slick with blood and Jon nearly slipped and fell off the walls and onto the deathly grounds below. He tried to look for Edric or his cousins or anybody familiar, but he could not. He saw Lord Dustin in the distance, his black and yellow armour cutting down ironmen outside the corner tower. 

Jon made his way to him, dodging ironborn hatchets and cutting down pirates as he did. Dustin and his men were fighting outside the entrance of the guard-tower; the ironborn had formed a shield wall at its entrance, and the Dustin men mirrored their actions, engaging the enemy in a contest of strength as these two opposing walls of iron grinded against each other. Ironmen on the second level of the guard-tower threw stone and bricks on the Dustin soldiers, who responded by creating a parasol of shields to stop these lethal rains. Jon grabbed a shield from a fallen ironmen and joined this contest. 

His arms were soon becoming sore with the heavy steel and intermittent strikes of stone straining his muscles, but thankfully he would not have to bear these weights for much longer. Lord Dustin’s men won the contest and burst into the entrance of the guard tower, cutting down ironmen as they did.  

And then they were whelmed in dark riot. War cries and crazed chanting filled the building. Dustin men and ironborn berserkers threw themselves against each other like waves crashing against moutain cliffs. An ironborn berserker lunged at Jon where he stood, Jon narrowly dodging and whacking his shield against the man’s chest, knocking him back and causing his shortsword to fall out of his hand. But the crazed man composed himself and tacked again, greedily grabbing at Jon’s shield as he did.  

“You dizzy cunt!” Jon found himself bellowing as he shoved the man off and into the wall, and truck out with a kick that smashed the man’s head against the stone, where it burst like some oversized cantaloupe. Blood and flesh splattered around. 

Anarchy all around him, the inside was dark with the sun slowly setting, and the light of the torches flickering and waning. They had been fighting since morning and through the entire day, and evening was soon upon them.  

Jon tried to make his way deeper through the bedlam, but a heavy figure came athwart his eyes, small but growing larger as he approached. The figure was working his way like a demon through the crowd, blood flying where he walked. In the torchlight, Jon saw his sword and the dark ripples that crossed its shine. 

Valyrian steel, Jon’s eyes widened in terror, and his feet backed away. But then he realized who the man was approaching – Lord Dustin was engaged in fighting near the staircase, back turned from the entrance where the man had entered.  

Jon’s feet moved on his own, and he bellowed “Lord Dustin!”  

Rodion glanced behind him briefly, but that was enough to spot the man with the valyrian steel blade. His eyes widened in horror as the man took a lazy swing toward him, one eye blue and shiny, smiling, his teeth in a grout of blood and his sword singing in his hands. 

Jon barely made it, his shield swinging out and hitting blade on its side, forcing him to stumble back some. Closer now, he was able to get a better look at the man. His features bore a superficial similarity to somebody Jon once knew – the back of his mind itched as he searched for a name. He remembered now – Theon, but not the Hungry Wolf, whose castle they were now fighting in; rather, a Theon belonging to the same ironborn house they were fighting against. What did this mean?  

Urrigon Greyjoy, Jon quickly realized. And the valyrian steel blade in his hand must have been Nightfall. All these thoughts shot through his head in less than a second.  

The Greyjoy man took a step forward again, jabbing with his blade. Instinctively, Jon lifted his shield – and that was his mistake. Nightfall tore through his steel shield like silk and ripped into his side. 

“FUCK!” Jon roared. He felt the pain coarse through his body, and in his mad rage, he caught himself on his backfoot and threw himself wildly at his opponent while he was still on his backswing, and dug his blade into the man’s neck. The two fell onto the blood-soaked ground, and Urrigon Greyjoy’s valyrian steel sword clattered on the rough stone floor. 

“Boy!” He heard Rodion Dustin’s voice sound. He was shaking Jon by his shoulders. “Boy! Are you okay? Fuck!” He felt Rodion let go of him, and vaguely saw his figure turn around to confront another blurry shadow. 

Inside the guard tower, it was turning white as dawn. Jon’s eyes were rolling up in his head, the pain blinding him. He distinctively heard his mother’s voice, clearer than anything in his life. Promise me... 

His fingers poked at the wound at his side, wincing as he dug his hand into it. It was shallow, and he thanked the Gods. Any deeper, and the valyrian steel would have sliced him through and left him a slow and painful death.  

He pulled himself up a swaying wall with the dead Greyjoy’s valyrian steel in hand. All that frantic bedlam before him seemed to have slowed, but the carnage still raged all the same. With a faint surge of that fairyland feeling from childhood wonders, he scanned around him and saw all the corpses with their heads split open and how they littered the ground around him.  

“Ahhh,” said Jon, “This is fucking awful.” He pulled himself up, standing with his knees locked yet simultaneously swaying. He took a small step, stiffly fending. 

Do not go down, he thought to himself, but the pain at his side roared and screamed and he dropped down again among the din and the flailing, his eyes platelike with the enormity of the pain behind them. It fucking hurts. Why does it hurt so much? Jon’s hand went to his wound again, pressing it. For a mad moment, he thought himself in Castle Black again, with Bowen Marsh and Wick Wittlestick and all the others around him, sticking their daggers in him.  

“For the watch...” Jon whispered to himself, and then all he saw was black. 

The northmen spent the night clearing Revall’s walls of ironmen hold-outs. Jonnel’s missing eye was roaring with pain, and a migraine was surging through his skull. 

Edric had died during the fighting. So did Cregard and Torrhen. As if it wasn’t enough that they took his sister and Sansa, the Gods greedily ripped his brother and nephews from him as well. There seemed to be no end to House Stark’s tragedies. 

And by the Gods – Jon looked horrible when he saw him.  

He was on a makeshift stretcher when Lord Dustin brought him to Jonnel. The boy’s entire left side was heavily bandaged, with the red stains of blood still peaking through the cloths. He was deathly pale, his skin nearly the same colour as his hair, and dark shadows were below his closed eyes. Beside him laid the valyrian steel blade, Nightfall, in its ornate scabbard – as if the Gods had decided to grant him one token concession for all they’ve stripped of him over the years. 

“It was this blade that got him,” Lord Rodion Dustin told him, his face haggard and exhausted, shadows under his blue-grey eyes. Briefly, a memory flashed before Jonnel’s mind – of Lyanna and Rodion dancing on the floors of Barrow Hall. He remembered now; Rodion once loved Lyanna, too. “I likely wouldn’t be standing before you right now if not for the boy. He killed Urrigon himself. Nightfall... it’s his. He’s earned it.” Rodion bowed his head, his sandy-blond hair concealing the rest of his face. “Words cannot describe how I’ve failed you, my lord.” 

Jonnel said something to Lord Dustin, but he did not hear himself. He must have ordered Jon’s unconscious body to be taken away to somewhere safe. Jonnel forced himself to continue his duties; Revall still needed to be secured. But a numbness persisted as he walked the town's battlements, his voice tired as he gave instruction to his soldiers.  

Some time was spent to ensure that the citadel’s keep was cleared of soldiers and fully occupied. The castle faced the ocean, where the citadel’s hill stopped abruptly and broke down into a cliff. Exhaustion nawed at Jonnel, and just for a moment, he allowed himself to rest his elbows on one of the limestone windows and looked out onto the Saltspear. The ocean seemed like one infinite black steppe under the dark skies. It would soon be morning.  

It was when he was walking towards the southwestern side of Revall that he noticed something was off. Soldiers sat around a building near the walls, much larger than the ones surrounding it. It was about six floors, and looked like it might've been used as a boarding house.  

Jonnel made his way down to assess the situation; the town was too dense for him to be able to discern what was going on while looking down from the battlements. He saw soldiers taking cover behind hay-barrels and wheel-carts. A whistle came from his left as he walked down the street, and he turned and saw his brother crouching behind the wall of another building. It was the turn that saved him – whizzing his head was an arrow coming from one of the windows of the house’s fifth floor. He sprinted towards his brother, leaving a trail of smoke and dust as he slid behind the wall. 

“What the fuck is going on?” 

Barth gestured toward the boarding house with his head. “I think I’ve found our Essosi friends.” 

“Why haven’t we stormed that building yet?” 

“They’ve barricaded the entrances... Some of the men tried climbing into the windows, but all they got was an arrow through the eye for their efforts.” Barth’s tone seemed to indicate that he found that amusing. “They’re tough bastards, like I said.” 

“Well?” Jonnel was beginning to become irritated by how nonchalant his brother seemed to be. “How are we going to get them out?” 

“Don’t worry. Relax.” Barth gave him a reassuring grin. “I have a feeling that they’ll be coming out soon. They’re just... trying to prove a point, I suppose.” 

Jonnel narrowed his eyes. “What? Huh? Are you simple? Do you have a dent in your head?” 

“Just tell our men to stay away, or make sure they aren’t in the open when they approach. I doubt they have enough food or water to stay in there for long, regardless.” Barth made a motion with his hand. Jonnel couldn’t decipher what the hell it was meant to be. “Like I said, they’ll have to come out sooner or later.” 

And so, the siege of Revall continued, but for hours after the northmen had successfully stormed the castle. Another siege had developed, but of a much smaller scale compared to what had come before; northern soldiers stood guard around the boarding house, occupying surrounding buildings and peeking behind walls and windows to get a glimpse of the foreigners that had frustrated them. 

By mid-day, a white flag was waved out of one of the boarding house’s windows, tied to the tip of a halberd. The front doors were opened and an old man stepped out, wearing splint armour and a sheathed scimitar on his side. His face was weathered with lines and scars, and though he no longer had any hair on the top of his head, he still had a full beard, dyed blue. The dye was fading. Underneath was a pale hue of yellow. 

Jonnel approached, shield ready and his hand on his pommel in case of any treachery. He and the man stopped several feet apart from each other. The old man unclasped the sword at his side, took a knee, and presented his weapon to Jonnel; he did all of this in one swift motion.  

“I am Mykhaylo Druze, commander of the seventeenth regiment of the Norvoshi Revolutionary Guard,” he spoke, his words boldly accented and sharp when it came to his consonants. “And this is my termless surrender.” 

Jonnel took a tentative step forward and grabbed the sword from the man’s hands. “Rise, Mykhaylo.” The man did not do so, and kept his head bent towards the ground. “How many are there of you?” 

“We were two hundred when we first landed on your country’s soil. We are a little over one hundred, now.” 

Jonnel nodded. A sizeable portion of the ironmen army, but not overly so. “Your men are far from home.” 

“Our home is no more.” Mykhaylo spoke somberly. “It is currently occupied by the sham-government of the bearded priests and magisters, who have sold Great Norvos to claws of the Dothraki yoke. We are men without a country. We are exiles.” 

Vaguely, in the back of his mind, the stories and myths of Queen Nymeria and the Rhoynar echoed through his memories. History lessons long forgotten, unearthed again. The day was cold, and Jonnel shivered as the wind cut through his furs. “Is that why you allied with Urrigon Greyjoy? To find yourselves a new home?” 

“Indeed. He acquired our services while we were in Pentos, promising us new lands to settle and work.” Mykhaylo seemed to bend his head lower before speaking his next words. “My lord, we are at your mercy. I have given you my unconditional surrender, but I beg of you... We were not always mercenaries – we were soldiers who believed in a cause, once. And we fought for it. We can do so again. We offer our fealty – in return, we ask that you end our neverending wanderings.” 

Jonnel let out a long breath, creating a pale cloud in front of his face which floated tenderly before disappearing into the wind. He thought of his brother and his nephews. Their lives snuffed-out because of this pointless conflict. Stupid men deceived by Urrigon Greyjoy's forked tongue. It may not have been Druze or any of his men who swung the sword, but it may as well have been. And as if that couldn't be any more of an insult, they ask for mercy, and to settle on these sacred and holy soils; his home. The only mercy the Lord of Winterfell would give these men would be at the sharp edge of his blade.

He opened his mouth, condemnation ready to leap off his tongue - but then, all of a sudden, the unbidden cries of a crow rang through the air. Jonnel looked up, eyes tracing where the sounds of flapping wings cut through the sky; a crow with pale tail-feathers was flying and settling on the balcony of one of the houses, just above where Jonnel stood. It cawed as Jonnel returned the bird's strangely unceasing gaze. Its eyes were black and beady, but in them the Lord of Winterfell saw something old and ancient. 

A shiver shook his body. He was not sure why, but the gaze of the crow filled him with a strange sheepishness. As if the bird was a voyeur watching Jonnel moments away from committing a great shame. No, he would not kill these men. He suddenly felt it would be a mistake to do so. These men were good soldiers, he had just seen first-hand how effective they can be. Jonnel will show them mercy, and put them to work in the services of House Stark. What inspired this sudden change of heart? He was not sure. 

But nevertheless, when Jonnel spoke, it was not damnation that was pronounced, and he no longer felt the crow's black eyes on him.

In his unconsciousness, Jon dreamt that he was with Ygritte.  

They were fixing arrowheads in Castle Black’s armoury. They sat facing each other, perhaps only a few feet from the furnace, allowing them to strip themselves of their thick fur coats. Sharpened dragonglass were scattered all about them, as well as feathers and shafts. Close together, their legs crossed each other in a tangled mess.  

The position elicited many sly grins between the two. Ygritte would shift her foot a little further up Jon’s thigh, giving him a mischievous smile as she did so, deliberately peaking up from her work and through her orange curls to look at him. He would return an amused smile but resist the urge to do anymore. 

The two of them sat like that for a long time, fixing arrowheads to their shafts and then attaching a fletching. Sometimes the two would share a laugh at whatever new absurd movements they made with their legs. But slowly, an uneasiness would grow in Jon. He began to realize that something wasn’t quite right, and slowly, his smile would slip from his face. 

“This isn’t real,” he said. “This is a dream. I’m dreaming.” 

Ygritte peaked at him from her messy bangs, hands still working at the arrow-feathers. “Catch on quickly, don’t cha?” 

Jon set down the dragonglass and arrow shaft he was working on, withdrawing his leg and folding his arms on his knee, resting his cheek on the makeshift pillow. “Why is this happening?” he whispered. “What happened?” 

“You nearly had your guts cut out storming the castle Revall. Right now, you’re sleeping in a comfy lil’ bed in its keep... Lucky crow. You’re being cared for by a young farmer’s wife. Pretty little thing, too.” 

He shifted his head so that his brow was on his forearm, his face buried into his arms. “I’m tired, Ygritte. I can’t keep going on like this.” 

“But you have to,” she said now, tender. “You have to. For us. For me. For everybody. For all the lives that will be born before and after you. Didn’t you crows swear that oath? That you’ll stand guard against the darkness... for all the nights to come...?” 

He stayed silent a moment. He could hear Ygritte still working at the arrows. Eventually, he lifted his head and looked at her. She stopped and looked back at him.  

“What’s it like being dead?” he asked.  

She gave him a wry smile. “Wouldn’t you know, just as well?” 

Jon shook his head. “This isn’t death. This is... something else.” 

Ygritte tilted her head, smile still on her face. “Do you hate it?” 

He sighed. “Sometimes. It’s tough, sometimes.” 

“Because you miss me?” 

“Yes. I miss you, so much. So much. More than anything in the world.” He hugged his legs. “And Tormund, too. And Samwell. And my father.... Arya, Robb, Bran, even Sansa. I miss everybody. Sometimes I miss them so much that it hurts. As if this feeling by itself could kill me.” 

At that, she shook her head, a sadness in her smile now. “But you can’t let it. You have to keep going.” 

“But what if I don’t want to?” 

“Then the world will turn its back on you, and walk away.” 

Jon let out a ragged, struggling breath. “It's hard.” 

“It will be. But in one hundred and fifty years, the great darkness will come. It will come for us. All of us. We need you. You can save us from those terrors... The cold. The Long Night.” 

Silence filled the air. After a few moments, Ygritte returned her attentions to the arrow parts before her. As she once again began to work at them, her voice rang out in a lullaby. “Ooooooh, I am the last of the giants, my people are gone from the earth... The last of the great mountain giants, who ruled all the world at my birth...” 

Chapter Text

A moon had passed since the siege of Revall. Jon was well enough to walk now, but not enough to ride home to Winterfell. Thus he stayed, recovering.  

He was housed in one of the chambers of the keep, with a window that overlooking the town. The valyrian steel sword Nightfall leaned against the side of his bed behind him. Below, the smallfolk had begun to return to the township as word travelled that the ironborn threat was stamped out. Much was destroyed during their occupation, as well as during the northmen’s siege and storming. It would take some time for things to return to normal for these people. But they will go on.  

He tried to imagine their skin deathly pale and cold to the touch, and their eyes glowing a sinister blue. He had over one hundred more years to prevent the coming night, and he hadn’t the faintest idea how to. Couldn’t the Gods have thrown him back to a time when dragons were still flying across the skies? At least then, the mission would be clearer... No, it didn’t matter. He had to go on – find a way. He would have to go on, just as the townsfolk did on the streets below. 

A grey rain falls on Revall. The town soaks it in, cold and dripping. Waves hit the coastline of the Saltspear. Below him, he could see men and women passing through the streets, living their lives, even amongst the rubble of destroyed buildings and stones stained red. Children played and began to run for cover at the first onset of precipitation. These were the people who truly drove the progress of history, but none would know their names. 

* 

The wind was cold and bitter as Jonnel rode out from the evergreens of the Krazswald. It was early evening; the sunset painted the sky reds and purples, and stained the snow-covered landscapes orange. With him were the preserved bodies of his brother and nephews, headed to Winterfell for their entombment into the crypts. He was the only living Stark riding in his party, for he had left his nephew and brother behind; Jon was to serve as the castellan of the town, with his brother as his aide. He still remembered his surprise when the boy had asked to be made Revall’s governor.  

Jonnel had been writing letters to Lord Balton and the Iron Throne, seeking recompensation for the damage done to House Stark and the North, when Jon found him in his solar. 

“It has been nearly two moons since Lord Stark has stepped foot in Winterfell,” Jon had said. Nightfall was at his hip, worn purposefully as he made this request. “The time has come for you to attend to more important matters.” 

It was not some mere fanciful request that was being delivered; Jonnel saw a great resolution in his nephew's eyes. For a second, he found it difficult to recognize who was standing before him. He could close his eyes and remember, as if it was yesterday, holding Lyanna’s babe in his arms, his weight imbuing him with a careening hope. But that boy no longer existed; it was now a man who stood before him that chilly afternoon.  

There was truth in Jon's words - he had stayed in Revall for longer than what was necessary. One reason was to oversee Jon's recovery; he did not leave because Jon could not – a fact which had been weaponized against him during his discussion with his nephew.  

The other reason was cowardice. No doubt Serena had already received news of her husband and sons' deaths, but Jonnel had still yet to deliver their bodies back to their family home and present them to her. He had already been through this before, when he had returned from Dorne with Rickon’s body. He wished that he would never have to do so ever again. He remembered how he set his brother's bones before Lady Jeyne Manderly, and watched her face. He had forgotten how cold the North could be. The winter had frozen their tears on their cheeks. 

But the time had come for Jonnel to pay his debtors and make his journey northwards. He called for Barth and asked him to stay in Revall to assist and advise Jon. As he spoke with his brother, he felt a sudden draining loss. What he was experiencing was something all fathers must experience, once in their lives, though it takes many different forms. Some fathers must watch their sons ride off from their family homes. Some fathers must watch their sons ride off to war. Some fathers walk side-by-side with their daughters to hand them off to their grooms on their wedding days. Some fathers must bury their children years before they pass themselves. Some fathers never sleep at all, but are endlessly awake, staring at their features, which are behind them. 

Jonnel felt an ache in his eyes and his throat. “I don’t know what’s happened to him, Barth,” he said, shaking his head. “I truly don’t.” 

Barth glanced at his brother, this middle-aged man with chaotic brown hair and tired grey eyes. “He grew up, Jonnel,” he said, “just like us.” At that, Jonnel felt incredibly old.  

His mind returned back to the present, as he rode through the pale landscape, Jonnel closed his eyes and listened. The soft crushing of snow beneath horse hooves and carriage wheels. The velvety night in his ears. And the hum, always that hum, which maybe wasn’t an echo at all, but rather the sound of time passing. The blue night. The stars he couldn’t see. The hum that never goes away. 

* 

When he first learned of his birth, Viserys Targaryen was all but happy to let the royal bastard Jon Snow live out the rest of his life in the North, in relative obscurity. He would be the source of the occasional gossip – a particularly talkative noblewoman might, in a knitting circle, spontaneously wonder “what ever happened to that boy Prince Aegon fathered?” However, that would be as far as that went concerning any political machinations involving the boy.  

But the Gods had a way of making fools of men. 

These were the thoughts of the Hand of the King as his eyes went over the contents of the letter with the direwolf seal. A dispute between House Stark and Greyjoy; Lord Jonnel demanded restitution for the havoc wreaked by Lord Balton’s mercurial brother - but that was a simple matter compared to what occupied Viserys’ mind at the moment.  

It had become clear to the Realm that his nephew, King Baelor, would not father any children. That meant instead that Viserys and his children, and then his children’s children, would inherit the throne. The existence of Jon Snow was of no particular concern even just five years ago, early in Baelor’s reign, when Viserys hoped that the boy would eventually give up on his foolish piety. But now, the threat Jon Snow posed to his grandson, young Prince Daeron, was very real, especially considering the reputation that the bastard was building in his homeland. 

It was said that Jon Snow – 'Lord Blood-and-Guts’, as the smallfolk up there had supposedly begun to call him – had slain Urrigon Greyjoy himself, and became the wielder of the valyrian steel blade, Nightfall. The same valyrian steel which apparently had nearly taken his life; it was from this near-mortal wound that Blood-and-Guts earned one-half of his moniker.  

The other half – the ‘Lord’ part – originated as Jon Snow had been named Revall's castellan by his lord-uncle. Lord Stark’s reasoning was not publicly known, but the smallfolk up there were openly speculating that since Jon Snow had bled for the town, Jonnel Stark decided that it was only fit that he should have it.  

There was no word as to whether the Lord of Winterfell intended to bequeath the land onto the boy, but per his Master of Whispers, Revall's townsfolk were all-but demanding that this be the case. For the bastard to already have a powerbase... Viserys decided that this spelt only trouble. Going forward, they would have to closely monitor the situation in the North, and especially in Revall. 

Indeed, if even half of the reports arriving to King's Landing were true, Jon Snow was far too well-liked by the people of Revall. And it wasn’t just for the story-like quality of how he came to rule the town (though of course, who didn’t like a ruler who was willing to bleed and die for his people?), but also his policies; the bastard’s building reputation as a competent statesman presented even further trouble. But what was perhaps more dangerous was the fact that he was becoming known as a warrior – which his grandson, Daeron, very much was not. This was something which Aegon seemed to revel in when Viserys brought up his findings to him. 

“Well, it’s damn well one of my sons be capable of swinging a sword!” He said merrily. It was only the late morning, but he was already intoxicated. “Maybe I should bring him down to here so he can teach Daeron a couple things? Hah!” 

Despite Aegon’s lackadaisical attitude, Viserys had come to the same conclusion. The boy needed to be in King’s Landing, where a closer eye may be kept on him. It ran the risk of him becoming a pawn of an ambitious or potentially treasonous lord, but Viserys decided he would prefer to have the boy near rather than in the faraway North. 

He brought the issue up to Baelor, who like Aegon, had a similarly lax approach to the matter, but for an entirely different reason. Regardless, it led to the same endpoint:

“A son of House Targaryen, born and having grown up in the North...” his face had a serene look as his hands were clasped, as if even now he was in prayer. “They worship pagan gods in those lands. Those heretic attitudes will only multiply the naturally lustful and sinful leanings of his bastard birth... We must bring the boy to King’s Landing, where he might see the light. We must guide him towards the Faith of the Seven...” Baelor’s eyes closed; his head tilted towards the ceiling. “Make arrangements for him immediately, uncle. I will go and pray for his immortal soul - pray that he has not already succumbed to pagan appetites.” And then he turned his back, white robes trailing behind him as he undoubtedly went to his prayer room. 

Oh well, Viserys thought. He got the answer he was looking for – Jon Snow would be brought to the capital. But how should he go about doing so? Relations between Winterfell and King’s Landing has not been warm, since at least – well, the boy’s birth. The morbid circumstances of his conception remained a source of tension between House Stark and Targaryen, even now.  

As he walked to Grandmaester Munkun’s offices, he was already composing the letter in his mind. He would side with Winterfell in their dispute. Not only that, but he would also offer to pay the damages done to Barrowton and Flint’s Finger directly from the royal coffers; tax cuts of two per cent would be given to all lords in the North, tariffs on goods flowing in and out of White Harbor would be lifted for the next five years, and favourable grain deals would be redirected towards Winterfell. The Iron Throne should be able to afford all these incentives easily. Regardless of his personal feelings towards his nephew’s excessive piety, Viserys must admit that his austerity meant that their yearly budget often ran at a surplus (though Baelor would usually order such coin donated to the smallfolk and the Faith).  

Still, all of that would only amount to bribery. Whatever hatreds Lord Jonnel Stark held towards House Targaryen has likely only festered since his sister’s death fifteen years past; if Viserys were to lay down all these terms so bluntly, it would likely only offend and enrage. House Stark would likely be offended and enraged regardless, but still - a delicate approach must be taken. 

No matter. Viserys has dealt with worse. He had been the Hand of the King when Daeron led his armies into Dorne; when the Seven Kingdoms suddenly lost their King, and when another walked barefoot into the same lands that killed the previous. He has been the Hand for years since then and has governed while his nephews fiddled. Viserys Targaryen was not scared of some tempestuous northmen. 

* 

Aside from rebuilding the damaged buildings and streets, the first thing Jon did was begin construction of a harbor. Frankly, it was odd to him that there wasn’t one already, but the reason quickly became self-evident: The Saltspear’s coastline was far too swampy for the construction of any such structure.

It was the Norvoshi mercenaries who were able to eventually solve that problem; before Lord Jonnel left for Winterfell, he negotiated terms with the Norvoshi for their settlement on the lands of the Krazswald, securing a year of military service before any of them were given land. Their military engineers they brought Essosi construction techniques that presented workarounds for issues that they otherwise may not have found. 

By using some of the natural materials that could be found in the Krazwald’s rich forests, they drove tree trunks into the water and laid planks and then limestone bricks over them. Stable foundations for docks and a pier were laid, and the rest of the harbour soon followed suit. The construction progressed quickly. The project provided a source of work for those in the area, though they also used their soldiers to supplement their workforce. 

As the port was nearing completion, Jon ordered the construction of a new line of walls added to the outside of its old walls, as well as another longer, wider line that would engulf the new harbor as well as a few of the villages and hamlets below the hill of the citadel. The first new line would be built by limestone, sourced from the Krazswald’s mines and supplemented by orders from Barrowton and White Harbor. Although Lord Jonnel was kind enough to pay for the building materials, Jon did not want to abuse his generosity and decided that the wider second line of fortifications should be built using the more abundant resources of the Krazswald forests.  

The town was becoming a busy hub. Even despite the harbor’s half-finished state, word was spreading that the town would soon have sea access, drawing in merchants from Flint’s Finger and even Seagard. And as it was heard that the town needed workers, so the workers came – from Barrowton, White Harbour, and Torrhen’s Square. In just under a couple of months, Revall added perhaps close to a hundred new citizens. The settlements below the citadel were growing rapidly, and could no longer be considered mere villages or hamlets. 

The completion of the harbor of Revall marked the new year - it was now 170 AC. With the end of the project, Jon turned his attention to the town’s natural barriers against the ocean. The dense woodlands that hugged the Fever River and Saltspear coast and protected the town from the watery reaches of swamps and crannogs. The loss of Revall deprived the North of an important fortress that guarded the western flank of Moat Cailin – Jon did not forget what had happened during the War of the Five Kings... How the ironborn simply sailed up the Fever with no resistance. That could never be allowed to happen. If the North was to remain strong, such a thing could not be tolerated. 

A survey would have to be undertaken first, and then Jon would decide on how to approach the issue. He decided he would undertake the mission himself. A few more moons would pass as he made arrangements for the governance of Revall during his absence.

When things were finally ready, Jon waited for the morning to come, he clasped Nightfall to his hip, and had his horse saddled and rations for up to a fortnight prepared for his expedition.  

As if bird and man were is sync, Ghost had been waiting for him at the stables when Jon came down to pack his supplies and prepare his horse. It was perched on one of the wooden beams holding the roof, and swept down to pluck a piece of corn from his hand when Jon procured some from his pouch. He gave a wink and a nod at the crow as it flew southeast, where the Krazswald straddled the riverbanks, as if it already knew the destination of Jon’s journey. As he watched this, Jon considered who else he should take with him on this ride. He needed someone with a wealth of experience navigating the forests. His uncle Barth was to stay and govern Revall whilst he was gone, so he would not be able to take him, but Jon decided he would get his recommendation.  

“I know just the man,” Barth said, and went off whilst Jon waited at the stables.  

By mid-morning, he reappeared with one of the Norvoshi exiles with him; the man gave Jon an easy grin as his uncle introduced him.  

“This man here has been assisting with much of the lumber-gathering operations for our second wall,” Barth said. “He knows these woods as if he was born in them.” 

The man gave a half-bow, a loose demeanor about him. It did not seem that he was being intentionally disrespectful, so Jon ignored his behavior. The man began speaking. “It is an honor, Lord Blood-and-Guts. I assure you that there is no other man more qualified for this mission.” His words boldly accented and sharp when it came to his consonants. “I have fought a hundred battles on the frontiers of Great Norvos, where the Mother Hills end and the dark woods of Qohor begin. There is no man who is better than I at riding through the world forests. The trees speak to me, and I follow their voices.” 

Jon gave a slow nod. “Well met, soldier. You must excuse me, I don’t believe you have given your name, yet.” 

Barth cut in. “We call him Pussy-Juice.” 

“Pu- What? Huh?” 

“Pussy-Juice. The men call him – oh.” Barth laughed, somewhat surprised at himself. “Apologies... Our soldiers call him Pussy-Juice. I’m not sure why, I didn’t question it. You know how soldiers are.” He shrugged. “Now that I think about it, I do not believe I have ever heard anyone call him by anything else." 

Jon let out a long sigh before turning back to... Pussy-Juice. “And what is your actual name, soldier?” 

“Kyrie. My name is Kyrie Lyonovych Kryvonis.” 

“Gods be damned.” Jon gave his uncle a look before turning back to the Norvoshi man. “Well, I hope you make an able partner, Kyrie.” 

“I don't mind being called Pussy-Juice. I kind of like it.” 

“Of course you do.” Jon rolled his eyes before addressing Barth again. “Well, let's get Kyrie enough supplies and rations for a full moon. And find his horse, as well. We ride out at once.” 

Barth nodded and called for the stable-boy, leaving Jon alone with the Norvoshi man. Silently, Jon narrowed his eyes and evaluated him. In response, the Norvoshi man shrugged and kept on smiling, as if perpetually amused at a joke known only to him. He seemed to like dying his hair and mustachio an extravagant bright blue, but those dyes were quickly fading, revealing dirty-blond underneath. An unserious man... Certain to his own abilities to the point of arrogance. But there was something else. Even despite all this, Jon was sure that if the sky were to collapse and the ground turned to blazing coal, this man would throw himself in front of him to save him. Jon felt sure of that – but why? 

It did not take much longer before they finally set out for the Fever River, their black leathers creaking and whispering in the morning wind. The dark orchards around them jutted out of the white blankets of the North, dense and rich and everywhere around them. The creatures and fae of the Krazswald chirped and squeaked and cried from their viridescent homes. The river and the cold wind howled their song, united in choir. The music of the natural world. 

Jon and Kyrie rode through the morning and then rode through the noon. When evening came, they dismounted and ignited their pieces of wood where the forests opened a little. The rivers chattered and their cookfires crackled, though those sounds died with the last dull shapes of their coals and woods, and the stars that were adrift went dying across the face of the firmaments. 

Soon the birds were twittering around them again, announcing the signs of the morning. The leaves looked blue in the dawn, and the sun, when it rose, caught the moon in the west so that they lay opposed to each other across the earth, the sun white hot and the moon a pale replica, as if they were the ends of some entity beyond whose terminals burned worlds past all reckoning. 

They rode on, under the tall trees that stood around them and shielded them from the rest of the world as if these silent sentinels were their birth mothers and they young and naive children; the whistles of their leaves sounded like little lullabies hummed. They rode, under the little archipelagos of clouds and dark-blue islands and the void where the world grew uncertain. Kyrie sang old Norvoshi folk songs; one told of a girl named Katyusha who stood on a riverbank and sang a song devoted to her beloved, a soldier serving in a war far away. 

They heard somewhere in that quiet day a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was, and they rode out towards the sound with their mounts carrying their figures and bearing them up towards the largening silhouette of a settlement in the distance, glimpsed through the concealment of the thickets around them. 

It was a little hamlet hidden in the woods. Jon and Kyrie went up via the dirt road running through the settlement. There were children and village-folk strolling along the street as the two men rode in. Curious eyes were drawn to these two lone rangers, their foreign and exotic appearances. 

Jon found a local tavern, and he paid for two plates of walleyes and thinly sliced potatoes cooked in lard. The pair discussed the status of their survey, the importance of the woodlands for the local economies and environment, and what was to be done about it. 

“You’ve seen how swampy the riverbanks are. The trees are the only thing keeping the Fever from consuming Revall and expanding the crannoglands,” Jon spoke. “This village we’re sitting in right now could be drowned and its people flooded out... I’m thinking... we set a boundary around the coastal forest. Use stones as landmarks – and create a zone of preservation where it is completely forbidden to harvest wood from.” 

“Hmmm...” Kyrie tugged on his mustachio (Jon decided that later he would broach the topic of him shaving the thing off – no northman would ever wear his facial hair in such a fashion. If he and his compatriots were to be integrated, such things must be done). The Norvoshi man thought a long time before speaking again. “No, that would not be a good idea, I think.” 

Jon raised an eyebrow. “What makes you say that?” 

Kyrie took a bite of his walleye before proceeding. “These woods are already very dense... When a forest becomes too dense, it becomes easier for fires to spread. Especially with older trees.” 

“Fires?” Jon squinted. “From what? We are in the North.” 

“Forest fires can still occur – even in colder lands. Plenty have occurred in Norvos,” Kyrie answered. “Air is dryer, especially during summer. Indeed, forest fires are much more common in warmer and hotter lands, but man can never hope to predict the whims of nature.” 

“So,” Jon spread his hands. “What do you suggest?” 

“Your idea of maintaining a boundary around the coastal forest is a good idea... But the forest still needs to be thinned regularly. Set a fixed rate of lumber that can be harvested from these woodlands each year – there are better ways to go about this, but since you are worried by abuse by subsequent governors, this might be the best option at the moment.” 

“I see.” Jon considered the man’s words.  

As the discussion died, the two men turned their attentions to their plates. Jon waved down the tavern-girl and asked two mugs of ale to be brought to their table. After some moments of silence, he eventually asked Kyrie about his home:

“Tell me about Norvos.” 

Kyrie glanced up from his plate briefly. He was scarfing down his sliced potatoes. “What do you want to know? What is there to say?” 

“Well, why are you and your brother-in-arms here in the North?” 

“You already know that.” 

“I mean, why did you men leave your homeland to begin with?” 

The Norvoshi waved his hand in a vague manner. “There was a war, and we were on the losing side. Now here we are, practically half-northmen.” 

“What was the war about? It was a civil war, yes? Was there a succession crisis?” 

“A succession crisis? Hah!” Kyrie threw his head in a laugh. “No, no, nothing so... feudal. Forget about it. The political consciousness in Westeros is still too undeveloped to understand concepts such as nationalisme, demokratia, or even political sovereignty.” 

“What?” 

Kyrie pointed at Jon with one hand whilst the other shoved a piece of walleye into his mouth. “My point exactly.” 

Jon rolled his eyes. “Fine, fine. As you say.” 

They prepared to rode off again early in the next morning, the part of dawn where the sun had yet to peak over horizon and the moon continued its absolute rule of the skies. The dark trees etched eerily into the sky; the branches reaching as if for something to hold and eat – perhaps the dead and candied stars. The ground was cold, thatched with moss. In the moonlight the sky seemed wild, bright, and marbled like the sea. People alone, trapped, country people, all looked at the sky. For it was the steady, changeless witness to the after and before of one’s decisions – it witnessed all the deaths that took people away to other worlds.  

Soon, it turned away, and the yellow dawn showed its first signs of emerging from the black horizon. Jon was still busy saddling his horse and leading it out the stables. Kyrie looked at him lazily, his perpetual grin still white and visible through the darkness, as if Jon was the source of unending amusement and surprise.

They rode out. As they reached the headwaters of the Fever, the soil became only softer and softer, and when they could finally see the black towers of Moat Cailin in the foggy distance, the ground finally gave way to swamp. Their survey had reached its easternmost extreme. 

The two men stared at the dark obelisks of the Moat, their eyes taking in the sight of this ancient ruin, older than either of them could possibly imagine. The Norvoshi man was taking in its sights, perhaps musing over its meaning, and comparing it to similar monuments back home. It was Jon’s first time seeing the Moat as well; in his previous life, he had only read and learned about it from his lessons and Winterfell’s libraries. This realization inexplicably disturbed him, that there were things in his homeland that even he did not truly yet know. 

Unprompted, Jon felt the need to begin speaking. “You know I was born in this land, the North?” 

“Yesser,” the Norvoshi answered, “I did know that.” 

“It’s been the same for thousands of years.” 

“I’m sure.” 

“It’s not a stupid place.” 

“I understand.” 

There was a pause, a heavy weight in the air as Jon continued looking in the distance – no longer at the Moat, but perhaps at something that was not there. “That’s right.” 

After a while, both men turned their horses around, and began riding again. 

The ride to the headwaters of the Fever took a little over a sennight, and the expedition in total amounted to a few days in addition to a fortnight. It was late afternoon when they finally returned to the castle. Ghost was screeching above them when they had begun to approach the half-finished wooden walls of Revall. Jon stared at the crow above him – dark wings, dark words. What black portents awaited him in the town? 

His Norvoshi companion peeled off after they entered the town and Jon appeared in the castle’s great hall. He was shocked by Lord Stark’s appearance; Jonnel and Barth were in discussion at the steps of the dais. When Jon’s eyes met that of Lord Stark’s, the man quickly took him aside and into Revall’s solar. 

“Revall has grown much since you took control of it,” he said, holding Jon’s shoulders. It had been nine months since the town’s storming, and Jon now stood equal to the tall Lord of Winterfell. “You’ve done well. I'm glad I trusted the fortress to you.” 

“Your words honor me, Lord Stark.” Jon inclined his head slightly. “What has brought you back here from Winterfell, so soon after you left?” He said, somewhat bluntly, but not unkindly. 

The man grimaced a little as he smiled. “Well,” he began, “it seems King’s Landing has taken an interest in you.” 

The Lord of Winterfell procured the most recent correspondence received from King’s Landing and described to Jon the exchange with the Hand of the King which had occupied him for the past few moons. It was a reminder of the power that a few words on royal parchment held. 

At the end, Jon summarized that which his uncle had told to him, flexing the hand which he had once burned in his previous life. “House Targaryen gives much to the North, and demands me as its price.”  

Lord Stark nodded. “So it seems.”  

“I’ll have my horse fitted again. It appears that there is a long journey ahead of me.” 

“You could still refuse,” the older man said, “I could reject the Iron Throne’s gifts, and you could stay in the North... There is still a choice to be had, here.” At least on the surface, were the words that Lord Jonnel Stark left unsaid. We could still play dumb. 

Jon smiled, and shook his head. 

A heavy sigh came from the Lord of Winterfell’s lips at that, and he nodded, somewhat defeated. He turned away from Jon and stared off in the corner, looking at something that was not there, and let in a deep breath.  

“We are the vassals of the Iron Throne...” Jonnel was closing his eyes now, a resignation rather than a rage appearing on his face as he spoke. “This has been the case since Torrhen Stark kneeled before Aegon the Conqueror. Even after they have lost their dragons, they still kick us around at their pleasure.” The ghost of his sister seemed there in that room with Lord Jonnel Stark.  

Finally, he opened his eyes and looked at Jon again. Tired. “Maybe one day that might change,” the man said to him, but even he did not seem to believe his own words. “I will ride with you, and see you off.” 

Jon nodded. “Of course.” 

As evening came, Lord Stark retired into the chambers of the castle Revall. Jon left for his own, as well – the same one he occupied all those moons ago, when he was healing from his wound. His windows were wide open, and his hands were stuffed into his pockets, where in the left there was still the thin parchment that his uncle had handed him, his fingers poking at the hard gauze of the Targaryen seal.  

He stared out into the still-busy town and the small lights below. He thought about the south. He prepared himself for the people he imagined he would meet down there. Heavy images of golden hair and green eyes flashed in his minds – the bastard-King Joffrey's cruel laugh and the Kingslayer's chauvinistic sneers.  

When he was still the son of Eddard Stark, he once considered riding south. It was when Robb had called his banners and marched to avenge his father – their father. Jon had tried to disavow the oath he swore to the Night’s Watch, and he had gazed on the Kingsroad leading south. South, past the crannoglands and into the green and fertile plains of the Riverlands and Crownlands and all the lands beyond. He remembered staring out into the skies and thinking of all the places that road might’ve led him. Possibilities endless, an infinite other worlds for the choosing 

But he chose the Wall. He swore an oath, and the truth was that was the only decision he could possibly make. Funny now, he again felt himself at that same crossroads – but this time, he found that the only true option he had was to allow himself to be carried south. To King’s Landing, where vipers and serpents hid behind every blade of grass. 

The particulars of life are strange particulars. This is a story of misfortune. Or so it would seem. The end is not yet told.