A Saga of Dragons and Wolves Book 1: The Empire of the Black Dragons

[TheShadowKnows]

Hello, howdy, first thread, first fanfic published on this site, and more than a little nervous since I'm just one part of a two-man writing team (With a Beta/Editor who's top tier.), the primary author told me to crosspost this so I'm doing go.

And to anyone who's read this, 1, If we bored you to tears, our bad. 2, this is not going to be a 1 for 1 rehash of the same story, at least not entirely. Certain elements will be changed; we may spend a bit longer on the past and so on. To everyone else, I hope this is an entertaining thread.

Onto the deets!

This is OC-heavy and inspired by, among other things, The Many Sons of Winter and the general genre of ASOIAF uplift fics.

Many of which were written by people an order of magnitude more talented than us. So when we got started on this project, we wanted to explore a more lived-in and long-term society. We wanted to touch on the consequences of such an uplift and its economic and social ramifications on the Seven Kingdoms; what would happen if, instead of gradually dying a slow death, magic sort of became a trickle-out of a faucet someone forgot to turn on fully? Till a certain Targaryen cranks the nozzle anyway? How the old players would adapt to new rules, there's a lot of "for want of a nail." here and there in this story. Butterflies that are seismic. We also wanted to see if we could gradually move ASOIAF into High Fantasy(in terms of aesthetics, not magic, in magic its already there in canon)without it being eye-rolling or a botched job. Also, this might be a 25% crackfic

Anyway, without further adieu.




Maesters debate, still at length, which was the pivotal point in the history of the Seven Kingdoms wherein its course was charted, from seven warring Kingdoms to Seven prosperous warring Kingdoms, destined to be unified and transformed into the greatest empire since the Dawn.



Satirists will claim we are not, in fact, the greatest empire or civilization since the Empire of the Dawn. That we are more akin to a benevolent Valyria, whose Gods proscribe slavery but whose love of poppy and bittercane have made us slaves in our own domain.



Cynics will attest that the truth lies somewhere in between…



Both groups point to Daemon Blackfyre's refusal to betray his half-brother, but can we truly say this? Encouraged to shun him, his Grace Daeron the Second (Then Prince Daeron.) opted to raise Daemon as though he were his own; having grown up beside Baelor and Maekar, was Daemon truly the pivot on which turned the levers of history? Or Merely a man defending kin he saw not as rivals but as near as precious as his own wife and children?



Septons will point to Aegon the Beneficent (formerly dubbed the Unlikely.), the conjuring at Summerhall, and the coming of the "divine dragons." But The Seven Kingdoms was no stranger to dragons, and neither Maegor the Cruel nor Jaehaerys the Wise nor Viserys the Gentle conquered the Essosi Coast.



Some say it was the first Dance of the Dragons or, rather, its confounding ending. These are the same people who think House Stark controls the Iron Throne from the Shadows. The notion that House Stark could govern the largest, oldest and third wealthiest Kingdom and somehow also find the time to create a vast conspiracy that spans centuries is as preposterous as it is logistically impossible. Both notions are the fancy of drunkards, derelicts, and purveyors of gossip.



Others point to the Sea Dragons, House Aetheryon's flight from the Freehold, with only two of its dragons remaining to them and a fleet of ships filled to the brim with families and their warriors. Their conquest of the Western Coast of the North from the Gift to the border with the Riverlands established a precedent that was later exploited by Aegon the Dragon.



Yet the Lords of Sea Dragon Point and the Western shores are vassals to House Stark, their mightiest but vassals, nonetheless. History credits them more with the exchange of knowledge, science, higher mysteries between Valyrians and The First Men rather than anything else. Indeed if they set a precedent, it was that fashionable exile into the Seven Kingdoms of Valyrian nobility who lacked dragons.



And their tradesmen, indeed Oldtown and Lannisport, benefited from that almost as much as the North.



And besides, while the Sea Dragons predated Aenar The Exile by twelve centuries, House Velaryon beats them both, arriving at Driftmark eighteen centuries before the Conquest and establishing the first Valyrian colonies along the Blackwater. Made mostly of the sort of exotic peons that inhabit Lys.



And we do not date history by "Vaemond's Landing" or "Auryn's Exodus.".



Others will credit the Blackfyre rebellion, known also as the Second Dance of the Dragons, and the overthrow of King Aerys II known as Aerys the Mad or Aerys Kinslayer in 283 A.C



Others will cite the war for the Coast fought in the three hundredth year Since Aegon's Conquest, which lasted four to twenty years depending on which Maester one asks and indeed what mood said Maester is in that day.



Others will say it was the horrors the world passed through during the War for the Dawn, fought concurrently with the War for the Coast (Or immediately after it.), that affected all peoples across the known world and caused sorrow and grief upon us all.



I believe it was all of the above and a key point that all the other parties leave out.



The enduring spirit of man. – Archmaester Edmund 512 A.C

 

[TheShadowKnows]

Maesters dubbed it the Second Targaryen Golden Age.

It has been a century since the reign of Daeron, the Second of His Name. A hundred years of peace and prosperity, conquest and ascent, yet--

It ended in fire and blood.

It ended in kinslaying.

It ended in madness.

Following the death of Aerys the Mad, a Blackfyre now sits upon the Iron Throne. Daemon the Great has ruled an empire larger than any since the mythical Age of Dawn.

For Fifteen years, an alliance of Stark, Arryn, Tully, Baratheon, and Blackfyre has kept the peace.

Fifteen years the long summer of Daeron the Good, and Daemon Blackfyre has survived past its false autumn.

But seasons change, and all ages come to an end.

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The little Lord.

A.C 298
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"Don't look away when the time comes." Jon's voice was strong and grave, contrasting their brother Robb's powerful but melodic tones. They had ridden out at dawn to meet out the King's justice. One hundred in all and down the raised, stone roads that have covered the North for the last eight hundred years. One of the many advances that changed the North forever, according to Maester Luwin. His Lord father made them stop at a village on the road to converse with their subjects. To hear their grievances and take lunch at their local tavern, they met with a man named Hego from Lys, who was the Burgher of the village and was the one to alert the Wolves to the fugitive.



The Knightly Order of the Wolves was another effect of the roads, food, and soil health brought on by the mammoths that were allowed through the wall centuries ago and who now were commonplace throughout the North and in some areas of the Riverlands and Vale. As populations grew and towns and villages and even cities (Though the North still had precious few compared to the South, or so Maester Luwin says.), it had become necessary to form orders that answered to the Lord of Winterfell and the great lords of the realm, sworn at first to keep the peace and justice of the Kings of Winter.

They would eventually enforce the peace and justice of the Dragons. The Westerlands and Reach had similar orders, Bran remembered. "The Order of the Golden Lions" and "The Order of the Greenhand" as with the North. They mostly responded to banditry and acted as auxiliaries for a Lord's forces. Still, Father said that the Lions answered directly to the Rock and could usurp a lord's authority on his lands if they were derelict. Maybe that was why the other Kingdoms hadn't adopted such orders. Because they didn't like the idea of armed men on their lands without their leave?



The riders stopped, halting suddenly as a herd of mammoths crossed the smooth, black, cobbled road ahead of them. Robb jested about the weight of the lead sow while Father nodded his head differentially to her. "She's a Highborn lady in her own right; see her old gray hair? She has survived more than a century walking this world. She was alive most like when the first dragons lived and remembers their smell." Amazing. Bran thought, watching with more respect now. Most were wild, but House Umber and House Forrester maintained herds of mammoths.

The foresters because the gentle beasts were excellent for lumber work and construction and because their droppings enriched the soil, and the Umbers because the cheese rendered from their milk was incredibly popular among the minor nobles and merchants of Oldtown, King's Landing, Duskendale, and Lannisport. And because merchants from the Jade Sea so desired it, a Lengii prince once paid two ships full of silver and rolls of silk for a thousand wheels of mammoth cheese. Bran didn't understand the fuss; the cheese was bitter and sour, and the spiced variety made his nose run and eyes water. But Sansa and Dany insisted it was good for you and helped you grow. It is hard to imagine Umber caring about silk; maybe they sold it to buy more of those big swords they love.



Sansa was allowed to ride with them on this journey. To Bran's surprise, it wasn't Grandmother Rhaella's insistence but Mother's. Justice is as important for a Lady to understand as it is for her husband; my daughters will learn. While in the South, they used headsmen, Mother and Father both said, in the North, a Lord carried out the ancient rites and held himself to the ancient laws of dispensing justice, as often as he could.



Bran's heart fluttered in his chest. This would be his first execution. Finally, old enough, his father insisted that he ride out with them, and for the last stretch of the ride, the youth allowed his mind to wander to avoid the looming truth that he would soon see a man die. "Is he a wildling, do you think?"



"Like as not he is," Robb answered as he tossed half a loaf of bread to Brother Jon. The two were opposites in many ways; Robb held his mother's coloring. Auburn hair, pale blue eyes, and broad shoulders and muscular like Uncle Brynden was. He had the wild wolf of Uncle Brandon in his nature as well; he was slow to anger, but when he did, it was a torrent of fury that was hard to quell. In contrast, his half-brother Jon looked all Stark, with dark hair nearing black and purple eyes like their Grandmother and lithe and slender. He was tall, too, taller than Robb, and he had a tremendous temper that he kept under control, for he was quick to anger and quicker to calm down and forgive because he feared uttering words that would be hard to take back. Jon was better at horse than Robb, as though he were born to the saddle (Or so Ser Rodrik says.) and better with the lance.

Robb was a natural with a sword and learned ax work from Tormund Giantsbane. People said Robb was nearly as good as Uncle Brynden, and when his cups Ser Nestos boasted that Robb might one day surpass the Kingslayer or Ser Aerion. But neither Robb nor Bran believed that. The Kingslayer was supposed to be unbeatable with a sword, and Bran once witnessed Ser Aerion defeat their father, Ser Roderik, and Uncle Brynden at once. They even dressed differently, with Robb preferring the greys and whites of his House and Jon adorned in all black as though he were a Brother of the Night's Watch. He didn't want Jon to go; no one did, and Dany would have his hide when he told her.



But Jon was stubborn.



"A scout for Mance Rayder, mayhaps?" Sansa asked; she was so tall and, like Bran, had the auburn hair and pale blue eyes of House Tully. She was dressed in leather trousers, riding boots, and a long cloak made of mammoth wool with silver fox fur around the collars. Sansa was two and ten but was already as tall as Mother.

Bran had to suppress a giggle at how uncomfortable she looked; his sister tried so hard to be a mix between mother and grandmother. Elegant and austere all at once, but under all that heavy fur, she looked more like a kitten buried in old laundry. Still, he had begun to see her mother in the training yards; she said she wanted to be able to do more than just defend herself like Grandmother did during the battle of Summerhall when Prince Valarr Blackfyre, the Lord of Storm's End and Grandmother fought King Aerys and his dragon Aegos.

And what a battle that had been, said the bards.

Grandmother told a very different story when she spoke of it. And she didn't like to speak of it, but when she did, it was an honest, raw, and scary story that Bran loved for its sincerity and the haunting images it conjured. And the nights that grandmother and old Nan come together to tell stories in the great hall…I cannot sleep after, but I would be nowhere else.



"I've heard stories that he's got a hundred thousand Freefolk at his beck and call." This from Prince Jacaerys. Who was atop a black destrier, his velvet Jerkin was of a crimson with the black three-headed dragon of House Blackfyre. A black cloak with a black bear's fur rested atop slender shoulders that reminded Bran of Jon; everything else on him was red, even his gloves. "Least way, this is what the whores say." Sansa looked at him agape, and the prince flushed slightly. "forgive my language use, dearest Lady; I merely mean that. When men and women visit houses of ill repute, they speak with lips far too loose for their own good. My Grand Uncle Viserys, the master of whispers, often says that brothel workers know of treachery, troop movements, and conspiracies before even the most sophisticated spies."

The Narrow Sea Blackfyres were Princes, much like the Martells in Dorne. Which was confusing when reading his histories

Sansa seemed to have no notion of what to say, and so she nodded pliantly. There was talk of betrothing her to Prince Maelys or Orys Baratheon, the son of the Lord of House Baratheon of the Arbor. There seemed to be a saddened look upon the prince's face, but when he was sneaking with Arya, he heard his mother ask Grandmother Rhaella to help educate Sansa on the ways of the world. Bran wasn't sure what that meant, but everyone seemed somber around her after.

Jon seemed ready to say something to comfort Sansa about such matters, but she was lost in thought, and Jon's comforts died in his throat. Mother hates him, but she has never so much as looked harshly at the other Stark bastards.

The castle was full of them; Winterfell was one of the largest and oldest castles in the realm. There was a city within its walls; the family bedrooms could only be reached by a covered stone bridge with stained glass that towered above two streets.

Maester Luwin said that meant that Winterfell wasn't a proper castle but more a series of palaces and keeps that were interconnected and built over the ancient first keep where the throne of the Kings of Winter sat in days of old and where his lord father held court. And so, when Maesters tallied who held the largest keeps and castles, Winterfell was counted as among the largest and yet not the largest. This confused Bran since he didn't really care; all he cared about was all the places he could climb. The youth was nervous; his mind wandered until he felt Jon's hand on his shoulder. "We're here."


They dismounted and followed behind Father, who had his grim lord's face on, as Mother called it. Bran gasped when the men of the order of the wolves brought the prisoner forth. He's a black brother; why would a black brother run? From what Bran remembered of his histories, the Watch had once been a farce, a shabby, rundown mockery of its former glory.

But that was centuries ago...

It was still a place where criminals were sent. In large numbers, but ever since the Valyrian exodus, the realms that benefitted the most from it and the growth in numbers they brought had begun the tradition of sending the smallfolk who couldn't find work or who were the fifth or sixth sibling to survive past infancy to the Watch. They realm even paid a stipend; their families would get thrice that for their service.

Maester Luwin said that the watch blossomed with gold from the west, food from the reach, and silver and steel from the North and the Stormlands. There are ten thousand black brothers, and Jon says he will be among them soon. But his brothers are here, not there. They were well-equipped, well-paid, and well-funded. His garments were as good as the men at arms in Winterfell. Why would he run? The watch means a lifetime of servitude, no land, and no children. But Luwin insisted it was a comfortable life.

So why did this man turn his cloak? Why did he desert?



The man was old, gnarled, and missing an ear. The wolves knelt him down at the ledge of a large boulder, and his father asked him if he knew why he was being sentenced. "Aye, m'lord I 'ran from me bro'ers N'black. I 'deserve it, m'lord, you taken me 'ead." He looked wild and crazed, and Bran could see the fear in his eyes and hope, but why would a man about to be condemned feel hope? "Just tell me, family, in Win'erton dat I died with me honor."



His lord father nodded as the man dropped his head upon the rock.



"Father will know if you look away," Jon whispered as Robb put an arm around Bran.



"In the name of Daemon of House Blackfyre, the first of his name, King of Andals, the Rhoynar, the Valyrians, Myrish, Tyroshi, and the First men. I, Eddard Lord Winterfell, of House Stark. Warden of the North, member of the Lord's Council, and voice of the King in the Northern territories do sentence you, Gared of Wintertown, to death for treason, dereliction of duty, and desertion." Father extended a hand, and Jory brought forth Ice, a Valyrian Steel great sword that was the ancestral weapon of his house. That'll belong to Robb one day. Bran thought as he looked over to his brother, who had a slightly curved slender blade that was long that held an edge on only one side of the blade that was called a "saber" in Essos. Forged of Valyrian steel and made grey with white Direwolves that appeared as phantoms with red eyes danced along the blade, runic charms designed to banish cold and vanquish evil were in the blade. Winterfang was a gift by King Daemon for the heir of Winterfell.

Father also had twin suits of Valyrian steel armor forged on Dragonstone, one for Grandmother Rhaella and whoever would ride Winter after her death and the other for the Lord of Winterfell. Robb once boasted that the sword and armor suits alone could buy a kingdom if any were for sale. I bet he'll never wear it; lamellar, even Dragonstone lamellar, is no substitute for plate, Ser Rhakkaro and Ser Rodrik say.



"Have you any last words?" Father asked.



"They're so beautiful, M'lord, came right out of da tree line dey did. Armor like one of them rainbows of the seven m'lord, and they sang…oh how they sang. Lord Waymar took steel to 'em, m'lord. A braver man, I'll ne'er know. Used to mock him for being a lordling, but he took steel to 'em when we wept like chill'n in fear. He took steel to 'em, and they sang, and it was beautiful…Send me on m'lord maybei'n in da next life I won't hear their pretty songs no more."



His Lord father paused for the briefest of moments before relenting and dropping Ice.



Bran didn't look away, not even when his head rolled.



His eyes remained fixed on the body and in the look in his father's eyes.



His father was shaken by what was said.



Bran had never seen his lord father shaken before.



None of them had.



What did the madman mean? Why did he desert over singing? Why is father afraid of a madman's words?

 

[TheShadowKnows]

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The Secret Siege: Also called "The Year of the Captive Dragon," "Lord Unwin's Folly," or "The Winter at King's Landing." was an event that took place in the years immediately following the ruinous conflict bards and mummers and now, lamentably Maesters refer to as The Dance Of The Dragons. Cregan Stark reigned as Lord Protector of the Realm for the better part of a year, slaying traitors (Both real and imagined) wherever he found them. Upon his departure, he shocked the realm by surrendering his powers not to a Black but to The Dowager Queen Alicent. At a stroke, the gesture made the Queen with the largest standing army west of Yi Ti, the reigning monarch in all but name. The actions of Cregan Stark have been greatly debated by Maesters, students of history, and drunks who fancy themselves either for the last two centuries. Was Cregan the vicious, hateful, insular Lord, some claim? (History seems to dispute this, for Cregan Stark took the North out of its isolation and laid the foundations for its ascent in the political arena.) Or was he a shrewd, ambitious, if brutal man who saw the opportunity to establish Winterfell as a third party who could act as an impartial voice to the still militant factions of the Dance? A reputation for impartiality and the immense trust and favor that carries which the North still enjoys even now. Whatever his reasoning, Lord Cregan issued a rather severe proclamation. "The South nearly destroyed itself, and it has forced the North to enter into the cesspit that is the Lords Council. I am not pleased; my host is not pleased; my Lords are not pleased. If Winterfell is forced to come again South to put an end to Southron insanity, winter shall march with me" A warning which fell upon deaf ears.

Upon his departure, Alicent Hightower assumed his duties thereafter. But fever (or mayhap poison) took her in the end; on her deathbed, she demanded that Jaehaera rule as Queen with Aegon as her King consort. A decision that seemingly flew in the face of years of bloodshed, acrimony, rivalry, kinslaying, treachery, and war. Many who fought so ardently to keep a woman off the Throne felt as though the deaths of so many of their men and kin had just been rendered meaningless by fickle hypocrisy.


Chief amongst them was the Lord of Starpike, Union Peake. He was a proud and avaricious man, easily slighted and quick to make enemies. Still, he had acquitted himself as a gallant commander and a fearless Knight in battle and amassed a large following amongst the Greens. Eventually, he won over surviving Blacks as well. Lord Peake used this influence to rise high, from a fairly mid-ranking member in the Green faction to a dominant position therein. Lord Peake lobbied hard to dismiss The Queen's dying request and to adhere to the original peace terms offered by Lord Corlys. Aegon would become King and Jaehaera his Queen consort, yet Lord Unwin desired to seat his own daughter beside the little king as Queen and wished for, as some accuse, the shadowed power of a mummer whose puppet is a broken King. To this end, he wielded his not, not inconsiderable influence to become the Hand of the King and Lord Protector. From there, accounts vary. A great deal of misdeeds are laid at Lord Peake's feet, and indeed, the treachery of House Peake is well known as is their ultimate fate during the Blackfyre rebellion (Or The Second Dance as bards call it.). However, the extent of the veracity of this tale continues to elude Maesters and scribes in Westeros and across the Narrow Sea even to this day.


For the sake of brevity, however, we shall go with the accounts laid down by Mushroom, Grandmaester Munkun, and several other sources pieced together from personal correspondences of the parties involved, writing years later, in their old age and their cups of the siege.


An attempt was made 'pon Queen Jaehaera's life, but agents loyal to Alyn Velaryon spirited her away in time and made sail for White Harbor. Lord Cregan Stark received her in White Harbor and pledged to protect her. During a feast in her honor, the Lord of Sea Dragon Point and the Lord of White Harbor's son presented a beautiful Lyseni of a banking cartel and her younger husband to Lord Stark and Lord Alyn.

Upon learning of her whereabouts, Lord Peake grew worth. He demanded the little Queen's return, arguing that Alyn Velaryon had committed treason and abducted the little queen, irrespective of what her protectors might say. And that he had until the middle of the year to do so and to present himself to renew his oath of fealty to the Iron Throne.


Lord Stark's raven returned a curt reply, exemplifying the confidence, temerity, and absolutism of the Lord of Winterfell. "No…"


When Lord Peake received that particular response, he grew so apoplectic in rage that his own men feared he might die stricken by a seizure of the heart. Instead, he called a war council and sent a raver with a threat.

"If I should cross the Neck to retrieve her, I will do so with all the powers of the South and our two remaining dragons and make a second Harrenhal of Winterfell."



A raven returned from Winterfell with only one word.

"If."


In his fury, Peake attempted to coerce the High Septon into annulling the marriage; when that failed, he had the girl declared dead. When he attempted to force the little King to wed his daughter, Aegon and a few loyal Knights barricaded themselves in Maegor's Holdfast.


The impasse endured for a year, ere Unwin's pride got the better of him and, assembling his loyal blades, resolved to storm the Holdfast or, failing that, starve them out. For he ceased sending food and soon ceased sending water.



Accounts differ in regard to what transpired next; some say the King had indeed yielded, broken, and not misliking the proud Lord Protector's Daughter, opted to settle ere Mushroom and his loyal companions died of thirst.


Mushroom tells it differently that Peake took the Holdfast with climbing spikes and slew Gaemon Palehair (Who had been dying days since a spider bit him if the Dwarf can be believed.), dragging the King out and forcing him before the Iron Throne (Whereas Grand Maester Munkun takes the more salacious position for a chance. Asserting that the King had been dragged to the Castle Sept.). In the account of Munkun, he states that the King then reared up to his full measure and sounded for the first time as his grandsire and great grandsire before him. Warning the usurping Hand: "You have one chance to turn back from this course, else I shall remember this all my days, and whether your daughter is mine own wife or not, I shall have you killed as my mother was killed."



Mushroom's account puts forward the version that is most widely known. That of the arrival of Oakenfist, the sound of the doomed dragon Morning howling in the skies, and a boy much alike the King in looks stepping from the shadows with a veiled monster at his back. In this version, the grim little King accepted his situation with stoicism and said, "I am to be your puppet then." Yet before the Hand could answer, a youth pushed through the doors, the Household guards dead upon the floor, blood seeping from their throats ere a veiled shadow entered the room.


"Stop what you are doing, traitor, and you shall be allowed to retire with honor to Starpike."



"And who are you, wretch?" Responds Lord Peake in this telling. In a tone, we must assume, it was no doubt filled with condescension and rage.



"He is Viserys Targaryen, son of Daemon Targaryen and Rhaenyra Targaryen, your Queen." Alyn Oakenfist responds. "Come to us, cousin; your little Queen awaits in the gardens." The Kingsguard were said to have closed ranks then, flanking the Hand all save two who remained loyal (and accounts differ as to who these true Knights were. Indeed, Mushroom, it seems, seldom can keep their identities straight.). "That boy is dead!" Snarled Unwin Peake, "and Jaehaera is no true Queen."



"Consort or sovereign, a Queen she remains." Responded Viserys, his voice calm. "Be silent, imposter." Hissed Lord Peake.



Both Munkun and Mushroom agree upon what happened next.



The third shadow stepped forward, his hood pulled from his head, revealing a dark brown beard, a fine mane of flowing hair, and eyes as gray as iron. "Did I not tell you what would happen should I return ?" Ice was in his hand, and murder was in his heart.


Cregan Stark had come and, with him, the Stranger...


Lord Peake made to speak, but Cregan Stark lunged forward and buried his great sword into the chest of the nearest Knight of the Kingsguard and, with a swift yank, carved him in twain. The bloodbath that followed needs no recounting. By the end of it, the Queen and King were reunited and together reigned for six and twenty solemn years. United by a shared grief, united by despair, they walked the halls of the Red Keep, pale ghosts as Cregan Stark and later Viserys Targaryen ruled the realm for his brother. His Grace, King Aegon, died of consumption. A day shy of his thirty-seventh name day, his wife, Jaehaera, followed him from a broken heart to the grave.



The lives of their daughters, sons, and descendants are chronicled elsewhere.

A Note from the Citadel: It is widely believed the origin of the Forwardist faction and the Traditionalist faction can be found in the actions taken following the death of Queen Alicent. Wherein the ascent of Queen Jaehaera found some surprising supporters. Chief amongst them was the Lord of Riverrun, who argued, "Had we not just finished fighting for one Queen? My vendetta was with Aemond the kinslayer and Aegon the burnt, not with their blood." Lord Benjicot Blackwood agreed, stating that he "Fought so that a sot hopped on the milk of the poppy and Summer Rum and his kinslaying brother would not rule the realm and lead it into infamy and disgrace." Jaehaera, by all accounts, impressed them both with her keen eyes and gentle nature. Tyland Lannister, for his part, staunchly turned on the Greens, vowing that "No Queen shall ever sit the Iron Throne whilst a Lannister lives! Not after all that bitch and her bastards did to the realm!". "Look ahead to the future, Ser," advised Lord Manfryd Mooton. "It matters not who sits the Iron Throne but who governs the realm on his or her behalf.". Tyland Lannister was said to respond, "That sort of forward-thinking is better suited to the Braavosi."

Lord Kermit, ever after, took to attending Council meetings wearing a silk sash affixed with a golden arrow brooch, pointing North. In the era of King Daeron the Good, when the Forwardists and the Traditionalists took their names, the Lord of Riverrun, who led the Forwardist faction at the time, took the golden arrow as his symbol, and from that, their name.

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Children by King Aegon and Queen Jaehaera​

Daeron the First: Known as the Young Dragon, 143 A.C, killed in Dorne during a truce in 161 A.C. Reigned as King from 157 A.C to 161 A.C (It is a popular belief amongst the cynical and conspiracy-minded that Viserys II had a hand in his death in part due to a desire to remove Alicent Hightower's blood from the line of succession and hatred of Aegon the Second and all his descendants.)

Baelor The First: the blessed, starved himself to death in the tenth year of his reign. (It is a popular belief amongst the cynical and conspiracy-minded that Viserys II poisoned him.)

Helaena Targaryen: Twin to Baelor the First died within a fortnight of her birth. (It is a popular belief amongst the cynical and conspiracy-minded that Viserys II poisoned her in her crib.)

Daena Targaryen: Known as "The Defiant" 145 A.C -245 A.C, outlived her uncle, his successors, her son, and numerous grandchildren. Dying in Dragonstone days after her hundredth nameday, riding a horse off a cliff while hawking. A crass rumor was spread that she laughed the whole way down and spoke of Blackfyre Kings while conversing with her hawk. (It is doubtful; the only truth was that she regularly conversed with her Dogs, Horses, and Hawks as she found them "Better company than her idiot great-grandchildren.). Her ashes were interred in the mausoleum at Dragonstone beside her son Daemon and the grandsons she loved best.

Elaena Targaryen: 150-235 A.C mother to the main line of House Penrose, a keen scholar and poet who wrote what is believed to be the first of the "The Rise of the Dragon" the Braavosi operas, which chronicle the history of House Targaryen and are among the most popular of that new form of mummery.

Rhaena Targaryen: 147-190, the personal Septa of Queens, was especially close to and friends with Daeron II, whom she viewed more like a younger sibling than a cousin. She had a hand in raising him much to the Unworthy's fury and was often the sole friend of Queen Naerys. Known for a series of debates with a Red Priest of R'hllor that are now required reading in both faiths. Made a pilgrimage to old Andalos, met with the Septons and Septas of the original faith, formally recognized a schism, and ended it in the same year. Did much to spread the faith in Essos. Was killed during the first Marcher revolt by a stray arrow while tending to the younger children of Daemon Blackfyre and Baelor Targaryen at The Water House (The Keep granted to Daemon Blackfyre in the Kingswood in his youth.)

- Descendants through Daena Targaryen-
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House Blackfyre of the Narrow Sea. Lords of Dragonstone, Archon of Tyrosh and the Stepstones, Wardens, and Princes of the Narrow Sea. (She had twelve grandchildren by Daemon and Rohanne of Tyrosh, five by Daemon on three Lyseni women, and a cousin to the Prince of Dorne. Thirty-six great-grandchildren upon whom the current House Blackfyre is descended.)

And through Queen Rohanne of Dragonstone

-Rhaegar Targaryen 259 A.C to 239 A.C Former Prince of the City and Heir to the Iron Throne killed in "The Battle above the Trident." by Robert Baratheon

Viserys Targaryen - A.C 276 - (Disappeared with Ser Jonothor Darry of the Kingsguard in the aftermath of the route at the Trident.)

Daenerys Targaryen A.C 284 - Ward of Eddard Stark

Aegon Blackfyre A.C 265- Prince of the Narrow Sea, Lord of Tyrosh, and Warden of the waves.

Aelora Blackfyre A.C 266- sister wife to Aegon Blackfyre, Princess and consort of the Narrow Sea

Jacaerys Blackfyre A.C 284 - heir to the Narrow Sea.

Daemon Blackfyre First of his name A.C 264- King of the Seven Kingdoms and its overseas domains.

His children.

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The First Marcher Revolt: Sometimes known as the Bittersteel revolt, Aegor's Rebellion, or "The Redemption of Bastards." Not all of the Marcher Lords rebelled; indeed, in the Stormlands, most Houses were bitterly divided. Following the marriage of Daeron Targaryen to a Princess of Dorne and their inclusion in the realm, many a Lord of the Marches found themselves now forced to endure a peace with enemies their Houses had been facing for the better part of five thousand years in internecine warfare. A peace that felt granted Dorne unearned special privileges, a blanket amnesty they found detestable, and one that carried the stench of appeasement.



Into this charnel house of bitterness, this abattoir of rage and old grudges found new mutiny. The Unworthy, it was whispered, died legitimizing his bastards so that the House of the Dragon might live again, tis true they whispered. "And yet, did not his Grace, Aegon the Fourth, go his pyre insisting that Daeron was, in fact, a bastard produced by Ser Aemon the Dragonknight. Was not Daemon the son chosen to bear the sword? Was the Black Dragon not the true successor to the Red? Surely, we can find a proper peace where those thieving, murderous brigands can be made humbled and forced to pay restitution ere they enter the realm? Oathbreakers, guest right violators, and thieves ought not to receive such boons!"



Into this storm enters two bastard half-brothers, alike in their hatred and distinct in their visage. Albino Brynden Rivers, known throughout history as Bloodraven and Aegor Rivers, is known as the greatest traitor of them all; Bittersteel, they called him, for he thirsted for blood and fought without honor, made of a hard, poor quality steel men said, forged wrong others would add in response. Born of Blackwood and Bracken blood, nursed on the teat of hatred, their mother's milk not but venom. Mutinous wantons nearly sundered the realm. Aegor came and began sowing rumors of Daemon's willingness to lead brave men against the bastard Daeron Waters. "The greatest swordsmen in the realm, most puissant of Knights. And he who opposes the Dornish!" Rally, he preached, and Daemon will accept his solemn duty.



Bloodraven, his hatred for Daemon no less than his hatred of Bittersteel and acting in his capacity as Master of Whisperers took Ser Daemon's Keep in the Crownlands by storm and, finding him absent, arrested his sons and daughters and Lady Wife in his stead. His aunt, stricken mortally in the process, that most auspicious and wise of Septas. Daemon had fled, said Bloodraven, to his Raven's Teeth, and that is evidence of his guilt. In truth, Daemon Blackfyre had gone to his half-brother, the King, and threw himself upon his knees, disavowing all knowledge of this treasonous plot and bidding the King take his head or let him take the black for "I'd sooner die or freeze than strike down a brother who was more father to me than our father ever was." For that was the truth of it, as Prince his Grace King Daeron, second of his name, oft felt alone as a child and so often was elated as often as he was frustrated with his father's bastards and though so unalike as to be oil and water, Daemon still took to his elder trueborn brother. Who, in turn, oft treated him as a son, taking pride in Daemon's achievements, being stern and harsh at his mischief, and commiserating with him in his failures. So close were they that the sons of Daeron the Second oft viewed their uncle more as a sibling than an uncle and fought, reveled, and engaged in mischief as brothers.


Scandalous though it was, to Bloodraven and Bittersteel, raised in the shadows. All they saw was the falsity of a bastard in their noble half-brother.


In this, Daeron promptly helped his brother to his feet, clasped his shoulders, and vowed, "If a traitor you be, then to the block or the Wall, I shall go right beside you, for who has been by your side longer than I? Save your mother? And who has had a part in all your deeds more than I? Save Lady Rohanne." And so, King Daeron made Ser Daemon his Lord and Master of War and bid him assist the Lord High Justice in rooting out these traitorous slanderers. To Maekar, the task of bringing Bloodraven to heel "alive, for I do not believe he is acting in malice, only alarm and confusion. Spare my nephews and beg Lady Rohanne forgiveness on my behalf, for this is most dishonorable." Was given, and with him went Baelor the Lightning Sword d and four bastard half-brothers who wore white cloaks.



Maekar arrived with his band, and The Raven's teeth yielded, yet Ser Bryden and his group of household guards refused to follow suit. Arguing that until such time as the rebellion is crushed and Bittersteel is brought to justice, Daemon could not be vouched for without hostages. Maekar ordered Bloodraven to follow his King's Command, and when the albino attempted coyness and cunning, saying, "This castle is afflicted with a flux, and we needs must hold here for at least two turns of the moon." The ever-proud and impatient Maekar ordered Ser Brynden's archers detained and, with climbing spikes, stole into the castle, he, the two crowned princess, and their bastards in white.



Bryden Rivers lost an eye to Prince Baelor's sword, and Prince Maekar's mace felled the rebellious guards.



The Marcher revolt was crushed within a moon's turn, and Aegor Rivers was put to flight. Ser Daemon bent the knee to his King and rose as Lord of Paramount of the Narrow Sea and Prince of Dragonstone.



It is worth noting that this rebellion ended as a tale out of song. The discontentment in The Stormlands, the Reach, and indeed Dorne along their shared borders continued to plague the Seven Kingdoms for almost a century. Indeed, it would even claim the lives of several Targaryen heirs and King Maekar himself. As the belligerents of the First Marchers revolt, House Stormchaser and Steelsong in particular and the now legendary duels fought between Prince Daemon and Quentyn Ball, Viserys Stormchaser and his son Orys and the death of Gaemon Steelsong at the hands of Barthogan Stark known as "Barth Blacksword." can be read in full in "The Golden field, the Knights of the Marchers Revolts" By Maester Preston.

The Second Marcher Revolt: 209-209. Organized by Mad Samwell Tarly and Maegor Steelsong (a member of a Targaryen Cadet line) in response to yet another fight between Dornish Knights and brigands from the Reach, decided by the Master of Laws in favor of the Dornish. Twelve thousand men gathered in Dunstonbury, wherein Lord Gormund Peake crowned Maelor of House Stormchaser (a member of a line of Targaryens descended from Baelon the Brave). The Hand of the King Baelor Targaryen, his sons and Kiera of Tyrosh, his father, Daeron The Goode, brothers Maekar and Rhaegell, and Daemon Blackfyre, three of his sons were on a progress and sojourning in Highgarden. It is likely that Mad Samwell organized this revolt knowing the King was due to visit Highgarden, desiring to make a swift march to the famed Castle, take it by treachery, and slew as many members of the Royal Family as he could.

It was all an elaborate trap conceived by Brynden Rivers.

Prince Baelor led the Greenhand out to engage them after word of the coronation reached Highgarden.

They fell upon the rebel army in the foothills of the Red Mountains. The fighting was dire, and the loyalist army near broke. T'was only when an old tourney Knight in service to the Greenhand rallied the host behind Prince Baelor that the battle turned. That Knight and his squire fought beside the heir to the Throne, slaying Mad Samwell and the last of House Steelsong (the two organizers of the revolt.. The victory was a costly affair, however. Prince Baelor died of his wounds within moments of its conclusion, and the realm mourned yet another King that could have been.

While falsely blamed for Prince Baelor's death at the time, Ser Arlan of Pennytree is remembered in history as a great example of chivalry, valor, and the magnanimity of Princess (and mayhap their fickleness.), the Knight's Squire would go on to achieve fame and renown for his adventures with his squire (The future King Aegon the third.) in Essos and in the Seven Kingdoms and as the hero of Summerhall and Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Gormon Peake lost his head, and his son lost Whitegrove to the crown, who seized it as a palace for the spare of the spare.

History does not record the fate of Maelor Stormchaser, who was a boy of nine.

But slanderers have oft repeated that Lord Brynden Rivers, known as "Bloodraven." and his sister Shiera used his flesh in vile Carcosan rites. In truth, the lad was likely given over to the Wall, for it is said that he expressed very little interest in the Throne and declared that he had been forced against his wishes.

While history does not record the fate of Maelor Stormchaser, Captain Maelor Storm of Sentinel Stand was one of the most valiant commanders of the Watch of the era and died in a fight with ten times his number in Wildlings. Aged five and fifty.

Gormon Peake's fate however, was well documented.

Transported to the Mander near an enclave of giant river otters, he had his legs broken and was tied to a post in front of their den.

It is said they tore him to pieces in a matter of mere heartbeats.

The Third Marcher Revolt: It was less a revolt and more a fickle alliance between cattle thieves (House Butterwell.) and alleged River Pirates (House Frey.), their wedding tourney being used as a cloak by the sole surviving member of the male line of House Steelsong who was impersonating a Hedge Knight. Cletus Peake, two members of House Frey, and the entirety of House Butterwell lost their heads in the aftermath of this rebellion. Occurred in 212 A.C

Fourth Marcher revolt/Conquest of Tyrosh: Tyrosh, fearing the continued growth of power and influence by the Seven Kingdoms in the Narrow Sea, sent an army to occupy the Stepstones, fortify it, and prepare for an invasion. The Archon at the time was involved in a bitter feud with the Sylaenyz merchant family, of whom Princess Rohanne, the wife of Prince Daemon, was a member. He crowned his son, who was a descendant of House Stormchaser through the female line and attempted to stir up a rebellion by the Marcher Lords. When that failed, they lured King Matarys into a false truce to negotiate a treaty regarding the Stepstones. Both the King and Prince Daemon were slain in that sordid affair.

Occurred in 219 A.C; and resulted in the conquest of Tyrosh and the Stepstones, which were then given over to House Blackfyre.

Bittersteel's Fall: Though not strictly a Marcher revolt, is counted amongst them as many of the usual rebellious Lords had sent cousins and bastards to Lys to court Bittersteel, who'd amassed a considerable host and vast wealth, his Company of The Winged Stallion, which had become a fearsome Sellsword company by that point and was said even to be reaching out to Dothraki khals. Upon their return from Zamettar (How they came to the coast of Sothoryos and what madness drove them there is chronicled in the scandalous and often ridiculed "The War of the Ape Kings., Prince Aegon and Ser Duncan's adventures in Sothoryos" by Archmaester Kermit), the ship bearing the future King Aegon and his boon companion Ser Duncan the Tall made port at Lys for provisions and recreation. The Gambling House, his Grace, chose to give patronage happened to be the place where this meeting took place.

They promptly turned the establishment into a battlefield, killed, routed, and captured all the conspirators, and sent Aegor Rivers fleeing to Volantis, where he was promptly abandoned by his Sellsword company who, years later, would be absorbed into the army of Prince Suikozu of The Band of Seven. 227 A.C

 

[TheShadowKnows]

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The North

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The largest of the Seven Kingdoms, vast, mysterious, ancient beyond reckoning save perhaps by the oldest records in the vaults of The Hightower and Starfall, tomes that no doubt have crumbled to dust in the intervening millennia. Aegon the Conqueror once described the North as "The cradle of legend." And his sister-wife Queen Visenya went to her grave convinced there was a connection between the fabled Empire of the Dawn and the Wall, despite the rising of the wall taking place centuries after the collapse of the Dawn and the rise of the Golden Empire in its place.



It is in the North that the Others first appeared, and with them, the long night came to Westeros. It was in the Neck that the Children of the Forest called down the hammer of water that Broke the Arm of Dorne. The ancient ruins of Moat Cailin, the towering relics of a bygone era, are still present today. A reminder of the ancient mystique and power of the North, a place that is one part an austere hard land and one part hearth and home, a bastion for the last of the First Men in all their splendor and the Valyrians of the North. It is in the North that colonies of giants and their mammoth herds still walk the land, it is in the North that direwolves still roam free, and it is in the North that cave lions still dwell outside of the Westerlands. It is in the north where even the most meager Lord or chieftain of a Masterly House rules lands that would be considered well in excess of the norm for Southron Lords.



For Millennia the North was a rigid, isolated Kingdom of hard men, grim women, and unfathomable privation. Fathers would embrace their wives and depart to "hunt" in the dead of winter, never to be seen again, sparing their families' privation. A place where the kings of Winter warred ceaselessly with the Red Kings of House Bolton for control of the North. A place where the Night's Watch was still regarded in high honor when (To their everlasting shame) the other Seven Kingdoms had long neglected them. That all changed when the Sea Dragons came.

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The People of the North

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The North can be divided into five groups, the First Men, who make up the lion's share of its denizens; the "Reachers," the descendants of the many thousands of Andals who fled North with House Manderly. There are the Free tribes, descendants of Wildlings who bent the knee, or wildlings who have only recently bent the Knee to House Stark, who make up one of the smallest groups of the North, the Giants and the Wargs, and, The second most numerous. The Northern Valyrians descended from the mighty fleet the Sea Kings brought and the tens thousands of Valyrians who migrated North (and to the Westerlands and the Reach) in the centuries after. While the smallfolk within the North speak the common tongue, the second most common is Northern Valyrian, an almost archaic form of High Valyrian that is distinct enough from the High Valyrian of the Southron court to merit its own inclusion in the books of Tongues within the Citadel. But the language of the court of the Winter kings is the Old Tongue; it is said every son and every daughter of House Stark is raised speaking the Old Tongue first, Northron Valyrian second, and that only the sons of Edwyle Stark were the first to learn the common Tongue of Westeros. While not entirely correct, it does showcase the main differences between the Courts of the North and the South.



While the only two recognized languages of the Seven Kingdoms are High-Valyrian (The language of the laws, scholars, nobles, and the courts of the realm.) and Common Tongue (The language of everyone else.), the North persists in this cultural idiosyncrasy, going so far as to even draft documents in Old Tongue runes with their Northron Valyrian translations accompanying them.



The Great Houses of the North control the second largest hosts in the realm by number (Though they're said to be inferior in discipline to the hosts of the Stormlands, smaller in number than the Reach, and inferior in armor and equipment for the smallfolk levies to the Westerlands. And the Vale would have us believe everyone is inferior to their mighty knights), the third largest bank in the realm (The Honorable and Ancient Bank of Dragonton and White Harbor or the Dragonton bank for short) and the most unsettled land of any realm, despite their population boom of the last thousand years. Of the Great Houses of the North, there are many, but this humble servant of the Citadel will concentrate solely on the most well-known and most engaged in Southron affairs.



Giants of the North: Though extinct everywhere else in Westeros save in the Lands Beyond the Wall, bones found across the South corroborate many of the tales from the early Kingdoms of the First Men that have long suggested the existence of giants. Indeed, the bones of mammoths have been found as far South as the Red Mountains, and the earliest depictions of the construction of the first Keep named Starfall depict Giants whipping a type of hairless mammoth as they pulled stone. (Cave drawings at Battle Isle suggest similarly.), it was believed they were most common in the more verdant areas of what would become the Kingdom of the Reach and the Kingdom of the Rivers (Indeed, giant bones are found at Oldstones buried in mounds beneath the ruins of the Keep.). Evidence suggests they dwelt in Essos as well, from the immense bones of the mighty Jhogwin of the Bone Mountains to the armored mummies of the Five Forts, who were said to be the first garrison commanders, each one taller than the last and the mightiest being seventeen feet tall.



In the North, around five centuries before the Conquest, the son of Hotho the Cyclops (A one-eyed Lord of House Umber who gained fame as a champion of the fighting pits in Oros and Draconys. He became stranded beyond the wall after a storm assailed his ship on a routine journey to Skagos. He returned four years later with several Spearwives heavily pregnant with his bastards and a remarkable story. He claimed one of the chieftains of the giants had rescued him and taken him in, taught him their tongue, and perhaps sensed an ancient kinship (The sigil of House Umber suggests they had some ancient affiliation with Giants, albeit not a particularly pretty one.) they believed their doom was inexorable so long as they remained beyond the wall. This chief and his tribe and several others wished to come South.



Hotho refused outright, but as is common amongst House Umber, the son challenged the father to feats of strength to settle this dispute. Though the son lost, Hotho was so impressed with his resolve he wrote to Winterfell.



King Jon IV of his name; initially refused, but his Aetheryon bride persuaded him.



And so, a thousand giants and thrice that number in mammoths were put on ships near the Shadow Tower, sailed into the North, and marched to Umber Lands where they swore to "The Umber" and "The Stark.".



Today its estimated thirty thousand Giants dwell in the North, mostly in Umber and Karstark Lands, with a smaller population of five thousand dwelling in the Wolf's Wood (It is said they worship Winter, the dragon of House Stark.) vast herds of mammoths roam the Northern most realm of the North. Their dung is a prized source of fertilizer as far as the Reach and fuel in the harshest of winter.



Giants are known for four things, the production of some of the coveted cheeses in the known world, a kind of spirit distilled from fermented mammoth milk so desired in Essos, it was said the Dothraki sacked cities for its possession ere it began to arrive in the markets of Vaes Dothrak. The production of incredibly thin and soft wool that, when blended with cotton, produces material as smooth as silk and warmer. These things have brought much wealth to the North and House Umber in particular.



The fourth? For being an integral part of the puissance of the North. Whenever a Northern army marches South, hundreds of giants go with them, their mammoths, and their tools, for the giants make up perhaps the most unusual and one of the most effective pioneer forces in the known world. As any veteran of the Blackfyre Rebellion can attest to, Northern Armies are notoriously difficult to assail in night raids or to break from a siege. While Wargs are an important aspect of this, it is customary for Northern hosts to erect temporary wooded fortresses around their men. Complete with a crude moat and primitive cesspits to mitigate flux.



So skilled are they at the process that they can be set up and taken down in under two hours, irrespective of the army's size. Giants do most of the work, pounding the great posts and palisades in with their massive hands and immense iron hammers. Giants also see to the baggage trains and are largely responsible for herding livestock, carrying goods, and moving supplies needed for healers. Though ferocious when roused, giants appear to be gentle in their nature, and so it is unheard of to see a giant and his mammoth in a line of heavy horse, nor as individual warriors. With only two exceptions known in history, nevertheless, these creatures of peace serve their Lords with zeal and dedication few men possess and the songs they sing as they erect their forts or haul their baggage. Their low rumbling songs while on the march can oft be heard for up an hour before a Northern host arrives to battle and when the men and Knights join in (Indeed, during the battles of Mander, Winter, and Princess Rhaella were said to have joined in the singing, leading to the surrender of Brightwater Keep in despair) it is said to be a frightful sight indeed.



House Weg "rules" the giants, though in truth, as a whole, the giants of the North only recognize Winterfell and the Last Hearth as their lieges and the King over them. House Weg is unique amongst the giants in that both Mag the Mighty and his grandson Wun Wun have mounted mammoths with great lances and ridden into battle. Indeed, a ferocious cavalry charge led by Mag the Mighty is credited with breaking the Tarly vanguard at Ashford, leading to Randyll Tarly's mutilation and defeat in the flames of Argella and Lord Robert Baratheon.



One can perhaps forgive the vaunted men of Hornhill for the faltering of their resolve; each giant skewered fourteen men upon his lance a piece and repeated that with seven lances in seven separate charges.



The Song "Seven little archers all in a Row," which has since become a popular lullaby in the Riverlands and the Vale, is partially based upon this event.



Some giants also possess skills in smithing and even learned the secret of dyeing metal. However, their skill is in bronze, brass, and copper.



While in myth and cribtales, in art, giants are depicted as merely larger versions of men who live in Keeps the size of Mountains. The truth is that while possessed of intelligence comparable to the races of man, they seem far closer to the apes of the Summer Isles, the jungles of Leng and Yi Ti, and Sothoryos than the races of man or even the Ibbenese. At fourteen feet tall and covered in shaggy fur, with splayed feet that almost resemble hands and bony brows that shield small beady eyes, giants have terrible eyesight, impeccable sense of smell, and hearing so accurate it's said they can eavesdrop on conversations up to a mile away.



Most giants speak a provincial dialect of the courtly Old Tongue, but some speak common, and Mag the Mighty conversates in crude, Northern Valyrian. Though it is common to dismiss their intelligence, many a man who conducted raids against the Northern baggage trains during the Blackfyre rebellion has sworn before the Citadel that while they aren't as sophisticated as men, they are as clever.



It also should be noted that the few remaining tribes of Giants Beyond the Wall appear to be far more primitive than the ones South of the Wall, leading some Maesters to conjecture that there might be distinct races of Giants (There is strong evidence of this.) or that once given a chance to settle and access to food and knowledge their minds simply thrive as a man's might(There is also strong evidence for this.).



Giants on both sides of the Wall abstain from the regular consumption of meat, though they can clearly consume it without issue. Preferring rich stews of barley, tubers, corn, and beans. They enjoy ale and wine and have hides near as thick as mammoths. Being almost impenetrable to anything save arrows fired by longbows and Myrish crossbows. Scorpions have always been recommended for use against giants.





House Weg: The Lordly House that rules the giants, Winterfell's great hall at the main Keep was designed to accommodate his ancestor, the founder of his House who led his people South.



House Sigil: A purple Mammoth on a blue field



House Words: Grrggg'rutegh'al'ryyykyrrr! Which translated into the common tongue means "We Hold True." Or "We are Loyal and Fierce" when asked, his Lordship Mag the Mighty is fond of giving two distinct meanings, both of which are quite puissant.



Wargs/Greenseers: Beast Masters, Beastmen, Skinwalkers, Skinchangers, wargs, monsters, abominations, deviations, wild men, and more are the names across the known world given to people who can enter the minds of animals. In the North, they are called Wargs, and once driven to near extinction, Lord Zaerros of House Aetheryon, the Grandsire of Lord Aenar, penned off a section of the Wolfswood, sent out a call, and summoned wildlings with the blood of Wargs and Wargs to dwell there. In exchange for safety, comfort, and prosperity, they would have to pledge their fealty to Sea Dragon Point and to Winterfell. While many rejected this, others readily accepted the offer and began to settle the lands allotted to them.



This was met with outrage by the High Septon of all people who condemned the antics as a form of slavery. "Will we allow the Valyrians to set up a breeding colony for chattel in the North? Are not the lands above the Neck part of the Seven Kingdoms and under the King's laws?!". Of course, his grace King Aegon the fourth of his name, cared little for the bloviations of the High Septon and, after thoroughly examining the Warg settlements and determining they were treated perhaps better than most smallfolk, dismissed the matter. Later, when he died of a sudden bleed of the bowels, his Grace was all too happy to see him replaced by a less vociferous High Septon.




When the Lord died, and his nephew Daemos Aetheryon assumed the Sea Dragon Throne, it was continued under his tender ministrations, but the "Breeding colony" only truly began to thrive when a young mariner descended from Mya Rivers and Saera Targaryen on one side and the main lineage of House Aetheryon on the other. Began to involve himself in the fate of the Wargs. Under Aenar, the Wargs thrived, indeed even multiplied. Where before, his predecessors had only managed to bring about two in every thousand, the future Lord of Sea Dragon Point managed to bring about a staggering birthrate of ten out of every five hundred and, eventually, one hundred out of every five hundred. However, most are limited to only one or two beasts under their control. While many a vile rumor persists on how Lord Aenar managed to achieve this, the Wargs themselves defend him violently from slander, insisting that as a people distinct from the others in the North, they were almost lost to time. Still, under the auspices of House Stark, the Sea Dragons made them live again.



Wargs serve as scouts, skirmishers, and spies and are among the most loyal members of the Knightly Order of the Wolves.


Greenseers have many names in many cultures, Prophets, Seers, Truth Sayers, Soothsayers, Oracles, Visionaries, Farcasters, Shadow Singers, Dragon Dreamers, Tree Talkers, Maremen, and so on. Throughout the world, many peoples view those with the power of far sight as heralds of woe or blessed souls. There are mayhap two hundred of them in the North, though they are known to be born of ill health, old even as babes, and to die young. Their visions, often allegorical and filled with symbolism, are notoriously difficult to discern and interpret, and therefore, even among a Kingdom with a greater exposure to the Higher Mysteries, they are often heeded less with a sense of awe and more as a source of highly valued insight, but one even the precious few Greenseers in the North will tell you is better off not taken as doctrine.

One thing that separates Greenseers from others who profess Oracular visions is that they seem to possess limited control over nature and are able to utilize the powers of Wargs to an extremely sophisticated degree. Oft taking control of hundreds of animals at a time.

There are only a dozen of them alive in the North; one serves as a Maester in the Citadel at Winterton.

Roark, House Stark's formidable spymaster and the Master of the Offices of Whisperers for his Grace King Aegon, fifth of his name (the youngest ever appointed.), and his brother, the Gold Cloak Captain Roundtree, are believed by the Citadel to be Greenseers. However, they've denied it and insist they are merely unusually gifted wargs.



House Stark: The oldest House in the realm founded in Westeros by the First Men (House Dayne claims descent from the Empire of the Dawn, and even the Hightowers have forgotten where they came from.) founded by Bran the Builder, a now mythical builder and adventurer. Who, himself, was the son of Brandon of the Bloody Blade, a son of Garth Greenhand, House Stark has ruled from Winterfell for eight thousand years. Through bloody red swords and cunning, they conquered the North and brought House Aetheryon and House Manderly into the fold.



Among the wealthiest of the Great Houses, matched only by House Tyrell and exceeded only by House Hightower, Aetheryon, and Lannister (House Lannister being the wealthiest of the three.), House Stark has enjoyed a relatively peaceful reign over the North since the coming of the Sea Dragons, with only the occasional uprising to their names and related by blood to more mythical heroes than any save the Gardeners of Old. House Stark counts amongst its illustrious ranks: heroes, legends, tyrants, and peacemakers. Known for their pragmatic sense of honor (Until the reign of Lord Eddard Stark, who is said to be a bridge of Arryn honor to the Stark code.), their willingness to be generous to their conquered foes and merciless to those who abuse that magnanimity and with a reputation as impartial voices of reason, they shunned direct involvement in the Seven Kingdoms for the first century of Targaryen rule. They gradually grew more and more involved after the Dance, ostensible in the interest of ensuring peace and prosperity throughout the realm. Though, if one adheres to the calumnies against House Stark, it was a pretext to seize power in the shadows.

House Sigil:

House Words: Winter Is Coming


House Aetheryon: Founded one thousand years before Aegon's conquest by renegade Dragonlords ousted from the Freehold over their opposition to slavery, the Sea Dragons, as they are now known, came first as Conquerors and then as vassals to House Stark. In the beginning, the war of the Western shores as it is now known might have looked like the second coming of the Long Night, for the fires of Aragor and the other Dragon of House Aetheryon were extensive. It's estimated as much as three out of every ten First Man died in that war, and ultimately, King Torrhen the Fourteenth was forced to cede the Western shores and the entire Western Coast of the North.



House Stark lost some of its most important vassals and spent the next four decades locked in bitter wars against the Red Kings of the Dreadfort.



Aurys Aetheryon, founder of the "Western Kingdom," was called Aurys the Giant both for his vast and (alleged) sorceress knowledge and for his stand against slavery in Volantis. A misnomer to be shore, while Aurys was no dwarf by look or birth, he was scarce over five feet tall.



To the surprise of many, House Aetheryon sent men to fight in those wars on the side of House Stark. This baffled many an outward observer, but it soon became a tradition; whenever a Stark vassal would rise or a Hoare would cross the Neck, the Sea Dragon banner would fight by side with that of the direwolf. Wielding far more sophisticated armor and blades, they soon became invaluable allies, and many a Valyrian adventurer earned his coin as a sellsword to the Kings of Winter.



Beyond their military aid, their knowledge of farming was surpassed only by the men of the Reach, and they brought with them a revolution in agriculture. Their knowledge of Glasswork and how to capture steam was made readily available to the rest of the Great Houses of the North, and they were known to send the sons of lesser Houses to foster in Greywater Watch, exchanging knowledge with the Crannogmen. Learning how to survive in the more hostile climes of their lands in exchange for keeping the secrets of House Reed and providing them with a rare breed of freshwater seal that is now ubiquitous in both the Neck and the Riverlands. However, House Reed is the only House that domesticates and feeds upon them.



Soon they discovered platinum, gold, and, most importantly, diamond mines that produce not but colored diamonds, some of the finest and rarest in the known world. Among them are the coveted "winter diamonds" blue like the Northern roses.



As time passed, the great animosity between the Valyrian Houses of the North and the First Men softened, as more and more First Men survived harsh winters and food grew less and less scarce (Due to hardy breeds of cattle, their steam and glass houses, the knowledge of cave farming.). House Aetheryon eventually submitted to the rule of the Kings of Winter, even building the new Throne of Winter and Winterfell's current remarkable network of castles and tower keeps for their new Kings.



Among their more crucial developments came when they were able to discern the secrets of Saement, as it's called in the Westerlands, liquid stone as it is known in the North. This enabled even the rudest of the smallfolk to build more than mere thatched hovels. This increase in the availability of superior domiciles (Indeed, it's often japed that in the Westerlands, every man is a miner and a builder, and in the North, every man is a fur trapper and a builder.) has done much to mitigate the terrible loss of life that afflicted the North in its harshest winters throughout most of its history. Within the North, their trading fleet had no rivals save the Manderlys, and they quickly gained a reputation as fearsome seamen willing to fight the Ironborn with the same level of madness that the Reavers possessed.




Today House Aetheryon is among the wealthiest of the Great Houses, matched only by House Hightower, and exceeded only by House Lannister. Amongst their sources of wealth are the seemingly limitless diamond mines, producing rare blue and orange, and red-colored diamonds, platinum mines rivaled only by Stark silver mines in yield and the once fabled Gold Mines of House Castamere and exceeded only by the mines of the Rock and House Manderly. But the greatest source of their wealth is also their newest. Fyreleaf and Bittercane have spread throughout the realm and many of the free cities, earning House Aetheryon near as much wealth as House Hightower.



Unique to them, they willingly signed charters that entitle House Stark to a quarter of all their profits from these trades in addition to their duties and taxes in perpetuity, as with many of their ventures, which in turn has made House Stark one of the wealthiest families in the realm.



Though oft-maligned as cheats and usurers, there is an aura of mystique about them; they are a House that preserved much of Valyria's lost knowledge and were the first Dragonlord clan to intermarry with another in recorded history. Their involvement in blood magic and fleshsmithing is a topic oft-discussed, and those who venture to Sea Dragon Point and to Dragonton itself with its eerie tropical gardens and glass pavilions, its mist-covered streets and eerie gargoyles, warm taverns, and tall towers, cannot help but note that there is indeed something queer about the place.



Sea Dragon Keep itself is a mystery; even the Citadel has struggled to properly codify.



More so than House Targaryen, House Aetheryon practices sister-to-brother marriage or cousin-to-cousin more oft than not. However, women of the House have married into House Stark on several occasions and into House Manderly. They've nonetheless taken in blood from without on several occasions. The two most famous are the marriage between the disgraced Saera Targaryen and Aelos Aetheryon and the union of Mya Rivers, the bastard daughter of Aegon the Fourth, and Aeneas Aetheryon- the grandsire of Lord Aenar.



Perhaps the queerest custom of their House is the Dragonmoot. Inspired in part by the Ironborn custom and by the principles of the Freehold. Upon the death of the Lord of House Aetheryon, the seven noblest, mightiest, and wealthiest members of the House are chosen by popular vote amongst the vassals of Valyrian blood and the merchants of Dragonton, and from among them, the eldest living members of House Aetheryon vote on one to ascend to the position of Lord.



Winterfell is then asked to ratify the decision, a mostly ceremonial honor but one House Stark has always given great weight towards.



House Aetheryon sigil:



House Words: From the Depths we rise.



House Stark of the Barrowlands: After a rebellion by House Dustin two hundred and sixty years before Aegon's Conquest, the king of Winter put all the males of House Dustin to the sword and wed two Dustin daughters to his youngest brother and their cousins to two of his bastard sons. Known for their Barrow Knights or Black Riders, as many name them, their Hill Houses, and their famous racing tourneys, where entire fortunes can pass through their gambling houses in coin and goods. And for their tenure as Lord Steward and Master of the Seneschals for the Lords Council. Enjoying an unprecedented one hundred and twenty-seven-year reign at the post with Lord Lucerys Velaryon oft jesting, "Another hereditary post! "



House Stark of the Barrowlands has been steadfast and loyal to Winterfell since its inception, with the only exception being Ser Andros Stark, who served as a commander for Rhaegar Targaryen at the Trident.



House Sigil:



House Words: Death Holds No Mystery.



House members: Roslin Frey (Lady of Barrowton), her twin sons, and a newly born daughter (named after Lyanna Stark.), Torrhen Stark (Lord of Barrowton with Lord Artos' death.) Andros Stark (Killed at the Trident by Lynn Corbray.), Osric Stark (Uncle of Torrhen, Master of the Black Riders.) Beldecar Snow (A Captain of the Night's Watch.) Elros Stark (Cousin to Lord Torrhen.) A warrior in the service of Bronn of House Blackwater



Seat: Barrow Hall, a tri-towered stone and brick Keep on the ancient hill where the last King of all First Men is entombed (Most Maesters and students of history believe this King is Garth Greenhand himself.); below the Hill is Barrowton, one of the thriving cities of the North, ringed by a hundred-foot wall, a moat and a second hundred and fifty-foot wall.





House Stark of Moat Cailin: Mockingly called the Toll Masters, the Lords of Moat Cailin (Full title, Master of the Southern Gate, Lord of Moat Cailin, and shield of the North.) House Stark of Moat Cailin began as a ceremonial House that the worthiest bastard of Winterfell would inherit mastery thereof. They eventually were granted leave to truly become their own House of a fully repaired and restored Moat Cailin. As commerce with the North increased, so too did banditry, and rather than force House Reed to bear the burden alone, The Kings of Winter reinforced the Moat, turning it into a sprawling fortress with several inns and taverns and a small market town populated primarily by Crannogmen.



Charged with the defense of the Neck and toll collection, many of their rivals in the North disparage them as "Snow Freys." The fact that they've married primarily daughters of Braavosi Sea Lords may also have something to do with these slanders.



House Sigil:



House Words: We Guard The Way.



House Manderly of White Harbor: Once powerful Lords of the Reach for whom the mighty Mander was named. Once the hereditary commanders of the Noble Order of the Green Hand, the knightly Order of Peace in the Reach, and its greatest patrons next to House Gardener. Ousted after a century-spanning feud with House Peake, the Manderlys followed the Aetheryon's example and bid sanctuary in the North. House Stark, desiring an eastern port to rival the power of Sea Dragon Point and to enrich their growing Kingdom further, gladly accepted. House Manderly set sail and, together with ten thousand loyal smallfolk, a hundred Septons, and a thousand Rhoynar who had sailed up the Mander and sought to settle in lands less harsh than those of their forebears. They were given the Wolf's Den but began the construction of a mighty city and new keep that would one day become the seat of power for the third wealthiest House in the North.





House Manderly Sigil:



House Words: We are the Few, The Proud, The Loyal

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Important Castles and towns in the North.



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Sea Dragon Keep & Dragonton: Erected on a cliff that is believed to be connected to a series of dormant underwater volcanoes. Sea Dragon Keep is a nine towered castle that rises out of the lonely bones of Sea Dragon Point, named for the massive bones and teeth often found in the caves and along the shores by wanderers, suggesting it was a breeding ground for Sea Dragons in the ancient past. Divided into two, the first half of Sea Dragon Keep is a series of three towers, rising like spear points into the heavens, connected by covered stone walkways built into a massive square keep. A series of walls rise from the side of the cliff and run down to the port of Dragonton, winding and twisting around the city, rising along the stony, wavy column of hills. The second half of Sea Dragon Keep rises on the Eastern side of the land, nearest a series of woods that are part of the Wolf's Wood; three towers rise into the heavens on the Eastern side as well. Three more matching towers rise above even the tallest of the immense Redwoods, each one spiraling like ornately wrought candles, the tops of the towers looking as flower bulbs designed to mimic the shape of candlelight. Each section of the Keep appears to be independent, yet they are connected below ground by the underground part of the Keep, which directly intersects the whole of Dragonton. There in the dark are the cellars, dungeons, armories, granaries, and hidden vaults and laboratories where Maesters, alchemists, and blood mages have been said to practice their arcane craft.



The Keep itself is made of Dragonstone but is a fusion of Valyrian, Andal, Rhoynar, and First Men architecture.

Each of the nine towers was designed to be lairs for Dragons that could then be launched from the Towers during times of war or during an invasion. There are ancient roosts in the deeper part of the Wolf's Wood that predate the arrival of House Aetheryon, some Maesters believe these are lairs belonging to the wild, native dragons that once roamed Westeros in the days before the Dawn.



Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the part of Dragonton that exists within the realm of the Keep itself is that using the underwater volcanoes and an elaborate system of pipes and dragonstone tunnels, the Aetheryons created a tropical oasis in the middle of the Northern Wilderness. Clear pools of warm water shimmer along parks and squares, where white sandy beaches are filled with date palms and trees that yield a heavy hairy fruit that, when cracked, produces a sort of milk. There are vines that glow, eerie plants that were once common amongst the Freehold but now exist only in Winterfell, Casterly Rock, Oldtown, and Dragonton.



The Keep has a Sept at the edge of the Godswood, one with seven towers made of dragonstone and designed in honor of the magnificent Starry Sept in Oldtown. Perhaps most controversially, within the Sept, idols of Valyrian Gods are shown bowing in supplication to the Father, submitting themselves to his justice. The warrior stands silent, a mighty sword in hand, fierce and grim beside a jolly smith who is hammering the world into shape, as the Crone beckons the devout into the Church, her lantern always blazing with rainbow-colored flame. The Mother, and Maiden are wrought as bronze statues in an indoor garden. At the same time, the Stranger stands alone in a dark corner.



In the twenty-acre Godswood, two ancient Weirwoods lord over broken idols from the Freehold, and Green Men are seen attending to the Weirwood grove that surrounds the hill they rest upon. All about them are plants and trees from across the known world, said to contain similar significance and power. Some claim children of the forest hide in this temperate paradise, but if they do, the Greenmen, Septons, and Aetheryon Lords hold their tongues. The rest of Dragonton is built within the Wolfswood, with the Valyrians who dwell there making their homes in trees or building their stone manses and palaces in a way that it blends with the forest. While the vast majority of those who dwell within the city do so in the shadow of the Keep, the wealthiest denizens live in the forest part of it.



Defended by a series of forts along the roads and by an order of sworn archers who dwell within the woods, assailing Sea Dragon Keep is said to be nearly as difficult as assailing Riverrun. House Aetheryon also maintains fleets to patrol Blaze Water Bay, the Stony Shore, watchtowers, and fortresses along the Rills and Cape Kraken, where their domain ends as it reaches the Neck. At night it is said that the lights from the towers of Sea Dragon Keep can be seen as far as Deepwood Motte and Bear Island.



There are two hundred thousand denizens of Dragonton; all but twenty thousand are of Valyrian descent. A point of consternation with some of their vassals.



The Hall of the Sea Dragons: King Auryn's Keep is the original temporary Keep built while the proper Keep and town were being constructed. The most remarkable aspect of the Keep is perhaps the Throne Room itself, which is underwater. A series of small windows made of a kind of glass able to withstand the seas (Ensorcelled some claim.) are visible all around the room. Vents from underwater volcanoes light up the ocean around it, giving the viewers a glimpse into another world.



The Sea Dragon Throne is indeed a throne made of the bones of an ancient sea serpent, resting in a geode filled with the blue diamonds of the North and adamants of other colors rarer still, often called "The Adamant Throne" rather than its proper name, it is a rather crass symbol of Aetheryon opulence.

Above the Throne, overlooking the entire hall, are the bones of Auryn Aetheryon, the First Sea King. His tiny bones were dipped in platinum and silver; adamants were placed in his eyes, and powdered gems caused his remains to shimmer. His macabre visage presides over all in the hall, and light is said to shine through his rib bones and glimmered silks.



Winterfell & Winterton: Once a single large castle, built up and expanded over the centuries, with the last editions coming in the decades before the last Sea King yielded. As the North's population grew, so did its wealth. The ancient central keep was largely given over to its Godswood and converted in part into a great feasting hall, kitchen, laundromat, and bathhouse. Towering above it were the new palaces and castles and fortresses, which were all raised by their Aetheryon vassals with the Aragor the mighty and after his death with that liquid stone from the Westerlands. Each one rises some sixty feet at a minimum above the tallest building in the city, and most of them were smooth and warm even in the coldest of winters, and dragonstone or liquid stone bridges connected all.



And what isn't connected by bridges is connected by a series of decorated underground tunnels. Each was carved and shaped by artisans from as far away as Qohor and Myr. Bones so ancient they turned to stone line the walls, depicting creatures both ancient and long gone from the world and beasts more recognizable. These "Lich Walls," which are lit by lamps of whale oil, are a source of wonder and knowledge for Maesters and learned men who come from all over Essos and The Seven Kingdoms to study these haunting remains.



The main underground tunnel entrance to the central Keep and the great feasting hall is the Old Keep; one enters a stairwell that brings guests to the main feasting through the immense skull of Aragor, the last Aetheryon Dragon until Vaegon.



Four walls circle Winterfell and Winterton, each made of thick blocks of granite and basalt fused with dragonfire. The first and second walls are eighty and one hundred feet tall. The second and third walls are sixty and forty feet, and the final wall is separated from the second by a moat forty feet, dug by giants and filled with water fed by a hot spring. Herds of wild sheep and goats roam between the walls, often feeding on the grass, bushes, and small trees that grow in between.



Food can be brought in during sieges from underground tunnels that extend into the wolf's wood, and there are said to be glass gardens, and there are impressive stores of salted beef, rice, and those "flour strings" common in the Stormlands. Sieging Winterfell without dragons is said to be nigh impossible.



During the summer, there are eighty-five thousand denizens within Winterton, mostly of First Men descent; in especially harsh winters, that population can increase to two hundred thousand.



Last Hearth & Old Hearth: The ancestral Seat and the new Seat of House Umber both are castles on a hill; the original Last Hearth was a great wooden longhouse carved from Redwoods taken up from the Wolfswood, surrounded by a wall and with a village below, filled with those who serviced the Keep and herded sheep and wooly cattle. Mors Umber and his children and grandchildren are masters of the Keep.



The new Keep, named New Hearth, is located a league closer to the Gift and was built by giants, an immense stone longhouse; it stretches across two hills and can house up to six giants at a time and all the Umber bannermen. The Mead Hall of the Last Earth is a spectacle to behold, always filled with roaring fires; Meade, made from a breed of hearty bees that buzz around the great indoor stone and glass gardens of the Castle, is served chilled and oft with warm stew and fresh bread. Mammoth cheese and their milk wine flow freely, and it is not uncommon for wrestling matches and other feats of strength to be performed at the center of the Hall in a ring of painted holly. Music, cheer, and wildness embody the festive ambiance as the Umbers defy the cold and the dark.

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The Night's Watch: shrouded in myth and mysteries, their origins stretching back to the Long Night and the raising of the Wall. The Brothers of the Night's Watch have manned the wall for eight thousand long years. Once a place of honor and glory, where criminals could find a second start and bastards could rise higher than their trueborn kin, and broken men could find again their honor. The Night's Watch fell into poverty, privation, and dilapidation as the Seven Kingdoms warred amongst themselves and forgot their own histories. And though the true nature of these mysterious "Others" is hotly debated, whether a particularly sophisticated and deadly Wildling tribe or mysterious unnatural creatures. A great wall was erected to shield the realm from their presence. This changed when the Sea Dragons came, and they brought their Eastern notions on such orders to the realm, a thing Aegon the Dragon continued to advance, and his successors have as well.



Today The Night's Watch is one of the most well-provisioned, well-equipped, and well-manned institutions of the Realm, with only the Faith exceeding them in sheer number and wealth and only the Citadel with more resources. Though the black brothers still serve for life and there are many criminals upon the wall, it has become a place where Nobles and wealthy merchants (Both foreign and native) can take a dignified exile and serve in comfort and perhaps, in time, restore honor lost. Most of the smallfolk who join do so because one of the edicts of the King of Winter was that a stipend of food, goods, and coin be paid out to the kin of those who join. Literacy is mandatory, and so many a peasant has found himself edified and well trained, sleeping in warm beds and with a full belly. The Hardship of the Watch lies in ranging beyond the Wall, and one of the chief complaints of the Lord Commanders has always been how many Black Brothers are happy to be selected to serve as stewards and builders; indeed, the lack of proper battlefield commanders and seasoned Knights or even soldiers plaguing the Night's Watch has been a bane to their existence since at least the reign of King Daeron the Young Dragon.


When Aegon conquered the Seven Kingdoms and united them, he ensured that the whole of the realm would apportion part of its taxes to fund and provision the Watch. The Gift and New Gift were made to thrive under the Starks of Winterfell, but it was by the Good Queen Alysanne's patronage that the land granted to the Watch truly flourished. Today there are thriving villages and towns protected by Lords of the Gift and New Gift, who pay their taxes to the Watch (and all of whom must join the Order of the Wolves.), and this arrangement has seen the watch grow into a formidable force. Although perhaps its greatest flaw is its bounty, for many a Lord Commander has gripped long in their letters on the dismal state of their Rangers. Soldiery was sacrificed for comfort, many have said. The realm has long dismissed these concerns, stating that Wildlings hardly need more than a handful of true Knights to crush.



All nineteen castles of the wall are fully garrisoned, and there are twenty thousand Black Brothers (the lion's share being stewards and builders. There are at most six thousand Rangers), and their current Lord Commander is a doughty warrior of a character, so noble and honorable that none could gainsay his tenure.

 

[TheShadowKnows]

The Fall of Tyrosh – 219


​

King Matarys ascended the Iron Throne in A.C 209 after the Great Spring Sickness decimated the Crownlands, the Reach, and the Riverlands. He ruled ably for ten years, overseeing many a grand project that earned him a place of honor in the annals of history amongst the Builder Kings of the Targaryen dynasty. However, House Blackfyre's consolidation of the Narrow Sea and its efforts to combat slavery and piracy in said Sea caused increasing tensions with Tyrosh that eventually boiled over into a series of skirmishes on the high seas.



Seeking to prevent war, King Matarys invited Tyrosh to negotiate terms of peace on the Island of Bloodstone. With him went Prince Aenys Blackfyre and his father, Prince Daemon Blackfyre, along with the now ancient Lord Leo Tyrell, Prince Aegon of Summerhall, his Princely Father Maekar (The Lord High Justice.) and his mentor Ser Duncan the Tall. Queen Kiera of Tyrosh came with them as well, her twin daughters Maegelle and Aelyx remaining in the Capital.



With them were Lord Beron Stark and his sons Donnor and Artos Stark, Lord Daemos Velaryon and Aenar of House Aetheryon, Lord Admiral of the Royal Fleet. The peace talks were a feint, and the Tyroshi ambushed them with sellswords, crossbowmen, and unsullied. Daemon Blackfyre died defending his King and grandnephew, as did his son Aenys and one grandson; falling beside them were Beron Stark and Lord Leo Tyrell. It is said they slew almost a hundred of the enemy before the end, but died they did, and with them died the King.



Lord Aenar, suspecting treachery, had ordered men to the sand, and they rescued the surviving members of the party and beat a hasty retreat.



Following this infamy, a Grand Council was called to choose King Matarys' successor, for Maegelle and Aelyx were both girls and very young at that, and Prince Rhaegel was quite mad and
Prince Aerion "Brightflame" had renounced the name Targaryen in fury over his exile and taken for himself the name Brightflame, and the law was unclear on where he would stand in the line.



He was also mad, and his young son Maegor and his half-sisters Aelora and Haera were but babes.



In the end, t'was Prince Aerys, the last surviving eldest son of Daeron the Good, whose wits remained to him that was chosen.



King Aerys, first of his name, wasted little time, or mayhap it might be better to say his Hand Brynden Rivers, whom history knows as Bloodraven, wasted no time. Aelyx died mysteriously from a chill, but her sister Maegelle was married off to Edmund Tully, and by the middle of the two hundred and nineteenth year after Aegon's Conquest, the new King called his banners to war.







The Stepstones fell one by one to the rather brilliant "hopping" strategy of the Evenstar Durran Tarth, who befriended the local Rhoynar-descended dwellers of the Stepstones and, with their help, annihilated everyone who wasn't either Rhoynish or Westerosi. Lord Aenar's feast of flames on Bloodstone ended the Tyroshi Admiral Ferragos Aemenalos. And house Greyjoy's treachery proved an arrow, for they sound found the Iron Islands under siege and their fleet incinerated by the Hightower fleet and their "Balefire," a type of pink wildfire that burns with less potency but burns for days and can burn even at the bottom of the ocean.



House Redwyne also cut the Volantene navy from sending assistance, smashing their fleet off the Orange Coast and sailing up the Rhoyne to burn the Volantene docks. In the end, Tyrosh realized that the Seven Kingdoms did not come to defeat them but to conquer them outright and prepared for a fight to the death.



In response, Lord Aenar of House Aetheryon and Lord Uthor Hightower unleashed wildfire on the seas around the principal harbor of Tyrosh, annihilating its fleet and burning most of their piers, docks, and quays. They left Tyrosh a ruin, on the brink of starvation and slave rebellions for a better half a year before invading via smaller harbors.



In the end, the Island fell, as did the Stepstones.





King Aerys awarded Tyrosh and the Stepstones to House Blackfyre for their heroism.





The Black Dragons would spend the next ten years rebuilding the Island's docks and harbors and earning the loyalty of their new subjects. And the next one score and ten years after that, putting down rebellions from the remaining Tyroshi who were slavers once and desired a return to the old ways.



The fall of Tyrosh marks the first time in the history of the Seven Kingdoms that a Free City was conquered by the men and women of Westeros, and it would be the only time a Free City was conquered….





Without Dragons…

 

[TheShadowKnows]

​

The raid of the Citadel….



Pressed on all sides and with the bitter memory of the rebellion of the Laughing Storm, Lyonel Baratheon over a broken betrothal. (An event that solely ended in the King's favor by the heroism of Ser Duncan the Tall, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.) and with several generations of rebellions of Marcher Lords funded in part by Volantis, Myr, and Lys. King Aegon's reign, which had shown such promise at the start, began to show signs of cracking.



Further discord came when the Lords Council began to resist his reforms in earnest. Gone were the days when the Golden Lion Gerold Lannister, The Laughing Storm, and gallant Leo Longthorn bolstered his reign with their wealth, voices, and brinkmanship. In their place was Ormund Baratheon, who, though a loyal servant, was hardly his father's equal in charisma. Tytos Lannister was a jovial man, but his apathy regarding the realm at large ensured that his son, young Tywin Lannister (Now Lord of the Rock.), who openly scorned the reforms of Aegon V and lobbied for a total reversion of Seven Kingdoms to their rule and writ during the earliest days of the Targaryen dynasty. The King was forced to rely more heavily on Dragonstone and House Blackfyre and its Narrow Sea Domains. Further issues arose when the King sought out support from Edwyle Stark at the behest of his hand.



Though Aenar Aetheryon had served The Iron Throne since he was a youth of nine and ten in the final years of the reign of King Daeron II, first as Lord Admiral (After his return from a journey into the west at ten and three, wherein much of the realm took him for dead for five years. See Maester Algryn's "Farman, Velaryon, Aetheryon: the Voyagers that Shaped The Seven Kingdoms" for more) and later Hand of the King. There were always those who suspected the Lord of Sea Dragon Point and Hand of the King held more loyalty to Winterfell than The Iron Throne. Indeed, by this point, one position on the Lords Council was seen as hereditary for the Starks of Barrowton.



In exchange for support, Winterfell was granted exclusivity for toll collection at Moat Cailin and the right to use their own tax collectors with limited royal supervision, a privilege granted only to Dorne and the Narrow Sea. This all but unified opposition against him, and the King came dangerously close to dissolving the Lords Council in frustration. An act that most assuredly would have sparked the embers of conflagration. In the end, pressed on all sides and refusing to cede any ground on his reforms, the King resolved to restore the one and only thing that granted House Targaryen the ability to silence any dissent without the use of force.



The threat of dragons.





For two years, the King bent all his will and resources on the resurrection of dragons and ascertaining what he felt was the true reason for their extinction. For two years, he entertained wild speculation and vitriol both against the Citadel and against his own blood, for there were many a fool given to idle speculation that believed his namesake, Aegon the Third, helped kill the last dragons. In contrast, others blamed Viserys the Second for whatever mad reason. Ultimately, t'was not hedge wizards, disgraced Maesters, Essosi mystics, and Myrish "Naturalists" that drew him to the truth but the Hand of the King himself.





(It might be said that much of the resistance the King had endured in protest to the Northron concessions might never have come to pass had the Lord of Winterfell been any other man but Edwyle Stark. A man many viewed as one of the most duplicitous and cruel Lords in the Seven Kingdoms, a man who inherited the North in a state of upheaval, as both his Father, his uncles, and his elder brother perished, and House Bolton and House Karstark were agitating for control of the North. The war against the Skagosi had entered its fortieth year. Edwyle assumed the Throne of Winter on his tenth name day after brutally murdering his two elder cousins who were appointed as his regents. The reason for this was treason, but even King Daeron had his doubts at the time.



Lord Edwyle would gain fame as a warrior as well as a shrewd man of politics – fighting beside Ser Duncan the Tall, Prince Aegon Targaryen, and Prince Daemon Blackfyre against the Skagosi.



By all accounts, neither he nor King Aegon were particularly friendly with each other, and the fate of all of his sons born before Theon Snow and Rickard Stark, the death of his Aetheryon wife, and other elements of his life remain hotly contested subject matter even today.



Indeed, the Citadel cannot even attest to how he came by the "proof of Maesterly Treachery" he presented or if, indeed, that proof was genuine. – Archmaester Gargalen)





The evidence was sufficient that King Aegon V rose from the Iron Throne so abruptly that he opened his arm on a jagged blade and required hours of cleaning before stitching the wound.



The contents of Lord Aenar's letter remain to this day a mystery, but it is known that the King summoned ten thousand men and marched to Oldtown. Wherein he joined his powers to that of the City Watch of Oldtown and the Order of the Greenhand, commanded by Luthor Tyrell, Tywin Lannister, and his personal retinue of two hundred knights and Rickard Stark and no less than a dozen wargs and a thousand Northern axes.



By the Hour of Ghosts, the Citadel was awash with blood, and half the Archmaesters were dead; the other half were taken and clapped in irons and sent to King's Landing to be Judged. Most of those were later pardoned, and those who weren't were found dead from fever shortly after. For a time, Grandmaester Pycelle, a novice named Marwyn, Maester Luwin of Winterfell, and the now Archmaester Wilde were the only ranking members of the Citadel left able to direct anything.



This must have satisfied the King, for he relented on his hostility and promised blanket amnesty in exchange for new copies of Blood and Fire and the Unnatural History to be made by year's end and the surrendering of two dragon eggs, to match the one gifted to him by House Hightower.





By the middle of the year, the full extent of Aegon Targaryen's resolve would be displayed before the Realm Entire, where it would clash with blood and treachery and be restored by faith at Summerhall.

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The Miracle at Summerhall.

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By the middle of A.C 259, fresh from his raid upon the Citadel, King Aegon, the fifth of his name, resolved to return dragons to the world. Summoning members of every remaining cadet of House Targaryen and every family with ancestry that can be traced back to Dragons of Old and House Aetheryon to Summerhall, he began to set his plan in motion.



What exactly transpired at Summerhall is not fully known; several Maesters were in attendance, two as prisoners, one as a party to whatever transpired. Only twenty of the Palace's two hundred servants survived, and their testimonials have been…confounding and contradictory.



House Tully of Harrenhal had refused to attend despite having married so many Targaryen spares that their blood claim to the Throne was second only to House Blackfyre. House Velaryon sent two distant cousins, and Lord Hoster sent two of his bastard brothers. (Both died saving Princess Rohanne Blackfyre from the flames.) the Lady of Storm's End, Cassana Estermont, and Aerys Targaryen were both assaulted by something, but the exact nature of what it was remains a mystery.



Lady Cassana received a grievous wound to her shoulder but grabbed a lantern and hurled it at her attacker's face; as it burned, Aerys Targaryen was said to have thrust Dark Sister (Or Brightflame, depending on the account.) into the attacker's back.



Maelys the Monstrous, the two-headed Uncle and sworn sword of Prince Daemon Blackfyre was killed as he held the two main columns supporting the entrance to Summerhall apart, allowing the future Mad King and his wife and Prince Valarr of House Blackfyre to escape.



Yet that claim remains dubious; those columns were like as not as heavy as an elephant each, and while the strength of Ser Maelys was known to all, Quellon Greyjoy and Elbert Arryn defeated him in wrestling contests on multiple occasions. Both Ser Duncan the Tall and Gaemon Tully can claim to have overcome him in the lists.



Surely, the realm is not filled with men possessed of strength analogous to the legends from the age of heroes.



The attacker himself? King Aegon himself believed it was Aerion Brightflame, but he had been dead by that point for a quarter of a century.



The Mad King gave conflicting testimony, vacillating from one identity to another.



A plurality of people insist they saw a Living Shadow turn the wildfire loose.



Ser Bors Bulwer and Lord Commander Moryn Tyrell of the City Watch at Oldtown heaped vile calumnies upon the Cital, assigning blame to treasonous Maesters who survived the purge. For nigh two score years, they have insisted thusly.



Ser Brynden Tully, known to the realm as The Blackfish, was present (Having ridden ahead of Lord Rickard Stark and his wife, Princess Rhaella Targaryen.) insists that all he saw were men dying from an unseen force and then dying from fire.



Whatever truly transpired, the result was the same….





Seven times Seven were invited.



But only fourteen arrived.



Seven times, Seven Eggs were placed on a pyre at the base of a gnarled Weirwood.



Greenmen, Red Priests, and Septons of the Myrish branch of the faith were present.





It is believed in his desperation, the King either sacrificed himself or gave prisoners over to the fire.



Two hundred people died, including Prince Duncan, Princess Shaera Targaryen, Queen Betha Blackwood, and King Aegon, and the survivors all credit Ser Duncan the Tall and Ser Maelys the Monstrous with their salvation.





Seven times Seven eggs were used.





Seven eggs that weren't part of the rite, nor even listed as present, hatched.



And with them, dragons returned to the world.





Today, King Aegon is remembered as King Aegon the Fortunate, King Aegon the Seven Times Blessed, and Aegon the Tragic.



More eggs dormant on Dragonstone hatched in the following years, and the Seven produced their own progeny. In Essos, the three eggs of Elissa Farman are still unaccounted for, yet rumors persist there are believed to be fifty living dragons in the world, all born from the ashes of Summerhall.





Ten of them have riders…



The Dragons of today are very distinct from the dragons of the annals of history. Gone is their cruelty, their misanthropy and malice, and in its place, a degree of intelligence and devotion that Septon Barth believed Dragons capable of yet rarely showed.



Some of them are seen as heroes to the commons and are sung about in the same vein as Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, Ser Barristan the Bold, Ser Aghorro the Grim, or Jonquil and her Fool, Florian.



But others are as bloodthirsty as some of their riders. For every Aegos, "The Knight of the Skies" and "Winter, Breaker of Chains and Mother to the Free," there is Maelos of the Black Flame, a dragon who has, under orders of his rider, killed more people than any other dragon since the days of Rhoynish Wars.



As with men, the Dragons of the Realm seem free to choose their nature, and with that choice comes the capacity of great heroism or spectacular villainy.

 

[TheShadowKnows]

The King's Justice

​

"Do you understand why he had to die by my mine own hand, son?" Ned had watched the boy ride in silence, his mind contemplative and far away. Ordinarily, when Jon and Robb rode off on a race, Bran would trot his pony closer to Jory or Hullen to listen to their tales and gossip or ride beside Sansa, ensuring that she wasn't too slack on the reigns or nervous with her pony. Her education into the realm of politics is essential, but no Stark of Winterfell should be ignorant of the saddle. One of them will end up mounting Winter one day or one of her progeny.



The She-Dragon of his mother, Princess Rhaella, formerly a princess of House Targaryen, must have been well over a hundred and fifty feet long now. And had taken the wolf's wood as her domain, making a lair in an ancient and abandoned keep deep within. Some mountain and hill folk would descend in winter and make settlements around her domain, absorbing the warmth her great white body radiated. And the Vergers and sheriffs of the Aetheryons Domains ensured she wasn't hassled overly much. Father had misliked it initially as he was worried some of them might be eaten, but the dragon's temper was hardly as irascible as Urrax had been, but a dragon was still a dragon. Turning, he beckoned Sansa to join him. His daughter was saddened by what she'd seen, but her gentle face and pale blue eyes were still as pools of water and contemplative. I am proud of them both. "I asked your brother if he understood why I had to take the man's life myself and not with a Headsmen."



Sansa hesitated; she seemed to consider in silence, her face awash with indecision. She still thinks the world is a story, Cat says, but how can she not when her grandmother is a dragon rider and a hero of several wars, and her father commands the oldest keep in Westeros? There had always been magic in Winterfell's roots and bones, and there always would be so long as a Stark sat upon the Winter throne.



Perhaps a belief in such silliness was not so bad in a less ugly and cold world than when he was a boy. In that, at least, we fulfilled our oaths, Lyanna; we made Westeros a better place. Bran spoke first, "Because he was an oath breaker?" Bran asked. "And a traitor because of it?" And cost his family the stipend they would have received after his death. But Ned would see that they received comparable funding, something in the man's eyes… "Aye, son and traitors are dangerous sort of criminal, for they know they are dead men walking and will not shy from any fell deed to keep themselves from the block. But that is not what I asked; I meant if you knew why I had to do it with mine own hand?"



"Because..." Sansa began speaking; she had her grandmother's melodic voice and her mother's intonation, which was soft and gentle. "The First Men believed that he who carries the…" her cheeks turned pink, and she bit back nervousness. "That is to say, the man who passes sentence must carry it out."



Ned nodded. "Aye, that is the book's answer, but do you know why?"



Both were silent before Sansa's eyes widened as if it all set into place in her mind, and a sense of understanding filled her oval face. "Because if a lord isn't willing to carry out the sentence himself, then mayhap he harbors doubts of the man's guilt?"



"Or isn't worthy of being a lord." Prince Jacaerys said, riding up beside them, his silver-gold hair loose about his shoulders. He seemed to give off steam as Winter did in the cold, like Mother and Daenerys. He thought and frowned at the prince, who bowed his head somberly. "Forgive me, Lord Stark, that was improper of me to interrupt your lesson." Ned offered a conciliatory smile at the youth. He'd been fostered here for the last year, owing to a tradition of House Blackfyre that the heir should live in Tyrosh and Myr for a year each, and once he had learned all that he could know of those cities and their demesnes and their ways, he would spend a year in each of the seven Kingdoms, fostering with the High Lords with whom his family's trade brought such wealth to.

Starting when they are boys of Eight....

His experiences in the Essosi domains left him with certain libertine values, yet the Lord couldn't fault him. After all, was it not the murder of Brandon and Father by Uncle Aerys and the old King's demand for Ned, Robert, and Daemon's heads that started the Blackfyre rebellion (Or the Second Dance of the Dragons as the bards called it.). It was not proper to involve oneself in a lecture between a father and his children, yet Jace was so much like his kin that his interruptions often served a purpose that blunted the severity of the offense. "Indeed, but you are right, never less; that is one possible reason."





"Does House Blackfyre have a headsman, or do you feed criminals to your dragons?" Bran asked. He was causing Sansa to shriek his name in horror. Everyone knew what the Mad King did with Aegos and his perceived enemies and how, eventually, the Dragon abandoned Aerys and fled beyond the known map. "How could you ask that?" she demanded, frowning in a manner that reminded him of Cat. Ned's eyes hardened, but he said nothing, allowing Jacaerys to answer for himself, sensing an opportunity to prove the point of his lecture about justice.



For a moment, Jace was silent, allowing the boy to compose himself after the reprimand. "The only Dragons House Blackfyre has are in King's Landing with the King. Apart from the wild dragons roosting on the Dragonmont, Vermax and her brother Vermithrax unclaimed both... But tell me, killing a man by Dragon's fire is horrible; it is cruel and unnecessary outside of war. And these dragons appear to be not wholly the same as the Targaryen dragons of old; their temperament is different indeed, even their nature for good Queen Alysanne's Silverwing could never fly over the wall nor even approach it by the sea.

Yet, Winter and Maelos passed beyond the wall and slew Hagon the Warg and his host of Wildlings when your lord father was but a boy. Indeed, they grow slower but will live longer if the books on Dragonlore recovered from Winterfell's libraries are true. Yet Aegos abandoned Aerys the Mad in the end, and Septons say that he did so because he could not handle the horror of the atrocities he was forced to commit at the whip of the Mad King. Do you believe that a just King would feed a criminal to Dragons? Or a worthy lord? Does my father have a headsman? Dragonstone and our other domains are sea powers, and we primarily address pirates. And when pirates are put to death, they are hung by the neck until dead upon gibbets, and my father pulls the lever. If he did not?"



Bran nodded, understanding dawning on him. "If he did not do so, as often as he could, then it would mean hesitance on his part?"



Jacaerys laughed softly. "Aye, though I would venture that neither your lord Father, nor mine nor the King can possibly put every criminal in our domains to death. Cities and towns mean prosperity, but they also mean large numbers of lawbreakers. But a Lord just as a King will do what he can, serve as he can and rule as he can as best he can..."



"Else, he is no Lord at all." Bran finally said. Sansa nodded in understanding and looked ahead to the road to hide tears threatening to fall from her eyes.



Ned smiled. "Aye, little ones, aye."



A sudden roar spooked Sansa's pony, causing it to whinny, its nostrils flaring as steam rose out from them, mingling with her alarmed breath.



"BY THE GODS!" The shout came from Robb up ahead, and their lord father and Prince Jacaerys spurred their horses. "Harwin! You and the men stay with my children!" their father called in a voice that was at once commanding and urgent before he vanished up ahead.

**********************​

************​

Bran and his elder sister had pushed their ponies as hard as they dared in worry and fear for their brothers until they reached the base of a bridge over the creek. Their Lord father had joined the boys, and no one seemed to be in danger, but there was an awful chorus of yowls, screams, and snarling howls that terrified his pony and forced Bran to steady it as he rode forward. Sansa was at his side until he saw what his father was watching.



"Damn Lannisters," grumbled Hullen, their wizened and grouchy horse master of Winterfell. But Bran was too focused on the battle before him to question the meaning of the words as he looked out at the scene unfolding on the opposite shore. A grey-furred lion with an ashy mane was in the fight of its life against a wolf that was larger than anything Bran had ever seen. "What is that?"



"A direwolf," Jon said, awe in his voice. "What's the damn thing doing so far from the gift!?" asked Jory with a sense of wonder in his voice. Direwolves were said to have gone extinct south of the wall centuries ago, but as with other beasts, men were wrong in their assumptions. Most preferred the New Gift and Gift and the northernmost lands ruled by vassals of his house. And Bran understood why the men had continued to curse the Lannisters. A century ago, Damon Lannister had imported half a hundred Hrakkar's from the Dothraki sea and bred them with some of the cave lions of the West. Seeking a more ferocious challenge than the lions of the Westerlands for his hunts and games.

The new breed thrived, and by the time of his grandfather, they were all over the Riverlands and the Reach, and they had begun to cross the neck and make their way North. Where the Black shepherd hounds of the North and the mammoths did battle with them as their cousins in the South did.


Jory drew his bow from his saddle bag and took an arrow from his quiver. "Shall I put one in the lion, my lord? Even a Direwolf cannot best such a beast alone; its forebears in the Dothraki sea are said to kill horses with a swipe of their paws."



Bran could believe it; the lion was huge and had to be as large as his Lord father's destrier, if not larger. The Direwolf was also massive, yet it was clear it would lose this fight. The lion was old and cruel, with grey-green eyes and scars from half a hundred battles, and it was a lion that stood alone away from its pride. Maester Luwin says lions are like dogs and wolves because they need a family to remain whole. Had this lion gone mad from loneliness after being driven from his pride? Or was he always mad? It was a bloody battle; the lion had mounted the direwolf from the front, its claws raking its ribs, causing gouts of hot blood to rise like steam in the summer snow. "Gods…" Robb whispered. "It's a she-wolf."



"And gravid by the looks of it," Hullen muttered, disgusted. "A Predator might kill another what trespasses on his lands, but this lion is half mad."



"It's trying to eat the wolf!" Sansa cried out, alarmed as the she-wolf bit down into the lion's thigh, and it roared and clamped its teeth into the space between her shoulder blades. flinging the enormous she-wolf into the water of the creek, where it stamped down with its immense paws onto her bloodied side and bit down onto her neck, shoving her snout underwater.



"Father! This is the symbol of your house." Jon whispered. "We can't just…." He went silent as he saw the look of horror on their father's face. "Aye, this be grim business, boys, but it is nature."



"It's misfortune, lord," Hullen muttered. Nestos, a Valyrian man at arms, nodded in agreement, his lilac eyes narrowing. "R'hollor would not countenance such dishonor, great lord." Though not from the Aetheryon colonies, Nestos had adopted their oddly accented dialect of High Valyrian. He'd been a pirate in his youth, who was taken prisoner by his Grandsire and given his freedom in exchange for leal service. Nestos spoke many tongues, including ten different Valyrian dialects. Bran was grateful that the Old Lord Stark spared him, for conversating with him was a boon. The court of Winterfell tended to speak only High Valyrian or the old tongue-influenced dialect of common speech. Bran wanted to ensure his accent wasn't obvious when he spoke the common tongue with the servants and people of Wintertown or his lady mother. Father seemed to weigh the matter, and precious seconds were ebbing away as the direwolf seemed to kick less and less under the lions' jaws and the current, red blood staining the clear stream.



And then it happened.




The gurgling of the wolf, the heavy, heated breaths of the lion, and Sansa's frantic pleas were drowned out by an ear-splitting roar that filled the skies above as though it were the breaking of a storm upon the land. Bran knew that roar! A dragon! A dragon comes! But it wasn't Winter's constant, horn-like bellow, but a proud and vibrant roar with a richness in its tempo that spoke of warm summers and exotic kills in the narrow sea. The lion looked up, its eyes hateful as it gazed at the sky, seeking the predator that reigned over both wolf and lion alike. And it descended, a silver and grey beast with long bat-like wings and a tail with six spikes rising like teeth on a pitchfork, and when it let loose fire, its flame was a jade color that spewed outward like a streak of lightning across the sky as the rider lifted a hand in greeting then banked the beast.



"Stormwind!" Sansa called in excitement. The gallant young dragon of Gendry Greystorm, the lord of the Rainwood and legitimized bastard son of one of their father's boyhood friends and foster brothers. The son of a hero of the rebellion and a hero in his own right. Bran thought. But what is he doing here?!



"This is an omen, Great lord," Nestos repeated.



The Lion seemed to release pressure on the wolf's side, and she seized the opportunity and lunged at the lion, forcing it onto its hand legs.



"Now, Jory!" Father ordered his voice calm and filled with the kind of steel Bran imagines a commander on the field of battle might use. Jory Cassel loosed an arrow, which landed between the lion's shoulder blades. It must have pierced a lung or the heart, for the lion vomited up blood even before the Direwolf bit down on the lion's throat and drove it into the waters, tearing through its throat and crunching its neck bones until it was nearly beheaded. As the Dragon made a second pass and made to land, Bran watched as the she-wolf limped out of the water, blood trailing as she finally crumbled onto the riverbank.



"Father, mayhap Stormwind can bear her to Winterfell?" Bran heard Jon whisper. "A symbol of your house, and she fought a valiant struggle to protect her unborn..it would be dishonorable to let her die."



There was a tense moment of silence.



Then, Father nodded. "Aye…"



Bran loved his half-brother.



Dearly

 

[TheShadowKnows]

​

There were days, when she resented Lady Rhaella for refusing to yield control of Winterfell to Cat until the new member of House Stark had proven herself as adept at finances and managing a city as Cat's Lord father had at managing the Riverlands. Most of the time, she thanked the Gods that she had access to the wisdom and the experience of the woman affectionately called "The Queen in the North" by the lords of the North and the Riverlands. Winterfell was more than just a castle; it was a fused network of keeps and palaces encircling and standing at the center of Wintertown, which had once been a small refuge for the poorest of First Men during brutal and ancient winters. But over the centuries since the Valyrians came turned into a sprawling city that was exceeded only by White Harbor and Dragonton in the North in size. She was less a lady of a Keep and more, as the Greatjon said, "a lord mayor with a grand pair of tits!". The uncouth man made her laugh most days.



However, she remembered a story that he'd once punched Winter on the snout as a youth because the dragon stole a piece of mutton from him while she was still a hatchling. That solidified the image of him as a terrifying and implacable foe and stalwart ally.



Today, the "lady mayors" of Winterfell had been busy planning a feast day in honor of the union of Ice and Fire when King Auryn Aetheryon and his dragon bent the knee to the King of Winter called Bran. There were a great many Brandons, but that one had managed immortality in the histories of the realm by attaining the submission of a Dragonlord's grandson. Albeit a disgraced dragon lord who was driven out of Volantis for his willingness to emancipate slaves as the story of House Aetheryon went. She believed it not; they were a powerful House near the equals of the Starks and were entrusted to serve as the voice of Winterfell in Southron affairs, but they were a queer people.

She was no stranger to Valyrian culture, House Tully having nearly as much Targaryen blood as it did the blood of the first men or Andals. But these were a different set of Valyrians. It always seemed that each Dragon Lord and his dynasty bred and shaped their peoples even as they bred and shaped their Dragons and the language they spoke, centuries removed from the language spoken by the conqueror. Even their Gods were different, for they worshipped the stars and then converted to the faith of the Old Gods and in time, added the Seven to their offensive coterie of Gods.



Then Thoros of Myr came, a priest of the Red God, but he came not as a burner, nor did he demand they renounce their stars and Weirwoods but that his God of fire was a natural ally of stars and the Old God. After all, was not light heat? And did not the very trees the Old Gods used as their emissaries thrive in the ash of a fire that clears away the stagnant growth? The Lord of House Aetheryon always unsettled her as well. Aenar the ancient they called him now; he was nearly a hundred and ten and remained Hand of the King. Daemon is the seventh King he's served and the sixth as hand. He is loyal to my lord husband, and yet…



And yet he lured Wildlings south, granted them leave to live and work his lands; bred Wargs that was for certainty, and bred them as other men bred dogs, though she'd been unable to prove of it as of yet. They were deployed in the service of the North, but she oft wondered if they had a choice in the matter.

As she walked through the square of Wintertown towards the center keep, Catelyn pulled her fox-fur-lined cloak close; there was a chill in the air that matched her bleak mood, for she was once again dealing with discord within her own home that once again centered around the bastard. Planning the festival was only a temporary respite from the discord the other night when she caught the bastard with Daenerys and Arya.

They were sitting in a glass garden in one of the many hot springs in the Winterfell, which she supposed was innocent enough; he'd been discussing history with the girls, but Daenerys had been holding Jon's hand, and Catelyn saw red. His bastardry didn't bother her over much. Winterfell was full of bastards that served as everything from men at arms to valets and groomsmen and the men who handled the nightsoil, worked the sewers and cisterns, and ensured the pipes always returned heated water to the bones of the earth where deep fires nursed it. Lord Robert's bastard saved her sister, and Lysa pushed for him to be given his own name and lands. Gendry was a boy only two years older than her Robb, but he was an accomplished dragon rider, gallant warrior, and the spitting image of Lord Robert, just as Lysa's son was.

No, the ire she felt for the boy stemmed from two men, men she knew a kinder woman would have directed her wrath towards. I am better than this. Cat would tell herself at night when the shame gnawed at her. It came from Halys Hornwood and Rickard Karstark, the two most ambitious, dishonest, and avaricious Lords under vassalage to Winterfell, which says a lot, seeing as the Cailin Starks are one step removed from being pirates. At first, she'd been daunted, Brandon she knew and knew well, for they had met at the Capital when she was a little girl. The bond The Mad King shared with the children of Rickard Stark, at times seeming almost Fatherly, ensured they were always a dragon's flight away. Bold Lyanna, with her lilac eyes and wavy chestnut hair, one day Ser Jaime came to her with Lyanna in tow, her nose broken. I fixed it of course, and they laughed. She'd been bold enough to spar dressed as a boy; Elia loved her as though she were her youngest sister.

Bold Brandon blustered and thundered and once bested Robert Baratheon in the yards in a wrestling match.

Silent Ned who spent his days either at Aerys' side or in the Dragonpit when he wasn't at the Eyrie with Jon Arryn and his foster brothers. One of them is the King now.

They were the talk of the City; everyone wanted to either wed them or best them.

Cat knew of Brandon's habits and the twin bastard girls he sired on a whore in the street of silk when he was ten and three. But when news of their betrothal broke, he came to her and promised her he would never wander or stray, dishonor her, or misuse her. Two days later, she found him abed, between two dragonseeds and a Dayne from High Hermitage. They curled around him like serpents, and she threw a flagon of Dornish Red at them. Later, the girl from High Hermitage died giving birth to his twins, who died days later. Through it all, Cat lamented the fact that she was wed to the heir and not one of the spares.

And then talk of betrothal between Ashara Dayne and Eddard Stark, for whom Lord Robert meant to gift the ancient domains of House Greyskull, the Rainwood, and all its Houses great and small too. A demense that would make him the second most powerful Lord in all the Stormlands, a dangerous gift but one that was well beyond what could have been expected in the North in terms of comparable significance, if not size. She recalled feeling heartbroken then, though she didn't quite know Ned the way she knew Brandon and Lyanna, for he was far off in the Eyrie most of the year. She felt, at least, that he would not mistreat her as Brandon would, and there he was, poached by yet another Dayne.

The hourglass poured its sand, life went on, Rhaegar was dishonored, Elia at Harrenhal abducted a girl who trusted him implicitly, and Brandon was disemboweled in the Dragonpit by Aerys after his father lost a Trial By Battle over Lyanna's fate. The King had sworn before Gods and men that if Lord Rickard lost that duel, he would pardon all of the transgressors and ride out on his dragon Aegos to deal with Rhaegar himself. The King broke his vows and killed his own nephew in a fury in front of fifty thousand witnesses.

War followed...

And Ned came home with a newborn, with a shock of dark hair and perfect violet eyes. Ashara, who'd been in the Stormlands for the duration of the war, by Rhaegar's side, it turned out. Jon, his name is Storm... A total innocence of whatever horror befell his aunt and whatever madness seized his mother. She killed herself later, I hear, casting her body from the parapet of Storm's End. That was when the rumors escaped Karhold and Hornwood. "She is a River witch; she killed Ned's true wife and usurped his trueborn son's inheritance" "This bitch with hair the color of blood means to turn Winterfell into a vassal of Riverrun!" "No more Southron brides, they mean to make us chattel!" and she fought it where she could, but there was a darkness that hung over her, a fear that her children would one day face a treason within their own homes...

And there was something else, too, something that gnawed at her pride.

The Dayne's were a grand and ancient family, almost as old as the Starks themselves, and were said to be the direct descendants of the Last Hero, who drove back the forces of the Others as Brandon the Builder raised the wall behind him. She could hear it sometimes worse than usurper; interloper was the word "upjumped". Who was she? But the daughter of some scheming Riverlord who enriched himself on tolls and tariffs at trade towns and ports and gambling halls and exchange houses in the Riverlands. Who was one step above the Freys and mostly a merchant himself, whose history and proud tradition of both First Man and Andal heritage were likely fabrications by scribes without scruples.

She was loved because she had worked hard to earn her place in the North, but that hard work was ten times harder when the living reminder of what could have been strutting about her castle as though he was born to it. Storm Cat scoffed at that and called him Jon Strong when she could hear enough of their conversation and realized they were discussing the Dance.


Gendry would have challenged her, raged at her, and stormed off, and Cat might have come to care for Eddard's bastard if he was prone to such outbursts. The Father Above certainly knew she deserved such rage. No one would follow him then, as it would be clear he was meant to follow and be a warrior, not a lord. Instead, the boy just looked at her with sad eyes, the anger below kept in lordly restraint, and he asked to be excused. She detested that, for she knew he was easily angered but could hold it silent. Instead, Daenerys and Arya looked at her scornfully and followed Jon, and Catelyn was left alone in the dark.



She reviled the boy not for who he was but for what he represented. Proof that I was forced on my lord husband and the North at implied sword point and that I stole lady Dayne's place and her life, that I had to earn my place here when Rhaella still lived, that I was resented for years! The wind flowing through columns brushed a banner across her shoulder, and she looked off in vexation and shame. That fight had been two nights past, and it bothered her as much as the questions her mind had been assailing her with of late did. It had been easy to detest the boy for years, but lately, regret gnawed at her and questions about the story regarding the boy's arrival and his birth. Questions my Lord Husband has adamantly refused to answer.





For the longest time, it was simple: either she detested the bastard or detested her husband and the grandmother of her children. But now? She had begun to wonder if that wasn't by design, and that only made her sense of intrigue flare.



Speak of the Dragon, and she comes.

*****************

********​

Rhaella was waiting for her at the top of the grand granite stairs to the entrance of the central keep; six giant direwolf statues flanked her on either end of the grand stairs. She wore a grey cloak, and her gown was of indigo, and upon her forehead was a small coronet, a simple band of Valyrian steel done up as a dragon eating its tail with sapphire eyes. A gift of the Smiths on Dragonstone I'm told...Those monastic tinkerers had rediscovered the secret of creating Valyrian steel during the final years of the reign of King Aegon the fifth, though House Blackfyre ruthlessly controlled its monopoly.



Rhaella was beautiful in her youth, said to be above all others in House Targaryen, and when she wed Lord Rickard, she became a gem of the North. A dragon rider before she was even six and ten who fought a dozen battles, and that was before Daemon's rebellion. At fifty-three, she looked forty-three and like Cat was still in the prime of her life, and Rhaella never seemed cold nor hot; she merely defied the environs about her while Cat still struggled at times with the cold. Winter's bellow could be heard in the skies above, and Catelyn frowned.



"What is wrong Goodmother?"



"For Winter to stir from the Godswood after I've fed her two whole cows? Another dragon is en route." Rhaella said, her voice even and calm, but there was a hint of rage in her eyes. She knows about the other night. in an attempt to avoid the subject Cat remarked that they should prepare for which ever rider was coming and to feed another dragon.



"Why is my grandson considering the Night's watch when he should be preparing to rule lands and fight on his Lady's behalf?" Her voice was imperious, and it held the power of the dragon Kings of old. But Cat wouldn't be intimidated in her own home. "Something about you implying he'd steal your son's legacy."



"This is hardly the time to talk."



Rhaella raised a hand, gently silencing her. "When you mistreat him, you undermine your son's position and future household."

"He was flirting with Daenerys," Catelyn responded in a heated tone.



"As is natural among adolescents. And last I've heard, the King did not grant you leave to arrange a betrothal between my niece and dear Robb." No, Catelyn thought bitterly. He did not, and why was that? He had the twin daughters of Elia Martell and Rhaegar Targaryen. Daeron, his heir, was betrothed to Rhaenys. By all accounts, it was a happy betrothal, and then Princess Visenya was promised to Lord Robert's trueborn son; why not marry Daenerys away to a trusted vassal? The alternative was unthinkable; surely Myr and its domains would be given as dowry to Prince Daeron or Steffon Baratheon; his grace couldn't possibly mean... Rhaella was gazing down at her with those reproachful eyes and Cat suddenly felt blinded. "He has not." She was forced to admit, the bitterness in her tone evident.



"Then why is my grandson speaking to the recruiters for the Night's watch?" Rhaella's tone never went above a calm lull. It never needed to; Aerys blustered, raged, and lashed out and attacked. But true dragons did not need such displays to express their wrath. This is where Ned gets his cold fury from. Worst of all, Cat's mother died with Edmure's birth, and Rhaella had been a mother to her as much as a mentor; those were eyes were that of a mother frustrated with a child she knew was brilliant but was simply not thinking. Cat knew the look she'd worn at with Rickon lately quite a lot.



"He is near a man grown…Lady Rhaella, and this is high-"Rhaella descended the stairs, and Cat took that as a personal victory until she stroked Cat's chin with her long fingers, calloused from a lifetime holding the reigns of a dragon's saddle. Another reason I had to work so hard to win the love of my people. She, too, had the blood of the dragon, yet the one chance she had to try her hand and claim a dragon, she'd been too afraid. And that dragon was later killed at the Trident. none of her own children had claimed any of the hatchlings in the Capital two years prior either, but they had sniffed Jon. "The blood of the dragon afeared of a motherless boy." Rhaella whispered, "Where do you think Daenerys will go? She is the last living daughter of the old King. Do you imagine she will be married off to one of our vassals so that in two generations, we'd have intrigue once again? From within and without?" Her tone was as even as Maester Luwin's when at instruction, leading someone through instruction. Cat's eyes blazed, but Rhaella's were too maternal for her to pull away, too intense, and too calm. "Or will she go to Myr and its immense Kingdom? Do you imagine that House Blackfyre would leave Volantis without a foe at its flank? And pressure on the Rhoyne and the expanding Dothraki? Do you not see my love? My daughter of spirit and not blood? You're more than this, in wits and in spirit. Think!"

Who then would the King trust with such a massive and wealthy domain? It dawned on Cat and she suddenly felt a fool for not seeing it all these years, blinded as she was by her own pain.

She was correct; Cat knew it. She was ashamed of how petty and bitter she'd been; she'd been mad with her fury and blind. There was a point when she might have ceased her recriminations against the bastard earlier when it looked as if he was going to die of winter fever after she'd fashioned an idol of the boy and left it at the Stranger's alter. She came away horrified, but he pulled through after Maester Luwin tried a Lyseni healing technique that involved stabbing the boy with a large needle and letting the fluid drain. She was so overcome with guilt that she vowed to raise the boy as her own to repent of her monstrous sin. After all, he was kin to Rhaella, a cousin to her Lord father.

No one was accursed as the kinslayer, but her feelings of rage returned when he woke and began to show an aptitude for riding and jousting. Rhaella was correct, but it hadn't mattered to Cat as long as Ned loved Ashara best. And I've played into the hands of those Rickard and Halys, damnit all! Cat allowed herself to sigh and reached up to set a hand on Rhaella's own. "I need time. I must pray on this, and I must think on these matters." If she was right, as Cat suspected she was, then she'd been far too stupid for far too long, and it was time to redress that issue, not solely with the bastard but within herself. And those two fools. She might have said more but Winter's trumpeting cry turned the heads of both women.



Then she heard the second dragon, and her eyes widened in wonder. Stormwind wasn't as sleek or elegant as Winter, but he was a magnificent young dragon with armored scutes on his back and a spiked tail. When he landed opposite Winter, he let out a keening howl of acknowledgment and puffed out his broad chest, then lowered his head in recognition of his elder, the majestic winter queen. The boy, Gendry, the legitimized bastard of Robert Baratheon, dismounted and called for a Maester, and Catelyn soon understood why.



There was a direwolf lying at the feet of the mighty dragon, and she was grievously wounded and whelping! She doesn't need a Maester. She needs a midwife.



Gods Ned…a direwolf…Gods be good; let not this an omen be!

 

[TheShadowKnows]

******************

The dreaming wolf

*******************​

Morgha! Dracarys Pōntoma Zālaza, zālagon qrīdrughagon pōja ñelly! Dracarys Morgha!



She was sleek, serpentine-like in her dream, a great but primitive dragon with a body as long as Balerion was towards the end of his days, two great wings exited her back that blotted out the sun. Her long whiskers sparked with lightning that ran the length of her vermillion body as she belched a fire the color of her scales. She was adorned with an armor of glittering steel that extended across her chest and middle back and covered her tail, legs, and thighs. In the night sky, she must have looked like one of those knights of old Andalos who had taken the western continent by storm when her sires' sire's sire was still in the egg. And the ships upon the landlocked sea that dared to fire their bolts? Above her, Vaenarya screamed and cackled like a mad woman. Her rider's blood was up, and the immense beast ordered to send these men of water and cold back to the hells that spawned them. Now was a time for death and war!



Out of nowhere, the salt waterd rose, and she found herself face to face with a column of it as thick as any wall she'd ever seen.



And then she knew only pain.



Arya woke with a start, suppressing a scream as she lost her balance and fell forward, crashing through branches and slamming into the grass and dirt below. Stupid dreams! Grandmother called them dragon dreams and said they were magical, that they allowed her to see things that never were, might yet be, or that happened years and years ago. But be wary of them, my love, for many of our ancestors were driven mad because of them.


Those Targaryens must have been stupid; just because you dreamed of something happening didn't mean it would happen. Who took dreams seriously? Of all the dreams Arya had that she could remember, only a quarter of them came true, and with odds like that, what idiot would believe them? But Daenys, the dreamer, saved House Targaryen. Maybe she did, but Arya wondered as she dusted off her linen trousers and sighed in relief that the sun was well passed halfway through the sky. Septa Mordane was insisting Arya learn the basic lessons of upkeep and hygiene that she'd already known, plus new ones that "A girl your age ought to know." she was ten, not anywhere near her moon's blood and the notion of tracing thin blades along her legs or anywhere else for that matter seemed reckless and insane. Besides, that's a Riverlander tradition; all those girls swim all the time; it's too cold up here! She doubted she'd be entering any contest of strength that involved swimming in this cold, and it was cold, despite being the summer. Something that set Ygritte, Val, and Dala off; Val was Mother's personal guard, a beautiful woman with golden hair who was descended from a King of Winter, Dala was as well.

They were both wargs, Dala with her golden eagles and Val with her foxes and otters. They came through Aetheryon lands, escaping something with their mother before I was born.


Looking back on her lessons, Arya admitted enjoyed working with the new straight razors; it was another invention by the sage-smiths of Dragonstone but made famous by smiths in King's Landing, White Harbor, and Wintertown. She enjoyed the texture and the feel of the smooth blades with their rippled steel and ivory handles. Ygritte says you can slit a man's throat with those.


Ygritte was the daughter of a spear wife sworn to House Giantsbane. She had copper skin and indigo eyes but hair that was the color of fire, and she was older than her elder brothers. Arya liked Ygritte; she wore armor, fought like men, and was an arbiter and judge at the wrestling and fistfight contests during the Winter King festivals and had been since she was her age, and she remembered life beyond the wall. She and Osha had come south with their families when Ygritte was small, arriving at Hardhome and agreeing to bend the knee to house Aetheryon's "lures" as the free folk (Ygritte didn't like being called a wildling.. Those men who arrived with ships and offered safe passage below the war so long as the free folk vowed to submit to Northern law.



Most refused, others snuck down as raiders, and she knew the Night's Watch disliked what the Sea Dragons did, but the ones who did agree to bend the knee were growing in number each year. Ygritte and her family weren't Wargs, so they didn't stay in Aetheryon land and found their way to the lands around Winterfell and the service of the Giantsbane and through him to Winterfell as palace guards and through that to being Arya's personal spear. "Where's Winter?" Arya muttered sleepily.



"She flew off," Ygritte said, walking into view; she'd been praying to one of the new Heart trees carved by green men when King Torrhen (The one who knelt.) had begun constructing the castle complex that she now lived in. And so, a three-acre Godswood became a ten-acre Godswood, new Weirwood trees and heart trees were grown and consecrated, and parts of the old castle had been reclaimed by vines, various exotic trees (which were sustained by the hot springs.) and sentinel pines.

Ygritte was eating a kind of plum that was found nowhere else in the world but for the glass gardens in Winterfell, Oldtown, Dragontown at Sea Dragon Point, and Dragonstone, for they were of the Valyrian peninsula and only grew in places of heat and were descendants from some of the few trees and bushes and growing things brought from the peninsular before the doom. Of course, they were eaten the world over and fetched a pretty penny, but Arya laughed because Ygritte looked like she had eaten half a dozen of them. "Another dragon is here," Ygritte answered.



"Really?" Arya asked with a look of wonder in her eyes.



"Aye, little lady." She said, tossing Arya a plum. "I'm not a lady," Arya grumbled; she was a lady. But the same Nymeria was or the first of the women Knights of the Vale Shara Arryn, or Lady Jeyne Greyskull or Lord Robert's mother Cassana Estermont was and not the abacus obsessed, buried in politic women of the Riverlands as her mother wanted her to be. "Yer rich, ya live in a castle bigger than free folk villages, and yer daddy's a lawd, that makes ya one…m'lady," Ygritte responded, exaggerating her provincial accent as she pulled a knife and offered it to Arya, joining her on an old stone bench that was being devoured by a flowering vine. "You're richer than most small folk and some merchants, you live in my father's castle, and Jory Cassel wants to marry you. By your reasoning, that makes you one too."



Ygritte swatted at her cheek playfully and leaned back. "Aye, he does fancy me, 'an 'he can take me or die try'n as is proper free folk custom."


"You just want to fight him." Arya teased, sinking her teeth into the plum. It was rich, sweet, and spicy all at once, and it juices the color of blood, and the juices steamed as they ran down her chin. "Aye, and you eat like a savage ya do, little wolf."



Arya shrugged. "Why is another Dragon here, and which one is it? Argella? Vaegon? Has Maelos come? Is the King visiting? Or is Winter ready to make eggs again?" the prospect of maybe gaining a dragon and riding it filled her mind with wonder and the memories of her dream. But Morgha was dead a thousand years if my dream is true.



Ygritte laughed. "I only just learned to read Little Wolf." She had Arya to thank for that. Jory had made a jape about her not knowing how to read, and though he meant it without malice, Arya found Ygritte attacking a straw dummy in a rage with tears in her eyes. And so, in exchange for learning knife and spear work, Arya had begun to teach her to read, and to her surprise, her mother of all people was the one to insist Ygritte become her personal spear. Mother is kind sometimes.



She was still furious about the other night, about what was said to Jon, and she still couldn't figure out why her mother allowed the rambunctious spear wife to serve as her sworn spear. "But I think," Ygritte began again, "It was one of the young dragons, all grey and big and looking like a bull with wings."



"Stormwind?" Arya asked, surprised, her violet eyes wide with surprise. "Lord Gendry's dragon?!". Gendry had been born a bastard like her brother Jon. He spent his childhood as an apprentice blacksmith in King's Landing and then later under Donal Noye, the one-armed master of Storm's End. The latter was one of the few Blacksmiths outside the Sage Smith masters on Dragonstone or the Sage Smith Tobho Mott of King's Landing who understood how to work steel almost unnaturally. He couldn't make Valyrian steel, but Sansa was given a necklace of Noye's work, a wonder to behold. From there, her aunt Lysa noticed he was a bastard of Roberts and wanted him out of the castle. Yet her lord husband refused, and then Gendry saved her from bandits, and she became his fiercest defender. Jon thinks there's no place for him here because of Mother. But Gendry proves that wrong, and he's supposed to be handsome.



The thought made her cheeks redden, and she felt like a fool.



Arya boychild, Arya underfoot, Arya the wildling. They called her those things, yet her father said she looked like Lyanna and Grandmother Rhaella. Ridiculous, Lyanna was a Northern beauty, and Grandmother was the star of the North in her youth. Arya would never be that pretty; Sansa would because she would take after their mother. But that was fine; beauty, intrigue, diplomacy, all those things a Lady was supposed to know about could belong to Sansa. And Arya? Well, warrior women were rarer these days but not shunned. She could hold a keep, fight beside a future husband, and defend her family.



"Who's this Gendry?" Ygritte asked.



"He's the bastard son of the Lord of Storm's End," Arya answered, rummaging around for something to wipe the mess on her chin and neck. "Like Jon." She added, 'But he has a name. Greystorm because of a fight with Lyseni pirates."



"Slavers," Ygritte hissed. "Ever since your grandsires smashed up up their precious balance of power back home, they've been feral towards the free folk in the true north. One of the reasons we came down here." The other, Ygritte would never talk about.



"Well, he wanted to prove himself worthy of my aunt's patronage, so he set out with Stormwind escorting ships from the Stormlands east, and when pirates fell on their fleet, Lord Gendry and his dragon destroyed them all during a storm. It's said the Lyseni couldn't fire their scorpions at them because the dragon was as gray as the storm clouds." Arya's smile turned into a frown as Ygritte handed her a silk kerchief that she produced from Arya's own pockets with the deftness of a seasoned cutpurse.



"What is it, little wolf?" Ygritte asked, drawing her sword, a lithe broadsword designed to emulate the Braavosi water dancing styles, and began cleaning the blade with a linen cloth from her pockets.



"My brother being stupid again."



"He's not even six yet."



"No! Not that one!" Arya rolled her eyes and huffed. "I mean Jon," Arya said, and she frowned, biting her lip, a few strands of her dark hair fell over her right eye, and Arya huffed again, blowing them out of the way. "He wants to join the Night's Watch because Mother called him a Strong."



Ygritte scoffed, but it lacked any of her usual irreverence. Arya thought she detected a note of fear as the steam from her breath rose into the air. "That one knows nothing, the dragon lady and the younger lady dragon. They try and learn him, but it's like I told them, but you can't smarten a rock."



Arya rolled her eyes. "I'm serious, Ygritte! He's been sullen and set in his way about it. Saying that if she fears him to be another tyrant's bastard, he should remove himself from her castle." That was probably a falsehood, though. Arya thought it was over her Mother's attempts to wed Daenerys to Robb.



"It's not her castle. Doesn't her family rule a fish market or a beaver dam?" Ygritte asked with a dismissive shrug. "No…. not a beaver damn or a fish market, it's a castle like this one, though not as big and in the center of a river." She sighed. "If he joins the watch…it's noble, I guess, but he can do much more here."



"Aye, it's moot; ya shant let him join the watch," Ygritte said, her voice suddenly stern and fearful. Desperate perhaps? Arya blinked in surprise; she'd never seen Ygritte be afraid of anything. "I cannot dissuade him. It's the-"Ygritte seized her at that moment by the shoulders and squeezed with surprising strength, almost harming her. "Listen, little wolf…You can't let him join the watch."



"w..why," Arya asked, looking up at those dark blue eyes that were always so fierce yet now seemed to be wild with terror.



"Because if you do, he'll die…There's nothing beyond the wall but death and those about to meet it." Ygritte whispered in a voice that suddenly sounded old and tired, and her face was drawn and gaunt with the fear in her soul. "Nothing..do you understand, little wolf."



Arya nodded, trying to suppress her own fear and tears. Ygritte gripped her with such abandon and fierceness it hurt, and when her sworn spear noticed, she released Arya and took the girl's hands into hers. "I'm..sorry…Little wolf…"



"All is well.." Arya said, feeling an immense debt of gratitude towards the wildling girl.



Though she couldn't understand why.

************

Contemplation.
*********************​

Winter had returned to her domain in the Wolfswood by the time Catelyn arrived in the Godswood of Winterfell. Cat swallowed, a gloved hand tracing the thick auburn braid of her hair reflexively and to stymie her nervousness. Though Winterfell's Godswood had expanded in the intervening centuries, the original core of three acres was as ancient as the Golden Empire of Yi Ti itself. Ten thousand years…She thought. Already ancient, when Bran the builder erected the wall, the ancient ancestors of the Valyrians began their attempts to tame the Dragons.



It was said in the North that every castle had a Godswood and every Godswood a heart tree (and they were starting to make their return in the South.). As she walked across a floor half tiled, half dirt, and all buried in millennia of accumulated dust and mold and dirt, she found herself as isolated and alone in the inner sanctum of Winterfell as she had when she first arrived. The Tullys are of the blood of the First Men just as we are the dragon, more so, yet this place feels so alien.



And the heart trees, those wretched things. The first was an immense and somber thing with a grimaced face carved into its ancient bark and the blood-colored sap that never seemed to cease ebbing from the tree's eyes, nose, and mouth. It always seemed to watch her as the younger heart trees seemed to leer contemptuously. Her children came here to pray more often than they did the Sept, and they seemed to grow lost in its depth. He comes fresh from a beheading, and I must burden him... Her Ned was seated on one of the jutting roots that rose like benches out of the earth to coil around rocks and the old bones of the castle and its lichyard where the honored dead that, in life, served the earliest Kings of Winter rested. Ned was cleaning Ice, a relic of the Valyria of old, the Valyria that was. The ancient and unconquerable freehold claimed almost all of Essos, except for the Golden Empire, and had driven the Rhoynar to Dorne. And the name of the blade is older still. A relic from the Dawn Age. Her lord husband went through a ritual whenever he had to kill someone; he would stand naked in the cold to allow himself to be purified and then come here dressed and contemplative.





It was colder here, and Cat could feel the ancient power of this place penetrate her to her bones. One of the kindest gestures her Ned ever gave her was when he had the Sept built. It was sweet, like so many of the things he did to her and for her, even if his speech was sometimes rough. "Husband…the direwolf."



"She died."



Gods.



"And whelped eight pups in her death throes," Ned added with a troubled sigh. "seven aspects of your one God plus one ours. Our children shall each keep one; we shall claim one." His tone was terse, and Cat kept her mouth in an even line instead of frowning and lashing out. Rhaella's words rang in her head: "You undermine your son and his position by mistrusting the boy." How? There was no House Stark of Winterfell, but for her children, the House Stark of the Barrowlands was half Dustin, and the Snow in the Dreadfort refused to form his own cadet branch for whatever reason, and the Cailin Starks were half pirates. And the Karstarks were not well-loved, for they had risen in rebellion more than five times over the Valyrians and their "foreign influences" in the past, with the last one being during the era of the King who knelt. But he insists on this…Ashara has been dead fifteen years, yet half the North writes ballads about their stolen star and the river daughter who set herself in the Star's place. "What of the other two..." she asked between clenched teeth.



Ned seemed to consider for the moment. "One of them looks most doglike. He's brown and black with very long ears. I've named him Warden and intend to keep him and breed him with our shepherd hounds and armor him should I need to tend to the matter of Mance Rayder with the Watch. He'll stay by my side and be our guardsman," Ned laughed. "Since I cannot ride Winter while my mother lives and hope she lives another three and fifty years. The other, I intend to make a nameday gift to princess Rhaenyra; she was able to tame that great Sothoryi ape that was brought to the capitol as a gift; surely a direwolf will be easy." He said with a light-hearted smile, the anger she seemed to sense at the mention of his bastard fading.

Only for the humor to be replaced by seriousness a moment later, gravity with a twinge of fear fell over his face. "He was not a wilding or a river pirate Cat; he was a black brother. And he…claimed…." Cat wanted to walk over and embrace her Lord husband, the doubt on his face. "I reject crib tales, but he seemed to believe what in what he claimed he saw."





"Madmen often believe their madness is truth. No doubt, Aerys believed much of the horrors he did to have been just." Cat offered and watched as Ned seemed to consider her words before finally relenting and nodding. "Aye, you've the right of it. But what of you? You seem no less troubled than I."



"Did you see Speak with Gendry at length?" Cat asked.



Ned nodded. "Aye, I invited Lord Greystorm to stay with us for a sennight; it might do Robb good to have a young Lord close to his age that is already governing and is proven in battle around." Apart from Prince Jacaerys anyway, Cat thought. "And it would do Jon good to see how high a bastard might rise. Did you know he was given Overlordship of the Rainwood entire? All of the ancient domain of House Greyskull."



Cat blanched, bastard or trueborn for a House so new to be given such a position. Only Robert Baratheon is a lord so well loved as to get away with that and so well feared. The bards still sang songs about the battle of the Trident, where Robert riding Argella brought so much slaughter and fire to the Trident that half the water evaporated and covered the Riverlands with fog for months, a fog that smelled of burnt flesh. Her brother said that it had taken two years for the waters to replenish themselves, and Syrax's bones had lined the riverbed along with the remains of Prince Rhaegar for all of those two years. Though perhaps they see him as the right hand of Storm's End, he is nigh as accomplished as his father was at his age, and young Steffon is not far behind. Together, they could become another anvil and hammer.



It was still dangerous unless Gendry made impressively strategic marriages for himself and his sons…



Her thoughts returned to the bastard. "The boy doesn't need any more encouragement."



"He does, especially since you've filled his head with notions of joining the watch," Ned responded, his tone dangerously low. Cat scoffed; she'd done no such thing; all she'd done was compare him to a Strong. If the boy took that as some challenges, he ought to have stayed loyal and not gone running to the wall.



Ned rose, sheathing ice, and turned to set it against the heart tree. The blade was enormous, the largest great sword she'd ever seen, and even fifteen years later, it still awed her. "I told you Cat, I believe the King has plans for him, plans I know you would make in his place, leave off him for the nonce.."



Cat narrowed her eyes. "Is this a command, my lord?"



"It is."



"From you? Or your mother?"



Ned's eyes darkened, and she recoiled in shame. What have I done? I'm here to bear him ill tidings, not fight him.

"Forgive me, Ned. It has been a trying day, an omen from the Gods in that wounded wolf and.." the space between them and the silence a pair of loadstones about her heart. 'I came because of Gendry; he brought with me two letters and one more disturbing than the next." She swallowed as Ned's hard eyes softened and lit up with concern. "What is it?"



"The Lord Hand is dead."



It hit Ned like a bolt of lightning. Aenar Aetheryon was born in the seventh year of the reign of King Daeron the Second. He served as a captain in the royal navy during the final years of his reign and then as the Master of Ships under King Matarys, then as Hand of the King after Blood Raven disappeared. He served Seven kings, four of those as Hand. He was so ancient, yet hale and strong, and many of us thought he might live another twenty years. But it was more than that; Lord Aenar was the voice of the North in Southron affairs. The realm's largest Kingdom's reputation for fairness as an outsider power had primarily been established by his long reign as the second most powerful man in the domain. Bittercane had been his discovery, the abundance of Wargs had been his doing, and so much of the realm's wealth and the North had come from either him or Tywin Lannister.



With his passing, the Targaryen era was truly over.



Whom soever succeeded him at Sea Dragon Point had a mighty shadow to step from under, taking the reigns of his great-great grandsire's powerbase and running it as though Lord Aenar had never died. He had trained several successors, but he kept outliving them all. But it was not solely an august legacy. For decades, stories persisted that Lord Aenar practiced dark magic, that he had the Citadel stormed and put to the sword because it allowed him to fill the order of Maesters with sorcerers and confidence men. In King's Landing, several of Aerys surviving legitimized bastards were found dead, gnawed upon by animals, and suspected traitors were often found half-devoured before a trial could be given. And people blamed him for that, the Serpent and the Rainbow being the most famous song about his life, which is only half flattering. It paints him as a demon sorcerer and alchemist in half the verses.





"And what could be worse than this news, wife?" Ned asked, exhausted; the leaves on that most ancient of trees seemed to shudder in the wind, a single blood-red leaf falling onto the cool, clear pool below.



"Lysa Baratheon believes he was murdered."

 

[TheShadowKnows]

*************

*******************​

"They're so soft!" Jayne squealed, tracing her fingers through the hair of the black bitch with green eyes. Beside the she-wolf pup, her identical twin brother rolled in the soft fabric of the blanket they'd been resting on. Rickon was to be given that one, and he'd already named it Shaggydog, a name Bran and Sansa thought was preposterous, but she found endearing. Shaggy Dog was already like his master, gentle and sweet but possessed a temper better suited to a dragon. "Aerion says they can grow to be the size of a horse." She said idly, running her fingers through the brown and black pup Lord Stark had named Warden. How alike Lord Stark, the pup is… already sitting beside me listening for his littermates, a perfect little sentinel.



Her half-brother Aerion was at the wall, a decision he'd taken for himself. After he arrived at the rebel camp, presenting himself to Lord Jon Arryn and came with a retinue of warriors, which included Gerion Lannister and his horribly scarred squire Sandor Clegane. As she remembered her history books and the telling of Lord Eddard (Who seldom discussed the war but would if she gently probed him as he felt it was her right to know.), Lord Quellon Greyjoy sent out an invite for the rebel lords to arrive at Pyke as he wished to discuss entry into the alliance to topple House Targaryen. Quellon was old, shrewd, and wise and possessed a clarity of vision different than other Ironborn and sensed that Lord Arryn was in turmoil. Prince Valarr was the natural choice as King; many respected him, and he was beloved by the realm. And in many of the heroic deeds of your father, prince Valarr had his part. But Prince Valarr fell in the early days of the rebellion when Aerys the mad took to the skies on the back of crimson Aegos. His death left three untested youths whose deeds were known but seen as more the antics of boys than heroes. Lord Stark had a claim as valid as Lord Robert's, for both their mothers were of the dragon's blood, though Lord Stark more so in that his came from the royal line. But Daemon held a better claim, for his mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother were the sisters of Kings. He was the son of Prince Valarr as well, in whose name the Rebellion began.

Aerion, a legitimized bastard, had little support but for the Ironborn whose respect he had earned facing renegades and raiders and defeating Victarion Grejoy in a contest of might. Yet the Lords Tully pushed for Robert and Hoster and Gaemon held persuasive words. And so, a Great Council amongst the rebels was convened at the urging of Quellon the wise. And betwixt the bones of Nagga, Lord Stark renounced his claim, vowing that the North cared little for the intrigue of the South (A lie so transparent Dany wondered if he was half mad with grief when he'd said it.) and that he would name his brother his heir and march to the wall this very moment if he was nominated again. Lord Robert split the table he was seated at with his mighty war hammer and threatened to mount his Goodfather's head on a spike if he dared to reject whatever conclusion the great council came to should his name not be accepted by majority vote.


Aerion, hating what his father had done to their dynasty and sharing lord Stark's hatred of the throne, set sail for the wall that very morning, renouncing all claims. Viserys was, but a child and no one knew if he would turn out like his father, so his claim was dismissed. If any of Aerion Brightflame's descendants still lived, they had taken up exile in Yi Ti or Leng, and none had heard from them in decades. And from the stories she attended as a child, Maegor had written King Aegon forswearing any claim to the throne for himself or his descendants. I am the Lord of Peikeng, a city thrice the size of King's Landing, and it has aged me. What want I with another city and a continent to rule? Like as not, my heart could not take it. I wish you well coz, may your line rule until the end of all things; I shall stay with my city, which I earned with my sword and wit.



That narrowed it down to two, and the Great Council of A.C 282 (Called the great Kingsmoot by the Ironborn.) crowned Daemon Blackfyre, who vowed to avenge Robert's lost honor and rescue Lord Stark's sister from Rhaegar the raper.



Daenerys swallowed. Lord Stark never says that Rhaegar was a rapist, but I hear it from the men at arms in the castle and the city. Was it true? At fourteen, she'd grown up with the infamy of her fallen House, though she first heard "the truth" of the matter from a drunken Tormund who said he doubted the stories about Rhaegar. Your brother was a great big poof, a sword swallower. He married that spindly sand witch Elia for duty but bedded her because she looked a boy.



His language was coarse, but Dany adored Tormund; he never lied to anyone and never showed fear. She had no idea what a sword swallower was until later, and that wasn't the only place she'd heard the rumor. These were not rumors that were safe to utter either, for the story had to be as it was for the sake of the realm. Dany knew that much, even if she hated it, and she had never known her father by blood nor her brothers save her half-brother Aerion, and he only through letters. No one had seen Viserys since Jonothor Darry abducted the boy near the final days of the rebellion when Aegos abandoned Aerys and fled Westero. Robb and Sansa, Rickon and Bran and Arya were her siblings, Lord Stark her father or the only one she ever knew, and Jon Storm her…well, if Lady Stark had her way, then he'd be gone from here to the wall or Essos as a sellsword or some such. My nieces have a stronger claim to the throne, and they are promised to the King and Lord Robert's heirs, one to be queen consort and the other the lady wife of his most loyal vassal. What use am I? Wed to Robb, I'd be a trophy, and we love each other but as brother and sister and not in the Valyrian way.



They had spoken of it, and Robb said he'd do his duty by her, but it was plain to see she had eyes for Jon and he for her, and in her situation, wed to a bastard would remove her as a threat and her lineage and so it was one of the few times such a union could be possible. Robb assured her that he had grand plans for the North, but they could wait until his Lord father died, hopefully at an age as old as Lord Aenar. They didn't include her as his lady wife but as a valued sister of the North and perhaps as his closest advisor. If Lord Stark lives so long, then like as not, he'd outlive us; I would give council in the realm beyond, maybe.



The albino of the pack, born with open eyes, was already with Jon. Bran's up napped lazily in the boy's arms. Rickon was resting with his head on the shoulder of Harwin's shepherd, who lost all but two of her pups to cough and seemed content to nurse the little wolves. The herding hounds of the North have direwolf blood in their veins. They're larger than most dogs and more intelligent, and live longer. However, they were primarily black or brindle in color. Only the shepherd hounds of the reach descended from the Northern hounds of old, kept their original grays and whites looking more like Direwolves than like great black dogs descended from Direwolves. Why is that, I wonder…Why there and not here?



It was like the wild mammoth herds that had crossed the neck when her aunt Lady Rhaella was a child; those that found the Reach and made it their home were larger and more primal than the ones in the North, though fewer in number. There was word that Lord Mace had sent letters requesting Dany's hand in marriage for his second son Lord Garland, but King Daemon and Lord Stark both rejected them. He poisoned many cisterns and reservoirs in the Storm Lands; it took years for them to be safe for consumption again.



The damage that action had done to the reputation of House Tyrell had made him half-hated in his own Kingdom. It was said that Lord Stannis was his loadstone and originally there to remind the Reach of its lack of faith, yet the hard and cold man had earned the respect of much of the Kingdom, and those vassals hoped to wield him against Highgarden to settle their ancient grudges. Dany had no interest in marrying into a house, so beleaguered and undermined. Her cousin Daeron had sent a letter to her recently, and so had the King, both inquiring after her well-being.

They wrote to her often enough and sent gifts for her nameday. Her violet eyes misted as she thought of the kindness she received from them when they had no cause to trust her given her name and the threat she represented to them, however minor. Yet there was no doubt in her mind that they at least pretended to care. And Jacaerys is good to me. One of the pups whimpered and fought with its sister for a teat causing a smile to creep over Dany's face. That one shall be Arya's, I'm sure.



"Ohh, Highgarden or the arbor! Lord Orys?"



"Don't be daft," Sansa said. "She loves my half-brother."



"But isn't he for the wall?" Jeyne asked, frowning.



Dany looked up from her thought, eyes wide with concern for Jon and fear, betrayal, and a dragon's wrath.

**********

**************​

It is a different world than when I was a young boy. Bastardry is no longer seen as an affront that carries the taint of sin. You can thank Daemon Blackfyre for that. Though, you will still find that many traditions long outlast the grave. People will fault you less than they would a peasant.



Those words, uttered by a dead man, echoed in his mind as he hacked away at the training dummy. He remembered it like it was yesterday, even though it had been nearly five years since the day Lord Aenar returned from the South for a festival honoring his ancestor. The last Sea King, the last Northern dragon rider until grandmother. Lord Aenar sat on a sofa in the feasting hall, in the position of honor beside his lord father. He was covered in silks and furs and walking with an ebon cane that had a dragon bone handle with piercing turquoise eyes that bore into your soul. He had taken Jon's hand and pulled him close with a surprisingly firm grip for one so ancient. His cheeks were sunken, he smelled of perfumes and blood, and Jon was terrified of him. He framed his face and laughed softly, saying that he knew that face. "You remind me of a Targaryen so grim men joked that he was a secret Stark bastard passed off as Daeron's son."

Lady Stark hadn't seemed so amused by that, but she hated it whenever he was brought to the table. But lady Rhaella seemed to look most thoughtful from then on. His grandmother paid more attention to him than she had before. Not that she ever neglected him; her patience ensured he knew how to read. It was her skill at riding horses and Winter that ensured he was a rider as talented as his aunt Lyanna had been. And it was Grandmother who kept the secret of his meetings with Daenerys.



Dany.



It hurt all the more because he understood why Lady Stark did what she did, for the rumors spread about her and the pressures and protests against her marriage to Lord Stark were well-known and unfair. They use me to undermine her, but I have never sought to harm her. Distant and remote, but she praised their efforts, elevated more than a handful of them to key positions, and even defended Ser Edric Flowers, a knight from the reach who left the Arbor because he couldn't stomach serving Lord Stannis after he'd usurped House Redwyne. Edric had been accused of theft of city funds, and most of the city's people wanted him dead because he was a Reachman, more than an accused thief. No one has forgotten the mass poisonings by Mace Tyrell and how Lord Renly died screaming.

Jon knew the tale well and knew that Robert descended on the Reach Army with Argella after King's Landing was taken and how Lord Mace had avoided being incinerated by Dragon's fire but lost an arm after it had been trampled by his horse, which had thrown him off and caught fire. The Ballad of the Blue Flame was a favorite of the local taverns, and none failed to see that Stannis was a means by which King Daemon could threaten Highgarden. Lady Stark had given a magnificent speech, shaming the men and women of Wintertown and saving Ser Edric.



He was one of the sworn protectors of Dany now. It hurt; if she was so just and fair with other bastards, why was she cruel and unjust to him? Grandmother explained that it was because most men in the South don't bring their bastards home with them, while in the North, as with Dorne, the distinction wasn't there. Brutal lands breed pragmatic men, my little Storm. Many a time, both House Martell and Stark had been reduced to one true-born heir and one or two bastards. Only to rise innumerous again because of their unions. It was also true with the Freehold since the intrigue of Dragon Lords often had costly results. She grieves a perceived slight, and try as she might, she can't completely shed her Southron roots, nor should she. For House, Tully is a proud and ancient one, and Southron culture unites half the realm.



Grandmother had a way of putting things that made it hard to hate Lady Stark. However, there were days when he did hate her. But what could he do? Rhaella never called Lord Stark his father, nor did his father ever refer to Jon as more than "of my blood.". Part of him wondered what that meant, but most of him hurt because it seemed like he was terrible and endured and suffered and only his half-siblings truly loved him. Sansa had shied from him when she first learned what being a bastard meant. They had been close, then no more, and then one day, she began to try and bond with him again. Jon wanted to rebuff her, but the look of guilt in her eyes was blended with a sense of longing.



She missed me. Whatever doubts and slights were cast his way, it was easier to endure when such love existed. But nothing lasts forever. Jon thought sadly. And Lady Stark was right; loving Daenerys was a line crossed that would destroy her future. Calling me a strong, and our children would have my muddied blood. And Arya and Daenerys had grown so angry with Lady Stark and Sansa when she found out, became frosty and distant to her. I'm disrupting the Stark family with my presence and Dany..how can I let that continue?



They kissed in the hall after he'd left the courtyard, which was the sweetest moment of his life. The Straw dummy was almost in tatters by the time Dany got there. She was dressed in a black dress, with the red dragon of her house emblazoned on the chest and tiny ruby gemstones in each of the eyes. Her hair was long and braided like his grandmother's and Lady Stark and her eyes were stained red from tears. "Sansa tells me you want to join your uncle and my brother at the wall?"



Jon swallowed Seven hells! "It is..better this way."



Seven Hells, but you are mad!" Daenerys responded; her voice was quiet, but there was that fierceness that made Jon's skin tingle. "You have no right."



Jon smiled wryly. "I have the only right, as I'm no criminal."



"That is not what I meant, and you know it!" she almost shouted, her voice tight, and her body seemed to writhe in its spot. Is she panicking? To hurt her this bad, it was as though he'd sawn off his hand. But maybe the hurt will make it easier for her. "I won't marry Robb Stark. Like as not, he'll be betrothed to Princess Rhaenyra or one of the Manderly girls. My claim is inferior to the twin girls Elia Martell bore; many people, good people, people with dragons, would have to die before I was chosen. He'll like as not still marry me off to some loyal knight or a bastard like you because politics demands he diminish my claim further, but he cares for me, the King, and will pick someone he knows will love me. Maybe even someone of my choosing."



It was too good to be true. Nothing like this had ever happened to him in his life; it was all too good to be true. And yet…If it was. No, his violet eyes hardened, and his resolve thickened. He couldn't be used to denigrate her love, and what if the King changed his mind? It would be easier for them both if he were far away. She called me Jon Strong…



"And if the King refuses, I'll be here with a matron who hates me and watching you live happily, and my love may turn to hate and prove her.." Jon couldn't finish the sentence because Daenerys laughed. She laughed a frantic, absurd laugh until she wheezed, "Ahhh…Jon." She whispered, wiping the tears from her eyes. "Only you would think yourself that weak." She stepped forward, her soft footfalls leaving softer prints in the snow, and when she stopped, she reached up and pulled him into a deep and long kiss. "Lord Storm, you belong to me, not Lady Catelyn, nor the phantoms of your mind, and certainly not the Watch. Your Old Gods made you for me, and I do not give you leave to go to take the Black."



What could Jon do? He knew at that moment that if he took the Black, it wouldn't matter. He'd break every oath and defy any law or convention to return to her side. "What if the King..."



"We'll find out. He's coming here in two turns of the moon; if he doesn't approve, we'll elope." Daenerys said in a voice that was as at once soft and sharp as steel. "Syt iksan Daenērys vīlībāzma āzma hen Targārien Lentor se daorys daor sesīr se zōbrie zaldrīzes kessa ivestragon nyke qilōni kostan jorrāelagon"



Jon smiled and bowed his head. What a fool he'd been to think the way he'd thought, to let doubt and the wounds of a bitter woman cloud his judgment.



Ygritte was right.



He knew nothing.



So, he'd trust her.



Since she clearly knew something.



As his heart settled, the direwolf pup peaked out from the bushes of Winter roses and joined the pair in their embrace. nestling in between their boots.