15 Back in Black
The North
The Wall, Castle Black
301 AC
Their arrival at the Wall is met with much fanfare as the black brothers of the watch realize that reinforcements have arrived. It is clear by their reaction that many did not expect to receive any help, much less 30,000 well armed and trained men.
The men have clearly been in battle recently for there are corpses strewn around, fresh blood on the snow, and injured men can be found all about.
As he rides into the courtyard with Sihtric, Cregan, and Bran, Aemon looks around for any familiar faces. Finding none, he turns to the closest man.
"Who is in charge here?" asks Aemon.
The man does not reply, merely staring at Aemon with wide eyes before looking at Ghost by his side and back to his face.
"Well?" asks Aemon with a raised eyebrow, shaking the man from his stupor.
"You are?" says the man, unsure of his answer.
Realizing what is happening, Aemon rolls his eyes as he dismounts his horse and passes the reins to the man.
"Be careful, he's a prickly one." warns Aemon before turning to Cregan, Sihtric and Bran. "Bring a company inside and have them begin cleaning the bodies and tend to the wounded while the rest join me in the hall. Sihtric and Bran are with me." he says as he makes his way to Castle Black's shield hall.
With Sihtric, Bran and Ghost by his side, Aemon enters the shield hall where most of the senior members are found in the middle of an argument.
Their entrance causes a stir as the men look between Ghost and Aemon's face with confused frowns.
Taking the lull in activity as an opportunity, Aemon surveys the hall. On the dais where the Lord Commander usually sits, he finds the likes of Alliser Thorne, Othell Yarwick, and Janos Slynt. While Alliser seems to be recovering from an injury, and Yarwick has obviously seen battle, Slynt is suspiciously clean for a man who should have been in the thick of the fighting.
"Didn't I give specific orders to cage the wild beast?" asks Thorne, bringing Aemon's attention to him.
"Did you now." remarks Aemon as he saunters into the hall, his eyes carefully surveying everyone while Ghost prowls by his side with a silent snarl on his lips.
Bran and Sihtric are not far behind, their eyes warily observing the men and their hands on their swords sheathed at their hips.
"Your sight must be failing you in your age, for you and I have never met." says Aemon. It must be a quirk of being Jon Snow, for he and Alliser Thorne have never gotten along and he did not plan on starting now. He is a vain, spiteful, old man who always needs to feel superior
"There is no shame in growing old, of course." says Aemon before deliberately looking at Alliser's bandaged side. "As long as one understands the limitations that come with it." he adds, almost as an afterthought.
"Perhaps you should follow this man's example, he understands his worth and limitations quite well." Aemon says as he gestures to Slynt.
"Who in the hells do you think you are talking to me like that?" screams Slynt as he slaps the table and violently stands, sending his chair falling.
The question causes a heavy silence to fall over the hall as the men lean in to hear Aemon's answer. The man bears a vague enough resemblance to Jon Snow that they can easily acknowledge the possible relation, but he possesses an inhuman beauty and elegance to him not seen in any man, and his hair is largely black with streaks of white.
The most striking thing about him however is the large, white direwolf beside him, almost as big as a horse and more menacing looking than Jon Snow's.
With a grin full of malice, Aemon's intense gaze zeroes in on Janos Slynt. "You may call me Aemon Snow, regent to King Rickon Stark, the King in the North, the King of Winter, and lord of Winterfell. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, former Lord Commander of the City Watch." says Aemon as Slynt visibly pales before his eyes.
Licking his lips, Slynt nervously looks to Alliser who watches the interaction with narrowed eyes.
"I thought that Lord Stark, forgive me former Lord Stark, only sired one bastard." comments Thorne as he emphasizes the former.
"Who ever said that Eddard Stark is my father?" asks Aemon as his smile turns into a grin promising violence.
"You Starks just love siring bastards then." Thorne says.
"Well, when your bastards are worth at least ten sothron true borns you would want to sire a few too I'm sure." responds Aemon, causing Sihtric and Bran to chuckle behind him.
With a frown on his face, Thorne looks towards Bran and opens his mouth to speak, only to stop and look back towards Aemon when Ghost takes a warning step forward.
"Why are you here bastard?" asks Thorne as he puts on a brave face.
Accepting Thorne's admission of defeat, Aemon gently caresses Ghost's fur, causing the direwolf to calm down and sit on his hind legs.
"With the White Walkers bearing down on us, and the Night's Watch clear incompetence in dealing with them and the Free Folk, the Watch shall be under my command." says Aemon.
As Aemon had expected, he had barely finished speaking before the room explodes with the protests of the men of watch.
While the men scream and rave in protest, a raven as big as a condor flies into the hall and lands on Aemon's shoulder.
"Silence! Silence!" croaks the raven before taking flight once more around the hall. "Silence! Silence!" it croaks as it flies dangerously close to the men's heads, causing them to duck in alarm and shut their mouths.
"Ser Alliser—" begins Aemon before he is interrupted by Slynt.
"On whose authority, bastard?" demands Slynt as he slams his hands on the table.
"On my authority as King Regent." responds Aemon. "The Watch is an institution founded for one purpose, to guard the realms of men." says Aemon.
"From wildlings, not these snarks and grumpkins you speak of." says Alliser.
Turning his eyes towards Alliser, Aemon fixes the man with a warning glare "Claim ignorance before me once more and I will have you cleaning every man's chamberpot for the duration of winter." he says.
Alliser's face becomes so purple in rage that for one moment Aemon worries that the man will die a similar death to Joffrey.
"Leave. Leave, bastard, before I cut you down like I should have your father and your bastard brother." says Alliser as slowly stands from his seat, a venomous glare and a promise of violence in his eyes.
"Yes, bastard. What does this look like to you, Winterfell? Return to your boy king, your whore to the Lannister sister and your whore mother." says Slynt with glee in his eyes.
"Did you know that your sister begged King Joffrey for mercy? I'm sure he had her the night before he executed your traitor father before passing her off to his dwarf of an uncle." says Slynt, so caught up in his glee that he misses Alliser's warning signs to him, nor the silence of the shield hall.
For Aemon, the world dissolves into red mist and the only thing within it is Janos Slynt, the man who betrayed his father and has the audacity to make light of his sister's suffering and call his mother a whore. In the blink of an eye the distance between him and the dais disappears, and Aemon vaults over the dais and the table upon it. The men made to grab him, but they may as well have attempted to grab a specter, for his sheer inhuman speed made it impossible to even touch him or his black, fur lined, Stark cloak. By the time they had reacted to his movement Aemon was no longer there.
The men scream, but Aemon does not hear them, he does not care to hear them. He reaches Slynt in less than a second and wraps his hand around the man's fat throat before hoisting him into the air by his throat with one hand.
"Release him!" exclaims Alliser as he draws his sword, the men of the watch following soon behind.
Before the knight can even think to step towards Aemon, Ghost appears between them, his hackles raised and a silent snarl on his lips. His red eyes glint dangerously as if begging Alliser to give him a reason to rip his head from his shoulders. They may be in a different world, but Ghost did not forget this man. He will rip this man's throat apart like he did to the wrong body of the other one.
The direwolf's sudden appearance startles Alliser and he stumbles backwards, tripping over his chair and falling to the ground.
"Do you dare to repeat those words?" snarls Aemon as he stares into Slynt's terrified eyes with his icy blue ones.
Slynt attempts to speak, but Aemon's grip on his throat is as tight as a vise and all he can do is choke in a poor attempt to beg.
"Well?" asks Aemon as he loosens his hold over Slynt's throat.
Before Slynt can answer, a voice draws everyone's attention away from Aemon and Slynt.
"Let him go bastard, or the little one gets it." says a man of the night's watch as he wraps his arm around Bran and places a dagger to his throat.
Without hesitating, Bran grabs the man's arm, and in a maneuver Aemon had practically forced into his skull, slams the man to the ground, knocking the breath from his lungs.
Before the man can recover, the raven swoops from above and rips the man's eyes from his sockets with his talons all while croaking ominously "Threat! Prince! Threat!"
The man's scream echoes from the shield hall and out into the courtyard, drawing the attention of the remaining Night's Watch men and the men of the Wolf Pack.
Soon the hall is filled with men of both factions, staring at one another balefully with swords drawn. So thick is the tension that one would require Valyrian steel to cut it.
Overlooking it all Aemon decides that Slynt's head is not worth the trouble, there are more effective ways to have him killed that would not shed the blood of his men. Assassination or poison would do the work easily but Aemon does not want that. He wants to publicly remove the craven's head from his shoulders and look him in the eyes as he does so.
"What in the hells is going on?" demands a voice as someone forces their way through the men and into the center.
Turning to the voice, Aemon is pleasantly surprised to see this world's Jon Snow standing there, and a plan springs into his mind as he drops Slynt, barely taking notice of the near frozen handprint on around his throat.
"Jon!" exclaims Bran as he rushes Jon.
Startled, Jon is barely able to react as Bran flings himself into his arms.
"Bran? You walk." says Jon, his voice caught somewhere between a relieved laugh and astonishment.
They share a heartfelt hug for seconds before Jon seems to remember the situation he walked into.
"What are you doing here?" asks Jon when he finally puts Bran down.
"We came to help you with the White Walkers." replies Bran as he looks towards Aemon.
Following Bran's line of sight, Jon looks up on the dais and his breath briefly catches in his throat. There, standing tall with his back straight, in the same leathers he had last seen his father in, and with the traditional Stark cloak on his shoulders, is what Jon has always imagined himself looking like were he trueborn. Next to him, at his right side, is Ghost, as tall as a horse and snarling silently at Alliser Thorne; while a large raven swoops in from above and perches himself on the man's left shoulder with his bloody talons.
"Snow! Snow! Snow!" caws the raven with its bloody beak.
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Author's Note: Here's the latest chapter. I had a lot of fun writing this chapter tbh, so tell me what you guys think.
