3 Chapter 3 - Beginning of the Journey
[Chapter Size: 3369 Words]
Jon Snow POV
North, Somewhere Unknown, 289, a few minutes later.
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After calming myself a bit, I decided to go to the lake to clean the blood off my face. As I approached, the first thing I did was look at my reflection in that pure water. While cleaning the blood, I observed my appearance, which was almost the same, except for a thin green halo in the middle of my irises, circling around my pupils in each of my eyes.
Apart from that, mentally and even spiritually, I felt completely different. The ground where I had fallen in front of the tree was damp with a black liquid and somewhat dark blood, both mine. The liquid had sweated out like sweat, and the blood came in the midst of my nosebleed. Somehow, I knew that these fluids were like impurities from my body because after releasing these things from me, I felt as if I had slept for a week. I was light and in a state of fullness. All the anger and despair in me had a much lighter weight now. I could only thank the entities that brought me here.
Not only did I feel more whole and healthy, but I felt something inside me connecting with the entire forest and all living beings around me. I knew what it was, but I always thought it was a myth or that it had died a long time ago. However, I had this thing in me now, the thing they called magic.
I, a bastard child, despised by everyone, could now feel all animal and even plant life around me. I was somehow connected to the plants and small creatures running around the place. I stood up after being cleaned, no longer as a bastard I used to be, the Winterfell bastard, but as a boy who knew what he had to do. His purpose was conveyed by the gods in those few seconds while touching the sacred face, one that the gods themselves decided to entrust to him. I just didn't know why they chose a desperate bastard for this. Perhaps the gods, knowing my innocence, decided to help me, either out of pity or justice. It doesn't matter now; I have to fulfill my given task.
I noticed that the animals stopped everything they were doing and started looking at me expectantly shortly after I got up from the lake. They also began to nod at my connection being naturally created after I left the heart tree. All the little beings started approaching me. They hadn't paid attention to me before, but now they seemed to adore me as they approached. I couldn't take a step forward without being blocked by hundreds of little eyes surrounding me.
"HEY, what's this?" I said to the small creatures that were starting to rub against my leg and even try to climb. A crowd was surrounding me, and I couldn't help but feel multiple moods with the sight.
Initially, this scared me, but soon a big smile appeared on my face, seeing all those eager eyes for attention and affection.
Third Person POV
Jon began to laugh as he picked up a small white rabbit with red eyes. He was delighted, chuckling as he held the animal and tried to balance himself, as hundreds of creatures were attempting to push him down. He found this moment to be the most beautiful in his sad life, as he began to feel the feelings of those little lives and knew that he was loved by all of nature now.
After spending a few hours pampering all those little beings, giving affection to all the animals and receiving back their pure love, he finally ate, drank what this sacred clearing could offer, and darkness fell. He would stay here to rest for a night, lying on thick leaves on the ground he had gathered from some strange trees. He made his bed and lay down. The cold didn't affect this place; it was warmer than the north in summer. So, he rested peacefully while looking at the strip of stars in the sky, with many animals surrounding him to sleep with him. Somehow, he began to see differently, as he somehow knew that all the stars are like our sun now. So, he pondered many possibilities while looking at those little visible suns in the sky during the darkness of the night.
The next day, after resting even more, he decided that he had to leave. He had a purpose, even as a child. He looked at his reflection in the lake with determination once again after cleaning his face. His eyes changed, not with the new appearance of green circles, but his gaze itself. He went from a lifeless bastard to a look that reminded him of when he saw it in his father, Lord Stark, when he used to have total focus on something in Winterfell. He went to the tree again and thanked, prayed thanking for the gift he had received, something he never expected in his humble life.
"Little Jon, your journey begins now, go!" The voice echoed once again, but this time, it was heard inside his mind. The voice gave him a few more instructions before leaving while touching the tree. He turned and went to the plants in the corner of the clearing, or he tried to, as he walked, the animals kept trying to push each other at his feet and making sounds to get his attention. He couldn't help but smile and laugh happily, finding this moment amazing, like a child, he found this moment fantastic.
After reaching the plants in a corner, he placed both hands on the ground as instructed by the gods, feeling the magic within him, flowing from his mind to the palm of his hand through his arm like a river. The energy penetrated the ground as he leaned, and the palms of his hands began to glow in emerald light. This left him astonished, especially when the plants emitted another green aura and began to grow at a visible speed. He began to focus on a specific plant, now having some knowledge of the names of plants, trees, and their functions, focusing on a specific one, the glows and growth of the others ceased to focus only on that one. It grew, forming a leaf that looked more like a green backpack. He thanked the plant and carefully plucked its leaf, took some vines from a nearby tree, and made a strap for the bag.
He had some cloths in his pants that he took from the cart and tore some parts of his clothes as well. Jon began gathering thousands of seeds from the trees around the magical place to put on the cloth and in the backpack. He took 10 seeds from each vegetation he saw. There were many fruit-bearing trees of different shapes around him. The place was enormous, with animals, trees, and plants numbering in the thousands if we added everything up. It took hours to organize; it was in the middle of the afternoon when he managed to organize everything. The animals helped him by willingly picking up seeds from the ground. If it weren't for them, he would spend days here doing all this.
Jon had knowledge of all the fruits and plants in the place, as he received a certain degree of knowledge from the Gods when he touched that tree. He didn't have detailed information, but he knew at least the name of each tree, fruit, and plant and some of their functions. He also knew that, with the increase of his strength, more information would be unlocked in his mind when he arrived at the place where the gods asked him to go.
The boy even knew or had eaten many of the fruits in front of him, and some he knew should never be here in the North, not on a tree. There were coconuts here, coconuts that he read only grow on the coast with a warm atmosphere like the Summer Islands. So he ended up having to ignore logic when it comes to Gods and magic.
Some other trees, he only knew through the gift he received because he had never seen them or their fruit in his short memory, others he knew from books like trees from the South. In the last two years, he spent much of his free time in the library reading. He ended up making it his hobby in the absence of his brother and the games they used to have. It was an escape from his reality to drown himself in books.
Aside from that fact, he was curious about the unknown. He walked up to some trees with green bulbs. He knew it was called a lemon by the gift of the gods, picked one, and when he bit into it, he ended up spitting it out. Besides the hard peel, he felt how bitter a cursed fruit it was. He turned to the side, and strangely, he could feel the animals laughing and enjoying his situation. Unfortunately, he hadn't gained information on the tastes of the fruits yet, but he managed to pick other unknown fruits to eat, something that pleased him. He also ventured into known fruits. After picking apples from another tree, he bit into one and found it very tasty, sweet, much better than the ones he ate in Winterfell. He ate the second and the third, found it fantastic, and started eating other fruits around him, grapes that he had tried before, but none as good as these. He knew they were used to make the wine his father bought for the North. Feeling the taste of these grapes, he had never drunk the wine, but he had the desire to try it now.
He ate other fruits, such as pear, plum, jabuticaba, and many others. He tried biting into an orange, which is a famous fruit in the South, but he had never seen one in Winterfell, or at least no one had ever offered him one. He didn't like the taste of the peel very much; however, he enjoyed the orange and its juice that came after peeling. Fortunately, no fruit he ate surpassed the loathsome lemon in terms of bitterness. He tried biting into a coconut, which resulted in thinking his teeth would fall out soon after. After the moments of experimentation and collecting seeds from the trees, he stored the cloth in his pocket and collected more fruits in the leaf-made basket-bag, preparing for the journey, finally.
The animals that had been surrounding him the whole time felt sad for themselves, as the boy considered them his friends and couldn't take them from here. They didn't belong anywhere else but this clearing, and he had to leave. The Old Gods gave him a mission through that tree, and he had to go north now. He thanked the sacred tree once again. He couldn't control his tears streaming down his eyes, but not out of sadness. They were tears of happiness, something that had never happened before, not until the point of crying in his sad life. Jon, who was ready, turned around and finally began to walk but didn't know where he was or which direction to follow. The Gods couldn't make him omnipotent; they transmitted their magic and knowledge of nature that would grow stronger with time, but he was still a mortal, and more importantly, a child. So, bidding farewell to the animals who seemed equally sad to see their new human friend leave, after that, he took the direction he had come from and went in that direction.
Jon continued this path for two days, stopping only to eat, drink, and rest while finding a place to sleep during the night. No animal had been hostile to him so far. However, in this time when he was processing everything that happened to him and trying to figure out what he was capable of now with the powers the Gods bestowed upon him, he noticed that even the animals didn't mind him. They noticed him as he walked through the forest, but there was a certain respect towards him. Jon also realized that he could feel the life around him outside that sacred clearing. He wanted to learn more about his magic, would like to take some animals as his travel companions, and tried to connect with some. He pictured himself surrounded by all kinds of animals in his flock. However, he hadn't had much success so far with the wildlife around him. He could feel it, even found out that he could see memories of the animals if he pushed a little and entered their minds through the connection. However, to connect with them as familiars was much more difficult and complex. Jon would have to force them to submit, and every time he tried, he felt a headache.
He then decided to give up on it in the last few hours, as he didn't want to force them to follow him like that. He continued walking for another half a day until he felt a different life than any other so far. This being was hidden inside the trunk of a fallen tree for many years a few dozen meters in front of him. He felt it was different from anything so far by the feelings of that life because he could feel fear and desperation? He couldn't help but be moved just thinking about how that life saw the world similar to him until recently. He could see it as his own emotional reflection. This stirred him inside.
Walking slowly toward the trunk, whatever animal was there, the being also felt his approach and became much more afraid of the new presence outside the fallen trunk. Jon was cautious, as he was being seen as a predator approaching slowly. He bent down to see what had caught its attention, and there he saw a trembling baby bird, a Vale Eagle to be exact, but here in the North? So, looking into the fearful eyes of the chick, he began receiving its memories with his powers forcing a bit into the desperate mind of the little animal. He saw that there was a nest not too far from here; the little bird had two siblings along with its parents. Jon was surprised because they were the first eagles he had seen in life outside of books.
Its parents fed it and its siblings every day until yesterday when the nest was attacked by a predator, a snake, which is rarely seen in the North, especially the venomous ones. It saw its siblings being devoured, and in desperation, it jumped from the nest and ran to escape its predator. It even heard its parents arriving and jumping on the predator, but it's likely they ended up dead from the snake's venom. The little one was injured from the fall and was so afraid that it didn't even look back; it just ran trying to fly in desperation, but it was too young for that, so the attempt to fly was in vain. It arrived here last night and waited to die, with its parents dead, as it would have searched for them by smell if they were still alive. The little eagle had lost all hope.
Jon didn't know, but as he looked at these sad memories, he wasn't the only one sifting through memories here. The little chick did the same with its life. Jon still didn't know how to control his powers, so he ended up escaping as well, and for the little bird, not really understanding the lifestyle of a human being, it managed to feel his emotions throughout his life. Unconsciously, Jon and the chick were connected to each other, a feeling of empathy coming from a human child to a bird chick and vice versa. Animals are not particularly intelligent, but Jon had influenced it through his powers. Animals with this connection and powers can develop a certain degree of human intelligence. The little bird slowly started walking towards him as if the human in front of it was its last hope. Jon gladly picked up the bird with his hands as it approached. Jon couldn't help but feel a sad heart at the memories of the little one who was injured and without family in the cold, a sad reality.
He looked at the bird in his hand. He had to try something with his magic on its wounds, so he experimented with things through the powers the Gods bestowed upon him, closing his eyes to concentrate and imagining healing the little bird that suffered in the fall from the nest. Without Jon initially noticing with his eyes closed, the bird emitted a small green light, and its wounds gradually healed. Jon opened his eyes at that moment, as dizziness suddenly hit him from the use of magic, but he was pleased to see the bird glowing in the healing process. The bird could only look at him with adoration in its eyes as its savior.
Jon picked some fruits and cut them with a knife he had kept with him since the night of the snowstorm, giving small slices to the chick to eat. After feeding it and making sure it was well, the boy now prepared himself with a little bird on his shoulder and began the journey again. It took 3 days to start seeing an end to the forest atop a cliff. There were still days to go, but he could already see the end of the woods. His connection with the bird had increased so much that he could see what the bird saw through their connected vision. He knew the legends that Old Nan used to tell, so it was easy to figure out that he was a warg, something that didn't surprise him much after the experience of making a plant grow with the naked eye. He always enjoyed stories involving kings in the North and warg kings in Winterfell and even joked with Arya about being a powerful Stark connected with his giant wolf. Now he was a bit surprised to be one.
He knew he was different from the legends, at least the ones told to him. Wargs, whenever they entered the mind of the animal, became unconscious in their original body. Jon, on the other hand, could maintain the connection in his conscious original body and could see through his familiar. It was a bit strange to have 4 eyes. He vomited the first few times when he had two different visions, but the boy has been training whenever he can with his bird and felt his progress. He already imagined himself on a battlefield fighting and massacring his enemies while having an aerial view of his position and surroundings to avoid being caught by any enemy by surprise. He was already playing the role of a hero with his bird, who, in turn, was happy with his new human friend and savior and his feelings during the journey in the last few days.
The human and bird duo finally managed to see the fields and the end of the forest. However, another bizarre thing happened as Jon exited the forest after another 4 days of walking. The field of view turned green with Northern grasses now that there were no more trees. But what he didn't expect here were the creatures standing in front of him as he passed the last trees connected to the forest. It seemed like they were waiting for him. Jon was stunned at how his life was turning upside down every day. He went from a despised bastard to a child that people would call crazy if he told them everything that was happening to him. First, a strange storm that took him to a completely different place from where he woke up. Then, the voices of the gods ringing in his ears. Third, a magical place in the middle of the forest, unknown to any record in the North. Fourth, now he has magical powers he had never heard of, and to his surprise, in front of him were another legend taken only from books. Those creatures were staring at him, a legend that said to be with the Stark family in past generations, the fearsome giant wolves, and there were four of them, apparently two pairs.
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