The Wheel Unbroken by TheAnimaniacDude (Game of Thrones)

Latest Update:November 23, 2022(Today)

Summary: Jon Snow had made a life for himself beyond The Wall, after he was banished for Queenslaying. A happy life. A life he had always wanted.

And then, one day, he woke up in Winterfell, twenty years ago.

What began as a dream turns into a nightmare as he discovers that something is not content with 'merely' the Long Night being averted, and no matter how many times he falls chasing an unknowable, impossible quest, it refuses to let him stay dead. Once, he followed a woman who dreamed of Breaking the Wheel. Now, the Wheel will Break him.

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19003756?view_full_work=true

Word count:197k

Chapters:22

Chapter 1: Life One

When Jon opened his eyes and felt the gentle featherbed under his back, he was momentarily disoriented, confused. It was only after he rolled to the side and saw his cousin, Robb Stark, lying in the bed on the opposite side of the room that a slow, gentle grin spread across his face.

"One of those dreams, then." He muttered, slowly pushing himself upright. The sunlight shining through the window in their shared bedroom was weak, and he noted with some far-away amusement that he had woken up fully dressed in his leathers. Just more proof that his sleeping mind could not be bothered to stay perfectly logical, he supposed.

This dream of Winterfell was more vivid than most, as he walked along the corridors of the family wing in silence. After twenty years north of the wall, he had forgotten many of the details of his childhood home; That the click of his boots on granite floors echoed long after he had finished walking, that the door to Arya's chambers had nicks and scratches along the frame from any number of her childhood fooleries…

Even as he stepped out into the courtyard, old thoughts returned to him with the sound of soldiery in the distance. "How many years…" He whispered. He blinked, suddenly noticing the timbre of his voice; he was barely more than a boy. "My dreams grow queerer by the year."

He laughed, then; the wildlings had helped him learn to laugh and smile again, in the freedom of beyond the Wall. No thoughts of bastardy or Iron Thrones, or beautiful mad Targaryens, had polluted his mind for at least two whole turns of Winter and Summer. He moved with purpose, strolling about the empty courtyards and enjoying the Summer dawn.

He found himself in the training courtyard, an old, beaten dummy still erect, and a blunted sword still on the racks. He picked it up, swinging it about experimentally. "Who shall I be defeating today, then?" He asked the dummy. "Perhaps you shall be Tormund, or another chief come to challenge King Crow."

He lunged forward, then, attacking the dummy with a Wildling fury. The sword struck at the crown of the faux-enemy, the side, the the crook of neck and shoulder. He danced, darting back and forth with speed, and his mind's eye imagined his foe before him.

On and on, he fought his imaginary enemy, until a loud clapping startled him. "By the gods, Snow!" Robb called, grinning widely. "Where was this energy when we last sparred? You might have thrashed me then, instead of the opposite!"

Jon could only laugh, throwing the sword to the side; sweat dripped from his hair, and the linen shirt underneath his leather was plastered to his back. He had been training longer than he thought. "Oh, cousin. You of all people should know that skill in battle cannot always save you."

Robb blinked, rapidly. "... Cousin? Snow, what's wrong with you? You're not making sense."

"Enough of that." Jon walked forward, sweeping the phantasm of his dead cousin into his arms. "Let's not ruin a dream so vivid as this with grim talk." Jon pulled away, staring Robb in the eyes. "I am glad to see you again, after so many years. Your face had begun to fade, for me."

Robb's expression twisted from befuddlement to concern. "Are you ill? Should I call for Maester Luwin?"

"Ah! Maester Luwin!" Jon smiled; the sight only seemed to unnerve Robb even further. "I had not thought of him in such a long time; I would be glad to see his face, too. So many were lost during the sack that I could never pay respects to."

"Jon, please." Robb gripped Jon by the wrist and pulled his hand from his shoulder. "I don't think you're well at all. You're talking absolute nonsense, and you're not yourself."

Jon looked at the fingers wrapped around his wrist. "You've quite the grip on you for a figment of my imagination." he jerked his arm free. "I'm fine. I just wish I was this open with you all while I had the chance. For too long, I let my shame and fear of your mother cow me into resentment and brooding. Now I'll never get the chance to tell you how much you meant to me."

"Alright, that's it." Robb backed away. "I'm going to fetch the Maester, you're not well. Stay right here." Thrusting his hand out multiple times, as if he was a hound to be commanded, he backed away slowly around the edge of the courtyard and disappeared.

Jon snorted, full of good humor. "My memory of him must be growing foggy. I don't remember him being quite so concerned for my well-being before. Twenty years dead, and everyone becomes gentle in your dreams." he walked out of the courtyard, whistling a tuneless song, and watched with glad eyes as his boyhood home came to life with the sun.

"JON!" Robb shouted, from far away.

"Oh, damn him." Jon muttered. "Even in my fantasies I can't get away from people fussing." he broke into a steady jog, darting between soldiers where possible and looking for a place to hide. His eyes lit on the gate to the godswood, and he ducked through.

The peace of the Old Gods was felt immediately by him, even though the Weirwood was not yet visible to him through the grove. Jon continued his pace of running from his shouting cousin, his voice growing softer and softer as he went deeper through the acres of forest, until at last he could hear him no more. Jon chuffed softly, shaking his head. "Unbelievable. I have to run from a figment of my imagination, a man dead to me for decades. I had thought the phrase 'running from your past' to not be quite so literal."

His head lifted, and saw the Heart Tree itself standing before him. Jon fought the urge to kneel before it; the Free Folk had instilled a greater respect for the Old Gods than he had before he had been exiled, but this was just a dream. "I had thought I was beyond all of this." He admitted, for he could not tell a lie before the Heart Tree. "This hasn't been my home since even before Daenerys Targaryen came with fire and blood, and I had thought I had finally let go, after twenty years."

"Maybe…" he rocked back and forth on his heels. "Maybe I simply ache. When I wake, I will be old, and Val will be there, heavy with our last miracle child, but Ghost…" He blinked away tears. "Ghost will no longer be there, from yesterday until the day I die. Only his pups remain of him, now."

"JON…!"

Jon's head snapped up at the distant call; an involuntary grimace spread on his features. "Father…?" he whispered. His grimace turned into a scowl.

I will not allow my dream of better times to be broken by thoughts of Targaryens.

Jon turned on his heel, striding quickly towards the smaller wooden gate leading to the Hunter's Gate. The keep was clearly going to be a problem, and he would not allow himself to be woken from this dream by recriminations on the lies of Honorable Eddard Stark.

The sun was high in the sky by the time Jon reached the Wolfswood on foot. The air was crisp, an edge to it that told Jon it was nearing the end of Summer. The green of the land would fade, and become blanketed in snows dozens of feet deep; the idea made Jon think of his home beyond the Wall.

He bowed his head underneath a low-hanging branch and stepped through into the woods proper, and the sun became muted by the thick canopy. Jon slowly pulled a simple arrow from the quiver on his back, and fixed it against the string of the hunter's bow he had taken from the Gate. he wasn't sure if he had any purpose hunting game in a dream, but he had grown to enjoy the chore among the Free Folk, a productive way to clear his mind of troubles.

He padded through the forest underbrush with a practiced stealth, hunched over slightly and avoiding the more destructively loud twigs and growths. The forest was quiet; his memory wasn't sure enough to say whether it was unnaturally so, but the namesake howling of wolves was absent from the soundscape, and he had not found any game even after an hour of the hunt.

Finally, his ears perked at the sound of shuffling through the brush. He renocked the arrow to the bow's string, slowly pulled it back to his ear, and loosed it into the brush. A sharp squeal of pain told him he had found a rabbit. With a grin, Jon Snow pulled himself to uprightness and moved to collect his quarry.

"Snow! Snow!"

Jon stiffened at the unxpected voice. He turned to the sound; a raven was perched on a far-away tree branch, staring directly at the boy.

"Snow! Snow!" it cawed again.

Jon's eyes narrowed. His hands reached for another arrow, never taking his gaze off the bird. "You think me enough of a fool that I can't recognize a Warg when I see one?" he said to the bird.

The raven stilled, staring back at the human with black beady eyes, before taking off from the branch with a flap of wings. Even as it flew, Jon nocked the arrow to the string and traced it's flight path with the metal head. He squinted, and loosed the arrow at the in-flight bird.

The moment after the arrow left the string, Jon heard a low snarl behind him. It was all the warning he received as he whirled about, the bird forgotten, and the wolf that had crept up on him leaped at his throat. His leather-clad arm went up in reflex, and the beast sunk his teeth deep into his wrist.

Jon let out a shriek of pain and toppled to the ground, free hand smashing weakly against the predator's face. The animal's eyes were white, and without pupils, as it wrenched his arm about. A sickening crunch of flesh and bone sounded out as Jon lost all feeling in his left hand beyond white-hot pain.

His free hand landed at the beast's snout, and he jabbed it forward. With a squish of blood, the wolf's eye was gouged out by his thumb. The Warg howled in pain and retreated for just a second, but it was enough to allow Jon to scramble backwards. His hand was shredded, ribbons of flesh dangling off his forearm like red banners, and blood poured freely into the ground. He could not feel anything past the wrist, and his fingers refused to curl at will.

His remaining hand lashed backwards to his quiver, as the Warg backed away, and then lunged once more. His hand wrapped around the stem of an arrow, and with a roar, Jon stabbed downward with the tip. The arrow plunged through the animal's skull just as it's teeth wrapped around his neck. The wolf went limp, but it's force was not cancelled, and the corpse bowled Jon to the ground, plaque-coated teeth tearing furrows along his neck.

Jon lay there on the forest floor, for a time, heaving and panting in agony. This is no dream . I am awake. I am awake, and a boy again, and I nearly died.

I might still die, if I do not staunch the bleeding.

Jon clumsily pushed the wolf-corpse off of his chest with a single hand, and nearly blacked out twice attempting to push himself to his feet. The arrows in his quiver, he noticed absently, were all shattered from the fall. He left the hunting bow where it had fallen, and began to walk, clutching his nearly-severed hand to his chest.

He had not taken more than a dozen steps before another crunch of underbrush alerted him. Jon whirled about, eyes wide in fear, to take in a majestic stag standing behind him, antlers curled and crowned with nearly twenty points.

Jon Snow had nearly relaxed, until he locked eyes with the stag. The animal's pupils were pure white, without pupils.

"No… no!" Jon shouted, stumbling back. "Why!? I've done nothing to you!"

The Stag skinchanger merely snorted, and lowered its' head. Jon didn't wait another moment, but turned on his heels and burst into as fast of a run as he was capable.

It wasn't enough. He heard the Stag burst into a gallop, through the blood pounding in his ears, a moment before his entire world exploded in pain.

He was aware, as if from a distance, that he heard the Stag's neck snap from the force of goring him in the back with its antlers, even as it carried him down to the forest floor. He only felt the antler tip that had gone through his neck for the blood that fountained out across his cheek; everything below his neck was numb. He would have been screaming, if his lungs hadn't been ruined in the Warg's suicidal attack.

Why… drove yourself mad… like Varamyr… what did I…

Darkness.

When Jon awoke and felt the featherbed underneath his back, he was screaming.

"BY THE GODS!" somebody shouted from the opposite end of the room. Jon thrashed wildly, trapped within the fur blankets. A pair of arms gripped him by the shoulders. Jon answered the touch with a flailing punch at the offender. "AGH! Dammit, man!"

"The Warg!" Jon screamed. "The Warg!" he frantically pushed himself to his feet, stumbling like a drunk wearing only his smallclothes and trampling his pillow under his feet. Only after his shoulder slammed against the corner of the room, when he had no further place to retreat to, did the sleep clear from his eyes.

Robb was sitting precariously, knocked on his bum and clutching his jaw at the side of his bed. His eyes met Jon's, angry and bemused in equal proportion. "Others take you, Snow, sometimes I forget how strong you are for being so thin." He remarked, rubbing the bruising part of his jaw. "You hit like the Greatjon when the nightmares have you, it seems."

"Robb…" Jon breathed. "No, no. this isn't real. None of this is real. You're dead."

"Dead?" Robb's hand dropped away. "I should hope not. I haven't even begun my lordship." the joking tone fell away as Jon continued to stare at him like a wight. "It's alright, Snow. You had a nightmare. Your dreams of Wargs and Grumpkins and Snarks are just that - dreams."

"No." Jon shook his head, and slowly slipped down the wall. "No, that was real, Robb. I felt my blood pour out. It was real. It wasn't - it wasn't a dream. Val wasn't a dream. My happiness wasn't…"

Robb's eyes grew wide as Jon began to shiver. "Jon, brother, please." he pulled himself onto the bed and wrapped his arms around the Bastard's shoulders, as Jon stifled his emotions as quickly as they came. "Tell me about it. Tell me what the nightmares showed you."

"I… I was beyond the Wall, with the rest of the Free Folk, after I was banished for killing Daenerys." Jon whispered, his eyes going far. "Val was pregnant with our third, after we thought she had grown too old. Ghost had just passed from infection, after he fought against a rival pack a week earlier, and we were celebrating to mourn his death. I went to sleep, and I woke up here, with you."

Robb nodded gently, as if he understood anything that was coming out of his mouth. "Your third child, you said? With a 'free folk' woman, you said? Who are they? Was she the Warg you were shouting about?"

"No…" He shook his head. "No, Val wasn't the warg. I woke up here, and I saw you, and that was when I thought this was a dream, because you had been dead for twenty years."

"Twenty years?" Robb repeated, his tone full of indignation. "I died so young?"

"At the-" Jon shuddered, involuntarily. "The Red Wedding, when the Freys broke guest rights and slaughtered you and your army on orders of the Lannisters." Robb's eyes shot wide open. "I thought it was a dream, so I went to hunt in the Wolfswood. A wolf was there, and I could see by it's eyes that it was a Warg. I killed the wolf, and then he - he had already changed bodies, and he finished me on the antlers of a stag."

"Such deep lore, for a single nightmare." Robb said. "I'm fine, Jon, and so are you. Wargs are a tale from Old Nan, and the 'Red Wedding' is a night terror."

"But it's NOT." Jon clutched at Robb's shoulders, grey eyes gleaming wide and sable. "It WASN'T. They paraded your body through the streets, Robb, with Grey Wind's head sewn onto your neck. They called you the Young Wolf, so they mocked you in death. They desecrated your corpse, you were never laid to rest in the crypt, and I couldn't…" he dropped his head onto the other boy's shoulder, shuddering. "I could not betray the Watch… I couldn't save you… I couldn't save Father..."

Robb hesitated, just for a moment, before squeezing Jon tighter into his chest. "I've never once seen you so shaken, Jon." he said, softly, as Jon's breathing grew increasingly wet. "I won't pretend to understand what it is that you saw, but I'm here."

Jon's head nuzzled against his cousin's shoulder, before pulling upwards and away. His eyes were red with unshed tears. "I'm afraid of what happens if that's not true." he replied, softly, his words phlegmy. "If I'm dreaming still, and I will wake again, banished beyond the wall, and I have forgotten how to raise direwolf pups."

"Direwolf pups!" Robb exclaimed, eyes wide. "I suppose that makes sense, given that they've never been seen below the wall, but - direwolves! This Ghost of yours was a direwolf!?"

Jon blinked, then shook his head slightly, in confusion. "Robb… have you forgotten Grey Wind?"

"Grey Wind? Who is that?"

Robb didn't leave his side all that day. He asked questions of Jon, his natural skepticism giving way to a burning curiosity when Jon spoke of the wars that were fought. He was still a green boy, playing at glory vicariously, but Jon had little and less to give him of the War of Five Kings, other than what the ravens had told him. Instead, he told him of the battles he did know; first the Wall, and then the war against Ramsay Snow. Only now, as the sun was setting, did he turn to the Long Night.

"The Dothraki…" Robb breathed. "A hundred thousand Dothraki screamers, right here at Winterfell. What a terrible sight it must have been."

"Ten-thousand, more like." Jon scoffed, absently holding his horn of ale; it had barely been touched, and he had sipped at it only when his throat grew sore from talking. "The rest of the horde, and half the Unsullied, were taking their sweet time on the Kingsroad. They were loyal to their khaleesi , Daenerys, but I still feared any number of them would break away to find softer targets than the amy of the dead when they realized they were vastly outnumbered."

"But they didn't." Robb's eyes glittered. "They followed this Targaryen queen across the Narrow Sea for the first time, and fought against the Others themselves. It sounds like something out of a song." his teeth flashed in a fierce grin.

Jon snorted. "Followed her to their doom, perhaps. I've had years to look back on those days, and the strategy we had was horseshit. You could come up with a better defense in your sleep; I'm amazed any of us made it out alive." He sighed, leaning back and staring broodily at the edge of the table. "They should have heeded their own legends. They call the sea 'poison water' because their horses cannot drink it. It, and all the things beyond it, must be a cursed thing in their minds."

"But they followed her even still."

Jon shrugged. "The khaleesi who brought back dragons can unmake the things that are cursed, and lead to new pastures. Me nem nesa. "

Robb blinked. "What was that?"

Jon gave a start. "Forgive me. It was a Dothraki saying. It means 'it is known'. I picked up a smattering of phrases while I rode with them to Winterfell."

Robb leaned back in his chair, eyes wide. "You know Dothraki?" he reached for his own horn off the table of the Great Hall, and took a long slug of ale. "Jon, for all of today I thought you were simply a masterful storyteller. But you know a language that nobody in the North has even heard, much less speaks. I…"

"You're done humoring the madman, then?" Jon asked, wryly.

"Jon…" Robb's hand rose to his forehead. "Jon, this is mad. You're telling me all of this… ALL of what you told me, that was real?"

Jon waved his hand around the empty room. "As real as any of this is. I'm still not entirely convinced I'm not dreaming, even after dying with an antler in my throat." Robb's fingers threaded through his auburn Tully hair, pulling at his roots in sudden stress. "Why did you stay with me, if you thought I was a liar?"

"Because you're my brother." Robb replied forcefully. "Because one day you were brooding about taking the black and fathering no sons, and the next you wake up screaming about being killed by wargs and your pregnant wildling - tch - pregnant 'Free Folk' wife. You and I haven't called each other by our first names in two years because you wanted to keep your 'shame' away from me, and now you wake up and call me Robb. I thought I could use whatever fell mood had taken hold to talk you out of the Night's Watch and staying as my right-hand man, not…" he exhaled. "Not this ."

"Robb…" Jon said, gently.

"This is magic, Jon." Said Robb, fervently. "This is some sort of hellish magic, the work of the Other himself. Who else would benefit from turning back time and undoing a war that saved the lives of every man, woman and child in Westeros, except the demons who lost? Father and Ser Rodrik have taught me how to lead men, and fight men who live and bleed, but this? This dream of yours, that wasn't a dream at all? It's absolutely fucking mad."

Jon Snow's eyes widened. "I hadn't even considered… could the Night King really have undone time even after death?" His eyes narrowed. "But then, why am I here? He must have known I would work to undo everything he tries, because we beat him once."

"You're asking me to understand the inner workings of magic. I don't know." Robb responded. "But you're here. And you… you already died once, and got back up. Do you think it will keep happening?"

"That I'll wake up in Winterfell every time I die, so young that we haven't even found our Direwolf pups yet?" Jon asked. "I don't know. And I'm not keen on throwing myself off the top of the broken tower to find out."

"No, no, of course not. Please don't." Robb shook his head rapidly. "But… augh. You know so much more about the situation than I do, but you're a bastard." Jon's eyes darkened, and Robb quickly waved his hands. "Please, Jon, I mean that in all seriousness. If a Snow walked up to the archmaester with a Valyrian Steel rod and mask, and tried to ask him how time travel works, you would get laughed out of the room. Hells, you wouldn't even be able to get IN the room in the first place."

"What are you suggesting, then?" Asked Jon, leaning back. "You're already talking about finding an archmaester in the citadel. You have something in mind."

"I… Well… shit." Robb suddenly looked nervous. "I thought… well, I'm the heir to the North. My name will open almost as many doors as our Lord Father's would. And maybe, it's possible you won't have all day to convince me that you're not in a fever dream, and we will work faster. Just in case it doesn't work out, this time."

Jon's eyes widened. "You're talking of secrets. Secrets that only you could possibly know, so that when I repeat them to you, you know it's magic."

"Exactly."

Jon suddenly grinned, and bit his knuckle quickly to hide it. "You know which secret you are going to give, and it's embarrassing."

"Mortifying." Robb's head landed in his open palms. "I might jump off the broken tower myself when you repeat this to me, now that I think of it."

"Any others you're willing to share?"

"No, this has to be the one…" Robb sucked in a deep breath, and exhaled. "My first sexual experience was… was oral sex from Elen Woods."

Jon exhaled sharply, before throwing his head back in laughter. "Elen Woods!? Noseless Ned's daughter, from the Wolfswood? You got fellated by the girl with the cleft lip?"

Robb could only stare in shock. "... By the gods green and wise, you really are twenty years removed from here." he said, finally. "I don't think I've seen you laugh like that since the moment you learned what being a bastard meant." he leaned back. "There. That's the secret. Not even Theon knows this; he thinks that the time he dragged me along to the brothel in Winter Town after my nameday party was my first. It was horrible, and awkward for the both of us, and we never spoke of it again. If you tell me that secret, I'll know you're from the future, because there's no way Elen told anybody about it."

"Thank you for that illuminating knowledge." Jon drawled, his northern accent thick with mirth. "Nothing like knowing where your brother's cock has been to put things in perspective." his smile died, though, and he took his first long draw from his horn of ale. "You think they'll aid me if I come with a letter from the heir of House Stark?"

"I doubt that." Robb shook his head. "The letter would be too incredible to believe. Which is why I'm coming with you."

When Jon saw who was riding with Robb towards the hill they had declared their rendezvous point, a small frown made its' way onto his face. "Why is Theon coming with us?" He asked.

"Lady Catelyn requested that I bring him along if we were to ride very far." Robb replied. "I never specified to her just HOW far we were riding."

"What's this I hear about you and prophecy, Snow?" Theon Greyjoy called out, a mocking smirk on his face. "Have you become the Warg King come again overnight?"

Jon merely continued to stare intently at the Greyjoy. There was none of the broken, haunted man he had last seen at the Battle for the Dawn. The visions overlapped in his eyes, the haft of a phantom spear jutting from the side of the man on horseback who had not yet had his perpetual smile ripped from his lips. This was not the man who died defending Bran the Broken; this was the man who could roast a child and call it Brandon Stark to the world for the glory of himself and his Ironborn father.

Robb pulled the reins until his courser came to a prancing halt. "Jon, what's wrong?"

"You told him?"

"I did." Robb nodded. "He would find out eventually, riding with us, and he's as much one of us as you are. I told him in front of the Heart Tree, so he at least knew I believed what I said to be true."

Jon couldn't help but snort. "One of us. Perhaps."

Robb continued staring. "... What did he do?"

"What?" Theon said, staring back and forth between the two. "Don't tell me you believe this, Robb. I can buy that Snow had an eerie dream, but to put stock in it against me-"

"What did Theon do, Jon?"

"... He forgot who his real father was. And the North bled for it." he said, finally. Silence greeted his words. Theon's smile slipped. "Those of us who were left forgave what he did to our home and family, eventually. But you never did, Theon. You didn't forgive yourself until you paid for your sins with iron."

"You've got a fucking pair on you, Snow," Theon growled, "to say something like that to my face."

"Am I wrong?" Jon retorted. His voice changed, taking on a timbre more like the greenland ironborn. "I always wanted to do the right thing. Be the right kind of person. But I never knew what that meant. It always seemed like there was an impossible choice I had to make: Stark or Greyjoy." He locked eyes with Theon, who had gone pale. "Those were the words you said to me on Dragonstone, when you begged my forgiveness, before you went to rescue Asha from Euron Greyjoy."

"Nuncle Euron…!?" The horse underneath Theon rocked back and forth at his startlement. "How do you know that name?"

"I only met your Nuncle once." Jon replied. "But he, more than any other man, caused the Mother of Dragons, the woman I loved, to go mad and burn down King's Landing."

"MOTHER OF-"

"BURN DOWN-"

"You will have to forgive me, Theon Greyjoy." Jon continued, over their unified shouts. "For if I make it that far into this life, I will not hesitate to stab your nuncle at the first opportunity."

Theon's attention was split between Jon and the horse underneath him, who continued to grow restless in place, but even still his expression was drawn tight. "Euron was an eerie, fearful man even before I came to Winterfell, and that was before my father banished him. Did… did he have anything to do with - damn this horse, hold still! - with whatever it is that I did?"

"No. you did that all by yourself."

"But it's over." Robb said forcefully, riding a few steps between them. "You just said you forgave him, and this man before you - this one, and no other, has done our family no wrong. Surely you can save a man from himself if you know which mistakes he is liable to make?"

Jon, after a moment, nodded. "Aye. I have, and I can."

"Then do so." said Robb. "For if you cannot save Theon from his folly, then how can you save the Young Wolf from his?" he turned to Theon, who was now totally focused on his courser prancing wildly beneath him. "Others take you, Theon, it's like you've never ridden in your life!"

"I don't understand!" Theon called, pulling harder and harder at the reins. "She was perfectly calm when we left!"

Jon pulled his own steed forward, reaching towards the animal's neck to help him, when he looked at the animal's gaze.

Theon's courser stared back at Jon with milky white eyes, and snorted once as if to taunt him.

"THEON!" Jon shouted. "IT'S THE WARG!"

Before the Greyjoy could even process his words, his courser had already reared high, whinnying loudly as he was thrown off his saddle. He landed hard on his back, his bow snapping under his weight, and tried to stumble to his feet. The Warg had already landed on both feet, and kicked backwards at the squid prince. The hoof took him in the neck, and Theon was sent flying, limp as a ragdoll.

"THEON!" Robb roared, drawing his longsword. In a single thrust, he buried the blade in the eye of the possessed horse; he left the blade in the falling cadaver as he scrambled off of his own mount, stumbling to the Greyjoy's side.

"Robb, no! He's still here!" Jon shouted, whipping his head about. "This is just like the first time! Help me find him!"

"Theon! Theon!" Robb cried, clutching at the collar of the man; Theon's head was twisted at an unnatural angle, and half of his cheek was torn off, exposing his bloody fractured teeth.

"Robb, there's no time!" Jon shouted again, whirling around on his horse. "The warg will-"

The courser underneath him reared, and jon was airborne before he could finish his warning. He collided with the ground and could feel his shoulder pop from it's socket, as he rolled down the hill uncontrollably. He heard a long scream from his cousin, over the wind in his ears and the blood in his brain, before he came to a sudden stop as a jutting rock collided with his stomach.

Jon groaned, his head spinning wildly and blood leaking from his lips; his tongue bled freely from how he had bitten it in the tumbling. He pushed himself to the pads of his feet, but immediately fell, this time onto his back. The blue skies of the North swam in front of his gaze.

"Snow! Snow!"

Jon Snow lifted his head with a heavy effort; the two remaining horses were slowly cantering down the hill, in perfect synchronicity, one of which had blood splattered up to the fetlocks of its forelegs. A raven was perched on the head of the other horse, cawing out the same word he had heard before.

All three animals stared at him, before their eyes flashed milky white in unison. The blood drained out of Jon's face; the same Warg was controlling all three of them at once.

Not even Varamyr was powerful enough to do that. The only one I know of is-

"Snow! Snow!" the raven called, it's eyes returned to beady black. Perhaps it was merely a trick of the light, but Jon swore he saw a indent in the bird's forehead, in the shape of a closed third eye. The two horses charged forward, And Jon screamed in pain as he was trampled underneath. He could hear the bird's call, until a metal-clad hoof stomped down into his neck.

Darkness.

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19003756?view_full_work=true