5

Chapter 5: Ch 5-The Baby

Chapter Text

It was afternoon and I was in my room kneeling down and watching frost waddle around slowly, I would occasionally place obstacles in front of her as a game and she would move around them while making cute chirp noises. Either her wings had not been healed or she was not yet old enough but she hasn't been able to fly yet.

From time to time she would fall and I would gently stand her back up and she would go right back into the game. I didn't know her exact diet yet but I have been feeding her strips of meat leaving a small water bowl beside her, and she hasn't complained yet.

'I should borrow a book from Library about birds,' I thought.

Right after the morning lesson with Maester Luwin had been completed, Robb had run straight toward Catelyn's room to see if we could be allowed in yet. It's been two days since Catelyn gave birth, but Robb and I have not been allowed to see the baby yet, Robb has been throwing tantrums about that around the clock, so instead of going along with I came back to room play with Frost.

The reason we had not been allowed in yet was that a light snow had fallen the day after our hunt and considering that Catelyn had a fever just before the birth, Maester Luwin didn't want to take any risk or at least that's what the maids were gossiping about in the kitchen.

Suddenly the door of my room was slammed open and I looked up while Frost fell from surprise. Robb came inside looking as if he had been running a marathon, his face red like his hair from exertion.

"Father says we can see the baby," he said while huffing and puffing.

I immediately stood up and gently took Frost in my hands and put him in a box on the desk, while making sure that there wasn't a risk of her falling.

"Stop playing with your bird and hurry up!"

"She's not a bird, she is an eagle Stupid," I said while placing a blanket around the box before rushing toward the door, "And her name is Frost," I said while hitting him lightly on the head and closing the door behind me.

"Whatever," Robb said while rubbing his head, before turning around, "Now, let's go,"

We both ran down the stairs and cut straight through the courtyard without heeding any passersby, Robb almost knocked down a maid who was carrying laundry, but other than that we made record time toward the room where the baby and Catelyn were staying.

We reached outside the room and found Lord stark standing outside and waiting for us. Robb made to go running straight toward the door but Eddard caught him by his scruff and dangled him in the air.

"I am going to see the baby," Robb said while wiggling like a worm.

"Stop and listen to me first," Eddard said while placing Robb down beside me.

"But you said we can see the baby," Robb said accusingly at his father.

"You can, but you have to follow some rules," Eddard said while looking at us sternly, "You will not talk loudly inside, you will not disturb Catelyn's rest, and you will be very careful with the baby as she is very fragile so there will be no pranks. Do you understand,"

"Yes, Father," We both said simultaneously while nodding our heads like chickens.

Lord stark looked at us for a moment before turning around and opening the door and ushering us inside the room. This room was one of the warmest in Winterfell and along with the burning fireplace, it was like summer inside, and the air was a bit stale with the smell of sweat and fresh clothes lingering around.

Lady Catelyn was sleeping on the bed under a pile of blankets, while a crib was placed just within reach of the bed. Robb and I ran straight toward the crib while Catelyn opened her eyes blearily hearing some sounds.

"What is he doing here," Catelyn said when she saw me with Robb.

"He is my brother, so he will stay," Robb said while glaring at his mother before turning back to the baby.

I rolled my eyes and ignored her, instead looking toward the small thing wrapped in bundles laying inside the crib. Over the years, Catelyn had tried to be mean toward me to make me stay away from Robb and scare me away, but most of the things she said goes inside one ear and out the other. While a normal child would be distraught and shy away from her, to my adult soul she was just a bratty 17-year-old teenager who was throwing a tantrum.

"She is so pretty," Robb said while looking inside the crib with wide eyes.

"Yeah and she looks like you, Robb. You both have the same hair," I said while watching the baby yawn with fascination.

"He is my son, Catelyn," Eddard said in a low voice while sitting on the bed beside Catelyn and taking her hand.

"Well he is not my son," Catelyn snapped toward Eddard while snatching her hand away. I turned around while holding onto Robb's shoulder when it looked like Robb would shout at his mother.

"You have to understand one thing Lady Stark, that while you may not be my mother," I said while looking into Catelyn's eyes resolutely and pointing toward the baby, "She is my sister and she is part of the pack now, and while you may not know what that means. Know this 'When the snows fall and the white wind blows, the lone wolf dies..."

"...While the pack survives," Eddard and Robb completed my sentence, hence proving my point.

Catelyn looked toward all three of us in succession before she fell back on the bed with a pout after seeing a losing battle.

"Look she opened her, Jon," Robb said excitedly and I immediately ran to join him back beside the crib.

"What is her name, Father," I asked.

"Her name is Sansa," Eddard said while running his hand along Catelyn's hair as a way of apologizing.

We stayed for about half an hour while making faces at the curious toddler who was looking around in fascination. At some point, she suddenly started crying and Lord Stark immediately ushered us out of there while saying that the baby needs to eat.

We wandered around for a while after leaving the great keep while discussing all kinds of tricks we would teach her and how we would steal her from the hands of Grumpkin when she grows up and my feet automatically started taking me toward the library.

"You are not going to the library are you," Robb said when he realized where they were going.

"Yes, I have to take a look at books about birds for Frost, "I said before turning toward him, "and you should come too and you can work on your old tongue,"

"Ugh... I thought Luwin's lesson was enough for the day, now this too," Robb said while slouching, "Alright, you go ahead and I'll go get a quick snack from the kitchen before I join you,"

I've been learning how to read and speak the old tongue from Old Nan since a year ago along with the regular lessons on the common tongue from Maester. When found out about it he was really excited about it and thought it would be cool to have a secret language only both of us could understand.

While I wanted to learn the old tongue because while searching in the library for books on wargs and the magic of the first men, I found a whole section of a library filled with books written in the Old Tongue which have been sitting there for centuries without anyone to read or translate them. They were only copied word to word by an acolyte whenever the books started to get old and frayed.

I reached the library and slowly climbed the stairs because they were slippery sometimes. When I entered the library, I found Tom the acolyte sitting at the desk and copying some book about flowers that was fraying at the edges.

"Hello, Tom," I said while waving at tom.

"Hello, Jon. Going toward the old section today too," Tom said while looking up from his book and raising an eyebrow in question.

"Yes, They are very fascinating books,"

"Well have fun then. At least it's good to know that the work of acolytes over the years has not gone to waste and someone will read the books we copy someday...," I went away deep into the library without listening to the rest of tom's sentence.

Tom was a bastard of a Lord of a masterly house in the north and was learning under Maester Luwin. I say learning, but mostly he does some odd jobs for the Maester like looking after the ravens, copying old and fraying books, buying herbs from wintertown and he also looks after the library. His relationship with Maester Luwin is a give-and-take, where he works under the maester for a few years and if the maester is satisfied in the end, then he will give him a recommendation so that he may study at the citadel to become a maester.

After reaching the old section, I searched around for a few moments before I pulled out the book I had been reading yesterday. I took the book to a table and started reading silently. It was a bit hard to comprehend the words in these books because they had been mostly copied by people who don't exactly understand the old tongue. They just copy it as it is like a picture and that results in some of the words having a very different meaning than intended.

About half an hour later Robb arrived and after fetching a book about the basics of old tongue sat down across from me and started reading, while occasionally asking me about some stuff that he couldn't understand. I had told him that he could go and learn from Old Nan like I did but he said that he gets my explanation much better than her.

The books I was reading were mostly diaries, reports, and accounts written by maesters from centuries ago. Some of them mention the length of winter that year, or where the famine struck and destroyed a noble family but most of them were about wars and who died in which war with the wildlings or the andals.

I was reading my third book of the day and was just about done for the day when I came across a text that was written by a maester who was also the brother of Lord of Winterfell at that time. He was complaining about how his nephew, the only heir of Starks at that time had zero talent in the secret art. After reading the text about 5 times I basically understood the gist of it.

This maester talks about a secret art that has been passed among the Starks for ages from father to son. This secret art makes the user be in control of their emotions at all times, and have a very clear feeling about their thoughts and personality. This secret art is the reason that whenever a Stark, wargs into their direwolf they never lose their sense of self or get trapped inside the mind of the animal.

The nephew in question had zero talent for the secret art which is taught at a very young age so the maester was worried the art will be lost in the annals of history, because of that he had written a book in the old tongue and hidden it in the library so that a future stark may find it.

I was so excited that my hands started shaking, I didn't lose a second and immediately turned the page and read about what the secret art was. There were mainly three things that you have to do to learn the secret art.

The first thing you have to do was wake up early in the morning and try to empty your mind. When you think that your mind is emptied, then you fill your head with random images and smells and intense emotion until your mind is clustered. After that, you have to start emptying your mind again, and you need to do this every day until you can clear your mind in a second. The main benefit of this exercise is that when you warg into an animal you have a very clear sense of self and you won't be mixed with the mind of the animal.

The second thing you have to do is every night before going to sleep, you have to sit in meditation and review everything that happened that day, from things you ate that day to where you went, every minute detail, along with every intense emotion you felt that day and why you felt it. It is said to be a very draining exercise and would take a very long time to perfect. But it is said to improve your memory drastically as well you give you excellent control of your emotion. One side-effect written here is that when people look at you they think that your face is carved with ice and you are an unfeeling man so while it's suitable for unnerving your enemies, it also makes little children cry and run away from you.

And the third and most important step is to care for the animal you want to warg into from a young age. The bond you form with the animal will be very strong if the animal knew you for its whole life. This would make the animal willing to share its mind with it since it would consider you his family.

The pages after that were filled with unintelligible sentences, of a legendary warg born in the Stark family who was able to control multiple animals and was even able to warg into an animal while still in control of his body.

I sighed in satisfaction and fell back into the chair, I had finally found a clear direction to follow to become a warg. Before this, I was a bit afraid of it as in this book it was said that only a person who hated himself would become a successful warg, like bran because he hated his cripple body. Now I found a different and safer method to become a warg.

"Hey, Let's go get lunch. I am starving," Robb said bringing me out of my delusions of an army of animals under my control.

"Alright," I said while putting every book back into its place except for the one about wargs and followed Robb to the exit.

"Wait for a second, I forgot something," I said and ran back into the library and came back two minutes later while carrying a book about northern birds of prey and walking toward Robb who was impatiently tapping his legs and standing beside the door, "Just forgot a book. Let's Go,"

We had a quick lunch of meat and soup, and Robb was yawning throughout the meal. Sitting two hours in the Library and learning an old language must have been too much for the kid. After we finished eating we went toward the Great keep. While Robb went straight to sleep after going into his room, I simply placed the books I borrowed safely into a chest, and after checking on a sleeping frost and filling her bowl of water, I left my room toward the east gate.

"Hey, Adam," I said while waving to the guard at the gate.

"Where are you going today, Jon," Adam asked while chewing on some kind of bark to relieve boredom.

"I am just going to Old mark's house,"

"Well come back before Night falls. Or else Lord Stark will send a search party again," He said while smirking.

I groaned and walked a bit faster toward the snow-covered houses of Wintertown. About a month ago, I lost track of time while in the town, and by the time I came to the gates of Winterfell Lord Stark had already sent a search party. I was grounded for a week and had to give all my desserts to Robb. That was a dark week.

Wintertown felt emptier and emptier every time I walked through the houses. Every few days two or three families will leave to go back to their farms now that winter is over. The only time Wintertown is ever filled is at the height of winter when people leave their farms and gather here to hide from the harsh snows and cold winds. By the time summer arrives almost half the population here will be gone.

I passed by the somewhat bustling market while looking at different kinds of wares, mostly hunters selling pelts and meat or some housewives selling arrows they made while trapped inside their homes in winter, or blacksmiths repairing farming tools.

If it had been my previous world then it would have been very strange for a small kid to wander around by himself but here in this world, where it is the norm for a person at the age of 13 to marry and if they are tall enough then can also join the army. So normal rules don't apply in this world, children are forced to grow from a very early age.

About 15 minutes later I passed the densely packed houses and went into the woods on the outskirts of the town. I walked between trees and arrived at a wooden cabin that looked to have been repaired many times over the years. Outside the house was a man sitting on a tree stump and sharpening an already sharp knife and beside him was the carcass of a boar. He was around the age of fifty with his head full of white hair, his filled with wrinkles, and hands covered in scars, but he had the muscles and agility of a younger man.

"Hey Old man! What are we learning today," I said in a chipper voice while walking toward him.

He looked up for a moment and grunted before he went back to doing his sharpening. I rolled my eyes at his gruffness and sat on the nearby grass. Old Mark was a very famous hunter in wintertown known for hunting very large animals and was one of the few who can hunt for prey during full winter when all the animals go into hiding, and while the rest of the hunters return empty-handed, he always returns with a game in his hand.

After a lot of begging and pestering the old hunter had finally agreed to take me as an apprentice, to teach me everything he could about becoming a hunter. And considering he had become old in a profession where most people die young, he would have a fountain of knowledge to share. I've been coming here every other day for about two weeks.

He had already taught me two things, one is how to spot a trail and whether I should follow it or run for my life in the opposite direction. And the other one is how to walk through a forest silently and without leaving a trace. While it would take me years of practice to get good at those things, his instruction was really good and to the point.

He suddenly stood and without any kind of gesture toward me walked to the carcass and started talking while inserting his knife into the dead boar.

"The most important thing about skinning a boar is..."

He explained all the intricacies involved in the process and for an hour talked about the anatomy of the boar and which parts were most valuable and which parts were tastiest. Whenever I asked a question, he would either answer in small sentences or give me a practical demonstration. Halfway through skinning he gave me the knife and made me do the remaining process while critiquing me occasionally.

At the end of the process, I was covered in blood and guts while the half-ruined pelt and unevenly cut flesh lay there at my feet. He didn't say anything about wasting the boar only telling me that were done for the day.

I walked toward the bucket of water in the distance and after removing my clothes, started washing all the blood. When I was done and had worn back my clothes the door to the cabin slowly opened and a little girl with twin pigtails appeared while carrying a glass of water. She was about 6 years old and had brown hair and green eyes.

"Hello mister Jon," she said while shyly giving me the glass of water.

"Thank you Emy," I said gratefully while smiling at her. Even though she was 3 years older than me, I was almost as tall as her.

"You can bring the charcoal and wooden slate out now, Emy. Your grandfather won't be teaching me anything else today," I said and Emilia nodded with dimples on her face and ran back inside the cabin.

Oh, did I forget to mention it? My begging and persistence didn't work at all on the old hunter. And the only reason he even agreed to teach me anything was that I offered to teach his granddaughter Emilia how to read and write. Old mark's daughter and son-in-law had died during the previous winter, and as her only living relative left, Emilia came under his care.

For about an hour and a half, I taught Emilia about the verbs in the common tongue. She was a really smart kid and picked up things at a fast rate. I would have to find new things to teach her before long or else she would be done before Old mark had even taught me half of the things he knows.

I was almost late returning to Winterfell and had to endure teasing from the guards about how they were just about to send a search party for me.