32

Chapter 32: Winged Shadows

Notes:

32.

Winged Shadows

Winterfell

Maester Wolkan carefully and attentively checked Bran's vital signs as he lay dormant in his bed as if in a deep sleep. Maids and serfs moved about, stoking the fire to keep the room warm. Sansa sat in a chair beside the bed and watched her little brother with watery eyes, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. When she observed him this close, it struck her the realization of how young he still was. 

When the Maester had finished his thorough examinations, she raised her eyes to him and asked, "Well?" in an uncharacteristically timid voice.

"His breathing is weak but steady. His body is warm which means blood is flowing normally. It is his head that worries me."

"What do you mean, Maester?"

"His fall at an early age. It could've caused permanent damage in his brain, even these years after."

Sansa raised to her feet.

"I don't understand. Bran was sound. He did not lose his wits."

"I understand his behavior changed considerably..."

"Because he is the Three-Eyed Raven!" Sansa insisted desperately — she couldn't grasp the notion of losing another member of her family. Her words sounded foreign and silly deep in her head and the way those present gazed at her, between confused and pitifully, confirmed this. 

"Perhaps it's a temporary aftereffect, my Lady," Wolkan reassured. "His youth would help him to recover much sooner. The only thing we can do now, is pray to the mother for mercy."

Fuck the mother, Sansa thought displeased. Fuck the gods that never protected her family or her from damage. She grew bitter and jittery thinking that it was all happening again.

She jumped with a start when a touch on her shoulder startled her out of deep despondence. Arya was just right behind her. In her cloudiness, she's forgotten her presence. 

"Please, remain composed sister. Our brother has survived worst," she said with a soft gaze that was rare these days. 

"He's our little brother..." Sansa hiccup. She was taken by a feeling of powerlessness. Her one goal was to keep close and safe those she loved crumbling down.

"I know, I know. But we ought to have faith, regardless of..." Arya winced.

Sansa turned around and looked down at his fragile form resting as if no worry bothered him. He seemed at peace...

***

The Waterfalls 

A thin layer of sweat covered her skin, making her naked body glisten in the light of the crackling fire he had lit near where they lay among the shaggy skins and discarded clothes. She was the closest thing to a goddess he had ever seen, her silken-like silver hair spilling over her rounded face, her features soft and unruffled.

Jon wondered what dreams she was wandering in. 

His hand burned with the desire to touch her, but he restrained himself. Now that he had admitted to himself that he loved her, he was afraid of being carried away by that feeling. Because one thing Jon was sure of was that he was capable of going to unthinkable lengths to protect the ones he loved. And now Daenerys was not only his kin, she was the most powerful love he had ever known.

Jon closed his eyes and threw an arm behind his head for support as thoughts of the past flashed through his mind. Inevitably, they took him back to memories of Ygritte. He had loved her, truly. But now that love was fading to a faint resemblance to the true feeling. Almost a cruel joke of fate, he had taken her in a place like this, with the warmth of the hot springs masking the cold surroundings. Their bodies were young and barely used to it then. He had not grown a more experienced lover since then, but he had made love to Dany with a different impulse, feeling more like a man taking his wife than a young man having sex for the first time. And she had been so pliant with him, almost like two missing pieces joined forever. 

It was meant to be, he told himself. He was hers and would want always belong to her if she allowed it. Jon knew it was the worst time to come to this conclusion and that Daenerys had not yet expressed whether she reciprocated his affection, but he felt it and that was enough. Even if the time they had left was the only time granted to them by the larger forces above them.

Daenerys stirred beside him and began to speak in her sleep. Jon opened his eyes and watched her with a frown and parted lips. 

Jon moved to shake her gently. She blinked awake with a gasp.

"Did something happen?" she asked in a raspy voice. 

He smiled reassuringly.

"You looked like you were having a bad dream..." he explained. 

"Oh... I have a lot of those. You shouldn't have worried."

"I worry for you."

He meant to sound kind, but it went beyond that. It was an expression closer to a declaration of love than he had ever uttered before her. And from the look she gave him, Jon was sure she'd caught a hint of what was growing within him.

She propped herself up on her elbow and pulled him close to her, holding him behind his head to pull him down for a kiss. A kiss he gladly reciprocated. It wasn't long before they were entangled with each other again, lost in each other and their bodies as their souls became one as if they had never been parted.

***

Dany watched him preparing his horse for the return, with a smile upon her face that seemed impossible to get rid of. Her chest seemed small for the swollen heart that raced every time they exchanged a glance as if two young lovers who were just barely conscious of what they'd done. All the other things that mattered — even perhaps more — were left unattended for the moment.

Thoughts of her past life tried to lurk in the lightness of the present but she shuddered them away. It was not stubbornness. It was not a lack of carefulness. She just accepted the true of it: this Jon was not the Jon that betrayed her, that scorned her, that belittled her. She might have fallen twice with the same person but she'd fallen deeper with this Jon. She couldn't provide a reasoning enough clear for herself but that was the only certainty she could hold tight to.

At least to stop feeling defeated and rather less annoyed with herself and with everyone and everything around her.

The dragons landed after wandering around for game and returned ready to take her back wherever she decided to go. Daenerys pondered as she looked at Rhaegal staring at Jon longly. She knew that their bond was still there although weak because Jon couldn't remember. But her child was attracted by it and wanted to catch his attention. 

Dany spoke before she could think the words.

"What about mounting a dragon?"

Jon turned around with a confused stare. 

"What?"

Dany walked toward him.

"It'll take you a whole day by horse," she argued but in truth was a poor excuse. She should opt to be straightforward. "They know about your blood, Jon. Rhaegal more specifically."

He turned over to look at the three dragons, whose eyes were fixed on them both. 

"I know nothing about dragons," Jon replied skeptically. "Well," he cocked his head, "I know they'll burn me to ashes if I don't like them."

"So far you are doing fine," Dany reassured. 

"Am I?" he teased her.

He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her in for a kiss. It was so simple now that still scared her that he would suddenly become aware of it all again and toss her aside. 

He must've noticed she stiffened. 

"What's wrong?" asked Jon, cradling her face and gently stroking her cheekbone with his thumb. 

She shook her head. 

"I wish we could stay here a thousand years," she regretted, just like the last time. This time more emphatically, knowing what lay beyond their short-lived time here. 

"Here, where no one could find us," Jon agreed, his expression solemn and serious, lost in his thoughts. A glimpse crossed his features and for a moment Dany believed that he also was aware of what she meant. But then he tightened his grip and landed a kiss on her forehead, before resting his on hers.

***

Winterfell 

Gendry was in the middle of his work in the smithy when Arya trotted in. He quickly put on a shirt, feeling too aware of her when she blushed. She spoke fast and little clearly but basically, her brother Bran was having a problem with his health, and that meant that they would be facing a hard time without his sight to provide information on the Night King's track.

She trusted him with the building of a weapon, delivering a piece of parchment with a harsh design. Arya gave him one meaningful look before trudging back.

Davos walked right at that moment with a teasing look on his face. He knew what he was about with that face. 

"It's not what it seems," Gendry stated. 

"The young princess it's more than capable to discern what companies are convenient for her," the old man said. "She's fond of you."

"I don't think she'd like you hearing calling her princess. She just came to charge me with building her a weapon," Gendry showed him the drawing hardly drafted on the piece of crumpled paper. 

"A fighter she is," Davos observed. 

"Yes. She is," Gendry confirmed with a bright smile.

"Lady Lyanna Stark, her aunt, was said to be a fighter too. So indomitable that her spirits withered the day her betrothal to Robert was announced."

"And you know that from...?"

"Stannis," Davos replied shortly and bluntly, "He was not inclined to long conversations but had his moments of reminiscing about the past. He often said that Lady Lyanna was the most miserable at your father's side."

"I am of his seed but he never knew me nor did he address me so. I'm naught but a flea from Flea Bottom."

"As I am. We'll always be. But sometimes we must grasp the opportunity to change."

Gendry chuckled dismissively. He did not miss his intent.

"We are fighting undead people and monsters of ice, Davos. What do you want me to do? To claim before the Dragon Queen that I am the son of the man that killed her brother and stole her father's throne? And for what? For a place in a land that has nothing to do with me?"

"Whatever the odds, there will be a world when the war ends. If that world still belongs to the living, life must go on. and you are the last scion of House Baratheon," Davos pointed out gravely. "When people of the Stormlands learned that you are Robert's son, they'll have you back. Especially with that look of yours."

"What look?"

"Son, you are the spitting image of the late King when he was a warrior rather than a joyless glutton monarch."

"The Dragon Queen will have dragons eat me."

"She's far more merciful, lad. She'll have them burn you dead first."

Gendry glared at him.

Davos chuckled out a burst of hard raucous laughter. 

"Who knows?...perhaps in the future, we will see a similar match taking place, with a different outcome of course."

***

The Waterfalls 

Dany knew that Targaryens used saddles to mount their dragons for centuries, though she never made one for herself. She was pretty confident in her own skills and she was certain that Drogon would never drop her. Not if he could prevent it. 

Seeing Jon struggle to climb Rhaegal however, made her think it better. Not just for him — which was again a delightful sight to behold — but because she recalled falling from Drogon's back when he attempted to shake off the dead climbing up his body. There was not much chance then.

Finally, Jon sat astride on Rhaegal, clutching strongly on the spines of his neck. Daenerys swore she could hear Rhaegal purring. 

"Well?" she asked Jon.

He looked around between confused and uncomfortable. 

"Not quite difficult," he shuddered off. 

Dany chuckled. 

"Would you be able to guide us back to Winterfell from above?" she asked.

He blinked surprised. 

"I think so."

"Very well, Jon Snow. Take us back home," she said.

***

Winterfell 

Sansa and Arya lay on either side of Bran's sleeping body, their heads resting close to his shoulder. It looked like a picture from the past when they were just children. Sansa was sometimes haunted by the same irrational childhood fear of losing everything. At that moment, she just wished to be again a little girl, with Father or Mother around to comfort her. 

"He will be all right," Arya told her as if she had been reading her mind — which if so would not have surprised Sansa after all.

Sansa looked up into Bran's young face, as unperturbed as ever.

"Sometimes I forget he's so young," she said, barely a whisper.

Sometimes she even forgot that they were all little more than children, burdened with the duty of their legacy in a world that had torn them apart. 

"I'm sorry I said those words to you the other time," Arya said, just as cautious as she was as if they didn't want the walls to overhear their conversation. Sansa knew she was referring to the comparison she made.

It was not so far from that, she thought now.

"I know that to Jon and you, I am not to be trusted. I haven't done things right and I know it. But understand me, the only way to defeat our enemies is to stay ahead of their intentions."

Arya frowned.

"The only way to defeat our enemies is by uprooting stem and root. Not by deceit and trickery."

"It is not that easy. Not when you don't have...gifts."

Arya propped herself up on her elbow.

"Your wits are your gift, Sansa. Whatever Cersei or Littlefinger would have you believe—"

Arya was interrupted by a knock on the chamber door. 

"Come in," Sansa said, quickly rising to her feet and smoothing the skirt of her dress as if she had not even been lying down.

It was Maester Wolkan.

"I have come only to inform your Graces that a man of the Night's Watch has come to Winterfell by the king's road."

Arya and Sansa looked at each other in confusion.

"What is this man's name?"

"He claims to be Lord Samwell Tarly and to be a friend of Jon Snow."

***

Just like last time, Daenerys was surprised at how well and quickly Jon took to being a dragonrider. But that was to be expected, for the bond was intact, and Rhaegal was more than content to have him back, even if not completely.

Her worries over their future still clouded her mind, but she didn't let those pernicious notions boggle her tranquility completely. Dany didn't want to keep holding Jon guilty for the mistakes he made in a past life he didn't know about. Not when certainties she previously had now wavered in light of this new man she came to love again.

Careful there, she warned herself. 

They landed on the isolated fields by the North Gate of Winterfell, at a distance where the castle was conspicuous enough for both of them but where they could hardly be seen from there.

Jon took the opportunity to pull her back into his arms and kiss her as if they both knew that more pretensions and complications awaited them inside.

When they had trudged, side by side, toward the barbican, the great gates opened and on the other side, Ser Davos welcomed them with a stern countenance

Then Jon dropped her hand.

***

His heart seemed to want to leap out of his chest as he trotted through the halls of Winterfell toward Bran's chambers, Daenerys not far behind him. He lost his grip on her hand somewhere along the way, shocked by the news that his little brother was bedridden and unconscious. Again. Several times, however, he looked back, hoping that she would not falter and slip from his sight. 

When they arrived at Bran's chambers, Sansa, Arya, and his caretakers were already there. 

Sansa stood up and turned around with a face marred by indignation. 

"Where had you been?" she questioned Jon directly, swaying her gaze quickly to Dany and connecting the dots. 

Jon felt a pang of guilt but didn't let it go further. He walked into the bedchamber and focused his attention on Bran's sleeping form.

"What happened to him?"

"Podrick Payne was watching over him when he was on one of his...moments," Arya explained, a voice less judgmental but equally serious than Sansa's. "He started yelling, speaking nonsense. Then he fainted and never woke up again. We believe that his mind...there's something wrong with what lives in there."

"And what lives in there?" Daenerys questioned, stepping forward quietly. 

"The three-eyed-raven," said Arya. 

The room was cloaked by an uncomfortable silence. Jon leaned on his bed to touch Bran's features and see for himself that he was unconscious. 

Daenerys observed with a longing stare the siblings. Sansa sitting on the edge of the bed, Arya beside Bran, and Jon on the other side. The three of them gave her their back. 

She exchanged a quick glance with Lord Podrick when she noticed him staring at her. It all felt too uncomfortable. She didn't belong there. She was hit with the sensation that she was being cast aside once again, overtly telling her she would never form part of any of that. And when Jon dropped her hand, she came to the realization that things could have changed in a certain way but not their ultimate destiny. 

Daenerys took a determination. 

"Jon," she called him out, clear and resolved. The three of them looked around at Dany. "It's time for them to know the truth."

***

They walked to the heart of the Godswood in front of the heart tree, where Bran's absence felt all the more. Arya and Sansa followed right behind.

"Since when do you receive commands from her? What have you done?" Sansa questioned emphatically when they had taken their places under the copious canopy of weirdwood tree.

"Sansa, shut up, or I swear by the old and new gods I'll rip out your tongue," Arya shouted at her. Though his little sister seemed less rattled than Sansa, she was just as serious, and the way she looked at him left no doubt that she had her own grievances ready for Jon. "Where have you been, brother?" she asked. 

"I was at the waterfalls, where father, Robb, and I used to go hunting," he replied quietly. 

"And you were with Daenerys," Arya surmised.

"Yes."

There was no case in denying it, Jon thought. 

"Is there something going on between the two of you? Beyond the pretenses..."

"I love her," said Jon, short and clearly, without hesitation. He looked at both his sisters in the eye — if they would remain so after he revealed the truth.

Arya nodded, accepting it, while Sansa let out a disbelieving snort and looked away. 

"This cannot be," she rumbled. 

"It can. And it does," Jon said, "I know you feel that father, Robb, and I are fools and that there's only one way to face our enemies, Sansa, but that's what Cersei taught you, what Littlefinger taught you, but they are not people that care the slightest for you—"

"And do you?" Sansa cut him off, staring at him faithless, "Where were you when everything was happening? Where were you when our family bled and our enemies joined to slaughter us."

"I was duty-bound, in the Night's Watch. But now I am here. And I promise you both that while I live nothing and no one else would hurt you," Jon stated. 

Sansa shook her head adamantly. 

"You cannot afford that promise. Father couldn't. Robb couldn't. Father chose his honor Robb chose a foreign woman just as you are doing now!" she snapped at him, her finger pointing accusingly. 

"Daenerys means no harm to any of you."

"She wants me to kneel. Tell me how that doesn't hurt me if I do otherwise."

"Because she wouldn't."

"That's what you believe."

"That's what I know. Not just because I trust her with all my heart, which is not just the heart of a man in love but the heart of someone who can see it clearly when another heart is good," he declared firmly. 

"And from where this certainty comes from? She refused to help us..." Sansa insisted. 

"She refused to send her armies up here, she's still cared enough to promise protection to those who would accept. Without conditions."

"So this is what she sent you to talk to us. That she now governs over your actions."

"No, Sansa, I did not bow to her. I did not bend the knee."

"Have you proposed to her? Has she accepted?" Arya chipped in. 

"No," Jon said ruefully. It was not for lack of trying, for sure. 

"Just an affair! And you are naive enough to believe it something else!" Sansa cried out. 

"Sansa, stop!" Arya halted her.

A moment of silence. 

She turned around a look at Jon with serious eyes.

"Why are we here, Jon? What...what do you have to tell us?"

Jon's face contorted in pain. A stiffened sob escaped him.

"There's something you both need to know and I've waited too long. This was passed onto me the first night Bran returned and at first, I didn't know what to do with it. I was lost. You can't imagine how lost," he began. "I struggled with it — I fought against it, but the more I did so the more it haunted me." He scrapped his forehead with his knuckles. Arya and Sansa both stared at him with deep frowns. "When he returned from the war, Father brought a child with him, who he claimed to be his own bastard son. But he was actually hiding the newborn son of his recently deceased sister. The child of her union with Prince Rhaegar Targaryen. A union she entered willingly."

Sansa gasped, her eyes widening.

Arya stiffened.

Jon continued, "In her dying breath, Lyanna named this child Aegon Targaryen. But Lord Stark—" he faltered, "Father, he renamed him Jon. Jon Snow."

***

Eastwatch-by-the-Sea

"Those fuckers are coming!"

Tormund and his men, including the one-eyed, half-dead Beric Dondarrion jumped three steps at a time on their way up to the top of the Wall. They had been alerted by the three powerful blasts of the sentry's horn that the dead had crossed the edge of the Forest. Staying down was a death sentence, even if they had secured every bloody rat hole. 

The stiff, skeletonized, enslaved forms of the dead massed in front of the wall, first behind the thick mist emanating from the cold ground, moving at a slow but steady pace until they stood like an army lined up in front of their commanders. And speaking of the latter, they stood in front of their pawns on their horses just as rotten and revived as the others.

Tormund looked around for a specific figure but did not find him.

"Where is that fucker?"

***

Castle Black

Jaime pulled off the glove from his only hand and drew it closer to the flared-up flames of the brazier, eager to recover sensation in the warmth of fire. The cold was unforgiving and restless. Men who did not get accustomed to it, ran the risk to let their bodies numb to a tomb, their joints, and bones crisp with the dampness impregnating the air. It was clear that he would not survive. Not much longer at least. In the last moon turn he watched some of the men that came with his retinue succumb to the cold and embrace death as he wondered when would be his turn.

For a long time now, Jaime Lannister has grown apathetic to the notion of death, even befriended it. Cersei was dead. His children were dead. He got no family but Tyrion, and with things between them so acrid, not mending would make their broken bond a good reason to stay alive.

Tyrion, on the other hand, grew less complacent and more stubborn. It must be that instinct so ingrained in him — he had to beat death. Their father Tywin never counted Tyrion as a man of worth because of his inability to serve as a proper warrior, but circumstances prove him wrong for he'd always managed to survive at whatever cost. That, Jaime admired and despised equally.

Days went by like a long day that never ended. Castle Black was a dreary, silent place, and in that moment much less welcoming than in earlier times, as Tyrion recalled from his last visit. The ongoing threat of the dead kept most of them fear-ridden. Anger soon broke in among those less tolerant of Lord Commander Tollet's commands and on one occasion, they attempted to riot, and threaten to kill him and everybody else to escape south.

"A party of wretched like you wouldn't even get to Last Hearth in this condition; that is if you get past The Gift, and the wildlings don't hunt your arses on the way," warned the Lord Commander, without further disturbance, exhaustion weighing on his declined mood.

The wildlings were another matter. Now the North was full of them, everywhere in small villages. In a conversation with Lord Commander Tollett, Jaime heard the story of the conflict that preceded Jon Snow's arranged truce.

"Quite the character, this Jon Snow. Last time I saw him he was nothing but a prissy green boy of ten and six," Jaime recalled. Of Ned Stark's bastard, he barely remembered his face, a too dainty arrange of features for a Northman. Jaime supposed his nameless wench of a mother have a say on that.

"He is the greatest warrior in the Seven Kingdoms. A legend," Edd Tollett added, immeasurable admiration edging his voice.

"In my better days, with both my hands, I would have wanted to prove that wrong," Jaime said, something akin to amusement percolated the despondence tone.

"I've seen you on the training yard," he pointed his index finger at Jaime, "Even against that bunch of poltroons, I can see the fabled warrior all the seven kingdoms talked about."

Jaime chuckled softly and looked down.

A hint of unease expanded in his chest. Edd Tollett did not call him the kingslayer but he might well refer to it. It was not the deeds that made him renowned, but the great stain in his honor. Even there at the end of the world, that shadow followed him.

Before he could plunge into old sorrows the unmistakable sound of the sentry's horn blasted three times.

Notes:

Podrick alerts Dany to Bran's warning.

Dany and Jon must fly to the Wall.

Sansa makes a determination about her new discovery.

Daenerys and Jon do so as well.