Perseus Peverell092
Your first time is always over so quickly, isn't it?
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2022
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Disclaimer: I don't own ASOIAF and GOT, they are the properties of G.R. and HBO
I had been having the urge to write an SI fanfic ever since I read 'Fabric of Fate' by ACI100(totally recommend that one) and many others on this site. The only thing which stopped me was that I never could decide on which universe to land in. Well, Westeros seemed as good of a playground as any, so here we are.
For those interested in an early read, Chapter 2 is already available on my Discord, so hop on for an early read. I hope to see you guys there!
A very big thanks to Bakkughan( The author of 12 steps), Barbara, TDTLP, and LordLexx for their help as editors.
I died
or at least, that's what I think happened to me when a buffalo knocked my bicycle sidewards, and with a wave of heat across my face, everything went black.
Of all the ways I had envisioned dying, getting run over by a vehicle because a fucking animal hit my bicycle on the way to school wasn't anywhere on the list.
Now all I could think was of the events which would have followed my death. Were my parents crying over my run-over and likely unrecognizable body? Were my friends sad over my passing? Was my girlfriend of five months going to shed tears? To be honest, I wasn't sure about the last one.
I lost all concept of time in the void I found myself in, my mind—or was it, my soul?—repeating everything I remembered from my lost life in a bid to remove the monotonous existence in the nothingness surrounding me.
'My name is Tushar Jaju, I am 14 years old. I died due to a buffalo running over the roads. My favorite subjects are Science and English. I wanted to become a Scientist or an Army Personnel. I watched porn for the first time last night.'
On and on I went, reciting every memory I remembered, from the head injury I suffered way back when I was four years old to the details of the shirt my father had worn the morning I died. The names of animals I researched on Wikipedia and Animal Planet, the Scientific Inventions I watched on Discovery, the Basic Sciences I learned in school along with the world history that came with it.
I was sure I had gone mad with the everlasting silence around me when I suddenly spotted something in front of me. It was a speck of light that grew steadily larger over the time I watched it. I felt walls tighten around me, the soft surfaces conforming to my bod-
'wait, what?'
Numbness spread through my mind, despite the fact that now I could actually feel the body I was in. The body I was about to be born in…
'Fuck me!'
The walls—the womb of my new mother!—contracted again, pushing me out towards the widened speck of light, or as I now realized it to be,my mother's cervix. I came out of her womb, my clogged airways causing me to coug and cry in equal measure before I was swaddled in something warm. In the background, I could hear a woman screaming, no doubt my mother in this life. As for why she was still screaming after she had already popped me out, I had no idea.
It was shameful, having my baby body wiped clean by unfamiliar hands, having my cheeks patted—and not the ones on my face!
I had stopped crying by then, the body of a seven minutes old baby occupied by a fourteen-year-old boy. Now that I was no longer wailing and crying, I was able to make out my surroundings. The walls were made of stone, and there were torches affixed to them. How I was able to use the eyes despite being just a newborn was anyone's guess.
"Push my lady! Just push a little more, I can almost see the little princess!" A voice exclaimed. I turned around the best I could in the arms that held me and the person lifted me a little higher, a small chuckle coming from above me.
"Looks like the King is curious about his sibling" a different voice said, though my attention was solely upon my mother and the nurse by her legs.
She was beautiful. Her face was slightly long, but the softer cheekbones and the small nose made it look wonderful. I couldn't see her eyes from where I was, but her hair was somewhere between brown and black depending upon the angle at which the light struck it. Before I could think anything else, the nurse by her bed came up from between her legs with a baby. The small, pink thing in her arms was wailing loudly and I watched enraptured as she cut off the umbilical cord with a... dagger?
'What kind of fucked up medieval hospital is this?'
"A princess my lady!" The nurse exclaimed before she cleaned the crying baby and then passed her to my mother, the person holding me doing the same. She held us in one arm each, her grey eyes peering at us with love and warmth. She turned towards someone and motioned with her head and a man came to help her sit up properly.
"Daeron Targaryen" She whispered, her finger stroking down my cheek. I leaned into her finger causing her to give a laugh—my brain barely processing what was being said around me as I subconsciously leaned into her hand—then, she coughed and turned towards my sister, who immediately quietened under her gaze and my mother whispered her name softly.
"Visenya Targaryen"
Before anything else could happen a voice shouted "Riders Incoming! Stark banners!"
The obvious sound of swords being unsheathed in my vicinity caused me to tense before my mother said "Arthur...he is my brother". Her voice was pleading, weak, and above all, fainter than what my mother had when my brother had been born in my last life.
I turned to see who this Arthur was, my quickly awakening mind not liking the things that had happened since I was born, now that I was no longer trying to dive in my mother's warmth.
'Arthur, Prince, Princess, Targaryen, Stark banner….motherfucker, I am in Westeros, born as Jon Snow.'
"And Daeron is my King, princess Lyanna" that was all Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning and a fucking Kingsguard said before he went out, his footsteps followed by another set, probably the Black Bat or the White Bull.
If I was lucky, my uncle and probably my most disliked character of the story after Ramsay Bolton and Olenna Tyrell will die or at least be sent packing by the best swordsmen in the realm. Considering Lyanna Targaryen—she was called a princess by Arthur—died on this day, I didn't want to consider the alternative.
"My little dragon-wolf, you are the heir to the throne, not that Baratheon who sits on the throne of your family, of your father!" I felt the anger in my mother's voice, her grey eyes gazing past the walls of our room. Soon the sounds of swords clashing against each other became audible from downstairs.
"I love you both my little stars, more than anything else. But I know I am not going to be here for long. I wanted to watch you grow with Rhaenys and Aegon by your side, I wanted to live with Rhaegar and Elia but…" She coughed heavily and I saw her bite her lip tightly for a moment before she spoke haltingly.
"Take care of Visenya, Daeron. Avenge Aegon, Rhaenys, and Elia when you take the throne. Make the killers of our family suffer. Promise me Daeron, Pro-" She devolved into a fit of coughs once again and my chest tightened with fear and sadness, knowing what was about to happen but utterly powerless to change it.
Soon all the sounds of fighting stopped and rushed footsteps sounded from out the room.
"Lyanna!" someon-my uncle Eddard 'Ned' Stark gasped as he ran in. From my position, I could see him clearly, his armor slightly stained with fresh blood and a white greatsword in its hands. As I saw my mother die with me and Visenya in her arms with my Uncle swearing to protect us from Robert, all I could look at was the lifeless face of my mother, her grey eyes staring off into space.
Wylla, the woman who was Lyanna's caretaker and the one who delivered us was taken with my mother's and Arthur's body with us to Starfall. I saw Ashara Dayne there, and if it weren't for the fact I was biologically incapable of it, I am sure I would have been besotted with her from the first glance, such was her beauty.
Howland Reed kept us with him most of the time, clearly bewitched by the natural charm all babes possessed. Visenya seemed to like him if her babbling and lack of fussing were any indications. The Northerners were sweating buckets throughout the day, their bodies and possibly genes not at all made for the heat in here. The Dornish heat wasn't that unpleasant to me, having lived in Northern India most of my life. I was used to 45 degrees centigrade and above temperatures. It was around the third night of our departure from the Tower of Joy that Howland Reed asked something which broke me from my self-disgust after shitting all over the blankets I was in. As Wylla cleaned and changed me I heard him ask
"What are you going to do about their claim to the Iron Throne?"
The sound of a stone being moved against a sword stopped before Uncle Eddard said "What claim? The Targaryen dynasty is over. Robert Baratheon is the king now and Baratheons will be kings after him."
Before I could articulate what exactly I felt about my Uncle, Howland stood up and said
"Of course! It is always Robert Baratheon this, Robert Baratheon that with you isn't it? Why don't you go and change your name to Baratheon too! I am sure Benjen would be far better at taking care of his family than you ever were."
Wylla just gasped and moved a little away as Howland handed Visenya to her, my blond-haired sister suddenly silent as if sensing the tension in the air.
"Howland," Uncle Eddard said, his voice low like when my father's wa-, had been when he had been warning me against something in the old world. My sudden existential crisis and clarity of my situation aside, I heard Howland scoff before he moved a little away, "Lyanna told you she didn't want to marry Robert, but you didn't want to hear a word against your charming prince. The whole war he sang vows of loving Lyanna and killing Rhaegar, but tell me one night when he wasn't without at least two whores. You and I both heard Rhaegar die with Lyanna's and Princess Elia's name on his lips, tell me that is the action of the man who had supposedly raped Lyanna, a woman who was as good at the sword as Brandon was!"
"Robert will be a good king for the kingdom! With Jon Arryn as his Hand, he will be greater than any king Westeros has ever seen, even better than Jaehaerys and Daeron!"
Howland scoffed again before he turned around to look at the man I was to call my uncle, "I think Robert has got his cock too far up your ass for it to be dislodged and for you to see sense. What are you going to do with the King and the Princess now, hand them over to Tywin Lannister and Robert Baratheon? High as Honor my ass!" Howland spat at Eddard's feet and glared at him.
"No" he responded after a few moments. "I will take them both with me to Winterfell and raise them as my bastards."
'FUCK YOU!' I thought with all my might as Howland and Eddard Stark once again descended into an argument. To be honest, I wasn't problemed by the whole 'raised as a bastard' thing. Sure my blood was supporting the killer of my father and the reason for my family's destruction over me and my sister, but shitty uncles were a norm from my old life.
The thing which caused me to rage was the upbringing Visenya would have. A few days old as I was, I still loved my little sister as much as I had loved my brother when I was in my old world. Probably more considering that we were twins this time around—I shuddered for a moment after remembering one set of twins who caused so much chaos because of their love that Klarion would have been proud of them.
"And how will you explain the blond hair and the violet eyes Princess Visenya has? Tywin Lannister and Jon Arryn will realize what had happened straight away." Howland asked after he realized it was futile butting heads with his Lord Paramount.
"Ashara Dayne" was the only answer he and I got for the query in both of our minds.
By the time we came to Winterfell almost 9 months later after the coronation of Robert Baratheon, his wedding with Cersei Lannister, and of course getting harassed by Hoster Tully in Riverrun for 'presence of such blights upon the honor of Catelyn Stark will not be permitted under the Seven-who-are-one', Visenya was already crawling and able to sit upright while I was doing the same at eight months of age.
When we had been in King's Landing, I had seen Tywin Lannister, Jon Arryn and even Jaime Lannister look at Visenya with suspicion but a single proclamation from my uncle made all of that scrutiny go away. The weather had grown steadily colder after we left King's Landing as we traveled further North, the forests turning more green in Riverrun and then more sparse when we entered the North properly.
Walder Frey had tried getting Visenya betrothed to one of his grandsons—and how I had wished that I could snap his bones one by one for that—but apparently, the threat of the Northern Army lurking just around the Twins was enough for the fossil to let us go. Our much-anticipated arrival at Winterfell was a grand affair. Everyone from Wintertown and the castle itself had come out to greet the Lord of the castle, coming home victorious from a war against tyrants.
People were cheering and showering blessings upon the Lord and from my place in Wylla's hands, I could see a very beautiful redhead presenting an auburn-haired boy to my supposed father. All was well and good until Wylla moved forwards and Eddard Stark said,
"These are my natural-born children, Jon Snow and Lyanna Snow."
It wasn't the first time I had wished to murder Eddard Stark, and it certainly wasn't going to be the last time. Because the blue eyes trained upon me and my baby sister didn't promise the love and security I had felt with both of my mothers. It was pure and unconditional rage, sprinkled with a healthy dose of hate and garnished with a series of gasps from the crowd on onlookers.
I responded the only way I could, I curled in my other fingers the best I could to leave a single one standing.
Visenya and I were turning six tonight but we were in our rooms, locked inside on the orders of Lady Stark. In the books, the Greyjoy rebellion had happened 5 years after Robert's Usurpation and in the shows, it had happened three years after the books due to changes in dates and timelines.
Here it happened close to six years after the change in regime and Lord Stark was now waging war upon the Reavers with the rest of the Northern Lords.
Today, Sansa had been crawling in the Great Hall with her caretaker trailing after her where Visenya had been eating at the time. Our little cousin had decided to approach my sister and sat beside her despite her caretaker's attempts to the contrary. Visenya had picked up Sansa after the little girl had tried crawling upon her lap and played with her the whole time until Catelyn Stark came in and slapped my sister hard enough to draw blood from a split lip. Her reasoning, a bastard should not be with their highborn siblings and Lyanna should stop any thoughts of killing her precious baby with a butter knife. Robb had come to see if she was okay before he had gone to Maester Luwin for his lessons.
It hurt me more than I could admit to seeing my sister just look off into space, her usually shining violet eyes looking red from the little crying she had done after the slap. I had cleaned her face after she had come to our rooms, hands clenched into fists at the small cut in her bottom lip and I hugged her softly, my fingers lacing through her silky silver-white hair.
"Why did father leave us here? We would have been better off living with him on the battlefield," she said, her face buried in my shirt as she sniffled. I just kept on running my fingers through her hair, calming her down before she drifted off to sleep in my arms. Mowing her down to the bed, I raised the covers to her chin and moved out of the room by the window situated over our bed. Dropping into the small grove behind our rooms, I moved through the corridors and walked towards the Godswood, the door thankfully open for any worshippers at this time of the day.
After a few moments, I came upon the Heart Tree of Winterfell, a huge Weirwood Tree with stark white trunk and branches and crimson leaves, the face on the tree crying tears of red sap. I stepped into the pool before the tree, the black water warm due to the hot springs beneath the whole forest and the lands around it. Taking a deep breath I dunked my head inside the water, feeling my long hair float upwards as I opened my eyes to the darkness around me.
It calmed me somewhat, the Weirwood, the forest, the water, the inky blackness. After about 30 seconds of holding my breath, I came up for air and walked out the pool, the water exposed to the cold around me going from warm to chilled instantly. I sat before the weirwood, my eyes closing of their own accord as I meditated, my ears filled with the calming silence and the sound of my own heartbeat.
I thought of my sister, her eyes and cheeks wet with tears after almost every altercation with Lady Stark. I thought of my mother and father, their romance and life destroyed over the actions of overreaching ambitious and mad assholes like my grandfathers, like Olenna Tyrell and Tywin Lannister.
I felt my anger grow as I thought of my uncle and his downright furious gaze when a servant had one day compared Visenya to the Targaryens of the old. He could have been angry over the fact that Visenya's safety might be compromised, but the fact that he had snarled in the servant's face that 'No child of mine will be compared to the tyrants and rapists that I and King Robert Baratheon deposed' cemented in my mind what he thought for us.
My anger grew over the events of yesterday when Robb had asked his mother why he wasn't as smart as me since I was always able to learn and answer the Maester's questions perfectly.
I took no pride in upstaging a six-year-old, but I also wasn't going to dumb myself down and pretend that I was learning my letters and numbers for the first time. Out of the three eldest of Eddard Stark's children, it was I who walked first, who talked first and who ran first. A point of pride for my sister and a point of humiliation for Catelyn Stark. I knew from Maester Luwin's lesson that Rhaegar Targaryen had also been a learned man and said to have been born with a book in his hands—something which irked my uncle to no end. We were about to start practicing in the yard soon enough with lightweight wooden blades with the Master-at-arms Rodrik Cassel. However, I had started doing light practice with a wooden stick almost a year ago.
As I sat there on the roots of the Weirwood, I contemplated upon the two major problems I had in my life. The first was about when I should tell Visenya the truth about our parentage, though I was sure that day was about to come soon whether I liked it or not—my dreams showing more dragons and more fire than I usually saw after reading Eragon or ASOIAF.
My second thought was on the last words my mother had said to me. Lyanna Stark had been my mother for less than ten minutes, but she had made me love her in those ten minutes, her smile and eyes telling me she felt the same.
Even now after so much time, I remembered her warm grey eyes going as cold as the North itself when she asked me to avenge my murdered siblings, my stepmother, and our whole family. My heartbeat sped up in my fury as the memories repeated themselves continuously in a cycle. My mother naming us, my mother dying, my uncle arguing with the Crannogman, Catelyn Stark disparaging us at every moment she could, my uncle's distant presence and utter hatred of anything to do with our family, and on and on it went until I felt something snap inside me.
A crackling sound filled my ears, something warm spreading across my right hand while on the left I felt a cold the likes of which I rarely felt despite practically living in the snow.
I opened my eyes and looked down, almost jumping out of reflex at the sight which greeted me. Red and black fire licked at my fingers as it grew and crawled upwards my arm, the heat feeling pleasant like the embrace of my sister instead of the torturous agony it should have been.
On my other hand, blue-white ice spread outward from my palm, the barely visible icicles reaching upwards to form spikes as it covered my forearm completely. Rather than the frostbite, I only felt a coolness in my left hand, my eyes tracking the clearly magical ice with great interest before a phrase came to my mind.
I chuckled as I stood up, the fire and ice snuffing out and breaking apart respectively as I lost my concentration upon it and my feelings. Looking at the Weirwood in front of me, I hoped Brynden Rivers was seeing this as I bowed to the face, my stomach doing 50 shades of frontflips. Sending a prayer to the Old Gods and the fourteen flames of my father's home, I felt a wind blow through the trees around me, the air cold and warm at the same time despite the heavy snows around us.
"A song of Ice and Fire indeed," I said as I walked back to the castle, only to faint halfway there with a sudden wave of exhaustion.
I had been having the urge to write an SI fanfic ever since I read 'Fabric of Fate' by ACI100(totally recommend that one) and many others on this site. The only thing which stopped me was that I never could decide on which universe to land in. Well, Westeros seemed as good of a playground as any, so here we are.
For those interested in an early read, Chapter 2 is already available on my Discord, so hop on for an early read. I hope to see you guys there!
A very big thanks to Bakkughan( The author of 12 steps), Barbara, TDTLP, and LordLexx for their help as editors.
I died
or at least, that's what I think happened to me when a buffalo knocked my bicycle sidewards, and with a wave of heat across my face, everything went black.
Of all the ways I had envisioned dying, getting run over by a vehicle because a fucking animal hit my bicycle on the way to school wasn't anywhere on the list.
Now all I could think was of the events which would have followed my death. Were my parents crying over my run-over and likely unrecognizable body? Were my friends sad over my passing? Was my girlfriend of five months going to shed tears? To be honest, I wasn't sure about the last one.
I lost all concept of time in the void I found myself in, my mind—or was it, my soul?—repeating everything I remembered from my lost life in a bid to remove the monotonous existence in the nothingness surrounding me.
'My name is Tushar Jaju, I am 14 years old. I died due to a buffalo running over the roads. My favorite subjects are Science and English. I wanted to become a Scientist or an Army Personnel. I watched porn for the first time last night.'
On and on I went, reciting every memory I remembered, from the head injury I suffered way back when I was four years old to the details of the shirt my father had worn the morning I died. The names of animals I researched on Wikipedia and Animal Planet, the Scientific Inventions I watched on Discovery, the Basic Sciences I learned in school along with the world history that came with it.
I was sure I had gone mad with the everlasting silence around me when I suddenly spotted something in front of me. It was a speck of light that grew steadily larger over the time I watched it. I felt walls tighten around me, the soft surfaces conforming to my bod-
'wait, what?'
Numbness spread through my mind, despite the fact that now I could actually feel the body I was in. The body I was about to be born in…
'Fuck me!'
The walls—the womb of my new mother!—contracted again, pushing me out towards the widened speck of light, or as I now realized it to be,my mother's cervix. I came out of her womb, my clogged airways causing me to coug and cry in equal measure before I was swaddled in something warm. In the background, I could hear a woman screaming, no doubt my mother in this life. As for why she was still screaming after she had already popped me out, I had no idea.
It was shameful, having my baby body wiped clean by unfamiliar hands, having my cheeks patted—and not the ones on my face!
I had stopped crying by then, the body of a seven minutes old baby occupied by a fourteen-year-old boy. Now that I was no longer wailing and crying, I was able to make out my surroundings. The walls were made of stone, and there were torches affixed to them. How I was able to use the eyes despite being just a newborn was anyone's guess.
"Push my lady! Just push a little more, I can almost see the little princess!" A voice exclaimed. I turned around the best I could in the arms that held me and the person lifted me a little higher, a small chuckle coming from above me.
"Looks like the King is curious about his sibling" a different voice said, though my attention was solely upon my mother and the nurse by her legs.
She was beautiful. Her face was slightly long, but the softer cheekbones and the small nose made it look wonderful. I couldn't see her eyes from where I was, but her hair was somewhere between brown and black depending upon the angle at which the light struck it. Before I could think anything else, the nurse by her bed came up from between her legs with a baby. The small, pink thing in her arms was wailing loudly and I watched enraptured as she cut off the umbilical cord with a... dagger?
'What kind of fucked up medieval hospital is this?'
"A princess my lady!" The nurse exclaimed before she cleaned the crying baby and then passed her to my mother, the person holding me doing the same. She held us in one arm each, her grey eyes peering at us with love and warmth. She turned towards someone and motioned with her head and a man came to help her sit up properly.
"Daeron Targaryen" She whispered, her finger stroking down my cheek. I leaned into her finger causing her to give a laugh—my brain barely processing what was being said around me as I subconsciously leaned into her hand—then, she coughed and turned towards my sister, who immediately quietened under her gaze and my mother whispered her name softly.
"Visenya Targaryen"
Before anything else could happen a voice shouted "Riders Incoming! Stark banners!"
The obvious sound of swords being unsheathed in my vicinity caused me to tense before my mother said "Arthur...he is my brother". Her voice was pleading, weak, and above all, fainter than what my mother had when my brother had been born in my last life.
I turned to see who this Arthur was, my quickly awakening mind not liking the things that had happened since I was born, now that I was no longer trying to dive in my mother's warmth.
'Arthur, Prince, Princess, Targaryen, Stark banner….motherfucker, I am in Westeros, born as Jon Snow.'
"And Daeron is my King, princess Lyanna" that was all Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning and a fucking Kingsguard said before he went out, his footsteps followed by another set, probably the Black Bat or the White Bull.
If I was lucky, my uncle and probably my most disliked character of the story after Ramsay Bolton and Olenna Tyrell will die or at least be sent packing by the best swordsmen in the realm. Considering Lyanna Targaryen—she was called a princess by Arthur—died on this day, I didn't want to consider the alternative.
"My little dragon-wolf, you are the heir to the throne, not that Baratheon who sits on the throne of your family, of your father!" I felt the anger in my mother's voice, her grey eyes gazing past the walls of our room. Soon the sounds of swords clashing against each other became audible from downstairs.
"I love you both my little stars, more than anything else. But I know I am not going to be here for long. I wanted to watch you grow with Rhaenys and Aegon by your side, I wanted to live with Rhaegar and Elia but…" She coughed heavily and I saw her bite her lip tightly for a moment before she spoke haltingly.
"Take care of Visenya, Daeron. Avenge Aegon, Rhaenys, and Elia when you take the throne. Make the killers of our family suffer. Promise me Daeron, Pro-" She devolved into a fit of coughs once again and my chest tightened with fear and sadness, knowing what was about to happen but utterly powerless to change it.
Soon all the sounds of fighting stopped and rushed footsteps sounded from out the room.
"Lyanna!" someon-my uncle Eddard 'Ned' Stark gasped as he ran in. From my position, I could see him clearly, his armor slightly stained with fresh blood and a white greatsword in its hands. As I saw my mother die with me and Visenya in her arms with my Uncle swearing to protect us from Robert, all I could look at was the lifeless face of my mother, her grey eyes staring off into space.
Wylla, the woman who was Lyanna's caretaker and the one who delivered us was taken with my mother's and Arthur's body with us to Starfall. I saw Ashara Dayne there, and if it weren't for the fact I was biologically incapable of it, I am sure I would have been besotted with her from the first glance, such was her beauty.
Howland Reed kept us with him most of the time, clearly bewitched by the natural charm all babes possessed. Visenya seemed to like him if her babbling and lack of fussing were any indications. The Northerners were sweating buckets throughout the day, their bodies and possibly genes not at all made for the heat in here. The Dornish heat wasn't that unpleasant to me, having lived in Northern India most of my life. I was used to 45 degrees centigrade and above temperatures. It was around the third night of our departure from the Tower of Joy that Howland Reed asked something which broke me from my self-disgust after shitting all over the blankets I was in. As Wylla cleaned and changed me I heard him ask
"What are you going to do about their claim to the Iron Throne?"
The sound of a stone being moved against a sword stopped before Uncle Eddard said "What claim? The Targaryen dynasty is over. Robert Baratheon is the king now and Baratheons will be kings after him."
Before I could articulate what exactly I felt about my Uncle, Howland stood up and said
"Of course! It is always Robert Baratheon this, Robert Baratheon that with you isn't it? Why don't you go and change your name to Baratheon too! I am sure Benjen would be far better at taking care of his family than you ever were."
Wylla just gasped and moved a little away as Howland handed Visenya to her, my blond-haired sister suddenly silent as if sensing the tension in the air.
"Howland," Uncle Eddard said, his voice low like when my father's wa-, had been when he had been warning me against something in the old world. My sudden existential crisis and clarity of my situation aside, I heard Howland scoff before he moved a little away, "Lyanna told you she didn't want to marry Robert, but you didn't want to hear a word against your charming prince. The whole war he sang vows of loving Lyanna and killing Rhaegar, but tell me one night when he wasn't without at least two whores. You and I both heard Rhaegar die with Lyanna's and Princess Elia's name on his lips, tell me that is the action of the man who had supposedly raped Lyanna, a woman who was as good at the sword as Brandon was!"
"Robert will be a good king for the kingdom! With Jon Arryn as his Hand, he will be greater than any king Westeros has ever seen, even better than Jaehaerys and Daeron!"
Howland scoffed again before he turned around to look at the man I was to call my uncle, "I think Robert has got his cock too far up your ass for it to be dislodged and for you to see sense. What are you going to do with the King and the Princess now, hand them over to Tywin Lannister and Robert Baratheon? High as Honor my ass!" Howland spat at Eddard's feet and glared at him.
"No" he responded after a few moments. "I will take them both with me to Winterfell and raise them as my bastards."
'FUCK YOU!' I thought with all my might as Howland and Eddard Stark once again descended into an argument. To be honest, I wasn't problemed by the whole 'raised as a bastard' thing. Sure my blood was supporting the killer of my father and the reason for my family's destruction over me and my sister, but shitty uncles were a norm from my old life.
The thing which caused me to rage was the upbringing Visenya would have. A few days old as I was, I still loved my little sister as much as I had loved my brother when I was in my old world. Probably more considering that we were twins this time around—I shuddered for a moment after remembering one set of twins who caused so much chaos because of their love that Klarion would have been proud of them.
"And how will you explain the blond hair and the violet eyes Princess Visenya has? Tywin Lannister and Jon Arryn will realize what had happened straight away." Howland asked after he realized it was futile butting heads with his Lord Paramount.
"Ashara Dayne" was the only answer he and I got for the query in both of our minds.
By the time we came to Winterfell almost 9 months later after the coronation of Robert Baratheon, his wedding with Cersei Lannister, and of course getting harassed by Hoster Tully in Riverrun for 'presence of such blights upon the honor of Catelyn Stark will not be permitted under the Seven-who-are-one', Visenya was already crawling and able to sit upright while I was doing the same at eight months of age.
When we had been in King's Landing, I had seen Tywin Lannister, Jon Arryn and even Jaime Lannister look at Visenya with suspicion but a single proclamation from my uncle made all of that scrutiny go away. The weather had grown steadily colder after we left King's Landing as we traveled further North, the forests turning more green in Riverrun and then more sparse when we entered the North properly.
Walder Frey had tried getting Visenya betrothed to one of his grandsons—and how I had wished that I could snap his bones one by one for that—but apparently, the threat of the Northern Army lurking just around the Twins was enough for the fossil to let us go. Our much-anticipated arrival at Winterfell was a grand affair. Everyone from Wintertown and the castle itself had come out to greet the Lord of the castle, coming home victorious from a war against tyrants.
People were cheering and showering blessings upon the Lord and from my place in Wylla's hands, I could see a very beautiful redhead presenting an auburn-haired boy to my supposed father. All was well and good until Wylla moved forwards and Eddard Stark said,
"These are my natural-born children, Jon Snow and Lyanna Snow."
It wasn't the first time I had wished to murder Eddard Stark, and it certainly wasn't going to be the last time. Because the blue eyes trained upon me and my baby sister didn't promise the love and security I had felt with both of my mothers. It was pure and unconditional rage, sprinkled with a healthy dose of hate and garnished with a series of gasps from the crowd on onlookers.
I responded the only way I could, I curled in my other fingers the best I could to leave a single one standing.
Visenya and I were turning six tonight but we were in our rooms, locked inside on the orders of Lady Stark. In the books, the Greyjoy rebellion had happened 5 years after Robert's Usurpation and in the shows, it had happened three years after the books due to changes in dates and timelines.
Here it happened close to six years after the change in regime and Lord Stark was now waging war upon the Reavers with the rest of the Northern Lords.
Today, Sansa had been crawling in the Great Hall with her caretaker trailing after her where Visenya had been eating at the time. Our little cousin had decided to approach my sister and sat beside her despite her caretaker's attempts to the contrary. Visenya had picked up Sansa after the little girl had tried crawling upon her lap and played with her the whole time until Catelyn Stark came in and slapped my sister hard enough to draw blood from a split lip. Her reasoning, a bastard should not be with their highborn siblings and Lyanna should stop any thoughts of killing her precious baby with a butter knife. Robb had come to see if she was okay before he had gone to Maester Luwin for his lessons.
It hurt me more than I could admit to seeing my sister just look off into space, her usually shining violet eyes looking red from the little crying she had done after the slap. I had cleaned her face after she had come to our rooms, hands clenched into fists at the small cut in her bottom lip and I hugged her softly, my fingers lacing through her silky silver-white hair.
"Why did father leave us here? We would have been better off living with him on the battlefield," she said, her face buried in my shirt as she sniffled. I just kept on running my fingers through her hair, calming her down before she drifted off to sleep in my arms. Mowing her down to the bed, I raised the covers to her chin and moved out of the room by the window situated over our bed. Dropping into the small grove behind our rooms, I moved through the corridors and walked towards the Godswood, the door thankfully open for any worshippers at this time of the day.
After a few moments, I came upon the Heart Tree of Winterfell, a huge Weirwood Tree with stark white trunk and branches and crimson leaves, the face on the tree crying tears of red sap. I stepped into the pool before the tree, the black water warm due to the hot springs beneath the whole forest and the lands around it. Taking a deep breath I dunked my head inside the water, feeling my long hair float upwards as I opened my eyes to the darkness around me.
It calmed me somewhat, the Weirwood, the forest, the water, the inky blackness. After about 30 seconds of holding my breath, I came up for air and walked out the pool, the water exposed to the cold around me going from warm to chilled instantly. I sat before the weirwood, my eyes closing of their own accord as I meditated, my ears filled with the calming silence and the sound of my own heartbeat.
I thought of my sister, her eyes and cheeks wet with tears after almost every altercation with Lady Stark. I thought of my mother and father, their romance and life destroyed over the actions of overreaching ambitious and mad assholes like my grandfathers, like Olenna Tyrell and Tywin Lannister.
I felt my anger grow as I thought of my uncle and his downright furious gaze when a servant had one day compared Visenya to the Targaryens of the old. He could have been angry over the fact that Visenya's safety might be compromised, but the fact that he had snarled in the servant's face that 'No child of mine will be compared to the tyrants and rapists that I and King Robert Baratheon deposed' cemented in my mind what he thought for us.
My anger grew over the events of yesterday when Robb had asked his mother why he wasn't as smart as me since I was always able to learn and answer the Maester's questions perfectly.
I took no pride in upstaging a six-year-old, but I also wasn't going to dumb myself down and pretend that I was learning my letters and numbers for the first time. Out of the three eldest of Eddard Stark's children, it was I who walked first, who talked first and who ran first. A point of pride for my sister and a point of humiliation for Catelyn Stark. I knew from Maester Luwin's lesson that Rhaegar Targaryen had also been a learned man and said to have been born with a book in his hands—something which irked my uncle to no end. We were about to start practicing in the yard soon enough with lightweight wooden blades with the Master-at-arms Rodrik Cassel. However, I had started doing light practice with a wooden stick almost a year ago.
As I sat there on the roots of the Weirwood, I contemplated upon the two major problems I had in my life. The first was about when I should tell Visenya the truth about our parentage, though I was sure that day was about to come soon whether I liked it or not—my dreams showing more dragons and more fire than I usually saw after reading Eragon or ASOIAF.
My second thought was on the last words my mother had said to me. Lyanna Stark had been my mother for less than ten minutes, but she had made me love her in those ten minutes, her smile and eyes telling me she felt the same.
Even now after so much time, I remembered her warm grey eyes going as cold as the North itself when she asked me to avenge my murdered siblings, my stepmother, and our whole family. My heartbeat sped up in my fury as the memories repeated themselves continuously in a cycle. My mother naming us, my mother dying, my uncle arguing with the Crannogman, Catelyn Stark disparaging us at every moment she could, my uncle's distant presence and utter hatred of anything to do with our family, and on and on it went until I felt something snap inside me.
A crackling sound filled my ears, something warm spreading across my right hand while on the left I felt a cold the likes of which I rarely felt despite practically living in the snow.
I opened my eyes and looked down, almost jumping out of reflex at the sight which greeted me. Red and black fire licked at my fingers as it grew and crawled upwards my arm, the heat feeling pleasant like the embrace of my sister instead of the torturous agony it should have been.
On my other hand, blue-white ice spread outward from my palm, the barely visible icicles reaching upwards to form spikes as it covered my forearm completely. Rather than the frostbite, I only felt a coolness in my left hand, my eyes tracking the clearly magical ice with great interest before a phrase came to my mind.
I chuckled as I stood up, the fire and ice snuffing out and breaking apart respectively as I lost my concentration upon it and my feelings. Looking at the Weirwood in front of me, I hoped Brynden Rivers was seeing this as I bowed to the face, my stomach doing 50 shades of frontflips. Sending a prayer to the Old Gods and the fourteen flames of my father's home, I felt a wind blow through the trees around me, the air cold and warm at the same time despite the heavy snows around us.
"A song of Ice and Fire indeed," I said as I walked back to the castle, only to faint halfway there with a sudden wave of exhaustion.
