บท 2371: 6
Chapter Text
6.
Heart in the Highlands.
Pentos
The first six times they attempt to make it to the past, it all turns out a failure. Brandon argues she's still too weak, never further elaborating on what that means. Still, Daenerys does as he commands it, as she lies with eyes shut tight on a long chaise and he dictates the course from above with a dull, monotonous voice, that results strangely calm, nevertheless, taking her through the corridors of her mind like a smooth wind blowing in the direction she must follow to meet the moments stored in her memory.
"Maybe it's not only your mind we need," Brandon says quietly after the sixth failed try. "Maybe it's your heart too."
"What would my heart have to do with all this?" she responds with a defensive edge, beginning to feel exhaustion taking its toll on her mood.
"The heart is to the memory what the wind is to the sea, a guide and sentinel, that takes you on the right path and warns you of impending dangers. Imagine yourself and your errant ship in the middle of a tranquil night at sea. Where will you go? What is possibly surrounding you? You will not be able to tell these things unless the wind is blowing — and luckily blowing in your favor."
"And you know lots about the heart, I imagine," she replied and glared at him.
He snorted softly, almost chuckling.
"Your heart is afraid, Daenerys. It is telling you of the places you do not want to return to. I know and I understand."
"No, you don't," Daenerys snapped, sitting up to turn around and look at him. "How can you understand if you are not even…someone."
"I am everyone who is part of me. I am each individual experience that precedes Brandon Stark."
"I do not believe you." She took a sharp breath. "I don't believe you when you say that Jon Snow is dead."
His mouth opened and closed slightly in surprise; a gesture so inconspicuous that she almost thought she imagined it.
"It's the truth," he insisted. "Lie back again, close your eyes and let me show you."
***
Castle Black,
back then.
Jon leaned back against one of the just recently available cots. At least fifteen of these had been unoccupied today. His chest burned and he knew the malady was taking over his body but he refused to bend as long as he still had a shred of strength available to continue serving.
He just needed a moment to rest his eyes and not face the overwhelming sight of death and pain that surrounded him.
How curious it seems, he thought, to leave this world the way he came to it first, and how he would leave it: between blood and death, an existence devoted to misery.
Purpose? What purpose? He had wondered so long and so much about that that he didn't realize it was just another ruse. Some divinity who found his amusement in the meaninglessness of his creation. You must remind yourself why we fought death itself in the first place, Tormund had said one time, long ago before he had lost trace of his last friend. All these years and Jon hadn't found that meaning — that hope — the man was talking about.
He only found sorrow.
How else a man like him could see the world?
A strange, malign feeling came and settled deep in the center of his chest, burning as intensely as the disease that surely was spreading throughout his body.
Jon began to hate the little things that his mind couldn't get rid of.
He hated Rhaegar and Lyanna for running away and conceived him.
He hated the Mad King for killing his grandfather and uncle.
He hated Robert Baratheon for rising up in rebellion.
He hated him the more (and dislike grew twice as high) for killing Prince Rhaegar.
He hated his mother Lyanna for dying.
He hated Ned Stark for making him his bastard.
He hated Lady Catelyn for hating that he did so.
He hated Robb because Jon spent a lifetime wishing to be in his place.
He hated that he didn't send for him so together they could avenge their father.
He hated the Lannister for twice taking his family away from him.
He hated the Night's Watch for the cursed and damned place that it was.
He hated Sam.
He hated Sam because, despite his unwavering faith in Jon, he never respected him enough to heed his wishes.
He hated him harder for revealing that truth to him.
He hated Bran for everything that he now saw clearly, the neglect, the stillness, the inaction — remaining a witness to events that might lie ahead of them.
He hated Arya for not trusting him more than she trusted Sansa's misgivings and judgments.
He hated Sansa for not loving their family more than she loved her pride.
He hated Sansa even more now because she saw in his happiness and strive, a means to use and destroy in achieving her goals.
He hated Westeros because he could never see anything beyond its meanness and misery.
He hated himself for hating so much.
He hated himself for being unable to be happy.
For being unable to love.
For being unable to love properly.
For not knowing how to do it.
He hated then as he had never hated anyone, to Daenerys.
He hated her for making him feel a beating heart inside him again and then breaking that same heart with her cruelty, a cruelty that he himself and all the others instigated and fed with their mistreatment and abandonment. A cruelty that was not there before and was impossible to see receded but with a dagger in the heart.
He hated her because what he did to her made him hate himself more than he ever could.
And he missed her.
He hated her because she was gone, and her absence was a void that consumed itself and grew deeper and large until there was just vast emptiness.
As he took his last breath, Jon found himself lying amidst hopelessness and wretchedness.
There was no new life.
There was no redemption ahead.
***
Pentos
Now .
Daenerys takes the fabric of her shirt and squeezes it. She bends over with the force of a broken yet soft cry. He died; it was true. And seeing it has been more devastating for her than hearing it and imagining it.
"Why did you do that?" she says between sobs, looking at Bran through tear-swollen eyes.
"I didn't do that. I just took you there. What you felt being there...that wasn't my doing," he replied, unaffected, just serious. "And I can't explain why it happened."
She takes her head in her hands and continues crying, knowing that nothing she could say to herself would stop this torment now.
***
304 ac.
The days they rode to Eastwatch were long and grueling but enjoyable overall. Jon had missed his little sister wholeheartedly. Having her back at times felt like being in a dream he didn't want to wake up from. There was, however, something far off about her. Something he couldn't quite figure out.
He glanced at her. "So, Braavos, huh?"
Her mouth twitched in a smile. They were enough close to the wall to see its faint shadow on the horizon.
"My first option was to sail North, you know? You were the only family who I was certain was still alive," she said.
It made his heart tender but at the same time, he celebrated she took another course. He wouldn't have wanted Arya there when things were getting nastiest by the day.
"I'm glad you didn't. Castle Black is not the best place," he pursued.
"Not the best place for a lady?" Arya taunted.
He breathed out a soft chuckle.
"Not the best place for anyone," he responded.
He hadn't felt like sharing with her about his come back from death. Neither of the secret that was eating him inside.
Jon sensed her unsubtle long stare before she asked,
"What about you and Sansa?"
"What about me and Sansa?"
"It's just that it seems you are competing against each other, It doesn't seem like you both agree to take Winterfell back."
"We did," he stated.
"She told me she had to convince you."
Jon slowed his horse.
"Because the odds weren't exactly in our favor. What else is Sansa feeding you with?"
Arya huffed a bit.
"Sansa is just being extremely guarded, after all that she went through."
"So guarded as not to tell me about the reinforcements of the Vale and claim that we owe her the victory?" Jon replied defensively.
Arya sighed and shook her head.
"I don't know why she did that. I know it was wrong but…I just want our family to be united. Especially now with Cersei on the Iron Throne, Littlefinger waylaying around and a Targaryen queen seeking to rule over our home again."
"I thought you'd be rather excited about a Targaryen queen," Jon suggested, staring at her. "You always considered Queen Visenya your hero."
She chuckled again, this time more joyfully.
"I heard from her while in Braavos. She seems quite the character, liberating the slaves and punishing the slavers. I like that." Her expression grew serious. "But I won't like her if she turns us her dragons on us."
Jon frowned at that. He didn't understand why he felt like he wanted to argue that.
"We are not her enemies. Her enemy is the same as ours."
"You seem dead convinced to face this Night King," Arya said.
"Yes, I am. And you would be if you had seen them."
"Well, it's not like I haven't seen terrible things before," she said, her gaze fixed on the horizon. When she noticed Jon strangely staring at her, she smiled slightly and spurred her horse on.
***
Eastwatch-by-the-sea.
"So, are you the little one?" Tormund asked Arya as he scrutinized her with wide, sharp eyes that would have fretted anyone else. Arya cocked her head but didn't flinch, arms folded behind her. "Well, well, I see darkness in her."
Jon explained the reason for his visit, and after being lectured on the risk of this undertaking of his, Tormund said they were awaiting his arrival.
Arya and Jon looked at each other strangely.
"I didn't order anyone to send a message," he said.
"Oh, but someone did," he replied, pulling a poorly preserved piece of parchment out of his fur coat. "It would have been a total waste. None of us can read what it says there."
Jon looked at the crumpled parchment he placed on the table. At the top of it, one name could be read.
Jon Snow.
***
Dragonstone.
Daenerys' hand opened and closed in an unconscious gesture as she watched the sun set beyond the line that divided sky and water, her children flying shadows at the distance — too far away to be distinguishable except for her.
A soft knock on the door interrupted her ruminations.
"Come in," she said from her desk before Missandei stepped inside her chambers. She smiled with the same warmth that radiated from her chest every time she had her in front of her again.
"I've seen your message be sent, your Grace. The journey was long, but it gave me the opportunity to tour some of the surrounding villages and it was...nice, to say the least."
Daenerys got up and walked around the large desk, reaching up to Missandei to take her hands in hers with a smile.
"You can stop referring to me as your queen when we're alone, Missandei. It feels odd and ..." Daenerys stopped midway when she noticed something pinned on Missandei's fist. Missandei also looked down.
"This is your message for Daario," she said, extending the still-wrapped scroll. "I made sure Lord Varys believed the message was for him."
Daenerys frowned.
"And you didn't send the message for him?"
"Of course, I did. But first I..." Missandei stuttered before blinking several times and looking confusedly at her. "You wrote both messages in the common tongue. Daario does not read the common tongue, so I had to translate it."
Daenerys stayed still for a second, before looking away and laughing at herself. She had completely forgotten that Daario cannot yet read the common tongue.
Gods, it's been such many years of exchanging messages with him in the fucking common tongue, how could I forget? She thought.
"Your Gra— Daenerys," Missandei called from behind. "Is there something you are not telling us?"
Dany let out a held breath. Facing the past implied facing all the small alterations that could come out of the changes she was making. Another of them came knocking on her door before she had time to even consider telling Missandei the truth again.
"Daenerys. The Lannister army was ambushed at Highgarden," Tyrion came to report, his face serious and almost cold. Her Hand swallowed hard. "Time to go to King's Landing."
Notes:
I had outlined a scene beyond the wall with the suicide squad, where basically Jon would set a trap for the army of the dead but that would have taken me longer than necessary (as it happened with my other stories) and the truth is that I do not want to do that with this one. In the next chapter Daenerys will finally take KL, and in the next after that Jon and Daenerys will meet again (and he will have the wight and the explanation of how they caught it).
However, this thing with the anonymous message will also lead Jon to start questioning the things that are being altered around him.
What do you prefer? Him learning about the old timeline now or him discovering it little by little until he's completely horrified?
LOL, I'm really interested in hearing your opinion.
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