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Playing the Game (Game of Thrones)

Chương 1: Prologue

"So then, there's no hope. It's done. The Doom comes."

A head of silver-gold hair lifts and a pair of piercing violet eyes stare at the speaker. Feminine lips quirk up slightly in a sardonic smile.

"You speak truth brother. It is done. Valyria has brought about its own destruction and we will die along with it."

"Perhaps we will not. Perhaps we will survive, in one form or another."

That draws a very un-ladylike snort from the kneeling woman.

"You speak of the Targaryens."

"Aye, the Targaryens… a minor house to be sure, but dragon riders, nonetheless. They are of Valyria, are they not? Perhaps it will rise anew, through them."

"It will not."

The man, of the same features as the woman he speaks with, his own sister, stiffens and his jaw clenches as she continues on.

"I have seen it. I have seen what will become of the Targaryens. They will abandon our ways. They will abandon us. And for their betrayal, the dragons will die and leave this world, until a Targaryen lives who is not raised to be beholden to false gods. Even still, Valyria will not be reborn through them… not as the future currently is."

Gritting his perfect teeth together, the handsome, gorgeous man slams a fist into the wall beside him, cratering it with his strength… or seeming to, as the damage disappears the moment, he pulls his hand back.

"Then there truly is nothing to be done? Valyria is to be our tomb, as we waste away among the ruins of this civilization?"

"… Perhaps. Or perhaps not."

That catches his attention as he glares at the kneeling woman, violet eyes ablaze.

"Speak plainly sister. Our time is already short."

The sardonic smile grows a fraction of an inch.

"And yet, for beings such as us, we have all the time in the world to change the future."

"… How?"

"It will require a sacrifice from both of us. I would send our essence forward, flinging it through time and space, to one who's veins run thick with Valyrian Blood."

A frown on an otherwise perfect face.

"There is a catch, what is it?"

The kneeling woman bows her head slightly.

"I would send our essence forward… but not our minds. We will still die here slowly, together. We would rot among the ruins of Valyria together until we faded completely."

"Then what is the point of this exercise?! You would have me sacrifice my strength moments before I will need it most?!"

"I would have us sacrifice together, in order to take revenge on those that wronged us!"

And like that, the small chamber falls into silence, the kneeling woman knowing she's said too much and the standing man staring at her agape.

"… You know… you know where the Doom comes from?"

Letting out an explosive breath, the silver-haired beauty hangs her head.

"… I do."

"You have kept this information from me and our siblings. Why Meraxes? Why hide it?"

Having been so named, the being who is not in fact a woman at all abruptly stands, and one might wonder how they ever mistook her for a mortal in the first place.

"Because there is nothing any of us could have done Balerion! They hid themselves well, these gods and goddesses! They moved in the night and the shadow and they poisoned the right minds to bring our Doom about! We sat upon our place of power, secure in our own supremacy for far too long! Now here we stand, and here we die!"

The man is no longer a man, now that he too has been named. Balerion, the High God of the Valyrian Pantheon, stares at his younger sister with hurt in his glowing violet eyes.

"Who Meraxes… at least tell me who, before you tell me any more of your plan for revenge."

Meraxes sucks in a breath and then lets it out again, even though the Goddess does not truly need to breathe.

"… The Seven. It is the Seven who would end our reign."

A low, inhuman growl builds in Balerion's throat.

"The Seven! Those two-bit, nameless, reprobates! Who are they to topple us?! We are the most powerful Pantheon this world has ever seen, and they would engineer our downfall!? FUCK!"

Stepping forward, Meraxes puts a hand on her brother's arm.

"I am of a similar mind Balerion, but as I said, there is nothing we can do directly. You know as well as I that their nameless nature allows them to hide from our gaze. How do we find the Father, when every man is or seeks to become a father? How do we find the Mother when every woman ends up whelping a child? Don't get me started on the Stranger… regardless, they are out of our reach. But revenge is NOT."

Balerion nods slowly, a considering glint entering his eye.

"What can we do? What form will our revenge take dear sister?"

The smile on Meraxes' face is particularly evil, and quite spectacular to behold.

"As I said, I would fling our essences forward, through time and space. I would have us gift our power to one whose veins run thick with Valyrian blood. And with our strength and our power, this one will grow to become the shame of the Seven."

Balerion is intrigued now, enticed even. He leans forward until his lips are but mere inches away from his sister's, and he breathes out a single word in response.

"How?"

Meraxes' smile becomes coy as she in turn leans in as well. Their eyes locked together, their lips very nearly touching, she tells him.

"He will lay with their women. He will command the respect of their men. The Seven themselves will be powerless to stop him as he becomes God-King of the continent where they reign strongest, and in the end, he will defile their priestesses in their places of worship while their priests watch on in envy and arousal. This will be our victory. This will be the Seven's shame."

Balerion's answer does not come in the form of words. One hand curls into Meraxes' silver-gold hair while the other presses against the small of her back and pulls her into him. He smashes his lips against hers as the two of them begin to kiss. God and Goddess begin the dance as their forms shift and twist and change. They started as Valyrian. They swiftly change into the form of dragons, massive, hulking, celestial versions of the living creatures that Valyria tames and rides.

And as Balerion and Meraxes begin the ritual that will send their essence forward in time, the Doom of Valyria begins, an entire peninsula carved up and destroyed in but a day by their own magics, twisted upon themselves by those driven insane by the Seven. The Valyrian Freehold burns and its Gods and Goddesses burn with it as their worship diminishes massively in too short a time frame for them to do anything about it.

By the time Valyria's Pantheon lays rotting in the ruins of their past glory, Meraxes and Balerion have completed their task. While their siblings crawl about, bemoaning their fates and struggling to survive, these two are already too weak to move. They are too weak to do anything but lay side by side, heads turned to face one another as they intertwine their fingers and smile.

It may not be today or tomorrow or the next day… but their revenge will be complete, one way or another. They are sure of it.

-x-X-x-

Just around four hundred years later, in a misnamed tower before the sight of Kingsguard and Midwives, a beautiful baby boy, dark of hair and dark of eye, opens his mouth and hollers, demonstrating just how strong his lungs are. He is swiftly handed over to his exhausted mother, and though Lyanna Stark is in great pain, she looks down at her babe with as best a smile she can muster anyways.

Those in the room were in on one of the greatest secrets the Seven Kingdoms had ever seen. Many of them would not live to tell it to anyone.

And yet, none of them knew the deeper truth. Not a single person alive could have guessed at the power the baby in Lyanna's arms really held inside of its tiny body.

-x-X-x-

He wakes with a start, coming up out of his bed with a sharp inhalation of breath. Nostrils flaring, Jon Snow stares out at the sparse, confined space that is his bedroom within Winterfell. That dream had been… had been… slowly, his brow furrows, even as his dark brown eyes cloud with confusion. He couldn't remember, anymore. He'd had a dream, and it had been startling, that much was true. But the rest of it? The details, even the vaguest of details… it was lost to him.

Letting out the breath he'd been holding in since he woke up, Jon shakes his head and tosses the furs covering him while he slept aside, getting out of his bed in the buff, not even hissing as his bare feet touch the cold cobblestone floor of his bedroom. The cold… the cold has never bothered him, all that much. He's always been naturally warm, hot-blooded in a way that even others weren't. More than once, he'd acted as a heat source for his friends, for his siblings.

A slight upturn of his mouth appears as Jon shakes his head in amusement, remembering the last time Arya curled into him on a particularly cold winter day for warmth. And then the beginnings of a smile die an equally quick death as he recalls what happened afterwards, when the Lady of Winterfell, Catelyn Stark, had stumbled upon them.

Jon Snow was Eddard Stark's son… but he was not born of Catelyn Stark's womb. This made him a bastard, a mark of shame for his otherwise honorable father, the Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. And yet, where some Lords might have sent him away or even snuffed him out in his cradle for daring to be proof of their infidelity, Ned Stark had decided to raise him in Winterfell, along his legitimate sons and daughters.

As much as Catelyn Stark hated it, Jon had grown up by Robb Stark's side, as his brother. He'd doted upon Arya, his sister, and helped Robb and Theon teach Bran and Rickon how to shoot a bow. He didn't have such a good relationship with Sansa, but then, she took after her mother more, a proper Tully Lady. No matter, in the end. It wasn't… it wouldn't matter for much longer anyways.

Jon was leaving. Not today, of course. But today was his Nameday, the day that he'd come into this world. He was effectively a man now, and he could make his own decisions, if he liked. Soon, he would be striking out on his own. He would be walking his own path. Perhaps if Catelyn Stark had been a bit kinder, he could have seen himself spending his life as his brother's loyal servant. He could have fought by Robb Stark's side happily until the day he died, fighting the fights that needed fighting, protecting those that needed protecting.

But the Lady of Winterfell would never allow it. She was already eyeing him up these days, even before his Nameday had come to pass, as if she expected him to leave today. He wouldn't though. His brothers and sisters would be sad if he did that, and Jon wasn't going to allow his father's wife to chase him out of the only home he'd ever known THAT quickly.

Still, he had no doubt that she planned to make this day hell for him. It would be no different than any other Nameday, really. Whispered congratulations and cheer in the halls, and no true recognition of the fact. His father would probably give him a hug and what not, but there would be no feast. Not for a bastard. Not for Jon Snow.

Chuckling mirthlessly at his own wallowing, Jon shakes himself a bit, wiggling all of his extremities and moving over to his trunk to get his clothes out so he can begin putting them on. It's time to face the day, no matter what it might bring.

-x-X-x-

By midday, Jon is beginning to regret ever getting out of bed. He has a problem, and surprisingly enough, it's nothing that has to do with one Lady Catelyn Stark. Oh sure, she's been doing little things here and there to try to make sure he knows he's not wanted in Winterfell all day long. But her efforts pale in comparison to what Jon's feeling as he tries to go about his daily activities.

Lust. Pure, unadulterated lust. It's not something he's ever had to deal with, before. He's a virgin, and even when he first began transitioning from boy to man, Jon hadn't had to worry about too much of a libido. Not like Theon Greyjoy, his father's ward. Or hostage, depending on who you asked. Regardless, Theon was a whoremonger. Not a truly awful one, he still did his duties and what not, but Jon knew for a fact that Theon spent many a night with the whores that lived in the town just outside of Winterfell.

Regardless, for the first time in his life, Jon is noticing the women around him. He's noticing the softness of their faces, the curvaceous nature of their bodies. And he's desiring it. He's hungering for it. He's CRAVING it. It's like some sort of great beast has awoken in his chest, needling at him to take care of an urge that, before today, Jon had never experienced before in his life.

It's funny, because up till now, his first and only plan has been to join the Night's Watch. As nothing more than Eddard Stark's bastard, he's not really in a position to go or do anything else, at least at first glance. He doesn't have coin with which to go traveling across Westeros. Perhaps his father might give him some if he asked, but the thought has never crossed Jon's mind before.

Now though… in the space of a day, he could no longer imagine himself joining the Night's Watch, for one reason and one reason alone. He didn't think he could be celibate. He couldn't take the oath required of him, to lay with no woman, for the rest of his life. It wasn't exactly what he expected to stop him from following what he'd believed to be an honorable path, if not quite his destiny… but there it was.

However, that was the future, really. Jon had a more pressing matter right in front of him at the moment. Namely… how was he going to calm down his raging libido right NOW? Before the end of the day, Jon Snow was sure that he was going to snap. And when he did, he wasn't sure who'd end up getting hurt as a result. He needed… he needed to handle this, to nip this in the bud on the spot.

… He needed to have sex. It seemed crass, but every time he so much thought about doing the deed, the monster inside of him roared its approval. This was what it wanted. It wanted him to fuck a woman. It wanted him to pin someone down and just TAKE them. And Jon was getting to the point where the idea didn't sound so bad, if he was being honest.

The only problem was a limited number of choices. Winterfell wasn't hurting for women, to be fair. But many of them were effectively off-limits to him. He was, after all, just a bastard. Still, there were at least two options in front of Jon, from what he could see. He could do as Theon did, and go to the whores outside of the castle in order to scratch his itch… or he could go to Jeyne Poole.

Jeyne Poole of House Poole was the daughter of Vayon Poole, the steward of Winterfell. Normally, even a steward's daughter would be beyond that of a bastard such as himself. If they were caught together, then he would certainly be in trouble. But he had a feeling that if he did make overtures towards the attractive young woman, she would be receptive to them.

He hadn't failed to notice how her eyes seemed drawn to him, earlier today at breakfast. Lots of people had been watching him, to be fair, it was technically his 'big day', but not in the way Jeyne had. Jon had seen the look in her eye, and for the first time, he'd recognized it. He'd even resonated with it. But was that worth the risk, truly?

Perhaps not. Perhaps the whores were better. One whore in particular, named Ros, had Theon's praise, given the amount that the Greyjoy boy spoke about her. He could go to her, and possibly get his problem taken care of that way. One way or the other though, Jon knew that he couldn't just let this continue to fester. Before the end of the day, he was going to fuck a woman for the first time. The only question was… would it be Jeyne, or would it be Ros?