Chapter Text
The dark pressed down on him. An oppressive force of nature. Before he knew the Others were real, he had found comfort in these dark nights at Winterfell. The snow fluttered gracefully from the clouds above and settled amidst its fallen comrades. The fires of Winterfell illuminated the snow. The sky bled orange and gold. The heat burned away the cold from his bones.
Screams and the chattering of the dead mixed into howls until he couldn’t tell what was wind, what was friend and what was foe. But that wasn’t surprising was it? The Night King raised them faster than they fell until the outside of Winterfell had shattered under the relentless attacks that got worse and worse the more people that were turned.
They were losing.
It was as simple as that. He knew they would. He told Sansa that it was hopeless and she had spurred him on to at least try. What would Father say, she had condemned, if he knew you had given up so easily?
But Father was not here.
He didn’t see what the dead were like. He never lived to see the Wall fall. If his father were alive. He would have given up too, taking Jon’s legitimacy to the grave with him and he would have been all the happier for it.
Because at least he would die with his family and his men instead of the strangers from the east he had been forced to recruit. He had gotten the dragons too late. Then Daenerys made it worse when she brought all three of them up North to rescue them only to return south with two.
He should have been here with Sansa to get their men ready for war. But as with everything she said, he only realised she was right in hindsight.
Drogon’s form blocked out the stars and with a heart wrenching screech, the beast fell from the sky, his eye pierced and bloody tears rained down on him. The smash of meat and the cracking of bones pierced through the air. Winterfell’s proud towers collapsed beneath his wings, its proud turrets that had stood for 10,000 years slid down to collide deafeningly with the ground underneath. Shredding skin, scales and stone in its wrathful death.
He stared numbly at what used to be his father’s solar. He fell to his knees and gripped the cooling arm of one of his men. Ripped from his home and cast asunder in this strange place away from his godswood and his keep. Entirely alone in his tortured death because of him. Because he wasn’t good enough. Because he had failed.
The crunch of snow like corpses snapped him from his stupor, he spun around Longclaw in his grip. He pointed it at the Night King as he walked over the copse of weirwood leaves and dead grass beneath the snow.
His skin crinkled like ice.
Jon moved back, terror crawled through his veins like the parasites of Sothoryos. He should not be frightened, how many times has he done this? How many times has he faced him? Yet before the Night King he was nothing more than that child at Hardhome once agian. The Night King let out a skittering laugh that snapped and crackled.
“I did not think…it would be so easy.”
His blood ran cold. They can speak?
The Night King stepped forward and he moved backwards in reply.
“You shame the name you bear, boy. The Starks of the past would roll in their graves at the sight of this pathetic, cowardly worm who dares defile their name.” he sneered. “A bastard who never found his dragon…a whore tossed between men; of no use to any…a wild thing made for the forest; curdled into a faceless whelp…and a child blessed with sight; who went running to the raven, a pitless dragon who has no understanding of us and who we are. How weak you all proved to be.”
The familiarity he spoke of them unsettled him. As if he had watched their moves from the dawn of their birth to the dusk of their deaths.
“You know nothing of us!” he growled.
“I know everything!” his voice cracked back like the splitting of an iceberg bound to drown a distant town. “How could I know anything less of my own blood?”
He gagged on the air itself.
“You lie!”
“Lie? I never lie…it is everyone else who lies. You will die here, Jaehaerys of House Targaryen, the bastard of Winterfell.”
Jon swung his sword and the ring of steel echoed through the terrifying stillness behind. No screams, no prayers, no calls for help. Nothing. They were gone. It was only him left. Jon shifted back and swung Longclaw at his exposed side. The Night King blocked it with a thunderous clap. Sparks and ice split from each blade, scattering amongst the ashes of Winterfell. Sweat poured from his head. The Night King pushed mercilessly on Longclaw, forcing the sword’s edge on its master.
He yelled out, exertion pouring from his lips. His arm shook. It was like trying to hold back the full weight of the sky.
He swung his knee up and buried it in his stomach. Shock crossed his face. The split moment of distraction allowed him to drive the pommel into his collar bone. Jon sliced Longclaw beneath his legs. The Night King, with agility unknown to Jon, jumped backwards and slammed his foot onto his wrist.
Jon let out a yelp and fell to his knees with Longclaw. The Night King kicked the side of his head brutally. His vision blacked out and he went sprawling against the bone and snow. The Night King slid his sword away in disgust.
Jon buried his arms in the snow and tried to crawl away. The Night Kings’ fingers sunk into his bun and he pulled his head back. Jon gasped and stared up into the piercing blue of the Night King. His fingers seemed to leach all the strength he had in him. His nails dug beneath flesh and the only warmth he had was that of his own spilled blood to combat the cold blackness that emanated from him.
“Where are your gods now, Jon Snow?” he asked in his cracking voice. Ancient as the weirwoods themselves.
Jon swung uselessly at the still figure. The cold that rippled through him suddenly congealed and ripped into his mind like knives. Jon could do nothing but scream when he felt the torturous intrusion flick through his brain like it was a book. It tore and stripped through the parts of him the Night King found interesting and then came the visions.
He could see Sansa through some corpses’ eyes, she swung desperately, her skin torn open, blood dyed her dress pink, her red hair had come undone and sparkled like cursed copper beneath the last bastion of torches that crackled on the crumbling walls.
He shrieked alongside her when the corpse jumped on her, it forced her to the ground and buried a knife in her throat.
Arya was being pursued from all directions, forced only to run and dodge and weave and pray. Then the first stab happened. Then the second. Then the third until a thousand wounds and a thousand pains littered her dying form.
Bran and Meera raced down twisting halls. He could feel his little brother’s wheelchair beneath his like it was his own. The wheels bounced along the floor and wood opened up his hands, friction and terror alike barely staying the stream of blood. But she turned a corner too fast and she went flying into the nearest wall. Her head caved in from the impact, her brains splattered along the edges of the windows. Bran’s chair spun and skidded before it sent him catapulting from its seat. He could feel his ribs shatter and his lungs splinter from the rogue bits embedded in him from the collision. The dead came for him, mocking Jon further by crawling. Bran pushed his chair off and his breaths wheezed past his lips. Blood bespeckled the ground beneath. His lungs ached as they filled up with fluid so when he was grabbed and pulled into the waiting embrace of death, he had no energy to even scream.
Jon gasped as he was pulled from his mind. He had only realised he was crying. Vomit and bile begged to come up. The Night King pulled him tighter to himself.
“Tears? How unsightly. Will you forgive me when I send you back to them?” he mocked.
Then with a slash his neck opened. The Night King shoved him backwards. The last thing he heard before the darkness came for him was the cracking of ice.
===
“Wake, Jon Snow, you are not done. Not yet.”
Jon sat up with a gasp, his hand sped to his throat, he was not sure what he expected, but perfectly smooth skin? That wasn’t one. He flattened his fingers along his neck where he was sure his throat had been slit only to be met with smooth skin as if it had never happened in the first place.
Warmth, the pleasant sort they got in the summers of Winterfell welcomed him, he peeled his eyes open to an onslaught of sunlight. The place he had woken in was the most beautiful meadow he had seen. The smell of lavender and cotton enraptured him, the bright grass shined a green that was luminous. To his side a forest gurgled happily with the sounds of animals and life, accompanied by a chuckling stream somewhere further in.
The sky shined an iridescent blue after countless days of grey skies, seeing the blue was something out of a dream he hadn’t had since he came back from the dead.
“You wake.”
Jon’s breath hitched. It was a trick. It had to be. His father was dead. He had been for years. There was no way it was him.
“I would say I agree with you, but you’ve forgotten something.” a new voice said, he spun to a man in a cloak who looked down on him like a giant from the stories Old Nan used to tell. “You are dead too. For the moment.”
“What?” he asked, shocked.
He supposed it shouldn’t be a shock considering the fact that his throat was ripped open. But the last time he died, it was nothing like this. There was just nothing. An endless void, devoid of life and purpose. Just darkness.
“The last time you were stolen away from us by that Red Witch.” the giant said simply. “Otherwise you would have come here where all your family resides.”
Jon slowly turned to his father, who gave him a soft smile. Without conscious thought, he sprinted into his arms, feeling as though he was a child in his father’s lap once more. His father wrapped his strong arms around his shoulders and Jon buried his head into his chest.
He could feel the steady beat of his heart in this fantasy world where all the Starks come after they’re dead. Presently, he did not care if it was real or if it was fake. All he wanted was for his father to hug him for the rest of eternity.
“I missed you too, lad.” he said quietly.
Jon sobbed as his father carded his fingers through his hair like he used to when he and Robb were much younger.
“Am I really dead?” he asked quietly.
“For now.” his father confirmed.
Jon pulled back and he rubbed his tears away with great effort. His father looked to the man who stepped forward.
“What do you mean for now? I don’t want to go back. I can’t go back.” he said.
“If I could, boy, I would let you stay here with your father.” the giant said quietly. “But I cannot. The Night King has murdered you, you were this world’s last hope against him. You must understand I cannot let him live nor can I allow him to win. I have this one last chance to help you and your family. We cannot waste it.”
“But me?” he asked bitterly. “I’m just a weak boy, as he said, whom can I save when I could not save my own family?”
The giant looked to his father and he stepped forward.
“You are more than that, you were too late the last time, that is why we are sending you back to a time where you can change what happens.”
A great destiny. A shiny sword. Jon stared numbly at his hands and he asked himself why? Why do they bother to save him? The boy who gave away his crown for a slight of fancy with a dragon queen? Why do these people think that he is so special?
He was nobody. Just like the Night King said, just a useless child who could never do a thing right. But just like his entire life. He had no choice here either.
“When are you sending me back? What time?” he asked.
“After your father’s execution.” the giant said grimly. “You have taken your vows, but you will return to Winterfell to protect your brothers and in the crypt, you will find someone who will help you.”
Jon did nothing but nod.
===
He awoke in the damp barracks of castle black. His body felt young. He held his hand up and admired the youth that still shined in his skin. Silently, he crept from his bunk and headed to his horse.
For at least he will give the giant this.
Few people get a second chance to save their family. He was done being a hero. He wanted his siblings, and he would stop at nothing until he had saved them all.