Chapter Text
Jon had never been ordinary in his entire life, but even his life had never reached this point of insanity. For starters, Jon was a Snow. Here in Westeros, that meant he was a northern bastard. But Jon, because he wasn’t ordinary, was the bastard of Eddard Stark, the Lord Paramount of the North, and the most honorable man in Westeros. This, in and of itself, made him an object of curiosity to most people who visited Winterfell. Everyone had to see for themselves that he existed.
Jon was even odder because instead of being fostered or sent away like most bastards he was raised with his father’s trueborn family. He took classes with Robb, his father’s heir. He lived in the same castle as his father’s truborn siblings. Jon had held Arya and Bran just days after they were born. Jon knew of no other highborn Westeros bastard, outside of Dorne that is, who had this kind of luxury.
If that had been all, Jon would have been a little odd, but nothing surmountable. However, Jon has always been odd in other aspects. Jon could read and write, he really could, it was just that sometimes the letters flipped or looked wrong. Maester Luwin had checked his eyes many times over the years. He never found anything wrong. Septa Mordane said it was a sign from the True Gods, that Jon was a curse and a barbarian, and because of that was he unable to read and write like a regular person. Lady Catelyn just said he was faking it for attention. Theon called him stupid and a halfwit. His father just told him to figure it out. So, Jon had. He had gone to the library more often than normal to read different things to fix his problem. He practiced with his quilt till his head ached and sometimes even bled. He didn’t shy away from his lessons, even as Septa Mordane rapped his knuckles yet again, leaving them a permeant mixture of blues, purples, and yellows from bruising. And yet, the problem persisted until Jon found one book. He’d read it perfectly, there were no letter flips or messed-up words. He rewrote the story to practice only to find words perfect for the first time. The story of Jason and the Golden Fleece was riveting and Jon couldn’t wait to tell Robb and his father. Until Maester Luwin had seen the book and his writings and asked what Jon was doing. The was written in some kind of lost language and it made no sense for Jon to copy senseless things down. Jon had looked back at the book and his parchment only to find the pages no longer in the common tongue but some other language. He could still read it, but it was almost like the words were self-translating in his head. Jon stopped going to the library after that and he stopped obsessing over his penmanship.
With academics out, Jon put all of his focus on training. He had started with a wooden sword already, but now Jon put all his extra time into making himself excellent. And excellent he was. He picked up the lessons from Ser Rodrik with ease. The sword felt like an extension of himself. This, Jon had thought, was something he could do. He thought it was a good thing, being excellent with a sword, before beating Robb in a small spar. No one had congratulated him. His father hadn’t looked angry, but he didn’t have that look of pride that he’d had been Robb had beaten Theon just the day before. No, he looked almost displeased. Ser Rodrik had just shaken his head and told Jon he was done for the day. He didn’t tell Robb what he could do better and what Jon had done well, like every other time someone won in a spar. The rest of the castle had just looked at him with worry. Lady Catelyn had looked thunderstruck, all red in the face. Jon had gone to bed that night without supper, no expulsion given. He had needed one to get the message, even at nine years old.
He never won another spar against Robb.
It wasn’t from a lack of skill, but rather a desire to avoid the previous experience again. After a few days of Robb winning against both Theon and Jon, the Castle had breathed again. “He must have just gotten lucky, little Jon,” some said. “Lord Robb must have been out of it that day,” other commented, “It happens to the best of us.”
Jon still practiced in secret, hours in the gods' woods, and not just with a sword. Jon found that he was good with a spear as well, much better than Theon or Robb if their lessons were anything to go by. Jon could always hit the target when throwing knives, he excelled with a lance on horseback. He didn’t overly like using maces or axes, but he was still just as good with them as everything else. He picked up weapons and just instantly knew how to use them. Except with a bow, Jon hadn’t been instantly good with a bow. It annoyed him greatly.
There were other little things in Jon’s life. When sparing, sometimes Theon would have difficulty lifting his weapon, like it suddenly got too heavy for him. It happened to other people he spared against. He also noticed that sometimes people he was sparing against would just inexplicably get angry. It happened other times too, he was arguing with another child in wintertown, when the kid just got uncontrollably angry and started throwing punches. Four people had to pull him off of Jon.
Jon also found he was unable to sit still for long periods of time. It had been especially difficult when he was younger. Those hours-long lessons would drive him mad, but Jon learned to work through it. He had to. Septa Mordane was very heavy-handed with her birching rod and Jon had enough scars on the back of his legs to have learned his lessons.
None of this, however, was even close to the weirdest thing in Jon’s life. At the age of 10, Jon started to see things. Giant wolves when out hunting, off-looking birds that sat on the tops of the castle walls, one-eyed beings, and women with scales and claws. No one else saw these things, but Jon always did. They were rare in those early days, always sniffing around like they were looking for something. When Jon was 12, he finally meet one. His Father had decided to add him to his hunting outings with Robb and Theon. Of course, this one time is when Wildlings decided to attack. Jon had been thrown from his horse, which ran off without him. By the time he’d gotten his bearings, everyone else was gone.
The monsters from before had found him quite quickly after that. The women with claws first. Jon’s sword had done nothing against them, any of them. He’d been running for days from the beings when he got lucky. He’d grabbed a dagger from one of the serpentine women’s belts and this did something. The dagger looked to be made of bronze, which was odd because bronze weapons were usually inferior to steel but he wasn’t about to ignore this gift.
The giant hounds came after the serpentine women, then the plump grey birds, followed by ravens, then snake-like things, and the one-eyed men who stood even taller than the Great Jon.
Jon found them all and after three months of trekking around in the wolf woods, he found Winterfell.
Not everyone had been happy to see him home, and no one believed Jon’s story about the monsters. He’d become a laughing stock at Winterfell for believing in “monsters under the bed” and Theon regularly called him a craven and laughed at Jon. Robb had called Jon a craven too and avoided him. Lady Catelyn had been pleased by that. His father had just looked worried, an odd steel look in his eyes. Maester Luwin finally concluded that Jon must have eaten a plant with hallucinatory properties and imagined all of his monsters. The castle had laughed at that. Jon knew better, hallucinations didn’t leave scars and Jon still had the bronze dagger. His father never lost the odd steel look in his eyes when he gazed at Jon. He distanced himself after Jon’s return, and subsequently, so did most of Jon’s siblings. There were no more family dinners after that.
Over the next five years, Jon kept seeing the monsters. Actually, Jon kept seeing the same monsters and they learned to get into Winterfell. No matter how many times he killed the monsters, they just kept coming back. There was one a week, on average. Sometimes he’d go a month with nothing, other times they’d attack every day for two weeks. Jon always won, always collected scars, and always used the bronze dagger.
Over the years, Jon did wonder if he was a little insane. They say The Mad King had gone insane slowly. Jon really did wonder. The monsters, the weird language in the library, the inexplicable instant expertise with weapons, and the bloodlust other people seemed to get when fighting him that instantly disappeared afterward. Maybe he was just going insane, imagining all of this. It wasn’t a comforting thought.
At seventeen, Jon had been sat down in the solar. He’d known this was coming, hell, he’d been expecting this conversation to take place 2-3 years ago. His father hadn’t been able to look Jon in the eye during the whole conversation. Lady Catelyn looked like a smug cat. She sat next to the desk, perfectly tamed hair in an undo of some southern fashion in a silk dress of blues and reds with touches of silk. Maester Luwin looked at Jon with pity but resigned eyes.
Jon would be joining the Night’s Watch. It wasn’t an offer or a question, it was an order.
“I was thinking of sending you earlier, but Benjen didn’t think you were ready,” This would explain the delay. He’d expected to be kicked out at 14 or 15, not at 17. “But you’re older now and ready I think. It’s a hard life, but even a bastard can rise far in the Night’s Watch.” Because you can’t rise anywhere else and we don’t want you here anymore. The last part was left unsaid, but Jon still heard it. “Benjen should be arriving within the week. You will likely leave within the next month or so.”
“The King is coming.” Lady Catelyn chips in. “He last raven put him here in three weeks. The boy needs to be gone by then. We can’t have his strangeness around the royal family.”
Father nods. “I’ll speak to Benjen. Do you understand, Jon?”
“I do. I’ll make sure I’m packed.”
“Good. You’re dismissed.” His father still wouldn’t look at him and Lady Catelyn was sporting a toothless grin.
The next week was fast. Jon had packed everything rather quickly. A saddle bag and a rucksack held everything I needed, other than Ghost. Then, this happened.
A man or a goat? A ½ man, ½ goat person? came limping through the gods' woods supported by a green-eyed dark-haired man in armor. Behind them was a blonde woman in armor with a spear. It’s made of bronze. Oddly, the man doesn’t have a weapon. A giant lizard was following them. How no one else could hear the ruckus or see this thing was beyond him. His little dagger wouldn’t be very helpful in this fight, but Jon still joined the fray.
“What is that?”
The three of them whipped around to look at him. The girl's eyes, a stormy grey, bore into him. “You can see the drakon?”
“Yes?” Jon shakes his head. “Why wouldn’t I?”
The lizard, drakon, was getting closer. “Which cabin are you from? I don’t recognize you?”
“Ahhh, cabin? I live here at Winterfell.”
The goat man sniffs into the air. “He’s it!”
Both of the other people look at him. “WHAT!”
“He’s a demigod. He must be why there’s a hoard of monsters up here.” He looks at Jon. “How long have you lived here?”
“17 years? I’m sorry, what is a demigod?”
“How are you still alive?” The dark-haired man looking Jon up and down.
“How have we never found him before? We’ve done 4 loops through Wintertown over the last 17 years.”
“I don’t leave Winterfell much, Father, Lord Stark didn’t let me wonder when I was young and the monsters are worse outside the castle.”
The blonde woman clicks her tongue. “Jon Snow, then? I’d love to explain what a demigod is and what’s going on, but the drakon is about 30 seconds away. Grover is completely useless in this fight-”
“HEY!”
“Thanks to his earlier injuries. Percy went and lost Riptide, so he’s useless until his sword comes back!”
“Comes back?”
The man, Percy, shacks his head. “It’s a thing only riptide can do. You’ll get used to it.”
“Which means it's just me and the newbie who probably can’t tell which end of a sword is the right one.”
“Annabeth!” Both Percy and Grover give her a look, which she just ignores.
The drakon had broken into the clearing and we could see it up close and everything. “f*ck!” Annabeth snaps. “It looks like a Lydian Drakon.”
“Damn. Where’s Clarisse when you need her?”
Jon stares at the odd being. It had no legs, crawling like a snake. It had been years since Jon had seen this one monster. 5 years to be exact, he still had acid burns on his arms. It was the last monster he found before returning to Winterfell. It was watching the group, eyeing everyone as it prepared to attack. All three of the other people freeze. Jon doesn’t, he knows how to kill it.
Without much thought, Jon pulls the spear off Annabeth’s back and starts forward. The drakon roars and fixes his gaze on Jon, instead of the other three.
“sh*t! What are you doing!”
Jon slides across the snow as the drakon spews acid, managing to get just under the neck. Jon grabs ahold of some scales and climbs up the neck of the beast.
Percy, Annabeth, and Grover are yelling at him to get off, to move, that he’s going to die. Ghost is growling, despite the distance, Jon can feel his bones vibrating with the growls.
The drakon roars and leans his head back to get a look at Jon. Angry that someone had the guts to climb it. Just as planned, the moment the head turned back, Jon rammed the spear through an eye and into the brain. The roar cuts off suddenly, and the head goes limp. Jon pulls the spear out, resulting in the drakon starting to turn to dust, just like last time. Only this time there’s a pile of drakon skin left as if skinned from the beast.
The other three people are staring at him as he walks back to them. Jon is panting and he holds the spear out to the girl. “I’ve been fighting those monsters for 5 years here and I’m still alive. I’ve been trained by the Master of Arms. I do know what I’m doing.”
Again, they all look at Jon. “How have you been killing them?”
“Took this bronze dagger from one of them when I was 12, it’s the only thing that works.”
Annabeth blinks. “Alright, maybe you’re not a newb. How often do they attack you?”
“Roughly weekly.”
“So, you’ve survived 260 attacks over the years. Impressive, and yet, your face is as pretty as ever.
“Are you thinking Aphrodite?” Percy helps Grover from the ground. “She generally doesn’t produce fighters like him.”
“Well, she would be pretty enough to make “the most honorable man in Westeros forget his honor 3 months after his wedding. Also, are you forgetting Piper or Silena, or Tyene?”
“Let’s not talk about her. What about the Lydian drakon? I thought only a-”
“Maybe it’s just a look a like or maybe Ares gave him a blessing. Regardless, we shouldn’t stick around. More monsters will come.
“What?”
“Look, kid,” Annabeth looks back at Jon. “You’re not normal. There’s a lot to explain, but here it is. You’re a demigod. One of your parents, probably your mother, is a god. Now, those monsters will keep coming. You can stay here as they keep coming more and more often and eventually, you will die. Or, you can come with us and we can explain everything. How about it?”
“Wow, Annabeth, way to be-”
“I’ll come.”
“Really, just like that? What about your family?” Percy looks at him with wide eyes and scrunched eyebrows.
“They’re kicking me out. My Uncle Benjen arrives tomorrow to take me to the Night’s Watch.”
“Ya no, that’s a real death sentence. Monsters are constantly on the other side of the wall. If you go there, you will die and quickly.” Percy looks exhausted all of a sudden.
“How quickly can you pack?” Annabeth’s face is steady.
“I’m already packed, I just need to get the bags.”
“Be back here as quickly as possible.”
“Ghost can come?”
She looks around at the baby direwolf. “Sure. Can’t be worse than Mrs. O’Leary.”
“Mrs. O’Leary is a perfect puppy.”
“She is the size of a house Percy.”
Jon losses the rest of the conversation as he sped walks through Winterfell, Ghost hot on his heels. It was odd, despite walking around sweaty and covered in leaves, no one really seems to look at him. Even on the way back, carrying his rucksack and saddle bag with his heavy winter cloak, no one noticed. It was far too warmfor that cloak.
Jon made it back to the gods’ woods to find two winged horses with small, thin saddles and a chariot being pulled by another two horses. Grover was in the back of the chariot with Annabeth. She starts to corral Ghost over to the chariot, which held their bags and the drakon skin from earlier.
Percy makes his may over to me. “You’re back fast.”
“Wasn’t much to do.”
“You sure about this?” Jon noticed Percy was taller than him, by several inches.
“I am. There’s nothing here for me anymore.” There really wasn’t. Jon hadn’t built much of a relationship with Bran or Rickon, being that they were only 10 & 3. Jon hadn’t been allowed near Rickon after his birth and Catelyn had pulled Bran away after his 3 months away 5 years ago. He had no relationship with Sansa, she had pulled away from him almost a decade ago when she learned what bastard meant. Robb had chosen Theon years ago. Theon had detested Jon, so a rift had formed, one that grew after that failed hunting trip. Arya, he would miss his sister, the one sibling he still had somewhat of a relationship with. But she was only 11, and she never quite forgave Jon for refusing to continue with their sword lessons in secret after being discovered 3 years ago. He could forgive her for her anger, she was only a child, and she never knew the punishment he recieved for that transgression. But, a division had formed, helped along by her mother and even somewhat by their father.
Percy’s eyes are filled with pity, but he quickly changed the subject. “You ride, correct?”
“Not winged horses..”
“You’ll get the hang of it, and if you don’t like it, you can swap with Annabeth in the chariot at our first resting spot.”
Jon swung the saddle bag over the horse, and pulled himself up. It was different, he sat a little further back to accommodate the wings. Still, getting into the air would be something else. He kept his rucksack over his shoulder.
Percy swung up onto his horse. “Alright, let’s go. Jon, keep a grip on the mane, but don’t pull, they don’t like that.”
Percy kicks his winged horse in the side, and the wings flare out and up. All Jon does it blink, before they’re both shooting up into the sky.
“You first Jon.” Annabeth clicks her tongue.
Taking a deep breath, Jon kicks the side of his horse. In an instant, he’s in the air. Wind whips past his face, throwing his hair out of his eyes. His eyes start to sting and tears wells up. His heart was in his throat and attempting to escape if the erratic beating was anything to go by. And yet, Jon loved it.
They flew for 5 days and 4 nights, stopping in the woods to sleep and eat. The Neck, the Isle of Faces, the Kingswoods, and lastly the tip of Dorne. After that, they had landed on a large wooden ship. Larger than anything Jon had ever thought possible. A large common hall with a kitchen attached was on the first lower level. All the cabins filled in on the three levels below that. They were filled with cabins, some marked with symbols, others left blank. The stern end of the first lower level were stables, along with a large section of the main deck. A two story wheelhouse sat in the middle of the main deck.
There little group of four weren’t the only people flying in. Several other groups flew in over the next day or so. Each group consisted of two people and a goat man, which Annabeth informed him was called a Satyr. Sometimes the groups came back empty handed, other times with kids. Usually only one or two. Almost all of the other kids were 11-13, some a little younger, but no one older, except him.
“The monsters are attracted by our scents, which is attached to our powers. Our powers start to manifest at puberty, which is about age 11-13. The scents fluctuate, some of us have minimal power and can live normal lives. Others have stronger powers which manifest earlier, which results in monster attacks earlier. The only thing for certain is that if a demigod finds out their a demigod, their scent reaches it’s peak.”
Annabeth’s explanation hadn’t been very comforting, but Jon still felt better knowing that he hadn’t been imaging the monsters all these years.
They started sailing after three days when the last group arrived. Ghost had taken to the ship rather well, more than Jon thought he would. They sailed for about a week before on Jon realize where they were headed. Valyria. They were sailing into the Valyrian Pennisula, through the thick mists it was known for. They ended up going down an old river, the one that ran straight through Valyria itself. None of the supposed monsters that filled these waters came after the ship. We finally docked on the 8th day, near two other large ships and several smaller ones in a port. There were people around the docks, all dressed in the same bright orange shirts with words in that odd lanaguage he’d had found all those years ago on the front. At the front of the group was something-someone else. A ½ man, ½ horse. A centaur, Annabeth explained to all the new people, named Chiron.
The boat docked, and we started to exit. Jon had no sooner stepped foot on the ground when a dark red symbol starts to glow above his head. A sword and spear crossed over a boar’s head.
Chiron blinks for a moment before sinking down on his front legs. “The Blood Line is Determined! Ares, the God of War and Warriors, of Bloodlust & Rage! All Hail the New Son of War!”
The rest of the campers present went down on one knee, leaving only Jon upright.
Jon, however, was a little peeved. Would he ever find out who his mother was?
