North, King's Road, 289 AC, two days ter
Jon opened his eyes and realized he was in stant motion. Quickly, he looked around and saw that he was asleep inside a cart. Dozens of questions began to form in his mind, but a slight headache interrupted them. Suddenly, memories of what happened before he passed out came rushing back, and he felt pain. Pain for a mother he would never see again, pain for losing his st hope of life.
Even as a bastard, he would do anything to reach the person who could give him a ce to feel the true love of a mother. He longed for maternal love in his life, and it would be his mother who could heal his wounds and traumas from the past two years. Now, disc that his mother was dead at the hands of his own father's words, he lost her too. Why should he live on, in that hole called one of the most renowned castles ieros, Winterfell?
He wao live as far away from that pce as possible now. Sure, there was still Arya and his father there, but he didn't want to stay there anymore, even if he felt the pain of distang himself from the few people who truly loved him. Jon wao find his home somewhere else.
The boy expressed his lifeless and hopeless gaze again. He wao know what to do with his life now. He reasohat he should first have information about the current situation and why oh he was inside a cart, especially alone.
"Is my father sendio the Wall for theft?" He thought for a moment. "I heard many criminals are sent there."
Trying to keep his face as normal as possible, he opehe curtain and saw some guards. One of the four noticed him, and upon seeing Jon awake, quickly spoke for the others to hear:
"Look, the little thief is awake! Hide your wallets, ds, HAHAHAHA.
" They started ughing after that ent, and Jon shrunk a bit. Still, he tried to maintain some dignity in front of these men and did his best not to cry in the faockery, which hurt him a lot.
"What's happening? Where are they taking me?" He said, but his tone showed a bit of desperation. The men stopped ughing, now looking somewhat flicted, until one of them came closer to the window and said, "We're going to the Wall, d. We're esc you north, by direct order of your father, Lord Stark."
Despair overcame Jon. "Do the gods hate me so much?" It was his first question in his mind after hearing this.
"Not only do they take my mother from me, but they also have my father send his 8-day-old son to the Wall?" Even though he cimed he no longer wao stay in Winterfell, finding out that his father sent him to the Wall was a shock.
"Still, it would be better than losing a hand," he muttered. He was very afraid of losing his hand, despite being able to take it with a grain of skepticism; his father would never bring him to such a situation. Still, beio the Wall was a bitter pill to swallow, so he asked with a toill showing his desperation.
"Am I going to be senteo the Wall for theft?" I asked. The men looked at each other. The man who spoke to me before didn't have the disdainful look like the others. He looked at me and said in a ral voice,
"No, d, at least not forever. Your father pns to punish you by spending 1 year at the Wall with your uncle, Beark." He said, and the boy's heart eased a bit. He just didn't know if it was because he wouldn't be at the Wall forever or because Uncle Benjen could take care of him. His uncle had always been a good person to him when he visited Winterfell.
Jon thanked for the information and closed the window again. He y on the small bed ihe cart as he looked up at the ceiling. He thought about the future. He was a bastard, a boy hated by the world, without a mother, a father too busy to be the same, a stepmother who hated him, a brother who mocked him as if it were his natural right, a sister who disgusted him in the same way.
But he also had a little sister who loved him unditionally. He smiled at the image of Arya in his mind. She was something he couldn't have expected in his life.
"I hope Arya will be okay," he thought of the little she-wolf of 4 namedays. And there's also Bran, a dreamy and sweet little boy who always asked for ories whenever possible.
"I hope he'll be okay too."
He wasn't sure if he would return to Winterfell. He shouldn't go back there anymore. He had that feeling now. He promised himself that he would try to live with his uncle Benjen. Maybe see how grand the Night's Watch is and that even a bastard have a here.
"Maybe the world really has a pce for a bastard," he thought before being interrupted by a new voice.
"And he does... Jon," a female voice sounded, not even sounding human, so beautiful like a melody. This happened suddenly near his ear, so he startled, stood up, and checked if he was still alohe cart had no one else here. The only sound was the noises of the wheels on the road, while he heard some guards ughing outside the cart.
"Maybe stress is making me hear things," he just murmured before lying back down and trying to sleep a little more.
4 days ter.
When night fell, they made a stop in a clearing, which travelers usually use to set up a camp he road. He had been having a routine for days. He ractically silent all the time. He wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone, just to get to the Wall ahis over with.His routine was basically traveling during the day and camping to sleep at night, and it would tinue like this for weeks because the North is vast, and Winterfell is in the heart of the kingdom, while the Wall is the extreme north. Without wanting to socialize with the guards, he ended up staying in a er eating the vegetable soup they prepared, enjoying the silence of the dark night. He g the guards, who were talking and ughing, but not too loudly. He also noticed that he received some looks occasionally, which was why he was avoiding any tact with them. Despite the leader of the four being a bit more attehan the rest, the others spent the whole journey mog him. Even without talking much with them, Jon found out that the leader's name was Jack, and he had been in Winterfell for a few years. More importantly, he was a northerner, so the disdain wasn't as much from him towards Jon, at least he didn't appear so. The rest of the guards were southerners from House Tully aheir beliefs against bastards...
Unwilling to i with anyone, as soon as he finished eating, Jon stared into the fire in the middle of the camp, ign everything around him. He got lost in his thoughts, as there wasn't much else to do there. However, something caught his attentioiced, while the rest of the guards were ughing and drinking more loudly, that he was still in a trance by the fmes. He looked ily at the fire that had caught his attention but not for long, as suddenly the fmes flickered to the right. He turned his head to the left, trying to see what broke his trand made the fmes retreat. He felt a strong wind ing from that side. There was only darkness in front of him. He looked at the people, and they were all still engrossed in their activities, oblivious to anything. However, the icy wind began to intensify. There was still no snow on the ground; it was the middle of summer, but this wind seemed like some kind of storm.
An almost inaudible noise came from that darkness and increased as time passed. Jon started to get a little scared.
"Jon, something wrong?" Jack, seeing his suddenly frightened face, asked.
"There, something is ing." Jon pointed his fio the darkness of the forest. The guards stopped chatting with each other, as everyone heard what Jon said. But the silence of the night was their only response.
"The bastard is mad... there's nothing..." One of the guards was about to start mog Jon, but he was stopped. A strong wind came from that side, and the hat only Jon had been hearing began to reach everyone's ears as it increased. We all stared into the darkness, w what this noise approag us was, increasing every sed after that cold gust of wind. We all stayed on high alert, especially when the noise became so loud that we started hearing sounds of branches breaking and trees being uprooted from the ground in the midst of the night's darkness. Jon, like a child, was very scared. Whatever roag us was enormous.
"A storm? Everyone, get ready, find shelter to hide!" Jack shouted. We looked for somewhere to go, but it was all dark, and our tents would be of no use, not for what seemed to be tearing everything from the ground as it approached. So, we all stood waiting for what was to e. The noise was getting louder and louder. I started running in the opposite dire, even though Jack called me. But I didn't have time to react because when I turned around, I saw men screaming in desperation, and I mao see what was ing.
From the darkness, a gigantic wave of snow emerged out of nowhere, dragging trees and everything in its path. I could do nothing but shield my face from the wind and snow ing our way. It was s that even in the darkness, we could see a part of its size. I thought it was one of those avanches I read about in books about the North, something that only happens in mountainions, especially beyond the Wall. Those were the st things I could think, because as soon as the snow hit me, I felt like a training dummy thrown by the impact of a wall, and soon after, I don't remember anything else. A rge amount of snow hit me, and my mind was bnk after being hit.
North, Unknown Pce, 289 Ae time ter.
"Little Jon." A voice echoed in my mind, the same voice I heard a few days ago in that cart.
I opened my eyes, armed, and panicked as I realized I couldn't breathe. In the midst of a forest, there was a trated mound of snow. Everything was calm and silent until a child emerged from the snow, struggling to breathe. He had been buried entirely, w what had happeo the others. He wasn't foolish enough not to realize that a child wouldn't survive alone on the northern road.
Jon, after calming down a bit and having a regur breath again, surveyed the surroundings. He realized he was in the middle of a forest with vegetation different from what he remembered. "Where am I?" was his first question. It frightened him because he was sure he was no longer where he used to be, and there was no n of anyone from his group, as the snow was only piled up in an area of 15 meters. Other than that, the vegetation was entirely normal, with no trace of the storm that hit him. It seemed like he had beehere, something that terrified him. It wasn't as if he could appear somewhere else without human help, especially when he was hit by that eorm, but his reality seemed very different from logic.
First, he stood up and shook his clothes, removing the accumuted snow. The remihat he could still freeze made him shudder, aried to warm himself by rubbing his hands quickly. Jon wao make a fire at that moment, but he had no resources. None of the guards' group was nearby. He tried to orient himself, w what had happened and where the hell he was.
"Little Jon, e, d." The female voice echoed in my ear again. He was fused, he was scared. 'Are the gods pying ariy life?' He couldn't help but think. Wasn't it enough to be a bastard; now he had to be crazy? Jon stood still, and the voice came again without warning.
"e, d. Your destiny awaits you, a grainy, not as a bastard you think you are, but as something greater, much greater." The voice again brought him back to reality.
"Not as a bastard? Are the gods going to mock me too?!" He shouted in the middle of the forest, but there was no immediate respoo that.
With not much else to do, Jon decided to go in the dire where the voice called him. Yes, he was afraid of it, but he was in the middle of nowhere, lost without any food or water, so he took a this madness. He didn't have much to lose.
Even without hearing the voiymore, he could magically feel it ing from a specific dire, where something ulling him and drawing him in.
"That's it, little Jon, e to us. Keep going." The voice echoed like a reverberation. He tinued walking in that dire. This went on for the 2 hours. He no longer cared about huhirst, or cold. He had no idea where he was. His only hope here was to follow where that attra and strange voices were ing from.
After reag a dense cluster of pirees in the forest, he noticed how the trees were more trated, blog the entire front view. He had to start maneuvering among them, and after a while, he saw a light in front of him. He didn't have sunlight because the leaves blocked all sunlight, yet he could see the light in front of him like a bea in the darkhrough some openings betweerees, so he kept moving forward.
After a while of dodging, he finally reached the light and passed through the trees. The light was a bit strong here, f him to close his eyes for a moment. Soon after, he began to open them slowly, looking somewhat hesitantly at the unknown, gathered ce, and looked at where he was. That's when he finally saw.
It ce he never imagined in the North, a sight he had only seen in paintings and drawings in books about Southern kingdoms, like the Read the Rivernds. No, he thought better, the pce surpassed them iy. Where Jon was was simply magical. There was no other definition, the child thought. It ainted with various colors of various vegetation, in addition to the many greens, and it was filled with life.
"A magical clearing, enormous! How a pce like this exist in the North?" He excimed in wonder. It seemed that Jon was in a Southern kingdom at this moment. Even in summer and without snow accumution, the North is still very desote. So, where Jon was, it seemed like a trast to everything he had withe pce sisted of thousands of trees, all different, some carrying known and unknown fruits, grass and herbs in various pces, not in smaller numbers, small animals, many species running through the cleariing their fruits aables while pying with each other. Even being of different species, they seemed to live in harmony. Jon was even more surprised by the heart tree in the ter. It was clearly three times rger than the one in Winterfell; it seemed to nourish this pce, as if it protected the clearing of hundreds of square meters from the cold of the North and did not let it affect the pce. It was simply magical. Jon noticed how the clearing was surrounded by dense pirees. No one could find this pce by venturing from the forest. It en only to sunlight, which illumihe entire pd made the ke in the middle of the area shih the refle of the sun.
"Little Jon, approach the sacred tree." The voice brought him out of his thoughts, and he began to walk towards the tree. As the pce was gigantic, it would take him a while to get there. He also wasn't in a hurry; he just wao enjoy this wonderful view. As he walked, he noticed the animals more closely, some of which he didn't know beyond the foxes, squirrels, and rabbits that ran all over the pce.
"Little Jon, pce both hands on the face of the tree, soon you will know your destiny." He had fotten that he might be crazy with these voices after getting lost in the wonder of this pow he had reached the tree that the voice asked him to go to and began to feel a bit scared on one hand. But wasn't it the voice that brought him here? Perhaps only he arrived here, so it must be the gods speaking to him. And even with fear, what choice did he have? A bastard practically o the Wall. Maybe the gods are giving him a better opportunity, as he repeated to himself wheered this madness. He didn't have much to lose if he was ho with himself. So, without wasting any more time, he pressed his face against the sacred tree with both hands at the same time, but sretted it the sed.
His mind was shocked with all the information that began to enter him, going straight to his brain. In addition to the unbearable headache, his arted bleeding. He was screaming now, frightening all the animals. He k was only 10 seds pressing the tree where he couldn't take his hands off anymore, they seemed glued no matter how hard he tried. However, those 10 seds of torture felt like 100 entire years passing in his mind.
His eyes burned like never before as he let go of the tree, falling to his knees in the grass and coughing while blood still dripped from his nose. His whole body was ag as if he had been run over by a cart of oxeruggled not to faint right there. But he knew, he felt, something had ged. His previret turned into gratitude, gratitude for the new opportunity the gods had given him.
