4.Vexations of a Fisherman

Year 129 After Aegon’s Conquest

Jon Snow

“A storm is brewing,” Aethan muttered the next morning.

Nettles glanced at the cloudless sky outside and scoffed. “How would you know, old man?”

“I can feel the ache in my knees.” His steward smiled ruefully. “The days are getting shorter, and fall shall soon arrive, and with it come the autumn storms from the Stepstones.”

As the old fisherman predicted, the weather turned stormy the next week. The warm drizzle was easy to ignore, but the winds coming from the east saw the waves rising to six feet, preventing Jon from fishing. In the end, he settled for whacking a makeshift dummy in his yard under the dribbling rain.

“Won’t you get sick?” Nettles asked him after the first training session, eyeing his soaked breeches.

“From this warm rain? Nay.”

“You Northmen are an odd lot,” she grumbled. “Suppose ice does run in your veins, as the sailors said in Driftmark.”

Of course, Jon always dried up with a towel and changed his clothes after a rainy training session. Throughout the last weeks, he had caught enough fish to last the three of them through the bad weather, salting or smoking most of them for later consumption. The rain would have been a godsend for the newly planted crops if it had let up after the second day–by the fourth day, his fields were flooded, and the seeds and newly budding stalks were washed away into the sea. Jon was forced to abandon farming for now and feed the poultry and goats with hay, and even some cheap, dried-up corn Aethan had purchased. The setback did not upset Jon nearly as much as Aethan and Nettles. She soon started grumbling about eating too much fish and onions, but it did not stop her from sweeping her meals clean.

Besides the leaky roof that Jon spent half a day fixing, his time was leisurely. His idle mind drifted towards Longclaw, then. Did the current Lord Mormont wield the same dragonsteel sword, albeit with a different pommel? And while it was unlikely that Jon would ever meet with the Lord of Bear Island, keeping the name Longclaw made him feel like an impostor.

Perhaps it would be prudent to change the name of his sword, even if the name of Longclaw itself made him feel forlorn. ‘Skyfall,’ Jon decided after three days of musing. ‘For the end of the world, where the heavens themselves fell in a rain of fire.’

Then, his thoughts turned to far more obscure matters. Would his presence here change anything? Even if it did, would it matter? No matter how much he changed things, Jon Snow was merely a man, unable to move the will of the heavens. In less than two centuries, the world would end in flames. In the end, Jon stopped thinking of the future.

There was nothing for him left there. If it was all ending, why not just take the small joys in what he liked doing?

By the sixth day of the stormy weather, Shaggy’s barks heralded the village headman’s weekly visit just as the drizzle had ceased. Thankfully, it seemed like he wasn’t here to convince Jon to wed his daughter, at least for now. But he seems to have taken a liking to Jon’s hospitality. Or, to be more precise, to the roasted codfish Aethan always prepared.

“New sword, Snow?” Silver Denys eyed the newly renamed Skyfall, the sheathed sword resting on Jon’s belt. The dragonsteel blade always sat within arm’s reach ever since that day his sworn brothers turned on him.

“It’s my old master’s blade, actually,” Jon explained, letting the nostalgic memory of Jeor Mormont wash over him. “He was growing too old to swing it, so he passed it down to me.”

“First time I see a stone pommel like that. Good craftsmanship with the wolfhead.” The headman downed the cup of goat milk Aethan had offered in one go to push down the hardy bread and the salt. Then, he eagerly dug into the serving of fish. “May I see it?”

“I’m afraid not,” Jon declined politely. “I swore never to part with it even for a heartbeat after I was betrayed once.”

Silver Denys sighed regretfully. “Understandable. Ah, that reminds me–I never asked of your family.”

The question had both Aethan and Nettles paying close attention. As servants, they had not dared to ask of Jon’s origins–knowing he was a highborn bastard and had coin was enough for them.

“Family, eh?” Jon flexed his right hand by habit as he struggled to decide what to speak. He could remain silent, but it would only raise more suspicion. “There’s not much to say. My father perished before I was born, and my mother died from birthing fever shortly after having me. Neither of them were particularly important.” At least they wouldn’t be for the next century. “I was raised in the North by my uncle. I fought against wildlings a few times and even travelled Beyond the Wall.”

“Is the place truly full of savages?” Denys asked, his purple eyes gleaming with curiosity.

“There’s more ice and snow than wildlings.” Jon paused. “If you’re lucky, you can see a giant-“

“I thought giants were just myths!” Nettles exclaimed, leaning over.

“They’re real enough in the Haunted Forest and the Frostfangs,” he said, with a tone that promised punishment should the girl interrupt again. “You see dragons every week here, and giants are far less fantastical. Twice the height of the tallest of men, all teeth and fur. Lord Walton Stark slew two of their ilk before being torn apart alive by five more at the beginning of the Conciliator’s reign.”

“You know the histories, then?” Silver Denys rubbed his hands, delighted.

“Mostly of the North. My uncle made sure I was well-read.”

“Good man. Learned men like you are rare. Which House?”

“Stark–but the connection is so distant that the Lord of Winterfell probably doesn’t know of my uncle’s existence, let alone mine,” Jon explained ruefully. It was the truth… of sorts. It was also a safe claim to make. At this time, the Starks of Winterfell had many landless cadet branches stretching through the North. Most of them joined the Watch, and those who did not were landless lineages stemming from the younger brothers of lords and kings and slowly fading into obscurity. All aside from Karstark, of course. The Winter Fever that would sweep the Seven Kingdoms would see an end to many of them, as would the Great Spring Sickness during Daeron’s reign, and in a century, the fledgling remnants would be indistinguishable from smallfolk, with the memory of their lineage lost or forgotten.

“Ah, I see,” Silver Denys muttered, rubbing his silvery beard. “A bastard is only as important as his parents deem him to be. My grandfather was a byblow of the Cruel, yet he only received scorn and mistrust for it. But let us not speak of my family’s woes. I never asked–what brings you so far south, Snow?”

Jon snorted. “The warmth. I’ve had my fill of cold and fighting in the North and Beyond the Wall. Skirmishes against wildling raiders hungry for food, steel, and women. There’s the occasional reaver from the Iron Islands searching to steal away thralls. And other, darker things dwell in the cold depths of the Lands of Always Winter. Fey things that hate the warmth of the living and seek to snuff it out.”

“I didn’t take you for the superstitious type, Snow,” the headman tutted, clearly not taking his words seriously. “But I can see why you wouldn’t want to linger in your homeplace. The North is a hardy land for hardy folk. But there are far better places to settle around here than Dragonstone.”

“Perhaps,” Jon acknowledged. “But fate has brought me here for now. I can always move later, should I deem it necessary.”

“You seem like a man skilled with the sword.” The headman swept out an arm in the Dragonmont’s direction. “You’d be welcomed with open arms in the Castle of Dragonstone, for Princess Rhaenyra and her husband are always on the lookout for more retainers and sellswords.”

“I’m not eager to swear or sell my sword to men and women I know not. In fact, I’ve found that the quiet life of fishing suits me more than fighting does,” Jon confessed as he gently tapped on the table. “It’s a peaceful life.”

While he would fondly remember his time in command, Jon did not miss barking orders or leading and sending men to their deaths. He did not miss the pained wails of the dying nor the smell of voided bowels and bladders that accompanied battlefields. Now that the duty was no longer lying on his shoulders, Jon felt unfettered, as if a mountain that had been pressing on his back had disappeared.

“Fair. I suppose each warrior has their pride, even if I struggle to understand it,” Silver Denys acknowledged. Then, he leaned forward, a sly smile appearing on his face. “But that’s not what I came here for. Five men came over to inquire for a secluded house, willing to pay over five dragons for it.”

“A pity the deed is already in my name,” Jon said with a smile, but his hand rested on Skyfall’s hilt as a sign of warning. “Surely there are other abandoned houses outside the village?”

“Plenty of them, but this one is the best.” There was a hint of anger in his tone. “You should appreciate the lengths I have gone to accommodate you, Master Snow, but I am no fool to be pushed around. I can’t help but remember you deflecting matters of marriage by way of your parents, whom you now say are dead. I am willing to forgive you should you visit my home.”

Jon groaned inwardly. This was why he hated lies; it became hard to keep track of most of them as time passed. As a headman, Silver Denys could make trouble for him, even if Jon had the means to blackmail the man. But as Eddard Stark always said, blackmail and other skulduggery oft gave rise to animosity and loathing. Perhaps Silver Denys had already figured out a way to cover his tracks and remove any evidence.

Grey eyes met purple.

“The young Lady Jeyne is a woman greater than others, but I am not a man eager to be shackled down to a wife or whelp a brood of children,” Jon offered, bowing lightly in apology. “As such, I’m afraid I have to decline. You are still welcome to visit my humble abode, of course.”

Then, his finger slowly traced a ‘three’ and ‘steward’ on the table before the headman. The man was canny enough to understand the warning for what it was and nodded stiffly.

“Very well,” he said as he hastily gobbled the remaining fish and stood up. “I shall leave you for now. But you might be visited by those new neighbours of yours–they picked a homestead over the shepherd’s hill. All of them are queer hedge knights who have sworn to silence, according to their young servant. But I don’t think they’ll linger for long or have an interest in fishing or farming like you do. Methinks they’re here to try and slay the Cannibal.”

With that, Silver Denys left.

He turned out to be right. The next day, the five mutes came over to Jon’s house. Even though their heads were shaved bald, the silver and golden eyebrows were unmistakable. So were the five pairs of purple and dark blue eyes filled with steel and anger, even if none was pointed at Jon Snow. The unmistakable pride of nobility to their bearing meant they were no common bastards or no-name hedge knights. All of them had swords on their hips and wore mail and coats of plates underneath their cloaks.

While they bore no coats of arms or signs of heraldry, Jon had seen too many hedge-knights and sellswords to know these men were anything but. Hedge-knights would regard noble bastards with caution, for the byblows of lords were oft eager to pursue the martial way to prove themselves. What betrayed them the most was the silent disdain as they glanced at Jon. That disdain was solely aimed at him, and Jon had seen it a thousand times before. It was the very same disdain men of high birth had when looking down upon bastards.

Were these the infamous Silent Five that had lost their tongues for speaking truths to a king who had no desire to hear them?

While the tale was probably well-known by the nobility in the Crownlands and court who had bore witness to the removal of the tongues, the smallfolk outside the cities probably knew preciously little of the Sea Snake’s tongueless nephews.

And their servant was a boy nearing manhood, a wiry thing with a mop of dirty-blonde hair and big blue eyes. But his calloused palms and the width of his shoulders suggested that he was a squire more than a simple errand boy.

Jon met them at his fence, unwilling to let five armed men in his house. He had pulled on his arming doublet and ringmail and was quite confident in dealing with five knights, especially if they had eschewed the protection of a full suit of plate in exchange for a measure of anonymity.

“Master Snow,” the squire was the one to greet him. “My masters wish to inquire if you know of Sheepstealer’s haunts.” It sounded more like a demand than a request.

“You know of my name, but you have yet to introduce yourself,” Jon riposted lazily.

“I’m Lennard of Claw Hill. I’m afraid I cannot give you my masters’ names, for they have sworn to silence until they cut down a dragon.”

If he was a few years younger, Jon would be offended at being looked down on by a squire and a band of high-born knights. All his success in battle had been washed away, for the men he had slain and bested had yet to be born, and the respect he had won himself by the tip of his sword was gone.

It still irritated him to be looked down upon like that, but the passage of time had seen him weather things far worse than disdain and insults. The squire was not the brightest either. If his masters had sworn a vow of silence, nothing would stop him from presenting their names since he had no problem speaking. It was clear they were up to no good here.

He snorted. “How droll. But I’m afraid I won’t be of much help. Sheepstealer’s elusive lair should be somewhere further to the eastern slopes of the Dragonmont, and your best bet to find him is to… well, rearing sheep. He’ll come over and steal one or two sooner rather than later.”

The five knights shared a grimace. One of them wrote something on a lacquered board with a piece of chalk and handed it over to the squire. Yet another proof they were not silent by choice but by deed. Any doubt these men were the infamous Silent Five was now gone.

While the maesters had never made any conclusions, everything pointed to the Strong Boys being bastards. After all, when the blood of the Forty mixed with a first-men lineage, the children took the colouring of the First Men more often than not, just like Jon had.

Looking rather irritated, the squire once again spoke.

“My masters want to know if you have perhaps spotted Grey Ghost,” he asked, voice tinged with impatience.

Jon narrowed his eyes.

“I’m afraid not. That dragon is little more than a myth some drunk conjured after overindulging in cheap ale one evening,” he lied. Perhaps he would have been more forthcoming if the squire had been more respectful. “But if you seek to slay a dragon, I can point you towards the Cannibal’s lair.”

They dismissively thanked him and hastily excused themselves.

“It’s rare that someone seeks to kill Sheepstealer, let alone Grey Ghost,” Aethan murmured once the unwelcome visitors left. “Cannibal is far more notorious, bigger, and slaying him would earn them far more glory and coin.”

Jon Snow wasn’t so sure they were here to kill dragons. They were here not for glory but for revenge, and what better revenge against Rhaenyra and her bastard sons than claiming a dragon?

Not that it was any of Jon’s business. Still, he kept an eye on them with Saltbeak and Shelly from above should the Silent Five prove a nuisance to himself.

The Silent Five had lied. Or rather, their squire had lied. They were looking for neither Sheepstealer nor Grey Ghost but made their way to the southern side of the Dragonmont, trying to find the lairs of Vermithor and Silverwing, but the draconic pair avoided the knights.

It took two more days for the sea to calm after the sky cleared. Naturally, Jon grabbed his fishing rod and ventured towards the shore. Sadly, his peaceful venture was soon interrupted by a familiar nuisance.

“Teach me how to fight!”

“…”

Daemon’s daughter was back, and she was still dressed like a merchant’s foppish son. She had even bribed Shaggy with a fistful of dried jerky, and the pup no longer barked up a storm at her presence.

“Don’t ignore me!” She petulantly stomped her leg.

“You’re scaring away the fish,” Jon muttered, not even bothering to spare her a second glance. “Pipe down, Baela.”

“Teach me how to wield a sword, then.” To her credit, this demand sounded a tad more polite. But it was still a demand, coming from a spoiled girl who was used to ordering people around.

“What makes you think I am any good?”

“You have a new sword at your hip.” Baela motioned to his belt, where Skyfall was resting in its scabbard.

“If all it took to be good at swordfighting was owning a sword, there would be no need for me to tutor you, for you could just pick one from Dragonstone’s armoury and become a master,” Jon pointed out dryly.

“You’re quite witty.” Baela giggled merrily. “But you can’t fool me. I saw you swinging the tourney sword before, and you looked quite good at it.”

“Looking good and being good are two different things.” He felt a pull on his rod, and Jon hastily tugged, tossing a fish into his bucket. “Even assuming I was any good with a sword, I still wouldn’t teach you.”

Baela finally climbed back to the rock he used as a fishing place and sat right beside him without an ounce of shame.

“Why?”

“For you to come to a stray bastard you don’t even know asking for training, it must mean your own Father denies you instruction in the sword,” Jon observed idly. “Wouldn’t I be risking a Prince’s ire and wrath should I deign to teach you when he forbade it?”

“What my Father doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” she said, mischief practically dripping from her voice. “Come on, don’t be such a bore, Master Snow!”

Jon spared a glance at her piteous pout that would doubtlessly make softer men melt and sighed.

“I refuse.”

Baela only pouted harder. Then, the mischief in her eyes gave way to frustration.

“Teach me or, or…”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll tell my Father how you badmouthed my royal uncle.” Baela’s voice grew menacing–if a rabbit could sound menacing. “They will take your tongue for it if you’re lucky!”

“My answer is still no.” Jon’s lips quirked. “Though, it’s amusing to see a young maiden resorting to coercion and extortion. So much for the seven womanly virtues.”

“But you’ll die if I report your earlier words.” Baela looked completely mystified as she tilted her head.

“I would die,” Jon agreed indolently. “What of it?”

“Princess Rhaenyra will send my father and a score of knights to arrest you, and nobody will be able to save you.”

“All men must die. I won’t come quietly, of course. I won’t be able to fight off the whole might of Dragonstone, but there are worse ways than dying with a sword in hand,” Jon mused. He reckoned he could take a good number of men down with him on his way to the Seven Hells, especially if he had been forewarned and could set up an ambush beforehand.

Baela looked aghast.

“You would resist the royal authority and risk death just so you do not teach me how to wield a sword?”

“I have my pride too, Baela Targaryen. A coward dies every time he has to run or bow down, but a brave man only dies once.” He remembered the betrayal. He remembered his first true battle against the Frey Knights. He remembered his first struggle against the Cold Shadows as the chill grew so deep that even breathing made his lungs freeze. “Death is but an old lover to me, and I have danced around her more than once.”

“Why?” The word came out half a sob and half a whine. “Why can’t anyone just teach me?

“You do not understand the weight of a sword,” Jon retorted, eyeing the girl from the corner of his eye.

Baela straightened up and gave him a fierce look. “Is it because I am a girl?”

“Yes. How could you ever understand what it’s like when a call to arms is issued, and you must abandon kin and kith and home to struggle in some faraway land for someone else’s ambition? How could you ever understand how soldiers must trust and obey a commander they might have never seen before?” Jon turned to face her, but something in his gaze made her jerk away. “Aye, they’re paid handsomely for it–when they’re winning, and their commander is generous. But what if he isn’t? What if the army is losing? It’s a man’s duty to fight. There’s no escape, either, if you’re unlucky to be born in it. From Yi Ti to the Seven Kingdoms, deserters are hanged.”

“Yet here you are, a man with no master,” Baela bit back, but her words weren’t as heated as before.

“I did not desert my post,” Jon said wryly. It was hard to lead an army that had yet to be born to fight a foe that had yet to appear. “You can still tattle to your father or his wife and try to get my tongue or my head.”

“Stop with the jests, I’m not some treacherous harpy from Ghis,” Baela said, her pretty face twisting into a scowl. “Is there anything I can do to change your mind?”

“Tell me, Princess, what is the difference between a sword, a spear, and an axe?”

Baela blinked in confusion. “I… don’t know. But swords are far more prestigious, though.”

“An astute observation. But can you guess why swords are regarded better than the other weapons?”

“Uh…” She fidgeted uneasily, clearly floored by the question. “Because the Conqueror used a sword?”

“Swords were prestigious long before Aegon the Dragon forged the realm into one,” Jon patiently explained. “If it has somehow escaped your notice, the Iron Throne is made of the melted swords of the conquered lords, not out of their axes or spears.”

“If I figure out why, will you teach me how to fight?” She looked at him pleadingly. “‘Tis my nameday soon!”

“I will consider it,” Jon relented, more to get rid of the nuisance than anything else. “But you’ve yet to answer why swords are considered so prestigious. Think on the matter for a few days, but I will know if you ask someone else. Oh, and you should avoid coming here.”

She glanced at him suspiciously. “Are you trying to chase me away again?”

Jon scoffed. “Of course. You’re loud enough to wake the dead, let alone scare away the fish.”

“Don’t pull my leg, the dead can’t rise,” Baela chortled.

“If you say so,” he agreed lazily, already feeling too tired to argue with the bubbly, energetic girl. “Still, that’s not why I’m warning you. There’s some shady hedge-knights as of late, snooping around.”

Her nose wrinkled in irritation. “I will tell Father about them.”

“To be a hedge-knight is not a crime,” Jon pointed out. “They claim they’re here to kill Cannibal, supposedly, so even your father would not be able to find much fault with them. Anyway, there’s a good reason noble ladies avoid travelling alone. Not everyone is nearly as benevolent or restrained as I am.”

Thoughts said, Jon returned to fishing, ignoring Baela’s irritating chatter. Soon enough, the girl got bored and finally left, promising to return once she figured out why swords are so prestigious.

Truth be told, Jon could have tattled about the presence of the Silent Five. But they had offered no real slight to Jon; if anything, their plight was even more tragic, considering they had been punished so severely for speaking the truth. Perhaps they even had a chance of claiming a dragon–at this time, it was hard to say where House Targaryen ended and House Velaryon began; the two families had intermarried more than once before the Conquest and would intermarry more in the decades to come. Even without Rhaenys Targaryen, the Seahorses of Driftmark boasted the Blood of the Forty.

While the Targaryens were known as the House of the Dragon, it was the blood that made them Dragonlords, not the name, as evidenced by the results of the Red Sowing.

But perhaps the Silent Five wouldn’t claim a dragon. If the histories he learned as a child were right, they were not fated to succeed.

His bucket slowly filled with fish, and Jon decided it was time for a swim. Just as he shrugged off his boots, Shelly’s worry spilt into his head. He cautiously slipped into the pelican’s mind, only to see a tentacle the thickness of a century-old oak reach out from the sea to snatch the bird. Shelly barely managed to swivel around the tentacle and hastily flew away. But Jon forced the pelican to circle above, inwardly grimacing as he noticed a titanic shadow lurking underneath the waves.

For some reason, the shadow seemed agitated That certainly put a halt to his plans to take a swim deeper into the dark waters. Jon was brave, but he was not foolish to think he could slay a kraken the size of a galley easily. Sea creatures of such sizes were supposed to be old myths, but then again, so were dragons.

Annoyingly, the shadow looming under the wave lingered near the shore even an hour later. Jon could feel the sinister presence looking his way as if it was wroth with him.

…Was the thieving squid Jon slew an actual kraken spawn?

It would certainly make sense, even if he couldn’t figure out how the kraken could detect his presence. He almost regretted slaying the tentacled thief…but then he recalled how good it tasted when he roasted it, and any guilt or regret melted away. It was clear that the behemoth couldn’t swim into the shallows, so there was nothing to fear so long as he didn’t venture deep into the waves.

That realisation did not make the irritation melt away.

Muttering a curse, Jon grabbed his tourney blade, jumped down on the rocky shore, and started focusing on his forms. For once, his focus was split, and he didn’t try to conjure a foe in his mind.

Surely enough, another presence crept closer to the boulder where Jon had left the fruits of his labour. Jon dashed up immediately, leaping up the rocks onto the boulder in heartbeats, and his tourney blade smacked the grey draconic snout that was about to plunder the bucket full of fish.

Grey Ghost reared back, angrily growling at Jon, but he wasn’t deterred. He lunged, smacking the dragon on the head again with all his strength. It felt like he was striking a rock, rattling his wrists and leaving his hands numb.

The dragon blinked at him in a daze but quickly shook off its confusion and reared back angrily. As it opened its maw, Jon slammed the full strength of his mind into the drake as the sword once again smacked it on the head.

Growling, Grey Ghost angrily spun, but Jon managed to duck under the clumsy tail as the drake took to the skies.

Jon didn’t even have to run back to take cover, for the cowardly dragon quickly retreated towards the gathering clouds. Sadly, the thief had knocked over the bucket, and half the fish had spilt back into the sea. Muttering another curse, Jon took to gathering the remaining flopping fish back into the bucket. Hopefully, the thieving drake would have learned its lesson today.

While Jon didn’t have to attack Grey Ghost, the drake would get used to eating and plundering from his catch. If there was one thing that wild beasts understood, it was violence. And if the beast didn’t learn, Jon didn’t mind becoming a dragonslayer.

His curses grew louder as he saw that the tourney blade had bent from the force of the strikes. He had to get a sturdier one from Hoth this time. Perhaps it was time to move his fishing spot, too. If the gods smiled upon him, neither the dragon nor the girl would follow him.

The next dawn saw Jon with a new woe.

“One of the goats has escaped during the night, master,” Aethan dutifully reported. “The rain had loosened a section of the old fence enough for it to flip through, and wooden logs are too expensive to purchase…”

“Branches and twigs will do for now,” Jon decided. Perhaps he could inquire with a passing merchant to purchase hedges that could both serve as a wall and a feed for the goats.

His gold wasn’t limitless, however, and the loss of a milking goat was sorely felt as there was only enough to drink today, and Aethan’s plans to make plain cheese were thwarted. The early morning saw Jon hastily fix the breach in the fence and leave the rest to Aethan as he ventured outside to retrieve his lost goat.

Two days of sun and wind had seen the ground too dry to find proper marks, but Jon was a seasoned hunter and followed the thin trail of trodden grass up the hills. Much to his chagrin, the goat seemed to be heading to the dragonmont instead of the hillside or Ashcove. But then again, goats were natural climbers, and the rocky terrain didn’t slow them down. The more Jon ascended the outskirts of the Dragonmont, the more he was certain he was on a fool’s errand. By now, the goat was probably resting in a dragon’s belly.

But Jon was too stubborn to give up without at least seeing the goat’s remains. The bloody animal cost fifteen silver stags. Fifteen!

His breathing grew laboured, and Jon began to sweat after an hour of relentless climbing. The slope was starting to become steep, the shrubbery thickened, and finding the goat’s tracks became harder and harder. As the sun was halfway on its path across the sky and noon approached, Jon finally arrived at a small basin nestled between two hills, finding a patch of burnt grass where the tracks ended.

Just as Jon spent a whole minute cursing up a storm, a great shadow blotted out the sun. The slow but powerful drumming of wings against the wind had Jon hastily looking for cover–he was utterly defenceless against a dragon out in the open. Dread pooled in his belly, for the small basin provided no cover aside from the knee-high shrubbery.

The moment he craned his neck up, he felt the enormous presence, far more potent than Grey Ghost ever could be. Scales of dark bronze and wings that shone like gold under the sunlight, Jon could only watch in awe as what could only be Vermithor descended. He was enormous, the scaled torso alone thrice the size of the biggest mammoth Jon had seen, with a serpentine tail crowned by spikes even longer. The dragon made Grey Ghost look like an infant. The beat of his wings alone produced an angry gale threatening to knock Jon off his feet. When the dragon landed with a loud thud, the world shook.

The Bronze Fury was as majestic as it was terrible, muscled, with a shock of spikes travelling from his neck down his spine and towards his tail, nothing like the scrawny little fish thief.

His eyes were like two bottomless pools of liquid gold as the dragon peered at him from above, and Jon could feel the sheer sweltering heat emanating from the dragon’s maw. It was merely breathing. Vermithor’s horned head was big enough to devour him with a single bite. Jon Snow never felt so small and insignificant in his life, not even against the Others or the armies of men. Was this how ants felt when faced with men?

Skyfall was already in his hand, but Jon struggled to muster his will to move; it felt as if the dragon was seeing right through him, freezing him in place with his mere gaze. There was intelligence in those golden eyes and a hint of challenge as if the beast was mocking him. It was as if the winged behemoth knew the goat belonged to Jon, but he had eaten it anyway. Vermithor was not merely a mindless beast.

He was doomed, Jon realised.

Escape was not an option, for he could not outrun a flying dragon. Even if he could, it was never wise to retreat before a predator, for it would only ignite their desire to chase you. Vermithor’s head was too high for Jon to reach with his sword, and he now found himself at the mercy of a beast, albeit an intelligent one. Skinchanging was not an option either; the dragon’s mind felt like an enormous whirlpool of fire and brimstone, not something Jon could brute-force his way through. His fingers felt stiff around Skyfall’s handle as if he was five and ten again and just received the blade from Mormont. His burnt scar turned his sword hand too rigid to hold a hilt, but Jon gritted his teeth and did not let go of his sword, refusing to show weakness.

His defiance seemed to infuriate Vermithor, who leaned closer, opened his maw to reveal rows of sword-sized black fangs and roared.

The sound struck Jon like a battering ram, rattling his bones and his belly but he stood his ground. The heat came next; the wall of hot air felt as if Jon had stepped into a bonfire, making him sweat despite being so lightly clothed. The world itself felt wobbly as his ears rang with dull pain, and it was a struggle to remain on his feet.

Then, noticing Jon had not moved, Vermithor paused and tilted his head as if surprised. Then, he once again lowered his head, tilting it sideways, and peered down at Jon with a single massive eye as if to take a measure of him as he sniffed the air curiously.

To his surprise, he felt a brush against his mind. It was unheard of for a beast to be able to reach out like this; not even direwolves could do it–slipping into minds was supposed to be a skill exclusive to the Children and the First Men. Worse, it was a gentle probe, full of curiosity.

Jon steeled himself and gently rebuffed it, returning feelings of peace, acceptance, and contentment to the dragon, but slivers of his stubborn sense of pride seemed to leak through. In the end, the tongue could lie, but the mind and the heart did not.

When Vermithor opened his maw again, Jon again braced himself, prepared to dodge or lunge forth to try and stab the monster in the roof of the mouth should it near, but the dragon merely roared yet again. The guttural sound was lower this time, but the earlier animosity and challenge were absent.

It rattled him just as badly as before, and he tasted iron on his tongue.

“What do you want from me?!” Jon roared back, the hoarse words painfully drudging their way through his throat, which had turned dry long ago.

The dragon lowered his head all the way to the ground as if it was bowing, and then Jon felt the unmistakable feeling of a skinchanging bond settling in his mind. This one was a tad different, feeling more like a chain of fire than the string of silk he remembered from his connection with Ghost.

Jon just kept swearing for what felt like an hour as he tried to ignore the overwhelming feeling of mirth and amusement that Vermithor radiated. It took him yet another hour to send the dragon away as he despondently made his way back to his house, dead set on pretending nothing had happened. It was particularly hard to do so, considering the fiery presence in the corner of his mind that just refused to go away.

The last thing he wanted was to be dragged into the bloody mess that would be the Dance of Dragons. He fully intended to religiously stick to fishing from now on and nothing else. Perhaps it was time to seriously consider moving to the Summer Islands, even.