Chapter Text
Joan
Joan finds herself wandering the crypts of Winterfell during the remainder of the king's stay. Lady Stark, with tight lips and eyes of icy blue rivers, had told her to keep out of sight and out of mind. Though, Joan would have done that anyway. Would have done anything really, to escape King Robert’s leering eyes, feverish and watery with want.
Joan knows who she looks like, no one ever fails to remind her, and more often than not she’ll catch father flinching at the sight of her when she laughs too loud or smiles too hard. Sometimes Joan feels like a ghost.
And so it is no wonder most of her childhood was spent walking among the dead. If she couldn't find comfort in the life above her, she figured the absence of life below would suffice. It’s fitting, truly.
Where Bran loves to climb toward the heavens and tower above everything else, and Arya loves to run amok the earth, Joan finds solace in creeping into the underworld and walking alongside with the dead, ancient things and on the 20th day of the king’s stay, Joan goes deep into the belly of the crypt in hopes of exploring more ground. She's never had this much time on her hands before and she plans to make good use of it.
She makes her usual trek down the spiraling steps, wet with dew and thick with the early morning fog that creeps into the opening. Ghost is beside her, the she-wolf's paws padding softly against the cold stone. Joan raises the torch in front of her face, watches it cut into the darkness with a blade of light, and takes her familiar walk.
She always stops at the tombs of Lord Rickard, her grandfather, and Brandon and Lyanna Stark, her father’s siblings, to pay her respects before slinking in further and this time is no different. Lord Rickard and Brandon’s stone-carved faces aren't much different from any of the other stone-carved faces, resolute and hard and serious even in death. A lord’s face. But it is Lyanna who is set apart from the rest and not solely because she’s the only woman with a statue. The other women are faceless, and some nameless, the time has faded their names from their stone sepulchers. She’s a pretty figure - late aunt Lyanna- cut from stone, smiling brightly at nothing and eyes empty but when Joan lifts her torch at a certain angle those eyes flutter between bottomless hollows of black and glittering specimens of gold, and for a moment Lyanna Stark is alive again. In a way, she always has been. A sanctified figure looming large like the shadow of a great wall over the inhabitants of Winterfell, even the ones who had not known her. Lyanna's name shall live on, even when Joan and her father and her siblings are long dead and gone. Lyanna’s name shall live on. She has been writ large in the history books and the songs. A legend, the woman whose kidnapping brought down a dynasty when half the seven kingdoms raised their banners to get her back. Joan almost envies the legend that will become of her, spoken of thousands of years later, when they've all faded to dust. She may look like Lyanna, but she'll never be a legend, a sanctified, deified, romantic legend.
Some might raise their banners for a young beautiful lady, and others an ambitious bastard boy, but not a bastard girl.
Joan goes further into the gaping darkness. The first several levels of the crypts are relatively new, a few centuries old in comparison to the ten-thousand-year-old levels built deep into the earth, and the difference is physical and stark. The deeper she goes the thicker the rime and hoar frost becomes, glittering crystalline and laid heavy on the walls and stone floors and tall granite pillars. Jagged shards of lethal ice hang threateningly from the ceiling, promising violence should they shudder and fall into her skull. The mist creeps around her ankles and slowly grows denser and raises higher, until it reaches her shoulders and makes a damp shaggy bush out of her curly black hair. But this is nothing new to her. She’s navigated every corridor -from the east to the west to the south to the north- has graced every tomb, has walked among kings long dead.
By this point she has long since passed the tomb of Torrhen Stark, the King Who Knelt, his gray hands -studded with glowing blue ice- gripping a rusted iron sword, chipped away by the elements and time. Joan goes further still.
She remembers once when she was a little girl Lady Stark had sharply chided her for one mishap or the other and in response, Joan had fled in a fright deep into the crypts. She’d hid behind one of the tombs, making company of rats and spiders. But at the time, it’d seemed preferable to the lady’s scorn. Lord Stark and his men had spent two nights looking for her, sick with worry and fear. They’d searched Winter Town, Robb had told her, and the godswood, then the Wolfswood. And when they finally did consider searching the crypts, they could not find her still. They did not know the crypts as well as she did, the many ways you could hide yourself, the hidden hovels and secret holes hidden behind doors of stone which led to other corridors on the other side of the crypt. And she hadn't even hidden that well, nor did she go that far. She’d blended right into the shadows, pressed against the back of a sepulcher behind the statue of a long-dead lord, on one of the levels that were a few centuries old, not a thousand. And still, they did not find her.
They’d have less luck finding her now, to say nothing of the king and his greedy eyes. She’s never ventured this far and deep before, and the air becomes a strange accumulation of hot and cold air that bites at her flesh until it becomes tender.
She almost considers turning around until Ghost halts suddenly, sniffing the air, and Joan halts with her. It’s pitch black, save the single torch she wields against the darkness. On the upper levels, torches burn because father has servants come down to light them, but only on the upper levels. No one has reason to go this far, and though father knows that she likes to explore the crypts he always warns her against it, to no avail.
Ghost gently shifts toward the wall left of them, pressing her wet nose against the cool surface, before lifting a paw to scratch at it. Joan feels a burst of excitement at the idea of finding a new hidden pathway. She kneels beside the white direwolf, awarding her companion with an appreciative head rub before leaning the torch close to the wall for inspection, searching for any faults and cracks. When she finds them, she smiles in triumph before pressing a hand against it, feeling for weakness and that tale-tell hollowness that can be felt behind secret passages. And when she finds that, she adds more force behind her hand and pushes. The wall gives way, old and frail and weak as it plummets to the ground it’d hidden moments prior. It coughs up a cloud of dust that rises in the air, suspended for a time, before settling once more. A breath of heat huffs sternly against her face, a great gust of it that stirs her damp hair and her stiff dress and heavy woolen cloak. It clashes harshly against the cold, icy-hot needles dancing on her skin and she shivers.
The newly discovered entrance is roughly the height of Joan, standing at a good five foot five, and half as wide. It’s enough for her to squeeze through, and she does, Ghost following in her wake. The warmth embraces her, a wall of humid, sticky air that presses against her and makes her skin weep with sweat. As she sinks further into the mouth of the chamber, she soon finds the source. A hot spring the size of a lake, deep and black and boiling hot. Its presence stuns her for a moment. It was often said that Winterfell was built above hot springs that ran through the walls like blood through a man's body, though she never expected to find one nor in the crypts of all places.
She raises the torch higher to catch a glimpse of the walls that surround the hot spring. What she finds is black scorch marks the size of pillars, as though a fire had been set within just a day prior. The sight of it unsettles her and it is then that she realizes she’s in a cave. There are no pillars or tombs or statues of long-dead Starks here, so what else can this hidden chamber be?
With every step she takes further into the darkness, an echo follows, rebounding against the walls. Joan treads carefully above the ground, slippery from steam and covered in sharp rocks. There are many rocks here, large formations of great stone of varying heights and widths. She kicks a smaller rock into the scathing hot water, watching it fall with a plop before sinking into oblivion.
It’s then that her eye latches onto another stone, unique to the rest. It lays in a cradle of rocks shaped into a nest, huddled against two others just like it. They glow with an unnatural brightness that absorbs everything around them, a beacon of light all on their own. Beneath the torch fire, they glitter with the strength of a hundred furnaces, burning like starlight. Joan’s eyes, having been accustomed to the dark, wince from the sheer brilliance. She kneels, rocks digging dully into her cloth-bound knees. She lays a gentle hand against one and gasps, quickly retracting her hand.
It burns , she thinks before laying a hand against the stone once more. And stirs and chants .
Fire! they chant. Fire fire fire!
The girl is immediately bewitched. She knows that she cannot leave this chamber without them, so she sets aside her torch before unclasping her woolen cloak, laying it out on the ground in a spread of roughspun black. Then, one by one, she places all three of the stones, larger than her skull and heavier than any stone she’s ever picked up, into a bed of black wool. She turns her cloak into a makeshift sack, lifting it with much struggle but eventually finding her balance and slowly slinging the sack over her shoulder. She leans down for her torch before making her way to the entrance, Ghost at her heels.
Joan can scarcely contain her excitement, stomach fluttering with anticipation. The trek out of the crypt has never seemed so long until now and when she finally passes the threshold of the ironwood door she makes off quickly with the beautiful stones, shooting like an arrow through Winterfell to reach her secluded chamber. The weight of the stones is forgotten in her pursuit for solitude, so that she may bask in the glory of her discovery, and ogle to her heart's content in the comfort of her room where no one will bother her.
Joan stokes the logs within the hearth, crackling and bursting with bright embers that float lazily in the air. She’s mere inches from the fire but she’s discovered that the heat does not bother her, not this kind of heat at least. And when she reaches out a sure hand to caress the stones resting in a basket of flame she does not burn or blister and when she withdraws her hand it does not come back a charred ruin of flesh.
Joan Snow does not burn. The thought gives her a moment's pause before she quickly discards it, lost in a strange feverish trance that burns her up from within. Ever since she’s come upon the stones they’ve held her beneath a spell of awe. It’s been days, and she can scarcely remember sleeping or eating or using the chamber pot. The moment she settled in this spot and began nursing the flames, she knew she wouldn't leave it. And she hasn’t. Her eyes are dry from staring unblinkingly into the roaring hearth, day after day and night after night, Ghost curled up next to her, head resting in Joan’s lap. She idly rubs the she-wolf behind the ears but her eyes never leave the stones. Ghost has long since given up on trying to gain Joan’s attention and has resolved herself to the random bouts of affection that Joan gives her.
There’s a change of pace, however, when the she-wolf abruptly jumps up, deep red eyes peering out the window. Then the she-wolf howls, a soundless howl, but Joan hears the grief all the same when the rest of the pack joins her. Their howls fill the air for nights to come.
Lord Stark has never quite known what to do with Joan Snow and that remains unchanged upon his sorrowful departure. She’s a bastard girl, unmarriageable by default so there is no place for her to go when he finally leaves for Kings Landing. One might have suggested the Silent Sisters if she followed the Faith, but Joan worships the gods of her father, the Old Gods. So no Silent Sisters for her. No lord husband either.
But -prior to their current tragedy- Lady Stark had shown some mercy and allowed the girl to stay at Winterfell. The woman may not like her, but she knows Joan has nowhere else to go and that Lord Stark would not have his daughter, bastard or not, thrown out of her only home. And she’s a girl besides, no threat to Lady Stark’s sons. She’ll raise no banners to usurp her brothers, she’s no Daemon Blackfyre or any other ambitious bastard boy like him. A girl, quiet as a mouse, who enjoys horse riding and sword fighting and wandering the halls where the dead sleep, but nonetheless no threat. So Joan is allowed to stay and do what she’s always done. Wander around like a lost ghost, following her older brother’s shadow. Though, she’s lost two shadows of her own. Arya, who leaves south with Father and Bran who-
Joan flinches at the thought of her little brother. She’d mustered up the courage days ago to see Bran when Lord Stark was still at large and Joan had had a sense of security and a sudden surge of bravery to enter the lion's den Lady Stark’s made out of Bran’s room. Lady Stark had been as cold as ever, and just as dismissive as she’s always been of Joan’s presence, eyes burning blue like the heart of a winter storm, sharpened with grief. Joan had braved through it all, those words of cutting stone that always left her wounded and bleeding. She shielded herself against them. Armor yourself in it , Tyrion Lannister had told her once, after watching her flee the king's perverted eyes and the queen's subtle yet sharp words of dismissal. So she had, -armored herself that is- but when she’d looked down at her brother she saw a thin and gaunt thing, skin stretched tight over a frail skeleton, with legs twisted in knots of flesh and bone, and her armor had chipped away like the rusted iron swords in the crypts. And when Lady Stark dealt her final blow - it should have been you , she’d said- it killed any feeling left in Joan.
She’s felt numb ever since. This is to be the rest of her life. The reality of her situation is more than depressing and bleak. Waking, training and studying, and wandering. And when alone, staring at the glittering stones in her hearth, waiting for something to happen, to break free of this limbo she’s found herself in. But nothing ever does happen and she is left feeling more empty, an emptiness that burns with the hunger to fill itself up so that it no longer exists.
With Lady Stark sick with grief and Robb taking up the mantle that his father left behind and his mother neglected, Joan is left for the most part alone to conduct her own affairs. An age has passed between the king’s arrival and the king’s departure, and those breaths of eons have made a man out of her brother, the tragedy has matured him in a way their father leaving hadn’t. He’s a lord in every sense of the word, men answer to him now, and even Theon regards Robb with a certain level of respect that he hadn't moons prior. Robb walks the grounds of Winterfell, clad in boiled leather and light armor and heavy furs, with his hair a windswept and shaggy mane of copper resting on his broad shoulders, and looks every inch a lord. She thinks she’d spied a bit of stubble on his jaw, the few times she’s seen him in passing. He always makes sure to smile at her, accompanied with a strong hug, before he’s on the go once more, Theon Greyjoy lockstep with him. Robb no longer has the time to entertain his bastard sister. He’s a man now, a lord, and those of his stock do not entertain silly little girls nor do they keep them for company.
A moon ago, they would have made off into the godswood together to practice at arms, breathless with mischief and secrecy and love. And it’d been that way since they were little, Robb teaching her everything Ser Rodrick taught him. Sometimes she’d suspected father knew, but never stopped them. Though whenever they’d emerge from the godswood he’d always have a wistful look in his eyes, face drawn and bittersweet.
She feels that same bittersweetness her father must feel every time he looks at her, and she understands him better now.
It was bound to happen someday , she thinks, resigned. We can’t be young forever.
She’s always known that someday Robb would grow out of her, that he’d come into his own as a lord, maybe find a pretty lady to make his wife, and have children of his own to fill up the halls of Winterfell. A Winterfell that would have no place for her, save as the new Old Nan, a spinster in the making to take care of his children. Though she hardly thinks his lady wife would appreciate her presence for that long.
Robb will move on and grow and she’ll remain stagnant, staring into the flames, waiting for something to happen.
Just as she does now, though she notices a faint quiver. The stones are alive and she’s long since stopped lying to herself about what they actually are. She doesn't want to confront what that might mean about her though or her nameless mother.
The fire in the logs dies down and she finds herself reaching for an egg to cradle in both hands and admire. It’s alive in her hands, burning with life, and waiting to fully awaken. The dire wolves are signs from the gods, and these eggs are signs from the gods as well, though she’s not sure which gods the latter belong to. The last Targaryen’s had worshiped the seven gods of the Faith but it had not always been that way. Once they’d worshiped gods of flame, all forty of them for their forty volcanoes in Old Valyria. Or so she’d read in a maesters recounting of the extinct dragon lords.
But there are no Targaryen’s left to confirm that, the last of them having perished at Dragonstone toward the end of Robert’s Rebellion.
It is said that the last Targaryen Queen died giving birth, and her babe had died before it left her womb. The young princeling had slit his wrists or someone had slit them for him. The mystery behind his death is still a matter of debate among those who still care. Nonetheless, all know that when Stannis Baratheon finally claimed Dragonstone, the previous owners were already dead.
The thought of the last Targayrens makes her think about her mother and who she might have been for these dragon eggs to call for Joan the way they do. Always chanting and crying like newborn ducklings.
Once it had gotten so bad, she was half convinced to take them to her father. Though she’d quickly discarded that idea when she remembered what she possessed and who her mother might have been and King Robert’s infamous hatred for dragon seeds.
She continues to regard her treasure. In the dying firelight, the eggs still glow brilliantly, and the one she holds even more so. A shimmering white like freshly fallen snow beneath the sunlight, crusted with ruby red. The other is sapphire blue with chips of white and its brethren as black as night with flecks of gold. Gorgeous, every last one of them, the most gorgeous things she’s ever possessed. Sansa can have her fancy dresses and her handsome princes with words laced in venom, and Robb his lordship and his glittering sword, but Joan has her dragon eggs. Beautiful and ancient and valuable. With just one, she knows, she could buy a castle or flee to the east and buy one of their renowned manses and still have money left over to live lavishly. Perhaps marry a handsome magister or merchant and never want for anything. More than that, she wouldn't have to deal with Lady Stark’s coldness or Robb’s growing distance or Father and Arya and Bran’s absence. Life wouldn't be so bleak and she’d spend the rest of her days in a land where summer never fades, where the beach water is blue and the sand is white and the trees are heavy with fruit. Joan will not do any of those things however, she’s grown possessive of her treasures, would rather marvel in delight at their beauty and sentience, and flutter in excitement at the possibilities. Imagining a world where she has choices and a chance at a life filled with promise and freedom, the kind she finds in her dreams.
When she dreams, she dreams of flight, the wind kissing her hot skin as she looks down below from the heavens, like some god. She much prefers them to the ones where she’s wandering the earth, a chaos of crawling vermin and creeping beasts. Hunting prey, tracking its scent, and when she catches it, sinking her teeth into its writhing flesh, mouth-filling with blood that she still tastes on her tongue when she wakes. The repulsion for the latter but reverence for the former always makes her feel guilty and when she has those thoughts she curls around the pup in affection, fingers sinking into soft white fur.
She stares at the eggs intently, a sudden urge building within her, fingers twitching. The thing about Joan Snow is that she’s ambitious. It doesn't matter that she’s a girl, she’s one of those ambitious bastards that high-borns are always warned about. This ambition has always been within her, perhaps it comes naturally with being a bastard and her being born a woman does not change that. If anything, it sharpened it more. And she wants so many things that she ought not to want. In her darkest fantasies, she’s the lady of Winterfell but Robb isn't dead. Instead, he rules with her. It’s twisted and perverse and awful and more times than not, after thinking about it too long, she’ll find herself in the godswood praying for forgiveness beneath the brooding face of the heart tree. And after hours of repentance, she’ll muster up the courage to look her brother in the eyes without flushing in shame.
This, however, is a hard ambition to quell. Like a flame, it grows and grows, a furnace in her heart waiting to be fed.
And what could you possibly know about being a woman and a bastard in a world where men hate them both, she’d asked Tyrion Lannister, all those nights ago, when he’d dared to compare his miserable lot in life to her own.
He'd been taken aback then, mouth gaped open like a fish, and she’d felt a bit of triumph at leaving the infamous quick-witted Imp speechless. Then, he’d recovered quickly, and smiled a sad smile, eyes gleaming in curiosity.
Well, I don't know much about it , he’d admitted. Most men don't, and that shall be their greatest downfall and your strongest weapon.
She had seen the truth of it then, had understood, and she understands now.
Fire! Fire !, the eggs chant once again and Joan knows what she must do. She puts the warm stones in a makeshift sack, before clasping on a woolen cloak to shield her from the cold. Then she makes her way to the Library Tower.
There are thousands of scrolls and tomes that have been collected over the centuries. One of them are bound to have some information on how the Targaryen's hatched their dragons.
The wind howls and so do the wolves, an ominous song that fills her with foreboding. But her ambition is stronger and so she marches on.
There are few people outside, but she ignores them as they have always done her and she almost misses Theon's dark green eyes watching her from afar. She walks up the cobblestone steps, entering the tower. Immediately she's engulfed in the scents of old parchment and ink. She sees scrolls scattered about, piling on chairs and tables, scrunched up in the shelves. Maester Luwin often makes use of this place, practically his playground. Far as long as she remembers this is where he's held lessons for Lord Stark’s children, teaching them their letters and sums and history. She goes to a nearby table, placing the cloak on top before unwrapping the stones. They shimmer in the dim torchlight and she smiles softly at their beauty. She goes to light the hearth, bringing back a candle to settle on the table, before making her way to the shelves.
You'd think a maester would be more organized, she thinks, ticking her tongue in annoyance. She skims the shelves for Targaryen history and lore and slowly becomes disappointed when she finds next to nothing, save a recounting of the Dance of Dragons.
There's a sudden crash, shattering the silence. She turns around to see black splatters of ink on the floor and a scattering of fresh, blank parchment. Ghost, she thinks at first but when she lifts her head to chide the corporate she sees not a direwolf but a man. Her heart freezes. His face is unfamiliar and ugly and grim, his eyes glitter with malice and his mouth is a twisted sneer of thin lips and yellow teeth. His dirty blonde hair glistens with sweat and his green eyes are the color of bile. Everything about his presence is repulsive and rancid. With a dagger in hand, he advances upon her, backing her into a corner.
Her back hits the table, and an egg bobs toward the edge, threatening to fall. Suddenly she's overwhelmed with a sense of protection.
"You're not supposed to be here little girl," he says, dully.
"No," she tells him but he does not heed her demand. Instead, he lunges at her, two hundred pounds of solid flesh burling toward her small frame.
She starts to scream but a fleshy hand slaps itself onto her mouth, and she tastes iron on her tongue. He raises the dagger up, ready to plunge. Quickly, her free hand shoots out like an arrow to grip it, and the cold steel bites deep into her skin. It bites even deeper when she wrestles the blade from his hand and her blood runs hot down her arm.
It hurts like hell, but all she can think about is not dying. Not the pain she feels now, but the brutal end she will meet later if she does not prevail. She struggles, making the table creak and tip over, his large form collapsing on top of her, knocking the air out of her lungs. The candle topples over with it and the floor erupts in a trail of flame that catches everything in its fiery path.
She can smell smoke and burning parchment, when he wraps his hands around her throat, discarding the knife entirely. The smoke only grows along with the heat, but he doesn't seem to care, so focused on choking the life out of her. She claws his hands, nails digging until clumps of flesh and blood curl beneath them, but it makes him squeeze harder. He's panting and his breath smells of mead and ale. His eyes are sinister and hateful. Her hands thrash around, trying to find something, anything, as her vision slowly slips and darkens.
Then he jerks with a yelp of pain and Joan sees the cause. Ghost, she realizes and lets out a breath of relief when he loosens his grip.
The relief dies, though, when he grabs the blade and brazenly hacks at the she-wolf biting into his shoulder. The bloodstains her beautiful white coat, and the she-wolf is fatally wounded, but she never lets up. Instead, she goes for the man's neck instead, setting her teeth deep into his jugular before ripping it right out. Joan’s face is wet with a spray of hot crimson, but that's the least of her worries.
The man's body begins to topple and the girl rushes for the she-wolf, dragging the furry body into her arms with a cry. The poor thing whimpers in pain, the wounds finally getting the best of her. There are thick gashes in her neck and shoulders and back, ugly red things that weep with fresh blood every time the she-wolf lets out a shaky, weary breath. The girl remembers the first time she held Ghost, so small then, but her eyes had been the only ones open, bright red and trusting when they looked into Joan’s own, and the girl had known then that the she-wolf was hers, and that she would love her forever. Forever had been two moons. Joan knows she's not going to make it. Neither of them will, she realizes, after looking for an exit and finding none. The flames have grown high, eating away at the scrolls and books and wood. The shelves have fallen, blocking the entrance. The fire begins to lick at them, consuming Ghost's beautiful white coat and Joan’s woolen clothes. She presses her head against the she-wolf's temple, silent even on her deathbed, and Joan weeps for her. At that moment, she doesn't mind dying and as the flames fully engulf her, burning away her hair and clothes, she embraces it.
She watches as Ghost fades from flesh to ash to bone, and wonders if she does the same. The stones are near, brighter than the roar of the great fire consuming them and coated in blood. Ghost's blood she knows, and the cutthroats and maybe her own.
Her blood starts to rush loud in her ears, her panting rapid and feverish as her heart beats against the cage of her ribs.
Something is cracking, like wood in a hearth, and for a moment she thinks it's her skin, bursting with grease and bone, but then she hears a shriek. It is small and faint at first among the chaos of fire and smoke and blood but she hears it all the same. Then another, and another. The sounds of tiny wailing and shrieking ring throughout the smoky tower and her heart quickens. Then she feels it, feels them. Their small silky bodies wrap around her thigh, arm, and breast, slipping around the bones of Ghost to reach her. Joan is overwhelmed with the sudden feelings of uncomplicated love and comfort, rising from the ash and flame.