Chapter Text
Ned I
Dayne was dead, Hightower was dead, Whent was dead. Three of the finest swords the realm had and possibly would ever know now lay down amongst the Dornish sands. Blood leaking through the gaps in the once resplendent white armor, the whitecloaks dusty and torn from the vicious melee. It was hard for Ned to believe looking at the bodies now that these men had been the ones that had just moments ago dispatched five of the north's finest fighters, his friends. Dustin, Glover, Cassel, Wull, and Ryswell had joined the kingsguard in death, the price to pay for his sister he supposed.
Not that it brought him any joy. Even if these men had turned out to be just as disgusting and complacent in Rhaegar’s crimes, kidnapping his sister forcing himself on her, all the while these men stood by and let their prince act on his worst impulses. Allow him to drag the entirety of the seven kingdoms into war to sate his lust. The thousands dead, the lives ruined, the families and friendships broken and for what. Even with all that Ned couldn't bring himself to find pleasure in these three men’s demise. He wanted revenge that much was certain, but that by no stretch meant he had to take pleasure in it. Not like Robert.
God’s Robert. The man he had thought of as a brother, he who he had grown up with. To see him stand in that room as Tywin Lannister and his creatures masquerading as men brought in the covered bodies of Aegon and Rhaenys, Ellia almost cut in half at the midriff. This was abhorrent. In that moment Ned had wanted to do nothing more than draw Ice and bring it down upon the Lannister patriarch's neck, some justice done. But when Robert had lifted the cover to look upon the babe’s and uttered the words “all I see are dragonspawn” that’s when Ned knew he couldn't recognize his foster Brother. He had been brutal on the field yes but who wasn't. But this… this didn't even sicken him. This was just wrong, and Ned knew it.
So no, Ned did not like this. But he would do it all the same. He would absolutely do this again if he had to. For Lyanna absolutely. For her Ned would bring a fury so great that old Valyria would cry in terror. For the she-wolf, the little sister who would run wild through the halls of Winterfell playfully taunting him. For the girl who would sit in the godswood at the roots of the weirwood plucking winter roses without a care in the world. For her, yes Ned would kill again. Howland, out of breath and bracing himself on his knees, was the only other survivor of the combat.
Howland, bloodied and bruised, returned to a full stand, sheathing his sword and walking over to Ned helping him up and out of his thoughts. If anything Ned was glad his close friend was still here. As the two turned their eyes to the sandstone tower. Moving together the sound of screaming was clearer. The pair quickened their pace blades redrawn as they entered the tower.
Rushing up the spiral staircase they paid little attention to their surroundings until they found the top. A small room with a few windows, white drapes glinting with the light of the dornish sun, hiding his sisters form briefly from a curtains gauze though Ned cared not. The first thing the pair noticed was the bed, and the figure desperately clinging on to life in it. Lyanna.
“Lyanna!” Ned all but yelled.
“Ned”
The strain in her voice was obvious, Ned quickly rushed over kneeling at the side of the bed trying to look for wounds that could have resulted in the excess of blood on the sheets when Lyanna stopped him. She was ghostly pale, eyes sunk into her skull, hair matted with sweat. But she smiled, and for the briefest second all strife was forgotten, Ned looked at his sister taking her hand before the situation crashed down on him again like a ram.
“We go to get yah out of here.”
“Ned… we know that's not happening.”
Ned heard her words but they were of little consequence, this was his sister she had to make it. She couldn't die, not here. Not when he had already lost so much, Father, Mother, Brother, Friend, damn be the gods both old and the new, but he'd not let them drag his sister down to their embrace, not when he had finally found her.
"we-we can get a Maester, we'll find one nearby, the-they'll fix you up, an-and then we-we-we can go ho-Home." Even when saying the words, his eyes betrayed his beliefs, already knowing that no wise man, nor belligerent god could save his sisters life now.
Lyanna shakily took his hand and lightly squeezed. Her grey eyes met his. And in that look a thousand words were said and understood. None of them Ned wanted to accept. Tears began to flow from his road weary and battle heavy eyes. Maybe this is what Bran meant, when the air of finality settles like an armoured cloak round ones shoulder, the knowing that you must make peace with reality.
“You can’t die here, I won't allow it!”
“It's not yours to decide Ned”
Ned looked at the blood on the sheets, and some small logical part of his mind was screaming what he did not want to accept. She would die here. Yet another body, yet another boned filled casket, an endless trail of tear mourned boxes strewn about like a child's toys, ever since this war started.
“Ned, I have so many things I need to tell you. But please, Rhaegar…Elia.... The Children.....did they?”
The rawness with which she said Elia Martell's name and her request of her children, caught him briefly surprised, but not enough for the horror show of images in his mind, the villainous actions and downfalls of this war.
“...Robert caved in his chest, he now lies at the bottom of the Trident. Elia...... Lady Elia met her end at the hands of Tywin's dogs, so to did the Princess and baby Prince.”
Much to Ned’s shock Lyanna looked pained, anguished, grief stricken, what little tears her body could muster, poured down her red streaked face. As she tapped a nearby table with a few papers on them. Howland went over to read them, his eyes going wide and face pale. He passed them to Ned. A notice approving an Old Valyrian Contract, stating the terms and conditions needed for dual marriage, as well as the practice of Marriage between Family, by the high septon. And below that a statement of marriage, for Rhaegar and Elia and …. Lyanna Targaryen. Lastly two folded and creased certificates lying underneath everything, a last choice option, should the world's head, fall from its quaking shoulders.
“wha-What… What have you done! Old Gods forgive us, what have I done! ”
Ned’s shock was immeasurable. There was no way. If this was true than the rebellion, Roberts reign was based on a foundation of lies. Ned looked to Lyanna as if to see some confirmation of the opposite but saw only knowing honesty.
“You loved him....them?”
“And they me…”
There was shame on her face as she said that, more than likely knowing the consequences of their actions. Lyanna had never been particularly good at accounting for those. But there was grief of the rawest kind too. That's when Ned knew that this was the truth. His face paled, his mind raced and stood still at the same time. But he held her hand still. Her eyes full of tears pulled on Ned’s heart strings, he was furious, angry, but he wouldn't leave her not now.
“Ned… Please bring him to me… please.”
Ned, confused for a second, snapped out of it when he heard the sound of a babe. It's soft gurgling and cooing, no cries of any kind. A wet nurse walked in, in her arms a bundle of blankets. Ned could no longer describe what he was feeling, but he took the babe in his hands. Its blanket bearing the three headed dragon of house Targaryen, but the child's features said anything but. A small tuft of black hair like a peach's soft skin, slightly pale northern skin, two pairs of small lidded eyes opening, revealing soft grey blues, with the faint specks of dark purple catching the soft candle light. Unable to say a word, he handed the babe to his sisters struggling arms, too weary they seemed to pull her bed fabric closer.
"Oh, my sweet little boy. Hush now...I know....It won't be long now, and I apologize for that, little Prince. My Dragonwolf."
Lyanna's words hurt more than He could possibly imagine. Her quiet caring tone, as she stroked her babes cheek to comfort his gentle cry's, it was if he were watching his own mother lying back in the rocking chair, overlooking the godswood, patting Lyanna gently as she rocked his babe sister to sleep. Turning away from the sweet seen, no it could be her last, Ned aloud his sister time, so she may leave a lasting imprint of mother and son.
Looking as Ned walked away to the window, his head bowed under the dornish sun, the twinkling of his tears catching the light as they dropped. She turned her head now, to gaze upon her quickly made friend, his loyalty and honour no noble lord could compare. Many a tear ran down the white washed face of Howland, his tender gaze catching her own, eyes begging for a forgiveness, when he had done nothing wrong. She made the effort to smile at him, a small nod of thanks. As she turned back to her sweet babe, so too did Howland's legs give, calloused sword hands clutching at his hair, as more tears did fall on that tower room floor.
Though her voice was failing her, in those last few breaths before she'd see her loves again, she would speak loud as she could, her last words heard to all in this room. Closing her eyes she gathered her strength, and then gazed at her small blue eyed son, the perfect piece of her broken heart, Rhaegar's chin and slender face, with that slightly turned nose, reminding her briefly of her grief.
"Know this my son, you were never at fault for any of this. Never did we think that a our actions would cause all this agony. We had made plans, the three of us, we where all to be bound to Dragonstone when all was explained. you would have been raised amongst your older brother and sister, and any other babes that would follow you after. We all would have been so happy, but no story is ever that fairy tale ending, a lesson I learned on this journey of mine."
A moment of silence was given as she caught her breath, the slight twitching muscles inside giving her unwelcomed pause. Howland sat on his knees, one hand covering his crying eyes, while her quiet elder brother's hands, clawed desperately at the old quartz tower walls. a physical object to which he could shear away his pain. A gentle coo, turned her back to her wide eyed son, as he gazed back into her failing eyes.
"You must be strong for me Daemon, for I am no longer your Queen Rheanyra, and my health surly fails me. This will be the end of my....Our tale, but it will not be the end of yours my son, My Beloved Rogue Prince. While I go to rest now, I pray that you survive this blood begotten Game of Thrones, and that your uncle raises you well, for that is all I would ask of him on my death bed, a promise that he'd keep you safe, just as I wish too."
Turning her gaze from her son, she let her eye's rest back on her dear brother, red streaks of tears staining his stone mannered face. His eyes a glass with those unfallen tears, as he reached her bedside again, laying a kiss on her sweat browed head.
"I Promise you Lyanna, May Old Gods above seek their wrath on me should I fail, but I promise you wild sister, your son will grow loved, and never shall I let harm befall him."
The weight of his promise felt like a noose on his neck, a warning belayed by the hangman, for his word he ever break. While not looking at him, so to did Howland give his own pledge to his failing sister, his bended knee and hand over heart given to both his dying saviour, and forever Queen.
A soft sigh escaped Lyanna's lips, her grey eyes turning skyward becoming blown with her failed breaths. A carefree smile growing a little bigger on her face, eye focused on something he could not see.
"Thank you, oh...thank you....Ned.....Howland, With this.....I....can...rest. Can...You....See....her...brother......Mama's calling...fer...me."
A whispered sigh escapes her blue chapped lips, and her hands rest on her chest, her son still clasped close to heart, which beats no more. The babes crying begins, joining the sorrowful men as they say their silent goodbyes to their much loved northern lass. As Ned quietly stretch's out to brush his shaking hand down his sisters frozen face, her faded grey eyes closing to their final sleep.
A long moment of silence was given were no one said a word saved for the soft crying of the infant, that was slowly rocking his small body free of his deceased mothers arms. The gentle whistling of the dornish sea side winds making the clouds darken outside. A storm brew on the horizon, almost as if to wash the aching sorrow of blood and death away from this land. A deep sigh brought the attention of those in the room back on the Stark paramount, his eyes still closed in thought while his body remained turned to his sister. Reaching over, he carefully took the crying prince to his chest, letting the soft rumbling of his breathing sooth the wee lad back to sleep.
"Howland?"
"Lord Stark?"
"Ned please, Howland...for at this moment you are by far my most trusted companion."
A smile, however bleak it was crept up the marsh lords face, his eyes more resting on small babe then the man holding him. "You honor me Ned."
A small smirk gracing his lips too, as he turned to face the man, and the nursemaid who stood quietly next to the door.
"Just as I promised to keep my sisters son from harm or death, so too would I ask a promise of yeh both, that you'd not tell a soul of what happened here, not ever."
A confused expression bloomed on Howland's face, his eyebrow quirking upward stating his puzzlement. "But Ned, the lads Trueborn and a second son of the late crown prince, by order of succession he has law-abiding right to the throne. Hell's we even heard the reasons on why Robert was talked into being king in the first place. It was due to his Targaryen blood relation by Jon Arryn, not by right of conquest on which he claimed that crown?!!" Howland's voice becoming more loud as he made his stance by the queen he swore too, and not the whoring mongrel that sat the stupid iron chair the north won for him. But Ned only shook his head, his eyes showing more weary and exhaustion then any a being thought possible.
"No more Howland....no more. I had enough war to last me till I die asleep in my bed. I'll not drag a freshly born lad into this pit of daggers and lies. Of snake-hearted men that sit on their chairs made of bones and gold, watching as the world burns around them for their petty gains. I'll not drag my nephew, into those seven hells, just to make right by his departed fathers claim. He is my blood, and by my honor as a stark, I'd not see him dead before he can stand on his own two feet."
A silence stretched onward in that cold forlorn room, that sat the edge of the sandy Arm of Dorne. Where many great men bled out on cruel southern sands, the birds an rats soon come to peck out their innards.
"Alright Ned, I promise yeh...I won't tell a soul. But....Please, do right by the lad, do right by her, and when he's old enough for it, tell 'im who his family was."
A silence befall that cursed room again, till Ned shifted his gaze back out that faded light curtain window. "I will my friend, I promise I'll tell him it all, when he's older. But until that day comes, the world will only know him, as the war begotten-bastard stain on my cloak, a believable lie that will keep to the masses until he's ready. Until that day comes, his only name will be......
Jon Snow.