Authors Note: Hello everyone! Welcome to my first ever endeavor into fanfiction writing. I've been a reader of fanfiction for several years now. Recently, one of my favorite authors inspired me to write my own.
A couple of important things to mention before we get started.
First, this GOT fanfic is going to use elements from the Gears of War video game universe. While I will make every effort to be as descriptive as I can when introducing these elements to the story, I will also provide you with the information necessary to look them up. That way, you can read up on the lore of Gears and have a MUCH better visual than I could provide with the limited vocabulary of the GOT universe. How exactly do you say "assault rifle with a chainsaw bayonet" in medieval speak?
Second point, and arguably the most important; I am a firm believer in happy endings. Rest assured, Jon and Dany WILL be alive and together by the end of this fic. That being said, this is Game of Thrones WITH elements from Gears of War, so the road ahead is going to be a long and bloody one.
Lastly, on the subject of reviews. I am new to this, so any and all feedback is welcomed and appreciated. If you have questions, ask them. I would be more than happy to answer them if I can.
What I will not accept, or acknowledge, is flamers. If you don't like my story, you don't have to read it.
Now, enough of me rambling. Hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own "Game of Thrones" or "Gears of War".
Chapter 1: Arrival
Five years.
Jon could hardly believe it.
Five years since he'd seen his family. Five years since he was exiled to a futile existence beyond the Wall as a member of the now-defunct order of the Night's Watch. Five years since…
"This place still smells like pigshit," said a voice to his right.
Jon allowed a small smirk as the welcome sound of Tormund's vulgarity gave him a temporary reprieve from his depressing thoughts.
"You didn't have to come." Jon replied.
Tormund snorted in amusement. "And let you go south alone? The freefolk would skin me alive." Tormund shifted in his saddle, trying to find a more comfortable position.
"I have Ghost." Jon said as he looked to his left. His faithful Direwolf, keeping pace a few yards away, turned his head to give a bark in agreement. "Admit it, you just came along because you'd be bored shitless otherwise."
"Whatever you say, King Crow." Tormund answered. "What does the Crippled King want with you anyway? Thought he was done with you after he took that iron chair."
Jon's smile fell at Tormund's question, "His message didn't say. Just that he needed me to come to Winterfell as soon as possible."
The raven Jon received from Bran had been a surprise, to say the least. Apart from a letter from Arya three months into his exile, in which she said she was mostly bored and missed him terribly, Jon had received no contact from his family in the five years he'd lived in exile. The shortness and urgency of the message, as well as the fact that it came from Bran, rather than Sansa, put Jon into a perpetual state of unease. One that only grew in severity as they went south of the Wall.
Jon hadn't been surprised when the snows north of the Wall had started to melt. With the Night King destroyed, the magic that gave the Land of Always Winter its name died with him. It had been a welcome change, one that allowed the freefolk to flourish, and Jon always assumed that something similar was happening in the south as well. But as Jon and his small entourage got closer and closer to Winterfell, he quickly realized that wasn't the case.
The day was overcast, with grey clouds filling the sky, blocking out the sun and creating a melancholic atmosphere. Most of the crop fields they passed were barren. Half the trees of the Wolfswood looked as though they were dying. And as the towers of Winterfell came into view, the grassy plains that surrounded the ancient seat of house Stark turned an ugly shade of pale brown. All of which made it glaringly obvious to Jon that something was very wrong.
Tormund stayed silent until they came over the hill that had blocked the main approach to the castle from their view. "Well, whatever the fuck is going on, it looks like your brother isn't the only one in trouble."
Surrounding Winterfell was an army, with flags bearing the sigils of every house in the North, along with several major southern houses; Martell, Greyjoy, Lannister, and Tarly. The latter two caused a wave of anger to wash over Jon, but the guilt at the sight of the former two neutralized it.
Redonning his brooding mask, Jon urged his horse forward. Bannermen paused in their chores as they noticed the two men and the white direwolf walking through the camp. Most regarded them with mild curiosity or disinterest, but the Dornish and the Ironborn looked at Jon with thinly veiled anger and contempt. The North wasn't the only kingdom that remembered.
Jon and Tormund trotted through the gates, dismounting in the courtyard without fanfare. Jon looked around at his childhood home. The castle looked the same as the last time he saw it, minus the damage inflicted by the dead. Smallfolk bustled about performing their many duties. From inside the walls, it looked like just another summer day in the North.
As Jon spun slowly in place to take it all in, his gaze finally settled on the one that had summoned him.
Bran was seated in his wheelchair, with Podrick standing behind him and Brienne to his left. He met Jon's gaze with the same blank expression he had the last time they saw each other on that dock in King's Landing.
"Hello Jon." Bran stated. The last time this site greeted him, Jon had surged forward to embrace his long lost brother with joy and relief. But that was before his 'brother' had shattered his entire identity, used him to destroy the woman he loved, and tossed him aside once he was no longer of use to him. Jon returned the blank expression with one of his own.
"Bran," he nodded in acknowledgment, then turned to the figures standing to Bran's right. His jaw clenched, and he had to stop himself from scowling. "Sansa."
"Jon," she hesitated, taken aback by the thinly veiled hatred in his eyes, before adding, "it's good to see you."
"Where's Arya?" The biting tone of his question, as well as his choice not to return the sentiment or greet either of them by their titles, left everyone present momentarily stunned. The last time they were all together, Jon had been warm and kind, despite the somber atmosphere that leaving one's family created.
It was Bran who answered, "We don't know."
That was not the answer Jon was looking for, nor was it one he expected from the all-seeing Three Eyed Raven. Before Jon could ask what in seven hells he meant, Bran cut him off, "Come with us to the great hall. Best to catch you up with everyone else. A lot has happened since you left."
The way Bran phrased that, as though he had a choice in his isolation, stoked a fire inside him. But for now he bit his tongue and followed them to the great hall, where all the other lords were waiting. Jon had no idea what to expect, but he knew it couldn't be anything good.
Six months after Jon went north of the Wall, Sansa lost contact with Arya.
She had taken a fleet of ten ships, with the plan of sending one back every month with a report on her progress as well as any personal correspondence. If she found land, she was to leave half of her ships and then return home to get reinforcements. If she found nothing, she was to return with her fleet once they had sent back the fifth ship.
That ship did arrive. But when the rest of her fleet failed to return in the months that followed, Sansa grew more and more worried, sending more and more ships to try and find her beloved sister. In the two years following that fifth ship's arrival, Sansa had sent a total of 42 warships and 18 merchant vessels to find and bring back her sister, 60% of The North's Navy. None ever returned.
While Sansa and her kingdom tried and failed to deal with Arya's disappearance, Bran and his other six found themselves facing a similar, but far more alarming and damaging problem. Around the same time that Arya disappeared, all trade from Essos abruptly ceased. Where Sansa had sent dozens of ships, Bran sent hundreds, including a detachment of one hundred ships of Yara Greyjoy's Iron Fleet. Like Arya's missing fleet, none ever returned. And every time Bran tried to see what was happening, he was blocked.
The gravity of the situation became apparent by the end of the second year of Jon's exile. One third of Westeros' economy was dependent on Essosi trade. Textiles, crops, fertilizers, building materials. Nearly half of the potions and elixirs utilized by the Citadel and it's maesters were derived from healing herbs grown exclusively in Essos. As months turned to years, the Six Kingdoms, and more recently The North, started to suffer the effects.
Jon absorbed and processed all of this information as he stood in the great hall of Winterfell, quietly listening as his brother and sister went back and forth with their lords and ladies to try and figure out a solution. Or where to place blame…
"This must be the work of those savages that fought for the Mad Queen!" bellowed Lord Glover. Many northern lords nodded their heads in agreement.
"Daenerys' former allies swore a secession of hostilities, and even if they went back on it, they certainly wouldn't have the resources to do something of this scale." the king's Hand countered. Tyrion's statement fell on largely deaf ears. Amazingly, he actually turned to Jon, hoping he would be the calming voice of reason he once was.
But Jon wore neither sympathy nor concern on his face. In fact, the look that greeted Tyrion was one of complete, utter disgust, and...vindication?
Tyrion internally recoiled, his mouth falling open slightly in his shock and confusion. Jon Snow was one of the most compassionate and caring individuals Tyrion had ever met. The man had sacrificed everything to save the realm before. He could not comprehend why Jon would appear so indifferent to the crisis it was facing now.
What Tyrion failed to realize, was that the Jon Snow he knew didn't exist anymore…
As Jon learned of all that had happened during his exile, the complete debacle his supposed 'siblings' had lead their people into, he grew more and more angry with each new revelation. Everything he had ever done, every pain and hardship he had endured; being murdered by his own men. Fighting the Night King. Being betrayed and used by the people he thought were his family and friends, to drive the woman he loved into madness and despair, and then being manipulated by those same people again into murdering her once she finally fell to their machinations. All to be sent off to a life of isolation and loneliness as the guilt of what he had done slowly ate away at him.
It had all been for nothing.
Finding that out snapped something in Jon. As he looked at Tyrion, then Bran, and finally Sansa, the spark he felt when he arrived gave way to a steadily growing fire, and rings of amethyst flashed briefly around his irises.
"Why am I here?"
His question caused the room to go silent. He hadn't said a word since the meeting started. Sansa looked to Bran with a nervous expression on her face. He returned it with a nod.
"You were the closest to Daenerys...we were hoping you would know what was happening. If this was a contingency plan she had in the event of her death. Did she say anything to you, anything at all, that might have implied this would happen?" Sansa looked at him imploringly.
"If this is being done by her allies, we need to know, so we can organize a response." This was said by Samwell Tarly, standing across the room from where Jon stood by the door. "We need you, Jon." He had the audacity to give a warm smile.
You could hear a pin drop in silence that followed. Everyone looked expectantly at Jon, whose face was devoid of expression as he stared back at Sam. A small smirk formed on his lips. Then, without saying a word, he walked out of the great hall.
Jon made it halfway across the walkway above the northern gate before a flustered Sansa caught up with him.
"Jon, wait!" He stopped, but didn't turn around. Sansa took it as a sign he might be willing to listen after all, "We need your he…"
"Five years."
His tone was low, and dangerous. It made Sansa stop short a few paces away, Sam nearly running into her from behind, with Bran being wheeled up behind him by Podrick. Brienne, Sam, Tyrion, and Yara Greyjoy followed close behind.
"Five years, I've lived with the guilt of what I've done… The part I played in driving the woman I loved to madness. Murdering her, for succumbing to the machinations of a spiteful, bitter, ungrateful people, and their leaders. My family. " He bit out with disgust as he turned on them. The look he gave Sansa and Sam made their blood run cold.
There was now a noticeable ring of violet around his irises, and his fists were clenched and trembling with barely contained rage. He turned to Sam first.
"Daenerys executed your father, a man who disowned you and treated you with utter disdain and contempt, and who would have killed you if he thought he could get away with it without losing face. And you brother, who was too proud to stand up for you. She gave them a choice, life or death. And they chose death. They chose." His tone was biting, "In response, you decided to tear apart my entire world, telling me of my parentage, knowing it would drive a wedge between us. Completely uncaring of what it did to me, so long as it negatively affected her. And YOU…" His eyes narrowed at Sansa. She flinched at the hatred she saw in them.
"She saved you. She saved your people, the entire North, the entire continent. She watched two of her dragons, two of her children, nearly her entire army, and her two closest friends die, all to protect you from an evil witch and an army of dead men. And how did you repay her?"
He paused, as if giving them a chance to defend themselves. The faces of everyone present were filled with shock and shame. All except Bran, who wore his signature blank mask. And Yara, who looked on with smug, almost proud satisfaction as the people who betrayed her queen were torn apart by Jon's verbal assault.
"She offered you friendship, and you spat in her face. She saved your lives, and you took away hers. Oh, I know I played my part. But I also know I NEVER would have done what I did, nor would she, had it not been for all of you." Jon had to close his eyes to stave off the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes, before he finished. "You used my parentage, a secret you swore beneath a godswood tree never to tell, as a weapon. You betrayed me. Used me as a tool to do your dirty work. And once it was done? You cast me aside, banished me to the edge of the world, never to be heard from again. Now you've lost Arya, the only one left of our family that treated me like I was part of it from the moment she was born, the only one left in this world who loved and accepted me for the man I am. And you led the entire realm, a realm that I lost everything including my life to protect, into chaos. Tell me your graces, if your treachery and hubris hadn't pushed Westeros to the brink of collapse, would I ever have seen either of you again?"
Jon's questioning look turned to one of complete heartbreak at the silence that followed. He closed his eyes as his head fell, a sense of resignation filling his entire being.
Sansa, tears brimming in her eyes, tried reaching out to him, "Jon, I..." but she was stopped as his head snapped back up, his gaze filled with fire of his ancestors.
"THAT'S NOT MY NAME!"
His shout echoed across the courtyard. The entire castle fell silent. Jon huffed, reigning in his anger before he spoke again, filled with a terrible resolve.
"Jon Snow...was your brother…and that's not who I am anymore. I never was. You made that clear when you used and betrayed me." Sansa let out a small gasp, tears spilling over and starting to stream down her face at what she was hearing.
"My name, my real name…is Aegon Targaryen. Trueborn son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen…" the eyes of those who weren't already aware of this, Yara among them, widened in shock. But Jon pressed on.
"...Daenerys was my family. My real family. And I threw her, and her love, away. Because I thought it was the only way of protecting the greater good…" his eyes were blazing as he stared daggers at Sansa, "Turns out, I killed the wrong queen."
Sansa's mouth dropped open in horror, while Brienne's hand drifted to the hilt of Oathkeeper. Something that did not go unnoticed by Jon, who merely scoffed at the gesture.
"Oh don't worry. I've no intention of executing you for your treason now. You deserve to share the fate of your people. Death would only be a mercy to you now." the coldness of Jon's tone, and the cruelty of his words, broke Sansa's heart.
"Goodbye Sansa." And with that, he turned his back to them, leaving his former family and friends to their sorry fates.
But he only took two steps, before he heard something that made him freeze. A sound not heard in Westeros for over five years.
A booming, ear-splitting roar.
Suddenly, out of the thick clouds hanging low in the sky to the east, came a large, dark, bat-like shape. But what followed next rendered everyone present paralyzed with even more fear than they ever thought possible. As nine more shapes descended behind it. Each answering the largest one's roar with one of their own.
TEN dragons. Closing fast.
Screams and shouts quickly filled the air as soldiers scrambled to try and find cover. The dragons descended, flying low in a circle about two hundred yards beyond the perimeter of the encampment surrounding Winterfell. One by one, they all landed in the field before Jon and the others, who stood watching from the battlements. The troops below scattered and separated, creating a clear stretch of land and completely unobstructed view of the dragons. That was when everyone noticed something strange; they were carrying people.
As the dragons landed, dozens of figures slid off each of their backs. Men and women, all clad in some kind of strange, blue armour that nobody had ever seen before. It was thick, and covered the soldiers' legs, torsos, and forearms. The helmets were strange too, covering a person's entire face, with glass where the eyes should be. The soldiers all formed up around their respective dragons, drawing what Jon could only assume were weapons of some kind, and standing in a relaxed attention facing the forces surrounding Winterfell.
Finally, the largest dragon landed fifty yards away from the battlements, his feet and wing claws pounding into the ground as he let out a long, booming roar. He was twice the size of all the other dragons, twice the size that he was the last time those present had seen him, his scales a dark blood red. A chill ran down Jon's spine as he realized who it was.
Drogon.
By now, all of the lords and ladies gathered in the castle had converged on Jon's position, trembling in fear and disbelief at what they were seeing. Their attention was drawn to the figures on Drogon's back as he lowered his head and neck, allowing his passengers to disembark.
Unlike the other dragons, there were only six figures on the back of Drogon. Three women soldiers, two men, and a small child.
As one of the women helped the child down from Drogon, the other two, along with the men, turned and walked a dozen yards towards Winterfell. The one who seemed to be in charge stopped, her gaze raking over the lords and ladies gathered on the battlements. She paused briefly at Sansa, before settling on Jon, who stared back with a calm expression, despite the nerves threatening to overwhelm his senses. A tense silence followed, the only sounds being the chirping of the dragons that were gathered before Winterfell.
Then, the lead woman lifted her arms and took off her helmet. The next second found Jon staring into the eyes of his only true sibling left in the world.
"A-Arya!?" Sansa sobbed out, relief flooding her system. Jon stared at her in stunned silence, forgetting the danger they all seemed to be in as he tried to process this miraculous turn of events.
His look of happiness and relief turned to one of confusion as Arya's expression remained passive. She looked over her shoulder, Jon and the others following her gaze to the woman and child still standing next to the massive red dragon.
"Udrāzmio, issi ao mazilībagon?"
Jon and Sansa both blinked in surprise as Arya spoke what was near-flawless High Valyrian. Nodding almost imperceptibly, the other woman walked forward, coming to stop a few paces behind Arya and her men, answering his sister with, "Kessa, ānogar ānograro."
Jon did not understand the words coming from his sister or her companion. But he did understand what she said next, and the words she spoke drained the color from his face…
"Zaldrīzes buzdari iksos daor."
All the air left Jon's lungs as the woman lifted her helmet from her head, her lustrous silver hair falling free to just below her chin as her amethyst eyes met his, her lips quirking in a small smile.
"Hello, Jon. It's good to see you."
Daenerys.
Translations:
Udrāzmio, issi ao mazilībagon = Commander, are you set
Kessa, ānogar ānograro = Yes, blood of my blood
Zaldrīzes buzdari iksos daor = A dragon is not a slave
And that's chapter one! Let me know what you think.
To see what the armour looks like, go to 'gearsofwar dot fandom dot com' and search "COG Armor". For the weapons that the soldiers are carrying, search "Mark 3 Lancer Assault Rifle".