Chapter Text
287 AC
Winterfell
Robb Stark
“Dark Wings Dark Words” that's what Father had told me when the raven came to us. The Greyjoys had just rebelled and Father had to go and fight them, with the king. That’s what Father said, that is why all these thousands of men have come to Winterfell, and that is why Father had been in the courtyard training with Ice training with the Winterfell guard for weeks. Now everything was changing though because Father had to leave soon.
I and the rest of the court of Winterfell were in the courtyard of Winterfell because now, he had to leave. We all had to stay to see him off, or at least that's what Mother told me. My sister Allyria stood next to our mothers Catelyn and Ashara on our left who were holding our two younger sisters, Sansa and Arya, while our grandmother Genna stood next to us on our right. With Princess Elia, Dowager Queen Rhaella, and all of my betrotheds next to them right after my cousin Selene.
Father was saying his goodbyes to us now. The Stark Patriarch gave our mothers and younger sisters a kiss on the head
“Cat, Ash I love you both, take care, listen to each and my mother, and I love both you too Sansa and Arya, you two be good and listen to your mothers.”
Both of them looked sad but resigned with Ashara saying “Be careful we both love you.” Catelyn nodded at her sister-wife’s words.
Father then turned towards me before he knelt down, pulled me into a hug, and gave me a kiss on the head before telling me “Robb listen to your mothers and grandmother, you’ll be the Stark in Winterfell while I’m gone.”
I had tears forming in my eyes as I told him “Why do you have to go? I’m afraid! I don’t want you to go" He tells his father, tears pooling in my eyes "Aren’t you afraid?”
His father just shook his head and said “Yes I do have to go, I’ve told you before Robb, King Robert needs every man with him in the war, the Greyjoys can't be allowed to rule, they’ve already attacked most of Westeros including the coast of the North, it’s my duty as Warden under Robert to answer his call to arms, and as ruler of the North to defend my people." He smiled before giving his advice "And yes I am afraid, but remember this a man can only truly be brave when he’s afraid son.”
I then asked him “Are you still going to teach me sword lessons when you get back, and can I start them now? If there’s a war when I’m older I want to follow you.”
My father wiped away my tears and smiled as he looked at me and said “ Yes, I’ll teach you all I know, once I get back, and yes, you can start them now, I’ve already told Ser Gerold and Ser Rodrick to help you start training, and when we get back I and Ser Arthur will too. The reason I’m fighting now is so you won’t have to fight one when you're older, but if there is one then I’ll be grateful to have you with me, I’ve no doubt that you’ll become the greatest fighter in Westeros.”
Father then moved on to my sister and cousin, “I love you both, you two listen to your mothers and aunts, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” he then gave them a hug as they cried and said, “We love you.”
When he reached Princess Elia and Dowager Queen Rhaella he took their hands and kissed them before telling them “Look after yourselves and the girls Princess, and Your Grace.”
They then told him “Yes Lord Stark, we will pray for your health and good fortune.” Once he reached my betrotheds who also had tears and were crying he told them “Little Princesses look after yourselves, and listen to your mothers.” They then told him “Yes, Lord Stark, love you and be careful.”
With his farewells gone, father mounted his warhorse, and gave the order for his guard to leave. Once they reached the castle gates, we all ran to the walls and watched as he joined up with the rest of his army that was already marching ahead of him. Father never looked back at us, as I said “Be careful father.” We all gathered together in a hug as we watched Father leave.
—---------Months Later—-------
It was my sixth birthday, and my father still wasn’t back yet. We hadn’t even heard anything from him until a month ago when we heard he reached Casterly Rock and was waiting until the Greyjoy fleet was beaten and they could invade the Iron Isles themselves. But I would be able to show Father my direwolf Grey Wind who had just been born from my Aunt Lyanna’s direwolf in the Direwolf Pens, we had instantly bonded with each other, the same happened for my sisters and cousin Selene.
However, this gave me more time to train with my swordsmanship. I along with many of the other heirs of castles in the North were sent here by our fathers, so that we could all bond together while they went off to fight in the war. We’ve all started training together, and all of our instructors said that I have been a fast learner, as I’ve been working hard because I want to show Father how much my skill has grown. Now though it’s time for my birthday feast.
At my birthday feast, I got all kinds of gifts, jewelry, clothes, a new wooden sword, a new dagger, and even some rare books from my Granduncle Tywin. Mother also promised me that I could get any of the books I wanted from the library until I got done with them. But now it was my bedtime and I got sent to my room, but mother said I had to go to bed because I started a food fight in the Great Hall, and it was barely dark out.
I am not about to spend the rest of my birthday in my room. As I got out of bed and walked over to my balcony, I saw that there was still a little sunlight out, and I knew I had at least another hour of it before it got harder to see, so I still had some time to practice my climbing before it got really dark out. This time I’ll try to reach my father’s office, which is five stories right above my room with only empty rooms there last time I only managed to get three stories high before I had to turn back to my room. I quickly grabbed my coat, put it on, and started climbing, taking it slow every step up the way, I had just reached 4 stories high when I started having doubts, but then I remembered father’s words to me before he left “a man can only truly be brave when he’s afraid son” I have to be brave just like my father is, and yes!!! I just reached his office room balcony, I just had to open his balcony door and get in, which I just did as it was unlocked.
Once I got in, I looked around. Then I walked to my father's desk, as there was still a fire in the fireplace, I guess Mother must’ve been in here going over Father’s ledgers. Once I sat down in his chair, I looked through Father’s documents, here it was mostly about troop numbers and battle strategies, I’ll take some of these with me later. As I was getting up to put the papers back, I slipped and fell down, and while I was on the ground, I could just barely make out a key shining just under a small slit in his desk, it was too small for my fingers, but I remembered I had my new dagger with me so I used its blade to slide the key out. When I got it out, I realized it had a small note covering up most of the key, so I took it off and read it.
The note said “The eggs and books with their knowledge have been moved behind his statue in the crypt, as Father requested me to do, this key will control the entrance just behind the statue, simply move the wolf head to reveal the keyhole. This knowledge will only be passed down to Stark lord and heir, for the following generations of Starks, signed Jonnel Stark.”
What???? What eggs, they can’t be dragon eggs can they, and whose tomb, the letter was signed by Jonnel Stark and there was only one he learned about in his lesson, so it had to be at Lord Cregan’s tomb, but why would he hide them he should’ve easily been able to hatch them. Well no matter, I’ll do it myself and get them from the crypt tomorrow, because I won’t be able to make it there now. Now I need to hurry to my room before they find out that I’m gone, I’ll put this stuff back up before though, I can’t let Mother know I’ve been up here. When I climbed back down to my room I could barely sleep.
Once I woke up, I quickly put the key in my pocket, before I went to eat breakfast in the Great Hall. The whole time I was thinking of how I couldn’t wait to get to the crypt and get the eggs. After my lessons, during my two-hour break time, I told everyone I was tired, and then went straight to the crypt, with a torch and Grey Wind. As I walked down to Lord Cregan’s tomb, I realized that every Stark Lord and some heirs were buried down here, it was a scary feeling. Here it is now, “Cregan Stark Warden of the North and Lord of Winterfell” It had been engraved into the stone of his tomb, now I just had to look for the wolf’s head. I had to climb up on the tomb itself to reach it, but I managed to just turn the head of the direwolf, and then I put the key in and turned it. It caused a door on the right behind Cregan’s tomb to slightly open up.
I stepped down and then moved to the door, and fully opened it, there was dust and spider webs everywhere, I used the torch to burn away the spider webs, as I moved into the room I was bouncing around on my feet because I couldn’t wait to reach them. I then saw a chest in the room and rushed over to it, inside it there was first a thick wool cloth covering them with a rolled-up parchment on it, but I immediately took them both out of it and moved next to me on the floor beside me. Then once I looked in the chest again, I saw at least a dozen dragon eggs in it, and on top of all of them, there was a dragon egg that had a beautiful pearlescent and iridescent dragon egg on top of them. I then immediately grabbed the egg and felt that it was warm to the touch, when I gently put it down on the wool cloth, I then felt the other eggs, and all of them were also warm, however not as much as the first egg. I have to get these eggs all in my room, I have to get these hatched for me and my family.
I took multiple trips to my room and back to the crypt moving all of the eggs under my bed so no one would sneak in and hide them. On the last trip from the crypt, I took the rolled-up parchment and the wool cloth which I now realized was embroidered with sigils of Houses Stark, Targaryen, and Velaryon.
Once in my room, I read the sheet parchment, and it had information on why the eggs were there, where Cregan had put some of the books and writings of Targaryen dragon lore, and where the eggs were from. Cregan had his son Jonnel move the eggs there as he felt they were dangerous after his daughter Laena had an egg hatch and it attempted to attack her. Cregan had put copied scrolls and books from his time as Hand of the King, into sections of the Library of Winterfell. As for where the eggs were from, they varied from being from Vhagar, Mourning, Sunfyre, and some of the other Targaryen dragons, as during the Dance of Dragons, and The War of Wolves when Princes Aegon and Aemond had come North to aid Cregan in the war against Bennard Stark.
Regardless of whether Cregan thought they were dangerous or not, I have to find out how to hatch these dragons, so my first stop tomorrow will be to the library to get those books and scrolls on dragon lore, and our own teachings of House Belaerys and their dragon lore.
Once the next day came, in the Great Hall we received word of Lord Stannis Baratheon’s victory at The Battle of Fair Isle, and we all celebrated, as we knew that now the war would only last a few more months. After breakfast, I immediately went to the library to look for books on dragon Lore. When I went in I went to the section where the scroll in the chest said they’d be. When I got to them, they were locked in with chains, so I used the key to try to unlock it, and it worked. Once I got them out I quickly locked the chains back up. Then I made my way to my room so that I could read the books without being disturbed.
Over the next month, as I read all the books, we received word of Father landing at Lord’s Port successfully taking it with the king, and I found out a lot of dragon lore from the books. There was everything from battle strategies to training and rearing dragons, to making saddles along with different daddle designs also, these books had all the information that I could pretty much ever need, including most importantly, ways to hatch them. Some of the most common ways of hatching them were very easy they only needed the blood of the person trying to hatch the dragon on the egg before it was put into the fire, however, they also said that the sacrifice of a human life just before or during it would almost guarantee that any egg would successfully hatch, though I’m not about to do that. Now I just need to get everyone else on board with my plan, it shouldn’t take too long.
I was sooo wrong. “Are you crazy!!!” “Robb, what's wrong with you?” “This can’t be safe!” “Cut our fingers!!??” “Sacrifice someone, are you mad??!!” “In the forest alone!!!!??” I did not see this coming at all, how could they not want to try to get dragons?
“I promise we’ll be fine Ser Arthur says that I’ve been improving with my sword lessons, so I’ll take a sword from the armory with us, we’ll be fine, and we’ll have Grey Wind with us,” I told them. “Grey Wind is still very young and you may be getting good, but you aren’t good enough yet, what if Wildlings come?” Rhaenys asked me.
I then told her “Grey Wind is more than strong enough to protect us, you Sansa, Arya, Allyria, Selene, you can also bring your direwolves too, we’ll be fine.” They all looked at each other with uncertainty, but then Dany shouted out “Let’s do it, Robb’s right, if this works then we could all have dragons.”
After that, they all agreed shortly after that, thank the Old Gods for Dany. I then told them the plan, “We’ll all get out by sneaking through the East Gate, we’ll all take a few ponies with us, then we’ll go through the city, we’ll each take a dragon egg with us, and leave the others in my room, but before we go I’ll sneak into father and mother’s room and get Wintersbane. Also, remember you guys can’t tell anyone.” With our plan agreed upon, we all left the room and agreed that tomorrow would be the day that we did our plan.
Sneaking out of Winterfell was easier than I thought it would be, since we left in the morning when the guards were changing posts, it was easy for us to slip through without getting found out. The hardest part was sneaking out of Winter City, as the Grey Cloaks were on constant guard, but eventually, we were able to get out of the city. We made our way into the Wolf’s Wood, once we reached about a mile inside of the forest, we all got off and prepared the pyre so that it could be lit. While our direwolves all went out into the forest around us.
“Are you all ready?” I asked them. They all replied “yes”. With them ready, we all went into our horse's satchel and grabbed our dragon eggs, and I grabbed the spark rocks to actually start the fire. We then all put our dragon eggs in the pyre, with us each cutting our hands and rubbing our blood on the eggs.
Mine was an iridescent and pearlescent dragon egg that reflected different colors in the light, however, it always kept a grey, white, and light blue on it. Sansa’s egg was white with light blue and pink swirls on it. Arya’s was black and purple, and it had shimmering sparkles on it. Selene’s was a completely pure white egg. Dany’s was a sea-blue with purple and golden highlights along with shimmering sparkling swirls throughout it. Rhaenys had a white and gold egg. Viserra’s had a purple and black egg. Visenya’s had a bronze egg with green and blue swirls on it. While Allyria’s had a light purple, pink, silver, and white dragon egg with shimmering swirls throughout it.
With all of our eggs in the pyre, I had grabbed the spark rock and had just lit the fire on the pyre, when we heard, “Well well well, what do we have here?”
I looked up in panic at a Wildling as I drew Wintersbane, and said “Get behind me now!” to the girls.
“Ohhhh the little boy wants to draw steel and fight does he? Well that's alright, little one I’ll kill you and then take everyone one of those little whores behind you.” He said as he drew his own longsword.
He then attacked me with a cry of “Ahhhhhh,” I met his first strike with an overhead blow, and then made to strike back at him with a slash, however, he easily dodged it as he said, “Well the little lordling has some fight in him, and that’s a Valyrian Steel sword, you must be a Stark, I’ll kill you and take your little whores, I’ll be the greatest of the Freefolk.”
With that said he came at me again, but this time after I blocked his first strike, and tried to strike back, he had delivered a hard strike from overhead that knocked Wintersbane out of my hand and then kicked me to the ground. He then said, “Such bravery from a child, sadly no one will ever know it.”
As I reached to grab my dagger from my waist and started to roll over, and as he picked up Wintersbane and walked over to me to kill me, Grey Wind jumped from out of the forest with a loud howl and almost bit open his throat, as the other direwolves jumped out of the forest behind the wildling, causing him to drop Wintersbane and run towards the pyre to go around it.
However I immediately grabbed Wintersbane causing him to turn around holding his throat, and start begging saying “Please I didn’t mean any of it!!!” but I only said “Die you wildling coward!!!” as I drove Wintersbane through his chest causing his blood to splatter down on the dragon eggs though mostly on mine, before I pulled it out of him which caused him to fall down into the pyre.
As he started to burn alive and as his screams started to echo across the forest, the girls all ran over to me and all gave me a massive hug and kisses. As I was telling them that I was alright over and over again for what had to be an hour at the least, we then heard movement from the pyre.
In a few seconds, the world had changed, for out of the pyre every single one of the dragon eggs hatched, and the tiny dragons that hatched from them crawled over to us, with all of them coming to the one that put blood on their egg. Dragons had returned to the universe, with all of our tiny dragons roaring out, and the howling of all of our direwolves, for the first time in over 100 years, dragons were living in the world.