Chapter Text
Jon looked out over the sea until the jagged peak of Dragonstone had vanished into the horizon. They had left Blackwater Bay nearly a day ago, sailing past watchtowers in the Gullet that still flew dragon banners, but it was only now, in the rough waters of the Narrow Sea, that he felt free of King’s Landing.
His ancestor Cregan Stark had left that cursed city as soon as he had been able, had done his duty to the realm then rode back North, rode back home. He and Robb had played as Cregan when they were boys, adopting their father’s lordly demeanor, but it was only now that Jon truly understood why Cregan had hurried to leave.
A Stark could never find safety or security in the South, not when those you trusted, even those you love, hiss apologies and lies until even truth and justice seem twisted.
“Ask me again in ten years,” Tyrion Lannister had said. All the pretty lies had vanished after his ends were met. He was as much a traitor as Jon, yet he had been rewarded with his conspiring with a third appointment as Hand. Cregan Stark would have taken his head. Older Starks would have done worse.
The Three Eyed Raven, though, had seen no reason to punish that particular oathbreaker. A spiteful part of Jon hoped that Tyrion advised the Raven just as well as he had her. If so, his reign would be short. Jon couldn’t bring himself to care. He had searched for glimpses of Bran beneath the Raven and had found nothing. All of his brothers were gone; let the Raven rot and the kingdoms collapse. It was what they all deserved. He turned away from the sea with a scoff.
The ship and her crew were among the few survivors of Eastwatch. They had been out at sea when the Wall was breached, but whatever they had seen as they returned had left its mark. They worked in near silence, only quietly murmuring Lord Commander as he passed. He ignored them. He had no claim to that title nor any other. He was a man sentenced to the Night’s Watch, no different from any of the other recruits who sailed North with them.
The quarters he had been given did not reflect this shared status. The thieves and rapists were crowded in the hold with those who had lost everything but their life in the fire and were willing to serve in exchange for food and a bed, while Jon had been given the ship’s sole cabin. It was not something he should have been given, but the men had been unwilling to listen and he had been unwilling to argue.
The cabin was small, the ceiling so low that he had to stoop to enter. The musty smell of old furs hung in the air long after they had been removed. The mattress had once been stuffed to bursting with straw, but had since flattened and grown lumpy. It was far more than he deserved.
Traitor, murderer, kinslayer, queenslayer. The names rung through his head as he laid on the mattress and closed his eyes.
He saw her, as he often did when his eyes were closed. She was dressed in white fur and her braids were small and simple, the rest of her hair flowing freely down her shoulders. She stood alone in the falling snow, like some spirit of winter. A crimson flower bloomed on her chest, staining the fur as she looked at him with grief. He reached out to her, he called out to her, but the winds grew fierce, whipping up the snow from the ground. She vanished behind the cloud of snow and his cries were blown awaay, smothered until he could no longer hear himself, only the words in his head. Traitor, murderer, kinslayer, queenslayer.
Then he heard it, a high chime like a bell that cut through the wind and the thoughts in hiss head as if it had been rung right in front of him. He opened his eyes and immediately thought he had gone mad. Floating in front of him, bright as the fireflies that made their way as far North as Winterfell in the height of summer, were words, as if a book was being held before him, but there was no book and no other way to explain how it was possible for words to appear from nowhere and suspend themselves from the air.
[GAME OVER: BAD END]
Jon turned away. The words weren’t there. They couldn’t be there. There were no bells on the ship to make the sound he had heard, no bells in his memory that had rung so sweetly. None of this could be happening except in his head.
Perhaps this was how it started, his own form of madness. He was seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. They all said she took after her father, Sam aand Tyrion and Sansa more than any other. Her father was his grandfather, much as he hated to think it. Would he be the next to fall to the curse of madness? Jon didn’t feel mad, but what else could this be? He had never thought her to be mad, had never seen any signs until a city burned and she had begged him to understand why, to stand by her and change the world with her. This seemed a more obvious sign of madness than any she had shown and he was as unsure now as he had been when he walked through the smoke and ash of King’s Landing. Here, there was no Tyrion or Arya to tell him what he needed to do. There was only him, and all he could do was turn and face it.
When he turned, the words were still floating where they had been, but more had appeared underneath.
[GAME OVER: BAD END]
[Return to Last Savepoint?]
[Yes]
It was impossible to know how the words had appeared. Understanding their meaning felt equally impossible. What game did they refer to? What was a savepoint and how did one return to it? The words didn’t change no matter how long he stared at them, so he reached out a hand to sweep through them and feel if they were there. They felt no different from the surrounding air. The first two rows of words remained unchanged as his hand passed through, but the moment his fingers brushed against the [Yes], the white letters faded to grey and the world darkened around him as if night had suddenly fallen. The rocking of the ship steadied as if he was back on land and the sounds of men working disappeared.
The next words that appeared from nowhere were almost blinding as their light cut through the darkness. Jon blinked rapidly as he read.
[Savepoint Not Found]
A hollow wheel spun underneath. It was not a complete circle, with one end appearing to disappear and the other appearing to reappear as it spun. It was almost transfixing to watch. The wheel spun and spun and spun, never ceasing, never slowing, until it did. As the wheel faded away, the floating words changed.
[Savepoint Recovered]
[Remember to Save Regularly]
Jon still had no idea what these savepoints were, much less how to create them, and was only marginally convinced that he wasn’t going mad. The longer this went on, the realer it felt, but that didn’t mean much when every aspect of this felt impossible.
The bell chimed again, a slight echo reverberating through the silence. It sounded like the bells Sansa had played in Winterfell as a child. Jon had never lingered to listen, had never been permitted to, but he had occasionally heard the sweet sounds as he walked by. More words appeared, these to the right and slightly above those already present.
[Achievement Completed!]
If he was the player in whatever game this was and the bad end referred to his being sent back to the Wall, which he was finding increasingly likely, then this achievement surely referred to some action he had performed. Jon couldn’t think of what it was. What could he have achieved? Killing his queen? Killing his aunt? Breaking the oath he made to her? There was no explanation, the words fading away as quickly as they appeared.
[Would You Like to Change Difficulty?]
Three options appeared beneath the question this time: [Easy], [Normal], and [Difficult]. Underneath each, in smaller text, were brief descriptions of each option. The easy and difficult options changed the strength of factional and personal sentiments as well as ease of skill development, whatever that meant. The description of normal simply stated that it was the intended setting. Jon didn’t know what the previous difficulty had been, but normal seemed to him like the best choice. He brushed his fingers through [Normal] and whatever light remained soon vanished.