Chapter Text
The Strange Warmth
The last pain he remembered was the fire.
Not an ordinary fire — but the kind that consumes everything, stone and wood and bone and name. Duncan the Tall knew when Summerhall began collapsing above him that he wouldn't make it out. He wasn't afraid. He was just… so hot. Unbearably hot, so much so that his very soul seemed to want to flee his body.
Then nothing.
Then…
Warmth.
Not the heat of fire — but the warmth of thick blankets and old stones that hold a hearth's heat until morning. A familiar warmth, quiet and alive.
He woke screaming.
A scream he couldn't control, torn from some deep place in his chest before he even understood he was screaming. He sat bolt upright, gasping, his hand gripping the blanket so tightly his knuckles went white.
The fire. The stones. Aegon. Aegon what happened to—
He squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them slowly.
A stone ceiling. Not Summerhall.
A narrow window letting in thin strands of pale sunlight, the kind that illuminates but does not warm. The scent of pine and snow and something else — old woodsmoke, the kind that lives in the stones themselves.
Then he heard the sound.
A light, regular snoring from the other side of the room.
He rolled onto his side slowly, as if his body feared what it would see.
A bed opposite his. And in the bed, curled under thick blankets with one arm dangling to the floor, was a boy years younger than him — his dark hair spread across the pillow, his mouth slightly open, sleeping with that complete perfection only those who carry no worry in the world can master.
Rodrik.
He didn't know how he knew the name. It simply came, as natural as the scent of snow.
He felt something loosen in his chest. Something that had been clenched since he opened his eyes.
He smiled.
A strange smile, half relief and half something he didn't yet understand. He looked at the ceiling again, and breathed slowly.
One of those dreams, then.
He pushed himself up slowly, surveying the room with half-open eyes. A shared bedchamber, spacious enough for two beds, two small tables, and a large wardrobe that looked older than everything else. On the wall hung a wooden training sword, carefully placed — no, two swords. And on the floor near his bed, a pile of clothes discarded with studied carelessness.
He looked at himself.
He was fully dressed in his leathers. Even the jerkin.
He rubbed his face with his hand, trying not to laugh. Your sleeping mind dresses you and says goodbye before you die, he thought, attending to practical details.
He rose in one motion — and stopped.
His body was… different.
Not in a bad way. In a confusing way. Everything was lighter; the chronic back pain that had accompanied Duncan the Tall for years — gone. The knee that had ached in cold weather since his knighting, that old tourney injury — no trace. He stood fully and felt his body wanting to move, with the energy of youth not yet consumed by time.
He walked to the window.
The inner courtyard of Winterfell lay below him, grey and quiet under an early winter sky. Servants moving, a soldier or two exchanging words he couldn't hear. Everything…
Everything was perfectly normal.
Well, he thought, this is a disturbingly realistic dream.
He went back and took his jerkin from the chair — then noticed he was already wearing it. Took it off. Put it back on. Looked at his hands.
Young hands. Long fingers, but without the scars that had accumulated on Duncan's hands over twenty years of fighting. Relatively clean skin.
How old am I now? Sixteen? Seventeen?
A strange feeling. Not bad. Just… strange.
He left the room quietly so as not to wake Rodrik.
-
The corridors knew themselves beneath his feet before he could think about them. Left, then right, then the narrow stone staircase, then the heavy door that needed a shoulder's push because the hinge was old. He emerged into the outer yard and filled his lungs with Winterfell's morning air.
Cold. Clean. Painfully real.
He sat on the stone bench near the training wall and tried to organize his thoughts.
The dream: I am Duncan the Tall, a knight, burning in Summerhall with the Targaryen princes.
The apparent reality: I am in Winterfell, in a room with a boy named Rodrik, and this place feels familiar.
He began to count. His name was Dunc. Son of Lord Beron Stark. The bastard. The brothers: Donnor the eldest, William, Artos, Errold, Rodrik. The sisters: Berena and Alysanne.
The names all came with perfect ease. Disconcerting ease.
Because you're asleep and your mind is creating convincing details, he told himself. That's what a realistic dream does.
But the cold air in his lungs felt so real.
And the distant raven's call felt so real.
And the faint ache in his leg from a blow he'd received in training days ago — wait. Where did that come from? — felt so real.
He rose. Walked to the training yard.
The sword was under the wooden bench — no, not a sword. A cudgel. The word came with the full Northern accent. A long training stick, slightly heavier than usual, the kind that builds muscle just from being carried.
He grasped it.
And then something happened he hadn't expected.
His body began to move on its own.
Not clumsily — his hands knew how to hold the cudgel before he could think about it. His feet assumed the proper stance without command. And when he began to move against an imaginary opponent, the strikes came correctly — the distance right, the angle right, the rhythm right.
Not the skill of a boy in training.
The skill of a knight.
His strikes quickened. Right, then pivot, then advance, then retreat and counter-attack. His body remembered what Duncan had lived through thirty years of fighting, but this body itself was light and quick and free of pain. It was… disturbingly enjoyable.
Then came the applause.
Loud and sudden, from someone smiling a wide smile that occupied half his face.
"By the gods, Dunc!"
Errold. Older than him by a year, or perhaps two, his face bearing something of every Stark the sharp lines and grey eyes but with a lightness the others lacked. He was leaning against the doorframe, arms folded, studying him with obvious interest.
"Where was this energy when we last trained?" Errold continued, walking toward him with cheerful steps. "You could have struck me then, instead of the other way around!"
Dunc looked at him. Errold. Yes. The fourth brother. Always light of spirit.
"Woke up early," Dunc said. His voice came out slightly hoarse, and Errold noticed.
"Since dawn?" Errold stepped back and examined him from head to foot. "Training alone with moves I've never seen you master before." He paused. "That last strike — who taught you that?"
Duncan the Tall, he thought. A man who died before you were born.
"I dreamed it," he said instead.
Errold laughed. "You dream of fighting techniques?"
"My dreams are boring."
"Your dreams are better than mine, then." Errold sat on the wooden bench and stretched his legs before him. "I always dream that I'm late for a feast, then discover I'm not wearing my boots."
Dunc turned the cudgel slowly between his hands, looking at it. Is this a dream? What usually happens in dreams? How does one test—
"Dunc."
He looked up.
Errold was now watching him with an unusual seriousness. "You're looking at me strangely. Like people do when they're checking if something is real."
Dunc was silent.
"The third night," Errold continued more quietly. "I heard you twice and didn't come in. But this morning " he nodded toward the yard. "I've never seen you like this."
The third night.
Wait.
He set the cudgel down.
"Errold," he said slowly. "What do you know about Targaryen dreams?"
Errold looked at him. "What?"
"The Targaryens," Dunc repeated. "They dream of things that happen. Prophetic dreams. Do you know anything about that?"
"I know what everyone knows," Errold said slowly. "But we're not Targaryens, Dunc. We're Starks." He paused. "Cold blood, not fire blood."
"I know," Dunc said.
"So?"
"So—" He stopped. How to explain this? I was another man. I lived another life. And I'm here now, carrying two memories. "My dreams seem like more than dreams. They feel like I was someone else. Living an entire other life. And when I wake —" he nodded toward his hands. "I find myself doing things I never learned."
Errold looked at his hands, then at the cudgel on the ground, then back at him.
"Things like the fighting techniques of a seasoned knight."
"Yes."
A long moment passed.
Then Errold said, in the tone of someone trying to be logical: "Perhaps you've spent too much time with those who tell tales of knights, and your mind absorbed something."
"Perhaps."
"Or the old gods gifted you."
"Perhaps."
"Or you're simply dreaming now and will wake soon."
Dunc looked at him. "I told myself the same thing an hour ago."
"And what stopped you from believing it?"
Dunc looked at his hands again. The young hands. Without scars. Without the marks of fighting years that Dunc Stark hadn't lived.
"Because dreams don't hurt," he said finally. "And this cold air this morning — it hurt my lungs when I gasped."
Errold was silent.
"And you —" Dunc continued slowly. "When you were a small child, you fell from the eastern wall and broke your arm. The scar is still there, under your sleeve."
Errold froze.
"I never told you that," he said very slowly. "I told Mother I tripped on the stairs."
"I know."
"How—"
"I don't know," Dunc interrupted with complete honesty. "That's the problem. I know things I shouldn't know. And I can do things I never learned. And when I try to convince myself I'm dreaming —" he looked directly at him. "I find that this feeling of cold and pain and warmth is truer than anything else I've ever experienced."
The silence between them stretched.
Then Errold said, in a completely different tone … the tone of a brother, not a jester:
"Dunc. Are you alright?"
Dunc looked at him.
Am I alright?
He was in Summerhall, burning. And now he was in Winterfell, in a young body, beside a brother asking with honest eyes.
"I don't know yet," he said truthfully.
Then they both heard quick footsteps from the castle corridor, and Rodrik's voice, still heavy with sleep:
"Errold! Dunc! Breakfast before William eats it all by himself again!"
And despite himself, Dunc smiled.
Breakfast at Winterfell was organized chaos.
This Dunc understood within the first five minutes. The long table in the great hall was full …. the brothers and sisters on the left side, Lord Beron and his wife Lady Lyarra at the high table with several Northern lords who seemed accustomed to sharing breakfast at Winterfell. Servants moved, food passed, voices overlapped.
Dunc sat between Errold and Rodrik, eating slowly, turning his head left and right like someone trying to memorize everything.
"Stop looking at everything like that," Errold whispered beside him.
"Like what?"
"Like a man seeing the hall for the first time in his life."
Dunc looked at his plate. A man seeing the hall for the first time in his life. Not far from the truth.
"Errold," he said quietly.
"What?"
"Lady Lyarra -" he nodded toward the high table. "Father married her from House Royce?"
Errold stopped chewing. Looked at him. "That… yes. That happened twenty years ago. Before either of us was born." He paused. "Why do you ask?"
"I'm trying to be sure."
"Of things you already know."
"Of things I think I know."
Errold gave him a long look. Then looked across the table where William and Artos were still engaged in their morning argument.
Then he leaned toward Dunc and said, in the voice of someone choosing his words carefully:
"Dunc. You're not in a dream, are you?"
"I don't know."
"But you no longer believe you are."
Silence.
"No," he said finally.
Errold took a deep breath. Then — and this surprised Dunc — he smiled. Not a joking smile, but the smile of someone who had decided to approach the matter rationally.
"Well then," Errold said. "So you're experiencing a state of acute mental confusion—"
"Errold—"
"—and you don't know what's real and what isn't." He raised his hand. "I'll help you. Ask whatever you want. With one condition."
"What?"
"Don't ask the others the same way. William will think you've gone mad. Artos will turn it into a lecture. And Donnor —" he glanced toward the eldest brother, still reading a letter with complete focus. "Donnor will worry."
"And you won't?"
"I've been worrying for a quarter hour," Errold said quietly. "But I'm handling it differently."
William decided to end his argument with Artos by declaring victory unilaterally.
"It's simple —" he said in the tone of a man whose words had never convinced anyone. "If you want to saddle a horse in the cold, you warm the bridle first, otherwise—"
"Otherwise nothing," Artos interrupted. "The horses of the North have been accustomed to cold for thousands of years, they don't need—"
"Horses of the North suffer in silence because they can't complain—"
Dunc looked at them. "Is this normal?" he asked Errold quietly.
"Every day since they were born," Errold replied.
"So this is normal," Dunc said. Then, after a moment: "Artos — he's the one who argues with logic?"
"Always. William argues with volume. Artos with reason. Sometimes William wins because Artos gets tired."
"And you?"
"I don't argue. I wait for them to finish, then do what I want."
Rodrik, who had been eating silently on Dunc's right with the absorption of someone entirely focused on his food, suddenly looked up:
"Dunc."
"Yes?"
"You didn't eat your sausage."
Dunc looked at his plate. True.
"Take it if you want."
The sausage disappeared with suspicious speed. Dunc smiled.
At the high table, Lord Beron's voice was low and solid, the voice of a man Winterfell's ears had grown accustomed to hearing. He never raised it, but when he spoke, everyone listened without knowing how.
"The northern road needs repair before next winter," he said to the lord seated on his left — a broad-shouldered man from House Mormont, his face bearing the marks of years spent outdoors. "I'm told three bridges in the northwestern region—"
"Only two," interrupted Lord Mormont. "The third was repaired in spring."
"By whom?"
"Peasants from North Ashford village. Good work."
"I'll send an engineer to inspect before the snow falls," Beron said. "I want no surprises in midwinter."
Lady Lyarra, who had been listening while cutting her food with quiet, precise movements, said without raising her head: "The eastern village has requested grain. The harvest was poor this year."
"I know," Beron said. "I spoke with the steward yesterday."
"And your decision?"
"We'll send enough until spring. No more, no less."
Lady Lyarra nodded. She did not object. And Dunc, watching from a distance, noticed something — she wasn't consulting him. She was informing him that she knew. And a man like Beron Stark valued that in his wife.
"Dunc," Errold whispered.
"I'm watching."
"I see."
"They actually run Winterfell," Dunc said quietly. "Not just inhabit it."
"And this surprises you?"
"No." He paused. "But I see it differently this morning."
Errold looked at him for a moment. Then said, more quietly: "You're looking at our father as if seeing him for the first time."
Dunc didn't answer. Because it was true.
Duncan the Tall had no father. Had no home. He had his master, then the road, and the sky.
And this man at the high table — this man who spoke of bridges and grain and northern roads with the same seriousness he would speak of wars — was his father.
---
Berena sat silently beside Alysanne, the youngest, who was playing with her food more than eating it. When Dunc's eyes met Berena's, she smiled briefly, then returned to her meal.
"Berena," he said, quietly enough for only her to hear.
She looked at him.
"How are you?"
She blinked. "You asked me that yesterday."
"And I'm asking you today."
"I'm fine, Dunc," she said slowly. "Are you fine?"
Before he could answer, Artos's voice reached him from across the table: "Errold says you think you're dreaming."
William stopped arguing. Looked over. Rodrik looked up.
"Errold," Dunc said.
"I didn't tell your secrets," Errold defended, in a tone utterly lacking in defense. "I just said you were in a state of morning confusion."
"He said he thinks he's dreaming," Artos corrected.
"That's a detail."
"That's the difference between normal and abnormal."
"I'm fine," Dunc said.
"That's not what—"
"Artos," William interrupted — and it was rare for William to interrupt Artos. "Leave him."
Artos looked at William. Then at Dunc. Then returned to his food in pointed silence that made clear he was unconvinced.
Rodrik, with his simple, direct morning logic, said: "Are you fine, Dunc?"
"Yes."
"Do you want another sausage?"
"No."
"Alright." And he returned to his food.
Dunc smiled despite himself.
Then William said, in the tone of someone who had thought about it more than he appeared to: "If you think you're dreaming, then we're just people in your dream."
"William—" Errold began.
"No, let me finish," William said. "If we're in your dream — doesn't that mean we're part of you? That you created us?"
Everyone fell silent.
"That's…" Artos began, then stopped. "That's actually a reasonable question."
"Thank you."
"I wasn't praising you."
Dunc looked at William. The brother who seemed boisterous and argued loudly — but beneath that, he was thinking.
"You're not in my dream," Dunc said slowly. "Or —" he paused. "I no longer believe that."
"So we're real."
"Yes."
"And you're here."
"Yes."
"Then eat your sausage," William said, and returned to his food as if he'd just concluded the most important philosophical discussion in Winterfell's history.
Shortly after breakfast, when the brothers had dispersed to their morning tasks, Dunc walked slowly to the side window overlooking the inner courtyard. He stood there, looking out.
Errold came and stood beside him.
"A question," Dunc said.
"Ask."
"I'm —" he paused, choosing his words carefully. "I'm a bastard."
"Yes."
"A bastard son of our father."
"Yes."
"But —" he looked toward the high table where Beron still spoke with the Northern lords. "Everyone treats me—"
"Like us," Errold finished. "Yes."
"How—"
"Because we treat you like us," Errold said simply. "People follow what they see. If Donnor and I and the rest of the brothers treat you as a brother — who would dare say otherwise at Winterfell?"
"People talk—"
"People always talk," Errold interrupted. "That never stops. But talk is one thing, treatment another." He looked at him. "Our father acknowledged you and gave you the Stark name. And our mother —" he paused for a second. "Our mother accepted you because our father asked it, and because you proved yourself worthy."
"How did I prove myself?"
"By being yourself," Errold said. "That's enough in the North."
Dunc looked at his hands again. Those hands that bore none of Duncan the Tall's scars.
The North is different, he thought. Duncan the Tall knew the South and its schemers and judges waiting for any excuse. But the North—
"Errold."
"What?"
"Thank you."
Errold looked at him with calm grey eyes. Then said, in a tone that hid more than it revealed: "You're my brother, Dunc. Not because someone decided it. But because that's simply how it is."
---
A servant arrived while they were still by the window.
An old man carrying a sealed letter, his step as quick as his years allowed, his face bearing the expression of someone who knows what he carries is important.
"A letter, my lord, from King's Landing."
He approached Donnor directly — the heir, who stood near his father. But Beron saw it first and reached for it.
He broke the seal slowly and read in silence.
Dunc noticed how something changed in the lord's face — something very subtle, a slight tightening at the corner of the mouth, a glance reading a line twice before continuing. Things only someone who knew how to read people would see.
Duncan the Tall had spent his life reading people.
Beron said something quietly to his wife that Dunc didn't hear. Then he raised the letter and called Donnor.
Donnor read it and raised his eyebrows slightly. Then looked toward the rest of the brothers who were — more or less — watching.
"Come," he said.
They gathered in the room adjacent to the hall, the room Lord Beron used for small meetings. Dunc in the corner, Errold beside him, the others scattered.
Donnor took the letter and read it aloud:
"From the royal court at King's Landing, in the reign of His Grace King Baelor of House Targaryen, first of his name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm—
House Stark of Winterfell is honored to be informed that a royal progress will journey northward in the coming weeks. The progress will be led by His Royal Highness Prince Valarr Targaryen, elder son of His Grace and heir apparent to the Iron Throne, accompanied by his cousin His Highness Prince Aerion Targaryen, son of Prince Maekar. The progress will also include several noble lords representing the small council.
The purpose of the visit: to strengthen the bonds between the Crown and the North, and to observe the conditions of this noble land as part of His Highness's tour of the kingdoms. House Stark is requested to prepare for a reception befitting the esteemed guests.
The Small Council — King's Landing"
Donnor finished reading.
A moment of silence.
Then William said: "Targaryen princes are coming to Winterfell."
"That's what the letter says," said Artos.
"In winter."
"Before full winter."
"The difference is slight."
"The difference—"
"William," Donnor said quietly, and the name alone was enough.
William fell silent.
In the corner, Dunc said nothing.
He held the letter with his eyes — Donnor had returned it to the table — and he read it a second time with a distant gaze. Valarr. Aerion.
Valarr.
In Duncan the Tall's memory — in that other life that perhaps never happened, or perhaps happened in another timeline — Valarr did not exist, for he had died of the plague. And Baelor had died at Ashford. Died trying to defend a knight's honor.
But here …… here Baelor had not died.
Baelor had become king.
And his son Valarr was alive and coming north.
And Prince Aerion Maekar's son who in the other memory had—
"Dunc."
He looked up. Errold was watching him.
"You're pale."
"I'm fine."
"You've said that twice this morning."
"And I'm still fine."
He took the cup before him water, not wine, it was not wine time … and drank. His hand was steady.
He read the letter a third time in his mind.
Valarr. Aerion. Lords from the small council.
One question hummed in his head, growing with each second:
Why the North?
A king did not send his princes to the North merely to "strengthen bonds." That wasn't what kings did. Kings sent letters, summoned lords, held councils.
But to send the heir himself—
"Dunc."
Donnor's voice this time.
He looked up. The eldest brother was watching him with the eyes of a young lord learning to observe the room.
"Your thoughts."
The question surprised him. He looked around — everyone was waiting. Even Beron, who stood in the doorway, watching him.
"About the letter?" Dunc said slowly.
"About the visit," Donnor said. "You read people differently. Always. Say what you think."
Dunc looked at the letter on the table.
"The heir to the throne doesn't come north to see snow," he said slowly, in a quiet, deliberate voice. "And he doesn't bring another prince unless he wants to show that the whole family stands behind him." He paused. "They want something. Or they want to be sure of something."
Silence in the room.
Then Beron said from the doorway, in a voice unchanged: "What do they want to be sure of?"
"That we're with them," Dunc said. "Or at least… that we're not against them."
Beron looked at him for a long moment. Then nodded a slight nod, but it was there.
"Prepare Winterfell," he said to Donnor. "Guests of this level are not received with the ordinary."
He left.
---
Dunc remained in his place after the others had dispersed.
Before him, the empty water cup.
In his mind, one voice would not stop:
Baelor is alive. Valarr is alive. Aerion is coming.
Everything he had known from his other life… all that map he thought he carried — it was a map of a different kingdom. The same land, but history had branched somewhere and walked in another direction.
And he did not know where it had branched.
Nor what that meant.
He rose slowly.
Looked from the window to the courtyard of Winterfell below — snow had begun to fall quietly, small flakes glinting in the pale sunlight.
He felt he was home.
He still felt that.
But he also felt — for the first time since opening his eyes in this world — the danger.
Not the danger of swords and battles.
But the danger of knowing things you don't know are still true.