[Look To The Stars] Chapter 63: A Dragon's Curiosity (Patreon)

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and all rights for character, plots and settings belong to GRRM and George Lucas/Disney. I have no ownership.

A/N: Sorry about the late post for this chapter, had a bit of a hiccup as I overwritten the first Pov by accident. Tried for a while to recover but had to re-do it, so fml :D

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Year 299 AC/8 ABY

Kingswood

The ramp hydraulics cycled with a whine Luke knew better than his own breathing. He stood near the top of the Falcon's ramp with one hand on the bulkhead looking over the army camp that his apprentice seemed to have tamed during their short separation.

From the cockpit Han called back, "Chewie, if one more armored lord brings a chest aboard, just throw them out. We are not a holiday getaway shuttle duty!"

A rolling answer came from up front, low and amused.

Han kept going. "Yeah, laugh it up. You're large enough to count as cargo on the manifest, maybe I should start charging you too."

Leia had chosen her place in the main hold, seated along the starboard bulkhead where she could see the corridor and every stranger who stepped onto the deck. In the Force, Luke could sense the two small lives turning within her, bright and intent and already stubborn in a way that made Luke think of both parents at once.

The first to board were the escorts. Reach men in green and gold, two Dornish spearmen with sun on their copper spearheads. Each man changed a little at the threshold. Certainty gave way to effort. They had ridden into battles, castle courtyards, and council tents but entering a Corellian freighter was the black abyss of the unknown for them.

Olenna Tyrell arrived amid a small campaign of complaint, one hand on Loras's arm and the other gripping her cane, converting each step into commentary about the indignity of climbing into what appeared to be a metal barn. Her grandson guided her with careful patience and a slight eye-roll showing that he understood arguing cost more than compliance.

“Steady,” she said at the top, though the word carried command rather than frailty. “If I die on this contraption, Ser Skywalker, I will make it a point to haunt you. I have lived long enough to develop a contempt for novel modes of travel.”

Luke offered his hand. She took it and climbed the final step with more strength than the performance allowed. Her eyes moved everywhere at once over the deck plating, ladder rungs, recessed lights, weld seams, the old scoring near the port bulkhead from a job Han still refused to describe in front of polite company. Luke read her without reaching for the Force. Olenna wore helplessness like a shawl but she held knives under it. She was appraising the ship like a merchant, cataloging the ships value and it's future in the Reach.

"Charming," she said as the servant eased her toward a seat. "Not a single tapestry."

Leia inclined her head from across the hold. "You get used to it."

Olenna glanced across the hold. Barristan upright in white enamel. Oberyn with his fingers still trailing the wall. Her own grandson rigid with courtesy. "A Tyrell, a Martell, and a Kingsguard in a room with no tapestries. If someone had described this court to me a year ago, I'd have had them examined by a maester."

"And now?"

Olenna's mouth curved. "And now? Now, I wonder if I should regret not bringing my maester."

Chewie came down the corridor with a case braced against his chest. Barristan's hand shifted a finger-width toward his empty hip before discipline caught it. The Wookiee saw it and his eyes twitched once but he kept walking.

Luke held his tongue. Some lessons needed no words; time itself would teach them.

At the base of the ramp Robb and Jon kept the flow moving. They stood shoulder to shoulder in plain wool and leather among silks, plate, and banners, and the men around them adjusted without the fact needing to be explained. Robb steered men past the threshold when the ship's interior stalled them, one hand on an arm, a word about footing. Jon set the order with a look or a nod, and no one questioned the sequence.

Luke stepped away from the ramp and crossed to Leia.

"These children of Winterfell are a statistical insult," she said quietly.

Luke took the crash webbing opposite her. "That sounds like you've been thinking."

"Well, yes, of course. You crash landed on a lost world and found one family with six force users." Leia glanced toward the ramp, where another escort ducked his head to clear the frame. "That many strong signatures in one world, let alone in one family, would stand out in any sector. Here it looks deliberate."

Around her the twins shifted, two lively eddies wrapped in warmth. Luke let their small presences steady him before he answered.

"I felt a pull before the crash," he said. "At first I called it a navicomputer error. Then a mass shadow, maybe, or bad coordinates. Ever since I reached this world, that answer has felt thinner. The Force here runs old and deep. Different channels, same source. I keep coming back to the same thought: I found the Starks because the Force wanted that meeting."

Leia studied him for a beat. "Or they found you."

"That too."

From the cockpit Han raised his voice just enough to carry. "Every time you two start with 'the Force,' I end up with a headache and a Star Destroyer on our ass."

Chewie gave a rising bark that sounded suspiciously like agreement.

"The way I figure it," Han went on, "'the Force gathering them means trouble's brewing. You mystics could save a lot of breath and just say that."

Leia's mouth softened. "Bad luck with good timing sounds close enough."

"Thank you," Han called. "Finally, somebody around here is making sense."

Luke laughed under his breath. Han had spent years surrounded by Jedi, Skywalkers, and events that seemed to prove all their arguments by force. He still reserved the right to grumble at destiny as if it were a customs official asking for one form too many. It was one of the things that kept the rest of them honest.

Then something shifted at the edge of his awareness. Outside, below the ramp, beyond the ring of guards and the restless horses. Jon and Margaery Tyrell stood in the churned grass. Luke heard none of the words through hull and engine noise, but the Force carried enough. Jon's field, the controlled and measured presence Luke had watched his student build over months, eased. Something warmer surfaced underneath and less guarded.The girl's signature carried genuine concern under layers of training and court polish. Then the exchange ended and Jon's field tightened again, all command and measured purpose.

Luke looked around at Leia, Han and Chewie.

Attachment changed people. It gave enemies leverage. It also gave people a reason to hold the line when duty alone ran dry. There was a woman in a locked room beneath Winterfell who had been shaped by loyalty to a dead Emperor and the order he'd left in her bones. Luke remained unsure what answer his younger self would have given, if he stood in her place. Yet, Han and Leia had built a life from attachment and made it strength.

Robb came up the ramp first when the last of the escorts had settled. He grinned at Leia, touched Luke's shoulder in passing, then turned to check whether Barristan had room on the bench.

When Jon came aboard, the coalition parted for him without being asked. Barristan straightened as Jon crossed the threshold. Olenna's gaze lifted from the deck plating.

Pride rose in Luke, as a teacher, he cherished this moment. The student still needed guidance, still carried wounds, still had lessons ahead but the contour of the man growing was set.

The ramp cycled shut and the Kingswood vanished behind them.

The Falcon settled into atmospheric flight with a low, layered engine note. Han came down the corridor from the cockpit with the look he wore before arguments he'd been rehearsing for an hour. He braced a shoulder against the bulkhead across from Luke and Leia and glanced once toward the hold to make sure the Westerosi stayed out of earshot.

"We need backup," he said.

Luke waited.

"I can take the Falcon up, make the jump, find a Republic relay, and call this in. Once Ackbar gets the message, he can move and we'll have the ships and troops needed."

Leia turned to him. "I'm surprised you've been able to hold that in, since the council."

"Am I the only one not worried that there is a skeleton moving?" Han dropped his hand. "And there is apparently thousands of them? Would this not be a good time to call for backup?"

Luke folded his arms. "Yes it would be but we also risk handing this planet to Thrawn. Mara followed our wake from three systems back. She claimed she'd sent partial coordinates to Thrawn's fleet. She lied but there was some truth in it. And Thrawn has fragments from Palpatine's archives. He is already looking. The moment the Falcon jumps and broadcasts on a Republic frequency, every Imperial listening post in the Unknown Regions gets a line to the source. Even a weak line helps. A sector becomes a system. A hunt becomes an arrival."

Han pushed away from the wall and took two steps, then came back. He always argued with his whole body.

"You think I can't outrun him."

Luke met his eyes. "You know I trust you with my life but if the Admonitor sits anywhere near your route, Thrawn reaches you before Ackbar reaches this world."

Leia drew a slow breath. "Luke is right about the risk."

Han turned to her.

She went on. "I still dislike this as much as you do. Silence keeps Thrawn away but it also means this world dies alone if the Wall comes down and we fail here. The Republic would never even know where to mourn."

Han looked from Leia to Luke and back. Through the Force his frustration ran bright, practical rather than bitter. He hated walls built from reasons he couldn't shoot.

"Fine," he said. "You win this round. Every time you tell me to trust the Force, I end up somewhere worse and this time it's a planet with ice necromancers."

Leia's mouth tilted. "That sounds close to your usual luck."

From the cockpit Chewie gave a long rolling comment.

Han glanced toward the sound. "You stay out of this. You agree with whoever talked last."

The answer from the cockpit could have meant agreement, insult, or a request for caf.

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The Green Fork

The bandage pulled when Ned reached for the tent flap, stiff linen dragging over the gash in his forearm. The maester had wrapped it well enough, but dried blood had glued cloth to skin during the night, and every turn of the wrist reminded him whose work it was.

The prisoner’s tent smelled of boiled wine, damp canvas, and old sweat. A lantern hung from the center pole though daylight had already come through the seams. Jaime Lannister sat on a camp stool beside a rough table, one arm bound in fresh linen, a strip of cloth around his brow where the shield rim had opened him. His hair had been washed at some point, though dried mud still clung near one ear. A length of chain ran from his good wrist to the center pole, enough slack to reach the cup beside him. He looked up as Ned entered.

“So courteous,” Jaime said. “The great Lord Stark, personally coming to inspect a captive.”

Ned let the flap fall shut behind him. “I came to see whether the maester had done his work.”

Jaime lifted the cup, glanced into it, and set it down again. “He kept me alive. I took that for a sign of competence.”

Ned stayed standing. “Your wounds?”

“My head aches. My arm aches. But my pride remains in excellent health.” Jaime leaned back, careful of the bound arm. “You?”

Ned looked once at his own forearm. “It will mend.”

“It usually does, with men like us. More’s the pity.”

A fly buzzed at the lip of Jaime’s cup. Jaime flicked it away with two fingers.

“You looked disappointed yesterday,” Jaime said. “When they dragged me from the mud alive.”

“I had other matters before me.”

“Did you.” Jaime’s mouth bent. “Men burning. Horses screaming. A dragon over the field. Yes, I can see how I would slip lower in the count.”

“I was preoccupied looking for your father on the field,” Ned said. “But it seems he abandoned you at the to save his own miserable life.”

Jaime watched him for a moment, then laughed once under his breath. “There it is. The same face from the throne room. Only now it comes with a dragon at its back.”

“Daenerys struck the rear,” Ned said. “Baggage, remounts, stores. There was no second field of fire.”

“And the men in the rear burned cleaner for the distinction?” Jaime asked. “You should tell them. I am sure they would rise from the ashes and thank you.”

"I cut the casualties I could," Ned said. "But your father chose to ride his men beneath a dragon's shadow. The Lannisters don't appear to care much for anything. Not their men. Not the realm. Not even kings, if Robert's death serves as example yet they seem to always blame others for their work. Your family loves to burn smallfolk in the rear and kill children in their beds."

Jaime's silence was its own answer. The fly returned, buzzing in the space between them.

The tent canvas stirred with a turn of wind. Light shifted across Jaime’s face and caught the bruise darkening along his temple. For one beat Ned saw him again in the throne room seventeen years past, gold hair bright, white cloak stained, the dead king at the foot of the steps and Jaime Lannister seated on the Iron Throne as if he had claimed it.

“All I see now is a kingsguard with a king’s blood on his blade,” he said.

Jaime’s laugh held less mirth this time. He leaned forward, setting his cup aside with his good hand. “Tell me, what do you think Aerys wanted in his last hour? Mercy? Flight? A clean death?”

Ned held his tongue.

“He wanted fire,” Jaime said. “He wanted a city to blaze from beneath its own stones while enemies battered at the gates and his own people cooked above their cellars. He had dreamt of it for long enough that the dream had turned to order. I ended him before he could have his wish.”

Ned’s eyes narrowed. There was no boasting in Jaime’s voice. Pride still lived there, and anger, but the shape of it had changed. This was no tale offered for glory in a feast hall.

“You expect me to thank you,” Ned said.

“From you?” Jaime gave a small shrug and winced for it. “No. I gave that hope up years ago. I would settle for a little honesty. You looked at me and saw a pretty knight with a broken oath and a father in the city. You still look and see the same. Meanwhile your own battle turns on dragonflame, and the world keeps moving.”

Ned thought of Morghaes descending through morning mist, black fire washing over wagons and horse lines. He thought of Aerys in his hall, eyes bright with fever, calling for flame while Brandon strangled himself trying to reach their father. The line between one fire and another still held. It had to hold. One served madness. One had saved his army from ruin. Yet with Jaime speaking low in a dim tent, the line seemed to waver like heat above a forge.

“Yet you served him like any other Kingsguard and only killed him in the very end,” Ned said.

Jaime’s face hardened. “A white cloak on a boy’s back, a court full of older men, and a king who had made terror his meal. Then came his last command, and I chose. You only came in time to see the blade in him.” He leaned back again. “A fine arrangement. It left you clean.”

The bitterness in him had fully taken shape now, and Ned disliked the sight of it because it fitted too well. He had spent years telling himself that Jaime slew Aerys for house and blood, for Tywin’s favor, for Lannister gain. Those things may still have played their part. Men rarely moved for one reason alone. Yet the anger before him sprang from another well, one Ned had never cared to look into.

“You mock everything,” Ned said.

“No.” Jaime’s voice lost its lightness. “Only the things men use to keep their hands clean. You called me Kingslayer in your heart from that day to this. Keep the name if it warms you but remember your own field the next time you use it. Remember the smell. Remember how quickly a righteous man learns the value of flame.”

Ned looked at him a long moment. Jaime held the gaze without flinching, bound arm against his side, temple dark with dried blood, every inch a captive and still somehow insolent enough to make the space seem his.

There was nothing more to take from him here. No confession fit for a court, no neat turning of old wrong into new understanding. Jaime remained what he was, an oathbreaker, a dangerous man, a son of Tywin Lannister. Yet some piece of the old certainty had shifted under Ned’s feet, and he resented that more than the taunts.

“The guards will see you have food,” he said.

Jaime barked a laugh. “Mercy from Winterfell. I shall treasure the tale.”

Ned turned and took the flap in his good hand. The bandage on his forearm pulled again.

Behind him Jaime said, quieter now, “Ask yourself what I spared.”

Ned stepped out into daylight before the words could settle further.

The camp air hit him full of mud, cook smoke, and river water. Men passed with buckets, shovels, bundles of stripped armor. The aftermath of victory had a thousand small labors, and each one wanted ordering.

He had reached the lane between his command tent and the horse lines when the sound came, many hooves together, carrying over the camp before any rider showed himself.

Ned stopped where he was.

The first riders came through the outer ring at a trot, mud to their knees, cloaks greyed by road dust. More followed behind them, rank after rank, until the road filled with horseflesh and steel and the camp itself seemed to give way before the return. Men called greetings. A few raised spears. No hostile note touched the sound. Only Ned and the few he had trusted with the letters knew what rode at the center of that column.

The Greatjon arrived first, huge in the saddle and grinning through his beard.

“Ho, Ned!” he roared across half the camp. “We bloodied them proper. Took wagons, three score horses, and enough westermen heads to make the Lion cunt weep in his golden cup.”

Maege Mormont rode a little behind him, smaller by far and twice as contained. “We broke two supply trains south of the willow road,” she said when she reached him. “Burned what we could not bring. Lost forty-three men and another sixty will need the maester.”

Ned gave her a nod. “You did well.”

Then Roose Bolton appeared.

Roose rode beneath the flayed man with the same pale composure he wore in council, reins held loose in gloved hands, mail clean enough to show care on the march. He looked over the camp as he approached, taking in the blackened wagons, the extra sentries, the dragon crouched at a distance beyond the tents. His face changed little.

“My lord,” Bolton said, drawing up before him. “The raids met with good effect. The lions abandoned much in their haste.”

“As Maege said,” the Greatjon boomed, “and by my troth, they ran sweetly once we put fire to their arses.”

Maege ignored him. “The rear companies stayed orderly longer than I expected.”

Bolton inclined his head the slightest measure. “Lord Tywin keeps hard discipline.”

Ned studied him from horseback boots to pale eyes. Roose looked like a man returned from honest work, one bannerman among many, waiting his lord’s next command. If he felt any scrape of danger, he buried it deep.

“A full report in my tent within the hour,” Ned said. “Each of you.”

“Gladly,” said Maege.

The Greatjon laughed. “Aye, and I’ll tell it twice if there’s ale.”

Bolton only said, “As you command, my lord.”

Behind them the four thousand were still filing in, Bolton men mixed with the rest, filling lanes, watering horses, calling for quartermasters and surgeons. Any move made here, before all those eyes, would spread through the camp like oil through wool. Greatjon would reach for a blade from outrage alone. Mormont would demand cause before yielding a man she had just ridden beside. Bolton’s own men would close around their lord on pure habit.

Ned stepped aside to clear the lane. “See your men fed. Council after.”

The Greatjon slapped fist to breast and rode on shouting for meat. Maege turned at once toward the healer’s fires, already looking for her wounded. Bolton gave Ned one more measuring look, courteous as any bannerman, then moved past at a walk.

Ned watched him go, hand resting on Ice.

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Ned stood behind the table in his command tent and rested his good hand on Ice. The greatsword leaned within reach, dark and rippled in the light that came through the canvas.

A guard at the flap announced Bolton and stepped aside.

Roose Bolton entered like a silent wraith. “My lord,” he said, and offered a short bow. “You wished to hear the fuller account.”

“Lord Bolton, yes, I did.”

Bolton’s gaze moved once across the tent, from the map table to the jug of watered wine to the letters beneath Ned’s hand. He came no closer after that first step.

“The western supply line bends too wide south of the willow road,” Bolton said. “Lord Tywin relied upon distance and fear. Greatjon took one train at dusk. Lady Maege struck the second before dawn. More such blows will sour the lions further.”

When Roose was done, Ned drew the top letter free and laid it open.

“You know this handwriting.”

Bolton looked down. The stillness came over his face in a small settling. It reached his eyes last. They emptied and fixed on the parchment. No protest leapt from him. No sudden tale. He only stood there, reading the ruin of himself.

“I know it,” he said.

Ned placed the second beside the first. “This was found in Lord Tywin's command tent. They carried our numbers, our routes, the ford I chose, and the path of the flanking horse." Ned's gaze settled on Bolton's face. The noise from outside, men and animals and metal, seemed to recede. "You sold him the field before steel crossed.”

Bolton’s eyes shifted to the second letter. The tip of his tongue touched one corner of his mouth. “So it seems.”

“It seems more than that.” Ned drew the third. “Tywin knew about the dragons because of you.”

“Aye.”

“You endanger the North, my house, and every sword that rides beneath our banners. Why?”

Roose’s mouth gave the smallest turn. “For the same reason men always turn. You need not hear me dress it in finer cloth.”

Ned felt his anger rise then. “You forget yourself.”

"I remember too well." Bolton glanced at the letters again. "You have chosen your road, my lord. A dragon queen camps under your protection. We fought one war to pull the dragons from the throne and now you fight another to seat them back on it."

Ned’s hand closed around Ice’s hilt. Valyrian steel came free in a long dark whisper, the sound thin as winter wind. Bolton watched the blade and gave it the same measured regard he had given the letters.

“If you mean to do it now,” he said, “I ask for a clean end.”

Ned held the sword in both hands for a breath, then another. The weight steadied him. A lord might kill a traitor where he stood and answer for it to gods and men. There would be justice in that. There would also be haste, and too much of haste had already brought the realm to this pass.

He turned his head toward the flap. “Guards.”

Two men entered at once.

“Take Lord Bolton into custody,” Ned said. “Strip him of sword, dagger, and seal. Take his officers under guard too.”

Roose drew off his gloves finger by finger and laid them on the table beside the letters. Then he unbuckled his sword belt and gave it over without a word.

One of the guards had just taken his arm when the Greatjon came through the flap like a storm under canvas.

“Roose Bolton arrested, never thought I'd see the day,” he boomed. His beard was still wet with ale. Maege Mormont followed on his heels, her face harder to read and worth more for it. “What exactly did the leech do, Ned?”

Ned lowered Ice point-first to the ground and let them see the letters. “He sold us to Tywin Lannister.”

The Greatjon stared, as if the words themselves had struck him. “Sold us?”

Maege stepped nearer, took one glance at the broken seals, and looked to Bolton. “Does the Bolton treachery know no bound?”

Roose remained quiet now.

That gave the Greatjon back his voice. “You pale cunt!” He surged forward so fast the guards near Bolton shifted their footing. “I ought to tear your head off and use the neck hole for a wineskin!”

Maege caught his sleeve before he reached them. Small woman, iron grip. “Later,” she said.

“Later?” Greatjon rounded on her. “He sold the bloody field.”

“He did,” Maege said. “And Lord Eddard is handling it.”

The Greatjon breathed through his beard like a bull at rut, huge hands opening and closing. For one beat Ned thought he might strike through guard and lord alike. Then he spat on the ground at Bolton’s boots.

“Ned, show him no mercy.”

Outside, word had already begun to spread. Men slowed beyond the open flap. Bolton’s own sworn swords had gathered at the edge of the lane, red flayed man above them. Their hands sat near hilts. Their eyes went from their lord to Ned, then back again.

Roose Bolton stood among the guards with his wrists gripped and gave them nothing. No command. No plea. No sign.

A few Dreadfort men loosened their grip on spear shafts. One lowered his eyes. Another looked toward the horse lines as if he would sooner be anywhere else.

Maege saw it too. “I will sort their captains,” she said to Ned.

“See it done.”

The guards led Bolton out.

Outside, the Greatjon had begun cursing loud enough for half the camp to hear. Maege’s voice cut across his like an axe through brush, shorter and harder.

Then Morghaes screamed — or something did.

The sound came down over the camp in one long grinding roar that set every horse to throwing up its head at once. No dragon held a note that long causing every man in the lane looked up.

Stranger even, the sound did not fade like thunder would have. It swelled and bore down, as if some giant millwheel were turning above the clouds.

“Get hold of the horses,” Ned barked. “Shields over the wounded. Hold your lines.”

Men moved because his voice gave them something plain to do.

Maege turned at once toward the healer’s fires, already shouting for her women to pull the litters farther in among the wagons. The Greatjon’s hand went to his sword and stayed there. For once he had no jest and no curse ready. He turned to Ned with wide eyes, waiting for an answer. But Ned was just as dumbfounded as the Greatjon.

At the riverbank Morghaes lifted his head from where he had been crouched in the mud, black neck rising high. The two other dragons stirred with him. Smoke leaked from between the black one’s teeth.

Out of the low cloud came a shape of grey metal, broad-bellied and round, one side thrust farther than the other, its underside dark with soot. It slowed in the air and moved all the same, descending with a terrible certainty while the roar beat across the camp and flattened the grass in circles beneath it.

It looked like nothing he had a word for. Some part of his mind tried a ship's hull, then a siege tower, then gave up. The thing dipped, turned, and moved with a purpose that belonged to neither.

Ned planted his boots and kept one hand on Ice, though the blade stayed sheathed. Steel had little use until he knew whether this thing was an enemy or ally.

It came lower, slow now, as if choosing its ground. Grey metal showed dents, burns, seams, a dish-shaped plate mounted on its back. The belly of it looked large enough to swallow a wagon.

Around him men began to draw. Swords slid free. Spearpoints lifted. Archers reached for bows with hands that shook from horse panic and the sheer wrongness overhead.

“Hold,” Ned said, louder. “No man loose an arrow till I give the word.”

Greatjon still stood frozen with his hand on his hilt. Maege had reached the litters and turned there, putting herself between the wounded and the descending metal thing.

The thing settled beyond the command tents in a patch of trampled ground between the horse lines and the outer cookfires. Its underside touched earth on round iron feet.

Ned took two steps forward.

All around him the army had drawn into a ring without needing command, shieldmen before, archers behind, every face turned toward the huge grey mass squatting in the field like some metal toad from a fever dream. Greatjon moved to Ned's right. Maege came in from the left, wiping mud from one hand onto her cloak. Daenerys reached him a breath later, Ser Jorah at her shoulder. Her eyes were on the sky, not on Ned.

"What is it?" she asked in awe.

"I don't know."

A seam appeared in the thing’s belly. Metal shifted. Something within groaned. Then a slab began to lower from the underside toward the ground, slow and deliberate, making a ramp where none had been a heartbeat before.

Ned stood with his hand on Ice and watched the opening darken.

The light within the opened belly stayed white and steady, with no flicker of torch or lantern, so the first man to fill it came down as a dark shape before he became a face.

Luke Skywalker stepped onto the ramp. He came down the metal slope with the same grave calm Ned remembered from Winterfell, as if arriving through the sky were an ordinary part of his day.

Daenerys straightened at Ned's side.

She drew breath beside him. Jorah shifted half a step nearer her, hand on his sword.

Luke’s eyes found Ned first.

“Lord Eddard.”

“Luke.”

Amidala followed Luke down the ramp. The wolf kept to Luke's heel the way a hunting hound keeps to a master it has chosen.

The next figure appeared before Ned could say more. Gold from head to heel, bright as a lord’s ransom even under river mud sky, man-shaped and yet wrong in every joint, it came to the top of the ramp and paused with both hands folded upon its middle.

Greatjon Umber took one step back and put a hand on his hilt.

“What in seven hells is that?!”

The golden thing descended with careful feet, reached the ground, and bowed.

“Allow me to present myself,” it said in a rich courteous voice. It spoke like no man born in the Seven Kingdoms. “I am C-3PO, protocol droid and servant. It is a singular honor to make your acquaintance.”

Greatjon blinked at it. “You are a what?”

“A protocol droid, my lord.”

The Greatjon looked at Ned as if some answer ought to be found there. Something smaller rolled down the ramp after it on three wheels, blue and white, round as a cask with a dome for a head.

The smaller machine gave a burst of shrill sounds.

C-3PO inclined its head. “And this is R2-D2.”

The machine answered with another string of whistles.

Greatjon frowned. “What in the fuck is going on? Am I dreaming?”

Luke lifted one hand. “Easy there. I know this is very confusing but they’re with me.”

Then Robb stepped forward as Luke finished calming down the Greatjon. Grey Wind came at his heels, bigger than Ned remembered, mud caked in his fur.

Ned took one step before the lord in him caught up.

His son also had grown leaner and taller. A strange hilt rode at his hip where a sword ought to have hung. But none of that mattered, his son was alive.

Robb came down fast and checked when he saw the bows.

“Father.”

Ned met him halfway. Robb caught his forearm and Ned gripped his shoulder, leather and living warmth beneath the mud. The bandage pulled but he ignored it.

“You are whole.”

“Well enough,” Robb said. “You too, by the looks of it.”

“I have been fortunate in this war. Now, you have a lot of explaining to do, son.”

His hand still rested on Robb’s shoulder, but the grip had changed—fingers tightening on the leather, pulling his son a half-step closer so the nearest man-at-arms wouldn’t hear.

“We can speak more of it inside.” Robb said. His voice held steady, but his eyes cut toward the still-burning perimeter fires, toward the shapes moving beyond the light.

He let Robb go and stepped back into command. Robb answered with a nod and took his place in it.

Grey Wind's head turned. He left Robb's side and crossed toward Daenerys. Jorah's hand went to his hilt but Daenerys' raised her palm and Jorah held. The wolf stopped a pace from her and stretched his neck forward, nose working. Daenerys stood still and let him take her scent. Grey Wind's ears came forward. He circled her once, close enough that his flank brushed her cloak, then returned to Robb as if the matter were settled.

Robb watched the whole thing with an expression Ned didn't have time to read as another stranger stepped out of the light.

He worn vest came down next, dark-haired, weathered, with the loose posture of someone who expected to be anywhere but here. He wore a weapon at his hip unlike any Ned had seen. The man’s eyes went first to the ship, then to the woman who followed him, then to every sword pointed their way. Ned could spot a smuggler’s eyes anywhere, if smugglers flew iron houses out of clouds.

C-3PO spread a hand toward him. “Captain Han Solo, war hero of the Alliance.”

Solo gave the golden man a look of long suffering. “Han will do.”

His companion descended after him, dark-haired and heavy with child, one hand near the swell of her belly. She measured the ring of soldiers, the dragons, Daenerys, Ned, and the horse lines in a single turn of her head. The light caught the new woman’s jawline as she turned her head, and for a breath, Ned saw Luke in the set of her mouth. The same blood, he thought.

C-3PO’s voice warmed by some subtle degree. “Her Highness Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan.”

The titles ran on a little after that, names of places and dignities Ned had never heard, all of them polished and weighty. The woman dipped her head the barest measure.

“Lord Eddard.”

“…Princess.”

Solo had already edged nearer her. He's her husband, Ned thought, from the way his body angled toward her.

The next one made half the front rank tighten their hand on their spear again.

A towering shape filled the ramp mouth, too large for a man, furred from throat to boot, long arms hanging below a broad chest. The creature moved with care, ducking its head beneath the upper frame though there seemed room enough, as if habit had taught the motion. It came down slowly, and as it did Ned saw belt, satchel, hands, eyes. Those eyes watched the ring of armed men with full understanding.

Jorah’s thumb slid under his sword guard.

C-3PO gestured again. “Chewbacca, copilot of the Millennium Falcon.”

The creature gave a low rumbling sound that set a few horses dancing sideways and then stopped beside Solo, who looked up at it as a man might look at an old companion after long road.

Greatjon stared openly. “Is it… tame?”

Solo answered before C-3PO could. “He’s got better manners than most nobility I’ve met, most of the time.”

That drew a short bark from the creature, whether amusement or warning Ned could not tell.

Tyrell green showed on the next figure before the face did. An elderly woman came to the head of the ramp with a cane in one hand and contempt for mud plain in the set of her mouth. This had to be the Queen of Thorns.

C-3PO bowed toward her. “Lady Olenna Tyrell of the Reach.”

She took the final step to the ground and planted her cane.

"Lord Eddard." Her gaze found Daenerys before it found him. "So that is the girl. She looks less mad than the last one. I do hope that holds."

"She is not her father."

Daenerys stepped forward. "And she has ears, Lady Tyrell."

Olenna looked at her properly for the first time. "Hmm, that's yet to be seen, but it looks like as she has her wits about her."

Behind her came a Dornishman in rich but travel-stained clothes, copper skin, black hair, and the easy insolence of a man who had never once mistaken courtesy for submission. He listened to the golden man’s words before he smiled, and he was the first of the strangers to find pleasure in the absurdity of them.

“Prince Oberyn Martell,” C-3PO announced.

The prince placed a hand over his heart and bowed shallowly. “An honor, Lord Eddard. Your camp grows lively.”

“It has had a full day.”

“I could see that from the sky.”

The last of the group was a young knight in Tyrell colors, though grief or strain had drawn hard lines about his mouth.

“Ser Loras Tyrell,” said the golden man.

Ser Loras gave Ned a warrior’s nod, brief and formal, then took his place by Lady Olenna.

Smalljon Umber came down the ramp with the rolling stride of a man who owned every piece of ground he stood on, his mail shirt catching the last of the day’s grey light. Harrion Karstark followed, quieter, his gloved hand resting on the pommel of his sword as he scanned the tense faces ringing the ship.

Greatjon Umber’s roar cut through the wary murmurs. “Boy! You better explain to me how you ended up with this lot on that beast with Lord Robb!”

Smalljon grinned, teeth white in his beard. “You’ve gotten louder.”

Rickard Karstark stepped forward, his face a mask of stern relief. “Harrion.”

“Father.” Harrion’s nod was formal, but his shoulders dropped a fraction.

The introductions ended there and around them the camp eased by degrees. Bowstrings slackened. Sword points dipped. Men still held steel bare in hand, yet the first edge of fear had passed into wary silence. Low talk began to move through the outer rings.

Then one final shape filled the mouth of the ramp, and every other thought left with the breath in his chest.

His other son stepped into the light.

Ghost came first, the white direwolf crossed the ramp without a sound. He came to Ned and pressed his nose against Ned's hand, then turned back toward the ramp and waited.

Jon stood at the head of the ramp for three breaths, one hand near the hilt at his belt, dark hair stirred by the river wind. He looked over the ring of shields, the horse lines, the dragons by the water, the gathered lords, and Ned with Daenerys at his side.

This boy—no man, held himself like one accustomed to being watched. Men made room for him before he had taken a step. Even the Greatjon, who had found words for a golden metal servant and a great furred giant from the sky, said nothing at all.

He came down the ramp fast, not running, but done with ceremony. Ned went to meet him.

"Jon," he said.

"Uncle."

Uncle, not Father.

Ned pulled him in before the lord in him could object. Jon stiffened for half a breath, then his arms came up and held on. Wool, leather, mud, the smell of road and horse. His gaze went to Ned's wrapped arm and back. A question he didn't ask. Ned gave him the answer he could in the set of his mouth.

"It will mend," he said.

Jon's hand tightened once before he released him. "Aye."

Up close the changes ran deeper than beard-shadow and harder muscle. There was still wolf in him, still North, still the boy who had stood in the yard with Robb and tried twice as hard because he thought he had half the right but now there was a determined certainty behind his posture.

Jon turned toward Daenerys.

Daenerys took one step forward. Her silver-gold hair stirred about her shoulders. "Daemon," she said. "You look so much like— welcome nephew."

Jon bowed his head. "Your Grace."

"Daenerys," Daenerys said. "We are past titles, you and I."

"That we are. We have much to talk about," Jon answered.

"First, bread and salt for your companions," he said. "Then we should head inside, there is business enough for ten councils."

Jon glanced once toward Robb, then back to Ned. "A word first, if you will."

Ned gave a nod. "Walk with me."

They moved only a short way, far enough that camp talk and the creak of leather swallowed their words. Close enough that every eye could still find them if it wished. Around them the camp sorted itself.

Ned let two steps carry them past the last ears. "You told them."

A ghost of a smile touched Jon's mouth. "Aye."

"And you did this without an army behind you, and survived? What of Renly?"

"Renly was murdered by his brother and I knew then I had to take his place."

Ned's eye widened. "Stannis killed his own brother?!"

"Yes, before witnesses. But the man who killed him didn't use a blade. He used some sort of dark magic." Jon's gaze went distant. "A shadow. It came for Renly in the dark and cut him down in his armor."

Ned stared at the river for a moment and asked. "A shadow."

"I know how it sounds, but it's the truth of it."

Ned breathed out through his nose. A shadow. It sounded like something from Old Nan's tales, meant to frighten children in the dark.

"And now they follow you," Ned said.

Neither spoke for a breath.

"I should have told you sooner."

Jon looked past him toward the river, then came back. "You should have."

After a beat Jon said, "But you kept me alive and I cannot ask for more."

Jon gave facts the way he had learned from Ned.

"I gave you a hard road," Ned said.

"You gave me a family when I had lost everything already," Jon's hand came to Ned's uninjured arm, brief and firm. "Robb. Arya. Bran. A name that kept blades out of my cradle. I know now what you gave up for me."

"And I would do it again." He chose the next question with care.

"Now, the ship," Ned said. "Where did it come from?"

Jon glanced back toward the grey hull. "This will be hard to accept, but it came beyond our world, from the stars. So did Master Luke and his companions."

"Lord Eddard."

Ned's hand found Ice before he placed the voice. Luke stood three paces from them as if he had been there all along.

Ned turned. "Is what my son saying true?"

Luke inclined his head. "Yes, there are worlds beyond this one, and men cross between them in ships like the Falcon. I came here by chance, though I have begun to doubt chance had much to do with it."

Ned took a deep breath, trying to come to terms of this new reality as the ship’s grey hull filled the edge of his vision.

“Worlds beyond this one,” he said, not a question.

Luke met his gaze. “I know Lord Stark, it will take time to truly digest this.”

Wind stirred across the field, carrying the distant clang of a smith’s hammer from the camp. He looked at Jon, then back to Luke.

“What comes next?”

"The Wall," Luke said. "It is under attack from the far side and the dead beyond it move with purpose. Yes, the same you dead you saw at Castle Black. The White Walkers command them, yet I believe the Walkers themselves answer to one will. Kill one, and the dead bound to it fall. Leave the source untouched, and every field of corpses becomes an army."

"How long?"

Luke's face gave him no easy comfort. "Too soon for any lord's liking. Too little for the realm as it stands—"

The earth moved under Ned's boots and stopped Luke's words short.

Rhaegal landed ten paces from where they stood. The impact sent men stumbling. Horses screamed down the picket line. The dragon folded his wings and turned his bronze-ridged head toward Jon.

Jon turned a heartbeat later.

The command he had carried down the ramp fell away so fast Ned marked the loss of it like a shield being lowered. Jon stood frozen and watched the dragon with open awe in a way Ned had not seen since Winterfell.

Ghost pressed against Jon's left leg. The direwolf's red eyes tracked Rhaegal.

Ned stepped aside to give them their moment.

Daenerys came at a run from behind the command tents, Ser Jorah half a stride behind her.

"Easy," she called. "He means no harm! Rhaegal—"

The rest died when she saw Jon's hand already on Rhaegal's snout.

The dragon's head had lowered to meet him, the great skull descending in an arc that brought the scaled jaw level with Jon's chest. Jon's fingers spread across the ridge above the nostril, pale against green. A low rolling croon came up from Rhaegal's throat, deep enough to vibrate through the ground and up through Ned's boots. The dragon who had been named for Rhaegar had found Rhaegar's son, and he was crooning.

Daenerys stopped three paces away. Her hand rose to her mouth.

Without prompt, the dragon went lower to the ground as if giving Jon permission and Jon took it as he climbed.

There was no ceremony in it. No glance at the host, no word to the queen whose beast this was. One breath his hand lay on the snout, the next his boot found the ridge of scales along Rhaegal's shoulder. Rhaegal's body adjusted beneath him, muscles rolling under scaled hide, and the green dragon rose.

Wings opened with a sound like canvas torn from a hundred poles at once. One hard stroke took dragon and rider above the nearest tents. Jon clung to the neck ridges with both hands, body pressed low, dark hair whipped back from his face. Rhaegal banked once, slow, the wing on the inside folding while the outer held, and for one breath Jon hung framed against the sky with the river and the camp and the whole Riverlands spread beneath him.

Then dragon and rider came down.

Rhaegal settled where he had risen, claws cutting grooves in the mud, wings beating up one last blast of dust before they folded. Jon slid from the dragon's side with less grace than he had mounted, boots striking earth hard enough to bend his knees. He stood with both hands on green scale, drawing breath in quick pulls.

Ghost reached him first and came to heel at his left leg as if he had stood there all along.

The first sound came from the Greatjon.

"Gods," he said, in a voice gone smaller than Ned had ever heard from him.

Robb went to Jon at once. He caught his brother by the shoulder and said something Ned did not hear. Jon gave a short rough laugh in answer, real enough to strip the tension from his face.

Lady Olenna arrived a breath later, cane tapping before her.

"Well," she said, loud enough for every lord within earshot. "Subtlety is not your nephew's strength."

Daenerys moved then.

She went to Rhaegal, not to Jon. Her palm settled against the green neck below the jaw. The dragon turned at once and lowered his head farther for her touch. Jon stepped half a pace aside without being asked.

“A magnificent creature,” Luke said, his voice quiet. He watched Daenerys’s hand on the green scales, the dragon’s slitted pupil contracting as it focused solely on her. The air smelled of ozone and hot stone. “The bond is… absolute.”

Ned saw Luke’s gaze shift from the dragon to Daenerys. It wasn’t the look of a man admiring a queen. His blue eyes were clear, assessing, the way a maester might study a book.

Eddard stepped forward. “We’ve had spectacle enough for one day,” he said, his voice carrying without effort over the murmuring lords. “Let us head inside my tent. We have much to discuss.”

The Greatjon let out a low grunt, a sound still laced with awe. Robb had a hand on Jon’s shoulder, steering him toward the pavilion’s flap. Jon’s laugh, when it came, was short and rough, but it eased the hard lines from his face.

Lady Olenna answered first. “A sensible notion, Lord Stark,” she called out, her tone dry as winter leaves. “My old bones tire of gawking at dragons, however magnificent.”

Ned pushed through the heavy canvas. The shadowed interior of the pavilion was a relief, the air still and cool after the charged heat outside.