Jon shook his head, violet eyes tracking across the tomb, searching.
"Again," his voice was a bare whisper. "Nothing so benign. His people were a distinctly cruel people, and selfish with it. They feared him, yes. But they feared more what might happen if they had need of him once more and they'd done away with him. They'd gotten fat and complacent knowing the child-turned-warrior would solve their problems for them, fight the battles they weren't able or willing to risk themselves to fight. So," he drawled, eyes alighting on the object of his search. "They came up with a new idea. Or an old one depending on how you look at it. There was a legend in that era of a great king who had been encased in a crystal tomb in a magical cave and left, sleeping and unaging, until it was time for him to rise again and lead his people once more."
"Gods be good." The Lord Commander leaned in closer to the tomb. "You're not suggesting…?"
He shrugged. Honestly, Jon had no idea if the story was true or a pack of riddles and half-lies. But he did know that his ancestors had believed it – and that was enough for him in these dark days.
"Perhaps." Jon allowed, tracing several symbols carved into the stone with a blooded finger. "Perhaps not. We'll have to ask him – once he's been awoken."
"What are you about lad?" The Lord Commander barked in demand of an answer.
"Whether he is the child of that prophecy left to sleep forever unless needed or simply an early king under an enchantment – I have no idea." Jon stared up at Mormont with dark eyes filled with a curious combination of fire and ice. "But my Lord uncle – may he rest – believed in this the way he did little else when it came to things of legend and myth. This is why I've come. To wake a subject of a Prophecy that my family has held sacred and secret since the beginnings of this Epoch."
"Prophecy?" Samwell's ears pricked up. "You mean a new prophecy, not the one from his childhood?" If it was the same warrior and defeater of Dark Lords of Magic as Jon had spoken of.
"Yes." Jon stepped back, done with tracing the symbols and runes and drawing Longclaw. "One given to the very first Stark of the North when he found this very tomb in the Age before that of Heroes – from the time of the First Men:
When the comet burns red across the sky –
And the Red God rises;
When the Long Night knocks upon the Wall –
And the Dead are once more Walking;
When the innocent blood spilled is dead no more –
And Fire is enjoined in Winter;
When the stallion is struck down by slave –
And the Dragons are born anew;
When the Lion Roars alone upon the Throne –
And Winter comes a-hunting;
When the Red Stag flounders -
And the Little Stag is sundered;
Here these words!
Head my warning!
There is no hope but that of Mourning!
An Age shall End in with a Roar and Fury –
And none shall bar the way;
But, a Word of Caution to this tale –
Should the Warrior Fight –
The Usurpers shall Fail."
Samwell and the Lord Commander rolled this new – and strange – Prophecy around in their heads. Not unexpectedly, Samwell broke first.
"Dead walking?" His voice was nearly a whimper as his eyes were the size of dinner plates. "The White Walkers?"
"Aye, laddie." Mormont's voice was grim – a stark contrast to the boy's whimpering he thought. He knew now what the Stark lad was about. If he were another man he would try and stop him. But he was the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch – and the concerns and squabbles of the Seven Kingdoms were no concern of his. If the lad had joined like his Bearer before him that would be another thing.
But he hadn't.
And with his current course he never will.
If he even lives long enough to consider it.
"And the red comet, the stags, and lions, and dragons." Samwell continued. "That's all happening now, isn't it?"
"Yes, Sam." Jon spared his friend a glance over his shoulder. "It is. All of it – it's happening right now."
"And what of the Usurpers your words spoke of?" A grim voice spoke up as one of the men of the Watch shouldered his way through the remaining men of the Ranging. "Who might they be, exactly?"
"Hard to say." Jon said nonchalantly. "But if I had to level a guess – I'd bet on it being the bastard who decided to lop off my uncle's head, as word has it he's the product of Queen," he all but spit on the title. "Cersei's great affection for those of Lannister blood."
Making Joffery the Evil Cunt a Usurper in any way you chose to look at it.
Jon truly feared for what sweet, naïve spoiled Sansa was going through caught in the clutches of the Lannisters.
Without another word, Jon took his Valyrian steel sword and thrust it into one of the braziers that had lit along with the fuel for the oil-light track in the walls, setting the sword aflame. Bracing himself, he sliced the flaming sword across his hand, the fire cauterizing the wound once his blood had marked the blade. Angling it downward, he centered it on the well-concealed sigil at the base of the diamond tomb, speaking his words in High Valyrian:
"Fire and Blood."
And struck down, burying the sword to the hilt in the bedrock of the tomb.
The tomb surrounding them quaked and shook, a crack forming around the sigil and instantly branching out, racing towards the diamond tomb.
As it hit, fire leapt up from the seven symbols Jon had traced in his blood, six symbols separated from the casket and shooting outwards with a dizzying spin and a hiss of releasing pressure and air. The flames in the braziers and tucked along the walls sprang higher – though those who might've witnessed it were blinded to it by their focus on the diamond tomb as a thin, elegant hand reached out and curled around the edge of the now-freed lid of the coffin. Before their disbelieving eyes the hand flexed and the next thing they knew the lid – which had to weigh at least a half-tonne – was flung away and crashed against the near wall.
"By all the gods…" Mormont gasped, his knees giving way along with those of all his men as that hand now wrapped tightly around the edge of the tomb, its owner using it to leverage himself – and it was definitely a male though not like one he'd ever seen before – up and out of the tomb, landing with a cat-like grace in a half-crouch before the stunned Jon.
:::
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