The dream began as all nightmares do, with the certainty that something was terribly wrong.
Jon Snow lay in his narrow bed, the stones of Winterfell cold against the thin wall beside him, when suddenly he was not there at all. The familiar darkness of his chamber dissolved like smoke in wind, and he stood instead upon a field of corpses.
Bodies sprawled in every direction, their armor strange lacquered plates over dark cloth, masks like snarling demons knocked askew to reveal too-young faces beneath. The air reeked of iron and shit and something else, something that made his five-year-old mind recoil: the acrid stench of poison, of things that should not exist in any natural world.
"You shouldn't be here, boy."
Jon spun. A man stood among the dead, and somehow Jon knew with dream certainty that this man was dead too, or nearly so. He had the features of Yi Ti, though Jon had never seen such faces save in the occasional trader who came to Winterfell's gates. The man appeared to be in his mid-thirties, with kind eyes that had become hollow from exhaustion. Blood seeped through tears in his strange uniform.
"Where am I?" Jon's voice came out high and frightened. "Who are you?"
The man laughed, bitter as winter wind. "Someone who failed. Twice." He stepped closer, and Jon saw that half his throat had been torn away. Dream logic insisted that the situation was normal, that dead men could speak. "First world killed in a car crash. Meaningless death for a meaningless life. "Second world," he said, gesturing at the carnage. "Died fighting demons I couldn't beat. And now... I'm nowhere. Between."
"I don't understand."
"You don't need to." The man's eyes sharpened, focusing on Jon with an intensity that made the boy want to run. "But you're here, which means the pattern continues. The gods, fate, or whatever cosmic joke keeps playing out—they're not done with me."
Before Jon could move, the man's hand pressed against his forehead. The touch burned like ice, like lightning.
"Wait, no! I don't want "
"You don't have a choice. Neither do I." The man's voice grew urgent. "Three lifetimes of knowledge has to mean something. I won't let it die with me again."
The flood began.
Marcus Chen, age thirty-four, a historian, died on the I-95 when a drunk driver crossed the median—
Second life, reborn in a world of demons and swordsmen, trained under Kuwajima-sensei, Thunder Breathing, First Form, Thunderclap and Flash.
Beast Breathing, which is a self-taught hybrid technique that involves sensing, developing instincts, and learning to move like water and strike like lightning.
Upper Moon Three: the battle, the poison, the failure—always the failure to defeat the demons.
Jon screamed. He was drowning, drowning in memories that weren't his, in languages he'd never heard, in the muscle memory of combat forms his child's body had never learned. Roman Legion formations crashed against demon-slaying techniques. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms bled into something called anime. Cars, phones, and guns were combined with nichirin blades and wisteria poison.
"Your world is different," Marcus said, his form already fading at the edges. "No demons. But there are monsters. Use your breath. Trust your instincts. And boy, "
"What?!" Jon gasped, choking on foreign knowledge.
"Don't let them know what you are. They'll fear you. Fear makes people cruel."
The dream shattered.
Jon jolted awake in his chamber, gasping. But the gasping was wrong—his lungs moved in a pattern, drawing air deep into his belly, spreading it through his body like rivers of warm light. "Total Concentration Breathing," his mind supplied in a voice that wasn't quite his own.
He could feel everything. Robb's heartbeat two rooms over, slow and steady in sleep. Servants moving in the kitchens below, their footsteps distinct as drumbeats. The wind outside carried the scent of coming snow, three days hence. His body thrummed with impossible energy, as if he could run for hours without tiring.
"What happened to me?" The words came out in a whisper. He looked at his small hands, pale in the moonlight. "Who was that man? Marcus—his name was Marcus Chen. But how do I know that?"
The memories wouldn't stop coming. The Colosseum in Rome, its architecture analyzed with a scholar's eye. A demon's head severs from its body, dissolving to ash. The proper grip for a katana. The Treaty of Verdun divided Charlemagne's empire. The sound a man makes when poison stops his heart.
"Am I going mad?" Jon pressed his palms against his eyes, but the visions continued. "Am I cursed?"
Dawn
Dawn came like judgment, grey and unforgiving, through his narrow window. Jon hadn't slept again; he couldn't sleep, not with his body thrumming with this strange energy, not with dead men's memories crowding his thoughts.
He dressed mechanically, his movements different now. Where before he might have stumbled pulling on his boots, now his body moved with an efficiency that frightened him. Economy of motion, Marcus's memories whispered. Never waste energy. You might need it to survive.
The courtyard of Winterfell stretched before him, achingly familiar yet suddenly alien. He could hear conversations from the far tower—Septa Mordane scolding Sansa for her stitching. He could smell the forge, though it was cold this morning, the lingering scent of yesterday's iron and coal.
"Jon! There you are!" Robb's voice cut through his hyperfocus. His half-brother, Jon, fiercely corrected himself, thinking that Robb was truly his brother, and bounded across the yard with a wooden sword in hand. "Come spar with me! Ser Rodrik won't be here for another hour."
"I shouldn't," Jon began, but Robb was already pressing a practice blade into his hand.
"Come on! You never want to anymore. Mother can't see us from her solarium at this hour.
The wooden sword felt wrong and right simultaneously. Jon's childhands knew their weight from a hundred practice sessions. Marcus remembered the weight of steel, the balance point of a proper blade, and how to wield it—
"Jon? Are you well?" Robb peered at him with concern. "You look strange."
"I'm fine." Jon raised the wooden sword into what his body insisted was a guard position, though he'd never been taught it. "Let's spar."
Robb came at him with a basic overhead strike, the kind Ser Rodrik had been teaching them. Jon's body moved without his permission. He sidestepped with perfect timing, the wooden blade missing him by inches. His sword came up in a counter that would have opened Robb's throat had it been steel, had Jon not yanked himself back at the last instant.
"Whoa!" Robb stumbled, eyes wide. "How did you do that?"
"I... got lucky."
But Ser Rodrik had arrived early, and the master-at-arms was frowning from the armory door. "That wasn't luck, boy. Do it again."
"Ser Rodrik, I"
"Again."
Jon attempted to fumble and move clumsily and uncertainly, like a five-year-old should. But Robb came at him with more confidence this time, and Jon's instincts—Marcus's instincts—screamed danger. His body flowed like water, the dodge perfect, the counter precise.
"Seven hells," Ser Rodrik breathed. "Boy, where did you learn that? That's... that's master-level sword work."
Before Jon could answer, Theon Greyjoy's mocking voice cut across the yard. "The bastard's got some moves! "What did your whore mother teach you while working in her brothel?"
The rage hit Jon like a physical blow. His breathing changed—sharp intake, held, then released in a pattern that flooded his muscles with explosive power. Thunder Breathing, First Form. He moved.
The world slowed. Jon could see Theon's sneer beginning to falter and could track each mote of dust in the morning air. His body crossed the ten feet between them in less than a heartbeat. The wooden sword in Theon's hand shattered as Jon's blade struck it, splinters flying. Before anyone could blink, Jon had Theon on the ground, his practice sword at the older boy's throat.
The training yard had gone silent as a crypt.
"I didn't mean to," Jon whispered, horrified at himself. "I couldn't stop—"
"Jon." Ser Rodrik's voice was careful, the way one might speak to a spooked horse. "Put the sword down, lad."
Jon looked at the weapon in his hand, at Theon's terrified face, and at Robb standing frozen with his mouth open. Then his gaze traveled up to the gallery that overlooked the yard.
Catelyn Stark stood there, and her face had gone the color of fresh snow.
Catelyn
She'd come to call Robb for his lessons with Maester Luwin, nothing more. It was just a simple maternal task on an ordinary morning. Then she'd seen the bastard move.
No child moved like that. No human moved like that.
She'd watched him flow around Robb's strikes like water, watched him shatter Theon's sword with inhuman speed. Five years old. The boy was five years old, and he'd just displayed the kind of martial prowess that took masters decades to achieve.
What is he?
The question rose unbidden, carrying with it a mother's primal fear. Her children trained beside this... thing. Slept under the same roof. They ate at the same table only when Ned insisted on it. She'd always hated the boy for what he represented—Ned's betrayal, Ned's shame. But the present was different. This was wrong.
"My lady?" Maester Luwin appeared at her elbow, concerned. "Are you well?"
"Did you see?" Her voice came out as a whisper.
"See what, my lady?"
"The bastard. Did you notice what he just did?"
Luwin peered down at the yard, where Ser Rodrik was now speaking intently to Jon while Robb helped Theon to his feet. "He seems to have done well in practice—"
"That wasn't practice." Catelyn's hands gripped the gallery railing until her knuckles went white. "That was... unnatural."
She turned sharply. "Ser Rodrik! A word. Now."
The master-at-arms looked up, nodded, and began climbing the stairs. Catelyn didn't wait. She swept back into the castle, Maester Luwin trailing behind, her mind racing.
He has to go. Tonight.
Jon
Jon stood in the yard, abandoned, as Ser Rodrik disappeared into the castle at Lady Catelyn's command. Theon had already slunk away, pride wounded worse than his body. Only Robb remained.
"That was incredible," his brother said, eyes shining with excitement. "Can you teach me?"
"I don't know how I did it," Jon said miserably. It was true and not true. He knew exactly how—Thunder Breathing, First Form, a technique for killing demons that had no business in the body of a Northern bastard.
"Jon—"
"I have to go."
Jon fled before Robb could respond, but instead of running to his chamber, he found himself creeping through the servant's passages, following the sound of voices. Lord Stark was at Moat Cailin with the king, reviewing the garrison. In his absence, Lady Catelyn's word was law in Winterfell.
He pressed himself against cold stone outside Maester Luwin's turret, close enough to hear.
"—the boy is unnatural." Lady Catelyn's voice was as cold as winter iron. "You heard what Ser Rodrik reported."
"My lady, he's just a child—"
"A child who moves like a demon. Speaks of things he shouldn't know. I heard him mutter words in a foreign tongue this morning—some eastern language."
Jon's blood froze. He'd been talking in his sleep, speaking Japanese, Mandarin, and Latin. Marcus's languages spilling from his mouth.
"Perhaps he overheard travelers—" Luwin tried.
"Don't patronize me, Maester. Something is wrong with him. He's a threat to my children."
"What are you suggesting?"
"Ned is away with Robert. When he returns... I'll convince him. The boy must be sent away. He must be sent to the Wall, the Citadel, or anywhere else but here.
"My lady, he's five years old. The Wall doesn't take children—"
"Then we'll foster him. Somewhere far. The Iron Islands, perhaps. Let Balon Greyjoy deal with him."
Jon couldn't listen anymore. He crept away on silent feet—shinobi movement techniques, Marcus's memories supplied uselessly—and made his way to his chamber.
She's going to make Father send me away. Or worse—what if she doesn't wait for Father?
The decision crystallized like ice in his chest. He had to leave. Tonight. Before Lady Catelyn did something neither of them could take back.
Brothers
Jon was stuffing spare clothes into a cloth sack when Robb found him.
"Jon? What are you doing?"
Jon's hands stilled on a spare tunic. He couldn't look at his brother. "I have to leave, Robb."
"Leave? Why? Was it Mother? I'll talk to her—"
"No." Jon turned, and Robb took a step back at whatever he saw in Jon's face. "Don't. It's... better this way."
"You're my brother. You can't just—"
"I'll always be your brother." The words came out thick and choked. "But I can't stay. Something's... different about me now. Wrong. Your mother sees it. She's right to be afraid."
"You're not wrong! You're Jon!"
Jon crossed the space between them and pulled Robb into a fierce hug. His brother was crying now, and Jon felt his own eyes burn.
"Tell Father..." Jon had to stop and swallow hard. "Tell him I'm sorry. And I do love him. Love all of you."
"Where will you go?" Robb's voice was muffled against Jon's shoulder.
"Far. Somewhere no one knows me."
Robb pulled back, scrubbing at his eyes with his sleeve. "Promise me you'll come back someday."
Jon wanted to lie, to give his brother that comfort. But Marcus's memories knew the weight of broken promises and the pain of loves left behind.
"I promise I will survive," Jon said quietly. "That's all I can promise."
The Storm
Jon slipped from Winterfell through the crypts, where the stone kings of winter watched with blind eyes. He knew these passages—not from Marcus's memories but from his explorations, seeking solitude from Lady Catelyn's cold gaze.
The storm hit as soon as he emerged beyond the walls. Rain turned to sleet, wind howling like wolves. Any normal five-year-old would have died within the hour.
But Jon's breathing shifted automatically—Water Breathing, Third Form, Flowing Dance—and his body temperature stabilized despite the freezing rain. When he needed speed, Thunder Breathing sent him flying across the muddy ground. When he needed endurance, Total Concentration Constant kept his small body moving long past when it should have collapsed.
He ran into the Wolfswood, into the dark beneath ancient trees, while behind him Winterfell disappeared into storm and night.
Marcus, whoever you were—your knowledge saved me. And it damned me.
The thought came between desperate breaths, between the thunder above and the thunder in his blood.
I'm five years old, running into a storm, with a dead man's memories in my head.
He stumbled over a root, caught himself with reflexes not his own, and kept running.
But I'm alive. I'm FREE. And I'll survive. I HAVE to survive.
Finally, hours later or perhaps days—time meant nothing in the storm—Jon collapsed beneath a massive fallen oak. The hollow beneath its trunk provided just enough shelter. He curled into a ball, his breathing finally slowing from its desperate rhythm.
"Tomorrow," he whispered to the darkness. "Tomorrow, I head for White Harbor. Tomorrow, I become no one."
But even as exhaustion dragged him toward unconsciousness, Marcus's memories whispered their truths: You can't become no one. You can only become something new.
Jory
Three days later, Jory Cassel led his search party through the sodden Wolfswood, though he knew in his bones they'd find nothing but a small corpse, if they were lucky.
"The boy's either dead or got help we don't know about," he said to the guardsman beside him.
"Lady Catelyn seems... relieved."
Jory shot the man a sharp look but didn't disagree. "Don't speak ill. But aye, I noticed. Lord Stark's beside himself, though. Raven came this morning. He's riding back hard from Moat Cailin."
Another guard, young Harwin, spoke up. "Maester Luwin said the boy was acting strange before he ran. Speaking in tongues, moving like..."
"Like what?"
"Like something touched him. Something is not of this world."
Jory felt a chill that had nothing to do with the lingering cold. "The Old Gods work in strange ways. If the boy's out here, gods help him."
They searched until dusk, finding nothing but wolf tracks and the occasional raven feather. Jory didn't mention the strange thing he'd noticed: places where a child's footprints simply stopped, only to reappear twenty feet away, as if the boy had flown.
Like something not of this world, indeed.
The Road
Two weeks after his escape, Jon crouched in the bushes beside the kingsroad, watching bandits circle a merchant's wagon. His stomach gnawed at itself with hunger—the rabbits he'd managed to snare weren't enough for a growing boy, even one with enhanced stamina.
The merchant, a stout Northman with grey in his beard, stood with his hands raised while three bandits pawed through his goods. "Please, sirs, I'm just trying to make an honest living—"
One bandit backhanded him, sending the merchant to his knees. "Shut it, old man."
Jon should have stayed hidden. Should have let it happen. But Marcus's memories carried their weight, their imperatives. The strong who don't protect the weak are worse than bandits themselves.
Jon's breathing shifted. Thunder Breathing, First Form, modified for multiple targets.
He burst from the undergrowth like a tiny thunderbolt. The first bandit went down before he knew what hit him, Jon's stolen knife finding the gap behind his knee. Jon's instincts to track a demon in flight helped him turn just in time to throw a rock toward the second bandit temple. The third, the leader, managed to draw his sword.
"What in seven hells is that child?"
Jon interrupted him before he could process the situation. Beast Breathing, Spatial Awareness. He could feel the man's stance, the weight distribution, and the telltale shift that preceded a strike. Jon rolled between his legs, came up behind, and drove his small shoulder into the back of the bandit's knee.
The man toppled. Jon grabbed his sword as it fell, though the weight nearly pulled his small arms from their sockets, and held it at the bandit's throat.
"Run," Jon growled, trying to make his child's voice deeper. "All of you. Run and don't come back."
They ran, the one with the bleeding leg supported between the other two.
Jon dropped the sword and promptly collapsed.
When he woke, he was in the back of the merchant's wagon, wrapped in a wool blanket that smelled of horses and southern spices.
"Easy, lad." The merchant's face appeared above him, creased with concern and wonder. "You're safe. Those brigands are long gone."
"I'm sorry," Jon mumbled, not sure what he was apologizing for.
"Sorry? Boy, you saved my life and my livelihood." The merchant handed him a waterskin. "What's your name?"
"Jon. Just Jon."
"Where'd you learn to fight like that, Just Jon?"
Jon thought of Marcus, of the dream that wasn't a dream, of knowledge that had destroyed his life and saved it in the same breath.
"Someone taught me in a dream," he said quietly.
For a brief period, the merchant was silent, likely believing that Jon had experienced trauma, had contact with gods, or had both. "Well, dreams or no, you saved my life. I owe you a debt."
"I don't need…"
"Hush, boy. You're skin and bones, and those rags won't last another day." The merchant's eyes were kind. "My name's Willem. I'm bound for White Harbor with wool and copper goods. You will travel with me, share meals with me, and once we arrive there, we can decide what to do next.
White Harbor
White Harbor rose from the bite like a fever dream, all white stone and busy harbors, more people in one place than Jon had ever imagined. Willem's wagon rolled through streets that teemed with sailors, merchants, whores, and sellswords. Jon saw dark-skinned Summer Islanders, pale Lyseni with hair like spun silver, and yes—men from Yi Ti, their faces recalling Marcus's own.
"Never been to a city before, have you?" Willem asked gently.
Jon just shook his head, overwhelmed by the sounds, the smells, and the sheer presence of so much humanity.
They stopped at an inn near the harbor. That night, Willem made his offer over a meal of fish stew and black bread—the first hot meal Jon had enjoyed in weeks.
"My wife and I never had sons, just Jon. Three daughters, all married now. I could use an apprentice. Someone clever, someone brave."
Jon stared at his bowl. The offer was more than he deserved, more than a bastard on the run could hope for. But...
"Lady Stark would find me," he said quietly. "I can't stay anywhere in the North."
Willem studied him for a long moment. "You're running from something. I won't ask what—a boy your age, alone, fighting like that... I can guess enough."
He leaned forward. "Listen, lad. Ships leave this harbor every day. Braavos, Pentos, and even distant Yi Ti are accessible if you have the coin and the courage. A boy with skills like yours could go far across the Narrow Sea. Become anything."
"Yi Ti?" Jon's heart jumped.
"Aye. The Jade Princess sails in three days. Captain Zhao likes to take on young ones for training—says they learn the languages faster." Willem reached into his purse and pulled out a handful of copper stars. "This won't buy you passage, but it might convince him to take you on as a cabin boy."
"I can't take your coin—"
"You saved my life, Jon. This is the least I can do." Willem pressed the coins into Jon's small hands. "The world's bigger than the North, boy. Big enough to hide in. Big enough to become someone new."
The Mermaid's Grace
Jon had learned three things in the two days he'd spent haunting White Harbor's docks:
First, the Jade Princess was beautiful, but her captain was notorious for working his crew bloody.
Second, the Mermaid's Grace was smaller and shabbier, but Captain Terys was known as fair, and more importantly, he asked few questions of his hands.
Third, both ships were sailing east, but the Mermaid's Grace left tonight, while the city guard had started asking questions about a runaway noble child.
The decision made itself.
Jon waited until full dark, until the dockworkers had gone to their cups and the night watch was thin. His breathing shifted—Thunder. He focused on breathing for speed, ensuring total silence between his footfalls. He flowed up the gangplank like a shadow, past the dozing deck watch, and down into the hold.
The cargo space smelled of wool and tar, spices, and the ever-present salt of the sea. Jon wedged himself behind towering bales of Northern wool, in a space barely large enough for a child. He'd survive on the hardtack he'd bought with Willem's coins and the water he'd catch when it rained.
Above, he heard boots on deck and voices calling out preparations for the morning tide.
Jon closed his eyes and let his breathing deepen into the meditative pattern that would keep his body warm through the cold night.
Marcus Chen thought in the darkness. I don't know whether you were real, a dream, or a curse from the gods. But you gave me a chance.
Robb, Father, I'm sorry. But Catelyn was right—I AM something unnatural now. Something that doesn't belong in Winterfell.
Maybe across the sea, I'll find where I DO belong. Or at least, I'll survive long enough to figure out what I am.
He thought of Marcus's final word: Breathe.
"So I will," Jon whispered to the darkness. "I'll breathe, and I'll live, and I'll become... whatever I'm meant to be."
Above, he heard the crew preparing for the dawn sailing. Jon let the ship's gentle rocking lull him toward sleep, his enhanced hearing tracking each creak of wood, each whisper of wind in the rigging.
In the darkness, curled among bales of Northern wool bound for Braavos, Jon Snow—bastard, orphan, vessel for a dead man's war—breathed deeply and dreamed of a world where he could be more than the sum of his tragedies.
Above, the stars wheeled in their ancient patterns. Below, the tide rose with the pull of the moon. And at dawn, the Narrow Sea would carry him away from everything he'd ever known, toward a destiny that even the gods could not have foreseen.