Jon Snow or Aegon Targaryen collapsed flat onto his bed after his maniacal declaration.
He was only eleven. Eleven years had passed since Robert Baratheon's rebellion. Eleven years since the stag had slain his father and usurped the throne.
Eleven years since his mother, Lyanna Stark, had given birth to him in a bloody bed at the Tower of Joy and, with her last breath, entrusted him to his uncle, Ned Stark.
And though Jon was deeply grateful for what his uncle had done, hiding him away from the eyes of Robert Baratheon, he could not help but feel a bitter resentment.
Even after discovering that the rebellion had been built on a lie, the lie that Lyanna had been kidnapped by Rhaegar, Ned Stark had done nothing.
Not that Jon believed or thought that Ned should have declared him the rightful heir to the Iron Throne and raised his banners against Robert.
But the truth? The truth should have at least been told.
Even if he tried to understand Ned's hatred for the Targaryens, as his father and brother were murdered by the Mad King, it had to be acknowledged that most of House Targaryen too had been wiped out during the rebellion.
Elia Martell had been raped. Her children, infants, had been slaughtered. And their murderer still walked free, unpunished. The rebellion that had begun as a righteous quest for a woman's justice had ended by stealing justice and dignity from another.
The Targaryens had suffered enough and Rhaegar deserved justice. The name that had been smeared should have been cleaned. Lyanna should have been granted acknowledgement of what she had been. The wife of Rhaegar Targaryen.
Yet even that, he might have accepted. He might have accepted, Ned's silence.
He might have come to terms with his uncle's silence and stoicism—if his life in Winterfell had been anything close to bearable.
But here, in the cold halls of Winterfell, he was barely treated better than a servant. Though Lord Stark never spoke a harsh word or treated him with visible disdain, his wife's contempt was a constant, a smothering presence.
Catelyn's behaviour towards him set an example for the servants and they treated him no better. No one looked at him as if he was someone carrying Stark blood.
Jon very clearly remembered those days when Lord Stark had gone in the war during the Greyjoy rebellion. Jon in those few months had been reduced to servants. He had been mere 6 years old boy at that time and in Lord Stark's absence, Catelyn Stark was all too powerful. Jon had to fill buckets of water, clean stables and other jobs. His every hour was spent doing different tasks and then being berated for it.
And little Jon at that time could have not even understood why was he being punished. But now he understood, much better than an eleven-year-old Jon Snow.
Lady Catelyn's every glance was filled with scorn. Her words, when directed at him, were like ice tipped daggers. And Lord Stark's only response?
That ever-present, stoic face. And those same repeated words.
"Enough, Catelyn."
His uncle never said more. His uncle never raised his voice. Never challenged her fury. Never stood between Jon and the quiet misery that had become his daily life.
He did not believe for a second that Ned Stark was truly ignorant of the treatment his so-called bastard son endured. And if he was truly that oblivious, so blind that such things could remain hidden in plain sight, within his own castle then perhaps he was not the noble and competent lord everyone believed him to be.
And that justification Ned always carried. That the way Jon was treated added to his own security, that Catelyn's scorn for him made it more believable that he really was a bastard, that it was helping sell the image of a bastard was laughable at best.
Yes, Ned had wronged his wife. But what fault had the boy ever committed? Even if Jon had truly been Ned's bastard, would that have been his own doing?
Just because her faith taught that bastards were unfaithful and that he would snatch from Robb the lordship of Winterfell.
Jon sighed heavily as his thoughts drifted back to what had happened yesterday.
It had been three years since the Greyjoy Rebellion, three years since Theon Greyjoy had been brought to Winterfell as a hostage. A hostage in name only, for his life was one of a ward fostering with another lord and not of a prisoner.
And from the day he arrived, something had begun to shift. A crack had formed in the friendship between Robb and Jon.
Though they still shared laughter and trained together, the warmth between them had cooled. Distance had crept in. Catelyn too encouraged for Robb to build a better relationship with heir of another major house and not a bastard.
Worse, Theon had taken to mocking Jon whenever he could. Constant reminders that he was just a bastard, a nobody, had slowly started to worm their way into Robb's mind as well.
Yesterday, as always, Jon, Robb, and Theon had been training in the yard with Ser Rodrik Cassel, the castle's master-at-arms. As always, Theon could not keep his mouth shut.
Insults came as naturally to him as breathing. Bastard this, bastard that.
But Jon had long since learned not to react. Years of enduring Lady Catelyn's icy contempt had taught him how to keep calm.
So, he said nothing. Just focused. And then, as the bout began, he knocked Theon to the ground cleanly. Despite, Theon being 2 years older than him.
Ser Rodrik had called the bout over, and Jon had started to walk away. But Theon, heir of the Iron Islands, could not bear the sting of defeat.
Without warning, he lunged from the ground, swinging his wooden sword with all his strength.
"Son of a whore!" That was the last thing Jon heard before the blow struck the back of his head. And everything went black.
And in all probability little Jon passed away and this new soul had taken over.
Jon got out from the thoughts of the past as his mind moved towards the present and importantly towards the gifts he had received.
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