1. The Timeline That Wasn't Meant to Be**
Jon descended into the rift.
No SHIELD team.
No witches, not even Wanda.
Only flame wrapped in cosmic thread, a tether braided from his bloodline and bound loyalty, twisted through light and memory — guiding him into a realm neither dreamed nor foreseen.
**A splinter timeline.**
Where Arya Stark never returned to Westeros.
Where she did not sail west.
Where instead… she became something else entirely.
He landed at dusk beneath black trees, their bark carved with sigils half-Westerosi, half-Elder. The ground smelled of ash, sea, and steel. Crows circled above, silent.
From the silence came a whipcrack — steel against shadow.
And then a voice withdrew from smoke.
"You shouldn't have come, brother."
**Arya.**
She wore leathers wrapped in void-silver trim, a blade forged from the corpses of fallen gods on her back — and in her stare, all of her… and something *far older*.
Jon stepped forward.
She didn't smile. She didn't move.
"You're a ghost to most. My story never had a you in it."
"I came to bring you home."
Her face didn't change. "This *is* my home now."
"What did you become?" he asked quietly.
Arya's voice was colder than winterfell's stone floors.
**"The hunter of flame. Guardian of the locks."**
Jon froze.
The First Flame within him pulsed violently like a silent scream.
Arya had once been bound by it — in another life. Another war.
But here, in this timeline, she rejected it.
And because of that… it made her its warden.
Yet it never warned him she'd be his executioner, too.
### **2. Trial of Fire and Blood**
In the obsidian amphitheater at the center of the Shadowlands, Arya faced him.
"This realm is a graveyard of forgotten gods. I sealed them in with my blade," she said, gesturing behind her to a cracked gate sealed by glowing runes.
"Every time the Flame awakens in another world, it risks opening this gate wide. And now… it burns in you."
A ring of blue flame ignited around the pit. "There's only one way to know if you can carry it."
Arya drew her sword: **Nymeria**, reforged in the bones of moonbeasts.
Jon summoned Longclaw — and the First Flame answered, coating the Valyrian steel in sun-gold heat.
They dueled.
Fast. Brutal. Unforgiving. No dreamlike dance of lovers or kin.
Siblings forged in war, now crashing like gods.
Each thrust of Arya's blade was measured — disarming, not killing.
But Jon refused to yield. For her. For himself. For the queens who trusted him with every kiss, every moan, every scar.
Their blades locked — her breath heavy just inches from his jaw. Her eyes flickered with recognition.
"You carry them with you," she whispered. "Their hunger. Their love. Their belief in you."
"And yours too," he answered hoarsely.
Arya hesitated. Just long enough.
And that hesitation shattered the pit.
### **3. The Lock Beneath The Flame**
The battle cracked the earth.
Below the arena, flame poured from a crevasse… and **something crawled from it.**
Not Dormammu.
This presence was colder. Older.
A voice like oil poured into bone.
> "You should have killed him, girl."
Arya turned, fury blooming in her shadowy aura.
Jon watched in horror as a face formed — *his own face* — but drowned, grinning, mad with fire and self.
Arya readied her blade. "The First Flame doesn't grant divinity."
"No," the doppelgänger snarled, "but it remembers gods before they were gods. And he carries their names now."
A tendril lunged.
Arya flung herself at Jon, shielding him. The impact knocked them both from balance — Jon landing hard on his back as her fingers gripped his chest, her blood searing against his runes.
In the middle of the swirl of ash and fire and false memories…
Jon pulled her into his arms—not to fight.
To **hold her**.
To remind her of who she was, not what she had become.
"I never tried to save you," he whispered. "Now I must."
The specter screamed as golden flame erupted between them.
And the lock shut once more.
### **4. Reunion in Embers**
Later, Jon and Arya sat beside ghostlight embers. Her jaw still locked tight in sisterly stubbornness.
"You weren't meant to carry this," she eventually muttered.
"Yet I do."
"You always said you weren't a hero."
"I'm still not."
She looked at him.
"You came for me."
He smiled, small and warm. "Of course."
She hesitated — then leaned against his shoulder, just like she did in Winterfell as children.
"I don't belong there," she said after a long time.
"Then come where I do belong," he replied. "We'll find a new way."
Behind them, the shattered ground began to close. The words of Sersi echoed faintly:
_"When the bond knows blood, it becomes impossible to break."_
When Jon closed his eyes... Arya whispered one last thing:
"If they try to hurt you…I'll make this timeline look like a mercy."
### **5. Return to the Flamebonded**
The moment Jon stepped back through the rift, the women felt him.
Daenerys was first to reach him — her teleport glyph burning as she all but threw herself into his arms.
Wanda followed, her magic reeling from his altered signature. "You brought back more than yourself," she whispered.
Mystique smiled from the shadows. "The little Stark's back, then?"
And Sif… just offered a quiet nod and a tightening of her sword belt.
In the main chamber, Arya emerged slowly — gloved hands, wolfblade across her back, eyes cautious.
The queens stiffened.
Then Daenerys, ever the lioness, stepped forward and actually smiled. "Sister of the fire. Welcome."
Arya tilted her head. "I'm not here for your Jon."
A pause.
Then Wanda smirked. "But do keep an open mind."
Jon simply took his place at the center again — among warriors, witches, queens, shapeshifters, and now, perhaps, a wolf who knew shadows better than anyone.
And he spoke softly, to them all:
> "We've closed the first gate. But this flame… it's not done remembering yet."