If you'd asked him yesterday where he'd end up, he would have laughed, except laughter had long since lost its novelty. He'd been almost everywhere and had done almost everything, died more times than anyone should have the right, and somehow, some higher being seemed to enjoy a cruel kind of irony, placing him here in Jon Snow's body." The brooding hero, and well-known bastard by any metric. Surrounded and suffocated by those who looked down on him, not because of his own actions, but of those of others.
And yet somehow that wasn't even the worst part of his morning. No, that honor went to shoveling horse shit behind the stables because Lady Stark didn't appreciate him out-dueling Robb, but to be fair, it was probably because of that festival, what did they call it here? The harvest festival. And the fact that it was in front of half a dozen heirs from the more self-important houses.
He dragged the shovel through another pile of it, leaving him grumbling. He'd hosted events like this more times than he could count. Back in 1269, he'd been a jito overseeing an entire district, managing harvest rites that made this northern gathering look like a children's recital. And now? Now he was still elbow-deep in manure, freezing, punished for swinging a sword a little too well. While not a chunni boy at heart, he took this affront personally, and one way or another, that bitch is going to suffer, as he had long since lost patience with dealing with such shit, no pun intended.
He tossed the shovel aside once the stablemaster finally waved him off. His hands and fingers were numb, and if this body had any sense of self-preservation, it would've staged a rebellion by now. Winterfell's cold wasn't something you adapted to; it was something you endured,. something his mind hasn't gotten used to yet
He stepped out from behind the stables, brushing the last of the filth from his boots, and caught sight of the courtyard beginning to empty. The harvest festival had ended hours earlier, but the aftershocks of his performance still lingered. Whispers travelled faster than ravens, and every pair of eyes seemed to weigh him differently now.
A bastard wasn't meant to outshine the trueborn heir. A bastard wasn't meant to win. Certainly not in front of a cluster of heirs from their vassals who pretended they weren't silently judging ever since that occurred, a pity that this society placed martial ability to such a high standard, not that he wouldn't use it to his advantage in the future.
Most of them would forget the incident by next week. It wasn't their skin in the game. But Catelyn Stark? No. She had the memory of a dolphin every slight tallied, every embarrassment recorded.
He could feel her glare even though she wasn't present.
He turned toward the armory, hoping to get a moment of quiet before something else irritated him. That, evidently, was too much to ask for.
Theon Greyjoy stepped into his path, wearing that in-built smirk of someone of his station in life. The kind of grin that came with assumed immunity. Yet a hostage with swagger was still a hostage, just one too stupid to understand the limits of his current position.
"Well, well," Theon drawled, crossing his arms. "Seems you had quite the morning, Snow. Shame you didn't shovel faster; we all know you're good at taking orders."
He sighed. "I'm not in the mood," he said, stepping to the side.
Theon moved with him, refusing to leave the trajectory of his path. "You embarrassed Robb. You embarrassed the Starks. You insulted the guests with your abominable presence. Say what you want, but that won't go unnoticed.
"And what, exactly, makes you think you're the one to enforce their honor?" he asked, voice flat but carrying the faintest thread of amusement.
Theon shoved him, a hard, unexpected, impulsive driven by a bruised ego.
And something inside him clicked.
The world sharpened. And movements are split into predictive lines. Combat telemetry flooded into his senses: angle of attack, force projection, follow-through trajectory. Data rippled across his awareness like he'd slipped into a second skin he knew intimately but hadn't worn in centuries.
He caught Theon's wrist mid-shove, pivoted, and sent him sprawling into the dirt with a single, fluid redirection. The sequence felt clean, inevitable. His muscles responded with an ease his current body shouldn't have possessed yet, but with Infrastructure awakening, aligning him with peak performance.
Theon scrambled to his feet, face red with embarrassment. "You... you bastard!!!"
He lunged again.
This time, the fight wasn't even a fight. He read every potential movement before it formed into motion. He slipped past Theon's swing, elbowed him in the ribs, swept his legs, and drove him into the ground so hard the breath left his lungs with an ugly wheeze.
He wasn't trying to kill him. He wasn't even trying to hurt him. This was restraint. Extreme restraint.
But to the onlookers gathering around them, it didn't matter. They saw one thing:
The bastard of Winterfell beating Theon Greyjoy black and blue.
Voices rose from around the courtyard.
"By the Old Gods"
"Theon got dropped"
"Since when can Snow fight like that?"
"Hostage or not, Greyjoy deserved it."
The few remaining Northern nobles and their heirs, yet to leave, watched with varying degrees of curiosity and mild amusement. They didn't care. They didn't like Ironborn, and Theon, in particular, with his personality, made it difficult to sympathise. As far as they were concerned, this was a childish spat that ended the way most Northern men expected it should end, inborn beneath them.
But Catelyn Stark? She stood at the edge of the courtyard, lips pressed thin, eyes cold. If disdain had weight, he'd have been crushed under it.
He released Theon, who rolled over and spat blood into the dirt, staring up at him with a mixture of rage, humiliation, and confusion.
"You fight like..." Theon choked, unable to find a word. "Like a barbarian."
He didn't bother responding. He didn't have the energy to entertain Theon's bruised ego.
But in the back of his mind, something far more important stirred. The awakening wasn't random. The Essence of Seijūrō, his boon or curse, had followed him into this life. His being always created something that built on how he lived previously. It always did, in one form or another. Now it was adapting to the world around it, syncing with this new body.
He turned toward the inner keep, intending to vanish before someone else made his current day worse than it already was.
Yet fate deemed it was too much to ask for as he didn't get far.
Jory jogged toward him with the tired urgency. "Jon," Jory said, pausing to catch his breath. "Lord Stark wants you within his solar now."
Of course he did.
He nodded and followed without a word, already bracing himself for the coming conversation and whatever potential consequences Catelyn had lobbied for him behind closed doors.
Not that he was going to accept it, not this time.
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If you've made it this far, thanks for giving my take on this fandom a shot. If you enjoyed the pacing, the tone, or the way this OC is currently handling business. Feel free to drop your thoughts on what you thought worked, and what didn't, and what you'd want explored as the story unfolds as I will take it into account if the idea is decent and plausible to some extent.
If you're interested in a slightly different lens on politics, or the fallout of putting someone like him behind Jon's eyes, stick around. You can expect one to two chapters every other day(Don't take my word for it) as things ramp up and the world starts reacting in ways canon never accounted for.
P.S. A Patreon might be on the way if people want early chapters or bonus material.
Power Stones!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!