Chapter 1: Waking in Filth
The knife went in just below my ribs.
I remember that part clearly. The kid couldn't have been more than sixteen, shaking so hard the blade rattled against my sternum. My bar. My money. My stupid decision to stay late counting receipts instead of heading home.
"Please," he'd said. "Please, I just need—"
Then the gun went off somewhere behind me. Someone else had been in the back room. My legs went out. The floor came up fast, sticky with spilled beer and old piss. The kid ran. Everyone ran. And I lay there, watching the ceiling fan spin slower and slower, thinking about absolutely nothing important.
This is a stupid way to die.
Then everything went black.
I woke up drowning in shit.
Not metaphorically. Actual human waste, mixed with rotting straw and something that might have been dead rat. The stench hit me like a physical blow. I jerked upright, head slamming into low rafters, stars exploding across my vision.
Wrong. Everything was wrong.
My hands—too pale, scarred in places I'd never been cut. My hair, falling across my face in greasy white-blonde strands when it should've been dark brown. The room around me barely qualified as shelter. Crumbling stone walls. A pallet of moldy straw. One shuttered window leaking gray morning light.
What the fuck.
I tried to stand. My legs buckled. I grabbed the wall, rough stone scraping my palm, and forced myself up. Every muscle screamed. My head felt like someone had taken a hammer to it from the inside. Hangover. The worst hangover I'd ever—
No. Not mine. I'd never drunk enough to feel like this. I barely touched alcohol after my tours in the Corps. But the memory was there, vivid and fresh: drinking cheap ale until I couldn't see straight, pissing in an alley, stumbling back here to collapse.
Ulf's memory.
The name hit me like cold water. Ulf the White. Ulf the Drunkard. Targaryen bastard, though nobody gave a shit about that in Flea Bottom. Just another white-haired drunk claiming royal blood between bar fights.
I'm in his body.
More memories flooded in, disjointed and wrong. Thirty-five years of a life that wasn't mine. Brawling for coppers. Sleeping in gutters. The mockery that came with being a bastard without even a house name to claim. All of it overlaid on my own memories—Marcus Cole, thirty-two, MMA fighter turned bar owner, shot dead in Baltimore.
A cracked mirror hung on the wall, barely bigger than my hand. I stumbled to it.
White-blonde hair, tangled and filthy. Lilac eyes, bloodshot and sunken. Sharp features that might've been handsome under the grime and stubble. Not my face. Never my face.
I touched the mirror. The stranger touched back.
"Fuck me," I whispered.
House of the Dragon. I was in House of the Dragon. The realization should have felt impossible, but it slotted into place with awful certainty. The architecture, the stench, the memories of King's Landing's layout—all of it matched the show I'd binged before... before I died.
And something else. Something deeper. Knowledge that wasn't from any show.
I knew things. Techniques. Powers. They sat in my mind like muscle memory, theoretical but ready. Rokushiki—the Six Styles used by Marines in One Piece. Soru for speed. Tekkai for defense. Rankyaku, Geppo, Shigan, Kami-e. All of it there, waiting for a body that could execute.
And the Kilo Kilo ability. Weight manipulation. I could feel it, like a switch in my mind I'd never noticed before.
What kind of transmigration bullshit is this?
But underneath the panic, underneath the wrongness of wearing a dead man's skin, something cold and practical clicked into place. The same part of me that had survived boot camp, survived three tours, survived the streets afterward. Assessment. Adaptation. Survival.
I was alive. I had abilities. I had foreknowledge of what was coming—the Dance of the Dragons, the civil war that would tear this kingdom apart.
And I had time. The memories told me it was 112 AC. King Viserys still lived. Princess Rhaenyra hadn't been rejected yet. The dominoes hadn't started falling.
Years. I have years.
I needed to move. Needed to test this body, these powers. Needed to understand what I was working with.
I pushed away from the mirror, legs still unsteady, and headed for the door.
Flea Bottom hit me like a wall of sensory overload.
The street outside my hovel—barely wide enough for two people to pass—teemed with humanity. Unwashed bodies, chamber pots emptied from upper windows, the copper tang of blood from a nearby butcher's stall. Children screamed and laughed. Someone was beating a dog. A woman shrieked curses at a man who might've been her husband or her pimp or both.
This wasn't King's Landing as HBO had shown it. This was the real thing. Poverty ground into every cobblestone. Desperation thick enough to choke on.
I stumbled toward a public fountain, pushed past a cluster of beggars, and sat on the cracked stone edge. My shoulder throbbed—bruised, probably from falling yesterday. The memories were hazy.
Focus. Test the powers.
I closed my eyes, reaching for the weight manipulation first. It felt... present. Like flexing a muscle I'd never known existed. I pushed mentally, trying to make myself heavier.
Nothing happened.
I pushed harder, concentrating until sweat beaded on my forehead.
A creak. The stone beneath me groaned softly. My body felt denser, like gravity had increased its claim on me. I opened my eyes. The fountain's edge had cracked slightly under my weight.
Holy shit.
I relaxed. The sensation faded. Normal weight returned. My heart hammered.
It works. It actually works.
Next test. Soru. High-speed movement. According to the knowledge in my head, I needed to kick off the ground at least ten times in an instant to achieve the burst of speed.
I stood, moved away from the fountain to avoid hitting anyone. A few people glanced at me—Ulf the Drunk was known here—but quickly looked away. Nobody wanted trouble this early.
I bent my knees slightly, focused on my legs. Kicked.
The world blurred.
I shot forward like I'd been fired from a cannon, covering maybe two meters in a heartbeat. Completely uncontrolled. My foot caught on something. I tumbled, arms windmilling, and crashed straight into a fish stall.
Wood splintered. Mackerel went flying. I hit the ground hard, fish guts smearing across my already filthy clothes.
"You fucking bastard!" The vendor, a gap-toothed woman with arms like tree trunks, loomed over me. "That's three coppers worth of fish!"
I raised my hands, still dizzy from the impact. "Sorry. I slipped."
"Slipped my arse! You're drunk again, Ulf! Get out before I crack your skull!"
I scrambled up, ignoring the laughter from the gathering crowd, and backed away quickly. My shoulder sang with fresh pain. My head spun.
But beneath the humiliation, I felt something else. Satisfaction.
It worked. I actually used Soru.
Sloppy. Uncontrolled. Ending in disaster. But it worked. My body could do this. Given time, given training...
I could become dangerous.
I spent the rest of the morning walking.
Flea Bottom stretched out around me, a labyrinth of filth and desperation. Every corner held memories—Ulf's memories. That alley where he'd won two coppers in a fight. That tavern where he'd been thrown out for pissing in the corner. That brothel where the girls knew better than to take his coin; he always spent it on drink before he could pay them.
A life wasted. Thirty-five years of nothing.
But useful, in its way. Ulf knew this city. Knew the shortcuts, the safe spots, the people to avoid. That knowledge was mine now.
I paused near a cookfire, watching Gold Cloaks beat a thief bloody. The kid couldn't have been more than twelve. He screamed for mercy. They laughed and kept swinging.
Welcome to Westeros.
Part of me wanted to intervene. The Marine in me, the part that had sworn to protect. But I squashed it down. I was nobody here. A drunk bastard with no name and less respect. Getting involved would only get me killed.
Save it. Store that rage. Use it later.
I moved on, filtering through the crowd to a merchant's stall where news spread fastest. Two men argued over Princess Rhaenyra's wedding tour.
"—refuses every suitor the king sends—"
"—arrogant girl thinks she's too good—"
"—King Viserys coddles her—"
Rhaenyra. Still unmarried. Still the heir. Which meant Aemma Arryn still lived. The timeline was early. Very early. I had years before the Dance. Years to prepare.
The question was: prepare for what?
In the show, Ulf the White eventually claims Silverwing and fights for the Greens before betraying them. He dies at Tumbleton, murdered by his own allies. A footnote in history. A cautionary tale about giving power to bastards.
But that Ulf was a drunk and a fool. I wasn't.
And I knew what was coming. Blood and Cheese. Rook's Rest. The Fall of King's Landing. The Hour of the Wolf. Every major beat of the Dance was mapped in my memory, subject to change but still there.
So what do I do with it?
The sun climbed higher, heat building despite the early hour. I turned back toward my hovel, exhaustion dragging at my limbs. This body was weak. Underfed, undertrained, poisoned by years of alcohol.
That would change.
I had Rokushiki techniques that could push the human body beyond its limits. I had weight manipulation that could turn me into an unstoppable force. I had adaptive resistances that could make me immune to poisons and fire.
But all of it required training. Conditioning. Time.
And there was one other thing. One person I knew I had to protect, no matter the cost.
Helaena Targaryen.
The show had glossed over her, made her a tragic footnote. But I remembered her differently. A girl who saw things no one else could, dismissed as mad, married off to her own brother, forced to watch her children die. She deserved better. She deserved someone who would actually fight for her instead of using her as a pawn.
That's going to be me.
Insane. Impossible. I was a nobody. She was a princess. But I'd seen what happened when nobody stood up. I'd seen the Blood and Cheese massacre. I'd seen her jump from that window.
Not this time.
I reached my hovel as the sun touched the western walls of King's Landing. The same crumbling stone, the same rotting straw. But it was shelter. It was mine.
I collapsed onto the pallet, every muscle aching. My shoulder throbbed. My head pounded. The fish guts still stank on my clothes.
But my mind was clear.
First priority: survival. Get strong enough that this city doesn't eat me alive.
Second priority: Get close to Helaena. Somehow. Even if it takes years.
Third priority: When the Dance comes—and it will come—be ready to protect the people who matter.
I closed my eyes, exhaustion pulling me under.
The old Ulf died in a gutter somewhere, drowned in his own vomit.
Marcus Cole died on a barroom floor, bleeding out over spilled beer.
I was someone new. Someone with purpose.
And I had work to do.
Note:
Please give good reviews and power stones itrings more people and more people means more chapters?
My Patreon is all about exploring 'What If' timelines, and you can get instant access to chapters far ahead of the public release.
Choose your journey:
Timeline Viewer ($6): Get 10 chapters of early access + 5 new chapters weekly.
Timeline Explorer ($9): Jump 15-20 chapters ahead of everyone.
Timeline Keeper ($15): Get Instant Access to chapters the moment I finish writing them. No more waiting.
Read the raw, unfiltered story as it unfolds. Your support makes this possible!
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/Whatif0