Luena - Blog Posts
Jacegan week 2024: Day 4. Horror
AU, Krabat semi-fusion, minor Lucerys/Rhaena
TW: mild gore and Bloodraven’s red gruel( implied cannibalism)
In this AU, Alicent succeeds in convincing Viserys to punish both Luke and Jace for Aemond's eye scar. She works more subtly here and instead of demanding Luke's eye asks the king to send both boys to Strongs(Larys and Alys) to teach them some manners. Rhaenyra is visibly unnerved by all implications of this, especially after the Harrenhall fire and the fact that both boys are forced to leave their dragons on Dragonstone, but forced to oblige.
Jace and Luke say goodbye to their mother, father, cousins and baby brother. They are nervous, as well as their dragons(Vermax and Arrax screech a lot, because they sense that their beloved masters are gonna be sent away from them), but they attempt to seem brave. They are sure that the fostering in Harrenhall would not be that long and they'll be at home by the next half of year.
They are wrong as hell.
When they arrive at Harrenhall, they do not get the rooms at the keep. Instead of this, they are put to live with the strange black-haired woman of unknown age. This is said to be their aunt Alys, but she does not treat them as nephews — or as princes — at all. Even if they are not the only kids who live with her. Most of them are bastards of dragonblood and partically all of them are forced to work day and night. When they work at night, Alys writes the signs on their foreheads with some red gruel, which sometimes is fed to them — and neither Jace, nor Luke are ready to say what this gruel is made of. At work, they cut some meat and separate veins, fat and vessels from it. Somedays, Lady Alys brings them some broken bones and orders to grind them. Somedays, she is followed by man with strange man with red eyes.
Not everything is bad, in fact. Once a week, Lady Alys teaches them magic. She recites the spells and her students repeats them. Than, they practice. Most os students(including Velarion brothers themselves) are able to turn into the ravens.
They still have time to train with swords, and Luke is actually getting better with it. Flying in raven's forms and terrorising Larys and his servants can be actually funny. They have a free day to play with other kids, albeit they do not know them really well, except the girl named Nettles, who seems to be the brightest student Alys has and teaches them to fight her will.
They still miss their family. One day, Luke and Jace attempt to escape the castle, but they fail — no matter where they go, they still can not get out of Harrenhall's outskirts.
Nettles catсhes them, when they get back. She tells them that not only they are the bastards, they are also fools. No one, who is sent here to be Alys Rivers's student, can get out without her decision. Even the suicide won't help, as her first disciple, the same man who claimed to be Maegor's bastard at Great Council, discovered in rather hard way. The only way to escape Harrenhall is to have a woman, who loves you, to go to Harrenhall and ask Lady Rivers to let her loved one go. It is not an option for herself, as Nettles remarks, so she will fight Alys or lose, as she is doomed anyway(because Alys needs to kill one of her students every seven years). Next day she goes straight to Alys's chambers. She never comes back — her body ends up brought into the rooms by the man with red eyes, who visits Alys this time.
Both boys are devastated. The fact that they can't write to their parents, do not help. Lady Alys, nevertheless, never fails to taunt them about their father dying or their mother marrying another man(Daemon) and having another children(Aegon and Viserys).
One day, Luke starts to fail every work with meat that Alys gives him. Jacaerys is shocked by it, and actually afraid that his brother will get the witch's ire, but she frees him from work with meat and resigns to the mere servant. Strangely, Jace does not think that this is the humiliation, cause they are already mere meat cutters, what can be worse?
This day, he sees the first dream since he and Luke got here. He sees the boy with a long face, dark hair and gray eyes, who stands nearby him. In this dream, they play in the half-ruined castle in the snow. The boy is a good climber and helps Jace to climb the top of the wall with him. He is more than ready to tell his name, but Jace stops him. He does not feel it's good idea. The boy does not insist.
For a monent, Jace doesn't feel ashamed for how he looks now.
Next seven years pass like mist. Jacaerys studies the magic, becomes if not the best, then of the brightest students of Alys(while Lucerys is still her servant boy), whom she constantly praises, acts like an good brother to another younger students(whom he grew to care about) and still see the dreams about the Boy from the Snow Castle.
In this dreams, there are no games and walls climbing anymore, except playfull training in swords(which Boy from the Snow Castle wins, yet Jace harbors no jealosy towards him). Sometimes, they walk together in the snow forest. Sometimes, the Boy offers him to swim with him in on of the lakes nearby Winterfell, which Jace gladly accepts. Sometimes, they just sit together in the room and the Boy sings old Northern ballads to him. One of those is the ballad about two cousins, one whom get captured by the Night King, and the other, who went to save them. Jace chucles of the painful irony.
«It would be great if we could have hunted together». exclames the Boy at once. «Or you could be here to taste our cuisine. Or...» he stammers and lowers his eyes. « Whatever. I don't know why I have such a feeling... but i would love to see you here, Jace».
When Jacaerys awakens from the sleep, he feels even more captured than before. And it is even worse that the seven years passed and the time of new sacrifice that Alys must make is coming. He grew up in these seven years and started to turn into a man, and the Boy of the Snow Castle is not a boy at all: he is now a grown-up young man, as Jace is now. And yet, they have never seen each other in reality and he is still a de-facto prisoner in the half-burnt gloomy castle with a bloody witch as mentor.
One day, Alys brings another young man home. It's a black man called Alyn and Jace is assigned to train him. Given seven years passed, Jace deduces that time is coming and he needs to watch out cause he thinks that his little brother is in danger.
Meanwhile, the Westeros is gonna turn upside down. Neither Rhaenyra, nor Corlys and Rhaenys are going to let the Greens and Larys to get away with disappearance of two princes and their constant attempts to declare them dead. Neither Arrax, nor Vermax allowed another people to mount them, which, in Rhaenyra's eyes, indicates that their riders are alive and mostly well. Viserys still sends the searching groups for his grandsons, but with no avail. Meanwhile, his niece, Rhaena Targaryen surprisingly claims the Grey Ghost, and maester Gerardys says that she managed to do it after seeing her late(as it is presumed) cousin in her dreams. Rhaena gets a great interest in flying on her dragon and often flies away to different places without her father or sister knowledge. One day, she decides to travel North with her sister(they say that they are gonna visit Cregan and probably check on Stark's loyalty to their stepmother).
One night, when Jace and Cregan(who tells him his name that night) meet in their dreams and walk on the seashore, Jacaerys accidentally spots a strange figure following them. It's a cloaked man,but soon it turns into a black fox and runs to them. Jace understands it is Alys and changes himself into the crow, attacking her. She ,in turn, changes into cat, and wounds Jace’s wing, then changes to snake and bites him. Cregan attempts to rush to them, but he is stopped by Jace’s plea not to intervene. Jace turns into the cat too and bites Alys again, and the battle with them changing into stags, roosters and other animals, but ends with Jace turning to a fire and burning Alys. Both he and Cregan are in awe(Cregan cause he dated the wizard, Jace cause he actually managed to defeat Alys, which was not the case in their previous battles).
Jace awakens with snake bite and scars on his arm
The same day worn off Alys with massive burns on her face calls Jace in her chambers and gives him a proposal: to take her mantle as the leader of the magic school, but at the expense of his brother(or another student's) or Cregan’s life and having a connection with dark man visiting her. She tells him that she is tired of staying at Harrenhall and wants to meet a man and have a family with him, and she sees that this man, sooner or later, will come to her school. Jace says no. She, in her turn, gives him a month to submit to her, or die in the end as sacrifice, and strips him out of his magic.
Meanwhile, Cregan Stark, Lord of Winterfell, greets his guests, Targaryen ladies, with open arms. He is more than happy to affirm his allegiance to their stepmother's side, but he feels that it's not the point of their travel. And he is right: one day, he sees the boy in his dream, who is strikingly similar to the one he sees since his twelve nameday. He introduces himself as Luke, says that Jace's life is in danger, that Alys will kill him if she would not be stopped earlier and that the only way to stop her is to fly to Harrenhall and to demand her to free any of them. But both Cregan and Rhaena should beware: Alys should release any man or woman, if their loved one will come for them, but only if they'll pass the special test.
It is not surprising to him that Lady Rhaena meets him in the morning and says that she had the same dream as him. When Cregan asks her about the things Luke asked him to do, she says:
«To fly to Harrenhall and free them. And pass the test.» she also adds that the tests are passed in the form of knowing the person in their animal form.
They and Baela decide to waste no time, and fly on Grey Ghost's and Moondancer's backs to Harrenhall as fast as they are able to. But Alys challenges start even there. Both Rhaena and Cregan start to see nightmares, sent by Alys.
« It is part of our test.» Rhaena once says to him. «Luke told me about the girl, who was so tortured by these nightmares that she had thrown herself into the river.»
And, for Old gods's sake, Cregan understands her as no one. He can't stop this nightmares and he endures them, like the Starks of old endured the coldest winters, where no war(be it with White Walkers, ironborn or lords, that are their bannermen now) was waged. It’s strange to think about them now, when he is heading to the castle of Harren the Black, where the man he cares about and sees in dreams since childhood is held by the witch. And alongside Targaryen princess, no less.
Sounds like a romantic southern song, he thinks. But his dreams are far from it. He sees Jace in his dreams, like their last one, when he defeated the unknown witch, but in those, he loses badly. He sees Jace's arm torn and him being abandoned in the forest, dying in fever and Cregan himself being unable to do anything. He sees Jace being beheaded and his head being thrown to animals and the crows gathering nearby it.
Which is worse, he knows that this may already have happened. Jace may have lost the duel against Alys, may have already been dead and Cregan is racing here to collect his dead body.
«It is not the case here.» says Rhaena to him. « If he is dead, you would have been too.»
«And how did you know it?» Cregan asks in turn. She blushes, to her sister's taunting smile.
« Luke told me about it. » she says and tells the story. A story about the little boy, who gave her a flower and did his best to console her at her mother’s funeral, who protected both Rhaena, Baela and his elder brother from their uncle, who attempted to smash his skull with stone. Who, while being sent to live with the witch, deliberately failed every work entrusted to him to be made a servant and be able to enter Alys’s room to be able to read her spellbook, find a spell to enter and connect people's dreams and connect with her.
Even if he did not meet Lucerys Velaryon in person, Cregan feels nothing but an utter respect towards him. He knows what it means to be powerless since the time his father passed away and he was left alone with his cousins and uncle trying to usurp him, but this time he was at home, with bannermen and servants at his side. Lucerys was even younger than him when he was sent away to another castle and yet managed to outsmart his gaoler and use her powers to her own end.
“And Jacaerys too. He too did everything to fight this witch and was brave no matter what”.
Cregan doesn’t know why those thoughts fill him with so much tenderness and pride.
Meanwhile, Jace learns that his arm is now affected by poison. What worse, he is now forced to work with others again, but now he finds this tiresome again. He is barely able to stand after the whole day and night of work again, and Alys gives him the red gruel no longer. He don’t know, should he be angry or relieved because of it.
Alys still attacks him in dreams at night. He still fights back and sometimes even wins. He never sees Cregan in dreams again, and at some point is happy for it, because Alys would not be able to harm him. He still waits for something he doesn't know. When one day she comes to his room and demands him to go outside, he follows her. He goes out of the room and follows her to the meadow nearby the castle.
When he sees Luke, Alyn and other dragonblood orphans with him, Jace is shocked at first, but settles down the same second. He understands that Alys is gonna kill one of them and is glad that if it would be him, he will be able to see the sky(where he could fly as raven) before he dies.However, instead of taking any of them to be killed, Alys orders him to turn into the ravens.
And then the Dragon roar is heard and the huge gray dragon descends from the sky, with a young man and woman on his back. Another dragon, much smaller and light green, is circling over the castle.
When the grey dragon lands nearby Alys, the man jumps from the back and Jace doesn’t know what to think and how to act. Because the last thing he expected to happen is Cregan coming to Harrenhall alongside a beautiful black woman in red dress.
«Witch Alys Rivers of House Strong.» Cregan says. « I demand you to free both princes of House Targaryen you keep imprisoned here.»
Alys laughs, but her laugh sounds broken.
«And why do you demand them?» she sais. «Do you have a thing for two of them?»
«We ask them to be free.» adds the woman nearby Cregan. Even at night, she looks somehow familiar, and Jace wonders where he could have met her.
«Please, set our loved ones free or… » she pauses. «My sister will repeat the deed of the Conqueror.»
Alys grins smugly.
«If you insist, my lord and lady.» She says. «Find your loved ones in this flock of crows and be free».
She turns to them and smiles. It may have seemed somehow heartwarming to others, but her will falls on them like a stone. She demands them to fly as usual, to keep croaking and seem normal, but Jace knows better. Nettles taught them really well. While other ravens are croaking as loud as they are able to, Luke and Jace stay silient.
From what he sees now, Alys’s smile doesn’t seem victorious at all.
It takes a few steps and even less minutes from Cregan to cross the meadow and point the finger to Jace.
« It’s him.» he says. « It’s always him».
A minute later, Rhaena follows him and points her finger on Luke.
Nobody remembers what happened to Alys Rivers that night. Maybe, the fire suddenly gets from her shoes and burns her in a moment. Maybe, her body melts in a second like snow under the sun. Maybe, the man who has been visiting her tores off her face in a second and disappeared. The fact is clear — she disappeared without a trace.
At first they do not know how to react to it. The silience breaks when Rhaena jumps at Luke, crying «It worked» and dragging him into the hug, and Luke hugging her too. None of them cares that Luke’s clothes are worn off and dirty, and, after feeling nervous for a moment, Jace decides he should not care too.
He looks at Cregan Stark. He does not look really different from the man he saw in dreams — everything is here, even the tall height. Sometimes, when they first met, Jace believed that he is nothing but his hidden desire to have a friend, but when Cregan angrily taught about his uncle and cousins, he understood he was wrong.
But nevertheless, it is difficult to believe that he is truly here, that he came here for Jace no less and that Alys is truly dead and gone. Nettles didn’t believe in stories about love saving from dark magic.
But it did. And Jace reaches for the only person from the outside world he has known for seven years.
Cregan’s arms are warm as his gray eyes and his hug is so tender, it’s hard to believe it’s real.
Luke and Rhaena are dancing near them, and for a long time in his life, Jace feels himself free.
P.S. If somebody failed to find the similarities
Alys - the Master/Miller
Jacaerys - Krabat
Lucerys - Juro
Cregan - Die Kantorka/The Songstress
Nettles - Tonda