Game of Thrones: The Dragonborn - Chapter 109 - Uncle Benjen.

[Chapter Size: 2200 Words.]

Third Person POV.
Beyond of the Wall.

...

...

Jon approached the camp while the group behind him began to organize, putting away their weapons as some went to see the healers for a few injuries sustained in the fight—nothing serious, thanks to their armor.

"Jon..." Ygritte approached Jon while he was accompanied by the men who had come to meet them with information about Benjen.

"I'm going to talk to my uncle, if that's what you're going to ask..." Jon replied, not wanting to delay it while his gaze shifted to Tormund coming right behind.

"Can you handle the organization?" he asked.

"Of course. Let's go, everyone!" Tormund nodded and began shouting orders while Jon walked toward the side of the camp, with Val and Ygritte still following silently behind him.

Jon found an open area between the tents on that side, and there was a group of men wearing black tied to posts, while an irritating growling sound came from near them—about three wights were also tied up in the same area.

"You put the patrol with the undead. No wonder they're so disturbed." Jon smiled, as he could see their terrified faces studying those creatures that were far from pretty.

They weren't even paying attention to the group approaching them, completely fixated on those supernatural things.
"They mocked us when they heard our talk about finding any wights near the area, and said we went mad while searching for white walkers, so we put them among the dead to make it very clear what’s happening here north of the Wall..." the man said.

"I see..." Jon simply said calmly as he approached the group with a slight smile.

"Well, what do we have here..." Jon took a step forward, and the men finally began to notice him—especially the one named Benjen Stark, who recognized him immediately after seeing him in Winterfell a year ago.

"Jon..." he murmured, while the group looked cautiously at Jon, seeing that he was clearly the leader there, and a few recognized him from a brief encounter Jon had with them, by coincidence.

"...Snow? And to think I'd meet you here before reaching the Wall... Benjen Stark..." Jon said, looking at the man with interest.

"It was you... the one who used sorcery a year ago!" the youngest murmured as he recognized him immediately.

He had been in the group of people Jon encountered to gather information from the south before crossing the Wall. Jon hadn’t been gentle with them, using his telekinesis to lift them into the air, which had been terrifying for them.

The growling from the wights continued to the point that Jon became instantly irritated and created a space with a wave of his hand, muting all sound from them. Their mouths still opened, but no noise came out anymore, surprising everyone present.

"So you were here, north of the Wall..." Benjen murmured, ignoring that strange thing his nephew had just done.

"And it was you that I met a year ago, wasn't it?" he asked carefully.

"Yes..." Jon replied.

A year ago, while scouting the area near the Wall, flying with Eragon—after all, he wanted to inspect the Wall ahead of time to create strategies before moving his army against it—he flew over a place where no one would notice and spotted movement between the trees. He saw a group of Night’s Watch men. With his owl, one of his bonded creatures, he saw a trap set for the patrolmen, and Jon hadn’t really cared about it—until his owl saw the group and he recognized his uncle.

Jon advanced to the place while landing with his dragon, as the dead were already attacking the group, which is why they didn’t even pay attention to the snow explosion a bit farther off, and Jon moved in. He found the group nearly dead while wearing a hood to hide his appearance and killed all the dead with only two patrolmen still alive.

At that moment, despite the questions, Jon only asked them to return to the Wall while they still could and said they couldn’t take the bodies, basically sending them away with nothing to do but listen as he told them they were fighting the dead and that their companions’ bodies would become them too.

Benjen returned to the Wall without recognizing the man at the time, but the memories of the feast where Jon Snow had appeared began surfacing in his mind, connecting that the figure who had helped them could be his nephew, even if it sounded crazy.

The Night’s Watch had been somewhat skeptical about the idea of them being attacked by rotting creatures, while a stranger saved them, and no one really believed it.

Benjen hadn’t made many long trips after that, remaining only at the Wall in the past year, hearing stories from the South, which left him uneasy, knowing things about his brother in the capital and his nephew advancing toward a war.

Then he set out with a group as the Lord Commander was worried about the wildlings' behavior over the past year, with no news from them—only a few groups trying to advance on the Wall. What he hadn’t expected was that this trip would result in his capture along with his brothers as they were surrounded by wildlings wearing Lannister and Tully armor in the middle of the desert here, something that should have been impossible, and they were imprisoned near those creatures that the Night’s Watch hadn’t believed in. He could see the fear in his companions while he himself was the one coping best with the situation.

Now, he stood in front of his nephew, proving everything he had once suspected, while at the same time, news from the South said he had been in the capital... that he had killed the king and helped Ned seize power over the Seven Kingdoms... it made no sense to find him here.

But there was also the news of him mysteriously appearing in Essos one day after being in Winterfell. Benjen didn’t quite understand how his nephew could be in multiple places at once, even though he had just seen him do impossible things... but still couldn’t imagine how.

"How is this possible... I heard that Ned would be executed for crimes you and he committed in the capital..." Benjen murmured, confused.

"You're late, and the queen must be working hard to hide that news, but Ned is out of the capital and had taken a ship to the Vale of Arryn and then would go north." Jon said.

"Really?" Benjen murmured, surprised by that, while no one else interrupted them, talking there.

"Yes... and I was in the capital, if you're going to accuse me of killing the stag king... I pulled your brother out of the execution when he was about to die. After all, I owed him a favor. Now I owe him nothing." Jon commented, crossing his arms at Benjen.

"Why are you doing all this... Jon... what happened to you all these years? And why are you seeking some kind of revenge against your own family? Against Ned, your father? I don’t understand... if I had really noticed you at that feast..." he murmured, sounding quite emotional as he spoke, while Jon raised an eyebrow.

"He’s not my father, to begin with." Jon started, while Benjen immediately opened his eyes in surprise, and before he could ask, Jon continued.

"I am the son of Lyanna and Rhaegar."

"It can't be..." Benjen murmured, unable to believe it.

"Read this..." Jon took a book from his space and opened it in front of Benjen.

"They married..." He spent some time reading, seeing the marriage records in the book. "I..." He could barely utter a word, processing all of it.

"I am Daemon Targaryen... if you want to know, but that doesn't matter now, does it?" Jon asked with an amused tone.

"You're commanding the wildlings now?" another member of the Watch commented, somewhat fearful of Jon, seeing the free folk now wearing armor, and for those who knew, their enemies were much more disciplined—which was terrifying if they had an army like that.

"I always have... We're preparing to move south." Jon said.

"You're planning to attack the Wall?" Benjen immediately pushed aside his conflicting thoughts and looked at Jon in alarm.

"Obviously... We're in a war against the dead here, as you can see those three over there." Jon pointed to the three silent growling corpses on the other side.

"And I also intend to use the people from the Wall to march to King’s Landing. I’ll lead them and take the Iron Throne—or better yet, return the Iron Throne that I stole to the place it belongs, with a Targaryen’s ass warming it, obviously." Jon said it in a very amused tone, leaving his listeners stunned.

"This is madness, Jon...!" Benjen immediately raised his voice. Jon would be doing the opposite of everything he had fought for. How could he accept this?

"Madness is letting the free folk die like animals and become those things..." Jon said. "They'll be just more enemies for the Seven Kingdoms to deal with when the dead reach the Wall." He said it in an indifferent tone to his uncle.

Many of the free folk listening to the conversation nodded at Jon's words.

"Anyway... there’s not much for us to talk about now... either way, we won’t kill you... but we’re also not sending you to the Wall. You’ll be my prisoner for now." Jon said, making Benjen frown.

"You still haven’t told me why you hate our family..." Benjen murmured, still conflicted after hearing everything. Knowing that Jon was Lya’s son, that he saved him, and now was leading the wildlings south and had captured him—it was hard to take in.

"You like to play blind sometimes, don’t you? I didn’t have an easy life in Winterfell. I was treated worse than a beggar. Any person had more dignity than I did in that castle."

"I just want to make everyone pay for what they did. I’m going to lead a war against the North, whether you think it’s fair or not, but I’m here being selfish and seeking my own revenge, so that’s all I can tell you, uncle." Jon said and turned around, leaving the place.

That left Benjen with his head down while the other patrolmen didn’t know what to say or do after hearing that.

Anyway, the dead began growling again as the sound-blocking magic was canceled.

"What should we do with them?" a man asked Jon, still followed by his spear-wives.

"Put them in a tent, tied up. We don’t need to torture them with the dead screaming in their ears. Besides, get rid of them—they’re not useful." Jon requested. They already had all the knowledge about them, so there was no point in having those things screaming in their ears the whole time.

Anyway, they continued the camp activities for a few more days. Jon left with a group of men after spotting more groups of white walkers, and they were eliminated. They kept at it for another week, spotting any groups of dead through the Wargs.

"It's time for us to return to the camp, we're finally going to start heading south." Jon said on the last day, as the entire place began to move, heading toward where the main group was.

Benjen was taken along with the others, without a choice. He tried to talk to Jon again, but the Dragonborn seemed quite busy—when he wasn’t hunting white walkers, he was commanding the camp or fucking his women.

Either way, Jon decided to make the final preparations when he managed to get 6,000 new members from the local tribes, and he couldn’t stay there any longer. They had to move, as the dead were also starting in the north.

No group of new members had difficulty accepting Jon as leader, despite wanting to oppose him and challenge him, even wanting to provoke him for being the nephew of one of the captured crows, since they all had a deadly hatred for the Night’s Watch.

Even so, Jon easily showed why everyone obeyed him without question, without needing to use his powers—even though everyone said he was a sorcerer. He simply destroyed them in a fight without using a weapon, no matter what the opponent wielded in his hand.

Thus they moved toward the camp, while Benjen, after a week of traveling, finally discovered along with his companions the threat the wildlings currently represented, with a camp of nearly 200,000 people and more than 100,000 warriors, many of them training in an open area near the camp—formations and ways of working together, turning into an army that could rival any other.

"By the gods... may they protect us..." Benjen murmured as he walked, being pushed by the free folk with hands tied and bound to the other members of the Night’s Watch, seeing the camp from above as he looked toward Jon leading the group of nearly 10,000 people after a month away.