Morgana landed softly on the snow-covered ground. She felt the familiar pull of an already established bond.
Her magic swirled as always but she paused for a moment when she recognized the pattern. "Jon... This connection is Jon's..." She whispered to herself, soft as a prayer.
She had grown so accustomed to the bonds, that she had begun to feel the differences in the strings themselves. Sometimes the magic flowed like a strong current, powerful and uniform. Sometimes it was like smarks of lightning through her veins.
Maegor's bond was hot and steady as flowing magma.
Aegon the first's bond felt like a slow roasting fire.
Viserys' bond felt like the heat of the sunshine, soft yet warming everything at once.
Aerys felt like the chaotic flickering of a wildfire.
The one she felt now was unlike any of those, Jon's bond felt think the twinge in your cold, frost-bitten fingers when you hold them in front of a fire. Cold and hot all at once.
She hadn't recognized it before, not until now that is. She aparated, shaking off her thoughts. Pulling her hood up on her head, Morgana slipped through the gates of Winterfell.
She had been there a few times before. The first was the first time she met Jon.
The second time she entered Winterfell, she was standing behind Aegon the conqueror, and his sister-wives. The old Stark king took one look at the dragon witch and the enormous fire-breathing beasts behind her and he bent the knee to spare his people.
Winterfell often reminded her of Hogwarts during the Yule season. It was dark and cold, but there was a certain warmth within the walls that made the place feel like home.
She moved towards the home of the Starks, placing a charm on herself so that she would go largely unnoticed. Her steel grey eyes combed over the court yard following the bond where it would lead.
There he was, smiling at his little half-brother Bran who struggled to pull the string of the bow back far enough. Her eyes locked onto the ring that now fit on his pinky finger. The snake signet ring that she had given him to hold onto the first time they met.
He had been so little back then, his fingers too small to wear the ring properly. Now he had the hands of a man, with the calluses of a warrior. She smiled a bit, hoping he had found peace in the small token she gifted him.
As if sensing it's master's return, the gem eyes of the snake on the ring began to glow.
Robb stopped laughing, glancing over at his bastard brother's hand, "Jon... What's going on with your ring?"
Jon looked down to his hand noticing the glow he hadn't seen since-
"Morgana." Jon's eyes grew wide as he frantically searched around for a glimpse of her. For so long he thought himself mad, or at least thought the illness had made him see things. He remembered telling his siblings about the woman who could make stars and heal illness, the woman who had hair made of shadows and eyes made of silver. They told him it was the fever that had gotten to him, that no one had entered his rooms.
The ring on his finger was the only proof that his angel, who kissed his tear-stained cheeks and sang him strange songs, was real.
He had gone to his father one night asking what ñuha prūmia meant. He watched the terror fill Eddard Stark's grey eyes as he frantically asked the small boy where he had heard such words. Too young to recognize his father's tone, he told him of his angel and even sang their song which only made Eddard panic more.
He had forced Jon to swear on his honor never to speak those foreign words again.
Later he found out that the words were high Valyrian and his confusion with the shadow-haired guardian angel only grew. As time passed, he grew to believe she would never return, he would never hear those ancient words again.
His eyes caught a fleeing hooded figure and without a word, took off. Robb, Theon, and Bran called after him but he couldn't hear past the sound of his heart pumping in his ears.
"Drakari pykiros. Tīkummo jemiros. Yn lantyz bartossa. Saelot vāedis" Her voice echoed off the walls of Winterfell. People stopped to listen to the ancient language, enchanted by the voice that wielded it. Her song held a bit of magic, curling around the teen and filling his soul with a beloved warmth, just like when he was a child.
"Hen ñuhā elēnī: Perzyssy vestretis. Se gēlȳn irūdaks. Ānogrose. Perzyro udrȳssi. Ezīmptos laehossi. Hārossa letagon. Aōt vāedan. Hae mērot gierūli: Se hāros bartossi. Prūmȳsa sōvīli. Gevī dāerī"
He ran faster than he ever had before sliding through the gates until he found himself just outside the Weirwood.
There under its sacred red leaves, she stood, lowering the black hood of her cloak. She hadn't aged a day, she was still the most beautiful woman to ever walk the earth. That heated fire lit up his veins, flowing through him and bringing him back to life. He felt like for the first time since he was a child, he could breathe again.
"Hello, ñuha prūmia." Her voice stilled his beating heart yet again as he froze in place, staring at her like the moment he blinked she'd be gone again.
"Gana..." He whispered her name like a prayer, memories filled his head of the only time in his life he felt completely and unconditionally loved.
"You've grown handsome." Her blunt, unfiltered nature peeked through even after years of traveling through Westeros and navigating its harsh politics.
"You remain as beautiful as you always were..." Jon answered softly, his pale cheeks blushing under her scrutiny.
Her eyes scanned over his grown features. His cheekbones had sharpened, his nose more defined and sculpted. He was beautiful in the way all Valyrians were beautiful. She saw the purple hue in his dark eyes when the light hit them just right. For a moment she imagined him with silvery white hair and it hit her, he looked like Aegon the Conqueror.
"You look a lot like someone I used to know," Morgana admitted before she could stop herself.
Jon just smiled, in four long strides he was before her, pulling her into his embrace. She melted into his warm hold, refamiliarizing herself with the flow of the bond between them.
"I missed you... I didn't think you were coming back... I didn't think you were real at all." Jon admitted, his deep voice muffled by her hair.
"I promised I would... Come back that is... I didn't promise I'd be real. I thought that self-explanatory enough but I will be more thorough in the future." Though she was being dead serious Jon laughed at what he thought was a joke.
Though he was young, Jon was still considerably taller than her. Boys raised in the north had a nasty habit of growing to be enormous rather fast. While Targaryens were more lean and toned and built for flying, Starks were more stout and tall built to withstand the harsh wind of winter. The combination made for a rather perfect specimen in Morgana's humble opinion.
Jon took a step back but grabbed her hand to maintain some form of contact between them, refusing to lose the humming magic of the bond between them even for a moment.
"You must meet Robb and Theon. Arya will love you too and Sansa." Jon began to ramble, rather uncharacteristically of his usual shy, soft-spoken self.
It was truly like he was a different boy in Morgana's presence.
"You're family?" Morgana asked, allowing herself to be pulled along, back through the gates of Winterfell.
The guards looked baffled at the young quiet son of their Lord, smiling at the unworldly beauty at his side. Neither of them acknowledged the eyes that followed them, too lost in each other to care.
Robb was holding four wooden practice swords and tripped over the lot of them the moment he saw his brother walk hand in hand into the training yard with a fucking goddess. Stumbling back to his feet as gracefully as he could he noticed the lack of mockery towards his clumsiness only to realize everyone else was just as absorbed by the scene as he was.
Jon grinned fully, his eyes lighting up in her presence as he pointed out the old towers and spoke on the more interesting historical anecdotes.
"Erm... Snow... Who's this?" Theon managed to choke out only to turn into a blushing mess the moment the woman's attention turned to him.
"I am the Lady Morgana of House Slytherin," Morgana answered with practiced grace, ignoring how Theon choked on his own tongue in shock.
"A-AH My lady, terribly sorry no one of our house greeted you properly. Were we made aware of your coming? Not that it is any imposition I assure you-" Robb scrambled to act more like an heir having heard the lady's title.
Thoughts filtered through his head wondering if the woman was a candidate to be his bride. Though he had never heard of House Slytherin, he wouldn't be surprised if his mother and father chose a smaller northern house to marry into the starks as Lady of Winterfell, especially one as beautiful as her.
His idea was immediately crushed as Morgana responded, "I was greeted properly. Jon escorted me inside. I would be quite shocked if you knew I was coming, I didn't even know I was coming. I have no control over where I must be at any given time. Besides, I am not here for your house. I'm here for Jon."
Jon's pale face turned a blazing red as he looked away trying to hide his blush.
"E-er... please let me escort you inside, my Lady. As host-" Robb was cut off once more.
"Jon will escort me in just fine thank you." Before Robb could argue she had already turned with her arm wrapped around Jon's goading him to continue his history on Winterfell.
Robb stood baffled.
As much as he loved his brother, no Lady of noble standing had ever slighted him in favor of his bastard brother. Theon was in hysterics as was Bran who had watched the whole scene from the roof he had climbed onto.
Robb shook off his shock and strode to accompany the noble guests, knowing his mother would murder him if he let a lady wander around alone with a man without supervision.
Theon caught up beside him as they followed behind the couple.
Or at least they looked like a couple. They moved as a unit like they could read the other's mind without any coordination. They spoke softly to one another as if they'd known each other for years. Morgana gazed at Jon like he was the gravity holding them to the earth. Jon looked at her like she was the sun lighting the dark world and warming his life.
It was odd, especially when some low growling, or was it chirping sounds, involuntarily escaped Jon's throat. It got odder as Morgana began to hiss some of her Ss. It was like two animals made human as they circled the other.
Neither of the boys could completely understand the odd interaction they were watching.
Ned Stark strode into the room, with a flustered Catelyn at his side. Having heard from Bran, who slipped onto his office balcony, that there was a pretty noble walking about his keep unescorted.
Lady Stark was utterly appalled that a noblewoman would stop by completely unannounced and unaccompanied. Not only that but she was hanging off the bastard like some common whore.
The moment Eddard Stark saw the woman he gasped in horror, his hands began to shake as he stumbled back, pushing his wife and daughters behind him.
"Morgana." The Lord of Winterfell said the name with so much unidentified emotion that everything around them seemed to stop.
Eddard lowered himself to take a knee hands still shaking as he pulled his wife to do the same, "P-please... We will bend the knee... Just... Just let my children live... They are innocent in this." The fear in their stoic Lord caused the others to kneel as well. Robb, Theon, and Jon were the only ones still standing confused.
Morgana was the most confused of all of them.
This strange man knew her name and looked ready to shit himself in terror. His wife too looked horrified the moment Eddard took a knee. The immediate surrender was appreciated if not confusing.
"You fear me and yet I do not yet know you. What have you to fear of me?" Morgana asked, gripping tightly onto Jon's arm, ready to pull him from harm's way if necessary.
He looked at her again, grey eyes drowning in terror as if he were staring at the stranger herself.
"You're not here to kill us all." Ned stated, more to himself than to her.
"Not as of yet. Though as I've said, we have not met yet... Are you telling me my outlook on mercy will change? I assure you it would not be the first time I whipped away a kingdom that had wronged me." Morgana grew more tense, recognizing a possible threat.
Robb shuffled over to stand near his father who stood once more, eying the deadly witch.
"I have no doubt... Winterfell is yours... Lady Slytherin." Ned bowed, though it was clear his fear was still present.
"Your welcome is most appreciated, strange man... really fucking confusing... but appreciated." She nodded, dragging Jon with her to continue their private tour.
Eddard was left with a wildly confused and terrified family and long story to tell explaining why that witch would most definitely want them dead the next time she saw them.