Chapter 38 - Strange Development.
Chapter 38 - Strange Development.
[Chapter Size: 2600 Words.]
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Third Person POV
Winterfell, 101 AC.
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Jon began a new routine the following day; however, knowledge started emerging in very strange ways on that day...
The mathematical problems the maester was teaching, for example, seemed familiar to Jon that morning.
He dreamed of learning those things in an unknown land, sitting beside an elderly man while attending classes taught by people from the other side of the world, people from Yi-Ti, as he could understand. No one could see him or the man accompanying Jon, yet they were there, within that setting, able to walk around without anyone seeing them or even being able to interact with them, as if they were ghosts.
From what he could understand, it was a distant land. And strangely, he perfectly understood the local language, written through kanji. All through that older version of himself.
Jon realized that the mathematics of that place was far more advanced and spent hours studying it... What he found strange was that, for the first time in his dreams, he had seen a date.
He knew that Yi-Ti's calendar was different from the one used in Westeros. After all, the years there were counted from the Conquest of the Seven Kingdoms, so it was easy to notice that something was wrong.
In the educational books written in kanji that appeared in that dream, the calendar indicated a date that seemed to be around one hundred and seventy years after the Conquest.
170 AC.?
Upon recognizing the numbers written in kanji, he realized there were approximately seventy more years than there should have been. That left him deeply confused.
That morning, he woke up with his head full of thoughts about it... Not to mention that he seemed to be acquiring even more information. His mind was beginning to feel heavy in the same way it had before his vision at the forge.
In any case, his day began normally. Despite the discomfort, he left the castle. After a few hours, he went to check his small herb and plant bed. Then he practiced magic nearby, noticing that he had increasingly better control over the flames that day.
When it was time for the first meal of the morning and the lessons with the maester, there also seemed to be a change.
"I'm finished already!" Jon raised the parchment toward the maester, who stared at him with narrowed eyes.
"Are you sure? There's another page on the back. It's full of questions as well..."
"I know."
"And you solved everything? It's only been five minutes since I handed you that paper, Jon..."
Jon looked at both sides of the sheet, both filled with his own handwriting, and nodded. "Yes!"
"How?" the maester asked, quite bewildered. "These mathematics problems only started being taught a week ago. Until yesterday, you were having difficulties..."
Lyra, Bennard, and Rickon also looked at Jon with narrowed eyes.
Jon spun the quill between his fingers. "I don't know... it just became easier for me," he replied. What else could he do, pretend he was racking his brain for no reason? He would rather read a new book!
"Very well, but I'd like you not to leave before I correct your notes and calculations," said the maester.
Jon nodded without any issue. "Alright. But can I read a book from the shelf?"
There weren't any of the books he usually borrowed from the library and took to his room there, but there was a shelf full of interesting works.
"That's fine." The maester saw no problem with that.
Jon quickly got up to grab one of the books. He chose one about alchemy that the maester kept stored away. It also talked about some herbs, nothing too special, but it was still interesting to him.
He then began reading in silence. Meanwhile, he could feel Lyra's intense gaze, as she seemed torn between staring at him in indignation or paying attention to the exercises the maester had assigned.
Jon looked at her and pointed to her parchment, conveying a silent message. 'Go do yours and stop paying attention to me.'
Then he returned to the book and never looked away from it again. Even Bennard kept observing him with a more intense gaze, while the maester corrected the exercises and also didn't stop looking at Jon from time to time.
Despite that, the boy never returned any of their looks. He seemed completely focused on reading now, and the maester merely sighed.
Since Jon was so focused on the book, he decided not to interrupt him. He simply let the other children continue their exercises while carefully rereading everything Jon had written.
Jon remained completely oblivious. In the end, they left the maester's room. The three siblings noticed that the maester had said absolutely nothing about Jon's answers, which showed that the situation was not so simple.
After all, if he had made mistakes, the maester would certainly have given him a scolding or an explanation, but that was not the case.
"Hey, what's going on with you?" Rickon immediately asked.
"I don't know. I'm heading to the forge. See you later." Jon merely looked at him and shrugged. With those words, he went on his way.
Jon did nothing extraordinary. He simply obeyed Sellin and carried out the tasks given to him as an assistant in the forge.
There wasn't much he could say without seeming strange as he watched the older man work. Jon let Winterfell's master blacksmith do his job. Although he constantly accumulated criticisms in his mind, he didn't want to be inconvenient. Even if he knew he could do better in many aspects, he wouldn't speak badly of him, because it wasn't his place to criticize a blacksmith who worked within Winterfell Castle.
Even if he one day became the greatest blacksmith in the world, he still believed he had no right to judge another person's work in that manner.
After the forge, the day's routine continued. In the afternoon, wooden swords repeatedly clashed during training.
Rickon was trying to defeat the opponent standing before him, and that opponent was none other than Jon.
The wooden blades continued meeting each other while Rickon seemed increasingly irritated. That day, Jon was different.
"Damn it! Are you just going to keep defending yourself today?" Rickon asked with some anger after seeing his attacks become completely useless.
Jon merely shrugged.
"Are you sure that's all it is?" Rickon continued mockingly.
When he heard that, Jon flashed a mischievous grin, and Rickon swallowed hard with a bad feeling.
Rickon didn't even have time to comment. Jon simply rushed forward, attacking him violently.
Rickon began retreating quickly before taking a wrong step. Jon took advantage of the opening, swept his legs out from under him, and knocked him to the ground. The next instant, the wooden sword was already touching the young Stark's neck.
"Surrender," Jon said with a grin full of mockery.
Rickon merely pushed the sword aside and started getting back up. "Damn it! What happened to you? You weren't this good yesterday!" he growled.
Then he turned his attention to the master-at-arms, who was watching the children. He also seemed somewhat surprised by Jon, but he didn't comment on it.
Rickon walked over to Bennard, who was waiting for his turn. "Go on, brother. Get beaten up by Jon in the name of House Stark!" Rickon declared.
Bennard glared at him before snorting. He knew he couldn't beat Jon.
"Step forward, Bennard. It's time for you to face a little pressure," declared the master-at-arms.
Bennard swallowed hard but nodded. As he entered the circle, he said nothing. Jon simply took his stance, staring at his opponent.
The two had never gotten along.
It was obvious that Bennard had never held positive opinions about Jon, and everyone knew he had openly complained about the fact that his father kept a common-born protégé from a small farm within Winterfell simply because he possessed a direwolf, instead of trying to build ties with great houses of the North or even with some important house of the South.
Even so, Bennard was quite obedient. When his father made it clear that the matter was not something he had any right to question, he had remained silent ever since.
But he had never stopped showing a certain degree of disdain. His mentality was simple: commoners were commoners, nobles were nobles. Those who possessed power should always stand above those who possessed nothing.
Naturally, his opinions were not very popular within his own family. Even Lord Stark's more arrogant brothers, Bennard's uncles, treated Jon and his family with respect despite their difficult personalities.
In any case, Bennard ended up on the ground. Jon didn't hold back, except to avoid seriously injuring him, and defeated him mercilessly.
Despite the rage-filled look in his eyes, Bennard said nothing. Jon knew he was the type of person who only spoke when he had arguments to support himself. And faced with a clear defeat on the training field, there was nothing he could say.
In the end, even Bennard recognized that whether a man was noble or a commoner, without sufficient skill he would end up dead. After all, his own grandfather had died to wildlings after being struck by a poisoned arrow—or rather, a rusty one—when he had contracted an infection.
Rickon started laughing at his brother, and Bennard's murderous glare became even worse when he saw his brother openly mocking him.
Meanwhile, Lord Stark was in his office when the maester entered his solar with a few scrolls in hand.
"Maester, good to see you. I need you to send some letters. I also need reports from several vassal houses," he said.
The maester nodded, looking at the small pile of scrolls on the table.
Lord Stark couldn't help but notice the sheet the maester was carrying. If he had brought it there, it meant he wanted to show something.
The maester also noticed Lord Stark's gaze and sighed. "I will do that, but first I wanted to discuss something with you, Lord Stark, about today's lesson with the children."
He showed a paper and placed it on the table. "This is Jon's result," he explained.
Lord Stark examined the mathematical calculations. Even he had some difficulty with a few of those exercises, though he managed. He knew how to handle numbers easily in simpler calculations; after all, he was the Lord of Winterfell. Having a good memory and the ability to perform quick calculations was the bare minimum expected of the lord of a great house, especially in a land as harsh as the North.
"Well... everything seems correct, doesn't it?" He looked at the maester's corrections.
There wasn't a single mistake.
"Yes, everything is correct. The problem is that he finished in five minutes!"
"What?" Lord Stark raised an eyebrow.
The maester sighed for the second time. "When I handed them the scrolls to begin solving, there were eleven questions. The same test Rickon, your heir, took."
"When I saw Jon start scribbling rapidly across the parchment, I thought he was drawing instead of taking the test. That boy sometimes makes perfect portraits of Lyra on small scraps of paper."
"Yes, I know. I've seen the drawings. Lyra likes showing them to everyone," Lord Stark commented. "But five minutes, Maester?"
"Exactly. The boy seemed to simply look at the question, know the answer, perform the calculations quickly, and move on to the next one."
"The problem is that I prepared eleven questions instead of ten because I was certain none of them would be able to solve the last one. I only wanted to make them rack their brains a little... Your son got seven of the questions right. Naturally, he got three wrong, and he couldn't even answer the last one." He paused.
"However, Jon solved all eleven in five minutes. And every single one was correct." Maester Lorren crossed his arms.
"And there's no way to say he cheated. I watched him solve everything right in front of me. There was no way he could have seen it beforehand. Jon isn't the type who would sneak into my room to find out the questions days before the test. I'm certain he didn't know about the test, because even if he had copied the answers, his calculations are extremely precise..."
Lord Stark became thoughtful. "I understand... Now, you may return to your duties, Maester."
Benjen spoke at the end and remained alone, pondering what he had just heard...
Jon had been behaving somewhat strangely. The servants and guards had also reported seeing him leave the castle before sunrise to go to the Godswood. He had been doing that for two weeks and continued every day...
Then there was that strange winter whirlwind that appeared over Winterfell without any warning, even though it was already the beginning of spring. Even so, Lord Stark did not believe Jon had caused it.
As unusual as the boy was, a cold whirlwind of that magnitude was not something he believed Jon could create. But it was still a strange coincidence. Especially because it all happened after he went to the Godswood.
Then there was the fainting spell in the workshop on that same day. After that came the conversation in which Jon appeared determined to learn the blacksmith's trade and also wanted to buy some specific herbs, which were difficult to acquire, to be honest. But the boy seemed to need them badly...
"And how was he yesterday?" Lord Stark asked.
The maester seemed somewhat puzzled. "My lord, yesterday he was normal. As for these kinds of problems, he has always been smarter than any student I've ever had, of that you can be certain. He learns quickly, calculates quickly, but the speed he showed today surpasses everything the boy has ever demonstrated."
"To be honest, he was already quite frightening in the way he learned everything I taught him. But what I saw today was different. I wonder what kind of sharp mind that boy will develop if he continues like this." The man paused briefly.
"If he continues at the pace he showed today, he will possess a mind capable of bringing even the entire Citadel to its knees."
It was far too early to make predictions about the boy's future, yet what he had seen that day was, honestly, frightening.
"Very well. You may go, Maester. Deliver the letters." Lord Stark merely nodded.
The maester left the solar, taking the scrolls and the stack of letters he needed to send.
Lord Stark returned to work. He spent some time rereading reports and organizing documents.
He had wanted to watch the boys' training session, but he had been unable to because of the amount of work that had piled up that afternoon.
The hours passed.
When late afternoon arrived, he was already finishing his tasks when the master-at-arms, Othmar, appeared in his office.
"Hello, Rodrik. How can I help you?" Lord Stark asked in his calm tone.
"It's about Jon."
That immediately made Lord Stark look up.
"What about the boy?" he asked, already knowing what was coming...
The master-at-arms sighed before beginning to recount how Jon had behaved during that day's training.
How he defeated Rickon.
How he defeated Bennard.
And how he suddenly seemed like a true prodigy with a wooden sword.
Lord Stark was already beginning to feel a headache coming on.
Normally, Jon already possessed a frightening learning speed in the eyes of everyone who taught him, but now, even those same teachers seemed concerned.
All of them had come to speak with him on that single day.
The maester.
The master-at-arms.
The blacksmith would probably be next.
It made Lord Stark seriously wonder what was happening to the boy.
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