Luwin I

The quiet of the library comforted Maester Luwin. Surrounded by centuries of collected knowledge, the castle's endless, petty squabbles seemed to fade away. The air smelled of dry parchment, old leather, and the sharp scent of the ink he was mixing. He dipped a quill into the pot, testing its consistency on a scrap of vellum. Perfect. Knowledge was the world's truest currency, and ink was the blood that gave it life.

His mind, however, was not on the ink but on the concerns he needed to bring to Lord Eddard. The winter stores were lower than he liked after a poor harvest. A dispute between two minor lords over logging rights awaited the Warden of the North's judgment. And then there was the matter of the ravens. The Citadel had sent notice that rising feed costs would force them to reduce the number of birds sent to remote castles. Though Winterfell was not remote, this was a sign of tightening belts across the realm—a subtle tremor hinting at instability.

He was so lost in thought that he didn't hear the door open. Only when a shadow fell across his desk did he look up, his grey eyebrows rising in surprise.

"Jon," he said mildly. "Is your wound troubling you? Do you need more milk of the poppy?"

Jon Snow stood before him, looking healthier than he had in weeks. The boy had recovered from his goring with impressive speed, though not surprising given his youth. "No, Maester. I am well. I came to… study."

Luwin blinked and carefully set down his quill. "Study?"

"Yes, Maester," Jon said, his gaze earnest. "I wish to learn about the history of the Seven Kingdoms, about the great houses—whatever I can learn here."

This was unexpected. Jon was an intelligent lad; Luwin had always known that. He had a quick, observant mind that often saw things Robb, in his earnestness, missed. But Jon had never been one for books.

His passions lay in the training yard with Ser Rodrik, not among the dusty scrolls. Robb had always been the more diligent student, understanding it was his duty as a future lord. Jon's lessons had always seemed more like a chore he had to endure.

"An admirable goal, my boy," Luwin said, a gentle smile touching his lips. He felt a surge of pity for the lad—a bastard with no prospects, seeking refuge in knowledge. It was a sad, familiar story. "Of course, I will help you. Where would you like to begin?"

"History," Jon said without hesitation. "From the very beginning."

An interesting choice—truly ambitious. Most boys wanted to hear of their own houses' glorious deeds or recent wars they could comprehend. To ask for the beginning was to ask for the Dawn Age, for stories that were more myth than history, recorded on crumbling scrolls and pieced together from runes. Still, a student's curiosity was precious.

"Very well," Luwin said, rising from his stool with a spark of scholarly excitement in his old eyes. "The very beginning it is. But understand, Jon, the further back we go, the more history fades into legend. We have little to go on—no histories written by those who lived then, only the tales of those who came after and the runes they left behind."

He led Jon to a heavy oak table and unrolled a fragile, yellowed scroll. "History, as we know it, begins not with men but with whispers of those who came before." He pointed to a faint sketch of a small, slender figure with large, dark eyes. "The Children of the Forest, as the First Men called them. The scrolls say they were not human, though they shared our form. They were smaller, swifter, with skin dappled like a deer's and hands with only three fingers and a thumb, tipped with black claws. They wove no cloth and forged no metal. The tales claim their magic was the magic of the earth itself."

He spoke of their gods—the nameless, faceless gods of streams, stones, and most importantly, the weirwood trees. "The weirwoods, it is said, were their temples and their eyes," Luwin explained, his voice hushed with reverence for the old, fragmented knowledge. "The legends speak of 'greenseers,' their wisest, who could see through the carved red faces on the trunks, witnessing events a thousand leagues away or even glimpsing visions of past and future. A fanciful notion, perhaps, but the First Men certainly believed it."

He then described the great migration twelve thousand years ago, according to the most accepted texts. "The First Men came from the east, crossing a land bridge—the Arm of Dorne—that no longer exists. They were bigger, stronger, and more numerous than the Children. They brought horses, bronze swords, and great leather shields. They also brought a new way of life—clearing forests for farmland and building forts of wood and stone."

Jon listened with an intensity that was almost unnerving, his violet eyes fixed on the Maester, absorbing every word. "They feared the weirwoods, did they not?" Jon asked quietly.

"They did," Luwin confirmed, impressed. "They saw the carved faces as spies for the Children's gods. So they began chopping them down and burning them. To the Children, this was not just an act of war but sacrilege—the murder of their gods. And so began a conflict that the singers say lasted for centuries."

He described the brutal wars that followed, piecing the narrative together from disparate sources. "The First Men's bronze weapons and numerical strength were met with what the tales call woodcraft and earth magic. The Children were not warriors in our sense, but the stories claim they were deadly. They used obsidian daggers and weirwood bows, and their greenseers could call upon forest beasts—direwolves, shadowcats, great eagles—to fight alongside them."

"But it was not enough," Luwin continued, his tone somber. "The First Men were relentless. The legends say that in desperation, the Children gathered their greenseers at Moat Cailin and worked their greatest magic. They sought to summon the sea and break the neck of Westeros in two, just as they had supposedly shattered the Arm of Dorne. But the magic proved too great, the cost too high. They succeeded only in turning the land into the swamps and bogs we know today. They had failed to stop the invaders."

"If the Children could break the land itself, why did they not simply sink all of Westeros into the sea?" Jon asked, the same profound question as before, but now rooted in a deeper understanding of the context.

"A profound question," Luwin mused, stroking his chain. "One scholars have debated for ages. Some texts suggest their magic was tied to the land itself—to destroy it would be to destroy themselves. Others whisper that the cost in lives was too great for them. Their magic, the stories say, was one of creation and preservation, and such an act of destruction would have broken them. They could wound the earth but not murder it. Or perhaps their power was never as great as the legends claim. We may never know the truth."

They moved from scrolls to maps. Luwin unrolled a great map of Westeros, and Jon, who had always struggled with geography, now seemed to possess an intuitive understanding of it. He traced army paths, noted the strategic importance of castles, and calculated travel times with an accuracy that startled the old Maester. It was as if a lamp had been lit in a previously dark room of the boy's mind.

By the time the midday bell rang for lunch, they had covered thousands of years of history, ending with the signing of the Pact on the Isle of Faces, which brought peace between the First Men and the Children. Jon's retention was nothing short of prodigious. Luwin felt a swell of pride, the kind any teacher feels for a gifted student, but it was tinged with deep sadness. What would this boy do with all this knowledge? What future awaited a mind so sharp, trapped in the body of a bastard? He would make a fine Maester, Luwin thought, but he knew the boy's heart was with the sword.

"You have a fine mind, Jon," Luwin said as they packed away the scrolls. "You are always welcome here. The library is open to you whenever you wish."

"Thank you, Maester," Jon said, and for the first time that morning, a genuine, unguarded smile touched his lips. It transformed his face, chasing away the shadows.

After a simple lunch of bread and stew, Luwin gathered his notes and made his way to Lord Eddard's solar. He went through his list of concerns—the grain stores, the land dispute, the ravens. Lord Stark listened patiently, his face grim, offering judgment with the quiet authority Luwin had come to deeply respect.

When their business concluded, Luwin hesitated at the door. "My lord," he began, "there is one other thing, though it is a personal matter."

Eddard looked up from his papers, his grey eyes weary but attentive. "Speak freely, Luwin."

"It is about your son. Jon."

At the name, a subtle tension entered the room. Eddard's face became even more guarded. "What of him?"

"He came to me this morning," Luwin explained. "He has taken a sudden and remarkable interest in his studies—history, geography, the lineages of the great houses. His ability to learn and retain information is truly exceptional. I have not seen such a mind in a long while."

Luwin watched his lord's face carefully, trying to gauge his reaction. But Eddard Stark's face was a fortress, its walls built of Northern stone and long-held secrets. There was no surprise, no pleasure, not even curiosity—only a quiet, unreadable stillness.

"Good," Lord Stark said after a long moment, his voice flat. "That is good." He looked down at his desk, then back up at Luwin, his gaze direct and commanding. "Continue to teach him. Give him access to any book he desires. Teach him to the very best of your ability. See that he wants for nothing in his pursuit of knowledge."

It was a dismissal. Luwin nodded, murmuring, "As you wish, my lord," before taking his leave. As he walked back toward the library, he felt a profound sense of mystery. He had expected his lord to be pleased, but had seen no pleasure—only the weary resignation of a man placing another stone on a burden he already carried. The Maester did not know what secrets Lord Eddard held, but he knew, with a scholar's certainty, that the key to understanding Jon Snow's future lay buried deep in his father's past.