Hide the dragon?
There was no need to hide it from this lot of Night's Watchmen. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't.
The only variable was Tyrion Lannister.
As the final layer of fur was peeled away, the object was revealed.
It lay quietly in Lynn's palm—ice-blue throughout, its surface covered in fine, overlapping scales. It looked less like an egg and more like a work of art carved from frozen starlight.
It appeared before everyone's eyes.
The entire courtyard fell into a strange, deathly silence.
The wind stopped howling. Even the snow seemed to pause in its descent.
Every pair of eyes was glued to the object in Lynn's hand. Mouths hung open, yet throats were too dry to make a sound. It was as if the breath had been frozen in their lungs by the sheer chill of the moment.
What is that?
That perfect oval shape. Those intricate scales.
That ancient, mystical aura radiating from a magical creature, palpable even from twenty paces away...
"A... dragon egg?"
A brother of the Watch squeezed the words out, his voice trembling as if he were speaking in a dream.
BOOM!
Those two words were like a spark tossed into a barrel of wildfire. The courtyard exploded!
"Seven Hells! It's a dragon egg!"
"Am I seeing things? Is that truly a dragon egg?"
"By the Old Gods! Lord Lynn actually found a dragon egg!"
"A miracle! It's a bleeding miracle!"
Gasps, shouts, and sharp intakes of breath rose and fell, merging into a roar that threatened to shake the Wall itself.
The men of the Night's Watch went mad. They surged forward, desperate for a closer look. They wanted to witness this great creature of magic with their own eyes.
Torrhen and his Northmen reacted instantly, forming a solid wall of shields and bodies to hold back the excited mob.
Tyrion, stuck at the back of the crowd, was practically tearing his hair out. He stood on his tiptoes, hopping frantically, but could see nothing but a sea of black wool cloaks.
"Damn it all! Can't you great Northern louts leave a crack for a dwarf?"
As he complained, he suddenly felt himself being lifted into the air by a pair of strong arms.
It was Jon Snow.
"Need a better view, Lord Lannister?" Jon asked, a trace of amusement on his face.
"Careful now, Lord Snow," Tyrion quipped, though his mismatched eyes had already shot over the heads of the crowd to lock onto the egg in Lynn's hand. "If you drop me, my father will buy this ruin of a Wall and dismantle it brick by brick."
But the moment he saw the egg clearly, the witticisms died in his throat.
It really is a dragon egg.
Tyrion felt his blood run cold, then hot.
Dragons.
Not cold skulls hanging on the walls of the Red Keep. Not yellowed text in a dusty history book.
But a living, breathing... possibility.
His father's gold mines, the Lannister armies...
What did any of that matter in the face of true dragonfire?
The game, it seemed, was about to change its rules entirely.
His first instinct was to send a raven to his father immediately. But then he remembered what Lynn had told him.
His wife...
He decided then and there. Until Lynn revealed the truth about Tysha, he would not breathe a word of this to Casterly Rock.
Besides, it was only an egg. Even if it hatched, it would take years to grow.
"Fake! It must be fake!"
Alliser Thorne's shrill scream cut through the feverish atmosphere.
The sneer on his face had frozen, replaced by a twisted mask of madness. He pointed a trembling finger at Lynn, shrieking hysterically:
"Dragons have been extinct for centuries! How could there be an egg? He's a liar! You've all been duped! It's just a carved rock!"
He was grasping at straws, trying to use his voice to salvage the last shreds of his authority.
However, this time, no one paid him any mind.
All eyes had turned to a frail, trembling figure.
Maester Aemon.
The centenarian, the scholar, the man with the blood of the dragon in his veins.
Supported by two stewards, he shuffled slowly toward Lynn.
The crowd parted for him like the Red Sea.
His blind, milky eyes "looked" toward the dragon egg in Lynn's hand. He reached out with hands that were wrinkled and dry as old parchment, his voice trembling with an emotion that age could not dull.
"May I... may I touch it?"
Lynn nodded, then remembering Aemon's blindness, added softly, "Yes." He carefully held the egg out.
Maester Aemon ran his rough fingertips over the ice-blue shell with a touch as reverent and gentle as a prayer.
He traced the perfect curve, felt the intricate scales, and sensed... that faint, yet undeniably real warmth pulsating from within. A pulse of life itself.
His fingertips felt it.
Beneath the cold silence, a weak but incredibly resilient heart was beating.
Hummm...
As if sensing the blood of its kin, the ice-blue dragon egg let out a barely audible hum.
A faint blue halo of light flashed across the surface of the shell, visible to the naked eye!
"Ah!"
Maester Aemon's body jolted as if struck by lightning.
Two lines of cloudy tears could no longer be held back. They rolled down his wrinkled cheeks.
He let go, his strength leaving him entirely, and collapsed backward.
Fortunately, the stewards behind him caught him just in time.
"It is true..."
"It is true..."
"It lives! The little one lives!"
Maester Aemon sighed toward the sky, his voice filled with an indescribable mix of excitement and sorrow.
"The Prince that was Promised... The end of the Long Night..."
He murmured incoherently, a near-mad light flickering in his clouded eyes.
"Could it be... Lynn?"
Aemon fell into deep thought, his mind racing through ancient texts and prophecies.
Maester Aemon's reaction was irrefutable proof.
The courtyard fell into dead silence once more.
Everyone looked at Lynn with eyes usually reserved for gods.
Alliser Thorne's face had lost all color. He looked at Lynn, at the dragon egg, and at the weeping Maester Aemon.
The world seemed to spin.
It was over.
Everything was over.
Jeor Mormont, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, stood rooted to the spot.
His mind was a blank slate.
A dragon egg.
Lynn had actually brought back a living dragon egg.
He recalled the words Lynn had spoken in his solar before departing.
"There lies the key to fighting the Others."
So, this is the key?
Dragonfire against the ice?
Life against death?
The Old Bear's body trembled slightly with emotion. He looked at Lynn, and in eyes usually filled with worry and exhaustion, a light burst forth like never before.
Hope!
In this moment of despair, with the Wall crumbling and the Long Night approaching, he saw the only glimmer of hope.
And the one who brought it was this young man standing before him.
Mormont knew he did not have the strength to end the Long Night himself.
The future, perhaps, belonged to this boy.
Mormont took a deep breath, forcing down the storm of emotions in his chest.
He strode quickly up to Lynn.
He didn't speak.
Instead, in front of everyone, the Lord Commander placed a fist over his heart and bowed deeply.
A Lord Commander, bowing to his subordinate!
In the thousands of years of the Night's Watch, this had never happened.
"Lord Commander! What are you doing?"
Lynn was shocked and hurriedly stepped forward to help him up.
But Mormont stubbornly remained bowed.
"Lynn."
Mormont's voice was thick with emotion.
"From this day forth, you are no longer my subordinate."
He slowly straightened up, his sharp, wise eyes filled with a solemnity and trust that weighed heavy as iron.
"You are the future of the Night's Watch."
"You are the only hope for the North, and indeed the Seven Kingdoms, against the Long Night."
"I, Jeor Mormont, swear by the Old Gods and the New!"
"As long as I draw breath, every resource of the Night's Watch, every man, shall be at your disposal!"
"Your will is my will!"
"Your command is the highest law of Castle Black!"
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