A full year passed, and the Mourning Keep felt completely different from the quiet fortress it had once been. The air had changed. The halls had changed. Even Jeanyx himself carried a different weight in his eyes. Because everything in his world had shifted the moment his children were born.
Lyra went into labor first, her cries echoing through the stone halls long before the sun rose. Mya followed only hours later, the timing so uncanny that even the elders muttered about omens and fate. By nightfall, both women were resting, exhausted but alive, and Jeanyx found himself standing in a warm, candlelit room staring down at four tiny miracles he never expected to have so soon.
Lyra's firstborn was a girl with soft dark-brown hair and sharp violet eyes that stared up at him with an intensity that shouldn't have belonged to a newborn. It took him only a moment to name her. Arya. Not after the girl he slept with in the North, but after the Arya Stark he hoped history wouldn't erase despite the butterfly effect of his existence. Little Arya Slytherin gripped his finger with a strength that made him smirk, and he whispered to her that she would carve her own path just like the one that inspired her name.
Lyra's second daughter looked almost unreal in her beauty. Pale skin, soft silver-blonde hair that shimmered even in low light, and eyes that burned bright amethyst. She looked like a pureblood Targaryen pulled straight from the oldest Valyrian murals. Seeing her stole Jeanyx's breath for a heartbeat. She reminded him of everything he had lost and everything he refused to let go. He named her Alysanne, after the grandmother who had loved him fiercely and defended his children before they were even born. The name carried weight. Love. Defiance. Memory.
And for both girls, he gave them the last name Slytherin. The name he had introduced to the Frost family the day they met. The name he wanted them to forge into something new, something beyond him. He wanted them to build a legacy untied to a throne he didn't trust, or a family that had turned its back on him. A name that belonged entirely to them.
Mya's labor was quieter but far more emotional. Her father Edward practically fainted twice, muttering half-coherent prayers while Torrhen tried not to laugh and Mira forced him to sit down. When the first boy arrived, his hair shone gold under the torchlight, a soft pale blonde that reminded everyone of sunshine on fresh snow. The second boy arrived not long after, his hair black as obsidian, his little face scrunched in unamused newborn indignation. The contrast between them made the entire room stare, and Jeanyx frowned for a moment until Edward quickly explained that Mya's mother had hair like spun gold while Edward himself had black hair. Genetics were strange, unpredictable things, and Jeanyx understood that better than most. Just to be sure, he let the Force wash over them with a single focused breath. Their wavelengths matched his own perfectly. His sons.
He considered their faces, their quiet little noises, the way one already slept peacefully while the other glared at the world like it had personally offended him. A breath of amusement escaped him, and he named the blonde boy Thor, strong and golden and stubborn even as a newborn. The black-haired boy looked like trouble wrapped in a blanket, so Jeanyx named him Loki.
Mya and Edward exchanged uneasy glances at that. Loki was a trickster god, a catalyst of Ragnarök, a name tied to chaos and destruction in northern stories. But Jeanyx simply smirked and shook his head. He wasn't naming monsters. He was naming brothers. Brothers who would fight, compete, clash, and test one another constantly. But he had a feeling—deep in his chest, confirmed by the Force—that they would always return to one another in the end.
For them, he chose the last name Gaunt. A name with ancient roots and tangled destinies, a name he intended to intertwine with Slytherin forever. Two houses. Two legacies. Two bloodlines woven together in a way only he could have created.
Arya Slytherin.
Alysanne Slytherin.
Thor Gaunt.
Loki Gaunt.
Four children born on the same day. Four new lights in a world that had taken so much from him. Four reasons he finally understood why he needed to grow stronger, why he couldn't rush into Westeros yet, why every moment of training and building mattered.
And as he held each of them, one by one, the cold walls of the Mourning Keep felt just a little warmer.
Wintertown changed in ways no one—least of all its elders—could have predicted. The moment Jeanyx's four children were born, it was as if a dam inside him finally burst. Inspiration flowed like a raging river. Ideas he'd sketched, abandoned, half-dreamed, or dismissed over the years suddenly lit up in his mind with violent clarity. And once they ignited, they refused to dim.
Within days he'd mobilized what could only be described as an army of builders—villagers, dwarves, giants, stonecutters, carpenters, apprentices, and even curious children—to begin reshaping Wintertown into something worthy of the future he envisioned for his children. A future where the North's ancient ruggedness met the strength of Valyria and the structure of civilizations from another world entirely.
The first creation—the one that immediately stunned every soul on the island—was the upgraded Great Hall. Once an ordinary, draughty village meeting house, it now rose like a myth etched out of the Eddas themselves. He modeled it after Odin's hall from the stories he carried from his past life: sweeping beams of dark wood carved with wolves, ravens, and swirling knotwork; massive twin hearths burning with eternal blue-white flame; and pillars inlaid with gold that the builders discovered during the Mourning Keep's excavation. By the time the finishing touches were placed, the hall felt less like a building and more like a legend winter itself might kneel before.
Next came the Healers' House—a blend of Westerosi practicality and Jeanyx's alchemical brilliance. He designed it for efficiency, with brewing rooms, herb-drying rafters, surgical spaces, and private rooms for the sick. But he underestimated how quickly he would grow bored supervising it. Thankfully, he discovered Elsera—the forester's daughter with quick hands, sharp perception, and an instinctive understanding of remedies. Within three months she was running the entire house with such mastery that Jeanyx privately wondered if she wasn't blessed by some forgotten northern deity. She became Wintertown's healer, and the people adored her for it.
Then came the Schoolhouse. For most of the island, education had meant survival skills taught by parents or elders. Jeanyx threw that aside completely. He built a true place of learning where children could practice reading, writing, mathematics, history, runes, tracking, craftsmanship, and basic magic theory. He refused to let ignorance devour future generations the way it had devoured so many before. He even taught mathematics—begrudgingly—though only the basics, because numbers had always bored him. Even so, the school became the beating heart of Wintertown's new identity.
The Trade Hall came next, a response to the ever-growing number of merchants streaming from the east, west, and south villages. Instead of chaotic streets filled with shouting, haggling, and crowding, Jeanyx crafted a vast structure where commerce flowed cleanly and safely. It became a symbol of unity rather than squabbling—an island-wide marketplace that tied the settlements together.
But it was the Forge Complex that truly marked Wintertown as something extraordinary. With the volcanic vent piping system Jeanyx engineered years ago, he constructed a network of interconnected forges, each capable of sustaining a different heat level without interrupting the others. Dwarves and smiths took to it like a dragon to flame, working side by side with human apprentices. Sparks lit the sky each evening, forging not just metals but a future where craftsmanship could rival any Westerosi lord's armory.
The Marketplace Pavilion followed naturally—a large covered structure where villagers could trade food, clothing, inventions, charms, tools, and crafts without fearing the bite of rain or the tyranny of northern snow. It finally turned Wintertown from scattered homes into something alive: a living, breathing community with laughter, smells, colors, and motion.
The expanded Bathhouse was next, and it became the villagers' favorite. Clean water heated by enchanted runes, steam rooms lined with stone benches, private rooms for bathing families, communal pools for relaxation—it changed the entire rhythm of daily life. Hygiene was no longer a luxury but a shared joy, and the town's scent became genuinely pleasant, which even Jeanyx admitted was a miracle.
And towering above them all stood the Library and Archive Tower—a monument of stone, ice, and ambition. Jeanyx built it to hold every scrap of knowledge he possessed or created: runic translations, arcane theories, Force observations, alchemical formulas, maps of the island, histories of Wintertown, treatises on magic, and the early foundations of spells he planned to leave behind for future generations. It was the first true library on the island since the age of the First Men, and many whispered it was destined to rival even the Citadel.
All of this—the Great Hall, the Healers' House, the Schoolhouse, the Trade Hall, the Forge Complex, the Pavilion, the Bathhouse, and the towering Library—took just seven months. Seven months of sleepless nights, aching muscles, ink-stained fingers, and the endless hum of magic and Force working in tandem.
Exhaustion clung to him like a second skin. His bones felt heavy. His mind fogged some days. But each time he paused, even for a heartbeat, he thought of his children—Arya, Alysanne, Thor, and Loki. He thought of them crawling, learning to walk, learning to speak, living in a home built with intention rather than survival. He thought of a future where they would be surrounded by brilliance, comfort, knowledge, and safety.
And that alone pushed him forward every time he felt like collapsing.
However just building structures wasn't all jeanyx did but he trained the children diligently and he had some thoughts after a year of training.Another year had passed, and the weight of those twelve moons settled across Jeanyx's life in ways he never could've predicted. Four newborns, a growing realm, and half a dozen magically gifted children under his care meant he couldn't afford to let chaos choose their futures for them. He needed to guide them—shape them—into people who could survive in his world, his island, and eventually the outside world. Magic alone wasn't enough. Talent alone wasn't enough. He'd learned that the hard way, in a past life and in this one. So the moment he noticed how differently each child grew—how their affinities shaped them like wind carves stone—he made a decision. They wouldn't just train magic. They would learn trades. Work. Purpose. Identity. Something that kept their feet on the ground even as their powers reached for the sky.
Sirius was the first Jeanyx figured out. The boy practically lived in the treetops. Wind magic thrummed in him like a heartbeat, urging him to climb, leap, track, listen—to feel the world instead of looking at it. Jeanyx watched him jump from boulder to branch with the instinct of a born predator. He wasn't made for quiet professions or indoor work. He belonged to the wild. So Jeanyx trained him as a hunter, scout, and duelist, dragging him into daily sparring sessions that left the boy panting, sweating, and grinning like a madman. In just a year Sirius could already handle multiple armored men, and Jeanyx hadn't even taught him a formal saber form yet. But deep down, Jeanyx knew what was coming. Sirius was Ataru incarnate. Acrobatics, speed, instinct, the reckless joy of movement—everything about him screamed Form IV. And when he finally introduced Sirius to it… the boy would fly.
Regulus, however, stunned him more than once. Jeanyx had expected strong magic from a Blackwood, but not this strong, and not this varied. The boy grasped alchemy with terrifying ease—so much ease that in only two months he had crafted a stronger, purer, cheaper painkiller than milk of the poppy. When he puffed his chest and bragged about being better than Jeanyx, the man simply told him the truth: "The only reason I never made it is because I'm lazy." That snuffed the pride instantly, but the praise that followed—"No one in history has ever made what you just made"—brought Regulus into grateful tears as he hugged Jeanyx tight. His memory magic also made him the perfect archivist, the child who suggested building the grand Library of Alexandra. When Bellatrix asked why that name, Jeanyx spun a tale of a Valyrian library lost to rebellion and time—a mythical archive of knowledge he refused to let history repeat. And in dueling, Regulus shone brightest in Makashi. Precision. Footwork. Calculation. He was a blade drawn in moonlight.
Bellatrix, meanwhile, was a storm wearing the shape of a girl. Jeanyx knew instantly what she was meant to be—a warrior, a combat mage, a forge-mistress capable of tempering destruction into steel. She was the boldest of the six, the loudest in demanding spells, and after two months of pestering, Jeanyx finally taught her simple arcane control and the disarming charm, Expelliarmus. She had grumbled about wanting something more explosive, more destructive, more "Bellatrix," but Jeanyx promised her that when she turned thirteen, he'd teach her a spell worthy of her storm-magic—only if she could prove responsibility. And she clung to that promise like a sacred oath. Bellatrix was also the first he taught to forge, and she adored it—every hammer blow, every shower of sparks, every surge of heat. Her first completed blade was a longsword. Her assigned saber discipline was Form VII: Juyo/Vaapad—the wild, furious, unpredictable style perfect for a storm given flesh. And Jeanyx saw the beginnings of Djem So in her as well, waiting to bloom once she matured.
Narcissa, calm and pale as moonlit snow, naturally found her place in healing. She had wandered into one of Jeanyx's lessons with Elsera, the village's budding healer, and asked shyly if she could help. Jeanyx agreed—he always did when curiosity sparked. Within weeks Narcissa matched Elsera in talent, especially in emergency care. Her frost magic made her steady, precise, focused under pressure. If Elsera was a surgeon, Narcissa was the one who kept dying men alive long enough for Elsera to work. She didn't shine in dueling—not because she was weak, but because she had no taste for it. Still, her magical skill grew faster than most adults Jeanyx had ever trained. She would be Wintertown's shield, its salve, its quiet protector.
James was a beast on two legs, in the best way possible. His kinetic magic mixed with animal empathy gave him a bond with creatures that bordered on mythical. Livestock trusted him. Forest predators tolerated him. Even Nyx—huge, ancient-blooded, suspicious Nyx—tilted her massive head toward him with something like acknowledgment. Jeanyx placed him as a rancher, handler, and trainer, someone who would raise and command beasts with instinctive understanding. In combat James fought like a wolf—fast, responsive, cunning. Shien suited him perfectly, the counterstriking form of Form V, turning an opponent's strength against them. One day he'd be unstoppable.
Remus was different. Ember-fire and growth magic lived together in him like two halves of a heartbeat—flame and life. Jeanyx placed him among the farmers and herbalists, teaching him to nurture crops with warmth and coax stubborn plants to life even in harsh soil. His magic made the land generous. His temperament made him patient. And in dueling, Niman fit him like a glove—the balanced, diplomatic form that blended offense, defense, and Force techniques into one fluid philosophy. Remus wasn't the strongest or fastest, but he was the most adaptable, the most harmonious.
Jeanyx watched all six of them day after day with a strange mix of affection and exasperation. They were brilliant. They were chaotic. They were his responsibility. And by giving them trades—hunter, alchemist, warrior, healer, beast-handler, herbalist—he ensured that they grew into something real, something grounded, something more than magic and raw power. They were becoming pillars of Wintertown's future, each in their own way. And as Jeanyx looked out across his growing settlement, his newborn children, and the six apprentices who somehow felt like younger siblings, he knew one thing with complete certainty.
They weren't just students anymore. They were the beginning of something greater. A new generation shaped by arcane, force, steel, and the restless spirit of an exiled Targaryen who refused to let the world stagnate. They were his legacy just as much as his four infants sleeping upstairs.
Morning mist clung to the training yard like a thin veil, softening the edges of the stone courtyard and the towering walls of the Mourning Keep's skeleton frame. Jeanyx's breath hung in the air, steady and controlled, while Sirius's came ragged and uneven—tells that the boy wasn't present in the fight at all. They circled each other for another pass, steel flashing dull silver in the pale light. Jeanyx feinted right, then swept low, and Sirius—normally sharp as a wolf in winter—barely reacted. His footing slipped. His guard dropped. And Jeanyx took him off his feet with a single, effortless motion, sending the boy crashing onto his back with a thud that echoed across the yard.
In one smooth step, Jeanyx pressed the blunt edge of the practice sword against Sirius's throat.
"You're distracted."
The boy winced but didn't deny it. Jeanyx stepped back, sheathed the training blade, and extended a hand. Instead of taking it, Sirius sat up slowly, wrapped his arms around his knees, and stared at the dirt between his boots.
"Sorry, Jeanyx… I just have a lot on my mind lately."
Jeanyx let out a heavy sigh and dropped down beside him in the cold grass, the chill soaking through his trousers. Regulus and Bellatrix sat off to the side, tending to Arya and Loki—Regulus humming some old Riverlands lullaby while Bellatrix pretended she wasn't playing peek-a-boo with toddlers. The peaceful scene contrasted sharply with Sirius's slumped posture.
"Look," Jeanyx said quietly. "Normally I don't pry. People have their own demons and I don't like stepping on toes. But whatever's eating you is bleeding into your training. And that? I can't ignore." His voice softened. "So come on. Out with it."
Sirius swallowed hard, eyes glimmering with a storm of guilt, fear, and longing.
"For a few days now… I've been thinking about my family," he admitted. "My father. My aunts. My cousins. How they must be dealing with… with all of us gone. Me, Regulus, Narcissa, Bellatrix." He bit his lip. "And James disappearing with us—Seven hells, Jeanyx… if they weren't killing each other before, they might be now."
Jeanyx leaned back on his palms, watching a breeze roll through the yard and into the mountain air. He didn't interrupt. Sirius needed space to pour it out.
"Our families always hated each other," Sirius muttered, voice cracking. "Blackwoods and Brackens. Always fighting. Always spilling blood. And we—we just vanished. It probably reignited everything. And part of me keeps wondering if we made everything worse."
Jeanyx exhaled slowly.
"Sirius," he said, "listen to me. If you hadn't run? If any of you stayed? You wouldn't be sitting here worrying about family feuds. You'd be disowned. Whipped. Or shipped to the Wall for breaking ancient rules." He nudged the boy lightly with an elbow. "You think I'm joking. I'm not. Your world doesn't forgive kids being kids."
Sirius's shoulders slumped more.
Jeanyx continued, "And even if things are bad back home… they're not your fault. The feud between your houses is older than this island. Older than your grandfather. Older than half the kingdoms. You didn't start it. You sure as hell didn't worsen it."
Sirius nodded slowly, but doubt still lingered.
"And," Jeanyx added quietly, "your family hasn't stopped with just you. You've got more Blackwoods running around than you remember, right?"
This made Sirius blink.
He hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah… more than just Bella and Cissa. There's Samwell." His voice softened. "He… he had a son a month before we ran. I didn't even get to see him." His eyes drifted somewhere distant. "And my cousin Willem. He should be a few moons old now. Assuming he survived the birth. His mother was big when I left. Really big."
Jeanyx listened, really listened. The sorrow behind Sirius's words wasn't childish—wasn't small. It was the kind of ache that came from being torn from home too soon, before anyone could decide whether they wanted to stay or run.
For a moment, Jeanyx saw himself in Sirius. A boy who left a home that never really held him. A boy who questioned what he'd abandoned, even if leaving saved him. The kind of pain you only feel when you don't know whether the world you left behind is mourning you or cursing your name.
Jeanyx placed a firm hand on Sirius's shoulder, grounding him.
"We'll figure all of it out," he said. "Your family. Regulus's. James's. All of it. I'm not gonna let your past swallow you."
Sirius blinked hard, wiping his face with his sleeve like he wasn't crying—even though he was.
Jeanyx smirked, bumping his shoulder gently.
"Now come on. Get up. We've got training to finish. And if you don't stop fighting like you're half-asleep, even Arya's gonna beat you soon."
Sirius huffed out something between a laugh and a sniffle.
And for the first time in days, he stood with a steadier heart.
The training yard settled into a strange quiet after Sirius's confession—one of those heavy, thoughtful silences that didn't break naturally. Jeanyx felt it in the air, in the way the children moved, in the way their eyes kept drifting toward Sirius even after sparring ended. Something had cracked open, and ignoring it would only let the wound fester.
So that evening, after the sun dipped behind the Mourning Keep and the halls glowed with torchlight, Jeanyx gathered them in one of the library's warm side chambers. The fire crackled low. A storm hummed outside. Nyx lay curled beside the doorway, her great head resting on her talons, eyes glowing like amethysts as she watched each child file in.
Sirius came first, still quiet but holding himself taller.
Regulus followed, pretending to be calm but chewing the inside of his cheek.
Bellatrix marched in next with a scowl, clearly expecting this to be punishment.
Narcissa hovered behind Regulus like a nervous shadow.
James tried smiling but his eyes didn't match.
Remus clutched a wooden carving he'd made that morning—a little tree—and didn't let it go.
Jeanyx waited until every one of them sat on the large, deep rug before sinking down himself. He folded his arms over his knees, glanced at Nyx, then looked at the children with a seriousness he rarely showed.
"Let's talk," he said softly. "All of us."
The words alone made their young faces stiffen. They weren't used to Jeanyx sounding like this—gentle, but heavy with something unsaid.
Sirius stared into the fire. "It's because of what I said earlier, isn't it?"
"Yes," Jeanyx replied. "But not just that."
He let his eyes sweep the room, meeting each of theirs slowly.
"You're all carrying things you shouldn't be carrying alone."
Bellatrix rolled her eyes like she wanted to argue, but one look from Jeanyx cut her defiance before it could spark. Narcissa's shoulders tightened. Regulus blinked rapidly. James hid behind humor and failed. Remus just looked down like the weight of the world lived in that carved wooden tree.
Jeanyx took a breath.
"Sirius is worried about his family," he said, not unkindly. "That's nothing to be ashamed of. Any of you would be. But it made me realize something." He tapped his chest lightly. "I've been so focused on training you… keeping you safe… building things for your futures… that I forgot you're kids who lost everything familiar."
Regulus's lip trembled, though he tried to hide it.
Narcissa pressed a hand over her mouth.
Bellatrix looked away sharply, jaw locked.
Sirius swallowed hard.
James's smile vanished completely.
Remus's grip on his carving tightened until his knuckles went white.
Jeanyx continued, voice softer now.
"You vanished from your homes. Your families don't know if you're alive. You don't know if they're alive. That kind of uncertainty…" He shook his head. "It eats you from the inside out."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"So. We're talking about it. All of it. No more holding it in until it hurts you."
Silence stretched. Heavy. Expectant.
And then, unexpectedly, Narcissa was the one who broke.
"I hear my mother crying at night," she whispered, tears slipping free the moment the words left her. "She used to sing me to sleep. I… I haven't heard her voice in so long."
Bellatrix's head whipped toward her sister immediately, eyes blazing—not with anger, but with something fiercely protective. She reached over and pulled Narcissa close. Narcissa clung to her like a lifeline.
Regulus's composure shattered next.
"I keep remembering my maester's lessons," he said, voice breaking. "He used to ruffle my hair every time I finished reading a chapter. I hated it then, but…" His eyes reddened. "I miss it now."
He wiped his face quickly, embarrassed, but Jeanyx reached over and ruffled his hair gently—only once. Regulus let out a small, shaky laugh between tears.
James sniffed loudly.
"My little sisters probably think I died," he murmured. "And if they cried for me… if they cried because of me… I don't think I'll ever forgive myself."
Next to him, Remus finally lifted his head.
"My parents struggled to raise us even before we left," he whispered. "If they think I abandoned them, if they think I was ungrateful…" Tears spilled freely. "I didn't even say goodbye."
By the time he finished, his flame-flickered magic made the torches burn brighter, then dim, then brighter again.
Sirius clenched his jaw, eyes shimmering despite how hard he fought it.
"I miss them," he whispered. "Even if they were strict. Even if they argued. Even if they scared me sometimes. They're my family."
The room fell utterly still.
And Jeanyx felt something ache in his own chest—something raw, human, familiar.
He leaned forward and gently placed a hand on Sirius's back.
"Look at me," Jeanyx said quietly.
Sirius did.
"All of you. Look at me."
Six tearful, frightened, exhausted faces lifted.
"I know what it's like to lose a family," Jeanyx said, voice low, steady, and full of something ancient. "To leave when you didn't want to. To wonder what they think of you. To question whether you should've stayed… or whether leaving saved you."
His eyes dimmed for a heartbeat—pain flickering behind them.
"And I'll tell you this: you didn't destroy anything. You didn't worsen anything. The world you came from was already broken long before you were born. You running… didn't ruin it. But you staying could've ruined you."
He reached out, tapping each of them gently on the forehead with two fingers.
"You're safe here. You're growing. You're learning. And when the time comes, when you're strong enough, smart enough, grounded enough—we'll face the Riverlands together. As one."
Nyx hummed low behind them, her breath washing over the room like a warm wind. The children turned toward her, and for a moment, the great dragon lowered her head until her snout rested against the rug, touching them gently one by one—a blessing in scales and shadow.
Jeanyx watched them cuddle against her massive jaw. Regulus ran a hand over her scales. Bellatrix leaned her head on her cheek. Narcissa held her breath at the touch. James stroked her with familiarity. Remus whispered something into her skin. Sirius wrapped his arms around her horn and closed his eyes as if grounding himself.
Jeanyx sat back and let the moment breathe.
Then he spoke again, softer than ever.
"You're not alone anymore. You hear me? You have each other. You have Wintertown. You have me. And you have a future worth fighting for."
The fire crackled.
The storm outside softened.
And six young hearts steadied at the same time.
It wasn't a perfect peace. Not even close.
But it was the beginning of healing.
Snow drifted lazily past the carved balcony windows of the Mourning Keep as Jeanyx and Brandon sat hunched over the polished obsidian chessboard Jeanyx crafted two winters ago. It was set on a heavy oak table, worn smooth by countless matches and even more arguments. The black pieces shimmered faintly with a violet sheen—Jeanyx's personal enchantment—while the white pieces were carved from mountain-ice stone that never melted.
(timeskip)
Regulus sat nearby on a thick fur cushion, gently rocking Loki—now three years old—who stubbornly refused to nap unless Regulus was in the room. Every so often the toddler would point at a chess piece, babble something unintelligible, and Regulus would whisper back, as though explaining the secrets of a master tactician.
Jeanyx moved his knight forward with a lazy flick of his fingers.
Brandon grunted and rubbed his beard. "You know," he muttered, sliding a rook into position, "for someone who claims to be lazy, you play this game like a man plotting the downfall of nations."
"I am," Jeanyx deadpanned. "Yours."
Brandon barked out a laugh, but his eyes remained sharp, studying the board with the intensity of a hawk. "You'll not catch me off guard with that knight-boy trick twice."
"Wouldn't dream of it." Jeanyx rested his chin on his hand, eyes half-lidded. "This time I'll let the bishop do the killing."
Regulus snorted quietly. "He's bluffing," he whispered to Loki.
Loki, confused, whispered "Buffin" back.
Brandon leaned back. "I swear that child knows my tactics better than I do."
"Give him a year," Jeanyx said. "He'll be beating you without a board."
They played in silence for several moves—Brandon pushed a pawn too aggressively, Jeanyx cornered it effortlessly, Brandon scowled, Jeanyx pretended innocence. It was calm, familiar. But then Brandon hesitated on his next move, fingers hovering over a knight before pulling back slowly.
His eyes shifted—not at the board, but at Jeanyx.
"There's something I've been meaning to ask you," he said, voice dropping. "A concern. One I've heard whispered by my boy and even the blasted elders."
Jeanyx raised a brow. "If this is about the bathhouse incident with Sirius and the geyser rune—"
"It's not," Brandon said quickly.
"Good," Jeanyx muttered, sliding his queen. "Because that was not my fault."
Brandon cleared his throat. "It's about the population."
Jeanyx paused mid-move.
Regulus's head lifted slightly, eyes narrowing with curiosity.
Brandon continued, voice steady but heavy. "When you first washed ashore on this island, we had, what—thirty thousand souls? Scattered, quiet, keeping to our little lives. Now…" He gestured broadly. "There's closer to fifty thousand of us. Maybe more, depending on how many babes were born this winter."
Jeanyx rested back in his chair, expression unreadable.
Brandon pressed on. "The slaves you freed—those you told to have children for the sake of your… construction army—added to that number quickly. And that's not counting the dwarves, the giants, the migrants from the eastern and southern villages who followed your inventions like godsends."
Regulus hugged Loki closer.
Loki blinked sleepily, oblivious to the tension.
Brandon tapped a chess piece absently. "We're reaching the limit of what this land can feed. The forests are thinning. The fish are restless. Wintertown alone has doubled. If we keep growing like this…"
"We'll starve." Jeanyx finished for him, voice flat.
Brandon nodded grimly.
Jeanyx sighed deeply, dragging a hand through his hair. "And what exactly do you think I can do? Snap my fingers and make fields appear? Summon food from thin air? Or—" He smirked darkly. "Do you want me to massacre a few thousand? Nyx would be thrilled. She's been craving something exotic."
Regulus choked. "You're joking… right?"
Jeanyx blinked at him. "Mostly."
Brandon waved a hand. "No mass murder, boy. Gods preserve us. I meant helping them… leave. Move some of our people to Westeros."
The group went deathly still.
Even Loki stopped squirming.
Jeanyx turned slowly, eyes narrowing. "You want to send thousands of islanders into Westeros?"
"If it means survival," Brandon said firmly. "Yes."
Regulus stared. "But if even one of them mentions Jeanyx—"
"That is precisely why it's a problem," Jeanyx cut in sharply. "Do you know how fast word would spread if an entire village arrived on Westerosi shores talking about an island full of giants, dwarves, and a Targaryen with a dragon larger than anything since Old Valyria?"
Brandon opened his mouth, but Jeanyx kept going.
"My family would send fleets. Not to rescue me. Not to negotiate. They'd come to claim Nyx. To claim the island. They'd justify it however they wanted—protection, diplomacy, trade, doesn't matter." His jaw tensed. "Daemon, with his temper? He'd burn half this place out of sheer frustration. And Viserys… gods know what he'd do with a resource this powerful."
Regulus swallowed. "So… there's no option?"
"Not now," Jeanyx said, voice firm. "Not until I can return in my own time, on my own terms. Not until I'm strong enough. And certainly not until you six are ready to face your families again."
He looked at Brandon directly.
"And that's not yet. Not even close."
Brandon sighed heavily, sliding his rook forward in resignation. "So we wait."
"For now," Jeanyx replied.
He moved his queen three spaces.
"Check."
Brandon blinked down at the board. "When in the seven hells did you—?"
"While you were worrying about logistics," Jeanyx said, folding his arms smugly.
Regulus smirked. "He distracted you."
Loki babbled triumphantly, patting Regulus's face with a sticky hand.
Brandon huffed. "If this is your idea of leadership, boy—"
"It's worked so far," Jeanyx said, but there was no arrogance in his tone now—only a quiet weight, something heavy beneath the humor. "And when the time comes, Brandon… I'll do what needs to be done. For all of us."
Brandon studied him carefully.
Then he nodded once.
And the game went on, quiet and thoughtful, with the storm whispering outside and the future creeping closer with every passing move.
Loki's sudden babbling cut through the flow of the chess match like a thrown dagger. It wasn't the usual nonsense-toddler babble either—this was the insistent, urgent kind that meant he had seen something.
Jeanyx turned sharply, brows raised, and saw his youngest son pointing—arm stretched straight, finger aimed with uncanny certainty—toward the treeline far below the Mourning Keep's terrace.
"What is it, little fox?" Jeanyx murmured, lifting Loki from Regulus's lap.
Loki didn't answer with words.
Just kept pointing.
Eyes bright, focused, almost glowing with that eerie awareness Jeanyx had only seen in two beings: Nyx… and himself.
Regulus stood as well, brushing dirt from his knees. Brandon pushed himself up with a grunt that didn't match his surprisingly youthful strength—youth preserved by Jeanyx's alchemic pills that kept the old man sturdy, sharp, and annoyingly spry for someone who should've been hobbling with a cane.
"Lead the way, Loki," Jeanyx said.
Loki grinned, patted his father's cheek, and pointed again.
They started down through the forest path, snow crunching underfoot. Pine branches swayed overhead, scattering needles as though whispering secrets. It took nearly a full minute of weaving through trees and brush—far more distance than any normal three-year-old should've been able to track—before Brandon stopped in his tracks.
"There," the old man said, tilting his head.
A dead snake lay sprawled across the snow, neck torn clean through. Brandon squatted beside it, examining the wound.
"Hawk got it," Brandon muttered. "Clean strike. Must've taken the rest to its nest and dropped this by accident."
Regulus crossed his arms, puzzled. "Okay… but why would Loki point us to a dead snake? And how did he even see it? We were on the hill, surrounded by trees. There's no way."
Jeanyx didn't answer.
Not at first.
Instead, he crouched, gently shifting Loki to sit on his hip while brushing aside a tangle of branches and dead leaves.
And then Regulus gasped.
Beneath the brush, nestled in a soft bed of moss and dirt, were six snake eggs, smooth white ovals clustered together like sleeping moons.
Jeanyx smirked.
"Because," he said, "he didn't sense the snake. He sensed these."
Regulus blinked. "He… sensed them?"
"Mhm." Jeanyx tapped Loki's little nose. "He has the strongest perception out of all my children. He felt the life inside them."
Brandon let out a low whistle. "Blessed twice over, that one."
Jeanyx huffed. "Try five times over. First the dragon, then the giant squid incident, then the wolf dreams… now this."
Regulus knelt, running a fingertip over the eggs with reverence. "Six eggs," he murmured. "Four for your children. One for you." His brow furrowed. "But that leaves an extra. What do we do with the last—?"
"Regulus," Jeanyx interrupted, deadpan, "it's yours."
Regulus's head snapped up. "Mine?"
"Obviously."
The boy's eyes widened, mouth hanging open for a solid heartbeat. Brandon chuckled behind his beard, amused by his shock.
Jeanyx shrugged casually. "Everyone else already has their companion animal. Sirius got that wolf pup last month. Bellatrix got her raven. Narcissa bonded with that crow five months ago. James demanded—no, begged—for a deer to impress that farmer girl Lily."
Regulus flushed. "He only did that because she said she liked 'calm animals' and James thought showing her a deer made him 'mature.'"
"Exactly," Jeanyx said. "And since everyone else has something… this one's yours."
He tapped the egg cluster. "Fate dropped these in our laps for a reason."
Regulus swallowed, staring at the eggs as if they were made of starlight instead of bone and shell.
"For me?" he whispered.
"For you," Jeanyx confirmed, gently placing Loki beside the cluster so the toddler could pat them proudly. "Shadow and memory magic pair well with serpents. They're observant. Patient. Deadly when they need to be."
Loki gave a delighted squeal and slapped a nearby egg with his chubby hand.
Regulus laughed—soft, breathless, overwhelmed. "Thank you," he murmured. "I… gods, Jeanyx, thank you."
Jeanyx placed a hand on the back of Regulus's neck and squeezed lightly.
"Take care of it," he said quietly. "Raise it right. Teach it well. And in return? It'll be loyal to you until its death."
Brandon straightened, brushing snow from his furs. "Seems the gods smile on us again. Or maybe it's just your damn luck, Jeanyx."
Jeanyx smirked. "Luck? No. Fate likes me. Or hates me. Hard to tell."
Behind them, Loki babbled again—pointing deeper into the trees this time, eyes sharp, sensing something else the others couldn't.
Jeanyx felt a familiar chill crawl down his spine.
"Looks like we're not done today," he murmured.
Regulus stood, clutching one of the eggs close to his chest.
"Should we follow him again?" he asked.
Jeanyx nodded slowly.
"We follow," he said. "Because Loki's never wrong."
And with the snake eggs gathered, the group followed the strange, guiding instinct of a three-year-old who saw more than any of them understood—yet.
They followed Loki deeper into the trees, his tiny arm jutting forward with unwavering certainty. Every few minutes he'd get distracted by a pinecone or a bird or the way Regulus's hair stuck up in the cold, and Jeanyx had to tickle his sides until the toddler shrieked with giggles—then pointed again, happy to lead.
Thirty minutes of trudging through dense forest later, Loki's finger finally stopped drifting. He pointed straight ahead, toward a jagged mouth in the earth—a cave entrance half-hidden by frosted roots and hanging moss.
Brandon squinted. "That cave wasn't there last spring."
"It was," Regulus murmured. "We just never had a reason to look for it."
Jeanyx shifted Loki onto his hip and studied the darkness yawning before them. It swallowed the light between the trees, cold and heavy like an unmoving shadow. He clicked his tongue softly.
"Too dark to walk blind."
With his free hand, he flicked his fingers.
"Accio."
A distant humming answered—metal singing across the air like a ghost recognizing its master. Seconds later, the blasphemous blade burst through the treeline and slapped into Jeanyx's palm with satisfying weight. Brandon nearly toppled over from the shock.
Regulus winced. "I'll never get used to that."
Jeanyx smirked. "Gets me out of carrying it everywhere. Practicality at its finest."
At a thought, he pushed a stream of magic into the blade.
The tendrils lining the sword writhed, pulsing like living veins, and a roar of black-red flame burst along its edge—casting an eerie but welcome light into the cave's throat.
"That thing still gives me nightmares," Brandon muttered.
"Good," Jeanyx said cheerfully. "Means you respect it."
Together, they stepped inside.
The cave air was cold and stale, thick with the scent of old earth and animal musk. Shadows stretched crookedly across the walls, thrown into warped shapes by the flicker of the blade's hellish glow. Loki clung to Jeanyx's collar but wasn't afraid—he was buzzing with excitement, kicking little boots against Jeanyx's ribs as though urging him to hurry.
At first, the cave showed nothing impressive.
Iron ore veins crisscrossed the stone like dark scars.
Animal skeletons—deer, hare, even a fox—lay scattered and brittle.
A few old tools left behind by wanderers, rusted and useless.
Brandon frowned. "What were you sensing, little one? Bones?"
Loki shook his head so vigorously his curls bounced.
"No," Jeanyx murmured, eyes narrowing. "He felt something alive. Or something important."
They walked deeper, the air warming strangely as though the earth was holding its breath.
Then—finally—they reached it.
Regulus was the first to gasp.
A massive wall of glittering copper ore shone beneath the flame, rich and bright and so shockingly abundant that the cave looked like it was lined with molten sunlight frozen in stone.
Brandon's jaw dropped. "By the gods…"
Regulus pressed a hand to the glowing metal. "This… this is enough to forge a hundred villages' worth of tools."
But Jeanyx was utterly still.
For a heartbeat.
Then he let out a breathless laugh—sharp, bright, almost disbelieving. He pulled Loki close and kissed the top of his curly head with uncharacteristic tenderness.
"You brilliant little gremlin," Jeanyx whispered. "You found copper."
Regulus blinked. "You're acting like it's made of dragonbone. Why is copper so important?"
Jeanyx turned to him, eyes gleaming with a rare, fierce excitement.
"Because copper," he said slowly, reverently, "is the last material I need to finish my lightsaber."
Regulus froze. Brandon did too.
Jeanyx ran his fingertips along the copper veins, the firelight painting his face in molten oranges and dark shadows.
"For six years," he murmured, "I've found gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin—even things this world shouldn't have. But not copper. Not one damned piece."
He exhaled shakily.
"And now it's here. In abundance. Right where Loki led us."
He looked at his son again, gripping him firmly but gently.
"You just brought us one step closer to going home," he said, voice thick with something softer than pride. "Closer to finishing what I've been building. Closer to facing everything I left behind."
Loki giggled, patting his father's cheek.
"Coppuh!" he chirped triumphantly.
Jeanyx laughed—a real, uncontrolled laugh that echoed through the cave.
Brandon shook his head in disbelief. "The gods truly favor that boy."
"No," Jeanyx corrected softly, eyes burning with determination and something dangerously close to hope.
"Fate does."
And deep in the earth, copper gleamed like the first spark of a destiny finally waking.