8 Silver skies

Robb dives into the water holding onto the ropes that control the Air Bubble's pulleys. The boy has been diving for almost two years and has a lot of training holding his breath so he doesn't have to use the Air Bubble as much.

Robb can hold his breath for up to 5 minutes, which allows him to go deep underwater before having to use the Air Bubble, but the boy decides to use it as soon as he gets into the water to check that everything is working as it should.

He blocks the pulley stopping the Air Bubble from sinking and descends to its bottom, opens the hatch and sticks his head in it taking a deep breath.

He closes the hatch and goes back down. Robb has to use the Air Bubble once before reaching the tunnel. He blocks the pulley system and approaches the tunnel, the first thing he notices as he approaches is the temperature change in the water. The pond is as cold as ice, although it does not freeze even in the coldest winters for some reason, but as he approaches the tunnel the temperature of the water increases a lot. By the time he reaches the tunnel Robb feels as if he is in a hot spring, the temperature of the water is so great that many men couldn't have standed it.

Robb thanks the gods for having given him a body more resistant to temperatures, unlike many in the North Robb never complained about the cold because it never bothered him, not even in the middle of winter. The heat doesn't bother him that much either, something he seems to have inherited from his mother as both Jon and his father are very sensitive to hot temperatures. Neither of them can stand being in the hot springs for long, and there are pools that are so hot that the two of them don't even dare to touch.

Robb touches the shiny silver wall of the tunnel and feels that this is where the heat is coming from. The silver stone is hotter than fire and even Robb can't bear to touch it directly for long. He withdraws his hand and sees the slight reddening of the skin that in a few moments returns to its natural pale color.

The boy returns to the entrance of the tunnel and ascends a few meters to where the Air Bubble is. He doesn't go up to the side of his invention, where the ropes that control the pulleys are, but he goes under it and pulls out some objects that are secured with a fishing net. Robb attached these objects at the bottom of the sphere and after taking another breath he climbs up to where the ropes are. He lowers the sphere until it is next to the tunnel and pushes it into the tunnel.

The Heir to the North watches as the sphere slides on the wheels he has just attached to it. The wheels are on a half-meter-high iron frame, allowing Robb to access the bottom of the sphere where the hatch is.

After disconnecting the sphere from its chains, removing the weights, and removing his harness Robb pushes it forward. The sphere slides over the tunnel and Robb moves forward into the unknown. After advancing through the glowing tunnel for about fifty meters the tunnel begins to curve to one side and downward. Robb no longer has to push the sphere because gravity does its thing but seeing the sphere advance faster and faster the boy begins to worry because he knows that he is not strong enough to stop its descent and letting go of it will mean his death since he is too far from the surface.

Robb has no choice but to hold on to the sphere as it descends through the tunnel that is changing direction every few feet.

'Why did I think this is a good idea?' He wonders as he grips tightly onto the sphere, the speed increasing so much that he has a hard time holding on. To his disbelief he feels something, a current, pushing him and the Air Bubble even faster. `Where did this current come from?!`

They move so fast that Robb can't get to the hatch to get a breath of air. A sudden change in direction causes Robb to involuntarily release what little air was left in his lungs.

Robb lost grip of the sphere that descended faster than him through the tunnel, he saw it further and further away but his attention was not focused on it but on the burning in his chest. He tried to cover his mouth so as not to inhale the almost boiling water but it was useless, he began to lose the little strength he had left and instinctively opened his mouth to inhale the non-existent air. Water entered his mouth and nose, it reached his stomach and lungs, he felt like the hot water ran down his esophagus and felt like vomiting.

He wasn't breathing and he had swallowed a lot of water, a fear like no other runs through every fiber of his being. A fierce fear that consumed everything, a fear that paralyzed his body and made him want to scream. But Robb realized that what he feared was not death, to his surprise dying did not scare him, what scared him was dying before reaching his goals.Dying without having achieved anything terrified him more than anything. Robb feared dying as a nobody, he didn't want his legacy to be two lines from a history book about the Starks.

And then he felt a sense of weightlessness, like the few moments between jumping into the air and falling to the ground. Robb saw a strong light, an intense silver-white light, above him was a silvery sky.

Absent-mindedly he also realized that he was no longer underwater, he was floating in the air. And within moments of realizing that the magic of the moment seemed to break and Robb began to fall.

As he fell he saw the water from the tunnel cascade down into a small crystal clear lake. A lake that was getting closer. Around the lake he saw a green forest, and in the distance a tree that dwarfs all others, that was the last thing he saw before crashing into the water.

Somehow Robb didn't break any bones hitting the water, he just felt a strange burning sensation all over his body. The boy, who regained some of his strength, kicked his feet to swim to the surface of the lake. He emerged from the water coughing up water, and to his apprehensiveness, blood. The blood disappeared into the water so fast that Robb wondered if he really had seen it or if it was just his tired mind playing a trick on him.

Some distance away on the shore of the lake he saw his Air Bubble and the boy swam towards it. Upon reaching dry land he lay down on the grassy ground and gazed up at the silvery sky.

Robb Stark lay gasping for air.

"Where am I? Is this even the same world?" The puppy wonders before falling asleep, the adventure took all the strength out of him.

**

In his entire life, Jon Snow had never been so distraught.

Jon lives in one of the largest castles in the world, Winterfell has a thousand hidden secrets and every day is an adventure as he tries to find them. His father loves him and cares for him a lot, playing with him whenever he has free time and telling him stories about their ancestors.

His siblings are great! Robb is his best friend and closest companion, Sansa is the little princess of the family, kind and delicate, and Arya is a puppy full of energy and curiosity. Jon loves all of them, and they love him.

But he knows that he is different from them. They are not siblings, but half siblings. Lady Stark was very clear on that point. Jon still remembered that day almost two years ago when he learned what the word 'bastard' meant. It had been a quiet night, but Jon's dreams were anything but, that night he dreamed of huge ice spiders chasing him through an endless forest. He woke up terrified and ran out of his room, looking for his father.

He saw Caitlyn Stark come out of Robb's room and jumped into her arms. Crying, Jon hugged her waist and said:

"Mama, I'm scared! The spiders were chasing me!"

Lady Stark released his little arms from her waist and pushed him away, then looked at him coldly.

"I am not your mother and you are not my son. You are my husband's bastard, the son he had with some whore and I am forced to live with." The icy words brought more tears to his eyes.

Before Lady Stark could continue speaking, Robb's door opened and the boy came out still half asleep, one hand rubbing his eye.

"What is this ruckus?" He asked yawning. Seeing his brother crying and his mother red-faced with anger, Robb quickly woke up.

"What happened Jon? Have you had a nightmare?" He asks in a soft voice, Jon couldn't answer as he was still in shock. Robb took him by the hand and led him into his room.

"The bastard can sleep alone, Robb. You shouldn't bother with-"

"Goodnight mother." Robb slammed the door in her face. The heir quickly locks the door and ignores his mother's screams. He then turns his attention to his still crying brother and leads him to where he has a bowl full of water. He gently wipes away his tears as he talks about this and that, distracting Jon.

By the time he finished Jon wasn't crying anymore but his eyes were red and his lower lip was trembling. Robb recognized those signs and knew that if he did not distract Jon he would cry again.

"Jon, did I ever read you the story of Cregan Stark, the old Man of the North?" Jon shakes his head.

"Get under the covers while I find the book."

That night Robb read to him until he fell asleep, and the next day when he asked what the word bastard meant, Robb answered honestly.

"Children born to people who are not married are called bastards."

Jon asked in a shy voice why Lady Stark treats him so coldly. A strange look came over Robb's face, a look hard and cold as ice, that expression quickly changed into the soft expression that Robb only shows to his little siblings.

"Because she's stupid." He says it with such brutality that he gets a laugh out of Jon. "Mother follows foolish gods who say foolish things. Ignore her Jon, remember this: a wolf is always a wolf, no matter what color his fur is."

Robb always protected and defended him, despite being almost the same age Robb is his older brother, whom he admires and respects even more than his father.

When he was woken up by the frantic servants who were looking for Robb on the orders of his Lady mother, Jon was amused to think that Robb had sneaked again to the library to read on the sly.

`He loves books more than a drunkard loves wine,` he thought smiling.

Jon went to look for him there and then to the Wolfs Den but didn't find him, he looked in Robb's other hiding places but didn't see a trace of him. The last place he looked was the Godswood, he walked through the trees thinking that his brother spent the night reading or designing some of his crazy inventions sitting on a branch of the Heart tree, it wouldn't be the first time.

When he got to the clearing he saw something very strange, chains and ropes tied to various trees, all leading to the pool of dark waters.

Jon felt his blood run cold in his veins.

He couldn't move, he could hardly breathe. His gaze is fixed on the black waters, on the ropes and chains. A pain like no other ran through his chest and he whispered the name of his brother.

"Robb."

Then he heard a piercing scream echo through the clearing, a howl of pain and despair. As he fell to his knees and felt the sting in his throat he realized that he was the one who screamed but he didn't care, nothing mattered.

Jon Snow stayed on his knees in front of the pond with a lost look.

There he was found by the guards and then by Lady Stark, who fell to her knees beside him realizing the same thing:

Robb was gone.

**

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