A/N: Lord Arryn returns to the Vale on a most dire mission.

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Under normal circumstances, the Vale's Lord returning after so many years away in King's Landing would be cause for celebration. Certainly there would need to be some sort of ceremony planned, and an announcement at the very least. Someone to say 'Presenting the Lord of the Eyrie, Defender of the Vale, Warden of the East, and Hand of the King'. All those fancy titles.

… As Jon Arryn rides into the Eyrie's outer courtyard, that doesn't happen. The silence is almost deafening while also being incredibly somber. But the Hand of the King is not perturbed by this in any way. After all, he'd been the one to send word ahead on how his arrival was to be treated. This was not the time for celebration, nor the time for festivities or even ceremony.

Dismounting from his horse and handing off the reins to a stable hand, Jon lets out a sigh as Lord Nestor Royce, High Steward of the Vale, steps up and bows his head.

"Lord Arryn, welcome home. The Vale is yours."

Alas, some minor amount of ceremony is impossible to avoid it would seem. Jon is grateful to Nestor for keeping it short at the very least. The other man has proven to be a capable steward of House Arryn's lands in the long, long years that Jon has spent as Hand of the King over in King's Landing. It's been more than two decades now, as a matter of fact. And it's likely he will be expected to remain High Steward for some time more, all things considered.

"Thank you, Lord Royce. I only wish my return were under better circumstances."

Nestor grimaces at that, a shadow crossing his face. Indeed, there are no smiles to be had in the courtyard on this day. Everyone will have heard the news by this point, despite Jon leaving for the Vale within days of the tragedy. Ravens fly faster than man or horse can move, this has been true since time immemorial.

"… Yes my Lord. We were all shocked to hear about the King's death. And the Princes too. Wildfire… truly?"

A shudder runs down Jon's spine. He's never considered himself a particularly weak man. The Vale might not be the greatest of the Seven Kingdoms, and House Arryn might not be the greatest of the Great Houses, but they were not known as particularly feeble or craven either. Not in his lifetime, anyways.

And yet, just thinking of the corpses and the green flames that licked the ground… Jon Arryn shuts his eyes and lowers his head for a moment in remembrance before nodding.

"Yes. The late Mad King apparently put enough wildfire beneath the city to burn the entirety of King's Landing to cinders back at the end of the rebellion. We were fortunate he never managed to make good on those terrible plans but it seems the caches of wildfire lay hidden under the city ever since. Hidden for decades, just waiting for someone to stumble upon them."

Lord Royce is not a particularly weak man either. His silence, therefore, is all the more telling as they both stand there for a moment before Jon continues.

"The excavation efforts were in full swing all across the city when I left. Hopefully by the time I return, most of the wildfire will have been discovered and removal can proceed without further incident."

Of course, that didn't exactly change the fact that Robert and his sons were still dead. Which brought Jon to the reason for this visit. The reason why he'd come here straight from King's Landing mere days after Robert's death, making his way to the Eyrie as fast as possible. Letting out a sigh, Jon gets down to business.

"I'm here for the lad, Nestor. Call for him, please."

The High Steward of the Vale doesn't have to be asked who 'the lad' is. With Jon's own son back in King's Landing still with Lysa, there's only one 'lad' in the entirety of the Vale who he could even be talking about. A somewhat affectionate grin spreads across Lord Royce's face and he ruefully shakes his head.

"He hasn't been a mere lad for some years now, Lord Arryn. A man full and truly grown at this point, I reckon."

… Yes, that was right wasn't it? Doing the numbers in his head for a moment, Arryn is almost startled to realize how old the young man would be now. How time flies…

Of course, Lord Royce isn't a fool. He might not be the most quick-witted man in the Seven Kingdoms, but he does alright. Like a candle being lit, his eyes widen slightly as he suddenly understands why Jon would ask after the young man they're speaking of.

"… I don't understand, my Lord. He wouldn't be next in line for the throne, would he? Shouldn't it go to one of the King's brothers before a bastard?"

Jon just sighs and inclines his head.

"Under normal circumstances, yes. But these aren't normal circumstances. Robert… survived the initial blast of wildfire."

The High Steward's eyes damn near pop out of his skull at that.

"What?! How?!"

Grimacing, Jon's stomach tries to rebel on him as he's reminded of how Robert had looked afterwards. Joffrey and Tommen had been reduced to truly unrecognizable states, but Robert…

"Ser Barristan Selmy is how. From what we were able to piece together, the Princes were at the center of the blast, while the King was a few feet away. The Lord Commander reacted with surprising speed despite his age and endeavored to pull the King behind him in the initial moments as the wildfire started to rage. He… partially succeeded, and the ensuing blast threw Robert through a wall where he was covered in enough rubble to avoid the flames."

For a moment, Lord Royce's eyes are filled with hope. But that's quickly squashed as he realizes how foolish such a thing would be given what he already knows.

"You said he survived the initial blast…"

Jon just nods.

"He was badly burned and the same stone that saved him from being burnt further also crushed his body in multiple places. In the end, he lived for only an hour or so after they managed to retrieve him from the rubble. Just long enough to gain consciousness. Just long enough…"

Here, Jon pauses and sucks in a deep breath before continuing on with a solemn tone.

"Just long enough to tell me he was legitimizing his firstborn bastard son and making him Crown Prince."

There had, of course, been no small amount of shock and surprise over the King's final words when Jon had shared them with the rest of the Small Council. But Stannis wasn't in the city to take issue and Renly had accepted it with his usual easygoing attitude. In the end, it wasn't as though Myrcella Baratheon was going to be taking up her father's mantle.

The moment Jon shared Robert's decree with the others, Axel Stone's legitimization had been completed. He'd become Axel Baratheon, firstborn son of Robert Baratheon… and Heir to the Iron Throne. And since Robert had died shortly after, that meant Axel was the new King of the Seven Kingdoms.

Jon still didn't know who the boy's mother was, even after all these years. That day when he'd walked in on Robert to make sure the man was prepared for his wedding only to find him holding a babe had been etched into Jon's memory for decades now. Where did the child come from? He'd checked with the serving staff and nobody could tell him of any baby being brought to the King's quarters.

Obviously, Jon had done as his King ordered. He'd sent Axel Stone to the Eyrie to be raised by his High Steward and the Castle Staff. Axel Stone had not been told that he was the son of a king or anything like that, but he'd wanted for nothing all the same, Jon had made sure of it on Robert's behalf. The young man had lived a comfortable life.

Meanwhile, Robert hadn't laid eyes on the lad again, not since the day of his wedding. However, when it was just the two of them, the King and his Hand, he would sometimes ask after Axel. Likewise, Jon had been under standing orders to check in on the boy personally whenever he returned to the Eyrie from time to time for special occasions.

Shaking himself out of his reveries, Jon looks to Royce, who seems to be just as contemplative as him at the moment.

"Nestor. The lad if you will. Or rather, Crown Prince Axel Baratheon. Where is he?"

That, much to Jon's dissatisfaction, produces a wince from his High Steward. Fortunately for his sake, the next words out of Nestor's mouth are agreeable ones.

"R-Right! Of course, Lord Arryn. Right this way…"

Frowning, Jon follows after Lord Royce. He'd intended for the other man to send a servant to retrieve Axel for them, perhaps while he rested his old bones after all that hard travel… but in the end, if the young man is close by, it's no bother really.

Except Nestor doesn't lead Jon to Axel. Instead, he leads the Lord of the Eyrie to a small balcony overlooking the majesty of the Vale. On that balcony sits a horn that Jon has never seen before.

"Nestor… what is this?"

Rather than answer him, his High Steward steps forward, takes the horn in hand, and blows into it first. Jon winces at how loud the sound is, even as it carries out across the Vale's numerous mountain peaks. It's… a decent horn, he will admit. But even still, he's growing rather irate at being ignored.

Turning to face him, Lord Royce bows at the waist.

"Sincerest apologies, my Lord. But given the urgency of the situation, I thought it best to send out the message before explaining. You see… young Axel has been ranging more and more frequently in the past few years.

Jon blinks, a sensation like curdling taking over in his gut as his voice falls entirely flat.

"Ranging."

No doubt hearing his liege lord's clear disapproval, the High Steward winces again.

"… As you might recall, Axel has always had a lot of… excess energy."

Grunting, Jon is forced to nod even as he frowns most severely. Yes, every time he'd visited the lad in his earlier years, it had been rather astonishing just how energetic he was. Axel Stone had seemed to have endless, boundless stamina and enthusiasm for just about everything. And he'd only seemed to gain more energy the older he'd become.

Both Nestor and Jon had done their best to instill proper values into the young man, even if he was just a bastard… he'd absorbed their teachings like a fish to water and proven in desperate need of more direction as time went on.

"I did… write about it in my letters, Lord Arryn? I mentioned that Axel had managed to subdue the Mountain Clans, didn't I?"

Wait, what? Jon's head snaps in Nestor's direction, his eyes widening and his nostrils flaring at such mind boggling news.

"Excuse me? When was this?"

Running a hand over his bald skull, the bearded Lord thinks for a second.

"Ah… about three moons past, I would say?"

Three moons… Jon thinks back and finds himself letting out another sigh. The last several months had been quite trying, he had to admit. Even before the tragedy with the wildfire, Jon had been kept extremely busy by his work as Hand of the King. It wasn't easy being Robert's Hand… it never had been, not in all the years and over two decades that he'd served the King in such a position.

He'd meant to get around to it eventually, but every time he'd been planning on going through his backlog of non-critical correspondence, something else had come up, some 'emergency' of some sort. Given Lord Royce's long record of loyal service, Jon was willing to accept that this one was on him.

Indeed, Jon didn't doubt that if he could somehow magically transport himself back to the Tower of the Hand right this moment, he would be able to find the exact letter that Nestor was talking about, sealed and unread even after all this time.

Making sure to keep any true anger out of his voice, Jon waves a hand in the High Steward's direction.

"Explain… please."

"Of course. You see, Lord Arryn… young Axel has been getting quite strong and quite… fast. His capabilities have only grown in the years since you were last able to slip away for a visit. And as such, his capacity for getting into trouble also started to grow."

Nestor sighs, though there's a rueful smile tugging at his lips all the same, like he can't bring himself to be mad.

"No amount of chores or duties or responsibilities could stop him. He's proven time and time again that he can do the work of five men and still be done by midday. Eventually, he asked to be allowed to… explore a little bit. I hoped that doing so might give him perspective… or maybe just tire him out for once."

Dangerous. The thought of the current Heir to the Seven Kingdoms running around the mountainous regions of the Vale, where Mountain Clans and large beasts resided… it sent a shiver down Jon's spine. But to be fair to Nestor, it wasn't like either of them had ever thought that Axel Stone would one day become Axel Baratheon and sit upon the Iron Throne.

"As I said, he managed to terrify the Mountain Clans so badly that they haven't raided us a single time in the past three moons. Nobody is sure exactly what he did to them; how many he had to kill… but there hasn't been even one attack in all this time. When asked, Axel just says that he dealt with them."

That… that didn't make sense. 'Subdued the Mountain Clans' sounded like the sort of fantasy that someone from outside the Vale might write about. Someone who didn't understand what the Mountain Clans were, who hadn't lived a single day in the area.

There were almost a dozen large, distinct clans of First Men living in the Mountains of the Moon to this day. And dozens of smaller ones besides that, though those tended to be constantly dying out only to be replaced by men splitting off from the larger ones.

The Mountain Clans were not a monolith. They weren't just some united force that you could subdue all at once. So what the hell had Axel done? How in the world had he managed to convince the clans to cease their attacks on the lowlands for three entire months?

"Do not worry, Lord Arryn. When I realized just how… flighty Axel was getting, I made a deal with him. If he hears this horn, then he is to come back immediately, no matter what he's doing."

Looking at the horn somewhat askance, Jon then stares out from the balcony at the rest of the Vale stretched out in front of them. These are his lands, the lands of House Arryn, and Jon has never felt anything but pride and satisfaction gazing out at them from the Eyrie before. This was the first time where he looked out at the amazing vista… and felt nothing but unease.

"… What if he's too far away to hear it, Nestor?"

The High Steward of the Vale is quiet for a moment before shaking his head.

"He's always answered the call, my Lord. Frankly… I'm not sure he CAN be too far away so long as he remains within the Vale's boundaries."

Jon shoots Nestor a look at that, frowning at the utter confidence in the other man's voice. Despite the incredibly outlandish things that his steward has already told him so far… somehow it feels like Nestor still hasn't told him EVERYTHING.

But in the end, the only thing that mattered was retrieving Axel and taking him back to King's Landing. Nothing else was more important at this point.

Which begged the question… where the hell was the Heir to the Seven Kingdoms right now, and what the hell is he doing?

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A/N: Poor Jon Arryn. He's already gray haired, he doesn't need to have it start falling out from the stress!

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