fic: Hand of the Crow

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So as I was trolling around the fairly limited ASoIaF fandom this morning looking for some place to self-promote, I finally read and remembered that not only does Martin not condone fiction for his series, but that his drooling - and evidently masochistic, given the long spaces between his books - fandom generally hates fan fiction as well. So, here in all its solitary glory is my poor, rejected-by-fandom yuletide story.

Fandom: George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice & Fire
Pairing: Jon Snow/Jaime Lannister
Summary: With his sister imprisoned and his honor still worthless as ever, Jaime Lannister is almost relieved to head north to the Wall.
Note: Written for spifftastic in Yuletide 2006, who said Jaime: with anyone but Cersei. opprobrium single-handedly guided me through this one.


A few nights' march beyond the Wall, Jaime Lannister found he was as grateful for his coarse brush of a beard as he was for the shaggy little garron the Night's Watch had forced upon him. They'd shaken their heads at his palfrey Honor, and outright laughed at the grey destrier Glory. But the shaggy garron, barely larger than a dog and named Poke Eye for his one gluey blind blue eye, kept him upright and onward through the cold and the twisting roots and the icy, knee-deep snow. Without Poke Eye, Jaime was certain he'd have lost himself in the eternal dark wilderness three times over, regardless of the company of southron knights, black brothers and flame-worshipping kingsmen he rode with. Beyond the Wall, every man rode alone to some extent.

Lord Snow seemed to live by that fact, always riding at the head of the ill-formed column, close-mouthed and far-eyed, his damn eerie direwolf either beside him or reappearing from the underbrush when you least expected it. Red eyes, red mouth, fur glowing white under the shadows of the great sentinel pines. Compared to the near-invisible dark uniforms of the crows, Jaime expected he himself had much the same effect, in his spotless cloak of Kingsguard white, and the gilded, frosty plate that he now wore almost every waking moment.

Jaime nudged Poke Eye into a livelier shuffle, and rode past the majority of the column to join Snow in the van. The boy didn't wear much to differentiate himself from his crow brothers: ringmail, plate, black leather and black wool, the bastard Valyrian blade and the faint scars where Jaime had heard tell an eagle skinchanger had tried to rip out his eyes. Snow carried his own torch, a burden he had ordered on every man in the company, ranger or knight, brooking no argument and citing old wives' tales of Others and wights as indisputable proof of the correctness of his strategy.

Such monsters were lurking between the trees even now, Jaime did not doubt. Though he would not openly mock the men he rode with, he could not help but jest at the lack of proof of such murderous creatures. So far the long, freezing night marches had yielded little to convince him of any peculiar dangers past frostbite or the occasional turned ankle. At most, they might accidentally set alight a stray branch or two with their few hundred torches, filing as they were between the rising trees.

“My Lord Snow,” Jaime drew reign to fall in apace with the boy commander, “Do not look so desolate. The night is young, I have faith we may catch wind of your snarks and grumkins yet.” He affected a cheery sneer. Jon Snow still remembered the arrogant lordling who'd strode into Winterfell's Great Hall in green velvet and golden curls, and Jaime did not care to disillusion him with the crippled, bitter man he'd become. Mostly, Jaime found it easier to play-act at being himself: the boy who'd slit a king's throat then warmed his throne was dead, but the taunting words still came as easily as they had then.

“My Lord is too optimistic,” Snow returned flatly, no trace of courtliness in his voice despite the candied words.

Jaime shrugged, “I thought to ask permission to lead off a small hunting party at dawn, two or three of my most able. A doe or two for supper would not go amiss among the men.”

“This is not the kingswood, ser.” Snow returned, “ You'll not find game easy to come by.”

“You'll not find game at all,” put in one of the black brothers.

“Go far enough, you'll find yourself the game, and something else the hunting party,” said another, to uneasy chuckles.

“Your creature there seems to find his dinner easy enough.” Jaime pointed out, as even now the wolf had a muzzle browned with gore, “Or is it just squirrels and crows he catches?”

“Ghost ranges farther and faster than any saddled garron.” Snow responded, “And in winter, not even a direwolf turns his nose up to squirrel.”

“I suppose I shall resign myself to porridge and biscuits, then,” sighed Jaime. “And such rodents as make themselves available.”

Snow did not seem particularly amused, or even annoyed. He rode on in silence, his standard response to Jaime's shows of foppery. At Castle Black, their interactions had been similarly strained, despite the show of gratitude, performed as required upon Jaime's arrival under banner and trumpet. He'd brought a host of fresh recruits for the Wall, along with his own collection of squires and knights, representative of King Tommen's royal pledge of support to the Night's Watch against the newborn winter.

It had been Margaery Tyrell, freshly released from the gaols of the High Septon, re-crowned, and returned to maidenhood, who had insisted upon sending the force. Jaime had been unable to ignore the changes in the court with Cersei's imprisonment: Tommen sat the Iron Throne and attended every meeting of the Small Council; and Margaery attended as well, voicing her opinions and questions in a high, clear voice that seldom met with argument, but always paused to hear counsel. Lords and ladies returned in full force to attend upon the royal couple, petitioners were heard regularly, even the smallfolk around the city seemed less suspicious, less angry, as the boy king and his rose wife made their smiling appearances.

The zealous spectacle of the fornication trials had been all but quashed, and King's Landing had settled down into the steady run of wartime economy, even as news of the approaching snow rushed southwards. There would be problems enough as the kingdom starved and the ironmen continued their raiding - or conquering, as he'd heard tell - but Jaime was relieved to see his son unpoisoned by Lannister plotting, and his puppet regency managed by capable hands.

He'd gone to visit Cersei in her cell. He'd worn his golden hand and his white cloak. Her trial before the septas and septons was going poorly. Margaery had suggested, soberly and with much tact, that perhaps Cersei would be best served if she volunteered to join the Silent Sisters. But Cersei wanted trial by combat.

“You are the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. It is your duty, I am your queen. Protect me, Jaime. Fight for me!” Her face through the door's square window was pale, and there were lines around her eyes. She'd aged, and her chin wobbled even as her eyes sparked that old green fire.

Jaime could only laugh, his voice echoing hoarsely down the stone halls. No doubt they were listening, waiting to bring forward yet more accusations. They could not expose Tommen as illegitimate, though, not even revenge would persuade the Tyrells to risk their new grip on the throne. “You are not queen any longer, sweet sister. Had you forgotten? You killed the man who married you and made you queen.”

“You call me kingslayer?” she laughed, her voice shivering high and panicked through the tiny cell. It smelled of shit and fear.

“I call you whore.” Jaime said, and repeated, by rote: “Lancel, Osmund Kettleback, and Moon Boy for all I know.”

“Cripple,” she hissed. “Half-man. You expected to keep me with that stump of yours? I fucked Osney Kettleblack, Aurane Waters... or I would've, little Ser Loras...” she was crying, though she didn't seem aware of it. She rallied, her eyes red, her voice thick and quiet, “I fucked half the court while you were in Riverrun. When you came back with that stump, I knew you were no man, anymore. No lion! No Lannister.”

He looked, but could see nothing left of himself in her. “Perhaps not.” Jaime turned to go.

She screamed, rage and madness rising out of her with an animal sound, a roar as she slammed against the cell door, ripping out her hair and clawing at her face. “I was the son he wanted!” she shrieked, “I was a better king than any of them!”

Jaime Lannister left his mad lover in her cell. When he met with Margaery again, she had him sit on a cushioned chair in her solar, and offered tea. To prevent accusations against him - and to prevent his standing champion for the ruined lioness - the rose queen offered a royal errand. “To protect the King, we must protect the Kingdoms,” she smiled a gentle young smile, and Jaime knew she meant him not to return. Whether the wolves, the Others or Stannis Baratheon claimed his hide, the title of Lord Commander would come open in time for Ser Loras' recovery from his wounds on Dragonstone. And that was something else she offered: dragonglass. As much as they'd found on the island, just as the crows had requested. “With the King's best wishes,” she'd dismissed him, but not before he caught her hand with his golden one and kissed it, just to see her shudder.

But he was the one shuddering in his furs every morning, as the column halted and slept through the short daylight hours. The skies held a flawless blue above the treetops, and the air seemed to sharpen with cold in the open clearings where they built their camps. Lord Snow kept perpetual bonfires burning, and the men huddled around those, but it was not enough.

At Castle Black, Jaime had excused his young squires and any knights with family or obligations from service. Only those who volunteered marched into the wilderness. Snow had made it clear enough that he intended a force large enough to defend itself but quick enough to avoid attack in the first place. The veteran crows muttered tales to the recruits about the slaughter on the Fist of the First Men, or the lone wight that traversed the Wall to strangle the old Lord Commander in his sleep. Jaime made sure to listen and call sly comments through the cracks of each re-telling, though his efforts earned him nothing but silence when it came to Snow's full plans for the expedition. All his orders came second hand, and as for reasoning, he heard only rumours. According to the men, Snow wanted to mount another search for Benjen Stark; or he had learned the Others' dark secret, and was set to launch a final offensive against them; some said he would comb the woods for his lost wildling lover; or that he had become a feral warg and was under the command of the white direwolf. Some explanations were better than others, but Jaime never received clarification, no matter how he hedged and hinted.

Despite the mystery, or perhaps because of it, the contingent of knights who gave their service freely was large enough to prevent any embarrassment on King Tommen's part. But once immersed in the cold beyond the Wall, Jaime found that he dearly regretted the loss of his squires Peck and Paege, who would've warmed his furs nicely.

And chastely. It was still Cersei who had him wide-eyed, stiff and sweating, in the shadow of his tent in the middle of the afternoon with no one else awake but the vigilant watch. His loyalty - or was it simple lack of imagination? - horrified him, and before he'd let himself go back to sleep, he'd march through a series of lewd images: him taking a sweaty and dexterous Margaery Tyrell in the kitchens of King's Landing while the servants bustled around and a royal ball whirled in the great hall above. The wildling princess Val, alone and cold in her tower, yet moist and ready when he came to rescue and rape her all at once. Red Melisandre, pleasuring herself with the hilt of Stannis' firey magic sword in the baths at Castle Black. That was just it, though: no woman compared to Cersei, the fantasies were almost a punishment, and before long his mind would fog over, gentle to satisfying wanders back through old battles, dreams about tourneys and the weight of live steel in his good right hand. The Goat may as well have cut off his manhood along with the hand, for all the good either would do him now.

The evening after his hunting request, Jaime woke late to a camp stained red with sunset. Rangers dismantled tents, lit torches and doused the bonfires in preparation to march. He broke his fast with a trencher of bread and rabbit stew, and had only just tracked down Poke Eye when a commotion broke out at the far edge of the picket-line: the horses tossed at their tethers and the stewards responsible for them raised a shout. Jaime came forward to see Lord Snow, sword bare and raised, stumbling through the underbrush backwards, followed by his silently snarling wolf and looking for all the world like he was about to collapse.

There were men in the woods, following him with steady steps. Men in dark and ragged furs, men with blue fire burning in their eyes, and mortal wounds on their bodies. Jaime spent a long moment in shock: these were not the glorified half-men he'd been expecting, perhaps a particularly vulgar tribe of wildlings or a pack of mercenaries from Lys who drank special potions to dye the whites of their eyes. The wights drew closer - and he thanked the gods that they were wights, as he could tell by the tales alone that these were not the Others - and he went forward with his sword in hand, as a sentry sounded the horn and rest of the camp broke out in confusion and scrambling.

Snow had lost his torch, and his Valyrian steel gleamed dirty in the red light. Jaime fought his way through the knee-high drifts, watching the creatures emerge in tattered ranks out of the trees, and saw the foremost of them came within range of the boy.

The thing - clothed in wildling furs and rusted mail, face mangled - brought down its bronze blade with frightening strength, an overhead blow that Snow stopped only by virtue of his superior weapon. The boy shuddered down to one knee: he looked exhausted. Jaime could see that his mouth and eyes were rimed with frost and his black cloak was crusted white with ice. He looked as if he'd spent the day breaking trails through the trees, rather than sleeping off the long night's march.

Snow's arms shook with effort. The wight withdrew to heave another blow, and Jaime was finally close enough to swing his longsword underhanded and catch it in the belly. It fell back a step, and reoriented itself to face Jaime, whose only advantage lay in that the beast obviously practiced no fine swordsmanship, and would come at him with only the strength of the dead as armor.

The direwolf got to it first, though: as big as one of the garrons, Ghost took down the wight from behind, getting its head between his jaws and shaking until Jaime heard flesh rip and bone crack. It didn't stop moving, but the wolf dropped the pieces into the snow once the head had torn clean off and the sword arm was mangled to pulp. By then, the rest of the dead army was upon them, and the noise had drawn enough men with torches to form a decent barricade between forest and camp.

Jaime turned to meet them, his left hand stiff and awkward, and his blood rising with fear not only for his life - what looked to be a half-grown giant was staggering towards them, dragging a rotted log for a club - but for his honor. No man save Ser Ilyn had seen him lift a sword since Vargo Hoat had maimed him, and he could taste the humiliation of defeat, a hundred times worse than death. He raised his sword against the giant, determined to kill it, or let it kill him, before the extent of his helplessness was revealed.

“Turn back and shelter Lord Snow, Ser” Cold Geremy, all in black and with a grim smile playing about his face, paused at his side, even as half a dozen kingsmen bearing torches rushed the giant. “Only the fire will stop them - you may as well be an unarmed babe.”

Jaime nodded, quashing his relief and shame, and put his good arm under Snow, leading him back to the dismantled field of tents and trampled snow. The boy was dazed and silent, ungodly weak for all his appearance of being unharmed. Jaime set him down by the remaining fire, and ladled stew from the abandoned cookpot, more for the warmth than anything. The line of men was holding against the few dozen wights as he looked back. Against all natural instinct, no man panicked and there did not appear to be so endless a number as there had first seemed. The creatures blazed orange in the gathering darkness as the men set them alight, the white direwolf slipping amongst them. Jaime Lannister watched, and knew himself for a coward.

“I saw Summer,” muttered Snow, slumped and heavy-headed on the ground.

“You're a lucky bastard, then, aren't you?” Jaime propped Snow up against a pile of half-filled saddlebags, ladled more soup into him, looked back to what he could see of the battle. “You go running off into the woods to see summer, and in return we have all the seven hells' fury called down upon us.”

Snow opened his dark grey eyes and focused them on Jaime, “My brother Bran. Brandon Stark.”

“The little cripple. I remember.” Jaime could hear the shouts of the men, the crackle of the burning wights. He stood with his back to the bonfire, facing both Snow and the skirmish, but having eyes only for one. “That sour-faced Greyjoy tarred and mounted him, no? Before he burned Winterfell down to the crypt it sat on.”

“He's beyond the wall,” said Snow. His eyes were still open, but vacant, as Jaime turned his gaze to the boy commander.

“Yes,” agreed Jaime, grinning viciously, “I'm sure the men are burning him as we speak. The little crippled wight, who drags himself around by his hands through the snow, and who scrapes into camp quiet as a snake to lock his teeth on your throat in the dead of night.”

Snow's listless gaze sharpened to a disturbing recognition, and his voice was quiet and full of hate as he murmured, “Aren't you the cripple now, Kingslayer?”

Jaime choked on his laughter, looked down at the boy with the scars around his eyes and the black trappings of courage and sacrifice upon him. He took a breath, to calm himself. Then he hit Snow hard across the face with the back of his frozen golden hand, a blow one might give to an errant servant or sharp-tongued woman, if one was that kind of man. Jaime Lannister had always hoped he wasn't. And so he'd learned two things about himself that night.

Snow lay his head back on the baggage, smirking bloodily. Jaime left him, and went to meet and spread good will among the staggering men as they made their way back into camp.

Stewards reconstructed the camp around him as the injured - including Snow - were tended to, and the men aligned themselves in preparation for further attacks. The bonfires were rekindled in the darkness, the watch quadrupled, and men assigned to burn the bodies of the dead before they rose of their own accord. No man returned to his tent. Jaime took a place by the fire with his own King's Landing knights. They had grim tales to tell of Ser Velibor's crushed chest - the creature's blade could not cut through mail, but it could break ribs and bones enough through sheer strength - and of Tomas Lasterby's shoulder - eaten through at the plate joint by a dead woman in rags after he'd taken a debilitating cut to the leg. There had been fatalities, many injuries. In Jaime's presence, no one discussed turning back, but the silences were guilty.

A runner came to fetch Jaime, and lead him back to Snow's tent. Stannis Baratheon's chosen man, Otho Hargreave, was already seated on a stool by the brazier, and draped with furs the same grey-shot brown as his square-jawed beard. He did not rise, but allowed a bare tilt of his chin when Jaime entered. Snow looked to be in better condition than he'd been left in, but the florid bruise spreading out from his cheekbone shamed Jaime in a way he did not care to examine. Now he did not have Cersei to blame for his flaws, he saw himself clearer and clearer.

“My lords,” said Jaime, seating himself and accepting a cup of mulled wine from the steward, a boy just barely older than Snow.

Snow's grey eyes did not look to him, but past through the crack in the tent flap, to the chill blue of the strengthening dawn. “Lord Hargreave tells me his men shan't continue on without immediate explanations as to our strategy.” the faint mockery in Snow's tone did not show on his face. “Where do King Tommen's knights stand, Ser Lannister?”

“They stand ready to their duty, as always,” Jaime saw where this was headed immediately. “What would be required then, I would think, is a clearer picture of in which direction that duty lies.”

“North, if they consider their kingdoms their duty. South if their respective kings come first,”

“So you say to the Lord Commander of a usurper's Kingsguard,” drawled Hargreave. “I am sure he would love the excuse to turn tail south, if you gave it to him under a white cloak of false honor.”

Snow's tone sharpened, “I say so to the both of you, who could not agree on the colour of a raven, elsewise. You would leave just as quickly, my lord Hargreave. In fact, your threats to do just that are the reason we sit here dickering, instead of riding on.”

Hargreave straightened on his stool, mail clinking beneath the fox fur blanket. He turned to look Jaime in the eye. “I say to you, kingsman to kingsman, that this boy commander knows not where we ride, nor wherefore. I will do my duty by the Wall and by the north, but I will not lead King Stannis' sworn men straight into the Northern Sea on the sole merit of a boy's vague posturings!” He spit out the last word, and shrugged off the furs. His own wine sat untouched on the canvas floor, but his face burned red.

“Lord Snow,” inserted Jaime, as amicable as plum pudding, “You must admit that you've given us very little intelligence regarding your aims, here. I've heard a half dozen reasons for this venture, none of which stand to closer scrutiny. What are we to think?”

Snow stared at them both, cold as any Stark of Winterfell, and lacking none of their arrogant self-righteousness. “This war will not be won without the support of the southron kings,” he stated, finally. “We will turn back with naught to show for our injuries and efforts, if that is the cost you both require.” He met both sets of eyes in turn. “We'll leave immediately. Perhaps if we ride fast enough we'll outrun the Others, and your royal knights will be spared the vagueness of their blades.”

Jaime had not been expecting so easy a victory. And in truth, he was not even sure he had won what he wanted. Snow did not look particularly disappointed, but then, he had given up none of his secrets. Jaime gave a short nod, and exited behind Hargreave.

“That boy is as fickle as he is young,” Hargreave shook his great head, evidently as unsatisfied.

“Agreed, the bastard should be pressing our smallclothes, not trying to order us about like so many page boys. However,” Jaime shrugged, and gestured at the woods and the scattered ashes of the burnt up wights with his golden hand. “Strange times.”

Hargreave gave him a look that conveyed all his dark opinions concerning that sort of strangeness, and turned on his way.

After so many nights in darkness, it was an adjustment to be awake and about in daylight hours, brief as they were. They rode through the lingering dawn, the sun not fully showing itself above the treetops until noon, and receding again immediately after. Every branch, every bare limb upon every bush was coated with snow and then covered again in translucent, glittering hoarfrost, till the world was shade upon shade of white. Even the shadows kept to a meek silver-grey. The cold seemed to snap in the air, descending upon them with a ghostly touch as the western skyline blushed the meekest of pinks, and Snow ordered torches broken out for the rest of the men as darkness returned once again.

Jaime accepted his torch, wrapping it with twine about his golden hand, and lifting the heavy combination with resignation. Poke Eye shivered under him, and snorted as the first of the creatures stepped out of the deepening shadows to his immediate right.

With a hoarse shout, and trying to manage the garron's reigns with his one good hand, Jaime called alert the rest of the scattered and resting column.

The Other was cloaked and hooded, its face bone-pale and gaunt as a skull's under the myriad slipping shadows that garbed it. Jaime's garron screamed and bucked, kicking a pack mule in the ribs, and causing a general uproar among the train. Men scrambled off and onto their horses as their training saw fit, some lining up for a charge and others retreating back as far as they could from the solitary apparition, fumbling with bow strings or flint and striker.

Still, the Other's hooded face trained on Jaime, and he saw the cold blue eyes fixed deep within the tangle of shadows. He drew his sword left-handed, and used Poke Eye's frantic momentum to take a swing at the creature. He missed, or he hit to no effect, he couldn't tell, and as the pony turned in a mad circle, screaming, the Other raised its own fragile-looking blade.

“Dragonglass!” came the roar from the black-garbed men, “Use your thrice-damned dragonglass, you southron sods!” An arrow came through the air, twitching within Jaime's hearing, and the Other faltered.

And then they noticed the rest of them: a good dozen, stepping out of the darkness on every side, blue eyes brighter and brighter in the pooling night. Jaime yanked viciously on the reigns, pulling Poke Eye's head back and back till he could see the whites of the garron's rolling eyes, and with his position thus secured, dropped his sword and reached into his saddlebags for the slender, brittle dagger he'd been supplied with.

There was a wolf howling somewhere, he could feel the beast's rising treble in his bones. He turned to the first Other, dagger raised in his gloved fist. But either the arrow had destroyed it, or it had retreated to recoup, because there was no hellish cold fiend waiting for Jaime's strike. He squinted deeper into the trees, through the geometric tangle of frost-coated branches, and saw movement. He near fell off Poke Eye dismounting, and slipped further into the shadow, away from the struggle of orange torchlight and the shouted orders of rangers and knights.

Between the pines, he saw Jon Snow scrambling through the underbrush, up the sheared faces of bared bedrock, using roots and tangled branches as handholds. The white direwolf stood higher up, tail low and ears pricked. Jaime could still hear the howling, but Ghost was not making a sound. Snow climbed like a squirrel, fast and nimble. Jaime followed with less grace, torch abandoned and dagger in hand.

Snow still had a bit of the wildling in him, cutting through the trees in delicate turns that ducked through sentinel pines and leaving not so much as a waving branch in his trail. Jaime struggled to keep him in sight, with the wolf ranging farther and farther ahead and Snow soldiering on - on all fours where necessary - straight up the steepening sides of the river valley the company had been following.

They reached the summit of the ridge, where it curved away to the southeast, and Jaime looked behind and down to see nothing but the faint glow of torches. There was no way to tell how the battle went, or if it was already over, and here he found himself a coward again. Jaime straightened in the wind and looked after Snow, resolved to bring him back to the men - roll him down the valley walls, if necessary - and hold him to task for whatever deaths his lack of leadership had wrought. If Jaime Lannister stood a coward as well as a cripple, then Snow would be judged far worse for this flight.

But there the boy stood, a few lengths off, looking down upon the scene as well. His darkened face betrayed nothing, but he voiced his anguish and fury plainly: “Lions have no place in these mountains, Lannister.”

“And you name yourself wolf, then?” Jaime stepped closer. “You shame Winterfell to do so, coward. You abandoned your men to the Others.”

“I can name myself neither crow nor wolf,” muttered Snow. “Not rightly.” His hand fell on his hilt, and Jaime was abruptly reminded of his own dropped and forgotten sword. He still gripped the dragonglass dagger, but it was laughable to consider it against steel, let alone a Valyrian blade. Snow's eyes remained steady. “Why do you follow me?”

“Why do you flee?” Jaime returned, words sharp in the night wind. He could barely make the boy out in the darkness, as whatever light there was reflected off the snow in blue shadows.

Snow did not answer, but tilted his head and raked his hair back as the howling started up again, and looked to the eastern ridges, where it echoed and bounced off cliffs and crags. Jaime could imagine the same keen distant look in his eyes as when he had pulled the boy commander off the field of battle. The image drew up a memory, and he stepped closer to Snow, heedless of the boy's weapon: “And where were you coming from, last night at sunset? You dragged yourself into camp lame as a broken horse. Where do you run off to, Snow?”

Snow gave a smile, tight around the corners. “Shall you come and find out?”

“And abandon those men? I think not. You are no true Lord Commander, to go haring off at the first sign of battle, saving your bastard's skin at their expense-”

Snow cut him off. “Lannister, if you think it is any safer to be out here alone in the trees, you are sore mistaken. I am not hiding to save myself any more than you are here to act the nagging fish wife. If you are here to take me back, then do so. If not-” with an eloquent wave, he suggested a return route straight down the valley wall, and turned east.

Jaime, dragonglass in hand, yearned dearly to grab a handful of the boy's hair and hold the fragile, invaluable edge to his soft throat, make him gurgle out a more satisfying explanation. But to do so would require two hands, and a set of archers or pikemen to take down the direwolf. He severely doubted that even with his sword he could best a strong young ranger, a man bred to the fatigue and fierce climate, with two functioning hands and an icicle in place of his manhood.

He called out as Snow started down the decline, his voice echoing and struggling to be heard over the wind and the infernal, unceasing howling: “Will you truly leave them to think you dead? Did Stark honor die with Winterfell?” He took a few steps after him, and tried again, voice pitched to fury: “What madness claims you, Jon Snow?”

Guilt turned to meet his gaze, and resolution, too. “You were right to have them turn back.” Snow called up, his cloak whipping and tangling in the bare shrubs. “Just as I am right to leave them. In this case, Lannister, we both have the best intentions.”

Jaime knew then what would happen then as truly as if he'd already lived it: a return to the company, where the men would be recovering from the strange battle, tending to the dead and wounded, frightened to the core and in need of much reassurance. Jaime would not be the one to give it to them, as the black brothers voiced accusations and made unsubtle threats regarding what would be seen as Snow's murder. Weeks and months would pass with frequent rangings sent out to search for Snow, or Snow's body, and whether the boy ever returned or not, Jaime Lannister's honor would be laid lower than horse shit once more, and when he died - sooner rather than later, in the north or in the south or somewhere on the journey in between in a grave as shallow as Cleos Frey's - he'd go down in the White Book not only as Kingslayer, but as the man who betrayed the Seven Kingdoms to the Others and the dark north.

He set after Snow without so much as a muttered curse, and already in his heart there was the wordless, reluctant suspicion that his trust was better placed in this boy than in any other man in Westeros.

They scrambled through underbrush all night, as the clouds rolled in to hide the half moon and the temperature rose in scarce degrees, so that Jaime was pulling his hood off his face to pant more deeply and Snow removed his cloak altogether. Still, the ice did not melt off their leathers, and the only warmth they could find was in the wineskin, and the bit of dried venison Snow had tucked away. Jaime was encouraged when Snow paused to share his evidently scarce rations: perhaps the boy meant only a short excursion after all.

But the pace belied that hope. Through the darkness, the howling of the unseen beast plagued them, haunting them with a keen imperative: follow. They never saw it, its voice sometimes farther, sometimes closer, but never near. And they were climbing, as what Jaime had assumed in the darkness was a parallel valley was only a rocky canyon, with a heavily-treed far side that rose in a steady but insistent slope.

At times, Jaime wasn't even convinced that Snow was aware he followed, so close-mouthed and intent did he become. He stumbled over roots despite his appearance of concentration, and twice turned in a direction completely counter to that of the unseen direwolf, as if he thought himself in another place entirely. Yet he showed no sign of fever or wound and never once voiced a word to Jaime, hostile or otherwise.

They reached the treeline before dawn, and it became apparent as the sun rose that they had been led up the shallow backside of one of the greater, unnamed peaks, its eastern face sheared away like so much clay. Here, the howling stopped and did not start again. Snow paused, and stood facing a raven's view of endless bare-spined ridges, strings of mirrored, frozen lakes, and translucent low-laying clouds without seeming to see anything at all.

Jaime, hesitant and exhausted, circled to stand on the lower ground. Snow looked ripe to collapse, yet stood swaying in the wind, oblivious as a pine sapling to queries and cold. Ghost was nowhere to be seen, and the sudden cessation of the howling left the scream of icy air against rock face even more chilling to hear.

There was nothing to do but take what rest they could. Jaime laid his good hand upon Snow's shoulder, the golden around his back, and led him under the leeward side of a jut of granite back amongst the scraggly trees. Snow ignored his request for more venison, and so Jaime looked around for tinder and fuel. “A little warmth,” he said to Snow, “a little rest, and we'll be back down to Castle Black on eagle's wings.” He knew that the crows would very well blame him when they found out that their Lord Commander had gone mad and catatonic in the wilderness, despite his best efforts to the contrary.

He built a little fire as best he could, though the last time he had performed such a menial task he had been even younger than Snow, and had use of both hands. He watched the boy, whose skin was drawn tight across his skull, pale with a light, perpetual touch of frostbite on the cheeks and nose, his staring dark eyes almost black, vacant. Still, Jaime could see the anxiety there, the stress of leadership that marked a man. He was breathing, and shivering. Jaime could sympathize, the sweat of the climb was cooling on them both, and they were too weak with fatigue to produce enough energy to replace the lost heat.

Jaime wedged himself in between Snow and their stony shelter, feeling the hollow in his gut gaping wider and wider. Past the point of dignity, he rifled one-handed through Snow's pack and pockets, unrolling the black cloak over them both and pawing through knickknacks in search of more venison. He found nothing past the cold mulled wine, which he drank gratefully. Better to die drunk and happy, he thought, realizing how little doubt he had as to whether he'd get out of the wilderness alive.

As if roused by the thought, Snow twitched against him, hands groping along, disturbing the blanketing cloak. “Bran,” he coughed, through a throat thick with a night's disuse.

Worried for the fire, Jaime caught at the boy's arm, lay the golden hand heavily atop his legs. Was he a convulsive? Would there be foaming and screaming? Would the wolf come back to rip out Jaime's throat for having gotten too close?

But Snow's eyes focussed, instead, and he grasped about more violently, until Jaime relinquished the wineskin, and held it for him as he drank. “You have a manly thirst this morn, m'lord.”

Snow ignored him, dripping wine down his chin and looking about some more. “The meat,” he managed.

“All gone, I'm afraid. You had a manly hunger earlier in the night, as well.”

Snow began to scrape sluggishly through his belongs, which still lay scattered about the rock, where Jaime had left them. But he seemed mollified by the wine, and allowed his wrists to be taken captive by the clumsy golden hand. “Rest first, now. We'll find something later, I promise.”

Snow did not rest. He coughed again to clear his throat, and looked urgently about them, “My brother came under the Wall with Summer, he has a little crannog seer with him, a young girl, and Hodor, the kitchen boy. He said - Rickon, he said was alive, and Summer, Shaggy-” Snow's voice cracked hoarse with the effort, and Jaime didn't know whether to laugh at the flights of fancy, or weep for the painful clarity of Snow's longing for his dead family.

Either way, Snow's dark eyes were belligerent with his newfound knowledge, and he rose against Jaime's protests. Leaning heavily against the rock face, he looked down at Jaime with frightening composure, “Lannister, you saved me from the wights, but you pushed my brother out the tower window at Winterfell.”

The judgement sounded harsh as a death knell, and Jaime could not smile in the face of his guilt, for all his laughing through the deed's doing. “Yes,” he answered, and bowed his head and thought of Cersei, imagining her under the headsman's sword for her part.

“I would kill you,” Snow told him, still steady, though his voice splintered, “if I were a Stark.”

Jaime shifted, helped him slump back to the ground beside him. Snow shook, still shivering with the cold and the wine and the strange, excruciating visions that his trance must have brought him. Jaime held the boy in his arms and then bent to touch his lips to the exposed, frigid skin under Snow's ear, an apology, a prayer for forgiveness.

Snow went still, and Jaime did not move either, except to brush the tangle of dirty hair back from his face. Then he shifted both their bodies for them, curling Jon around the cracked embers of the fire, and himself around Jon, their cloaks, black and white, covering them both. He felt their mirroring sigh as they both gave way to exhaustion, and slept.

The wolf woke them, though Jaime had not expected - perhaps not wanted - to ever wake again. The animal was as silent as always, nudging them into a colder awareness than the one they'd inhabited together. And the gods thought themselves funnier than Jaime had ever suspected, for his head ached with the sweet wine, and the wolf had brought them an ugly old mountain goat for their supper, which Jaime arose to butcher gladly.

Snow was slow in waking, though he took the unseasoned meat quickly enough once he'd smelled it. He eyed the wolf mutely, and chuckled at one point, loud enough to make Jaime look up from his brooding.

“A jest at my expense, I warrant,”

“Yes, though not a very funny one; will you keep that goat's right hoof as a keepsake?” Snow speared the last of his meat with his knife and raised it to his mouth, waving off Jaime's retort.“I think we'll be able to head off the column if we travel south directly.”

“I think your brothers will be glad to see you whole and conscious.”

Snow's face lost its bemused expression, “My brothers,” he affirmed. His eyes flicked up to Jaime, and back down. “And yours too, I think.”