(Untitled)

[youknow_nothing]

Sleeping in a tent again didn't bother Ygritte. She'd been born in a tent, had slept in one all of her life. What bothered her was the lack of Mamet in her bed, sleeping alone after the months of being with him

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[canaan_divided]

Mamet doesn't pretend to understand most people, let alone himself, but he can't help but wonder if a small part of what he did was some perverse way of trying to push everyone away. But he misses Ygritte, and anyway, he's always been weak.

He finds her tent and sees the back of her head right away, like a piece of the sun right here in front of him. "Ygritte?" he says, and opens his mouth to say something else, but nothing really comes out.

[youknow_nothing]

She turned, and looked at him, eyes roving over him warily. Already she could tell he was sober in the way she had seen he wasn't days ago.

"Mamet," she said, a bit stiffly.

[canaan_divided]

Mamet's frown deepens and he looks at the ground, at Ygritte's hands instead of her face. "Um, I'm sorry," he tries.

[youknow_nothing]

Ygritte set the spear and the knife down, and stood, coming close to him. Her fingertips on the back of his head and her thumbs on his cheeks, she tipped his face up so she could see his eyes.

"What was all o'that about?"

[canaan_divided]

Mamet looks a little startled, but doesn't move, unsure if she wants him to touch her at all right now. "I couldn't help myself," he says, sounding sullen. "Sometimes I just want it so bad it's all I can think about..."

[youknow_nothing]

She held his face still, so she could see into his eyes, and mayhaps, as the greater storytellers would have it, into his soul. "Remember," said Ygritte, her accent suddenly think. "Remember I come from a place far off. We don't have whatever herb or magic what held you, Beyond the Wall. It's not a thing I understand."

[canaan_divided]

Mamet flushes a little, not wanting to explain it. Explaining it would mean admitting a lot, a lot of things he'd rather not say at all.

"It's an addiction," he finally says. "I've been using since I was in high school. It's hard...hard to be without it..."

[youknow_nothing]

"Why?" asked Ygritte, not demanding, but not releasing him, either. "What is it?"

[canaan_divided]

"A drug," Mamet answers, sounding lost. "Heroin, it's a drug. It makes things feel different, better." Sometimes, anyway.

[youknow_nothing]

"A drug," repeated Ygritte, the word foreign on her lips. She did know the word, but it was something of the South. "But why d'you need t'feel better?" She had begun to look a little more stricken now.

[canaan_divided]

Mamet makes a small sound of frustration. "It isn't that simple, Ygritte. You want it no matter what," he says, avoiding the subject of his reccuring depression.

[youknow_nothing]

"Is it dangerous?" she asked, pushing forward with the questions. "If it makes you want it all the time, it can't be good for you."

[canaan_divided]

"...Yeah," Mamet quietly admits. It hadn't been something he'd ever cared about before showing up here, though caring and knowing doesn't make it any easier to resist.

[youknow_nothing]

Ygritte let out a breath, and released him, wrapping her arms around herself in a gesture that suddenly made her as small as she really was, tiny and slight.

"How'd y'get it? Did someone bring it here, or is it something you've made?"

[canaan_divided]

"I wouldn't know how to make it," Mamet says, feeling awful and guilty. He keeps his hands to himself. "Someone had it."

[youknow_nothing]

"And if someone has it again, will you take it?" Ygritte looked up at him, eyes smoldering. "Even though it's dangerous?"