(no subject)
Author: rachel2205
Title: A Song of Snow and Blood
Rating: R
Pairing: Eventually Jon/Robb
Chapter: 1 of ??
Wordcount: 2000
Synopsis: Jon gets more than he bargained for beyond the Wall. Very loosely inspired by a prompt at stark_n_snow that asked for a vampire!Jon fic, and the result of some of my own speculation about what might happen to someone a wight didn’t manage to quite kill. Set at the end of the first season.
Warnings: Some violence. Meat eating (!).
Disclaimer: Based on the HBO series rather than the books, hence the use of White Walkers as a term rather than Others. I own nothing!
Notes: Beautiful banner by dahliaxxx.
‘Here a man gets what he earns, when he earns it.’
Jon remembered his uncle’s words as he tried to raise Longclaw once more. Fire, he thought desperately, he needed fire, but the attack had come too fast and now he was trapped. Breath heaving in his chest, he hacked at the man in front of him again, trying to slow him down enough to let Jon retreat. But the thing that had been Ranger Piper bore down on him, and when at last Longclaw slid from his nerveless fingers as Piper’s hand closed around his throat, Jon thought: is this what you meant, Uncle? Getting what I deserve.
Then there was dark.
***
They circled him in the woods, his sworn brothers, his friends, his fellow recruits of the Night’s Watch, and Jon cursed them all.
‘I belong with my brother.’
‘We’re your brothers now,’ said Grenn, and Jon thought: not like Robb, never like Robb. My father said I have Stark blood which is why my heart beats so hard, knowing Robb’s at war. Our blood.
But he lowered his sword all the same.
‘Damn you,’ he said helplessly. ‘Damn you all.’ And he went with his new brothers back to the Wall, where the Lord Commander reproved him and then told him to take up Longclaw again, because soon they were going beyond the Wall. Breathless with excited fear, Jon had managed to forget for a moment that Ned was dead.
Forgive me, Father, he said to himself afterward, returning to his room to strap on his sword, but that night it was Robb of whom he thought, his brother holding not a practice sword but a real blade as a Lannister army swept toward him, and Jon lay awake until dawn.
There was a corpse-blue sky above them the morning they rode out beyond the Wall, and before long Jon felt like a corpse himself, his face frozen, his fingers numb even inside his furlined gloves. He thought he’d got used to cold on the Wall, but there he had the protection of stone and the thin comfort of a lit grate at his post. Here when they were outside the trees there was a wind that cut through them like a knife, and riding through the woods meant the trees curled close enough together that the weak heat of the sun was blocked out.
Wildings attacked them on the third night, bodies painted black with mud moving like shadows through the trees. Jon was woken from pinched and restless sleep by the warning call of the sentry, and then the choked wet cry of someone dying. Only one of their own fell that night while five wildings died, but it seemed like a thin victory as they scratched a shallow grave into the hard earth.
After that there was nothing for days, but they were all on alert all the time, nerves stretched thin. Jon was finding it even harder to sleep now; if he was going to be killed he wanted it to be on his feet, holding his sword, not lying in his bedroll. And when he did at last drop off, he would dream of Othor, the way his hair had burst into flame, skin melting like wax. His fierce blue eyes wide in the ruin of his face.
On the eighth day, in the deadlight just before dawn, Jon killed a man. It was easier than he expected: one hard thrust and the Wildling went to his knees and died choking. The Old Bear said he had done well. Jon listened to his own breath whistle and felt less than he’d done when he’d killed Othor, even though Othor had already been dead. He wiped his sword and they settled the frightened horses, and went on with the day. Lying wrapped in his furs that night, he wondered if Robb had killed anyone yet. What it had felt like for him. If he had been afraid. Falling asleep, he dreamed of Robb on his knees in the snow, Longclaw buried in his stomach. Waking, he found his nails had bit deep enough to bruise his cold palms. He didn’t know how to keep doing this. To feel divided like this between his blood brother and his new brothers, each of them more than kin to him. He’d sworn oaths to them both, although only to the men of the Night’s Watch had he said the words aloud. But that Robb didn’t know what Jon had promised didn’t mean he shouldn’t keep his word.
And so when the attack came on the ninth day, Jon was exhausted and distracted. In the thin light of the afternoon, already greying into evening a bare couple of hours after midday, they found a circle of bodies torn to pieces. Elister leaned over the body of a little girl, clucking quietly in disgust, and then made a choked sound as her hand wrapped round his throat. Her eyes were as blue as Othor’s had been, and her grip as strong. It took two men to pull her off Elister, and another man to set a torch to her.
Amidst that the White Walker came silently, and he had killed two rangers before they even saw him in their midst. If Othor had been terrible, this thing was like nothing they had ever seen. Sleek as a cat in his movement, skin pale as snow, and his sword gleamed blue in the last rays of sunlight. The horses fled, and as corpses rose from the woods and streamed toward them the men of the Night’s Watch fled too. They knew a lost cause when they saw it, and there was no honour in fighting a useless battle, not when they could withdraw and regroup.
Fire, Jon thought. He needed to light a fire somehow, and he cursed as he realised his tinderbox was in his saddlebag. He kept running, though it was hard through the snow, and soon he could hear nothing but his own breath. Eventually he let himself pause and leaned against a tree, spitting hard onto the ground to clear his throat. Jon heard soft footfalls, and looked up to see Piper, a gruff, wiry ranger.
‘Piper,’ he said with relief, and then realised that Piper’s hands were stained with blood, and that his eyes were blue. With a despairing cry, Jon hefted his sword again. Othor had shown him that these things couldn’t be killed with a blade. All Jon could hope was that he could disable him - it - and make his escape.
He fought hard. Jon thought, briefly, that Mormont would have been proud of him, and then he was flagging. Piper didn’t seem to tire. Piper didn’t seem to feel, or think, or do anything except attack, and at last Jon’s fingers palsied and his sword slipped from his hand, the first time he’d dropped his blade in years, and Piper’s hand was round his throat.
Don’t let me wake up like Piper, he thought, tearing at his former brother’s fingers as the edges of his vision went black. He should never have been here. If he was going to die it should be at Robb’s side. Is this what you meant, Uncle? Getting what I deserve.
***
The light was blinding when Jon awoke, and he put his hand across his eyes.
‘It hurts,’ he said. His voice sounded rough, and his throat hurt. ‘It hurts.’ He heard the sound of shutters closing, and the room dimmed mercifully. He opened his eyes and his vision swam. Where was he? Was he a prisoner? Jon tried to sit up, and the whole world seemed to shift sideways. Moving his head made his throat feel like it was on fire.
‘Lie still,’ said the familiar voice of Maester Aemon. The old man leaned over him, put a hand to his forehead. ‘You’re cold.’
‘I feel hot,’ said Jon. His skin was prickling. ‘I’m back at the Wall? How?’ His voice was barely a whisper, and when he cleared his throat he coughed wetly. Maester Aemon wiped his mouth, and when he set the cloth aside Jon saw it was sprayed with blood. What had happened to him? ‘Am I sick?’
‘You have been asleep for several days,’ said the maester. ‘You’re lucky your brothers found you when they did - much longer in the snow and you would have frozen to death. They rode home fast, and you rode with them at first, but after the second day you fell into a fever and by the third day you could not ride. You remember none of this?’
‘None,’ said Jon. ‘I’m thirsty.’ The maester put a cup of water to his mouth, and Jon drank greedily. ‘What happened to me?’
Although the maester was blind, Jon felt like his blank eyes were staring at him.
‘Rest now,’ he said. ‘Questions later.’
Jon wanted to argue, but his throat ached too much to let him, and he sank back into the bed. He needed answers. Later.
It was dark when he woke again, and Jon felt refreshed, as if rising from a pleasant afternoon nap. His throat barely hurt at all, save for a slight throb at the side. He slid out of bed, suddenly restless, and padded barefoot across the stone floor to the window. When he pulled open the shutters he breathed in the night air and looked out at the stars. They seemed brighter than usual, more brilliant, and the cold air didn’t hurt his lungs the way it had done before. It was refreshing, and Jon breathed in deeply, feeling his muscles ease out as if he were climbing into a hot bath.
As he looked out at the sky his stomach rumbled hard, and Jon realised he was famished. He wondered when was the last time he’d eaten. He found his way across the dark room easily, locating half a loaf of bread on a table. Famished, he bit into the loaf, tearing off a large mouthful of the dark heavy bread. It tasted like ashes in his mouth, and he spat it out. The kitchen, then, and Jon padded barefoot down the stairs and across the courtyard.
In the kitchen he found bread and biscuits and cheese, but all of them turned his stomach. He didn’t know what he wanted. And then he looked in the cold store room, where packed in snow stood great slabs of meat. For a moment he felt so faint with hunger he thought he might fall, and he had to put his hand on the wall to steady himself.
Nothing had ever tasted quite as good as the rabbit’s raw flesh. He dug his teeth into it, incisors tearing through the meat, and he heard himself make a low sound of satisfaction.
‘Jon?’
He looked up, and Sam was standing there with a lantern in his hand. The light dazzled him, and Jon blinked hard.
‘Jon, what are you doing?’
‘I’m eating, what does it look like?’ said Jon. He looked at Sam’s pale and frightened face and set the rabbit down, looked at his bloodstained hands, at his feet bare on the ice cold stone floor. ‘Oh gods, Sam.’ He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and it came away gore-streaked, and for a moment Jon thought he might be sick. ‘Oh gods.’
What’s wrong with me? he thought. What have I become?
Title: A Song of Snow and Blood
Rating: R
Pairing: Eventually Jon/Robb
Chapter: 1 of ??
Wordcount: 2000
Synopsis: Jon gets more than he bargained for beyond the Wall. Very loosely inspired by a prompt at stark_n_snow that asked for a vampire!Jon fic, and the result of some of my own speculation about what might happen to someone a wight didn’t manage to quite kill. Set at the end of the first season.
Warnings: Some violence. Meat eating (!).
Disclaimer: Based on the HBO series rather than the books, hence the use of White Walkers as a term rather than Others. I own nothing!
Notes: Beautiful banner by dahliaxxx.
‘Here a man gets what he earns, when he earns it.’
Jon remembered his uncle’s words as he tried to raise Longclaw once more. Fire, he thought desperately, he needed fire, but the attack had come too fast and now he was trapped. Breath heaving in his chest, he hacked at the man in front of him again, trying to slow him down enough to let Jon retreat. But the thing that had been Ranger Piper bore down on him, and when at last Longclaw slid from his nerveless fingers as Piper’s hand closed around his throat, Jon thought: is this what you meant, Uncle? Getting what I deserve.
Then there was dark.
***
They circled him in the woods, his sworn brothers, his friends, his fellow recruits of the Night’s Watch, and Jon cursed them all.
‘I belong with my brother.’
‘We’re your brothers now,’ said Grenn, and Jon thought: not like Robb, never like Robb. My father said I have Stark blood which is why my heart beats so hard, knowing Robb’s at war. Our blood.
But he lowered his sword all the same.
‘Damn you,’ he said helplessly. ‘Damn you all.’ And he went with his new brothers back to the Wall, where the Lord Commander reproved him and then told him to take up Longclaw again, because soon they were going beyond the Wall. Breathless with excited fear, Jon had managed to forget for a moment that Ned was dead.
Forgive me, Father, he said to himself afterward, returning to his room to strap on his sword, but that night it was Robb of whom he thought, his brother holding not a practice sword but a real blade as a Lannister army swept toward him, and Jon lay awake until dawn.
There was a corpse-blue sky above them the morning they rode out beyond the Wall, and before long Jon felt like a corpse himself, his face frozen, his fingers numb even inside his furlined gloves. He thought he’d got used to cold on the Wall, but there he had the protection of stone and the thin comfort of a lit grate at his post. Here when they were outside the trees there was a wind that cut through them like a knife, and riding through the woods meant the trees curled close enough together that the weak heat of the sun was blocked out.
Wildings attacked them on the third night, bodies painted black with mud moving like shadows through the trees. Jon was woken from pinched and restless sleep by the warning call of the sentry, and then the choked wet cry of someone dying. Only one of their own fell that night while five wildings died, but it seemed like a thin victory as they scratched a shallow grave into the hard earth.
After that there was nothing for days, but they were all on alert all the time, nerves stretched thin. Jon was finding it even harder to sleep now; if he was going to be killed he wanted it to be on his feet, holding his sword, not lying in his bedroll. And when he did at last drop off, he would dream of Othor, the way his hair had burst into flame, skin melting like wax. His fierce blue eyes wide in the ruin of his face.
On the eighth day, in the deadlight just before dawn, Jon killed a man. It was easier than he expected: one hard thrust and the Wildling went to his knees and died choking. The Old Bear said he had done well. Jon listened to his own breath whistle and felt less than he’d done when he’d killed Othor, even though Othor had already been dead. He wiped his sword and they settled the frightened horses, and went on with the day. Lying wrapped in his furs that night, he wondered if Robb had killed anyone yet. What it had felt like for him. If he had been afraid. Falling asleep, he dreamed of Robb on his knees in the snow, Longclaw buried in his stomach. Waking, he found his nails had bit deep enough to bruise his cold palms. He didn’t know how to keep doing this. To feel divided like this between his blood brother and his new brothers, each of them more than kin to him. He’d sworn oaths to them both, although only to the men of the Night’s Watch had he said the words aloud. But that Robb didn’t know what Jon had promised didn’t mean he shouldn’t keep his word.
And so when the attack came on the ninth day, Jon was exhausted and distracted. In the thin light of the afternoon, already greying into evening a bare couple of hours after midday, they found a circle of bodies torn to pieces. Elister leaned over the body of a little girl, clucking quietly in disgust, and then made a choked sound as her hand wrapped round his throat. Her eyes were as blue as Othor’s had been, and her grip as strong. It took two men to pull her off Elister, and another man to set a torch to her.
Amidst that the White Walker came silently, and he had killed two rangers before they even saw him in their midst. If Othor had been terrible, this thing was like nothing they had ever seen. Sleek as a cat in his movement, skin pale as snow, and his sword gleamed blue in the last rays of sunlight. The horses fled, and as corpses rose from the woods and streamed toward them the men of the Night’s Watch fled too. They knew a lost cause when they saw it, and there was no honour in fighting a useless battle, not when they could withdraw and regroup.
Fire, Jon thought. He needed to light a fire somehow, and he cursed as he realised his tinderbox was in his saddlebag. He kept running, though it was hard through the snow, and soon he could hear nothing but his own breath. Eventually he let himself pause and leaned against a tree, spitting hard onto the ground to clear his throat. Jon heard soft footfalls, and looked up to see Piper, a gruff, wiry ranger.
‘Piper,’ he said with relief, and then realised that Piper’s hands were stained with blood, and that his eyes were blue. With a despairing cry, Jon hefted his sword again. Othor had shown him that these things couldn’t be killed with a blade. All Jon could hope was that he could disable him - it - and make his escape.
He fought hard. Jon thought, briefly, that Mormont would have been proud of him, and then he was flagging. Piper didn’t seem to tire. Piper didn’t seem to feel, or think, or do anything except attack, and at last Jon’s fingers palsied and his sword slipped from his hand, the first time he’d dropped his blade in years, and Piper’s hand was round his throat.
Don’t let me wake up like Piper, he thought, tearing at his former brother’s fingers as the edges of his vision went black. He should never have been here. If he was going to die it should be at Robb’s side. Is this what you meant, Uncle? Getting what I deserve.
***
The light was blinding when Jon awoke, and he put his hand across his eyes.
‘It hurts,’ he said. His voice sounded rough, and his throat hurt. ‘It hurts.’ He heard the sound of shutters closing, and the room dimmed mercifully. He opened his eyes and his vision swam. Where was he? Was he a prisoner? Jon tried to sit up, and the whole world seemed to shift sideways. Moving his head made his throat feel like it was on fire.
‘Lie still,’ said the familiar voice of Maester Aemon. The old man leaned over him, put a hand to his forehead. ‘You’re cold.’
‘I feel hot,’ said Jon. His skin was prickling. ‘I’m back at the Wall? How?’ His voice was barely a whisper, and when he cleared his throat he coughed wetly. Maester Aemon wiped his mouth, and when he set the cloth aside Jon saw it was sprayed with blood. What had happened to him? ‘Am I sick?’
‘You have been asleep for several days,’ said the maester. ‘You’re lucky your brothers found you when they did - much longer in the snow and you would have frozen to death. They rode home fast, and you rode with them at first, but after the second day you fell into a fever and by the third day you could not ride. You remember none of this?’
‘None,’ said Jon. ‘I’m thirsty.’ The maester put a cup of water to his mouth, and Jon drank greedily. ‘What happened to me?’
Although the maester was blind, Jon felt like his blank eyes were staring at him.
‘Rest now,’ he said. ‘Questions later.’
Jon wanted to argue, but his throat ached too much to let him, and he sank back into the bed. He needed answers. Later.
It was dark when he woke again, and Jon felt refreshed, as if rising from a pleasant afternoon nap. His throat barely hurt at all, save for a slight throb at the side. He slid out of bed, suddenly restless, and padded barefoot across the stone floor to the window. When he pulled open the shutters he breathed in the night air and looked out at the stars. They seemed brighter than usual, more brilliant, and the cold air didn’t hurt his lungs the way it had done before. It was refreshing, and Jon breathed in deeply, feeling his muscles ease out as if he were climbing into a hot bath.
As he looked out at the sky his stomach rumbled hard, and Jon realised he was famished. He wondered when was the last time he’d eaten. He found his way across the dark room easily, locating half a loaf of bread on a table. Famished, he bit into the loaf, tearing off a large mouthful of the dark heavy bread. It tasted like ashes in his mouth, and he spat it out. The kitchen, then, and Jon padded barefoot down the stairs and across the courtyard.
In the kitchen he found bread and biscuits and cheese, but all of them turned his stomach. He didn’t know what he wanted. And then he looked in the cold store room, where packed in snow stood great slabs of meat. For a moment he felt so faint with hunger he thought he might fall, and he had to put his hand on the wall to steady himself.
Nothing had ever tasted quite as good as the rabbit’s raw flesh. He dug his teeth into it, incisors tearing through the meat, and he heard himself make a low sound of satisfaction.
‘Jon?’
He looked up, and Sam was standing there with a lantern in his hand. The light dazzled him, and Jon blinked hard.
‘Jon, what are you doing?’
‘I’m eating, what does it look like?’ said Jon. He looked at Sam’s pale and frightened face and set the rabbit down, looked at his bloodstained hands, at his feet bare on the ice cold stone floor. ‘Oh gods, Sam.’ He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and it came away gore-streaked, and for a moment Jon thought he might be sick. ‘Oh gods.’
What’s wrong with me? he thought. What have I become?