(no subject)
Author: rachel2205
Title: A Song of Snow and Blood
Rating: R
Pairing: Eventually Jon/Robb
Chapter: 3 of ?? (1 is here, 2 is here.)
Wordcount: this chapter - 1600
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: Violence, animal death, human death. Blood. Lots of blood.
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.
Previously: He would ride for his brother’s camp at once, because there was nothing else to be done, and he’d have to pray that he could keep from showing whatever it was he'd become once he was there - for Robb’s sake, if not his own.
Two nights south of the Wall Jon made his first kill of the journey. Three nights south and he made another. The first kill was a rabbit; the second was a man, but both died much the same way: twitching with their throats torn out.
Jon had realised, leaving Castle Black, that because of whatever had happened to him he would travel faster by night. So he rode for an hour or so, Ghost at his horse’s heels, and then made camp for the day. He rolled into his sleeping sack though he hardly seemed to need it; Jon had the sense that if he fell asleep on a snowdrift it would do him no harm. But the idea of what that might mean about him made him shudder, and so he set out his bedroll and his bedding and slept, Ghost curled by his side. Like all his sleep lately it was as heavy as death, and when he awoke at twilight he felt better than he had since his encounter with Piper.
It was a clear night, and the stars seemed brilliantly bright to Jon, the waning moon more than enough light to see by. The black and white world he rode Dancer through was beautiful enough that it made his heart ache, his breath stop in his chest. He kept being distracted by the gleam of moonlight on snowfall, the glitter of ice on branches. It was like he was learning to see, and Jon breathed in the cold and for the first time in weeks forgot to be afraid.
Ghost padded away silently into the woods a few hours into their ride. Jon wasn’t concerned; he knew the wolf needed to hunt. As he expected, Ghost came back a while later with a rabbit in his mouth. What he didn’t expect was for Ghost to drop it in front of him expectantly. Jon heard the sound his stomach made, and without even thinking he dismounted and tore into the still-warm flesh, teeth slicing through fur. Afterward, Jon gagged, wanting to make himself sick, but his body disobeyed. He could taste the rabbit’s flesh between his teeth, and it was good.
Jon rode without rest until dawn, and the next night he found his own rabbit.
He’d hunted, of course, as a boy at Winterfell, but it wasn’t like this. He’d seen the rabbit out of the corner of his eye when he woke, and at once he was moving, slow and sleek and silent. He realised he could smell it, a soft musky scent of fur and beneath it the tang of warm iron. And then he had pounced, there wasn’t really a better word for it, fingers clasping the rabbit’s back legs, and then he had sunk his teeth into its throat.
Jon didn’t really remember much after that, not until he had thrown the remains of the rabbit to Ghost, who had licked the bloody bones and fur and then decided there wasn’t much left to bother with. His heart pounded, and he felt sick - but it was with exhilaration as much as fear. Yes. With these two meals in him he felt stronger, sharper, eyesight keener, and that night passed as fast as the one before.
The woods he rode through the next day were very thick. He could have kept to the road, but it was icy, and in any case something in him shrunk from that bare highway, the chance of meeting people. So he let Dancer pick her way carefully through the trees, and his mind wandered. He could now be useful to Robb, he thought - and to his brothers in the Watch, he added hastily, because he had to get out of the habit of letting Robb be the first person of whom he thought. But he could be useful. So this - illness left him with a dragging tiredness during the day and a taste for raw meat. It had also given him sharper eyes and a keener nose, and he could play scout at night better than anyone. He’d have to go back to the Wall, of course, but first - first he might be of some use to his brother. His King, Jon thought, and felt himself shiver. The word made him ache in ways he didn’t want to understand.
So engrossed in thought was he that Jon didn’t hear the men approach until Ghost snarled, and then the outlaws were on him. His clothes were simple, and he carried only a small pack, but the men who attacked him were ragged and wild-eyed, cheeks gaunt with hunger, and a young man alone on a good horse was target enough. They knocked him off Dancer, and Jon fell heavily to the ground and cried out as his hip and elbow hit the hard earth. Jon heard a shriek of agony as Ghost tore into one of the men, a shriek that was soon cut off into a gurgling coughing and then silence, but there was no time to think about that as another bandit leaned over him with a knife. The blade was dull, Jon could see, but it would kill him well enough.
He seized the man’s wrist and twisted. The cracking sound was satisfying, Jon registered somewhere inside himself, but he wasn’t really thinking of that. He was staring at the man’s screaming mouth, at the straining tendons of his neck, and he pushed back the man’s head and bit.
It didn’t take very long, really. Once Jon had his arms around the man to hold him still, it didn’t take long at all.
*
Was it possible, Jon thought shakily, secondsminuteshours later, to die from vomiting? He thought it might be as he retched yet again. When he’d realised what he’d done, he had run out of the clearing, fallen by a gnarled oak tree, and forced his fingers down his throat. This time the blood had come up easily enough, and seeing it spatter on the snow and, more than that, feeling the hungry tug of desire it had given him had been enough for Jon to vomit again, and again, and again.
When at last he stopped, the snow was crimson, and he rolled onto his back panting like he had been running for miles. His whole body shook. Had he really done that? He crawled back into the clearing, where he found two twisted bodies. One bore Ghost’s teeth marks at thigh and arm and throat. The other had a hand that splayed back at a painful angle, and a missing throat. Around the man Ghost had killed the snow was soaked with blood. Around the man Jon had killed there was only a spatter of red on the snow. Which made sense, given what Jon had done, and he giggled with hysterical terror until he was sick again.
It was a long time before he realised that Dancer was gone, and his supplies with her. Jon supposed the third outlaw had taken her during the fight, but he was too weary to care. Ghost pressed up against him as he lay on the snow, and Jon curled his fingers in the direwolf’s fur and tried not to think. Thankfully dawn came, and with it a dreamless sleep.
*
Jon awoke in deep night with nothing but the clothes on his back and the knife at his belt. He had lost his sword, he realised, and for some reason that of everything made him cry, stupid painful childish tears. Ghost pressed against his side as he wept, and after he was done he felt better. He searched the bodies of the bandits for anything valuable, but found only a few mean coppers and a meagre bag of rations. He drank the beer and threw the bread aside, and wondered how he was supposed to continue his journey. On foot seemed impossible; by the time he got to Robb the war would be over. Well, there was nothing else for it, he thought, and started to walk.
Ghost loped ahead of him, and Jon smiled.
‘Maybe I should run with you,’ he said, and the idea, silly as it was, amused him, and so he started jogging after the wolf… and then found himself matching the direwolf without doing more than breaking a light sweat. Jon felt like he was flying, feet barely touching the snow, and he laughed amazedly but not breathlessly, his head swimming. Ghost was silent as always, but his tongue lolled and his eyes turned up to Jon’s face, and Jon could swear the wolf was laughing too.
Before they slept that night, Jon and Ghost brought down a deer, soft and shy and sweet. Oh, sweet, and they curled up together the way dogs did in the stables at Castle Black and slept the sleep of the sated.
That night, for the first time since Piper had attacked him, Jon dreamed. In his dream he chased Robb through the woods, both of them barefoot in the snow, and he brought his brother down with a snarl. In his dream Robb bucked up under him as he bit down, and Jon woke with a hard on and blood in his mouth. He had bitten his own tongue.
Rolling onto his back, Jon wondered how he could let himself even think of going to Robb. He should turn back now, tell everything to Mormont, and await the consequences.
Getting up, though, Jon found that he was once again running south.
Title: A Song of Snow and Blood
Rating: R
Pairing: Eventually Jon/Robb
Chapter: 3 of ?? (1 is here, 2 is here.)
Wordcount: this chapter - 1600
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: Violence, animal death, human death. Blood. Lots of blood.
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.
Previously: He would ride for his brother’s camp at once, because there was nothing else to be done, and he’d have to pray that he could keep from showing whatever it was he'd become once he was there - for Robb’s sake, if not his own.
Two nights south of the Wall Jon made his first kill of the journey. Three nights south and he made another. The first kill was a rabbit; the second was a man, but both died much the same way: twitching with their throats torn out.
Jon had realised, leaving Castle Black, that because of whatever had happened to him he would travel faster by night. So he rode for an hour or so, Ghost at his horse’s heels, and then made camp for the day. He rolled into his sleeping sack though he hardly seemed to need it; Jon had the sense that if he fell asleep on a snowdrift it would do him no harm. But the idea of what that might mean about him made him shudder, and so he set out his bedroll and his bedding and slept, Ghost curled by his side. Like all his sleep lately it was as heavy as death, and when he awoke at twilight he felt better than he had since his encounter with Piper.
It was a clear night, and the stars seemed brilliantly bright to Jon, the waning moon more than enough light to see by. The black and white world he rode Dancer through was beautiful enough that it made his heart ache, his breath stop in his chest. He kept being distracted by the gleam of moonlight on snowfall, the glitter of ice on branches. It was like he was learning to see, and Jon breathed in the cold and for the first time in weeks forgot to be afraid.
Ghost padded away silently into the woods a few hours into their ride. Jon wasn’t concerned; he knew the wolf needed to hunt. As he expected, Ghost came back a while later with a rabbit in his mouth. What he didn’t expect was for Ghost to drop it in front of him expectantly. Jon heard the sound his stomach made, and without even thinking he dismounted and tore into the still-warm flesh, teeth slicing through fur. Afterward, Jon gagged, wanting to make himself sick, but his body disobeyed. He could taste the rabbit’s flesh between his teeth, and it was good.
Jon rode without rest until dawn, and the next night he found his own rabbit.
He’d hunted, of course, as a boy at Winterfell, but it wasn’t like this. He’d seen the rabbit out of the corner of his eye when he woke, and at once he was moving, slow and sleek and silent. He realised he could smell it, a soft musky scent of fur and beneath it the tang of warm iron. And then he had pounced, there wasn’t really a better word for it, fingers clasping the rabbit’s back legs, and then he had sunk his teeth into its throat.
Jon didn’t really remember much after that, not until he had thrown the remains of the rabbit to Ghost, who had licked the bloody bones and fur and then decided there wasn’t much left to bother with. His heart pounded, and he felt sick - but it was with exhilaration as much as fear. Yes. With these two meals in him he felt stronger, sharper, eyesight keener, and that night passed as fast as the one before.
The woods he rode through the next day were very thick. He could have kept to the road, but it was icy, and in any case something in him shrunk from that bare highway, the chance of meeting people. So he let Dancer pick her way carefully through the trees, and his mind wandered. He could now be useful to Robb, he thought - and to his brothers in the Watch, he added hastily, because he had to get out of the habit of letting Robb be the first person of whom he thought. But he could be useful. So this - illness left him with a dragging tiredness during the day and a taste for raw meat. It had also given him sharper eyes and a keener nose, and he could play scout at night better than anyone. He’d have to go back to the Wall, of course, but first - first he might be of some use to his brother. His King, Jon thought, and felt himself shiver. The word made him ache in ways he didn’t want to understand.
So engrossed in thought was he that Jon didn’t hear the men approach until Ghost snarled, and then the outlaws were on him. His clothes were simple, and he carried only a small pack, but the men who attacked him were ragged and wild-eyed, cheeks gaunt with hunger, and a young man alone on a good horse was target enough. They knocked him off Dancer, and Jon fell heavily to the ground and cried out as his hip and elbow hit the hard earth. Jon heard a shriek of agony as Ghost tore into one of the men, a shriek that was soon cut off into a gurgling coughing and then silence, but there was no time to think about that as another bandit leaned over him with a knife. The blade was dull, Jon could see, but it would kill him well enough.
He seized the man’s wrist and twisted. The cracking sound was satisfying, Jon registered somewhere inside himself, but he wasn’t really thinking of that. He was staring at the man’s screaming mouth, at the straining tendons of his neck, and he pushed back the man’s head and bit.
It didn’t take very long, really. Once Jon had his arms around the man to hold him still, it didn’t take long at all.
*
Was it possible, Jon thought shakily, secondsminuteshours later, to die from vomiting? He thought it might be as he retched yet again. When he’d realised what he’d done, he had run out of the clearing, fallen by a gnarled oak tree, and forced his fingers down his throat. This time the blood had come up easily enough, and seeing it spatter on the snow and, more than that, feeling the hungry tug of desire it had given him had been enough for Jon to vomit again, and again, and again.
When at last he stopped, the snow was crimson, and he rolled onto his back panting like he had been running for miles. His whole body shook. Had he really done that? He crawled back into the clearing, where he found two twisted bodies. One bore Ghost’s teeth marks at thigh and arm and throat. The other had a hand that splayed back at a painful angle, and a missing throat. Around the man Ghost had killed the snow was soaked with blood. Around the man Jon had killed there was only a spatter of red on the snow. Which made sense, given what Jon had done, and he giggled with hysterical terror until he was sick again.
It was a long time before he realised that Dancer was gone, and his supplies with her. Jon supposed the third outlaw had taken her during the fight, but he was too weary to care. Ghost pressed up against him as he lay on the snow, and Jon curled his fingers in the direwolf’s fur and tried not to think. Thankfully dawn came, and with it a dreamless sleep.
*
Jon awoke in deep night with nothing but the clothes on his back and the knife at his belt. He had lost his sword, he realised, and for some reason that of everything made him cry, stupid painful childish tears. Ghost pressed against his side as he wept, and after he was done he felt better. He searched the bodies of the bandits for anything valuable, but found only a few mean coppers and a meagre bag of rations. He drank the beer and threw the bread aside, and wondered how he was supposed to continue his journey. On foot seemed impossible; by the time he got to Robb the war would be over. Well, there was nothing else for it, he thought, and started to walk.
Ghost loped ahead of him, and Jon smiled.
‘Maybe I should run with you,’ he said, and the idea, silly as it was, amused him, and so he started jogging after the wolf… and then found himself matching the direwolf without doing more than breaking a light sweat. Jon felt like he was flying, feet barely touching the snow, and he laughed amazedly but not breathlessly, his head swimming. Ghost was silent as always, but his tongue lolled and his eyes turned up to Jon’s face, and Jon could swear the wolf was laughing too.
Before they slept that night, Jon and Ghost brought down a deer, soft and shy and sweet. Oh, sweet, and they curled up together the way dogs did in the stables at Castle Black and slept the sleep of the sated.
That night, for the first time since Piper had attacked him, Jon dreamed. In his dream he chased Robb through the woods, both of them barefoot in the snow, and he brought his brother down with a snarl. In his dream Robb bucked up under him as he bit down, and Jon woke with a hard on and blood in his mouth. He had bitten his own tongue.
Rolling onto his back, Jon wondered how he could let himself even think of going to Robb. He should turn back now, tell everything to Mormont, and await the consequences.
Getting up, though, Jon found that he was once again running south.