Nothing Burns Like The Cold (Game of Thrones fanfiction)

Jon V

Jon V

From the darkness, Jon opened his eyes, a warped wood ceiling covered in layered grey soot loomed above him. The pungent smell of smoldering ash and charred wood hung heavy in the room. He was naked, awake. Sitting up effortlessly, his body felt unnaturally warm and feather light. Strange sensations, undulating pulses of warmth growing from his feet, his hands, through his chest, a fine sheen of sweat beginning to form on his skin. Jon looked around, eyes adjusting to a surreal swirl of light and shadows dancing around him, a sway of flickering candlelight with no candles. Ominously large shadows casting themselves on the walls around him, brighter than the light itself, they drank from its glow, holding the room in an uneasy purgatory of shifting twilight.

Jon heard a soft growl from underneath him, looking over the side of the impossibly tall table he was on, he met Ghost's intense red gaze. The wolf's eyes were burning hot coals, a furnace of fiery light reflecting off his brilliant white fur, he looked as though he was on fire. Jon moved to the edge of the table and swung down, the longer than expected fall to the floor was met with a hard thud, sending jolts of pain pulsing up through his legs. Jon doubled over in unexpected anguish but Ghost was there to steady him from the hard fall. Jon managed to stand up straight, noticing that his wolf was much larger than he remembered, the tips of Ghost's ears reaching to his chin now. He is enormous, strong and muscular. Quiet as a shadow, the wolf padded over to the chamber door, beckoning Jon to open it. Without thought to his current state of undress, Jon followed Ghost, reaching the door, pulling it open...

There he stood, in the doorway to his old chamber looking out over the snow-covered courtyard of Castle Black. Strong winds howling around him, crows chattering in the distance. Scanning the castle, there wasn't a soul to be had, empty as a graveyard. Jon knew he should be cold but he wasn't; the heat of his body radiating around him, keeping him gratefully warm. Grabbing the railing, Jon took mindful steps down the icy stairs to the courtyard below. And when he reached the bottom, he looked up, gasping in disbelief. The courtyard of Castle Black had become the training yard at Winterfell. He was safely back home. But in that moment Jon knew, this isn't real. am I dreaming, am I dead? No, there would be only darkness if I was...

And without warning, his body shifted from pleasantly warm and sweaty to unbearably freezing cold. Looking down, Jon saw he was wearing what he wore beyond the wall on the wight mission, a thick shell of ice crusted on his furs from head to toe. He struggled to pry off the frozen layers as the chill began to take hold in his bones, he was so cold, too cold. He stumbled forward, under the portcullis to the main courtyard until he found himself at the entrance to the crypts, two headless stone wolves standing guard. For the first time in all his dreams of this place, he could feel the heat coming from below instead of the usual dark chill he had always known. I need to get warm, to get these damn furs off me, he knew where he had to go.

Jon hurried passed the wolf sentries and down the narrow steps into the crypts, following the bright warm firelight that beckoned him from below. Hugging the warm stone walls for support, Jon began to melt away; the furs sweating off the icy layers as he descended into warmth, rivulets of water cascading from his shoulders, wetting the dark gray stones of the stairwell around him. His usual fear of the crypts was replaced with eager intention; I need to get rid of this cold inside me, needing to know what called to him from below for all these years. Maybe Winterfell's people are down here, maybe Father or Arya...

It was a never-ending descent, round and around, the stone stairwell went on for an eternity. Jon finally reached the bottom landing, a broken pathway strewn with tumbled stones and rotten wood beams. The Kings of Winter were down here, part of the ancient neglected crypts that had collapsed over the centuries from being built upon. His beacon of light flickered through the cracks of the crumbled wall, willing him into the hidden passage within. That's it, he knew. Jon began to break the barrier one heavy stone at a time; the floor beneath him shifted from stone to sand with each rock moved, from the crypts of Winterfell to Dragonstone's cavern of glyphs and back again. The oppressive weight of the wet furs slowed his pace, time shifted in the shadows, he wasn't sure where he truly was anymore, but he kept digging deeper. There were no stone guards telling him he didn't belong, no one around to stop him from unveiling whatever truth he was meant to find.