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Jon stares as they arrive—not because the telling of the winds but the foreboding rising in his chest as the day again wanes and they are all left soon to darkness. From over the hills to the east, the final partings of the sun shine lastingly, but Jon feels himself praying for the first time in many years that a miracle would occur...that they could last a day longer.

A shadow overcomes that gaze to the east as another Northerner steps up beside him, and Jon's slightly grateful that he cannot watch the horizon like a clock. Jorah bears the brunt truth, "We'll all freeze soon. And so will the water."

"Gabrielle can crack it again," Jon reminds him, and maybe that's the fact alone that keeps him waiting patiently.

"Unless the Night King comes," Jorah says, and Jon turns to him with something akin to deep worry for not realizing the Night King would be more powerful than Gabrielle—that they stand no chance once he comes upon that horizon. His eyes fall shut, but apparently Jorah is not finished, asking, "When you killed the White Walker, almost all the dead that followed it fell. Why?"

"Maybe he was the one who turned them."

"We can go for the Walkers," Jorah perceives, having never seen the Walkers in battle and Jon wants to call him daft, "Maybe we'll stand a chance."

"No," Jon shakes his head heavily as Beric appears next to Jorah with a listening ear to Jon's words. "We need to take that thing back with us. There's a raven flying for Dragonstone now. Daenerys is our only chance."

"No. There's another," Beric replies, pointing to the last thing Jon wants to see—the maker of the whole disastrous plot they now encompass as the Night King appears over that hill with a blank facade that marks the ignorance he holds for murder. But Beric believes in the folly, "Kill him. He turned them all."

Gabrielle turns up at Jon's side before he can warn her otherwise, paying no glance at their lot of human company but staring with stiff expression at the Night King from afar as he locks eyes with Jon. His heart wavers and he momentarily wonders why, but it gets the best of him as he tries to draw the Night King's eyes anywhere other than Gabrielle—by returning to Beric, "You don't understand."

"The Lord brought you back. He brought me back. No one else. Just us, and his kith," Beric responds, looking over to Gabrielle whose eyes reflect thought as she stares at the army before them. "Did he do this just to watch us freeze to death?"

Gabrielle shakes her head at the question silently meant for her, knowing better than to suppose that an intelligent and powerful creature would silently watch them into death. He wants to understand... but what? Human interaction? Their preparation? But it comes to her then, and she speaks it aloud, "He wants to see how we play our southern games—he wants to see how we will fight our imminent deaths."

The Provenance || Jon Snow | Game of ThronesWhere stories live. Discover now