A Dream of Snow [ON HOLD]

7 | Not All Bastards Need Be Dwarfs

➰Jon➰

The fire raging inside me cools little, even as the ice bitten air nips at my cheeks and hands. The thing between my legs heavy and hard, my torn and broken heart beating furious and alive.

When I turn to look back at the tent, the guards fix me with a look of warning, their eyes heavy with mistrust. How quickly would they move to stop me if I stormed back inside? If I went to her and pulled her into my arms? How quickly would I be put in chains? Or would she call off her guards and welcome me into her body?

There had been a moment — a single moment — where I was certain she could see inside my soul to the hopes and fears that lingered there. A single moment where I was certain she held the same hopes and fears as I.  The same desires as I.

But what did I know of women such as her?

With a tired exhale I move away from her tent through the main enclosure of the great camp.  

I should feel satisfied, I know this.  She had promised to fight with the north. She had promised her men and her dragons and her aid and demanded nothing in return — something Sansa had believed impossible. Why then did I still feel as though I'd achieved nothing? As though a great prize lay yet unclaimed?

You know why, son. You know why. And you know what must be done...

The sound of my father's voice does little to comfort me then.

Dawn is close. I can smell it rising from the snow covered ground. Soon the rising pink would start to bleed along the horizon heralding the day, and with it the arrival of my fate.

Had I ever wished the night to linger more than I do now? Had I ever needed guidance more than I do now? A pang of loss then, not for my father or even Robb, but for another. One who'd helped guide me when the last fateful decision lay beyond the dawn.

Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born.

Except the boy was long dead. The boy had bled out of me onto the snow at Castle Black and I was not quite certain what returned was a man.

How would Maester Aemon see this choice? As simply as he'd always seen things? Maester Aemon who could have been king but for his vows. Maester Aemon who could not lift a hand to save his family as they were slaughtered one by one.  Maester Aemon who had been the very last of Daenerys Targaryen's family.  How could there be any cruelty in her when he had been the most gentle man I'd ever known?

'You look like you've seen a ghost.' The familiar voice comes from the shadows, cutting through my thoughts. When I turn Tyrion is leaning casually in the entrance of his tent, wine cup in hand, a study in his eyes.  

I nod. 'Aye, perhaps I have.'

'Speaking of which, where is that wolf of yours?'

'Hunting I expect. He doesn't care much for dragons. '