CIRCA REGNA TONAT.

why did i laugh

“I’m not surprised,” he said, carefully. He thought of his own dreams: they had been clogged, lately, with the confinement Ghost felt, stuck on this rocky island with nowhere to really run. Oh, he had nightmares; but he so rarely had good dreams that it was hard to remember that they existed. 

He laughed - he couldn’t help it. She was usually so stern and quiet; she intimidated him, like many beautiful women did, but he liked her too. That Northern Iron core, he could remember his father saying of Arya - and Lyarra reminded him a bit of that, too. 

Jon still felt the guilt weighing on him for his long silence when he had been beyond the Wall. The Night’s Watch had declared him a traitor and a deserter, and Mormont had not been able to defend him; and to kill the Halfhand - well, he was hated, and no one would care enough to send his brother a letter explaining anything.

“As much as that may be true,” Jon said quietly, taking the wildling by the arm and gently tugging her into a side-alcove, “that doesn’t mean I don’t feel damn bad about it. I mean - look at this place. Where’s the open ground, for Gods’ sake.” He shook his head and exhaled. He’d stuck his foot in his mouth, as usual, and he let her go and glanced around, making sure they were alone.

Theon had spent so many years being the bane of Jon’s existence, and now he felt he could sympathize with those internal conflicting feelings of alienation; of wanting to belong to a family that never seemed to fully accept him. They’d had plenty in common then, but they’d strayed down separate paths, Jon doing what was always perceived as right and honorable as Theon lost his way. He’d never imagined they would cross ways again, not after riding off at Robb’s side and then leaving it all behind for a father that never wanted him. In the times he imagined that they did, it didn’t result in casual conversation and a question that had him blinking in confusion.

Jon should hate him. He should be drawing his sword and demanding the justice that was due. But he didn’t.

“I…” Theon’s mouth was dry, more so than it had been originally, and it took him a moment to remember exactly what it was he was doing. “I couldn’t sleep. I was off to the tavern to fetch some ale. Thought it might help.” He’d already eliminated the large flask left in his room before slipping under the furs, but if he was to make it through the rest of the night, he’d need plenty more.

He was aware of how uncertain and cautious his own voice sounded. Jon looked stronger, more confident than he ever had, and there was a look about him that struck the Greyjoy in the chest. At one time, he’d been the bully that would have gladly shoved Jon into the dirt, and now, he would rather die than find himself on an opposing side of this man in battle–not just because of his loyalty which he knew he had yet to prove, but because Jon held the look of someone who’d yet to be bested, and furthermore commanded the respect of those around him. He wasn’t the same man Theon remembered, but then again, it was likely Jon thought the same of him.

Should he carry on a conversation as if nothing had happened? Or invite the cold words he was still waiting to hear? Jon was still blocking his path, and there was no way in the seven hells Theon would try to slip past him. “Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch.” He offered, managing a small rare smile. “I’m proud…to hear of what you’ve accomplished. It certainly suits you. I suppose I’m not surprised that if there was anyone to bring all the tension in the Kingdoms to a stand still, it would be you.”

There was something in Jon that was glad Theon couldn’t sleep - the same part that echoed with the need to at least give him a strong punch in the jaw. But something overwhelmed that part of him, and it wasn’t the Lord Commander cloak he had slung so casually over his shoulders, nor the bear-headed blade at his belt. Oh, Mormont would’ve disapproved of such revenge, but he would have forgiven it, too, as he had turned a blind eye to Jon’s wavering loyalty when Robb had been crowned King. To think of the way he had galloped down the road, through Molestown, intent on being a deserter - if his brothers hadn’t persuaded him to turn back, he might have fought at Theon’s side in the Whispering Wood. Maybe Theon would not have turned on Robb, if Jon had been there to balance out the three corners of their triangle - but then again, there was no way to see alternate futures, and Jon was sick of torturing himself, or anyone else, with them.

No - what prevented him from socking Theon one (technical Night’s Watch term) was the knowledge that he was hurt. The physical wounds had healed, but it was evident that the emotional ones had not; Theon flinched from him, and appeared to expect a blow every second. He was dressed like a Northerner again, and there was a sword at his belt, but Jon suspected he would not reach for it, but instead let the blows rain down in submission. There was nothing good about striking an unarmed man - unarmed in every way. There was no honour in it; no justice or revenge. No, Jon would have to wait to seek his dues some other way.

“I don’t sleep well either,” he said. “I don’t know anyone who does. I wonder if the damn Targaryens who built this heap of rock had ever heard of comfort. Still, it’s warmer than the Wall.” His wry smile acknowledged the years and miles that were spread between them; if Theon had ever seen the Wall, Jon would be very surprised. “I don’t advise drowning your sorrows, however. I have known more than one man to fall into the wine barrel, and getting him out again is not a pretty sight - figuratively and literally.”

He didn’t mean to preach, but he found himself falling itno old roles: the moralist to Theon’s hedonist; the irritable younger boy in awe of the elder braggart. With a rough shake of his head at himself, he stepped aside to let Theon past, holding out an arm. “But you must do as you wish,” he began, and then stopped, surprised. Proud? The word was like a punch to the gut. He had never imagined that Theon thought well of him - you could love a brother without liking him. He felt the words tying up his tongue, and simply stood in silence for a few moments, the torch crackling.

Jon blinked up at the small, unusual man in front of him. They had not been properly introduced, but he easily recognised him from various gossip and descriptions: one of the Reeds. He remembered with a pang the stories his father used to tell about life with Howland Reed, who had fought with him in Robert’s Rebellion. There was that odd sensation, as he had so often these days, of time crossing and recrossing, repeating itself like an ancient tapestry.

He walked with a slight hitch to his step, his weight favoring his right leg over his left. The damage would be as permanent as the loss of his finger no matter the effort to try to hide it, but when the halls were empty and dark as they were now, there was no shame in exposing his weakness. There was still pain, and likely there always would be, but Theon had accepted the long term consequences of his punishments and knew there was likely more to come–something hauntingly more obvious as he turned the corner and found himself face to face with Jon Snow.

Theon recoiled visibly, eyes wide with surprise. His lungs froze as if gripped by the merciless fist of winter itself, and for a moment, he exhibited the same disabling fear when faced with the wrath of Ramsay Bolton. The young Ironborn took a step back, his weight shifting awkwardly, and he finally released a sharp exhale as his brain sought for words and found none. He’d known this moment would come, when he would inevitably come into confrontational contact with the very family he’d betrayed–the very family he’d give anything to go back and protect as he should have from the start. “Jon….” He whispered, his voice a frailty against the sound of wind and crashing waves outside. What apology would be worth sparing him? It wasn’t like the mercy was even deserved. 

@cfblckfyre

Jon had not been lacking for traitors for many years, but still, when he saw Theon framed by the dim light of the corridor, he too recoiled. It was like seeing a phantom, like the ghost of what had once been a man - a boy that Jon had grown up with, that he knew inside out. He had seen him drunk on laughter, on pain, on too much good wine, on arrogance and bragging; he had seen him furiously angry and cheerfully content; once it had been the three of them, Theon, Jon, and Robb, all with their own splintering resentments, their bitterness and their secret hatreds, but unbreakable even so.

Then Jon had gone to the Wall, and for a long time he had nursed that kernel of jealousy under his ribcage - that he was in the cold; oh, doing what he had always dreamed of, but alone, while Theon was riding by Robb’s side, fighting with him as the brother Jon should have been. He had thought about it night after night during training, and when he was made steward instead of ranger it had been part of the aching disappointment that had clenched his throat tight and dry like a fist. Theon was being the man he should have been - were he Robb’s trueborn brother.

Oh - but to Theon, brotherhood was weak, apparently. Their ties, which Jon so carefully reweaved every night in his dark chamber in Castle Black, combing over the memories to keep them bright even though he was meant to have no family anymore, Theon had thrown away - no, worse, he had hacked at the thread and left it broken and tangled. Robb had written to say that Theon had betrayed them, had taken Winterfell with force and beheaded their men in the courtyard where the three of them had trained, and Jon - who had never liked Theon, though he had loved him - felt that deep, dark surge of hatred.

|  TASK  ONE  ||  WORD ASSOCIATION  |

Hooded eyes become lost in the murk that lays ahead, blotting away the ends of the corridor. In their sconces, the lights looks like nothing more than slits in the walls, rends through which an outer world of pure fire can be glimpsed. It is as if they had been severed from a greater whole, every man, woman and child within this fortress, and flung into blackness. Dalla bites down on these misshaped impressions. The wildling woman is full aware she should trudge onward ( even with those heavy steps she’s bound to carry nowadays, the leaden movements of a plough ) and yet she remains affixed. As though an arrow has impaled her into the very earth — this foreign, crumbling earth.

She doesn’t remember her husband must have called a halt to his meetings by now, his webbing strings of councils held with the Crows, and would be pacing inside their rooms. She doesn’t, for that matter, remember she’d left the kitchens and the other tribewomen with a pitcher of water. She merely looks before her, where nothingness clots in thick shapes. Against the wave of bile and foreboding rising in her throat Dalla can do little else than swallow, purposefully watch it unfold as if it were a game of shadows — which is just what she resigns to, had footfalls not crept up behind her.

She would like to snarl at this intrusion into her courting: her own flirt with her fears. To hiss something in the way of walk on; what, is there no room for you but to bump into me?, except it isn’t. Dragonstone is winding and gnarled like a broken body, and in some hallways there isn’t breadth enough for two children to unite fingertips. She could sigh, but the effort to be irritated is altogether too tasking. « ‘seems I picked a poor thinking place, not to mention anything of the time », is what she offers instead, language fluid in between her teeth, the words no longer considered.

The fall was long, and at the bottom there was nothing but darkness; instinctively, Jon reached for her waist. There had never been anything but friendship between them - Gods, he had broken his vow once, and some men might claim that to do it again would mean very little, but he believed in his word, and besides, he wasn’t such a fool as to risk his friendship with Mance. But there was affection between them that he couldn’t parse. Sometimes he found himself falling into the old habits of sibling rivalries, as if she were Arya or Sansa; sometimes he found himself feeling hopelessly delicate around her, as if she were Jeyne Poole, or one of the southron ladies he kept coming across in the winding corridors here; worst of all, he sometimes felt the urge to kneel, as if her husband truly was King Beyond the Wall, but he thought that that had nothing to do with Mance and all to do with Dalla.

For years Garrick had thought himself unshakeable. As steady as they came, unmoving and unyielding in his manner and beliefs. A mountain of a man who gave just as little as those stone faces. And yet after hearing the Lord Commander’s words the Flint had felt something in his soul tremble. Fearless was not something he had been vain enough to call himself, bold or reckless perhaps when he would always run towards a fight instead of away from it, but the chill the tales of the Night King had brought was tangible. 

He had never been a man to spiral out of control and so he found himself some ale and took himself away to a corner with his weapons. Over and over he honed all the blades that he possessed - starting at the largest and working his way down to his smaller daggers. The rhythmic motion easily settling once more, taking a break now and again to take deep gulps of ale. Things easily slipped back into perspective as he found himself no longer worried. The Night King might have been the stuff of nightmares but he had faced enough battles in his life already, this would simply be just another one. The stakes were still the same - always life or death.

Icy blue gaze flickers upwards as footsteps approach and for a moment he is tempted to let the low rumblings of his tone intimidate them into going away but something thaws him instead. Perhaps the knowledge that they all might be dead soon anyway or perhaps just the knowledge that they could all do with a drink. If there was any sense to be had then they should all be marching North and there seemed little sense in making enemies needlessly only to broach tentative peace later. “I believe there’s more ale.” Blade shifts to point instead of fingers in some unconscious reminder to them that although he is being welcoming, he is far from harmless.

Jon had not been looking for Flint, but to find him tucked away in some dark corner was hardly unusual - and furthermore, Jon entirely understood the urge. He himself did not often have the opportunity to drown his sorrows in ale, and his daggers had been much neglected since he had refused the Watch’s offer of a squire on his journey to Dragonstone, but sometimes he thought that if he could he would lock himself in some forgotten chamber deep in the bowels of this castle and drink himself half to death. Perhaps later, if they all survived, he would set aside some time to so. He snorted to himself, ducking under a low-hanging beam. That was exactly like him - scheduling in some time for self-destruction. “It’s only me,” he said, a hand half raised to ward off whatever Flint decided to throw at him, be they harsh words or something rather more solid.

  -    The swirling dark grey hues of the sky almost looked as though they should be streaked across a canvas, to be presented as artwork and marvelled by the masses. It was beautiful to look at, even if it warned of a storm. Rain would pour down on Dragonstone, and then the winds would howl louder than any Direwolf and thunder would crack through the sky to drown out the noise of a dragon’s roar. Nature was beautiful to Mira, she had always thought so. It was why she had once felt at home in Highgarden, and why she loved the vast terrain of mountains and snowy hills which covered the North. But nature could be cruel, and it had yet to unleash it’s deadliest weapon upon the people of Essos. All of mankind would freeze in their beds, powerless to stop the Night King from controlling the lands of men. 

“ It is beautiful here, ”  she sighed, resting her hands on the grey stone wall, while the growing winds rippled her long strands of sable hair. Some might not think that the grey structure and the crashing waves were much to look at when compared to other places around the world, but she appreciated the simple beauty of it.  “ It’s too bad that we’re all fucked to seven bloody buggering hells, ” she added after a moment, to remind others that while she could be a gentle lady, she also had the callousness which was gained from her straightforward Northern ways and the influence of King’s Landing. Her mother would be aghast at her favourite child. 

The woman had caught Jon’s eye - no, not like that, and he could almost hear Robb mocking him, in that small part of his brain that was generally dedicated to what Robb would say in any situation - but because she was out in the lashing cold alone. Jon was too, but that was besides the point; however grim Dragonstone could be, it was nothing compared to the cold beyond the Wall. It was a different sort of cold, and he thought that he perhaps disliked it more, the general damp, the roaring wind and the crash of the waves. Sometimes he longed for the simple crunch of snow beneath his feet. Still, he approached with a general sense that he should be doing something gentlemanly. He opened his mouth - to introduce himself, perhaps, or to recommend that the lady move inside, or at least to somewhere more sheltered - before she spoke.