Never a Stark

In some ways, Benjen knew it was easier on his brother that so many of his children took after Lady Catelyn rather than himself. The North was in all of their blood and they showed it in different ways, that was true. But no Stark in recent memory had ever bore such fiery hair, something so not-Northern. It was easier then to look upon Ned’s firstborn and see Robb as a new beginning for their family. He was not a daily reminder of Brandon or Lord Rickard, he was Robb, a newer, happier generation of the wolfblood. Sansa was much the same, a girl just like her mother. It was easier to push away the memory of Lyanna when looking at Sansa.

Yet Jon was there the entire time, the face of Ned and Brandon and Lyanna and Rickard and every Stark before him. Jon was winter and Winterfell, snow and wolf and blood of the First Men. Benjen could look upon his nephew and see all that he had held dear before the Rebellion, all his family stared back at him in his nephew’s gaze. 

"You may have heard that Arya has much the look of Lyanna. It’s true, they bear a frightening resemblance to each other both in appearance and manner." Benjen smiled gently thinking of his sister. He could speak for ages about Lyanna and not tell all that was his sister. But Jon had not asked for memories, he had asked what she was like. "She was six and ten when she died and braver than all the men in our family. She commanded her brothers better than any man ever commanded his troops. Lya would have taken well to you, Jon. She loved all her family."

What would be Arya doing in that very moment? Jon imagined she would have sneaked out of her chambers and was surely running around the castle, or maybe practising with the sword he had given her. "Needle" she had said before she embraced him, grateful for the present. Her smile had never been brighter. And it was the memory of that smile of hers what warmed him in the cold Wall. And even the thought thinking about her also pained him, forgetting about everything they had lived through together would have left him with a hollow, empty heart. He welcomed the pain of loss and the wondrous peace that his memories brought to him.

His fathe, lord Eddard, had prefered to burry his memories though, replacing them with happier ones. Erasing the trail Lyanna had left in his life and his heart was easier than trying to live with the unbareable pain of regret. Jon could not blame him, as he could not blame him for not telling him about his mother - even if this last thing was not easy for him to accept. He still thought his father owed him that. At least, that one thing. "When we meet again, i will tell you..." Eddard had promised. But would there be a next time, Jon wondered? What if he died in the other side of the Wall? What if the wildlings killed him, or the cold ended his life? He would never know. He would die without knowing. "May the gods protect me..." he thought, clenching one of his fists slightly and unclenching it just a moment after it.

He shook his head softly and his attention returned to his uncle's story. The four Stark children had been as northern as they could be, as he could understand, yet they were all different. As for what he had always been told, Eddard and Benjen were the ones that had been most similar in a certain way. Lyanna and Brandon were wilder, like savage wolves.

Spearwives didn’t cry. There was no sense in it, no logical purpose to be achieved from shedding liquid misery, yet it was still moisture that had lingered in the corners of her eyes when she was snapping back at Jon’s query. He didn’t know her, just like he didn’t know the people his brothers had slaughtered. Those free men had been her family, her kin and comrades in a world where she had no blood ties to speak of. The crows had attacked blindly that day, without provocation and with little to no justification, except to preserve their own skin on the off chance her people attacked them. Where was the morality in that? Where was the honour he was so eager to cling to? Or was that the lie they liked to tell themselves; that somehow the slaughtering of the free wasn’t a crime, but a civic duty?

Her anguish was short-lived, quietly tucked away in the back of her mind and buried beneath a protective layer of righteous anger. It was easier to find comfort in irritation than it was to mourn those that had fallen. Far easier to pretend that it didn’t bother her, when the weight of loss was more than capable of eating away at her in moments of drawn out silence and solitude. Where had their simple banter gone? Where had the mutual understanding that certain things weren’t meant to be divulged, suddenly absconded to? It was courtesy that necessitated a certain amount of restraint in their discussions, but what place did courtesy have when pitted against a crow’s curiosity?

She couldn’t fault him for being curious, but she didn’t much have to like him for it either. He was still a mystery, even to Ygritte. His actions betrayed his words, his mannerisms and declarations walking contradictions in themselves. He claimed to be free, yet acted like a crow - stretched his wings, yet never flew from the nest. It was like he didn’t want to be one of them, to have obligation stripped away and the ability to carve his own destiny from the snow and ice at his feet. Maybe he’d lived in that gilded cage for so long, he’d forgotten what the real world was like. Maybe the wall had corrupted his perception, or his father’s damnable ideology, that while admirable on paper held little weight in practice.

“Are y’callin’ me a liar again?” With gentle admonishment, the wildling crinkled her pale nose scornfully, her gaze narrowing into a pointed stare as she shook her head with a patronising click of the tongue. She smiled because it was easier this way, just as she laughed to eradicate some of her own unease from his earlier query. No sane man showed weakness, so why should she be any different? She was above this sentimentality, better prepared and well equipped to fight rather than dwell on emotions she could neither control nor curtail. “Draw y’sword then, Snow. Prove y’worth an’ we’ll see who’s capable an’ who ain’t. I assure y’, as o’ right now, I don’t have any qualms wi’ littering’ y’feathered backside wi’ arrows.”

It had been a mistake to ask her about that day, Jon suddenly realized, the thought coming to him with a new violent lunge of the wild wind of the north. There was something in the way she replied to him that showed him the question had been improper, as he had already suspected after he had already uttered the words that formed the question. And though there was a smile in her face, Jon could see there was something hidden behind it. What was it, it was still a mystery, for he knew very little yet from the woman. He could not understand, as the crow he was, the bound that the wildling shared with those men the Halfhand, his men and him had slayed near the fist of the first men. He did not know how much they could have possibly lived through together, how many times fought by each other’s side. He should not have asked that. And he should not have shown her any pride on it, not even faked pride.

But the words had been spoken. The question was asked. And she had given him an answer, even if vague. She was not going to sheed any years in front of him. As if he was so special! She had saved his life once, just as he had saved hers. The debt was paid. And they were not only still strangers to each other, but enemies. He had, after all, killed her companions… It would not have surprised him if she had slipped in his tent and slit his throat in the middle of the night, under the cover of darkness. No one could have blamed her.

Yet for some reason she had not. Maybe it was part of the debt she owed him - a life for a life. But even if this was so, nothing obliged her to be friendly to him. Because, even if he despised recognizing, she was being just that: all the ways of teasing him could only be a way of approaching him. And even the coldest of the iced walls was not indifferent to a big fire.

"I am not calling you a liar, though" Jon replied, shaking his head softly. Some snow flakes, half way about melting, fell from his dark hair. "And i am not going to draw my sword out just to prove you wrong. It would not be a clever move from me..." he stated and he turned slightly, determined to continue his path, following the steps of the rest of the wildlings.

To an extent, he had left her speechless, at least when it came to matters of any seriousness. She’d always been one to hide behind jibes and jest when she deemed a situation awkward, and she was finding more and more reason to slip her subtle innuendos into conversation to try and detract from what might otherwise be a very dangerous chain of thought to walk down. If anything, she wanted to make Jon as uncomfortable as he invariably made her. She wasn’t afraid of him, nor of his feathered allegiance not entirely forgotten, but rather the very simple fact that what he spoke of often made sense. Ygritte didn’t agree with him, not by a long stretch, but the more she tried to put herself in his shoes, the more she came to realise that perhaps in his own warped way, what he was doing felt right and just to him - and sympathising with crows was not any vein of thought she wanted to willingly explore. 

So instead she sought to find ways to avoid such an end. It was the reason for her arm ensnaring hers, for that little bump of shoulders together as they wandered through the snows and ice. In the South it meant something different, but here, it was just one way of showing solidarity while discreetly leeching someone else’s heat. The redhead was cold, despite the fiery tendrils of red that whipped and licked at her face; and ironically the Snowy bastard was warm, at least in physical proximity. There was also a reminder to her gesture too, that little nagging significance that she was always going to be there at his side whether he liked it or not, because he’d said the words, and she’d said hers. Her life was as much dependent upon him keeping his promise to the free-folk, as his was.

All of this she tried to tell him in the look that responded to his own, grey flecked eyes screaming sentiment and austerity far louder than her words ever could. Was he able to read between the lines though? Or was he just going to presume this was another game, set aside merely to torture him? The words that kept coming out of her mouth didn’t match the look that accompanied them. She spoke of vulgarity and unabashed sexuality, and yet her eyes were always tame, tempestuous certainly, but never quite so crass. Not that it mattered of course, she doubted very much that Jon would understand the intricacies of her behaviour anymore than she arguably understood why she was so determined to be at his side.

It was her choice to make though wasn’t it? She wasn’t bound by the same laws of convention as the silk clad women beyond the wall. She could befriend who she liked, bed who she liked, and incidentally bloody murder who she liked. Two of the three were somewhat irrelevant in the faux-crow’s case, but the modality of thought was still the same. She was a free-woman. Her entire life had been built around that glorious ability to choose her own destiny, and carve out her own path in life. She didn’t have to spend her days tucked away in a tower, or rearing a small army of children while some devoted husband buggered off to earn a living and put food on the table. Hell, if she ever had the benefit of becoming a mother, she’d strap her babe to her chest and go out hunting and scouting the same as she always had. There was nothing in this world that could possibly convince her that she wasn’t equal to anyone else.

“If anymore blood rushes t’y’face Jon Snow, I swear y’ll topple over.” Teasing quietly, the curly haired woman chuckled then, her lips firmly locked in that lopsided curve as she shook at her head at the poor boy’s own naivety. “I’ll be sure t’show y’one day. We’ll see if y’blush quite so much then.” Nudging at his ribs with her elbow for added measure, the spearwife exhaled happily then, satisfied in her ability to embarrass and confuse the poor boy with the bare minimum of effort. It wasn’t even an outright lie either, which was perhaps the reason why her own cheeks were taking on that delightfully hazy pink hue, but all mischief and delusions of romanticised mischief died with the next question that fell from oblivious lips.

For once, it was enough to make Ygritte withdraw into herself, her arm slipping out from it’s linked position with the crow as she sought out some much needed distance. “Maybe.” She mumbled out in earnest, her hand subconsciously shifting to rub at the spot underneath her jaw that had been wet with blood on the day in question. “Y’came at us, when we were tryin’ t’sleep. Y’gutted m’kin like pigs, without warnin’ an’ before they ‘ad chance t’yield. Y’didn’t even burn ‘em in the end….y’just left ‘em f’the shadow cats, kicked ‘em off a cliff an’ left ‘em. As f’capture, I seem t’recall I were th’ only one left alive, Snow. ‘cause you weren’t willin’ t’do what needed t’be done.” From jovial to embittered, the conversation had slipped, moisture already pooling within narrowed eyes. From the cold ,of course. Only ever from the cold. . Rubbing at her eyes dismissively, dry lips pursed together momentarily before an exasperated laugh rippled forth  and saw Ygritte shaking her head. “So no. In a fair fight, I’d ‘ave kicked y’bloody feathered arse.”

For a moment, Ygritte seemed as if she was going to remain silent and not even answer his question, and he would not have blamed her if she had not. Jon stared at her as her she mumbled a single word as her answer and was surprised to she her eyes become suddenly wet and a certain melancholy feel them. Yet she quickly narrowed them, and the sight of that shadow of sadness disappeared to Jon's eyes. Had she been about to shed a tear? Was it due to a painful memory or because of the cold wind that howled around them, like a wild and bloodthirsty animal? Maybe he had imagined it all after all... It was little what she knew about her, yet he had not seen her weep, not even when she thought her time had arrived and she was to die, the day Jon and Qhorin had attacked the wildlings near the Fist of the First Men. But again, what did he know about her?

However, his question had not been the kind to be expected after what could had been described as a conversation that had jumped from awkwardness to fresh laughters, yet he had to get that out of his chest. And so he had done. Maybe it had been the pride left in him and that wanted to know if he would have been able to defeat a woman - but not any woman: a wildling, fierce as a wolverine and strong as a shadow cat - what had made the words come out of his throat. Or maybe it was just simple curiosity, he still had not decided what was it that had pushed his lips to open and his mouth to articulate the question. Where was the point of asking that now, anyway? What did he expect to accomplish with such an inquire? " I need to know, I need to understand..." he thought as he continued to stare at her, her red hair contrasting particulary against the white and cold background. 

There were many things that Jon could still not understand about the wildlings and about Ygritte in particular. To him, her world was still a mystery to be solved. In the middle of her world, there she was, the greatest enigma: herself. She was strangely magnetic in the sense she was a question mark, void of information that needed to be filled. And Jon wanted to know, to discover, to learn about her and her culture. The more time he spent with the wildlings, the more he doubted his own beliefs. The brothers had been wrong about them all the time: the free folk were not much different than them in some way. They were not the feral beasts he had been told they were. Yes, they knew nothing about gallantry or chevalry, but there were many men south of the wall that knew nothing about that either and yet they possessed lands and titles and were treated as noblemen. By Ygritte's side, his mind was broadening, opening to a new culture somehow, and that, even thought it fascinated Jon, it also worried him, for one day, he woul have to leave the company of the free folk and return to the place he had chosen to live in. "I am doing this for my brothers" he said to himself. "I am here becaus it was the Halfhand's last wish"

"We are the watchers on the Wall..." he could still hear Qhorin's voice in his ear, his last words uttered with his last breath. 

The wildling woman's voice returned him to the real world. "No" she had said and she had smiled, any trace of sadness gone from her voice, her features and her eyes as if it had never existed. Jon tried to return the smile to her, to respond to her kind smirk with another, yet all he was able to do was give her a grimace. Even though his cheeks were still slightly colored in a pink tonality, he felt his face cold as if it was made of ice.

His words cut through her thoughts and she found a soft smile creeping onto her face when she heard him speak of his Father in such a fond manner. She nodded faintly, giving his arm a warm squeeze as it rested underneath her pale hand. “He sounds like a wonderful man,” she mused through slightly pursed lips, returning her gaze to the road ahead of them. He sounded quite like her own but she didn’t care to mention that; she didn’t want to think about him all too much for it still hurt as much as a freshly made wound. But it was good; that he had not been cast aside like so many other bastards that she had heard tale of. After all, it was not his fault what sort of situation he was brought into; so why should his parents scold him for such a way? It never had made sense to her. But his next words sent a roll of dismissal through her and she shook her head intently, her long and elegant fingers clasping tightly upon his arm once more. “Everyone is born for a reason; even if they are jeered at for such. If your Father was a good man then what’s to stop you being one, too? Nothing. And if you ask me, I’d say you’re already there. You’re helping a complete stranger and acting very gallant. It’s a rare trait and one that does not go unnoticed. And will not go unrewarded, either. When I return to Camelot, that is.” 

All the same, Morgana knew when to quit while she was ahead and she did so; realising that it was quite a difficult subject for the Stark before her. 

The wind whiped him in the face furiously and it was cold as the edge of a knife. It bit his skin like a wild animal, mad of bloodthirst. Morgana's hair seemed however cradled by it. The grip of her hand on his arm was weak, though she still was strong enough to squeeze his arm gently from time to time. There was something about her warm despite her northern and cold appearance. Her features seemed indeed royal, and what was to expect of a queen of a distant land? Jon looked away from her once again and his gaze fell on the snow before them. They could already see the black towers of Castle Black.

 What was a woman like her doing in a place like that, Jon wondered. She had said she had lost her men, yet he had not found them in the surroundings. There was not a soul around, only the howling wind and the virgin snow. 

But the woman had not given him reasons to distrust her. She had been kind and friendly, almost like if she knew him from longer than only minutes. Was it that she had lived through something similar to what he had, he could not help asking himself. Truth was, Morgana intrigued him.

Her words brought him back to reality. There was almost a hint of sadness in her eyes. Did she pity him? "Before I was a brother of the Night's Watch..." he started saying, but he never got to complete the sentence. He suddenly fell silent. What had he been before being a part of the ones forggotten by the realm? "No one" he thought at first. All his life he had been nothing: not a legitimate son, not a true brother.... Yet when he thought of his brothers - of Arya, Robb, Rickon, Bran and Sansa - his hearth warmed slightly even in the coldest of the storms.

"My brother’s life is not so easy." No, especially not so now at King’s Landing. “There are many things he must do that we are spared from. We have no need to pledge service to anyone save the Night’s Watch or make treaties with lords and bannermen. The realm is sworn to give us what we cannot provide for ourselves.” Eddard may sleep with a fire and eat a bountiful breakfast but his life is no less of a challenge than mine, only a different sort of conquest. 

"There was no other option for me," Benjen mimicked his nephew’s words. His fingers traced lines on scratchy wood of his desk and he turned his eyes back upon Jon. The sound and the slow creep of the wind crawling inside his chambers sent a chill down his spine. The Gods are watching us, they listen and they deemed us fit for the Black. “My family was dead and my home was a land of ghosts for me. I suspect it is for Ned as well but he could not make the choice to leave it. I could and I did.” 

He still had not answered all of Jon’s question, only part of it. Why the black? Why the Night’s Watch? He could reiterate the phrase he had always known, the Starks have always been friends to the Wall. Benjen had heard it said so many times before, from his father, their bannerman, his brother, himself. 

 His thoughts flew away towards Robb. Did he and Robb look as similar as Eddard and Benjen did? For a moment, Jon allowed himself to believe that yes, indeed, they were. But the truth was different, and as much as he would have liked to ignore it, it would always come to haunt him. "Our mothers are different. Robb's hair is almost auburn like lady Catelyn's, while mine is as black as night"

He closed his eyes for a moment. What would Robb be doing in that very moment? Where was he? Jon imagined him sitting in lord Eddard's humble stone throne in Winterfell, listening to what his father's bannermen and subjects had to say, with a serious look on his face, a look sometimes Theon had  mocked. Yes, Robb was indeed his father's son. "And what am I?" he asked himself. 

Shaking his head slightly, his eyes returned to his uncle that had fell silent suddenly, like if he regreted having said too much, having said more than it was needed. Jon tilted his head slightly to the side, as if in wonder. There had been no other option for him, he had said. Was it because he felt guilt? Because he needed redemption? Jon could not understand well his uncle's reasons for joining the Watch... But how could he? Lord Eddard barely spoke about his sister Lyanna or about Brandon's death. It was very little what Jon knew about that episode of his family's history. 

Yes, I took a little longer than i promised to come back from holidays, but i had great issues with my computer data and stuff like that… but here i am!

It wasn’t an option. She shook herself awake, just enough as to not fall from the mount. She tightened her grip ever so slightly, as much as she could. She stayed silent, her voice all but gone. She tried to look out into the wilderness but saw nothing but snow, as if they were enveloped in a winter wonderland, a white void that would trap them forever. Her eyes squinted as she focused on something in the distance. She couldn’t tell what it was, but it definitely wasn’t just a stagnant part of the scenery. It caught her eye because it moved.

Thinking about this, he once again spurred the animal that neighed loudly as it speeded up. There was no sound other than their breaths and the horse's hooves clashing against the floor, once and once again. Jon could feel the cold crawling into his bones and for a moment he took the reins in his mouth to rub his hands on his arms, trying to warm himself up.

Her chuckle behind him was what warned him this time of her approach. When her arm was laced with his, Jon did already know it was her, however, that did not lessen the surprise. She was so confident, she seemed to fear nothing. The way she had slipped her arm around his was so familiar for a moment Jon wondered how long it had been since he had first met the wildling woman. He stared at her as if in her eyes he would find the explanation for such a gesture, but if it was there, he was unable to find it. 

In the south, where he came from, ladies never were the ones to reach for the lords arms unless their relationship had already been long and well known by everyone in the court. It normally was the man the one who searched for the lady's arm to lace it with his, and this way, the walked across the room, talking about anything in particular, or maybe just gossping. Of course, Jon had danced with some girls when living in Winterfell, and for such a thing, he had slipped his arm around a woman's one. However, he had never felt comfortable doing such a thing.

The gesture Ygritte had just made, on the other had, was so familiar, Jon was surprised to find that he was not disturbing to him, unlike the sudden grab of his hand that had happened a few moments before. It had been so natural he had almost overlooked it. His eyes fell on her arm, laced to his and then looked up at her again, as if in a silent question, but he did not move away however. He let her speak, and he listened to her.

And her words did not fail to make him blush again, like the virgin he was. That innuendo Ygritte had just pointed out was the proof of one of the greatest differences between the culture of the free folk and the one of the people of the southern lands. Wildling women were able to talk openly about sexualty without even blushing. In fact, women had an important part in what came to choosing mate. They were the ones who decided, in some way, if the man that wanted them was worth of their love, and they had the right to defend themselves from any attempt those men had to possess them. They were said to be fierce and inclement if the man did not prove to be strong enough to take them... and watching Ygritte carefully - and even though he had only fought against her once - Jon Snow could see that what he had been told was true: wildling women were no ladies in any sense of the word. When they spoke, their language was the same as men's. "They are equal..." Jon realized, and that discover had surprised him at first. He had never thought about such a thing, about men and women being the same thing - humans. He had been raised to believe each one of them had their place in the world: women taking care of children and men working to bring food and money home. However, that changed beyond the Wall.