Chapter Text
“I will need no more of you this eve, Snow,” the Old Bear flicked dismissively, “feed the fire and go.”
Jon hesitated. “Are you certain, my lord?”
“Go,” was all Lord Mormont told him.
“Go, go, go,” his raven quorked. “Corn, corn, corn.”
So it had been, an early end to Jon’s steward duties that day with an entire half of an hour of dusky light left before the true darkness set in. The camps of Black Brothers congregated around cookfires, steam rising from them only long enough to freeze in the air and turn to glittering ice above them, suspended amongst the thousand stars that truly lit the land.
It was endless, the world beyond the Wall, but still simple enough to find Sam, Pyp, and Grenn amongst the masses. Sam’s ravens were asleep beneath black cloth, and Pyp was ever japing with the others, Edd and Chett amongst, when Jon arrived.
“Oho!” the funny-eared boy laughed, “the Old Bear’s let the fish from his jaw for a chance to yawn, ‘as he?”
“Who’s the fish? You smell as good as one,” Jon rolled his eyes, fumbling through gloves to unearth his dented iron cup for a taste of heated mead. It was dark and bitter as poison berries but Jon was grateful for it.
“Suppose you’ve a southron ladies’ perfume on, eh, Snow, that you smell better than the rest o’ us?” Chett sniffed, a prickly snort. Jon knew better than to pay him mind.
The night was livelier than most, for the day’s travel hadn’t been so hard on them. An open sky and windless plain were to thank for that, a thanks Jon gave. Riding near the head of the column ensured that the smell of a few hundred unwashed men of the Night’s Watch didn’t reach his nose, but when the winds rose he bore far more of the brunt than the last man in their columns.
“You won’t guess, Jon,” Pyp smiled wide when he pulled Jon aside, sneakily waving Grenn over to them.
“I won’t guess, then,” Jon grinned back.
“No fun,” Pyp scorned and, with a quick glance around, pulled back Grenn’s massive fur. Huddled in a pocket fashioned between layers were three dead rabbits, necks snapped clean. Grenn shoved his furs closed fast, but Jon saw it. Sam was behind him and hadn’t a clue what was going on.
“You’ve been carrying those about for how long?” Jon gasped, disbelieving.
“Just two hours,” Grenn defends, "we found them when I went for a piss, caught up in a bramble. I killed them and Pyp said we should keep ‘em for ourselves, not like they’re feeding us right in these bleeding camps…”
“They have us on children’s portions!” Pyp hooted, “I might be short as a boy but I eat like a man, don’t I?”
Sam had come to understand the happenings and only sighed. “I’ve missed rabbit stew. With some carrots and onions, oh, salt and a touch of pepper…”
So it was that the four of them clambered to a patch of snow far enough from the others that their fire wouldn’t be investigated. Jon collected the low branches that felt half dry from the pines around them, a few thick sheets of bark and a wide broken branch or two. Sam tended to the fire, building a nice blaze out of their bare materials while Grenn and Jon worked quickly to skin two rabbits with their daggers. They brought their portions of plain soup along as well, dumped together in a pot Sam used to grind the food for the ravens each morn and eve. It was quick work, the rabbit meat chunked and charred because there wasn’t time to slow cook it proper. Jon mourned the grease they’d miss, but when they’d all sat to suck on the strips of stringy rabbit meat, he couldn’t think of a single better meal he’d ever had.
Beneath the starry sky with his brothers, the sort of rabble his little sister Arya would have adored, the sort she'd a hundred questions about this and that until she wormed into their hearts, Jon slurped soup as if it was the finest dish Gage had ever prepared for Jon’s lord father’s table.
“Nothing so nice as a proper homemade meal,” Pyp smacked his lips in satisfaction.
“Homemade? Who’s made it then?” Jon japed. Pyp hadn’t lifted a finger to help, only hopped about like a mummer pulling the piss out of them all.
Pyp gasped in pretend offense. “Jon! Are you accusing me, Pypar, lauded brother of the Night’s Watch, of being more useless than even Grenn?”
They all laughed but Grenn, who frowned and left a punch on Pyp’s shoulder. “Hey ho. 'Tis true, you’re twice as useless as I am.”
“But half as ugly!”
Grenn smacked the snow so that it erupted in Pyp’s direction, resulting in a spray of ice run through a razor coating Pyp’s bare attempt at a beard. The bickering between the two was entertaining enough to Jon, who missed the easy grace of his friends after spending whole days at Lord Mormont’s commands. The Old Bear was a wealth of snarky guidance and hard wisdom but he rarely smiled and laughed less.
A whisper rustled through the trees nearby then, nothing more than the night alive, yet Jon was alone in his lack of concern. The others all looked over their shoulders as though the true Others were here to join them in their rabbit soup… a thought Jon didn't like. He flexed the fingers on the burnt arm, remembering a pair of dead yet alive eyes. Gods of my father protect us, he couldn’t help but think.
“I wish we hadn’t left the Wall,” Sam mumbled, pale in the moonlight. It filtered through his brown hair grown a bit long, raised it from his forehead by a breeze like a proud father might push back their child’s bangs to find seeds of courage in their eyes. “It’s so cold here, and the poor horses… it was awful at that place too, at that Craster’s Keep. Just horrible.”
Jon shrugged his black cloak closer, the furs beneath hugging his body. “We’re not there anymore,” Jon said simply, not wanting to raise the issue again.
“I hate it, too,” Grenn moaned, “trees are meant to be pretty and green, for climbing and growing tasty fruits. Here the trees all look like they’re watching.”
“And why would any trees be watching you, Aurochs?” Pyp snorted, “they’re all bigger and stronger than you. Be glad they’re only watching and not falling on us as these treacherous wildlings are sure too.”
Sam shivered. “Do you reckon? I heard from—”
“No,” Jon cut him off, knowing the road this would take them on. They had been down it a dozen times, scaring each other worse each time. “Besides, there’s worse things than wildlings in these woods.”
Jon had not meant that in a threatening manner, only thinking of Old Nan’s stories as she used to tell them of what lie beyond the Wall. Nameless woman who roamed naked with black teeth filed into points, who would feast on the flesh of little boys and girls. Beasts as big as Winterfell swimming beneath the ice, always watching, always waiting. The Others most of all.
He exchanges a look with Sam, who gives him a small smile in return.
“My mam used to say she’d sell me to some wildling for meat when I’d done bad. Frightened the pants off me as a boy, but it was better than when she’d set my uncle to switch my hide. I can’t imagine anything worse than that,” Grenn said shyly. Grenn was rarely shy or proud, always one to state a thing as he understood it. It was clear he was more than usually perturbed by the thought of the Others. The tall boy fed more of their kindling to the flame, their pile of gathered sticks rapidly diminishing, yet the mood had settled into a hush over them.
Pyp broke the calm, never one to sit in silence. “What’s so worse then, Jon, eh? You’re the only of us grew up in the North, that’s so. Might be you know some we don’t.”
“I know plenty you don’t,” Jon japed back, rising to sit up, leaning towards the bare heat of the flame. “I was raised on stories of these dark forests. Old Nan used to scare us to sleep, me and Robb first, then the rest of the children. It was grumpkins and snarks when I was small, but when we grew old enough, she told us of other things…”
“Who’s Old Nan?” Sam asked gently, leaning his head on his gloved palm.
“She was an old woman in Winterfell who was once a wetnurse,” Jon explained. When I was small she was half a mother to me. “Her family long served the Starks, but there’s only her and her simple grandnephew left of her line. She’s the one told us all the stories, though.”
“Oh, good,” Pyp snorted, “so should we come across a wight we can say now now, young lad, Jon’s Old Nan told us how t’deal with the likes o’ you. Shoo off.”
“She was a good woman,” Jon protested quietly, laughing along.
“What’d she say, then? About these forests?” Grenn pressed.
“You truly wish to know? Might be you won’t be able to sleep at night…”
“Come off it,” Pyp scowled, “you wouldn’t deny us men of the Night’s Watch a story from Old Nan, eh? The old bird wouldn’t want that.”
Jon shrugged. “As you please. There was one she told us, about the forests beyond the Wall. This all took place a thousand years ago, or two as it happened, but as there are none who survived to tell the tale, we can’t say.”
“None but Old Nan,” Pyp chimed in.
“Quiet,” Grenn huffed, “Jon’s telling the story, not you.”
“Just so. Now this was a thousand or two thousand years before, or such as makes no matter. There was a Black Brother whose name was struck from his history for his crimes, lost in the woods and desperate for a friendly face. He’d been ranging and separated from his party after a storm, or so he'd say, but legend has it he turned craven before a fight and ran off. Only he lost himself among all the pines and spruce and evergreen, each one a darker green than the last as he went deeper into the belly of the growth until it seemed black all about.”
In his mind, Jon could hear Old Nan’s gummy mouth’s wet lips slapping against one another, the slight hiss from all her spittle. Robb was next to him with bated breath, just the same as Jon would have been.
“He tripped over roots and branches, couldn’t tell north from south, and began to see sights that only a starving man would, of a woman with skin pale as ice calling him to the path that would lead him out. She walked naked, never turning back to see him, always disappearing from sight."
“Here’s to hope I see a naked woman before I die,” Pyp groaned, although his heart was not in it. None paid the interruption any mind.
“He ran and ran for her, paying no mind to how the branches of trees cut him, through furs until it was his own bare skin it sliced, his blood left behind. He was a Black Brother so he bled back as well, and the trees black trunks were greedy for it.” As a child, Jon had believed that men of the Night's Watch bled black, until Uncle Benjen visited and laughed heartily at him saying so.
“As it was, she took pity on the young man, and turned with her arms outstretched. He collapsed into them, begging for her aide, claiming falsely that he’d been abandoned and needed return to the Wall. She had no sustenance for him but that which flowed from her breast, and the taste so fine that he wished to remain with her for time. So it was, he never left that forest to return to the Wall and confess his cowardice as he should. She kept him there, feeding him, all for the price of nothing but a bit of his black blood every now and then. This he willingly gave, seduced by her pale skin that shone even in the darkness.”
All eyes were wide around him. Jon put the last of the kindling on the fire, stirring it so every chin burned red and orange in the fading glow. The forest whistled again, but no one heard.
“He never left the forest, so he never knew that by giving his blood, the forest could feast. Only his blood was bad, the blood of an oathbreaker, a traitor, and a craven who’d betrayed his brothers. The rangers he’d been sent with had died in their mission, as he should have, by their sides. So the forest grew, malicious and hungry, eating all it came across. It swallowed lakes, packs of animals, entire villages. The forest grew so thick and tangled that it soon came within leagues of the Wall, hungry for more of that black blood. The Lord Commander at the time sent his men to cut down the trees, but the trees whipped their way free, screaming murder and feasting on the dead bodies left. Still the brother remained in the arms of his moon maid, content with his lot.”
“Soon, though, a brave recruit who hadn’t yet sworn his vows stole away from the Wall. His blood still bled red, so the trees allowed him past, not knowing what he was. But his heart was black and true, and he fought through the forest with only the Old Gods to guide him. They whispered through the roots beneath his feet, guiding him to where the man and his lover lay.”
Sam shuffled closer, shivering intent. Jon let his friend come, their furs touching and cold breath parallel. Fools, Jon thought, but kept his face solemn for the last bit.
“The craven fought the hero something fierce, mad with the wildness that she had weaned him on, unhearing of what the man told him of the threat to the Night’s Watch. He thought only of his pleasure and his woman, uncaring of those who were once his brothers. And when the hero finally slid his sword into the man’s heart, his black blood was already gone, only a few drops left to spill. But that was not enough. The hero knew that if he were to stop the horror, he’d have to kill the woman too, though it gave him no pleasure to do so.”
“Had to be done,” Grenn said confidently, “I wouldn’t chance leaving the witch alive.”
“Aye, that sort of thinking what got you in black to begin with! Killing ladies for letting men suck at their teats, such a terrible crime that is,” Pyp japed.
“So he killed the woman? What of the forest?” Sam asked, mouth open.
“Patience,” Jon laughed and winked, “almost there. Now, as I was, the hero knew he’d need kill the woman although it pained him. He’d had ten sisters, you see, and loved each one dearly. Never had he lifted a hand to a woman…”
That was the lesson Old Nan had been teaching them, Jon knew it now. To be gentle with girls. Arya was but a year old at that time and they hadn’t known that in three more, she would be the one to try and wrestle him.
“So he killed her,” Grenn smiled, “I knew it so.”
Jon sighed. “Would that it were so simple. He sliced through her with a sword, thinking to give her a quick death, but when his sword came to her… she shattered instead, a great cloud of snow erupting over him. It went everywhere, a thousand snowflakes a thousand time over, blowing in every direction. The hero was left all alone with the forest, vengeful in it’s wrath that he had dared touch it’s lady, so roots erupted from beneath the icy floor to rip apart his limbs, spilling even his red blood over the very floor the woman had disappeared into.
“She did not die?” Sam gasped, enthralled still. Jon nearly felt bad.
He shook his head. “The Night’s Watch cut down the forest and the young hero was buried in a black cloak, although he never swore the vows. In time his name was forgotten, although his courage lived on. But the woman…”
He leaned forward, snapping his fingers as he’d done a hundred times before. “She spread so far and wide that none could hope to find her, much less destroy her. Yet the wildlings have a tale of her, of this woman who rises from beneath the ground when she pleases, preying on any who cut down her trees. She went mad when her lover died, and now she drinks the blood of whoever she pleases, fading away into the drifts, never to be caught.
He tapped the snow beneath them, rubbing flakes between his gloved fingers. “They say she rises in one place, then the next moment a thousand leagues away. Anywhere there are snowbanks, she might hide. Might be she’s beneath us… might be she’ll rise any moment," Jon leaned in until he could feel the breath of each of his friends, "might be she's beneath us, even right... NOW!”
An explosion of white came over them, a hurtling mass the color of the moon that was stark even in the moonlight.
Pyp shrieked, a wail so piercing it reminded Jon of Sansa when Robb would frighten her, and Grenn screamed as well, and aeeraaargh like he was indeed the aurochs Ser Alliser had named him. Sam cowered, disappearing into his furs such that not a hair on his head could be seen, too petrified even to yell.
And Jon laughed, laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe, rubbing a hand in the warm neck of his accomplice.
“Good boy, Ghost!” he managed once his breath came back. “Rabbit meat for you!”
Even as he spoke, Ghost was slurping up the last of the soup in the pot, a piece or two of rabbit there for him. Ghost hunted for most his food but he still ate whatever scraps Jon threw him, as he had when he was a pup.
“You fucker!” Pyp accused, still shaking in Grenn’s lap he’d lept into in fear. Grenn had two hands on his heart, cheeks bright red, while Sam cautiously emerged from his fur.
“Scared?” Jon laughed, “and that was one of her milder stories. You lot would never survive Old Nan’s stories about the Others proper. You’d piss yourselves.”
“Ghost, you bloody traitor, after all the bones I’ve slipped you under Jon’s nose,” Pyp whined, disentangling from Grenn finally, dusting himself off.
“Mother have mercy,” Sam managed, hands still shaking.
Jon gave him a look, pushing him lightly. “Why were you scared now? I told you what I was doing.”
“Just because I knew doesn’t mean I can’t be scared!”
“Why would you be scared if you knew?” Jon argued, but he gave Sam the rest of his mead from his horn anyway to calm his nerves. It was a frightening story. He and Robb had nightmares for days, woke up clinging to one another even though they were seven and thought themselves men grown.
He laid back them, using his fur hood as pillow and catching sight of the tapestry above them, the stars Maester Luwin once had him map out until they were as familiar as the back of Jon’s hand. They were sparkling through the sheen of tears that built in his eyes, blurring into one magnificent moving shawl of diamonds and darkness. Ghost laid beside him, snout buried in his own arms, and Jon was glad for the warmth.
“So many stars,” Pyp grumbled, changing the topic although it was plain he remained affronted. “I never trust those who claim they might sense of them. Bloody liars, I name them.”
Sam rested backwards, watching the same sky as Jon. “You need not make sense of them all, only the constellations. Those are the important ones that guide your way. I could… I could tell you about them, if you wish to know.”
“I know some already, but go on, Sam,” Grenn said, always agreeable.
“Lordlings and your lessons,” Pyp groaned, but Grenn was curious so Sam began pointing them out, beginning with the Ice Dragon and moving from there.
Jon listened, content to stay still in the deepness of night with his belly full of fresh rabbit. He found himself thinking on Maester’s Luwin’s teachings, but they came in Old Nan’s voice, the soft and swampy tones of the stooped old woman. Her stories had always scared Jon as a boy yet there was a queer comfort in the memory. No matter how ghoulish Old Nan’s monsters were, they were always long dead or trapped far away, and Jon was always safe in the walls of Winterfell.
Sam’s voice droned, a finger tracing the Stallion for Grenn’s benefit, Pyp quiet for once. The memory of Old Nan meandered away like a snowflake melting in his palm, and Sam’s kind tones replaced them, the rhythm settling into his bones.
He was long from the walls of Winterfell now, and the demons Old Nan had warned him of were close at hand. Yet Sam was as much of a comfort to him as the thought of her was, and for just a moment he felt a boy again. Safe in his slumber with his brothers by his side.