Winter is Coming

Jon Snow was born with wings. His family kept his secret until he joined the Night's Watch -but he couldn't keep the wings hidden for long. AU.

Disclaimer: not mine, belongs to a lot of people...but not me.

Maybe romance, maybe pairings, M because this is George R. R. Martin's universe and I've got no idea what'll happen (but please, you can deal with whatever I've put in this fic no matter what it is. You've watched Game of Thrones, after all).

(Also, yes...I know Tyrion and Benjen rode with Jon to the wall. I know Jon asked about his mother when he was leaving Ned Stark, and they weren't having a conversation about wings or whatever. I know they made camp sooner, and the weather wasn't as bad. This is AU, idc what everyone's exact words were in the original timeline, it's too much effort, and less effort on my part means more story.)

Set towards the beginning of GoT. I'm not very good with details or timelines...first season? Second season? Both, idk. Anyways, enjoy (:

The wind whistled across the moor.

"Remember, boy…" Ned Stark knelt, putting a gloved hand on either side of Jon's head. Jon swallowed, breathing in a shaky breath as he stared into his father's eyes. "Not a soul can know. No matter how close you get with any of them...any one of them would lock you up...lock you up, or worse. Not a soul."

Jon nodded grimly, acutely aware of the thick wings hidden under his heavy fur coat. "Not a soul," he repeated as he closed his eyes and breathed in a shaky breath. "I know." He opened his eyes again. "I swear it."

Father and son stared into the other's eyes for several drawn-out moments, before Ned pulled him into a gruff and almost embarrassed hug. "I'll miss you. Don't get yourself killed out there, beyond the wall." He pulled away from the hug and Jon put a boot into the stirrups of his horse.

"You too -my Lord." With that sentence and a slight but faraway smile, he swung his other leg over his horse and dug his heels into the sides of the beast -he turned away from his father quickly, not wanting to draw out the goodbye any longer than he had to, as he spurred the horse away down the path from Winterfell. He could feel his father's eyes on the back of his bastard son...he could feel the welcoming castle of Winterfell, far off behind him, but he didn't look back once.

Jon Snow and the white wolf beside him rode north together, and alone.

Jon didn't think much about anything that ride. His mind was numb, whether from fear or from anxious excitement he did not know. The north, his future, the wall...with every pound of his horse's hooves on the dirt roads, they all grew closer. He didn't want to think about it all. He didn't want to think about the family and the home he was leaving behind, the men who waited for him there, or how fuckin' high that wall would be. The ride to the wall was the only thing separating him from all of that, and it was over all too soon.

"Who'rye?" The thick accent demanded gruffly as Jon neared the gate. His horse snorted nervously, but Jon held the reins firmly. Ghost's ears twitched at the man's voice, and the pupils in his scarlet eyes dilated as he stared the man down.

"Jon Snow, sir." Jon sat higher on his horse. "Jon Snow from Winterfell, here to join the Night -"

"Eh, shut up and come in," the man cut him off, swinging open the gate that stood before him. "I don't care why yer 'ere or who ye are, boy. We're all the same 'ere."

I doubt that, whispered a stray thought in the back of Jon's mind, and his wings once again rubbed uncomfortably against his cloak. I doubt that very much.

He spurred his horse through the gate, nodding to the gatekeeper who ignored him in reply, shutting the gate almost immediately.

It was a different world on the other side of the gate. Out there, the fields were greener, the air clearer, the hills quieter...in here, the clanging of metal on metal, the shouts of men, it all bounced through the frigid air and against the walls of the courtyard to reach Jon's ears. He drank in the sight for the moment -ten or so unfamiliar faces were in the courtyard, all wielding swords as if they were heavy as tree trunks, beating them against their opponent's weapons clumsily and without the grace of his Winterfell comrades. And the air...for the first time in his life, Jon could feel the cold. It didn't bother him, of course, but it was chilly all the same.

"New recruit?" One of the men watching two others fight in the courtyard caught sight of him. "You don't look like a thief. 'Less you stole that pretty black coat!" The man laughed, drawing the attention of others to him. The sparring men finished their match and looked towards Jon, and a dozen eyes were then on him. They weren't hostile. They weren't even curious. Just...bored, as if they'd been through this before.

"Name's Jon Snow." Jon stepped forward, holding his head high as Ghost padded beside him. "I'm here from Winterfell."

"Oh." The man from before frowned. "You got a message or something, Jon Snow? I've heard of ye."

Jon shook his head. "No. I'm here to fight in the Night's Watch."

Another man, this one white-haired and standing further away from the others as if observing them, raised an eyebrow. "I'd heard you were coming up north. What'd you do wrong, boy? Why are you here?"

"I wasn't forced to," Jon replied, ruffled. "I came out of duty."

This seemed to surprise them. "Duty," the white-haired man repeated. "Well, you're a rare sight then. Welcome, Jon Snow. I'm the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, Jeor Mormont."

Jon inclined his head respectfully.

"Tell me, Jon," Mormont began. "Are you rested? Well-fed? The ride wasn't too difficult for you?"

Jon frowned, but shook his head. "I'm in good health, sir. May I ask -" his sentence was cut off short as Mormont strode forward and shoved a dulled sword into his hands.

"Good," said Mormont, stepping back. "Then let's see what you're made of."

Jon's hands shook on the reins as the cold crept beneath his gloves, beneath his skin, chilling the northern man to the bone. He didn't let it show on his face; his comrades' eyes were down, jaws clenched against the wind, but Jon stared ahead as the storms tossed snow through the air, settling on his hair and his lashes. Ghost treaded next to him carefully, red eyes shining in the world of winter. If the wolf wasn't a few feet from him, Jon would have lost him in the white haze surrounding the traveling group.

Several months had passed since Jon arrived at Castle Black. Several months since he had seen his family, and he hadn't stretched his wings in over a year. Even in the safety of his chambers, alone, Jon hadn't been able to take his wings out -someone could walk in. Someone could see him through the window, anything could happen. The fear of discovery had remained with him since he was old enough to realize that having wings wasn't normal...and so they remained tucked under his cloak and layers of fur, stiff and unused.

Back at Castle Black, back at Winterfell, his comrades and friends had wondered why he wore so many layers ("It's the cold, of course," Jon would say, but in the warmer days of summer at Winterfell that lie became thin). His family wondered, too -Arya had seen his wings once, back when he was young and she was younger and no one but his father knew. She kept his secret, though, just as his father had, just as they would continue to do.

So the months had passed at Castle Black. He fought, he trained, became a Steward, served the Lord Commander, and was gifted a sword of Valyrian steel. He was at Castle Black when his uncle Benjen was proclaimed dead, when more news of death poured in from beyond the wall. And then, a week ago, his party set out. They took shelter with Craster and his women, and continued to ride north in search of Benjen. They hadn't found him yet. They were still searching, out here in the wild and the white.

"We have to make camp, sir," Edd called to the Lord Commander, breaking Jon from his thoughts. Jon rode between Edd and the commander, who rode the only horse in front of him. "We'll freeze soon. There are caves in these parts, I've seen them. We've passed them."

Edd was right. They wouldn't survive out here for much longer, not with this storm. Jon's horse was struggling through the snow with every step, and even Ghost kept his head down.

The wind whistled some more before Jon made out Mormont's answering nod. "Next cave we see," he agreed. "Next cave, we'll -"

AHOOOOOO!

The horn blast seemed to chill Jon even more, but the end of it died out quickly and the howling wind replaced the noise once more. The wind raged in their ears for some time -the man who had blown the horn was far out of sight, travelling at the back of their group.

"One blast," Edd said, relieved, as the sound faded. "Just -"

AHOOOOOO!

Ahead of him, the commander raised a hand, motioning for those behind him to stop as he pulled on his horse's reins. The commander's eyes searched the white.

"Wildlings," Jon said grimly, placing a gloved hand over the cover of his sword. "Commander -"

AHOOOOOO!

Silence fell. Several moments passed.

The commander turned his head slowly, looking back at Jon -and for the first time, Jon saw fear in his leader's eyes.

"Three blasts," someone uttered hoarsely -the voice could have been his own, he wasn't sure. "Three blasts -that means -"

"Run."

But they saw no wildlings, they saw no walkers. There was only white around them, swirling past their shoulders and horses, dulling their sight and their senses as their horses balked nervously. Jon could hardly see thirty feet in any direction, at best. So which direction did the horn warn them of?

...And then, in the white, Jon saw the blue. But it wasn't behind him, where the horn should have come from, where all of the men were. Morton led the pack, with Jon behind him...there were no men in front of him.

"It must have bounced around the canyon." Jon admired the strength in his commander's voice; it shook slightly, but it was stronger than he could have possibly mustered. Morton stood frozen, immobile, staring at something that he could only begin to see. Jon saw it too, that blue, and the blue turned to icy eyes as something stepped forward...something...a walker.

A White Walker stepped forward, an undead horn-blower standing next to him with half of his face peeled off, clutching the horn of a dead man to his chest. And behind him, dark shapes began to emerge -heads, bodies, bones, the skeletons of men and women and children far gone but still walking. The army of the dead lurched forward one step, towards the group, and the howling of the wind seemed to die down as the White Walker paused. It stared at Jon -directly at Jon, he could swear. And it was only then that he realized that there was no one behind him. Grenn, Tollett, all gone, all fled. But there were still other shapes behind him -more of those dark shapes, surging forward towards the two lone men.

And soon they were surrounded -a complete circle, with rotting corpses and bones on every side. Only twenty feet of air and snow separated Jon and the Lord Commander from death.

The White Walker took a step forward. The blue eyes still bore into Jon's, almost...mesmerizing, if they weren't so terrifying.

The commander spoke softly then, in the silence. "I'm don't want to die." Mormont looked at him, shivering from both cold and petrifying fear. "I'll accept the death, though. It's my duty as the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. But dying, then coming back as one of those -" he didn't need to gesture. Jon's eyes traveled over Walker's army. "I'm afraid of that, Jon. When I die, I don't want to come back to life. I want to stay dead. I want to still be me."

Jon's throat closed and his heart pounded in his stomach. He realized that he hadn't been cold before, hadn't even been remotely chilled. The pure ice running through his veins now was cold, he knew. Real cold, the cold that a man felt when he could see his death. "Commander -"

He was glad that his commander interrupted him. He didn't know what he would have said.

"There's no way out of this, Jon Snow. You've been a good Steward, mostly." The Commander laughed dryly. "Will you die with me?"

Will you die with me?

The words repeated in his mind. Will you die with me?

And still the White Walker stared at Jon Snow, holding his undead army back.

That fear all his life -the fear of being discovered, the fear of men tearing the wings off his back and shutting him away into a cell, the fear of the look in the eyes of the world when they realized that Jon Snow was inhuman -the fear was gone. It was a distant fear now.

And Jon knew.

"I won't. I'm sorry, Lord Commander." He missed the look of surprise on his commander's face -those blue eyes were still boring into his soul, and if he took his gaze off them for a second he worried that he would be torn apart by the dead. "Commander, do you trust me?"

The commander's eyes flickered to the Walker, then back to Jon.

"Not like I have any other choices. I trust you with my life, Jon Snow."

"Good."

With only a half-second of hesitation, Jon Snow tore off his cloak, ripped off his jacket and cast his tunic to the snowy rocks. The wings on his back cracked as he pried them off of his skin, stiff from lack of use and the cold. He was bare-chested, and the wind beat mercilessly against his back as the wings unfolded and the feathers spread like fingers reaching for the sky.

The White Walker seemed even more stunned than the commander was. It blinked, eyes darkening cruelly as the blue gaze swept over the dark shadows on Jon's back. The world was still for several moments, as the dead stared at their leader and Jon's commander and the walker stared at him, and Jon stared back into those eyes defiantly as he shook his wings, stretching them out to what must have been three times his size.

He hadn't quite realized how big they had gotten. And as the Walker got over its shock, it lifted its arm and a guttural cry rang from its throat; the dead surged forward, closing the gap between them and the two men (the dead were much faster than he thought they would be). They had almost reached them when Jon grabbed Mormont by the side, straining his wings as they flapped once -but his feet stayed on the ground, his wings weren't strong enough. One of the undead had reached them, taking a clawed hand to drag across Jon's chest; another sunk its teeth into his side. He felt Mormont lashing out with his sword, beating them away on his own side, and Jon beat his wings again, straining against the winds and the dead that struggled to bite through his fur boots and his thick leggings. A third flap lifted him a foot into the air, and a fourth had him shooting up, up, away -a fifth, a sixth, and Jon felt himself gaining confidence in the skies. Mormont stared down, stared at the rocks and the Walker and the undead army beneath them in shock.

The two were covered in blood. Jon was sure most of the blood was his own, because it seemed to be coming from either his own torso or Mormont's bloodied sword. Whatever wounds the dead had inflicted on him, he didn't notice. The cold made sure of that.

And so Jon Snow flew south, headed towards the wall and Castle Black.

LMK if you want me to continue. Also if you spot any grammar or plot mistakes! Thanks for reading.

-whenithitsthefan