The following is a piece of A Song of Ice & Fire FanFiction, set in one of the many nights Jon Snow as kept watch atop the Wall.
A Song of Ice & Fire is copyrighted to George R.R. Martin and this piece of FanFiction has been created for recreational use, with no commercial gains involved.
The Wolf on the Wall
The wall was almost like the partition between heaven and hell, like it was Satan's own handiwork. On one side you had the known lands of the Seven Kingdoms, on the other, the world of the unknown. Jon Snow should have been used to this sight by now. But it seemed to overwhelm all over again every night. This is where the rest of his life would play out, Jon knew that. This was home. But it was hard to get used to. After all, somewhere out there, light years away, was a home he once knew, where there were brothers who had cried with him and a little sister who loved to have hair played with.
Jon realized he didn't mind being here. Here, he wasn't the bastard. At least, not the only bastard. Every man up on the wall was a bastard in one way, they were all on their own, they were all bereft of family or kin of any kind. Up here the only thing that mattered was staying alive and nobody had a birth given right to live longer than someone else. That was something he would never have at Winterfell. There, in that home of which the memories had started to get blurry, Arya would be the one getting the last piece of meat even if he was starving to death and she wanted dearly to give it to him. Here, the brotherhood watched over everyone else. There was something nice in that.
If you let it, the snow did things to you.
The snow did things to your will power. At first, it poisoned you. It made you feel what a slow death felt like. You recognized the feeling of death creeping up on you. You could see your memories and the sights you've seen flash across your mind. You saw the places and faces play out in front of you like a kaleidoscope. Then, once you stomached the poison and strengthened your resolve to stay alive, the snow did other things.
It turned into a tonic.
And what a fine little tonic it was. After you felt you had been pushed to the brink of no return, it started to bring you back. You started to feel resilient, like you didn't want to give in. You felt like prisoner on death row who maintained a stone face, lest he give his executioner the luxury of knowing he was terrified.
It was then that the Wall taught you to build walls, inside you and all around you. You felt this undying need to not die, to see what this treacherous wall could throw at you. You wanted to prove that you were above and beyond this, beyond all memories of a familiar castle where the warm waters ran through its walls like blood, beyond memories of a brother who loved to climb, beyond memories of a life you didn't want to let go.
This was the wall. The wall was his. And he was the wall's.