Summary: Jon Snow and Ygritte fight the war against the titans after fleeing south when The Wall falls. Possible multi chapter if I can figure something out.
Written because i love Jon Snow, and also because i am still not over season 4 episode 9 of GoT.
Disclaimer: I am not George RR Martin or Hajime Isayama. So I do not own anything in the story. This fic is just a bit of fun.
please note: This story has spoilers for GoT for both the show and books.
I hope you enjoy reading.
Night gathers, and now my watch begins
It shall not end until my death.
I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children.
I shall wear no crowns and win no glory.
I shall live and die at my post.
I am the sword in the darkness,
The watcher on the walls.
I am the fire that burns against the cold
The light that brings the dawn
The horn that wakes the sleepers
The shield that guards the realm of men. I
pledge my life and honour to the Night's Watch.
For this night, and all the nights to come.
- The Night's Watch oath.
Jon paced slowly along the top of the wall, the wind whipping through his black hair. His eyes surveying the green and verdant lands before him, beyond the walls. He also looked down at the strange misshapen creatures that preyed on humanity milling about said lands and walking up and down what used to be the kingsroad like it were theirs.
Titans, these people called them. Jon had another name for them. Whitewalkers. But nobody called them that anymore. Not since The Wall had fallen and they had broken through the thick ice structure that once stood and protected the world from them. Not since the Night's Watch had fallen.
Not since he'd fled south like a coward with Ygritte, Gilly and Sam when his brothers were dying all around him and laying down their lives for the good of the realm. It was easier for Ygritte to run, though. She was a wildling. She'd taken no vows and sworn no oaths, and the only person she cared about keeping alive besides herself was Jon. Sam was a self confessed coward and running from a fight was his natural instinct, so it was easy for him, too. And Gilly ran to save her baby.
For Jon, it was harder. Much harder. But every day he was thankful he had both Sam and Ygritte with him. And Ghost, of course. Even though the military had dubbed him a great drain on food resources. But Ghost was a part of him, and Jon just couldn't leave his direwolf to the titans.
He would not have even made it here, if not for Ghost leading them.
Jon paced back across the top of the wall again, eyes squinting in the sunlight. This warm southern weather was taking some getting used to. He was born in Winterfell, far to the north of the country, where it snowed even in summer. When he was older, he went further north still, to serve as a man of the Night's Watch, where the only wall he walked lay further north at the edge of the world. A wall made of the thickest ice at seven hundred feet high, spanning coast to coast. Tyrion Lannister the dwarf had pissed off of it once, he remembered. The weather here was stifling hot by comparison. Jon Snow was built for cold. Not southern sunshine. But the others here hated the cold.
Maybe the titans are more humanlike than they like to admit. Maybe thats why they came south. To escape the cold prison the Night's Watch kept them in. Jon thought. I certainly wouldn't like to be be kept in a frozen cage, if I werent raised in Winterfell.
Footsteps brought Jon out of his thoughts, and Jon turned to meet their owner.
"Oi. Crow." A voice sang. "How long are ya going to stand there starin' at em?" Jon would know that thick northern voice anywhere.
"Ygritte." He nodded in greeting. She looked different in the military uniform, her tight fitted shirt and trousers and belts a far cry from all her wildling furs. Jon could see more of her figure. Even her red hair looked different, brushed and washed and tied back so it wouldn't impede her vision in combat. She looked like a proper soldier now.
"Are ya frightened of em?" She asked, stepping over to him. "Jon Snow?"
Jon smirked. "I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't."
She looked at him with a puzzled expression. It wasn't something you talked about, being scared of the titans. It made you look weak. She snorted, "I thought you were brave, Jon Snow. You were the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. King of all the crows. Aint like you to be afraid."
Jon smiled at her. She was so matter of fact, Ygritte.
"My father once told me the only time a man Can be brave is when he's afraid." Jon answered, "Bravery isn't the same as being fearless. Bravery is acting despite fear."
Jon was expecting her to tell him he knew nothing again. But instead she tilted her head approvingly and said, "Huh. Maybe you do know something after all, Jon Snow."
The wind blew through Jon's hair as they watched the titans, some running about aimlessly, others just standing staring up at the walls. Staring right at them. Jon shivered. That was the worst part, the way they would look at you. Like you were a slice of delicious lemon cake waiting to be eaten. He felt Ygritte shiver beside him.
"You're afraid of them, too." Jon said. Ygritte just turned and gave him a sharp look. "You know nothing, Jon Snow." She said, "I'm not afraid of fighting em. I just don't like the way they look at yer. Like yer a piece of meat cooked just right. The way they just stand there, looking at you…"
Her eyes hardened as she turned her eyes back to the titans again.
"So you're not afraid of dying?" Jon asked.
"I aint afraid of dying." She said. "Just of being taken alive. I'd rather kill myself first. So I don't feel anything."
Her voice suddenly became very calm and quiet. "If one ever caught me, I'd cut my own throat… I'd rather die than be killed. Even if it makes me a coward."
Jon could only agree with her. "I think that's everyone's greatest fear. Getting caught alive. Being eaten."
"Nobody ever admits it, though." She told him. "We say the words, like you and your Crow brothers did, that we'll all lay our lives down for humanity, like its some big honour… but nobody really wants to sacrifice themselves. Nobody ever says they're scared. I mean, we all know it, but no-one ever says it. Who wants to go get eaten by a titan? Nobody."
Jon sighed. She was right. Only fools actually wanted to sacrifice themselves. When it came down to staring down a titan's throat, most people shat themselves with terror. Even the bravest of soldiers.
"Someone has to defend the walls, though. Somebody has to fight." He said soberly. "If we don't, then the titans will only knock them all down and devour us all, and end the human race for good."
The words of his oath came back to him.
I am the watcher on the walls.
The shield that guards the realms of men.
Jon turned his gaze towards a titan and stared back at it. The mutated form of a giant-turned-whitewalker.
I am the sword in the darkness. And I will destroy every last one of you monsters to take back our lands and avenge my brothers.
Ygritte shook her head, smiling. "You crows and your walls. Bet you're right at home atop of the walls here. I've never been so high."
Jon smirked at her wonder. "Winterfell has walls higher than this."
She rolled her eyes at him, "Oh I'm Jon Snow and I'm from Winterfell." She mocked, "My daddy was a fancy lord and I lived in a tower that touched the clouds."
Jon ignored her.
"And The Wall back by Castle Black dwarfs Winterfell."
"I've already seen the Wall."
"Aye, but you've never stood on top of it. You'd be swooning if you ever stood on top of the Wall."
She looked puzzled. "Swooning? What's swooning?"
"Fainting."
She still looked puzzled. "What's fainting?"
Jon had never been asked such a question in his life.
"When a girl sees blood and collapses."
"Why would a girl see blood and collapse?"
Jon smiled. "Not all girls are like you."
She shrugged. "Well, girls see more bloood than boys." She stated. "Or do you like girls who swoon, Jon Snow?"
She turned to him and let out a very fake, loud gasp, "Oh, a titan! Save me, Jon Snow!"
She then pretended to swoon in fright and faint into Jon's arms, giggling.
He laughed, too. And for a moment it was just the two of them standing on top of a very high wall, with no titans and no ongoing war to fight them. Jon wanted to live in a world like this. Where the world belonged to humanity, and the titans were the stuff of legends, like the wargs and the story of the Long Night. Where the Night's Watch was made up of honourable knights and lords like in the days of old.
And life could be like the songs my sister Sansa used to sing to herself…
Noises from below brought them back to reality. There were some awful bangs and crashes, and what to Jon sounded like the cracking and falling of concrete. Panicked shouts from below rose up, along with the screams of panicked civillians. Both Ygritte and Jon looked down where the shouts were coming from, and saw to their horror, one of the rocks plugging up one of the holes in the wall across from them was cracking. Small stones breaking off from it.
"Did that rock just move?" Ygritte breathed. Jon had his hamds clenched into fists.
"Yes." Jon answered, watching the rock crumble. A titan was trying to bash through it, likely an abnormal. "Where are the cannons?" Jon asked, trying to cool his rising panic. "Why aren't they manning the cannons?! It's trying to kick it down!"
A few jolts later, and the rock plugging up the hole in the wall cracked all the way down the centre and came loose. A large pair of hands pushed the debris out of the hole and rolled the pieces of boulder inwards. Ygritte gasped beside him. Jon kept his eyes trained on the newly breached wall.
"What is it doing? Tackling it?"
"Even after we reclaimed it…" Ygritte said. "They're tryin' ta take our lands!" She shouted. She was a wildling, she didnt do well with others taking what belonged to her. And this land was hers now, too, hers as it was Jon's.
"She grabbed her blades in each hand and prepared to run, ready to leap in to defend her land, but Jon saw what she was doing and grabbed her arm to stop her.
"Wait!"
"Let me go, crow!" She struggled, "we 'ave to fight it! We can't let them take back our wall!"
She pulled, but Jon held her firmly in place.
"If you jump in there the first thing they'll do is eat you." Jon hissed. "We can only kill them by cutting the back of their necks, and we can't do that until they break through."
Ygritte pulled against him to free herself, but Jon held her arm firmly. He yanked her to him. "Don't sacrifice yourself, Ygritte." He pleaded, "don't be a fool."
She hesitated, staring into his eyes. Jon didnt want her to die, especially not in a stupid way by flying right into a titan's mouth. He'd fought so hard to protect her, he couldnt just let her throw her life away for the sake of her wildling pride. He loved her too much for that.
She pulled her arm back and released herself from his grip. "Fine." She huffed. "What should we do instead then, Jon Snow?"
"When it comes through the hole, we'll kill it. But we have to wait until we can see its weak point. Otherwise we have no chance."
They watched as the titan pushed the rock from the wall and poke its head through. It was a large, ugly thing, that head.
"Cor, I knew they were strange things," Ygritte said, "But that is one fuck ugly titan."
Jon laughed. It was true the Whitewalkers evolved and mutated from the corpses of men and giants, and so were quite ugly things, but there was something about the way Ygritte said it that made it seem oddly funny.
"It is ugly." Jon smiled, watching the titan step through the hole at a crouch and slowly stand up. It stood there grinning at the panic all around it, the citizens and the soldiers scrambling to man the cannons. Jon studied it, waiting for it to clear the wall so he and Ygritte could fly in and kill it. But it wasn't moving. It was just standing there. Waiting. Grinning like it were going to rip someone's head off and suck out the juices inside.
It reminded Jon of how Joffrey used to stand, when he was fighting with a tourney sword against his brother Robb. The titan had the same facial features and the Lannister blonde hair Joffrey had.
That's joffrey. Jon thought. It definitely looks like him, maybe the Others turned him. Maybe they even made him king…
He imagined the other titans paying him homage, the little shit. Imagined what it would sound like if the titans were capable pf speech.
"All hail his grace, Joffrey of the house Baratheon," one would announce, whilst Joffrey sat on a stupidly large version of the iron throne in the woods. One made up of melted together maneuver gear of fallen human soldiers, "The first of his name, king of the titans, devourer of the seven kingdoms and destroyer of the realm."
Jon smiled at his own joke. Yes, it would be something like that.
What are ya smiling at, crow?" Ygritte asked.
"That titan just looks like someone I used to know. I was just thinking how ridiculous it looks."
"Oh." Ygritte paused, smiling mischievously. "Someone ya liked?"
"Someone I hated." Jon said soberly. "A boy king who cut off my father's head."
"Well you just got lucky, Jon Snow." She said, the mischievous glint still in her eyes. "Maybe you'll get ta kill it. I mean, it won't be revenging, not proper revenging, but still. It's better than nothin'."
Jon smiled, "I hope so. Even if its just a titan that looks like him."
"Best get ready, then, I think it's going to move."
As if on cue, the titan took a step forward, then another. Loud thuds resounding with every step it took towards the promptly evacuating and panicking citizens. Much like the scenes in the north, after the Wall was breached.
Jon breathed steadily and watched, calculating where to jump from. They needed a running start if they were ever going to reach its neck…
"This way!" Jon ordered, sprinting along the length of the wall, towards the breach. Ygritte followed him, blades at the ready. Jon gripped the handles of his blades and drew them, ready to fight and defend his people. They kept up their sprint, looping around the city and towards the titan. Jon hoped it would stay close to the wall and not move to the city centre, where the most people were. But titans had the habit of not doing what you hoped they would.
There were angry shouts following them as they ran past their commander amd comrades. Orders to stop and return to their posts, to stay on the wall and man the cannons to keep the other titans from getting through the hole, but Jon and Ygritte ignored those orders.
They ran parallel to the titan, watching as it broke into an awkward looking run, holding it's arms out as it ran in a half-assed attempt to balance itself.
Jon looked at it in disbelief. "That's the most ridiculous run I've ever seen." He said.
Ygritte let out a laugh. "Oi! Titan! Ya run like a little girl!"
"Stop yelling and help me kill it!" Jon said playfully, "come on!"
Jon leapt off the wall in pursuit of the titan. That was the worst part for Jon, the falling. Wondering if your maneuver gear was going to fail and you'd go plummeting to a pathetic and useless death. Wondering if the hooks would slip and connect with only the air… If the gas cylinders were defective… if you'd hit the ground from fifty feet with an almighty splat and they'd have to scrape you up off the concrete below…
But once that first part was over, it was like flying.
Jon pulled the triggers and fired the hooks, trusting his aim was right. The hook caught on a building wall and he released the gas from his cannisters, flying through the air in pursuit of the titan with Ygritte flying alongside him.
"Race ya to it!" She shouted, zooming off ahead of him.
"Oh, you're on!" He smirked, and realesed more gas to catch up, adrenaline and exhilaration pumping through him the way it never had when he was a man of the Night's Watch.
Now I know why Ygritte calls me a crow. Jon thought, flying through the air with gas streaming out behind him. l can fly. I feel like a true crow now.
And Jon Snow flew onwards, past the houses and shops and over the streets, feeling strong and free, thinking of nothing but his prey and how crows were meant to fly. Not just inside this birdcage but through the whole world. If only the titans didn't exist…
People were trying to organise themselves, above and below. Those on the walls were manning the cannons, fending off the titans trying to break through. The soldiers on the ground below were trying to help evacuate then civillians and calm the panic. And then there was Jon and Ygritte, chasing the titan from behind. There were other soldiers, Jon knew, the survey corps, but he didn't know where they were or what they were doing. Possibly attempting to drive the titan away from the civillians so they could evacuate safely. But they were far away from Jon. His world had shrunk down to the small sphere around him, where all that existed was him, Ygritte flying beside him, and this titan he had to destroy.
"So ya finally caught up then?" Ygritte called over the wind, "I didnt think you crows could fly so fast! You should be dressed all in black, then you'd be a proper crow. " she laughed. "You'd be Jon Snow the flying crow!"
Jon frowned and she laughed again, though it was more of a wild cackle. "People would look up and go, is it a bird, a flying-magigy? No, its Jon Snow the flying crow!"
"If you have time to make jokes you have time to kill titans."Jon countered back.
"Oh lighten up, Jon Snow!" She said, shooting out more gas to further close the gap between them and their prey. Jon followed close behind her, the gap between the two of them and the titan further diminishing.
"Aim for its neck!" Jon shouted. Ygritte just shouted back, "No duh, Jon Snow!"
The titan swerved right and ran down a street, with its arms stretched out, smashing the houses and shops as it went. Aiming straight for the crowd of evacuating people who screamed and panicked at the sight of the beast.
"Oh, Seven bloody hells." Jon cursed, shooting after it. Using up more gas than was probably necessary to catch up. He landed on a rooftop and ran after the titan, Ygritte sprinting beside him over the roof tiles. From their position they could see other soldiers charge the titan head on, and Jon thought he heard someone shout his name but Jon could hardly hear anythin else beaides his heartbeat thrumming in his ears, as the adrenaline pumped through his body.
Ygritte fell back behind him, seing the survey corp soldiers converge on the titan from the sides. Someone shouted at Jon to fall back, but Jon was thinking only of killing the whitewalker.
"Snow!" The man screamed at him. Jon wondered who it was. Levi? He wasn't sure.
"Fall back! Now!"
But Jon wasn't listening, blackness had cut off everything in his vision except the titan in front of him, giving him tunnel vision. Panting from keeping up his sprint, he shot forward, took aim and fired his grappling hook into the back of the titans neck and launched himself towards the titan's neck. The wind blew through his hair and brushed across his face as he propelled towards his target, the smell of half decaying bodies - the smell of titan - filled his nostrils. He landed awkwardly on the titan and gripped the rope to steady himself. The smell was overpowering, and made him dizzy. Jon tried to breathe through his mouth, just so he wouldn't gag. If he gagged now, he'd fall. And if he fell, the titan would eat everyone in sight.
And his sisters were down there, too, so he couldn't fail now.
He took deep breaths through his mouth.
I must not fall. Jon told himself. They will mock me forever if I fall.
Or fainted just because of the smell.
Jon grit his teeth, fighting the dizziness threatening to overcome him. He lifted his sword up and slashed the blade across and into the titan's flesh, killing it. It screamed, still moving forward as it collapsed, lurching Jon forward with it as it fell on its face, kicking up huge clouds of dust into Jon's face as it hit the floor. Dead.
Jon coughed as the dust choked and blinded him. He waited for the dust to clear and stood up on the dead titan's shoulder. Once the dust cleared he jumped to the ground and looked at his kill, then at his bloody blade, realising he'd blunted it. Telling himself that next time he'd be more careful. He looked up, about to , make his way back to his post when he saw captain Levi stomping towards him with a very displeased look on his face.
Jon froze in place. "Seven hells, " he muttered, "what have I done now?"
"Snow!" Levi shouted. Jon just waited for him to approach. Waiting for whatever lecture Levi had planned for him this time.
"Yes, captain?" Jon answered. Watching Levi glare up at him.
"You were supposed to fall back!" Levi snapped. "Weren't you listening?! I am your commanding officer, you brat. Your recklessness and disobedience vould have cost valuable lives!"
Jon stood up straighter. Nobody called Jon Snow a brat. He was a man of the Night's Watch, a skilled soldier who held the Wall. Not some green boy. Who did Levi think he was?
"What? Because I killed a titan?" Jon answered back. Probably not one of his brightest ideas, but in that moment he didn't care. Wasn't it his duty to kill titans? To defend humanity? To defend the realm of men?
Jon could see the vein in Levi's forehead. "Because you didn't. Follow. Orders!" Levi hissed. Just as Ygritte appeared behind Jon. "She can listen to them, why can't you?"
Jon turned back to look at Ygritte, walking towards them.
"Ygritte reportin' in, sir." She said. Jon looked back at Levi.
"So I was just supposed to sit and do nothing?" Jon asked, incredulously, anger rising in his voice. "I saw the Wall fall, I came here so I could fight them again. To do my duty to protect the realm. How could I not fight it when there were innocent people-"
"The innocent people are well protected." Levi snapped.
"Are they?" Jon asked. "Because that one I just killed smashed a bloody great hole through the wall."
Levi glowered at him. "It isn't just you fighting this war against the titans you know, you little shit."
"I just killed a titan and now youre scolding me for it?"
"I'm scolding you for insubordination." LEvi ground out. "That means not listening."
Jon seethed and grit his teeth. He was doing his duty, wasnt he?
But nobody told Jon what to do. What did they expect him to do? Watch it eat people?
He couldn't do that after watching them eat his brothers on the Wall. How could he just let the titan go on its rampage after watching them devour his brothers one by one?
I am the shield that guards the realm of men. That was what Jon swore. And that's what he was doing. Protecting people.
Jon sighed. "I thought I was doing my duty." he paused. "Sir."
"Your duty is to follow orders. Where do you think you are? This isn't the fucking Night's Watch you brat!" Levi scolded, "You're not Lord Commander here, so I don't need to hear this shit from you! You just follow your orders and nobody gets hurt. I don't want any of my men dying because of your idiocy."
"Idiocy?" Jon balked. Rage simmering inside him. "correct me if I'm wrong, captain, but I thought my duty was to defend humanity. To destroy the titans."
"Even at the cost of your comrades? " Levi asked, sarcastically. Jon said nothing. Levi snorted, taking Jon's silence for agreement.
"You know nothing. Jon Snow." Levi spat. "Absolutely nothing about fighting the titans."
"I know more than you."
Levi froze. Jon knew he was only arguing for the sake of it now, to have the last word. That he should just shut up now so his punishment would be small… but he couldn't stop himself. And the look on Levi's face told him that he'd just gone and put his foot right in it.
"Then howcome you let the Wall in the north fall?" Levi asked him. His voice calm. Though his tone was like ice.
Jon just looked at him, taken aback by the question. Why had he let the Wall fall? Why had he not lived and died at his post like he vowed to? Like his brothers did?
behead
He had no words to answer that. No words that weren't feeble excuses. He watched Levi suppress a smirk, knowing he'd lost this argument for good and all. And Jon would be a liar if he said it didn't sting.
I shall live and die at my post. Those were the words. And yet Jon had broken them and fled south. Like a coward.
Something he would have been beheaded for in the old days.
"No smart answer, Snow?" Levi asked, "That's a first."
Jon burned with guilt as Levi turned away from him, a small part of him wishing he'd died with his brothers on the Wall when the whitewalkers came. Jon thought then that if Levi was humanity's strongest then he was humanity's coward. A failure for not keeping the titans back. A name he'd never be able to wipe from his reputation.
"We will retreat for now." Levi said, turning to glare at Jon. "You." he pointed to Jon, " Stay out of my way. I will deal with you later, brat. Now go and help with the evacuations."
Jon nodded. "Yes, sir."
With that, Levi stomped off, and took flight again, leaving Jon to watch him fly around and issue more orders. Jon turned around and saw Ygritte behind him, smirking.
"What?" Jon asked. Ygritte just snickered at him. Jon thought his face must have been very sour, if she was laughing at him.
"What?" Jon snapped. She only laughed harder.
"Even he knows you know nothing, Jon Snow."
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