Kissed by Ice
A/N: Messing around with another new fandom of mine. This is a quick piece that immediately follows the S7 finale. Feedback is much appreciated. Warning for character death.
All of the free folk were accustomed to the cold, knew it like an old friend. In the Land of Always Winter, warmth was fleeting, but ice, snow, that bitter lady, oh she was a steadfast wench, she was. But when Tormund woke, he decided that today, she was no steadfast wench – rather quite the cruel bitch, actually. He had no feeling in any part of his body, save for his face and chest. His limbs drifted in a frosted ether, and he couldn't move them, no matter how he tried.
"Tormund! Tormund!" he heard the muffled call. He blinked open his eyes, but saw nothing but darkness. The voice continued calling his name, and once he pulled his mind out of the numb haze it had drifted into, he recognized the voice in question: Beric Dondarrion.
"Dondarrion!" Tormund groaned, throat raw. He couldn't find his volume, he'd grown far too weak. "Here!"
He tried and failed to move; more than just a paralysis of his arms and legs, he'd been trapped. He could do no more than wiggle and pray to the gods that Dondarrion could hear his hoarse whisper-shouts. Where in all the hells was he? He fought for memory, sloshing through a haze of mind-numbing cold.
Dragon. The Targaryen girl's gods-damned dragon!
"DONDARRION!" he managed volume that time, his heart hammering against his ribs as flashes of recollection passed through his mind's eye. The Dragon Queen's fallen beast belonged to the Night King, now – and after thousands of years of barring off Westeros from what lay beyond it, the Wall had fallen.
It seemed impossible, but he knew it to be true.
More specifically, it seemed the Wall had fallen down on top of him. I always knew the Wall would be the death of me, never thought it'd be like this.
He heard a hammering from overhead, and he felt icy shards landing about his nose and mouth. After a few minutes of more and more chipping, a vein of gray, dreary light shined down on him. "Tormund? Is that you?"
"No, it's the other massive ginger you know!" Tormund snapped with the shred of energy that remained in him. "Get me out of here, Dondarrion. I'm like to lose all my toes at this rate."
"You're buried under ice. You'll need to give me a moment," Dondarrion told him, only his useless, covered eye visible through the new gap.
"Then by the gods, be quick about it!" he coughed out. "If the world must die, I wish to at least live to see its corpse."
"Aye," Dondarrion agreed gravely. He kept slamming something into the ice, the hilt of his sword, most likely. Eventually, enough of the block over top of him had crumbled, allowing Dondarrion to slam his shoulder into what remained, moving it off of Tormund.
Tormund gasped in relief when he was finally freed. Only snow and ice chunks remained around him, easy enough to break out of, but…
"I can't move," Tormund realized, feeling all of the blood drain from his face. "I can't move!"
"Calm yourself, Tormund, I have to dig you out—"
"I CAN'T MOVE!"
Dondarrion started shoveling snow away from him. "The cold's had time to sink in deep. It may be some time before you can move your limbs again."
"Then why are you fine!?" Tormund demanded as Dondarrion freed his right arm. Tormund tried to move it with all his might, but it did little more than twitch.
"This isn't the answer you'll be wanting to hear, but the Lord of Light isn't much like to permit a six-times resurrected man to freeze to death. He is the opposite of this ice and darkness," Dondarrion admitted. "Also helps immensely that I was only thrown into a snow drift when the dragon took our portion of the Wall. I've been searching for you for hours."
Tormund chalked it up to pure luck; he still didn't know how he felt about all of this bloody Rh'llor business. Though maybe he ought to convert; he didn't fancy the idea of being a fucking cripple the rest of his life, and the gods of the trees seemed scarce inclined to help him now.
But with the sight of that dragon, and the creature that rode it, could he believe in any gods at all?
What kind of gods would allow this?
Once his arms were freed, Dondarrion grabbed him by the armpits and hauled him out of what would have surely been his ice tomb, had the one-eyed glorified zombie not found him. Tormund had not necessarily misliked Dondarrion upon meeting him, but he hadn't trusted him worth one damn – however, given that he now owed the southron knight his life, well, he would've kissed him had he the blood in him to do so.
"I'm going to die, aren't I?" Tormund asked as Dondarrion dragged him down a false hill comprised of snow, unmoving bodies, and the remains of the once great Wall. All just white dust and chunks of what was. Brandon the Builder was spinning in his crypt, no doubt.
"Not if I can help it. It's a lonely ride to Castle Black from here," Dondarrion told him. "The Army of the Dead moves west. I think they mean to destroy the entire Wall, along with Castle Black and the Shadow Tower. But wights aren't quick. We can beat them on horseback, if any of the horses survived the collapse."
"Fuck warning the crows!" Tormund spat when they reached flat ground once again, incensed that he had to be dragged in order to get anywhere. "They're dead. There's no stopping that dragon. Scarce fifty men man the Wall at Castle Black, less at the Shadow Tower. We need to make for Winterfell so they can prepare for what's to come. The war's begun."
"It has, but we can't allow the Night's Watch to die," Dondarrion insisted. "We can't fight the dead, not here – the Wall is lost already. But we can save those men, and I suspect none would be more useful in the wars to come. Never mind the fact that only the Night's Watch have any records of the Long Night, or any true experience fighting White Walkers, outside of the group of us that fought beyond the Wall to capture the wight."
"You talk too much, Dondarrion."
"I watched men die today. Many men. Two months ago, I watched my best friend freeze to death in that godforsaken waste that bore you, Giantsbane. If I can save what remains of the Night's Watch, then I will bloody well do it," Dondarrion told him, with surprising anger. "I'll not add more soldiers to the Night King's army!"
"Then leave me!" Tormund roared. "I'm useless, now. I'll only slow you down."
"I didn't expect you to be such a defeatist," Dondarrion said, temper seeming to settle as quickly as it had flared. Dondarrion dragged Tormund under cover, the remains of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea's mess hall. "I need to inspect how badly the frost has gotten to you. I may have to take some of your toes and fingers."
"I've lost a toe to the cold in the past. If it must be done, it must be done. But I haven't much hope. I've never…I've never felt the ice like this before," he admitted, trying to choke down the thrill of fear building in him by the moment. "I'm not shaking. I should be shaking." The cold seemed rooted balls-deep in him. So much so that he had not even the strength to shiver.
"I'm no maester. I know not how exactly frostbite works, only the solution," Dondarrion replied, peeling off Tormund's gloves. The sight was not a pretty one. All of his fingers, save his thumb, black down to the knuckle. The other hand was not quite so bad, only his ring finger and middle finger had blackened.
"You may not be able to fight as you did before," Dondarrion said slowly. "I'm sorry. But it's the only way."
"Just let me die, Dondarrion. Show me some bloody mercy," Tormund wheezed. "Slit my throat before the frost gets to all of me."
"No," Dondarrion insisted. "I won't do that." He took off Tormund's boots next, and the sight was worse than his hands. "These will both have to go."
"You'd cripple me!? I won't survive the amputation!"
"I'll start a fire to burn off the end of the stumps."
"DONDARRION!" he roared after the knight, but he'd already vanished from Tormund's line of sight. He leaned his head back and roared in rage, pain, terror – he was doomed, now. To either live as a useless grotesque until he died, or to die from infection after what was sure to be a botched removal of his feet.
Tormund looked around wildly, searching for anything he could use to do the job himself, since Dondarrion had evidently lost his mind. There were bodies here, though not many. Most were buried under the Wall. But still, a few slumped crows were scattered among the remains of the hall, mixed amidst broken tables and shattered bowls.
He saw a discarded shortsword nearby, just a few feet. Without control of his arms and legs, he couldn't move much, but now that he was on wood rather than snow, perhaps he could squirm his way there.
He wiggled his torso, scarcely able to move an inch. It was a frustrating process, but he did make progress at a wretched slow pace. All he had to do was beat Dondarrion.
"Hard trick, slitting your own throat with no hands to do so."
"Fuck!" Tormund groaned as Dondarrion came to stand over him, destroyed lumber piled in his arms. He deposited the wood and kindling next to the corpse of the crow with the shortsword. He pulled a tinder box out of the deep pockets of his wolfskin coat, and set to work immediately.
"You don't understand," Tormund insisted haggardly, his eyes starting to feel unusually heavy. "I don't know how you in the south do it, but we don't abide the weak beyond the Wall. If you were part of the free folk, you'd have already killed me."
"Your people still need you," Dondarrion told him. "The wildlings will disperse without you holding them together, and we need them now more than ever."
"They'll never follow me! Not like this!" Tormund bellowed. "What is there to follow? I'll be half a man at best! I can't walk, I can't fight—"
"Neither can Brandon Stark, yet the people of the North still love him and see value in his life. Tyrion Lannister is half a man, and yet he is the Hand of the Dragon Queen. There is a place for cripples and grotesques, Tormund. You are more than your axe, more than your legs."
"No," Tormund shook his head, even that movement becoming difficult. "I've no great council to offer, and I am no greenseer. They have talents beyond battle. I do not – I never have. Please, Dondarrion. I beg you. You want to save those crows? You should already be on your way if you want a chance of beating the Night King to Castle Black."
"You'd die for crows, Tormund?" Dondarrion let out a slightly off-kilter laugh as the fire burst to life.
"You think I would not die for Jon Snow?" Tormund demanded, hating the strength that his voice now lacked. "King in the North or not, that boy is a crow to his core. And I almost died for him more than once. I'll die for him now. It's what the gods please, it seems."
"Jon would want you to live."
"I said I'd die for him, I didn't say I gave a fuck what he wanted," Tormund said. He wrenched himself forward. "Dondarrion. Beric."
Dondarrion reluctantly met his eyes.
"I am sorry for your friend," Tormund told him, and he meant it. Fucker had been mad, with his flaming sword, but he'd been a joy to fight beside, and he had mourned his loss as much as he could without knowing the man but for his prowess in combat. "But saving a man better left dead will not bring him back, and it won't save those crows."
"Tormund, I won't—"
"Save my people," Tormund cut him off. "If you can…ride ahead and warn the free folk in the Gift. Send them to Winterfell. Save the people who can still be saved."
His words finally seemed to give Dondarrion pause. "You have my word, Tormund."
"Are there still horses to be had?"
"Two survived. I saw them in the distance when I was gathering wood."
"Then waste no more time in this place," Tormund said, finality in his words. He laid his head back. Black started creeping in on the edges of his vision. "Dondarrion…show me that your god is a god of mercy…"
"He is the god of life, not death."
"I've no life waiting for me beyond this," Tormund whispered, eyes drifting closed. He was floating, now. Even the feeling in his chest had fled him, and he didn't register the warmth from the newborn fire at all. "Make it quick, Dondarrion, and burn me when it's done," he added, forcing his eyes open. He would meet his death head on.
He was surprised to see a sheen of tears in Dondarrion's good eye. "I'm sorry, Tormund. My friend."
"My friend…I wish you good fortune in the wars to come," he said, putting all of his fleeting strength into his words.
With one hand, Dondarrion grabbed Tormund's right hand. With the other, he drew a dagger from the depths of his coat.
"Lord of Light, come to us in our darkness," whispered Beric Dondarrion. "Cast your light upon us, for the night is dark, and full of terrors."
The knife blade drew across Tormund's throat, ripping it open. Blood flowed out like a river, coursing down his chest, spraying up against his chin, and finally, he felt warm again.
"Thank you," Tormund Giantsbane mouthed, and then he fell limp, the night closing in around him.