"I seen white walkers many nights. They walk in woods for long nights. But they no see me," Tala said.

"What do you mean they don't see you," Jon questioned.

"On hunt, wolf teach me to roll in scent of prey to hide from them. I think I have scent of white walker on me. They no attack. They no look at me. Only one night this happen. The White King, he look at me. He know I am no white walker. He leap from dead horse. He run at me. I dance with him—"

"You danced with him," Jon interrupted incredulously.

Tala rose to her feet and demonstrated. She hopped from place to place as if avoiding the swinging of an invisible sword, and Jon suddenly understood. He laughed out loud, and Tala looked at him questioningly.

"You don't mean dancing (though, I suppose, it could be a kind of dance). You were dodging his sword."

Tala tested the word in her mouth. "Dod-ging. Dodging." Jon nodded to show her that the pronunciation was correct. Then she continued her tale.

"I dodging him. I not quick enough. His sword hit me here." She indicated a swipe across the flawless skin of her belly. "The sword…" She seemed to be looking for the right word. "The sword break in many pieces. The White King knew then."

Jon sat up a little straighter during this pause. "What did he know," he whispered.

"He know I am Dragon's Bane. The White King has seen many winters. 'What is dead can never die.' Old woman tell me island people say this. He remember other ice children. I see and smell fear on him then. He back away. Many white walkers are around me. My pack no help, for I on hunt alone. The White King grabs another white walker. He throw it to me. Tell it to fight. I ready to fight with claw. I no want to die that night. I leaped it. I put my paw to the throat, ready to rip out. White walker freeze in paw. It can no move. I slam its head on ice and it break to pieces, like sword. All white walkers back away. They no attack me now."

Jon let his breath out without realizing he'd been holding it in. If her story was true, and the girl had no motive for lying, then finding her truly was a change of fate. She truly could help him save his friends (who, rumor had it, were being laid siege to at The Wall by a horde of white walkers). She could change everything, everything. Jon looked back up at the girl. How small she was! Barely a slip of a girl. She was hardly someone Jon imagined to be a great and formidable enemy to things such as white walkers and dragons.

"Are you sure that's all that happened? Are you sure that this is the only reason the white walkers fear you," Jon asked.

Tala shrugged and said, "This, I no know. Old woman die before she tell me such thing. I find new power many times."

"What sort of power?"

"Many power I no control. Winter follow me. I think I no live in sun heat. Snow follow where I go to keep skin like ice."

Jon looked above and around him, realizing for the first time that it was indeed snowing. This only added to Tala's credibility in Jon's eyes. He still wondered at what other powers she may have, but she seemed to not understand her own powers enough to explain them properly to the likes of a bastard like him.

"Why don't we get some rest? We'll leave for the Wall at first light," Jon suggested.

"There no first light. Sun no more in north. Winter is coming. I wake you when go," replied Tala, already in the process of curling up against the side of her great black dire wolf who had sat regally by her side the entire time. Jon also curled up against Ghost. He did not doubt her statements.
"'Winter is coming' are the words of my father's house, south of The Wall. We've always said they'd be true, but the 'would' always seemed further away. It's hard to accept winter as really being upon us," Jon mused aloud.

"Winter always comes. Earth need winter to change summer. Always balance," replied Tala.

"There is always a balance. I understand that." Jon hesitated for a moment, letting their conversation hang in the air before he changed the subject. "Does your wolf have a name," he asked.

"He no my wolf. He is brother. I call brother Dagen," Tala answered.

Jon looked over at the pair from across the fire. He could see her black hair blending into the fur of her 'brother' and couldn't help but wonder how much more there was to know about this mysterious woman.

She turned her head and was looking right into his eyes for a moment. He imagined rising from his place on the ground and walking over to her. He imagined how she would look beneath him that way. He imagined how she would look beneath him in a number of ways… the way her lips would taste, the way her skin would blush with his touch, the way her hair would feel in his fingers, and the way her skin would exude that sweet perfume he already associated with her.

Before he knew it, his imaginings turned to dreams in sleep.

After what seemed only a few moments however, Jon awoke to a cold nose pushing against his cheek. It was Ghost. Jon sat up and looked around.

The fire had long since burned out, and his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. Tala and Dagen were both standing a few paces away, waiting patiently for Jon to join them.

He got to his feet quickly then. Trying to discreetly hide the "excitement" from his dreams. Though, he supposed that Tala might not know of the "excitement" of men, having been raised in the wild by dire wolves. This thought led him, embarrassingly, to wondering whether she had bled yet. How old was she?

"Tala," he said as he reached her. She only nodded and began to walk. He trotted a few paces to catch up and asked, "How old are you?"

For a moment he thought that she hadn't understood the question because she took so long to answer. Eventually, she did answer. "I no know this. Not very. Old woman say it be 16 year maybe when I freeze-burn her hands. Woman die week ago."

"So you are 16," Jon said.

"I no know."

It didn't matter though. Not really. She did already have the body of a woman at full bloom, and if she was 16 then that put her at the right age. Why he was thinking about these things he didn't know. He only thought how difficult it would be to grow up ignorant of such things.

Being a bastard, he had always known why he was considered as such. He knew what happened between men and women behind closed doors. Love was not the word he would use to describe what had created him.

They trekked along in the snow. Well, he trekked while Tala seemed to glide as silently and easily across the top of the snow as the wolves did. He envied her that and wondered if she could teach him to be the same way.

He always knew when he fell a little too far behind because the snow would stop falling and the sky would seem a little brighter. He would try to hurry then, but would always find that Tala had paused to wait for him.

This went on until Jon was past the point of exhaustion he thought he could endure, but he kept at it. Eventually, the next time he had caught up with Tala, she was sitting inside a quickly made shelter where a squirrel was cooking over a small fire.

He sat and said nothing, too worn out to muster the strength for even one word. Rather than gloat or tease, Tala came cautiously toward him. She was only a pace away when she sat as well. Jon could not stop watching her every move. He was nervous, and the air was thick with it. It seemed as if the whole day had just been a long wait until the moment he could touch her again, and because she moved steadily closer to him each moment, he thought she felt his need. Soon, their hips were side by side, touching. Jon was so still, that Tala worried her skin might have frozen him, but he still felt warm. In fact, the heat emanating from him was almost burning, so, without looking at him, she let her head fall gently upon his chest.

Jon was looking down at the top of her head in a sort of panic. He did not know what he should do. He knew what he wanted to do, and he even knew what he must do, but he did not know if he should do as he wanted or do as he must. Before he could decide, however, Tala lifted her arm ever so slightly and used her index finger to trace a line down from his chest to the top of his trousers. Up and down the finger went, and Jon could feel, even through his layers of clothing, it pulling the idea of what he must do out of his mind.

What he did next was done so quickly; no thought of self-control entered his mind. He grabbed her shoulders in his hands and used her to spin around in front of her. At the first, Tala seemed frightened by the sudden movement, but she let the fear leave her as Jon lowered her to the ground and straddled her.

He was tired no longer. He was hungry, very hungry. He may not know everything about her, but there was something there that elicited such a hunger inside him. He'd been able to deny such hunger with every other woman he'd met, but not her; not Tala.

This wasn't love. It was too soon to call it that, but Jon could not let her go to the other side of the shelter even if he wanted to. His only choice seemed to be to take her. He knew the risks. He knew that his friends and his honor should be his first priority, but it seemed that he could not trudge through that damned snow any longer without first satisfying this hunger.

He reached his hand out and began to loosen the ties of her top.