Summary: Jon Snow meets a young woman (Marian) who comes to Winterfell in search of medicinal herbs to develop a cure for a mysterious illness which is killing people in Qarth, her home. Will she achieve her goal before it's too late? Who will help/delay her? JS/OC

Disclaimer: Do I own GOT? HA! I wish… (sigh)

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Previously…

"What's that stupid, wicked smile of yours supposed to mean?" Marian asked meanly at her, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Beware the wolf, little red riding-hood Marian." Ros said coming dangerously closer to her and whispering it as if she was tantalizing her. "He may come to you and eat you whole tonight."

Both of them fell silent for some precious seconds. Marian's eyes glowed naively, but when she realised what Ros implied, that is Jon, she started stammering something incoherent which Ros couldn't make out.

"I know, babe." Ros replied as if she had understood Marian's babbling, mocking her. She gently got hold of both Marian's cheeks and added, whispering with a lust-geared determination: "Get ready, Marian…"

"He's not 'eating' me tonight!" Marian replied in anger, getting rid of Ros' hands on her cheeks.

"Get ready TO DANCE, Marian. We still need a leading dancer. And stop worrying about Theon: I have an idea." Ros replied matter-of-factly, as if all was under control.

Having said that, Ros threw a sexy dancing dress at Marian, smiled wickedly and left. Marian was left alone to change her clothes and pondered on whether Jon would be there for the show… or after it.

To eat her whole.

She sighed one lonely sigh.

That same morning she'd only told him that she was helping Ros, but she never actually mentioned the show, the day or the hour of the performance – and she didn't regret it. Therefore, how could he possibly be there that night?

Did she really need to worry about it?

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Chapter 4: Beware the wolf

A few minutes later, the candles were illuminating the big room and the red velvet curtains were still drawn shut. Then Ros opened them and she and her fellow whores gladly rushed to enter the stage from the back. The men started yelling in a joyful anticipation.

Marian was the last one to appear, wearing a light frown of distrust and still hesitating at the back of the group. But at last she started pacing slowly to the front of the stage while the rest of the girls made way for her, showing she was the star of the performance. The men hollered joyfully until the room felt like an opera house at the bottom of a dark cliff. And Theon was among them, somewhere in the darkness, where she couldn't see him. She didn't like it one bit, but hell, she'd have to try her best at least, or else… She just hoped that that sudden change of plans as regards the leading dancer would work out, that is, that Theon would be appeased.

The area where the men sat or stood staring at the girls was almost completely dark, so Marian couldn't quite figure out their faces. She couldn't recognise anyone in particular. But she knew there were a lot of them. Their voices were deep and hungry. Somehow Ros had managed that that performance should be a major event in Winterfell.

A part of her still wondered whether Jon would come over, sinfully hoping so with all her heart. But she knew he wouldn't. Unless Theon brought him over.

No.

Jon disliked whores and the brothel. And Theon. It was highly unlikely that he'd consent to come. That was his bloody honour talking, as usual.

But right there and then she had no time to lose. Marian began to snap her fingers a few times and the dull, soft music died, so that a new, fresh, hectic music started playing to the rhythm of her constant snapping. The pianist followed her rhythm like it had followed Saroah's during the rehearsals. The other girls backed Marian, also snapping her fingers. As soon as the sinful, lusty melody filled the air, Ros and her friends started dancing following Marian's instructions, according to the fashion in Qarth. To be honest, that style was far too foxy as regards Winterfell's standards. That was why it became instantly popular amongst the present men in the audience.

The Qarth-inspired dresses were also helping to get the mood: that attire left very little to the imagination, with all that exposed flesh and those thin, multi-coloured straps intertwined. Marian's dress was in blue, red and yellow – and the long straps of her skirt floated gracefully in the air as she spun, jumped and carried out complex dancing moves and techniques which had never been performed in Winterfell.

A generous neckline allowed a wide view of her fleshy landscape of a young, blissfully slim body. Barefoot, like her stage colleagues, Marian danced all the way through the song, trying to evade her mind from the busy and frightening day she had had. The music went on and on, until it escalated and climaxed together with a daring dancing technique on Marian's behalf. The performance was flawless and impressive, and it deserved the undivided adoration from the male audience.

As soon as the music died, so did the dancing. And with a brief flourish, Marian exited the stage the first while the rest of the girls jumped from the stage to the laps of those men who'd claimed them. Soon an army of blissful moanings would fill those empty rooms upstairs and she'd be gone…

But then Marian made a mistake.

She dared to look back at the audience while she was already leaving the stage. More candles had been lit. And there he was, Jon, gaping at her, at what she had just done. Stating the fact that he couldn't believe his eyes was not enough to describe the wild look on his face. It was something more primitive, rawer, and starker. She sensed something threatening in his eyes, like in that dreadful encounter in the corridor with Theon the first day they had met, as if his aggressiveness could hardly be contained. But then again, she could see hints of lust and wonder. It took her breath away. And then she recalled Ros' words earlier that evening:

Beware the wolf, little red riding-hood Marian. He may come to you and eat you whole tonight…

That was why Marian blushed and made a run for it. She fled to the first floor and locked herself in the last of the empty rooms upstairs by putting a chair right behind the door. There was no lock per se, so little else could she do. Or that was what she thought as she suddenly froze in the middle of that godforsaken bedroom in that corner of the world, with those treacherous words banging inside her head.

That wasn't part of her plan. She wanted to come back to her bedroom, the one above Maester Luwin's study room, and sleep.

Beware the wolf…

She was still breathing hard due to the harsh running up the stairs when she heard the first couples entering the other bedrooms of the brothel, laughing and joyfully singing the tune of that bloody song to which she had danced into oblivion for a few precious minutes.

How did Jon know she was there? Why had he come? Acting as the leading dancer had only been a last-minute thing! No one could've told him that Marian would be dancing that night, except for…Ros.

Ros had done it.

Marian let out a frustrated and angry sigh because she realised that it had been Ros' evil master plan all along. She was capable of it. Her wicked smiles and tantalising comments… Marian was sure that Ros had thought of it from the very start: why on Earth would she have told her that stuff about the wolf if not?

She sat on the bed and covered her face with both her palms and whispered to herself:

"I hate you, Ros. I should've seen this one coming, but I was too distracted thinking about him… I hate you so much, Ros…"

In the meantime, the laughing in the neighbouring rooms gently died and it blurred into the soft sound of moaning. But in Marian's mind, she could only hear those fated, iron-heavy words:

Beware the wolf…

Suddenly her body reacted in tune with the rest of the environment, and fear was no more. She recalled those deep, anger-driven, yet bewitching male eyes and then she could no longer think rationally as she used to. Expecting him to walk along that corridor, hearing his nearing footsteps and knocking at her door suddenly was all she could conjure up in her mind's eye. And then he'd have her. Completely.

She sighed hopelessly and swallowed once.

With the tension from that also fateful morning still unbroken, her guts were telling her to let him in, to embrace the passion, to go with the flow wherever it would take her. She shivered at the thought in anticipation of something she had never experienced before, something she could only dream of. But it would soon be over… It could be.

Her lips trembled as she stared at the door.

Beware the wolf…

And the waiting became a concrete block over her shoulders, loaded with the thrill and the dread of experiencing something new, until a mad yelling could be heard down the stairs. A fight broke out. Some blows were delivered without any further word or sound. A dead thud noise could be heard whenever a yelling, aggressive man would try to prove himself stronger over the strange, silent blow dealer.

After a few other attempts, no more yelling could be heard at all, only some impatient footsteps which ran up the stairs and then hesitated in front of several doors until, after some conscious thought, they headed further and further down the corridor.

To her.

He may come to you and eat you whole tonight…

A hand grabbed the doorknob impatiently. Marian gasped and her eyes glowed in anticipation as she rose from the bed. Was it him? With her eyes glued to that poor doorknob which was trying to be opened by force, to no avail because of the chair right behind the door, she wondered whether the stranger was Jon – and she found herself screaming in her mind that she wanted it so be so.

Desperately.

All of a sudden, the stranger broke the doorknob and broke into the bedroom to find Marian standing near the opposite wall, close to a window which gave way to the huge room previously used as a cabaret.

Yes, the silent blow dealer was Jon – a chest-heaving, anger-driven, intensely-staring Jon, who stormed his way across the bedroom and nailed both his hands on the wall to either side of Marian's flabbergasted body. The distance between them had been drastically reduced to almost nil. His dishevelled hair gave him an air of wilderness which couldn't be quite described. Their faces almost touched by their noses and she felt her flower blossom in anticipation, wet and ready like she had ever been for no other man in her entire life.

Beware the wolf…

Eat you whole tonight…

Neither of them said a word for what seemed to be an eternity, until Marian licked her lips once, very lightly, while he stared at her and whispered to him with hesitation:

"Jon…"

He could blissfully die hearing that word from her tempting lips. But before she could even relish in the idea that he might just skip the use of words and kiss her already, Jon broke out with anger:

"How am I supposed to protect you?!"

The air grew chillier and somehow it seemed to Marian as if Jon was extremely pissed off at her, as if she had fuck it all up and he had to chide her for being incredibly stupid.

"Marian,…" He hesitated for a second, breathing hard as if anger was still building up within his chest and he was not yet ready to speak until he was all geared up. "This has been the brainless thing that you've ever done!"

He was definitely pissed off at her – no doubt about it. Thus, all the ecstatic atmosphere which Marian had progressively developed in her mind ever since Ros had uttered those oestrogen-driven words was blown to smithereens. He was mad, in a bad sense of the word, like he was facing Theon instead of her.

"Don't you realise that you could've been…!" He didn't dare to finish the sentence. The vehemence in his voice pushed her to feel threatened by him for the first time in her life. "I think I'll never understand why you're here in the first place! It's not safe in here! You didn't even tell me about it! I honestly thought that helping Ros involved a far less dangerous, exposing thing!"

His indignant male voice left Marian devoid of life. She had been expecting a completely different outcome of their meeting, and yet there she was, being chidden like a foolish young lady and tolerating it. He went on and on, complaining and yelling. After a few seconds though, she was standing under that pouring rain of angry complaints not even caring to listen and processing those words anymore. Eventually she could only hear a mumbling sound which resembled Jon's enraged voice, but she couldn't make the words out. She didn't fully understand why he was so angry at her and why she felt so torn inside.

It hurt so badly that she couldn't even think. His irate, fiery remarks were like a mind-bender in a literal sense of the expression.

Suddenly, Ros came into the bedroom with a motherly, also anger-driven expression on her face.

"I can't believe what I'm hearing!" She complained to Jon as if her own pride was at stake. He turned around to look at Ros in astonishment. "I've sent you a note to summon you here tonight, you've seen her dance like no one could ever do it, and now you're here, in a bedroom, alone with her, and you just yell at her instead of making love to her?! Are you stupid or what, Jon Snow?!"

Those verbal blows aimed at Jon seemed to bring Marian back to reality. She was frowning, her beautiful smile had died. Her face darkened and she lowered her face until her eyes were shadowed.

"Ros, don't you dare…" Jon's voice was still dark and angry. "She could've been in great danger! Don't you dare…"

"Don't you dare, what, bastard?!" She yelled back in anger. "She's probably the only woman that will ever honestly care for you! And you treat her like this?! After all I have done to gear her all up for you?!"

"Gear her all up…?" Jon repeated in astonishment. "What the…?"

"Let me tell you something, Jon Snow: you might just have hit the jackpot when you met her, but now I don't think you deserve her at all! There. I said it."

Jon finally seemed to realise, a slow thinker as he was, what Ros had actually meant and blushed all of a sudden.

"I've never deserved her. That I know." He whispered back with sadness, all anger gone for good then.

Ros didn't see that one coming. He was calmer, but not totally subdued. All of them fell silent until Theon all of a sudden broke into the bedroom, wild at heart, stoned and raging, and he professed his current goal:

"I want Marian! NOW!" He yelled using a dark, lusty voice when he saw her.

The aim of the original plan was working, that is, that Theon would no longer feel clingy to Ros. Then again, the plan had probably backfired: he was fancying Marian instead. He pushed Ros aside as if he was disgusted by the sight of her and went straight to Marian (as straight as he could manage, since he was drunk), but Jon was still standing right in front of her like a wall and would not let him pass.

"Where do you think you're going, Theon?!" Jon yelled back at him, hoisting his anger again as he pushed Theon's chest and made him stop in his tracks.

"Hey, I've heard it all, bastard. If you don't want to fuck her, then don't." He said joyfully. "I'm not complaining, mate! The more for me!" He started laughing while Jon began to clench his fists and teeth like never before.

But right when Theon tried to make his way past Jon and Jon was about to stop him again, he was pushed aside by Marian, who ruthlessly punched Theon in the face. He fell on the floor, semi-unconscious, and his nose was profusely bleeding.

Everybody froze, but then she broke the ice thus:

"I wanted to kick his teeth in since the second I met him." She whispered darkly, but with cheek.

Both Ros and Jon were too dumbstruck to say anything. How could she have left him almost knocked-out with one single blow? Jon guessed she was stronger than she looked.

Next, while Theon was still lying on the floor semi-unconscious, she beat him again a couple of times, then tied his wrists and ankles very tightly with a thick rope, opened the window, skilfully took out a small knife, cut Theon's trousers' button, jerked then down, also cut his underpants, also jerked them down; and, from the open window, she hung him upside down like a ham facing the rest of the men who had decided to hang out down there while waiting for the next free slut who might take them. They soon realised that Theon had been beaten very badly and started laughing wholeheartedly at him, mocking him.

He soon woke up and realised the ridiculous position he was in – and protested, to no avail, of course. That was when Marian took that chance to speak up to the amused crowd and said:

"This is what will happen to the next fellow who tries anything on me!" She yelled with pride while Theon was still complaining and begging her to set him free.

Meanwhile, inside the bedroom, Ros and Jon were gaping at her. Marian would gape at herself if she could: she had beaten one of her worst fears.

"You." Marian said seriously, looking straight at Ros, pointing at her with her knife. "That's what you have to do with Theon to keep him at bay. And stop caring about the money so much. If that's what you're really worried about." She said darkly at the end.

Then, she took a couple of steps towards the door and put her knife back under her skirt. When she had already reached the door, she turned for a second to face Jon and then she told him with a passive-aggressive voice:

"Am I in danger?" She made a brief, but crucial pause. "I am danger."

Having said that, she left the place. Ros smiled a stupid smile: she knew that side of Marian. On the other hand, Jon didn't.

The men hollered and hailed Marian as if she was the Queen of Westeros while she made her way to the exit.

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Marian stormed to her room without any trouble. In her current state, she was the most fearful young lady that anyone might come across in the middle of the night.

The chilly night's air cooled her nerves down and she regained rational thought. She didn't feel ashamed of what she had just done, she simply wished she could avoid any type of confrontation because she plainly disliked it. Whenever she needed to be aggressive and violent, she truly felt empowered by the thrill of action and mischief, but later she'd usually feel blue and homesick. She didn't need to be that aggressive back home, in Qarth. That dark side of hers had revealed itself while travelling in Westeros.

That brutish land had changed her – and that made her want to come back home even more.

She just hoped that those feelings would be washed up by morning.

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Meanwhile, in that same old bedroom in the brothel, Jon and Ros were growing roots from their feet onto the floor – such was their level of amazement for what Marian had just done.

"Wow…" Ros whispered amazed. "Did you see that? Who would've thought that she was able to do such a thing?" She had loved that unusual spark of roughness in her dear, normally coy and logic-centred friend. She remembered that one time when she had saved her from a rapist – and she had been anxiously waiting like forever for Marian's dark side to appear again. The thrill that Ros felt for it was beyond anything she'd ever felt before.

At that, Jon did not answer. He just let out a brief, almost silent sigh.

"What are you thinking, Jon?" Ros asked him rather casually, not meaning any harm, while closing the window just because she didn't want to hear Theon yelling and swearing so profusely.

She was wondering whether to tell him about the rapist and Marian's bold reaction. Then, Jon might realise that Marian was rougher than he had envisioned her. But he made the conversation flow in a different direction:

"I think that you may have lost a friend." He whispered with sadness, not staring at her at all – just at the empty doorframe.

"And I think that she's really mad at you." She spat back at him with a light smirk.

"Then we're even, I guess."

"Whatever." Ros answered because she didn't know what else to say. She always did the same.

"You said… 'Gear her up' for me?" He asked blushing a bit, afraid to ask such a thing. "Was that what you were really up to?"

"Of course, you idiot!" Ros told him enraged all of a sudden. "The second she told me her idea about dancing and stuff, I thought about it. You don't do anything or give her any sign, and she's too shy to even think about it. Something had to be done! So I told Saroah, our leading dancer, to fake a leg injury so that Marian would feel forced to step in the last minute. I knew she'd do it. It worked!"

"So you set her up, is that it?"

"I set both of you up. You're welcome, Jon." She said faking a warm smile.

"You shouldn't have done this, you know." He said seriously.

"Why? Because you fuck it all up and now she's mad at you?" She asked still angered at him.

"No. Because we don't need help at all, Ros. There's no 'we'. There won't ever be…" He said serious as hell, with burning irises directly on hers. His voice became one of those greatly feared grunts. "I'm warning you: this is not a game and if I see that you're trying it again, you'll be in trouble."

"Are you threatening me, Jon Snow?" Ros tried to put a brave face, but an angry Jon Snow was something Ros was not ready for.

"I will if you keep on bothering her." He insisted taking a couple of intimidating steps towards her.

"What about you?" She whispered daringly, but it was obvious that her purpose was weakening.

"You can't bother me as long as you don't mess up with her, which you won't ever dare to do again, understood?" He added also whispering, but his voice was still an painful grunt in Ros' ears.

"Fair enough. I… I just wanted to help. That's all." She whispered trying to feel whole and rouge, like she usually was.

"Whatever." He answered dryly.

Having said that, Jon left the place in a rush and Ros went to 'save' Theon.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Dawn came with a dense fog which was clinging far too much to the earth. It seemed as if it would never go away. Naturally, Marian and Jon's usual trip to the woods was cancelled – it was even though they hadn't had the chance to meet and talk about it. They both assumed that no trip could take place due to the weather conditions and avoided each other.

Marian refused to see him. She made herself scarce at all times and told Maester Luwin to cover her up should anyone ask about her during the meals or during the day. As an excuse, she said she wanted to start investigating a new kind of flower that she had found the previous day, the one with the white petals. That was why she spent literally all day in Maester Luwin's study room preparing different sorts of extracts and ointments from that flower, and writing all the developments in a journal.

During the afternoon, her investigation-related frenzy cooled down and Maester Luwin passed by to check on her progress, only to find her sad and exhausted, leaning her left cheek on her left fist as she scribbled some notes on a piece of paper.

"Marian, sweetheart." He said warmly. "You should rest. It's quite late already."

"I haven't finished." She replied bored and sad. "I still got an hour and a half left before dinner. But I'm not coming. Just so you know."

"You can't take it anymore. You should take a walk or something. You've been locked up in here all day!" He tried to convince her.

"I don't feel like it." She replied bored like hell.

"You don't want to go out because some young man may have told you something… inconvenient, am I right?" He guessed correctly, and he knew it the second he had mentioned a human being from the opposite sex by the tell-tale frown on her wonderful face. "Is that why you locked yourself in?"

She sighed and gave in.

"Inconvenient is a cute euphemism for it." She admitted.

"What's wrong, Marian? Jon's been quite upset, too." He said trying not to sound gossipy about it.

"Tell him to get stuffed." She dryly replied.

"Marian, please." He frowned at her harsh comment, still worrying about her. "He looks awfully regretful, staring at your empty seat every now and then during the meals. It's painful even to me. Not to mention Robb's and Theon's face."

"What?! Robb and Theon?" She asked surprised.

"Robb's been feeling blue, as if missing you very much, sighing every now and then, and also staring at your seat. Theon's more like… ashamed or something. He looks like a scared cat. But Jon looks the worst by far."

"Anyway, I don't care."

Oh, but she did care.

"You do, Marian. Anyway, what's wrong? What happened?" He asked rather fatherly.

"Jon chid me." She replied hesitating, but releasing a good deal of hatred and frustration. "I didn't… I just wanted to… Anyway, I know I did something stupid, but I did it for a good cause. I…" She tried to justify herself.

"Something stupid?" He cut her speech for a second.

"Theon was getting too clingy to Ros and she feared that…" She tried to explain while cooling down. "Anyway, I came up with an idea which might have distracted Theon from his obsession with her temporarily, but there was an accident and…"

"Stop beating about the bush, Marian. I'm not going to chide you, darling." He said as if he had known her all her life. "If you've survived on your own all across Westeros, I'm not going to judge how you act. You don't need to sweeten what happened for me."

Marian silently thank him for that and went on.

"I taught the sluts from the brothel how to dance like we do in Qarth. Our dancing style is much more daring and seductive than the dancing here, but the meaning is not slutty, by far. That's the norm there. But anyway, I thought that if another girl who wasn't Ros would play the leading role, then Theon might get attracted to her and leave Ros alone for a while, at least. But then, the leading dancer got injured the afternoon before the performance and Ros asked me to play the leading role because no one was prepared to do it, so…"

"So you accepted even though you disliked the idea." He concluded with a warm smile on his face.

"Exactly." She admitted, but she was still angry. "I hate Theon and he had recently threatened me that very same day, but Ros said she'd think of something else and told me not to worry. And I believed her, of course."

"So, did Ros betray you in some way?"

"Indeed." She sighed as if she had been defeated. "She thought it was necessary to bring Jon and me together… Apparently she loves doing mischief, and she knew that I would accept dancing as a last-minute thing, and so she sent a note to Jon to come. Otherwise he would've never ever been there to see what happened on stage. And what was to come later, which was quite predictable…" She blushed a bit.

"Did she succeed?"

"Not really." She whispered as if she was ashamed.

"I expected as much."

"Jon decided to come, like she had initially planned." She continued rather sheepishly. "And I danced the leading role. But the outcome wasn't what I… she expected. He ranted at me… as if I was a stupid, little child."

Maester Luwin smiled at her badly disguised lapsus linguae, while Marian was thinking that Josua or Robb would've probably never reacted like that.

"Marian, you know Jon is a good man." Maester Luwin went on warmly. "The town's folk may have never given him the benefit of doubt, but I do know he's noble and honest despite his social position. Are you mad at him or at yourself for making him angry or disappointing him?"

She didn't want to answer that question.

"He was angry… But he didn't know the truth! Neither did I!" She immediately complained. She didn't want to answer that dreadful question because she didn't know which option was worse. Both of them hurt a great deal.

"Look, I think I know what's wrong here." He said quite hopefully then. "None of you did anything wrong, and yet you feel bad about it. You should both talk about it, calmly. But I think I should warn you about something. Jon is due to leave for the Wall probably in a few days, therefore he can't afford to have a relationship. Do you understand?"

"And I'm due to come back to Qarth… I knew it from the start." She sadly acknowledged.

"He may look like he'd love to have one, but he knows he can't offer anything worth having to a woman. The weight of shame is too heavy a burden." He concluded darkly.

"I understand." She whispered while holding back a sudden urge to slap him for having said something like that about Jon. He had committed no sin.

He had done nothing wrong. Ever. And then she thought:

'Does being born count?'

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A few minutes later, Maester Luwin had already left and dinnertime was almost due, and then Jon came loudly knocking at the door of the study room.

"Marian!" He shouted. "Open, please!"

The first thought that was shot in Marian's mind was that Maester Luwin had something to do with it or that Jon might still be pissed off at her and wanted to rant a bit further. Even though she was not really in the mood for it, she decided to open the lock and let him in – and she'd apologise to him as he came in.

"Jon, first of all, I…" She began apologetically.

But then she froze. She was not ready to process the sight before her eyes. Jon was carrying the baker's daughter in his arms: little Diane, a poor eight-year-old whose right hand had been cut off and whose wrist was bleeding profusely. She had lost all consciousness and Jon's face was a map of worry and adrenaline.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-