I did it! I did it! I completed my written final exams! Smeagol is freeeee!

You know how there's two kinds of people in the world? There are those who don't get attached to fictional characters, and those who fall for charismatic main characters like Jon, Robb or Jaime - those who like it special go for Tyrion, Bronn or Littlefinger. And then there's me. Grossly obsessed about some total side character who'll probably die in "Winds of Winter" anyway... Mance Rayder, who probably has about five fangirls in the whole wide world...

So, this is the epilogue now. The end. My first reviewer hisan requested Dalla, so here she is - at least a bit of her - even despite me being all filled with Qhorin/Mance feels at the moment. Yes, I sorta remedied my opinion on those two and I think I'm starting to slash them now. A pairing is born! I'll call it "Qhorince" or something!

Mance blew the Wall and everyone on it a kiss goodbye.

He couldn't turn around now. This was final. He had made it irreversible when he had knocked out his friend... his former friend, he reprimanded himself. Qhorin had not been completely wrong – he, of course, had a conscience, and it was trying to tell him that abandoning the Wall and all these people who held high expectations on him was a wrong thing to do – but it was tuned out by the well-known voice, the one that always lured him back north, back home.

This is right, it said.

Was it really the voice of the wild, he pondered idly as he walked, or was it just his own?

And was that ever important? He was going home, finally, away from stupid rules and bent knees and know your place. He knew his place. He was on his way to it. And it was a wonderful place, a place where he could wear the cloak he had chosen and kiss whoever he liked.

This is right.

It was like an enormous weight, which he had been carrying for years, dropping off his shoulders.

And the lightness was amazing.

He started walking faster, and he never looked back.

The sky was blue, and the best was yet to come.

Qhorin did not admit it to himself, but he waited.

The Lord Commander had sighed, Ser Denys had been livid, everyone else was in a state. It was a matter of time, hateful voices whispered to each other. They stopped whispering when Qhorin entered a room.

"He won't come back, Halfhand. We've seen the last of him" the Lord Commander had said, and Qhorin had nodded, because he knew that much. But a part of him still held some hope. Mance had often gone away, -

-not like that though, never like that-

-but he had always come back. He knew his place. He'd turn around.

Well, some months passed, and Qhorin still sat atop the Wall. He became more focused on his work than ever. He never told anyone about what precisely had happened upon the Wall at the crack of dawn. And sometimes, he'd look across the Wall and ask himself where in the midst of this ice-cold wildland his former best friend was.

Someday a piece of news reached the Wall. The wildlings had a new king, it said, a new king beyond the Wall. Who? Oh, some smart-mouth with a lute who'd been a crow once.

Well, Qhorin Halfhand thought, at least now I know where Mance is.

And then, many many years later, Mance was in a tent, and his people were on their great march south, and he was braiding the hair of his beautiful wife, who was pregnant with their first (and hopefully not last) child. He loved her hair, it looked like spun gold (not that he'd ever seen spun gold) and it was long and so thick... he should remember to steal some for lute strings when she was sleeping...

Tormund entered, causing Mance to interrupt his doing. "What is it, Tormund?" he asked. "Any news?"

"The warg's just back. Said that Rattleshirt is on his way."

"Is he, then."

"They have a deserter with them."

"Oh?"

"That southern Stark bastard. Snow."

"Jon Snow."

"Aye. The warg says he's killed Halfhand." The news was offered with cautious care, and it made the king-beyond-the-Wall stand up.

"Qhorin Halfhand?"

"Sure enough."

Mance stayed completely still for two seconds, then he smiled. Only to people close to him it would appear a little forced. "Well" he said. "One more threat to our people abolished. Remind me to thank the Stark kid later."

"Aye" said Tormund and went his merry ways. When he was gone, Dalla approached her husband. "Is everything alright?" she asked.

"Fine, sweetling, I'll be back soon" he replied and stepped out of the tent. He wandered to the outskirts of the camp, where he was sure nobody would see him.

"Who do you think will die first? Out of the two of us?"

"You" Qhorin said and gave him a friendly punch to the shoulder. "You're the reckless one. You'll go out with a bang, but you'll go before me."

"And will they sing songs about my tragic early demise? What do you think?"

"No. They don't make songs about the Night's Watch."

"Then I'll write one myself, and spit on them."

"You'll be dead, Mance. Dead people don't make songs."

"Will too, in the realm of the dead or whatever, and then I'll haunt some poor bastard and make him write it down .And you, you will die an old man, cold and alone."

"And as I draw my dying breath" Qhorin continued, warming up on the thing, "The last thing I see will be your ghostly spirit, bloody would in your chest or your head under your arm, coming to fetch me."

"Fetch you where? We don't even have the same gods. You took your oath in the sept."

"I'm not hell-bent on religion. I could change mine."

"You would do that?"

"For you? Of course. You're my best friend, you brain-dead moron."

Qhorin Halfhand. The only person, the only living thing he ever regretted leaving behind. All these years ago.

Of course he had not met the man again, ever... but he had always known that Qhorin had been there, somewhere, stoically fulfilling his duty. Well, not anymore.

And Mance Rayder wept a bit, because that's what you do when an old friend vanishes from this world. Even if you hadn't seen that friend in ages. Even if that friend turned enemy along the way.

And then he wiped his eyes with the hem of a cloak he was still wearing, and went back to the camp, because he had things to do and people to lead and people to just generally be there for. Because he was a king now.

And yet some time later, a lot of things had happened, and most of them would have caused a weaker man to break, but Mance prided himself on still being able to smile; but now it looked like his breaking point was reached, and it was cold in Ramsay Bolton's cage, and he was huddling under the cloak, even though he knew what it was made of. It was a poor substitute for his original one, and it was useless too, because the cold kept seeping in, and there were icicles in his hair and on his eyelashes, his whole skin was icicles, and every breath was icicles. And it could have been a cold-induced hallucination, but he could swear he saw it – the ghostly shape of a man wavering just at the edge of his vision, floating, waiting, smiling but his eyes solemn.

And he could almost hear Qhorin Halfhand say: Oh seven hells, Mance. Things have gone quite wrong, haven't they?

~the end

So, we're at the end. To all of you who struggled through all these chapters of me rambling and have reached this point, thank you! Thank you so much for reading this!

Wow, it feels strange, having finished my first story. As for what I'm going to do next, I have no idea... maybe I'll do something involving these characters, maybe something completely different... let's see. If you have anything you'd like to see written, leave me a note! I need ideas! Thank you and bye-bye!^^