She threw back her head and felt for her hair, her snood had been lost in the storm, and her curls clung to the back of her neck, heavy with water. Grabbing it all at once she rung out the water and tried to push away the bushy curls. She felt as ugly as she possibly could be, a drowned rat, with hair misplaced, and charcoal streaked from her eyes.

She looked at him from the top of her eyes, wanting to avoid his gaze. She could see him slowly looking at her from a top his eyes, while he attempted to dry himself. The lightning flashed again and the sounds of thunder came sooner after. She removed Jon's cloak, and it dropped to the stone ground with an echoing splat. It was full of water, and still did save the fabric of her dress.

"Is it always like this? Cold, and wet, and dangerous?" She said, continuing to ring out her hair, and smooth down the small coiling curls at the side of her head.

"Yes." Jon said surely. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, "Always."

She looked down at her dress, and for what felt like the hundredth time since she got to Winterfell, her hem had been destroyed. This time, the mud reached as high as her knee.

She blinked and leaned against the cave wall, it was colder than it looked, and twice as well, yet still, she pressed hard against it, and fell to the ground. She could feel her throat swelling up, and a wetness coming into her eyes. What was this? Where was she? Why did some boy, asking her a question, seem to have the power to bring her down onto a cold damp floor? She didn't weep. Quickly, she let out a breath of air and rubbed her face.

As she pulled her hands away, she could see what was left of the black charcoal lodged into her fingernails. She hung her head, not knowing whether she should laugh. Mother would have something to say about this. She always did. There was so much wrong with this. She was alone, in a dark cave, with a high Lord's handsome bastard. She would die if she knew. As if she was not disappointed enough. She would see me now, and push me out a window if Father let her.

"You should not worry about your dress. We are lucky to have been so close to shelter."

"I don't care about the dress. I have a hundred more. Not just in green." She gave a disheartened laugh. She looked up at him quickly, and saw a quick smile on his lips.

"You thought that perhaps, it was the only colour I owned?" She answered for him.

"I was beginning to wonder." He was silent for a moment, and she could hear the sound of hard rain and ice hitting hard on the roof of the cave, sloshing onto the ground. There were single drops falling from the ceiling into small pools.

Drop.

Drop.

Drop.

"My mother told me that I would wear nothing but green while I was hear." She shook her head. "I have nothing against the colour, I just wonder why she needed keep with a tradition that no one understands or cares about in Westeros. Or perhaps she just wanted to draw attention to me."

"A tradition?" Jon asked. She explained the nature of it quickly as she waved a hand.

"You seem to get on with your father very well. The way you speak about your mother though-"

"She sound's like a bad dream? You can say it. The way I describe her is truthful, you'd never see the cruelty behind those warm eyes on your own."

"We have that in common. Lady Stark has never been a mother to me. Not ever." He shared this with her, taking the time to watch how she would accept this gift.

His attempt at comfort was pushed aside. She did not want o hear, she wanted to be heard.

"It wasn't always like this." She began, throwing her hands into her skirts. They disappeared into the fabric, as it puffed up all around her, water stopping the exit of air from within. "She loved me once." A thousand years ago...

"There was a time when she braided my hair herself, and we would stay up late together and laugh. I feel like I haven't seen her laugh in such a long time." How else could those lines in her face get there? "She taught me everything I know. She bread me for perfection. We spent every moment together."She spoke softly, but her face read of confusion, as she looked towards Jon, but past him.

"I remember once." She smiled at the thought before it left her lips, and she focused on Jon. He smiled back, which made her smile more. "We were on my bed, laughing so hard that I couldn't breath. She put her hand on my cheek," she said, placing her right hand to the side of her face. "And said that I was her favourite... I know that mothers shouldn't say that to one child and not the other, and perhaps she told each of her children separately, making us all feel special. As though we all had a special place in her heart." Her smile began to dwindle like a flame, extinguished with the wind that wafted trough her fingers when she dropped her hand. She lowered her head for a moment, only to look back up and Jon Snow. She had hoped for a strength in his eyes, that she could no longer draw from herself.

He didn't smile any longer. His eyebrows knit together, and he seemed as interested as ever.

"I was thirteen when she told me that. Then one year went by," She waved her hand in a circular, as if it would help her explain how time passed, "And another, and another." Her fingers curled into a claw. "She stopped speaking to me more and more with every passing year. I thought that I was doing something wrong. So, I was better, I didn't spill anything at supper, I ate and slept and breathed when I was told, and did every single thing I was told, but it still wasn't enough. She hated me more and more until finally, she stopped talking to me at all, unless the subject of getting married came up. In that regard, she had no choice."

"That sounds cruel." Jon said finally.

"Do you want to know the worst part?" She asked, but he did not respond, he simply watched her watch him. "I hate her so much. I hate her, and still I would lay in bed every single night and pray for...Something..." She saved herself. "Something to happen, and she would come into my room and stroke my hair like she used to. Or at least, smile again."

She could see Jon had licked his lips quickly and bit down on his bottom one for a moment. "You don't know why." He said, quickly. She looked at him sadly, "I can relate. Lady Stark has wished me dead as long as I can remember, sometimes behind my back, and others, right to my face. She never loved me. She never counted herself as my mother, and I never took her as one. Though, I wanted her to love me once. I would see my brothers and sisters cry when they were frightened, or wince in pain when they were hurt, and there she was. It seemed like she could fix anything that ever went wrong with them."

Ev̱gení̱s smiled, she could recall a time when he mother and father could solve all her problems. Those days were precious and few. Problems seemed impossible now, or only solved within herself. Childhood was a kingdom, where eventually, everyone had to leave, armed with that knowledge.

"She could." Ev̱gení̱s told him. "She really could." She spoke of Jon's siblings, but thought of herself.

"I know why Lady Stark hates me." He began again, looking to the ground. "But you? You and your mother were tied together for so long. What changed?" He lifted his head once more to look at her.

Ev̱gení̱s did not answer right away. Poor Jon Snow, he thought that she was struggling with answers. When it was just the opposite.

"I suppose, she wanted a return on her investment." She said bitterly as she rose from the ground. Being angry made most things better. If she was angered, she could not be so sad.

He rose faster than she, and moved slowly towards her. "I don't understand."

I've said too much. She looked at him and shook her head. "There's nothing to understand. She loved me once, and now she doesn't. She worked hard on me, and was disappointed. Here I am twenty-three names days later, unmarried."

He winced and got closer. "That's not it. I know it isn't. You make it seem like you're putting the pieces together, but you're missing too many."

There it was again, too smart. Perhaps his hand was wrong. Someday, it will kill him, or make him mad. She was about to open her mouth to answer, when something rang louder than any noise.

Silence.

The rain had ceased. Ev̱gení̱s looked to her right, and light had now come through the opening, and the visible puddles were still.

Slowly, she turned her head to face Jon, as though a sudden move would alert him, and prompt his question once more. She looked up to meet his eyes with such caution.

"I want to go back to Winterfell." She said finally. She wanted it to sound like a demand, but it came out more of a feeble suggestion.

His hands were at his sides now, they looked useless and tired as his shoulders slumped. He looked to the outside, unimpressed. "They'll be wondering where we got to." He moved his eyes back to her. "And you're father will be worried."

Before she could say anything, he took in a deep breath and moved to the exit. "I haven't forgot you know." She winced as she bend over to pick up his cloak. She rung it out quickly and ran to duck out of the cave, rolling her eyes as she left and stood up straight once more.

"Curiosity could get you killed Jon Snow. As it has killed many before you." She warned.

"I may not be armed, but I doubt you could kill me." He said cockily still walking ahead.

"Not me." She admitted. Watching him ahead, made her want to be by his side. As she ran, mud flew up the back of her dress like a small whip. I could not possibly get any more wet. She thought as more water filled her boots. "Here, your cloak."

He did not move to take it, and though frustrated, she knew that he was offended too. Perhaps what he had shared had value to him. Something that he told very few or none at all. I told him something valuable too. She thought stubbornly. She took in a deep breath and swallowed her pride.

"Why does it matter so much to you, why she hates me?" She asked gently. "Why can we not simply have something in common? Both our mother's hate us."

"Lady Stark is not my mother." He said flatly.

"Yes, but you wished she was." She tried him. "Wouldn't you have preferred it that way. To share a name with your brothers and sisters. She hates you for something that you could not control..." She ended her sentence with less passion that it started with, thinking of how the truth of it fit her situation, same as his.

"I don't want the Stark name." He said, flatly again. Ev̱gení̱s' stomach sank for him. She knew what it was to want something you could not have. Replacing wishes with hatred to conceal the pain.

"I'm going to be a man of the Night's Watch. You don't need a name for that. You don't need anything."

She blinked hard, and winced. "The Night's Watch?" She repeated. But he said that was some terrible nightmare at the end of the frozen, horrible North. He had told her of this house the night of the feast, and she had passed it over, only now recalling the slight fondness in his voice. "The men who take no lands, no wives, and no father no children?" She caught herself before she hissed her few final words.

"The Night's Watch, yes. I want to be a ranger, protect the realm."

"But you won't be able to Father any sons." She argued, though she was not naive enough to assume her questions could sway a long rooted dream.

"You act as though that's something I should want." He laughed out his breath.

She sped up as quickly as she could to get to his side once more. "Isn't it?" She asked, intrigued.

"What's my name?" Ev̱gení̱s scrunched up her nose.

"You name? Jon."

"Hmm, and whats my last name?" He asked again.

"Snow."

"I have a bastards name, and they would carry it with them wherever they went. That's no life for a child."

Ev̱gení̱s was surprised. She didn't think men thought in such a way. She had heard the tales of Lord Eddard Stark's great honour, though she could have never believed him to be such a father, to teach his son's all his virtue. She thought him stupid, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought him brave. A queer sort of bravery that she knew she would never have.

He wants to be a ranger, she remembered. She wanted to be outraged, but now, knowing his reasons, she pitied him.

"We are all bound by circumstance." Were the only words she could think to say. Were they so different? Only in their means. She had the high born name. A name might have been all he needed in this world to abandon any notion of the Night's Watch. He of course, had the gift of life, within him. A gift that he would squander. Father told her once that people always desired what they could not have. They were made to crave the opposite. Inside the cave they seemed to have had the world in common, and now it fell to the ground and shattered like thinly blown glass.

This might have be his dream. Like it had once been hers to marry and have children. She knew her dream was not an impressive one, she had always known.

"My Septa told me something once. It was such a long time ago, I'm sure I'm saying it wrong." She showed a small closed mouth smile. "She said that when we're born, the gods give us a gift. Every person has one, and no one has none." She looked to him and saw that he was genuinely listening, watching her in between carefully placed steps.

"What do you think mine is?" He asked, his mood lifting.

"You? Oh that's easy Jon Snow. You're very brave. I could see it in your hand as if the gods has written it there themselves. Arya has it too. Sansa has her beauty-"

"And Theon?" He interrupted.

She took in a deep breath and thought for a moment, holding her breath. After holding it for a time, she let it out and looked to him with a bewildered face. "I was wrong, some people don't have anything after all."

Jon laughed loudly, with his eyes closed. He threw his head back for a moment, and Ev̱gení̱s could not help but laugh as well.

"My Lady!"

Slowly, their laughter faded as they looked ahead. On a tall back horse, sat Sir Nermol, his face mangled with displeasure. If this was how he looked, Father would look much worse.

"Your Lord Father is most unhappy child." He dismounted and grabbed the weathered reins. "We had best get you to Winterfell before nightfall. It's a miracle we found you at all in this wood."

"We're not lost Sir Nermol. We were going back to Winterfell, when it began to rain-"

"You had best save the story for your Father Ev̱gení̱s. You will need it I assure you." The smile fell from her face. This was serious, and Father was not pleased. She glanced at Jon quickly before she began to walk. The smile had fallen from his face too.

She moved through the mud with great difficulty and once she was in range, Sir Nermol grabbed hold of her arm and aided her. He hoisted her onto his horse and his saddle, she felt like such a food riding sideways, like a peasant woman being led on a donkey, staring into nothing but more trees. He pulled the reins and turned the beast around quickly, though not so quick that she could miss his meeting of eyes with Jon.

Ev̱gení̱s was no fool, Sir Nermol's unkind glare was not his own, but Fathers. They had already decided what might have happened here, and she would need to think on what she would say very carefully before they reached Winterfell.

Hi all! I hope that everyone is enjoying the story, please review. Every time I start a new story I gage how many reviews I get, if there aren't a lot, I tend to think not a lot of people are interested.

Let me know how you're liking it! Thank you to everyone who posted reviews so far!

Cheers,

-Prosati