DarkJon! warning. Writing is one of my jobs, so I treat Jon as I treat any of my original characters, by letting him speak. I stay as close to the character as I can, blend Book and Show Jon as best as I can, take into consideration the horrific things he's been through and then I just let him do his thing. It's probably the most entertaining thing about writing. This is how characters become alive.
Many of the things bellow were unplanned. They just happened and grew and they changed part of my overall view on Jon's arc, but I think I like this version better.
*Special thanks to those who reviewed. I can't personally send you a message because you aren't logged in, so I'm writing it here.:)
JON II
The sound was deafening. He couldn't think, nor speak, nor drink. He just sat on his high chair and looked. Looked at the people, looked at the entertainers, looked at the fires and tried listening to various pieces of conversation that made their way to him, but nothing registered.
The Feast of the Sun. A celebration that the Wildlings hailed as traditional and passed down from generation to generation. It was the second one he had seen. Or was it the third?
It was only celebrated when they had a true summer, like this one. Before the Great War they hadn't had a true summer in decades. No one even remembered what the Feast of the Sun should have been. They knew that they were supposed to sell and buy, that they were supposed to drink and eat, fuck and fight, hunt and ride. They also knew that at the end there was supposed to be a sacrifice and a wedding with a crowning of sorts. He had stopped the sacrifice in the first year, but not in the second and this year it was even less probable that he will in any way be able to put an end to it. The weddings happened and they had queens and kings of summer every time.
Of course he was not against their little mock weddings with flower crowns and dancing. He was disgusted by the sacrifices, but in some odd play of events, they happened, with or without his will. He wondered whether the Old Gods, with their power at its peak here, had a hand in these deaths.
The first year it didn't happen. Or at least, not at the end of the festival, at midnight, as it was supposed too. It did happen later, before dawn, when a young man, not passed his 25th nameday, had been gored by a wild bison who ran amok through camp. An odd thing for a bison to target someone and be relentless in bringing about their demise.
The second year a young man, around the same age, had spilled his own guts, by tripping over the sword of his sparring partner and somehow falling, belly first, on top of it. That darkly humorous accident had happened at midnight, as the ritual requested.
This year, he didn't even mention this part of the event to Tormund. There were no priests in their faith, only old, widowed crones who's decision regarding the fate of the sacrificed and who he will be, Jon didn't even bother questioning anymore. Obviously the Old Gods demanded only young men. His mind wandered to old memories, to his time in Craster's keep and his sacrificed sons.
A fortunate thing he was not a young man anymore.
Despite his utter loath at this particular tradition, he had always helped them with the Feast. It was a good opportunity for trading and alliances and for months afterwards the Wildlings would be happy and satisfied, having bought what they needed and in return, sold their own goods.
They were good craftsmen. They were capable of creating charming wood sculptures and they had their own way of doing it, naive, squarish and far from reality, yet oddly pleasing to the eye. They loved carving tall poles, adorned with the faces of men and animals, in a mesmerising dance, fading into each other, disappearing and reappearing.
If you were well inebriated and stared at one of those poles for long enough, you would see them shifting and dancing in spirals and up and down. If it was night and a fire was crackling close by, the hallucinations were guaranteed. Those poles told warg stories and he recognized this from the first moment he had laid eyes upon them.
Two scrolls dangled between his fingers lightly and he thought about the people who sent them. He had been thinking a lot here. Not immediately after he came from the South. The shock had been too big and it left him in an unfeeling state for years. Slowly, he started to regain himself, or what was left of himself and he began thinking. Thinking and hating.
Wounds ran deep and would never heal. They were in his flesh, in his bones, in his heart, but also in his very being. All had betrayed him. All had turned their backs to him. All. Even his parents. His real parents. He had time to turn Rhaegar's and Lyanna's story in his mind over and over again and he knew they could have avoided all that happened. He knew that they could have still been alive. Even Ned Stark betrayed him, throwing him away at the Wall, like a shameful thing. All but her.
Her...
He swallowed thickly, stood up from his chair and, among loud, merry folk, walked to the large bonfire and gave the two scrolls to the flame. A shudder of disgust ran through him and he returned to his chair.
He knew something had happened. He could smell it in the air, taste it in the streams. Why haven't they let it go? Why couldn't they let the dragons sleep forever? King Bran himself sent him a letter, but Sansa didn't. Almost amusing. It was even more amusing to think Bran believed that he, of all people, could control Drogon. He, who killed Drogon's mother? Yes, the dragon didn't incinerate him as her hot blood lay on the stones, but given another chance...
He wondered how could Bran fly Drogon here and then lose all control upon him.
Sam. The second letter was from his friend and brother, and it announced his arrival North of the Wall. The goal was the same, persuasion.
Several of his wildling friends came to him with food and drink, but he refused them all. Ever since he had been brought back, food was not of great interest to him and his body seemed to not need it as much as before. He was fuelled by something other than food and he tried to not think about that too much. Alcohol at least still did its duty well.
He did love the taste of blood and raw flesh when running through the woods, hunting in Ghosts's body.
The white wolf was now curled at his legs. He had grown monstrous and even like this, sleeping and snoring softly, he was almost the size of his chair. He was slightly larger than his wolf mother, which he remembered so well after all these years. A gigantic thing, bigger than the stag that had gored her.
The last of your kind. You and I both, boy.
He was not well. His hands were cold and shaky, his teeth clenched and he felt strung up, anxious and ready to snap. He tried calming himself by mindlessly stroking Ghost's thick fur, but it didn't help.
He couldn't sit still. There was something in him, a crazed energy squirming in his chest that made him want to run or pick up his sword and slash.
He needed to ride a horse or warg Ghost and tear something to pieces.
He settled on the latter and shuddering, he got up from his chair and went to his tent, Ghost lazily padding behind him. He would hide. People didn't have to witness him warging. Especially not now, with so many Southerners that had never seen something like that in their lives.
The peace in his tent helped. Music, laughter and screams still reached him, but he was not a part of it, inside it all. It was before midnight, so this way, he would be far away in the woods when the inevitable summer sacrifice happened.
He lit a few candles and settled on the bed. A wave of intense heat rippled through him and he removed his shirt. Sometimes his body felt like it couldn't regulate its temperature and he had nightmares of this strange energy, this fire, consuming him from the inside. He breathed out and closed his eyes.
Ghost stood, huge and attentive on one side of the tent, blocking out the entire exit. The wolf knew what was coming and was excited.
A second and a skipped heartbeat, as if someone had hit him hard in the chest, taking his breath away, was all he felt before seeing himself from the outside, lying half naked on the bed, eyes wide and white.
He slipped out of the tent and all his senses drummed and sang. The familiar scents of roasted meats, of crackling fires, of sweaty horses and humans were mingled with foreign ones, of strange flower oils that he hated, of far away forests that he had known before and even of strange, unknown beasts.
He walked quickly among people, some staring at him in shock, some jumping away yelping.
Somewhere far away in the woods, there were wild creatures. He raised his wet nose to the winds and chose between a stag in rut and a fat boar. He went after the stag's scent and broke off into a run towards the Wall.
The long road from the Wall to the camps was overrun by men, horses and carts, so he went through the forest, leaping over shrubs, skidding through rubble and enjoying the soft pine blanket under his heavy paws.
He found a carcass and threw himself in it, rolling around, staining his white fur with dark, old blood. The carcass had the smell of small wolf on it. A small wolf pack had filled their bellies here. He stood and shook his fur and returned to pursuing the stag's track. The scent was strong, musky and easy to follow. It overpowered almost all the other smells and so he ran as fast as he could, leaves, twigs and pine needles flying behind him.
It smelled of horse and man and small wolf too, but the stag now bayed and nothing else mattered. Guttural and strong, the sound of its call spurred him on.
The small wolves were already surrounding the stag and he fought them, throwing them in the air in his crown of antlers. It was a huge thing, strong and muscled and red blooded.
The direwolf's maw filled with slobber looking at the thing.
He threw himself in the fight, but so did the small wolves, jumping at his throat, nipping at his rear.
Just then he heard neighs and saw a cart full of humans and their horses already up on their back legs, crazed with fear. Some of the small wolves jumped at the horses and he sank his sabre teeth into the warm neck of one of them, shaking the other off him as if he was but a fly. A loud yelp broke through as the stag impaled a wolf in his antlers, bucking him off. The wolf's body fell lifeless to the ground, but there were others and most had now went for the easy prey, the horses and humans in their cart.
He looked at the stag once more and saw him spring as fast as wind through the pines, away from them, into freedom.
His blood urged him to chase, but he looked at the cart. Wolves were hanging to the horses, men screamed and pulled the reigns. A large, dark man jumped from the cart and put the wolves to steel. The small wolves were so drunk with the blood of horses, that they didn't even fight back much. Others came and cornered the man. Another man jumped from the cart with a stick, clubbing the wolves left and right.
He growled low and shot up to them. Humans let out blood curdling screams at the sight of him. He could hear women and babes in the cart as he snapped the necks of his small cousins. The large, dark man smelled familiar and he froze, starring in shock at Ghost. After a mere moment, the familiar smelling man joined him in the spilling of blood.
Soon all the little cousins laid dead and bloody around them and he was shaking and growling with bloodlust. A horse neighed lamely.
All humans, except for the familiar one, huddled in the cart, trembling. The dark, large one wiped his sword on his belly, breathing heavily and walked slowly to him. He growled, but lowered his large head.
"Thank you. Glad to see you." he heard his mumbled voice.
The human kneeled before him and lowered his head. Ghost sniffed him in response, howled and ran into the woods, drinking in the scents of wilderness.
Following the North winds, deeper into the woods he found boars and caught one. The warm blood and soft, sweet flesh delighted him and he wouldn't have returned for the entire night, but a strong voice pulled him to his tent and he had to leave Ghost alone with his boar.
"No good taking on the wolf coat too often. You know that. You may lose your grip one day." said Tormund, standing large and red faced in the opening of the tent.
"I'm fine. I like my own coat too. I'm considering trying other coats. Remember Varamyr? He had many to spare..." he stood up from the bed and stretched his spine. He was dizzy, but calmer. "A pack of wolves attacked a cart and I helped." He started rummaging through a large chest, searching for his wine skin. He knew he stashed one in there...
"Who did you help?" Asked Tormund suspiciously.
"What? The men, of course! I saved a cart full of men, women and children. Did you think I ate people?" Jon asked insulted, which made the other man laugh.
"Aha, aye. I was just making sure... There are many carts coming in tonight, ay?" Tormund made himself comfortable on a low stool next to the table where Jon wrote letters, read, ate and drank at. "It's why I'm here. I found out some things... It might be of use to warg other animals, come to think of it."
Tormund's voice made him stop his search and he stood up tall and looked at his friend. Yes, Tormund was worried.
"What happened?"
"I don't know how to say this, my man... Ah... This is a rough one, truly." He sighed and chewed on the side of his moustache. "The dragon capturing is not the whole story. Your friends keep things from you. I can't imagine why, as you'd have found out anyway." Tormund sighed and stared at his hands.
His heart raced in his chest and that stirring from earlier started to rear its ugly head.
"What happened?" he heard himself ask again.
"They're starting war, my man." Tormund said it with finality. "Three houses who fought beside us in the Great War have been crushed by your sister's men. Haven't you heard people talking?"
He remembered that more wine bottles waited for him in rows, like obedient soldiers, in the cupboard behind the table Tormund sat at.
"Not the answer I was expecting of ya..." Tormund said as he turned after him, judging him as he yet again, was searching for drinks.
He placed a bottle on the table and added two glasses to it. He poured wine to the brim in both of them, pushed one towards Tormund, took another for himself and sat at the table.
"Not the news I was expecting either. At least not now." He drank. "I knew something was happening. Can't say I'm surprised. Brought it upon themselves."
He sat back in his chair and stared at the fire dancing in the brazier. A feeling of righteous satisfaction coursed through him.
Let them kill each other.
"Is not good, my friend. This is...wrong." Tormund's voice was ragged and he didn't drink from the wine Jon poured for him. "She showed no mercy. Everyone, of all ages, was put to the steel. I'm fooling myself that the young king would do something, but I don't think it is in his nature anymore." The disgust in his voice was thick.
"Who told you this?"
"Everyone speaks of it! Just go out among people and hear it for yourself!" His voice was thunderous.
"What would you have me do? Go attack Winterfell?" he downed his wine and poured some more, his eyes never meeting Tormund's.
"Children. She has the blood of children on her lily white hands!" This time Tormund yelled.
Jon sneered.
"A young man will die tonight for the wildling hags and the Northern gods. Children died in our wars on and on and on. I am a queenslayer and a kinslayer. This world is built on blood..."
...and fire.
He downed the second glass. Tormund said nothing for a long time and they both sat in tense silence.
"I was wrong..." Tormund broke the silence at last. "This is not a good place for you." he rasped and finally drank the wine Jon had poured for him.
"There is no place for me. I belong nowhere. I shouldn't even be alive."
"Nah... I had a long time to think about this, my friend. You belonged with her. With the dragon woman."
He cringed and drank again. Tormund stood from his chair and roughly took the glass from his hand.
"Stop with this stupidity, man!"
Jon looked up at him in shock, awakened from his thoughts as if from a dream. His face was almost as red as his hair and he was glaring down at Jon, large and menacing.
"Let me be, Tormund. What do you want from me?" Jon all but growled.
"I'll be telling everyone to stop giving you wine. You've had enough. Give it a few years and you'll be known for wasting almost twenty years drinking in a wildling tent!"
"You're talking. Ever since I've known you, you've been drinking your life away! Get out of my way, man!" Sneered Jon as he stood up from his chair and went for the exit. He needed air. That strangling, stirring feeling was looming dark over him again. His hand instinctively wrapped around Longclaw that sat against the foot of the bed. He needed to slash something, even if that something was just a training pole or a tree.
Tormund grabbed him by his upper arm and all but yanked him back.
"Damn it all, man! Stop!" Jon raised his voice and shook himself free from the older man's strong grip.
"I ain't stoppin'! You listen to me! I've been like an older brother to you. You'll listen, by the Old Gods. YOU'LL LISTEN! You stabbed the woman you loved for killing innocents and now you'll pardon the red bitch for doing the same? I know you have some sort of mind illness because of all the things you've seen. That's how it is for us all. You're not the only one suffering. We are all ill, but you'll get more ill if you close your eyes and go off running with your wolf to eat stags and boars and then come here to drink wine."
"Again, what do you want of me? Want me to go attack Winterfell? Kill Sansa? WHAT?"
"Talk to them! Go there! See what is going on. They summoned you. You could stop this!"
"There's nothing to stop! I don't want it to stop. I want them to destroy everything. Don't you get it? I want to see them all wipe each other off. Burn it all to the ground. It's what they've been trying to do for years. I saved them once and they spat me like an old tooth. Let them crush each other!"
Tormund gaped at him, lost for words and Jon took that moment to escape. He stormed out of the tent, hand clutched on the sword pommel, feeling like he would crawl right out of his skin again.
He did not expect Tormund to give up easily and he didn't disappoint, following him and shouting, trying to make himself heard over the clamour of the fair.
"You had the dragon woman in your grip. You could have made her do anything, but you went off in your sour moods because she was your aunt. Do you even know how many in both your houses married amongst each other? Even the Starks married cousins and aunts and uncles. A good fuck was all she needed! I would have fucked all her bloodlust away and she would have sang my song. You have no idea what power you had over her, you damned fool! This shit..." he waved his large hands towards the Southern woods. "...is your doing. CLEAN IT! Don't think that it will clean itself or stay in the South. The shit will come here too and WE'LL ALL DRWON IN IT!"
All that darkness he had escaped earlier was again filling him to the brim with rage. He looked at his friend and his fingers twitched on the wolf pommel.
Tormund noticed and smiled darkly.
"What? You want to fight me? You lost the last time. Ha!" a deep belly laugh took over his friend as he unsheathed his rough, steel sword.
"I never lost against you!" Jon hissed.
"Oh, but you did! You ran like a coward." He laughed again balancing on his heels, sword in hand, provoking, teasing with a huge smile plastered on his face.
Behind them people were yelling and chanting. Jon knew that he didn't miss the sacrifice as he had hoped and it was taking place right behind him. He didn't want to turn around and face it.
"Tormund..." Jon yelled at the other man, but was cut off.
"First blood. Let me see it, lizard boy! Let me see you. If you draw first blood, I'll let you rot here and drown in wine. If I bleed you, you calmly sit and we talk about what you should do, you talk to your lordly, fat friend when he comes and go to your crippled boy-king to clean up the mess you made."
Everyone was so drunk on the prospect of a sacrifice, that they payed them no mind. On a normal night, a duel or even a fist fight, would have attracted a cheering mob of wildlings.
He regretted not putting his shirt back on. The thought of sharp blades so close to his exposed skin made him feel weak.
Jon unsheathed Longclaw, slowly, his fingers twitching.
Suddenly steel kissed hard and loud. He expected Tormund's to crack against his Valyrian steel, but it stayed strong and Tormund smiled darkly behind it.
"Good. I want to see if you still have blood in your veins." Tormund spoke loudly.
"Oh, I have blood, though it shouldn't flow no more..." answered Jon back and withdrew his sword.
He spun away as agile as in his younger years and as the other man ran at him with all his force, Jon once more jumped aside, crashing into a group of wildlings. As quickly as he escaped Tormund, he danced back to him, hitting his sword hard, crushing his balance, sending him into the crowd, closer to the large bonfire and the crones that were now dancing and singing. He focused on his opponent, not wanting to see the ritual.
Tormund attacked again, yelling and slashing. They met, steel against steel, again and again, relentlessly pushing against each other, muscles trembling and teeth showing in beastly snarls.
Sweat was running down his back and beading on his forehead and his arms shook. With a loud shout he finally pushed Tormund away, but the wildling didn't stop. He came at him with even more force, laughing mockingly and they both led each other closer to the ritual circle.
This time people did notice them and cheered. Most recognized him and he heard his name being called on and on by the mob, but all he knew was the blade in his grip and the blood pumping in his ears.
The crones chanted a hypnotising rhythm and they didn't stop at the sight of two full grown men fighting close to them. Somehow in the back of his mind he knew that they would not stop, that they couldn't stop.
He lifted his sword once more, as high as he could and brought it down with all his might against Tormund's. A roar he couldn't control was released and it finally happened. Longclaw screeched and Tormund's sword cracked in half. It stood hanging on a thin splinter.
Tormund broke what was left of his sword and threw the useless upper half away, brandishing the stub that was left unharmed.
"No blood yet, boy!" He shouted and people around him cheered and howled.
It was something out of nightmares. Everyone yelled around him, the crowd was delirious, pushing each other around to see better, some cheering at them, others at the ritual around the immense bonfire, all drunk with spirits and madness.
He was shaking, seeing red, feeling like his chest would burst open with the same energy that maddened the crowd, but stronger, consuming, fiery.
The chant suddenly died down and he dared look behind him at the ritual. A young man was bound and seemingly asleep in front of the pole. He was naked and three small, crooked and very old women, surrounded him.
The most intricately dressed of them approached the young man with a large knife, in the shape of a feather. The Matriarch. She was the oldest and her headdress stood very tall and made of all sorts of animal parts, bones, skulls and antlers, decked with flowers and vines.
It disgusted him to his core, but he couldn't look away. A senseless death. A man who could live, fight and have children, killed to appease gods that have only brought destruction and death to this land. Gods who now controlled all Westeros. Whatever these gods were or if they existed, or if it was just some other, odd magic animating and driving everyone to act like ants in a hive, he didn't know. All he knew was that he hated it and wanted it gone. No wonder his ancestors wanted the same thing, once upon a time.
The matriarch started chanting again and lifted her dagger up to the skies. It was a frighteningly mesmerising scene. The fire throwing cinders to the stars and the full moon hanging bright and ominous above it all, looked like something from ancient, forgotten times...and so it was.
Silence descended. A few frightened whimpers broke through the crowd as they all watched the sacrifice.
The dagger shimmering darkly in the light of the fire, was dragonglass, he noted with a hitch in his breath.
I killed the others with dragonglass...
He felt unexplainable fear coursing through him and it turned into anger that could not be reigned in. His knuckles turned white around Longclaw's pommel and he walked straight to the hags, the gasps around him inconsequential.
"JON! NO!" he heard an unknown voice from behind him.
He had made a spectacle of himself, might as well give the crowd a truly memorable ending to it all.
The matriarch barely reached his chest and she didn't stop her chanting when he was all but breathing down her neck. Without even thinking, he grabbed her bony, naked shoulder and pushed her aside, raising his sword high, itching to strike. She shrieked so loud that his ears stung, but he didn't let go.
Wildlings flocked around him, trying to get him off of her, but they stopped when they realised that the priestesses' life could be snuffed in a mere moment.
"What is all this? Have you all lost your damned minds?" he yelled at them, but saw no guilt nor shame in their faces. They were shocked and looked as if he was the one losing his mind.
The other hags yelled and bawled around him like demons and the matriarch was still the loudest of them all. She squirmed and kicked, slashing her black dagger at his chest, but his hand was clutching her in a death grip.
In her mindless writhing she managed a small cut across his ribs and his blood seemed to be drank by the blade, absorbed into its oily surface. This made her stop screaming.
She gasped and her eyes shot at him, with a strange combination of madness and shock.
"You're dead!" She hissed quietly, only for him to hear. "Fire gives you life, not true blood." Her eyes were huge and bored into his very soul. "YOU'RE OF THE ENEMY!" this she yelled for all to hear, but none said anything. It was just them, Jon and the Matriarch, staring at each other.
He snarled and shook her frail shoulder.
"Yes, I have died a long time ago. And I will kill you too, but for you there won't be anyone to bring you back."
He let go of her shoulder and swiftly grabbed the dagger from her hand, pushing her away towards the other two priestesses that were huddling together behind the pole where the young man still sat, slumped and sleeping, oblivious of the chaos created around him.
"This." He said to the crowd and lifted the dagger to the skies, as the Matriarch did earlier. "This saved your lives once. This is dragonglass. This killed the others and their wights." In his other hand, he raised Longclaw too. "Valyrian steel. This is the steel that killed the Night King." People gasped and yelled, as if the mere mention of his name summoned him amongst them. "Dragonglass and Valyrian steel saved you all. Both from the South. Both of fire. Hunt with them, kill enemies with them and most importantly, kill wights with them if they ever return, but DO NOT kill innocents with them. If your gods take someone this night, so be it. They've taken one at every single Feast we had. BUT DO NOT make a spectacle of it. I forbid any human sacrifice as long as I live amongst you. If I see it done, you'll see my blade."
Silence. No one spoke and the music died. All he heard was the crackling of the great fire.
He turned to the young man. He was beginning to stir. They had drugged him with some herbs and their grip was waning.
"Take him to the healer's tent and dress him in something. Get him out of my sight." He spoke to some of the wildling that hung around in the darkness and then turned to the hags that still sat huddled on the ground, embracing, cowering away from him. "Now go, crown your king and queen of summer." he spoke to them and made sure that they saw him sliding their ritual dagger in his belt.
He turned and walked away from it all.
"You are cursed! You are not of the North! You are cursed! Cursed, cursed, cursed!" The Matriarch seemed to have regained her voice and screeched after him.
A tall, dark looking man called his name as he broke through the throng of people, but he didn't react, didn't acknowledge him and walked away from the fires and the crowds, deep into the Southern woods.
In the comfort of darkness he called Ghost.