The wind was alive with a thousand scents - the hollow tang of decay, painted over hints of stone and flesh and ice, ice above all else. Bitter, cold, and strong - but somehow also an absence. It was the smell of a void, he decided. Robb never expected ice to have a smell. Now he wondered how he had never noticed it before, ever present and growing all the stronger with each day spent trotting northward.

The Wall, it was close. It smelled different. It smelled ancient. Undefinable.

He had been wandering for some days now. At first, it had been a guessing game just to orient himself to the north - all of Robb's directional intuition had been thrown for a loop between becoming quadrupedal and his senses heightening tenfold. On top of that, he had to take to the cover of the woods. Following the road would be his death.

Grey Wind picked up the path quick enough, though Robb was utterly lost.

Something of his wolf's own soul still resided in this vessel. He could feel it, the times when his own consciousness would flutter, the more feral, animal presence taking hold. Odd. The feeling could only be described as odd.

It did make the whole… being-a-wolf thing… somewhat easier to adjust to, when it wasn't Robb himself having to rip into a living deer, or curl up for sleep in the snow. The semi-lucidity helped him, too, to remember the truth of the situation.

Robb was dead. Though he saw through his wolf's eyes, there was no more to it than that.

He only hoped Jon would see it differently.

Once the Wall fell into his sights, Robb broke into a sprint - clumsy still, as even walking on four legs had yet proven a hassle, but he allowed Grey Wind to take over just enough that they did not both plummet into the snow.

The several bored-looking guards dove out of his way with startled outcries. No one would stop him, not when he was this close to his brother!

He smelled Jon before he saw him. In conversation with another man of the watch, his brother looked paler, more drawn and aged, than when they parted at Winterfell two years before. But he still smelled like Winterfell.

He also smelled like Ghost, and the Grey Wind part of him bolted forward the moment the scent of kin crossed his nose. With a happy yowl, Robb allowed it, rushing over to a startled Jon, toppling him to the snow as men nearby screamed in surprise and fear.

Jon exclaimed something unintelligible and winced as he hit the ground, but he feared him none.

A sudden urge to lick his brother's face overcame him - he suppressed that quick enough. Gross. He would have to find a way to silence some of those more canine urges.

Robb nuzzled his brother's cheek instead and yapped, his tail wagging on its own accord (surprisingly not the strangest thing about being a wolf - he quite liked the tail, actually, and the added expression it gave him).

"What-... Grey Wind?" A confused smile cracked Jon's lips as, laughing, he scratched behind Robb's wolf ears (why the fuck did that feel so good!?). His tail wagged all the harder, and he yapped once more. Even with his wolf's features, Robb could feel himself smiling.

Jon certainly was. "What in the Seven Hells are you doing here!" he laughed. If it wasn't for the enthusiastic rubs to his muzzle and cheeks proving what Jon saw him to be, Robb may have been able to convince himself that the two of them had immediately slipped back into old times. Better times.

Suddenly, the human within overcame him. Scratches can wait, he thought. We're here for a reason!

"Jon, listen to me. The North is in danger, there are traitors amongst our own," Robb tried to say, forcing himself to push away from the scritching - a harder feat than he expected.

Only bark left him. He gave a second futile attempt, "Roose Bolton killed me-" another bark. Then a third.

At least his subsequent growl sounded suitably frustrated. Maybe he could just ask Ghost what to do - the white wolf stood off to the side, an odd turn to his eyes as he pawed around the room. Robb was a new scent - and likely a confusing one, if the other wolf had expected his brother alone.

Ghost, he had that same strange ancient twinge to him. So did Jon.

Jon, of course, was none the wiser to any of this, going back to the ear-scratching. He waved off several of his compatriots in black, who had warily begun to approach with offers of help.

"No need, men. He's my brother's wolf," he told them, then his eyes shot wide in realization. He peeled himself from underneath Robb's paws, then looked about the yard.

He asked one of the black-clad men, "Is my brother with him? Red hair, a little shorter than me, broad frame."

The man shook his head - he wouldn't know by Jon's description, of course, that Robb was Grey Wind. Sort of. He had hoped, at least, that Jon would be able to recognize his own brother, fur-pelted or otherwise.

The smile vanished in an instant, once it dawned on Jon what it might mean - what it did mean.

"Oh no," Jon muttered, low and disbelieving. "He… he's not…"

Robb nuzzled harder against his brother, and yelled, "No, I'm here! It's me!"

An incoherent whine filled the cold chamber. Curses, that was going to be an issue.

"I'll find a place for him," Jon told the men, quickly turning and wiping his eyes. Bleary and starting to quiver, he mumbled a curse, then buried his hands in the thick fur of Robb's neck.

"Grey Wind," his brother whispered. Snow had started falling again, thick white flakes that stood out harshly against Jon's blacks, that melted invisible in Ghost's snowy pelt. Robb nuzzled his cheek again, wet with melt and tears.

"It's me! Can't you tell?"

A sad, low whine.

Jon's breath hitched, then he turned and hurried away - if Robb had to guess, off to wherever he slept in this degraded castle to bury his head in a pillow and avoid the world for a while. Old habits died hard.

Later that night, Ghost mosied up to the small hearth fire that one of the Brothers - a large man called Sam - built for Robb. Shoulders hunched and sniffing loudly, the other wolf pawed cautiously up to where he lay. Tentative and curious. Ghost knew something was amiss with Grey Wind, as clearly as Robb now sensed an ancient wisdom in the albino wolf, something arcane and other behind those blood-red eyes. He wondered if Jon ever listened to him, either, for surely he had much to share.

And share he did - a whole rabbit, freshly slain and dropped from his maw at Robb's crossed paws - before turning and trotting back into the snow.

Grey Wind was an odd wolf, Jon decided. Well, odder than the other six-foot-tall beasts he had the pleasure of knowing, at least. So, odder than Ghost, which probably didn't account for too much. He was bigger than Ghost, too, though not by a lot. Funny, that. Jon had always been the tallest of his siblings, and somehow, he'd expected their wolves to mirror that aspect of them.

Odder than that, Grey Wind just… didn't act like an animal. It was when Jon's anxious tendency to talk to himself actually proved interesting - because Grey Wind would… well, he wouldn't respond, as it were, but sometimes the way he shook his head looked uncomfortably close to a "no", his whines and growls always too well timed. The wolf knew too much, and expressed it too clearly.

He also took the liberty of sleeping with Jon, appropriating the better part of his already small mattress for his own.

Maybe Robb had been a worse pushover for his wolf than Jon gave him credit for. Maybe the big beast just missed him - the Gods knew Jon did. Maybe that was why Jon never shoved him away.

Gods, it hurt to think about Robb.

"I think he's grieving," he told Sam one morning, watching his brother's wolf nap beside him, his unnatural whines breaking an otherwise quiet moment. "Do dogs grieve?"

Sam, checking the stitches on Jon's arrow wounds, hummed in thought. "Probably."

"Hm." Jon stroked the wolf's paw - larger than his finger span by several inches. How had anyone managed to even threaten Robb, he wondered, with such a beast by his side? Nymeria, lost. Lady, dead. Shaggydog, not enough to protect a toddler from Theon Greyjoy, apparently. And now Robb.

He bit his lip, an attempt to bate back the tears. Those were too common these days, and they did nothing but freeze on his face and make his life even that much more bothersome.

"You're making that face again, Jon," Sam sighed. He tied off the last bandage, then sat back. "...If you want to talk about your brothers-"

"-I think I saw Bran's wolf at Queen's Crown," he gushed. That surprised him, and he snapped his mouth shut just as fast. There was something about Sam that always kept the truth at the front. Well, if anyone could help him figure this all out, it was the smartest man at the wall, currently sat at Jon's side and squeezing his hand in comfort.

"Bright gray fur, yellow eyes. I never learned what he named him." Jon dropped his voice to a whisper. "They're all headed north, Sam. They're… Gods, it's like they're being drawn here.

"Do you think... when my brothers- when they died," he choked the word out, and took a long, steadying moment before continuing, "do you think their bonds with them… transferred to me somehow? Are they trying to tell me something, Sam?"

Sam frowned. "That's… You would know better than I what those wolves are thinking." He cast a glance at Ghost curled up at the hearth (the proper place for a wolf) and Grey Wind, awake now and resting his big head in Jon's lap (not proper, but very welcomed). "But I would not doubt it for a moment."

With a hum Jon dropped his gaze back to the head in his lap, to the yellow eyes that bore with such earnest concern back into his own. With a light growl, he nuzzled against Jon's free hand. The noise was almost like a reprimand, like an exasperated groan - like an older sibling's affectionate scolding.

Jon smiled, and scratched the gentle beast's ears. It almost felt like having his brother back.

Jon threw the ball again.

They had been at this for hours. The ball - a crudely constructed leather pouch of dried beans - was meant to keep Robb and Ghost occupied while Jon helped new recruits with their swordsmanship. But Ghost had wandered off after only a moment, unenthused, and left Robb alone to Jon's distractions.

It should have been an easy thing to ignore, a thrown ball, but Robb, of course, was not alone in his own body. His better efforts were focused on dragging Jon from his post and (ideally) out of the castle, back down the Kingsroad to Winterfell, and right onto the Throne of Winter. Nothing else was working, and Robb grew desperate.

Now, if Grey Wind would just stop getting distracted, that would be a much easier task. The days of relishing in Jon's mere presence were over. Pets and cuddles would have to wait. There was business to get down to, and Robb would find a way to-

Ball!

Wolf overtook human. He scrambled for the sack. It rolled to the foot of a training dummy, but was in Robb's mouth and dropped back at Jon's foot in a matter of seconds, tail wagging in utter betrayal.

'Humiliating,' he thought. Even Ghost was not as easily distracted, and he was all wolf. Did that say more about Robb or Grey Wind-

Ball!

It went sailing through the air again, landing and rolling into the corner of the courtyard.

'Wait.' He halted, just when he felt himself start to rear up for a chase. 'What am I doing?'

Robb growled and nipped Jon's tunic.

"Now what's that for?" Jon huffed, yanking the fabric out of Robb's maw and lighty thwacking his muzzle away. "You have to bring it back for me to throw it again, boy. I can't make that process go any faster."

'Enough with the ball!' Robb barked, then chomped his cloak once more, tugging desperately. If he had to drag Jon physically, so be it. Enough was enough!

But Jon, hopeless Jon, just unclasped the cloak entirely and left Robb with a mouthful of wool and a fur. He dropped it into a heap, and howled a long, frustrated howl.

Something changed. Something intangible, almost unnoticeable, but different in the way the noise came out. As though in his desperation, a note of humanity had leaked through, and painted the cry with his need.

If no one else, his brother seemed to notice the change, stopping dead in his tracks and whipping back to face Robb.

"Wait…" Jon muttered, squinting intensely into Robb's eyes, "did you…"

Yes, this is it! He sees it! He knows-

Jon, his dearest insufferable, frustrating idiot brother, shook off whatever moment of clarity he might have had with a long suffering sigh. "Gods, you're a problem," he mumbled, then dragged Robb, growling all the while, by the scruff of his neck back out the castle walls.

Robb would readily say the same. If he fucking could!

"Go hunt with your brother."

The door shut and clicked locked. Robb stood there, tail drooped low and fur bristling.

"Unbelievable!" he barked. "I am your elder brother, young man. And your king! You would lock me outside in the snow and cold!? Where's the respect? What would Father say!"

(It was rare moments like these, when Robb could finally vent his frustrations without censor, that he came to appreciate the one-way language barrier. A king could never do that.)

Ghost, also sequestered outside, gave Robb a look of sympathy, then turned and trotted off to the treeline. His wolf-brother (the Grey Wind part of him refused to think of Ghost as anything but) did not say much, but Robb knew he was meant to follow.

So, he sulked off, and left his human-brother to his foolishness.

Jon wouldn't miss one pair of boots, surely, and Robb was in dire need of something to destroy.

"Oh, for the love of- What the hell is all of this?"

Jon had returned to his cold quarters, hoping for a small moment to himself. There was only so much of Grenn and Pyp he could tolerate with the slowly encroaching threat of a wildling attack on the Wall, and other ramifications of that - red haired, pug-nosed, lop-sided-smiling ramifications - which he would rather keep at the back of his mind today. A moment's peace. Was that too much to ask for?

Clearly, Grey Wind thought so.

Sticks littered the floor of his chamber. Many sticks. Many, many sticks. Piles of them, strewn from the doorway to the hearth to his bed, and in the midst of it all, the gray beast shuffled about, nosing the twigs around in a curious fashion. He looked up at Jon's exclamation and excitedly began to step towards him, careful to not to touch his cluttered maze.

Ghost, he noticed, napped complacently by the fire. 'Spoiled little ass.'

He tip-toed around the mess as best he could, toeing over a heap by the door. Almost to his bed, though, the clutter lost its chaos. An image. The wolf had somehow maneuvered all of the twigs into something intentional: short, segmented clusters that had a deliberate structure to them, not quite patterns but…

Words. Grey Wind wrote words. Two words, seven familiar letters.

He built Jon's name.

"What…?" he gaped, dropping his cloak carelessly to the floor. The wolf had just finished pawing a stick in place, correcting an error on an "O," and trotted excitedly over to him, looking back and forth from Jon's stunned face to his creation as though expecting some kind of a reward.

That was too much. Too intentional. Too… too human.

Jon grabbed one of the sticks - from the slanted line in the "N" - and held it upright, like one would a sword, its point just a few inches from Grey Wind's nose.

"At the risk of sounding like a lunatic," he started, his breaths coming heavy, "touch this stick with your right paw for 'yes.' Do you understand me?"

Without hesitation, a massive paw swung for the twig, striking with so much force it toppled from Jon's grip. Grey Wind, he almost looked to be smiling as he picked it up from the ground in his teeth and handed it back to Jon.

Well, then.

"Alright. Okay. Holy shit. Um. More questions, then." Warily, he rose the twig once more. "Did Robb send you here? Left paw for 'no,' right for 'yes.'"

Curiously, the wolf hesitated, before tapping the stick "no" with his left paw.

"You came here on your own, then?"

Right paw. Yes.

"Did you sense Ghost up here? Is that why you went North?"

A whine, then another left paw "no." The wolf was visibly antsy, jostling from paw to paw and making small noises of anticipation. Jon was furiously close to an answer, and Grey Wind knew it. But if Robb had not meant for his wolf to come here, and Ghost had nothing to do with it, then how had he known-

Oh.

No. No way. I couldn't be.

"Oh Gods… Robb, is- is that you?"

A paw tapped the twig. Right - yes.

Jon slumped onto his bed, suddenly rather exhausted. A wet nose bumped his cheek, accompanied by excited canine panting, as Robb (Robb!) frantically turned around and started to nose the sticks into a new configuration.

A deep breath.

"Gods, Robb I-... it… but how-" Jon struggled for words, the weight of what he just learned hitting him like an avalanche. Robb was dead. He died. He was killed. Jon had already mourned him! And through all of that, his brother was right there?

None of that reached his lips, though. Instead, as he sat stunned in place, he could only muster a weak, squeaky, "You're a wolf now?"

Robb turned around, yapped in an excited manner, then resumed his rearrangement. I take that's a yes, Jon thought. Gods, what else has he been trying to tell me all of this time?

Chancing a glance at his own wolf, two red eyes - knowing eyes - met him. 'I tried to tell you,' they said. 'That wolf's not right.'

No. No, he was more than right. He was Robb.

Robb stepped aside after several more minutes (minutes Jon spent slack-jawed and staring) and barked, tail wagging. On the floor was a messy design, not words as Jon had expected - what he thought would be a 'W' had too many spokes, worryingly similar to a crown, and a neighboring configuration appeared to be an arrow, pointing right at Jon's feet.

"Oh." Jon might be denser than he previously thought, but not that dense. The message was clear. "No. No, no, no, Robb, that's not… I can't be-"

A frustrated growl cut him off, followed by a groan of a bark, a long-suffering sibling's annoyed curse of a bark. Gods, how had he not picked up on that tone sooner!

"Because… ugh, because I can't! For one, I'm a bastard, in case you have a dog's memory span now!"

His brother ran back to the sticks, preparing a response. An "I" came into shape, followed by a longer word that took a good few minutes for Jon to guess at. When he did, his stomach lurched into this throat, propelling him off of the bed to intervene.

Robb had only built up to the second "i" in "legitimized." It was enough.

"No, you didn't, Robb. Don't finish that sentence."

Robb just yapped, and moved his head in a gross approximation of a nod. Damn. Jon flopped back onto his bead, this time throwing his face into the pillow to bury a groan.

Everything he had ever wanted, handed to him well past its expiry. He hated to wish it so, but had Robb only died a scant few months sooner, had he reached the Wall just before Jon knelt before that tree and said those words he could never take back, maybe it would have felt at all like the honor it should have been. A Stark at last, but unable to do a thing with the name.

"...and you made me your heir, didn't you?" he muttered into the pillow, as Robb sat at the bedside and rested his head next to Jon's. The near-pur of a whine met his ears. They would have to find some easier way to talk - one that didn't leave his tiny chamber a hazard to move about.

Jon turned his head to meet yellow eyes. He sighed. "Well then, I suppose you also have some magical solution to dissolve my vows, right?"

Another whine, and Robb averted his gaze. No, clearly he had not considered that.

"We'll think of something, yeah?" They would have to put it off for a little while, at least, with a battle imminent here, and Jon as valuable of a resource as the Wall had at the moment. But if he was truly, legally a Stark now… how could he ignore Robb's last wish?

Looking at him now, at the wolf he had become, Jon saw a trace of the man he was. Maybe it was his eyes, so human in their relief, in his joy at being understood.

Jon patted his head and smiled, the first in a long while that truly felt real.