"Good evening and welcome to today's edition of Inside Westeros. I'm your host, Mellara Meadows. This evening we'll be featuring segments on the drought ravaging Dorne, some stunning new discoveries out of a team of Highgarden University archaeologists on-site in the ruins of Old Valyria, but first, we have an interview with Jon Snow, the Kings Landing Times reporter turned Westeros Nightly New correspondent, who was recently made famous by his captivating and brutally honest coverage of the situation at The Wall," she introduced. Pausing for a second, the main camera widened its range of view, now showing Jon Snow sitting next to her, with a couple of his more famous pictures from his embedment on the screens in the background. "Jon, it's a great pleasure to have you with us this evening."
"It's great to be here, Mellara."
Be polite, they'd told him, prepping him for the interview while he was sitting in the hair and makeup room. There was an old man, an executive producer Jon has assumed by the way he composed himself and the suit he wore, standing over Jon while he sat in the make-up chair as a pretty twenty-something put foundation on him and tried to tame his mess of curls. They'd given him a list of questions to expect so he could work on answers before hand, since his segment would be live, but they also warned him that Mellara was able to ad-lib questions. You'll have a small microphone, so no need to yell, and please no cursing. They dressed him in a suit, no tie. He'd be seated with Mellara Meadows, the very pretty host of Inside Westeros, who normally didn't report on hard-hitting topics like this.
"I'm sure by now everyone has seen your weekly reports, but I'd like to start from the beginning. Would you mind explaining how this assignment came your way?"
"My senior advisor, Olenna Tyrell, she put tremendous faith in me when she gave me this assignment. In truth, I'm not sure I would've picked a junior reporter for something of this magnitude, but I'm very lucky she gave me this opportunity."
The interview continued as expected, mostly all questions regarding his time spent north of The Wall and a couple about how growing up in Winterfell, so close to all the fighting had impacted his opinion. There were questions on what it was like living in a warzone, his feelings of safety, how the experience changed his opinions regarding the land claims made by the indigenous 'Wildling' groups who lived there, and then the relationships he'd made with people he now called his friends.
Jon was beginning to sense where this train of questions was going, and when he'd agreed to do the interview, he thought he'd made it plainly clear that there were to be absolutely no questions with regards to his relationship with Ygritte. He didn't hide it during the footage in his weekly reports, but it wasn't something he boasted about either. Now that he was back in Westeros and not going north of The Wall soon, or maybe ever again, it was not a topic he wanted to revisit.
"We only have time for a few more questions, but based on the emails and tweets we've received, there's one question that all of your loyal viewers have been dying to know," she paused for a second, probably to be dramatic, and that was when Jon noticed that the picture up behind him had changed from a still shot of him reading to a group of children in one of the makeshift refugee camps to a picture he remembered perfectly. Sam, his cameraman, had taken it one evening after one of their traditional Winter celebrations. It was Jon, still dressed in his flannel-lined khakis, combat boots, and flak jacket, sitting on a large rock in front of the bonfire they'd made. Ygritte sat next to him, only in her normal uniform from the waist down, she wore worn of her civilian knitted sweaters and had her helmet off, letting her unruly mop of bright red hair tumble down around her. Her right hand was on his leg as they posed for the picture, and he remembered his left hand behind her back, playing with the bit of skin that was exposed from where her cargos and sweater didn't meet. She looked like she was a second away from breaking into peals of laughter, and even the normally serious, stoic Jon had a grin on his face.
He didn't give her the opportunity to finish her question.
"I'm sorry," Jon said, visibly upset. He stood up suddenly and the camera man had to snap into action, not sure whether to follow what Jon was doing or to keep filming Mellara's dumbstruck face. "But this interview is over." He frantically unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt and pulled the microphone out, dropping it on the desk in front of them, and walking off stage.
There was silence as the camera came back down to Mellara, clearly not prepared for what happened. A producer was shouting on the phone behind the glass when words finally appeared on the teleprompter.
"... and with that we're going to go to commercial. We'll be back with Matt's report on this year's drought and it's affect on the Dornish wine country after this short break."