Chapter Thirty-Nine: Watchful
Turns out Jon was right about the price of aurora-gazing to be paid in the morning. He has it easier, since he fell back asleep long before I did, but I swat crankily at Edd a couple of times when he tries to wake me. The men's laughter makes me begrudgingly crack my eyes open after a few seconds. By then, Edd has retreated to Jon's side. He doesn't look offended, but his brow is furrowed as he says something to Jon and gestures to his arm, which confuses me because I don't remember hitting him or anything. Jon just frowns and whispers something back, which only makes Edd send me another speculative glance.
Unnerved, I start to get up, and immediately notice that the burn scars on my arm are visible. Quickly I roll my sleeve back down and busy myself by getting my things pulled together. We should be leaving soon anyway.
On the road, I'm still yawning an hour after leaving the Torches, so I do as the brothers suggest and sing a few songs to wake myself up. I start with "Abraham's Daughter," one of my father's favorites, then try my own rendition of "The Song of the Winter Rose," which seems to please Tormund. I consider singing "Rose of Gold," since it's a long one and has energy to it, but ultimately decide against it when I go over the lyrics in my head. Probably a romantic ballad about a girl and a prospective man of the Night's Watch falling for each other on a journey is not the best song to sing, given our current circumstances. After the Sam McGee thing yesterday, I doubt the brothers would let Jon hear the end of it.
Instead, I think of Shireen, and sing "It's Always Summer Under the Sea" and then, by popular demand, "The Dornishman's Wife." That gets a lot of the men merrily joining in, though once it's over, Albett loudly calls out a request for "the Clementine song," prompting an even greater portion of them to shout, "NO!"
Laughing, I dredge through my memories for something they haven't heard, something a bit less plaguing, and settle on a very old one called "Dream a Little Dream of Me." Two or three stanzas in, I realize too late why it's coming back to me now, but the men are invested so I fix my eyes on Greenguard ahead of us and go on singing the song about fading stars and craved kisses and lingering till dawn.
At least it's ambiguous, I reassure myself. It's supposed to be about missing someone. I could be singing about Peeta. Or maybe I'm not singing about anyone and a song is a song and I'm just filling up the silence.
As if to make a point that no one's actually arguing, I even sing "Bessa the Barmaid," which is one I usually roll my eyes at because it's so raunchy, but it keeps the brothers entertained and my thoughts occupied all the way to Greenguard. Then, when we stop to rest, I have a brief moment of panic after I dismount where I'm feeling around frantically for a device that isn't there. Jon sees me patting at my ear and weapon belt and pant pockets and gives me a questioning look.
"My— I can't find my—" I trail off, flustered. I don't even know what to call it when the others are within earshot. "Did I leave it at the Torches…?"
"It's in your—" Jon starts to point, then changes his mind and gestures to his own chest. "You put it in this pocket."
Remembering, I dig into my breast pocket and sigh in relief as I pull the earpiece and microphone out. "Thanks. At least one of us was paying attention," I mutter, cradling them in my palm and activating the earpiece. I completely forgot to do that this morning, but it likely doesn't matter anyway. The Baratheon army may still be riding, and Beetee hasn't really needed to reach out to me about anything. It's usually the other way around. There's Sam and Gilly, but I told them if they couldn't contact me, I'd check in on them once we got to Eastwatch.
"I think you dropped something," Jon notes, glancing down. "Is that your pearl?"
"Pearl?" I ask, bemused as Jon crouches down in front of me. "I didn't bring the pearl—"
He retrieves something from the snow and stands up, pinching it between his fingers. "What's this?"
My throat tightens and horror sinks in my stomach as I recognize it. A tiny capsule in a distinct shade of purple. My nightlock pill, my little dose of death, and Jon Snow is currently holding it as Finnick Odair would a sugar cube. Gasping, I swipe it from him before he can grow Finnick's sense of humor and pop it in his mouth.
"It's nothing," I say, dusting off the snow and stuffing it in the sleeve pocket of my Mockingjay suit where it belongs. I'm so used to hiding it in my other clothes that I put it in my breast pocket out of habit. When I glance back up, Jon looks reasonably stunned, his eyebrows raised in question. I guess my reaction does warrant an explanation, so I mumble, "It's just some… medicine I brought with me from Panem."
Unfortunately, we both seem to recall at the same time when I've said this before. Jon's forehead wrinkles at the memory. "Is that what you offered to Mance, that day in his cell?" he asks. I manage a small sound of confirmation and idly turn the earpiece in my palm, hoping that'll be the end of it. But Jon isn't deterred. "What's it for?"
With a muted sigh, I put my microphone and activated earpiece back in my pocket, sensing I won't be using them anyway. "For the pain," I say simply. There, that should be vague enough.
When I meet Jon's eyes, they've softened considerably. "Do your burns still hurt you?" he asks in a low whisper.
"Not really," I say, shaking my head. "Not anymore. Just a little tender sometimes. The medicine's for more extreme circumstances." I turn to my horse to unzip the pack on my saddle. "Look, if you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about it. It's kind of personal."
"I understand," Jon says, but in my peripheral vision, I can see he's just as confused as he sounds.
Feeling guilty, I glance back at him. "Thank you. For noticing when it fell. I can't really afford to lose it."
"But you were going to give it to Mance," Jon notes.
"I thought he needed it more than I did," I say, searching around in my pack for food. "He disagreed. For some stupid, noble reason."
Jon scoffs in understanding, but when I sneak a glimpse over my shoulder at him, I can tell by his face that he wants to ask more questions. Behind him, Tormund is observing us from not that far away. I catch his eye but he barely wavers in his staring, which makes me wonder what he's overheard. Desperate for a subject change, I shoot Jon a grin. "Remember the other thing you thought I'd offered him?"
The diversion has its intended effect. Blushing, Jon lowers his gaze and shakes his head with a rueful laugh. When he lifts his eyes again, there's a mischievous sparkle amongst the grey. "He'd be less likely to turn that down," he says with a grin of his own.
I gasp, choking on my own peal of laughter. "Wow," I say, wide-eyed, after dragging my hand from my mouth. "Jon—!"
Jon laughs some more and raises his eyebrows, with a slight head tilt to go with his shrug. "He wasn't a man of the Watch anymore. He was a wildling," he says matter-of-factly. "He'd already broken his vows."
"So have you," I quip, and then instantly wish I hadn't.
The humor slides off his face, and a shadow of something more serious replaces it. His eyes darken with memory as they search mine. "Yes I have," he says softly.
My cheeks burn and I look away, wondering if maybe we should have just kept talking about my so-called medicine. I'm half-tempted to take it now.
Mercifully, Jon clears his throat and mutters some excuse to go talk to some of his brothers, but it's clear after we depart that I've made it weird between us. He still offers me a hand when I get back on my horse, there's just a subtle swiftness about it. Furtive eye averting like he did yesterday, or during the few days after his encounter with Melisandre in the commander's quarters. But as Lord Commander, he rides at the front of the group, and I'm perfectly content to impose some space as I devote my interest to the landscape.
A couple of hours in, the men remember I'm back there and tease me about my silence. The remaining hours of our journey could use some songs, though they agree they would be happy to serenade me with Sam McGee. In turn, I jokingly threaten them with "Oh my Darling, Clementine" since we're getting so close to the ocean. Halder and Jeren argue that "Come Away to the Water" would be more fitting, but Tormund speaks up asking when's the last time I sang "The Hanging Tree."
The Night's Watch men chime in with their agreement, and he does make a good point, so I start singing Lucy Gray's version. In a funny sort of way, her arrangement – the original – feels more suited to this occasion. The few times I've sung it in the past year, I do it soft and sweet like my father used to, but always grim and mournful with an edge of defiance. Perfect for the lake in Twelve, or my room in the Training Center, or the Haunted Forest, or Mance's cell. The way Lucy Gray sings it in the footage is more hopeful. Still haunting, of course, but wistful and romantic and happy like she can just taste her freedom. There's a bounce to the melody that goes well with riding a horse, and my voice gets stronger like hers as I begin to smell the salt of the sea in the air.
It's another two hours or so before our destination comes into view, and we're losing light as nightfall fast approaches, but I still turn on my camera as hastily and inconspicuously as I can. What I'm seeing is not abandoned ruins, but a well-kept fortress at the easternmost part of the Wall. The second of three castles that still have men to guard it.
"There it is," Jon says when I ride up alongside him. "Eastwatch-by-the-Sea."
My breath catches at the sight. I remember the beach on District Four, and while it was not nearly as freezing as it is here, it also didn't have a magnificent stone castle built on its shore. Relentless, bone-chilling winds carry across the sea, creating large, tumbling waves that batter against the rocks and spill onto the sand. I heard the roar of the sea before I saw it, felt the staggering breeze as it rolled in, but the vision of Eastwatch makes it worth bundling up tighter in my shadowskin.
It gets more beautiful the closer we come. Jutting out beyond the shore, the Wall comes to an end in the Bay of Seals, where large ships are anchored in the distance waiting for us.
By the time we reach Eastwatch, twilight has fallen, so we're going to be staying here overnight. I take Jon's hand and he helps me down from my horse, but I'm distracted as I gaze off toward shore because the weirdest feeling has swept over me. It's not the frigid cold, as striking as it is, but something draws me away from my horse toward the black sand and the crashing waves. A funny pins-and-needles sensation that raises the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck.
"That's strange," I say, mostly to myself.
"What is?" Edd asks, appearing at my side. He squints toward the ships for a moment before looking back to me.
I'm embarrassed that he's heard, because I'm not quite sure how to describe this sensation. The first word that comes to mind is unease, but not in a bad way. It feels like being on the roof of the Training Center at night, or sleeping in the cave in this world, or sitting by the fire in the concrete house by the lake.
"There's something about this place…" I say, trailing off. "I don't want to say it's familiar. I know I've never been here before, I just…" My words fail again, lost to the hypnotic roll of the tides, which frustrates me to no end. "It feels eerie somehow. Haunted but not haunted. Like it reminds me of something."
A few pairs of footsteps come up from behind, with Jon showing up on my other side. "Maybe it reminds you of that song Shireen likes?" he asks, and gestures to the windblown shore. "Where the north wind meets the sea…?"
I don't think that's it, but I humor him anyway. "Well, then where's the river full of memory?"
Jon contemplates this for a moment, but it's Edd who steps forward and points in the direction of the Wall. "There's your river," he says.
Tormund harrumphs, half-intrigued, half-skeptical. "A river of ice."
"And in its song, all magic flows," Edd says dryly, then shifts his bag on his arm as he loses interest and turns back to the horses.
I hear Jon chuckle at Edd, but I'm not so amused. My eyes trail from the waters lashing at the Wall and shoreline, to the black sand and gravel of the beach, as if searching my surroundings for a better answer.
"It was built with magic. And it's thousands of years old," says Jon. "Almost makes you wonder if that's the true meaning behind the song. Perhaps the singer visited Westeros, saw the Wall and thought of it as a sort of magical frozen river."
For some reason, this rubs me the wrong way. "That's impossible," I protest, wrinkling my brow. "I'm the first person from Panem who's ever been to Westeros. And no one from Westeros has ever been to Panem."
Jon gives a light laugh, barely heard over the breaking waves. "How do you know?"
The question, although so innocently posed, still makes me bristle. A perfectly good argument rises in my throat but gets stuck there when I realize I can't even use it, which leaves me feeling even more defensive. "I just do," I say shortly.
The low buzz of conversation behind us dies down. I'm already cringing at how it sounded. I can feel the men's eyes on me, most of all Jon's, and when I turn to him, he looks just as thrown as he did when I snatched the nightlock pill from his hand. This has not been a good day for us. And if I keep it up, it's going to be a long week at sea.
"Sorry," I mutter. "It's just… wouldn't Panem and Westeros have heard of each other by now? If there had been anyone else before me?"
Jon thinks about it, then shrugs. "Not if they were as mysterious as you," he says, too close to my ear. I shiver a little, but he doesn't notice since he's walking back to the horses with the rest of the group.
As I start to go after them, I get in one more look at the shore, the spray of the waves on the rocks, the edge of the Wall. The answer Jon and Edd gave doesn't satisfy me. Some of the lyrics fit well enough that it's an interesting connection, but I know it's just a coincidence. Panem has associated water with magic in the past too, that's a multi-universal thing for sure, and certainly the centuries-old song must be about some other mystical river up north. Or in any of our world's ancestral countries, really, but probably after the disasters it was swallowed up a long time ago.
I'm sure that the Wall, in its own right, is a river full of memory. If you want to get weirdly poetic about it. But it's not the one from the song. And it's not what's giving me this prickling feeling right now.
"Mockingjay!" Tormund calls from a distance, a booming voice that gives me a much-needed jolt. Shaking my head, I turn away from the restless waters and follow the men up to the castle.
A/N: I've checked, and this is the shortest chapter we've had since... maybe chapter 18? It was going to be part of a longer chapter, but I hit a stopping point and didn't want to have a three-week gap, so here's something rather than nothing! Probably this means the second half will be up next week. Here's hoping. Thanks for all new follows/faves/(re)views!