Never before has there been a chapter that's hated me as much as this one. Not even once. So fuck you, Beyond the Wall, I hope you're happy with yourself.
If Jon were to compare the stretch of north beyond Eastwatch to the one beyond Castle Black, he would only have one word to describe it: barren.
The Haunted Forest thinned out the further east you went, and along the stretch of coastline that would eventually reach Hardhome on Storrold's Point, it disappeared into a rocky mountain scape. This was the path he and his party took, cutting through wide-open valleys and trudging up steep slopes of deep snow. It was easier on some of them than others; the Free Folk who accompanied them strode through the north as if they'd never left, looking more alive than Jon had seen them since… Well, since he'd spied on them for the Night's Watch. He let them lead, knowing that if anyone could track the Army of the Dead, it was the Free Folk. And Jorah, too, seemed to come to life up here; Jon supposed that was the Northman in him. Not even years spent in the heat of Essos could erase that he was a Mormont.
The southerners in their party, on the other hand—Jon couldn't help but pity them. While he ignored Ser Thoros and the man whose name he'd learned was Ser Beric Dondarrion, he kept a careful eye on Gendry, who shivered with every step, his face drawn and jaw clenched to keep his teeth from chattering. And though Gendry was much better off than the Hound, at least—who swore often and loudly about the cold, lest anyone forget how much he hated it—Jon still wasn't sure he'd made the right decision in bringing Gendry along.
"Are you all right?" he finally asked after a particularly difficult climb up to the summit of a cliff side.
Gendry gave him a stiff nod, his fur-lined hood pulled up around his head to keep the cold off his ears. "Mm."
"Ever been north before?" asked Tormund.
"Never seen snow before."
Jon suppressed a smile, Gendry's statement reminding him almost painfully of Sam back when they were first recruits. He'd never seen snow either, until coming to the Wall, and Jon still remembered his look of awe the first time he'd gotten to see fresh snowfall. Caitie had taken great enjoyment in teaching him how to make snowballs—ones which had soon found their way into Jon's beard.
At the time, he'd been aggravated with them for ruining the beard he'd spent so long regrowing after Robert Baratheon's visit to Winterfell. Now he wished he'd savored it.
"Beautiful, eh?" said Tormund. "I can breathe again. Down south, the air smells like pig shit."
"You've never been down south," Jon pointed out.
"I've been to Winterfell—"
"That's the North."
Tormund blew a raspberry.
"How do you live up here?" asked Gendry. "How do you keep your balls from freezing off?"
"You've got to keep moving—that's the secret. Walking's good, fighting's better, fucking's best."
Jon smiled as he tried to picture Caitie's reaction to Tormund's comment. "There's not a living woman within a hundred miles of here," he said.
Tormund eyed Gendry, grinning evilly. "We have to make do with what we've got."
All too used to Tormund's brazenness, Jon merely shot him a wry look. It was only when he saw Gendry's horrified expression that he broke into a grin.
As they picked up the pace, Gendry fell behind, leaving Jon and Tormund alone to speak in private. Tormund didn't waste a moment before he said, in a lower tone of voice, "This one is maybe not so smart."
Jon's heart twinged. Gendry wasn't stupid, but he was green, and he was so much like Sam in that way that Jon couldn't help but feel guilty, even as he answered, "Davos says he's a strong fighter."
He nodded. "Good. That's more important than being smart. Smart people don't come up here looking for the dead."
Though he wished otherwise, Jon had no argument for that.
"So," Tormund continued, "you met this Dragon Queen, huh?"
Jon nodded. He didn't really feel like thinking about Daenerys. The way she'd looked at him at their parting still sat wrong with him. He'd tried, many times over the course of his journey north, to come up with some other explanation—any other explanation—for it, but nothing had come to mind.
He really hoped he'd just imagined the whole thing.
When Jon didn't elaborate, Tormund prodded him. "And?"
He sighed. "She'll only fight beside us if I bend the knee."
"You spent too much time with the Free Folk. Now you don't like kneeling."
Jon hated how right Tormund was.
"So what do you think Caitie would say?"
It was the first time someone had uttered her name aloud in weeks, and Jon's heart sped up at the sound, latching onto it as if it were a grand meal after weeks of no food. It was ridiculous; he felt ridiculous for his reaction. It was a name for Gods' sakes. And he knew he must have been imagining it, because he hadn't shown any outward change, but he could have sworn Tormund was smirking, as if he also knew the effect the simple act of saying her name had had.
"I don't know," Jon said grimly, hoping to stave off some of the humiliation threatening him. "Before I left, I told her—I promised her—that I wouldn't. But now… I don't know. I don't know what the right thing to do is."
Yet that wasn't entirely true. The problem lay with the fact that he did know. Because he would do whatever it took to keep Caitie and his family and all the Free Folk and Northmen who looked to him for protection safe. What he feared was that they may never forgive him for it.
That she may never forgive him.
Tormund was silent for a long time. Then, "Mance Rayder was a brave man. A proud man. The King-beyond-the-Wall never bent the knee." His face shuttered, and when he spoke there was only pain in his voice. "How many of his people died for his pride?"
Though phrased as a question, it was the answer. More than that, it was permission to make the choice Mance had not from the person who knew the costs better than anyone. And if Tormund could accept it…
Well. Perhaps it was Jon who wasn't quite ready to accept it yet.
Tormund left him alone after that, jogging to catch up with some of the other Free Folk who'd accompanied them. Jon trudged along behind in silence, oblivious to everything around him as he thought and thought and thought.
It wasn't until Ser Jorah fell into step with him a few hours later that Jon found himself in conversation again, though grudgingly at first. Small talk had never come naturally to him, and less so with those he didn't like or trust—but somehow he managed it with Jorah, telling him about Lyanna Mormont and Bear Island, which in turn led to the Lord Commander. And with each story Jon told, he relaxed, feeling less as though he was speaking to a criminal and servant to a Targaryen queen, and more like he was speaking to a fellow Northman. Which, he supposed, he was. "The first time I went north of the Wall was with your father."
"He was a good man," Jorah said wistfully. "He deserved a better son."
Jon didn't reply, unsure of what he could say. He understood, in some strange way; he knew what it was like to have things left unsaid, or to feel like a failure to your family. But the crimes Jorah had committed far outstripped Jon's failings, and he couldn't argue that Jeor Mormont had deserved better from his son.
"Were you with him at the end?" Jorah asked.
Jon sighed. "I was a prisoner of the Wildlings. But my friend was there. If we ever end up back at Winterfell, you can ask her about it."
"Her?" Jorah asked, brows furrowing.
Jon hesitated, wondering how much Caitie would kill him if he continued. "Aye," he said at last. "It's… a long story. Your father was looking out for her as a favor to her brothers—"
"My father agreed to let a girl join a ranging party north as a favor?" Jorah asked skeptically.
Jon resisted the urge to grimace. Gods, was this how Caitie felt every time someone asked her to explain her situation? "Well, she was also his… niece? Cousin?" He shook his head. "Damn it, Caitie's tried to tell me a few times exactly how they were related but—"
"Caitie? Do you mean Caitriona? Jocelyn's daughter?"
Jon stopped in his tracks. "You know her?"
"I never met Caitriona," Jorah said. "But I knew her mother; we were friends as children. Cousin Arrana brought her and her brother up to Bear Island every few years."
Jon couldn't help the grin that split his face. Because however much she proclaimed not to care, he knew what it would mean to Caitie to hear about her mother in the years before… well, before. It was small, but it was some small comfort he could give her, and he'd take those wherever he could get them. "When we get back to Winterfell, I'll introduce you. She can tell you more about your father." He sighed. "We avenged him; I want you to know that. Every mutineer found justice."
Jorah shook his head. "Can't think of a worse way for him to go. The Night's Watch was his life. He would have died to protect every one of those men. And they butchered him."
Jon kept his face a mask, not wanting Jorah to see the pain his words caused. It wasn't his fault; he didn't know how Jon's time as lord commander had ended. "I hate that he died that way," he said. "My father was the most honorable man I ever met. He was good all the way through. And he died on the executioner's block."
Jorah gave a small smile. "Your father wanted to execute me, you know."
"I heard."
"He was in the right, of course. Didn't make me hate him any less."
Jon looked up at Jorah, and for the first time in his life, he wasn't sorry his father had failed. "I'm glad he didn't catch you," he said, for Caitie, for Lord Commander Mormont, for himself.
Even for Daenerys. Ser Jorah seemed to soften her, make her less the Dragon Queen and more… human. He much preferred her with Jorah around.
Jorah smiled. "Me too."
And Jon smiled back, even as he knew what he had to give up. It was something he'd contemplated ever since meeting Jorah, but there seemed no better time to do it than now.
He stopped and unhooked Longclaw from his belt. "Your father gave me this sword. Changed the pommel from a bear to a wolf…" He held it out for Jorah to see. "But it's still Longclaw."
Jorah took the sword from him, staring down at it in awe.
"Lord Commander Mormont thought you'd never come back to Westeros. But you are back, and it's been in your family for centuries. It's not right for me to have it." Even if Jon would miss the sword more than words could say. Longclaw had been with him through almost every trial he'd faced in his adult life. But it wasn't his. It was House Mormont's.
"He gave it to you," Jorah said.
"I'm not his son."
Jorah unsheathed the sword by half, admiring the Valyrian steel blade, and for one moment, Jon thought he would accept the offering. But then he shook his head. "I brought shame onto my house. I broke my father's heart." He pushed the sword back into its sheath. "I forfeited the right to claim this sword. It's yours. May it serve you well, and your children after you."
The words took him by surprise. Jon had long given up the dream of having children, but sometimes the pang hit him, when he would watch Caitie brush and braid Willa's hair before bed, or bicker with Johnna over whose turn it was to pitch the tent during their time traveling the North. And Jorah's words sparked it again; made him picture a child in his mind's eye, a boy named Jeor or a girl named Lyanna, with his black curls and Caitie's icy blue eyes, Longclaw in hand.
He pushed the image away as he accepted the sword back from Jorah. It was a fantasy. And after everything he had done, it was a fantasy he didn't deserve to have.
They walked on for hours. For how many Jon didn't know, but when Ser Beric Dondarrion decided to inflict his presence on Jon, it was somewhere between midday and dusk. They had lost track of the exact time since they'd left Eastwatch that morning, and the thick layer of clouds now obscuring the sun only made it more difficult to tell.
"You don't look much like him," was how Ser Beric began the conversation, and Jon knew right then and there that it would be an unpleasant one.
"Who's that?" He tried not to sound short with Ser Beric; after all, the man had never done anything to him personally. But Jon had heard the fear and fury in Gendry's voice when speaking to him and Thoros, and he'd had enough of his own experiences with followers of the Lord of Light to know Gendry's anger as well as he knew his own.
"Your father," Ser Beric said, and Jon almost stumbled in surprise. "I suppose you favor your mother."
He looked away. "You knew him?"
"'Course I did. When he was Hand, he sent me off hunting for the Mountain." Ser Beric gave him a rueful smile. "Your Wildling friend told me the red woman brought you back. Thoros has brought me back six times."
Jon had to work very hard not to let his reaction show. He simply couldn't fathom it—the pain, the fear, the tendrils of death creeping closer until it consumed all of you, just to be forced back into life six times. He had barely handled it once.
"We both serve the same lord," Beric continued.
Jon fought a glare. "I serve the North."
"The North didn't raise you from the dead."
Aye, and look how well that's worked out. "The Lord of Light never spoke to me. I don't know anything about him; I don't know what he wants from me."
"He wants you alive."
"Why?"
Beric shrugged. "I don't know."
Jon bit back a snort. "That's all anyone can tell me: I don't know. So what's the point of serving a god if none of us knows what he wants?"
Beric smiled once more. "I think about that all the time. I don't think it's our purpose to understand. Except one thing—we're soldiers. We have to know what we're fighting for."
And what am I fighting for? Jon thought as his footsteps faltered. He came to a stop, and Beric beside him, hardly noticing as some of the Free Folk had to walk around them to get past.
When Jon said nothing, Beric added, "I'm not fighting for some man or woman I barely know can sit on a throne made of swords."
"So, what are you fighting for?"
"Life. Death is the enemy. The first enemy, and the last."
Jon shook his head. How could anyone fight death? "But we all die."
Beric smiled. "The enemy always wins. And we still need to fight him. That's all I know. You and I won't find much joy while we're here. But we can keep others alive. We can defend those who can't defend themselves."
Jon stared out at a point in the distance, remembering all the times Caitie had told him the same thing. That's what she had always done whenever she could, because she was a far better person than him.
But he could—he would—try. Not just for her, but for everyone under his protection. Beric was right. Jon may have left the Night's Watch, but that didn't change who he was. No matter how hard he tried to outrun that part of himself. "I am the shield that guards the realms of men," he said wistfully.
"Maybe we don't need to understand any more than that. Maybe that's enough."
"Aye," Jon agreed, for it was the truth. He didn't care about gods—not the Lord of Light or the Seven or even the Old Gods. He didn't care about the Iron Throne. There was only one thing he cared about, and that was keeping people safe.
He'd been brought back; maybe it was by the Lord of Light and maybe it wasn't. In the end, it didn't matter. He could only take responsibility for the things he had done, and he would do that however he had to, because he couldn't live in a world of fantasies.
"Maybe that's enough."
Jon should have known they were fucked when the polar bear attacked them.
They had stopped for camp at the base of the mountain they were climbing—a mountain in the shape of an arrowhead that had apparently appeared in the fire for Sandor Clegane, something which Jon tried very hard not to think too much about. The storm picked up through the night; by the next day it had grown to a swarm of white, cutting through their furs and reducing their visibility until he could only see a few feet in front of him.
And then they saw the bear, with bright crystalline blue eyes, half its fur and skin torn off, leaving only bone in its place. It tore through most of Tormund's men and injured Thoros of Myr before Ser Beric and Ser Jorah were able to kill it, the former lighting it on fire with his sword and Ser Jorah stabbing it in the neck with the dagger he kept in his boot.
Jon refused to give the flaming sword a single thought as he stared down at the paw prints the wighted bear had left in the snow. Tormund caught his eye, apparently having a similar thought: at least they knew what direction to go.
They hauled the injured Thoros to his feet and continued on until the storm finally thinned to a trickle of flakes. Jon followed Tormund in silence; with each step he took, he retreated more and more into himself.
What am I doing here?
Caitie had said that there were things he needed to see, or do, but… what? Two days had now passed, yet he was no closer to an answer, for there was nothing except snow and ice and trees in the north. And as for the White Walkers—well, he had seen enough of them to last a lifetime. He didn't understand, and he only wished she were there so he could ask her for more details. He wished he was back at Winterfell so he could ask Bran for more details.
As they crossed a frozen stream and started up the incline to a rocky crevice, Tormund stopped. He held up his hand to signal the rest of the party, who, in turn, froze in place. Jon shook away all his doubts; there was no room for it when anything could attack them at a moment's notice. He came up beside Tormund and strained to hear what had caught his attention.
It didn't take long to hear the clanking.
They exchanged a look; metal could only mean one thing. Slowly, ever so slowly, Jon and Tormund left the rest of their party behind and crept forward, up to the fissure in the mountainside, and looked down, using some rocks to conceal their position. Below them was a small stream, and beside it walked a line of wights, the dark tatters of their clothes contrasting against the white of the snow.
"Where's the rest of them?" Jon asked.
Tormund's returning expression was grim. "If we wait long enough, we'll find out."
Which meant they didn't have much time. Jon pressed his lips together and furrowed his brows, trying to come up with some sort of plan. They needed to keep at least one alive—more, if they could. And wights were unpredictable; they had no regard for their own safety. Capturing one alive would be difficult enough; keeping it alive, even more so.
Jon was just about to make a suggestion when he saw the flash of dark armor behind the wights; too fine and unmarked to belong to the dead.
He grabbed Tormund by the back of his fur hood, and pulled him down behind the rock, hoping beyond all hope that he'd done so in time. He counted the beats of his heart pounding in his ears, waiting to be discovered. When a minute passed, his fists uncurled and he breathed, "Damn it."
"Must be the commander." Tormund gave him a grim look. "Best way to take them is surprise."
Jon swallowed. His last fight with a White Walker was forever etched in his mind, and he had no desire to add another to the list of memories he'd never be able to forget. But there was nothing for it; they had no other choice. So he closed his eyes, letting the fear wash over him until all he had left was icy determination. Finally, he gave Tormund a nod, and turned back to the rest of their men.
It didn't take long to set the trap; all they needed was a flint and stone for a fire, and then it was simply a matter of waiting for the smoke to draw the White Walker and his retinue of wights into their kill zone. The Walker was the first to stop; he held up a hand and in almost perfect unison, the wights froze, as unmoving as the mountains surrounding them.
Jon and his companions watched the White Walker scan the area. In its single moment of confusion, they launched their attack; while the others made for the wights, Jon's focus narrowed to a pinpoint on the White Walker. He felt nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing beyond; it was only him and that monstrosity, lunging with its ice-white lance, a snarl contorting its deathly features, eerily familiar and terrifying. Jon may as well have been back at Hardhome as he ducked and dodged each blow.
The fight did not last as long as he'd expected. Time seemed to slow as Longclaw collided with the White Walker's middle, thousands of fractals of ice scattering everywhere as it blasted apart. The sound ricocheted off the rocks and—that's not right, Jon thought. The blast was much louder than it had been the last time. It sounded as if hundreds of bones had split apart, as if…
No. It's impossible.
He turned, hoping for something he knew could not be true, and yet it was. Where the wights had been, there lay only bones. The others had halted, looking around with much the same confusion that he felt.
A noise startled them all out of their reverie. It was the lone wight left amongst the inert bones at their feet, snarling and screeching as the living closed in around it like a cornered animal. As Tormund knocked it to the ground with his fist and Sandor Clegane tackled it, Jon's mind whirled. Had this been it—what Bran wanted him to see? And what did it mean? All except one of the wights had fallen along with the White Walker, but it couldn't be so easy. Jon couldn't believe that this was the only thing which waited for him north of the Wall.
And then, as if to prove him right, there was a rumble from above. Far away, yet terrifyingly near, it reverberated through Jon's body, shaking the earth beneath his feet. He and his companions stared upward, at a growing mass of clouds in the distance, just like at Hardhome. Jorah took out the ropes and bag they'd brought, and shoved it over the wight's head, but Jon had bigger things to worry about.
He rounded on Gendry. "Get a raven to Daenerys; tell her what's happened."
As Jon looked over his shoulder, trying to gauge how much time they had before the horde descended, he heard Gendry protest. "I'm not leaving you," he insisted, and Jon wanted to club him on the head.
Didn't he understand? It was over—even if they left the wight behind, they would never be fast enough all together to make it back to the Wall, especially not with Thoros. Whatever Jon was meant to see or do north of the Wall, it would end in his and his companion's deaths. It would be their final contribution to the fight against the White Walkers—and it was fine; Jon was fine with it. He would gladly pay the price of death to keep his family safe.
But he couldn't watch Gendry die. The rest of them had known what they were signing up for; they'd known the risks. But Gendry was too green. He was naive and kind and too much like Sam to die here. More than that, he was fast enough to make it back to Eastwatch. He would send the raven to Daenerys, and hopefully that would be proof enough to stop any war that might break out due to Jon's death.
And maybe—hopefully—she would come north and see the White Walkers. Maybe that would be enough to convince her to help Caitie.
It was this thought that nearly broke him—the idea that he would never get to see Caitie again. The idea that he was abandoning her, just like he'd abandoned her before, too many times. It was his greatest shame. But Beric was right. Jon was the shield that guards the realms of men. He had to let go of her to be that.
"You're the fastest," he said. "Go now." And then he was running, flying through the snow, barely aware of the others at his heels. He hoped that the Army of the Dead would take the bait, following them instead of Gendry. If the snowstorm that seemed to intensify with each step they took was any indication, it had worked.
A loud crack came from beneath as Jorah cried, "Stop!" halted Jon in his tracks. He looked down and inwardly cursed. He'd been so preoccupied with running, he hadn't bothered to pay attention to their surroundings, and now they were standing on a frozen lake.
A frozen lake that was cracking.
He glanced over his shoulder at the way they'd come, hoping that they would have time to double back the way they'd come—but no, of course that wasn't the case. The Army of the Dead hadn't changed since the last time he'd seen it as they funneled through the rock—a mindless horde, clawing their way over each other to reach their targets—and there was no way in all the hells they could fight their way past that many.
At the center of the lake, Jon spotted a large boulder, and while it wouldn't save them, it might keep them alive for just a bit longer if they could get to it; the ice wouldn't hold the weight of an entire army, undead or not. And somehow, he didn't think wights knew how to swim.
"Go!" he commanded, taking off again. He heard more than saw the others following. By the time they reached the boulder, the wights had the lake completely surrounded. Jon drew Longclaw, watching the army swarm them from all sides.
As they closed in, there was a crunch! and a crash! so loud it moved mountains, and all around them, the dead fell into the inky depths of the lake.
The night passed in freezing discomfort and the awful feeling that Jon was being watched. There was a part of him that was glad when the sun set; at least, this way, he wouldn't have to look at the dead. He didn't need the reminder of what would happen to him in a few hours.
Footfall broke his thoughts, and Jon looked up from where he sat. The others had fallen asleep hours ago, except for Tormund, who was now looking at him with an expectancy Jon didn't think he liked. "We need to talk."
Jon braced himself. Whenever Tormund got that tone, it never meant anything good. Still, he pushed himself up, and followed his friend to the other end of the rock. "All right," he said in a low voice. "What is it?"
Tormund arched a brow. "You gonna tell me what's going on?"
"You mean the fact that we're all about to die?" It came out harsher than he'd meant it. Jon winced. "I'm sorry."
Tormund sighed. "Don't be. I knew it might end this way. Least this way, I'll get to see my girls again."
Jon had no idea what to say to that.
"I just want to know what we're really doing here. Forget the bullshit about the two queens," he added quickly, before Jon could even think of what to say. "I know you better than that. You wouldn't do something like this just to convince two southerners, even if one of them has dragons."
Jon had to smile at that. "Not Cersei. I wouldn't trust her anywhere near Sansa. But Daenerys…" He frowned, trying to ignore the unsettling sense of dread he had whenever he thought of her—especially after their parting. "I think there's a part of her that would help if she really believed me. Not for the right reasons, but—"
"But when has that ever mattered?"
"Aye."
"So that's it?" Tormund asked skeptically. "You're just here for the queen?"
Jon didn't know why he hesitated in answering; he trusted Tormund more than anyone, save for Caitie and Edd. And if there was one person who deserved to know the truth, it was the man who'd lost more to the White Walkers than anyone else Jon knew. But to say it out loud… he would sound mad. "I received a raven from Caitie before I left. My brother Bran saw the White Walkers marching towards Eastwatch."
"Saw them? Warg?"
"Aye. And greenseer, if Caitie's right."
Tormund went rigid at this. "You sure?"
"That's what her letter said," Jon said, and he couldn't help his laugh, though it was low and wheezing. "I always thought greenseeing was a myth. I should know better by now than to think that of anything."
"They've always been rare," Tormund said. "Rarer than wargs. I thought they'd gone extinct."
"He's calling himself the Three-eyed Raven now. Some greenseer title, I'd assume." Only when Jon looked up did he notice the expression on Tormund's face—wide-eyed and lips pressed together in a thin line that spoke of disbelief. "What?"
Tormund let out a low curse. "Can't be."
"You know what that means?"
He shook his head. "The Three-eyed Raven is a myth."
"So were the White Walkers."
"That was different. Us Free Folk have been dealing with them for years now. It was only your lot that refused to believe it."
Jon sighed; he wasn't going to argue with Tormund about that right now—mostly because he knew it was an argument he would lose. So he merely asked, "You doubt Caitie?"
Tormund frowned. "No. I trust her just about more than anyone, sad as it is to trust a southerner."
"Funny."
"Did that brother of yours say anything else?"
"Only that there was something I needed to… do or see or… something beyond the Wall."
"Hmm."
When Tormund said nothing else, Jon asked, "What is the Three-eyed Raven?"
"He's supposed to be a protector of the Old Ways. First Men and all that," Tormund replied. "Like I said, it's a myth."
"But what does that mean—a protector of the Old Ways?"
He sighed, apparently having had to tell this story before, and not wanting to do so again. "Story goes that when the Andals came to Westeros and started killing off the Children of the Forest, the Children found a First Man greenseer and gave him the power to see everything, not just the future, and not just through dreams. He could see the past and the present, see everything there is or was or will be."
"Why would the Children give the First Men that kind of power?"
"Myth says that the Children can live for thousands of years. But we don't; we forget too easily. So when the Andals killed all the Children off, they knew if they didn't do something, there'd be no one left to remember."
"Remember what?"
Tormund shrugged. "The Old Ways, the White Walkers, all of it."
"But why would Bran be the Three-eyed Raven?"
"'Cause the old one died?" When Jon shot him a look, Tormund sighed. "I dunno, Jon. I never believed any of that bullshit, so I'm not the one to ask."
"Even now? After everything?"
"I just know what I've seen, and that's the dead. Whatever some raven says, it doesn't mean a damn thing to me."
Jon deflated, staring down at his hands, because he couldn't bear to look at Tormund's disappointment when he asked, "Do you think coming back out here was a mistake?"
He didn't know why he'd asked, for he knew what the answer would be. Because it had been a mistake—even Caitie had said it would be. He should have listened to her.
"No."
Jon looked up, unsure he'd heard correctly. "What?"
"I think the more we know about those fuckers, the better, and we just learned a hell of a lot. If your friend makes it back to Eastwatch and tells everyone, then they'll have a better shot at staying alive." He paused. "Think the Dragon Queen'll come?"
Jon sighed, hearing the question Tormund had not asked aloud. "Not in time." Even if Gendry got a raven to her, even if she decided to come north—and Jon hoped she would, with Ser Jorah here—it wouldn't be in time to save them.
"Aye." Tormund patted Jon's knee. "Don't worry, I won't tell the others. It'll keep 'em fighting longer."
Jon gave a huff of mirthless laughter. "That's funny."
Tormund frowned. "Wasn't meant to be."
"You're serious?" Jon shook his head, unable to stand the bitterness building in his chest any longer. Because death might have been the enemy, but it was an enemy to which he had already lost. "How in Seven Hells can you talk about fighting when we're gonna die and turn into one of those things?"
Tormund watched Jon for a moment, expression shrewd. Then, "We coulda died yesterday or the day before that. In the Battle of the Bastards or at Hardhome or at Castle Black. We coulda died tomorrow, even if we were in the south. So aye, we're gonna die, but that's not gonna stop you and me from fighting. 'Cause we don't give the time we've got left up. We fight for every second of it. No matter what, until the end."
Jon took a deep breath in, letting the freezing air sting his nostrils. For ten seconds, he held it, then let it out in a slow exhale. Beric's words came to him again, and again he asked himself, what am I fighting for? His family and his people, of course, but those were monumental, too much for Jon to bear so close to death. He glanced down at the captured wight, still struggling hopelessly against its bonds. All that matters is getting the wight south of the Wall and convincing the two queens to stop their war for that stupid fucking chair. That's what I can fight for right now.
"Okay," he said. "We fight."
Yeah, yeah, I skipped the fight with the AotD and the dragon dying. But as I said before, this chapter hated my guts and I just didn't have it in me to write a battle sequence. Especially not when I'm gonna have to write the Battle of Winterfell. Also, I know this is a nit-pick, but… why weren't they in the Haunted Forest? Why are they walking through a barren rocky mountain-scape? The Haunted Forest extends all the way east. The Frostfangs are in the west. I'm so mad. Well, whatever, at least the shots were pretty.
Oh, and I sincerely hope at least one of you noticed the TLOU inspiration (well, the Left Behind DLC) behind this. One of my absolute favorite games of all time, even if it's been traumatizing me for the last 10 years.
