Ned I - The girl in the snow
Shadow was standing in the middle of the snow covered road, his pitch black fur barely visible in the moonlight, his eyes fixed on Ned. You could never know what that creature was thinking, always silent, like his father had been. Ned walked slowly towards the direwolf, there was something in his jaw. A hand, a bloody human hand, violently separated from its owner. In the moonlight the blood looked black.
"Shadow, there you are!" Jon dismounted and ran towards his animal. "You're alright!" Back at the camp Jon felt something was wrong with Shadow. He picked three brothers to come with him to find the beast. Wanting to prove his valor to Jon, Ned threw himself on his horse and followed. They must have ridden an hour at least before Jon sensed the wolf was close.
Jon hesitated when he saw the bloody hand. "Stay here and watch the horses!" He commanded Ned. The wolf dashed back into the forest before his master could reach him, then stopped and looked back at them. He wants us to follow him, he's found something. Ned passed Jon's command on to another brother, who was happy to stay. He summoned all the courage he had and ran after Jon into the forest. He was not gonna be called craven today.
The snow was dry and loose, heavy to walk in, sinking a foot down and making a squeaky sound at every step. It hid large roots jutting out from the ground, they caught Ned's foot twice, sending him face down into the ground. At least the snow dampened his fall, but he felt blood trickling down from his nose after the second plunge, having hit something hard underneath.
They tried to follow the trail left by Shadow, but it was too dark at places. The trail went up a ridge, a big bush blocked them, Jon cut it down fast with Longclaw rather than find a way around. Paw prints ran down a slope, around a big rock, leading them into a wildling camp. Jon ran his Valyrian steel sword over his palm and lit it on fire, illuminating the camp. A slaughter scene, more like. It was littered with body parts. Ned went down on his knees vomiting.
"Ned, get up, down go craven on me now!" Jon shouted at them to look for survivors, as if any man could survive being sliced into a dozen pieces. Ned attempted to rise, focusing his eyes at the stars above. He nearly fainted as he rose and went down on his knees, retching again, though there was no more of his supper left this time. "Come on Ned! Be a man of the Night's Watch!"
Don't think, just do. That was Jon's advice when Ned was too scared. He managed to rise again, slowly, and unsheathed his sword. The sound of another brother retching nearly sent Ned down again, but instead he closed his eyes, shut the world out and cleared his mind before opening them again.
Poking his sword around in the snow, shifting the body parts, did little good. He stood still, focused his eyes on the ground, using what light he had from the moon and Jon's flaming sword, and slowly moved his gaze around in a circle. A shape, covered in fur, bigger than the other pieces, caught Ned's attention. Could be a child, or a small person, lying face down in the snow.
He bent down next to the body, grabbed it's shoulder and turned it slowly, dreading to see a face cut in half under the soft fur cap. She had two big blue eyes and pale, cold skin. Is she dead? He heard a wheezing sound. When her eyes moved and looked straight into his he jolted back and screamed. His brothers came running.
In the warm light of Jon's sword they saw a bruised and bloody wildling girl with a look of terror on her face. Blood trickled down her face from a head wound. Every slow, strained breath she took sounded painful. The girl stretched a hand towards them. Jon extinguished his sword in the snow, sheathed it, then grabbed her and lifted her up on his shoulder. The fur cap fell to the ground, freeing her long red hair. "Back to the horses, now! Shadow!" Jon shouted. Ned picked up her cap and followed.
They rode as fast as Jon dared in the darkness. Ned followed right behind him. The girl's chin rested on Jon's shoulders, her eyes would open and close. Sometimes she met Ned's eyes, which sent a chill down his spine. He could not imagine what the girl might have seen. They were not simply killed, they were massacred. The cuts were clean, what sword could do that, apart from Valyrian steel maybe, wielded by a strong giant. Some body parts looked like they'd been twisted off or torn apart.
A dozen brothers camped by a small wilding village, their last stop on the way home from a month long ranging, Ned's first journey beyond the Wall. The commotion when they arrived drew wildings out of their primitive huts. They brought the girl to the largest hut where a fire was still going. Jon called for the village healer. An older woman came, carrying a basket of herbs and ointments. The entrance to the hut was crowded with brothers, Tormund Giantsbane yelled at them, gathering them back at the campfire and continued one of his stories.
Ned didn't feel like sitting with them, he'd heard all the stories before, and his head was spinning, the events repeating in his mind, again and again. He made a small fire near his tent to keep him warm. This time of year the sun set early. Though it had been dark for hours already, it was not yet midnight, and Ned did not feel sleepy, his body was still jittery.
"Hey Ned, you ok?" Jon appeared next to his fire.
"How is she doing?" Ned asked.
"She is in a lot of pain. Blood in her lungs, it's hard for her to breathe. We are trying to make her cough, get it out, but it's going slow. Might be all night. Not sure she'll make it."
Ned handed Jon her fur cap. He smiled. "You picked it up."
Jon sat down next to Ned, warming his hands by the fire. "I didn't give you permission to come with me, Ned, to look for Shadow. I chose the people I wanted to take. And I told you to stay with the horses. It could have been dangerous, we did not know what we were running into."
"You're always telling me I need to be brave."
"I don't want you to be brave for the sake of being brave. I want you to be brave when it's needed. We didn't need you there. I need you to follow my orders. Your mother made me swear to keep you safe. I don't want to have to worry about you in a situation where I have to make quick life and death decisions. I don't need that distraction. Out of all my brothers, you are the only one giving me that burden."
Ned nodded, solemnly. He hated disappointing Jon, who went back to the big tent, leaving Ned alone again by his fire. Ned's thoughts went back home to Winterfell. A year had gone since he left, he still had two more to serve in the Watch. All boys in the north had to do a three year service, no exceptions even for the noblest children. Ned was not yet sixteen when he was sent, which came as a shock, it was two moons till his nameday still, and there had been no mention of it from mother. Ned did not expect to serve until his eighteenth nameday, as was most common.
He was sent with his friend, Rickard, who was a year older. At least he had a friend. The first month was the hardest. On the first day old Thorwyck, with his poor squinting eyes, misread his name as Ned Stork, causing roaring laughter among the new recruits and earning him the nickname Lord Stork.
After a month they still called him that, every day, until the Lord Commander had enough and put a stop to it. He then sat down with Ned, telling him he had to learn to stand up for himself, or people would bully him forever.
"You are the heir of Winterfell now, your mother will expect us to make a man of you."
"How can I stand up to them? They are all older, bigger and stronger than me."
"You don't have to fight them, Ned. It's about attitude and confidence, it's about not letting fear control you. I am not going to help you again", the old bear said, "you are on your own now."
Ned got better at standing up for himself, and the bullying stopped eventually, but he did not learn how to make new friends. If it wasn't for Rickard, his only friend there, he would have been utterly miserable.
When they got back from the ranging it would soon be his fathers fiftieth nameday. They were having a feast for him, and Ned was allowed to visit Winterfell. He missed his sisters. Little Jeyne, the miracle baby, who had barely begun to talk when he left. Lila, his two year younger sister, who wrote to him every week. Most of all he missed Lyn, his twin sister, whom he knew suffered without him and Rickard there. She hadn't spoken with their mother for months after they left, Lila wrote in a letter.
Realizing how hungry he was, having abandoned his supper at the slaughter camp, he started chewing on a piece of stale bread. A girl from the village walked over to him, tall and skinny with long black hair and a long face, her body covered in rough woolen clothes. Ned had talked to her before, when they first arrived at the village, she got curious about him when she learned he was the heir to Winterfell.
"Do you know what's going on? They said you went with them. We keep hearing different stories, like there was a huge fight, or a wolf slaughtered and ate some people."
Need shook his head. The killers didn't eat them at least. "The wolf didn't kill anyone." He told her what happened, but left out the more gruesome details.
"The girl was the only survivor?"
"The only one we found. It was dark though, I guess it's possible we could have missed someone."
"What did she look like? I never saw her."
"Small, with long red hair, a round face with big blue eyes. Badly hurt, wounds and bruises all over, she can barely breathe. I've never seen a girl like her before. How she managed to survive that, how she is still fighting so hard to live, she must be something special." Might be cute too, he thought, but you couldn't tell yet with all the bruises.
"Her eyes, they didn't glow, did they?"
"No, don't worry, she's no wight, there are no more wights".
He attempted to swallow the bread with water from his skin, but there were only a few drops left. "There is a brook right by, where we get our water", the girl said and showed him the way. The taste of the water from the wells at Castle Black had an earthen quality to it, a hint of mud. The fresh, cold water from the brook, glimmering in the moonlight, tasted better than any water he'd had before. It tasted better than wine, almost as good as freshly squeezed juice from the oranges his father brought home from a trip once. It was cold, so he had to drink it slowly.
The girl walked closer to him. "Mother said, what killed all those people, it was likely the Others, but if not, only a demon could have done that, and if the girl was the only one who survived, the demon likely possessed her. Maybe you should not have brought her here."
"The Others are gone. The girl had no weapon, she could not have killed them, the killers must have used sharp weapons. And there's no such thing as a demon."
"Perhaps not, mother says a lot of things."
Ned felt fairly confident about that last statement, though he had heard the story of the red woman, Melisandre, and how Renly Baratheon had died, and their grandmother witnessing it. He asked her about it once, but she was not very talkative. The Others, they were gone now, they would never return. Then again, they thought so before.
The light from the moon disappeared behind a small cloud. Ned could barely see the girl who stood a foot away from him. Something broke a branch on the other side of the brook. He froze with fear. What killed those wildings is still out there, whatever it is. It could have followed us, could be watching us, waiting for one of us to step away from the group. He wanted to run away screaming, but he was not able to move. The girl did not move either.
He heard breathing, and something was moving towards them, it was two of them, and they were not human. A dark shape appeared in front of him, rose above him, leaned towards him, claws landed on his shoulders, he looked straight into two red eyes. Shadow licked his face. Ned hugged him. He had never felt more safe around Jon's direwolf. The moonlight returned. Frost, his brother, followed behind him, the snowflakes in his white fur glinting. He sniffed at the girl, who was still frozen.
"It's ok, they are just Jon's direwolves, our First Ranger. They are friendly, they won't hurt you."
"I want to go back", she whispered. Ned took her hand, she clutched it hard, and led her back to the village. He was brave today, no one could call him craven now.