Love and Duty

Naruto felt like days on ship were somehow short and long at the same time. The weeks seemed to pass him by in a blink and yet every day could not seem to come to an end, leaving him standing at the bow, staring at the sea by day or the star-filled sky by night. Neither of those activities served to distract him in any way of course, but he came back to them every single time, nonetheless.

The further north he travelled the more Naruto could believe that it really was winter. Rain became more frequent and eventually turned to snow and hail. Near Pentos they encountered their first storm, making the sailors talk about being grateful that it was not autumn, when the same situation could have forced them far off course, adding days to their voyage.

It became cold on shore, colder in the bowels of the ship, and freezing on deck. Naruto felt none of it. He knew he should at least don the thick cloak he had procured before setting off, to keep some of the chill at bay, but he just could not be bothered.

He had been angry before. When Sasuke had betrayed Konoha, when Gaara had been killed by Akatsuki, when he had thought that Pain had killed Hinata. Haku, Neji, Orochimaru. Every time there had been someone he could be angry at. Somebody to be the target of his rage and fury.

This was not like those times. The only person he could focus on was Shiera, the one person he didn't want to hurt or fight. He was angry at her dreams, at prophecy and fate and destiny as concepts, as ideas, but what was that supposed to accomplish? Those were no real target for his emotions, leaving him unbalanced and frustrated with everything. Instead of feeling the same red-hot anger that robbed him of reason, Naruto only felt sad and empty and lost.

Fate, she had said. Neji had talked about destiny too, back during the Chunin Exams, but he had been angry at his family and clan. Shiera had said they had different fates like it was simple fact. He didn't understand, but a part of him desperately wanted to. As if that would somehow change anything now.

The Elder Toad had talked of prophecy and predicted the future, and he had been correct in a way. Naruto had met an octopus, though Gyuki had been half of one at best. But he had never ended up fighting Sasuke again, never even seeing him after they had met following the Kage council.

Child of Prophecy? What a joke.

Naruto could only vaguely recall what he had seen in the House of the Undying, the memory largely dominated by the blank period that had followed afterwards. There had been three blurry instances, his parents had been the last one, with his baby sister in their arms. What was he supposed to know from that? From a blue field, with a falling star? Three dogs, or hounds, or wolfs, or whatever kind of animal?

There was nothing there to find out, just images. No meaning, no clarity, no wisdom. It was just an empty memory, less useful than even lies or illusion. Those at least told you something about the other person.

When Sakura had lied to him, he had understood why. She had wanted him to stop, to abandon the promise he had made her, even if to accomplish that she had to lie to him and herself. But he couldn't abandon that promise, not for a lie. But even if he had not agreed and had been pissed at her for a bit too, he could somewhat understand.

Shiera had lied as well, at the end, but it hadn't been the same. No matter what, she had been resolved to make him leave, and that only made it hurt more. She had wrung a promise from him, to deliver her message and not come back.

Every promise Naruto had ever made, he had intended to keep, if it cost him his life to do so. Yet, he had failed most of them the moment he had come to this world. He would never bring Sasuke back now, he would never change the Shinobi world like Jiraiya had envisioned, he would never protect Konoha and bring the Will of Fire to the next generation as the next Hokage.

The only promises he had left where those he had made to Shiera. He would take the secret of her identity to his grave and he would deliver her message to the Wall. But Naruto would not forget about her. He would not do that; he could not do that. Maybe what they had shared had only been short-lived, but it had been special to him all the same.

If doing that meant betraying another promise then… then he would live with that too, somehow.

Maybe he would figure all of it out eventually, while at sea there was literally nothing better for him to do when he wasn't distracting himself by helping with the usual duties of sailors.

Normally he would have passed the time by training, but he simply couldn't work up the motivation for it. He had been planning to try his hand at water manipulation, the effect natural energy had on his burn scar deserved further investigating, and he was far from perfect with a bow, but none of it sounded appealing.

He simply stood on deck and stared out to sea.

Naruto wasn't sure if he had ever gone this long without seeing another person.

White Harbour had been a huge city, filled with houses and shops and guards and people doing work of a hundred different kinds. Merchant ships had dominated the harbour, with smaller fishing vessels further out, already looking for the day's catch, and a few large whalers sprinkled in.

His hopes of finding passage to Eastwatch had been dashed quickly. The last Night's Watch ship had left the city a week past, and there was too little coin involved to justify any individual merchant going up there in winter.

Getting the necessary supplies had presented far fewer problems, though not everyone was willing to part with food during winter, even for coin. With so many inhabitants and a lot of trade, the port held everything he needed.

As soon as he had left the city for the wider countryside things had changed quickly. Even the King's Road was sparsely used when the snow was feet high, in part perhaps because it was hard to even find. Closer to the city there had been a visible effort to keep the road clear and usable, but before long those faded as well. Travelling on ground had quickly become too bothersome for Naruto, so he had abandoned the road for the trees as often as he could.

When the forests had disappeared for a while, replaced by expansive plains and hills covered entirely in white, he had no choice but to continue on ground. Those instances were rare however, even if he had to deviate quite a bit from the path to avoid a few of them.

Even thinking about making the track on a horse made him glad that he wasn't a civilian. The part of this trip that had taken place on a ship had been bad enough, filled with monotony and a grand view of water, water, and more water. Here at least he could look at new land, see places he had never seen before, while also making the journey take as little time as possible.

The miles had disappeared behind him. Naruto had memorised a rough map of the North, though that was no good stand-in for actually knowing the lay of the land by experience. Fortunately, he didn't actually need to know much. As long as he was heading North he would eventually arrive at the Wall, even if not directly at Castle Black, though the King's Road served as a marker for that.

Winterfell had been a sight to see, its walls a clear reminder of Konoha as it had been before Pain. Eighty and a hundred feet tall respectively, he could appreciate the hardship any normal attack would encounter in trying to get in. Unlike most other buildings he had seen in the North, little snow had decorated the roofs and walls inside, a result of the hot water being pumped through.

Hugging onto the outside of the grey granite had been a whole village of its own, with men and women packed into neat rows of simple houses built of logs and stone for the winter, sheltering in the shadow of the great castle.

Grey on white, the banners of House Stark had been everywhere, the running direwolf decorating watchtowers and walls.

Still, he had not spent much time admiring the view, purchasing what supplies he needed and then going on his way again. There was a lot of distance to cover before he reached his destination. Wasting daylight wasn't advisable.

Days passed quickly, time Naruto spent running over snow and jumping through trees. In the west, hills turned to mountains, slowly at first, before shooting up like reeds the two days of travel that followed. Great stone peaks dominated the horizon, making him think about climbing to the very top, for the view from up there if nothing else. They stretched on, just like the land itself, further and further, and the maps said that they would reach the Wall itself near its western end.

The air became colder and the land became wilder with every mile he crossed towards the Wall. His chakra served well to warm him, in addition to the thick cloak, keeping the chill at bay, but there was still some way ahead of him. Naruto knew that he should have gotten something different to wear underneath, the airy light fabrics far less suited to the colder climate than they had been to Volantis' wet heat.

Eventually he reached the Gift, stretching fifty leagues southward from the Wall. This land was overseen by the Night's Watch itself, intended to support the men that guarded the Wall with its bounty and taxes.

Naruto knew that the order had been on the decline for some time now, but he had still expected things to change once he came this far. Farming was certainly impossible when the ground was frozen solid and snow covered the fields, but he had seen a few animals already, and yet not a single hunter.

Deer, hare, boar, elk; he had learned to hunt animals in the academy, to subsist off of the land if necessary while out on missions, and it was one of the few things he had actually paid attention to during lessons.

Yet there were no black-clad men quietly shuffling through the snow to stalk beasts anywhere in sight.

Eventually the Wall became visible on the horizon, only a small light blue line at first, that only continued to grow in size as he walked on. Higher and higher it rose, until its enormous size became fully clear to Naruto. Hearing about it had not done the construct justice. Stretching farther than he could even see in both directions, it towered over everything else in the vicinity, standing hundreds of feet high.

The same feeling from before, that he had felt seeing the mountain range rise next to him as he travelled, returned even stronger. There was no doubt in his mind that the view from above would be absolutely incredible.

Compared to the sheer presence of the Wall itself, Castle Black was not much to look upon. In the first place it did not even look like a castle, simply a string of disconnected buildings and towers clustering near the wall in a rough half-circle. Snow covered the roofs like thick white blankets but much of the path and courtyards had been cleared of the days downpour, making movement between different buildings possible.

Naruto slowed from his comfortable running pace as he closed in on the entrance, or at least what passed for one. He had been seen already, a black shape moving from atop one of the towers and disappearing inside, and it did not take long for two men to exit the same tower further down and come towards him.

One carried a spear while the other was unarmed for now, both of them clad in thick, black-dyed wool and fur, shawls covering the lower half of their faces in an attempt to keep warm.

"Who goes there?" the unarmed man hailed him once they were close. He was short, somewhere in the vicinity of five feet, and the thick clothing made him look near as wide as well.

"A messenger. I carry a letter for your Maester," Naruto said in answer, raising his empty hands from beneath his cloak for a moment. The letter was tucked away safely in his pack, where there was no danger of it getting wet or being damaged in any other way.

The watchman looked to his spear-wielding brother, who simply shrugged, and then turned back to him. "Come on then."

Naruto followed him into the premises, the other black-clad man falling in behind them both. Men were training in different courtyards, keeping warm through exercise, while others watched on. Some groups drilled with spear or shield or axe or sword while others sparred directly, fighting each other in thicker training armour, to protect from some of the wounds inflicted by even blunted weapons. Onlookers shouted encouragement or instructions from the side while others simply waited for their turn in silence.

Most of them weren't particularly good.

In another courtyard men were shooting at butts with longbow and crossbow both, calling out to each other as arrows and bolts landed or not, with the occasional cheer when an iron tip struck the centre.

Above them all loomed the Wall, gigantic and cold. He could feel its presence even without trying to, the barrier that extended beyond the physical wall itself. How could something like this have been constructed? Haku had crafted ice with chakra, but that was nothing compared to this monstrosity.

They entered a stout wooden keep after the man in front knocked on the iron-banded wooden door two times. Above them ravens cawed and quorked, as if deep in conversation of their own.

A fire was roaring in the room, driving the chill that had accumulated over the day from his body. The Black Brothers clearly felt the same, rubbing their gloved hands together to heat them up slightly.

"Lord Commander, Maester," the watchmen said, after lowering their shawls, greeting the two men in the room. The taller one had olive skin; dark black hair streaked with grey. His expression serious but with prominent laugh lines around his eyes. Far older, the second man's hair had turned white from age and the slight paleness in his eyes made Naruto question just how much he could really see. "Man here says he a messenger. S'got a letter for the Maester."

Naruto ran a hand through his slightly damp hair, making the bits of snow that had not melted yet drift to the floor.

"A message so urgent it is delivered through the winter by hand? I will feel honoured then," the older man answered, a small quiet smile on his thin lips. Hanging around his neck was a great chain, dozens of links of differently coloured metals arranged together. A Maester's chain, just as Shiera had described it, which made the man her grand-nephew.

"It is a rare messenger who arrives so well-armed."

Naruto shrugged and tried for a disarming smile, though the Lord Commander didn't sound accusing, more interested if anything. "Can be dangerous out there. Better to be prepared to encounter trouble than not."

"Ain't that the truth," the taller spear-wielding watchman said from behind him, a grim tone to his voice. "Wildlings been getting bolder again, cause o' the cold."

"Aye, they 'ave. Been getting better at evadin us too," the shorter man grumbled. The other members of the Night's Watch did not say in out loud, but they clearly all agreed. It also explained the emptiness of the land he had just passed through. No one liked to be attacked again and again. People would move away.

"Return to your posts, Bedwyck, Dywen."

"Lord Commander," the unarmed man said, nodding, and turned towards his spear-wielding brother. Covering his face he opened the door, letting in some of the cold air again. Naruto shrugged his pack off onto the floor and knelt to get the letter Shiera had entrusted to him.

"Let us see this urgent message then," the Lord Commander said, once the two watchmen had left the room, a slight drawl to his voice.

"It is a sensitive message I'm afraid, for the Maester's eyes only," Naruto said, taking out the folded piece of parchment and holding it out towards Maester Aemon. "A family matter."

Both men seemed to understand well enough. Maesters and men of the Night's Watch gave up their claim and names, but the Targaryens were the royal family. Nonetheless, the Lord Commander ruled here, by all the laws of the realm, and not a King or Prince. If he so wished, he could very well ignore the unspoken request to leave.

Aemon accepted the letter with wrinkled fingers and ran his thumb along the seal closing it. "Oh?" Instead of the Targaryen sigil Shiera had pressed a simple star into the hot wax, something that would not identify her without the words written inside.

Carefully removing the wax seal with a small knife Maester Aemon unrolled the parchment and read the first few lines. Naruto had not read the message himself, though he had been curious, but that was part of this kind of mission. A Shinobi didn't read important documents they were tasked to deliver, even if they wanted to.

"Our messenger speaks the truth, Lord Commander. This is indeed a matter of great importance and privacy."

The Lord Commander seemed to take Maester Aemon by his word and nodded his head in acceptance. "I will give you some time then. We can continue our business afterwards." After giving Naruto another once-over, the man turned to leave in the direction of a different door in the room. Revealed behind it were stairs leading below ground, to, as Naruto realised, a tunnel system that likely connected the different buildings of Castle Black to each other below the surface.

Naruto watched the old man shuffle over to the one of the high-backed chairs near the fireplace, letter in hand, and eventually joined him there. There were bound to be questions afterwards, ones that only he could answer.

Aemon's hands shook slightly as he continued to read, clearly somewhat overwhelmed by the revelations contained in the writing. Minutes passed in silence, only broken by the crinkling of parchment and the crackling of the fire.

"That she would still live," Aemon muttered, more to himself than anything else, pale fingers running over the inked words. He spent a few seconds like that, distracted and near absent. "You are the man my aunt speaks of then? Naruto?"

"Yes, I am," he answered, nodding.

"I had not thought to ever see her write so fondly of someone. There were never many that could hold her attention for long." Likely Aemon did not mean anything by the remark, simply remembering someone he had thought dead and lost to him, but Naruto could not help but feel some frustration rise in him again, his lips twisting into a mockery of a smile.

"Well, she has a unique way of showing it," he said, unable to hide some of his bitterness. Weeks had passed and it still hurt to remember that exchange. He still didn't understand it either, how anyone could believe in fate like that.

Maester Aemon only chuckled, looking off into space, clearly seeing something else than the room's thick wooden walls. "Yes, she always was her own person." There was a small smile on his weary face for a moment. "But I did not know her well, isolated as I was in Oldtown. So many years, so many regrets."

Naruto knew that Shiera was a hundred years old, but that had always seemed an empty statement to him. It was only ever something he reminded himself of when she talked of history long passed that she had lived through and not a reality he had often been confronted with.

This man had lived for more than eighty years, and you could tell just by looking at him, even just listening to him. He had not been left untouched by the decades.

Perhaps, Naruto thought, time had little bite when your body did not suffer as it did for everyone else. His mother's clan had been called the Undying once, for their incredibly long lifespans, but he had never met any of them, and only time would tell whether he would be the same in that regard.

"Would you tell me how you two met? There are only so many words in a letter."

Naruto looked around the room, searching for the words. He had no intention of recounting everything Shiera and him had done, but a few tidbits would not hurt.

Hanging from the walls were herbs and roots of many kinds, some dried and some not, ready to be used for this or that concoction. Maesters were healers, whether with needle and thread or sleeping aid and salve, and they had to know what combination would produce the needed effects. Small clay pots and a few clear glasses, placed in an organisation he could never hope to understand, were filled with powders and liquids with similar uses.

Herblore was an important skill for a Shinobi as well, to reduce the chance of ingesting anything poisonous if nothing else, but Naruto did not know half the plants he had seen until now, much less all their different uses. He would learn in time.

"We met in Qarth, at the beginning of the year. I was going through a rough patch at the time and ran into her. She wasn't particularly nice, in the beginning, but I suppose you would know that better than I do," Naruto began, recalling events that felt older than they really were.

"We came to an agreement, exchanging her tutelage for mine, and sailed for Volantis. Eventually I heard about a dragon egg in Lys. I stole it and we tried our best to hatch it, without success. Then she sent me here." He had brushed over most of the important bits but saying any more than he already had felt... inappropriate perhaps.

"You love her, do you not?" Maester Aemon asked, after a moment of silence.

"Wha..." Naruto's eyes snapped to the older man, still sitting in his chair close to the fireplace.

"My eyes may not be what they once were, but my ears are still sharp," Aemon answered, a smile on his thin lips. "Either way it was no great feat of deduction. My aunt said as much in her letter."

For a few moments he stewed in his thoughts before getting a grip. "Maybe I did," Naruto answered, looking away again. What the hell did he know about love? How did you even know that that was what you felt? It didn't matter now. They would go their separate ways.

"It is a terrible burden. To love another. The gods must be cruel indeed, to fashion us for it as they did," Aemon said, clearly thinking of some part of his life that had long since passed. "Yet her other words trouble me more. The Long Night, the Wall crumbling, Others. Legends all. And horrors. What are we to do against that? The Watch stands here, true to their oaths but lesser than I imagine they ever were."

"I don't know what should be done, but I will help," Naruto said, far more comfortable with this line of conversation than the former.

"How do you intend to do that? Have you come to take the Black, as I did?"

"No," Naruto denied. There was a part of him, the one that was fuelled by spite, that wanted to do it. Say screw everything, swear away any chance of a family and making his own way in life, and join up, for the simple reason that Shiera had said to do the exact opposite of that.

But he didn't listen to that part of himself. Even he could admit that that was childishness talking above all else and he was not that immature anymore. He would turn eighteen soon, with no one else to take the fall for his decisions but himself. Joining the Night's Watch was something he would only come to regret in the future.

"I'm not even sure what I will do now, or when anything will happen." Naruto shook his head, he felt like a great fool. Shiera had believed in all of it though, and he still trusted her word, even if that made him an even greater one. "But when it does, get a message to me and I will come. I promise you that."

"One man more, to protect us against that ancient evil? What will that accomplish?" Aemon asked sceptically.

Naruto smirked, feeling the comfortable embrace of confidence. This he knew. "I'm not like other men."

For whatever reason Aemon seemed to accept that statement easily enough. "Where will you go now?"

Naruto didn't know what he would even do now, but there weren't a lot of choices to begin with. The only thing he really knew was fighting. Even during peace, there were always fights, of one kind or another, and people that were willing to pay for it. Maybe he would just enjoy himself for a bit. Contests and tourneys and the like. Nothing like a bit of competition to get your head on straight.

"South, I think. Somewhere warmer than here."

Aemon laughed quietly. "It would seem that every place not beyond the Wall would fit that description."

"More places for me to choose from then," Naruto answered, smiling.

I hope you enjoyed chapter 20, and with it the ending of this first part of the story.

As I said before, this chapter acts mostly as a sort of epilogue and will be followed by a time skip in the vicinity of four months. I have already written chapter 21 and I am halfway done with 22 as well but I will not release anything next week, to give myself a bit more time to figure out the direction and the changes I want to make or not make from here on out. The next part of the story will contain new PoV's, starting immediately in the first one, during the tourney at Harrenhall.

The Elder Toad gives vague accounts of the future to Jiraiya (Child of Prophecy as his student) and Naruto (battle someone with special eyes and meet an octopus). Naruto uses that here to discount the very idea of prophecy being trustworthy, since his didn't happen as he thought it would. His own experiences are working against him even trying to understand Shiera's obvious belief.

Maester Aemon is Shiera's great-nephew (and also a great character) but they aren't even twenty years apart in age in my timeline. Terms like great-aunt/aunt/cousin/nephew/great-nephew can be used for the same degree of relation during conversation, since it is largely irrelevant outside of matters of succession. Egg calls Brynden "cousin" in the Mystery Knight for example.

Castle Black in the books and show is quite different. I don't believe the tunnel system connecting the buildings below ground is ever part of the show, but I may be wrong about that. Winterfell is warmed by water being pumped through the walls, which I imagine would reduce the snow building up on the roofs. It is also insanely huge.

I'm not sure if the Uzumaki being nicknamed in relation to their strong life-force is fanon, but I put it in any ways. The exact effects of that condition are also barely explored. Mito still had red hair when she died, and is said to have been close to death when Kushina gained the Kyuubi, but she was probably not even eighty by that point. Strong lifeforce/longer lifespan should probably mean at least getting to 120 naturally in many cases, with a few reaching 150 as an extreme case. Less than that seems like something no one would make a big deal about.

Last chapter understandably evoked quite the passionate response in the reviews. Personally I would say that some of those responses were unnecessarily vitriolic towards Shiera, but I am aware that this is a touchy subject and my personal experience on the matter is just that, personal.

Consider that some parts of Shiera's inner thoughts are a result of trying to cope with the situation she finds herself in. She hated doing what she did, but by rationalising in the way that she does she can protect herself and go through with what she views as necessary to stop the apocalypse. That does not make her actions good, or any less painful for Naruto, but it makes them human, and hopefully more understandable. In the end everyone can view that situation however they want.

I want to thank every single reader here, for helping me hit 100.000 views on this story. The response really does keep me going.

As always thanks for reading and reviewing. Until next time.