RP: Reset Who: Robb McLellan and Jon Snow When: 17 August 2013 Where: 915 South Van Ness, Santa Ana, Ca. Dream Location: North of the Wall, Westeros Status: Complete Word Count: 12,068
They never bound him.
Atop a garron grey as the winter’s sky he rode north in a great column of men and women and beasts. They had taken his sword as precaution yet left wrists and ankles to tempt fate as he pleased. A mind game. Nothing more. They wish me to run so they can fill my belly with feathers and claim it earned. But he would not allow himself to play, so simply rode on with his chin ducked against the gales.
His poor garron though had no sheep-lined cloak to hide against exposure. A flighty beast, spooked by every shadow moving in the peripheral, every pebble and icy stone clattering down the mountainside; by the screech of the man in eagle’s skin soaring overhead and the red glowing eyes following them at great distance.
A touch and a soft word oft quieted the animal, Would that my own fears could be calmed so easily. Dressed all in black, flanked by strangers he would name every one of them foe before ever claiming kinship. Even the wolf which trailed them knew better than to trust the great packs of shaggy hounds traveling aside, as wild and free as their masters. They are dogs and he’s a wolf. They know he’s not their kind. No more than I am yours.
Fingers flexed from idleness. Opening and closing his maimed fist the way the maester had shown him to prevent burnt flesh from stiffening beyond use. To bring blood and sensation and life to the hand which had so recently dealt in death.
They should have bound my hands, the rider thought again. But that is their mistake…
***
It was the cold which eventually woke him. Not the icy nip of Jack Frost or stinging winds of a bleak tundra but the gentle chill of a body naturally leaking stored heat. Nerves bristled over a nude landscape of goosebumps and wee hairs standing on end, striations of buttery sunlight only a small comfort as they melted through half-cracked blinds of the master bedroom at 915 South Van Ness.
Jon shifted lazily. Every limb heavy with disuse, his sleep-addled brain wanted nothing more than to seek out the nearest heat source and continue weekend hibernations. It’d been a long week, a rough five days and no matter the hour now, Jon felt he well deserved a few more to doze tacked on in recompence.
“Robb...” he garbled, beginning to crack eyelids and search with flexing fingers, You’ve gone and shoved off the bloody duvet again...
Hunt for coziness suddenly cut short by resistance to movement had Jon squinting through bleary eyes to confirm what his unconscious mind had apparently already known.
Bonds. Leather cuffs, to be precise, circling wrists and ankles and latched with cording to invisible anchors leaving one mussy haired, happy, squirming lad spread-eagle center of the mattress. Morning wood quite interested to learn of the circumstance.
Jon breathed in deliberately, embracing the chill and feeling every bit deserving of and in love with his surprise captivity.