Jon Snow (jon_snow) wrote in antecedents, @ 2010-09-14 01:29:00 |
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There were six of them traveling together now, so the two pound martens that Jon and Grey had been surviving on wouldn't cut it for tonight. Still, when it came time to eat, it was Jon who volunteered to catch them something. Daenerys mentioned she thought she'd seen some familiar berries near the place they'd chosen as their campsite, and asked Sansa to join her to gather some of them. Jon would of asked John to join him, but he figured he'd want to take the opportunity now that they'd stopped for the evening to catch up with his friend Stephan. It wasn't like those two would have to entertain the remaining member of their group; Sandor sharpened his sword in silence on the outskirt of the campsite, his horse being the company he chose over them.
It took awhile to find what would be their dinner, especially after the sun had started to fall behind the mountains. Having Ghost at his side was a plus, at least. He recalled how, in his dreams-- the ones where he was Ghost-- he could smell prey miles away, how he could hear even it's slightest movements. In contrast, his human senses felt dulled and weak. He wondered what it would be like if he could slip into Ghost's body whenever he wanted, but that was just a brief fancy in his thoughts. He wasn't even entirely sure that the dreams were anything more dreams, and the ones involving Ghost were both short and few and far between for Jon. For now, it was enough to have the direwolf's help, following him through brush, over huge fallen tree branches, and underneath low-hanging ones that still stood.
Another might think twice about walking off into an unknown forest when night was nearly upon them, but Jon had grown up with the forest being his back yard. He had a good sense of direction when navigating through them, and he liked the familiar earthy smell of it. At the Wall, it was even colder than Winterfell. The forests one found beyond it were little more than skinny trunks that rose up from the ground, which cast foreboding shadows during the night. When one bumped into those trees, they didn't shed leaves, but heavy clumps of snow.
At his side, Ghost's ears rose up, and then his sleek body lowered closer to the ground. What do you smell? He didn't speak, cautious of alerting what animal might be near, not sure how close it was. A short glance around and he still didn't see a thing, but he wasn't standing on level ground either. Ascending the slope in front of him, mindful of snapping any twigs beneath his boots, he pushed aside some pine needles and then laid eyes on what it was Ghost had picked up on first. It was an elk, the massive set of antlers atop it's head giving it away. If he could bring that down, they'd all eat heartily tonight, and have plenty more for tomorrow. Jon pulled his bow from his back, and an arrow from his quiver.
He was a good shot, but he wasn't a perfect one, especially from such a great distance. When he fired the first arrow, it breezed mere inches past it's intended target. The elk immediately lifted it's head, alerted now to it's hunter. By the time it thought to run, Jon had already quickly grasped for a second arrow, not willing to lose such a prize catch he wasn't likely to see another of again this evening. The elk galloped away, but he had hurriedly notched his arrow, and he released it a second later. It flew through the air, and though the animal was nearly out of his sight now, he could still see the tops of it's antlers, and those suddenly jerked and fell from sight too. Both Jon and Ghost ran after it, knowing it would try to keep running before it collapsed completely.
The arrow had been shot last minute, and so it hadn't struck a vital spot: it had sunk into the elk's rib cage, but missed the vital organs. It had sprinted a ways further, then limped further still, but when they came upon it, it was lying still on the ground. Jon slowed his run to a walk, glad to see it hadn't gotten away. He was disappointed, though, to find the arrow hadn't killed it immediately, it's chest still heaving as it took labored breaths. Drawing the dragonglass dagger he'd found near the Fist of the First Men, he planned to cut it's throat to finish the job quickly. But no sooner had he knelt in front of the animal supposedly down for the count, did it nearly brain him with one of it's curved antlers. He fell backwards onto his butt in surprise, his eyes widening as a sharp antler missed him by an inch.
"You have to wait after you bring it down," he suddenly recalled Theon's voice in the back of his head. "At least ten minutes. It might get a second wind." If there was anything Greyjoy really knew, it was archery. Robb could best him on horseback, and Jon could disarm him with a sword in under a minute, but neither boy could use a bow so well as their father's ward. Bran hadn't liked those words. "It's in pain," he had said, sympathetic to the animal's plight. Theon didn't miss a beat when he replied, "And so will you, when you get a boar tusk through your belly."
Jon wondered if Bran had been pain when he'd died, or if it had been swift end. Hopefully. The raven brought such sparse news of Winterfell's fate. Just that he and Rickon had been killed along with several of the servants, and everyone else had fled for the nearest town. It angered him to know that Bran probably hadn't been able to fight back at all; crippled as he was, he couldn't have even tried to run. Jon had prayed that whoever had murdered him would soon be answering for his crimes. It sounded like things were so chaotic when word was sent out, that they wouldn't of even known who to name if they'd been so inclined to add those details to the letter. And Rickon wasn't even five years old...
The elk was still thrashing around occasionally, even now that Jon had backed off. He couldn't bare to watch it suffer any longer. Despite the risk, he moved in a second time. One of the prongs painfully whacked him in the arm for his efforts, but it didn't puncture the skin luckily. At the same time he sliced it's throat open-- all movement stopped after that. It was then he noticed just how massive this animal was: a few hundred pounds at least. That meant he'd have to gut and skin it here, and quarter it accordingly. Then he could carry back at least the best parts. He wished for a moment that he had asked the Hound to come along with him: at his size, he could of probably just thrown the thing over his shoulder and brought it all back. Jon, on the other hand, had never been muscular, even with the amount of exercise he got on the Wall. He didn't actually regret that decision though, not sure if that man would of helped kill the elk, or him. He had agreed to a truce, but even so... Jon had seen the way he'd started sharpening his sword before he'd left the campsite. He imagined he'd done so just to intimidate him, make it obvious he wouldn't so easily forget what he (believed) he was. What else did he need his sword so sharp for out here? Jon forgot that the topic of the beasts he and Grey had run into had come up again when his sister and Sandor joined the group, that it could very well be for that reason. He'd made it very clear he wouldn't of found any allies in this group had Sansa not intervened, so Jon would sooner think his first thought was the right one.
He still had to ask her about what it was that had brought them together, still had to ask her a lot. They hadn't been able to talk much about the things that really mattered while they walked with the group, but he meant to before the day was up.
By the time he returned to camp, the moon had risen and the rest of them had been talking about sending someone out to find Jon and make sure he hadn't gotten lost or hurt. He explained what the hold up had been, apologized for it, and started on getting it cooking over the fire that had been made while he was gone.
"A welcome change from horsemeat," Dany had said with appreciation, which had Jon asking her when she'd eaten that. She, in turn, told him (and as a result, the group, since they were all sitting around the fire now) about her travels through the desert, how close she and her party had come to starvation out there. She went on to describe Vaes Tolorro, the abandoned city of bones they'd found at the end of the red lands. She and her khalasar had almost decided to settle there, a city that they could rebuild and make their own, but Dany insisted they press forward after they had rested and restocked. She didn't have time to march at a leisurely pace. Anyway, there were great fruit trees in Vaes Tolorro, but there was no meat, so that was more of the same. It wasn't until they reached the great city of Qarth that they had the option to properly visit a market.
The more Jon listened to her, the more he decided he liked her. Before he had learned the story of Rhaegar Targaryen, he learned about Daeron Targaryen; the stories of his life had made him a great hero in Jon's mind. Much like Daenerys, he had an army at his disposal by the age of fourteen, and won many small wars before finally conquering Dorne. When Robb and Jon would play fight with wooden swords in the training yard, still boys of six or seven, pretending they were knights or kings, that was one person who Jon liked to pretend to be a lot. Up until the day Catelyn had heard them using that name, and told him he was never to speak it again as long as he was living there. For awhile Jon wondered if that was just because she didn't see it fit he be giving himself an impressive title, even it was make believe, too presumptuous for a bastard. But later he learned it was because that family name was not one she wanted her husband to have to overhear himself.
He learned about Rhaegar a couple years later, when he was down in Winterfell's crypts with his siblings. There was a long line of statues, depicted in the likeness of the family members who now rested beneath them. Inevitably the question would come up: What was this one's name? What did they do? How long ago did they live? How did they die? Jon usually left those questions to Robb or Bran-- he wasn't a Stark, so it wasn't truly his history. But when he'd first really laid eyes on Lyanna's likeness, he had to ask. Father said little of her: she was his sister, she was well loved, and she died too soon. Only later, from his brothers and sisters, did he hear about what part Rhaegar played in her past. It bothered him a little that his father didn't tell him those things, but didn't keep such blunt facts from his younger siblings. All he could assume was that his original stance had been correct: he shouldn't of asked to begin with, it wasn't his place.
Jon hoped Dany was more like Daeron than she was like Rhaegar. Though, he hoped she lived longer than Daeron. He almost wanted to ask her if she knew about him, could tell him something he hadn't read in any book, but decided to keep his mouth shut when everyone was present. Truce or not, the Hound's lack of love for Daenerys was more than apparent, and to invite a history lesson on her family tree could fast turn ugly.
He was fairly surprised how comfortable she seemed around the man who had threatened to behead her less than twenty four hours ago, but he guessed he'd be pretty comfortable too if he had three dragons at his side. He still could hardly believe his eyes when he looked at them, how these near-mythical creatures cuddled up to her after they were done feeding and how she pet them like one would a lapdog. One could say the same of how Jon acted with his direwolf, but at least it was still in the canine family. Dragons-- the stories of them were all ones of epic proportions, and lay stress on what destructive beasts they could be. Seeing them now, he also had a difficult time imagining them so big they could cast a shadow across whole castles that they flew over. On the other hand, after that little show in the woods, he didn't doubt they were a force to be reckoned with either.
If Dany's degree of ease around Clegane surprised him, it was Sansa's that he found totally unexpected. She had taken a seat between him and Jon, rather than on his other side as he would of thought she'd try. She was facing his burned side like this, but she seemed like she didn't even notice it the couple times she would look over to him. They didn't exchange many words, but that seemed to come more from the Hound not being the most social member of this group, than Sansa's lack of willingness. Sometimes she would glance over at him not to say anything, but just to look. Jon tried to figure that out as he ate. Was she just afraid to show that she was afraid of him? Sansa treated everyone politely, that's how she'd been raised. He imagined that trait must of been amplified in her tenfold, now that she was going to be queen. One thing Jon didn't like, how disrespectfully Clegane addressed her the few times that he did. He never used her name, much less a proper title. He wondered if that was just the Hound's rough attitude, or something else. Sansa certainly hadn't been dressed like a princess when they'd found her, something that only occurred to Jon after the initial shock of seeing her wore off. Around the campfire, nothing was said of her time in King's Landing, and he sensed that must of been one of the things she wanted to speak to him about. The time for that conversation would come soon, but for now they just got to know one another a little better. They talked mostly about the situation at hand, about John and Stephan who knew little of places and things the other four didn't think twice about, and reflected more on where it was they could possibly be. No concrete answer to that was settled upon; hopefully they wouldn't have to walk much further before they found a town.
After the campfire had dwindled to a few small flames and nearly everyone had turned in for the night, Jon went about making some new arrows. He'd emptied the last of his quiver on the elk. He had some arrowheads in a pouch around his waist, so all that was involved was refining some shafts and then to add the fletching. He was whittling some wood down with his dagger, while on the other side of the campfire, Sansa was bundling up the berries they hadn't eaten with their meal tonight, so they would have something for the road tomorrow. Besides the two of them, everyone else had gone to sleep. Catching her action out of the corner of his eye, he had to smile at the way she tied the cloth in a dainty bow at the top, so it would look nice.
"I remember when you used to make father and Robb and I lunches for the road," he said, reminiscing on days past, when the three of them would go scout Winterfell's boundaries, sometimes keeping them from returning home for a couple days. Whether it be a rumor of wildlings seen in the forest or a pack of wolves drawing too close to where everyone lived, it was their responsibility to take care of it. "You always wrapped them up nice like that," he observed. Or, you did with father's and Robb's. His had signs she'd hurried through the process so she could spend extra time on the other two. Robb's would have a couple of pieces of pine nut candy, where Jon would find some of the toughest heels of bread in his. He didn't know if he could entirely blame Sansa for that though-- he was fairly sure Catelyn helped her pack their meals. Anyway, he'd take the leftovers that came out of Winterfell's kitchen any day over what he got first pick on at the Wall. Not because it was so bad-- when they were stationed at Castle Black, and not on a ranging mission, they were all quite well fed-- but because those were meals that had a personal touch to them. It was small detail in the scheme of things, but those were the kind of memories that stood out to Jon years later, especially now that he would never return to the ones who had been his family, or the place that had been his home.