A Promise

A Promise

And the final one stepped forward through the frowning men. The boy, Oli. His green eyed blazed with rage but were weighted with pain. Jon’s hands were warm under the coat of blood spilling from the slices in his stomach. He had never known such warmth as blood pouring from his body. Oli’s expression kept changing and wavering. Anger, pain, doubt. Anger, pain, doubt. Doubt. Doubt. Anger. Their gazes met with friction. With a restrained cry, Oli thrusted his dagger into Jon’s stomach. Jon gave a final choke into the night before collapsing back into the Snow. Jon breathed as the stars stared down at him. He saw no men or boys or direwolves or Red Women or frozen dead. Jon knew only the stars. On the frigid ground, he watched the air exit his barely pumping lungs. I’ve never been so tired, Jon thought, or maybe I’ve always been so tired. He took a breath and exhaled his whole life. Jon had gone before the condensation dissipated. 

“Jon.”

Jon opened his eyes to a familiar scene. There was no pain. Pain was so absent that Jon realized the pains he had been feeling for years he forgot hadn’t always been there. He was under the Weirwood tree of Winterfell. The pool reflected the pale, tangling limbs and blood red leaves that shaded the lush undergrowth. Sunlight fell through the treetops in sabers of gold. It was the beginning of the long summer. Jon could smell the day he was told the meaning of his name: Snow. Recalling the scene between him and his father, Jon thought there was really no need in introducing him to his lifelong branding as the bastard child of Ned Stark. He always knew in some way. It was in everything the people of Winterfell did. It was with every lingering scowl from Catelyn. It was in every pitiful gaze from Maester Luwin. It was in every word unsaid from Uncle Benjen. No one had to tell the child that he didn’t belong. It was no revelation. The scene was so memorable to Jon because he had never had so many words from his father directed at him. His father, Jon had learned, had a way of making men feel like they were the only ones in the world. Jon remembered that there was no hardness in his father’s face that day. It was something like pain and pride in his eyes. 

Jon knew before he looked to his right that his father had come to him. Jon’s father moved aside a low hanging branch to join Jon in the clearing. His face wasn’t younger than before, but bright in the way that he no longer knew coldness or pain. His hair was longer, past his shoulders, partly pulled back from his face in the way Catelyn always tied it. He was dressed to his comfort. A light tunic revealed the toned strength Jon thought his father would never regain. Ned Stark was beautiful in the way that noble men are. He held his head high and his jaw tight, but his eyes were smiling for his son. Even in death, Ned never let his family see him cry.

“My son.”

Jon fell into his father and wept. Ned embraced his son and let him fall apart. It was hours. It was seconds. A lifetime, a blink that the two men held each other. When they broke their embrace, they laughed. They laughed for pain and mortality. Ned’s blue eyes smiled in the way that they always did. Jon opened his mouth wide to howl at the sky. 

“Father, we’ve died. We’ve died and we are home” said Jon.

“I made you a promise” said Ned.

“Yes. I suppose you did” Jon said as he walked towards the pool, “Who is my mother?”

“Jon, the ice and fire lives in you. You must choose your fate” Ned said to Jon’s reflection below. Jon silently thought that he never saw the resemblance between the two of them. The eyes were similar maybe.

“Father, I think I’ve already come to my fate” Jon said with a lighthearted laugh. His father looked to him with a hard expression now. 

“It is not done” Ned said sternly. 

Dread crept into Jon’s chest as he felt a chill pricking the muscles of his back. He realized he was content with death. Not just content, but glad in it. He felt the warmth slip from every inch of him. He looked to Ned to find a face hard with pain but bright with a tight grin. The father and son locked palms and eyes as the world grew gray around them. The cold was relentless, sucking the happiness from the moments before. Jon tried all he could to hold tight to his father and to death. The sun had disappeared, and the bitter wind lashed at them.

“My son, now is not your time. The North lives in your soul, Aegon” Ned said over the howling of the wind. Jon’s face contorted in confusion and horror as his father tore their hands apart. The wind screamed hellishly as the numbing cold returned to Jon’s bones. Suddenly there was nothing but darkness. Jon was too cold to think. Too cold to feel. Darkness filled his entire form and stayed there.

         John awoke to a violent, painful gasp of frozen air. The familiar grey was around him and he knew that he had not held onto death tight enough. The cold in his bones never left him and he longed for the warmth of blood. His blood held no such warmth now. The Red Woman and Davos startled from across the room and then froze in shock. They came to either side of him and draped his shoulders with cloth. It did nothing to warm him. Ghost was at his side, as if Jon never really left at all. The Direwolf’s eyes were as red as the leaves from the Weirwood tree, as red as the blood that poured from Jon. 

“Jon Snow,” said the Red Woman “What did you see? Did you see the light?”

“Tell me boy! Was there anything after?” Davos urged.

“No” said Jon “There was nothing after. Just darkness.”