frostbite || jon snow [ HIATUS ]

── 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐕𝐈

.｡❅*⋆ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐕𝐈 ⋆*❅｡.

𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐋𝐒, 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐒, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐑𝐔𝐍𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐘𝐒

𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐝

THE PASTEL HUES OF DAWN had begun to color the horizon by the time the last embers had been snuffed out. But even the sun could not chase away the fear that had clung to them all since Jon Snow and the Lord Commander had stumbled out into the darkness with dark tidings upon their lips. The dead had risen, they claimed, and though the corpses were now a charred ruin, every shadow became something to jump at, every whisper a word of ruin.

They were supposed to just be stories. The Long Night, the Others, blue-eyed death—they were tales meant to teach young boys to be fearful, passed down to appease the prophets and the fanatics. They were not supposed to be real, but the proof lay plainly before his eyes, and Cas did not know how to reconcile this new world with the one he had always known.

He had little time to dwell on it, though. Dead men in the night or not, there was always work to be done, and he and the other newly sworn brothers were put to task repairing what they could of the old tower. With every burned scrap of wood dragged away, it seemed as though the others forgot their fear. Pyp was the first to laugh, making jokes about how if he were dead, he certainly wouldn't waste his time haunting sorry saps like them, and Cas listened as the night's events faded into little more than a bad dream.

Only Jon did not join them, but Jon was the one who had seen the creature with his own two eyes, fought it off with blade and fire. Every time the others begged him to tell them what it looked like, his gaze took on a darkened cast, and he just shook his head and changed the subject. That, perhaps more than anything, frightened Cas most of all. Jon was no coward, and if the sight of the reanimated corpses had been enough to frighten even him, Cas was certain that he never wanted to see any such thing for himself.

Perhaps it was fear that drove him to push himself even harder in training, hounding some of the senior rangers into giving him lessons with the blade long past when the others had departed for the dining hall. A few of them obliged, trading with him blows and bruises, prone to teasing him about his newfound work ethic.

"And here I'd thought you one of the lazy ones," Darwyn declared, reaching out a hand to help him up.

Cas ignored it, climbing back to his feet. He said nothing in reply; he just squared his stance again, jaw set in a determined line.

No amount of skill with a sword would save him from the certain death that lay beyond the Wall, and a part of him knew that, but it was far more honorable to meet one's end fighting than to lie down and accept it quietly. The words, after all, had been ingrained in him since birth: death before dishonor. Cas would not shame himself, not again.