CARPE NOCTEM, jon snow

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀twenty seven

twenty-seven. kissed by fire

loc. skirling pass, beyond the wall. 299AC

⠀⠀⠀SHE SHOULD HAVE taken her when she'd had the chance. That's what Ygritte had said.

⠀⠀⠀ Maybe fucking so, she found herself thinking bitterly, and then wondered if there were any more ways to break her vows. Secretly being a woman was likely on the top of that list, but laying with a wildling woman was likely a close second. Or maybe that spot was already taking by murdering a fellow brother. She found she didn't care to dwell.

⠀⠀⠀It had happened very quickly. Carsen knew from experience it took very little to get Jon riled up, and for a short time, Ygritte had surpassed her brazen hints at Carsen and directed them at Jon instead. It made him flustered, then frustrated, which clouded his head, however momentarily. And then the rope was yanked from between his hands, and the redhead was running for the hills.

⠀⠀⠀In their shock, it took Jon and Carsen a second to start after her. They ran through the snow, chasing Ygritte over ice and hill, before her flaming hair disappeared from sight. Carsen slowed to a halt, panting, as Jon whirled round in circles, his grey eyes scanning the white landscape for that mop of stark, red head, but the wildling was gone.

⠀⠀⠀"It's no use, Jon," Carsen called after several moments. "She knows the wilderness far better than us. We'll never find her if she doesn't want us to."

⠀⠀⠀"Right again, she-crow," called a voice from somewhere above her. Carsen'd gaze snapped up to the lip of a cliff, where Ygritte herself peered down, smirking. "You should've taken me when you had the chance."

⠀⠀⠀Carsen frowned at the redhead, but then, at the tap on her arm, looked back down, and felt her jaw drift open. Wildlings, at least forty of them, flanked the hills, clad in furs and hides and bearing spears and bows and roughly-hewn steel swords. Carsen subconsciously grabbed Jon's wrist, searching for something to anchor her mounting panic, and almost started when Jon shook her grip from his wrist and interlaced his hand with hers. His fingertips sent a wave of warmth through Carsen, but she dared not tear her eyes away from the wildlings for fear the arrows would start flying. However, her hand reacted, squeezing Jon's tightly as she swallowed in anticipation.

⠀⠀⠀And now here she walked, wrists bound, stripped of weapons and dignity as she stumbled after Jon in a sort of wildling procession, a single-file line with a spear at her back, herded along like cattle to a bloodhouse.

⠀⠀⠀She knew where they were going, but knowledge was torture. She knew Mance Rayder the turncloak awaited them at the end of their path. She knew her life would end soon. With a sick lurch of fear, she realised they'd burn her body afterwards. She'd becoming nothing but ash—just like Roahn. A fate she fought so hard to escape... all for naught, now.

⠀⠀⠀Carsen found herself distracted by Ygritte's hair.

⠀⠀⠀It was so bright—kissed by fire, the wildlings called redheads, and Carsen could see it too. Flaming lips brought down on a naked, pale scalp, and hair erupting like an inferno, coiling like copper around ears, burning a hot patent to green eyes and dark lips and freckles to scatter smooth skin.

⠀⠀⠀"What will old master crow sir say when I tell 'im about you and me?" Ygritte was walking backwards, and her eyes, alight with a mischief Carsen had grown to be wary of, were locked on her.

⠀⠀⠀"What about you and me?" Carsen snapped, glaring at the redhead with something that wasn't quite loathing.

⠀⠀⠀"Oh, you know. What happened when we laid down next to each other," Ygritte smirked. Her voice, sandpaper rough, had a drawl to it that sounded almost seductive.

⠀⠀⠀"You mean when I went to sleep?"

⠀⠀⠀"No. I meant before that. When my 'and trailed over your front and you started choking on your shock when my fingers reached down your crow leggings and—"

⠀⠀⠀Jon, silent until now, yanked the rope so violently Ygritte almost toppled. "Shut up," he growled, and the redhead's pale brows tipped, her smirk returning.

⠀⠀⠀"Ooh. Or maybe mister I-swore-an-oath-that-made-my-cock-as-useless-as-a-stick crow man over here wishes it was 'im feeling the heat between the girl crow's legs," Ygritte giggled. "Maybe tha's what he was thinkin' about that night when the she-crow was moaning into the snow—"

⠀⠀⠀This time when Jon pulled the rope, face scarlet, Ygritte pulled it back harder—Jon fell into the snow, and the rope slithered out from his fists like a snake, and Ygritte was running, streaking like a fox over the white lands.

⠀⠀⠀Carsen went sprinting after her, but she already knew it was useless. Ygritte lived with the wilderness in her veins, and Carsen felt unsure of every step she took. In no time at all, Ygritte's red hair had disappeared over the lip of a small hill carved white against the grey horizon. But even as she climbed after her, a chill shivered through Carsen, as if her blood had been replaced by the winter sea.

⠀⠀⠀Eyes. She felt eyes. Hundreds of them.

⠀⠀⠀Her foot caught; on a rock, a hole, she didn't know. All she knew was falling, a violent fall that ended with her flat on her back, feeling the cold seep through her clothes, feeling her wound ache like the hells were raging inside the stitches.

⠀⠀⠀The hand that pulled her up was the only warm thing Carsen knew.

⠀⠀⠀Jon grunted as he yanked Carsen to her feet. For the briefest second, their gazes met, and his irises weren't full of cold. They were the pools of silver she had grown to endear, glittering with all the shielded parts of himself, the parts she saw before he found out, and everything was fucked.

⠀⠀⠀And then he was turning, his eyes scraping every inch of white land for the wildling girl, but all Carsen saw around her was grey and white, colours Ygritte's beautiful hair put to shame.

⠀⠀⠀"It's no use, Jon," Carsen called. "She knows the wilderness far better than us. We'll never find her if she doesn't want us to."

⠀⠀⠀"Right again, she-crow." It was her, and no mistake—Carsen's head snapped up to where Ygritte's voice, rough Northern with that twist of something glassy and cold echoed overhead. Her head peered over the lip of a cliff, smiling that ever-present smile. She winked down at the both of them. "You shoulda laid with me when you had the chance."

Which of them was she talking to, anyway?

⠀⠀⠀