CARPE NOCTEM, jon snow

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀thirty four

thirty-four. the wall

loc. greyguard, the wall. 299AC

"ARE YOU AFRAID, Carsen Sage?"

⠀⠀⠀Carsen's hands, knotting one of the many laces on her boots, stilled as she glanced up at Ygritte. The redhead lounged on a log smothered in snow, and her green eyes shimmered with amusement.

⠀⠀⠀"Of falling to my death?" Carsen returned to lacing her boots. "Should I not be?"

⠀⠀⠀Ygritte was quiet. Carsen indulged in the rarity, bathing in the other sounds so often not heard over Ygritte's constant chatter. The thuds of woodsmoak, the laboured grunts of wildlings hauling heavy loads, the bite of steel-on-steel as men and women alike sparred. Not that Carsen didn't enjoy hearing Ygritte talk. She had a nice voice—the Northern drawl with that sandpaper twist of the rough wildling tongue, but there was something oddly calming about the tones the redhead used, the way her thin tongue drew words in the air.

⠀⠀⠀Carsen deftly knotted up her laces and looked up again. Ygritte was still watching her, those green eyes burning straight through Carsen's mask of nonchalance.

⠀⠀⠀"You don't 'ave to be afraid," the redhead said softly.

⠀⠀⠀"Are you?" Carsen returned curiously. Fear didn't seem to be in Ygritte's vocabulary, but there was a look Carsen had never seen before flitting across the wildling's eyes when she glanced at the Wall. A hulking slab of ice, glittering palely in the white sun, shrouded by a thin, pearly mist like a breath in a frozen air. Carsen shivered.

⠀⠀⠀The Wall is bathed in ghosts, whispered a voice in her head. But you are not one of them.

⠀⠀⠀"I dunno," Ygritte mumbled. "It's an 'ell of a climb. But I've waited all my life to see the world from up there." Her head snapped to meet Carsen's gaze, and her eyes glittered greenly. "What's it like, Carsen Sage?"

⠀⠀⠀Carsen blinked. "It's...beautiful. You can see every vein of the North up there. The black trees, the snow, the rivers like glass cutting through all the rest." Her fingers absently traced patterns in the snow as she talked. "You're as high as the clouds, or almost. At night, you're so close to the stars you could reach up and touch them. At day, when the white sun shines, it's as cold a feeling as ever but...standing up there, it's like...like all your troubles have fled. Like you stand on top of them, where nothing, not even the birds, can reach you." She swallowed and shook her head abruptly. "You'll love it," she said haltingly to Ygritte.

⠀⠀⠀The wildling's eyes were cloudy with something that looked like awe. "You don't belong 'ere, you know that, Carsen Sage?" the redhead said softly. "The way you talk...you should be up there with them gods, sleepin' on clouds an' bathin' in the dreams of the lesser men."