WE MIGHT FALL (J.SNOW 2)

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Jon led the way discretely out of the Great Hall, ignoring the people that attempted to make conversation with him or coax him into a round of drinking with them, while he and Cynthia made their escape. Cynthia hardly noticed where her sister was, or Sansa or any of the other Starks, on her way out, and she hardly cared enough to look back, once she reached the familiar large doors at the end of the Great Hall. The colder air, outside in the corridor, washed over the pair in a refreshing breeze, reminding them just how stuffy and hot it had grown amongst the crowds of drunken northerners. Not that they stopped in the foyer for long enough to appreciate the diminishing sound of chattering and booming laughter, or the change in temperature. In fact, Cynthia hardly felt her feet stop, as she soon was led towards the exit, with Jon determinedly leading the way out into the chill of the evening.

There was hardly a sound out in the courtyard, beyond that of the wind. Trees rustled nearby and snow swept across the ivory-coloured floor, but there was, for once, no people in sight. If there were guards on the battlements, they were clad in black and not even the torches cast enough light in the winter darkness to illuminate their figures against the midnight backdrop of the northern landscape, and any stable-hands or servants that otherwise would have been cleaning or rushing about, even at this hour, had been invited to the festivities. It must have been a first for them; no other lord or King would have invited people of such a low station to a gathering of lords and ladies, but Jon did. He had been excluded from them once upon a time, and he would not see anyone left out now that he was in charge.

They walked under the newly built terrace, which would usually creek beneath the heavy feet of soldiers stamping across it, but which now lay stable and silent in the midst of the night. And then they began to walk across the courtyard to a place which still, after so many years of being as far away from it as she could have imagined, felt as familiar to Cynthia as it did when she was last here. The stables.

She let out a laugh, her pace slowing as she neared the wooden structure and heavy-breathing figures of the few horses kept within. "How long has it been?" She sighed, wistfully, more to herself than to her company. She felt the weight of the life she had led since leaving Winterfell so long ago, welling in the pit of her stomach. Though it had only been a few years, both she and Jon had experienced so many lifetimes while apart from each other, battling to survive more than anything else. A battle each member of both families had struggled with since the day on which they separated, all that time ago.

"Too long," Jon replied in a similarly sensitive tone, his voice soft and quiet. He had stopped, and begun leaning against the wooden fence of the stable walls, his hands supporting his weight. Ghost, who Cynthia had not noticed before now, was padding circles in the snow, not far from Jon's side, his red eyes almost pitch black in the shadows of the yard. "He missed you." Jon noticed her gaze cast to her old companion, a small smile traced under his dark layers of facial hair.

Cynthia chuckled. "I missed him." She smiled back, glancing up from the large wolf to meet Jon's dark eyes again.

"You never told me how you two met." Ghost traced his large paws through the ice-covered ground, coming closer to Cynthia's side, over that of his owner. "He doesn't take kindly to most." Jon's smile didn't falter while he looked between the pair of them.

"He found me." Cynthia crouched down beside her old friend, his white fur having almost blended in with the white floor beneath them. "I'd been pick-pocketing some thugs...and got caught. Ghost showed up when they cornered me, saved my arse." Ghost pointed his nose toward her, nuzzling his head further into the palm of her hand. She could make out the crimson in his eyes from this close. She had always found him the most beautiful and majestic of the direwolves, even if black was more her colour.