the world keeps turning (it's us that just stands still)

13

According to the stories, the end of the world looked a little bit like this:

Daenerys on her dragon, Drogon, turning and twisting around the spikes of white hot fire that were being hurled at them, out ahead of the front lines where there were only the white walkers, only a sea of dead things, and the men could not hear her but they knew what she had said, had known it from other times they had fought with her, could hear it in their ears like a memory or a premonition, like a fever dream- Burn, burn, burn them all.

The white walkers pressing in on them, a whole walking, writhing mass of them, running and leaping and limping and crawling, how they wouldn't die, how you would have to hack them into pieces so they stayed down, that even when they were cut apart they would still try to get to you, rotten hands reaching out on the ground to pull themselves forward inch by inch even though they could not stand with half their body blown away, how even though they were dead when you killed them they screamed like real men, that when they touched you your skin froze, burned cold and then hot, turned pale and blue and then to a black, like frost bite but not, because with frost bite the feeling went away but the marks they left hurt so bad you would have thought the skin was burning away from your bones, hurt so bad you wanted to check- and some of the men did check, they did, screamed something nonsensical and dropped their weapons, ripped off their gloves or their cloaks or their boots and just stared at the handprint or teeth marks that had been branded black into their skin and just when the relief passed over their faces the white walkers would get them, grab them, rip them apart limb from limb or tear into their stomachs, and there were always men that lost their minds in the heat of battle, got so scared they forgot where they were, but none of those men ever had to face a death like that. It was not, everyone agreed later, a good way to go.

And Jon, Jon moving forward through it all with Longclaw in his hand, his honor guard around him and Ghost out in front, pressing forward, always forward, moving on even when one of them fell, and the men were under orders to clear a path for him, to clear a path for Jon Snow because he was the only one who could end it. When Sansa heard what he was going to do she had screamed, screamed and begged him not to, but the Red Woman had only smiled, smiled and touched her with a hand so hot it felt like it really was on fire and told her that the Lord of Light wills it, that his will must be done, that the visions were true, and in the night, Jon went forward to meet the Night King with nothing but a sword in hand and Daenerys' fire to light his path, the men around him being picked off one by one- Davos split in half by the swing of a sword that no one saw coming, Tormund grabbed around the middle and yanked backwards, their screams loud and climbing but eventually swallowed by the wind.

Jon alone, eventually.

Jon kicking his way through the rubble, sending the whitewalkers that scuttle towards him exploding into ash with nothing but a wave of his sword. Jon right where he started, alone with Ghost at his side, his fur wet and dark and matted with blood. Jon going to die.

Jon standing in front of the King of the Dead, yanking off his cloak so it fell to the ground and gets snatched away by the storm, the blood smeared over his face and Ghost laid low at his side, snarling, teeth bared, red eyes bright in the darkness, and the King of the Dead leaping down from his horse with enough force that the men leagues behind them felt the ground shake, yanking his sword from the scabbard, three feet of ice sharpened to a point. Jon taking the first step, the first swing, getting knocked back into the ground, having to roll, blinded, his eyes filled with snow, fingers half frozen and fumbling, getting to a knee and then his feet just as the sword slams into the earth beside him, again and again and again, the two of them whirling out in front, one dark and one light, the King of the Dead's hands groping, reaching, his eyes a bright blue as he takes a hold of Jon by the neck, and Jon grabbing onto Longclaw one last time, driving it up, up, up- right into the place where the King's heart should have been.