POPPY | A Game Of Thrones

FIFTY-SEVEN

never trust a survivor, my father
used to warn me, until you find
out what he did to stay alive.

BEING ON TOP OF THE WALL was something Jon could never get tired of and despite his change of company when Ygritte had kissed him on top of the Wall. It had been exhilarating and he felt as if he could do it again and again and again. Like he never wanted to stop kissing her. Although what goes up must come down, the world was made of terrible paradoxes and as Jon and the Free Folk made their way down the wall and back on solid ground that's when it all started to sink in.

They were still planning on attacking the wall and the rest of the north. He thought as he trudged behind the men carrying Ygritte's kill which would soon become their dinner. Thoughts of escaping corrupted Jon's mind again, of running back to Castle Black to warn them about the oncoming siege. However, as soon as he thought of Ygritte his oath to the Night's Watch seemed weaker.

"Is that a castle?" Jon looks back to see Ygritte staring at the short cylinder building of stone. He can tell just by the state of disarray it was in—plants growing out of the cracks between the stone, the wooden pieces smashed on the ground—that it had been abandoned. A piece of architecture Jon hadn't even glanced at while trudging through the rocky lands with the Free Folk.

"It's a windmill."

"Windmill." The spear wife repeats and Jon noticed the awestruck expression on her face and can't help but smile.

She was worth staying for, wasn't she? Jon thought. "In Winterfell, they have towers three times that size."

Ygritte scoffs, "Oh I'm Jon Snow and I'm from Winterfell," she mocks. "My daddy was a fancy lord and I lived in a tower that touched the clouds."

Jon sighed watching as the redhead tossed her head around, in her teasing humour. "If you're impressed by this, you'd been swooning at the sight of the Great Keep in Winterfell."

Her eyebrows furrowed and pink lips pursed, "What's swooning?"

"Fainting."

"What's fainting?"

Jon thought about it for a minute, trying to find the best words for her to understand. His mind wandering off to the fact that Hermione would've known exactly what to say. "When a girl sees blood and collapses."

"Why would a girl see blood and collapse?"

Jon shrugged, "Not all girls are like you." Except maybe one.

"Well, girls see more blood than boys." His face burned scarlet at her comment, Maybe that wasn't the best explanation he could've given her. "Or do you like girls that swoon?" Jon rolled his eyes just as Ygritte gasped and threw herself in his arms playfully. "Oh, a spider! Save me, Jon Snow, my dress is made of the purest silk from tra-la-la-la-la-le-day."

The chagrin made his face even hotter as she wiggled and laughed against his shoulder. Yet for some reason, he couldn't help but smile as well. "I'd like to see you in a silk dress." he says impulsively and when Ygritte pushed herself from his grasp, Jon almost regrets it.

"Would ya?" she questions, staring up at him with hooded eyes.

The memories from their moments in that cave came flooding back to his mind. Jon had never been the best at talking to girls, but for some reason, Ygritte made it seem almost natural. He could see it now, her slim figure in a fitting dress of green or gold. The thin material sliding against her skin, soft. Thin enough to see just the outline of her nipples.

Grabbing her by her coat, Jon pulls the girl flush against his chest and whispers. "Only so I can tear it off you."

Ygritte's blue eyes washed over Jon's face and locked on his lips for a moment before she pulls herself from his grip. "Well, you rip my pretty silk dress. I'll blacken your eye." She walks ahead of him, in the same direction of the Free Folk who have disappeared from near sight and he follows suit.

"Maybe one day I'll take you to Winterfell." Jon doesn't know what makes him say it, but he knows he wants it to be true. Knows despite common sense, that if the circumstances were different he wouldn't hesitate in bringing Ygritte to his father before asking for her hand. She wasn't a lady who cared about his bastard status or could be ruined by it. Ygritte was free and in that freedom, Jon was at peace for the first time in his life.

The wild woman stops and turns around. Her hands gripping the string of her bow, Ygritte saunters back over to Jon. "Well, maybe one day I'll take you there," she says. "After we've taken our land back."

This makes Jon's stomach turn ice cold as if he had a belly filled with snow. He watches the smile spread across Ygritte's face as she starts off again. "Ygritte," he calls pulling her attention once more. His voice is grave and heavy with truth. "You won't win. I know your people are brave no one denies that."

"You know nothin—

"Six times in the last thousand years the king beyond the wall has attacked the kingdoms," he points out. "Six times they've failed."

"H-How do you know that?"

Jon shrugs, "Every boy in the north knows it, we grow up learning it. Where the battles were fought and the heroes. Who died where. Six times you've invaded and six times you've failed. The seventh will be the same."

Ygritte has a fire raging in her eyes as her lips narrow. "Mance is different."

"You don't have the discipline," he begins to count off. "You don't have the training, your army is no army. You don't know how to fight toget—

"You don't know that!"

"I do!" he shouts back before swallow it all away. He had seen their people fight and compared to the men at Castle Black. They were no match and would all be slaughtered. "I know it! If you attack the Wall you'll die... all of you!"

Ygritte closes in on Jon her eyes analyzing him as if she found a flaw in his features she hadn't seen before. "All of us," she corrects him before grabbing his coat with both of her hands and pushing his back against a large rock. Her lips crash onto his, formidably and Jon felt so much in just one kiss before she pulled away. "You're mine as I'm yours and if we die we die," she reiterated breathlessly. "But first we'll live."

"Yes," Jon said mesmerized by her, this was the first time he had ever seen the indestructible Wildling girl lower her walls for him. The first time she had kissed him with not just passion, or lust, but need. "First we'll live."

Yet as she kissed him again with just as much demand as before, in his heart Jon already knew where his loyalties lie. What his duty asked of him to do.