𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒, game of thrones

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jon, is that you?

Lyanna felt warmth, she felt the heat, but pain in her head like she just took a stone on the head. A warm touched met her cheek. When she opened her eyes, she saw fire, and cold breeze. She saw Bran by the tree, Hodor sat by the fire and Meera was fed the fire.

Where is Jon? Lyanna wondered, because she didn't see him. She let out a stir as her head pained.

"Lyanna?" Bran said.

Jojen sat near her head, she slowly sat up as she confusedly looked around and hoped her half brother was around. "Where's Jon?" she questioned.

Everyone went silent, no one spoke for a moment, why was her head in pain? She remembered taking a hit on the back of head when she saw Jon.

"Bran," Lyanna looked at her brother, "Where's Jon?"

Bran did not responded for a moment, then he blurted, "If he knew we were there, he wouldn't let us go, he wouldn't let me go to find the three-eyed crow, you know that"

"But this is Jon!" Lyanna exclaimed.

"This is not about Jon," Jojen told her, she glared at him, "nor you. This is about Bran" Lyanna stood up, Jojen tried to took a hold of her arm, "Slow down, you might still be in pain" he told her.

"I am!" She exclaimed, she felt lightheaded for a second, she could feel her brain pounded, "I'm fine--" she suddenly realized something, she glanced down at Jojen who glanced up back at her, "--did you hit me?"

Jojen slowly looked away, turned to the fire, "I had to" he muttered.

Lyanna wanted to yell at him, but she couldn't, she gave a frustrated sigh as she turn away at the forest, sky had been turn dark blue, she hasn't been out all night, maybe only for an hour or less.

"But you can go to Jon," Bran said. Lyanna turned around to look at him, "he might be still there, you can just go straight towards south and you'll find the Keep"

Meera had a worried look on her face, even Jojen looked as though it was a bad idea.

"Jon is still there" Bran said, "but, I don't really want you to go because I need you. I'm not going back because this is my journey, and my choice. So I've made my choice. I'm going to find to the tree-eyed crow. You want to go to Jon, we won't stop you."

I need you, he said, Lyanna thought. Bran was still only a boy, a stubborn boy who wants to make his own choices. Wish mother was here to stop him. But Lyanna was not mother. "I'm not going to Jon without you" she told him, "I hope this crow of yours is real"

*

Are we there yet?

Lyanna never said the words aloud, but they were often on her lips as their ragged company trudged through groves of ancient oaks and towering grey-green sentinels, past gloomy soldier pines and bare brown chestnut trees. She couldn't stay mad at them, but who was she mad at? Doesn't matter now, the cold was too much. How much farther? she would think, as the great elk splashed across a half-frozen stream. How much longer? It's so cold. Where is the three-eyed crow?

The snow was falling again, wet and heavy. Hodor walked with one eye frozen shut, his thick brown beard a tangle of hoarfrost, icicles drooping from the ends of his bushy mustache. One gloved hand still clutched the rusty iron longsword he had taken from the crypts below Winterfell, and from time to time he would lash out at a branch, knocking loose a spray of snow. "Hod-d-d-dor," he would mutter, his teeth chattering. The sound was strangely reassuring. On their journey from Winterfell to the Wall, Lyanna and her companions had made the miles shorter by talking and telling tales, but it was different here. Before the snows began, the north wind would swirl around them and clouds of dead brown leaves would kick up from the ground with a faint small rustling sound that reminded him of roaches scurrying in a cupboard, but now all the leaves were buried under a blanket of white. From time to time a raven would fly overhead, big black wings slapping against the cold air. Elsewise the world was silent. Just ahead, the elk wove between the snowdrifts with his head down, his huge rack of antlers crusted with ice. The ranger sat astride his broad back, grim and silent. Coldhands was the name that the fat boy Sam had given him, for though the ranger's face was pale, his hands were black and hard as iron, and cold as iron too. The rest of him was wrapped in layers of wool and boiled leather and ringmail, his features shadowed by his hooded cloak and a black woolen scarf about the lower half of his face. Behind the ranger, there's Lyanna, then Jojen. Meera Reed wrapped her arms around her brother, to shelter him from the wind and cold with the warmth of her own body, and from time to time he shivered violently. Visenya brought up the rear of their little band. The direwolf's breath frosted the forest air as he padded after them, still limping on the hind leg that had taken the arrow back at Queenscrown. Lyanna slipped into Visenya's skin once a day just to practice.