Two steps.
Three steps.
Four steps...
And the ice cracked even further.
"Maron..." the child's cry, weak and miserable, echoed between sobs. "Are you still there?... I'm scared..."
Five steps.
The ice began to crack...
Winter always got what it wanted.
And this time... it wanted the wolf pup.
There was Jon.
A bastard of the snow.
A pup with no mother, no future... nothing.
Walking on the cold slabs beyond the Wall, in the Frostfangs.
Four years.
That was it.
Just four years...
And he took a sixth step.
The ground broke.
"...I want... Daddy," he sobbed one last time, before the world opened up beneath his feet. "Ah!"
The boy screamed as he fell into the icy black waters.
The ice shattered, and the cold enveloped him like a monster with invisible teeth.
The waters of the Fangs embraced him.
A cold, violent, soulless embrace.
"Daddy!" Jon cried, forcing his head out, kicking desperately.
Fear of death.
Fear of being alone.
Each kick was another fraction of hope, a useless cry in the white vastness.
But... who would save him?
A child without a mother.
A child with nothing.
Jon continued crying until his body stopped responding.
He felt a tug, as if something enormous and cruel was pulling him into the depths.
Darkness.
Pain.
Freezing water.
He screamed.
He kicked.
No one came.
Then, with the last bit of his strength, he clutched a rim of thick ice and poked his head out.
He breathed. He coughed. He screamed.
"Maron! Maron! Alex!...
Help me!
I don't want this...
It's so cold!
I don't like it...
"Please..."
Tears fell as his small hand gripped the edge.
Every erratic movement brought him closer to the final fall.
The edge was sharp, and tiny drops of blood began to stain the whiteness.
And soon after, Jon sank.
That was it.
Nothing more.
No one came to save him.
There was no beautiful song.
No one spoke.
Jon kicked.
And kept kicking.
His lungs filled with water.
His screams only stole what little air he had left.
But it didn't matter anymore.
Jon was leaving.
Jon was crying underwater.
The bubbles were rising...
Each plea was another millisecond lost.
Each roar of mercy, another bubble of life.
Seven steps.
Eight steps...
And the boy stopped kicking.
Jon stopped moving.
His lungs... completely full.
That was it.
Soft.
Perfect.
Beautiful.
The way it was always meant to be.
The way everything was meant to be.
Jon didn't feel the same.
...
"It doesn't hurt you to be a bastard, Jon..."
It hurts you to agree with them.
It hurts you to accept that you'll never amount to anything.
Jon's eyes widened in fury.
The four-year-old cub kicked.
He roared.
His lungs tried to expel the water.
He was going to live.
Screw them all.
Screw Lord Stark.
His fucking wife.
...Robb.
Maybe not him.
Jon roared and fought.
And then he heard the voice.
"So much for nothing... When you're so close to being something..."
Look beyond your fears, Jon.
Look where no one would look.
And the boy went still.
His eyes, cold in the water.
He wasn't breathing.
But he didn't need to anymore.
He was dead.
"Down, Jon... slowly... down."
Look where no one would look.
"Look at me... look at me... look at me... find me..."
The bastard's eyes bulged with veins.
Jon clutched his face between sobs.
His lungs ached.
His eyes burned.
"Look where no one wants to look, Jon..."
The treasure is beneath us.
Your future... Snow.
Jon descended into madness.
His body wouldn't obey.
Or maybe it did...
But he wanted to say no.
Every movement hurt.
He'd been underwater for over six minutes now.
And he was still alive.
Every second was unnatural.
Every moment, hell.
What for?
Jon just cried while his eyes bled underwater.
That was the price of being a motherless child.
That was it.
"Never forget who you are, Jon..."
And Jon cried again.
And he kicked.
In pain.
All for...
All for nothing...
All for...
White.
It shone.
"You found us, Jon...
You saved us."
Valyrian steel throbbed.
White.
Cold.
Lethal.
The drowned bastard closed his fingers over him.
The Dark Sister... returned to her rightful owner.
"You're ours, Jon."
Now... up.
With that command, Jon silently kicked.
His eyes bled.
His veins swelled.
And then, from the same hole from which he fell...
The frozen waters pulsed and trembled, Jon Snow's arm emerged.
And with a strength impossible for a child...
He clung to the ice.
And he came out.
Winter had lost.
Jon didn't belong to the cold.
Nor to death.
He belonged to his mind.
To Nothingness.
.
Three hundred and two paces.
The white wind whipped at Jon's bones.
Three hundred and three paces.
The motherless wolf.
Three hundred and four paces.
The fireless bastard.
His feet dragged on the ice.
His fingers bled, cut by the edge he wouldn't let go.
Dark Sister weighed more with every step...
But Jon wouldn't let go.
Too innocent and foolish to grasp it by the handle, he only thought one thing...
She was his.
The only thing he had.
Until his vision blurred.
Until the world fell to its knees with him.
And when he fell... he didn't fall to the ground.
He fell into the arms of something no one else could see.
Maron.
"Go on, Jon... go on, my tender child."
A faceless specter.
A soulless shadow.
A voice buried in his mind.
The creature held him.
It stroked his tangled hair.
And gently, with the same tenderness with which one lights a candle before extinguishing it...
...it began to sing.
Three hundred and five paces... from there... it was warm
Long, long ago...
I went searching for berries...
[A white Orgo wolf cub crawled slowly over the branches of a dead tree]
Within the darkness, cold and silent...
Jon didn't understand the words.
But he didn't need to understand.
[The wolf cub slipped from the branches before the boy's eyes, and clutched the branches with its small jaws, desperate to live]
His body trembled.
His eyes were brimming.
The voice was everything.
It was mother, it was enemy.
It was cradle, it was blade.
'Hello, lost child...
Come quench your thirst...
[The cub clung and kicked, until its small teeth broke, and it managed to get up, blood in its small jaws]
And drink this pint to bring you joy...'
The hug didn't hurt.
But it didn't comfort either.
It was like sleeping knowing you'll never wake up the same as you were before.
'Come, child,'
said the Dark Weaver.
'I give you this dress...
to warm yourself, a perfect fit...'
And while the child wept without tears,
[He staggered in misery on the dead branches]
As he dragged his treasure over the snow...
[He dragged a bird carcass toward his lair]
The ghost continued.
Singing.
Singing to bid farewell to what was left of him.
[The cub Moria, and Jon beside him]
To cuddle the innocent forever, forever.
'Hello, my tears...
Because of you, I am who I am...
Hello, Sorrow...
Because of you, I am who I am...
With slow, cold steps, Jon Snow, a bastard child, crossed the white night with miserable steps.
And with each step, the Wall loomed ever larger before him, each step a second longer.
[While, with wretched, painful steps, the hollow wolf opened its jaws, and with a moan of pain, through its shattered teeth... it devoured him... and grew]
Something was embracing the boy, the wolf... he... felt so alone... so miserable, so... unique.
...
Benjen everywhere, he was lost, no... they took him away, Robb wanted to see the wall. Ned entrusted his sons' lives to him... and he lost the youngest. The wildlings had attacked suddenly, and they took the boy. When the wet little fish cried for the wolf, Benjen didn't think like a Night's Watchman, like a man sworn by honor, only like a scared uncle. Immediately after the kidnapping, he ordered an assault. And with Mormort wounded and out of action, no one complained about his words. Aliser Thorne seemed tough at first, but a punch and a dagger to his throat reminded him that he was still second in command.
Almost eight hours had passed since the attack, and his brother had already learned what had happened. It was lucky for Ned to be on the Revelry, ready to take his sons back.
Benjen would give them to them, both of them, and never let them near the wall again.
When the cavalry was ready, one hundred and fifty scouts were ready for the assault, ready to recover the lost and avenge the assault of the wildlings. The gates of the wall were opened at midnight and...
—Long, long ago...
I went searching for berries...
The world fell silent.
Within the darkness, cold and silent...
With cold and miserable steps, the night was conceived with an angelic and childish voice, before the eyes of men.
'Hello, lost child...
Come quench your thirst...
The puppy dragged itself along, its tiny paws covered in blood, four years of misery, and it was dragging something with it... No one paid attention to it. Benjen instinctively dismounted, running toward his nephew.
And drink this pint to bring you joy...'
—Jon! Jon! Benjen dragged himself through the great mounds of snow toward his nephew.
'Come, child,'
said the Dark Weaver.
'I give you this dress...
to warm yourself, a perfect fit...'
The guards stepped back, stunned and stupefied by the infant's demonic and beautiful singing, which dragged itself towards Benjen Stark....
Benjen rushed over and hugged his nephew, almost bursting into tears as he kissed his forehead, checking his wounds, while the bastard shook his head from side to side, singing the eerie and beautiful song with his eyes closed, the sword he was carrying flashing in his name.
"Jon...? What is... that...?"
.
"I'm back home.... Uncle Benjen.... Look what I found.... sniff... Snik," the bastard sobbed with joy, holding out his trophy. I... I... want to go home...
Before everyone, the bastard's eyes bled, as he held out an iron sword like a trophy. He wounded a Valkyrie... no one knew where the bastard got such a treasure... everyone... except for one dishonored knight... Who, seeing the eyes... Of the child. Violet... With a touch of gray... He just laughed silently... A sword for a king... a knife for a child
A sister... A dark one... For a lonely dragon
Thorne understood... The sword did nothing but return before its king... No one ever saw the grim smile form behind the bastard, no one saw the red eyes that throbbed with emotion... and that every second...
A monster grew...
A child died...
A king grew...
And a bastard left.