Falling Like || Jon Snow

16| 𝔱𝔯𝔦𝔞𝔩𝔰

castle black, the wall

— BEFORE LONG, JON WAS BACK ON HIS FEET, FOR WHICH NYMERIA WAS GRATEFUL. Despite her complete and utter resolve to keep him from dying, Maester Aemon's doubts had worried her, niggled away at her sureness.

When she was summoned to the Hall and met with the whole rest of the council there, she knew what it was about. She knew that anywhere from a few minutes to a few seconds from now, Jon would walk through those doors next, and Alliser would begin questioning him mercilessly. Feeling no need to sit with the rest of them, she instead sat upon one of the long tables, her boots on the bench and her forearms resting on her legs.

"Are you sure you are prepared to speak on behalf of Lord Commander Mormont?" He asked after a beat of silence, his doubt evident in his tone. "Even if it means not favouring the boy?"

"I am not a child, Ser Alliser." she replied flatly. "I know what I vowed to do. I do not intend to stray from my grandfather's will."

°

"So you admit you murdered Qhorin Halfhand?" Nymeria wanted to groan at the question. Every one of them was carefully structured in an attempt to incriminate Jon in any way possible. She kept her cool.

"I didn't murder him."

"No? You put your sword through a brother of the Night's Watch. What do you call that?"

"He wanted me to kill him." Thorne chuckled incredulously at Jon's words.

"A bastard son of a traitor. What would you expect?" Janos Slynt was new to the Night's Watch from King's Landing, unfamiliar to Nymeria when she'd returned. In a short time, he'd earned more hatred from her than even Thorne.

"Hold your tongue, Slynt." She shot him a look. "You've not spent long at the Wall. I'll remind you that we are not our fathers here."

"Otherwise you'd be a slaver." he snapped back.

Her gaze was cold and even. "Yes. And you would be nothing." His ears and cheeks turned red at that, but he held his tongue. Despite his age, she was still senior to him here in rank, and he was apparently at least wise enough to know he wouldn't get away with whatever it was he wanted to say. "Continue, Jon."

He nodded. "The Halfhand believed our only chance to stop Mance was to get a man inside his army."

"Don't talk about the Halfhand as if you knew him." Alliser glared. "He was my brother."

"Then you'd know he'd do anything to defend the Wall. The Free Folk would've boiled him alive, but letting me kill him-"

"The Free Folk?" Slynt interrupted again. "Listen to him. He even talks like a wildling now-"

"Aye, I talk like a wildling!" Jon snapped. "I ate with the wildlings! I climbed the Wall with the wildlings! I-" His tongue seemed to freeze in his mouth. His eyes remained fixated on the council table. He couldn't bear to look at Nymeria, though he wasn't quite sure why. "I lay with a wildling girl." Heavy silence fell. Darkness crept into the pit of Nymeria's stomach. She felt more a fool than ever. That's it, then. She did not look at Jon, even when his eyes flickered briefly to her.

"You admit to breaking your vows then?" Slynt demanded.

"I do."

"The law is the law. The boy must die."

"Janos Slynt, the next time you interrupt this council, I'll cut your tongue from your head." Jon swallowed. He'd never heard Nymeria talk that way before. Never heard her tone so icy, so deadly calm, like the quiet before the storm. Her eyes lay intensely on the man, and when he opened his mouth, she nodded, her voice low and dark. "Go on."