Saruman to the Valar, about Sauron:
Well, it seems I must go...
Who else but I can bring my brother back!(c) Aire and Saruman
The idea of going beyond the Wall to rescue a thief and return the dragon eggs to the daughter of Mad Arys, who was thinking of returning her father's throne and burning something in the process, was wonderfully, delightfully crazy, and it was no surprise that Cuoren the One-Armed, known as a madman on both sides of the Wall, seemed to sense it and appeared at the Black Castle a week later. With the quick wit characteristic of madmen, Queren went to the lord commander to convince him of the need to send a reconnaissance group into enemy territory to find out why all the Wildlings had gone even further north and hidden in the Frostfangs, John realized that the matter was taking a serious turn and tried to dissuade his sisters from going beyond the Wall, although he felt that they would repay him for his stubbornness.
A long time ago, a couple of months back, Arya was going to the Wall to dissuade her beloved brother from dying for his country, and even tried three times upon her arrival, not at all embarrassed by the fact that Jon had already taken the oath of a watchman: for Arya, only her family existed in the world, and she would have spat on the oath to the sinister Faceless Men for the sake of her family. The third time, Sansa and Arya came together to persuade Jon — if they weren't his sisters, he would have been awarded the Order of Steadfastness for refusing to leave with two such girls, and they had everything they needed to sway his heart.
"You're our brother, not theirs," Sansa interrupted Jon when he started telling them about the brotherhood of the Night's Watch, and Jon couldn't find the words right away: Catelyn didn't like her husband's illegitimate son, and as a child, Jon often felt that Sansa had picked up on this from her mother.
When Jon came to persuade his sisters not to go beyond the Wall, Sansa and Arya were quiet and surprisingly well-behaved, their cunning eyes modestly hidden.
"Talk to Leo," Sansa suggested. "He's a man, he makes all the decisions."
Jon took the clever deflection at face value and went to Lionel, only realising on the way that all the arguments he had planned to use on his sisters would sound insulting in a man-to-man conversation, as if he considered either Lionel or himself a coward. Jon wandered thoughtfully around the Black Castle, came up with a new line of argument, and set off to convince Lionel that the journey would be too dangerous for the girls.
"All right," Lionel agreed. "You're right. Let's go together."
John was delighted at this opportunity to protect his sisters, and he and Lionel shook hands, only then realising what he had agreed to.
"You talk to them yourself," Lionel said, who just needed another companion and had found one. "You're their brother, and Sansa and I aren't even married. Arya and I are just friends."
John swallowed the last lie easily, which pleased Lionel and suggested the right course of action for the trip.
"They said whatever you decide is fine," John tried to break out of the vicious circle.
"Arya said that?" Lionel was surprised. He himself had a hard time dealing with Arya, but for her to say something like that to someone else, even her brother, that she would listen to Lionel and do as he said? And Jon understood his surprise: indeed, Arya had never listened to anyone, so why would she listen to her sister's fiancé, like a dutiful wife listens to her husband?
"No, Sansa," John admitted.
"Go talk to Arya," Lionel suggested, and Jon was so puzzled that he didn't even notice that Lionel hadn't promised to dissuade Sansa. All his childhood, Jon had encouraged his beloved sister to break the rules, indulged all her whims, even gave her a sword when he left Winterfell — how could he now play the opposite role? Arya simply wouldn't believe him, and what's more, she might take offence...
That same night, the perplexed Jon had another dream about Uncle Benjen.
Uncle Benjen usually took care of his nephew and persuaded him to avoid combat, serve peacefully as Mormont's steward, gain wisdom and prepare to eventually take command of the Night's Watch.
"One more or one less man on the battlements won't make any difference," Benjen would say, but Jon wondered how he had ever served as a scout.
"Uncle, if everyone thinks that, there will be no scouts left in the Watch," Jon protested in his sleep.
"If everyone thinks so, then you'll be a complete fool if you think otherwise," Benjen cut off his nephew. John was not good at negotiations; he would have preferred a sword and a horse to a line of fire.
This time, however, Uncle Benjen in his dream was gloomy and stern.
"This is serious business, it's not like poking ghouls in the head or cavorting with savages in caves," said Benjen. "This is your family. Where they go, you go. It'll be fine, the ghouls can't catch you on horseback. And I'll keep an eye on you: if anything happens, Crow and I will knock any of the Others' sledges to pieces.
Jon asked his uncle to explain the Night's Watch, which was supposed to be his new family, and Benjen, who was leaving, explained.
"Did I ever tell you how I once went to the Eastern Watch instead of Winterfell?" Benjen asked."No," John replied, anticipating a good story about the send-off and how someone could get so confused.
"Right, because it never happened," Benjen replied briefly. "Did I ever tell you how the brothers of the Watch killed their lord commander?"
"Yes, I've heard five stories already," admitted Jon, Uncle Benjen had a particular fondness for this danger in his dreams. "And there was the opposite, one Night King, the thirteenth Lord Commander, what can you say.
"Exactly," Benjen confirmed. "And there's never been anything like that in Winterfell, foster children don't count. For orphans and convicts, the Night's Watch is a second chance at becoming human. But the lords don't like the men of the Watch, because the lords are in the service, while their families are at home. But where would they be without us? Almost all of them are illiterate peasants who don't even know how much fodder is needed for five hundred horses in winter.
The dream with Uncle Benjen ended abruptly and was replaced by a wolf dream in which the Ghost ran alongside Nymeria and Lady. All three vaguely sensed a future separation, which they felt was the worst of all misfortunes, but for now they were together and happy. And the future depended on Jon.
On the morning of his departure, John did not try to persuade his sisters to stay, although when the five of them gathered at the gate under the Wall, his heart ached at the sight of Arya in simple chain mail and Sansa in light armour. Lionel, like his sisters, was wearing armour that had served him well, without a coat of arms, concealing the traveller's identity on the road, while Jon himself was in a heavy black cloak, but the armour he wore was the one he had arrived in from home, with the Stark direwolf on his chest. As always, the three huge wolves were the most excited about the journey ahead. They raced through the tunnel under the Wall and burst out into the endless white expanse to which they had always belonged.
Quoren the One-Handed was simple and rough, as Lionel had discovered the day before leaving the Wall.
"The Watch takes no sides," Qoren reminded the young king. "Do you know what that means? Here on the Wall, there are no lords or kings, we don't give a damn about anyone. Out there, beyond the Wall, titles mean even less. I'm in charge of this squad.
"The campaign will tell," Lionel replied, and Queren was satisfied with his calm and bold answer.
Queren was exactly the same beyond the Wall, riding dispassionately through the abandoned villages of the Wildlings without even stopping to find out why their inhabitants had recently left. His horse trotted steadily and at a steady pace, and from a distance, Queren looked more like a machine than a man.
Arya, as always, was racing around on her horse, more likely to exhaust her horse than tire herself, and trying not to look back at Leo too often. She was most afraid that Jon would notice her glances, but it was the seemingly emotionless Queren who noticed them, John, on the other hand, soon began to ride around with Arya, and by sunset Arya had become so comfortable that she rode past Leo and slipped a blue flower that only grows beyond the Wall into his gauntlet.
"You're crazy," Leo whispered when Arya waited for him and rode up beside him. It was probably the first time he had seen Arya as a girl in love, who had said "yes" to him, and now he was worried about her.
"It's your own fault," Arya whispered to him and rode off, seemingly even sticking her tongue out at him.
Quoren's human qualities only became apparent around the campfire, when the group stopped for the night and Quoren decided to try out a song about the Others, dedicated to new recruits, on his companions.
The dead do not age, the dead do not grow,
The dead don't smoke, the dead don't drink,
Crowned sang in his hoarse, cracked voice, deliberately moving into the darkness.
The dead don't dance, the dead don't lie,
The dead don't play, the dead don't sing.**
There was no answer from the fire, not even the young men reminded him that they had already fought the dead and won, and even Cuoren, who waited a minute and took a burning ember out of the fire with his gloved hand, illuminating the calm faces of his companions, did not notice how Lionel put his hand under Aria's back, as if protecting her from the darkness.
"All right," said Quoren, either with satisfaction or annoyance. "I'm not going to jump out of the darkness to check on you, you'll cut me to pieces.
Jon had been watching Sansa all day and was gradually gaining respect for the strict upbringing of a lady of the court. At first, he thought that after a couple of hours of riding, Sansa, like any of the society ladies John had never seen, would start complaining, nagging Lionel, and by evening would be wearing him out like Jorah's wife, as the new saying in the North went. Then John remembered that Sansa had already reached the Wall, and he stopped expecting any foolish behaviour from her. But she must have been tired, unaccustomed to riding after a couple of weeks at the Black Castle, or at least feel the cold? John watched his sister until evening, waiting for her to start putting on a front and hiding behind false politeness, but Sansa behaved naturally, chatting with Leo, occasionally drinking from a flask, and throwing a knob at Arya when they rode into the forest. John, of course, didn't understand this, but next to Leo, Sansa was growing up fast, reaching out to him and changing for him. It would have been much harder for her alone. And, of course, it would have been harder for her if Leo hadn't warmed her hands with his breath during the halt and if she hadn't waited for him to climb into the tent with her under the same blanket in the evening. and even Leo didn't fully understand these changes in her: unlike John, he had already noticed when Sansa was tired and when a steel frame of will began to show through her cheerful and simple mannerisms, but now he caught Sansa in the tent, and the steel disappeared somewhere, along with her light armour and battle gauntlets, and Sansa in his arms was soft and gentle, as if he were simply going hunting and she had been dozing all day in the tent next to the brazier, wrapped in warm, fluffy skins. But they had no soft skins, no braziers, only the magical Sansa, hidden from everyone in the darkness, reaching his lips.
"Sansa, how are you behind the Wall?" Jon called out to her in the darkness, perhaps hoping to hear the familiar, childishly polite "wonderful," or maybe something more adolescent and boastful.
"I think we'll survive somehow," Sansa replied from the darkness, and laughed herself: Jon was like a little boy, as if he didn't understand that she never felt bad in the tent at night.
Unlike Jon, Qoren could picture all three of them even standing in front of the tent, and he liked these young people more and more — they were good kids, and they got along well, so there was no chance of getting bored.
"Young people!" Qhoren announced as he entered, and Sansa snorted at Lionel's neck, having already noticed that many of Qhoren's terse remarks were ambiguous and provocative. "It is our sacred duty to be a sword in the darkness, a shield that protects the people, and to stand guard around the camp in order of seniority. We'll skip the fire and light for now, they're unnecessary for young people.
Sansa considered kicking Cuoren for good measure, since he was so understanding, but Cuoren knew his place and compensated for his jokes with useful actions.
"Those who volunteered for duty today will be thanked," continued Qoren. "Tomorrow, Jon and Arya will be on duty, so lie down closer to the entrance.
"Okay," Sansa whispered to Lionel, barely audibly, if her sister wasn't sleeping nearby, they wouldn't wait for her to fall asleep.
Arya, entering the tent, climbed over John. She was still a little scared to sleep at the very entrance, beyond which lay the Enchanted Forest and the endless expanses beyond the Wall, but she tried to move closer to John and away from Qoren, whom she also feared and had not yet had time to get to know.
"Well, little sister," Jon asked her quietly, turning his head towards her, "what have you been up to that you don't want Sansa to know about?
"I kissed Leo," Arya thought and laughed quietly, much to Jon's delight, for he thought Arya was still the same as she had been. "I slept with him in his arms. And Sansa saw everything else herself: the sword, the shooting, the fighting. Better not tell Jon about that now, he'll just worry about us for nothing."
And Arya found it funny again that she now only had such girlish secrets left. Perhaps she had simply grown up.
In the morning, Sansa felt a little sorry for Jon: he carried wood because Arya was small, and he cooked porridge because Arya quickly got tired of stirring it, and if it weren't for Jon, the porridge would have burned again. John didn't mind, though; he missed his sister, and her restlessness only inspired him. Sansa noted to herself that John wasn't a strict commander; if something needed to be done well, he did it himself.
Before leaving, Lionel briefly told Qoren about the task of finding a dragon egg beyond the Wall and even tried to explain to Qoren the urgent need to steal eggs from savages, but Lionel was interrupted by laughter.
"What's the matter?" asked Qhoren, who had long suspected that the young men beyond the Wall needed more than just reconnaissance — they needed something else entirely, in many ways, including good ones. Lionel saw Qhoren smile for the first time.
"I had a dream about Khal and Illirio," Lionel confessed. "They were crossing the Narrow Sea on a raft. A limited Dothraki invasion to find out where that jackal was hiding."
Qoeren listened to the second part of the story, about backgammon, the Dothraki wedding, and the squandering of money, with even greater pleasure.
"I see you're a good scout," Qoren approved. "We'll both go on leave in gold. I remember a couple of years ago we took Joramun's horn in the mountains — Mans is still looking for him. Why? Because he rose to the rank of sergeant and ran off to become king beyond the Wall. And he's still a sergeant.
***
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