i was following the pack all swallowed in their coats

[tooktheblack]

WHO: Jon Snow
WHERE: Woods, village, along the road
WHEN: 4 November, before Finnick's post
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: None at this time.
STATUS: open.

---

The weather had turned sharply cold in the last fornight or so and ever since Sansa's arrival, the winds had been bitter and snow had fallen. It had melted quickly, as autumn snow often did, but there was no denying that winter would soon be on its heels. Jon had been hunting and preserving as much as he could since he'd arrived but now, with the bite in the air a sharp reminder of just how ill-prepared they were in some ways, his need was a little more urgent. He spent longer in the woods hunting each day, fighting the low light to bring back everything he could. He gathered berries and herbs, knowing that the green things would be hard to find once the snows fell thick.

Winter is Coming. Those had always been the words of House Stark, understood by few outside of the family and none outside of the North and here in this place, Jon thought he might have found some that could understand it. They would all need to work together in order to survive this winter, however long it ended up lasting, and while he knew that he, Ygritte, Robb and Sansa could make it through relatively unscathed he worried for the others. What did they know about a harsh winter, about snows that did not break? What did they know about how to survive when the sun barely rose above the horizon for days on end, when you rose in the dark and went to bed in the dark and the only light was from the fire crackling and popping in the night? What did they know?

It was not as cold here as it was at the Wall by any means and not even as cold as it could get at Winterfell in the summer and autumn and, yet, Jon was worried. He did not know if their clothing would carry them through, if it would be warm enough, and not everyone was as lucky as he to have someone to share their bed and keep them warm. Today, he'd spent long hours in the woods and was coming back to the village with less game than he'd like; he would clean it and give it over to Kate to cook and hope that he'd do better later. It would have to be better later.

As he walked, snow began to fall from the sky, the light flakes bright against the dark of his hair. They melted almost as soon as they touched him but, still, given how heavy and gray the sky was and the way the wind had turned, there was a chance they were in for yet another storm. Jon tucked his head down and walked a little faster, trying to make it to the Inn and then back to the house before the true snow began.

Comments

[tooktheblack]

"No idea. Where I grew up, in Winterfell, we had glass gardens," Jon said, thinking of how they used to be chased out of them by Maester Luwin at every chance. He hadn't wanted any of the plants to be ruined because it was important; Jon knew just how important it was now.

"It's an expensive thing, glass. Surprised we even have a bit of it here."

[womanofvalue]

"Glass gardens?" Peggy echoes, trying to imagine it in her head. "The plants aren't made of glass, right?" she asks, wondering if she sounds as stupid as she imagines she does to be asking that question. "From what I can recall, glass isn't a precious commodity, not if you know how to make it. I believe it's just a matter of heat and pressure, but I'm no expert." The boys might've known better, especially Dernier and Falsworth and their love of things going boom.

[tooktheblack]

"No, it's just the building's made of glass. It uses the sun to make it warm even in the middle of winter," Jon explained. It was a word that he had always known, having been at Winterfell, but perhaps it was something Peggy didn't know from her own home.

"Have you ever seen one of those? Do they have them where you come from?"

[womanofvalue]

"Yes, we've those," she agrees, oddly relieved to hear that it's a normal thing. Strangely, she's now worked herself into this place where she doesn't know what to believe anymore given that people are here from space and the future and all sorts of mad concepts. "I keep expecting to be surprised at every turn. It's made me strange."

[tooktheblack]

Jon laughed a little and nodded. He, too, had grown used to being shocked by everything and sharing something in common, even something so simple as a glass garden, brought a sense of familiarity and relief. He was glad that she, too, understood something about his home.

"We need one here, especially if the winters are as dark as they are cold."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy's hardly looking forward to another bleak winter, seeing as it's not something that she ever liked back home. In New York, the tall buildings seemed to compound the issue and make it seem darker than ever, with the lack of green or sun around. "Do you think we could actually build it? At some point, if too many people show up, we're not going to have a place for them to live, we'll have robbed them clean of all their supplies."

[tooktheblack]

"If too many show, we will have problems feeding them all. I would rather have to share my house than share my food," Jon pointed out.

The houses were spacious enough to him, even considering he'd grown up in one of the larger castles in Westeros. They were no mean accommodations and if they had to beggar from the other houses to make their lives more comfortable in the short term, Jon was willing to make that choice.

"I'm sure some of the others would feel the same."

[womanofvalue]

"That's a very good point," Peggy agrees, feeling a bit unmoored, yet, as she thinks about how many more people would be more mouths to feed and would require them to go on rationing. It would be like the war all over again and Peggy's been so happy to be able to draw herself away from that life. "If you need any help, give me a shout," she says, already deciding. "I imagine that if we do run into a winter, it might even be a nice thing to do through the cold days."

Better than sitting inside a house going stir-crazy and mad without anything to do.

[tooktheblack]

"It would be warmer, I think, and less lonely. The winters can be dark and cold," Jon said, nodding in agreement. He didn't remember his first winter very well, having been fairly young, but he hoped that the winters here in this place didn't last as long as the ones in the Seven Kingdoms; they did not have nearly enough food stored for a years-long winter.

"I don't know if our crops will be enough for this winter but I hope we will have something to carry us through. I fear there won't be enough left even for the animals to graze if it lasts long. We may be doing them a mercy to hunt them."

[womanofvalue]

"I've several plants that I potted inside," Peggy admits, because while she had given up ninety percent of the seedlings to the main crops, she had kept some for herself in order to see if she could do it. "They're beginning to sprout a little, but sprouts aren't going to feed me come the winter and I'm not sure how much they're going to feed me, especially when the water is harder to get."

Wearily, she gives Jon a smile. "I don't suppose you think we can build an aqueduct before winter?"

[tooktheblack]

"Aqueduct? I'm not sure that I know the word," Jon admitted. He hated having a lapse in knowledge, as it were, but he'd found that sometimes his words for things were slightly different than the words others used for them. Glass gardens, after all, had been called something different in Peggy's world.

"What's it do? We might have it in the Seven Kingdoms and I only know it by another name."

[womanofvalue]

"It brings water from where it is to where you need it," she explains, happy to talk about something that would improve their lives. "The Romans used it to carry water over large distances, using gravity," she says. "If we could manage to do the same, I imagine it would make all of our lives a great deal easier."

And truthfully, with an approaching winter, she's more than eager for anything that will do that for them.

[tooktheblack]

"I think I know what you mean. We don't have anything like that at Winterfell or at Castle Black but I believe they might at King's Landing or at Oldtown," Jon said.

"It would be something to ask Margaery about, I think. I've never been south of Winterfell. She's been to the big cities in the south of Westeros, she might know about such a thing."

[womanofvalue]

"If we had some clever engineers, it would be quite easy, I think," Peggy says, thinking of Dernier and of Falsworth and the ingenuity of the two men that she's sure could accomplish anything, given the challenge. When the war had ended, she missed the boys' company, of course, but at least she could still visit and even work with them on missions. Here? Here, she has people, but they're not her Howling Commandos. "Perhaps we can all band together and figure something out. Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to get the water from the springs to our homes?" At least, to figure out the plumbing situation and make it more reliable.

She's not forgetting her first house and how backed up it had become, in a rather dire way.

[tooktheblack]

"I'm sure there's someone who knows more about it than I do. I only know how to hunt and trap," Jon said. It was a poor estimation of his skills, as he knew how to do a great many things that aided in surviving in this place, but he knew little about what she was describing.

"Have you asked the others? I know that Lady Kate usually asks people what skill they have, what trade they can contribute to the village. If anyone would know such a thing, she would know."

[womanofvalue]

"I've been rather occupied with my own little investigations, but perhaps I will," she says with a nod of her head, feeling a little better for the thought of doing something. "Perhaps sometime, too, you could offer some lessons on how to trap? I can handle the hunting part well enough, but the trapping is new to me." And just like the fishing and cleaning, Peggy will take any survival skills that will build up her ability to endure in this place.

[tooktheblack]

"I would be happy to," Jon said, giving her a little ghost of a smile. It was a simple enough thing, to make the snares and check them day by day and it would help them catch the smaller game that would be more prevalant over a long winter than the larger game; you had to catch more rabbits, to be sure, but they would keep you fed.

"It wouldn't take long for a woman of your wit, I don't think."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy gives him a firm nod of her head, happy to hear that. She gestures to the creatures that Jon has with him. "Would you like some help?" she asks. "Maybe I could start with a lesson in what you're going to do with them," she says, which will at least keep her occupied while also trying to be contributive to society.

[tooktheblack]

"I never mind a bit of help," Jon said, nodding his agreement. Teaching another person how to do what he did here in the village was always good. If more knew, then that was one more person who knew how to complete the tasks he did in case he disappeared; it was a worry on his mind ever since the first disappearances a few months prior.

"We'll need to clean these and set them to tan. Then we can use the meat for food and the hides for clothing."

[womanofvalue]

"What sort of clothing could you make out of them?" she asks, arching a brow as she regards the animal and tries to envision it providing anything more than just gloves or something else that's rather small. "I suppose I'll have to lose weight," she jokes.

"How do you clean them?" she asks, moving on already. "I would imagine you would need some sort of chemical, but that doesn't seem possible here."

[tooktheblack]

"You use their brains to tan the hides. You sew them together to make anything out of them," Jon said, giving her a little smile. He supposed it was a natural enough reaction to something so small, to not understand exactly what could get made from it. Still, he could think beyond the size.

"You kill enough of them, you could make something of them."

[womanofvalue]

"Well, if ever I die, I'd like to hope that you could then use my brains for something useful as well," is Peggy's reply, feeling a touch wary about the concept, but it does seem to have some background to it. "How many of them can we kill before we kill them all?" is her next question, always keeping one eye on the logistics of things.

She has to wonder if those plants will come up in time to save them, or whether they're doomed.

[tooktheblack]

"I always take the second or third that I see, never the first. Then you know there's at least one still in the woods," Jon said. "It's always a good practice when you're hunting to do that."

He hardly wanted to be responsible for the animals dying out, for being overhunted and leaving them without food. "We will make do. People always manage to make it through the winter."