sixthiterationlogs | 005 🐺 riding the tail of the wind

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005 🐺 riding the tail of the wind

WHO: Jon Snow
WHERE: the woods; the inn; House Stark
WHEN: 1 February
OPEN TO: all
WARNINGS: TBD
STATUS: open

I. LITTLE SON COME SAFELY HOME

Jon rose early as he always did but there was something different about the world today - the snow was gone. The ground was wet, yes, but it was not nearly as cold as it had been for the past two moons and the snow that had been ceaseless seemed to have stopped falling from the sky and had receded from the roofs and the ground below. Jon had never experienced a true spring thaw considering the nature of the seasons in Westeros but he had the sense that this was not the way it happened.

Exiting his home, he knelt down and touched the earth, letting the mud slip through his fingers before rising to his feet again. Hopefully with the melting of the snow his hunting would come easier and, with that goal in mind, he set out before sunrise with his bow and quiver.

This time in the woods was precious to him. It was a time to think, a time to gather his thoughts and steel himself for the day ahead. He did not mind this place so much. He knew that others hated it and longed to return home but for him, he had gifts here that he could not have back in Westeros; this place had gifted him two sisters and his brother. This place had gifted him Ygritte. These were things more precious than a horse or sword, more precious than wine or song. These were irreplaceable.

Jon sighted a stag and waited for it to pass. He never took the first he saw, in fear of not seeing another, and when a doe stepped out after the stag he let his arrow fly and take it. If the gods were good, they'd have venison stew tonight.

II. THE DAY GETS DARK UNEASILY

When the hour grew late and the sun had sunk down low enough that the sunlight was a weak, thin thing, Jon decided he'd had enough of checking traps and hunting game and decided to bring his catch to the inn. Some of it would come back with him to be shared with House Stark alone, the smaller game, but the deer was something he'd have to leave at the kitchens to be shared with everyone. Lady Kate ought to be able to make something fine of it; Jon had come to enjoy her cooking over the past several moons and he was eager to see what she'd do with the deer.

After bringing his game indoors and cleaning the rabbits to bring home (skins for Sansa, meat for stew in their homes), he settled in front of the fire for a little while. It wasn't as cold as it had been the past several moons, no, but after being out in the woods for the majority of the day Jon was looking forward to having something hot to drink and just resting before making the long walk back to the home he shared with Ygritte.

He had a mug of some sort of tea, some concoction made with herbs. It wasn't like the tea he'd drunk at Winterfell, of course, but it was something that was hot and soothed his throat and warmed his belly. It would sustain him for the walk to Robb's and, later, for the walk back down to his own house. As he drank, he watched the crack and pop of the logs in the fireplace and it felt, for all the world, like being at Winterfell again.

As people came in and out around him, he nodded; he wasn't terribly talkative, no, but it was hard not to greet those who had been living and working alongside him for the past several months.

III. BEAUTIFUL LIKE A SONG

The hour was later still and Jon eventually vacated his chair inside the inn for another place, a place warmed not only by the logs on the fire but the warmth of his family. Robb's house was always packed with people considering he lived with Sansa and Arya and when Jon stepped up onto the porch and pushed the door in, he wasn't surprised to see family gathered there.

It was still novel to him to have family so close and now that he and Robb weren't quarreling any longer he felt much more comfortable just showing up unannounced. He had skins for Sansa - ones that needed to be tanned and ones that had already been tanned and were ready to be used. He had meat for them, a few rabbits that might make a night's supper. He also had himself, no matter how dour of company he often was.

His family always brought a smile to his face in spite of whatever foul mood he might have worked himself into and today he was in high spirits, a grin playing at his lips and merriment in his voice.

"Sansa? Arya? Robb? Who's home? I've brought gifts."

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Cougar shrugs his shoulders, but he knows that he's supposed to be making an effort to be more open and communicative. It had been the one thing he'd been trying after the amnesia and it had been thrown into stark contrast. "I got strange gifts," he says. "We all did, but an extra strange one."

"Are you with someone?" he asks, studying the carcass to see where he can lift best.

"With someone? Do you mean Ygritte?" Jon wasn't entirely certain how Cougar meant his question but he imagined that he'd elaborate in a moment, albeit in the tight, close-lipped way that the man had about himself.

Jon, too, held himself closely and did not reveal much to those outside his family and Ygritte. He'd shared a little with Ren, too, only for him to leave and come back where Jon had to start all over again.

He gives a single, sharp nod of his head to confirm that it is what he'd meant. He raises a brow and gives a sound that might be approval when he notes Ygritte, seeing as he's met her and can see the two of them working together. He likes when people get the chance to be happy together. Things go better, like that.

"I have rings," he says. "Not anymore, but I did. I think is too early to even think about them, but now, I spent all the time worrying when it will be the right time, if it ever will come."

"I knew when I met her," Jon said. He didn't often say such sweet things about Ygritte, knowing how she felt about them, but he knew from the moment he'd met her that there was something special about her, some spark that he had to capture.

Kissed by fire. Jon couldn't imagine being with anyone else the way he was with her. This village, for all its troubles, had given him a precious gift in Ygritte.

"She hated me. We should have hated one another - we were on opposite sides of a war."

That's something Cougar never had to worry about, because they'd always been fighting the wars on the same side. Still, they were inseparable as friends before because there had been rules for years and always someone else. Cougar and Jake both hadn't done anything, but now the wars are distant, there is no one else, and he's not sure what to do. He knows that Jake is upset, but he doesn't know how to fix that yet.

"You want to spend your life with her," Cougar says, which is what he's hearing in the words.

"If I can. She died back home," Jon explained. It was something he had shared with few outside of his own family but Cougar, somehow, seemed a safe enough person to share it with. The feelings he had for Ygritte were hard to describe, aside from intense and deep. He hadn't ever felt that way for anyone else.

"Here is a second chance. I don't want to waste a moment of it."

"How long?" he demands bluntly, getting around to his actual question. Maybe it's different because she's not alive in Jon's home, but this is Cougar's struggle in knowing how to do things properly. He hasn't done anything by the way it's meant to. "When you ask her to spend your life with you, how long will it take before that question?"

"With her? Forever. I'm certain if I asked her, she'd hit me and call me a stupid crow," Jon said, laughing a little. "That's just her nature. She isn't like most women that way. Still, after she got over the shock of it, she might say yes."

Jon looked down for a moment, considering it. "It's something I want to ask her. She would probably say I didn't need to ask, that she wasn't going anywhere anyway."

"How long, though?" Cougar asks again, driving home that point. He's the one being asked, really, so he's the one who's in the shock of it. "Before you ask? How long are you together, before you ask her this?" How long is a normal amount of time and is it Cougar's fault? Is he overreacting or is the one who thinks things are going too fast?

He can't stop thinking about it, not just because he's clearly made Jake uncomfortable with the whole thing.

"Ygritte? I don't know. I don't think she'll say yes," Jon admitted. It was something that weighed on him when he thought about it, honestly, but he knew that eventually he did want to ask. He would just have to find the courage to do it.

"I'm a bastard. She's a Wildling. Neither of us are meant to be committed to anything, you know? It's not supposed to be in our nature. I've been with her for...two years? Two years and some moons."

Cougar's been at Jake's side longer, but they were always teammates and friends. More than that didn't exist, because he's too smart to let his dick get in the way of his missions. Now, though, there is no mission and there is nothing to focus on but his personal life. "The gifts that showed up," he explains why he's asking, "Jake thought of rings. For us."

He shrugs as he ducks his head down while they work to move the carcass. "Seems too soon."

"You've only been together since we showed up in this place? That's only been a few moons." Jon wasn't certain how much time should pass before a marriage was proposed. Robb had proposed marriage to that girl in the Westerlands after only knowing her for a few days. Jon wasn't certain if he would ever be ready to ask for Ygritte to marry him.

"If it feels too soon or it doesn't feel right, I wouldn't ask. I would hold off until I was certain."

He gives a nod of his head, unable to help the emphatic sound he makes, glad that someone understands him. It's not that Cougar doesn't hold affection for Jake, even to the point of not wanting anyone else. The problem is that he doesn't think he's ready to start something so big and so committed after so short a time.

"And if I lose him because of it?" That's the only problem. What happens if suddenly, Jake decides he wants someone who's ready to be more serious?

"Then the gods don't will it," Jon said. "I believe that you make your own destiny, yes, but if he doesn't want to be with you because you aren't ready to take a big step, it's his problem, not yours. I don't know that much about it, though. I've only been with one woman."

And Ygritte, as previously noted, was not a normal woman. She didn't want the normal things a woman wanted.

That's an easy thing to say, which Cougar almost believes, but the reality is that Jake is one of the best things to have ever happened to him. If he loses the man because of something he's done wrong, something like that, he may not forgive himself. When Jon says what he does about women, he cannot help his amused smirk. "I have been with many women. Some men," he says. "Finding people was not a problem. Loving them, that is."

"I don't know that I'm an experienced man either. I've only loved one woman and she's made it next to impossible to love her every step of the way," Jon said. He laughed softly; that was meant in the fondest terms possible, really, because he loved Ygritte more than anything or anyone. She still didn't make it easy to express that sentiment.

"Her people are very concerned with freedom and independence. Part of being in love and having a lover means being dependent on someone. I think that might be why she resists sometimes."

Maybe that's part of why Cougar's been resisting too, even if he doesn't say it loudly. If he says yes to Jake and agrees, then he has a tie that brings him back to a person who could lose him. Now, if he dies, then people will be sad, but they can all move on. It wouldn't be the same. Still, is that how he wants to live? Forever dodging intimacy because of his own selfish thoughts.

It's easier to just focus on hunting, sometimes, being out in the wilderness, but that's also not a life. "Maybe I will have to learn to change. Maybe that is what love is. Changing yourself to love the person."

"Changing to some extent, yes," Jon agreed. He'd changed since he'd met Ygritte. She was a Wildling, something that men of Winterfell and men of the Watch were meant to hate. Still, there was humanity in the Wildlings and it made sense why they did the things they did. He could see it from both sides now.

"I think you change some, and they change some, and ultimately you meet in the middle."

It means Cougar needs to talk more, learn English, let his feelings open out instead of just burying inside. It's harder without a team here to pull it out of him. It means that Jake does all the work. "Maybe it's worth it," he allows, because he also knows that while he's more isolated than ever, he's also happier.

"You will be with your woman until she is done with you?" he teases, peeking past the animal's head to look at Jon. "I know the feeling."

Jon laughed a little. "That is basically how I look upon it. I will be with her until she is finished with me. At the moment, she seems content to stay."

He shook his head a bit. "You don't trap a Wildling or try to make her something she isn't. It doesn't work."

He shrugs his shoulders and offers Jon a sympathetic look. "Sometimes, I'm a little wild, myself," he says, not meaning it in a teasing way, but in the genuine way that there have been times in his life when he'd forgotten how to be normal and a person, when people had roped him back in. "If she loves you, if it's serious, she will also change for you."

"She already has," Jon said, flashing a quick smile. "She was content to be kept, after all, and she came back to me. I'd lost her back home."

Jon didn't like to assign any feelings of magnanimity to the fountain but it had brought him his brother, his sisters and Ygritte; he couldn't help but be a bit grateful that it had given him so much that he'd lost.

"Then you are lucky," he says, hoping that he can figure out a way to also find this happiness in his own life, even though he sometimes feels like he's not very good at it, because he stops himself, often. "Here," he says, when they reach a building. "Where do you want me to put it?" he asks, of the carcass.

"Leave it to me. I can cut it and bring it inside to the Inn to be used in meals," Jon said. "But thank you for your help. It made the work a lot easier, having someone to share the burden."

He shrugs, because it's not a problem. The hunt is one of his daily routines, now, and it almost gives him peace of mind to do it. "You listened," he says. "Offered advice. It's good," he says, even if Cougar still doesn't know what he's going to do, at least he's starting to see the picture come together in a shape that makes more sense.

"Good luck," is what he offers. "With all."

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tooktheblack - 2017-03-20 21:07 (UTC) - Expand

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