Chapter Text
Rage. It was rage that which sang to him in whispered tones and that bloody ringing in his ear. It boiled and rumbled in his chest. Not even the cold of the North seemed to temper that heat. Too long, he thought, too long he had been remissive to the slights and the sneers.
The summer snows glittered under the grey and false sun of the North. The North, his home, Winterfell, places he was leaving behind for a land at the edge of the world, for a promise of honour and safety from furrowed brows.
"Jon", she had said. Never before had she called him by the name his father had given him. A ruse. "It should have been you."
How dare! Jon had stood watch over his brother's unconscious form. He had prayed before the Heart Tree for hours for Bran's recovery. Not once, not once, had Jon hoped for one of his half-siblings to be hurt. He cared not for succession; Jon would never usurp his brothers. He played with Arya and Bran and Rickon, he respected Sansa as all ladies - nay, as all women should be. He loved them all from the most bottomless chasms of his heart. Jon didn't want a blasted 'thank you', not from Lady Stark. But maybe some respect - no, not even respect, perhaps consideration. Instead, "it should have been you".
So Jon left. He already had in mind to leave; for years, he had by now. The Wall, the Night's Watch: from there, he felt a call.
He was leaving the possibility of some land to call his own, a name, and any hope for a family. A bastard's child is a bastard, to the eyes of many, and so were their grandchildren. Jon would not sire any bastard: that he vowed before his gods.
Ghost moved sinuously beside him, ever quiet. It was evident the direwolf missed his brothers and sisters, his littermates. Jon, too, even after only having left for a few days at most, missed his siblings. All of them, the girls and the boys, the rowdy ones and the well-mannered ones. The Wall asked him to have no family: a marriage to duty and duty only.
Family comes in many forms. There's the family one is born into, and the family one makes for themselves. The Wall forbids both—Uncle Benjen was the exception that confirms the rule.
What he hated leaving the most behind was Robb.
Sweet kisses, the heat of our bodies among the furs... not for you, Jon... not for you.
The Wall called to him: a sanctuary as much as a prison, where he could bury his past and live only for the duty ahead. There would be no land, no name, no family - no Robb.
The more he rode, the more he dreaded what was to be before him. The call to the Wall felt stronger than ever. It was just a line at the horizon when it appeared, getting taller and taller at each league they rode. Jon had to look back.
A gust of wind blew the summer snow over the ridge of heap in the distance. The cold crystals were a running child - Rickon. The white mist rode the air current like a horse - like a horse Bran would never ride again. —It should have been you—had been like a blow to the gut. She blamed him, in some twisted way, for Bran's fall, as if his very existence had invited the calamity.
Rage exploded in his ears.
No more. "Uncle Benjen, Lord Tyrion, wait."
"What is it, Jon?", Uncle Benjen's kind voice rang through the ringing in his ears.
Rage exploded in his ears.
Rage exploded in his ears: Jon could not hear the call of the Wall. There was only rage. For the first time in his life, Jon let his rage sing for him like a goddess.
"I won't join the Night's Watch. I am going back to Wintefell."