Fandomweekly Challenge 169 - Brief respite
Apr. 1st, 2024 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
m_findlowTitle: Brief respite
Fandom: Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG. Spoilers for A Storm of Swords.
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 169 - Sick day at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly
Summary: Jon’s wounds are an inconvenience at a time they can ill afford to be short of men.
Jon awoke from a hazy slumber, feeling worse than he ever had in his life.
There was a time when he'd been only a boy and he and Robb had gone venturing beyond the walls for Winterfell. They had ridden further than they should have and hadn't taken any provisions with them, but being boys of eight and nine respectively, they'd foraged, landing upon an elderberry tree and gorging themselves on less than ripe fruits. The bitter poisons in the immature fruit had made them both terribly ill within hours of returning to the castle. Jon had vomited more times than in all of his life put together that day, Maester Luwin having made them both drink some foul concoction to purge their stomachs.
Afterwards he'd never felt so miserable abed. He expected their father to be angry with them but he said they'd suffered enough that they would learn from their error. It had not, however, stopped Lady Stark from delivering a tongue lashing to him. She was convinced it had been Jon's foolishness that had nearly poisoned them both, but for her own true born son she had only tea and sympathy. That was simply the way of it; Jon was always to blame for their joint follies. That was the price paid for being the bastard son of a lord.
He could not blame Robb now for his current predicament, but he knew that if Robb were here, he’d have had words for Jon, no doubt. The arrow that he had taken in his leg and festered there for days, whilst he rode back to Castle Black atop a horse with no saddle, was of his own making. If he hadn't betrayed Ygritte she'd have had no cause to nock an arrow and loose it at him as he fled their skirmish. She should have put it through his heart, but something had stayed her hand and only wounded him when she was marksman enough to have killed him with a single shaft.
A shuffling of feet on the flagstones distracted him as they clambered slowly up the winding stairs to his meagre bedchamber. The first figure was hunched and short, the second tall and ungainly. ‘Maester Aemon,’ Jon muttered as he tried to pick out faces amidst the fogginess in his mind. When he'd arrived at Castle Black he'd been in pain but lucid enough. Now he'd been doped up on milk of the poppy and his thoughts weren't nearly so clear.
‘Your return has provoked quite a bit of conversation, Jon Snow,’ Maester Aemon murmured as he shuffled around Jon's sick bed with Clydas in tow, carrying a tray of various bottles and clay jars. More malodorous poultices to be concocted for his leg wound, no doubt, but hopefully, shameful as it was to admit, more milk of the poppy to ease his pain.
‘What news of Mance's army?’ he asked, desperate to hear if anyone had seen the wildling party he'd travelled south of the wall with, and when precisely they might expect to be assailed from the north.
‘No one has seen or heard any wildlings,’ Maester Aemon replied. ‘Not even in Molestown where you apparently caused quite a flurry of concern on your way north to the castle. They’re torn between coming here to seek our protection or fleeing south.’
‘They are out there.’ Ygritte and Magnar and the others. The advance party come to flank them from both sides. It had to be soon. ‘I cannot lie here knowing what's coming. I must fight.’
‘You are in no fit state to fight.’ There was a hardness to the Maester's voice that belied his age and withering frame. ‘That arrowhead was lodged deep and took many hours to remove, leaving a large wound that will take time to heal.’
‘We don't have time,’ Jon tried to argue, feeling his head ache at the loudness of his own voice. ‘We must prepare.’
‘We? Some of your brothers claim you abandoned your watch and broke your vows. They would like to hear the truth of it before deciding upon your fate, since Quorin Halfhand did not return with you.’
The news shouldn't have surprised him and yet it caused a chill bolt of fear. He attempted to sit up in the bed but the movement caused a lance of pain to run up from his leg even as Clydas set a hand on his shoulder to keep him down. ‘Did you not speak with them and tell them what I told you and Donal Noye?’
Aemon sighed. ‘I fear that Ser Alliser and Janos Slynt will require far more persuasion than the secondhand testimony of an old man and a blacksmith. They've requested you to stand before them and confess your guilt. Their questioning of events will be long and detailed. I expect it will not last less than a few days, with confinement to an ice cell in between.’
A few days? Jon could scarcely stand for an hour. Even with the strength of his own conviction, he would not be able to endure it long enough to tell his truth. A single night in the ice cells with his current fever would be the death of him; no doubt part of their plan.
‘Suddenly I don't feel so good,’ he said, sinking back down in the bed as Clydas's hand no longer needed to fight him.
‘I expected as much,’ came the reply from the Maester. ‘Clydas, make sure you grind that mustard seed good and fine whilst the nettle weed is steeping in the kettle. Jon Snow would like us to heal him as speedily as we can so that he may be strong enough to stand trial.’
Gods pray it was over before Mance brought his army down upon them. If suffering through a day or two more of bed rest would have him ready to fight again then so be it. He could not allow Castle Black to fall.
Fandom: Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG. Spoilers for A Storm of Swords.
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 169 - Sick day at
fandomweekly Summary: Jon’s wounds are an inconvenience at a time they can ill afford to be short of men.
Jon awoke from a hazy slumber, feeling worse than he ever had in his life.
There was a time when he'd been only a boy and he and Robb had gone venturing beyond the walls for Winterfell. They had ridden further than they should have and hadn't taken any provisions with them, but being boys of eight and nine respectively, they'd foraged, landing upon an elderberry tree and gorging themselves on less than ripe fruits. The bitter poisons in the immature fruit had made them both terribly ill within hours of returning to the castle. Jon had vomited more times than in all of his life put together that day, Maester Luwin having made them both drink some foul concoction to purge their stomachs.
Afterwards he'd never felt so miserable abed. He expected their father to be angry with them but he said they'd suffered enough that they would learn from their error. It had not, however, stopped Lady Stark from delivering a tongue lashing to him. She was convinced it had been Jon's foolishness that had nearly poisoned them both, but for her own true born son she had only tea and sympathy. That was simply the way of it; Jon was always to blame for their joint follies. That was the price paid for being the bastard son of a lord.
He could not blame Robb now for his current predicament, but he knew that if Robb were here, he’d have had words for Jon, no doubt. The arrow that he had taken in his leg and festered there for days, whilst he rode back to Castle Black atop a horse with no saddle, was of his own making. If he hadn't betrayed Ygritte she'd have had no cause to nock an arrow and loose it at him as he fled their skirmish. She should have put it through his heart, but something had stayed her hand and only wounded him when she was marksman enough to have killed him with a single shaft.
A shuffling of feet on the flagstones distracted him as they clambered slowly up the winding stairs to his meagre bedchamber. The first figure was hunched and short, the second tall and ungainly. ‘Maester Aemon,’ Jon muttered as he tried to pick out faces amidst the fogginess in his mind. When he'd arrived at Castle Black he'd been in pain but lucid enough. Now he'd been doped up on milk of the poppy and his thoughts weren't nearly so clear.
‘Your return has provoked quite a bit of conversation, Jon Snow,’ Maester Aemon murmured as he shuffled around Jon's sick bed with Clydas in tow, carrying a tray of various bottles and clay jars. More malodorous poultices to be concocted for his leg wound, no doubt, but hopefully, shameful as it was to admit, more milk of the poppy to ease his pain.
‘What news of Mance's army?’ he asked, desperate to hear if anyone had seen the wildling party he'd travelled south of the wall with, and when precisely they might expect to be assailed from the north.
‘No one has seen or heard any wildlings,’ Maester Aemon replied. ‘Not even in Molestown where you apparently caused quite a flurry of concern on your way north to the castle. They’re torn between coming here to seek our protection or fleeing south.’
‘They are out there.’ Ygritte and Magnar and the others. The advance party come to flank them from both sides. It had to be soon. ‘I cannot lie here knowing what's coming. I must fight.’
‘You are in no fit state to fight.’ There was a hardness to the Maester's voice that belied his age and withering frame. ‘That arrowhead was lodged deep and took many hours to remove, leaving a large wound that will take time to heal.’
‘We don't have time,’ Jon tried to argue, feeling his head ache at the loudness of his own voice. ‘We must prepare.’
‘We? Some of your brothers claim you abandoned your watch and broke your vows. They would like to hear the truth of it before deciding upon your fate, since Quorin Halfhand did not return with you.’
The news shouldn't have surprised him and yet it caused a chill bolt of fear. He attempted to sit up in the bed but the movement caused a lance of pain to run up from his leg even as Clydas set a hand on his shoulder to keep him down. ‘Did you not speak with them and tell them what I told you and Donal Noye?’
Aemon sighed. ‘I fear that Ser Alliser and Janos Slynt will require far more persuasion than the secondhand testimony of an old man and a blacksmith. They've requested you to stand before them and confess your guilt. Their questioning of events will be long and detailed. I expect it will not last less than a few days, with confinement to an ice cell in between.’
A few days? Jon could scarcely stand for an hour. Even with the strength of his own conviction, he would not be able to endure it long enough to tell his truth. A single night in the ice cells with his current fever would be the death of him; no doubt part of their plan.
‘Suddenly I don't feel so good,’ he said, sinking back down in the bed as Clydas's hand no longer needed to fight him.
‘I expected as much,’ came the reply from the Maester. ‘Clydas, make sure you grind that mustard seed good and fine whilst the nettle weed is steeping in the kettle. Jon Snow would like us to heal him as speedily as we can so that he may be strong enough to stand trial.’
Gods pray it was over before Mance brought his army down upon them. If suffering through a day or two more of bed rest would have him ready to fight again then so be it. He could not allow Castle Black to fall.
