m_findlow

Title: The weight of responsibility
Fandom: Game of Thrones
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M (language). Spoilers for Season 2 onwards.
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 72 - Unspoken things at fandomweekly
Summary: Jon's decisions have left him unpopular with everyone.

Jon Snow gazed out across the hall as men broke their fast. There was no raucous laughter or banter of any kind, just a low groundswell of barely concealed discontent. Even the food and ale brought them no joy. Both were thinner than they had been, watered down to make them go further. It was all they could do to feed the growing number of mouths at Castle Black until provisions from the south could arrive to bolster their dwindling supplies. And that was to say nothing of whether supplies would indeed arrive. If they took umbrage at the king who had brought his forces down to their barracks, or word spread that the Night's Watch had let Wildings through the Wall, well, he wasn't sure which would displease the northern houses more. They'd been happy to lend their meager support to the Watch when it kept its promise not to involve itself in the affairs of the Seven Kingdoms, but Jon mayhaps had crossed that tenuously invisible line.

It put him off his food enough to excuse himself from the head table. He could feel the eyes of Othell Yarwyck, Master Builder, and Ser Alliser, First Ranger, following him out the door. Their triumvirate was a bitter one in which neither man loved his Lord Commander and so followed the men that formed the builders, rangers and stewards of the Night's Watch. If he could have been bothered, he might have asked Sam to find out who had been the last Lord Commander so despised by the men that had elected him to the position.

His sword, Longclaw, hung heavily on his hip. Castle Black should have been the one place where he didn't need to carry a sword, especially not as the Lord Commander, yet he went nowhere without it now. The world was becoming an ever increasingly dangerous place, both north and south of the Wall, but perhaps nowhere more dangerous than right here at the Wall. There were eyes everywhere and all of them were watching him.

Stepping out into the chill air without his cloak made him shiver. Snow fell in gentle flakes and amassed in drifts on the ground, stomped into muddy slush by the feet of men passing through. He couldn't imagine a more silent and sullen place in all the world. It should have been brightened by the presence of women and the noise of children playing, but even they chose to keep inside. And strange it must have been to them, housed in the stone walls, roofs and floors Hardin's Keep and several other slowly crumbling towers within the castle walls. He remembered Ygritte when she'd first laid eyes on a windmill south of the Wall, thinking it to be a great castle. There hadn't been much that impressed her, but seeing the tall stone structure had left her awed. What must they have thought of the towers at Castle Black?

Wildlings made no permanent structures to house themselves in the bitter cold and snow beyond the Wall. All they had was what they could carry on their backs - the deerskin tents and furs that kept out the worst of the cold. They never stayed in any one place for more than a few weeks. It was partly the lack of food, partly the encroachment of other clans - savage Thenns or giants - and partly it was to avoid the things all men would be wise to fear. White Walkers were no bedtime tale meant to frighten children. They were real, killing anything living that stood in their path and turning them into more undead soldiers to fight in their armies. They were the true enemy of all men. Mance Rayder had known it and united all their disparate clans. Now those clans huddled behind a wall Mance had wanted to break down. It hadn't needed breaking, it just needed someone with enough conviction to let them pass through the gates.

A flash of red hair caught his eye as the tall stature of Tormund climbed the steps to join him. Strange that his once enemy was probably now the closest thing he had to an ally around here now. In Mance’s absence, he'd become their unofficial leader.

‘I've had Thenns wanting to stick a knife in my back that gave me more friendly looks than your Crows, Jon Snow,’ Tormund announced. ‘And I fucking hate Thenns. Almost as much as I hate Crows.’

‘You have my word that no Brother shall lay a hand on you or any other Free Folk.’

Tormund chuckled. ‘Any man who tried would find himself dead. You'd better be prepared to kill Crows as well.’

Jon leaned on the snow dusted railing, looking out over the training yard which was empty of men, Night's Watch, King's men and Free Folk alike. No one was prepared to bear any sort of arms, even training swords whilst the castle was filled with the people they'd been training their swords against for thousands of years. ‘You don't have to say it. Those men in there hate me for what I did. And they can keep on hating me. The Long Night is coming and we need every last living man, woman and child safe behind the Wall when it does.’

‘The Free folk don't love you for what you did, you know that, don't you? But they will remember it.’

Jon sighed. Command was not how he imagined it. He'd had to break faith with everyone just to keep them safe, and no one thanked him for it. He wondered what the Old Bear would have thought about the choices he'd made. He wished Mormont was still here so that he could hand back the mantle of responsibility. ‘The Night's Watch hate me, the Free Folk hate me… Is there anyone who doesn't hate me?’

‘The Thenns,’ Tormund added. ‘Don't forget the Thenns. But we all hate the Thenns so who gives a fuck about them?’