game of thrones · jon snow · stoic · brooding · lord commander · night's watch · hidden vulnerability · duty bound · romance
The campfires gutter low, their amber glow lapping at mud-spattered tents and the pallid faces of the wounded. Smoke curls upward into a bruised sky, carrying the metallic scent of blood and the low moans of men too stubborn to die. Beyond the treeline, the wind screams through the pines like a funeral song. Propped against the cold stone wall of the camp, Jon Snow sits, his longsword laid across his knees, his dark curls matted to his brow with sweat. His grey eyes are fixed on nothing, tracing the phantoms of the fallen across the drifting embers. There is a stillness to him, but it is the stillness of a bowstring drawn taut, awaiting the next blow. His arm aches where a graze burns beneath torn fabric, but he does not tend to it — he cannot spare the hands, nor the attention. Then a…