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Chapter Text

Jon Snow had thought he understood cold before. After all, he’d spent his childhood behind the walls of Winterfell, where his washing water would freeze in its basin overnight. Even in summer the nights were perilous, and wandering away from home without flint and a bedroll could be fatal. Then he’d been shipped off to the Wall, living alongside the great behemoth of ice that shielded the realm, venturing out into the piercing wind with his new brothers armed with cloak and sword. 

It was nothing compared to the land beyond the wall. The cold seeped through his clothing, settled deep into his bones, and Jon was starting to worry he’d never thaw out.  It was a miracle the wildlings managed to survive out here, to eke a living from the wind-whipped tundra. No trees grew here, no wild game roamed about. All he could see for miles upon miles was sheer stone and snow. 

It was rockier footing than he’d expected, too. Jon had pictured a flat expanse of land, but it was more akin to a mess of boulders strewn across a valley floor. Every time he tucked his head down to shield himself from the wind, he lost his footing on loose gravel and ice. All in all, it was a miserable journey.

And of course, there was the slight complication that he was lost behind enemy lines with a wildling prisoner. It had been a few hours since Jon lost sight of his company, and all he could think to do was continue onward until he found them again. What other option was there, besides laying down to die? He carried only a small package of rations and no navigational tools, so time was of the essence. Unless they found civilization soon, they’d freeze to death. Not even a wildling could survive out here on their own.

His prisoner was proving to be insufferable. She peppered him with questions the whole way, intent on antagonizing him. At the moment, she was regaling him with battle tales, a list of every man of the Night’s Watch she’d bested. They were quite graphic.

“-and I swear I could hear his neck snap, clear as day. You Crows aren’t so tough in a fair fight, after all. All it takes is a few arrows to finish you off, if you ever stop cowering behind your walls and fight like men.”

Jon gritted his teeth. “Will you be quiet, woman?”

The wildling laughed, a sharp, violent sound. “Not used to conversing with women, eh, Jon Snow?”

He dutifully ignored her. Maybe if he didn’t respond, just kept walking in silence, the wildling would give up. 

No such luck. “I bet you order your poor wife around all day like some kind of kitchen slave. I’ve heard how you Southerners treat your women, not lettin’ them fight or work. Keep them locked up like animals.” He could hear open contempt in her voice.

“I don’t have a wife. None of us do, it’s part of our oath.”

Jon felt a tug on the rope as the wildling stopped in her tracks. “No wives? Who do you lie with, then? Each other?” 

He lurched to a halt with her, turning to face his prisoner. Every passing moment, the sun sank lower in the sky, and their chances of survival became slimmer. Did she not understand that? “We are going to freeze to death out here if you don’t keep walking. Is that what you’re trying to do? Trying to kill the both of us?”

The red-headed devil ignored his scolding and grinned, hands on her hips in an infuriating display of triumph. “You’ve never been with a woman, have you, Jon Snow? You’re a maid!”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Jon was beginning to raise his voice now. “I’m trying to keep us alive out here, in case you hadn’t noticed. We’ve got an hour, maybe two, before it’s dark, and then we might as well just cut each other’s throats and be done with it. We don’t have time to sit here and discuss-”

He didn’t get to finish his diatribe. The wildling was doubled over laughing, silencing the words on his tongue. Her whole frame was shaking with mirth, as though he’d told the world’s funniest joke. Was she delirious from the cold? He’d heard of travelers wandering out into the wilderness and coming back witless, but never this quickly. 

The wildling wiped at her eyes and straightened her posture. “I’d forgotten how delicate you Crows can be. Fools, the lot of you.”

Well, this was it. Jon Snow was going to die roaming the wilderness, frozen to death beside the corpse of the enemy. It wasn’t how he’d expected to die, not by a long shot. “Are you insane?” Jon asked, not really expecting a straight answer.

“Saner than you, little Crow. Look.” She was pointing over his shoulder, way off in the distance at something that resembled….

“Shelter,” he breathed. 

His prisoner shot him a smug look. “Did you think I’d be so calm if we were really about to die out here? Keep up, Crow boy.”

Well, maybe there were benefits to traveling with a wildling. Jon trudged after her, still holding onto the rope and muttering beneath his breath the whole way.

Chapter Text

It was a small hunting lodge, only designed to fit a few people at once. Apparently there were small shelters like this one all throughout the landscape, stocked with a little firewood and some old animal hides. A good idea, he had to admit. Maybe the Night’s Watch should construct a few of their own in case of similar emergencies.

He wanted to keep his prisoner bound- this would be the perfect time for her to break away and fight back, and Jon wasn’t about to lose his best asset. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t practical inside the cramped space. They kept getting tangled up in each other, and eventually Jon relented. She would be allowed to move about unbound, on the condition that Jon was always positioned between her and the doorway. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, not when he was finally warm. The wildling woman claimed the Wall was only a few hours South now, and they’d resolved to set out for it in the morning. Until then, there was nothing to do but wait.

The wildling- Ygritte, she’d called herself- got a fire started faster than Jon had thought possible, and before long his limbs were beginning to thaw. He’d even found some dried meat hidden away in the rafters, enough to make a meal of when combined with his rations. It was a better outcome than he could have hoped for- safe, warm, and fed.

Well, semi-safe. Ygritte still might strangle him in his sleep.

Glancing over at her now, it was hard to think of her as a fearsome warrior. She’d removed her massive overcoat and gloves, and Jon was struck by how much smaller Ygritte looked without them.  Even the harsh lines of her face looked softer in the firelight. 

“So,” she began through a mouthful of food, “what’s it like, being on the wall? Is it as big as they say it is?”

Jon was wary of her attempts at conversation. Most likely, she only wanted to gather information from him to report back to her tribe leader. The less he said, the better. But it was such a harmless question, and Ygritte was significantly less prickly in demeanor when she was fed. Maybe she just wanted to pass the time.

“It’s big,” Jon responded. “Taller than anything I’d ever seen.”

Ygritte hummed interestedly. “And cold, I’d wager. Living inside all that ice.”

In spite of himself, Jon could feel his defenses buckling. Her probing curiosity was disarming. Sure, she’d tried to kill him, but he’d tried to kill her first. And, though he hated to admit it, he was starved for female company. 

“Not so cold when you’re out of the wind. It’s colder here, out on the open ground.” He took a swallow of the snow water the wildling had melted over the fire. It tasted different than the well water he was used to. 

“At least we know how to dress for it. You Crows look ridiculous in your cloaks and leather boots.”

Jon had to admit, she had a point there. He’d been studying Ygritte’s discarded parka from the corner of his eye, and it looked much thicker than his own woolen garments. The hood in particular seemed to insulate the wearer particularly well. 

“Well, we don’t have the time to make new coats. Besides, it would take a hundred rabbits to make one of those. Seems a waste of time to me.”

Ygritte laughed again, delighting in his ignorance of wildling customs. “We don’t make them out of rabbits, you fool. That would take months!”

He’s flushing a little, despite his best efforts to suppress it. Something warm rises in his chest every time she laughs at him, something akin to embarrassment. As though he’s a child again, stumbling through his lessons with the castle tutors. Jon tried again.

“What do you make them of, then, if not rabbits?”

“Reindeer, elk, wolves on occasion. Bigger game.”

Jon’s eyes went wide. “Reindeer? I’ve never seen anything bigger than a fox this far North.”

Ygritte grinned, baring her teeth to him. “That’s because you scare them all away with your blundering Crow footfalls.”

His ego is a little bruised at this news that the wildlings are such superior hunters. Back in Winterfell, Jon had been among the best in the hunting party, and his pride stung to learn that he’d been skinning rabbits all this time when there were reindeer and elk to be had.

But before he could defend his skills, Ygritte spoke again. 

“You’d do better if you tied cloth around your boots to quiet the sound. If you’re going to wear those hideous leather things, you should be more careful. Hand me your boots and cloak.”

Despite the rising temperature inside the hut, Jon was reluctant to remove his outerwear. The fur-lined cloak reminded him of home, and to hand it over to the wildling felt strangely vulnerable. Still, she was looking at him expectantly, holding out her hand. 

He removed his cloak and boots. “Only for a moment,” he warned.

“I’m not going to steal your pretty clothes, Jon Snow.” Ygritte rolled her eyes. “I only want to show you what I’m talkin’ about.”

Before he could blink, Ygritte had torn a strip of cloth from the hem of his cloak, leaving a jagged border along the edge. 

“Hey!” Jon protested, immediately regretting the decision to trust her with his things. “I didn’t say you could ruin it!”

“Not ruined, little Crow. I’m sure you’ll have it hemmed when you get home. It’ll be good as new.” She worked as she spoke, wrapping the cloth around the toe box of his boot. Then she brought the boot down on the floor in imitation of a step, producing a muffled thumping noise. “See? Quieter.”

Well. It was definitely effective. Jon tried not to look impressed. “A bit quieter, I suppose.”

“Much quieter. And you didn’t thank me.” 

The nerve of this woman. Trapping him out in the wilderness with her, tormenting him for hours on end, ruining his cloak, and still she expected to be thanked. Jon wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. “If it’s gratitude you’re in search of, I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

Ygritte eyed him from her peripheral vision now, looking smug anyway. “I guess it’s to be expected, your poor manners, after all that time alone on the wall. And you people think we’re the barbarians.”

“I’m not alone on the Wall. There are many brothers of the Watch.”

“But no women.”

Why was she so hung up on that detail? “No, no women. Is that really so hard for you to believe?”

Ygritte fixed her gaze on him. “I pity you, is all. Not having anyone to lie with, to be with the way men and women are supposed to be together.”

Oh, gods. She was embarrassing him again, talking of intimate matters so frankly. Jon shifted his weight uncomfortably. “It’s just the way things work. The Night’s Watch has always vowed to take no wives and bear no children.”

She still didn’t seem to understand. “But why? A man becomes stronger when he has people to fight for. When he has a spearwife to fight at his side.”

How could he possibly explain this in a way Ygritte would understand? “We have important duties to perform. We can’t let ourselves be… distracted.” 

Ygritte’s gaze turned knowing and self satisfied. “Ah. Distracted.”

Jon could feel himself flushing again. Why was she looking at him like that, like she had a secret and refused to share it with him? The whole conversation was improper, really, and he shouldn’t have been telling her about the sacred oaths anyway. They weren’t something to be casually discussed with the enemy. And she was an enemy, even if it was easy to forget sometimes, a wildling intent on destroying the Night’s Watch and the wall and all that lay beyond-

“Distracted by this?” 

Gods help him. 

Ygritte was taking her shirt off, revealing her pale form to him and maintaining eye contact the whole time. 

Her physique was reflective of the wildling’s way of life. She was lean and bony, ribs and collarbones pressing against her skin, and she was the most beautiful woman Jon had ever seen. He could feel his breath stuttering in his lungs, eyes raking over Ygritte as she presented herself to him in the flickering firelight. The sun had long since disappeared over the horizon, and Jon suddenly wished it would come back and illuminate her image a little better. 

For a long moment, Ygritte only stared him down. She didn’t move any closer, only watched his reaction to her display. Jon should probably say something, ask what she was doing or demand she put her clothes back on, but his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. All he could think about was the way her flaming hair contrasted with the stark white of her skin, how soft her breasts looked. 

“I- Ygritte, what are you-”

The cunning minx across from him interrupted. “I see what you mean now, you Crows are easily distractible.  Maybe it’s best you don’t have any women, or your heads would all explode.” She was closer now, close enough to touch.

Jon’s voice was hoarse when he spoke again. “Ygritte. What are you doing.”

She took his hand in hers and guided it up to cup her breast. “I’m showing you what it’s like.”

She was just as soft as she looked, and warm from the fire. Women were pleasantly pillowy, Jon mused, in a way that made you want to keep touching. He should have knocked her hand away, should have pushed her off, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to touch more of her, taste her skin, brush that wild hair back off her shoulder. So he did.

Jon leaned forward to kiss her, ignoring all the voices in his head. Right now it was just him and Ygritte, and nobody else could run to the Lord Commander to report his misconduct. He could kiss and touch and taste as much as he wanted. The idea flooded Jon with adrenaline- he could have this, just for tonight.

He’d kissed girls before, of course, but this was different. This wasn’t a quick tryst in a shadowed corner of the keep, or a peck on the lips from a servant girl. This was Ygritte, a grown woman, sitting across from him half-nude and grinning against his mouth. This was something more.

Jon brought his other hand up to skim over her torso and drew her into his lap. His head was spinning, from lack of oxygen perhaps. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to break the kiss for even a moment.

Ygritte did it for him. “Look at you, little Crow,” she said. “You sure you’ve never done this before?”

“Not like this.”

“Good. Now get this stupid shirt off and let me see you.”

Jon fumbled to unlace his jerkin and underlayers, though his fingers were moving more slowly than he liked. Finally, he shrugged the last layer of clothing off and pressed his bare chest to Ygritte’s. 

Gods, that felt good. 

Ygritte looked pleased. “I knew you were pretty under all those clothes.”

Jon grumbled indifferently. It should have irked him to be called pretty, especially by a woman, but he found that it didn’t bother him in the slightest. In fact, he quite liked the flush of embarrassment that ran through his veins at her words. Jon was harder than he’d ever been in his life. He half hoped that Ygritte wouldn’t notice.

She did, observant as she was, and reached down to run a hand along his clothed erection. It was almost overwhelming, the amount of new sensation he was being exposed to. The whole situation was utterly unfair, Jon thought, that she had him in the palm of her hand and he was powerless to resist her. His brothers of the Watch would have laughed to see him like this.

On a whim, Jon captured one of Ygritte’s perfect breasts in his mouth and sucked gently. She hissed in response, throwing her head back to expose the column of her neck. 

“Fuck,” she cursed. “Do that again.”

He did, sucking and licking over her pink nipples as many times as she bade him. Each time he delighted in the pleased noises Ygritte made, in the muttered praises that fell from her lips. Still, she didn’t leave him to his own devices for very long.

There was a sharp pain in his scalp as Ygritte buried her hand in his hair and tilted his head back. Jon almost whimpered at the sensation, nerves igniting like fireworks. 

“Lean back for me, Jon Snow.” She was pushing gently at his chest, laying him back onto the furs that covered the hut floor. She made no move to lie next to him, instead staying perched on his lap. 

Jon stared up at her from his position on his back. She was still kneeling over him, straddling his torso as she struggled to remove her trousers and smallclothes. It was a somewhat awkward position, but Jon didn’t dare move for fear of shattering the moment. He didn’t have to wait long.

Ygritte tossed her discarded clothes to the side, now entirely bare. Jon couldn’t help but run his hands over her pale thighs, trying to memorize each and every one of her battle scars. Her legs were deceptively muscled for her size. And her cunt… it was pink and slick, the way he’d always thought it would be, and nestled in a thatch of  short hair. He wanted to kiss her there, to kiss her everywhere he could reach. Spellbound, Jon pressed his mouth to her.

His captive (or was he the captive one now?) startled at his touch. “Jon, what are you- oh- doing?” Her eyes widened in surprise.

“I’m kissing you,” he rumbled. It was fucking intoxicating, the way she tasted on his tongue. Earthy, musky, deep and layered in a way he’d never experienced. And she was so, so wet. His tongue glided over her folds with ease. Ygritte seemed to like it too, thighs tensed up around his head to anchor him in place below her. Jon wanted her closer, wanted her weight pressing into him, so he clutched at her hips and pulled her down onto his face. 

There. That was perfect. Jon moaned into Ygritte’s skin and continued tonguing over her sensitive flesh. It was a blissful rhythm of action and reaction, and he relished the feeling of the wildling woman squirming above him when he rubbed up against the right spots. The nub of flesh at the top of her cunt seemed particularly sensitive, and Ygritte shuddered every time he sucked it into his mouth. He was lost in the way she flexed and pulsed on his lips.

Jon was distantly aware of his cock growing impossibly harder between his legs, but it didn’t matter. The world had narrowed down to nothing more than his mouth and Ygritte’s hot cunt, nothing more than her satisfaction. Her gasps fueled him onward, made him want to spend the rest of his life making Ygritte feel good. 

Eventually her legs began to shake and her muscles clenched with such force that Jon was alarmed for a moment. But the accompanying sounds falling from Ygritte’s lips were clearly cries of pleasure, so he surmised all was well. He continued licking at Ygritte through her fit, until she pushed his head away in a haze of oversensitivity.

The wildling eased her weight off of him and ran a thumb over his lower lip. “Gods,” She was breathless and flushed. “Where’d you learn to do that, Jon Snow?”

“Didn’t learn it anywhere,” he croaked, voice rusty. “Just wanted to.”

“Well, I want your clothes off. Want to fuck you properly.”

And how could he argue with that? 

Jon was a touch apprehensive about being completely bare in front of her, but his worries were entirely drowned out by the raw need coursing through his veins. He needed to have Ygritte, and nothing else mattered in that moment. There was no place for shame here, not with her. As infuriating as she could be, Jon had to admit that he admired that about her- the confidence to do what pleased her, regardless of what anyone else thought. 

So Jon stripped out of his remaining clothes, kicking them away before he could second guess himself. It was an incredibly vulnerable feeling, to lie back and let himself be observed, but he did it nonetheless. 

A sharp grin flashed across Ygritte’s face. “For a man of your height, your cock is quite impressive.”

He flushed. Lady Stark would have washed his mouth out with soap for uttering a word like that. Still, he couldn’t let the jab at his pride go unanswered.

“Aye, I’m glad it pleases you,” Jon grunted in response, a bit of ire bleeding into his tone. If he didn’t get to actually be inside her soon, he’d explode. “Now what was that you were saying about fucking?”

Ygritte laughed outright. “So stern and impatient. You’ll have to do a little better than that.”

Do a little better than that? Jon inhaled deeply through his nose, trying to concentrate on her words rather than the agonizing pressure of her hips grinding into his. She knew he was weak and inexperienced, and still she tortured him so. 

“What in the seven hells does that mean?” 

“It means,” Ygritte teased, pressing her beautiful cunt against the sensitive skin of his erection, “that you have to beg me first.”

Gods take him. Jon knew that an honorable man would never beg for a woman’s touch, would never let himself be emasculated so. But the way Ygritte spoke down to him left Jon painfully aroused, along with all the other shameful things he had let her do to him. Pull his hair, call him names, pin him to the floor. And at this point, Jon didn’t care much about his pride, only wanted to feel Ygritte around him.

He lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Please, Ygritte,” Jon breathed. “Show me what it’s like. Please.”

A hungry glint appeared in Ygritte’s eyes. She pressed a fierce kiss to his lips, and Jon knew he’d said the right thing. She would finally give him what he wanted.

“Good boy,” she hummed into his ear.

And then she was slowly sinking down around him, swallowing his cock inside her warm, soft body. It was like being stroked by fine velvet, the kind that he wouldn’t have been allowed to touch as a child for fear of ruining it. The kind Sansa would have begged to have made into a dress to swish down staircases in. The firm, purposeful contact almost drove Jon out of his mind. Still, he had the good sense to stay quiet until Ygritte was fully seated on his lap.

Jon growled through gritted teeth. “Seven hells, woman.” He hadn’t realized how starved he was for human touch until he was drowning in it. How was he supposed to think straight?

“Oh, it’s ‘woman’ now, is it? Weren’t you raised in a castle? I thought the Southern lords were supposed to be polite.” 

Ygritte was making small motions with her hips, building slowly to a stronger rhythm. He recalled the advice Robb had given him many years ago on one of his birthdays- ‘you must be gentle with a lady, so as not to hurt her the first time.’ That didn’t seem to be a concern on Ygritte’s end, not when she moved so confidently atop him. That she could taunt him all the while was a miracle on its own.

Infuriating, smug, impossible woman. “What would you have me call you, then?” Jon panted. He refused to spill inside her so soon, not after all this buildup. He wanted to make this last.

Ygritte seemed to ponder the question for a moment. “Call me ‘my lady,’” she commanded with a grin.

Ygritte was no lady, they both knew that. She was only mocking his title, mocking his way of life. The Free People were called by the names their mothers gave them and nothing else, except maybe ‘chief.’ The idea of lord and ladyship must have been comical to her, trivial and self-aggrandizing. 

Alright, then. They’d play at nobility if that was what Ygritte wanted. It didn’t matter to him. He wasn’t really a lord anyway, just Ned Stark’s bastard. 

Jon directed his gaze upward to meet Ygritte’s. “As you say, my lady.”

The wildling woman tightened around him, pupils expanding impossibly larger. He was starting to pick up on her cues, the little shifts in her body language when something pleased her. If he was reading them correctly, his words had affected Ygritte deeply.

And, indeed, her will seemed to snap when he spoke to her like that. Ygritte began to move on top of him in earnest, no longer easing into it but fucking with a purpose. “Gods, you’re so good,” she gasped. “So pretty and good.”

His hands instinctively flew up to clutch at Ygritte’s waist, his hips rising to meet hers. This was a whole different level of force, and Jon’s eyes almost rolled back in his head as he breached new depths inside her. He understood now why men spoke of this with such longing in their voices. Jon wanted nothing but her skin on his for the rest of his life. And he was sure the image of her tits bouncing like that would be ingrained in his mind forever.

The whole thing was fiercer than he’d imagined it would be. It was like they were animals, clawing at each other and rolling around in the furs. He’d been afraid that he wouldn’t know what to do, that he’d embarrass himself, but instinct had taken over completely. His body knew what it wanted, even if he didn’t. The world was nothing but sensation, nothing but their coupling.

Ygritte’s harsh face was somehow softer like this, when she let him touch her. And the noises that fell from her lips, gods, he wished he could bottle them in a jar and take them wherever he went. She was quite vocal, and all of her grunted curses and praises only drove him to thrust more desperately into her, clutching at her hips like a drowning man. Jon selfishly hoped she’d have bruises littered over her hip bones to remind her of him.

“Fuck, Jon,” Ygritte groaned. “You look so pretty beneath me, sweetling.”

Jon whimpered. Whimpered , a man of the Night’s Watch. But he couldn’t help himself, she felt so good and her words were so arousing.

She enjoyed his reaction immensely. “Oh, you like that? You like when I let you inside my cunt and call you names?”

Again, that wave of hot embarrassment washed over him. He did like it, maybe too much, even though Jon knew he shouldn’t. Even though his brothers of the Watch would ridicule him for it, exile him, strip him of what little honor he had left. All he could do was pound mindlessly up into Ygritte’s warm, welcoming body.

Ygritte gripped his hair with one hand. “I asked you a question, Crow. Too dumb to answer?”

Jon summoned what was left of his wits. “No, my lady,” he croaked.

“Then answer me. Do you like this, what I can do to you?”

“Yes, my lady.”

He was humiliatingly close to spending, and Ygritte knew it. His plans of making the moment last were entirely unrealistic, he saw now. After so many years of isolation, Jon had no stamina to speak of, and he didn’t have the will to stop. 

“Go ahead, then,” Ygritte crooned. “Come inside me, Jon Snow.”

Oh. He hadn’t thought of that possibility, the image of Ygritte’s thighs dripping with his seed. That image was what pushed him over the edge, spasming beneath her as his body was consumed by pleasure.

“Ygritte, fuck, fuck, fuck-” 

His climax lasted much longer than it usually did. It must have been the reality of it all, that his body knew this wasn’t another lonely night spent spilling into his own hand. And just when Jon was beginning to think he might never stop, the sensation receded and his body was once again his own. 

“Ygritte,” he rasped breathlessly. “Gods. Is it- is it always like that?” 

“Not always,” she said. “I’m particularly good.” She still hadn’t made any move to climb off of him. 

The truth of what they’d done hit him all at once. He’d spilled inside her, though he hadn’t intended to, and now Ygritte would-

“Oh, gods. I’m sorry, Ygritte, I didn’t mean to- not inside, at least-” Jon sat up, abruptly, pushing her down into his lap and smearing their mess across his skin.

The wildling looked confused. “Didn’t mean to what? Come?”

“Y-yes. That.” Jon was plagued with visions of his own childhood, of the pain he had experienced because of his parentage. He’d sworn to never father any bastards himself. To never subject a child to that. 

Ygritte pressed a kiss to his temple. “Don’t you worry about that, my little Crow. I’ll just brew some moon tea and all will be well.”

“Oh.” The thought mollified him some. He hadn’t considered that women already had their own methods to handle this eventuality. 

“And it doesn’t happen every time anyway,” she continued. “Sometimes it can take ages to get with child. There’d be a lot more people in this world if every tumble in the sheets made a babe.”

That made sense, too. Still, he felt a little guilty for causing her the trouble. “I’m still sorry,” Jon said. “It wasn’t… gentlemanly.”

Ygritte wrinkled her nose in contempt. “And a good thing, too. If I wanted a gentleman, I’d not have picked you, Jon Snow.”

Jon grumbled in weak protest, but couldn’t bring himself to appear too discontented. Every fiber of his body was blissed out and relaxed from their activities, and all he could do was sink back into the furs. Ygritte stayed sitting upright, and he watched her untangle and braid her hair in the firelight. 

How strange to think that a few hours ago she’d been his enemy. In a sense, she still was, but there was no hatred in his heart for Ygritte. Not after she’d been so good to him, given him a gift that no one else had. In spite of their irreconcilable differences, Jon had to admit he was fond of the wildling woman. He fell asleep like that, watching Ygritte’s deft fingers wind through her hair and dreamed of sweet wine and velvet and sunlight. 

When he woke the next morning to a fireplace full of embers, the wildling was gone.