Work Text:
The snow falls silently.
His army is waiting by the lake, his army without beating hearts and breathing lungs. The wind brushes through their fragile bones, filling their empty rib cages with coldness they aren't able to feel.
The north is quite, almost soundless, with only their weak heartbeats and trembling breaths. He watches them, those almost respectful yet pathetic humans, like sparks of fire, dying in the snow.
For hundreds of years…. no, thousands. For thousands of years, men in the south have been foolish enough to believe they are merely a scary story told by wet nurses, a story to frighten little children when they behave poorly and refuse to go to bed. One day they will know the truth. One day men will fear them again, and they will be kneeling, begging, feeding them with blood and pure dread. The image is delicious just to think of.
The King rides on his undead horse, watching those brave, dying heros. They will become one of them, soon.
The King tilts his head, eyes fall on the dark-haired child. He is trapped on the rock with his companions, cold breath like smoke kissed by ice and snow.
The child is different, he knows. The child, his dark hair and sad eyes, and his sword. How long has it been since the last time he saw a Valyrian steel sword?
The King doesn't know his name, he doesn't need to know his name, that doesn't matter. He knows the child has a cold gaze and a flaming heart, burning and screaming to that poor soul, demanding him to fulfill his destiny, to save and to sacrifice.
He wonders whether the child will bring the dawn the long night, or he will burn himself into ashes before that. Probably the latter, the King thinks to himself, because they never win, in the war against the death itself.
Such a shame.
The child doesn't speak their language but if he did, the King would like to have a talk with him. “Aren't you scared,” he wants to ask the child. He has seen the fear and horror and desperation in those eyes, yet, he still comes back to the north beyond the wall, again and again.
He wants to look into those eyes when they become blue and glowing.
If the child becomes one of them, he will get the power and freedom he has always been dreaming of.
Life is hardly about freedom. And death, is a relief, so sweet and gentle. To be free again, the only thing humans have to do is to surrender to the cold and darkness they are about to bring pass the wall.
The child has always been looking for an answer and trying to make peace. He has no idea what the King can offer. When his army marches south, he can end the war and conflict in this realm. Isn’t that the peace the child desires?
The snow falls silently, and the King’s army is waiting for the moment to attack.
The world beyond the wall is always so simple and beautiful, rocks and cliffs sculpted by the harsh wind, snow white as death and ice blue as the whispers of ghosts.
The sun rises. There is barely a hint of warmth.
The lake is almost frozen. His lieutenants seem impatient, but he tells them to keep waiting. The King watches the snow fall on the child’s dark, raven hair, imagines the blood in his vein running cold and finally making the right decision to fight beside him.
Winter has come, and none of them can stop him.