The Wall

The bitter wind swirled around the motley group of horsemen, catching Theron's heavy cloak and causing a shiver to run up his spine.  He shuddered and pulled the coarse black fabric back around him, silently wondering how long they had before the heavens opened and bathed them all in ice and snow.  He could feel his mount restlessly tugging at the reins, as eager as any of them to find shelter.  He spied the Wall ahead in the distance, a dark contrast against the gathering clouds; with luck they would reach it before the storm started.

"Gods take this land," he muttered softly, his breath visibly pillowing from his mouth.

He tried in vain to remember summer.  To remember green grass and warm rivers.  The light of the sun shining on rippling waves of wheat.  Warm nights full of spiced wine and dark ale.  The soft touch of a woman's curves. Rhynna…

His thoughts drifted to the first time he saw her, radiant as the rising dawn, honey brown eyes wide with innocence and compassion as she followed her lord father's long strides into his family's well-to-do wood crafting shop.  He knew at once she was highborn, but in his own young innocence he fell for her anyway.

His brow furrowed and his visage darkened.  They were both children then, fresh faced with impossible hopes and dreams.  How foolish they had been, innocent play turning to midnight rendezvous as the years turned them from friends to lovers.  He held tightly to these memories forged in the soft dark of night.  The way her lips crushed against his, the silky sound of her voice whispering his name…  

He closed his eyes briefly, and for the merest of moments the endless chill left his bones as he let the memories wash over him.  But then the moment was over and he once again ached with cold, trudging ever closer to the Wall.  His heart still throbbed with a dull pain of loss and emptiness, as it had since the day he was torn from her warm embrace and banished to the frozen North.

A wry smile tugged at the corners of his chapped lips.  It was no wonder her father found out, the way she carelessly denied the many suitors that descended upon the manor as she came of age.  Theirs was a lesser House, but her beauty had become well known, calling even Lannisters and Tullys to their gates.  "I care nothing for them," she would breathe in his ear when his eyes flashed with jealousy, "I am yours and yours alone."  Even the night they were found out, amidst the chaos and clamor of the guards, he had heard her screaming fruitlessly as they dragged him from her arms.  "As long as I live, Theron, I swear I will never take another!"

He had believed it at first, and vowed the same.  He had held his head high as her lord father had sentenced him to the Night's Watch, steadfastly proud in his defiance despite his own mother's wails and pleading.  But as summer faded and the hard road North grew ever colder, reality reminded him that neither of them had a choice.  She was highborn, and would wed another of her father's choosing, and he… well, he was a Warden of the North now.  Wed to the snow and ice, promised to duty and honor, until the winter claimed his body and soul.

The Wall towered above him, and with a strange sadness, he felt his memories slipping away as he entered its looming shadow.