A Wraith in Winter

Jon stumbled through the snow on cold, clawed feet, following the strangest creature he had ever seen. The self-named Thorax occasionally stopped and shook snow loose from the holes in his legs before continuing forward. He called himself a changeling, as if that word meant something. He looked like a great insect from the marsh, with black plating and buzzing wings vaguely in the shape of a small horse. It was obvious from his mannerisms that he was unused to the cold.

The day was still bitterly cold, but the wind had died down over the course of the morning, so the pair made decent progress through the snowy fields. It left Jon time to think and find better footing on his awkward legs. His ankles on his feet were placed higher than they should be, and his knees bent awkwardly. He had stumbled over several times into the snow, Longclaw nearly plunging in down to the hilt before Jon tightened his grip and pulled it free. Thorax would pause and watch him with big, solid blue eyes, but just chittered his insect wings while he waited for the dragon to stand again.

Dragon. Jon mulled it over in his head. If he was a dragon, he was possibly the smallest dragon that ever lived. As for the changeling, Thorax could’ve called himself a grumpkin or snark and Jon would’ve believed him. Beyond the Wall, far more stranger creatures were said to exist. The Children of the Forest who made the Pact with the First Men, Ice Dragons and Frost Spiders, Giants and Direwolves.

Jon had seen the last two with his own eyes. Direwolves were thought all dead before Lord Eddard and his children found the litter. There was one for each of the Stark children, and Jon found Ghost away from the others, having crawled from his mother's body to the shade of a tree. Their mother had died to a stag. It had been an omen, a wolf killed by a stag. Robert Baratheon, the Crowned Stag, rode to Winterfell and named Ned his Hand of the King, and his father died a supposed traitor.

Ghost, Jon thought again. Where are you? The Wildlings called him a skin-changer or a warg due to his connection to his wolf, but he hadn’t felt Ghost since he woke up in this place.

Jon flexed his talons along Longclaw’s carved pommel. His grip was easily stronger now; his hand had been badly burnt during his first encounter with the wights in the Lord Commander Mormont’s chambers. Ghost had helped him then, but now he was nowhere to be seen. If he’s still at Castle Black, the men will kill him.

The thought sat low in Jon’s stomach, and he ran a claw across his white belly. There were no stab wounds, but he remembered the blades and the blood smoking in the snow. For the Watch.

Jon snorted another plume of flame through his nose on reflex, feeling his wings and tail twitch. The fire whooshed through the air and dissipated two feet ahead of him, near his guide. Thorax turned his head back and stared at him with solid blue eyes. “I’m fine,” Jon offered slowly and rubbed his muzzle with his free claw. “I apologize.”

“I-I thought you said you didn’t k-know how to make fire?” Thorax asked. His stuttering didn’t come from the cold. The changeling seemed naturally nervous, probably from the dragon with a Valyrian blade at his back.

“I don’t,” Jon confirmed. “I was thinking about…” He didn’t want to think about it anymore. His own men, his sworn brothers. He didn’t command them to go south to fight Ramsay; he asked for volunteers. Bowen and Othell opposed him at every turn, and drove their blades into him over—

Another snort of flame emerged with a hiss. Thorax jumped back, crouching low in the snow. Jon loosened his grip around Longclaw again and felt his too-long mouth twist in shame. “I am sorry,” he said again. “I do not wish to talk about it.”

“T-that’s fine!” the changeling said hurriedly and resumed walking towards the pink sky. Jon wrenched his eyes away as Thorax turned back around. The changeling’s short tail hid nothing, and Jon’s eyes were seared with an unfamiliar mix of parts.

They traveled silently for a time before Jon’s curiosity bubbled over. “Are you male?” Thorax’s voice was high-pitched and strangely toned, but it sounded like a man.

“Yes?” Thorax called over his shoulder, mildly confused. “I-I mean, changelings can be any—” He clamped his mouth shut with a clack of teeth. “I m-mean yes.”

Jon frowned out of suspicion, but there were more pressing concerns. He motioned down to his chest and belly. “Am I a male dragon?”

Thorax turned around again and looked Jon up and down. “Yes?”

It was too cold to feel anything down there, so Jon took him at his word. “Thanks.”

The changeling licked his fangs. “Um, n-not to be rude, but you do know what m-male and female are, right?”

You know nothing, Jon Snow. Jon’s frown twisted to a wry smile. “I suspect my knowledge is rather useless right now, but I do.” From what Jon could recall from books and Maester Aemon, the dragons of the Targaryen Dynasty didn’t really have set genders, at least none that he could recall. Their riders assigned them names, or the survivors of their rampages.

Thorax slowly turned back and marched through the snow, and Jon followed. By the time the city came into sight, the sun hung high in the sky. Jon risked squinting up at it. It shimmered strangely to his eyes, and was far too close. Winter was here. The nights grew long and the sun never lingered so high in the North. He returned his gaze forward and his eyes widened as the mismatched pair crested a snowy hill and beheld the city in the distance.

It shimmered under a pink bowl, as if a great glass dome had been placed around it. Green fields and colorful crystal buildings stretched into the sky inside the dome, and the city bustled with small, distant dots. Jon watched numbly as some roaring contraption plowed through the snow in the distance, passing through the dome and coated with plates of metal that reflected in the sunlight. Thorax paused at the hill as well, staring towards the city and rubbing his front hooves together.

For a moment, Jon was seized by the memories of the Others and the White Walkers. Their armor and weapons were made of frozen crystal, said to render asunder any mortal blade that tried to match them. Only Sam had ever killed one with a dragonglass dagger. The spire in the center of the dome looked imposing enough to be a citadel.

“It’s the Crystal City,” Thorax offered by his side. “I-it’s nice and warm in there. The shield keeps out the snow.” He winced and backed away when Jon turned to face him.

“Do changelings know of the Others?”

“N-no?”

“The White Walkers,” Jon tried. “The Great Other and the Long Night?” The changeling’s eyes were blue. Blue like the walking corpses. Jon held Longclaw half-ready.

“No,” Thorax said a bit more forcefully. His hooves were full of snow again as he backpedaled.

Jon advanced until his tail slapped against one of his legs. This is absurd. He held Longclaw up and examined his arm. Black scales traveled along his arms to his shoulders and back, but his chest was as white as weirwood. He had no idea what his muzzle looked like, aside from too narrow and too long. He turned away from Thorax in a flush of shame and planted Longclaw in the snow blade first, then sat down beside it and laughed. It had been a long time since he laughed, being the Lord Commander was a thankless, tiring task. And I sent my friends away, Sam and Pypar and Edd and Todder. I left myself with no one, and turn on the only one that saved my life for nothing.

“I apologize,” Jon said again and recognized how hollow it sounded. “I am very far from home, and nothing is familiar. You saved my life and I am a poor guest.”

“It’s f-fine.”

“It is still no excuse.” Jon stared towards the city and tried to pick out the colorful dots. “Thank you for taking me here. Are your people in there?”

Thorax took too long to respond.

“They are not,” Jon guessed. Why else would he be in a cave outside it? “You have taken me far enough. I thank you, but I can only offer my sword.”

Thorax shook his head at the offered blade. “Changelings change shape,” he finally said and plopped heavily into the snow with a chittering sigh.

Jon blinked. “Like a skin-changer?”

Thorax struggled to respond, then sighed again. “Can you promise me something?”

“Of course,” Jon said immediately.

“Promise me you w-won’t k-kill me. Just tell me to leave.”

Jon looked at the snarling wolf with ruby eyes on the end of Longclaw’s pommel. He reached over, drew the blade out of the snow, then tossed it softly between them. It landed closer to Thorax than himself. “I give you my word.”

Thorax closed his eyes and erupted into green fire, like wildfire. It traveled along his body with a crackle. Jon flinched back and fell onto his wings in surprise. The folds in the wings pinched and turned awkwardly in the snow, and the dragon spent a moment wrestling with them before looking back at Thorax.

A small gray horse stared back at him.

The proportions were all wrong. The coat was too thin, the eyes were too large, the muzzle too square, and hooves too wide and flat. There was a picture of a solid gray crystal on its flank. It blinked at him with brown eyes and said, “H-hello.” The voice had lost the echo, but still sounded somewhat male.

“Thorax?” Jon asked.

“Y-yes,” the horse nodded.

Changeling. The name made sense now, to some extent. “Why are you a horse?” Jon asked.

The horse frowned. The stallion’s face was more expressive than Thorax’s natural fangs and eyes. “I’m not an Arabian,” Thorax nickered. “I’m a Pony.”

The Hill Clans in the North bred hardy ponies with thick fur coats for travel in winter. The thing in front of him looked nothing like that. “Are you sure?” Jon asked, but felt stupid for even voicing the question.

The pony looked suddenly concerned. “Y-yes?” he said in a worried whicker, turning around in the snow and mumbling to himself. Thorax scanned himself over quickly and nodded as if to assure himself. “Yes, I am a Pony,” he said proudly and stomped a hoof into the snow.

“Why?”

Thorax looked down towards the city. “O-oh,” he stuttered. “Um, changelings aren’t really p-popular, and the Crystal Empire is ruled by Ponies.”

Jon felt his sharp teeth with a pointed tongue. “Dragons aren’t popular with Ponies,” he assumed. The colorful dots in the distance worked the fields around the city. Jon noticed there weren’t any walls. I suppose magic is their wall.

“N-not really.” Thorax’s furry ears perked. “But I’m a Pony now, and I think you’re fine!”

“And these Ponies know magic?” Magic was an easy answer to what happened, but Mance’s wife Dalla warned Jon about sorcery. The Horned Lord once said that sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it. Mance Rayder supposedly had a horn that could knock the Wall down with a single blow, but Melisandre burned it with her own powers. Jon’s men whispered that his direwolf Ghost was magic, and warging and skin-changing was an old kind of magic from when the First Men still worshipped weirwoods across Westeros. Magic was an easy answer, but it was rarely simple.

“I’m sure they’ll know what happened,” Thorax said with the most confidence Jon had ever heard him use. His newly furry legs walked down the hill and towards the city. Jon stood, but grabbed Longclaw before he followed. The Valyrian steel caught the light of the sun.