Kissed by Fire

A woman at the Wall? What's next, blond Baratheons? Lyonel was lost for words. The old maester had given him a lot to think about and sent him off with off with his next target in sight. Whatever supernatural was happening in this world, it rounded back to the North, the true North. Bloodraven had gone there, in original canon Bran had gone there and something inside Lyonel was urging him, tugging at his insides, to go there as well. He just didn't want to. The South held warmth and everyone dear to him, the North held obligation and uncertainty. Maybe another vision would clear things up. The makeshift Godswood right behind the Wall or even Gendels tunnels came to mind as places of remembrance. The tunnels? The caves? Steaming underground sex?

Ygritte!

The feisty redheaded spearwife must be the wildling ranger that Aemon was talking about. Being held hostage instead of killed on sight? The woman in question must have some kind of personal connection to the rangers. The women surrounding Mance might warrant a "hostage situation", but a direct squabble with the King-Beyond-the-Wall would be something the brothers in black would have told him about. And Gilly was the medieval (and very twisted) version of a home-schooled kid, she wouldn't be helpful beyond the wall at all, Aemon can't have meant her. Ygritte on the other hand was a scout in her own way. Always having been a rebellious one, if any wildling woman was caught in proximity of the wall and kept alive, probably after leaving behind her party, then Ygritte.

Ok, time to get some help. A chamber in the Commander's tower was the jail cell, it couldn't be too hard to arrange a prison break here. And indeed, the tower stood nondescript as always, its outside unguarded. Lyonel knocked with one hand and opened the door with the other.

"Hold!", the door hadn't been locked, but even upon partial entry the room in front of him revealed three men sitting at a desk playing dice. The one that addressed him stood up energetically, the other two seemed far more annoyed than outraged.

"The Lord Commander is out, you'll have to come back later. He's strolling the Wall, might want to join them ay?", the standing man was pushing Lyonel verbally out the door.

"The Commander is out and the three of you warm his chamber? I understand having a steward, a pair of helping hands here or there, but the three of you here? Seems a little extensive to me", Lyonel tried his hand at a mock-suspicious tone.

"With such high visitors, a little caution goes a long way.Without the fancy colours, everything must look the same to you here. Your Lordship and thy entourage shouldn't get lost, should I guide your way to your quarters?", the man showed him a toothy grin. Or at least he tried, but missing at least three of those at first glance, diminished its effect.

"I'm not really tired, but if you want to assist me, I could need a little entertainment. What'cha playing?" Lyonel nodded towards the table.

"Snake eyes!", one of the sitting man shouted, only to get hit on the head by the guy next to him. The angry glare he received was a clear giveaway that gambling of any kind probably wasn't allowed while on duty. Or for sworn brothers in generell? Irrelevant, this was Lyonels way in.

"What are the stakes? Could my silence on the games here already serve as my buy-in?"

CREEEEK

With a chilling sound, the silent guy used his foot to push one an unused chair away from the table and towards Lyonel.

"Two coppers on yer own throws, but ya can add another on the others throws. Hope ya brought tha big purse with ya, my brother is on a lucky streak", he smirked and the guy next to him smiled broadly.

With an eyeroll the standing man returned to his chair and while you set down, he introduced the group.

"So your Highness, my names Enger and those two are Urrigon and Rodrick", he pointed his finger from one to the other.

"Oh, you can call me Lyonel. After I bleed you dry tonight, you'll be thankful if it's a short name that you'll curse", Rodrick howled at the taunt and Enger himself steeled his gaze.

The game was on.

[...]

And the game was over.

"SHALL THE STORM GOD TAKE YOU! YOU SON OF A HARBOR HARLET, YOU-", Urrigon yelled in anguish, when the dice showed two ones for the uptenth time.

"Shut it Ur, the rich bastard won... again. And I'm out of coin now, so the game's over. Let's call it a night", his brother Rodrick was calmer, but not less sour.

"Come on boys, it's not about the coppers", Lyonel pushed the coins back over the table to the men of the Nightswatch, "You can have these back, don't worry. But you owe me a favour, deal?"

The three of them shared a look and Lyonel could see the gears turning behind their eyes. Snobby Southener, what could he want? What's on the table is all I own, what else do I have to lose? Gods is this humiliating, let's get this over with!

"Certainly, you have our word", Enger was already picking up his coins (and more than one that belonged to Lyonel).

"Well, you won't have to wait long for me to use it. I'll go upstairs and I want the three of you outside the door. You leave us alone and we're even", Lyonel stood up and tried to strengthen his demand with a harsh look.

Which wasn't needed at all.

"Hah! A word with the witch, huh? Your own funeral, princeling", the three of them shared a laugh and the Iron Islander brothers left the room without a second glance. Enger ruffled a little in one of his pockets, retrieved a small iron key and threw it for Lyonel to catch. "In all seriousness, your majesty", the mans voice shifted back to a grim tone, "be careful up there. That broad almost bit off one of our brethrens ears and that's to say nothing of her own dead comrades. If she lays a hand on ya, scream for your life and we'll come running."

I was hoping to be the one making her scream, Lyonel chuckled internally, but kept a respectable grimace as the guard left him.

Shortly behind the table they'd all been sitting at, Lyonel made his way up and as the tower was far from intricate, it didn't take long to find the one door that the key must be for. He put it in, turned it around and came inside unanounced. With dire consequences. Before his eyes could tell his brain what they saw inside the room, his throat already transmitted two strong entities applying pressure from the sides. Guided by his bodies instincts, he let his knees sink, startling his assailant by the sudden weight pulling his throat and by extension her strangling hands downward. He snaked his left arm around where he suspected her waist to be, drawing her towards him to reduce her arms maneuvering. And after an unsuccessful push of her thumbs to take his breath away, she really did change tactics.

Her hands left Lyonels throat and by sheer luck he reacted to the gruff watchmans words. My head, she's going for my head. And pulling her close, I gave her the perfect opening. But I'm not not giving you that mouthfull!

With all the strength the adrenaline rush was unleashing, Lyonel jammed his own head forward in a preamptive strike, hitting his attackers forehead with his own.

His world spun for a second or an hour, Lyonel couldn't tell, and his ears started ringing, but oxygen and clarity slowly returned to his brain. He was kneeling on the ground, a readhead in his arm. The woman was slumped forward, her head fallen on his chest. Great Enemy Felled, the elder part of his mind was telling him. After some calming breaths Lyonel stood up again. Picking up the groaning woman that looked at him between mostly shut eyes, he walked over to the bed at the end of the room and placed her on it. The thought of closing the door now had to be postponed, as neither turning his back on the woman, nor walking backwards through the room appealed to him.

In stark contrast to the woman, that had to be Ygritte. That women, wow, she was appealing to him.

She rested above the covers and now Lyonel really got the chance to have a look at her. Her face was framed by deep red hair, cascading all around her head and almost down to her breasts. Those heaved with each heavy breath, rising and falling, obscured by little more than a heavy nightgown.

"You see anything you like, heavy head?", came a voice that would have sounded cocky if it hadn't been accompanied by stertorous breathing.

"You're one to talk, I wasn't even fully through the door before you jumped me. You're coming on strong, you know?", without taking his eyes off of her, Lyonel dragged the only chair in the room in front of the bed and sat down.

"I was about to lure one of the guards into some alone time, when they'd come check on me. But when I heard there was only one person approaching, I saw my chance. Well...", she took a pause, half for dramatic effect and half for her breathing to fully return to normal,"I would have gotten my chance, if you didn't walk through that door. What do they feed you oafs in the South? That grip would have reunited a Thenn with his ancestors. But you? You somehow knock me out."

At least outwardly she had completely recovered now, her eyes taking on a challenging clarity, akin to her voice. Challenge accepted.

"If you're not happy with the results, feel free to try that seduction approach you had planned. I'd give you a fair chance", he leaned forward, his eyes roaming over her body, "I swear."

"On the old gods and the new?", she turned, now not laying on her back anymore, but on her side. Her free hand put on her hip, she presented her figure provocatively.

"Would you trust the word of a green boy from the flowery south?"

"Oh, I've felt your grip, you're no boy at all", she sat up and rustled her locks of liquid fire. "I've felt the hands of boys and those?", she reached out to him and he obliged, laying his hands in hers, "Those are the hands of a man."

She was good, a compliment here, a tease there and her body all but naked. She could have tempted whoever got the unlucky role of prison guard today. Her lips, naturally red and full, screamed to be touched. To be entered. And she might have even given him a kiss, up here or down there, but afterwards? In that moment of bliss and vulnerability? She would have strangeled him with the sheets, stabbed him with his dagger if he would have come armed, or bit important parts off and sentenced him to bleed out, while she made her way into the night and fled. Lyonel needed to be cautious. One wrong move and he might get burned.

"No need for you to honey me up with words, you attire does all the heavy lifting anyway", time to draw her out of her reserve, enrage her a little, "You look a sweet maiden from the south. Soft and pliable, it really befits you."

Her face told him his arrow had hit its mark, right in the pride. The eyes of the wildling women hardened.

"A soft lass from the South, ay? Is that whom you're going back to soon?", she lifted herself from the bed. Maybe to intimidate him, but if that was her goal, she failed spectacularly.

Lyonel gained a even better view at her body and her sexualization didn't make him reverent. It made him more forceful. Ygritte was clothed in the northern equivalent of lingerie, no lace or satin, not finely woven. Certainly a one-piece borrowed from Mole's Town. But what lacked in finesse, it made up for in skimpy-ness. It hung loosely around her shoulders, revealing more of her toned upper body than was intended. Her breasts stretched it forward, being the only anchors that kept the fabric from falling. The bleak brownish material contrasted nicely with her pale skin, reddened slightly by the cold.

"You'll return down there, where they don't have real women. I know you don't belong here, none of the crows have specks of colour on their clothes. Let alone golden ones. So you'll go back and leave the cold. Wouldn't you want this to come along?", her hand moved along her side, more clumsily than temptacious. Obviously she came along nicely with **** up until now. And whenever she would have needed a seduction, apparently very little had been enough to excite the men she was with. Lucky for her, Lyonel had his sights on her already.

"So that's what you see yourself as? A trophy for me to lug around?", this time Lyonel could see the indignation rise in her, one vein on her forehead almost popping.

"Listen here you-", as soon as she abandoned her feeble attempt at softness, so did Lyonel. He reached forward to her hips and pulled her towards and onto him, her legs spread around him.

In an instant she tried push herself off him, her hands in the middle of his broad chest, to no avail.

"No, you listen here. Ygritte the wildling girl, kissed by fire, but left untouched by subtlety. You want out of here, you need to get out of here. You either convince me to take you out of here or that will have been your last chance to escape Winter. You played all other cards, you have no arrows left in your quiver. Now, why should I rescue you?"

He had hardly stopped speaking when her lips met his.