Jon's disappearance

[onceaqueen]

It began as just another morning around the house. Susan was hanging laundry on the line to one side of the house, and Jon and Rickon were in the garden nearby, pulling weeds--or rather, Jon was pulling weeds and Rickon was 'helping'. This mostly constituted slinging small bits of plants and sticks and clods of dirt about with no regard for what

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[lonewolflives]

A crying child wasn't entirely anything out of the ordinary, not with all children running about, now. But the wolves didn't howl for nothing, not howls like that.

Arya took off towards the sound at a run, vaulting over a log, Nymeria a grey blur at her side, only to halt, stymied, when she arrived at Snow House.

She'd been ready to ward off whatever had Rickon and Shadow so upset, but there was nothing, at first glance, to ward off. And Arya's first glances were good ones. She noticed, for instance, that there were clumps of weeds pulled loose but not yet thrown away, and that the laundy was not quite done being hanged.

No one with any sense gardened and did laundry at the same time. But there was only one adult here.

"...what happened?" she said, even though it wasn't the question that leapt first to her tongue.

[onceaqueen]

"Jon," Susan said, having to force the word out over Rickon's squalls, which showed no sign of letting up anytime soon. "He was in the garden with Rickon one minute, and the next..."

"Dada GO!" Rickon interrupted, stomping and kicking, and Susan turned him a little so that he wasn't kicking her stomach but could still vent his stormy feelings. "Dada gone! Ghost gone!"

[lonewolflives]

Arya went entirely still, and blurted, "No," without even thinking about it. It wasn't true. She wouldn't let it be true.

"Nymeria, find Jon," she said to the wolf, who simply padded to the garden, sniffed, and then looked back at her, silent as her absent brother.

[onceaqueen]

"Find!" Rickon demanded. "Find! Find!" When no one did it, he burst into a fresh round of squalls and stomping that Susan didn't have the heart to stop.

"Maybe the island sent him to dinosaur territory," Susan ventured. She was grasping at straws.

[giftless]

Edmund had heard Rickon shout for his father dozens, maybe hundreds, of times, but he couldn't remember it ever sounding like this. He was usually so pleased to see him, and even his numerous fits lacked this sad shrill.

So Ed took off running towards Susan's the second it clicked in his mind that something was amiss.

"What's wrong now?" he asked, frowning at how Susan didn't try to quiet her son. "Want me to take him?" he offered with hands held out.

[onceaqueen]

Susan didn't let go of Rickon even when Edmund offered. It took her a minute to even respond to him, for she was in a kind of daze. "I think... he just saw Jon disappear," she said numbly. "Right here, just now."

[giftless]

"Disa--" Sometimes when a person doesn't immediately understand what's been said, he will repeat it as though that would help. It rarely does, and often just annoys those involved, so Edmund stopped himself halfway through his echo because his mind simply refused to accept what it knew well as opposed to being honestly confused by what Susan said.

Not sure what to say, if there even were anything to be said, he stepped forward and reached out to put his arm around Su's shoulders.

[onceaqueen]

"It could be one of those island tricks," Susan said, her voice a little desperate in the way that only the voice of a person who is facing a hard truth she doesn't want to admit can be. "He could be on the other side of the island, couldn't he? It happens all the time."

Rickon kicked and howled to be put down and Susan bent to let him; he proceeded to run about shrieking and kicking and finally ran into Edmund's leg at full speed and refused to let go.

[_kinginthenorth]

Robb has raced to the little house as fast as he could, Grey Wind loping tensely at heel. The wolf glances at him sometimes, mid-dash, as if to coax him faster, but humans do not run so swift as direwolves. It's Shadow's howling that worries Robb, and he thinks that Grey Wind knows something he cannot say.

"What's happened?" he asks, breathless, skidding across the dirt to a halt. "Susan! What's wrong?"

[onceaqueen]

"Dada!" Rickon yelled, stomping his feet and crying. "Dada go!" Between Rickon's shouting and Shadow's howling, Susan thought she might go mad, and she pressed her mouth into a thin line.

"Jon," she said, forcing her voice over the noise. "He was here just now, and now he's not."

[_kinginthenorth]

A quick, sharp bark from Grey Wind silences Shadow, but the poor wolf looks no less miserable. Robb's expression fades into something blank and stoic, his blue eyes troubled. "Just now?"

[onceaqueen]

Susan nodded once, miserably. She couldn't say what she feared on the chance that Rickon would be even more upset than he already was, if that was possible, but Robb would know. They had done this too many times before.

"Down!" Rickon demanded, kicking, and Susan put him down before he kicked her in the belly. He ran to Shadow and threw his arms around her neck, babbling in desperate baby-syllables that Susan couldn't decipher.