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Jon brought Leon to a small banquet hall beside the Commander’s Tower.
It was only on the seventh day that Leon finally understood: the one-meal-a-day torture was strictly for recruits.
Once you were a true brother of the Night’s Watch, 3 full meals a day were yours.
And right now, a rather grand evening banquet was in full swing.
He pushed through the doors and every veteran in the room, known faces and strangers alike, raised their cups in his direction.
Men were drunk and reeling, cups and plates scattered across the tables, wine pooling on the floor in rivers of red and yellow and green and white.
Jon didn’t let him linger at the entrance.
He steered Leon straight to the largest wooden table at the far end of the hall.
Lord Commander Jeor Mormont, the Old Bear, was waiting.
Leon took stock of the table.
The Night’s Watch high command was almost entirely present.
The only notable absence was Maester Aemon, whose eyes were too far gone to see much of anything anymore.
What actually stopped Leon short was the sight of the Little Devil himself, the Imp, sitting openly in the secondary seat like he owned the place, raising a hand to Leon with an expression of complete ease.
“Alliser Thorne tells me a lad like you has no need to go through his training any further.” The Old Bear was in a fine mood tonight, his voice carrying an uncharacteristic warmth.
“Do you agree?”
Beside him, Alliser Thorne’s face was a thundercloud.
His eyes were hard and unfriendly, though he made a deliberate point of not meeting Leon’s questioning glance.
“Hic.” The Old Bear let out a wine-soaked belch.
“Winter is coming, and the Night’s Watch is short of capable men.
The realm hasn’t sent someone as formidable as you in a very long time.
Your performance does your father proud.” He spoke at an unhurried pace, turning the words over slowly.
Listening to the praise, Alliser Thorne looked like a man who had just been told the worst joke he’d ever heard.
He wanted to laugh.
He clearly wasn’t going to.
He sat there grinding his teeth in silent, furious indignation.
Leon couldn’t quite make sense of the Old Bear’s angle.
The words were warm enough, but the motive behind them was opaque.
Jon, standing beside him, had evidently known something was coming.
He was already grinning like an idiot on Leon’s behalf.
“So, lad.” The Old Bear leaned back.
“Have you thought it through?
The black for life.
No wife.
No children.
No chasing fame or fortune.
Just the darkness and the cold, from now until the end.”
For Jon, those words landed like music.
He nearly opened his mouth to answer for Leon himself.
But he hesitated.
The Night’s Watch was nothing like the glory the songs promised.
It was gold leaf over rot, and Jon knew it.
He had half-regretted following Uncle Benjen north, truth be told.
And yet, here he was.
Pushed into it, nowhere else to go.
Winterfell was closed to him.
His father Eddard Stark had already ridden south to King’s Landing to serve as Hand of the King.
Staying at Winterfell only meant being pushed aside by his nominal mother, Catelyn Stark.
His siblings didn’t treat him the way she did, but that barely helped.
The moment he thought of himself as an outsider in his own home, something tight and sore moved through his chest.
He didn’t even know if Bran had woken up yet.
“My lord.” Leon’s voice was steady, neither deferential nor defiant.
“Abandoning things halfway is not my nature.
Since fate has brought me here, I’m willing to live and die alongside my brothers of the Night’s Watch.”
It was also the decision he had reached after genuinely thinking it through since arriving in this world.
First: if he left the Night’s Watch, completing the Many-Faced God System’s quests would become exponentially harder.
Keeping his targets close meant he could move on them whenever the time came.
Second: he knew almost nothing about this world.
He could go out and carve himself a considerable domain through sheer effort, and none of it would matter the moment the White Walkers broke through the Wall.
Besides, the whole of A Song of Ice and Fire wasn’t even finished yet.
Leon was not about to believe the Night King would wander across 8 seasons of television only to get carelessly put down by Arya Stark and a dragonglass dagger.
And he had the Mount & Blade Panel and the Many-Faced God System to grow on.
Someday, he might actually be able to go toe-to-toe with the Night King.
That was not nothing.
The Old Bear heard him out, then nudged the First Ranger sitting silent beside him.
“See?
You said he’d leave.” A satisfied grunt.
“You’ve misjudged this time.
Not all the southron lords’ boys are spineless, worthless trash.”
Then, as if Leon had already ceased to exist, the Old Bear waved him off and turned back to the feast, urging the table to drink deep and eat well.
Alliser Thorne looked up.
His gaze settled on Leon for a moment.
Beneath the hostility, something colder stirred in his eyes.
He couldn’t shake it — the sense that the man standing before him was someone he was fated to clash with.
That between the two of them, only one would be left standing in the end.
Jon pulled Leon away before it could go anywhere, steering him to a pair of empty seats and immediately dragging over everything within reach — food, wine, all of it.
“This isn’t the pig slop that fat cook Jenny churns out,” Jon said, tearing into a lamb leg that was golden-brown and crackling, packed with expensive herbs.
“This is a proper feast.
Three-Finger Hobb made this one himself.
For the big shots.”
He didn’t so much as glance at the hostile looks coming from down the table.
He bit, chewed, set the leg down, picked up a wine cup that may or may not have been his, and drained it clean.
Then repeated the process.
His injured arm was useless, so he did all of it one-handed, switching back and forth, thoroughly and happily occupied.
Watching him, Leon felt something unfamiliar: genuine appetite.
In 2 lifetimes, he had never been the type to chase after food.
And the quasi-medieval world of Westeros wasn’t exactly known for its cuisine.
But there were exceptions.
Three-Finger Hobb’s reputation turned out to be completely earned.
Leon picked something up, ate it, and couldn’t stop.
Half a roasted whole lamb.
Apple pies.
Meat pies.
By the time the table was cleared, Leon had personally seen to most of it.
➤ Next: Enfeoffment!
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