FIC: Hollow

( originally published october 29, 2011 )

Game of Thrones / ASOIAF [AU]; Eddard Stark (Cersei Lannister, Catelyn Stark); 939 words

He left King's Landing and went north. Death followed behind him and death loomed ahead.

Written for Lorr's brilliant post-apocalyptic AU, State of Flux.

HOLLOW I cant say it’s even what you are willin to do. Because I always knew that you had to be willin to die to even do this job. That was always true. Not to sound glorious about it or nothing but you do. If you aint they’ll know it. They’ll see it in a heartbeat. I think it is more like what you are willing to become. And I think a man would have to put his soul at hazard. And I won’t do that. I think now that maybe I never would. no country for old men, cormac mccarthy   The country was open for miles and completely deserted. If anyone had lived here before, they didn’t anymore and it hadn’t been that long ago, but already the road beneath Ned Stark’s feat was cracking apart. Already the blackened cement was fissuring and in the jagged, empty spaces, wild grass crawled across the loose pieces of tarmac. The grass looked papery and dead and it was black like the road. Black and black and black and they sky was grey. A hunched and crumbling form shuffled against the horizon. It was far away, but even as a silhouette against the clouds Ned could tell it was a broken thing that hobbled towards him. A victim maybe, or a scavenger. It didn’t matter: anymore, all the others were enemies and all the sickly dangers.   When you take the job you tell yourself it’s because you were ordered to and soldiers follow orders. When you go to work with them you tell yourself it’s because you were ordered to and soldiers follow orders. Soldiers follow orders and you’re a soldier and soldiers protect and you protect. When you lie with her you tell yourself it’s because you were ordered to and soldiers follow orders and you’re a soldier and you never say her name because names have meanings and names mean real but this means nothing at all. This means protection for your daughter and a quicker way to answers. This is following orders and you’re a soldier and soldiers follow orders.   His boots on the road made a terrible crunching sound. The broken thing shuffled closer to Ned and Ned strode closer to it, and they were near enough now Ned wasn’t guessing it was sick. Infected. It was dying because they had killed it and if it was a man or a woman or a friend or a foe all that mattered anymore was it had become a thing rank with disease and it was shuffling closer to Ned and Ned was striding closer to it and soon they would meet in the middle of the empty, blasted country on the broken, jagged road.   The time it takes for you to decide how to react to the news, you end up not reacting at all. You tell yourself it’s because you are a soldier and soldiers are strong and soldiers do not buckle and soldiers do not show fear and soldiers do not show weakness and if you’re writing a list in your mind of all the names of all the people you plan to kill you never say because a soldier doesn’t murder; a soldier follows orders and you are a soldier. You tell them you’re going home and they tell you have no home left to go to. They tell you even if you make it that far north, you’ll die like they did. There are no people left there anymore. Only sickness. But we did this. We have to fix this. You tell them you’ll do what you have to do and you steal their research and you leave in the day not in the night because you are a soldier and soldiers are not cowards and if they want to stop you they can try. But they don’t. And they don’t say anything as you leave and neither do you and she is there but you don’t say anything to her, not even this last time, not even her name, because you never say her name because names mean real and she means nothing at all and you’re going home and home is where your wife is. You haven’t seen your wife in a long time. When you left you told yourself it was because you were ordered to and you are a soldier and soldiers follow orders. And if you wanted to or not it doesn’t matter because you are a soldier and soldiers follow orders and soldiers act for the good of others and soldiers fight and soldiers protect and soldiers endure and soldiers don’t feel; soldiers follow orders and you are a soldier. You wife, her name is Cat.   The smell of the thing was wafting across the space between it and Ned. He wondered how anything could waft on air so flat and still and dry. He supposed decay had a way of permeating on its own accord. Behind the shuffling mutation, the road stretched on until the horizon blurred into a grey smudge.   You wonder what it will look like if everyone there is sick and dying and infected. You wonder what home will mean if anymore there is no home. You remember what everyone looked like before you left, but that was a long time ago. You tell yourself it wouldn’t have made a difference if you stayed and you didn’t have a choice because you are a soldier and soldiers follow orders. You tell yourself Your wife, her name is   When the shuffling thing met Ned in the middle of the cracked road in the empty, grey country, Ned stopped. He thought the thing might have been a woman once, but anymore, it didn’t matter: now it was infected. Now it was just a thing that was dying. Ned reached into the waistband of his trousers and he pulled out a gun and he shot the thing in the head. A hole appeared in its charred and mottled skin and blood boiled down its face. Its legs shuddered. It collapsed in the road, on the cracking pavement, bleeding into weeds like faded, crinkled paper and Ned stepped over it and continued striding north towards the grey smudge horizon.     (end)