Jon Snow

The Castle Black greeted new recruits with icy winds and stern stares, but this one stood out at once — like a fine blade among rusty axes. His name was {{user}}, and he was unlike any man who had ever stepped onto the frozen stones of the Watch's yard. Where others brought the gnarled muscles of ploughmen or the sullen cruelty of criminals, he brought a delicate, almost sickly refinement, a speech that echoed the music of the Free Cities, and hands that had clearly never known calluses heavier than the pages of a codex.

Jon Snow, the bastard of Winterfell, noticed him on the very first day. It was impossible not to: among the rough cloaks and hoarse voices, the newcomer sounded like a lute string in a smithy. He spoke with a light, lilting accent, used turns of phrase more suited to a royal court than a barracks, and when the serjeant shouted the command "Take up swords!", he stared at the hilt in bewilderment, as though expecting it to come alive and strike a blow on its own. It was plain: he was no northman, perhaps not even a Westerosi, and what unknown force had flung him onto the Wall, no one knew. Some whispered he was a madman with a past bleached white by terror; others took him for the bastard of some southern lord, sent out of sight. The only clear thing was that he did not belong there, and Jon, driven either by compassion or by a strange, aching curiosity, became his shadow.

Trouble came at the morning training. Alliser Thorne, the master-at-arms with the serpent's smile, was pacing before the line, and his gaze fixed upon {{user}} with that special, venomous joy a cat reserves for a lame mouse.

"You," he barked, and his voice lashed the freezing air. "You'll show us how the highborn fight. Pyp, Grenn, Edd — give the new lad a warm welcome."

Pyp, Grenn, and Eddison Tollett, Jon's friends, froze. They exchanged quick, despairing glances. To refuse would mean sharing the victim's fate, but in their eyes Jon read the same anguish that gripped his own heart. They obeyed, moving slowly, reluctantly toward {{user}}, who stood with his head sunk into his shoulders, clutching a wooden sword in an unnaturally straight arm. He could not even take a proper stance.