Leaving the music and revelry of the hall behind, Aegon stepped into the cold wind of the empty, silent courtyard. Guards on the inner Wall battlements pulled their cloaks tighter against the chill. A Night's Watchman turned his head, spotted the boy, and walked towards him.
"Boy," a strange voice called out. Aegon didn't see the speaker but knew his memory wasn't wrong; he hadn't come the wrong way. "Is that creature next to you a wolf?"
"It's a Direwolf, named Ghost," Jon turned and found the speaker, also seeing Aegon stepping out. He turned his head back, not letting them see his tears. "What are you doing there? Why aren't you inside at the feast?"
Aegon walked around the pillar by the door, following the direction of Jon's recent unconscious gaze, and also saw Tyrion Lannister. The Dwarf was sitting on a protruding ledge above the main hall door, looking down at the two of them. If he could stay still, he might have been mistaken for a statue.
"It's too hot and noisy inside, and I had a bit too much wine," the Dwarf answered Jon's question. "A long time ago, I learned a valuable lesson: throwing up on your own brother is rather impolite. May I come closer and have a look at your wolf?"
Jon hesitated for a moment, then slowly nodded. "Can you get down yourself? Or should I get a ladder?"
"Go on, looking down on me?" the small man said. He pushed off with both hands, flipping himself into the air. He nimbly tucked himself in mid-air, landed lightly on his hands, and then backflipped to his feet.
The small Direwolf instinctively backed up a few steps. Even Aegon had to admit that, considering his relative size, Tyrion's move was quite impressive.
The Dwarf brushed the dust off himself and chuckled, "I think I must have startled your little wolf. My apologies."
"He's not scared," Jon said, bending down to call, "Ghost, come here, come quickly, good boy."
The little wolf trotted over, affectionately rubbing its nose against Jon's cheek, but remained wary of Tyrion Lannister. When the Dwarf reached out to pet it, it immediately backed away, baring its teeth and emitting a silent growl. "Shy, is he?" Lannister said.
"Ghost, sit," Jon commanded. "That's it, sit still." He looked up at Tyrion. "You can pet him now. Unless I tell him to move, he won't. I'm training him."
"I see," Lannister said, scratching the fine, snow-white fur between Ghost's ears. "Good wolf."
...
Aegon stood to the side, looking for a way to interject and quickly attract the Dwarf's attention. Now that Tyrion had stopped talking and was rubbing the Direwolf's head, he finally found an opportunity to speak. "Jon... I don't know if I can call you that, but I must tell you, your uncle not wanting you to join is for your own good."
"For my own good?" The boy was still somewhat angry. "For my own good, he should have controlled his brother back then and not allowed me to be born into this world!"
"Ah..." Tyrion, who had been listening to their conversation, tilted his disproportionately large head, a look of sudden understanding on his face. He sized Jon up and down. "You're Ned Stark's bastard son, you want to join the Night's Watch, but Benjen refused you?"
The Dwarf had guessed the truth from just one line of their conversation; his mind was certainly quick. Unfortunately, his words were like salt on a wound. Jon pressed his lips together and stood up, and his little wolf also dodged Tyrion's touch almost simultaneously.
"Uh... if I offended you, I apologize," the small Lannister immediately realized something. "But why... isn't The Wall a place where lineage doesn't matter, only ability, a good place to handle—uh, I mean, settle bastards?"
"When you see the sprawling tent cities built by a hundred thousand Wildlings gathered to attack The Wall, Giants tall enough to tear a man in half with their bare hands, White Walkers with pale bodies and blue eyes piercing the bodies of comrades with Ice Swords, and people who've been killed standing up again after they've gone cold... you won't think it's a good place anymore."
"A somewhat captivating description," Tyrion also stood up and looked back at Aegon. "First, I must state my position: I have great respect for the Night's Watch, and I admire your act of sacrificing yourselves to protect the Kingdom... although I would never take whatever oath you take, I do admire you."
The Dwarf paused before continuing, "However, I don't believe those legends about Giants, wights, and other monsters. The only difference between the Wildlings and us is that when The Wall rose, they happened to be North of the Wall."
"Lord Tyrion, have you been to The Wall? Do you know that The Wall is the largest structure ever built by humans?"
"That's a recognized fact," Tyrion shrugged. "Not only the largest, but undoubtedly also the most useless structure."
***
"The most useless structure?" Aegon fought the urge to snort with disdain. The Dwarf before him might be friendly and easy to talk to, but in this world where the concept of equality didn't exist, the gap in their statuses was too vast. On their first day of acquaintance, it was better to be cautious. "Does the Lord know just how big The Wall is?"
Tyrion gave Aegon a strange look, finding the Night's Watchman's way of speaking odd. "A hundred leagues long, seven hundred feet high, wide enough at the top for twelve armored knights to ride abreast... As for how wide that actually is, I'm not sure."
Aegon nodded. "That's correct, those are the official figures given by the Chief Craftsman. But I'll bet the Lord has neither seen a Wall a hundred leagues long nor a building seven hundred feet tall...
The Hightower in Oldtown is also very tall, but it still pales in comparison to The Wall. If you have the chance, you should go see it and measure it yourself. But it doesn't matter if you don't, I can now make you understand what kind of structure The Wall is through a more intuitive calculation and comparison." Aegon said with certainty,
"Seven hundred feet high, with a width about a tenth of its height, let's assume it's seventy feet wide. What we have in front of us now is the inner Wall of Winterfell, its highest part is a hundred feet tall and about ten feet thick. I hear the Lord is exceptionally intelligent, so do you know what it means that The Wall is seven times the height and thickness of Winterfell's Walls?"
What does it mean? Tyrion frowned. He was rarely stumped. He thought about it and understood the other party's meaning. "It means that to build The Wall and Winterfell's Walls of the same length, the former requires seven times seven, forty-nine times the amount of material as the latter."
"The Lord's mind is truly as sharp as they say," Aegon subtly flattered the Dwarf. "So, The Wall is a hundred leagues long. What does that mean?"
...
The Dwarf's frown deepened, while Jon Snow watched the two of them calculating, completely bewildered and unable to interject. He might have been better at sword fighting and riding than the two of them combined, but when it came to arithmetic, he was inferior even to Tyrion, let alone Aegon, who had received higher education in another world.
"Let me tell the Lord. It means that if The Wall were dismantled and rebuilt into a Wall as high as Winterfell's inner Wall, its length could reach five thousand leagues. This length could easily encircle the entire North, or separate the entire King's Road from King's Landing to Winterfell from the fields on either side. The weight of The Wall is greater than the combined weight of the Walls of all cities in Westeros."
"But The Wall is built from massive blocks of ice," the Dwarf roughly calculated, realizing the Night's Watchman before him wasn't talking nonsense, but still argued unconvinced, "while Winterfell's Walls are built of stone."
"Stone of the same volume weighs roughly a little over twice as much as ice, but considering the difference in construction difficulty and workload between building a seven-hundred-foot-high Wall and a one-hundred-foot-high Wall, I suggest we call it even." Aegon's mind raced, quickly steering the conversation back to his intended path.
"Just now, the Lord said the only difference between the Wildlings and us is being on the North or south side of The Wall. I agree with that statement. Using your logic, can I say that the only difference between Northmen and Southerners is being on the North or south side of the Neck?"
"Most people in the North have First Men blood flowing through their veins." The bastard had long forgotten the humiliation he felt from his uncle in the hall. Feeling like an idiot for having listened in for half the day, he finally found a chance to interject.
"'First Men' means the first humans to arrive in Westeros. It is neither a distinct race nor older than any other ethnicity," Tyrion corrected Jon's misconception. "From a racial standpoint, the First Men are very similar to the Andals or the Rhoynar, with no fundamental difference. Therefore, the concept of 'First Men blood' is actually meaningless. It's less about bloodline and more about heritage and cultural beliefs."
"Agreed," Aegon said in assent. "Lord Tyrion, after reviewing documents, I learned that The Wall was not built within a single generation. 'Brandon the Builder' Brandon Stark, eight thousand years ago, only built the stone foundation for Winterfell and The Wall. The latter's astonishing height of seven hundred feet was slowly built up over decades and centuries by thousands of Night's Watch Artisans using large blocks of ice from the ice lakes in the Haunted Forest."
"The Wall isn't built entirely of ice?" Tyrion raised an eyebrow. "It seems I haven't read carefully enough... but it makes sense."
"What it's built of is less important," Aegon said dismissively. "I don't understand military matters, but I know that a giant defensive structure like this, if built at the Neck, would render the thousands of soldiers of the Southern Lords unable to threaten the North. Yet, the Builder chose to build it in the far North... Even if the first Wall builder was crazy, why did his descendants continue the project? Are all Northmen crazy, or is there another reason?"
"Hmm..." the Dwarf stroked his chin.
"Furthermore," Aegon continued without pause, "according to records, at its peak, the Night's Watch had over five thousand soldiers stationed at Castle Black alone, with the entire order having over ten thousand combat troops, not counting servants and squires... That was eight thousand years ago, when the population both on and beyond The Wall was far less than today. At that time, the number of Wildlings living North of the Wall might not even have been more than the Night's Watch. What was it that made the Northmen build and continuously heighten The Wall, while also stationing such a large standing army to guard it?"
---