The Wall…
Rolfe wiped the frost from his beard as he trudged through the snow. One of the worst things about the cold was how everything stuck together: swords in sheaths, ration pouches, eyelids, and damn near everything else.
Hearing a light growl, he looked to his left. Gjalda walked beside him, an arm around her daughter, while her Shadowcat walked between them. The Chieftess of the Shadow Claws looked over at him and smiled, and he smiled back. The massacre at Hardhome was still fresh in everyone's memory, and the fact that the 5, 000 Wildlings they had saved was barely a fraction of the original army weighed heavily on the Ranger.
Soon enough, they came to the Wall.
They all stopped, and Rolfe looked up at the top, where his well-trained sight could see several brothers. Alliser Thorne was likely up there, staring down at them. The former knight always acted like he had a stick so far up his arse that he breathed splinters, and keeping them all out in the freezing cold would not surprise Rolfe.
Still, both men had spent decades fighting Wildlings, and allowing an army of them through the Wall a scant year after Mance Rayder's attack was unprecedented in the history of the Night's Watch.
But then again, so was the idea that Dragons would come back into the world, let alone fly over the damn Wall to get at an army of men from the Stormlands.
Rolfe glanced at the ground in front of the Wall, where Stannis Baratheon's army had camped after defeating Mance Rayder. Drakon Blackfyre and his Dragons had flown over the Wall itself, burning hundreds with their fire until the rest capitulated. The ground was still black, and it was hot enough to melt any snow that touched it.
Eventually, the door leading to the tunnel creaked open.
Once back in Castle Black, Rolfe watched the Wildlings slowly pour in through the castle and out the other side. Gjalda and her people walked by, and the Chieftess glanced at him before they moved on.
The veteran Ranger glanced at his brothers. They all stared at the passing Wildlings, most of them with hatred and contempt. After being enemies for thousands of years, it was no surprise that there were some very strong feelings on both sides. As Rolfe stood there, someone came to stand beside him. He turned and saw Ser Davos Seaworth, former servant of the dead king, Stannis Baratheon, who called Castle Black home alongside the black brothers.
It certainly was the place for misfits, outcasts, and traitors.
"A lot of angry faces" he noted.
"Aye" Rolfe agreed.
After a moment of silence, Davos said "I'm… sorry about your son. I know what losing a son is like"
The Ranger gritted his teeth together. "You had the chance to see your son die. You knew when it happened. My son died twenty years ago, and the piece of shit who murdered him stole his name and is now Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. The gods thought it would be fun for me to be in the dark for so long."
The two men proceeded to watch the Wildlings in silence.
Winterfell…
Edric sat down on a stool in the lord's quarters, resting his hands on his knees. Maester Pyne began to unwrap the black strip of cloth covering his left eye, as it had been a week since the old man had checked it last.
"And how did the hunt go this morning, my lord?"
Edric snorted as the cloth came off. "It didn't. I had the stag in my sights, but I missed my fucking spear thrust. It ran off into the woods."
"Perhaps next time" the Maester said, examining his eye.
"I don't think there will be a next time" the young Blackfyre said, his tone bitter. "I can't hunt, I can't swing my sword properly… I can't even mount a damn horse without constantly looking to the left. I'm Warden of the North and I have a Valyrian Steel sword, everything I could have ever wanted, but everything's tainted by this fucking eye of mine! I'm supposed to be the liege lord of all the Northern houses, but no one here respects me. To them, I'm just some one-eyed boy who's here because his father said so."
Maester Pyne was silent as he examined Edric's eye. Eventually, when he finished and began to re-wrap the cloth, he asked "Are you familiar with the words of House Forrester?"
Edric remembered his lessons with Sansa. "Iron from Ice."
"Iron from Ice" he echoed. "Strength from weakness. The North may be a harsh place to live, but its people are among the hardiest in Westeros. After all, a sword must be tempered with fire to find its shape, just as the cold tempers the Northmen. You might find that this is the perfect place to become strong again."
"I suppose" Edric said. Once the black cloth was back in place, he stood. "Now, I'm off to eat breakfast that I didn't kill." He proceeded to walk out the door and make his way through Winterfell. Though the sky was eternally grey and dour, he could tell that the sun was rising. He had gone on the deer hunt well before sunrise, so as to challenge his diminished eyesight to work in the dark.
Like everything else related to sight, though, it had ended in failure.
He soon entered the main hall, which was mostly empty at the moment. Sansa sat at the head table, in front of the hearth, eating breakfast. Edric sat across from her, and a servant girl approached. "Would you like something to eat, my lord?"
"Yes" he replied. As she started walking away, he added "And bring a few Lemon Cakes for Lady Sansa."
The girl left, and Sansa tried to suppress a smirk as she said "You really shouldn't be feeding my sweet tooth."
"And yet, I find myself incapable of denying you your greatest pleasure" he countered, smirking a little. A few minutes later, the servant girl brought him a plate of food while another servant brought his wife a tray of her favourite treats. She smiled conspiratorially as she ate one of them.
"I heard you went for a hunt this morning."
"If you could even call it that" Edric said, swallowing a bite of bacon. "I suppose everyone in the castle's talking about it: the Warden of the North can't even kill a deer in the woods. Fucking useless. I hear them, whispering around the corner when they think I'm not around. 'Edric One-Eye' they call me. That's how I'll be remembered: a one-eyed freak."
"My brother Bran lost the use of his legs when he fell from that tower. After he woke up, he was miserable, hardly eating and wanting to die."
"I remember" Edric said.
"You remember? You weren't at Winterfell when that happened."
"My father—"
"Is very well-informed, yes" Sansa finished with a smirk. "My point is that he found a way to move on, to make the best of his situation."
"But nothing's the same" he told her. "I lost an eye, Sansa."
"Yes, you lost an eye. Can you still swing a sword?"
"Yes, but—"
"Can you still walk and ride a horse?"
"Yes, but—"
"Then what's changed? You can do everything you could before."
Edric pounded a fist on the table. "I can swing a sword, I can ride a horse, but I'm not… I'm not whole. There's a piece of me that's gone, and without it, I'm not sure if I can be the same man I was before."
For a few minutes, they both ate in silence, the only noise in the main hall coming from the crackling fire as they ate their food.
"People are starting to talk, you know" Sansa said, eating another Lemon Cake.
"About what?"
His wife paused for a moment, glancing from side to side, then leaned in and said quietly "About how we've been married for over months, and I'm not pregnant yet."
Edric froze.
"After all, you nearly broke Lord Glover's jaw when the Bedding ceremony was called."
He glanced at Sansa, then sighed and sat a little straighter. "My father's oldest friend is the best spymaster in Westeros. She knows everything about everyone. Over the years, she told us of a girl from the North who came to live in King's Landing. She was forced to watch her father lose his head, and she spent years being tortured and humiliated by a vicious little bastard for his own amusement. She was also forced to marry the Imp shortly before her mother and brother were slaughtered at a wedding."
Sansa stared down at the table, her eyes growing misty at the mention of what her captors did to her.
"Every time I heard about these things, I asked myself why anyone would treat her this way. What had she ever done to deserve this?" She looked up at him, and he stared into her eyes. "Your family did nothing wrong. You did nothing wrong. Growing up, my father told us that the Lannisters were evil, that they only ever cared for themselves and killed anyone who might be a threat to their power. He was right. I am proud to have helped wipe their stain from this world."
He took her hand in his, and she clutched it tightly.
"Like I told you back at Riverrun: I will never hurt you, and I will spend the rest of our lives treating you as you deserve. Unlike Baelish or the Lannisters or all those others, I'll never force myself on you. If you want to be with me, then you can do that on your terms. And if not, then all the Northern lords can go fuck themselves."
They sat there in silence, content with holding hands.
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