Osha
I should have known they were coming when the first of the Crowls went missing. I should have known what it meant when the air grew cold and the snow. I suppose a part of me always knew the Others had come, but how could they have made it south of the Wall? She had tried to ignore the signs at first and continued to do the same thing that she did every day: care for the little Lord whom the Skagosi had named their King.
"We have to go...NOW," Osha shouted. The little Lord did not even bother to answer, his eyes remained fixated on the trees. He had spent so many hours staring at them that one could almost be mistaken for thinking they were speaking to him.
"Rickon! Stop staring at the bloody trees!"
Rickon had grown even wilder during his time on Skagos. He was no longer the wolf pup who had spent his days asking when his older brother would be back. Of late, the little Lord would simply ignore her and he seldom spoke of his kin anymore. In truth, the boy was as much a Skagosi as he was a Stark.
Most of the Skaogsi had taken to calling him "the Young Wolf," save for the Stanes who addressed the Little Lord as "Azor Ahai" on account of Shaggydog. They believed that Azor Ahai would come to Skagos with a direwolf. For a time, it had seemed as though Rickon Stark might be able to live out the rest of his days in safety. But dead men and worse had come to the island and she could not pretend any longer. It may be too late already... No! I did not come this far...I did not bring the boy this far to get killed by the dead men.
Once the Boltons took over the North, Skagos seemed no more dangerous than the rest of the North. They had made it to the island and after days of hunting with Shaggydog, they had been found. If the Crowls had found us instead of the Stanes, they'd have skinned us alive and eaten us, most like.
"RICKON!" How did the bloody dead men get so many damned boats. Don't much matter, I suppose. The Crowls had tried to fight the monsters despite and now Skagos was crawling with dead men. The Stanes had nearly been wiped out by the time the Magnars figured out that the dead men could be killed with fire, but it was plain that they would not last much longer.
"I can't leave them! They are my people and I…I am their King! Harren...he said I was a God. He said I was Az...Azor Ahai reborn and...you don't believe me," Rickon snapped. We don't have time for this!
"Listen to me, little Lord. Even if you are this Azor Ahai like Harren and the rest of the Stanes said, you won't be any good to them dead. We have to leave if you ever want to save any of them."
"Leave? No! This...Skagos is my home. Everyone who leaves home goes to the bad place! All of them...just...just...just like at Winterell. Robb...Father…Arya…Sansa…Bran…Mother." The little Lord began to cry for the first time in ages.
"We can discuss this later. We're not far from the boats the dead men came on. And you are Rickon of House Stark. Winterfell will always be your home."
"No…not anymore. I saw it, Osha! The trees showed me Winterfell. The monsters are living there now, with their blue eyes. There were so many of them… I saw it! The trees...they show me things. They even talk to me sometimes." There's no other way, Osha decided, knocking the little Lord unconscious with a large stick before he could understand what was happening and picking him up.
Shaggydog snarled at her and seemed ready to attack until its eyes seemed to roll back into its head for a moment and the direwolf calmly trotted over to her. The three of them managed to make their way into one of the small boats and escape from the island.
Eventually, a larger ship came across them and forced them to come aboard, even though Shaggydog had only been allowed on board once Osha convinced Rickon to keep it calm while she put chains on the beast. The men had plainly realized the little Lord was a Stark the moment that they saw the direwolf. The ship's captain claimed to be a Lord, although Osha doubted the man was telling the truth about that, even if he didn't seem to wish them ill. What sort of Lord would use an onion as his sigil?
