Ice lay thickly over the Haunted Woods for several weeks after Willa had brought news that Shadowedge was free of sickness. Free to come and go from their home according to the humans, nature had other plans for Dany and her family. While it was no longer cold enough to crack fence posts or freeze tears before it even left eyes, the ice made the forest and even the clearing itself virtually impassable.
Once again, Dany was confined to her house and the feeling of immurement continued to lay overtop of her like the ice outside. Perhaps this feeling was under slightly better circumstances than torrential rain (at least, according to people much happier in frozen landscapes than wet ones), but there was only so long a person could exist in one place. One step out the door was a gamble on whether or not she'd slide all the way down the banks of the Antler. There was no way she could have made it to Shadowedge, Rose in tow or not, or anywhere else for that matter.
Even her surefooted husband was no match. She glanced up from mending her nightshirt and looked over at her bed. Jon lay propped up on Dany's one pillow, his own and her second being used to elevate his right knee. Their daughter had her horse and wolf toys parading over his stomach while Jon plodded a recently-carved bear down to greet them.
"The snow bear's coming for them, Rosie!" Jon warned jovially. His injury, days old now but still plaguing him, had not dampened his spirits too much.
"Neigh! Neigh neigh neigh!" Rose replied, tramping her panicked toys away from the creeping bear. Jon winced slightly when Rose's toys stepped a little too heavily, but he was grinning when he caught Dany's eye.
"What about your direwolf?" Jon prompted, pointing with her free hand, "What sound does the wolf make, hm?"
Rose looked up at him, curly hair falling in her face - it's gotten so long, Dany thought - and tapped the toy on his stomach again.
Jon brushed the hair from her eyes. "Let's ask Mama," he mock-whispered, looking back at Dany. His eyes were glittering with mirth, and she knew what was coming. "Dany, love, any idea what sound a direwolf makes?"
While her eyes narrowed at her husband, the corner of Dany's mouth curled up and she set her mending on the table. Tilting her head up, Dany let out an "Awwwwoooo!" that sent Rose into a fit a giggles.
"Awwwwoooo!" Jon joined in, only to be drowned out by a mournful howl from near Dany's feet.
"Woo-woo-wooooooo!" Rose shouted happily with Ghost, making Jon and Dany laugh.
When it was time to sleep, however, Dany began to regret teaching Rose what sound a direwolf makes. Though the toddler went to bed easily, the still of the house kept being punctuated by small "wooo-wooooo's" coming from Rose's bedroom. She had made no move to get out of bed, and Dany was loath to potentially rile her up by going into the tiny room, so the woo noises continued on. Jon had taken the pillow from behind his head and thrown it over his face to block out the sound, but she could tell by the continual shifting behind her that he was not finding sleep easy either.
A hand shot out from under the furs and gripped her arm. Slightly awkwardly, Dany shifted over and allowed his arm to curl around her. Her right hand wandered over his chest, tracing patterns where the toy animals had roamed, while he drew slow loops on her back underneath her newly-mended nightshirt. The feeling was soothing and her own drawing rhythm was continuous. Soon, there was a break in the "woos," and she drifted off contentedly.
"It's not solid anymore!"
Dany looked up from spooning porridge into Rose's mouth. Jon was standing in the doorway of their home, one booted foot in the snow outside.
He turned back around looking distinctly pleased. "I think we may actually be able to get to Shadowedge today."
"Is that wise?" Dany asked, scrutinizing how he was standing. She was only partially paying attention to feeding Rose and caught herself trying to give the table a bit of porridge before redirecting it to her daughter's mouth.
"It's mostly a flat walk," Jon replied, walking over and freeing her hands of the spoon and porridge. He was still favoring his right leg, but Dany could see the distinct improvement from when he had crawled and slid back home after initially injuring it.
When she hesitated answering, Jon added imploringly, "And it would be good to see Willa about this knee."
Dany acquiesced with a nod. It was a good idea...and it would also be good just to see her friend and be in Shadowedge again. Soon, Dany thought with pangs of both longing and excitement, drawing a hand over her stomach, it'll be back to the clearing for another long while.
Therefore, with Ghost pulling Rose on the sled, the family crunched up the path of the clearing off to Shadowedge at the same plodding pace Jon had set yesterday for the bear toy.
It did not take quite as long to get to Shadowedge as Dany had expected, but the trip was paused multiple times by minor missteps and Jon's knee unexpectedly giving out (Dany covered Rose's ears to block the stream of expletives). Still, they managed to get into Shadowedge intact and Dany observed that the ice had definitely weakened its grip on the land. It was not yet the thick, powdery snow-on-frost she had grown used to, but it was better than the solid sheet of slippage.
The atmosphere in Shadowedge was almost buzzing. Nobody seemed to notice as Jon, Dany, Ghost, and Rose came in from the west. At first, this made Dany's stomach drop. Had something happened?
Then, she saw a familiar shag of bronze hair and caught the smile of a most welcome friend.
"You're back!" Dany exclaimed to Birger, who had nearly broke into a run when he saw them approach. He had a fantastic black eye and looked slightly worse for the wear, but he was smiling.
"Yesterday," Birger said, clasping hands with Jon and then with Dany, whose hands he did not release. Under her thumbs, his knuckles felt as if they had cuts only just beginning to heal. "Your plan is working," he told her earnestly, his brown eyes intent, "We blocked every path down the cliffs we could find 'til the cliffs gave way to low ground. Everyone came back with me."
"Did you see any ships?" Jon asked quickly.
Birger looked to him, dropping Dany's hands. "Ah...one. There may've been two, but we think it was just the same ship twice. We saw a ship almost at the end of our journey, not far off the coast. Heading north, perhaps from Skagos. Then coming back we sheltered in Lowtree during the rain - would've been back ages ago if it hadn't been for the weather - and a few of them there spoke of seeing a ship when they had gone to the cliffs. But we haven't seen any sign of one since then.
"They listened, by the way," he said, turning back to Dany. "Them and the nomads we met. It wasn't many, but they all believed us. One man even swore he'd seen Saphira as a boy. When we told them what we were doing - and why - they really listened. Said this was no place for invaders anymore and that they'd keep a watch."
The young man was beaming, but Dany reached up and gingerly brushed her fingers over his swollen eye. It felt almost parental even though Birger was merely a few years younger. "What happened?" she asked him.
"Oh, it's nothing. Just a spat," Birger said, shrugging her off. "Come on, you're going to Willa's, I expect? I'll walk with you, I need to get something from her."
Willa's home had its usual warm, aromatic welcome when Dany walked in. Ghost, unhitched from the sled, had been left to roam Shadowedge in search of his usual handouts.
At the table near the fire sat Willa, surrounded by a tiny knot of children. Enda sat with her chin propped on her folded hands, watching as the healer made packets of herbs. Meanwhile, Myl, Thistle, and Devyn were sitting on the ground near the fire sorting through the basket of Willa's trinkets.
"Dany!" Myl cried jubilantly when everyone looked up to see who had entered. He hopped up immediately and raced over, careening into her waist and wrapping his arms around her. "You haven't come here for forever! And Enda said she got to see you with Willa! And that you still don't have another baby! And I lost a tooth!" He smiled briefly to show her the gap in his front teeth, "I think I swallowed it! And then - and then yesterday -"
Willa cleared her throat, cutting Myl off. She had stood up as well, her gold eyes scanning over the group that had just entered her house.
Her eyes came to rest on Jon. "What'd you do that made her haul off and break your knee?"
She shook her head and waved her hand to her bed. "Just...sit down there. Hand your child to one of mine. And you," she pointed at Birger, "Enda can give you the salve she kindly made and you can be off. Use it liberally and come back for more when you need it."
Birger, Dany observed, looked sheepish but did as he was told. Taking a small weirwood leaf-wrap from a shy Enda, he muttered his thanks and nodded to both Dany and Jon before slipping out the door.
There was no time to puzzle over the exchange, however, as Dany and Jon, and Rose were pulled in separate directions.
Dany watched as the children quickly began to entertain Rose with Willa's trinkets. "And look at this one, Rose! Isn't this the teeniest pinecone you've ever seen?" Thistle gushed, her voice cracking on the last word.
"Cah!" Rose replied, which Dany was sure meant "cone." All three children laughed, cooing over their young friend.
"How long has it been like this?" Willa asked, redirecting Dany's attention. She was tenderly examining Jon's right knee, seeming to scrutinize what she was feeling.
Jon shrugged. "A week maybe? Went outside one morning to feed the horse, slipped and just came down wrong on it."
"He crawled back," Dany interjected, "He couldn't stand on it but we got him into bed and raised it up immediately. I kept breaking off chunks of ice hanging from the roof to put on it for the first few days."
"But it's gotten better!" Jon insisted, "I can walk again. Haven't lifted anything heavy yet, but I'm sure I could."
"Mmph," Willa said, leaving their side and walking around the children to the fire. There she rooted around in her plants and moments later returned with a cup of hot, strong-smelling liquid which she handed to Jon. Dany shifted away. The smell was making her queasy.
Willa nodded to the cup. "Mountain tea. Drink it now, it will help with the lingering pain - though I wouldn't have done much else differently," she said, looking praisingly at Dany.
Watching as Jon dutifully drank the tea, Willa casually commented to Enda, "You can't let that one steep too long or brew too many batches of it. Too much of the plant will kill him." Jon choked on his gulp of tea. Willa ignored him. "But lessening the pain a little bit can go a long way, especially with warriors who are used to fighting through it."
She left the bedside to walk back over to the congregation on her floor. "Come on, you four," Willa said to the children sitting on the ground, "We could all do with some fresh air. You can take these outside if you want." Always excitable, Myl jumped up and began scooping the trinkets into their basket to bring them outside. Devyn did the same, albeit much more methodically, while Thistle and Enda kindly helped Rose to her feet and led her out in front of Willa, Dany helping Jon hobble out behind them.
"Did she say that tea could kill me?" Jon muttered to his wife. Dany said nothing, but smiled and patted his chest reassuringly.
Myl had already dumped the basket out before anyone else had a chance to settle down. Seeing its contents all in one place, Dany noticed for the first time that none of these trinkets were the ones Willa wore in her hair. She looked at Willa questioningly, and received an impish wink in return. Trust Willa to have a spare basket.
"All right?" Willa quizzed as Dany settled into her usual spot after Jon had sat down.
"It's just the trip here," Dany told her, "And then seeing Birger. I mean, they all came back yesterday, right?"
She nodded. "In the early evening. The ice had broken up by then - I'm guessing that's why you finally made it here too? - and the whole group of them came in. Honestly, it feels like Shadowedge is alive again. Though I could do without the influx of injuries," she finished darkly.
"Yes, what happened to Birger's eye and hand? He said everyone they spoke to out there listened to them, agreed too."
"Everyone out there did!" Myl interjected, frowning at the pinecones he was sorting and shoving a round, green pebble from the bunch aside with added force.
Dany raised her eyebrows, glancing at Jon, who shrugged in response. Willa sighed. "There was a bit of trouble while we heard Birger's report of their journey yesterday," she said delicately. Except for Rose, the children had quietly stopped what they were doing to stare up at Willa. Thistle, who had been giving Rose different objects to hold, did not notice when the toddler began attempting to tug a knotted bit of cloth from her firmly fisted hand.
"Go on," Dany said.
"Oh, you know, the usual these days," Willa replied waving an errant hand theatrically. "What a waste of time. Nothing got accomplished besides knocking down some rocks. Should've been here since hunting's been so poor. Protecting these dangerous creatures making our lives more difficult" - Enda uncharacteristically snorted at this - "I think the part where Inniq said, 'We shouldn't believe that foreign cunt actually has our best interests,' is when Birger finally punched him in the mouth."
"What?"
Myl's eyes flashed to Jon, as did Devyn's, while Enda winced at the sound of his voice. Thistle's face was red with embarrassment as she focused as intently as possible on playing with Rose again. Clearly, this was not the first time any of these four had heard these words and Dany was sure that they had initially heard them directly from the source.
Willa's face, besides looking rather defeated, had a resigned element of "what did I tell you?" across it as she looked at Dany rather than Jon. "Yes, well," she said. Her voice was calm, but flushed patches had appeared on her cheeks. Dany could hear the brittle note when Willa spoke again, "He can't get much more overt than that. But, believe me, he looks worse than Birger does."
"He's about to look a damn sight worse!" Jon threatened, erupting from his seat, pain forgotten. Thistle's mother, Sif, who was across the way haggling with a visiting trader, looked alarmed at the outburst. Willa waved her off while Dany stood up, grabbing Jon's arm to stop him from charging to the nearest home in search of Inniq's face.
"Don't," she warned Jon, who strained against her grip, "It's not worth it."
"Sorry - did you hear what he called you?" Jon hissed through gritted teeth, mere inches from her face. His gray eyes were blazing with fierce intensity and Dany almost felt like he was furious with her rather than Inniq.
Perhaps she should have been furious too. Should have erupted out of her seat like Jon had and demanded to know where Inniq was. But he's still only hot air, her thoughts insisted. Nobody believed him. Birger had punched him. Except Nerell believes him, said the other voice in her head, and you know others do too. Who's to say more won't?
"She's right," Willa said firmly, snapping Dany from her thoughts as she stood between the couple and forced Jon to back off. "He's not worth it. And anyways he's not here."
"Well where is he?" Jon demanded.
"Scouting," Enda answered immediately.
"Scou - what?"
"Scounting," Enda said again. "I don't really know what it is. Nerell acts like it's a big secret and so do the others. But they go out in the woods with Inniq a lot and...I don't know...look around?
"They even went while it was all frozen over. Lots of them have come back with injuries. Kolla was really mad when Nerell came back with a broken finger after slipping and falling. And he just went out again the next day!" Enda ended her explanation by jabbing one of the bigger pinecones into the frozen ground. It splintered into pieces.
"Hey!" Myl shouted at her, "Stop breaking things!"
"Myl, don't start up ag-"
Multiple things happened at once, cutting Willa off. Myl chucked a piece of the broken pinecone at Enda and missed, hitting Rose instead. The toddler burst into startled tears, which caused a mortified Myl to burst into an equal torrent of apologetic tears as well. As Dany scrambled to calm down Rose, Thistle began harshly chastising Myl while Jon simultaneously tried to soothe the small boy. Meanwhile, over the wails of the children, loud shouts from the southern edge of the village became very audible. It drew everyone's attention (luckily ending Thistle's angry speech to Myl), and Dany found herself trying to redirect herself to her hiccuping, teary daughter.
Simultaneously, much closer shouts came from the west, but it was not nearly as jubilant. Instead, it was panicked.
"Willa!"
Three boys came charging through the village. The middle one, who was also the biggest, was being virtually dragged by the two flanking him. When they came closer, Dany could see that he was bleeding. His head was lolling to one side and the blood was coming from four jagged slashes across his chest and left shoulder. Time - and the people around Dany - seemed to freeze as she watched the blood stain the ground. For a second, her vision felt hazy around the edges, and she could hear the waves of the ocean crashing and the roaring overhead like the last time she had watched blood color the white land.
Willa reacted the fastest. "Inside, now!" she barked, ushering the boys into her house startling Dany, who left Rose and hurried forward. "I'll need help - not you, Dany, you'll be in the way - go get me Kolla or Aspen. Or both.
"And Enda y-" the girl had frozen at the sight of the trauma. "If you're not moving fast enough, don't bother coming in!" Willa snapped. The door shut.
A moment later, Arne, one of the two boys who had dragged the third, came out alone. His clothes, face, and hands were covered with a mix of mud and blood. Under the grime, he looked expressionless, as if one of his closest friends had not just been bleeding out onto him. Wordlessly, he stooped down and began rubbing the snow over his hands to clean off.
"What happened?" Jon asked abruptly, suddenly reminding Dany that there were several other people here. Or there were. Thistle and Myl were gone. Enda seemed to be trying her best to disappear into her hands, while Devyn looked to Arne to answer Jon's question. Only Rose seemed to be blithely unaffected by what had occurred.
Just then, Thistle and Myl returned with Aspen in tow. The woman hurried inside without a word, her face taut with worry. The excitement from the south had gotten louder.
Arne, who had been momentarily distracted by this arrival, looked back at Jon and then past him at Dany. "Now isn't the time to pick your company, Arne," Jon said roughly, "What. Happened?"
"Njal was attacked," Arne said bluntly, "while we were out. Inniq had said t-" He stuttered on the words and looked at Dany again.
Jon looked to Dany as well and then back at Arne. "Yes, Dany's here," he said testily, putting a hand on Arne's shoulder, "Tell us the rest of what happened."
"I don't know!" Arne shouted, wrenching himself away from Jon. His eyes were wide like those of a cornered animal and he quickly looked down at his feet, but the words began pouring out despite the older boy's seeming efforts not to speak. "We've been scouting every day for a while. When the hunting started becoming scarce, Inniq said we needed to find proof about what's been doing it. He said everyone staying close to home because of the weather was the perfect time to find proof."
"Of the dragons overhunting," Dany guessed, "...Or? Someone hunting for them?"
Arne didn't answer, but eyed Dany guiltily before continuing, "Me, Njal, and Dern were down by the Antler scouting from a tree. Njal thought he saw something strange and went to go check it out. Then we heard him screaming. I thought it - well, it wasn't - I don't know what attacked him, okay? But Dern just grabbed him and we ran back here. That's all I know!"
Before Jon could say anything more, pained cries erupted from Willa's house and Dany thought she heard Willa say "Hold him still!" Arne winced for his friend. Dany saw that Devyn had as well. With a jolt, she remembered that Njal was his brother. She leaned down to comfort him, but the sound of hulking footsteps made her stop and look up.
A broad, redheaded figure had made his way over to the group gathered outside Willa's house. His face wore the distinct expression of someone who had been grinning very widely before being given horrible news.
"'Fraid I might've picked the wrong day to come home," Tormund said.