Willa was frowning, scrutinizing three small yellow rocks sitting on top of a cloth on her table. Her golden eyes were narrowed, making her look oddly catlike as if she was contemplating on whether or not to pounce. The healer's dark eyebrows sank further down her forehead and she shook her head, tutting.
Dany leaned close over her shoulder. "You don't think it will work?"
"These can catch on fire but they can't make things explode, not in the way you're thinking," Willa explained, "Anyway, they aren't exactly lying around everywhere to collect. Where did you come up with the idea?"
Dany shrugged evasively as thoughts of green flames flickered menacingly. Wildfire had been on her mind since she first thought of her campaign to destroy the cliffside paths that allow Shivering Sea travelers access to the interior of the north. This was only the first step, but she hoped it would be enough to be the last.
The wildfire's just from Tyrion's stories, she had consistently told herself. She remembered the sunlit balconies and warm breezes that wafted through the linen curtains in Mereen. It was there where Tyrion regaled her with tales from King's Landing. Of Baratheons, Starks, Lannisters, Tyrells. Of kingly wars and an inky bay that had burned emerald with the skeletons of doomed ships.
Not from the other stories of the caches that had blown apart King's Landing. Not from her family history. And not from mania of her father. Definitely not.
It wasn't as if she wanted to make actual wildfire, that would be ridiculous. In fact, she was pretty sure Tyrion had mentioned that magic was involved in the process. But, in those stories, it wasn't the magic that made things explode. She could vaguely remember the other ingredients Tyrion had described, though he had said he was only guessing. But there was mention of the yellow rocks from distant lands - the ones that the Valyrians had used to destroy the lands of the Old Empire of Ghis. The ones that currently sat on Willa's table. The ones that made fire turn blue, so the stories went. It was a good start.
"I don't think we need these," Willa told her with finality, deftly tying the cloth around the rocks and giving it a disturbed glare, as if they had personally offended her. She shook her head, hair tinkling from the little bells braided down the right side. "You heard Birger and Ulf - they know the cliff faces better than anyone in Shadowedge. All those paths are crumbling like ours. It won't be too hard to just give the rocks some assistance in tumbling down."
Dany nodded concedingly, glancing out of Willa's open window where a chilled breeze was drifting in. Willa theorized that exposing her plants to a bit of frozen air amidst the heat of her home made them heartier. It seemed to work, but Dany was not as glad to feel the prick of chill at the back of her neck. When she was inside, she thought it was best to always feel warm. Grimacing, Dany placed a hand on her back. The baby seemed to be sitting awkwardly. And the low swooping in her stomach that nothing would work was not helping the feelings. The energy she had an hour ago was quickly ebbing away, and doubt was threatening to fill the space it had left behind.
"We'll cut off access from the sea up and down the cliffs. Destroy the paths on the cliff faces by loosening the rocks so that they make the paths impassable," she had explained to the clan, reciting what she decided after Tormund asked for her help, "Much of Essos is flat, the people are not used to climbing when there is no path to follow. It will make them wander until the low beaches to the south where they could come up. Same going north - no path untouched until the northern bight begins."
"What about fishing?" grunted one of the men from the back, "That's how I feed my family."
Tormund's red beard twitched irritably. "Has the raider in you gotten that soft, Ulf? Climbed over the Wall but can't climb a cliff face?"
Ulf snarled at him, his grizzled features showing stark resemblance to the Old Tongue name he bore, before turning gruffly back to Dany. "I'm not goin' along with no plan that cuts off the whole sea!"
Idiot, Dany thought of herself scoldingly. She hadn't even considered the ocean fishing, she and Jon having not set much store by it since they lived on the banks of the Antler. Her plan was falling apart before she could even say more than a few sentences...
"Dany only said we'll be destroying the cliff paths," Willa interjected firmly, catching her friend's eye and giving her a small nod. "The Stag's Mouth can stay open. You'll just need to pay attention to who's on our shores before using it. And don't go whacking your head on the entrance! I don't need anyone stuck in my house because they were too stupid to remember to duck."
Willa's words seemed to pacify Ulf, who regarded the healer for a moment before crossing his arms and acknowledging her with a "mmhmph" that seemed to come more from his nose than his mouth.
Leaving the Stag's Mouth, a hidden, sloping cave path behind where the Antler dumped into the Shivering Sea, open was a good solution. It was virtually impossible to find for people that didn't know what to look for, and the various dead end tunnels made navigation difficult for unfamiliar users.
"Thank you," Dany mouthed near-imperceptibly to Willa, reassured and glad for the support. Her friend nodded once more.
She continued her explanation of her plan of destruction: make the attempts to come into their land as difficult and exhausting as possible. The idea had come from an unlikely source. Dany remembered one of the days that Jon had entertained the village children with a story instead of her or Old Dryn. Knowing full-well that twenty squirming children would not listen attentively to anything about geography, he had chosen a story from his Uncle Benjen to tell. One that Dany had never heard before.
Ranging beyond the Wall and deep into the Haunted Forest, Benjen found, on the fourth night, that he was being stalked by a lone direwolf. "He could feel those hungry eyes trained on his neck, even in the pitch dark," Jon said to the wide-eyed audience.
"What did he do?" Myl had squeaked, quivering.
Jon leaned in and folded his hands together - a trick he had learned from watching Dany. "Well he would never have outrun it, but he couldn't stay there either. So he got up, looked back at the direwolf, and..." Jon paused dramatically, "walked away."
"Walked!"
"Walked at the same pace for almost three days without stopping. Just kept on looking back at the direwolf in the distance and never stopped. And you know what happened?"
"What?"
"The direwolf got tired and left and Benjen lived another day."
That was the end goal. The slavers - poachers now - needed to get tired and leave. Perhaps their "tired" would involve something much worse than what Dany had experienced on first meeting Saphira at the Mammoth's Head, but it was the same idea. Let them work themselves to death, she thought grimly. It was much colder here than near Winterfell.
She still wondered if her old self would have viewed this as a good plan: not to fight back in the traditional sense. It reminded her of something Tyrion would have suggested, and she was sure she would have scoffed at it as weak. But whether it was from a sense of self-preservation, the lingering fear of herself faced with leading a fight, or the gut-wrenching memory of the last time she flew dragonback near ships, Dany decided this was the best course of action.
The volunteers to destroy the cliff paths were instructed to divide themselves into two groups, one going north, led by Ulf, and one going south, led by Birger. Along the way, Dany instructed them to tell anyone they met the story of the dragons at Shadowedge and what had happened on the beach. To provide proof for the tale, Ulf and Birger were each given a sash of brightly-colored cloth, taken from the bodies of the dead Tyroshi, and two dragon scales, one from Saphira and one from Drogon.
Dany had crept away to the Gods' Clearing early in the morning to pull shed scales from the dragons' nest under the heart tree. She was not disappointed in what she found, although she had learned something frustratingly new in the process. Not only did Saphira look to be made of frozen glass, touching her discarded scales gave her palm a nasty burn and made her old injury start to play up again. She was gingerly rubbing her it with her left hand, trying to diffuse the tight feelings in her muscles.
Consequently, Ulf and Birger were both instructed not to touch Saphira's scale, but to leave it in the cloth Dany had given it to them in. They were both, however, fascinated by the warmth that radiated from Drogon's scale, as if a small fire were merrily smoldering in the thin oval.
The two groups were currently still sitting around the fire pit, discussing how best to tackle the task. Dany had delegated them to making the final decision, ensuring that they knew best what to do. Tormund and Jon were with them.
Tormund would be leading a small third group to the nearby villages to see if any news of foreigners had not reached Shadowedge and to begin the spread of word westward. Shadowedge was the only permanent settlement to crop up that close to the cliffs, but Tormund knew of multiple villages further in. He, too, had a sash and scales to show. Though offered places in the groups, Jon had decided to stay in Shadowedge. Through Willa's open window, Dany could see him now. He sat on one of the logs, Rose happily perched on his knee, gesturing and speaking every once in awhile as if describing the best way to topple rocks.
"What's wrong with your hand?" Willa asked briskly, tearing Dany from her thoughts and snatching up her right hand.
"Ouch!" Dany seethed through her teeth, "Aren't people like you supposed to be gentle?"
Willa ignored her, tugging Dany to sit in a chair and put her hand on the table for Willa to look at. "Hm," she commented on her inspection, eyes raking over the angry burn before she began experimentally moving Dany's fingers much to the woman's chagrin.
A knock sounded at Willa's door, to which she called, "Come in!"
"Hi, Kolla," Willa greeted, barely looking up from Dany's hand, "Their stuff is in the corner - thanks for coming to grab it." She jerked her head to the corner by her bed.
"No bother," Kolla replied evenly, walking over to pick up what Willa had gestured towards. She had one of the kindest voices Dany had ever heard, low and melodic, like everything was right in the world. It reminded Dany both of honey dripping from warm bread and the way she felt in Jon's embrace. Kolla matched her voice. Everything about her was soothing: her personality, her words, even the soft lines of her round face.
She stopped at the door, arms wrapped around a large woven basket, and looked back at Dany, who was still wincing. "By the way, Dany," she said, "I'm sorry about Ulf's words back at the meeting. You know how he gets: say one word about his fishing and he acts like you told him the world was ending! Your plan is a solid one. Protecting those dragons along with ourselves is the right thing to do and I have faith in it."
"It's in the past," Dany told Kolla appreciatively, managing to force her grimace into a twisted smile as Willa flipped her hand over. "And I'm glad he's leading the group north."
Smiling, Kolla said her thanks and left Willa's house with the basket. "She and Ulf couldn't be more different," Dany observed as Willa released her hand and got up, swiping multiple bowls, hanging pouches, and plant cuttings.
Willa gave an agreeable "mhmm" in response, as she had picked up the final animal-skin pouch between her teeth. "They balance each other. They'll be good for the kids," she said, dropping the pouch from her mouth as she laid out the rest of her collection and began pulling ingredients into her mortar. "I'm making you a poultice for that burn, not that you asked," she added. Dany could smell the various fragrances, a floral, peppery scent when mixed together, as Willa began grinding everything up.
"Which kids?" she asked, ignoring the second comment.
The grinding stopped for a moment. "Oh, I forgot I didn't tell you! Kolla and Ulf offered to take in Enda and Nerell. Kolla was stopping by to get their things."
"O-oh," Dany remarked, stomach dropping as she plastered a smile onto her face again. "That's - how nice of them."
"The children seem pleased. You know how everyone feels about Kolla. Give me your hand." She took Dany's right hand and gingerly smeared the poultice onto the burn. Through the sting, Dany could feel how it soothed the blistered and angry skin, but didn't say anything to Willa.
It was probably for the best, she conceded, that Enda and Nerell stayed in the village and lived with Kolla rather than with her. With a small house, Rose, and the new baby only a few months away, the idealism that they could take on two more children sounded laughably bleak. And yet she could not help but feel like she and Jon should have spoken up sooner, should have offered an alternative solution. It's not like they're gone forever, the voice in the back of her head reasoned. So why do I feel like this?
"So what happened to your hand?"
Dany's head snapped up as she was taken out of her thoughts. Willa had bound the burn in cloth. "Hmm? Oh, Saphira's scale."
"No, what happened before? An ice burn doesn't hurt your hand inside."
Thoughtfully, Dany stretched the hand's sore muscles, remembering how it looked when she pulled it out of the Narrow Sea. She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth before speaking. "I left it in the sea water when Jon and I took the boat from Dragonstone and it froze."
"Jon fixed it up?"
Dany shook her head, smiling at the memory of the familiar wizened face. "A woman at Crackclaw Point did. Soraya. She was a woods witch - like you."
Smirking, Willa replied, "I'm not much of a woods witch. Just a healer."
"My hand and most of Shadowedge would say differently," Dany told her, holding up Willa's handiwork as her friend shrugged, "And your house certainly does too." Her eyes skirted around the warm home, where Willa's homegrown plants seemed to be taking over more than ever and animal-skin pouches hung from hand-fashioned hooks, were strung over beams, and dangled down the sides of the loft ladder. The overcrowded house reminded Dany of Soraya and her many pouches, pockets, and knickknacks. Absently, she touched the purple crystal around her neck. Four others were stowed under her bed at home, but Dany had never worn another. Often, she wondered where Soraya had come across such treasures - the same could be said for Willa.
"If you don't like the sulfur rocks," Dany asked, the thought sparking a question about Willa's expression of disgust over the yellow rocks earlier, "Why do you have them? And where did you even find them?"
The healer tilted her head back and forth, as if weighing the options of what to say. Her hair tinkled again, and Dany caught sight of an eagle feather tied to the underside that she had not seen before. "I like...things," Willa settled on replying, "You never know when stuff could be useful."
"Like sulfur?"
Willa's face fell and she did not answer, instead glancing out the open window which showed a large Northman making his way to her door. "Jon's coming with Rose," she said, more quietly than Dany expected, "You should take the extra poultice mix home with you."
Fact-check: Wolves are probably less likely demonstrate the described hunting behaviors than a big cat, but just take Benjen's story as poetic license. Dany (via the author) is mildly modeling some of her plan off of how the Russians treated Napoleon in 1812. Most of the "Old Tongue" names are based off of Old Norse.