picked at the food on her plate using the fork, she looked to her side to see Diana doing the same, only her way of inspecting the food was one of wondering curiosity.
"Sorry about the food, it's not what we're known for." Dolorous Ed, who was sitting across from both females, apologized.
"Not at all, it's alright." Said Diana, giving the crow a reassuring smile.
Sansa looked up from her plate. "Yes, there are far more important things."
Diana, Jon, Ed, Tormund, Brienne, Podrick and Sansa halted their dine once a steward of Castle Black walked in with a rolled up piece parchment. "A letter for you, Lord Commander." He announced, handing Jon the scroll. "I'm not Lord Commander anymore." The latter's declaration brought a frown on Ed's face.
All present, save for Diana and Tormund, looked at Jon expectantly once they'd seen the Bolton's house sigil on the seal, awaiting for the former Lord Commander to read it aloud. "To the traitor and Bastard Jon Snow, you've allowed thousands of wildlings passed the wall. You have betrayed your own kind, you have betrayed the north. Winterfell is mine, bastard, come and see. Your brother, Rickon, is in my dungeon-" Jon abruptly raised his head up from the parchment to look at his half sister. Onyx and tully blue clashed as the two communicated their fear for their kin through worried eye contact and sharp breaths.
Diana's brown eyes traveled between the two, she took in their expressions and silently wondered how many siblings they had. Jon's eyes traveled through the words hurriedly, his calm facade long gone and his hands now shook, from rage or fear for their brother, the Amazon couldn't tell.
"His direwolf's skin is on my floor, come and see. I want my bride back. Send her to me, bastard and I won't trouble you or your wildling lovers. Keep her from me and I will slaughter every man, woman and babe living under your protection. You will watch as I skin them living."
A silent gasp left Themiscyra's Princess' rosy lips and she attempted to gulp the heaviness that arose in her throat. Diana looked down, her face stricken with shock. How could people do something like this to each other? She couldn't comprehend the amount of evil someone had to possess inside themselves to even consider doing this. To send men, women, elderly and children to these places simply to die. It was unconceivable. Unthinkable.
"Go on." The redheadweakly urged.
Jon closed his eyes for a moment, he snapped them open before he started to fold the piece of paper. "It's just more of the same." He assured. Not believing him, Sansa picked up on his weak response as a signal that he was hiding more of Ramsay's horrendous words, so she snatched the letter from her brother and continued to read it in his stead.
"You will watch as my soldiers take turns raping your sister,-" The Bolton bride's lips trembled, her cheeks flushed in anger and bile went up her throat. The raven haired woman took in the younger girl's distress, her eyes narrowed in disbelief at whoever was this man's cruelty, she placed her elbows on the table, interlocked her fingers with one another and placed her chin on them. "you will watch as my dogs devour you wild little brother, then I'll spoon your eyes from your sockets and let my dogs do the rest. Come and see. Ramsay Bolton, Lord of Winterfell and warden of the north."
The clearly agitated Jon forced his focus from the wooden table to glance at his sister. "Lord of Winterfell and warden of the north." He emphasized. The Princess' mind revolved around the Snow's words. Sansa had told her of the people who took their home from them, the Boltons and that bastard Ramsay, she had called them.
"His father's dead, Ramsay killed him." Sansa voiced out her assumptions.
She wanted to retch.
Diana couldn't believe her ears. A man killing his own father wasn't natural. "What kind of person would do such a thing?" Her unsteady tone of voice drew the attention of Jon and his sister.
"Ramsay would. And now he has Rickon." Sansa stated.
"We don't know that." Said Jon, for all they knew Ramsay could have been lying about holding the youngest Stark prisoner.
"Yes we do."
A suffocating silence fell upon them for a moment, drowning them in deep thought. Tormund looked at Ramsay's wife."How many men does he have in his army?"
"I heard him say five thousand men when he was talking about Stannis' attack." Answered the enraged Sansa. The number distressed Jon, he immediately looked at the bearded wildling. "How many do you have?"
Diana inspected the leader of the free folk as a calculating look began forming on his face. "That can march and fight..two thousand. The rest are children and old people."
Any educated highborn in arithmetics very well knew that the odds weren't in their favor, however, Diana didn't care. She turned back and looked at the window for a long minute. She did not believe her mother when she warned her about the horrors waiting for her in Man's World, but they were very real. Men, women and children were being exterminated, innocents were dying in a never ending war. It was chaos like Diana had never seen before, something she could barely comprehend. It was all the Night King's fault.
There was just one thing she was certain about: she would not allow it.
She couldn't stand by while innocents suffered.
"We need to help these people. What are we going to do?" Her question made the northern bastard sigh, feeling his own weakness paralyzing him. "There's not much we can do."
Themiscyra's princess grew livid at Jon's words, and why wouldn't she, she didn't understand that his hands were tied, he couldn't ask the already diminishing free folk to die for his war. "How can you say that?! Didn't you read this man's threats? Women, children, they're going to die if we don't stop him and get to him first."
Tormund Giantsbane hadn't spared any of his attention to the dark haired girl ever since she arrived; he had eyes for the blonde sitting beside her, but as her words echoed through the halls he had to nod in agreement.
The blue eyed girl reached her hand out to hold her brother's. "She's right. A monster has taken our home and our brother. We have to go back and save them both."
"With what men?" Asked Jon, who'd grown frustrated at the two persistent females. They spoke as if he didn't want to reclaim their ancestral home, as if he didn't want to save his younger brother, but how would he do so.
"You are the son of the last true warden of the North. Northern families are loyal, they'll fight for you if you ask." Sansa's words resonated through the brooding male's ears, she spoke truly. Diana's and every other's eyes intensely and expectantly stared at Jon, awaiting his final decision.
He nodded towards his sister.
️️️️
The northern air felt crisp yet soft on her skin. Though she had grown up in a never ending summer on paradise island, Diana welcomed the chilly weather with open arms. She adjusted the black cloak on her figure, said clothing concealing her shield and sword. The Princess walked across the yard, the rather tall dress Sansa made for her constricted her usual long strides.
The group were ready to depart from Castle Black, heading to plea the northern houses to support their cause and ask for fighting men. The Umbers and the Karstarks already declared for house Bolton, and unfortunately they represented the bulk of the northern forces. Hopefully they would gain help from the other houses to even the odds.
Diana stopped in front of the stables, the others already on horseback, save for Jon and Sansa who stood by the stairway exchanging words. The Princess frowned when her eyes landed on a particular horse being whipped nonstop.
"It's time to ride, Diana." Jon announced, standing beside the sulking female.
"This horse, why are they hurting it?" She asked, her tone of voice expressing her displeasure.
The bastard fastened the direwolf cloak that resembled his late father's on his shoulders, a gift to him by his sister, and then glanced at the raven haired girl. "They need to settle him down to put on the saddle."
Clearly uneased, the mare shifted, hooves digging dense mud and snow, head swayed warningly to the side. Jon's nonchalant response only made Diana's frown to deepen, she found it was unnecessary violence on their part. "But this is not the way. I can help them." The man before her gave her a 'be my guest' sort of look and she made towards the horse.
Pulling frantically at the rope that kept her restrained to the pole, the horse noisily protested, eyes wild as it stamped its hooves into the ground.
Jon watched warily as Diana approached the animal and raised her right hand and hold the front of the saddle, the other unoccupied hand she used to caress the coal colored stallion delicately. Her movement seemed to calm the raging horse. There was something about the way she traced her fingers on the animal's back and smiled gently to it. It was as if she was speaking to it. Once the black horse shook off the wintry, chill haze, it raises it's ears and whinnied. She then settled on the horse's back, the animal didn't resist nor made a sound except for a soft snuffle.
Jon Snow's lips lifted in surprised amusement as did his brows as she rode past him with a smile.
Their first stop was directly south of the wall into the wildlings camp.
Diana looked around, drinking in their surroundings. Thousands of the free folk had made the land south of Castle Black their new home.
Her head turning in every direction, trying to understand the place around her. People walked fast, dressed in weird clothes, barely looking at each other. It was loud, as if everybody spoke at the same time, some even yelling.
A faint cry of a newborn babe caught both the princess' and Jon's attention, she looked to her left and her eyes landed on a woman holding her son to her chest to give him warmth.
"A baby!" She awed, astounded, and began speed-walking towards the infant. Jon yelling behind her, she arrived in front of the woman cradling the baby. Her eyes could hardly get wider than they were; she had never seen a newborn before and she was speechless at how cute he was!
Jon took note of the wildlings' wary and unwelcoming gazes and hurried to the taller woman, and took her hand to pivot and drag her away. They needed to avoid trouble if they were going to ask for their help.
"No, no. This one is not made out of clay." He forbade, continuing to follow Tormund. She sighed dejectedly.
"Gather the elders." The bearded ginger demanded of his fellow wildlings.
"We said we'd fight for your king crow when the time comes and we meant it. But this isn't what agreed to, these aren't white walkers. This isn't the army of the dead. This isn't our fight." All of the free folk elders gathered in a circle, looking displeased at the bastard's plea for help in the war against the Boltons.
The foreign beauty heeded no mind to the uncomfortable silence that fell upon the recruiting party, as she had something to occupy her with sheer fascination. There was a giant, the last of his kind, actually. He sat down amongst the wildlings in all of his fourteen feet height of glory. She had stranded from her group upon first seeing the creature of tales and approached him, her honey colored eyes sparkling in fascination and awe.
"The fuck are you looking at?" With a sharp glare, the giant, Wun Wun, growled at Diana, stunning her a bit with his hostile temperament, but still fascinated by him nonetheless.
"I'm sorry if I've offended you, I was only admiring your magnificent stature. I've never met a giant before." She apologized fluently, speaking in the Old Tongue.
Impressed stares, and glances of shock were sent her way as she spoke the ancient language, it was a forgotten language spoken in Westeros by the First Men. In the present day, however, only a numbered few of the wildlings in the far reaches of the lands beyond the wall could still speak in the Old Tongue.
Yet here she was.
And not only that, but she seemed to master the rudimentary version old tongue, 'the Great Tongue', in which the giants speak.
"She speaks giant?" Tormund voiced out everyone's shocked thoughts including Wun Wun himself.
With a bemused smirk, Jon glanced at Diana. "I believe so."
The moment of silence returned, as did the glares the wildlings sent the bastard's way.
"Look if it weren't for Jon Snow, you'd all be meat in the Night King's army, and I'd be a pile of charred bones just like mance." Tormund argued, but his words did little to sway them.
The elder of the free folk scoffed, "Remember Mance's camp? We used to stretch all the way to the horizon. And look at us now, look at what's left of us. If we lose this, we're gone. Dozens of tribes, hundreds of generations, be like we were never there at all. We'd be the last of the free folk."
Looking up from the icy ground, Jon attempted to reason with them. "That's what'll happen to you if we lose." He gained a surge of confidence when the men and women nodded for him to continue. "The Boltons, the Kastarks, the Umbers, they know you're here. They know that more than half of you are women and children. After they're finished with me they'll come for you. You're right this isn't your fight, you shouldn't have to come to Winterfell with me, I shouldn't be asking ya, it's not the deal we made! But I need you with me if we're going to beat them and we need to beat them if you're going to survive."
His words echoed into the people's ears, they certainly understood that they had to fight for survival, but what if they'd be marching towards their own deaths? The extinction of their people was the last thing they wanted. Diana understood their hesitant glances, not those of fear, but mistrust of the 'southerners'.
Leaving the giant's side, Diana made to Jon and his sister, standing proudly in front of them almost protectively. "His own brothers killed him because he spoke for you. Because he had the courage to do the right thing when no one else would. I believe in him. And you should believe that unfortunately, the Others aren't the only evil we're about to face. You just can't defend the north from the Night King and the south from the Boltons." Jon's lips parted, feeling unworthy of Diana's confidence in him.
Tormund nodded, gesturing towards the short crow. "He fucking died for us, if we're not willing to do the same for him, we're cowards and if that's what we are, we deserve to be the last of the free folk." The Princess' rosy lips raised into a satisfied smile as the wildlings seemed convinced enough.
"Are you with us?" Her inquiry making Wun Wun stand up to his large feet, his footsteps quaking the ground below them. His height intimidated Sansa and Ser Davos while Jon and Diana awaited for his answer, craning their necks upwards.
"Snow" He acknowledged the short male before walking away, the ground shook less and less as he gained distance from them. The men nodded to each other, making their decision. Walking up to the onyx eyed male, the bearded elder offered his hand to him, signaling their alliance. Jon mimicked the gestures, shaking the older man's hand.
As they dissipated from the gathering, Diana and Sansa exchanged elated smiles.
"Are you sure they'll come?" Jon asked Tormund.
"We're not clever like you southerners, if we say we'll do something, we do it."