Convincing Jon she should go with him - that, that was a much harder challenge.
"For what reason Edaline!"
"You are and idiot" was the best she could come up with on the spot, and 3 hours later while they were still arguing about it.
"You don't know how to talk to royalty!
You do ok here in the north with Sansa's help but you are kind of horrid!
And you too kind sir" she pointed at the onion knight who was trying to stop this insanity.
"I can just see it now! Introducing the Mother of Dragons
Blah blah royal things and greetings, everyone is dressed beautifully, out comes my brother and Sir Davos"
She slouched and pulled on Jon's cape making herself look exceptionally broody.
"This is Jon Snow, he kills already dead things with pointy rocks"
They had nothing to say to that, because for one horrid moment everyone in the room including Sansa could picture it.
At the end they agreed, in part because Edaline was relentless and in part because she was the only Stark who spoke several languages other than the common tongue (no good at horseback no good at sewing - Ned insisted she learn something) - including high Valeriyan, and who knew when that could come be useful.
Arriving at Dragonstone
Edaline vomited most of the way.
Sea voyages clearly didn't agree with her.
She mentally congratulated herself on finding the perfect cover for the sickness brought on by her current condition.
It seemed to get worse the further south she traveled, but being somewhere without a steady floor was…
She emptied her stomach overboard again.
Sir Davos slid a cup of warm ginger brew into her hand, it smelled like what Gilly gave her what seemed like ages ago at Castle Black.
Edaline tried to say thank you but the Onion Knight was already gone.
On shore - they saw a dragon fly over them, it was magnificent.
Edaline was fully aware of that but couldn't properly express it to anyone because she just stopped throwing up and was afraid talking would make that activity resume.
She must have looked dreadful because Lord Tyrion that she briefly met at the capital ran up to her to assist out of the boat.
"Lady Edaline" he looked surprised to see her - they met before during her brief stay at the capital.
She did not hate him at least.
According to Sansa he was the "good Lannister".
"You remember me lord Tyrion?" Edaline tried to sound nicer than she felt.
"I would be a blind fool to forget such beauty" lord Tyrion smiled
"And while I may often be a drunken fool, I rarely forget beautiful faces such as yours"
She liked how he said it, his compliment didn't have tany second meaning to it, nor did he appear to show any interest in exploring the subject of her 'beauty' later and alone.
Just a statement like someone commenting that a wine was good, or dinner was to his liking.
Compliment that didn't make her feel like she was less a person for daring to be being born a beautiful woman.
Yes, she liked him she decided.
Eda was just starting to feel better and make pleasantries when they walked into the throne room to meet the mother of dragons, the unburnt as she would learn.
When she looked up at Danarys Tageryan first of her name - Edaline felt ill.
Looking at the queen made Eda feel hot. Like… being in the same space for the two of them was just not right.
And she wanted to vomit again. Why was her skin crawling with fire as her feet were touching the floor here.
She missed her cue to introduce Jon, spent most of the time trying to not pass out.
She really needed to go back north.
"And who is this?" Edaline realized the blonde girl was talking about her now.
"This is my younger sister - Edaline Stark"
Jon didn't elaborate and clearly she wasn't important enough to ask any more about.
The next week went agonizingly slow for Eda and lightning fast for everyone else.
Jon - any fool could see, was falling for this queen, and she for him.
Which was all great but Edaline felt so awful she spent most of their stay in voluntary confinement sleeping and being ill.
The worst was she could not feel her lover here, like a psychic wall has been drawn across the waters and any link they shared was broken.
At one point, when not prancing around like an idiot around like a lovelorn puppy, Jon came to her room to check on her and to share the good news!
Daenerys Stormborn was going to let his men into her cave.
Edaline almost spit out her ginger brew before she realized that when Jon Snow said it - this is exactly what he meant.
And then, in spite of her protests - he got her to put on a cloak and come out on the beach to see this cursed cave.
When Edaline walked in… feeling sicker than she had all week, and Jon held up the torch to show her whatever he thought those drawings meant.
She understood what was wrong with crystal clarity.
And that Daenerys had no special power over her, the network of the caves just ran right under the throne room.
The entire labyrinth was carved and painted in drawings of the children and the first men, fighting together against the others.
It was also covered in pretty spirals and symbols that Jon and everyone else assumed to just mean something like "children of the forest were once here"
But Eda knew.
Like the symbols she saw wildring paint on their walls to keep her king out.
Like the huge inlaid spirals her king pointed out to her under the clear parts of the ice at the base of the wall.
The entire island of Dragonstone was warded against the Others and their magic, and the fact that she has been as ill as she has been since she got here just confirmed any last doubts of her baby's humanity.
The wards weren't working against her, but they were working on the infant inside - and as long as it was in her body, her body would absorb all the discomfort of crossing such a barrier.
But it was clear, she needed to get off Dragonstone
She needed to get home beyond the wall.
Perhaps it was knowing why she was ill but she actually made it out of her room more and remembered her original reason for coming here, and when she heard Tyrion explain to someone that Cersei will never believe in the night king, Eda was the one who timidly commented.
"Lord Tyrion, I wouldn't have either until I saw a wight at Castle Black, what if your sister saw one…?"
And then she waited.
Tyrion was a smart man, he suggested just what she was hoping.
Actually a whole idea was unfolding in her head, but she needed a way to speak to her king soon. This was pure torture.
This is the longest he has gone without feeling Edaline.
She disappeared the moment she reached Dragonstone and has been missing for several weeks.
His worry and angst was quickly replaced by anger.
This was all a trap, a trick.
Either the last best laid trap by the children, or by the damn bastard pup himself.
What fool he was to fall for this.
It mattered not.
He will kill them all, he will kill the North, the South - all the living, it did not matter, his original plan was back in the works.
Was there even a child, he wasn't sure now, it has been so long since he had seen his "queen" in the real flesh, was that a trap to?
Or was she just dead?
It took him no time to fall back into his old melancholy brooding ways, ignoring any reminders Edaline who has dropped off the face of the world after
GOING SOUTH TO JOIN HIS ENEMIES AGAINST HIS ADVICE.
He will break down the wall kill all living things, and see why Edaline was missing, and it it was on her own free will, he would kill her too.
If she was dead, well…..he would be doing a lot of killing anyways
Storms the likes of which the north has not seen in centuries were pounding Eastwatch.
So it actually caught him completely off guard when suddenly her bright blue icy beacon popped up like a northern star on his side of the wall just a mile from where he was at.
He didn't bother with any warging or connections to her. He was in the spot he felt her, appear outside the wall within fifteen minutes.
She was alone, in her traveling fur cloak and black leathers.
She looked tired and thinner, but she was alive and clearly waiting for him in the shadows of the dead trees outside the barely manned Eastwatch entrance. No one would have seen her leave.
She felt him appear, all fury and ice, as usual, he felt...
Nothing but overwhelming joy from her upon his arrival.
Happiness at his approach. Lust for his body on top of hers. Lust to feel him hurt her and take her and make her scream.
Love - for the simple way he made her feel so fragile and safe encircled by his
He forgot over the past month how much loved being greeted by her. The only living being happy to see him.
It always did odd things to his rage.
She ran up to him with her arms outstretched, he decided to humor her, he could always kill her for her betrayal in a few moments if he wanted.
"My king" she fell into his arms as he dismounted his horse.
And there was such passion in her kisses, such raw lust and need that he was kissing her back.
He forgot what kissing her with his own lips felt like, running his own clawed fingers over her soft human skin did to her, how prettily it bled.
He was biting down her neck, freeing her breasts that seemed noticeably fuller with larger darker nipples to suck and bite and pushing her to the ground.
All ability to speak forgotten, when he felt the soft curve of her belly where he could now feel with his own hand their CHILD growing.
He roared and mounted her and the next moment he was fucking her like he was the last man alive and she was the only woman in the world.
How could he ever doubt his perfect Edaline.
He felt like such a fool.
She would always return home to him.
His little Night Queen.
They were both finished within minutes.
She kissed the corner of his mouth.
"I missed you so much - not having you with me… it's worse than death"
And huge hot tears were running down her cheeks.
She stroked his stern inhumane face with her soft warm fingers.
He didn't answer, he felt complete for the first time since she left his side at Hardhome and he never wanted to let her leave his side again.
Very quickly she explained about the symbols on the island and how she could not reach out to him, but now she was at Eastwatch, but staying back as her brother was planning an expedition
Her brother and a few others were heading over shortly to get a wight to bring back south to show Cercei to make her believe he was actual real.
"What?"
She spit the last part out as one sentence and he thought he misheard her.
Then he was confused,
"Why? I could reanimate a wight for you here to take back if you asked."
"Why would you aid your brother in gathering help against me (not that it would help) he thought. His eyes glowed a little brighter."
"My love, that isn't the point, the point is to get him here, and keep him here for some time. You once told me you could raise a dragon and a dragon could tear down the wall?"
He could, it could.
Her eyes glittered that predatory lustful look he almost forgotten he loved so much.
"I am positive, if you keep my brother trapped here long enough, Daenerys will rush in with her dragon children to rescue him. The real question is, can you kill a dragon mid-flight?"
And she smiled wider.
He watched her, slack jawed, watched his queen with her clever little mind and pretty curls just hand him over the solution to breaking the wall, the last bit of the puzzle to the vision he saw in the floating bits of the future.
How to bring the dragons here.
Oh Edaline, you really are perfect - the Night King thought, as she went through strep by step, who to take out in the party
"This is the Red Priest, he raises this guy over and over for the lord of light, take him out and you take both of them out, this ginger man is Turmound - please try not to kill him, any of them actually, they are my friends, except the Brotherhood - I don't know them and they carry fire. They are open game"
He ignored most of it, he would spare her not brother and the messenger -both essential for the plan to work
"Once trapped they will send Gendry, make sure he makes it back to send a raven"
She suddenly paused.
"My love, would the wight stay animated that far south?"
He wasn't sure. No wight had been this far south.
"Could I reanimate it with your help? We do want Cersei to believe us, the North is to be spared" she added pointedly .
"And if she is still queen bitch of the seven kingdoms, my people will starve and die"
He glanced at her stern face. She still called the North "her people" but he would honor his word to her. The North would be spared…
A while ago, he would have thought the idea of any living person controlling the dead like he could wasn't possible.
But… that was before he knew more pieces of the puzzle, or most of them
Here laid this human girl child, naked in the snow in all her feral beauty, unbothered by the freezing winds because of the magic he breathed into her.
He could see the barely raised bump of her belly, with his child growing inside.
HIS.. he felt no living heartbeat inside her when he laid his hand there, but the baby was growing.
This was no half breed offspring - this child would be a true being of winter. Born with all the powers the children forced into him with magic.
But without the flaws and weaknesses his kind still had.
He smiled inwardly, his promised queen.
She already sensed impending death, even before he laid eyes on her - she was a mortal singled out by the Stranger or the Many Faced God, or the Great Other - whatever humans were calling the place his darker powers flowed from.
"You can try my queen". He summoned one of the dead to leave its ranks and cross to where they laid together and relinquished control.
The thing dropped like a sack to the ground.
Eda stood up. Nude and feral and oblivious to her nakedness. More at home with it actually than with any dress she could wear.
All delicious pale flesh with snow and ice circling around her.
He wanted her again but he held back watching - he was curious to see.
Would she be able to do it like she made the snow storms rise when she was angry?
She looked at the dead pile of flesh and bones in exasperation.
"What do I do?"
"Make it remember being alive, but force your will into it".
Maybe this was a bad idea.
He was hearing her thoughts and wondering - would this ever work?
There were other reasons the living couldn't do this - less tangible reasons.
She stared at the body.
Who was this? A man? A wildring? She felt sad - did he have a name? A family? Were his children part of her lover's army now?
Her eyes were tearing up now.
She saw a large tooth on a cord around the dead body's neck.
It must have been a good luck charm.
Tears were streaming down her face - this was once a person, with dreams and loves and hopes.
The king was ready to come wrap his arms around her and pull her away. Some powers were just not for the breathing living beings, no matter how special.
But a cold, hard resolve, an inner deeper thought went through Edaline.
" HE WAS NO ONE" she wasn't sure where this thought came from.
"HE WAS NO ONE, and no one lives in this shell now, take it"
And she smiled darkly, whoever this man was - he was long gone - this was a pile of bones and frozen flesh.
"He was no one" the voice whispered.
She stretched out her hand, feeling for the gossamer strings she knew were invisible but there, and she smiled. And she wiggled her fingers and the body began to twitch.
And she raised he arms - and the body rose with her motion.
A mindless puppet with dull blue eyes, though she felt she could warge into him with enough practice, she didn't want to try. Warging was not a skill she wanted to perfect,.
She turned around looking at her king, who was in turn staring at her in complete slack amazement.
His Night Queen…
"My love" and she ran into his arms.