Koreen

They have left the castle before the break of dawn. Koreen was agitated that their journey was so slow, but chose to bite her tongue as Lord Stark was leading them.

Koreen was excited having to go to a family trip for the first time. She learned that camping was to travel to a certain location wherein you can sleep and eat outdoors. She thought it was basically the way she lived before Winterfell. This too she realized in silence.

Arya told her that after everything is set up and everybody was fed, they will sit around the fire and tell stories.

She never really understood how people made up stories. She heard a few. Everytime she and the couple who raised her brought her to the nearby town to sell their hunt, she listened to other children telling stories.

There were many things that she wasnt taught. She asked questions. But the questions they answered for her were only the ones she needed to survive.

"Robb, what's a nameday?" Koreen asked when she, Robb and Jon were instructed to hunt for dinner. They were riding together towards the deeper part of the woods.

"It's the day a person was born. The day one was given a name by their parents. Northern people celebrate their own every year. Don't you know yours?" Robb answered.

"No. I was only taught how to live. I didn't ask questions I did not need to survive."

"But do you know how old you are?"

"When I learned how to count, I counted everything. I counted how many summers and winters passed and how many times the moon was full and not. But then I can only count to a number I can sell and buy. And I tend to forget where I left off."

"Did they die when you were a child? Your parents?" Jon asked.

Koreen stared at him for a bit. That was the first time the boy spoke to her, she realized.

"I have no idea. Never knew them. No face. No name. Nothing to talk about to the hunter couple. But I heard them once how their crowd was burned to the ground. I was too young. I could have been dreaming."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Jon said sympathetically.

"Why?" Koreen asked, confused at the remark.

"What?" Jon asked her back.

"Why're you sorry to hear it?"

"It's—I don't know. Because it's the polite thing to say." Jon explained.

Koreen stopped at it, seeming more baffled. She accepted facts that Northerners have strange traditions.

There was an awkward silence between the three for a moment, before Robb cleared his throat and broke it.

"I heard Father said he was indebted to you. Was that true?" Robb asked.

"I dun't know. I think he might be a bit overstatin'. Your father was raided by a band of outlaws. H'was unarmed at that time, I was huntin' for lunch. Shot my arrows to the three thieves 'nstead."

Robb and Jon looked at each other stunned.

"That was a noble thing you've done, saving an unarmed man's life."

"I came near him, Lord Stark, bow and arrow at ready. Almost shot him."

"But you didn't shoot him." Robb said.

"Your father, he looked at me. Nob'dy had looked at me like that befo'."

Koreen croaked a bit. Trying to suppress the vulnerability she was feeling.

"H'was worried of me. He asked who I was, where I came from, who I was with. I suddenly felt alone. I haven't talked to anyone for a long time before that moment. And a wildling child, we talk much more than we think, honestly."

"And now, you're here." Robb said warmly.

"And now, I'm here." She looked at Robb intently.

For a long time she had kept everything to herself. It amazed her how easily she was revealing to the brothers.

Yesterday, she had the whole day to roam around the kingdom. She saw the townspeople hard at work, feeding the games, goats and lambs. She went to the stables and touched the most majestic horses she ever saw. She met Mikken, the swordsmith. She saw how a dagger was made from start to finish.

She imagined herself living in Winterfell. She admired the girls all looking pretty and picking rootcrops. And a boy at the metal yard, sweaty from the hard labor, stared at her then smiled.

She went to the gates, saw how big it was, how thick.

She felt a desire to conform with the people she met. But she was a wildling, a term fabricated by the people who shunned their kind outside the kingdom. Her guardians never used that word. They were free-people, that was their kind.

Her hunter guardians, brought her far north once. She saw it. The wall. And it was all she imagined it would be, precisely how the hunter man described it. Cold, high and mighty.

Maybe she had other kinsfolks at the other side, she thought. The free people. Perhaps if that white barricade wasn't built thousands of years ago, her kind who was confined inside it wouldn't dwindle down its number. And possibly, she wouldn't be alone.

And now she's living inside a new wall, only made of bricks and stones.

"This is the spot I shot my kill a week ago."

"What did you shoot?"

"It was an elk. It was juvenile but it was good with wine." Robb said proudly.

"And you think that lightning will strike twice at one place."

"Well, where do you prefer to wait?"

"Is that the hunting you know? You choose a spot and wait for a stupid animal to cross your path?"

"Youre the hunter you lead us then."

"We can leave the horses here. We can go down the river by foot."

"By foot?!"

"Why? Do you prefer if Jon carry your lazy ass?"

Jon snickered at Koreen's jest.

"Don't encourage her." Robb hissed at his brother.

"Sorry." Jon apologized, trying to contain his sneer.

The young lord's displeasure tempted Koreen to taunt him more.

"There are deer around here, Robb. They have terrible sight but can smell horse piss from miles." Koreen explained.

"You want a deer for lunch?" Jon asked. Koreen noticed a soft smile.

"Yes, that'll be good enough, for four men, two children and a wildling girl." She smiled.

"I think the river's frozen, Koreen. It has been for months." Jon added.

"I hear a flow. It's faint but it's there. Perhaps the top is frozen but not the bottom. And if it flows, it has to go somewhere. And deers? They need to drink. And I'm sure they don't eat the snow for refreshment."

A good ten minutes passed before they reached the edge of the river.

Robb offered a hand for her to hold on to as she hopped off the boulder she was standing on. She looked at his hand puzzled, but took it anyway.

Koreen picked a handful of birchberries and rubbed it together between her palms. The small fruits rendered an aroma similar to mead, only stronger. She then scattered the crushed berries on the floor of the woods.

"What are you doing?" Robb asked as Koreen picked up a large piece of stone.

"I'm setting a trap..." She dropped the stone and it made a large hole on the frozen surface of the river. "...for the swiftest kill of your life."