Hello! bad weather really hit us hard. So hard that we lost electricity for more than 14 hours. I did a rough draft of this on paper, and it ended up way differently in typing. :) It's a bit short, sorry.
Again, thanks for reading. Chapter 5 is halfway done. Take care, all of you! Ciao!
Koreen
"Robb, what's a nameday?" Koreen asked curiously. A number of people had greeted Jon.
They were riding their horses, on the way to the thicker part of the woods.
Arya protested when Lord Stark told her that she was to stay at the camp to help her father and younger brother Bran to set up shelter for the night and build fire as soon as Theon gets back from gathering woods.
While Koreen, Robb and Jon were assigned to hunt for dinner.
"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. Why did you ask? Don't you know what yours is." Robb answered.
"No. I'm ten and five... or six. 'Am not really certain 'bout it. I dun' exactly have anyone t'ask."
"When did they die? Your parents." Jon asked.
Koreen looked at him. It was the first time the boy spoke to her, she realized.
"I've no idea. Never really talked about it, the married hunters who raised me. I think they saw 'ow my village w's killed. Whispered to each other how t'was burned to the ground. But I was too young to r'member anything."
"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.
"Do you think this is a good spot? I shot my kill on this site last week."
"Lightn'ng does not strike twice in one place, Robb." Said Koreen.
"Well, where do you want to wait?" he asked, scanning the horizon of trees and hills.
"Is that what you do when you hunt? You wait? You got to go where they need to be. That's huntin' I know."
"So, where to?" Robb asked, visibly starting to get annoyed.
"Let's leave our horses 'ere. Let's get down the river by foot."
"By foot?" Robb asked again. Checking to see if he heard right.
"Why? Are you too tired from riding your steed all mornin, lord Robb?"
The boy's displeasure tempted Koreen to taunt him more.
"There are deers around 'ere, Robb. They've terrible sight but they can smell horse piss from here t'yesterday." Koreen teased Robb.
"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. M'ybe the top is frozen but not the bottom. And if it flows, it got to go somewhere. And deers? They need to drink. And I'm sure they don' 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... for the swiftest kill of your life, young lord." She dropped the stone and it made a large hole on the frozen surface of the river.