Author's Note: 1) I am sorry for the delay.

2) I hope you enjoy.

3) Let me know what you think.

If this meeting ended in peace and stories were told of it, Damon imagined the poets would dramatize the circumstances. 'Both parties approached one another in the center of the ruined village, preparing to plead with one another to reach an accord to save their respective peoples.' People would imagine the two parties of warriors closing, stopping in unspoken harmony, faces beseeching and hearts full of peace instead of their customary war.

It would all be a lie. The wildlings reached the center a full minute and half before those in Damon's party, at a brisk walk, stopped thirty feet in front of them. And if the wildings looked like anything, they looked like they were planning on how to kill Damon and his companions.

Which is fitting, since I've been determining the best way to kill them this entire ride. He let his eyes go up and up and up, focusing on the indescribably foreign face of a grey-haired giant towering over all others. Though I daresay they have the advantage.

The giant was a creature of its own, so otherworldly that Damon barely believed they could exist despite staring one in the face, but the rest were human. For the most part. There was another giant—of the still-human variety, like the Cleganes—with hair as orange as the Martell banner, his gaze a heavy glare at the approaching southerners. There was a middle-aged man in the center, tall and straight, with black hair and broad shoulders. Damon was relatively certain one of those two was Mance Rayder, though the more passive countenance of the latter had the king placing his bets in that direction. There were two women, as different as women could be—one was lithe and stunning to the point of distraction, blonde haired and blue eyed, and despite the seriousness of the situation Damon trailed his eyes over her twice. The other was short and broad, face locked in a mannish scowl, and she held a pike with an actual dog's head mounted on it by her side. Fresh, judging from the blood rhythmically dropping to the white snow below. Then there was the figure in a suit of bones, from sabatons to skull helmet, male by the thick black beard beneath the front teeth of the skull.

Damon looked the seventh member of the wildling party over three times before it registered who he was seeing. Robb's gasp confirmed it.

"Jon Snow?"

Damon didn't know who had spoken it out loud, but there was power in someone's name, and it brought to life that it was in fact Jon Snow standing between the red-haired man and the blonde woman. He was still dressed like a member of the Night's Watch, all black, but he did not seem like a prisoner, as he was unbound. Hells, he was armed, pommel of a blade protruding from his thick winter cloak.

There was silence, Jon Snow saying nothing as Damon and his party stared at him, before a voice snarled into the wind. "Traitor."

Bedwyck the Giant, all five feet of him, had dismounted and drawn a blade in the blink of an eye. The wildling contingent drew their own weapons in response, save for Jon who didn't move at all and the black-haired man who angled his hands out to try and caution his fellow. This prompted the rest of Damon's party to draw their own, curses and confused questions tossed around amidst the song of steel being drawn.

He watched Bedwyck take a step in the direction of Jon Snow, and saw the blonde woman and red-haired man angle to step in front of him in his defense as the giant made an inhuman sound somewhere between a roar and a rockslide. Wildings defending a Black Brother? Mayhaps he has turned traitor.

"Enough!"

He had shouted at the same time as one of the wildings, the tall man who hadn't drawn steel, and Damon knew at once he was the King-Beyond-The-Wall. Both sides hesitated, eyeing one another warily. Bedwyck, face Lannister red, turned and spat into the snow, blade still in his hands and eyes still locked on Jon Snow. "With respec', King Damon, this is a Night's Watch matter."

"Holding the Wall was too, yet here we are, Bedwyck. Stand down."

With a curse Bedwyck straightened from his fighting crouch, though it was not a full surrender. "Your friend, Snow, Grenn the Aurochs? Dead. They cut 'is throat. Monkey too, squashed flat by one of them giants when they broke through. And here you be on their side? Bastard!"

Jon Snow's face had fallen with the mention of his friends' deaths, and the pain seemed real enough to Damon. But the bastard of Winterfell said nothing and made no motion to either draw his own weapon or show hostility to the man who had once been his brother.

The King glanced at Robb, who no more than a day ago had nearly drawn steel on Bedwyck for insinuating that which the small man now shouted. There wasn't anger in Lord Stark's eyes though, only despair and pain as he stared at his bastard brother. Damon had never seen a man look so crushed; throughout their war, the negotiations leading to its end and the preparations for this new one, Robb had rarely shown anything other than confidence or anger. Now, though, he looked nothing like the skilled commander and seasoned leader Damon knew him to be. Now he looked like a boy again, small and heartbroken.

He broke the silence that had followed the only way he knew how, by plunging on towards the objective of this meeting. "You must be Mance Rayder."

He'd addressed the tall man and was proven right when he nodded. "Aye. You must be Damon Baratheon."

Tyrek opened his mouth to retort, likely insisting Damon be called 'king', but a flick of his cousin's hand stayed the loyal fellow. "I am." He nodded his head towards the Wall rising into the sky behind them. "You're on the wrong side of that."

Mance turned, casually glancing behind him to glance at the Wall in question as he spoke. "Aye, in your mind I suppose I am." He turned back, eyes a dark brown as they met Damon's. "But I'm not here for the reasons you think."

Robb spoke then, his devastation apparently turning into a deeper anger with each passing second. "So it's not rape and pillage and death? I know many of my people"—he snapped his eyes to Jon—"our people, who seem to believe that is all you wretches are here for." Umber growled in agreement, and the wildings once again tensed.

Mance spoke before Damon could. "There were some who decided that was their preference, yes. Varamyr Sixskins was one of them." He pointedly settled his gaze on the shadowskin Damon wore. "From what we hear, you lot got rid of him."

"And all those with him," the Greatjon boomed, making no attempt to hide the malice in his tone. Damon thought of the girl again, and of the assortment of other small bodies they had burned after the battle. He did not understand how the northerner saw any of it as something to be proud of.

"Not all," the big red-haired wildling said. "How do you think we know about it?"

Robb had never taken his eyes off his brother. "Do you know what these lot do, Jon? Truly? While you walk armed among them?"

The giant growled again. Bedwyck had never returned to the line, though he had not advanced any closer to the wildlings either. "He knows."

Damon tried to think of a way to steer the conversation back to what he had came for—negotiation to…well, to do something with the Wildlings before more slaughter of any side occurred. He needed them removed one way or another; Stannis was still very much a threat, and while Damon had no idea where he would turn up next, he was mostly confident it would not be the North. Robb had sided with Damon, and while his bannermen may not like that decision they would follow the Starks, just as the Starks would honor their word.

Except in betrothals, Damon thought, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Robb. Or in marriage, his brain supplied again, this time looking at a stoic Jon Snow and thinking of the circumstance of his birth.

Jon Snow finally spoke, eyes on his brother—by blood, not order—and tone low. "I know what they're capable of, Robb. I also know what this lot hasn't done."

Bedwyck, who up until this point Damon had only ever known to be calm and collected, exploded into a flurry of curses. "I'll tell you what they have! Killed us, near all o' us, while you stayed in their camp and bedded their whores!"

The blonde woman raised an eyebrow and Mance Rayder's face darkened. Damon interrupted, both Bedwyck's attempt to say more and Jon Snow's rebuttal. "I said enough, Bedwyck. If you cannot hold your temper or your tongue, leave. We did not come here to trade insults with the wildlings."

The ranger didn't stand down, though Damon could tell the slight man was trying to gather his composure. "How about wit' traitors?"

"I will not say it again."

For a long second Damon thought he had lost the man, but with an explosion of very loud and very foul curses the small black brother whirled and stomped to his garron, sheathing his short blade and mounting in fits of barely controlled movement. Once he was mounted, he said no more though, not even another curse, and in Damon's estimation that was enough.

The southron king spoke as if the previous minute had never taken place. "If you aren't here for raiding and pillaging then why are you here at all?"

To Damon's surprise, Mance tilted his head towards Jon Snow. "For the same reason he has remained, and it is a good one. Don't get too out of sorts, Bedwyck." The black brother in question nearly snarled at the familiar way Mance had said his name. Damon cocked a brow at it as well; he'd known that Mance Rayder had once been a brother of the Night's Watch, but Bedwyck had made no mention of having known the man. It made sense though, what with their similar ages, and in fairness Bedwyck didn't speak much at all beyond scouting reports and eruptions of cursing.

"What reason is that," Robb Stark demanded, latching on to the faint hope that his brother had an understandable—a forgivable—reason for his apparent turning of his cloak.

Mance paused a moment, as if best sorting out how to say what he wished to say. "The dead."

A long silence. Damon interrupted it. "Pardon?"

"The dead. And they are dead, of that I have no doubt. Rotted guts dragging behind them, jaws slack and gaping with mere strips of sinew holding it to their face. But they move. They stalk us, track us, kill us. And if we don't burn our dead in time, they get up to do the same. I'm not here to fight, I'm here to hide."

Another silence held sway a moment before Garlan chuckled and Tyrek scoffed. "Dead men, wilding? That is your claim?"

Mance's lip curled. "It is more than a claim, southerner. It is the truth."

Brynden Blackfish raised an eyebrow. "The truth? It sounds like the words of a madman to me."

The tall red-haired wilding growled. "All of us here have seen it, old man. Do you think we'd be talking to you cunts now if we hadn't?"

Tyrek scoffed again. "I think you're talking to us because you know you don't have a chance." He eyed the furs the big chieftain wore dismissively, ignoring the grumbles of some of the other wilding leaders—though he did flinch a touch at the low growl that came from the giant. "As you said, you've heard what happened to Sixskins at Last Lake. No armor, no steel….we'd do the same to you in pitched battle, no matter your numbers."

The king wasn't quite as confident as his cousin, not with the ocean of a camp he'd seen, but he said nothing to disagree. Instead he had been watching the others throughout the exchange. He noted that none of the Northmen seemed as dismissive as his southron companions, though clearly none believed Rayder. Bedwyck, though…Bedwyck's face had gone from masked fury to resignation and something approaching fear at Mance's words. Damon didn't believe the King-Beyond-the-Wall of course, not with this talk of ancient tales meant to frighten children, but still; men like him didn't scare easy.

Oblivious to the thoughts of the king the argument had waged on. Jon Snow was speaking now, talking mainly towards his half-brother—pleading almost. "He's right. I've seen them, I've fought them. Bedwyck has too. I may be a bastard, and you may think me a traitor, but I am not a liar." He turned his eyes on the small man who had been ready and willing to gut him. "You remember the Fist of the First Men, Bedwyck. I was on a ranging, but you were there."

There was no longer any malice in his tone. "I remember seven hells of confusion. I remember most of us dying. And I remember this lot finishin' the rest o' us off, save me and you and a handful of t'others."

"But you saw them," Jon Snow insisted.

Bedwyck slowly nodded, answering in a sigh. "Aye, I saw them."

Tyrek, still unbelieving, turned to the man. "You've seen dead men walking, and you said nothing to us until now? I find this even harder to believe than the horseshit coming from that lot."

Bedwyck turned to set his eyes on the young lordling. "Would you have believed me, a lone git, any more than you've believed 'im?" He gestured sharply towards Mance Rayder.

Damon spoke up for the first time throughout the exchange. "You saying you have seen these…things, though?"

The black brother turned to him and held his gaze. "I ain't certain what all I saw. Half seemed a dream, half a nightmare." He swallowed. "I'd hoped I was wrong. I'd hoped Mance killed whatever it was that did it, if it weren't 'im that had. Mayhaps I was wrong."

Damon looked to Jon Snow. "And you, Snow? You've seen these things?"

"Aye, Your Grace, I have." Jon Snow didn't look away either.

"Are we talking of the Others then?" Greatjon Umber, who had done a lot of grunting and growling but hadn't spoken much to this point, demanded of Rayder before Damon could ask further questions.

A small shiver worked down Damon's spine at that name. The wildings—and even some of his companions, particularly Robb—had similar reactions, as if saying it aloud made this all the more plausible. He'd heard the stories from bards and poets and other squires, of the Long Night and demons of ice and how they'd nearly killed the entire world. But they were just that, stories, legends told rarely in the North and even less in the South. There was nothing to truly fear of them.

Except when he looked at Bedwyck, and Mance, and most of the other wildings, he could see it. Beneath the anger and distrust and hostility, it was in all their faces. Fear.

"I haven't seen those myself," Rayder answered the Greatjon slowly. "But some of my people say they have. And something is causing this. I want to use your Wall. To stop them if we can or hide from them if we can't."

Tyrek, for his part, was completely unmoved. "Your audacity knows no bound, wildling. You come south to rape and pillage the people of King Damon, then have the audacity to imply you're trying to save us all from this fictional threat to his face."

Mance looked straight to Damon then, ignoring the eruption of protests from his side and responding growls from his own. "I am not a fool, Damon Baratheon. The mouthy blonde lad is right. Most of my people do not have armor or horses or steel. Overwhelming the Night's Watch was one thing; they were a band of old men and green boys, rotted to the core. Your army is none of those things; if we fight, many of your men would die, mark my words, but nearly all of mine would too."

The people in question, particularly the big red-haired man, collectively cursed or stuttered in protest. Mance whirled to face them, suddenly savagely passionate. "I'd take any one of my people over any one of theirs in a fair fight, but it won't be one Tormund! Your axe could cleave Baratheon in two if you could reach him, but you wouldn't be able to reach him before he drives a lance through your middle. You know this. Sixskins proved it. I didn't bring our people down here to die in the snow like him, I brought them to live."

He whirled back around, eyes returning to the one he knew he had to convince. "I'm not here to fight. I'm here to live. And beyond that Wall? Beyond that Wall there is death, and it's coming for us all."

Damon stared into Rayder's unblinking gaze. His side said nothing, looking at him with gazes ranging from curious of his opinion to—in Tyrek's case—completely dismissive of the impassioned plea.

Trap. Cleary a trap. But what did Rayder have to gain from that? Damon's death? While particularly concerning to Damon, it didn't mean much in the long run to Mance, not with Robb Stark and an army still here to crush him, kingless or not. But this talk of dead men and children's stories…it had to be nonsense. It was beyond the realm of belief, no matter it being backed by Jon Snow and Bedwyck and whoever else might want to. He should simply crush the wildling host—no easy feat but the likely outcome, as even Mance had admitted—and be done with it.

But that's not what came out when Damon opened his mouth.

He sat straight in his saddle, eyes never leaving Mance Rayder's, whose own gaze never strayed.

"Show me."

A/N: Not a tease this round, but a question. Anybody interested in the meeting of Bella and Margaery? I wrote a good amount on it ages ago but wasn't sure if there'd be interest or not.

Either way, there will be more Jon in future chapters, though when those will be posted is as much of a mystery to me as it is you.

Let the dissension and hatred commence!