The last thing he had remembered was the freezing temperatures and bleeding profusely from a wound in his side. His last thought was that he would die Beyond-the-Wall before passing out. His eyes fluttered open to feeling warm and on something soft. There were walls of ice and a simmering pot of stew over a fire, smoke rising up through the exhaust hole in the ceiling. A feminine face with silver hair and violet eyes appeared above him.

"You're... a Targaryen."

"Not a legitimate one." She replied dryly.

Benjen glanced down to see his torso wrapped in strange cloth. "Well, I thank you nonetheless. I'm Benjen Stark, Ranger of the Night's Watch."

"You're welcome. My name is Nymeria Waters."

"Nice to meet you." He didn't ask why this strange woman was in the land of forever winter. If she had managed to survive so far, her business was her own. Besides, it was hardly anything new to have people sneak across the Wall through the abandoned watch towers, but they were usually leaving, not coming in.

She fed him warm soup until he was full, setting aside the bowl. "You do not wish to ask why I'm here?"

He shrugged fractionally. "My sister used to tell me never to pry into a lady's secrets uninvited."

"Your sister sounds very wise."

"She was." Benjen had a flashback of Lyanna playing with him, teaching him how to fight and being there to listen to his problems. He had been barely a year old when his lady mother died, so every time he'd tried to picture her face, it was always Lyanna's he saw. He remembered the day Ned had brought her body back to Winterfell, her familiar face peaceful as if she only slept. Even now, his heart wrenched in grief and denial, the foolish side of him wishing that she weren't dead. "She passed away many years ago."

Nymeria looked thoughtful for a while. "The ones we love never leave us, or so the old saying goes."

He nodded, having heard that before a long time ago in another life. "Is it okay for me to stand up?"

"Yes, just take it slowly."

He took a deep breath as he sat up, pushing the pain from his body as he climbed to his feet. He felt her watching him as he walked around the small ice abode, intrigued by it's structure. He found the door, which was almost invisible in it's seamless niche between the walls. "How did you find this place?"

"Quite by accident, actually. I wandered many days after crossing the Wall, eating whatever I could get my hands on. Tired and nearly frozen, I stumbled on this unique dwelling. I don't know who built it, but it's very sturdy and keeps in the warmth."

"The First Men did as lodging while building the Wall. Most of them have long since been lost under the snow or destroyed, but I always hoped there was one somewhere out here defying the odds." He touched the mark on the door, one he had seen inside of the icy catacombs beneath the Wall only the Rangers knew about. "This was Bran the Builder's home."

She joined him, eyeing the carving. "Looks like a direwolf. I thought that was the sigil of your House?"

His lips twitched. "You are correct. Bran is thought to be the very first Stark and King of Winter in the North, building Winterfell for his people. Unfortunately, much of history from that time was lost and only stories are left."

"My mother used to say we're all stories in the end."

"Yes we are. Good, bad, or sometimes both." He stepped out and made water behind a frozen bush, returning when he'd tucked everything away again. He laid down on the furs again with a sigh, going back to resting.

She watched him for a while. "What happened to you anyway?"

"Wildings found me snooping around their beloved leader gathering information and they cornered me after a long chase."

"You know, I saw a lot of them moving carts of dirt from digging up in the mountains of Thenn."

He raised an eye brow. "How long has that been going on?"

She shrugged. "About three moons, I'd say. I noticed the day after my arrival, but they looked like they had been doing it for a moon already."

"That doesn't bode well. How soon can I travel?"

"Two weeks, I'd say. If you need send the information to the Wall before then, I can catch a bird for you."

He didn't bother asking how she planned on doing that. It had taken him months to learn to befriend wild crows, but sometimes it was easier for other people. Maester Aemon could have any bird approach him in a matter of minutes, even if it hadn't been tamed. "I would like to have a bird, thank you. Do you have any writing supplies I can use?"

She nodded, pulling them out of her satchel and going outside for a while. She returned with a crow perched on her hand. She fed it little morsels as he wrote, then he beckoned the crow to him and tied the letter to it's leg and whispered the directions. It flew out the hole in the ceiling and was gone. He drifted off to sleep and woke later, finding her asleep by the fire. He slipped outside to make water again, gathering up as much wood as he could carry without straining himself, taking it back into the house with him. He piled the wood on one log at a time, watching each light up with the brilliant flame of life, the only thing that stood between mortals and death in the land of forever winter.

"I could have gotten that." She said groggily, eyes opening.

"I needed out anyway, no sense having both of us in that freezing air."

She smiled slightly. "How chivalrous."

He felt his lips twitch again. "My lord father would be relieved to know I am at least living up to that expectation. He would haunt me if I didn't uphold the Stark honor in all ways."

"He was demanding, I take it?"

"Stern more than demanding, as all Starks seem to be." He yawned, picturing his father's face that had been accurately carved into the stone likeness above his tomb down in the crypt of Winterfell. "Or they become so after having children. Wolf cubs can be very rebellious and wild, so they need that from their parents." He thought of Brandon, the most wild of all of all three of them. It had taken becoming engaged to Caitlyn Tully to mellow him out just enough to stop him from running around the North like he'd been doing. Lyanna had smiled mysteriously when he'd asked her why their brother had stopped, but now he understood. Brandon fell in love and once a wolf was in love, that was the end of his wild romps because wolves mated for life.

She chuckled. "Sounds like dragons when they're young as well. Good night, Benjen."

"Good night, Nymeria." He laid down slowly and went back to sleep.