She'd lost count of the times the sky had lit up. Every face at Barrowton was turned northeast, every mind imagining just what must be unfolding at Winterfell. And above it. Asha didn't know whether to count herself lucky to be kept out of it or cheated that she would miss the end. Whichever way things fall. At first it had been a blessing to talk to someone else than her frail mother and ruined uncles, but too many wives and mothers among the rest had husbands and sons to pray for and so Asha left them to it. As if the cold winds and the trees cared a whit for prayers offered to the Seven. She found Erena Glover bundled up and gaping out a window at the madness to the north. Is that how an ant looks when it watches a babe step on its hill?
"Come away from there. You're like to catch a chill and fine thing it would be indeed to hand you back to your mother with you gone all sniffly." The prospect of finally being reunited with Lady Sybelle made Erena's eyes go wider, if anything. Asha cursed herself. I could hand her to any woman I bloody liked, she's too young to remember her mother. "You'll know her when you see her. You and Gawen share her look." Asha said, as if it were a trifle. Gawen, too young to shave but just right for fighting Others when I've seen them pulp seasoned soldiers and reavers both with mine own eyes. "Deepwood Motte isn't so strong as castles built in stone, but it's easier to get warm there than anywhere on the Iron Islands, that's for certain."
"Ten Towers was built in stone and the Others knocked it down all the same." The Reader's voice echoed from the hall, Asha daring to think sounding a bit haler. His hand appeared on the doorway first, as it always did, the rest of her uncle following with slow, careful steps. "One of a number of things I've been thinking on of late."
"You can't be blamed, Uncle. Ten Towers was your seat-" he waved a hand dismissively.
"Not Ten Towers. Castles, stone or otherwise. They might keep your enemies out if they're only brigands or perhaps another lord at your doorstep, but what good is even mortared stone when something altogether more dire turns up? Suppose we push the Others away, who's going to want to rebuild something it turns out can be kicked over as easily as a child might a sandcastle? At least building in wood is cheaper, especially in the wolfswood. Whatever damage Deepwood Motte has endured will be easily enough repaired. Even if it was razed, it would not be so hard to rebuild. Certainly nothing compared to something like Ten Towers." Gods, the Reader was wasted on the islands. Is this what learned men do all day? Wonder about the gods know what while everyone else goes about their lives? Perhaps a touch of Father's idiocy isn't the worst thing, then. Asha found herself wondering what Lord Balon might have said or done had he lived long enough to see the world upend itself. She snorted. He'd have gotten himself killed, I'll wager. Mouthed off to the wrong man-fish and caught a spear in the gut for his trouble.
"It's cold in here." The Reader's remark pushed Lord Balon from Asha's thoughts.
"It's cold everywhere, Uncle."
"Not so cold in a lit hearth. I trust you situated the…concern Ser Jaime voiced before he left?" Oh.
"He took it with him. There will be warmer fires at Winterfell than what will burn in a Barrow Hall hearth." Erena paid them no mind, content to shiver and pull her furs tighter around herself, but there were ears well-screwed toward hearing what they oughtn't among them and Asha was hardly surprised when the Spider's bald head poked out of the corridor.
"Concern?" he asked, sounding precisely as if he had nothing more in mind than the Kingslayer's safety.
"It's none of yours. At least, if the Others win. Go and bother Lady Genna." Asha told him. Bugger yourself, I know something you don't.
"This concern wouldn't be something Ser Jaime appropriated from your late uncle, would it my lady?" Bugger me.
"Might be. What does it matter? Even if it is, it's long gone, and not like to play a part in tomorrow unless we win today."
"A boy who tosses a few coins in a well on passing it every morning may become a man who finds a hoard when most he needs it."
"Or someone kills the lad before he can reap what he's sown and all the coin in the world is no good to anyone anyhow, forgotten as it is."
"Precisely." The Spider said, retreating back into the shadows of the corridor. Asha rubbed her brow. The man was an infuriating doublespeaker, even triplespeaker, but she thought she knew the broad strokes of what he was trying to convey. Keep my mouth shut. Well, too bad for you I'm a Greyjoy and we're notoriously widemouthed. You lose, spymaster. Not that there was much anyone to tell, or reason to tell them. Dragon eggs are dragon's business, and those that ride them. I'd have liked to see it given to her myself, it would have been good to see her smile again. Her uncle's hand on her shoulder made her jump.
"Bloody hell, Reader-"
"Asha, the storm has stopped." She started. Near two hundred miles lay between Barrowton and Winterfell and yet the lights in the sky were more than visible from where they stood, lightning and thunder roiling in the northern sky like the lingering specter of death. Were, Asha thought, the tempest it seemed having rumbled its last. She went out onto the rampart, the Reader mumbling to himself about steps and counts while Erena brought up the rear, a bundle with feet. Asha was still trying to spot where the storms ended and the skies proper began when the eastern horizon began to glow. She tensed, expecting some new Othery, and near snapped off the tops of the wooden palisades she held when the glow took on a deep yellow hue, poking up out of the moor painfully slowly. Morning, Asha thought, blinking it out of her eyes. Dawn. They stood there for a moment, just watching the sun rise.
"Does that mean it's over?" Erena asked in a small voice.
Asha tore her eyes away and looked down into the street. People were coming out of what shelter they had found, looking around anxiously despite the light of day. And who can bloody well blame them? Rodrik leaned toward Asha.
"If it's over, we'll need to figure out what to do next. We're not going to be able to linger here indefinitely."
"Hopefully someone who survived the battle remembers we're here and clues the rest of them in." she replied. They'd not reach Winterfell on their own, all the horses went on with those in fighting shape.
"More time for thinking on what comes next then, hardly a dull prospect." Her uncle didn't seem too worried, which was a first for the Reader. Perhaps it's because he's not afraid of the end. But was that it? He was not his usual doomsaying self, whatever was going on behind that rag over his empty eye sockets was proving carrot enough to move even a mule as stubborn as Rodrik Harlaw. Still, Asha found herself looking out over the moor, a sea of rolling white but for the river Barrowton had been built on.
"Whatever comes, it won't be farming."
"What do we know about farming?" the Reader replied. "We are ironborn, and our place is by the sea." Preferably someplace quit of man-fishes. "Theon told me you had designs on Sea Dragon Point. The Stony Shore as well. Once, I'd have been wary of northern enmity. I daresay the coming of the Others has done away with such grudges." When an enemy comes blasting castles to bits the reaving of yesterday is quicky forgotten.
"Us as got clear of the islands before they fell will need someplace to go. Sea Dragon Point could serve the way White Harbor does, only on the western coast." Asha said. "And Lannisport, Oldtown and the Arbor are like to be very open to such ease of access to northern timber, furs, fish and all the rest. Nobody's going to much be looking for gold or baubles or Arbor gold when eating's got to be done, and keeping warm besides. Someone's got to ferry all those resources south, why not us?" The Reader was smiling.
"Your father is rolling over in his grave."
"If an Other chanced to trawl the beach we sent him into the sea from, he may be doing more than that. Either way, bugger him. I'd sooner bed down with northmen and have someone to watch my back than boast of hardness stranded on some rocks. That was ever Father's way, hardness. Heedless of the world spinning on past him while he brooded. He thought himself a kraken, but in truth he was a barnacle. Hard, and blind to the world as it moves. Krakens hunt and roam and are squishy besides…" Asha looked down at the wooden peg that had taken the place of her leg below the knee. Krakens regrow the parts they've lost.
Asha spotted a greybeard muttering animatedly into the girl from the Lonely Light's ear down in the street. What's all that about? She mused on having a finding-out but didn't relish the possibility of her peg slipping on some ice-caked step and falling on her ass in front of all of Barrowton.
"A wretched business, truly. I pray my Walder keeps his wits about him, he's all I have left." The newly-emerged figure of Lady Genna made three of Asha in weight, and yet even morose she clung to a shadow of Lannister elegance. Without a second thought she wove around the Reader to take Asha's other side.
"That's more than the Others have left for many, my lady." Asha answered. "I daresay there will be a deal of orphans to take charge of, though. You may find your Rock a regular haven for the westerlands' parentless children."
"Casterly Rock belongs to Ser Jaime, my lady. No doubt he's more than irked at such a circumstance but that's where the gods have seen fit to land him." If he's still alive. Though, she may pitch me off the wall should I say as much. As for Pyke, if Asha never saw it again but for steering clear on the deck of Black Wind, that would be fine. If it even still stands. The Others did for Ten Towers easily enough and that was a castle proper, not a ruin half-collapsed into the sea.
"At least it seems day has finally found us."
"Splendid, but I seem to recall that one can freeze or starve during the day as easily as at night."
"Surely at least a few of our lot made it through. One or more will have told the rest a goodly number remain here, awaiting further orders." Awaiting rescue, or supplies at least. She pointed at something coming over the northern moor. "Look there, more dead men?" Lady Genna squinted.
"Do dead men have antlers and walk on all fours?" Asha squinted in turn at the growing strip of brown against the white. The strip became a flood as countless of the animals trotted over the horizon. Anytime those in the front rank stopped to poke in the snow, ten more took its place in the fore and soon the herd was but an arrow's flight from the walls of Barrowton.
"They look like deer." Someone muttered from further down the wall.
"At least now we won't starve." Asha reasoned, though she was taken aback by their sheer number. "What are they doing, mucking around in the snow like that?" Whatever the northmen didn't manage to harvest will be long dead.
"Let them muck." The Reader said. "We've got more to worry about than a few deer going about their lives." What else are we going to do, Uncle? Take bets on who freezes first?
The howling started after sunset. First one, then several, and then it seemed the barrowlands had a pack with numbers to rival the herd simply springing out of the snow.
"Poor buggers." Asha said, thinking of the deer.
"Poor us." The Reader replied, putting a log in the hearth with Erena's assistance. "Tonight they'll fill their bellies with deer, but what of tomorrow? There are long leagues between Barrowton and Winterfell, and now even horses would serve us little."
"Until they can scale palisades, I'm not going to worry about them. We'll have a look come morning and see what's what." And with so many deer to chase, they won't trouble a town behind wooden walls. Then Asha was thinking about the fishing village, the grinning monster that had torn away her leg. "All the same, we'll want torches burning through the night, perhaps a proper bonfire in the yard as well as the town square." And hope that whatever else may be out there is as content eating venison as the wolves are. After seeing her mother wrapped up snug as could be managed, Asha found herself in a chair next to the hearth. She'd put Erena to bed as well, but she was hardly surprised when the girl wandered into the room, shrouded in a heavy blanket. When Erena pushed another chair next to her, wriggling into it with a sniffle, Asha didn't protest. What would I even say? That only children are afraid of monsters? Of the dark? She found her chin prodding her chest, Erena already asleep, if fitfully. I do hope Ga made it. That'd be something, to hand Sybelle Glover back both her children as if there had never been a war. An ungodly shriek had Asha jumping out of her chair before she could worry about keeping balance, Erena wailing in her chair. Asha started at the lack of her usual teetering and swaying before shushing the girl. "All I hear are a gaggle of louts who will soon have my peg tickling their teeth. Go back to sleep." she said, gently but sternly. Muttering darkly to herself, Asha followed the sounds of the fools' voices. Though she didn't teeter, she still had to keep her eyes on the iron stud scuffing the floor to know her weight was rightly placed. I ought to take a leaf out of the Kingslayer's book and crack one of them across the mouth with this, see how eager they are to wake the whole castle up then. She sucked in an irate breath as she left the shelter of the castle behind for the godswood, several people gathered around the weirwood in the middle. "If you can't seem to get any sleep, I'll happily put you on the ramparts to squint into the darkness. At least then you might see something worth screaming at."
"My lady, the tree talked!" squeaked one of Barrowton's washerwomen.
"And that's fit to scream at like something's chewing you in half, is it?" The woman quailed, stumbling over her words.
"Go inside before you lose a finger, or even your nose." Asha snapped, sending the gaggle away with nary a nudge from her wood-and-iron foot needed. Shivering, irritated, she turned her frown to the weirwood. "A fat lot of good your kind have done." She turned and limped back toward the comparative warmth of Barrowton's halls.
"You're the one a hundred miles away and more, Asha Greyjoy."
She turned around so fast she felt her peg come loose, heart racing. No one was there to hear her curse but the trees and the softly falling snow. Slowly she limped toward the weirwood, half-expecting it to uproot itself and send her flying over the castle palisade.
"Are there many of you?" The question came from nowhere, from simply empty air, and yet Asha heard it as if the asker was standing right before her.
"Enough to be worth your time." she found herself answering. Out from behind the tree stepped an auburn-haired lordly type, fair-skinned and blue-eyed.
"Sorry about that, if I knew people were at Barrowton I'd have called on you myself. Uh…the Singers can be standoffish with people they don't know."
"What the fuck is going on? Who are you?"
"I'm Brandon Stark, and don't worry about all this, it's just the trees. The weirwood in particular. We managed to scare the wits out of some poor souls at Casterly Rock pulling the same trick." Asha remembered hearing something about a poacher in the Kingslayer's retinue. Some peasant lad only minding his own business. And I look more a Stark than you do.
"Bugger the Rock, Brandon Stark. Do you have a notion as to how you're going to get to us, or better yet, get us to you?" Asha asked, trying to keep her voice even.
"The men of the Frozen Shore are fond of walrus-bone chariots, they'll be able to get over the snows the quickest. Maybe I'll see if they're open to having steel runners instead of bone, though. Don't want them breaking halfway back and stranding you out on the moor."
"Well, your wildlings will find it worth their while. There's a herd of deer down here, bulky and hairy."
"Reindeer?"
"Whatever they are. We heard a sizeable pack calling to the hunt as soon as the sun went down, so there are enough of them to feed a number of wolves."
"Wolves won't trouble Barrowton." Again Asha was reminded of the Cape of Eagles, the white wolf with eyes of burning blue.
"All the same, I'd rather get us behind mortared stone than wooden palisade. We're the ones who couldn't ride to Torrhen's Square, much less march on Winterfell. If some cold monster charges out of the darkness at us we'll not put up much of a fight."
"If you could see the state of Winterfell, you might change your mind. It would do us all better to be in one place for now, though. I'll see about getting them out to you. Maybe you can stop at Torrhen's Square if you need a warm or night falls early."
"I'm certainly not looking to nap under a tree or gods forbid, at the bottom of a hillock." A burbling had Asha wondering if someone had taken an axe to the tree, and then she saw a babe totter after Stark. Now there's a Stark, and not in name only.
"What are you doing up?" Stark asked him. The babe stared at Asha awhile before toddling over to try grabbing her peg. Though she hardly expected to feel anything, the sight of his little hand passing through the wood as if it weren't there was a mite unnerving. "Come here. You ought be asleep just now." Stark scooped him up.
"So ought I, at that. I'm only here because a few fool servants heard the tree talking and decided it was raising a racket over."
"I'll see to it that Root takes care in the future. Have yours get ready to leave soon, Asha Greyjoy." She shivered.
"I never told you who I was."
"You have Theon's look."
"Is he still alive?"
"I have no idea. We're still scraping ourselves out of the footprints the cold mammoths left. Some order's being wrought but knowing who's alive and who isn't is still a ways off." Stark gently jostled the babe and walked back to the weirwood.
"Will you be keeping the wolves off us, then?" Asha asked.
"Reindeer make for better eating and seldom wield clubs or fire." Stark replied dryly before disappearing behind the heart tree's white trunk.
When Asha got back inside, she found half of Barrowton waiting for her.
"Some wildlings are coming down on sledges to take us to Winterfell. I don't know how many, so if it happens that not all of us can go at once, we'll send the old and young first. I'll see to it no one is left behind before I limp onto the last sledge." she said. When nobody moved, she bristled. "If you can't find something to do, I can think of a number of things." The crowd evaporated in seconds. Mother will be pleased to be in Theon's company again, if he's still alive. The Damphair had developed a nasty hacking cough that Asha hoped a proper maester could chase away with come concoction or just plenty of hot mulled wine. Rodrik Harlaw's only complaint was that he wouldn't be able to see the sledges for himself.
"I suppose I'll need tying down like a bundle of firewood. Else I'm like to fly off at every turn or hitch on the moor."
"Better than walking, Reader." Asha replied, sinking back into her chair. When Erena timidly squished in beside her, she didn't tell the girl off.
"Asha, what kind of wildlings will be on the sledges?" Her uncle's suddenly buoyant mood made her weary. Any opportunity to learn something new.
"The wild kind. Stark made mention of the Frozen Shore." That seemed to please the Reader.
"An opportunity for you to ingratiate yourself and your people with new neighbors. The Frozen Shore lies directly due north of Sea Dragon Point. Glovers, Mormonts and now the men of the Frozen Shore…it would seem your notion of Sea Dragon Point makes more sense by the minute."
"Bully for me. Until the lot of us are there with wooden walls around us, hot food in our bellies and crackling fires in our hearths, it's just a notion. Go to sleep, Reader. Else you'll fall asleep in the middle of your sledge ride." That actually got a laugh from the man.
The sledges did not appear on the horizon for another two days. By then, Asha had cobbled together a body of toothless huntsmen brave or foolhardy enough to try picking off a few of the herd.
"We'll not want to look indolent for our wild friends. They'll be coming off the battle, a bit of venison will be well welcome." She was right, of course, and when the sledges began to bolt through Barrowton's open gates they found a pretty pile of furs, a stack of antlers and plenty of meat both hot and salted waiting for them. At first they paid the lot of it no mind, even their fearsome big dogs, the men clambering off the sledges with thoughtless ease. Only when Asha's snowball took their hulking leader in his bald head and she pointed at the welcome gift, then their hairy lot did they seem to get the picture. They were on the salted venison like dogs mauling the scraps of a feast, the big lout in charge preferring to look over the antlers and furs. "Oh, don't tell me. None of you speak the Common Tongue." Asha said, slapping her forehead. Was never a Stark born with the first lick of sense? Even the melting snow rolling down his face didn't seem to much faze him. "Good." he grunted at least, holding an antler in one hand and a bit of fur in the other.
"Good, good." He nodded animatedly at Asha before bellowing at his men (and women, Asha realized with a start) louder than she could have believed any man capable. They began pooling around him, the man talking very quickly and pointing every so often at the gift. While that was going on Asha busied herself with a look at their sledges, the sunlight gleaming off the steel runners beneath them. At last the leader walked over to her, round face looking positively jolly. Well, made someone's day, at least. "Good. Go?" he asked her.
"No. The old first, and the young, until the lot of us are gone. She had to resort to drawing in the snow with her peg. If we do end up on Sea Dragon Point, at least some of us will need to learn their tongue, she reflected. There was no telling him what needed saying without the words to do so, though, and so Asha had to personally see those in Barrowton onto each sledge. That took the better part of the next few days. When the wildling leader chanced to return, she voiced another concern. "Have you lot had trouble with any cold monsters?" Of course, she might have been speaking Valyrian for all he understood. She tapped her nose, bared her teeth and mimed clawing at him. The lout grinned, laughing when she resorted to clawing him.
"No." He flapped his arms and blew into the air, breath a rising white cloud. Would that I had a dragon with me on the Cape of Eagles, Asha thought ruefully.
Only when she was satisfied that Barrowton was empty did Asha join the wildling on the last of the sledges, praying that what remained of her family was already well set up at Winterfell. She did not fail to notice that the gift Barrowton had laid out for the wildlings was loaded only after the last of the people had gone. Tongues aside, I could aim for worse neighbors. Another earsplitting shout from the wildling and they were off, Asha just barely keeping a scream in her throat as she clung to the brace of bone before her. The herd had moved on, splitting into two smaller herds headed west and south respectively, and so there was nothing much but white to look at. Her companion kept the lot of them in the strictest column, one sledge in the fore with two by two in three ranks and the one she rode bringing up the rear. Even over the rushing wind she guessed it was not hard for his people to hear his commands, winding around the steeper hills rather than racing over him or by some wild art keeping them out of a head-on wind almost without exception. When something began poking up before them he boomed another order, the column veering east rather than heading toward it. Asha didn't trust herself not to either scream or vomit should she open her mouth and there was aught she could do anyway, merely gripping the sledge she feared her palms would split beneath her gloves. Only when they'd gone some distance did they turn back west, approaching Torrhen's Square from the north of all directions. Once they stopped, his people seeing to the dogs, the big man squinted out at the lake for a long while. Only when a woman among his folk murmured in his ear, a squat barrel with a ruddy face did he seem at ease, and ill so. The sea eagle gripping the thick furs on her shoulder turned to peer at Asha. Wonderful, more wargs.
"Piss off. I'm no salmon." she muttered shortly. The bird went up a moment later, evidently to have a look at the lake from above. Far from his usual bellow, the wildling leader was speaking so softly Asha was having trouble hearing him and she only feet away. Perhaps I'm happier not knowing, she resolved. They were at Torrhen's Square a scant few hours anyway and she was being prodded awake just when she was nodding off, it seemed to Asha. The men of the Frozen Shore might have been keen to quit the place, but their dogs were beside themselves, snarling and yipping fearfully in turns. Hopefully they're more at ease at Winterfell.
When last Asha had seen the castle, it had looked almost eternal. As if were not built but merely sprouted out of the moor the way a tree would do. What little remained looked as if it had once been ringed three times in earth, but the Others had done for the rings and much of the castle, too. Where once thick curtain walls had stood, huge gaps now let the wind in to bite as it would. People swarmed about it the way ants did a half-destroyed hill, Asha's breath hitching when she caught sight of the giants lingering in their midst. What a mess, she thought. And I thought we were in sorry shape at Barrowton. Despite the bulk on the sledges the wildlings proved more than able to navigate through the crowd, answering more than one inquiry shouted in their stony tongue. A bit irked she could not manage more grace dismounting than a man twice her size, Asha let him take her by the waist and set her on the ground. I'd best watch my step. The ground is more mud than frozen earth, a fall is the last thing I need just now. She stopped cold at the sight of the bear lying in a heap before the wall, a giant-sized silver greataxe sunk fast into its head and a hundred other wounds torn open elsewhere besides. Asha stumbled through the mass of people, shoving past the last to fall to her knees in front of the corpse. Up close it was even worse, the deadly shimmer of heavy silver-tipped spears poking out from the blood-matted fur, fresh gore oozing through the open wounds.
"I thought he'd change back. After, I mean. If he were killed." Gawen Glover sounded miles away. When Asha put her hand to the bear's fur, hot blood through her glove and up to her elbow. Dimly she registered a small hand on her shoulder. "Maybe dying as the bear was easier than living as the man." Few had walked a harder road than Jorah Mormont to reach this day, no one with their wits could deny that. And rather than share in the days to come, here he lies, a corpse bleeding in the snow.
"We've got to get that axe out."
"None but a giant is hefting that-" Ga said gently.
"Then find one, Lord Glover." Asha sniffled, wiped her nose on her sleeve. She almost sliced her hand open on the first of the shafts, pulling the spear free with a meaty rip before tossing it aside. The heavy plodding of giant-sized feet preceded a fucking ginger giant of all things, giving the bear a considerable berth. "He's not about to attack you." Asha snapped. The giant seemed disinclined to agree, prodding the bear with a great hairy foot.
"Eh." he grunted dubiously. Asha pointed to the axe. The giant didn't seem to think himself equal to the task and it took him shouting a friend over to hold the bear's head down while he tried to pry it out, breathing hard and huge arms straining. In the end he almost had to rock it out, as if he were at the handle of a saw. When finally the silver slipped free of the bear's skull, the giant tossed it aside and hastily backed off. Murmuring broke out among the crowd as the fur began to thin, the great mass receding in on itself. Slower than before, Asha saw. Eventually Mormont emerged, looking as he had before the moon had taken hold. Then what hair remained him began to darken, thicken, his grievous wounds slowly congealing shut. "Good man." Asha gasped, his skull knitting back together in front of her eyes. He jerked awake when the last of the gashes closed, rolling over in the mud. Gawen was shouting for a maester, the people nearby were shouting all manner of nonsense, but Asha contented herself with watching Mormont sit up.
"It's a good thing the Others have gone." she told him. "I don't think I can take much more of this."
He sat there with his head in his hands for a good while, breathing hard.
"We'd best get you in fur, since you lost your own." Asha said, trying to bait him. When he didn't answer with a surly barb, she frowned. That axe took him in the head, she thought. What if he's not…all back yet? "Come on, up." Asha slipped an arm in his and pulled, Mormont floundering to his feet heedless of the mud, unbothered by the cold.
"Is he alright?" Gawen asked anxiously.
"Are any of us? Where's your sister? She was one of the first to leave Barrowton."
"With Mother and Father. She…" he gulped. "She doesn't recognize them. She misses you." Oh, fuck me. "Lady Sybelle has more sense than ten of me. When Erena realizes her mother's not going to plant her square in the most bent horseshit this side of Westeros, she'll come around. You haven't seen anyone from Black Wind, have you?"
"Not a one, but there's little point looking until the lot of us have sorted ourselves, is there? Plenty of missing knights and lordlings, men of birth and import. No one is looking for a few reavers, no one will miss a few reavers." I will, Asha thought.
"Well, sorting shit from turds isn't a task for children. You're to go straight back to your parents and stay there."
"What of you, my lady?"
"I'm not about to leave anytime soon, I've got greyhairs aplenty to nanny." And see if I can't keep the Damphair out of his grave a little longer. Not to mention this lummox. She looked to Mormont, staring around uncomprehendingly. He'll come around, she reasoned. Nothing a touch of moonlight can't fix, and even with the days returned, night is something in no short supply.