Caitie had always felt like there was a calming simplicity in a routine; something that didn't change, no matter where she was or what was happening around her. Living with the Free Folk, who were, by nature, chaotic, this proved even more true. Of course, it wasn't that she minded the chaos, necessarily; in fact, she found it rather endearing. The Free Folk were loud and disorganized, always yelling at each other or fighting over food or laughing loudly, and yet they still got things done, both quickly and efficiently, if not elegantly. A large part of her even enjoyed the spontaneity of living with them. But for someone who had spent the last three-and-a-half years in a constant state of change and unknown, having something of a routine helped her stay grounded.
In the mornings, she would wake up before the sun rose—which only got later and later every day—and scour the cottage for spiders, because Johnna, as it turned out, was terrified of them. Caitie had learned her lesson when, one morning, a small spider had made its home in the upper corner above their kitchen; after Johnna had seen it, she'd screamed her head off, refusing to go near the spot for the rest of the day, even once Caitie had killed it.
When she finished up with her spider hunting, she'd get a drowsy—usually somewhat sleep-deprived—Johnna awake, and together, the two of them would try and rouse Willa. Usually, this meant pestering and bribing her with food until she rubbed her eyes and got out of bed, although not without a lot of grumbling. Finally, the three of them would eat breakfast together, keeping to themselves until they woke up properly. Once they'd finished, they would leave to find Tormund, where he'd assign them morning duties. For Caitie, this usually consisted of cleaning up debris or rebuilding what had crumbled.
She usually kept to herself as she worked in the mornings. Beyond Tormund, Willa, and Johnna, the Free Folk had been—well, not hostile, exactly. Just... hesitant. Caitie supposed she couldn't blame them, but it did make her daytime routine rather boring, and more difficult, too, considering that she didn't want to ask for help.
This all changed on the fifth morning after her arrival, when one of the chieftains who had spoken for Jon at Hardhome—Dim Dalba, she thought Tormund had called him—sidled up to her. She kept her posture relaxed so he wouldn't notice her nerves, keeping her eyes firmly locked on the dilapidated house she was assessing.
He cleared his throat as he came to stand beside her, but instead of greeting her with a hello, he got straight to the point. "So, what do you southerners do for fun when you're not killing our people?"
The question surprised Caitie, but it only took her half a second to come up with an answer. "Kill each other."
There was a pause, in which the only noise was the droplets of rain splattering the dirt path. And then, laughing so loudly that the others in the area turned their heads, Dim Dalba slapped Caitie on the back. "You're all right," he said, "for a crow." And when he offered to help her in repairing the house, cutting the time in half and giving her some much-needed entertainment, Caitie couldn't help smiling, knowing that she had made another friend amongst the Free Folk.
As soon as she finished with her duties for the day, Caitie's routine would take her to the town square's sparring circle, where she spent her afternoons teaching Willa the basics of combat with wooden weapons Jon had gifted the Free Folk or helping Johnna improve on what she'd been taught. They would work for a few hours, until Johnna and Willa got too tired to go on, and Caitie sent them up to the town's long hall to get something to eat.
And after the girls had finished with their training for the day, the real party would begin.
Caitie had faced many opponents in her time, but none held a candle to Tormund Giantsbane. Of course, Caitie had seen him fight at Castle Black, and after that fought alongside him at Hardhome, but it wasn't until she was on the receiving end that she realized just how much he outmatched her. He might have even been better than Jon—both an amazing and slightly terrifying thought.
Tormund never faltered, absorbing blow after blow. Even with his size and weapon, he was almost as fast as her, while remaining strong. No matter what Caitie did, how fast she went, how she switched up her technique, he refused to go down, waiting until frustration or exhaustion made her sloppy.
In eight days and twelve matches, Caitie had yet to beat him.
Today was no different—although she did manage to last a little longer than when they'd first started. Still, the match ended as the others did, with her sprawled in the mud, half-impressed, half annoyed. "Ow," she groaned, her muscles burning with fatigue.
Tormund laughed and held a hand out to pull her back up. Reluctantly, she accepted, allowing him to help her to her feet. When she stood upright once more, she rolled her shoulders. "How do you do that? I swear it's inhuman."
"I'm strong," replied Tormund.
"I'd never have guessed."
Tormund crossed his arms, assessing her. "You're good, but you spend too much time worrying about taking me out fast."
"I was always taught to find the weak points of my opponent and use them to end the fight as quickly as possible."
"Ah," he said, "but I don't have any weak points."
She snorted. "Oh, you are so full of it."
Tormund grinned. "Nope."
"Yes!"
"No."
Caitie glared at him, and Tormund grew serious. "You might not always be able to get to the weak points that fast. You've got to learn to endure."
Caitie frowned. No one besides her brothers had ever criticized her technique, and it was strange to hear it come from someone else. But as she thought about it, she found she didn't mind. Not when the person critiquing her could offer her so much knowledge. "Well then, how do you suggest I remedy the situation?"
"You think I'd give you the secret to defeating me?"
She weighed her response, deciding some flattery was in order. "I think you don't want me to die next time I face someone half as good as you."
Tormund seemed to weigh his options for a moment before he spoke again. "I can train you," he said. "But it'll be hard. You think you're up for it?"
"If you're willing to teach me, then I'm willing to learn." She rolled her shoulders again and winced. "But not now. I think I've had enough bruising for one day."
He chuckled. "Well, how 'bout this: I'll start by telling you the secret to my prowess."
Caitie scrunched up her face at the double entendre. "Ew."
Tormund ignored her, pulling himself up to his full height and puffing out his chest. "I, Tormund Giantsbane, killed a giant when I was ten."
For a second, Caitie stared at him, trying to decide whether she believed him or not. Then, "So… that's why you're called Giantsbane?"
"Yep."
"Huh," she said, her curiosity getting the better of her. "I can see how that would prove your strength, but how did that make you stronger?"
"Ah, my favorite part! Well, I climbed into bed with his wife—"
Caitie's eyes widened with horror. "Oh, no."
"Oh yes. And do you know what she did?"
"Somehow I get the feeling I'm about to find out."
"She suckled me at her teat. Thought I was her baby. Giant's milk—that's how I got so strong."
For the longest time, all Caitie could do was stare at him in shock. And then she burst into laughter. "Gods Tormund," she said. "You're mad. Utterly mad."
"Still beat you."
She gave him a friendly shove.
Tormund laughed. "Come on. Stomping you into the ground has gotten me hungry. Food?"
"Food sounds good," she agreed.
They trudged towards the town's hall, not bothering to change out of their mud-soaked clothes. The conversation soon trended away from Caitie's humiliating defeat, to other topics, such as Johnna's increasing insomnia and Willa's preference for healing rather than sparring. They were already halfway to their destination when the hulking figure stopped them, so tall it blocked the sun from view.
Caitie froze in place, averting her eyes. "Tormund," the giant said, his accent thick, and she wondered if this was how the giant who'd killed Grenn had sounded.
Tormund gave this giant a nod and a smile. Caitie studiously avoided looking in his direction, hoping to stave off her inevitable reaction. It had only gotten worse since her arrival at Queenscrown; she lived in fear every morning when she left for her duties that she would come upon him. Some days, it was a struggle to force herself out of her cottage, and she would only manage it as to not scare Johnna and Willa. Today she'd thought she had a reprieve; the giant was supposed to have been patrolling all afternoon, but apparently, he'd finished early.
One look in his direction; that was all it took. And then she might as well have been back there, watching the giants riding their mammoths towards the gates of Castle Black. Coming for her. Coming for Grenn.
She ground her teeth, clenched her fists to keep her hands from shaking.
"Lady Crow?" Tormund's voice sounded far away. The thrumming of her heart drowned it out.
She could almost hear the shouts of black brothers, smell the smoke from the fire burning her nostrils. The worst of it was that she knew there was nothing to fear, yet that didn't seem to matter. It didn't matter that there weren't any brothers nearby, or that the battle was long past. It didn't matter that she was in Queenscrown instead of the Wall, or even that she knew Grenn had died nearly a year ago, for she could still feel all she felt on that horrible night, as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. All the pain, all the heartache, all the loss. Grenn was gone, and her heart was shattering into a million pieces, her breathing unable to get a foothold as the last images of him leaving her behind to face his death were scorched in her mind's eye.
She was going to be sick. She was going to die—
Caitie backed away, one step, then another. And another.
Tormund caught her by the arm. "Hey. What's wrong?"
She only shook her head, screwing up her face to shut her eyes, trying not to throw up. When she opened them again, the giant was gone, and Tormund had an expression that Caitie couldn't place.
Internally, she berated herself for letting Tormund see her like this. Outwardly, she merely choked, "S-sorry. It's never been this bad before."
"Wun-Wun scares you." It wasn't a question.
Caitie flinched at the sound of the name, but worse was Tormund calling her a coward. "No," she said, breaths slowly growing deeper. It's… no."
His eyes narrowed, observing her. Caitie squirmed, feeling much like a child caught doing something wrong.
"Hmm. Lost someone when we attacked the Wall, didn't you? I remember when we were on the ship, you mentioned him, then you and Snow got quiet."
She swallowed. Her voice came out in a whisper. "Everyone lost someone."
Grenn, Pyp, Ygritte, and hundreds more. They'd all meant something to someone. Who was she to fall apart? She was hardly the first person to lose someone they'd loved. She'd said as much to Olly.
What a hypocrite she must be.
Tormund shot her a look. "My first love," she admitted.
He frowned as he watched her. "One of our giants was killed in your tunnel during that battle. Mag the Mighty. I take it your lover was the one who killed him. Died, too?"
If Caitie wasn't in such a state, Tormund's powers of perception might have impressed her. As it went, all she could manage was a nod.
"But Wun-Wun's not Mag."
"It's not that," Caitie said. "I don't blame Wun-Wun for Grenn's death. I just… I don't know. I can't explain it."
"Right. You're afraid of him."
"No!"
"Seems like you are. Saw it on the ship, saw it when you first got here."
"Well, I'm not."
"If you're not angry and you're not scared, then why can't you talk to him? You've talked to the rest of us. Never stop talking."
She ignored the jape. "I just… I can't."
"There's nothing wrong with admitting fear, you know. Fear is good. Keeps you on your feet." His expression turned grim. "But sometimes, fear can shut you down. And when it tries, you need to face it."
"This is in your learned opinion, I take it?" Caitie didn't bother hiding her frustration—mostly with herself.
She expected Tormund to deny or deflect. To her surprise, he didn't. "'Course it is. I'm fucking terrified! I failed my girls, failed my people. Never wanted to be a leader, either. But I still do what I've got to do. I don't let fear control me," he said, placing his hands on his hips, staring her down. "And neither should you."
Caitie supposed she should start with a name.
All this time, she'd only ever referred to him as "the giant." He was a thing to haunt her nightmares and shadow her days—something to be avoided and ignored. But he wasn't a thing, and he wasn't just the giant. He was a person, and he deserved the respect of one. The least she could do was use his name.
Wun-Wun. She repeated it over and over in her head while she walked over to him, standing at the base of the old windmill. He was attempting to repair its sails, which had been torn apart by the elements and left rotting. Caitie put a hand on Owen's hilt, though she had no intention of trying to use it—not that she would get very far if she did. She had only kept her daggers on her person because they made her feel safer.
As she approached, the giant—Wun-Wun—looked down at her, his face impassive. "Lokh doys bar thol kif rukh?" he asked slowly, enunciating each syllable in a deep, booming voice.
Caitie blinked at the use of Mag Nuk—the giant dialect of the Old Tongue. She'd never heard it spoken before now. She'd never heard any of the Old Tongue spoken, for that matter. And now it dawned on her that this was the language of her ancestors—or a version of it, at least—and she hadn't heard it spoken until this moment.
Spoken by the giant. Caitie shook her head. Not the giant. Wun-Wun. She swallowed and took a deep breath. I can do this.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't speak Mag Nuk."
Beyond a grunt, Wun-Wun didn't respond, looking back at his project, evidently trying to ignore her.
But Caitie wasn't one to give up easily. Not on herself, and not on him. "I was wondering if you'd like some help." She gestured to the windmill.
There was a pause. It stretched on for what felt like an eternity, and even though Caitie tried to remind herself that she was safe, she still feared. The scars she'd once shared with Grenn itched. The memories of the battle at Castle Black were more vivid than ever before, and it clouded her ability to think.
But she'd prepared for this, surrounding herself with her comforts: her daggers, her poison, the book Sam had gifted her. It helped reaffirm her safety, reminding her that this was not Castle Black. This was Queenscrown, and she was standing with Wun-Wun, not the giant who had killed Grenn. That giant was dead.
"Why?" Wun-Wun asked.
"Because... well, because I haven't been very nice to you," Caitie admitted. "And that wasn't fair. I wanted to make it up to you, somehow."
Wun-Wun didn't reply. He stared at her, blinking once, twice—just watching.
She had to resist the urge to back away, so instead, she nodded towards the derelict windmill, trying to move the conversation onward. "So," she said. "Help?"
He seemed to think it over before answering her. "Help," he agreed.
Caitie gave him a hesitant smile. She stepped forward, taking a look at what he'd done so far. It wasn't much; he'd collected a pile of large branches, which he'd already filed into the right size and shape for the framework of the windmill's sails. But that was it—everything else still lay in tatters. It would take days for him to repair and refurbish the whole building.
The two of them set to work, neither speaking a word as they did. The quiet only seemed to worsen Caitie's anxiety. She could hear every beat of her heart, every shuffle of her hands or feet. There were frogs croaking in the distance; every time she heard them, she flinched, half-expecting an attack. It was misery, and it wasn't even Wun-Wun's fault, at this point. He wasn't even looking at her. Everything she felt was all her own doing; her own stupid fears getting in her way. It was this damned quiet.
So, with a deep breath, she filled the void by doing what she did best: talking.
Once she started, she couldn't stop. Usually, whoever she was talking to would cut in before she could get too far with her ramblings. Caitie didn't know how much Wun-Wun understood her, but he didn't seem to mind, either, listening and replying with a word here or there when he felt like it. She told him about her favorite memories sparring with Jon and the worst jokes she'd ever made. She told him about the time Cerys got tree sap stuck in his hair when he was twelve and the time Arthur tried to make colorful ink, only for it to cause his room to smell like rotten eggs for three full days—how he'd kept Caitie up for those three nights because he kept stealing her blankets in his sleep.
Sometimes, Caitie would ask Wun-Wun simple questions, and she'd receive one or two words in return.
As she spoke, the tension she'd been holding in her shoulders lessened, and soon enough, she all but forgot that she was talking to a giant. Once in a while she would look up and flinch when she saw his height, remembering the battle at Castle Black, feeling as though death itself were towering over her. But then she would take a few deep breaths, put her hand around Owen or Cerys's hilt, and the feeling would ebb. It wasn't easy, exactly, but it was at least manageable. And she could deal with manageable.
By the time they finished, the sun had set and Caitie had to pull her cloak tight around her to keep from shivering. She would have been willing to go on—reweaving the sailcloth through the framework was next on the list of repairs—but Wun-Wun shook his head. "Rest."
She had been about to push back against him, insisting she could last a while longer, when, as if to spite herself, Caitie yawned. "All right," she conceded. "I'll see you tomorrow evening. Er, if you'd like."
Wun-Wun didn't answer her, but he didn't tell her not to come, either. Caitie took it as invitation enough; he might not say much, but he would make it known when he didn't like something.
And so, the next day, after she'd finished up with Johnna and Willa in the training yard and sent them on to supper, Caitie found Wun-Wun in the same place, weaving the sailcloth through their newly made framework. When he eyed her, she swore she detected surprise in his expression—she wondered if he'd expected her not to come. But he didn't tell her to go away; in fact, he gave her a nod before returning to his task.
And somehow, Caitie found herself smiling.
For the next four days, she and Wun-Wun met in the evenings. They finished the sails, cleared the rubble, and cleaned out the inside, level by level, until the whole windmill was spotless. And still, Caitie chattered away. Less and less did she feel as though she was speaking to the giant, and more like she was speaking to Wun-Wun. He gave her short answers when she asked him questions, but his words came more often as the hours and then days passed, and even though he didn't have the capacity to speak Common fluently, she could see him trying to string a few more words together for her sake.
She appreciated that he would try to talk to her, even after the way she had treated him, but she felt a little guilty about it, too. There was a point at which he'd spoken in Mag-Nuk—a long string of harsh, monosyllabic words—trying to say something, but no matter how hard he tried to get his point across, she didn't really understand. And when she didn't, he spent ten minutes simply trying to get the words out in Common, ending up so frustrated that he went silent again, and their conversations went back to what they had been before: him listening to her rambles, but rarely speaking.
On their third night, Caitie had been in the middle of telling him about her mischief regarding Cerys and the brothel when her stomach growled. Wun-Wun stared at her. She smiled sheepishly, knowing she probably should have eaten at some point since breakfast. "Sorry. I must be hungrier than I thought."
Wun-Wun inclined his head, which Caitie had learned was his way of conveying agreement, so she asked, "Are you hungry, too?"
Another incline of the head.
"Do you want me to catch us some supper?"
"No meat," he intoned.
She cocked her head to the side, brow furrowed. "You… don't eat meat?"
"No."
Caitie didn't know why that surprised her so much; she supposed the idea of someone so big and menacing refusing to kill for food was just ironic. Whatever the reason, she had to admit it was oddly endearing, Wun-Wun not eating meat. "Well," she began slowly, "I think there's some onion and carrot stew in the town hall that we could get."
Wun-Wun appeared to think about this before he inclined his head once more.
Caitie brushed the dirt off her clothes, and side by side, they walked along the path together, up towards the center of the town, neither speaking a word. All Caitie could hear was the sound of her boots hitting the dirt and Wun-Wun's lumbering, loud steps beside her. She wanted to say something, but she didn't know what; she'd already exhausted her list of stories and all the questions she could think of that didn't require more than a one-word answer. Caitie may have been a good talker, but even she had trouble carrying on a conversation when the other person couldn't properly respond to it.
And then an idea struck her. She'd already learned High Valyrian, and she was, if not fluent, at least passable in conversation. Why couldn't she do the same now? She'd already picked out a few words here and there—Wun-Wun's greeting to her on that first day had translated, roughly, to what the fuck you looking at?—and she was still curious about her ancestor's language. With a bit of help, it wouldn't take long to understand enough to carry on a conversation.
"Wun-Wun," she said, "do you think you could teach me Mag-Nuk?" Through the darkness, Caitie saw his brow furrow, but she pressed on. "I've learned other languages before, and I wasn't half bad at it. If I learned, then we could talk to each other. Well, you could talk. And I could listen, for a change."
Wun-Wun said nothing, though his steps halted. He stared at her, unblinking, while Caitie tried to gauge his reaction. She saw the confusion on his face, which was to be expected—but then she saw the hurt which accompanied it. And that was when she realized: Mag-Nuk was the language of a people who were now virtually extinct—Wun-Wun's people. And that the Night's Watch—that Grenn had caused it. For he had killed one of the last remaining giants, leaving Wun-Wun all alone in the world.
And here Caitie was, barging in where she wasn't wanted and didn't belong, asking to learn a language for a race of beings who someone she loved had killed. Treating the last survivor of a group of people like dirt, even though the one she loved had caused him irreparable suffering.
She didn't know what to do, knowing that. Despite her reservations regarding the war, despite her regrets, she had always thought that she was right when it all came down to it; protecting people from harm, because there wasn't any other choice. Maybe there wasn't, but in the end, the choice didn't matter. She still bore responsibility for the lives she'd taken; the pain she'd caused. And nothing could undo that pain for the people she'd hurt.
"I'm sorry," she said hastily. She was more sorry than he could ever know. Her lungs felt as though they were being crushed by the weight of everything she'd ever done. She could picture the faces of every Free Folk she'd ever killed, and there were so many that she could scarcely breathe. "I shouldn't have asked."
Beside her, there came only silence. Wun-Wun didn't move or speak. He twisted his face up, thinking hard. And then, to her utter shock, he said, "Not to blame."
Caitie gazed up at him, wide-eyed. She didn't know what to say to him. She wasn't sure she even believed him. "Neither are you," she replied. And although the words came of their own accord, she meant them, possibly more than she'd even realized.
Supper lasted much longer than Caitie would have thought. After retrieving their bowls of stew, Wun-Wun had enthusiastically started spouting out words in Mag-Nuk, his own supper entirely forgotten. She listened intently, trying to follow his patterns of speech for so long she lost track of time, and by the time she made it back to the cottage she shared with Johnna and Willa, it was so late that Caitie had no time to do anything before she helped get them ready for bed.
Per their routine, she braided Willa's hair and then her own, changed out of her leathers, and slipped into bed. There was only space for two; Caitie had one and Johnna the other. Willa could never decide between the two of them. She went wherever wanted, and tonight, that was with Caitie. As soon as Willa's head hit the pillow, she was out for the night. Caitie envied her. She'd been be a heavy sleeper, too, until her time at Castle Black. She simply couldn't survive the years if she hadn't trained herself to wake at the drop of a pin.
She had finally been close to sleep, with Willa's head on her chest drooling onto her shirt, when she heard a gasp and a cry come from the bed beside her. Caitie was only vaguely aware of it, her brain too foggy to react appropriately. "Did you see a spider?" she asked, though it came out more of a sleepy groan.
"Caitie, they're all dead!"
That got her attention. Johnna had dreams like this sometimes, where she would toss and turn and cry out in her sleep. Ordinarily, they never woke her up, and she refused to speak of them the next morning, so Caitie never asked. But if Johnna was willing to tell her now, it meant she must have had an unusually bad one.
Caitie sat up, carefully, as to not jostle Willa, and rubbed her eyes. "What happened?"
Johnna was now sitting at the edge of the bed, her eyes wide with fear. She was shaking, too. "They're dead—all of them! I-I—" She cut off, trying to get a handle on her breathing.
"Johnna," Caitie said calmly, though she was feeling less and less calm by the second. "I think you just had a bad dream."
"It wasn't!" Johnna cried. "I saw it! I was a deer, and I looked over the hill and I saw them lying in the snow! There were flaming hearts and stags and red men and—"
Caitie froze. It couldn't be possible. But stags with flaming hearts and red men—that was too much of a coincidence to ignore.
Caitie's lack of response only seemed to upset Johnna further. She blinked upward, tears streaming freely down her cheeks. "You believe me, don't you?"
"I believe you," Caitie said, because somehow, someway, Johnna had seen the battle between Stannis Baratheon and Roose Bolton.
Johnna choked on a sob and threw herself into Caitie's arms. And though Caitie wished she could just let Johnna cry for as long as she needed, if she had seen what Caitie thought she had seen… "Johnna, I need you to tell me exactly what you saw."
Johnna pulled away. "I saw…" She squeezed her eyes shut. "I saw dead men—s-soldiers, I think. It was an army. They were lying in a field of snow. There were crows feasting on the bodies, and—"
A yawn from Willa cut the rest of Johnna's sentence off. "Wha's goin' on?" she mumbled.
"It's all right, Willa," Caitie replied, trying to keep her voice calm and reassuring. The last thing she wanted was to scare the girls more than they already must be—Johnna especially. But she needed to know who had won the battle. She needed to know what had happened to Shireen. "The red man—it was on the shields, right? Same with the flaming stags?"
Johnna nodded.
"I know it was probably dark, and I know you don't want to think about it any longer, but do you think you could tell me which side had won?"
Johnna furrowed her brows, concentrating hard. When she relaxed, she shook her head. "I don't—I don't know."
"All right, that's all right," Caitie said, with a calm she didn't feel. "I believe you. But I need to send a raven to Castle Black. If I leave you with Tormund, will you be okay?"
Johnna managed a shaky nod.
Caitie eyed the younger of the two girls. "Willa?"
"I don't understand," Willa replied, rubbing her eyes.
Caitie placed a hand on her shoulder. "I know." She looked between the two of them. "I promise we'll figure out what's going on. But I have to get a message to Jon as soon as possible, so we can find out what's happened."
"O-okay," Johnna said.
The three of them dressed in silence. It took all Caitie had not to bark at the girls to pick up the pace—she wanted to get them to Tormund and then figure out what the fuck was going on as quickly as possible. But she couldn't do that to her friends, so she settled for bouncing on the balls of her feet until they were bundled up in their outerwear and ready to leave.
The walk to Tormund's residence was equally quiet. Caitie held Willa's hand, but she kept a keen eye on Johnna, who cast her eyes downward, lost in thought. "I thought they were just dreams," she murmured. "But they're not, are they? I'm a warg."
"You've been dealing with them for a while, haven't you?"
Johnna nodded. "All the time; ever since Mother died. Once I was a bird, flying over Hardhome and the… the army. I just thought it was a nightmare."
Caitie's heart clenched. Dreams like that—they were something that could break anyone, and Johnna had been dealing with it all alone.
"I was a fox once," she said. "And I ate a—" She broke off to shudder.
"A spider?" Caitie asked gently.
"Yeah." She sniffled. "I don't know what to do, Caitie."
And Caitie didn't know how to comfort her. This was something she'd never even dreamed of—but it was Johnna's nightmare. She needed to know it would get better. "Well… if you are a warg, that's not the end of the world. You just need to get someone to teach you how to control it."
"There isn't anyone," Willa said, uncharacteristically grave and sounding much older than her seven years. "I mean, I don't think there are any wargs anymore. Not in Queenscrown."
Caitie frowned. The Free Folk were said to have hundreds of wargs, but that was when they were a people of more than a hundred thousand. Now, there were only five thousand. If Johnna really were a warg, then, like Wun-Wun, she was the last of her kind.
"Come on," Caitie said. "Let's go wake up Tormund. Maybe he can tell us more."
She only felt a little bad about pounding on Tormund's door in the middle of the night. He was the leader of the Free Folk; if there had been a battle between the would-be king of Westeros and the Warden of the North, Tormund would want to know the outcome, regardless of if she woke him. And as it turned out, she hadn't woken him at all. The door swung open not a moment after she'd removed her hand from it, revealing a very-much-awake Tormund. His eyes were clear, shrewd, and serious. He didn't look at all surprised to see her, either.
"There's a raven for you," he said, and she looked down to find a scroll in his hand.
Caitie didn't hesitate. She plucked the scroll from Tormund's grip and tore it open to find Jon's handwriting peering up at her.
Caitie,
I'm sorry. Stannis sent Ser Davos to get more men, but it was too late. Lady Melisandre returned to Castle Black and confirmed that the whole army was destroyed. Stannis too. Caitie… Princess Shireen is gone. I know you liked her and she liked you. I know Gilly and Sam did, too. I'm so sorry.
Just come home soon, all right? I think Ghost misses you.
Jon Snow, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch
Caitie stood lifeless in Tormund's doorway, vaguely aware of Johnna and Willa's presence. It was just enough to form one coherent thought: she couldn't let them see her like this.
Caitie cleared her throat. "Excuse me."
Tormund furrowed his brows. "Caitie—"
She held up her hand. "Take care of Johnna and Willa." Caitie didn't wait for his reply before she turned on her heel and walked away. She didn't even know where she was going until she found herself at the lake's shore. Moonlight glinted off the water and illuminated the ruined holdfast at the center of the lake. Caitie sat in the wet grass on the shore, with her knees pulled up to her chest, and stared out at the water. All she wanted was to cry, but she just couldn't. No tears would come; they stayed stuck in her chest, building the pressure to the point where it physically hurt.
Perhaps she couldn't because Caitie had lost so many people that she'd become used to the feeling. Or perhaps she couldn't, because it didn't feel like Shireen was dead.
She tried to convince herself that Shireen might not be, her mind running through every other possibility. Maybe Melisandre had gotten it wrong. Maybe she was lying, though, why she would, Caitie didn't know. She had been utterly devoted to Stannis Baratheon.
But maybe Shireen had been far enough away from the battlefield to escape back to Castle Black. Though, if that were the case, she'd likely die of the cold before she made it, and Caitie couldn't fathom the thought of her suffering a slow death like that.
So maybe Shireen was just dead, and there was nothing to be done about it.
Caitie hoped that it was quick, that she didn't suffer. But it was all she could do, and she hated it. She hated being so idle, so powerless. It's what she'd been her whole life; powerless against her father, powerless against Mance Rayder, powerless against Ser Alliser and the White Walkers and the Night's Watch and the Boltons and the Lannisters.
Powerless to keep Shireen safe.
Caitie supposed she should have known. The world had never been safe. It would always punish the innocent, the people who couldn't protect themselves or didn't want to harm others. Shireen was all of those things.
But Stannis was her father. How could he not do more to protect her? How could he take her with him instead of leaving her behind at Castle Black? It wasn't as if Jon wouldn't have kept her safe.
Caitie knew the answer as soon as she'd posed the question to herself—she had more experience than most with how little a father could care for his children. But knowing didn't stop the hopeless fury, nor the anguish of her own powerlessness, nor the guilt.
The ground shook, breaking her train of thought. There was only one person Caitie knew who could move the earth like that. She twisted around to see Wun-Wun standing behind her. Before, Caitie might have reacted to it—an involuntary spike of adrenaline and fear that would fill her with the urge to flee. But if tonight had reminded her of anything, it was that men, though smaller and weaker and more vulnerable, were ten times as cruel and dangerous as the giant in front of her. And how could she be afraid of him, knowing that?
Besides, she was just so tired.
"Is everything okay?" she asked. Though she tried to hide it, her voice sounded broken and exhausted.
"Friend worried," said Wun-Wun.
She sighed. Someone must have told him what had happened. Tormund maybe. Or Johnna and Willa. "Tell them I'm fine. I'll be back soon."
Wun-Wun shook his head. "No," he said. "Me."
Caitie's jaw dropped as she stared at him. "Oh," she said after a moment of speechlessness. "Thank you, Wun-Wun. I'm all right."
Wun-Wun's face didn't change, but Caitie had become accustomed to reading his subtle shifts in body language over the last few days. He wasn't convinced.
"I will be all right," she amended. And more to herself than to him, she added, "I have to be."
"Why sad?"
Caitie inhaled, and explained to him about Shireen. As she did, she thought of Gilly, probably in White Harbor by now, boarding a ship to Old Town, with no idea of her friend's death. And then there was Davos; Caitie may have had her problems with him, but there was no doubt that he'd loved Shireen like a daughter. One look, and it was apparent.
He didn't deserve this any more than Gilly did, or… or…
"Shireen just deserved so much better." Her voice broke on the last word, but still, the tears wouldn't come through. They stayed lodged in her throat; she couldn't swallow without pain. "I swear the Gods created her to make up for their mistake in creating her parents." She picked up a nearby stone and tossed it into the lake, as if she could release all she felt along with it. "Stannis would have been a terrible ruler. But Shireen wouldn't have. She was so good. And wise—wiser than men twice her age." A tear finally leaked out, but no more came after it. Caitie didn't try to force the rest.
With a gentleness she didn't know he possessed, Wun-Wun extended a large hand so it hovered over her shoulder—he seemed to realize if he actually tried to place it, he'd probably accidentally crush her—and spoke something in the Old Tongue. Caitie understood the sentiment: something along the lines of pain is easier to bear with a friend.
"Thank you," she said.
Wun-Wun grunted sympathetically. "Come."
For a moment, Caitie hesitated—she didn't want to go back. All that waited for her there was the painful reality of Shireen's death, and the idea of facing it was too much.
But there was also Johnna and Willa, and she needed to make sure they were okay. There was Tormund, who needed to be told about Stannis's failure, and what that meant for his people. And there was a letter she needed to send to Castle Black. So, with a heavy heart, Caitie stood and allowed Wun-Wun to walk her back to the settlement, where Tormund waited for them.
"The girls?" she asked.
"They're fine. Sent them on to Marna for something to sleep. Won't do much for Johnna, but we'll figure out what to do about her later." He eyed her. "What happened?"
Caitie didn't really want to rehash the contents of Jon's letter, but there wasn't much of a choice; it was simply too important to keep to herself. So she relayed the information as quickly and concisely as she could whilst Tormund listened, looking more and more troubled each passing second. "Well," he said when she finished. "Fuck."
Caitie snorted. Simple as the phrasing was, it described her feelings perfectly.
"Doesn't explain why you ran off, though. Didn't think you'd be much for that Baratheon cunt."
"I wasn't," she agreed quietly. "But I was friends with his daughter."
Tormund grunted. "I remember her. The sick one. She's dead?"
Caitie nodded, guilt creeping further and further to the forefront of her mind, for if Shireen had been her friend, then she should have tried harder to protect her. The last of the Baratheon line wiped out—and maybe it wasn't all Caitie's fault, but it certainly felt like she bore at least some.
"I'm sorry," Tormund said.
"I know I probably couldn't have made a difference, but if there was even the chance… I should have just taken Stannis's stupid offer."
She hadn't realized she'd said all this aloud until Tormund asked, "What offer?"
She swallowed. "Before Jon got elected, Ser Alliser was going to have me executed for impersonating a black brother. The day of the choosing, Stannis came to my quarters and offered to pardon me—so long as I bent the knee and pledged him my sword—or daggers, I suppose."
"That's what he offered Mance."
Caitie shrugged. "Not exactly. But similar."
"So why didn't you take it?"
The answer to that question was long and complicated; for him to understand, she would have to explain who she had been before, the years of abuse at the hands of her father, the ghosts of her brothers, the horror of her betrothal. And that was just too much on the heels of Shireen's death. So she simply said, "I don't kneel to kings who burn men alive."
"Mance's death got to you," Tormund surmised, approval written on his features.
Caitie stilled at the King-beyond-the-Wall's name used in such a fashion; as if he'd had some sort of positive effect on her, rather than having ruined her life. "Something like that," she said, trying and failing to keep her tone from betraying exactly what she thought of Mance Rayder.
Tormund arched a brow, the approval fading. For a moment, she thought he might ask her why her voice had turned so frosty at the mention of Mance, but, thankfully, he left it alone, his gaze falling instead to something over her shoulder. "It's good to see you two getting along."
"What?" Turning, Caitie followed his line of sight to where Wun-Wun stood behind her. "Oh," she said, a little dazed. That conversation with Tormund seemed so long ago now; she'd nearly forgotten about it. "Well, you were right. Wun-Wun wasn't responsible for Grenn's death."
Tormund grinned. "I know."
Caitie rolled her eyes at his gloating expression, and the two of them fell into silence, watching Wun-Wun stand guard for them through the moonlight. Before, all she'd noticed was how inhuman he looked. But now, she just saw Wun-Wun, the person. He had long, dark brown hair with a widow's peak, which he kept half tied up, and his large, ridged nose flared when something annoyed him—or when he saw someone eating meat, which was rather often.
And even after the way she'd treated him, he had still comforted her after she'd learned of Shireen's death.
Perhaps she wasn't yet able to let go of her anger at Mance Rayder, nor the grief left over from the battle at Castle Black. But she knew in her heart that after tonight, she would never fear Wun-Wun again.
And we've finally finished the events of Game of Thrones season 5! It took over 100k words, but we did it! Next up, we begin our journey into season 6. And if you thought this chapter was angsty… oh boy.
PS: the thing about Wun-Wun being a vegetarian is actually canon in the books. And as there's nothing contradicting that in the show canon, I thought I'd keep it in.