Only A Northern Song ~ Game of Thrones / Willas Tyrell ~

Chapter Ninety Seven: The Pack

It took another two weeks to find Sansa's camp, and when they did, snow had begun to fall.

"It isn't proper snowfall," Eddmina told Loras as they rode towards the camp when she caught his concerned gaze as he looked up to the sky. "Not a summer snow, but not winter either. It's nothing."

"It's hardly nothing," Loras shrugged, sounding particularly southern as he held his palm out flat, watching as snowflakes drifted down onto his leather glove.

"It's nothing to worry over, I mean," Eddmina corrected herself, glancing up at the sky unable to help the faint nostalgic smile that threatened to grow.

She'd thought she would never see snow again. She had thought it once when moving to Highgarden, where it was so warm the winters brought mostly storms and the occasional snow flurry that refused to settle, then thought it again in the Twins. That had been Edmure's fault, one night when the two of them were huddled together, when she found herself in his arms screaming through a nightmare that he tried to wake her from, when he told her to think of happier thoughts, to think of home. In horror-filled hysteria and motivated by the unrelenting chill of the dungeons, all she could think of was Winterfell and how beautiful it looked in the snow. She had fallen back asleep dreaming of it, and woke a few hours later with tears still streaming down her cheeks. She would surely never see either again, surely see no one or nothing outside of the Freys and the Twins. Thinking of snow had made her realise that her life was over.

Yet it wasn't. As she stared up at the light flurry, she felt Lyarra stirring awake against her chest, letting out a small squeak. The noise made Loras snap to attention, instantly staring at her the way he always did as if he could never quite believe she was real. He always seemed to be on tenterhooks around his niece, her every noise making him jump as if he needed to fight a whole army to protect her, and though it had taken a week for Eddmina to allow him to hold her, it was a rare thing for him to offer, as if he was scared he'd do something wrong. It made Arya roll her eyes constantly, considering that she so often didn't want to be left with the baby but was forced to when situations called for it, and it was obvious that she thought that if she had to get over her wariness then so should Loras. Not that Eddmina cared, because the further north she got, the more she dreamed of Bolton banners and bloodstained snow, and it became rare that she let anyone at all hold Lyarra except for herself.

The further north they got, the closer they were to Sansa, but the closer they were to enemies too. It wasn't how she thought it would feel, to return to the north. She had never once considered feeling so suspicious and wary in a kingdom that was her home, but each night whenever she managed to sleep she would see Roose Bolton's face, she would feel how his blood had flooded her hands, and all she could think of was how it was his house that ruled the north, and his son that held Winterfell. She knew what she would do to those who'd killed her father, knew the sort of pain she wanted to inflict to those who'd caused that loss, and though she didn't care about herself, she worried constantly over those she did care for. What if Lord Roose's son - the new Lord Bolton who was rumoured to be cruel, bloody and brutal - felt the exact same way about his father's murderer? As much as Eddmina tried to convince herself she didn't care - Roose had deserved to die, the North was hers by right, and anything she did was justice for her family - she worried about what awaited her to reclaim her home. She wasn't a soldier, had never been trained as thoroughly as her brothers or the men who surrounded her in her army, but how could she not fight for her own cause? She had spent so long where all she had to do to survive was kill Freys, who were nothing but ugly and stupid, but what awaited her in Winterfell was a rested force led by a man rumoured to know exactly what he was doing. Eddmina was in over her head, and was sure it would not end well.

Robb had won every battle, he had known nothing but triumph for the whole war until treachery cut it short, but Eddmina was not her brother. She had spent her whole life in that shadow, but it had never seemed as choking until her life relied upon it.