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

Chapter One Hundred and One: Winterfell

Despite her many attempts, the Tyrell reinforcements refused to turn back and leave. Not a single one of the two-thousand strong army cared to listen to her insist they were not needed, not when their leige's brother was so glad to see them, not when their liege's other brother had drilled it into them that they were not to turn back regardless of what the Queen in the North told them about not being needed.

It infuriated her, it made her want to cry, it bruised her pride thinking that a man who hadn't seen her in almost eight months had assumed she would need his help, but no matter how much it stung, it didn't blind her to reality. Even with her frustration, she still noticed how the fiercely stubborn northerners who usually hated southern intervention seemed relieved at having reinforcements. She still saw how glad Loras was to no longer be the only man of the Reach, to have backup from his own countrymen, to know his brothers were thinking of them. She heard how, in planning meetings and training drills, no one sounded as stressed or concerned about their odds as they had done in the days before. She forced herself not to feel undermined or unfit to lead, but it helped that the the generals and soldiers never once questioned her judgement. It was almost as if someone had drilled it into them to take her word as gospel, to follow loyally; she wondered which Tyrell it was who had given that instruction, if it was Garlan or her first husband.

She was sure the letter that came from her first husband delivered to her by the general would explain the exact details, but she hadn't opened it. Perhaps she was scared to, perhaps she was too annoyed to, or perhaps she simply didn't have time. No time to read a letter, and certainly no time to unpack all the feelings and emotions it would stir up. She didn't even have time to talk to Loras and tell him how annoyed she was that he wrote home despite her insistence of not needing to.

Her time had to instead be spent on ensuring that they did not lose the support of the Vale after her bout of violence with their lady's husband, though she had Sansa mostly to thank for that, her younger sister immediately going and re-establishing any form of alliance between the two houses. She did it without prompt, and didn't speak to Eddmina much about it afterwards either. In fact, in the two days since the Tyrells arrived that it took for them to reach Winterfell, Sansa was oddly distant and quiet with her, to the point that Eddmina wondered if she was keeping a secret or if she was annoyed with her. Arya was also annoyed with her, simply because Eddmina refused for her to fight in whatever battle awaited them, and unlike her usual way of arguing and stubbornly defending herself, Arya also became distant, as if knowing that fighting her sister would get her nowhere.

If she was truly bothered by her sisters' distance then Eddmina would have questioned it, would have tried to bridge whatever gap had started to form, but they didn't have time. Before they knew it, before she even felt ready, they had arrived at Winterfell. Everything else had to wait, because two days after Tyrell reinforcements arrived they were hiding out in the woodlands surrounding the keep waiting for nightfall. Honour would have dictated for them to meet with their enemy first, for them to declare themselves and see if their issues could be settled without so many unnecessary deaths, but fighting someone as despicable as the Boltons meant Eddmina didn't care about showing honour to someone who certainly wouldn't show it to them. Suddenly nothing else mattered but the battle, everything they had been preparing for, and whether or not she felt ready, or if she felt as if she wanted to scream and run far away, they had no choice but to continue.

Eddmina had felt nothing all day, her whole body a numb pit. When Sansa had braided her short hair into a crown around her head, when Arya helped her into her leather armour and her weaponry, when Jon and Loras tried a final time to talk her out of her plan, when she had to talk to the men one final time before they all moved into action, she felt nothing throughout it all. The only time she vaguely felt anything was when she said goodbye to Lyarra, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as she slept and she handed her off to her sisters. She had asked Loras to remain behind in camp with her sisters just in case anything happened, and so when she reminded him of exactly what she wanted should anything go wrong, she had to speak quickly so as not to break down into tears. The worst thing she could do that day was cry, even if it was in the privacy of her own tent with no one but her family watching. If she gave in no matter how slight or subtle, she didn't trust herself to recompose, and so she kept a stopper on her emotions, and refused to give in.