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

Chapter One Hundred and Eight: Falling and Reality

Uther loved the snow.

Eddmina found motherhood strange, because she was so sure she had been proud of him every day of his life, yet seeing him throw a snowball and hitting her brother square in the face with it while he merely went about his business in the courtyard seemed to make her the proudest she had ever felt. She was sure Uther had made her laugh countless times, but seeing him step out into the snow for the first time, unsure if he would fall or if his boots would sink straight through the surface, she couldn't hide the joy. The way the snowflakes settled in his curls until he shook them all out, the way he stuck his tongue out to catch the falling flakes, the way he so confidently announced that he never wanted to go back inside even though he was shivering... Eddmina had never realised just how much she loved the snow too.

They took a hike through the wolf's wood, because that was what Eddmina could remember doing as a child in the snow when her father wasn't busy, and with her brothers when they got older and were allowed more independence. They had been free to go as they pleased, but the same privacy was harder when one was a queen with several assassination attempts under her belt, which was why when she emerged from her bedchamber dressed in wool and furs, suggesting to her guards that she was safe enough with just a bow, dagger, and two direwolves was a harder fight than it had ever been to tell her father she was going for a walk.

It was not hard, however, to convince Willas that she wanted him to go hiking with them. Margaery cried off, deciding to spend the day in front of a hearth as if it were a blizzard and not a heavier-than-usual summer snowfall with a faint bite in the air, which left just the children, the wolves, Eddmina, and Willas. She refused to feel awkward, knowing they had been on many hikes before, knowing they had been alone multiple times since reuniting, knowing that any twisting she felt deep in her gut were just leftover nerves from the night before  that had no weight or importance. Besides, taking two children out in the snow was a monumental task, and he proved himself useful immediately by stopping Uther from eating the snow from the ground. He seemed glad to be back out in northern nature, grinning up at the trees as if it were the first time he had ever seen them, and Eddmina had to ignore the twist in her gut once more, forcing herself to forget that she had felt similar sensations the first time he was in the north when she was still getting to know him.

It was odd, how changed they both were, yet how they were both still fundamentally the same. He still asked questions about the north, she still had all the knowledge, yet it was obvious he was asking the questions to stop himself from talking about the night before, or any night before that, the ones where they were apart on opposite sides of the kingdoms. The last time they had walked through the same woods, she had merely been the Warden's daughter, he the heir to the Reach, neither of them particularly important, both of them relative strangers. Almost three years had changed that, Queen and Warden, and as for being strangers... There was so much they didn't know about each other, the way they had changed in the year apart, yet there was never a possibility of them being strangers again. A stranger wouldn't know to expect him to whistle up at the trees in the hopes of attracting his favourite birds. A stranger wouldn't know all the things neither of them were keen to discuss as they walked.

The first time they had been through the wolf's wood, Eddmina had taken them to a clearing, and the same clearing greeted them once more. No one but them knew the significance, not the wolves who ran riot chasing each other, not Lyarra as she slept wrapped against Eddmina, not Uther as he begged his parents to help him build a snow-castle. To him, he found it nothing but odd how both of them lingered on the edge of the clearing, neither wanting to bring up what had happened the last time they were there, that it was the place where they first connected properly and spoke of their circumstances.

"Please," Uther begged, tugging on both of their hands. "We can build home!"

Eddmina wondered where Uther thought was home; Winterfell, Highgarden, Riverrun, or a war tent? She wondered just how much he remembered from the first year-and-a-half of his life, but knew it was not a question to ask, especially when he began to talk about flowers and stables and she knew he meant Highgarden. She was surprised how relieved she felt, glad that he had somewhere to call home, glad it was somewhere he clearly loved.