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"YOU can't expect the Knights of the Vale to side with Wildling invaders!"
Jon looked up from his seat at the table in the front of the room. He glanced at his sister, who sat beside him with an arched brow. The room echoed with random shouts and hollers, as all of the army fighting for the Starks gathered for an important meeting. They were lucky enough all of the troops fit in there, for even Maia was squished in the corner with Petyr Baelish by her side. She tried to keep somewhat of a focus on the flittering snow outside the windows, but the exclamations happening before her were too much.
"We didn't invade!" Tormund explained. "We were invited."
"Not by me," the Vale knight scoffed, sitting back down on his bench.
Jon stood from his spot, and Maia cringed at the sound of his chair scratching against the floor. "The Free Folk, the Northerners, and the Knights of the Vale fought bravely together and we won." He spoke, holding his chin high. "My father used to say, 'We find our true friends on the battle field.'"
His eyes casted to Maia's, and he found her smiling in his direction. Petyr scoffed from her right, causing her to give him a side-eyed glare.
Lord Cley Cerwyn shook his head as he stood. "The Boltons are defeated. The war is over. Winter has come. If the maesters are right, it'll be the coldest one in a thousand years. We should ride home and wait out the coming storms."
"The war is not over," Jon replied, "and I promised you, friend, the true enemy won't wait out the storm. He brings the storm."
Lord Cerwyn sat down, defeated, as Jon glanced to Maia again. She urged him to continue, and he remembered then that he had a storm of his own as well. How could he forget? Maia - the woman who held the most powerful gift in all of the Seven Kingdoms - was the eye of the storm, and if they didn't have the Red Woman anymore, they surely had her. She had the power to travel to different places - universes, he thought she said? - and thus, they could use this to shelter others, have her carry them to another world to get well. The Night King brought the storm, but Maia Sanders was composed of it.
The men began to talk amongst themselves, deciding on exactly what to say to their commander. Jon looked around, confused at their sudden attitudes, but then Lady Lyanna Mormont stood, and everyone came to a hush.
"Your son was butchered at the Red Wedding, Lord Manderly. But you refused the call." She spat at the lord, who looked down at his hands, before she turned to another. "You swore allegiance to House Stark, Lord Glover. But in their hour of greatest need, you refused the call." The child spun around again to the man who had recently spoke. "And you, Lord Cerwyn - your father was skinned alive by Ramsay Bolton. Still, you refused the call."
Lyanna looked at all the elder men around her, and she stood higher than any of them, for only being age ten. "But House Mormont remembers. The North remembers. We know no king, but the King in the North, who's name is Stark." Her eyes laid on Jon and Sansa. "I don't care if he's a bastard. Ned Stark's blood runs through his veins. He's my king from this day, until his last day."
