When the caravan group approach Bogwater. It was mid day. But we could finally see it ho.
Mae's cottage stood the sa as we left it. Maybe a little more crooked.
She stood at the doorway, arms folded. Jory was just behind her, half-smirking, half-relieved.
"You didn't die," Mae said flatly.
"No," I said, hopping down from the cart. "I ca back with riches. But most of all I learned"
She stepped aside and let us in with a mutter. The familiar scent of the place, smoke and lizard at, clung to the air like an old coat. I should've hated it. But I didn't.
That night passed quietly. Jory snored in the corner, and Mae sat by the fire nding sothing that didn't look ndable. I watched the flas and thought of Winterfell, of the four boys and their uncertain fates, and of Lord Rickard Stark's eyes when he asked what justice ant.
By morning, Harwin arrived. He'd ridden of the last wagons, just to make sure we all made it ho.
He sat beside outside Mae's cottage, nursing a tin cup of watered ale.
"You've seen more in a moon (month/s) than most do in a many seasons," he said. "What happens now?"
I didn't answer imdiately.
What now? I had swampberries and wood, mossy stone, Lizard at, Hard bread. Useless things. Or at least, I thought they were.
"I start small," I said finally.
Harwin gave a faint nod, then added, "That's how most things work by doing it small."
We didn't get to linger long. Two of the caravan guards found us not long after Thom and Brekk, both familiar faces from the run up North. Their boots were still caked in road mud.
"There's a village near the marsh road," Thom said. "Dilapidated. No real defenses. Just old folk and so young'uns. Haven't eaten right in days."
Brekk crossed his arms. "Cold's creeping in. If no one helps 'em soon, they won't last the season."
I felt that familiar twist in my gut. I wasn't a hero. I wasn't a lord. I didn't even know how to build a fire properly most days. But I had food. Not good food, but food that filled the belly. I had more stone slabs than I'd ever use. I had coins. I had sothing to give.
"Let's go," I said.
The village was even worse than described. It sat on the edge of a drying creek, its paths barely more than muck. Roofs sagged under rot, and the eyes that watched us were wide, wary, and hungry.
We didn't announce ourselves. We just passed out food swampberries, jerky, two casks of ale. So of the old folk cried. The children didn't speak.
One of them, a boy maybe ten or eleven, followed as we left the makeshift square. Thin arms, barefoot, a tunic two sizes too big.
"What's your na?" I asked him.
"Wyll," he muttered.
"You live here?"
He nodded.
"Where are the rest?" Harwin asked.
"Gone," Wyll said. "So to work. So went looking for food. So... didn't co back."
He said it without emotion, like the truth was too old to hurt anymore.
Even if I fed them now, what next? The food would run out. The cold would co. They needed more than pity.
"I'll pay for help," I said aloud. "Anyone who can work. We'll build sothing. A house with a storage room. Might take many moons, but it's a start."
Wyll looked up at , eyes cautious. "You an it?"
"I do."
Back in Bogwater, I went to the small records shed behind Mae's hut. Garlen, the old villager elder who i helped on my first day of work, was tending to a cracked jar of dried herbs.
"You need sothing?" he asked.
"Ink. Quills. Papyrus if you've got it."
He raised a brow. "Gonna write poetry?"
"Records," I said. "Nas. Tasks. Pay. I want to know who's doing what. Keep it all honest."
He handed over what little he had: a small bottle of thick ink, three worn quills, and a few rolls of yellowed papyrus.
I held them like they were gold.
A boy nad Wyll. A village with no na. A pile of hard bread and a crate of swampberries. It wasn't much.
But maybe it was enough to begin.
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