Chapter Text
A STARK OUT OF PLACE
She doesn’t remember what happened. Only battle, and pain, and then the blinding white of snow. It’s wrong. Impossible. But snow is now packed loosely around her calves, and icy wind bites at Toni’s unprotected face, so really this is only implausible .
God, does she hate probability. And snow.
There’s no time to think. In this weather, without a phone or her suit—she will die within the hour if she can’t make or find shelter. She shouldn’t have been in the field to begin with, but when Norse Gods erupt out of the sewers below 42nd street, what else can you do but try to fight?
Toni pulls the designer scarf from her neck and uses it to cover half her nose and mouth.
Fuck, she needs to move. Her team is waiting. She can’t feel the bruises on her flank anymore. A gust of wind hits her, and Toni thinks, briefly, that she might just die here. Why does she always end up like this? Maybe it is her time to die, but does she have to do it completely alone?
She trundles on. Her ribs ache, and then she’s so cold that nothing aches much. The snow falls heavily, and Toni finds herself slowing down as the wind howls.
It’s cold. Her energy is fading fast. Toni can hardly think, but she keeps moving. She’ll keep going until she can’t.
Eventually, she can’t.
She collapses beneath tall pine trees. It’s so cold, she can’t feel anything hurting anymore. Her vision goes dark.
As if to spite her, she awakens to warmth, light, and unholy pain. Toni inhales more deeply, and shutters, twitches, bites back a scream. Her ribs positively burn , and it takes her a minute to focus on her surroundings instead of the pain.
A cottage. Somewhere remote, rural. The fire crackling beside her is almost unbearably hot, but a draft floats beneath the wooden door to steal away precious heat. She turns her eyes to the old, gray-faced woman puttering about.
“Hello,” Toni says tentatively, and the woman turns to her with a kindly, if not an attractive smile. It’s enough, knowing she’s not alone.
Toni breaks bread with the woman’s family, a veritable horde of gray-faced children and a tired old farmer, her husband. There isn’t much bread to share, but they feed her anyway. The farmer speaks quietly to her that evening and tells her more of the world. That winter hasn’t come for fifteen years, but the trees are finally turning red.
The hours pass in a haze. Toni is tired, and on fire, but she gives little away as she quietly gains a better understanding of her situation.
It’s not a good situation.
This is so much worse than just being alone. She is stranded . There is no way easy way home. Not even a suit of armor could help her escape a prison without walls. This place is desolate and backwards. She won’t survive in a world like this as Toni Stark. Her wits are the only thing she can still use.
“So, what brings you to the Barrowlands, my dear?” the woman asks her again, and this time, Toni doesn’t try to deflect.
“I’m looking for work. The storm caught me unprepared.”
One of the older kids frowns. “What, like women’s work? Barrowtown is just a few miles—”
His mother smacks the back of his head automatically, starting a short argument that she wins.
Toni rolls her eyes and turns to the husband. “Are there any good blacksmiths around here?”
The man raises an eyebrow. “If there were good blacksmiths around, maybe I wouldn’t have to repair my tools every two months. The only good one in the North is Mikken, and he’s the blacksmith of Winterfell itself.” He peers at her, curious. “Why do you ask?”
Toni knows what she looks like. Or, what she doesn’t look like. “Work,” she said shortly, defiantly, and doesn’t bat an eye when the whole family erupts in disbelief and amusement.
The old woman is the only one that seems unsurprised. When Toni stares at her, she shrugs. “I’ve never seen a woman like you before. Scarred hands, scarred body.” Toni shifts, uncomfortable at the reminder that this stranger had to strip and change her after Toni collapsed in the snow. “You talk like a lady, sometimes, but you’re not. Built like a bull as well. Even if you know shit about smithing, you’ll be better than the shit smith in Torrhen’s Square, I can tell.”
Toni grins and finds no fault in the old woman’s words.
She leaves the next morning, with vague directions and a few scraps of food. The oldest boy, the one that’s been giving her looks of longing ever since Toni awoke, shyly hands her a small, brittle knife. “It’s not safe for a lady to travel alone, but Pa says we can’t go with you, so—”
He’s about thirteen, skinny and short. They live between Barrowtown and Torrhen’s Square, in the middle of nowhere. Toni doesn’t remember his name but is so abruptly struck by the urge to hug him that she does .
She won’t remember him, but a selfish part of her wants to make sure he remembers her. “Thank you, but I’m not a lady.” Toni turns away and doesn’t look back.