Chapter Text
You ride over the hard snows as your gray hair swirls in the wind. Far in the clouds behind you, your youngest daughter and the rest of your tribe try to keep up with you. Let them try as your horse speeds over the lands where the White Walkers stormed, many years ago.
You remember the freezing cold as you fired your arrows Yes! Yes! You never missed a shot from Dragonstone’s glass as you stood alongside those bitch Crows and coward Southerners all shivering in the same fear. And as your arrows hit, the Ice Ones split like the glass did when you made your arrow points.
You still remember the feeling of looking back down after you reached the top of the Wall dividing your North and their South. The South with their laws and their rules and the vast North with its dangers and monsters. In the long life that lies behind you, you never went back past the Wall after the wedding.
You never married yourself under a Weirwood. You had three children, two daughters and a son. You admired the men that were their fathers, but you never wanted to restrain your wanderlust. You might have grandchildren somewhere, but you have not met them yet. You will. There is time. Time rolls over you like the waves slam into the Hardhome harbor.
The freshly rebuilt houses in their young timber shine have become dull, but the wares of the merchants shine brighter than ever. From all over the seas, from Essos, from the South the ships sail with the winds to reach the most Northern harbor. You came from far as most did to watch the burning ship that carried Old Karsi to the side of the Gods. You cried alongside the Queen of the Ironborn as the waves swallowed the flames.
Every morning you watch the sun rise and paint its picture in the frozen snow as you feed your horses. It satisfies you to know that everywhere else your old friends are looking at the same sun. Far away, in a bend of the Antler River, two old men observe the great elk herds coming to the water to drink. They will go hunting again like they did that day Jon became a man. The settlement at their backs has doubled since that day. The days of rising corpses are long gone, but not forgotten as long as they live to tell the story.
That old direwolf Ghost has long passed and burnt, but still in the forest around the settlement the lightest, whitest wolf pack of the entire North hunts. Little Raven has always been surrounded by the furry beasts and now he hopes that his daughter will be growing between the wolves too. She will.
For a long decade, the Lady Arya Stark rode at your side. You only ever called her Arya. One day she was called by a raven and you never saw her again. Jon has not told you of her death, so you presume that she travels elsewhere still. You hope to stand in the same sunshine again someday.
You know little about what events transpired in the Lands South of the Wall. Jon told you once about his dragon aunt, but he was not very concerned, so neither were you. You know that the Lords and Ladies argued about the Throne after the Southern King Jon met died, but you never bothered to find out who won.
You roll your shoulders. Your back is not as suited for riding on horseback as it was twenty springs ago. And twenty springs ago your back already hurt more than the first time you rode your horse away from the Fist. With every sunrise you know that you are getting older, but you do not mind. Even now your eyesight is getting worse, your arrows still hit their target. You will hunt until your fingers are too crooked to pull the bowstring and then others will hunt for you in turn.
As you will lose your teeth in age, someone will find soft food and feed you. Like you fed them all your life. And when the day comes, they will burn you in the highest fire and they will find firewood with love in their hearts. Like you loved them. Not yet. There is time, as the wind moves your hair over your wrinkled face.
This night as twilight draws its shadows, you will reach a settlement so far North that the green grass reappears again from beneath the snow. As you will sit on the seat that their tribesmen made of elk antlers, you will smile as the Free people kneel before you. They will let you choose your cut of meat and in that campfirelight you will feel like a queen in your own Queendom. You never had to go to war or conquer anyone. Everywhere the sun touches, is your Land. You look back at your daughter and your tribe. It is their Land. It is everyone’s. That is what it means to be Free. Yes. Yes, that’s what it is to be Free Folk. Yes.
She laughs and the trees around her smile back.
She is Ygritte the Old.