Fandom: ASoIaF
Characters: Osha, Rickon Stark, Shaggydog
Description: A one-shot that is left open for possible multi-chap. The story is centered around Osha and Rickon's journey east after they split from Bran and crew.
It howled through the trees, biting through Osha’s furs, numbing her fingers despite the layers of leather and wool. The snow had reached her knees, dragging at every step, but she did not slow. She couldn’t. The boy behind her was struggling enough as it was.
Rickon tripped again, falling forward into the drifts with a muffled yelp. Osha yanked him up by the back of his cloak before he could complain.
“On your feet, little lord.” Her breath was a white mist between them. “You fall, you freeze.”
Rickon sniffled, his cheeks raw from windburn, but he said nothing.
Shaggy Dog circled ahead, his black fur a blur against the white wasteland, his ears twitched, sniffing the air for danger.
They had been running since Winterfell burned.
At first, they traveled with Bran and the Reeds, but the paths ahead had split. Bran was drawn north, chasing after whispers of the Three-Eyed Raven. Osha had no faith in this endeavor. The living boy beside her—the one made of flesh and hunger and frostbitten fingers—was the only one who mattered.
So they turned east, toward the Last Hearth.
The journey had been grueling.
Snow swallowed the roads, ice crusted the rivers, and hunger gnawed at their bellies like rats in an empty grain sack. Foraging slowed them, but without it, they would have starved. They ate what they could—frozen berries, bark from pine trees, stringy rabbits that Shaggy Dog dragged back to their fire. But it was never enough to stop the grumbling in their bellies. They were in Bolton territory so inns and villages weren't an option.had to avoid any and all villages a
At night, Rickon huddled into her side beneath the furs, his little body trembling against hers. Shaggy Dog curled around him, a living furnace in the dark. The boy clung to her in his sleep, and once, in the dead of night, he mumbled, “Mama.”
She should have corrected him, but she didn’t.
Not until the next morning, when he said it again, voice clearer now.
“I’m not your mother,” she reminded him, adjusting his cloak. “Your mother’s in the south, with your brother.”
Rickon’s jaw clenched. Osha exhaled, tightening the furs around his shoulders. “Watch your words, little Lord. The gods listen, even to your thoughts.” Rickon only scowled as she smirked at him.
The Last Hearth was not the refuge she had hoped for.
The great wooden hall loomed before them, half buried in snowdrifts, its towering palisades dusted by the storm. Smoke curled from its chimneys, but the fires burned low. The warmth should have been welcoming. The Umbers had been Stark men once. Hard men, yes, but loyal. Osha could have trusted them once. But she did not trust them now.
Inside, the hall was quieter than she remembered. Too quiet. No hounds barked in the yard. No children's laughter bouncing off the stones walls. The long tables had thick slices of bread, greasy mutton, tankards of ale, but the men ate without joy. Rickon clung to her, silent as a shadow, his small fingers tangled in her furs. He had grown too used to hunger, too used to fear. Osha kept her hand near her knife.
"Look at what the storm blew in." The voice was thick with mead. A bearded man loomed before them, broad-shouldered and heavyset, his face half-hidden by a wild tangle of auburn hair. A younger Umber, though not one she knew.
The hall went silent. Eyes turned toward them. The way they looked at Rickon sent her on edge. Something had changed here. Osha met his gaze evenly. "The storm blew us far off course. We only need a place to rest."
The man's eyes flicked to Rickon. His stare lingered too long. She heard whispers in the hall, murmurs of the Stark children being scattered and how he's about the right age.
Osha's hand tightened on Rickon's shoulder. "My kin."
It wasn't a lie. He may not be her blood, but they are now bound by blood and hunger and the way his small fingers clung to hers when the wind howled too loud.
A tense silence followed. The men at the table exchanged glances. Something was wrong here. Osha could feel it crawling in her skin.
The bearded Umber tilted his head. "Aye? And where's his kin beyond you?"
Osha kept her face still. "Dead."
Rickon stiffened beside her, but he did not speak. Good. He was learning.
Another voice cut through the hush, deep and tired. "Let them eat, Harwood."
Osha turned to see an older man rising from the high table. The Lord of Last Hearth. Greatjon was dead, she knew, and the Smalljon had fallen at Winterfell. The man who stood now was neither of them, but he bore the same thick Umber build, the same sharp weathered features.
Rickon shifted closer to her. He recognized the man, she thought. He knew something she didn't. But she did know new oaths were sworn to the Dreadfort, of new loyalties forged in fire and blood. The Boltons had taken the North, and she could smell their stink on these men. They were not safe here.
The new Lord Umber studied them both, his gaze sharp and knowing.
"Eat your fill. Rest. We'll talk in the morning." He said.
Osha did not thank him. She led Rickon to the nearest bench, her back to the wall, her knife close at hand. She ate sparingly. The food was heavy and hot, but her stomach twisted with unease.
Rickon barely touched his meat. She nudged his elbow. "Eat, boy."
He did, slowly, but his eyes never left the Umbers.
That night, they were given a small chamber near the kitchens. A fire burned low in the hearth, but the walls felt too close, the air too suffocating.
Rickon huddled beneath the furs, his breath warm against her arm. He had not spoken since they arrived.
Osha ran a hand over his hair. "What is it?"
"They know me." His voice was barely a whisper. "They know who I am."
Osha exhaled, staring at the ceiling beams. "Aye."
Rickon turned his head, watching her through the dim firelight. "Will they tell?"
Osha's gut churned. "I don't intend to find out."
That night, while the castle slept, she saddled a horse in silence, wrapping Rickon's furs tightly before setting him in the saddle. The boy didn't ask why. He only held tight to her waist, his little hand numb against her ribs, and let the Last Hearth vanish into the snow behind them.
The farther east they rode, the more the world tried to kill them.
Snow buried the trees, bending pines like the hunched backs of old men. The wind howled like wolves, sharp and hungry, biting through their furs and gnawing at exposed flesh. The rivers had turned to treacherous sheets of ice. Even Shaggy Dog, fierce beast that he was, had grown lean. His ribs pressed against his black coat, but his eyes were still wild, still watching the darkness.
Rickon did not complain anymore.
At first, when they had fled Winterfell, he had cried for his mother, for Bran, for the warmth of a feather bed, cream, and warm buttered bread. He had cried when the food ran low, when his fingers burned with cold, when the shadows grew too long.
He still clung to her at night, still reached for her hand when the wind howled too loud, but he no longer wimpered for his home in Winterfell. When she caught a rabbit, he held it down, without flinching, while she cut its throat. When the cold bit at his fingers, he clenched them beneath his cloak and said nothing.
One night, she watched him gut a hare with numb, shaking hands. His fingers fumbled with the knife, but he gritted his teeth and did it anyway.
"You're learning, little lord." she murmured.
Rickon wiped blood on the snow, watching her carefully.
He was not a lord’s son anymore. He was hers.
"You're my little wildling now."
Rickon didn't argue. He only pulled his furs tighter and curled up beside Shaggy Dog.
It took them many moons to reach the sea.
Osha smelled it before she saw it—the salt thick in the air, sharp and briny, clinging to her tongue. The waves crashed against icy shore in a steady, rhythmic roar, beating against black stone. Rickon wrinkled his nose but didn’t say a word.
They made camp in a grove of frozen pines, the shoreline stretching beyond them like the edge of the world. The trees provided little shelter from the wind, but they had grown used to worse. Shaggy Dog prowled the darkness, sniffing at the air, his ears pricked forward.
Shaggy Dog prowled the darkness, sniffing at the air, his ears pricked forward.
Osha had spent enough years in the wilds to trust her instincts. The wind carried a scent she did not like.
Rickon watched her carefully. He had learned to see the tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers twitched toward her knife.
She tossed a stick into the fire, watching the embers flare.
"We'll find out soon enough."
Rickon did not look afraid. He only nodded and pressed closer to Shaggy Dog's thick fur.
But Osha could feel it in her bones.
The Boltons would find them eventually. Their knives were always coming.
She had to go where no Northman dared.
A place of jagged mountains and black cliffs, where ships vanished and men spoke the Old Tongue. An island where the Old Gods still demanded blood, where the strong devoured the weak, and the weak became nothing at all.
A place feared by all the North.
It was the only place they could be free.
