"Is it a... tree?"
"No you fucking idiot, it begins with 'C' not 'T'."
"Yeah I said tree? I mean what else could it even be."
"Tree begins with 'T'!"
"Okay now I'm really confused."
"Will you two shut the fuck up?"
Rudd and Kean closed their mouths. Ferret had been getting more and more agitated by them. Beck stayed away from the three of them.
The silence lasted a matter of seconds.
"Wanna know what it was?" Rudd grinned.
"Go on then," Kean replied, "I really have no clue."
"It's a cunt!" he laughed, "right there, between yer legs!"
Kean lunged towards Rudd and brought him to the ground.
"Oh for fucksake! Why don't we just call it a fucking day." Ferret spat, chucking his knapsack containing all the food that they had brought with them onto the snowy ground beneath him and dropping to his knees, "you two," he glared at the brothers, "go collect some fucking firewood, and don't kill each other while you're at it."
The brothers obeyed Ferret as if he were their father.
Beck and Ferret were left alone together.
"Beck, the wildlings, or - freefolk -whatever, they're gunna be really hard to persuade that we come in peace."
Beck furrowed his brows, "I've been thinking the same thing. What if they just... kill us on the spot."
Ferret looked at Beck. He let his gaze linger for several seconds before reaching into his pocket and pulling something out.
"What the fuck is that!?" Beck squalled at the sight of the object in Ferret's hand.
"It's a an eye," Ferret stated, seemingly not bothered at all about the gruesomeness of the situation. He held the eyeball in his hand as though it were no more than a grape.
"It may not save our lives, but I brought it all the same. If I show it to them, maybe they'll believe that I got it from a crow, maybe they will have some way of knowing," he grinned crazily at Beck, "or maybe they will think we're insane, and kill us all soon as they see us."
He dropped the eyeball back into his pocket. His blue eyes were no longer crazed, and were back to normal.
"I think the latter is more likely," Beck breathed.
Ferret looked up at Beck, "d'you think we did the right thing, leaving and stuff?"
"Don't tell me you're having second thoughts?!"
"I'm not," Ferret hissed, "I just wanna know what you think."
Beck paused, "I think there is no right or wrong thing. We may have broke our vows, but as freefolk, will our old vows even be taken into account?"
Ferret grinned at Beck, "no, they won't. I mean, the King beyond the wall was a crow, once."
Beck slowly nodded his head. The two of them fell silent, listening for the return of Rudd and Kean. When they heard the snow crunching they turned to watch for the twins.
"We got some firewood," Rudd sighed, dropping a pile of wood onto the ground beside where Ferret and Beck were sat. Kean dropped a pile about the same size beside his brothers.
"So how do we actually start this fire?"
While Ferret took care of the fire, Beck went to find some water. They had stopped at a clearing in the trees, and so he was able to travel the perimeter of the clearing while searching for some sort of water source.
Luckily enough, there was a small pond just north of the clearing where the boys were setting up camp.
But not so luckily, there was somebody already there.
Beck stood frozen in place at the sight of the wildling girl. She had a mixture of shock and confusion plastered across her face like paint, her hair and eyes were as black as the demons that prowl the night. She looked very rough and grubby.
The wildling and the crow stared into each other's eyes for several seconds.
"Hi," Beck croaked, "you - you're a - a wildl- freefolk - aren't you?" he stammered.
The girl stood stalk still, not uttering a word, or a sound.
"I - I'm here to join you - to join the freefolk. I wanna be one of you."
The girl remained silent, watching him, completely unmoving, like a statue.
"What's your name?" Beck whispered to her.
She was about to reply. She had separated her lips. She was going to talk to him, maybe even vouch for him when it came to meeting the rest of the freefolk. But she never got a chance to respond. He never found out her name, for that was when Rudd came jogging up to Beck, panting like a dog.
As soon as the wildling girl caught sight of Rudd, she shoved her fingers to her parted lips, and whistled.
And soon enough, Beck and Rudd were surrounded by three massive men looking rough in wildling garments with brutal looking weapons, one of which was a wooden spear with a spiked tip and an iron handle. Each of the men and the girl all looked as though they had just got out of some sort of battle. Their clothes were bloodied and their hair ragged. They each looked exhausted.
The largest of the men sighed.
"Well then, who the fuck are you?"