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[needsnoheadsman]

Hello, you've reached--[sounds of fumbling and muttering before Robb's voice comes in:] Robb Stark--leave a message after the beep.

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[exiling]

More than fond. They have their own war, why make to start another? [ Too many matching sets. ]

Even across the sea summer's heat relents to colder winds. Tell me, Robb Stark - should we escape the fall of Yggdrasil, will Westeros even survive the long winter?

How much damage has this war done?

[ Who better to ask than a Stark? ]

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[needsnoheadsman]

[A non-dead one? Although those are in short supply.]

Would that I was more certain of my answer to that. Winter is coming, and I've a feeling much of Westeros might not survive it. The war took too much of a toll on all sides.

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[exiling]

Your sister has me to believe that much of that toll was taken by you and your own. That she no longer has a home to return to.

[ Not just his death but Winterfell burned, and the girl-child taken as wife by one of the Lannisters. ]

And then the woman that says she is of the Free Folk, the one named Ygritte, she tells an even stranger tale than any I have yet heard.

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[needsnoheadsman]

She's telling the truth. During the war, I sent Theon Greyjoy as an envoy to treat with his father, and in turn Theon invaded Winterfell, killed my brothers, and razed my home to the ground when he couldn't hold it.

And after that--you've heard, I'm sure.

[It's difficult, getting those words down. He'd trusted Theon, trusted plenty of people that he probably shouldn't have, and look where that trust's gotten him.]

My brother Jon spoke of fighting the Others. Is that the tale Ygritte gave you?

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[exiling]

Are there no honorable men in Westeros?

[ It's... not a dig at him. Not really.

A bit of a pause in between messages. The Starks are hated enemies, compliant (in her mind) not only in the Usurper's war but the horrific murders of her niece and nephew. Perhaps the gods felt this is part of the justice they would serve - but gods are fickle and cruel, and Dany takes no pleasure in hearing of the deaths of children not even yet born at the time of the great betrayal. ]

She told the same. Armies marching south, less to invade than to escape what they believe to be coming. These two speak the truth?

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[needsnoheadsman]

[He stares at the screen for a moment, wondering if it's a sly sally or an honest question. He wouldn't be surprised if it was both, in some way.]

There are honorable men in Westeros still, I've known plenty. [There has to be.] But there are men without honor as well. Those I've known as well, some when it was too late. I haven't known Ygritte for long enough to say as to which she is.

But I can tell you this, in all certainty: my brother isn't lying. As strange a tale as it is, I don't doubt him. Or Ygritte either, if she speaks of the same thing.

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[exiling]

I would not want to think them liars, only hoped that they might be mistaken in at least part of it. For another explanation.

[ An invading wildling army might have been good news alone, were she thinking like a conqueror. Another threat draining resources on enemy forces already split is exactly what might have helped her own army - had she taken those ships, abandoned her city and most of her people with it.

Now with winter upon them, these tales of wights, this isn't exactly the home imagined when she was small. ]

I am sorry for your sister, for all of your young siblings. I thought it wrong for the gods to bring children to a warzone, but I now see why some might choose to be here.

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[needsnoheadsman]

Would that there was. [Once upon a time he might've dismissed those claims, but after months in Asgard, after dying and coming back twice, after everything he's seen? He isn't so quick to do so now.]

I mislike it still, but knowing what happens to them in Westeros--they're a great deal safer here. [In the middle of a warzone, and what does it say about the state of their world that Asgard is safer?]

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[exiling]

[ If only she could feel the same about her own kin. ]

Did you ever find your words, the ones to tell them?

[ About those secrets? ]

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[needsnoheadsman]

I did. It was a hard thing to speak of to them, but I did.

[And each talk had felt like he was driving a dagger through his heart, only--he knows what that feels like, and talking with his family, telling then of how he died is a great deal more painful than that. A dagger through the heart, at least, is a quick death, a flash of pain before the darkness takes over.

This--this is an old wound, but one that keeps opening, keeps bleeding, because he keeps reopening them himself, to show to his family. Because they'd deserved truth, and he couldn't let them down there, not when he's already done so one too many times.]