JON SNOW APPRECIATION MONTH 2022 ↳ Day 20: Free folk
Val stood on the platform as still as if she had been carved of salt. She will not weep nor look away. Jon wondered what Ygritte would have done in her place. The women are the strong ones. *** Val waited by the gate in the predawn cold, wrapped up in a bearskin cloak so large it might well have fit Sam. Beside her was a garron, saddled and bridled, a shaggy grey with one white eye. Mully and Dolorous Edd stood with her, a pair of unlikely guards. Their breath frosted in the cold black air. "You gave her a blind horse?" Jon said, incredulous. "He's only half-blind, m'lord," offered Mully. "Elsewise he's sound enough." He patted the garron on the neck. "The horse may be half-blind, but I am not," said Val. "I know where I must go." "My lady, you do not have to do this. The risk—" "—is mine, Lord Snow. And I am no southron lady but a woman of the free folk. I know the forest better than all your black-cloaked rangers. It holds no ghosts for me."
