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Chapter Text

The Kingswood was a large swell of trees and brush, livened only by the Wendwater and the banks of the Blackwater Rush. A six-day journey by horse from one end to the next, five if one was lucky. And it was home to all manner of creatures: from boar to stag and stoat to jay. Things that flew, things that grew, things that roared, and things that whored.

The latter stokes the most fear within her heart, causing her hand to clench tighter ‘round her reins every time there is so much as a creak or a shriek or a chuff or a scuff.

She would do well to forget those fears, to leave them behind, to put on a brave face for herself and her children. She would. 

But it all means little and less to say what one ought to do if it were something they could not. The sun cannot rise in the west and it cannot set in the east, just as she could not banish the terror that made her heart its home.

So, she would flinch at every sound and flee from every shadow, but pretend she had not. And, when her companion would lay a staying hand upon her shoulder, she’d play the mummer and act as if it did not frighten her so.

They had left the company of bannermen and foot soldiers behind half a day ago, but she could still smell smoke in the air.

(And in a quiet moment, when left with naught but her thoughts, she thinks she could still hear the echoes of their raucous laughter as Kingslanding burns.)

To her right, a horse nickers as a heel digs into its belly. Unconsciously, she draws her arm tighter around the child seated before her, glancing quickly to the side before averting her eyes.

Beside her, the stranger sighs, and she catches sight of him watching them in her periphery before he shakes his head. “You know,” he says, after several long moments, “this might be easier if you did not appear to be marching to the gallows.”

She does not respond, knowing he was right but with nothing to do for it. Such things were easier to say.

He seems to take a deep breath, a subtle act betrayed by the rising of his gorget and jostling of the mail beneath his gambeson—one adorned with the falcon of Arryn, which he pilfered from the body of a knight. Another sigh. “Those men back there were suspicious of us. No lady fears their own guard as much as you.” He waits for her to respond, a long time punctuated by beats of hooves in muck and gusts of wind through leaves, but none will come.

Between her thighs, her daughter glances over, giving the man a look. After which, she shudders and turns to hide her face in her mother’s belly—only to be reminded of the final presence in their little group. Her son slept soundly, swaddled to her chest between them, the picture of innocence and ignorance. She prays she could join him in it soon.

The guard continues speaking. “The word has likely yet to go out, but as soon as news spreads that the princess escaped, that the king escaped, who do you think will be the first to report something suspicious?”

“The king is dead.” Her voice is soft, weak, but her words true, even if she never saw the proof of it for herself.

The man confirms them only a moment later. “Aye. Aerys is. Slain by his own kingsguard.” His horse speeds up, spurred on by another nudge, and he twists around in the saddle, looking around the edge of her cowl. She abandons her reins to pull it lower, not seeing so much as hearing the huff of annoyance he let out. “And your husband, as well. Do you understand?”

She does, yet she doesn’t. She glances down at her son, her lips lifting into a smile that is not quite there. Sardonic. “He’s yet to celebrate his first name day.”

“Nor his second, nor his third.” He spares her an impassive glance before continuing, unhindered by the pain his words might bring her. “Yet the truth remains the truth and little either of us say will change it.”

Her arm abandons her daughter’s waist, moving up to gently brush the dusting of fair hair upon her son’s head, before checking the knot on the sling once more. She glances up at her companion, finding him occupied with much the same, fiddling with the cloth tied around his arm. Though the tightness upon her own face was born of worry and fear, his spoke of something else entirely.

“Is it painful?”

He turns, seemingly surprised at the question. The silence had lapsed for long enough for a clearing to open, then close, mayhaps he had not expected her to speak any longer. Though he seemed shocked, it did not take long for him to reply. “Tis not the worst I’ve suffered, your grace,” he huffs, before adding, “I may yet live.”

Her shift in posture must have been telling enough, for he quickly apologizes. “Only a jest.” A crow crows in the distance with nary a sound to accompany it. His face turns almost sheepish behind his helm, the sun shining through the foliage just right to gaze upon it. “My sister’s claim t’was never my strength.”

She feels herself swallow. Some of the color that had drained now returning to her cheeks, and she quickly sniffs her nose, rubbing it. “Mayhaps you should listen to them more oft.” Her voice shakes as she speaks, each quiver in time with the laboring of her heart. She knew not how one could fear a man’s absence just as much as they feared his presence, nor how to make it cease.

The man said nothing in response, so she prepared to let sleeping dragons roost. It would not be the first time a man took offense to the suggestion a woman knew better, and it would not be the last. But a mumble eventually made its way past his lips, bearing a passing similarity to an affirmation, so she looked over, allowing her hood to fall back.

A fool, she decided her savior was once she caught sight of him. A boarish, vicious fool with more swordsmanship than sense. And the least amusing man she’d ever met.

He sits—nearly teetering out of his saddle—with a cloth blotted red gripped betwixt his teeth. Tightening it one-handed, most likely, but who is to say.

Spurring her horse on, she moves to the side of his palfrey. She knocks his hand away, dropping the reins to work at the knot he was attempting to tie. One end was slick, and she grimaces, recognizing the source and glaring at his teeth when he quirks an apologetic half-smile. He winces when she wrenches each stray end with trembling fingers, ensuring it was taut.

The improvised bandage about his arm colors quickly, the weeping wound beneath it requiring little motivation to begin anew. Only then does she glance up, meeting and holding his eyes for several halting moments before retreating. She pulls her hand back, attempting to snag the lip of her hood and pull it back down, but is stopped by another. Had she near enough strength to, she would have wrenched her arm from his grasp, but as it were, her heart is sapping too much of her for her arms to follow her will, racing as it is. She could hear it, beating in her ears and thrumming in her neck as panic usurps control of her body.

She expects many things from the man, more than a few starting and ending with a blade. And she was right, to a degree.

“You know how to use it, yes?” He gestures to the weapon he’d set in her palm.

Some of his blood wells up at the edge of the bandage on his bicep, dripping down upon her cloak.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

His grip is too tight, his face too close.

He retreats a breath, and her lungs surge to soak up the air he displaces. His eyes flicker between hers, back then forth, back then forth, before settling on what she believes to be her nose. There is a slight furrow between his brows and a thinness to his lips as he looks at her.

“In essence,” she says as she exhales, and he nods. Her fingers close around the gift, a dagger in truth, one with a smooth, black hilt and a leather sheath. Well made even to her untrained eye, likely castle forged.

“First lesson,” he straightens back in his saddle and nudges his horse forward, smirking lightly, “Stick ‘em with the pointy end.”

A fool. And the least amusing of the bunch.

The kingsroad is quiet for the most part. Silence is commonplace. She does not know her companion, nor he her; so conversation was sparse, fleeting, and proportionately uncomfortable. He denied her any introduction, not that she’d ever asked for one, and she returned the favor, not deigning to allow her daughter to ride with him when he offered, no matter how much easier it might make the journey.

The path they were on led directly from the capital to the Stormlands. The last she heard, Mace Tyrell was laying siege to its capital, Storm’s End. She knew nothing of war or of the strategies that won them, but found herself agreeing when members of court had called the lord paramount of the Reach a craven and a dunce. The war came and went while he sat at the foot of Stannis Baratheon’s gates, starving smallfolk, and to what end?

She glances over at the knight, wondering if it was the reachman he intends for. They were a leal people, and a wealthy one at that. Fertile lands lead to vast harvests; and vast harvests, full coffers. Half of Westeros owed their full bellies to the bounty of the Reach, and the Tyrells prospered for it. T’was not of bad design, in truth, nor one she could fault him for, as degrading as it was to be sold for gold like chattel.

The question burns at her tongue, vying to be voiced, but remains within. For all the men was their protector, for all he kept them safe, for all he got them out and away from certain death; he was also terrifying. He and his deeds haunted her. The bandage upon his arm was quenched with blood, this is true, but she knew it to be but a drop in comparison to that which his blade savaged from the bellies of knights in their flight from the capital.

“Ser?” She calls, once her voice had harried her lips enough. She needed to know where he intended to take them, even if it angered him. If not for her own ease of mind, then for the sake of her children.

No response comes.

She frowns. Nudging her mount into a trot and gaining the lead. She twists in her seat and pulls up on the reins before dropping them to cradle both her children to her.

The knight’s eyes are shut, his face scrunched up. Had he fallen asleep astride? She allows his palfrey to approach, allows it to drift to the side; her own horse's head bucks up as it gets close. She nudges his shoulder, attempting to rouse him, with no luck. She tries again, calling out another “Ser?” to naught but the wind.

A thought occurs to her, that this might be her only chance to escape the man, but before she could truly put words to action, his eyes snap open.

She startles, jumping. Only the man’s quick reaction saves her daughter from toppling from the saddle. Her eyes, however, stay locked on his own, ignoring her child’s whimper of fear. Not a breath escapes her lungs as she freezes before him.

The look on his face was slightly feral, like a rat caught against a wall, yet to her he was still all wolf.

“You must get off the road.” He moves to the edge of the beaten path, halfly distracted, wholly focused.

She watches him go, not urging her horse to follow in the slightest, already fearing what she might see if she looked over her shoulder. Yet, no noise reached past the ringing in her ears. Not the beating of hooves, nor the shouting of men, nor the barking of hounds. All is quiet in the Kingswood, she’s certain of it. “But– ”

“Get off the road!”

His hand snaps out as he leans precariously off the back of his saddle, stealing her reins and tugging them toward him. Before she could even format a response, he kicks both their horses, sending them into a panic no deeper than her own. All she could do—all she could ever do it felt—is hold her children tight and pray nothing horrible befell them. She is a stone beneath a raging tide, feeling the water wear her down, with nothing she can do except suffer it silently. But, if the price for her children’s safety was her life, she’d pay it in golden dragons.

A squirrel shoots from the underbrush and through their horses’ legs as they dive deeper into the forest. Her eyes follow its course past them, watching as it flees up a tree behind them before stopping part way up the trunk. Its breathing is labored, the tiny body nearly quaking with fright beneath its fur. 

They retreat by horse twenty paces further before a large boulder appears from behind the brush, without hesitation the man leads them all toward it. He jumps from his mount, handing both reins to her before throwing a bow stowed near the saddlebags ‘round his shoulder. There is a quiver there, too, and he pauses for only a moment to close his eyes before gathering a handful of arrows. Seven in total, she counts. He does too.

Every noise sends a new spike of fear through her chest, like half a hundred knives stabbing into her from every direction. She felt the tips of her fingers go numb as a raven lands upon a tree branch and woodland creatures flee back the way they came. Her attention went every which way, never staying still for long.

“Stay here,” she whirls around in her spot, startled by the voice, only to see the guard walking backward and out from their cover.

“You’re leaving us?”

He didn’t respond with anything more than a grunt and then he was gone.

She, no less a fool than her companion, makes to follow. Fearing what might occur in his absence. Her horse makes it a few paces toward the wall of the rock before his palfrey bucks its head, pulling its reins taut and back. She turns to it, seeing it already looking her way. It snorts and tugs again, as if attempting to flee the other direction, away from their pursuers. Or from its rider, though she knew not which was true.

An intelligent beast, and one she prays she is right in heeding.

With her savior distracted, she quietly spurs her horse in the opposite direction, ducking her head out of cover when they reach the edge of the boulder. Spying no aggressors, she digs a heel into her horse’s rib and takes off.

The air is cutting, stinging at her face as they run through the woods. It howls in her ears like wolves in the night, as if the Kings of Winter themselves were bearing down upon her for the actions of a husband she could temper not. Punishment for a sin she did not commit.

Her hood flips back as they go, black hair tailing behind her. She keeps one hand firmly gripping the reins while the other keeps both children secure to her chest.

Eventually, they make their way onto a deer trail—a thin path free of bramble and brush for them to race down. A few critters of varying origin dash around the forest floor as they go, but never anything bigger than a shrew.

Trees pass them by in a blur, though she knows they weren’t traveling fast enough for that to be the case. Her vision turns hazy at its edges and her breathing both picks up and shallows. It is difficult to say who took the reins in those moments, who steered their horse, for she knew it was not herself. Her panic is a material thing, it wraps around her neck and chokes her; it makes her do silly and stupid things. The shape it takes is as familiar as the sun, two hands: old and wiry and cold, with unkempt nails and knotted knuckles. The hands of a king; the hands of a good father who’d never known how to be good, nor fatherly.

She feels Aerys in the saddle behind her, with his fish-rotten breath and his oppressive presence. He slowed them down, she knew it, he burdened them so even still. A horse which struggled to carry three, now suffering more under four.

It tires, not that she can blame it, and slows to a trot then a walk. There's a puddle on the path that it stops beside, panting as it noses the muddy water. She kicks its side, digs her heels in with all the strength she possesses, but the amount it requires slips through her grasp, and the horse ignores her.

A small voice calls out. “Muna—?”

She shushes the child gently and looks around. “Not now, Rhaenys.” The forest has grown denser, the trees blotting out more and more of the sky’s light. Through some beneficence of the gods, their horse starts moving again—wandering forward slowly, but surely. She does what she can to keep their course true, even if she knows not where it led. She casts a frequent, cautious gaze back to check the trail behind, but nothing rises from the brush.

The panicked beating of her heart had not ebbed since they fled. Then again it never seemed to, not with days like these. The king’s spectre still claws at her neck, but she breathes and his weight lifts from the saddle. It is all she can ask for; all she cares to.

Their wandering is not short, but it comes to a sudden and unfortunate end when a bird calls and her horse straightens its neck and halts. After which it does not need her call, not even a little. She thinks to take to foot, considers it deeply, but by then the beatings of another’s hooves made itself known—too near to flee.

“I do recall asking you to stay where you were.”

And the relief she felt. It's immediate and confusing, but she'd not trade it for gold. “Ser,” she twists around and looks back to where he approaches from. He appears no worse for wear: arrows depleted but armor unmarred. “We were simply furthering ourselves from the conflict. Have you dispatched with the brigands?”

“Brigands?” He wonders aloud and shakes his head. “They were simple men-at-arms. The sons of some poor farmer’s wife who will now have to till the fields on her own. They were no bandits, and you should not call them that. They desired this war no greater than you.”

Her horse, previously stone, nickers and sniffs when the knight thrusts his gloved hand before its snout. A traitor unlike any other. When her savior turns back the way he came, it follows dutifully. She promises to herself that she would try to sway its loyalty with a bundle of apples when next they stumble upon a tree.

“Why are we headed back? Are the roads safe?”

“Hardly.” A comforting thought. She's not sure if she's grateful for the honesty or vexed by his lack of tact. The knight looks at her and does her the service of explaining. “I had not the time to move their bodies from the road. My charges fled from me, you see, so I was forced to chase them down.”

“Ah.” Yes, well. “Perhaps your charges would be less flightly if they know more of what their fates hold. The rat with the crown is least likely to fear the cat, after all.”

The man groans and readjusts in his saddle. “You southrons and your bloody proverbs. Why in the seven hells would a rat have a crown, anyway?”

“Tis a metaphor.”

“Aye. And a well useless one at that. A king of rats would have more reason to fear the cat than any.” He goes silent then rigid as they approach a fork in the path. She watches and waits for him to come to a decision, and when he does they bank to the left. “Dorne,” he says at last, once they're suitably far down the way.

She did not follow. “What of Dorne?”

“That is where we are bound.”

Her heart thrums in such a way that causes her throat to tighten. She swallows past the lump there and asks onto him, “Why?”

He turns and eyes her through his helmet. “I hardly think so little of Your Highness that I would believe that you need me to answer that for you, Princess Elia.”

Home. He intends to take her home; for perhaps no other reason than that is where they’d be safest—not that she would ever again be naïve enough to believe it so. “You would betray your kingdom and your kinsmen?”

“I know neither kingdom nor kinsmen who would be complicit in the murder of children, nor have I received any orders suggesting I should. We men of the north serve Lord Stark, and Lord Stark only seeks justice for the murder of his father and his brother, as well as the safe return of his sister. You and your children are innocent of those crimes. It would be senseless to seek retribution from those who cannot provide it.”

“Not even after what my husband did to your fair lady?” A dangerous question, but one she needs answered. It is one thing to extend virtue when it is easy, it is far harder after one has been wronged. It would be better to know what his hands hold now, then learn it later as he slips the dagger between the gap in her ribs that her companionship teaches him to find.

His silence is long. She's coming to learn that they often are. Never has a man she’s met been as introspective as he. It gives her cause to wonder what it is he thinks so deeply upon. “Not even then,” he eventually declares, and that is, supposedly, that.

They do not happen upon the scene until her thighs are aching and raw. The knight signals to stop and slips from his saddle with enviable ease. “Cover the princess’s eyes, these are things she needs not see,” he says, and Elia does as asked.

Rhaenys protests, weakly shoving at the hand that falls before her eyes, but Elia would not be moved in this. She shushes her gently and often, doing what she could to spare her of what horrors she could.

Their bodies were numerous and wore more blood than armor. An arrow embeds itself in the weeping eye of one while it finds the throat of another. Out on the road, she spies several horses milling about. One’s back is red, though its coat is a dappled black. Another she sees still has a rider, her heart leaps to her throat and she makes to call for her knight until the horse shivers and he tumbles from the saddle. The fall breaks his neck, but he’s too dead to know it. 

The horse drags his corpse around as it wanders from one patch of grass to the next. Elia bites her tongue, but that is all she can do to quiet the disquiet within her. Her stomach roils and toils, but she’s seen more gruesome deaths while at court. Heard tales of fates worser still. She’s prepared for it, but displeased all the same.

Her decision to join the knight on the ground is made for her when her legs finally have enough. Riding through the night and early morn is never comfortable, less so for one such as her who’s never been a practiced equestrian. Her legs are trembling and pained and she really must let them rest.

Elia falls from her horse with insignificant grace, but her feet remain beneath her so the gods may yet be merciful. Rhaenys descends next, bracketed in her mother’s arms. She keeps her hand over the girl’s eyes as best she can. The movement jostles her sling and wakes her son, who promptly begins weeping and crying and screaming. She shushes and sways, but he would not be reasoned with.

“Close your eyes, Rhaenys,” she instructs. Against her palm, eyelashes flutter but do not shut. “Listen to your mother well; now is not the time for disobedience. Do you understand me?”

There’s a pause in which the knight crosses from the woods and cuts the corpse from the horse's back, dragging it behind the trees. Elia peers into the shadows behind the bushes and sees five other bodies already laid out side-by-side. She tears her attention from the youth held captive in their faces and back to her daughter, whom she presses more urgently. “Do you understand me, Rhaenys?”

“I do, muna. I do.”

Perhaps she’s telling the truth, perhaps there’s nothing to worry about. That doesn’t stop Elia from turning the girl and tucking her face into her hip. Rhaenys’s arms go around her thigh as she seeks to obtain what little comfort they’re afforded. She strokes the girl's hair for a spell, but turns her attention to her son soon after.

“Sweet Aegon,” she coos through his cries, “What ails you so?” There’s no foul scent to speak of, nor any reason for him to be too tired to be sensible, so with a single glance spared to the knight, she tugs the top of her gown down and allows him to latch onto her teat. “Ah,” she groans. “Gentle, child. Gentle. Your mother is not yet used to this.” She curses the day her husband convinced her to use a wet nurse, it would only serve to complicate matters now.

The knight emerges from the tree line after stowing the last of the bodies—seven in total, by her count, though not all cut down by arrow—and begins kicking up dirt over the blood stains on the road. It would still be easy to spot by anything more than a passing eye, but it should hide the worst of it. At the very least, it buys them time, a priceless resource. 

He loots their saddlebags for the essentials. Wineskins and breads and cheeses, even a few sacks of oats for the horses. After he takes what he will from each, he sends the horses on their way, down the trail in the direction they will soon be headed. He doesn’t bother undoing the saddles, there is no reason to. From the last one he withdraws a tunic and breeches before slowly approaching her.

“Here.” He holds them out for her to grab, but keeps his eyes deliberately on the horizon. “These should be a bit more comfortable to wear while riding. It would be best to get a few more leagues down the road before we rest. The more distance we put between us and the capital, the better.”

Elia nods though she knows he isn’t looking. “I don’t suppose any of those men had spare boots, did they?” They’d flown from Kingslanding with such haste that she’d had no chance to dress for travel. She’d split her skirt in order to ride, but shoes were hardly something within her power to change.

“No.” He turns to look at her shoes, seemingly forgetting her current state of undress, only to stutter and cough when his eyes cross her chest. Seeing as she’s preoccupied, he unfurls the tunic and gently drapes it over her shoulders, shading her son and all else, then hands the breeches to her uncooperative daughter. She chuckles lightly as he wanders back into the woods to check upon nothing. Despite herself, it’s hard not to imagine him a little pink in the cheeks, though she wished she knew the curves of his face to complete the image.

He returns minutes later, when she is changed—and only after informing him so—with boots in hand. Brown leather colored red, though she’d not ask what dye was used. The answer is one she wishes not to know. Her husband would ignore the blood on his hands, but she and he were deeply different people. It is not a talent she could possess, nor one she wishes to.

Their cue to leave is his mounting of the saddle. A silent sentinel, now and forever, though he does have his moments of chattiness. “It would be easier if the princess sat with me,” he reminds her.

“Just so,” she agrees, “But as you can certainly see,” for he did have eyes; she’d seen them, even if he hid the rest of his face behind that damnable helm, “the princess hardly seems to be at ease in your presence.”

He hums. “Well, we cannot have that. Any suggestions?”

Elia turns from the slowing blinks of her son to the knight. “You are asking me?”

“Well, you are her mother if I recall.”

That and regent, as well, but you would not know it from how he spoke to her. Even when he addresses her properly there is always this undercurrent of gibe. “Perhaps if you removed your helm, ser. It is hard for a woman to trust a man gowned in metal.” He seems dubious, so she makes one last attempt. “It would be a … comfort.” A small one, if one at all, but likely more for herself than the daughter who clung to her breeches, wishing they were skirts to hide within.

“A comfort,” he returns, “You tremble every time I near as if I am some monster, yet expect me to believe your daughter would find comfort in my smile? In my jowls and my slobbery fangs?”

“I do not believe in monsters,” Elia tells him.

A scoff. “Then you have not been paying very much attention.” And yet, despite his stiff rebuke, his fingers claw their way beneath the helm’s rim and lift it from his head. His face is revealed slowly, from bearded chin to long and sweat-soaked brown hair. It’s a long face with starkly juxtaposed features. His face, though as young as her own, is severe. Pronounced cheekbones form a long march south—the result of a long march south; a set of jagged scars cuts down across one eye, she spies three, but cannot fathom what blade would make them; and his face is paler than she's ever seen. Life in the north must be hard.

“Huh.” Her throat makes a noise that she did not wish to escape as she works her lips. He’s not uncomely.

He places his helmet down in his lap. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” she tells him, but in her mind she frustrates. “You have kinder eyes than most.” It is impossible to not learn to read them when at court; the crinkles at their corners, their glossiness during tragedy, those and more.

A silence stretches and her cheeks warm as a result of it. Curse the man for not responding, then curse him more for not living up to the hideous depiction she’d made of him in her head. They’re not apathetic when he looks to her, but they remind her more of how one looks upon a stranger. It’s how he looks at her children that sets her heart at ease—they’re soft, then and only then, and it is what begins to convince her that he might be honest in his intentions. He stares at her for several moments longer before suddenly sweeping the hair from his brow and shaking his head with a chuckle. 

“Kind eyes,” he tells his horse. “I haven’t a clue what that means.” To make matters worse, the palfrey whinnies as if amused by her—or him, or both; causing the man’s laughter to grow louder still.

What was the point, she wonders, of escaping the capital aflame only to die from mortification just down its road. Elia scowls at both ser and steed alike. “If you are quite done, I believe we should be moving on.”

“Yes, yes, yes.” He places his feet in the stirrups and waits expectantly for her to follow-suit. It’s easier to climb into the saddle with her new attire, but he still steadies the saddle for her. Kind eyes and kind actions. Truly, it is a strange knight she has found for herself. “Princess Rhaenys, if you ever wish for a smoother ride, my saddle is open to you.”

A smoother—Elia glares at him. “Har har,” she pronounces. A man who had just killed seven others and here he is making jests. Was he not the one who scolded her for calling those same soldiers ‘brigands’ just earlier? He was too comfortable in killing and too comfortable with her, she decides, too comfortable by half.

He only moves forward once her seat is settled and her son and daughter situated, patting her horse’s neck soothingly as he passes. He clucks at it, contorting his sullen lips in ways she could not mimic, and it sets forward in a trot.

The helmet, previously abandoned in his lap, suddenly disappears into the woods—thrown by hand and hidden amongst the dead. Elia watches it go worryingly. “Do you not need that?”

“If they are skilled enough to kill me, that helmet will not be enough to change my fate,” he explains, “They’ll ring my head and take two strokes rather than one, but a dead man is a dead man and a killing blow is a killing blow. I might keep it if I were to worry about missiles, but if they are close enough to fire upon us with arrows then it will not be me they are aiming for.”

Elia swallows and twists to look back through the trees. “Should I be wearing it?”

He bobs his head. “It is rather warm inside,” he explains, but that is not a ‘no.’

“You are a stranger to comfort, ser.”

“I am of the shivering north. We have fewer comforts than most,” the man reminds her, “And I am no ser.”

By the Seven, did he infuriate her. “What should I call you then, if not ser? Swordsman? Northman? I do not know your name.”

A shrug. “Either is fine. Although most choose to call me Jon.”

“Jon,” she hears herself repeat. “And which lord is your father, Jon of the North?”

Gray eyes locate hers through his lashes. “My father is no lord.”

“Your mother, then.”

“My mother is not a lord, neither.” Sweet mercy. If she could smite him she would. He takes pity upon her and shakes his head. “If it is a family name you are after, I am afraid you will find yourself quite disappointed. Not everyone is so fortunate as to be born with one, Elia Martell.”

A commoner, she muses, deliberately ignoring the way her name sounds in his brogue. He expects her to believe he is a commoner. A man with his talents could only be one trained in the mortal arts from a young age—and one who had put it into practice ruthlessly ever since. He is comfortable in killing, she knows this, comfortable and familiar.

“Jon, then.” She does not believe him, not for a moment, but still she nods. “I will call you Jon.”

Chapter Text

The Wendwater is a dream both distant and lovely when Jon shakes her awake during the hour of the eel; then it is only distant. He holds a hand over her lips and a finger to his own, urging her to a silence that she abides by unfailingly.

“There are outriders approaching,” he whispers, watching in the direction of the road. The sun had set hours before, but even in the dark she can see his eyes are heavy and bagged; he must have been keeping watch that entire time. “Grab whatever food and drink you can. We are abandoning the road and heading southwest by foot; take nothing but the necessities. We cannot afford to travel heavy.”

Her heart stings and she fights back frightened tears as she nods into his palm, and when he releases her she immediately sets to work. She dives for where the horses sleep, snatching the gown she’d used to cushion the seat before overturning the contents of the saddle bags into it. Her children slumber on as they toil in the dark, ignorant to the danger that nears. She takes all the provisions she can fit and twists the dress around them, then pulls it taut around her shoulder, knotting it.

To the side, Jon is hastening to remove his armor, leaving him in nothing more protective than what she wears herself. It’s a dangerous gamble, but not any more so than fleeing on foot while encumbered by chain and leather. He throws it all over his palfrey’s saddle, securing each to its neck.

“How many?”

His tunic is sweat stained, and the sleeve dark and torn where his left arm had been cut. He tosses his bow and quiver round his own shoulder and waist, before grabbing the reins and tugging upon them. “Too many,” he grunts, then forces the horses to stand up on their hooves.

He sets off in the direction of the road and Elia follows until the edge of their hollow. Whatever he whispers to the animals is for them and the night, and she is not in on the secret. He shoves them by their asses toward the road, and they wander off into the night as he watches—back turned.

She can barely make out their silhouettes from this distance, only knows their location by the jingle of Jon’s mail and the cracking of the brush they shove through. What she is allowed to see is only by the grace of a breach in the canopy. How royal she doubtlessly feels, subordinate to the whims of a tree’s branch. And a dead one at that.

Their campsite had been set a ways off the road. Unfortunately close to a thin patch in the woods, one no doubt used for royal hunts past, but with their horses tiring—and themselves trailing not far behind—they had distressingly few options left to them. She’d slept fitfully amongst the roots, bracketed by uncertainty, for far shorter than she considered reasonable.

As such, the night is still yet young. The bat precedes the eel; the eel precedes the ghost. And the ghost’s ; well, that is an ill-omened and ill-fortuned hour, thus she has no objections when the northman suggests they be long gone by the time it arrives.

And they will be. She gathers her son with quick and gentle hands, hugging him to her chest as she watches the knight collect her daughter. Her small finger twitches, begging her to intervene, to carry them both in his stead, but she knew she could not—just as she could not fault him his effort. He’s careful with Rhaenys. Her daughter neither wakes nor stirs as he settles her weight against himself and tucks her face into his neck.

They make the nearest thing to eye contact in the darkness and he bobs his head in the direction of an owl’s call. “Follow closely,” he whispers, "The horses will lead them away.”

She does not understand how that could be possible. They are horses, and only as intelligent as beasts can be. “For how long?”

“Until they cannot,” he murmurs absently. She understands that even less, but follows behind without so much as a backward glance.

They walk for what feels like ages. The terrain would be treacherous even with the sun’s guidance to help, and they were hours withdrawn from the sight, further from its light. Her thighs thank the ground she walks upon, thank the air that kisses them. They are raw and sore and tender and beyond happy to be spared the saddle. Her heels and her lungs are far less gracious in change; they beg of her to retrieve the horse.

Her heart does not stop racing, not even once. A fright that quickly becomes fatigue takes root within. Elia pants as she summits a boulder, taking a seat upon the soft peats that grow on its surface.

She seeks out Jon where he stands; he’s swaying almost subconsciously, lulling her daughter back to sleep after their climbing had jostled her. It’s Elia’s fault; Jon had to stop and pull her up by the elbow when her boot slipped.

“Sorry,” she eventually mutters, once her breath has caught up with them from where it fell behind. He grunts and looks around. Whatever details he finds amidst the trees are strangers to her; there are shadows amongst the roots and shadows amongst the branches, and she could scarcely tell one from the other.

Her respite ends when Jon slides down the curve of the boulder, jumping the last little bit to a patch of dirt a meter further along. She curses him within her mind then without. “Have I done something to offend you, perhaps? Is that why you wish for me to break mine neck?”

The answering chuckle is gravel and half-imagined. “Far be it,” his silhouette says, or perhaps that is a bush. It’s hard to say, Elia squints her eyes but finds no clarity past an ever creeping desire to let their lids flutter to a close so that they might finally rest. “It’s smaller than it looks.”

“Haah.” A joke comes to mind, one her brother would no doubt enjoy, but her exhaustion takes precedence and she won’t waste the energy to utter it. Her companion is hardly the type to appreciate her wit, anyway.

Jon returns to scanning the surroundings, and now is as good a time as any. Elia steals upon the chance to rest.

The world is silent as she slips backward with her son, reclining into the boulder and its moss. A finer bed than any she’s slept on before, she recalls thinking, though come morning she would realize different. Her back would ache and her neck would most certainly petrify, but for the instance it is bliss. “A moment's rest,” a voice beseeches, it’s feminine and unknown to her. Sluggish and whiny in ways she knows not.

“Later,” another answers; Jon’s this time. A hand grabs her calf, dragging her toward the boulder’s edge.

Elia barely has the sense of mind to yelp before she’s sliding down, trailing dirt and peat behind her, and landing atop her trembling feet. “Ape,” she names him in a gasp, “Lout!”

He ignores her and turns away, the whoreson. “It would be better to travel a few leagues more.”

A furious series of pants leave her, and she hugs Aegon close, arranging herself in such a way that the dark hairs of her brow brush his crown. The fall is nothing severe, but the pains that build in her joints are made only worse by it. “I had not known it was illegal in the north to rest.” Her eyes clench tight—too tight for sleep to find a foothold. She refuses temptation a second chance, even as she puts words to her desire for it.

“The further we are, the safer we are.”

“So you have said.” And so she has heard. For every mile they flee, their pursuers must scour three score more. It is better for them to take advantage before their trails are found. But . “Surely we are far enough from the highway. We seek to gain nothing by exhausting ourselves, let us begin upon fresh legs … tomorrow.” Or tomorrow’s tomorrow, or the day that follows that. Perhaps if they dither and darry for long enough then she will wake from this foul and festering dream before she is ever required to walk again. How preferable that would be!

From behind the silence of the darkness, she listens. Jon does not move for a long while, does not speak. She hopes it is because she’s convinced him; that soon he will tell her to lay her weary head back down, tell her that he will keep watch and that all will certainly be well. 

That is not what happens, for her knight was a northman, and her northman was a cunt. “No,” he decides, so they continue walking.

By the time the first bird calls from its creaking branch they are far and removed from the high road that divides the forest into east and west. It’s a little easier to see then, but not by much. Jon looks to the trees when it sings again and, through a yawn, identifies it as the nightingale.

Elia sends a scathing look to his back. “Then that means dawn will soon be upon us.”

“It would certainly seem so,” he agrees with a quick look to the sky. His cheeks draw back as he squints up and he completely misses her annoyance. “An hour or two longer and the sun will rise above the treeline.”

There is much she could say to that, more she wished to, but none she is willing to utter. Not with her daughter still held in his arms. She lets out a tight breath and sets her mind to different matters; far from their missed sleep. A distraction was due, and she had just the one in mind. “What part of the north are you from?”

He places a hand on a tree for support as he takes a large step down. “Near the Wolfswood.” 

So very specific. That narrows it down to only a quarter of the largest of the seven kingdoms. She tries another angle. “Family?”

There's a sharp noise like a whistle and it takes her a moment to realize it is him sighing tightly through his nose. “Have we not already discussed this?”

“I know your mother is not a lord,” she answers, though she could have reasoned that to begin with, “And that your father is not one neither.”

His lips twitch, she sees it happen even in the dark. “Aye.” His throat looses another chuckle that might send a blind man stumbling for shelter, bethinking it the roll of thunder. It’s vexing, the humor he finds in her, but she thinks about it for a moment and chooses to let him have his fun. It is harmless.

“If not parents, then siblings. You must have those.”

Another sigh leaves him, taking with it his smile, and he glances at each member of their party, from one to another then onto the last. “I was told I had a brother and a sister once, but I’d never met them. They died before I was born.” His voice becomes quiet, but it is far from shaken. It bears a careful distance, one further than that which they have traveled or will.

“How tragic,” Elia murmurs. She regretted even asking. Two of her own siblings had passed in a similar manner, and despite knowing them not, she never stopped mourning the idea of them. Mors and Olyvar both died as infants, an all too common fate, one that tied together noble and common. “I am sorry to hear that. It must have been difficult.”

He shrugs and keeps his mind on wayfinding. “Hardly worse than dying.”

A deliberate misunderstanding of her words if she has ever heard one. “That is not what I meant,” she tells him, but something else occurs to her just then. “Did you not mention sisters only yesterday?” It seems so long ago now that she had nearly forgotten.

By way of apology and answer both, he eventually says, “I was raised by my uncle alongside my cousins. They were like siblings to me. It is not as though I were some starving orphan wandering Winter town.”

And yet, is that not bitterness she hears in his voice? There’s a tinge of it, that or something remarkably similar—enough to be mistaken for it.

They would eventually stop to drink; Jon juggles her daughter masterfully as he extracts the wineskins from her sling, uncorking the first for her before ever partaking himself. Only once her parched lips have had their fill does she ask her companion another of her unending questions.

“Was he the one who taught you to fight?” He wipes his lips with his wrist and furrows his brow, so she clarifies. “Your uncle.”

“No.”

Elia fights back a groan and returns the wineskin to him so he can stow it in her makeshift sling. It’s behind her back and she holds her breath again as he moves to do it. Trust is a difficult thing; but he doesn’t comment on her stiffness and she’s grateful for that, at least.

When he retreats she fixes her hair, quiets her heart, and turns to him. “Might you tell me who did, then?”

“You ask a lot of questions, Your Highness.” There’s a characteristically long pause before he answers. “A few different men taught me. Rodrik and Alliser were the names of those who took part most often.” He shakes out a tired hand before shifting Rhaenys’s weight back atop it. “Do you perhaps know of them? Very esteemed, my teachers.”

He’s making light of her again. “I think not,” she admits, though she’d rather lie and say ‘yes.’ It’s only the boldness of the fabrication that stops her. A single question could be its undoing. It's his fault anyway, he could not truly expect her to recognize a first name without a last.

A bug zips through the space between three trees, only to be intercepted by a moonlit bird who returns it to a waking nest. Morning had truly come at last.

“Likely for the best. Alliser was a shite instructor with a worse temper. Better left unmet, I say.”

“I will keep that in mind, ser.”

His reply is foregone. “I am no ser.”

“Hm.” Perhaps that is where she should secure his loyalty, “I could change that for you,” she offers. It would cost her nothing, and there existed no man—especially not one of common stock—who would turn down an offer to elevate their position. She could even offer him the name he seemed to covet so.

“A most kind offer, Your Highness.” He yawns so she does, severely undercutting the expected majesty of the moment. Not that the filth of their bodies ever allowed much to begin with. “But I have no desire for knighthood. I do not hold to the Seven.”

“Neither do half the knights in the Crownlands, not truly.” Elia ducks beneath a branch and shoves another away from her son’s face. “And even those that do follow their code of chivalry half as well as they should.”

Jon snorts and tiredly shakes his head. “How honored I am that you would seek to count me in their company, then.”

“Yes, well, I am feeling quite magnanimous on this oh-so lovely morn,” she tries to lightly rebut. Her words die upon her tongue, however, falling apart with a crack when the northman holds a finger up and shushes her with a breath.

He lowers her daughter down to a bed of wildflowers.

The forest is as quiet as it ever is, with only the growing calls of birds and chirring of insects to keep them company. There is seemingly no movement amongst the trees not made by the winds, no threat to speak of.

Yet, her companion draws first his bow, then an arrow—only one. And he nocks it upon the string without a motion spared. Into a bush it is loosed, then through, and there’s a sharp and short squeal from the other side as it makes contact with a creature she could not see. It happens so quickly she does not have a moment to fear, not until well after the deed is done.

He throws the bow back round his shoulder and spares a glance her way before stepping in the direction of his target. “What were you saying again?”

“Uhm,” she replies, rather articulately.

A rabbit; it was only a rabbit. A brown and gray and white one, with beady eyes and long ears. It flails weakly when he reaches for it, the arrow having struck only its haunch, but his hands are far more accurate. Elia looks away as he wrings its neck, flinching at the sound it makes, and whatever she had thought to tell him flees from her mind—leaving her for lands far displaced from these. She nearly laughs, if only she could join it.

“To break our fast,” he explains to her silence, wiping the blood from the arrow on his breeches. When he comes closer, it still coats the bed of his nails and the margins beneath their edges. By noon it would be dark and cracked and dry, indecipherable from the dirt he wears. But she would know the truth and flinch from his kind and outstretched hand in light of it. “I’ll clean and cook it after we stop for a rest.”

Elia closes her eyes and imagines their surroundings. “We could rest here?” It’s a long shot, but when Jon opens his mouth to swat it down, she doesn’t relent, “Rhaenys won’t want to see you prepare the food—she’ll mislike it. Meat is not something she knows the truth of, and she is rather fond of animals. It would be better to rest here and get it done before she wakes.”

Were he any less of a humorless man, she might expect him to laugh. She tries to imagine it. Far from his short histoire of low and laconic chuckles, this would be as sudden as it is jarring. A sound from the belly, full and loud and mocking. He would deride her with the knowledge that she would let him, for it was a fool’s wish to think Rhaenys would be his camel’s straw.

That isn’t what happens. Jon looks at the rabbit in his hand first, her daughter second. In that moment perhaps it’s himself that he thinks of, a younger, bright-eyed version of the he who now is, one who’d cared for animals just as fiercely; perhaps it’s one of his sisters—perhaps it’s Rhaenys alone. Whoever it is (whatever it may be), Elia would not be privy to it. If Jon were to share his reasons with anyone, it would most certainly not be her.

That is fine. In the end, he still nods his head in assent. “Then I will—”

Whatever other words his lips seem to speak are lost to her; before he has the chance to finish agreeing, Elia is rocking backward to the ground. She sprawls out amongst the flowers beside her daughter, relaxing amidst dirt and grass and stick. Her entire being seems to sigh and sing its relief out to their world, and she slips blissfully into the darkness not soon thereafter.

Boots crunch the grass as her companion steps closer. The shadow he casts is invisible and intangible both, but it chills the air in its borders. And her skin slithers when he coughs. “The knife,” he announces, “I need it.”

Her fingers find the handle in the waist of her trousers; they trace its smooth edge, the slight curve at its end. And her thumb sneaks its way to the quillon while she strikes the surface with her nail. She had hardly wanted it, but she finds it hard to part with now that it has come time. She’d fallen asleep earlier that night with it clutched in her thin fingers. Its presence was the shield her heart races behind. “I quite like having it.”

He huffs. “And you will have it right back if that is your desire, but I am not flaying a bloody bunny rabbit with a sword, Elia. It is well over a meter long. When it comes time to eat you would not be able to tell the meat on your plate from the fingers I have lost.”

She mercifully allows him the knife, adding a silent prayer to the Mother Above to her concession. One that beggars safe passage for herself into the realm of dreams—and her children into that of Dorne.

Over half a sennight later, they finally rest their weary limbs upon the southern shore of the Wendwater. Aegon lays across her lap, grasping languidly at the muddied ribbon Elia dangles o’er his face.

Bubbles form and pop at the corners of his lips, and she watches them for a long while before suddenly spinning when a sharp crack comes from the woods behind. “Welcome back,” she murmurs to the man that emerges.

“Any trouble?”

She shakes her head. “No.” But he should already know that; she’d not be seated and quite so peaceful had there been any. A stranger would be standing above her, the Stranger behind, and the river’s waters would bleed red like the sun of her house. “All has been quite well.”

To further make her point, Rhaenys tips backward with a splash, falling into the low course with a yelp and a giggle. “Muna,” she crows, “muna, muna! Look at me! All wet!” She claps her hands together merrily and sends even more water dripping down over her face and neck.

Elia presses her lips together and smiles with her cheeks. “That is lovely, sweetling,” she tells her. Then, in the same breath, she turns to the northman and says, “You are carrying her.” A babe on one side and the freezing chill of water soaking her tunic on the other, she likes the idea less than not at all. Whatever that equates to; willingly yielding her daughter to Jon, she supposes.

His brow raises, somewhat imperiously. “I am hardly the one who needs to be persuaded.”

Together, their eyes go to Rhaenys as she says something incomprehensible to the shadow of a fish. Hardly one to be reasoned with, her wild daughter. She’d inherited none of the fairness of her brother; not in her hair, not in her complexion, not in her affect. A terrible tyrant of three years; they’d bartered for a calm in a recent tantrum of hers with a sip of their wine. She’d hated it nearly as much as the northman seemed to, though she’d done so with far more words than he.

Stones skitter and crunch as her companion walks up beside her. Jon drops to one knee at the water’s edge, splashing it onto his face and sweeping away the dirt and sweat that mar it. It falls in dark droplets to the water below, but the color remains beneath his eyes. Not dirt, but darkness. Bruises of exhaustion. Bags.

Another droplet gathers at the end of his bangs, weighing the strands down until enough collects and it, too, falls back to the river below. A small ripple echoes out, but soon it is drowned out by the tides her daughter draws on the surface as she moves to Elia’s ear.

“He’s not doing what you said,” Rhaenys tells her in a desperate and unquiet hush, dripping water onto her flinching brother.

Elia hums, guarding him with a hovering hand. “And what did I say?”

“No getting wet.”

The answer startles a cough from Jon who quickly busies himself a little further up river. He’d not been present for the establishment of such a condition, but he could certainly tell the result. “Right,” she drawls, frowning at the blades of his shoulders before turning to her daughter. “So you do recall the rule.”

Rhaenys puffs out her chest a little. “I listen good!”

“You listen well,” Elia corrects her. It hardly feels like the correct time, nor a correct assessment. She uses her finger to poke and tickle all of the areas where her daughter had soaked her dress through. “Do you mind explaining all of this?”

The child examines each spot more closely than necessary before scrunching her nose up and declaring, “I fell.”

It’s not exactly wrong, but it’s not exactly right either. “You would not have fallen into the water had you not already been standing in it.” The wetness collects above the flare of Aegon’s nose. Elia wipes it with her thumb and flicks it out over the rocks. “Alas, I have not yet broken the rule, so I will not be able to carry you when we start walking.”

“But … ”

Rhaenys tears up, and Elia turns away. She’d not let her own weakness be the ruin of her now. “I am sorry, but that was the rule. You would not want your mother to knowingly break the rule, would you?” The answer is probably ’yes,’ so she moves on before such could be said. “If you grow weary, I am certain Jon would be willing to carry you.”

Judging by her expression, her daughter intended to not ever tire again if that was the alternative. “I will … walk,” she concedes. Elia wishes her luck, but will not hold her breath.

The next length of their journey is done along the water’s bank. The stones hide their tracks, the water their scents. She tries to encourage Jon to speak more about himself as they walk, to quiet her own nerves more than anything, but he’s a man more taciturn than any who came before. Never does a word escape his lips not pragmatic in nature.

Still, the silence wears on her, so Elia forces courage to swell in her chest as she again turns to her companion. “And what comes next?”

He sees fit to spare her a glance and nothing more.

“Jon,” she bites, “Is it truly so much trouble for you to answer me?”

“Dorne,” he tells her, as if she did not already know it.

A scowl graces her face by his invitation. “There are over two-hundred leagues between us and Sunspear. As the crow flies. You cannot mean for us to trek the whole way there by foot.”

“Hm.” A brown bird glides down to the water’s edge across the way, washing and preening its feathers as they pass it by from a distance. Jon watches it for a while and Elia is convinced it’s only an excuse to make her wait. “Why can I not? We each have two of them.”

“Because it will be snowing in Sunspear well before we ever set foot in the Prince’s Pass!” He makes an irritating little noise; apparently what she said is disagreeable to the point of humor. It was becoming increasingly evident that his uncle never took the time to impress upon him the knowledge of how one ought to speak with a proper lady. Either that or he was an exceptionally poor study. “Did I say something that you find amusing?”

“No,” he returns, and yet his lip quirks as he tugs on his tunic, pumping air to his chest like the bellows in a forge. “No, no, Your Highness. I simply think some snow would improve Dorne mightily. Barely south of the Mander and the air is already sweltering.”

A breeze lifts up from the river and its rocks, ruffling cloth and clothe and hair alike. “It is a wonderfully temperate day. In what world is this sweltering?” If you ignore the distant plume of smoke still rising on the horizon it might even be described as beautiful. There would be more than a few noble ladies of the Crownlands willing to close their eyes and name it precisely that.

It takes her embarrassingly long for her to notice that, for Jon, the conversation is over. He does not reply, nor does it seem he has any future plans to. Once again, the burden of filling the void falls upon her shoulders.

“But a chariot.”

He sighs tiredly and rubs his eyes. “And where shall I procure this chariot for you? Shall I ask the birds? The foxes? Perhaps the trees will treat us kindly enough and will warp themselves into the proper shape so that we might—”

“Alright,” Elia cuts in, “Alright. You have made your point.” More than made it, really. Her suggestion was made in light; there’s no need for him to take it so seriously. Still, they could afford to return to horseback and she tells him exactly this after a stone reaches up and grabs for his toes. He catches himself before it could turn ugly, but hardly soon enough to spare Elia an embarrassing gasp. It is the fifth time in half as many hours.

“Afford?” He directs her attention to the space on his hip a coin purse might hang from, patting the emptiness. “The only thing we can afford is the air we breathe and the wine we drink, both of which we already possess. Unless, that is, you have a convenient trove of treasure hidden somewhere amidst the brush?”

Elia thinks for a moment. “Then we should steal some.”

“No.” He shoots the idea down in an instant. It didn't matter to him if she'd meant coins or horses.

“You could at least pretend to give it a moment's consideration.”

His fingers flex around his sword’s leather wrapped pommel. “I am no thief.”

“Of course you are not,” Elia commends while hiding the many creative ways in which her eyes roll, “You are my noble protector, you would never stoop so low as to burgle.”

Still, he hardly needs to sound so offended by the suggestion—it was only that. Elia feels no great desire for it, neither, but she finds the quickness with which he dismisses it insulting. As if his stark refusal proves him somehow her better.

When she braves his face again, he’s squinting at her. Unamused by flattery, she muses, or unused to it. Whichever it is, his bemusement does not hinder the firmness of his eventual nod. “So long as that is clear.”

“Worry not your pretty head, Jon of the North, I will never ask a service of you that might bring you dishonor.” 

Elia thinks nothing of the comment; not the compliment it holds, nor its parallel with a certain oath of fealty. It slips from her tongue smoothly and the wind carries it to his ear before she can ever even hear the words for herself. Perhaps that is why she's so surprised by his reaction.

“I am not becoming your bloody sworn shield,” he scoffs, “Do you take me for a fool?”

That had not been her intention. “It would hardly be a binding oath if I deceive you into it,” she explains. “You know, you are surprisingly knowledgeable for a simple northern commoner. An oath of knights, the route the Mander cuts through the land … are all of your kinsmen as well informed as you?”

Silence. Fleeting and fleeing and swiftly-footed, but it is there for all to hear. A hesitation that belies some primitively crafted deception to come.

“Of course,” he answers. She knows it to be a lie, and that knowledge ferries any lingering thoughts of conversation from her mind.

This river is fed by a narrow lake, flowing north-northeast to the black, and the stones that line its shores are suitably dark. She and Jon crouch upon them at its edge and drink its waters from cupped hands.

Rhaenys struggles to mirror them, though she tries—her hands are kept too flat and her arms too slow. Elia wants to help but hesitates; knows this is something the child should learn for herself. To cover all eventualities. There is no guarantee that this is a journey Elia will survive, nor does she intend to if it is at the cost of her children's safety. She would not be the burden that encumbered their party, she refused to.

“Princess,” Jon rumbles. Elia looks over quickly, tucking an errant lock of hair behind her ear, but she is not the one to whom he addresses it. And so, with a finger, she nudges her daughter and gestures to transfer Rhaenys’s attention to the man. He performs a quick demonstration on how to drink from the lake. “Cup your hands more, like—” Rhaenys hides from him in her mother’s thigh and he sighs, “—this.”

Instruction falls to her as Jon quietly departs for the forest.

Her daughter is a fast learner, but poorly coordinated. She understands the idea, but struggles to keep her hands together. Water flows through a gap between them to their backs, dribbling down onto her dirty gown—dampening it anew.

Soon there are shallow streaks of water snaking down her cheeks, the light catching their edges and letting them glisten over the ruddiness they hide. Elia pulls the ends of her sleeves over her thumbs and dabs, clearing the skin of the water. “Come,” she says once done, “Let us see where that man has run off to.”

The edges of the forest are dark. She cannot say what lays deeper within—not from where they stand at the shore. It unnerves her, but she forces her hands to remain steady as they move closer.

Her daughter makes a whining, keening noise in her throat, stomping her boots in an antsy way. It brings forth the image of a horse and, in order to appease the child’s royal temper, Elia plucks Rhaenys up and settles the child against her hip.

The borrowed tunic she wears would be a good fit for a man, but a man Elia was not. The neck pulls wide with the addition of her daughter and sweat quickly gathers where Rhaenys’s forehead rests on her bare collar.

“You are so bloody warm,” she bemoans before cringing. It takes only a moment to realize why. “Seven Hells, I am even starting to sound like him.” By journey’s end, she would be the most sullen and surly woman in all of Dorne. What would her brothers think of her then? That she makes for truly miserable company, she reckons.

She enters through the space between two bushes—the same she had watched Jon split only earlier—and peers around the forest within. “Jon?” she calls to a symphony of birdsong. She wanders the perimeter, occasionally calling his name, saying ‘Jon, Jon, Jon.’

No answer follows. Not once does a call ever return for her. Never does she hear her own name from his lips, in his brogue; neither that nor ‘princess,’ nor ‘Martell,’ nor anything else for that matter. Once more, all is quiet in the Kingswood.

And that silence—it is dis quieting.

Any would feel it, but she does not let it stop her—and for that she is glad. She finds Jon not long thereafter; stumbles upon him really. He sits upon a fallen log, his back to a trunk devoid of any bark. At first, she believes him upset by Rhaenys’s continued fear of him, but he was not that kind of man. She presses closer, calling his name once more, and huffs in belated amusement when he answers with a leaden breath.

“Fool,” she murmurs with a shake of her head, sleeping at a time like this. Her hair becomes untucked from her ear with the motion, sliding across her temple and cheek, then curtaining her eye. She blows it in a huff, but it only sways, so she lowers herself to the ground. “Stand for a moment, sweetling.”

Rhaenys notably doesn’t. “Why?”

Her eyelids flutter. Patience, she reminds herself, but the muscles of her arm are burning fiercer than the fires which stole the capital and it becomes a hard promise to keep. “Do as your mother tells you,” she commands. Only once her arm is free can she captain her hair backward again and turn her attention to the northman for true.

From this low of an angle, she has an easier time observing him than ever before. His eyes are shut and his lips parted, notably lacking the tension they normally hold. He possesses the fullest lashes she believes she’s ever had the pleasure of seeing on a man; and little puffs of air leave him as he slumbers. 

With a deep breath and an unsteady thump of her heart, she places a hand upon his shoulder and gently shakes him. “Jon,” she whispers once, then louder. “Jon.”

A hum leaves him and his eye twitches, but the sound is too low in tone, too high in his throat for it to be entirely conscious. That tension is back, finding purchase at the corner of his brow, just above the faintest print of a crow’s foot. From this distance, the scars that strike out across his face feel distinctly out of place.

“Jon,” she tries again. “You may not sleep here as you are. It is unsafe.” The tree at his back meant he is not likely to fall, but that is the least of their worries, the lowest of their dangers. It is a crime to wake him, she thinks, but the forest is wide and home to many fell things. He should not be sleeping so exposed, not with only herself and two children to guard him.

It takes some encouragement on her part, but eventually the northman rouses. “Elia?” he murmurs from his dreams, “What is it?”

“You fell asleep.” Her grin is edging on wry, but it does not survive long enough to arrive at it in full. “We are asking too much of you.”

“No.” He shakes his head and uses the tree to stabilize himself as he stands. Elia’s hand is hovering nearby, ready to support him, but he does not seem to need it. “No. I never sleep well anymore, that is all.”

She frowns at him. “You are an exceptionally poor liar, has anyone ever told you this?”

“A few,” he admits.

“Your sisters again?”

He shrugs. “Among others.”

A huff leaves her as she turns, helping Rhaenys up to her feet and holding her hand as they move deeper into the forest. “They seem the sensible sort. I doubt they would want their dear brother to exhaust himself so fiercely for the sake of a stranger.”

“You seem strangely desperate to be rid of me.” He dodges a branch, pushing it up with the hand not occupied by his sword's handle. When a noise leaves her throat and he realizes she has no way to manage the same herself, he doubles back and holds it aloft for her.

She thanks him, quietly, before returning to present matters. “I should be rid of you irregardless if we continue as we are. How do you mean to fight our enemies when you can barely pick up your own feet?

The scrunch of his nose is highlighted by a stray beam of sunlight as he mutters, ‘our?’  

“Yes,” she says, “Our. Or do you disagree that we are in this together now?”

The next branch she must duck for herself. He must not appreciate her words. “Your enemies are mine, that does not make them ours. Not until the inverse becomes true as well.”

He sure was theatrical, wasn’t he? “And who, exactly, are your enemies? Perhaps I will consider it.”

“Lannisters, Boltons. The cold gods.”

Oh, Elia lets out a sudden laugh with her voice cracking at the heart of it. He is only jesting, that must be the reason for the strange gravity he speaks with. “Grumkins and snarks, as well?”

He turns and places his back to a tree, reclining into it as he looks at her. His eyes rake and raze over her skin in equal measure, a process that only ends when he forces his expression into something akin to levity. It is warped, however, and unlikely to convince anyone. “If they wrong me so,” he says. Elia cannot help but feel as if she’s missing something.

“Who,” a new voice says, tinny and tiny and full of many inherited anxieties, “Who are the cold gods?”

Jon softens his expression as he turns to the speaker, smoothing the grimace his lips seem convinced is a smile. He pushes off of the tree and crouches low to the ground, yawning. “They are beings from the Lands of Always Winter, a place as far north as north can go. And they exist only to turn the warmth of spring into a thing of stories. Their flesh is pale like milk, fragile and blue and icy. They make no marks in the snow as they move, leaving no trace of their presence save for a lingering chill. And they speak in voices like the shattering of ice.”

He pauses, eyes flickering up to meet Elia’s own. This is her chance to pause the story here, to spare her daughter any potential nightmares, but she doesn’t. She has always loved stories, and today would not be the day she breaks faith with childhood fascination.

“Long ago, in a past now forgotten by the southern kingdoms, there occurred a great battle. The first men of the Night’s Watch joined hands with the children of the forest—their once enemies—and together they pushed back against the gathering of inhuman winds. An age of darkness and cold had descended upon the land, long enough to last a generation. Children like you had gone their whole lives knowing nothing but snow and wind and hunger. They yearned for little more than they did summer. And they fought to have it again.”

“Did they win?”

“Did they win?” He scoffs. “Of course, they won. We warriors of the north are made of sterner stuff. Or do you deny that today you know of the sun and her stars?”

An unruly smile breaks through her daughter’s facade. It seems even this forest could not make a daughter of House Nymeros Martell forget her heritage, the guiding light of the red sun. “So they are gone? Forever?”

“Of course,” he tells her, but he looks away as he says it, so Elia cannot know if he believes his own words or not. “Do you need to rest, Your Highness?”

“Me?” Whyever for was he asking her? “You are in far worse shape than I.”

He pushes himself to stand, and even the simple act seems to tax him. Rhaenys is already lost in thought, head filled with fantasies born of his story, so he feels safe enough to whisper to Elia, “But you are breathing heavily again.”

She makes an attempt to steady herself, but cannot. He was not wrong, this journey has been hard, thrice so since they were forced to abandon their mounts. Her body could scarcely bear it, not once has the ache in her heart ebbed nor the daggers in her lungs soothed. It would seem that despite her best efforts to conceal it, Jon had noticed.

“And you are barely staying atop your feet.”

“Maybe so,” he says, “But still I ask you.”

“Fine, yes.” Curse this man and his warrantless diligence, she does not understand what she has done to deserve it. As the days progress, her heart is forcing her to mistrust it less and less, despite her mind’s urgings. “Let us find a place to rest, but you will be sleeping while I keep watch this night.”

He makes to argue, she knows this in her heart of hearts, he does the same every night, but a yawn interrupts him and he relents instead. “Very well then.”

Only once they find a thicker copse to hide within does she speak again, continuing a conversation from days now past. “If not knighthood, then is there something else you desire?”

“Nothing comes to mind, Your Highness.”

Elia frowns and hands him the last of their hard bread and dried meat. “Nothing at all? There must be something you want, something you lack.”

“Something I lack.” For a long time he is silent, contemplative. Their hollow fills with the quiet sounds of his chewing as he considers it, sleepily, and eventually he seems to come to a decision. His exhaustion increases tenfold as he utters, at last, “Peace.”

“Peace?” Elia echoes, but he is already fast asleep.

As he rests, she ponders that.

Peace. It is such a queer thing. It is the reality the maiden takes for granted, the one lost with the flowering of her body; it is the crone’s unspoken wish and one they only expect to find in death.

Elia has made hers with war, for she did not expect to know anything else in her life. Peace is a concept she forsakes; the gift she desires only for her children. The mother’s peace, it was, or the lack thereof.

She wonders, long and fruitlessly, what peace was to a man like Jon. 

Chapter Text

Crows gather atop the branches that reign sovereign near the edge of the Kingswood. Their murderous songs haunt the waking within, far from those a morning dove sings. Like laughter they sang, unholy and hideous.

Perhaps they are to blame for the way things will run afoul that morning, perhaps they are but a prelude. Elia cannot say, she is neither seer nor woods witch—the future is not something within her right to divine. She does not have the gift of prophecy, though she would not spurn it now.

It is the way in which the trees creak and groan and shudder that unsets her heart from ease; it is how there exists no sound louder than her own thoughts, no darkness deeper than her own worries. It is a long night made longer still by the company she keeps, or the lack thereof. But that is the bed she has made—one of leaves and dirt, lacking all semblance of comfort and affluence.

Dawn breaks with the sudden crescendo of the black birds’ jeering, and in the diminuendo that follows it becomes easier to hear the distant cracking of a stick underfoot. Elia thinks nothing of it, tossing it from her mind, and focuses instead on the slumbering man beside her in the hollow.

“It is not as though I want to mistrust you,” she says to none but the rising sun and he who would hear her not, “But it is difficult to place faith in a man who claims to desire nothing.”

Even those who own the world lust for more of it—the forests with their rills and their hills, the valleys and the mountains, too. They want these and more; these and all else their fingers can dream of grasping for. The skies and their stars, perhaps, or higher still. Avarice is a universal trait, after all, and one to which she knowingly subscribes.

So, she does not believe him when he answers ‘peace,’ not wholly. Not minimally, neither. Perhaps it is a piece of a puzzle, perhaps it is several, but she is less than likely to see the whole picture from it.

A gust of wind curls around their hollow, ruffling leaves and hair alike, and as Elia pulls some from her lips she spies a hidden blade of grass still trapped in Jon’s. She extracts it for him, twirling it between two fingers.

It does not make sense to her, the tale he tells. Not one bit. A northman, conveniently in the south, with knowledge or skill enough to prevent the murder of a queen he was scarcely subject to. His presence in the capital, while improbable, was not impossible. This she could not deny. But, everything that follows? That— that she could. That she did.

“Why did you come to save us? Why were you in the city in the first place?” Elia cannot help her mind’s wandering, her heart’s wondering. “Did you live there? Were you a traveler? A craven who flew from the Trident? A butcher with a stand to hawk from on the Street of Flies?” Did he have a family? A life he left behind to the fires? Something to forsake for the sake of her and her children? She had so many questions. So, so many—with so few of the answers that should naturally follow. “If it truly is only peace that you seek, you have settled upon the queerest and most winding route to her shores.”

Her mind becomes distracted by the yawn that commandeers her lips. And her eyes burn at their bottoms. She blinks too many times to count before a second one can take her. Another stick snaps somewhere in the forest surrounding. It is loud and sharp, but drowned out by the pounding of her hands upon her cheeks as she tries to keep to her wakefulness.

Elia will fault the crows, but when the tip of a bandit’s arrow is suddenly held against her throat, she knows the blame will fall squarely upon her own shoulders. At least within Jon’s eventual and damning gaze.

Perhaps she ought to be concerned that, with a faceless man holding her life in his hands (as well as those of her children), her thoughts turn first to her companion’s impending disappointment. Perhaps that is just the measure of faith she now places in his ability to ferry her from this fate, perhaps it is just her lunacy.

“I’d not move if I were you,” her would-be killer kindly advises, “Scream neither.”

Her cheeks curl as she clenches her eyes and tilts her head back. Muscles tight in every way they can be. Her heart pounds so mightily that she’s certain a cut will kill her with how much her neck thrums with her lifeblood. She reaches for the black-handled knife at her waist, subtle and quiet, and the man fails to notice. When he barks a command to his allies hidden amongst the brush, she steals upon the chance she is generously offered.

The knife comes free with a jerk and a scream, and only as his reality dawns upon him does she slam it deep in his chest.

He does not die—does not even bleed.

“That were hardly kindly of you,” he says instead. A surprised noise leaves her as the man grabs the knife and tosses it over his shoulder. He graces her with a yellowed, gap-toothed smile, and continues, “You really ought to unsheathe the blade ‘fore you try skewerin’ a man with it.” Then, just as easily as it comes, his smile departs. And she knows then that, had he wished it, he could have killed her. Wrung her neck or slashed her throat. From the look in his eyes he would have, too, but she must hold more value alive.

He does not kill her. But the back of his glove tastes like leather and dirt and iron. She spits red onto his boots just so they could match her own.

She shan’t turn from him, though she wishes too. Not even as more bandits pour from the trees like autumn leaves, descending from all sides. Not as screams and grunts fill the air. Not as those ill-omened crows cease their laughing and take flight in search of quieter trees to roost in. She does not turn from him; she does not—though he is ugly and vicious and he stank far worse than she—turning from him is the same as falling upon her sword. It was akin to courting the Stranger, and though she was ready, she was not willing.

More than anything she wishes to fly like those birds, to flee and to check upon her children, to gather them in her arms and lay kisses upon the tears that streak their cheeks. To extract a promise from the northman’s lips that he would ferry them to safety, irregardless of what may come to pass.

But it is not possible. Not with how the bandit approached again, not with how his fingers tightened around her jaw, not with the littlest of them jabbing into the freshly cut red line on her throat and the blood that wells from it, and not with the point of his arrow at the apple of her cheek—the corner of her eyes. It collected tears at its tip that wet its shaft and ran down to the callused hand that held it aloft.

Still, she hears grunting and crying from those she cares for and those she might one day grow to. She desires to run to them with each and every one, damn her own life if she must, but this cruel man’s grip is tight.

Another scream echoes through the air then. Aegon’s. She jerks again, without thought, and this time the man watches her go. She’s on the ground before even she realizes she’s free, the sudden loosening of his grip sending her tumbling back with the slightest of jerks. Still, it takes only a moment for her to find her feet and dart over to her children’s side.

Rhaenys trembles in a hollowy man’s shadow and in her arms her brother sobs to the heavens. Yet, the girl herself does not cry. She kicks the man’s arms away whenever and wherever they appear, letting out screams that crack and die before their ends, but she does not cry—at least not until Elia shoves the man aside and collapses over top them both, shielding them with her back.

She makes eye contact with Jon through the pit of her arm and the three men who hold him down. The look on his face is dark and it worries her, for she cannot tell who it is meant to be directed at—the ones who bind him or the one who failed to alert him of their nearing.

Her attention soon must return to the one who’d ambushed them. “What do you want with us?”

He refuses her an answer, not that she expected one, and asks a question of his own. “Why’re you so far off the highway, friend?”

“Twas the quickest route,” she lies, “We are returning to my father’s keep.”

“Oho? Y’hear that gentlemen? We found areselves in the company of a proper lady! A keep, she says, a keep!” One of them barks a laugh and it draws her attention away, by the time she looks back at him he’s smiling again, her attempt on his life long and forgotten. His heart seemed to move more by thoughts of gold than those of steel. “Tell me, proper lady, what do y’think your father will pay for your life?”

The sound of his voice is hard to pick up on through the continued screaming of children, but she manages. “I—I haven’t a frame of reference for an amount.” His smile begins to droop, so she quickly throws a hand out and promises him, “More than men can dream! Enough for you to eat for the rest of your days and for your children for theirs!” She glances around, but half of the men seem half as impressed as they ought to be. “Enough for all of you.”

One of the crooks sniffs his crooked nose. “Only enough?”

“We want more than enough,” another agrees, simpler than the last. He is one of the three who hold her companion down, and his distraction is enough for Jon to buck and kick and nearly grasp freedom. The men waste no time collapsing back atop him, smothering any and all rebellion with their combined weight. The speaker does not join them, however, still distracted by thoughts of his reward. “Enough f’r a keep of our own, each! That’s what I say!”

She nods jerkily. “Of course! That and more!” An empty process, and the easiest she’s ever made. What was important was not fulfilling it, but buying Jon enough time to work out how they were to escape these men. She imagines it will be bloody. With each of her children’s screams she regrets it less. “If you were to escort us to him I would see you fine men rewarded.”

“Who’s yer father?” He steps closer and Elia must think quickly to provide an answer that satisfies.

“Monty Cafferen,” she decides, praying he interprets her pause as fear over fabrication. The tremble in her voice only helps to sell the point. “He is the—” 

Her attempt to explain wins her a scowl. “I know who ‘e is. I’m no fucking halfwit.”

The simple one looks to the three piled atop Jon and whispers from his cheek, “Who is ‘e?” None of them seem to quite know the answer: that House Cafferen is the noble family who rules from their ancestral seat in Fawnton, and Monty is the old lord who hermits himself away behind its walls. He is fair and overall well-liked in his rule, at least so far as Elia has heard it.

Their keep lies in the south of the Stormlands, and Elia’s lie will keep them alive until well after Jon’s wrists are decorated with rope and their journey to it has begun. Their destination lay many leagues further from the furthest tip of the Kingswood; it is a long and arduous journey they must make, and much of it exists in the foothills of the red mountains. She doubted these men knew that, though, or if they did they failed to truly comprehend the distance which separates here from there.

Elia shushes her children fruitlessly and gives the man who had struck her a painted smile. “I do not consider you simple, ser, nor anything similar. I believe we only got off on the wrong foot.”

“You stabbed me.”

She’d stabbed his jerkin and without steel bared. At worst he’d bruise, the sniveler. “And for that you have my deepest apologies. I was tired and surprised, you must understand. I mistook you for a bandit and reacted accordingly. I can now see just how wrong I clearly was.” She feigns remorse; a task she is hard pressed to accomplish considering how little she felt for him.

When his displeasure remains, she licks her teeth and brushes a lock of hair behind her ear—batting her lashes. “You all seem like warriors most capable.” It took three to mount a single, sleep-deprived man still half in his dreams. They could not be the furthest from the sort. “I meant what I said, my father would see you justly rewarded if you assist in my safe return.”

He eyed her. “How can we know what you say is true? A lady she claims to be, yet she only has one guard and no ornaments?”

“We flew from King’s Landing with such haste that I had no time to gather anything valuable,” she shrugs, “All those jewels and baubles are replaceable, after all. And my companion is the only one of my guards who survived the journey thus far, the rest were nothing special and not worth the coin, it seems. With how easily you snuck up and captured us, I am certain your group will be different.”

“Trained ‘em myself,” he boasts. And it showed. “Who slain your men?”

She casts her gaze around. “Highwaymen taking advantage of the war. Tis why I was so frightened by your sudden arrival.”

“Fine,” he eventually says, after a long consideration, and gestures to his men. “We will assist you.”

The men regather themselves slowly after that. And, though initially uninviting, each of their tunes change after they have a whispered word with their presumed captain. The pace they set toward the south is slow and lumbering, yet constant. They do not afford her the many breaks Jon would—not that she had even noticed he had until then—and the sun is high above when they reach the edge of the Kingswood where the trees grow shorter and sparser.

By the time such an event occurs, she has come to learn a few things.

For one, these men were not bandits. Not truly. At least not as far as she could tell or they would say. According to the words of one of the men or another, they were under the crown’s employ and charged with preventing unlawful hunting of the King’s game. They kept track of where the best hunting would be, and maintained the peace of the forest.

She does not think they are aware of what transpired in the capital, however, and she feared their reactions when they learned their next coin purse was likely never to come. When they learn the truth, it would not be from her lips that it arrives.

For another, most of these men were nothing of the sort. Boys, she decided they were; in their majorities but only barely. It was no wonder they could barely keep Jon down.

“We’ll have you there in a jiffy, madam,” one tells her as he blocks the sun’s light from his eyes with a hand.

She smiles at him, adjusting her grip on her daughter as she does. He had been one of the ones who captured Jon, so his presence offends her the least.

“You are most kind, ser,” she tells him, “Though I do not understand why you must bind my knight.” Her arms, on the other hand, had been left completely free—though her children did a better job of marshaling them than any rope could ever hope to. 

“He is a hateful man, that guard of yours. Tried biting me, he did, like some foul-tempered cat!” He harrumphs, shaking his head. “Truthfully, I worry he may have been vying to deceive you.”

“Deceive me?” Elia widens her eyes and casts a baleful look at the one in question. “However do you mean?” It is a battle to keep herself from loosing an untimely and ungainly laugh. She doubts Jon would take too kindly to the comparison. A foul-tempered cat , she privately muses, then nearly laughs again.

“A tremendous rake, he is, he is.” The man eyes Jon up and down. “He lusts for you, it is plain to see. And I do not believe him when he calls himself a knight; knights have armor. It’s what makes ‘em so gallant.”

This time there is no helping her laugh, no stopping it from bubbling up from her chest. It is borne of discomfort, however, rather than amusement. She did not very much enjoy speaking of anyone’s lust, least of all theirs for her. “I must say I am blind to whatever it is you are seeing.” 

“You are only a lady, that is understandable. A man is better at seeing other men for their worth.”

Elia’s smile is thin, but he does not seem to notice the strain she places on herself to give it. “I will take your word for it, ser.” 

Her words earn her a pat on the shoulder. The contact makes Rhaenys yipe and tremble on her arm, and Aegon begins to fuss again, so the man departs for a quieter edge of the trail. As she works to calm and temper her children, her eyes stray to Jon. She tries to find in him whatever it was the other man does, but all she spies are his teeth as he yawns wider than wide.

He blinks his eyes tiredly as he’s dragged forward by the ropes binding his wrists thrice over, barely paying his captors any mind. She watches as he looks up and around, taking in the dawning meadows, before his eyes inevitably meet hers.

The world neither stands still nor flips on its axis, but it’s a near thing. That is the only manner in which she can explain the way in which the northman trips. History shows him as confident in his steps, except when tired. Partnered with his yawns, she’s inclined to believe not even a full night’s rest was enough to cure him. He needed a week's worth or more.

The arc of his fall sends him into one of the young men, striking his leg. Catching himself is impossible with wrists clad in rope, so he hits the dirt hard. He’s still coughing from the impact when he’s seized by the shoulders and hauled up.

There’s one cut across his tunic and another across his ribs. The fabric of his shirt is slowly dyed red as he wobbles and stands, clinging to his belly like a second skin. The game warden inspects it and then the ground, but only grunts upon finding nothing but a few red blades of grass.

“Hm.” Suddenly his cheeks and jaw are covered by gloved hands. The boy smiles at him and Elia must make several steps to the side in order to catch Jon’s reaction. He smiles back, but his feels somehow crueler than his captor’s. “You fall into me on purpose?”

“I tripped, you trollop.”

That answer might have been a fine one … had Jon not insulted him and rolled his eyes while doing so. The young man grunts again and there is no other warning before his forehead strikes Jon on the bridge of his nose.

Elia gasps as he goes down and rushes to his side. “Jon!” There’s blood in the air and on his sleeve. More than she ought to think a nose has any right to produce. He rises up on his wrists and spits even more onto the ground. It’s thicker than water and a string of it bridges his lower lip to the dirt until it breaks and hangs low, floating.

She sets Rhaenys down as she kneels at his side, and her daughter offers what simple comforts she can—patting him on the back as he coughs and spits. Elia pulls her sleeve over her wrist, intending to bring it to his lip and clean it, but his hand finds her waist and he shoves her back onto her rear.

“Jon?” she utters, faintly confused. More than a little insulted.

He glares at her and when he speaks, his voice is nasally, strained, and faint. “Stay far away from me,” he condemns; harsh, yet low enough for only her ears. Then, louder, he says, “You are too kind to your servants, my lady. Do not dirty your sleeve for me. It was my own fault for tripping.”

She listens, she hears him. Eyes were already turning toward their interaction with interest; those of the boy who casted doubt upon Jon’s intentions earlier felt particularly heavy. She finds herself nodding along and dusting herself off as she stands. When she holds her hand out for her daughter, Rhaenys actually hesitates to join her.

That would not do. They could not give these men any reason to suspect the truth was any margin different than what they had been told. Not devoid of weapons and options as they were.

Her mouth opens before she asks it to, preparing to call her daughter back to her side, but a voice interrupts her before she can. Jon’s. And she thanks the gods for him then, each and every one. The Mother and the Father most ardently. The name she nearly says is not for the ears of these men. It would only complicate matters. Jon knows this well and acts accordingly, despite all that has happened—all her recent wrongs.

“Lady Arya,” he says, somehow both more sudden and soft than he was with Elia. His eyes are wide and she can understand why, with what she nearly revealed. He lightly and reluctantly nudges Rhaenys toward her mother. “You are a sweet thing, but you must leave me to my troubles. Your kindness is undeserved.”

“But—”

Elia grabs her hand and pulls her away before anything else could be said, knowing what must be done. She makes for a fine mummer when she knows what play she is to be acting in, what role she is to play.  “Come now, sweetling. Stay by my side.”

Small legs make for small steps, but Rhaenys follows her lead despite her confusion. Her hand slips into hers just as the leader nears. He inspects each party for but a moment, lingering the longest on where Jon is picking himself up from the grasses. At last, he turns to his own man to ask, “What happened ‘ere?”

“He tripped and fell,” comes the simple answer.

“Break his nose on grass and peat, did ‘e? Do not lie to me, boy. You were always too quick to anger.” He looks back at Jon, taking in the various bloody parts of him with a hum, then casts another scathing look at the boy. “Well? Give ‘em something to clean ‘emself up with! This is your doing, won’t have you sowin’ discord in my troop with no recompense.”

The boy groans and scowls. “He hit me first.”

“Yet here I see no blood on you, save yer cheek. Not even yer own. Hardly seems warranted, now does it?” He shakes his head. “Tell me, if trippin’ into a man is to be repaid with a broken nose and a cut ‘cross the belly, then what do you reckon your actions will bring? Think next time. Honestly, your temper will be the death of you.”

“His hands are bound,” the boy reminds him, strangely proud, “Not like he can do anything about it.”

“That make it right?” He grabs the back of the boy’s head and shoves him away, pointing toward a gathering of men in the distance. “Yorel caught supper, go gut it.”

Whatever argument the boy has yet to make dies on his tongue with the cross look he’s given by the older gentleman. He hurries off, tail tucked between his legs, but not before a rag is snatched from his pocket and thrown to Jon.

Her companion catches it against his chest and bobs his head. “Cheers,” Jon grumbles. It is the most disingenuous the word has ever before been said, she suspects. 

Watching his attempt to clean himself is a pitiful, pitiable thing. His forearms could hardly separate, and when he tries the rope only shifts up enough to reveal a hint of skin rubbed raw. If there were fewer eyes upon them, she would not have been strong enough to stop herself from helping when he eventually fumbles and drops the rag—his face only half dry. It would not have mattered had she, for his nose continued to run despite his best efforts.

“Hate to do this, but I can’t leave you with your sword. Not after all,” he gestures with a twirling finger, “that. You understand, don’t you?”

Elia shifts her attention from him to Jon. When he doesn’t respond, she moves back to the leader, who doesn’t say anything either. From then on, it’s every man for himself and she never quite knows where to look. The silence is longer than she can stomach, only ending when the stranger deems it has stretched too long.

“A proud knight, you are. Trust me, I can tell. But you must see things from my end, I—I have to protect my own. He was wrong for striking you as he did, I don’t deny it, but I also can’t change the past. What’s done is done. And I shan’t allow a vengeful man to remain armed in my camp.”

Jon lowers the rag. When he speaks, his voice is still pained. “And if I swear to not harm the brat?”

“What use do I have for the promises of a northman?” He waves the idea away lazily. “They say you lot are tree-fucking savages. Hardly makes f’r a trustworthy sort, I’d argue.”

“Hm,” Jon drawls, “Funny.” Notably, nobody is laughing.

In a battle of wills, Jon is the clear victor. He only speaks when spoken to, otherwise ignoring the leader. Even bound as he is, he holds more power than their captor. Such is obvious when the other man dares not even approach him to take the sword himself.

A biter, that was what that one boy had claimed. Perhaps there was more truth to his words than she’d seen for herself.

“Look. We can do this the easy way, and you can let me untie that scabbard from your hip. Or you can try your hardest to pointlessly hold on to it for as long as you are capable as—”

“Oh, just take the fucking sword,” Jon snaps, “It is shite steel, anyway. No good it’ll do you having it, even less than it does me now.”

He leans to the side to make his belt easier to untie, and after a few short moments, the deed is done. They were wholly trapped and without recourse. Elia loses herself to her thoughts then, to starts of plans and concepts of others. As such, she nearly misses the quiet drawing of the stolen blade. The voices which follow are harder to overlook.

“The shit is wrong with your iron up north?”

She glances up and loses her breath. It takes everything within herself—everything that she has and everything she one day might, all that and more—just to not react. Her body goes unnaturally still, her eyes uncannily wide, but she manages.

The sword is darker than most, appearing almost black. It’s a near thing, but it was at least darker than the gray one might expect—that one should expect. Jon had gone through lengths to disguise it, that much is clear. The blade was flecked with blood and dirt and debris, but its sheathe had held on to too much in its unveiling and the steel was visible once more. The pommel—now, it had been shattered, only hints of white peaking through at the end. The handle, too, had been thrown into disrepair. Torn apart then reclad in poor and aged leather.

And yet, there was no mistaking it.

“I was a smith’s hand as a lad,” Jon lies when nobody speaks. She knows he must be, knows it and knows it well. The admission is meant to distract from the truth, to pull the leader’s attention away from the blade. To make him believe it nothing of importance. “This was the first blade I ever helped to forge. Not even worth the materials that went into it, so he claimed. Made me take it with me when I journeyed south. Said it would serve me well for as fine a knight I’d ever become, the buggerer.”

None of that is possible. Not when the blade in that man’s hands was more priceless than each of those which formed her goodfather’s throne—more valuable than all of them combined.

It was Valyrian Steel—the rippling mark across its length could not belay anything else. A sword most precious, forged from an art long lost to the folds of time. Even the worst of the freehold’s swords would be lighter, stronger, harder, and sharper than the best a castle smith could forge. It would never lose its edge, never risk its temper. Even purposefully mistreated as it was, this one would fetch fortunes from any lord who could afford it. Wars have been fought over less.

The leader looks at it for a moment longer before sliding it back into its scabbard with a grunt. “Why’s it look like that?”

Jon shrugs with purpose. “Water too cold for a proper temper, I’d wager. Ask Mikken of Wintertown if you are that curious, he would know better than I.”

There’s a brief silence before his eyes flick to meet hers and the glare that is necessary comes far too easily. She had been such a fool. Too blinded by fear to see the truth of her savior. 

It falls to her to make a decision—to pick a side. Here and now. In this instance. The sole swordsman who ferried her from the capital, or the band of boys and men who were frugal with their kindnesses, but simple and upfront in their desires.

She thinks she must have come to trust Jon far more than she’d thought—lengths more than she’d desired—for the betrayal leaves her more hurt than is reasonable. It means the decision that follows is far too easy for her to make, chest aching as hers is. Her fingers twitch, tightening around her daughter’s for a moment before the tension eases and she exhales, slowly.

Perhaps it is the lie that tugs a foreign scowl to her lips, perhaps it is just how stupid she feels. So many emotions swirl within her and not one is pretty. She recognizes that, welcomes it even. It makes what must come a simpler matter.

“You lied to me?” Elia turns on the northman with a specific fury. She wants to say more, but her irritation is endless, the words that dance on her tongue ceaseless. They each are valid and true and scathing, but with them all piling atop the ones before, scrambling to the tip in some desperate plea to be voiced, she is left tongue tied and without follow-up.

A common northman, her arse. A northern conman, more like.

In the end, she opens her mouth several times, but little ever comes out. She lets out a noise more scream than grunt, and storms off in the direction of a distant copse. Rhaenys is unable to match her pace, so she gathers her in her arms and continues on without missing a beat. Her daughter’s hands are damp and clammy, but they do not feel nearly as cold against her cheeks as the frustrated tears that streak them.

The leader trails behind her, allowing her the distance she needed to work through her emotions herself. And so, none are near enough to hear her daughter’s words as she finally finds her voice.

“Muna,” she whines, looking over her mother’s shoulder, “Kekepa forgot my name. I am Rhaenys, not Arya.”

Kekepa. Elia closes her eyes. Her jaw trembles and her breath turns heavy as she tries to force her eyes to dry. ‘Kekepa’ is a Valyrian word, one Rhaegar taught Rhaenys from his own lips, and one Elia thinks must mean something akin to ‘granduncle.’

It is a title originally bestowed upon a certain member of the Kingsguard: Lewyn Martell. He is Elia’s uncle—or was. He likely fell upon the Trident alongside her husband. His fate was not deemed important enough to be included in the raven sent with haste to the capital. Perhaps he breathes still, but she doubted it. Her uncle was a great man and an even greater knight, he would not have fled the field of battle, though she wished he would. Her fate may not now be so tenuous had he been at her side.

In years and months past, Rhaenys, the sweet, young girl that she is, could not differentiate her relative’s face from the others within the Kingsguard. The helmets that were their standard made certain of that. As a result, she’d taken to calling any man with the traditional white cloak by her uncle’s title, to Lewyn’s dismay. It had become a source of amusement in the king’s keep. Of levity. Something with which they rarely had in surplus. The title must have come to mean any who safeguard her.

But, to hear it now … Elia could scarcely bear it.

“Jon is … ” She begins to say, only to sigh. She did not have the strength to explain it. “We cannot say your name around these men, okay? So for now, if one of us says Arya, pretend it is your name. Can you do that? For me?”

“But I am Rhaenys. Did he forgot?”

“No,” Elia assures her, as geese fly past in a chevron above their heads, “No, he did not forget.”

“We should tell him it again,” her daughter argues, “He must know.”

Elia doesn’t have the heart to tell her that she may never get the chance to.

They make camp in that copse. Even her aching feet argue that they should have tried to forge further on, but the decision is not hers to make.

She finds a seat on a fallen log and picks bark from its surface to pass the time. Rhaenys is beside her, leaning into her arm, sleeping and drooling.

There is no clearing to gather in, so the group is spread amongst the trees. Elia peers around, keeping track of what everyone is doing, and pauses when she catches sight of Jon. Her nose lifts and curls and she forces herself to look elsewhere for fear of reigniting an anger that would do her no good. He was sleeping, anyway, and she was not cruel even to kick him awake so that she might do something constructive with her anger. Or destructive.

A stick cracks under foot somewhere in her periphery and she knows better now to look toward the noise. One of the younger boys is approaching her, bearing a similarity to the one who broke Jon’s nose, save a few years.

“Good morrow,” he greets her, with a bob of his head and a pleasant smile.

Elia eyes him critically before humming. “We are soundly into the evening.”

“So we are,” he agrees, before taking a seat beside her on the log. “Does milady require anything?”

“No.” Perhaps she is too quick in her response, the wince he gives would suggest something of the sort, but he failed to even ask permission to join her. She owed him nothing. “I am well situated, thank you.”

He twists to face her, perhaps too eagerly, and crosses one of his legs over the top of the log. “My name is Gyles.”

She eyes him through her lashes. “Well met, Gyles.”

He waits for a span of three breaths before gesturing to her and saying, “This is generally the part of a conversation where the pretty lady introduces herself.”

Her eyelids flutter to a close as she brings her daughter closer into her side. “You may call me Lady Cafferen.”

“But that is not your name.”

He is correct, but not in the way he is thinking. “Anything more would be improper.”

“Anything less would make us strangers.”

“Indeed, it would.” Because that is exactly what they were, and exactly how she would like them to remain. She did not need nor want to know anything more of this boy. He was a means to an end, and one she would use until she could not.

He scoots closer. “I’d like us to be more than that.”

“I know your name. Does that not already settle the debt?”

“Mm. You are … Dornish, yes?”

“I am.”

He bobs his head merrily. “Hm. Thought so. I knew a Dornish girl once, she was pretty, too, but not nearly as fancy as you.”

She cracks an eye open and peers down at her current attire. For some reason, she sincerely doubted that.

Gyles must catch the act, because he’s quick to lay an unwarranted hand on her shoulder and assure her. “It is not in the manner of dress, but how you hold yourself.”

“How I hold myself?” She regrets asking as soon as the words leave her. Why she entertains the boy is anyone’s guess. The answer is that she needs these men to like her; but she wished doing so did not require indulging some poor maidboy’s delusions and fancies.

His eyes rake up her body, from head to toe, then back again. “You have nice … er, posture.”

A short distance away a man barks out a laugh and turns their way, smirking. “Oh, yes. We’ve all noticed you admiring her posture, lad.” He must have been listening in.

Another breaks through the treeline, slinging an arm around the former’s shoulder. “Posture? What the bleeding ‘ell are you tellin’ ‘er, Gyles? Tha’s just an excuse for you to stare at ‘er arse,” he heckles.

The boy shoots to his feet, stomping them somewhat, and glares at the two with rosy cheeks. “It is not! I have done nothing of the sort!” Then, he spins around to face her. “I really haven’t, honest! You have to believe me, milady.”

She’s spared having to respond by the waking of her son. All of the shouting must have startled him; he comes-to with a vengeance. It does nothing to stymie the growing ache in her head, but that is something she can suffer silently, so long as these fools leave her to her peace.

The two men keep on laughing as he son cries and the boy panics. Rhaenys wakes too, and glares at each of them in turn. “Hush, valonqar ,” she demands and Elia’s heart goes very, very still very, very fast. “You are too loud!”

It is as if the entire forest goes silent at once. She knows that is not the case, Aegon still screams over the void surrounding her ears, but it is muffled. Distant. One of the laughing men look over, brow furrowed. “Valonqar?” he wonders to himself, “What language is that?”

Her breaths come in short, shallow. “It’s—”

“The Old Tongue,” a voice interrupts. She spins and there is Jon. Infuriatingly on time. He must not have been sleeping at all; rest cannot be easy when surrounded by strangers. “I taught the little lady a few words of it as we were traveling.”

Gyles sniffs. “Never heard of it. You sure you ain’t making it up?”

The northman was not intimidated by a boy who had only ever known one winter, and as little more than a babe at that. Gyles’s false bravado could do nothing to change that fact. “It is the language of the First Men. We still speak it in the further corners of the winterlands.”

“Prove it.”

Jon raises his brow. The motion causes him to wince, pulling on bruised and bloodied skin. It is no surprise; the bridge of his nose was a mess of black and purple stretching deep into his left eye. “How exactly do you expect me to do that?”

“Speak some of their words to me.”

“Oh, for the love of—And how will you verify what I say? You cannot speak the language yourself.”

Gyles works his jaw. “You do not know that.”

“I do,” Jon tells him, before gesturing with bound hands to Elia, then the two men still watching on, “So does she, so do they. If you could speak the language then you would have known what the little lady said meant ‘cousin’ and have simply answered your comrade, rather than waste all of our times with your pointless grandstanding.”

To Gyles’s credit, everything Jon is telling him is false. Valonqar is High Valyrian for ‘brother.’

Now, the boy becomes angry. His face is even redder than before, but he cannot harm Jon as the other had done. A log separates them, and Elia atop it. Still, he spits on the ground and glares at the northman. “You have yet to prove you can speak it yourself.”

What Jon says after, Elia cannot follow. It's coarse, harsh and clanging. And she worries, because it sounds nothing like what Rhaenys had said—something that does not escape anyone’s notice.

“The girl sounded different.”

Jon laughs despite how much it’ll hurt. “She is a child. Of course it sounds different when she tries to say it.”

Their back and forth ends with Gyles storming away, the other men following not long thereafter. Elia’s shoulders relax with their departure, only to raise once more when she turns to her supposed guardian. “Valyrian Steel,” she hisses, once they’re out of earshot.

“Oh, come off it, princess. It is not as if I hid it from you.”

She glares at him, standing and stepping closer. “You told me you were a commoner.”

“Did I?”

Truthfully, she didn’t know. Days had come and gone since then, his exact phrasing was lost to her. He likely knew that too, it was the only reason he had to be so damn smug. “Who are you?”

He rolls his eyes and ignores her question, bastard that he is; instead crouching low to speak with Rhaenys. Her daughter waits patiently for him, evidently having come to the realization that she far prefers his company to that of any of these newcomers.

Still, before he can enter her daughter’s reach, before Rhaenys can reach out to gently touch the new crook in his nose, Elia slides between them. “Leave,” she commands him. “I do not wish to see you.”

He frowns, glancing between her and her daughter. “Why?”

“I do not trust you. You lie and you fib, and that is all you do. I have no use for a man who I cannot rely on, and I cannot rely on you.” When he doesn’t immediately walk away, she continues. “You will have what I promised you, I am a woman of my word, but I cannot bear to look at you right now. Stay out of sight until we reach this journey’s end.”

“All this over a sword?”

It is more than the sword. How he cannot comprehend that is beyond her. It is her life, hers and her daughters and her sons. It is that he is craftier than any of these other men, and she knows where that leads; she is a princess of House Nymeros-Martell. She knows vipers.

She is grateful for what he has done, she is, she owes him her life. But that debt could not be paid with that which was won. A life for a life is not a sensible deal when both are her own. Her life for her children’s, that is an easy barter, but her life for her life is something else entirely. Cyclical and pointless. And Elia is not that altruistic.

Elia says to him all this and more. Telling him, begging him to ask her for something reasonable. A noble wife or an opulent keep. A title or something similar. If not, there is little that can bridge their gap of trust, not without him placing faith in her in turn. But by the time she finishes her breath comes short and heavy, and he is standing to leave.

He makes it a single step away before he turns again, this time holding out a palm to her. It is awkward, he only has so much movement at his wrist and elbow, so he pivots his shoulder and twists his spine to make it flat. “My dagger,” he asks, “I’d like it back.”

She squints at him. “I do not have it.”

“You do not—” He cuts himself off suddenly, and when he begins again his voice is so quiet. It frightens her more than a yell. He looks around the forest surrounding, perhaps trying to figure out which of the men had taken it, but it was none of them. “Who has it, Elia?”

“I lost it in the skirmish,” she admits. Lying is not even a consideration. “Their leader took it and threw it into the brush.”

For the first time since she met him, Jon seems genuinely caught off guard. His eyes widen a margin and the drop of his jaw is only slightly larger. It hangs there until all of the muscles in it tighten and he goes rigid

“Pray, princess,” he suddenly tells her, “Pray one of them picked it up.”

Though her heart beats wildly in her chest, she still finds the nerve to rebut, like a fool, “All this for a knife?”

He is too angry to reply to her. So much is easy to see. His jaw clenches and cheeks flare, then he is gone.

Chapter Text

The leaves of the trees in the copse bleed orange as the sun sets on the horizon. It makes her dream of autumn, then of winter. Neither thought bears her any amount of comfort.

An unfamiliar face appears on the horizon line sometime after noon, carrying with himself a large sack. He’s a portly sort of man, with a belly that hangs lower than the edge of his hand-me-down tunic. His clothes are ill-fitting, too small for most children, much less a man grown such as he. That might be the least fortunate part, ranked behind only her eyes’ witness of it. Elia hears him before he ever summits the nearby knoll, his arrival heralded by the loud clanging of his bag's contents and the heavy breaths he takes between heavier steps.

Now, they all idle around an item he pulled from within. It is wide and shallow—she thinks it might have once been a squire’s buckler—but serves for cooking better than anything else at their disposal. The men take turns fussing with the fire, cooking various parts of a slain sow over it, and there appears to be a concerted effort to keep certain, notable men away from the food.

The dinner itself is frightfully meager, at least for her and hers, yet still larger than anything else she has had as of late. Too many men make for too many mouths; too many mouths make for too thin of rations. The men, while mostly accommodating, did not seem willing to share their portions with her. They received less than them on account of her being small and her children being smaller, at least that is the reason she is given when she’s caught watching one grab seconds.

Elia Martell sups on a set of ribs. They are dry, spiced with dirt and char, but one might think they were cake for how quickly they disappear from her hands. She chews on the bone of the last one while Gyles prattles into her ear about nothing of importance, using its marrow as an explanation for the rarity of her replies.

The other men of the camp mistake her complacency for interest. It does not take long for them to collapse into place around her once their food is in hand. They ask all manner of questions, flirting needlessly and often. Gyles was no different in that regard. Like a swarm of pestering flies, they were. She supposes that made her the cattle who must bear it, she’d done away with the bird that might have eaten them. Thus, this was her lot.

Still, in the chaos of the situation, her daughter momentarily escapes her sight. She neither notices nor spots her again until Aegon begins fussing and she excuses herself to feed and clean him. She is on her way back from the shadows of a bush when she spots her sitting beside Jon in the distance. When did those two become so close? Elia wonders and presses closer. Until late, Rhaenys had been using her mother as a shield, but now she's actively seeking the man out.

Sparing a quick glance over her shoulder, Elia steals upon the opportunity to observe. No eyes are upon her, not for what she can tell. Everybody else of their camp seems to have once more focused their attention on the red-faced Gyles, so she moves through the trees until a path opens for her to intercept the wayward pair.

“Who is Arya?” Rhaenys’s words force her steps to falter, however, and she soon finds herself placing her back to a tree’s trunk. Her son drifts off in her arms, satiate and at peace. Pieces of lichen and bark break away and mix into her hair, but she does not brush them off. Instead, she listens as best she is able. ‘Viciously curious,’ that is how a maester once described her in her youth, and this is no exception.

“You are just full of questions today,” Jon notes, sourly; yet still he answers. He likely wished to not discourage her from speaking with him again; it is unlike how he would have avoided the interrogation of another with minced words and roundabout answers. Elia Martell’s, most notably. Only once Rhaenys’s wandering eyes find him again does he answer, saying, “She was my sister.”

So that was it, Elia thinks, the answer to their shared curiosity. As well as her signal to extract her daughter from the man. But the conversation does not end there and Elia cannot bring herself to interrupt.

“Your sister?”

“I had two,” he says, then corrects himself, “Three, I suppose. Four brothers, as well, by my count.” This was not new information for Elia, but her daughter ooh’s at it.

Next, Rhaenys hups and stands, walking around their clearing, stepping heel to toe with her arms out, until she grows bored and turns her wandering attention back to Jon. “Where is she now?”

“Gone.”

“Gone?” her daughter’s squeaky voice echoes.

A hum follows, or perhaps a grunt. “Gone,” Jon confirms, “To a place I cannot follow.”

A child of three name days cannot understand his meaning, but it is not lost on her mother. As such, only one of the two cringes at what is said next. “Your voice sounds funny.”

The northman only chuckles. It is a low thing, deep from his chest, and there is no smile to accompany it. “The pig-faced boy broke my nose.”

“Broke,” Rhaenys ponders over the word. “Can we fix it?”

“Well…no. It is something that will have to heal on its own and—”

He loses her attention again, rather quickly this time; Elia sees when it happens. Rhaenys looks away, peering up at the trees before frowning. “I miss Balerion,” her daughter suddenly interrupts, obviously tiring of their current subject.

Jon’s confusion is audible, belayed by his hesitation when he eventually asks, “The…black dread?”

As is Rhaenys’s offense. “No. No. My cat!” Her voice makes it sound as if it should have been obvious, and it would have been…had Jon known any of them prior to the sacking of King’s Landing. He had no reason to know of that loathsome creature, a trait she wishes she shared. Yet a kitten, but in its tiny paws held all the rage of the dragon her daughter liked to pretend he was. “You are very bad at names, kekepa. Very, very bad.”

“I beg of the fair lady her forgiveness, then,” Jon replies, somewhat dryly, somewhat taken aback. “I had no prior knowledge of your cat, much less its name. As I have never met it before.”

The child tuts. “But you have met me.”

“I have,” he says and nearly smiles. “And as I have already told you, many, many times, we cannot speak your name around these men. They are not of the…savory sort.”

Ah, Elia thinks, beginning to piece things together. This must be the initial reason her daughter sought Jon out. She wished to ensure he knew her name and knew it well. As to his point, she could agree. Her daughter had yet to understand the urgency and danger inherent to their situation; something that needed to be impressed upon her, and soon. The way she plucks leaves from a bush only demonstrates the point.

“What’s that mean?”

He sighs and explains. “It means that they are bad men. If they learned who you truly are they might hurt you and your brother.”

“And muna?”

Jon shrugs. “Sure. Her, too.” He hardly sounds as if it were a possibility he cared too much about. His voice is flat and uninterested. Elia couldn’t say whether he had always felt this way, or if he had cared more for the blade than she’d anticipated. It was not as if she could ask him. Jon soon continues, “Can I trust you to not say anything to them?”

“Mm!” Rhaenys agrees, before making several meandering proclamations about what she would do to the men should they try anything, each less threatening than the last.

Her daughter’s threats cease as she yipes and then Elia hears Jon chuckle again. She chances another peek into the clearing and must stop her heart from warming at the sight of the two together. Not even the rope and cuts Jon wears, nor her mistrust of him, can diminish the sight of her daughter sitting sideways in his lap, smiling. Jon jostles her around in his arms, before admitting, “I see now that it was you I should have given the dagger to.” Then, quieter, almost to the point Elia might miss it, “You are quite ferocious, little Arya.”

It is obvious that this time he did not quite mean to call her by that name. None would have been around to hear it, had he simply said ‘Rhaenys.’ And she can tell from the way he suddenly goes very still. Unmoving where he sits behind her daughter. Elia thinks she knows the reason, but she is not cruel enough to put voice behind her thought; refuses to even think it.

“Dagger,” Rhaenys says back to him, ignorant of the change and drawing her mother’s attention back out from her thoughts. It is clear by the way the word rolls clumsily from her tongue that she hasn’t a clue what it means; perhaps that is why she focuses on it with such intensity, rather than any of the other words he spoke. “Dagger. Dagger.”

Jon forces out a false chuckle and corrects her, lifting a finger instructionally and saying, “Dagger. It is like a shorter sword.” His expression, however, remains distant and awkward.

Elia’s daughter plants a tiny finger upon his lips and shushes him. Her nose wrinkles as she tries again. “Daaagger.”

The time comes at last for the long awaited arrival of Elia into the clearing, so she steps out from behind the tree. Her entrance is unintentionally marked by a sudden and distant howl. Whatever she might have said to the pair dies in its infancy. She jumps at the sound, stepping closer to Jon the moment she hears it. Elia Martell’s heart trembles as she asks, “Just what was that?”

One of the two seated beside her mimics the howl, causing two more to rise up over the darkening horizon, while the other scrapes dirt from the margins of his nail and looks out through the trees, saying, likely sarcastically, “A tomcat.”

“I have never known a tomcat that howls.”

He does not spare her a glance, not even an unimpressed one. The calculation of his shoulders remains as he watches the horizon. Still, he finds the time to snap at her, “Yes, well, I have never known a princess to be so unappreciative toward the man who saved her life…nor so useless at keeping watch.”

She did not expect him to be so immediately hostile. Even with half his attentions spirited away, he still used that which remains to detest her. It does nothing to stay her temper.

“Known many princesses in your life, have you?” Her daughter babbles some words to the each of them, but neither has an ear for it, too focused on their own bickering as they were.

And, for a moment, no matter how laughable, it seems as if he means to tally them on his hand and see just how many he could count, but the answer cannot be more than two. One finger to rise for Elia, then another for Rhaenys. Yet, despite the blatancy of the lie and how he must know she would not buy it, he still tries to tell it with a shrug. “You might be surprised.”

He was bold, if nothing else. “You cannot be this upset over my choosing of this group over you,” she hisses out, “It was the only sensible thing for me to do.”

“You have the right of it.” His agreement is easy, but quiet. “I have far more than that to be angry over.” Perhaps the faintness of his reply explains why Elia does not hear him, perhaps it is only because she stopped listening.

“I mean…you would not even swear me an oath!”

There’s a pause, brief though it was. “If you would not trust a man without a swearing word, you should trust him even less with it,” Jon advises, despite his brutally apparent disdain, “Anything less and you are a fool. That and dead.” Then, he pauses to hum. “Not so bad, now that I stop to consider it.”

The only fool here was the one clad in rope. She even tells that to the clenching of his hand, emboldened by his helplessness. It is all she can do to quell her rage, but the words make her feel immediately like that pig-faced boy and, hating that, she goes to apologize, but whatever she might say is overshadowed by yet another howl. Elia takes a half step backward, startled by the suddenness of it, having already forgotten of the distant, unknown threat, and trips on a protruding and gnarled root. 

“— Woah there!” A voice says, just as sudden in its arrival as that damned howl. The owner of it catches her against his chest, wrapping an arm around her belly to secure her to himself. “Woah!”

She can’t place the sound of it to a face, but she knows it cannot be the northman’s. She wrenches herself free from the man with more violence than might be recommended of someone in her position, righting herself against a low hanging branch of a tree. It’s too thin to truly support her weight, but she’d rather fall completely than rely on the steadfastness of a stranger’s hand.

“I am fine,” she assures the man. He’s as old as he is young, gray as he is green, yet shorter than most. His beard is vaguely salted and there’s a bow slung over his shoulder, but with him he carries no arrows. “Thank you, er…” She does not know what to call him.

“Corey,” he offers.

“Corey,” Elia shuts her eyes and nods. “Thank you, Corey. And sorry for my…”

“Happens, milady. It is a good thing I was there to right you.” There is a shifting of the sedges as he turns from her to Jon, surprising her somewhat, then surprising her more when he offers the other man a handful of meat. “Hungry?”

Jon eyes it. “Been hungrier, but I could eat.” His head bobs. “My thanks.”

Corey drops what he holds into the northman’s palms, nodding his head in approval. “Good man. We have a long journey tomorrow, so get your rest.”

“Hn.” Jon makes a noise that could mean absolutely anything. Elia takes it as an acknowledgement, perhaps Corey will as well.

All too soon she is once more at the forefront of the newcomer’s attention. He does not seem particularly mean, this man, but his face bears with it little emotion. His mouth is set in a line and his cheeks are placid and unwrinkled. He was not frowning, but it did not seem as if he knew how to smile, neither.

A man who’s lived and seen enough of what his world has to offer to know he mislikes all of it. Apathy, or exhaustion. Both, neither. One or the other. It didn’t matter. He didn’t seem like one who would turn the Stranger away from his door, should the wanderer arrive unannounced—it may be the reason he is acting like such a fair host now: practice. Still, there is a certain strangeness and foreignity in the familiar distance of his expression; she knows not where she’s seen its likeness before.

“How do you both fare?” he asks, drawing her from her thoughts.

Her brow furrows and her eyes flick over to Jon, but he’s enraptured by the food he discretely shares with her daughter. Her eyes linger long enough to be suspicious, but then they’re right back onto Corey. “Fine?”

“Good,” He scratches the hairs of his neck and leans back, peering around a tree toward where the campfire glows. “Some of the men worried you might be frightened by the howling. It is good that you weren’t.”

She doubts that is the case, they hardly seemed the type to think much upon her, much less her peace of mind. It is inadvisable to say that to him, though. “What were they?”

“Brush wolves,” Corey sniffs, “Cravenly beasts, they are, they won’t provide us any trouble. It’s not their nature.”

Her heart skips a beat. “Wolves?”

“Brush wolves,” he reiterates, “Tiny in comparison, my lady, no larger than any dog. They are nothing for you to fear. As I am sure the northerner can attest.”

Jon bobs his head again and speaks around a mouthful. “Aye. A true wolf would tear one to pieces.” He looks up to the confusing blackness of the canopy, and the small breaches within which the purple sky above is revealed. “They don’t care much for large groups, anyway. It’s the lone travelers who ought to worry, if any ought to. Unlikely that we will be seeing any this night.”

“Ever met one?”

The northman twitches and slowly pans back down to squint at Corey. “A true wolf?” When the other man hums, Jon nods. “A few.”

This seems to excite the strange man, a rare occurrence, though he does not show it in his face. He moves to the tree opposite Jon’s and slides down its trunk to sit against its base. “What of a bear?”

“Those too.”

The old man Corey laughs a laugh that Elia has trouble understanding. “Truly?” She fears she’s missed a joke somewhere within the howls, but the men only continue to speak about bears. 

Jon nods and hums around a piece of meat. “Big, angry bastards. Especially the white ones. Faster than you might think, too.”

“I hear they can climb trees.”

There’s a twinging like the strumming of an out of tune lute that fills the clearing. It comes from the man’s bowstring, from the nail he flicks it with. Elia glances between the two men with no small amount of bewilderment. She did not understand what was happening. Not their strange accords, nor their shared stories.

Corey trades Jon’s tales of bears for those of badgers and wolverines. As he speaks, Jon listens; and when he’s done, the northman chooses another woodland creature to speak upon.

She wishes to leave them to their strangenesses, but then the conversation turns to mammoths and Elia, too, is sitting before she knows it. “A mammoth, you say?” She shifts nervously when her words inevitably bring Jon’s attention back home to her, but stands strong as her daughter moves to join her at her side. “I should like to hear about these mammoths.”

He does not consider it, scarcely even acknowledging her. “Pity. I speak with my hands a lot, so it is hard for me to tell stories as I am.”

Her cheeks turn flush in her embarrassment, but it was not bright enough for any of them to see. The shame in her belly, however, it swirls like its own personal ocean. Well and known to her even in this darkness; deep and ever present, too, identical to the true one in every way. She knows that. Even leagues and years removed the shore and the sight, she knows it. His words, on the other hand, are like the moon, only ever tugging those waters into a frenzy. She does not know what that makes her. The sailor, she supposes, or perhaps the stones undertow which the onslaught slowly reduces to sand.

“I have already apologized to you for that.” Nor had it seemed an issue when he was speaking with Corey, having forgotten she was there. 

Jon holds up his bindings and scowls at her. “Apologize to the skin of my wrists.” They were chafed, red, near bleeding, and more than deserving, but she could not—would not.

Then, at the reminder of their precarious position within this camp, Corey grunts and stands. His knees crack as he goes with a groan, and he nods to both of them once he’s made half the journey up. “Well, it was a pleasure to speak with you both, but—”

A third howl breaches the dusk as Jon and Elia both turn to Corey. “Sit down , Corey,” they say, and he does. 

With that matter settled, Elia informs Jon that she will not be apologizing to his wrists, not under any circumstance he could fabricate. It was beneath her as a princess and a woman both, not that she dared say either with their present company.

The northman has some choice words for her, but she understands none of them. It may be that they are grumbled, or it may be that they hardly sound like they are of a language she speaks. Whatever it was, she got the impression they were not kind.

Her temper flares; her vision tainted red by the dying light of the distant sun. A bumbling northern ass of a man, she declares him, safe within the confines of her own mind, what right does he have—? She lifts a prayer up to the Crone for patience, but receives no answers. She supposes she ought not be surprised and busies herself biting back even worse words. You are a real piece of work, she thinks. Perhaps it slips from her tongue as well, she’s not really kept track.

Jon shakes his head, though, so it must have. “Oh, come off it. You are hardly all sunshine yourself, princess.” Her heart stutters, but Corey appears unmoved, only awkward. It is only the way Jon pushes the word from his lips—like it was some bitter drink or spoiled meal—that saves them from discovery. He makes it more insult than honor.

Truthfully, his way of saying it did not differ greatly from her own experience of the title, but that did not make it easier to hear. “Every day I am more convinced it would have been better to leave you behind in that city. Certainly the lord of Fawnton would be disappointed and bereaved, but a granddaughter to wed and a heir to spare is far from the worst fate a lineage can meet.”

“Then why did you not?” His lie is as smooth as a bottle of the finest Arbor gold; she imagines the titles used are meant to be interchangeable. Doran would not care if she lived, he means, so long as the Martell’s path to the Iron Throne remains open to him. The worst part is she cannot even deny it. Not with any absolute certainty, not without doubt.

“Imagine it like a burning home,” he explains, before his lips quirk in a way she knows will never fail to vex her. “You know a child dwells within, so you do not spare a thought and rush in to rescue them. On the way out they begin to cry for something left behind to the flames. You have the time, the flames are not so hot, the smoke not so thick, and you think to yourself, ‘why not?’ So you grab it along the way. It would be more of a hassle to deal with the child’s tears than to brave it for a little longer, you believe, so it makes sense in your head.”

She bristles and her jaw hangs low. “And so…what? Am I to be the family cat in this play of yours?”

The northman does not seem willing to give her even so much grace. He looks away and says, “More like a favored doll. I would have felt bad about leaving a cat, but even if I had it would have found a way to escape and survive on its own. The doll—it is nothing more than useless vanity and dead weight which I must now shoulder.”

The offended gasp that tears through her is visceral, but she has no words to share in her own defense. She never does. What outrage she holds is as useless as it always is, and what strength she found in his helplessness leaves her.

Elia Martell returns to passivity. Intends to return to the campfire, too.

And yet, before she has the chance to stand and leave, son and daughter in tow, Gyles arrives as he always does: uninvited. He sidles through a bush with less grace than he thinks and positions his feet beside Elia’s outstretched ankles. “That is hardly a way to talk to a beautiful lady, ser.” With his back turned, it’s impossible for him to make out her expression, but he might have benefited from it. Nobody else misses it; and it only makes Corey look like he wishes to leave more.

Jon lets out a scoff and refuses to even reply to the boy. Not until Gyles flaps his gums some more. There is little to help things then. “What does her beauty have to do with how I speak to her? I care fuck all for it, even less for her,” he tells him harshly, perhaps spurred on by his own actionable temper, perhaps not.

The newcomer stiffens. “What sort of knight would speak such horrid language before a child and her mother?”

For once, Jon does not deny himself the title, only jabs a thumb into his own chest and declares with false pride and a congested voice, “My kind.”

“And which lord would knight someone of such wretched character?”

“Oh!” Jon nearly laughs around a line of tough meat. “You will like this, I believe; might have even heard of them.” He leans forward to meet her gaze around the boy’s leg, “It was her royal highness, Princess Elia of House Targaryen. Long may she reign.” Then, just like that, as if it had never strayed, his attention is back onto Gyles. “Thrust the role upon me, truly, she did. Had I any say in the matter it would not be the case. Almost feels like I am living a lie. Please take your complaints and lie them at her feet; you see, in this I am innocent.”

He plays with fire. She dared not breathe, dared not tremble. Only praying that they would not pay the price for his hints in blood. She was only Targaryen by marriage, she has no great love for his fire, even less for their blood he tempts to spill.

“And why should the princess bestow such a high laurel upon the honorless you?” Gyles barks a mocking laugh, ignoring Jon’s request. “It is hardly as if you appreciate it.”

“Perhaps I merely saved her from death or worse?” Jon suggests.

His meaning is lost to only half of those who dwell within this clearing, and two of them were of her own blood. They did not understand half his words, much less half their meaning. The last, on the other hand…

“And what could be worse than death, you fool?” She rubs at her temple, trading a sigh for an ache beside her temple. Gyles, she nearly groans. After her first mishap, she keeps a tighter reign on her tongue.

“You are dating yourself, lad,” Corey chimes from his tree, less hesitant than she. From a certain perspective it might be an attempt to spare the boy further embarrassment, but reality accepts his words differently. As does the boy. “There are many fates worse than death.”

A comrade’s rebuke seems to be the last thing Gyles needs or wants, only serving to add fuel to his anger. He turns his attention back to Jon’s earlier words, at least acknowledging where he is beat. “Did you?”

“Did I…what?”

Gyles grunts like he’s been speaking to a simpleton and is now tiring of it. “Did you save her majesty’s life?”

“Her majesty?” Jon’s laughter drowns out Corey’s sigh. “No.”

“You did not? Then why—”

She tries to cut in, to help. She probably should have known better. “‘Majesty’ refers to either the king or the queen…the word you are looking for would be ‘Highness.’ That is the one that is generally used for a lower member of the royal family…such as the princess…Elia.”

Her aid is just as easily spurned as Corey’s was. “Stay out of this,” Gyles demands. Across the way, Jon snorts like a bull. “I will handle this brute, milady. You need not worry yourself for anything.”

“How gallant,” the northman commends, Elia suspects in mocking. It only serves to return the unwanted attention to himself; though, that's likely what he wanted.

“Well? Did you save her highness’s life, then?”

He pulls some gristle from his teeth and flicks it into the shadows. “Do you call me ser?”

The lack of an answer confuses the boy, who falters. “Yes?”

Jon grunts and inspects the knot which holds his bindings, trying to undo it with his teeth. Neither man seems particularly concerned over his chances at success. Eventually, he admits defeat and speaks again. “Well, then it certainly seems likely, does it not? You would not call me it otherwise.”

“Lest it were a mummery you forged to snake your way into Lady Crefton’s service.” Cafferen, but that was beside the point.

“Bah.” Jon waves the notion off with a certain carelessness. “You are a bright young lad, you would know it if it were. Have faith.” 

If the sun set at present, it would still be too late. She wished to be free from their bickering and free of it now. Nothing would be accomplished like this; there was much she still needed to do. Her stomach flinches uncomfortably at the thought of it all. And none of it will be done unless these men cease the pointless measuring of their cocks to go their separate ways at last.

There was nothing to be done for it. And so, with harbinging bile in her throat, Elia tries to encourage her mind and belly to ease as the men prattle on.

Gyles starts. “I suppose you are right,” he says, “Then spin your tale of supposed valor for us and I will judge it false or true.”

Jon tells him the same thing he told her. “Pity,” he says, “I speak with my hands quite a bit, so it is hard for me to tell stories bound as I am. Perhaps you would like to—” Gyles denies him immediately, swatting away the arms Jon offers up to him. The northman shrugs in response, evidently not expecting much from the attempt. “Be on your way then. You came here for a reason, did you not?”

The younger boy glares at him. “Yes, but I should like to hear this tale first.”

“Deem me liar and conman and leave. I would rather be a grifter condemned than a knight in your whinging company. My heart is large enough to at least pity the lady for that much.”

And with his words he stabs her in the back, betraying her with a face full of innocence, forcing her to rise and follow Gyles and Corey from the clearing. She tries to send Jon a rueful look when she steps past his feet, pausing for a moment to leave him with something more than harsh words as she departs at their heels, but he cares less for her then than he did at the day’s start. With how he ignores her presence one might guess it had been Elia who captured him. And not even his supposed pity would change that.

Night gathers out over the prairie. It is lighter there, thanks be to the moon, but there is not here. Here she stands beneath the trees, here she trips o’er their many gnarled roots, and here she must listen. Free of the moon, yes, but not free of Gyles’ waxing and waning in its place. He did not care for Jon, that much is certain, and he takes the time to convince her out of the false knight’s company.

“—and I do not believe his claims, neither. I mean…the princess? If he were going to lie, he should have at least made it believable.” He turns to face her then, stopping beside a large bush, one positioned near where a fallen tree allowed a hole to be opened in its canopy. It is the only reason she knows he does. “You should not trust in his claims, milady.”

“I do not.” She had been the mummer who fabricated them, after all. “You need not worry yourself over that.”

“Oh,” he says after a moment, straightening up, “That is good, then.”

He begins telling her some story of little importance and Elia lets her gaze wander to the horizon the sun had set over, listening with only half a heart and even less of an ear.

Her eyes adjust slowly to the darker shadows here in the depths of the copse and she stares at the bleak nothingness for a moment before allowing her eyes to wander and her mind to wonder. It does not take long for her attention to be pulled to one spot in particular, an area sitting just over her left shoulder—southward, she thinks. To Dorne .

As she stares, she wonders what Oberyn and Doran would think of her now; if they could see her as she stands, covered in mud and muck and shit, what would her brothers think? She doubted it would be much. Would they recognize the woman who was once their sister?

“Are you listening?”

“Of course,” Elia assures him.

Aching fingers clutch helplessly at the edge of her tunic, and she thinks of Doran, of the stories they read together and the dreams they dreamt. Of Oberyn, of the times they fled palace walls in search of adventures they could not appreciate the dangers of.

She imagines they privately thought her foolish back then, but would that still be the case? Elia does not know, cannot say, and she fears finding out as much as she fears not.

If they were here now, if they stood where she stood, if they were surrounded on all sides by cutthroats and liars, if their heels bled and their lips chapped, if it were their children whose lives hung in the balance, would they make the same choices as she has? As she knows she will? Would they be able to live with themselves? As she knows she must?

She thinks they would; knows it, truly—on both accounts—but the notion does nothing to settle her stomach, nor absolve her of her guilt. No, in truth, it only serves to force it to migrate. Moving lower. From her trembling heart to her lurching stomach. It turns her courage to liquid and her strength to dust, not that either was ever very impressive to begin with. Yet her resolve remains; it is all she has to go on, whatever that might mean.

“Gyles?” Elia interrupts after a while, smiling past the bile that burns her throat, deciding that waiting any longer would hardly help her nausea. “Teach me how to fight.”

He frowns at her. “You are a lady, you have no reason to learn such things.”

It is true that she has never felt much inclination to it in the past, however. “My desire to learn is reason enough.” When he remains hesitant, she allows a smile to stretch wide as she dips her head, staring upward into his eyes imploringly. “Oh, won’t you teach me, Gyles? It is not as if I have anyone else I can trust.”

He eyes her. “Not even your knight?”

“Especially not him,” Elia rolls her eyes. The only talent Jon seems keen on sharing with her is his strength of lying. Hers was stronger besides. “I doubt he very much liked the thought of me having the blade I had.”

“I never liked him,” he admits, again , “His attitude is too coarse to be in your company, and I cannot say I trust a man who would ignore his summons to war—” He cuts himself off suddenly with a furrowed brow, only beginning again after he lets out a sudden sigh. “You could do with better company than him. His intentions cannot be in good faith, not with how unwilling he is to share the truth of his story. And he is a northman at that? Tsk. I hear they are godless. Why do you even keep him around? We could send him on his way.”

“Perhaps you are right,” she considers, “I was once told it was best to kill the dog once the hunt was over, though I fear I have not the strength.”

A grin slowly spreads his lips and when he speaks he sounds a little out of breath. “I must say, my lady, you are far more ruthless than I initially suspected. Do my ears hear you correctly? You mean to discard the knight once his usefulness has ended?”

Her heart thumps painfully in her chest, full of something akin to regret or misery filling it to its brim. “I do,” she says, quiet as can be.

“Then let me be the one to assure you the time has already come—it has already since ended. There is nothing he can do that I cannot, let me be the one to prove this to you. I will do it now, if it pleases you—”

“No,” she interrupts. She allows her words to settle over him, allows the silence which follows to settle as well. “At least…leave it for the morning, I fear my night will be full of mares should you do it now.”

She scarcely knows what to say next, feels her little finger twitch as she tries to bring something to the surface. They walk further into the woods, princess following woodsman. Under any other circumstance, it might have made for a fine story. Bards would sing of the misconceptions of this night for years to come. 

They follow the twist of a tree into a clearing. “You are quite cunning for your age,” Elia eventually commends, no more loud than before.

Gyles, despite the previous heaviness, squawks. “My age? Just how old do you think I am?”

That was certainly a fine question, and one she would have trouble answering. “Ten and four,” she guesses, trying to shake off the foul mood just as easily as he did. With a clap of realization, “No, wait! Ten and three?”

He grumbles some choice words under his breath that she indulgently ignores. “Ten and five,” he punctuates, “I am a man grown!”

“You are,” she agrees because it is what he wants to hear, and she’s grateful for the darkness when she fails to stop herself from making a face. The only ones considered ‘grown’ at that age are highborn girls in need of selling, he was several years off from the title yet. But she’d tell him what he wishes to hear if it meant one thing. “Will you teach me?”

“For a reward,” he says.

She considers this. “A reward…very well. What boon would you ask of me?”

He fidgets like a maid; she imagines his cheeks might color too, but it's too dim to tell. “Well, it’s a little embarrassing to say aloud, honestly. Nothing obtrusive by any means! I simply— well , might I…might I tell you once it comes time to claim it? After we are done?”

Elia sees no danger in it, she had her own reasons for wishing to get on with this. She smiles at him through the bleakness and nods. “If that is your wish, I will not force you to say it now.”

An embarrassing wish , she muses, but any conclusions she might draw become drowned out by the howl that rejoins the shadows.

“Damn these wolves! Their trifling howls are unsettling only for children. I do not understand who it is they seek to threaten.” And yet, Elia notes, he jumps all the same—just as startled as she, despite his words. More credence to his own youth.

Finally, with his hesitation gone and countless howls as a backdrop, Gyles begins to instruct her on the mortal arts.

That night, there will be no rest found in the copse. Not for Elia, at least, and not for the brush wolves neither. Though they are not within the borders the trees set, she can hear them just without. Sometimes pacing, sometimes panting; whining. But always— always howling.

It starts slow. With just one solitary wolf giving its one solitary screech, but that was long ago, back when she was speaking to the northman. Now, another howl comes; then another . It joins the first in its symphony and together they yield to nothing, drowning out all sound in the copse. In the prairie, in the distant foothills and the Red Mountains beyond even them.

There would be no rest to be found for any of them this night. Most of the men are in various states of sleep, while the few who remain awake are either on watch or glaring darkly into the prairie. It’d not be long now before one decides they ought to sup upon wolf in the morning, she thinks, nor could she blame them. It is a meal she thinks she’d happily partake in.

Gyles tries to pretend it does not bother him, but he does not mask his emotions well. She sees it clear as night. Yet instruction continues as he speaks to her grip and technique—though mostly he just tells her where to hit to make sure it hurts. He is lifting the sheathed blade to his neck to demonstrate there when the loudest of the howls hails the wind to bolster it, and he obviously flags.

The longer they persist, Elia finds, the more their howls seem to warp and fester, sounding nearer to a hapless woman’s screams than the moonlit call of a beast. Was it a glimpse into the future, or the past? She doesn’t know, but another creature joins in, then another still. Soon even the capital would be receiving an encore of the sounds which accompanied the sack. Scream after scream alighting the dusking sky.

She follows the momentary straying of his gaze with a wince, shoving the heel of her palms into her temples and tugging her hair back as she frets, fruitlessly. If it’s not the howling, it is the arm around her shoulder, and if it’s not the arm it is the warmth at her back, and if it’s neither of those, it is the howling. Peace seemed a thing most distant—half foreign, entirely forgotten.

While in King’s Landing, Elia Martell learned the importance of donning her masks. Everyone did, her case is nothing truly special. It is a place of roses and briars; beauty beyond measure, so long as one did not try grasping for more than they ought. 

She’d fled with her life, two children, and half a hundred thorns in her palm that bled her still, painting their cheeks red whenever she caressed them. It was her own fault, but only in the sense that her family pointed her in the direction of the garden and she lacked the strength or desire to stray from the path they set.

She knows the importance of masks, it is why she knows she must wear one now. Brave, she reminds herself, be brave, but her entire body seems to tremble at the thought. Gyles turns back to her, and with her weeping, thorn-ridden hands she places her mask back over her eyes once more and smiles as he takes his small liberties upon her.

It is like a bridge, this mask of hers, a wooden one bound in rope. With every touch she takes a step over the canyon it spans, rocking it, and with every whispered word he places in her ear it curls in the wind. She does not trust it to hold, not even once, not even for but a moment, yet hold it did. It does not crack, does not ebb, and by the time the end of this training nears she’s on the other side, mask still intact, and feeling worse off for it. Somehow, despite always keeping the horizon in her sight, she feels further from home than ever.

He says something to her, then, and her reply is sweet, even if she couldn’t recall what it had been.

Suddenly, his fingers close around her wrist, gently, yet her distracted nature makes her jump at the touch all the same. It is not the first time, but her heart stills then races all the same, as if it were. He guides her hand—and with it the blade; laying them at his throat. The wolves quiet all at once, a hush settles over the copse, but Elia does not notice. Cannot. The beating of her heart had drowned them out long ago. Steady at first, but now rampant. Rampaging.

“Here,” she thinks she hears him say as he presses the leather sheath covering the blade further into his skin, forcing the soft muscles of his neck to shift and accommodate it. He swallows and it forces the knife out then in; when he speaks his voice is little more than a whisper. “If you can reach it, always aim for the neck. It bleeds the quickest.”

She tries to remember all he has tried to teach her, but her mind swirls. Neck, heart, the pit of the arm. Grip, stance, something about boots. There was much he said, yet more she’d forgotten, somehow. He steps closer, filling the space her reply might’ve had she given one. His breath mingles with hers, sinfully, and she has to force her stomach to settle once more.

She wonders, again, what her brothers might think. What they might do. Wonders if they would agree with her, if they too would slide the knife from its sheath as Gyles’s hand slips lower on her back, unknowing. Wonders if they too would force a smile to their lips as this child begins to speak, hesitantly putting voice to his most ardent wish.

Forgive me, she silently begs, then says it aloud when he admits his wish is for little more than a kiss. It’s such a boyish thing that she nearly loses her nerve twice over, once for his utterance of it, then again when he interprets her apology as denial. Her stomach churns for the thousandth time that night and she fears her nerve is not the only thing she might lose.

It is only the memory of her daughter’s smile, the image of her son’s slumbering, pale eyelashes, that allow it to settle; if the state she finds it in can even be called that. Enough. It is enough. Enough for her to unsheathe the dagger, enough to smile—though she’d rather tremble and cry, enough to thrust the bared steel forward. Enough to kill a boy not yet in his majority.

It is only when her lips meet his cheek, tremblingly and salty, that she realizes she had not quite succeeded. Her smile was a tremulous thing, barely able to rally against her sorrow, and she prays it is the only moment in which she fails.

Kill the dog once the hunt is over, a man from the Eastern continent had once told her, but Elia was her daughter’s mother—Rhaenys her mother’s daughter. Her child loved animals endlessly, and Elia was no different. She couldn’t kill the dog before when it was bound and easy, couldn’t even stomach its yipe, and nothing has changed.

Her prayers remain as unanswered as ever. She learns the right of it after only an instant—the time of one single breath, shorter than that of the flap of a bird’s wing, longer than it takes for Gyles’s surprise to move aside and make room for the fear and the rage to consume him.

In one moment, she cries for the boy he was and the life she was stealing from him, and in the next, she cries for the necklace he bestows upon her. It is the same as the once queen, Rhaella, took to wearing—just as beautiful, just as fragile, just as tragic. One of two hands and the promise of bruises. A king’s gift in truth, but she wanted it not.

She would not get the choice, she never did. She would wear it and try to smile, just as her goodmother always had.

“I’m sorry,” she promises silently. Though her lips move and her body tries to scream it, the pressure at her throat snuffs out all sound. He chokes her, chokes the breath from her lungs, the voice from her chest, the hope from her heart. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He yells and blood rains down upon her, gushing from his throat as he screams and his lips as he coughs. She claws at his face, nails biting into the flesh over his eyes. She riots and rails against him, but nothing works. He holds fast, weathering her blows with the numbness of doom. Blood flows into her mouth and coats her hair. She reaches for the knife again, to steal it from its sheath of flesh and blood and death, but he lifts her by her neck, slamming her into the ground again.

Her vision turns black; creeping, pulsating masses threatening blindness on all its sides. It was already darker than dark, but the sun fades to distant memory before her as darkness consumes the world. Her back arches as she tries to stretch her neck, baring her throat in some fruitless attempt to seek out air. She tempts it with lips painted red, promises it salvation and whatever else it might desire if it just agrees to fill her chest once more, but it was not to be seduced to her side.

And still she apologizes. Still she takes what little strength she has to beg for forgiveness. This isn’t what she wanted, this isn’t what she meant. It was a quick death she sought for the boy, quick and painless and unfeeling. This was none of those things. And she was sorry.

She apologizes to his throat for the way it bleeds, to his mouth for the pain his growls must cause, to his fingers for the way they strain themselves, the way they would have ached tomorrow. She apologizes to the fifteen years he’s lived, to the forty more he never would.

“I’m sorry,” she says like a song, like an anthem, and she apologizes, too, that those would be the last words either of them hear.

False words and endless howls as the copse descends into chaos, a moon as red as the Martell sun floating high above.