A/N: It's a Kashi chapter, everybody. I'm sorry it took me so long to get this out to y'all. I thought summertime would make it easier to write, but I was wrong. I do apologize. Please enjoy, and don't forget to leave a comment if you missed us!
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Did Sarankar say something to him?
Sansa felt herself pouting after him as Sandor stalked into the thick green of the jungle at the edge of the coast. He's probably embarrassed he's not as good at fishing as I am, she thought with a frown and a sigh, letting the tip of her spear dip into the water as her shoulders sagged; it made a soft splish as it broke through the waves.
A bright school of fish came skirting across her vision, crimson and vermillion against the blue of the waves. She tilted her spearhead smoothly in the crystal water, her focus suddenly recalibrated, fingers itching for yet another triumph.
Splish. Six.
Splish. Seven.
Splish, splish, splish, splish, splish.
Her catches hung from Mahinja's leather braces, swinging and trailing in the water, leaving nearly undetectable tendrils of rust swirling about his legs in their wake.
"It is a good thing you are here with us, Lady," Mahinja laughed, slinging her twelfth catch over his shoulder. "Westerosi are not so appreciative of a woman who can wield a spear well. These women are shamed, sailors tell me."
"I've never heard of such shaming," Sansa insisted, a mite bit confused, trailing her spear behind her as she paced towards him for clarification.
And then a portentous splash came not a moment later, something slick hitting her calf, her spear nearly jumping out of her hand. She yelped, curling both hands around the rough wood of the shaft and drawing back, pulling up out of the water an enormous creature with dark gray flesh, its tapered body near as long as her leg, glistening wetly and thrashing with beastly strength.
Sarankar shrieked.
"Careful, lady, do not let it back into the sea!" Mahinja bellowed as he waded, splashing, to where she stood, holding her spear up with all her strength, her throat closing in terror of the fish at the end of it. Mahinja produced a small bronze knife, stabbed the fish violently in the face, and nearly stumbled backwards, so anxious he was to escape from it.
"What is it?! Is it dangerous?!"
"That's a shark you've caught, Lady Flame," Sarankar gasped, wading close to get a better look. "Offspring of the goddess Guaba. A fish-eating fish."
"They eat men too, when they can."
Her heart ran ice-cold in terror, but thankfully the fish—the shark was losing its strength, thin ribbons of red blood trickling down its slick and still-thrashing body and dropping faintly back into the sea.
Once it stilled, Sansa tentatively reached her hand to touch its fin—slick like fine oiled leather—and then let her grip come around the thin end of the tail, guiding the spearhead out of the shark's abdomen until the corpse of the animal swung free at her side, heavy on her wrist. Twisting it around in the air, she caught sight of its still-flapping gills, frantic out of water, and its gaping mouth, lined with row upon row of sharp triangular teeth. Frightened, she made to hand it to Mahinja, as she had each of her increasingly impressive (and decreasingly disgusting) catches, but he shied away.
Sarankar came up behind him, her eyes widening, and placed the palm of her hand on her brother's shoulder, whispering in an awed tone their flowing Summer tongue.
Sansa stood, chest heaving, as Mahinja responded, equally awed; he then took a step towards her, brushed his fingers against the flank of the fish, causing it to twitch and her to shriek, nearly dropping it back into the surf, her fingers holding fast in spite of herself.
"How can this be…so soon?"
"They have just come to us…"
"Is something wrong?" Sansa asked the two of them.
Sarankar stepped around her brother, placing the flat of her hand on Sansa's exposed back, giving the fish a wide berth. "Nothing you've done, lady. Only…if this is what I think it is, we will have trouble on the island soon."
"What kind of trouble?" Sansa asked, a childish whimper creeping into her voice.
"My brother and I are in disagreement about that. Either way, you would be safer inland, by the pyramids, lady."
"What should I do with the—?" Sansa began to ask, steps coming easier as she sloshed out of the waves, sand becoming drier and drier beneath her feet. She made to lay the creature down in the sand, dropping its still and lifeless corpse into the powdery white, puffs coming up around the impact like when Arya would throw Sansa's dolls into the summer snowdrifts of Winterfell.
"No, lady!" Sarankar shrieked, but it was already too late. The shark was not so lifeless after all, twitching and writhing with a sudden and renewed vigor once her fingers uncurled from its tail. Sansa staggered back, astonished. But surely it must be dead. It is bleeding and choked out of water, surely… but Mahinja Do interrupted her thoughts.
"Grab it, lady! Touch it again and it will still!"
"I can't!"
"You must! We have to show it to the king. Show him the danger."
Oh, Sandor, where have you gone, Sansa thought, trying and failing to swallow her fear. "Can't you pick it up, Ser Mahinja?"
He shook his head; somehow, she had known that would be his response. "He is the chaos, made order by flaming hand."
"Was this foretold as well?!" Sansa nearly shrieked, feeling irrationally betrayed.
"Please, trust us, Lady Flame," Sarankar said, drawn tall and with more calm than she seemed capable of in that moment.
Sansa looked down at the creature, kicking up the powdery sand as it twisted, and drew a breath. Robb could do this, if he had to. So could Arya. I have to be brave, like them. Her knees bent, her arm outstretched, and by some force of mysticism unknown a brush of her fingertips stilled the creature to its former torpor. She heaved it up again by its tail, holding it quivering at arm's length.
"That's it, lady. You mustn't drop him, now," Sarankar cooed.
"I've got him. He won't bite me, will he?"
"I should think not. Come."
Mahinja led the women expertly through the wet thick of the forest, each turn yet more unfamiliar to her until they suddenly broke on the settlement, people going about their business halting to stare in wonder at the girl, pink-cheeked and blue-eyed, dragging the monster behind her by its tail, little red droplets of blood still beading, bleeding from its wounds.
Mahinja began to shout, calling in the Summer tongue to his people with a franticness echoing the screaming of Sansa's arm muscles; a rounder, older woman rushed over with a wide wicker basket, the things that had been within hastily tucked under one arm, and set it before her. Sansa dumped the beast into the basket unceremoniously, bringing it thrashing to life. Those nearby sucked in a gasp.
Her fears assuaged by the rather uneventful (apart from the strain) trek back to the settlement with the shark, Sansa laid her fingers on its flesh in a gesture of hollow tenderness, and the fish lied still.
And again the gasps arose.
More conversation flurried around her in the Summer tongue, and three men came forth with lengths of twine and hempen rope, binding the fish in the basket as she held him still, leaving him all but immobilized once she removed her touch.
The men threaded a wooden pole through the handles in the basket and carried the beast away between two of them, pacing off towards the great pyramid where she was housed, Mahinja swaggering in their wake.
"Where are they taking him?" She asked, feeling a pang of concern for the creature, beastly though he was.
"To His Potency King Mojjo," Sarankar answered. "Mahi will tell him what he has seen you do. There will be much discussion of what is to be done. Their talks will not be suited to the attention of women."
"Why not?" Sansa inquired.
"Ah, but I've forgotten. You Westerosi women have limitless patience. But you need more sun paste, child; you must be in such pain, with your sand-white skin…"
Sansa cradled her arm, fatigued from the strain of hauling the shark, against her hip as Sarankar herded her back towards the pyramid, in through a side entrance closer to her chambers, but the room was not as she had left it: in that morning they had been gone, someone had intruded and placed on every surface in the room an arrangement of brilliant and queer flowers, heavily perfuming her chambers with their light scent of Summer decadence.
Sansa paused, taken aback by the spectacle.
Sarankar clucked her tongue, shaking her head before sweeping fully into the room and removing the arrangement on the vanity. "Thwarted Kiza, have you?"
"Pardon?" Sansa was distracted by all the color.
"My nephew," she called over her shoulder, looking through the little ceramic pots on the vanity for something in particular. "The Prince. My husband's sister's boy. He does not take no for an answer until he has lost interest, and even then he is sometimes still relentless out of spite…now where…the sun-paste…" Her searching became minutely more frantic.
But Sansa was only half listening. The flowers…the flowers.
Sansa had always dreamt that her future husband would win her affections by giving her flowers—blue winter roses, she had always hoped—but of course, there were no winter roses here. Nor was Kiza vying for her hand, and yet the gesture still managed to soften her heart, warm it to him. And he was very kind to me at the feast…his culture is just different than mine…he meant nothing by…but her thoughts skirted the events of the night before like a mist, changing their shape, their color, their flavor. She felt a twinge of resentment at Sandor's interruption.
The biggest arrangement had a small square of parchment sitting folded on one of the wide, thick petals, and upon it, written in astonishingly neat hand, was an apology.
Beautiful Flame Lady,
Many apologies for misunderstanding you last evening. You looked so beautiful in your Summer dress I nearly lost my senses. I am learned of the prophecy now, and know you are not mine to make, but I would still love any chance to see your radiance and make you smile for me.
Tonight stars will fall in the eastern sky. Meet me by the bonfire ring at midnight. I will take you to watch. It will be the most beautiful thing you have ever seen, other than your own reflection.
Sincerely,
Kiza Ko
Sansa sighed. It was so sweet of him to write. But what did he mean he was 'learned of the prophecy now'? He had made it quite clear that he knew she was the Tattered Flame last evening, and was not ignorant to what it meant.
But that concerned her little. Sansa had always been charmed by starshowers, what glimpses she could catch between the trees in the Godswood on those dark nights in Winterfell—what a spectacle one must be, playing out on the expanse of the black Summer sky…
"Lady?" Sarankar asked insistently, wresting Sansa from her reverie. "I said I've found the sun-paste."
Once she was administered the pale green, clean-smelling, sticky plant paste to treat her sun burns and dressed again in flowing, fire-colored silks, Sarankar offered to take her down to the Great Spring to eat her midday meal with the women and children of the village, though Sansa could tell from the angle of the sun it was likely past midday. How long has Sandor been gone, she thought, edging on worry. I wonder if he's found anything…
In order to distract herself from thoughts of Sandor, Sansa, ever more charmed by the open and supportive traditions of these people, followed Sarankar Do out of the pyramid, across the clearing, and along a well-worn but deeply shaded path through a thicket of jungle before the Great Spring was revealed to her, the cacophony of laughter, song and splashing reaching her ears long before the glittering blue waters filled with naked ebon-skinned children was visible.
"This is a peaceful place," Sarankar said, parting the foliage to let Sansa through. "Arguments and grudges must be left out of this clearing. No weapons are brought here. Voices are only raised in laughter and song and joy. It is a place where we may love the children as one, so they might love each other as one."
"How wise of you," Sansa commented.
"We should like to think so, Lady. But come."
Women were clustered about the shores with baskets of fresh-picked fruits from the trees about; Sansa found one holding the green-and-rose-skinned fruits with the sweet, soft orange flesh she so loved, and tore into it eagerly, using her wrist to keep the juices from dripping over her chin. Children flocked about her, cawing for her attention, and the ones who looked little enough she would lift onto her hip, hold for a minute or so, and relinquish in order to give another child a turn.
Their enthusiasm nearly broke her heart, their full, smiling cheeks and pink mouths, their soft, cool little grasping hands, their accented calls of "lady, lady!"—this was the sort of love she had imagined receiving as Joffrey's Queen, a senseless, joyful adoration that she could stoke with a stroke of a cheek, a kind word, a smile.
The women gathered around the edges of the spring seemed engaged in raucous gossip, speaking quickly and excitedly in their flowing Summer tongue. She had only been listening to the sounds of their voices, the patterns of their speech, until she heard a word she recognized—Sandor.
And suddenly they had her attention, this group of maybe eight or nine women in bright colored silks, making hand gestures and laughing. A couple of them seemed to be arguing about the size of something, holding their hands about nine inches apart, curling their fingers into circles they couldn't quite complete. Others were touching themselves quite lewdly, pushing their breasts together and pointing at their woman's place between their legs. But again and again she heard it, thickly accented but doubtless in its form: Sandor, Sandor, Sandor.
"Sarankar," Sansa asked conspiratorially. "What are those women talking about, over there?"
When Sarankar relayed the topic of conversation Sansa blushed hard and hot, though she had thought her burns could get no redder. She thought of the size argument they seemed to have been having—nine inches between the women's hands, circles they could not capture with their fingers—how is that supposed to fit inside anyone?!
There was something else bothering her about their conversation, too, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it; could it be the openness with which they discussed such…private and inappropriate things before the children? Or the number of women engaged in this conversation that couldn't possibly know what they were talking about?
Or, maybe, (though she was loath to think it, even to herself) what bothered her was that these women did know what they were talking about. Sandor hadn't been terribly present at the feast, after all.
Sansa then felt acutely the need to be alone.
Luck, however, had retracted what favor it had bestowed upon her during her fishing endeavor, and instead brought to her a half-naked and sun-burnished Sandor, seething and (terrifyingly) brandishing his dirk, curses dribbling from his mouth on every breath.
And, repeating every single filthy word, an enormous flock of brightly-colored birds flapping after him in his wake.
"Seven hells, there you are!"
"Seven hells!"
"Seven hells!"
"Seven hells! Caw! Caw!"
"To hells with you, brainless bastards," he cursed, turning a little to flap a thick, well-muscled arm at the birds to scatter them. "Little Bi—"
"Brainless bastards!"
"Bastards!"
"To hells with you! Caw!" the birds interrupted.
Sansa could not help the laughter that escaped her then—the hilarity of his image, hulking and pouting, flanked and visibly vexed by this chorus of colored birds…It was just too much. Her embarrassment and hurt were gone. There was only the spectacle before her. Sandor sighed.
"Seems your kin have taken to me just as you did, little bird."
"Little bird!"
"Your kin, little bird!"
"Your kin!"
"Caw! Caw! Caw!"
"The Others take them," he growled.
"Others take them!"
"Take them!"
"Take them!"
"Stop laughing, damn you!"
"Damn you!"
"I don't think I could if I wanted to," she panted between peals that unsettled the muscles in her core.
He sighed again heavily. "I can't get rid of them. They've found me one by one. I can't catch them and I can't kill them. They're always just out of my reach. Bloody bastards."
"Bloody bastards! Caw!"
Sansa could hardly control her breathing. She felt the need to kneel, to roll in the sand and laugh, something so undignified it would have never occurred to her if…well, if she hadn't been met with the sight of Sandor Clegane, the fearsome Hound, his rage attended and amplified by a company of flamboyant wild birds.
But it was Sarankar, not Sandor, to pull her from her gasping with a cool palm on her shoulder, drawing her upright. The humor was lost on her, apparently, as the matron was wide-eyed, mouth agape, much as she had been watching Sansa quell the shark. The other women, so recently discussing Sandor's prowess, were gaping as well.
"His Potency needs to see this," Sarankar said gravely.
"If this is about your buggering prophecy—"
"Buggering prophecy! Prophecy! Prophecy! Caw!"
"Then we'll be having nothing to do with it," he managed to finish, his fingers curling around Sansa's arm and tugging her into him.
"It does not matter, whether you will or you won't. What is foretold will find us all, anyway." She murmured yet another phrase in the Summer tongue, reverent. The women around her nodded in solemn agreement. "We must alert His Potency."
Sarankar would hear no argument proceeding. She ushered them back to the main clearing of the settlement, past the bonfire pit and up into the main pyramid. Many of the women present at the watering hole followed them in attendance, along with Sandor's new flamboyant companions, who would chirp one filthy Sandorism or another from time to time in a random, blaspheming cacophony.
Which Sansa was stuck with, more or less—the women seemed to be giving her and Sandor a wide berth, nudging her back towards him with wordless, encouraging gestures whenever she drifted too far from his side. At one point, a particularly bold matron, clad in deep red silks, checked Sansa in the hip and sent her careening into Sandor's side, nearly tripping over her own silks. She reached out and took hold of his arm reflexively, stumbling, nearly tripping him. He swore, and the birds answered in kind.
"Watch where you're going, little bird!" he snarled harshly.
"I'm sorry, I just…" she didn't quite know how to explain herself. The wench had pushed her. Yet how could that be? What sort of sense did that make? "The islanders don't seem to want me to be very far from you, I gather."
Sandor suddenly looked very uncomfortable, his thin lips twisted into an unreadable grimace. Grimaces seemed to be the most basic component of his expression, along with a scowl and a glare, yet this one was new to her.
"Right. I suppose they wouldn't," was all he said.
Is he trying to be cryptic? That wasn't like him. But she didn't understand his response to her apology.
Sarankar seemed ready to push Sandor up the stairs, so frantic she was to get them before the King, winning them immediate entry from the guards with a few flowing lines of frantic Summer. His silks and feathers were as brilliant as ever, nesting him in his throne. She decided that bright colors must signify wealth in the Summer Isles.
"To what importance do I owe this honor?" King Mojjo asked in Common upon their intrusion, his diction polite but his tone frigid.
Sarankar responded in Summer, and the whole room of men, until recently engaged in heated discussion, paused on a gasp to look at Sandor.
"Lord Dog. Say something," Mahinja Do urged from the fray.
"Like what?" Sandor snarled.
And the birds, who had followed him within, broke into titters. "Like what? What? What?"
From beneath their ebony skin, the room paled, listening in silence as the birds talked themselves into boredom, eventually quieting. A beat of perfect silence followed—Sansa bewildered at what significance the natives seemed to be observing—before the gathered Islanders broke into a babble of frantic debate.
Sandor was having none of it. "Will someone tell me what's bloody going on here?"
"What's bloody going on!"
"Bloody going on here!"
"Bloody! Bloody! Caw!"
"Macaws," Mahinja gaped, "of course!"
Sandor rolled his eyes, sighing and folding his arms beside her. "of course," he whispered, mocking.
"Of course! Caw!"
"Oh bloody buggering hells…"
"BLOODY BUGGERING—"
"Mahinja," King Mojjo ordered, his eyes wide and tone reverent, "your poetry. The pertinent lines, if you would."
Mahinja stepped forward, folding himself into a bow with all his wiry comedy, and cleared his throat.
"Beware the flesh of foreign land,
When Chaos 'comes Order by Flaming hand,
On the seas will battle prowl,
Summoned by his tenfold howl."
"…you've got to be fucking kidding me. You're all bloody daft. I show up with a couple bloody pet birds, and all of you think you're going to war? Piss on that…"
"Lady Flame," Mojjo called serenely, beckoning Sansa forward towards a familiar wicker basket, still tossing and jumping at his feet. She drew close with shuffling steps as he continued to speak. "I believe the word of my people, but this is something I would like to see for myself."
"Yes, Your G—Potency," she said, kneeling beside the basket. The fish had dried out, yet continued to flail. She raised her hand to touch it, and heard Sandor give a sharp bark of protest, his birds echoing him, before she laid her fingertips on the flank of the shark.
The beast lied still instantly.
She flicked her eyes up to the King's, held in heavy-lidded fascination. "Chaos stilled by flaming hand," he said gravely before turning his attention to Sandor. "And you, Lord Dog. How many birds do you have there?"
"I don't bloody know! I didn't fucking pick them out in some thrice-damned pet market!"
Several men were already at work counting them. The quickest reported, "ten, sire."
"Summoned by his tenfold howl…so it is." He straightened up and leaned forward in his throne. "Let it be known among our people that no man or woman skilled with bow or spear be without his or her weapon henceforth. Send scouts to each shore. Keep the children inland. Let no music be played, so we might listen for ship drums. And…" his eyes returned to Sansa, raking her figure up and down once appreciatively. "…ensure the Two-Legged Dog and Tattered Flame have their privacy this evening. They should need it. Now disperse. I must fret in solitude."
Sansa fell in beside Sandor as they exited the pyramid en masse, her brow furrowed in confusion.
"That last bit about us was somewhat odd, didn't you think?" She asked him. He bristled.
"I guess."
"It just seemed so incongruent. The rest of his decrees were aimed at safety. Did he mean to keep us safe in private?"
"…I think I have an idea of what he meant," Sandor growled sullenly, before calling over to a woman dressed in yellow, making a series of conspiratorial expressions at her. Sansa felt a twinge of hurt that he would make such an effort to ignore her when they'd been separate all day.
The woman, though giving him a wicked little smile, coyly denied him. Sandor huffed, suddenly cross, definitively refusing to engage with her.
"You needn't make such an effort to avoid me," she spat, sounding more sullen than she had hoped. "If you don't want me around, all you have to do is say so."
"Well that's just the problem, isn't it?" he snarled, his wide ferocious eyes locking onto hers and inspiring a bolt of visceral terror that wracked her right before the hurt of his words did. Frightened and ashamed, she turned from him, spinning on her heel to ascend the pyramid and return immediately to her room before she could start to cry.
His calls echoed after her, amplified by the mocking of the birds, yet she only spurred herself onward.
Once she was safely in her chamber, having slammed her door with all the force and wrath she was able, Sansa took a shuddering breath, willing her eyes to dry, pressing her lips together in hopes of keeping them shut. What was this, this wave of hurt she was feeling? Why on earth did it hurt so much that Sandor Clegane, ever since they'd come upon the islanders, seemed to be avoiding her at any cost?
He was rejecting her, and rejection was a universal hurt, but this was sharper than something universal. A specific rejection. An acute hurt. He'd led her to believe he cared about her and he'd lied.
The tears did come, and go, and come again. Strength came to her in moments, lacunas in her senselessness—why cry over Sandor Clegane?
Perhaps, she eventually allowed, in answer to her strength, I was beginning to care about him too.
Yes, that was it—more absurd, even, but she was beyond that; there was a soft spot forming in her heart for Sandor Clegane. Attatchment, kinship, affection—whatever name it was dealt seemed too strong or ill-fitting, but there was some seed of good feeling there for him. A seed that felt betrayed.
Some hours after she had finished her crying, clutching a finely embroidered pillow to her stomach, she heard a familiar knock on her door. What animosity time had done its best to subdue was back again with flaming passion.
"I don't wish to speak to you," she ground out.
"Just wanted to let you know I'd begun my guard, little bird."
"I don't want you guarding me."
The door opened a crack, without her permission. A grey eye and hooked nose peeked in. "Little bird, don't be absu—"
"I'm safe among these people, wouldn't you say?" scorn soured her voice, creased her features. "You certainly seem to have taken a liking to them."
"And they've taken a liking to you," he said, coming down into her darkness, his eyes lighting up with the bitter hate they characteristically held, a hate that had to resurface in order for her to realize it'd been missing. "What if that Kiza fellow comes back and I'm not here to help you? What then?"
"He's apologized. He's won my trust."
Sandor gave a raspy laugh, and pushed the door open so he could occupy the whole of its frame. "You really don't know what's good for you, do you, little bird?"
"Get out. I'm not speaking to you anymore. Go back to your chambers. That's an order," she added, when he did nothing but fume.
"Is this all because of that thing I said?"
"Get out." She could feel tears pricking in her eyes, blocking up her throat; she took the embarrassment of crying in front of this man—because of this man—and turned it into venom. "I don't want you around me. I don't want you guarding me. I don't want you thinking about me. Why don't you go find yourself a jar of Amber Sweet and a wench and forget you ever met me?"
"Sansa…what in seven hells—"
"Are you going to leave or shall I?" she bit. It was nearly midnight, after all—she was meeting Kiza soon.
She decided the answer for herself, took up a feathered cloak for her shoulders, and stormed past him, leaving him gaping.
"Sansa. Sansa come back right now. Sansa!"
She broke into a run as a tear threatened to breach her eyes, swallowed the rest as she dashed through something that looked like (and, to her good fortune, turned out to be) a shortcut, and sprinted out of the pyramid for the fire pit.
His thundering footsteps and frantic shouting grew more and more distant; a dark figure waited for her in the darker night.
"The Lady Flame. I hoped you would come," the prince bowed clumsily, the bow and quiver of arrows falling from his shoulder, but made up for it with the grace of his smile.
"It's my pleasure, my lord." Her heart was racing from her run as she dipped into a curtsey. "Let's make haste before my sworn shield finds I'm missing."
He grinned. "As you say, lady."
They tore off through the jungle in a direction she hadn't been, fighting their way up a long, steep hill until they reached a clearing at the top. Nearly the whole of the sky was exposed, its blackness made blue by the light of a thousand thousand stars.
"How beautiful…" she gasped, twirling around. To her right she could see the starlight reflecting off of the water. Other islands were visible too, in negative: chunks of black against the shimmering dark blue of the whole night.
"We still have some time, lady, until the starfall begins," he said, unslinging his bow and quiver from his shoulder. "I could show you my archery, if you would like."
"I would love to see how you arch, my lord."
Kiza flashed her another bright smile before knocking an arrow, leaning back, and loosing it, letting it arc high into the sky. The golden wood of the shaft and the bright green feathers in the fletching were visible by starlight, still light when they hit the water, impossibly far way.
"Did you see how far it got, lady?!" Kiza asked excitedly.
"I did! I'm very impressed, my lord; Westerosi archers cannot shoot so far."
He gave her a sly grin. "You could. Here, stand in front of me."
She let him position himself behind her, curl his fingers around hers on the bow, show her how to knock her arrow. Just when he was about to let her loose it, he stopped her.
"Here, I have an idea," he said, digging into a small pouch tied to his quiver. He withdrew two rocks, smashed them together just behind the head of an arrow, and had a flaming arrow within moments. "More fitting for the Lady Flame, no?" He helped her knock it, quickly, and loose it. The tendril of flame flew high into the sky, sailing out over the water, still climbing, before it came down, down, down onto a tiny spit of land, a black spot on the shimmering ocean.
She turned to him, beaming with triumph. "I did it!"
"You did, you did, my beautiful lady," he smiled. "It is our bows, of golden wood—" Kiza drew close to her, offering her his bow to stroke, and was presumably about to tell her all about the superiority of golden wood for the production of archery equipment, but he was cut off by the sudden booming of a drum, coming from her right, echoing off the sea.
The youths immediately turned their attention back to the water, and found, where Sansa's arrow had fallen, the spit of land had moved, and now played host to nearly a score of little specks of flame.
Specks of flame that suddenly became alight, arcing into the sky, growing brighter and bigger, whistling as they hurtled down towards them.
"Lady! Take cover!" Kiza shouted, pulling her aside into the forest.
"What's happening?!" She shrieked.
Kiza paused as the arrows hit the clearing, twenty at once, snuffing their flames out in the dirt. She could hear more whistling on the wind in their approach. "War, lady, as the prophecy foretold. I thought we had more time…"
He might have gone on to speak more, had an arrow not struck him straight through the throat.
