MEERA
The day did not dawn over Greywater Watch. Meera Reed had been up all night, and she noticed the darkness lessen somewhat, as the clouds thinned out and drifted off into nothingness, but the sky was still dark grey, and snow fell in damp, dusty spirals from the heavens. The forest beyond her window was the colour of dried blood.
Meera dressed in darkness. She was slender, and quite tall, but too flat and too plain-featured for any southern lord to consider her beautiful. Not that it mattered. There were no southern lords she wanted.
Now she pulled on undergarments and then the loosely shaped cassock, with fur around the neck and a thick wool lining. The fur was grey. Summer had been grey, she recalled. The last nights in Winterfell had been grey. Her whole life had been lived out in shades of grey. What would you need other colours for?
It seemed a long, long way down to the main hall. She did not see her father this morning, but she did see her mother, talking with Lady Ashara Dayne at a table surrounded by a throng of crannogmen. The Greyjoys, meanwhile, dominated the other side of the hall, drinking their weak ale in the shadow of a giant stuffed lizard-lion. She spotted Asha Greyjoy in the centre of the throng, in deep conversation with her second-in-command, sandy-haired Qarl the Maid.
It had been Qarl and Tristifer Botley who Meera came upon in the forests north of Greywater Watch. At first she had thought they were scouts of Euron's army, but then she heard them mention their commander Asha Greyjoy, and she saw how disoriented they seemed. Euron's men, bound to his Horn, were never without purpose. So she followed them for maybe a mile – they were, after all, the first living persons she had met since Winterfell – and as luck would have it, they came upon Asha Greyjoy's camp.
She could have left them in the fog, endlessly blundering in search of Greywater Watch. But Asha being there made no sense, not after Bran had dispatched her and Theon (in secret) to the Iron Isles. So Meera went to them, and said just that. And after Asha told her that she, too, was fleeing Euron Greyjoy, there was no reason not to join her. Impossible as it seemed, the siege of Winterfell all those years ago was forgotten. There were two sides now: you were either the living, or the dead. In that, at least, there was no such thing as uncertain loyalties.
Breakfast at Greywater Watch was admittedly meagre: lukewarm kippers, and eggs that were nearer red than yellow. The sight of it made Meera a little sick, yet she swallowed it down all the same, eating quickly and methodically. No one talked to her. They had the foresight, at least, to know that she did not want their company.
Except one of them, that was. "My lady," said a voice, and she did not even have to look to know that it was Edric Dayne. Or, as he liked to say, Call-Me-Ned. The young would-be-Stark who wanted to be a hero.
"What is it?" snapped Meera.
"Your father sent me. He's in the grove. He wants to see you, after you break your fast."
Meera stared bleakly down at her wooden plate. "Well, no time to waste, then. I'll go now."
That surprised him, but not enough to stop him from jumping up from the bench. "I'll come with you," he said.
"You shouldn't—"
"Your father said I should."
She wanted to hit him. She wanted to knock him to the ground, and then hit him again, and again, and again, till all his blood had oozed out and his stupid face was cracked open like an egg. But instead she sighed, and said, "All right," and they walked out of the hall together. On the way Meera picked up her spear, resting on a rack just inside the porch. As they set out across the rope bridges that tethered the castle to the other swamp islands, she could not help but notice Edric's nervous movements, the fingers brushing the hilt of his longsword. Does he really think he can protect himself, and me, with that? Even if the boy-lord armed himself with his house's ancestral sword, Dawn – which was kept in a locked chest in the castle proper – he was still only that: one boy lord, against the Enemy that never stopped.
"Lady Meera," said Edric politely. "I don't know if you have heard the rumour, but—"
"Which rumour?"
"The one about… well, about you and I."
"Together?"
"Yes." Edric did not seem capable of meeting her eyes. "Together," he said queasily.
"I see."
"Well. I only want you to know that… if it did come to that, and if that was the only way to… to consolidate our support—"
"Be quiet," Meera snapped.
Edric did just that.
They walked for five minutes more until they reached her father. He was on his knees before a gnarled, greyish heart tree, clad in a breadth of greens and browns, of skins and furs. "Meera," he said without turning. "Ah, good, child. You are here."
It had once been endearing when he called her child. Now it felt bitter and ironic. "I am here, Father," she said, aloof. "Why did you send for me?"
Father stayed gazing at the tree. "Come here, child. You may go, Edric. Thank you for your help."
When he was gone Meera approached the tree, and went down on her knees beside her father. Lord Howland's gaze did not move from that terrible carved face in the trunk, as though he were trying to stare out those bloody eyes that never moved.
"You do not like it," Lord Howland said.
"The tree?"
"No. The Dayne boy. Our Greyjoy guests. My visions. Any of it."
Meera took a long, deep breath. "Everything has changed so much."
"That it has, child. Though there is the chance, mayhaps, that this was always how it was meant to be."
That couldn't be true. It simply couldn't. "If this was how it was meant to be," she said, voice wavering a little. "Then why did Bran die at Winterfell, instead of me? He was the three-eyed crow, he was supposed to save us all." And I was supposed to be his protector, but I ran.
Her father turned now to look at her. His eyes were, and always had been, agelessly wise, though recently she had been less certain of the fact. "Lord Brandon was the three-eyed raven. And still is." He tapped the trunk of the tree. "He is here, and everywhere. He is in the water we drink, in the stones we walk beneath, and in the forest air we breathe."
How could you love the forest, though? More to the point, how could the forest ever love you back? They had kissed exactly once, and only once: a nervous kiss, a boy and a girl, or a young woman at best. She could still feel it. Or the absence of it.
"Here," said her father. "Touch the trunk."
Meera had never been gifted with the greensight. When she pressed her fingers to the trunk she felt nothing but emptiness. There was no living being here. Only nothing.
Then her father's hand touched hers, and his hand touched the tree at the same time. But whatever he felt did not pass to Meera. Whatever his brief company had given her – a respite from loneliness – was mitigated by the fact that it was all a pretense. The world she lived in was empty.
"We are leaving," Father said suddenly.
Meera looked up. "Leaving Greywater Watch?"
"Aye. For Moat Cailin."
"When?"
"At dusk, if all goes according to plan."
"We can't leave Greywater Watch." She felt dizzy; how had she gotten the rumour of her and Edric, but not of this? "We can't. The Reeds have been here—"
"—for thousands of years, yes. Eight thousand, to be exact. But times have changed, Meera. Until recently, there had always been a Stark in Winterfell, and men to serve him unquestioningly across the North, but the Starks are gone. The winter we were always promised is here. And in this particular winter, our responsibilities are not only to the Stark in Winterfell, but to the realms of men. The Song Must Be Sung." Those were House Reed's words. "But for that to come about, we must first go to Moat Cailin, and then to White Harbor, and attach ourselves to the other Northmen."
"But… but Greywater Watch is impregnable. They – the Others – can't get in. Not while the wards exist. You said it yourself."
"The wards are breaking, child. Before long they too will be overrun. Before that time comes, House Reed must turn its attention from prophesising the Long Night to fighting it. This is the way we must go, that follows the way it was meant to be, all along."
"The way it was meant to be? Father… even if the three-eyed crow lives in some way, Bran is dead. Hodor. And Jojen! Your own son!"
"Jojen knew the cost of his journey."
"He never knew the cost of his life, though!" Meera braced herself against the tree trunk, hands shaking. "He never found a wife who loved him, or had children to succeed him, or had anything worth living for other than his death!"
Her father went very quiet. "And what is that?" he said softly, "if not a life lived in the fullest bravery?"
They had buried her brother atop a hill, a hundred miles or more north of the Wall. She and Jon Snow had brought up the snow, and laid it down again. And like that, Jojen was gone, vanished into the land. Meera would probably never be able to find him again if she tried. But she was damned if she forgot Jojen the boy, and remembered only Jojen the greenseer.
"I'm going back," she said. She rose to her feet, and her father did not stop her.
A mist had settled over the marshland surrounding Greywater Watch. The bridge over the swamp bucked and swayed as Meera made her way back across, towards the castle on its grey island. Outside, on the water, she sighted Asha Greyjoy and some of her men, attending to half a dozen narrowboats that were floating on the scummy water. She would have liked to move past unnoticed, but Asha hailed her as she approached the door. "Lady Meera!"
"Lady Asha," returned Meera, though it felt strange for either of them to be granted that courtesy. "I see you are preparing."
"Aye. And forgive me, but I won't be sorry to leave this place behind."
Meera shrugged. "Only a Reed can love Greywater Watch."
"As only a Greyjoy can love the Iron Islands," said Asha. "There is, I suppose, a certain austerity in this place. Some might call it beauty. A brutal sort of beauty."
Like the edge of a knife, Meera thought. Or an axe. "Some might say that we crannogmen are a brutal people."
"And are you?"
"That depends on what you mean by brutality," said Meera. For how else could she describe the life Jojen had lived, according to the gods of the trees and the wetland lords who bent to their every will?
The breakfast plates in the hall were being tidied away. Meera glimpsed her mother with Lady Ashara Dayne, conversing in a corner, but she ignored them both and headed back up the spiral stairs to her chambers.
It was dark inside, and quiet and lonely. Meera sat down on her reed mattress, her eyes slowly growing accustomed to the darkness. There was nothing to do but sit and wait.
After a long time it began to rain. The sun had come out briefly at one point, but now it had gone back behind the clouds as dusk approached. Meera glanced through the shutters and saw that the narrowboats down below had been pushed out into the deeper part of the river and were bobbing there, just about moored. She saw Asha Greyjoy on the deck of one, and her mother on another. They would be leaving very soon.
Meera wondered if that should mean something to her. She had spent the better part of her life at Greywater Watch, never leaving the Neck. Training, Father said. But all the time he had known that they were preparing for a road that led to Jojen's death, and to the loss of Hodor and Bran and all the friends she'd made. He wondered if he knew, too, that she would come home in the end. That she would spend the rest of her days miserable and alone.
On her windowsill, a marsh flower was growing in a earthen pot: a pale, tinged-yellow bulb growing from a green stem. When she had returned to Greywater Watch, it had been on the verge of dying. But it had persisted. It was on the verge of dying still, two weeks later.
Gently, Meera picked the pot up, and moved it out of the light, into the shaded dark space under her bed. The shaded dark, where no one would ever find out. Where it would wither and die, most likely.
Just then there was a soft knock at her door. She looked up to see her mother. "Meera," the crannogwoman said softly. "Your father is holding a council downstairs."
"And? What of it?"
"We thought you might—"
Then she went downstairs, and out to the boats. There were only about a hundred of them in Greywater Watch: not enough to fill more than a dozen of the narrowboats. Meera made her way towards the one that was closest to the shore, walked up the gangway, and climbed aboard. One of the crannogmen, Gennis, tried to hail her, but she walked round him, and sat quietly at the narrow stern, listlessly looking into the growing fog.
A low bass call sounded in the distance: the signal; it meant depart now, go in peace. And slowly but surely, the boats ahead of them in the column began to drift away from the shore; the crannogmen at the prows threw off the ropes, and carrying tall red torches, they glided out into the fog, barely rippling the water at all.
But not her boat. Not yet. Meera felt the boat rock and twist, and then she became aware of someone standing over her. "Lady Meera," said the voice of Edric Dayne: Call-Me-Ned. "Are you all right, my lady?" Uninvited, he settled down, uncomfortably close to her in the boat.
"I was fine until you arrived," Meera said.
"I thought you might say that," he replied. "My father sent me to look—"
"To look after me," she knew, with a sour feeling. "Oh, good."
Their boat was starting to drift now, as Gennis the crannogman cast the ropes off, and the other six or seven on board took up their paddles and began to gently brush them through the dark water. Meera ignored Edric Dayne entirely, reaching down over the side, trying to reach far enough for her own hand to skim the surface, and trying to see whether the boat to their right held her mother, or her father, or Asha Greyjoy and her men.
Suddenly from behind her she heard a deafening whoosh, and when she looked back at Greywater Watch, she could saw specks of ember red through the fog of green and brown and blue. She was far away now, but the crannogmen were all silent, all watching, and the sound of timber walls splintering and woven rope crackling carried far and well across the empty water. The castle was built of old damp wood and waxy vines, but there must have been some enchantment placed on it, for it burned quickly, and smokily, so smokily that Meera only saw the conflagration for a few seconds before the smoke veiled all from sight.
She felt curiously calm. The only tears in her eyes were the ones from the smoke.
"You don't have to look, my lady," came Edric's recurrent whine from her side. "I know it must be upsetting."
"No," Meera snapped. "You don't. You don't understand any of it. You don't understand who I am, or what I've been through or… or why I hate you so much."
Call-Me-Ned looked at her. "If you tell me," he said, "then maybe I can help you."
Enough of this. She sat up in the boat and rounded on him, eyes full of fire. "Have you ever lost anyone?"
What happened next caught her unaware. Edric's purple eyes seemed to grow, as though opening for the very first time. He took a deep breath and spoke very quickly: "My mother died birthing me. And my father died when I was four. My uncle Ser Arthur was dead before I was born. I spent sixteen years of my life thinking my aunt Ashara was dead. Lord Beric, who I squired for first, died six times, was brought back to life more six times, then died a seventh and final time. Once I pulled his body out of the Mummer's Ford myself, and once I cut him down where he hung from a tree. I lost friends to the Lannisters and the Bloody Mummers in the Riverlands, both before the Red Wedding and after. Ser Barristan Selmy, who was my hero, died in my arms on the Blackwater, cutting down my own cousin Ser Gerold Dayne, who would have killed me when my back was turned. On the Blackwater, I saw thousands and thousands burning and screaming and dying, and some of them were my own men, who had come to fight for me and Starfall. And King Aegon, whom I also squired for, is now dead. And countless others, no doubt." He uncurled his hands, which were in fists, and shrugged. "You asked."
"I did," said Meera.
"Then maybe you have realised that you aren't quite as alone as you seem to think."
She turned back to take another look at Ned. He was no Bran, and never could be.
"I am not Lord Brandon," he said, eerily. "And I never can be. And for what it's worth, I don't want to marry you, either. I… I don't much like girls. Swords are more my thing. I mean…" He reddened. "I mean, my sword. I mean Dawn. But… well, I mean…" He gestured towards her. "I would. And I could. But only sometimes."
There was a long silence.
Meera put out her hand. "I am honoured to meet you, Lord Edric," she said.
"The pleasure is mine, Lady Meera," said Ned.
The moon was high in the sky, a pale white pupil staring down through an iris of cloudy stars. Meera and Edric crowded together in the stern of the narrowboat, with not quite enough room for either of them, and side by side they watched the moonlight fall among the mangrove trees.
Seven hells, this one was tedious. The weird thing is that I have chapters 11-13 all planned in detail and mostly written, but for the sake of pacing this one has to come first, so I was stuck with this nightmarish chapter.
I'd known for a long time that the POV would be Meera. She's one of the few POV characters who will be new in KNIGHTS OF THE NIGHTINGALE, getting maybe a couple of chapters if she's lucky. So if you want more Meera, be sure to leave a comment below. To be fair, I don't think we see her at her best here, as she's very mopey.
Other than knowing the setting and the importance of defining this as a proper story thread, I had no clue what I wanted to do with this chapter. It could easily have been a huge, fiery battle in the forest. It could have been a travelogue (though, admittedly, I hate those myself), or it could have been set after a timeskip at Moat Cailin or White Harbor (both places we will see in the future). At first I tried to do everything - there could have been visions and councils and fights and everything, but it soon became apparent I had left myself with far too much to do in one coherent chapter. So I chose to simplify everything - which I think is fitting for the crannogmen. The end result is (I hope) a good character study of Meera Reed, framed by two scenes showing her relationship with Edric Dayne.
I felt it was important not to include supernatural elements in this chapter. There are no visions, no magic swords, no wights or Others, and (sadly) no considerable roles for either Howland Reed or Ashara Dayne. In my eyes, what makes Meera such an underrated hero of ASOIAF is her normalcy in the face of her insane situation. She has no powers, but she is stubbornly persistent nonetheless. The nature of heroism is a huge theme in KOTN, and while empowered heroism is more fun, this is an equally important facet of it.
Thank you for reading. Reviews, comments, etc. would be very much appreciated.