MOUSE

He watched the Patchwork Knight stagger towards the gangplank with his heart in his mouth. As the large man pushed past Captain Denaro with a muttered curse, some of the Courtesan's Wish's crew leant over the rail of the ship to consider his weaving progress, placing bets on when he'd fall off. There was Elleri Prettyboy, Lothos and Bloodsworn. All three wore new bruises on their faces, but Mouse was glad to see they'd made it back to the ship in one piece after their revels on shore. He wasn't sure the knight was going to though… so Mouse offered a quick prayer to the Mother to keep the large man on the plank and away from the cold depths of the harbour…

He walked up behind the knight, adjusting to the sway of the gangplank as the his heavy stomping feet rattled it. Mouse cradled the little bird in his hands. She'd been sleeping on and off since the knight had come downstairs in the tavern seeking his squire, the bird nestled against his neck barely opening her weary blue eyes. Mouse had been badgering the serving girls to fill his master's order for food, but they'd spun away from him to serve men who had coin to tip them with in return for their winks and giggles. Mouse had been worried when the knight turned up and he had not done as asked, but he was learning slowly that the knight's bark was worse than his bite. He only sometimes clipped him around the ear, and this time he just grunted and said gruffly that their lady had gone away for now, and that they wouldn't need the greasy food he'd asked for anyway.

Then Mouse had watched as the knight had snuck glances around the tavern, seeking someone out. He covered it with his usual disinterested, flat look, but Mouse could tell he was eager for… something. Finally he seemed to catch what he wanted to find, frowned slightly and took a seat at an empty table. Mouse hopped up onto the chair next to him.

"Breakfast, ser?" He looked up expectantly, but the knight was staring at someone. It wasn't a glare as such. It reminded him of how his brother would circle an opponent in the ring before tackling him and raining fists into his bare chest. Mouse followed the knight's stare with wide eyes to where the mandolin player was standing with customers, a pitcher in her hand, and laughing at some tall tale from an old sailor. A serving girl bustled over, smiling uncertainly at the knight in his hooded cloak, the shadows covering much of his face.

"Breakfast, mi'lord?"

"Dovcha."

The young girl seemed taken aback. "I don't think we got any of-"

"Dovcha. Ask yer mistress." The serving girl scuttled off. The knight looked to him then.

"Is she asleep?" Mouse looked up to where the bird nested on his shoulder.

"Aye ser."

"Good. Mind you sleep too. Close yer ears and your mind. This talk aint for you."

Mouse nodded. He knew from past experience with his brother when it was best to pretend to be asleep. Osric'd stagger in some nights… back when they'd had a roof to sleep under… stagger in full of the red rage and try to find some excuse to work his fists on him. Sleep was a shield sometimes. That and being as quiet as his namesake, or having a bolt hole to run to…

He watched the serving girl talking to the mandolin player, who turned on her words and stared at the knight. He nodded back to her, and she came over after instructing the serving girl of something. As she walked over Mouse saw the silvery glint of something at the tops of her green leather boots. Knives.

"Morning mi'lord. Don't believe I know you."

"Is that a reason not to share a drink with me?"

"Dovcha you being wanting? Sun's nowhere near over the yard arm yet. Why not some breakfast. On the house. The Black Snake likes to reward its better behaved customers…"

"No. Dovcha. Surely you'll be needing the hair of the dog this morning?"

The woman paused at his comment, and then gestured back to the serving girl, who ran off quickly.

"Ah, so I believe we have a friend in common." She smiled as she rested a boot on another one of the chairs and played with a buckle at her knee. The silver of the daggers flashed and winked at Mouse. He tried to nudge the knight, but he shushed him with a gesture.

"Not sure you should call her your friend. Seems to me like men… or women… who need alcohol to work their way into…"

He stopped as the serving girl returned with an oddly shaped bottle and two small glasses. The mandolin player pulled the stopper out with her teeth and sat down opposite the knight. Mouse was between them and he watched with a worried heart as she poured out a measure for each of them, the pungent smell of the drink making his eyes water.

"If you were angry with me… mi'lord… you'd not have approached me here, in my own place. I'd have been walking down to the harbour one evening maybe when you found me in the shadows… So I know this ain't about a man's violence. If it's about warning me away from your sweet Jeyne, you wouldn't be the first man to try and claim what ain't truly his…"

"She ain't mine… and she sure as hell ain't yours!" He drank his serving of the pale green drink and let her fill it up again. "Can you keep up?"

She nodded and drank her own, refilling it again quickly.

"I have to say… you're not what I imagined."

"And what was that?"

"She's so graceful and… easily embarassed… I did think you might be one of those shaven chested, prancing, lords. A silken thing like those fucking embroidered animals you lot all love to wear. But you… you got dirt under your nails, and some of its old blood."

She drank hers down, and the knight did likewise. She re-poured for the two of them.

"So she ain't yours… and she ain't mine. Whose is she? Who are you guarding her for then? Guarding her like a bloody dog…?"

The knight paused. Mouse looked up at his face, trying to read him as she was doing. But all he could see was the twist of his scars in the shadow of his hood.

"Her brother."

"Where I come from we drink for lies. And for truths too sometimes, it has to be said." They both downed their glasses. A raw sound came from the woman's mouth and she shivered. "Gods, it's too soon for this again…"

"If you want to quit?" The knight's words were very slurred now, and he was gripping the table top with one hand.

"Now? When you're a drink from being under the table? Never!" She smiled, and Mouse was reminded of the few times he'd seen the knight smile. They were always dark, wry and fleeting things.

"Who do you really guard her for?"

"Herself. Okay, you happy? I guard her for herself!"

"Happier than I was this morning in me privy." She leant back, holding the glass under her mouth as she considered him.

"So you ain't angry. You ain't here to scare me off. You ain't even protecting her for someone else's claim on that seven blessed maidenhood…"

Something the knight did caught the woman's eye, some twitch or movement on his face that Mouse had not caught, and she leant forward suddenly until she was just in front of his face.

"I see now. I see why you want to drink with Mezzi. Why the girl wanted to drink with Mezzi. Bastards eh? Born out of passion so we are the creatures of passion. You want to know how to please her!"

"Mouse. Cover your ears."

He made a show of putting his hands over his ears, but he let the words in.

"You don't know shit."

"No, that's it. She gets enough spirit in her to ask me about how to please a man…. And you needed the same thing to get around to asking how to please her… Well, tell me that ain't so? Tell me that you've ever been with a woman and known her song was more than a mummer's trick?"

He went to stand up, but the dovcha dragged him back to the chair, making him unsteady and unsure. Mezzi lowered her voice and whispered.

"It might be the green spirit talking through me… but you interest me mi'lord. You got scars on your face, and blood under your nails. And I'm guessing there's a forest of hair on that broad chest of yours that goes all the way down to…"

He growled and poured himself another glass. The woman copied, and they matched drink for drink again.

"I could show you… I could show you how to teach the girl to sing."

Mouse was confused, their lady was very good at singing… she sang him hymns when he couldn't sleep!

"That ain't… that ain't what I want!"

"True… you want her. A right pair you and the sweet Jeyne are. Two romantics in a world where romance dies bloody. So why not grab it while you can. Grab me on your way if it suits you. Been a while since I had a man between my thighs but I'm betting you haven't had a woman in a while neither. And I'll show you how it all works with a woman who wants you."

The knight stood up again, this time pushing away from the table and making it shriek across the stone floor, spilling the last of the dovcha. The bird fluttered and awoke, darting to Mouse's shoulder. The other patrons of the Black Snake turned at the noise, and a few let hands drift to daggers and swords. Mezzi held up a hand and they relaxed.

"The man can't hold his drink. But any of you take advantage of that I'll skin you alive. This one's mine. Hear me?!" The few men holding weapons resettled, and Mouse thought he saw angry glances flashed at his lord knight.

"Go on, go ser knight. Get back to your lady. Maybe together you two can learn what Mezzi knows already." She winked at him and the knight growled, turning heel and storming out of the doors. Mouse collected the few bags they had and bowed quickly to the woman, the bird keeping its perch but flapping its wings to do so.

"They'll die bloody you know. All romantic fools do in the end. Best get away from them before they get you stabbed little man."

Mouse went to go. But after a few steps he paused, and turned back to her. "That aint so my lady mandolin player. The Seven tell me that aint so."

Then he ran after the knight and guided him all the way back to the Courtesan's Wish, where the large man finally passed over the gangplank with unsteady feet and crashed into their cabin to fall onto the bed and quickly into a sleep punctuated with resounding snores.

SANDOR

He was riding Stranger. The feeling of the horse's muscles shifting beneath him was so familiar that it took him a moment to realise that this was one of Sansa's sendings. He was mounted on the destrier, and to his right his lady was mounted on a pale grey palfrey; smaller, gentler, and prancing on shining hooves. A ride across rolling hills, then. Pleasant enough, he supposed. He turned to look at her, taking in the silken red flow of her hair, the fine purple dress she'd imagined for herself, the long line of her neck rising to her face…

Then he knew this was no sending of Sansa's. Her face was a pale mask made from some pale bone or ivory. Her mouth and eyes were frozen in a look of terror.

He looked around quickly, seeking for the danger, but saw only the rolling green of the hills and stony mountains overlooking them. Ahead a campfire burned, getting closer as the horses trotted towards it. He tried to pull on Stranger's bridle to turn him away, but nothing happened, his arms did not belong to him here. His legs were also dead and useless when he tried to jump from his back. So the campfire just came closer and closer…

When they were upon it, Sandor saw empty bed rolls and a dying fire. Whatever fear gripped him was not to be found here.

Then, from where he knew not, a dog charged at them, bounding on long legs to catch up with the two horses. He'd never seen himself properly in his dog shape but he recognised the great beast with the burnt face immediately… who else could it be? Following after, swooping on wings of golden brown and scarlet, came the songbird. The dog took to keeping pace with the palfrey while the bird landed on his shoulder, bursting into a discordant song that raised the hairs on his arms.

The campfire drifted away behind them as Sandor saw ahead of them a patch of colour laid out on the ground. As they drew closer he recognised the many colours of the damned motley cloak she'd made him. It had been spread out like a blanket and placed upon it was a grand feast of all the northern dishes she'd imagined for him back on the ship.

The horses stopped and he found his legs freed to move at last. He dismounted quickly and went immediately to her side. She reached out with stiff arms as though asking for his help to get down from the grey. He took her tiny waist in his hands and lifted her down. And then the dog, the Hound, the bird and the Little Bird, sat neatly at their outdoor banquet.

Sandor couldn't shake the ever increasing chill in his bones. Something was very wrong. No… all of this was wrong!

Sansa's face was calm again, her rose petal lips now closed and her eyes blue and clear again. But when she spoke finally those sweet lips did not move.

"We could stay here, my lord. Could we not?"

He looked to the distance. Silhouetted against the horizon was a stone structure, atop a jagged rise. Immediately he knew those square battlements and that winding mountain path that led towards it. There was only one keep in the lands that gave him this feeling of dread deep down in his stomach. He turned to her to say that they should of course stay… when the alternative was going to that seven times damned place… but the words stuck in his throat. Her face was frozen again in that look of fear, her staring eyes fixed towards the horizon and the keep. But when he turned back to look at it its blocky shapes had been stretched into pointed and elegant nonsenses and the walls were a dusky red… like dried blood. It was the Red Keep of Kings Landing.

A deep growl came from he knew not where. It was not the growl of the dog, but louder, the song of a predator, a sound he'd heard once before on a hunting trip near Casterley Rock when he was but a child. A lion.

He was about to get to his feet when out of one of the dishes ran a mouse that scampered up his arm and sat on the other shoulder to the bird. Then, suddenly, hundreds of thousands of mice tumbled out from behind bottles, from under plates, and from beneath the patchwork cloak. The Sansa-doll stayed seated, her legs delicately curled beneath her. But then, in his shocked move away from the sea of mice, he knocked into her and she fell over, shattering into thousands of pieces!

The bird on his shoulder took to wing and sang a joyous, pealing song.

He remounted Stranger quickly and the horse cantered forward again, heading onwards to the place that was at one moment Clegane's Keep and the next the Red Keep, depending on how he looked at it, like the ever changing facets of a gem. The lion was out there still, and its growl was joined by the booming bellow of some other creature. But as he led the strange menagerie through the valley… the dog, the bird, the mouse, and the army of mice… fear fled from him and the sky cleared. Then he saw the mountains around them properly for the first time. They were the grey legs of impossibly massive statues. Seven of them, standing over the rolling green and lining their path towards the shifting keep. Seven mute watchers.

He felt her arms around him then, the slight weight of her against his back. He clasped her arms with a gauntleted hand, and…

He woke up.

He was aboard the Courtesan's Wish. And he was going to throw up.

He sat up quickly and a bucket was placed into his hands. But he held it back somehow, cursing himself for thinking to drink so much bloody dovcha. He felt her small hand moving over his back as he curled over the bucket and spat into it.

"You're lucky you've not awoken blind drinking that liquid fire… at least that's what someone told me." He looked up in the darkening light of the cabin to where she knelt beside him on the bed, a wry smile on her lips.

He grunted and she pushed back a strand of hair from his face.

"I was asleep. So I don't know if you were trying to defend my honour… or some other nonsense…?"

"It weren't anything like that!"

"And the woman… Mezzi? Did you hurt her?"

He spat again, the bile rising in his mouth no worse than how he felt knowing she thought that of him. "No lass. She's well. We had a… friendly chat is all."

"A friendly chat. And many a glass of that spirit, it seems." She took his hand and lay back on the bed, pulling him with her.

"Girl…" His voice was a warning, but still, he lay down beside her.

"You were dreaming. And it was not of my making. And I could not get to you when I tried…." The worry was clear on her face, and he was glad it was not that odd mask now, but changing quickly as he tried to reassure her.

"It were just a dream girl. The spirit in the bottle sent it no doubt." He ignored his unsettled stomach and pounding head, and drew closer to touch her hair. "Though, when I dream, your hair is red again. And long… so bloody long."

His hand went from her hair to her waist to pull her against him, feeling the shape of her against his chest and the comfort of having her head lie in the space underneath his scarred chin. The dream was fleeing from him, but the keep that was two nightmares in one remained with him as yet. As the first sparks started their journey up and down his spine, marking the start of his change, he admitted what the dream had him suspecting. What he had always suspected maybe…

One day they would have to go back to the places that scared them.

SANSA

The frown on Mouse's forehead was just as adorable as the small pink tip of his tongue that jutted out of his mouth as he struggled with the shapes on the parchment in front of him on the table. He jabbed at it with the quill, holding it in an aggressive fist as he scratched out a row of b's on the page. Some still had the round part at the front, and Sansa steeled herself to tell him for the hundredth or more time about the difference between b's and d's.

"I don't see why I gotta learnt to write as well! Can't we just stick with reading for now, and get around to writing when we're done with that?!"

Sansa held in her laughter. She vaguely recalled a similar argument from Rickon, but aimed then at the unswayed face of Maester Luwin.

"Sweetling, you have to learn them together."

"But why…?"

She couldn't remember Maester Luwin's response, and fell back onto the same argument she'd used when she'd first told him that the lessons were necessary.

"Because you do!"

The dog huffed his strange laughter as his muzzle rested on his paws.

"But… why! Got this far without daft squiggling lines and fat bellied d's…"

She looked down at his expressive face. He was so much like her brother sometimes. But she couldn't use the same arguments she would have used on Rickon. She could not tell him that as a son of Winterfell he had a duty to be educated, wise and well read. That one day, the gods forbid, the inheritance of the North might be his and he'd have to lead older men with years of reading and knowledge behind them. Men who'd want a Stark in Winterfell, but not an unlettered fool.

Mouse was never going to be a noble.

"One day, when we break this curse… one day, we'll head North to my family. And then, if it pleases him, my brother will make you a place there. You could be a steward, or a man at arms… but not if you can't read and make letters."

"I'm going to be an adventuring knight like my lord!"

"Well, your lord knows how to make letters and how to read them… I assume…"

The dog's head sprung up and he stared at her.

"Sorry… But I've never actually seen you do it…"

He barked once, low and contained to hide his presence in the cabin. Once for yes.

"There you go!" She was triumphant, that was the argument that would work. "If the Patchwork Knight can read and write then surely his squire must do as well!"

"Will I still be his squire when we go North?" Mouse looked downcast. "I'm of no name, and I know squires come from proper houses…"

Sansa hesitated, not knowing how to answer. She was afeared of what would happen to Sandor when they finally rid themselves of the vile septon's curse, let alone whether he'd have a squire still. She had no doubt he'd see her safe to Robb and her mother. And that she'd protect him with everything she had once they were there. But he had been the Lannisters' man from birth. Even if they didn't kill him on sight, they'd no doubt throw him in irons and bury him in the deepest, dankest cell they had before she even had a chance to speak for him!

Her heart ached at the thought. In the last few weeks since they'd left Salt Shore they'd fallen into a happy pattern… especially now that Mouse was over his seasickness. Their moments together as man and woman were full of hurried kisses and light caresses… once Mouse was sent to chores and errands…. At night she sometimes found herself smiling, running her fingers over her lightly swollen lips and remembering how he had gone from his wretched change to sweeping her onto the bed in a single motion. Sometimes he'd pull her to him as they stood, and she'd feel enveloped by safety for the first time since she and Joffrey had come across Arya and Mycah play fighting. He truly seemed as hungry for kisses as she was, and it was such sweet agony to be separated from him at each sunrise and set… sweet because she knew that once again the sun or moon would sail across the sky and they would change forms, freeing them to passionate kisses and hesitant caresses.

Mouse coughed, and she came back from recent memories of him pulling her across him on the bed to taste her mouth above him…

"Well?"

"I hope that my family… and my brother, the King in the North… will be grateful to the two brave men who brought me home. I will petition him to grant you any position you desire… so perhaps one day there will be a 'squire Mouse' in the North." The dog huffed in mockery again but Mouse went back to his scratchings with a smile on his face.

Sansa knew Sandor was cynical about that promise. But he came from a family… if you could call it such… where siblings had nothing but hatred for each other. But Robb was her brother and loved her dearly, she was certain of that. She would need all of that love to petition for Sandor's freedom, but likely only a very small amount of it to grant the charming little boy whatever his heart's desire was. He could be a squire in the North, but not Sandor's squire. Just as she would not be his lady.

All of Robb's love for her and his family together would not sway him from making a match for her… his campaign needed it.

Some nights she still crept out onto deck. Riveriil would often be there and usher the other men away before they noticed the small figure wearing the knight's cloak. He never came over to speak with her as he had done before, not since the storm and the Witch's Fire. But he would bow, at a distance, and she would return the courtesy. Then she'd enjoy the starlight and daydream that, since she could not actually see land, the kingdoms and their war did not exist. She would dream that she was just a free woman, like Mezzi perhaps, travelling as she wished. Loving as she wished. Spending stolen moments with a man who seemed to desire her kisses like a man desires water when he has been lost at sea. Or she would dream that she was a woman on a ship sailing to the cure to her malady… to a cure that would free her to kiss him always, both by day and night…

During the day she showed him some of her dreams, sending them to him as he slept. Simple little things they were, where the rest of the world, family and duty melted away. If he noticed how small the worlds that she created for them were… a tiny cottage in the woods, a holdfast with no name, a room above a tavern in a distant city far from the kingdoms… he never mentioned it. Just as he never asked for more than she could give him.

Mezzi's advice had haunted her for the first days after the Courtesan's Wish had left Salt Shore. But there was no privacy in a cabin where both dog and woman were stowaways and had to stay inside. So even though his kisses made parts of her… parts of her down there… bloom in ways she did not entirely understand, there was no possibility of exploring what that meant on her own.

A flush had risen on her cheeks and she tried to concentrate on Mouse's lesson again, calming the thoughts that ran through her head.

"Are you well my lady?" He was looking up at her with wide curiosity filled eyes. How much did the boy truly understand? He seemed to have accepted that she was Sandor's lady without any questioning of their marital status. He knew the new gods well… he spoke to them often enough… but he had never asked if they had been wed in the sight of them. It was just as though the Patchwork Knight needed his lady as he needed his bird. They were just two more parts of his story.

"I am well sweetling. Though it is late and perhaps we all need to sleep."

Mouse leapt up from the table with a smile and quickly put away the inks and quills he'd acquired from the Captain, before jumping onto the bed and making the dog grumble as he made space for the boy. Sansa smiled. Her strange little family brought her great happiness, and part of her wished this journey would not end… or this part at least. Here on the Courtesan's Wish she had found a small amount of safety and she cherished it as she cherished her moments with Sandor. But such moments were fleeting she had found. She tucked Mouse in and lay down beside him, straightening his ever messy hair as the dog settled on his other side.

"Captain Denaro says we're to stop at Tarth."

"Tarth?! Did he say why?" The dog looked up from its dozing and growled deep in its chest.

"All he said was that the Courtesan wishes that he makes coin on this journey."

Dread filled her veins with ice. Tarth, sworn to the Stormlands and House Baratheon. And after Renly's death, loyal to Stannis whose fleet had burnt green with fire in Blackwater Bay.

Land… and the Kingdoms… might not be visible yet, but it was coming.

SANDOR

"Tarth. Fucking Tarth"

Sandor stood as still as a statue as Stranger nickered and twitched beside him. He kept a firm hand on the horse's bridle and held him back from throwing his head. The harbour, if you could call it that, was drawing closer and Stranger was reacting eagerly to the drifting smells of land that were coming towards them on the breeze. Compared to Salt Shore and Oldtown… well the first was a chaotic maelstrom and the second was ordered and calm. Tarth was too small to be much of either. A few fishing boats bobbed against the grey stone walls, and there was one large warship anchored by the opening of the harbour to the sea. The Courtesan's Wish, with its elaborate carvings and flashy sails was a loud arrival and bound to draw attention. Sandor took in the tiny port town, and the hall on the hill above it and made a quick decision.

He looked down at Mouse. He was smiling at the harbour, excited about yet another bloody adventure. Well, see how much he likes a real 'adventure'.

"We'll be making camp in the hills, away from town."

"But… but…" Mouse looked crestfallen. "But ser… I aint a country mouse!"

"If the lady can sleep on the ground and learn to make a campfire then so can you boy."

He went to complain again, but Sandor had been thorough in teaching him his place. Wanted to play at squire did he? Then he'd do as his 'lord knight' bloody well wished of him!

Denaro had slithered over, bloody hells. They'd argued days ago about the plan to go to Tarth and it had nearly ended in fists again. The Braavosi couldn't trade in Sunspear, or at many of the main cities edging the Sea of Dorne. Something to do with a bounty on his ship… but he had a contact in Tarth who moved items on his behalf for some kind of a cut. Stopping at Sunspear hadn't fucking appealed anyway. Not with the Princess and that soft-headed Oakheart being there. It would be just their luck to be spotted by some King's Landing guard while they were finding a bolthole. Myrcella had been kinder and sweeter than her shit brother… and most like ten times the ruler he was going to be… But Myrcella had been afraid of him and his scars, even when he'd spoken to her civilly. She would not help them if the guards took them.

But Tarth… Fucking Tarth! Just some arse end of nowhere island which was known for fuck all. Or was it known for its blue waters or something? Denaro had been firm though, he needed to make gold off of this trip, and the Hound's smaller coin weren't enough by far. He'd admitted he owed him a debt after the storm, but debts like that couldn't pay off debts back in Braavos.

The ship bumped into port, Denaro yelling at harbour hands and threatening their skins if they damaged the skin of his lady, just as he had done in Salt Shore. The skinny, leathery men just shrugged and got on with their work, settling a plank for them. Sandor pulled Stranger forward without a word of goodbye to Denaro, and Mouse skipped after him. The bird was on the wing already, most like enjoying the view of green hills and mountains instead of rolling dark blue waves. Sandor grabbed Mouse and fair flung him onto the front of the saddle, before mounting up behind him and clicking his teeth at Stranger.

He had to say he'd found a good spot for their camp. High enough to see both the port, the Courtesan's Wish the second largest ship there, and the hall above it. High enough that anyone wanting to follow them would be seen well in advance and they would have the advantage of the higher ground. And… she'd probably like the lake too. And he'd like her liking it to be honest.

But Mouse had not liked the clearing. The trees were too close. The ground was too hard. What if there were snakes? What if there were bears? Sandor had told him if there were bears he'd throw the boy to them first if he wasn't quiet… But Mouse had carried on grumbling under his breath, even as he was sent off to find fire wood. That was, once Sandor had explained what kind of sticks and such he should be looking for. The boy wasn't wrong. He wasn't a country mouse. He'd never had much of anything, but he still thought that firewood for the hearth came pre-chopped into equal size chunks…

Sandor sat by the water's edge on a tree stump, enjoying the silence now the boy had finally gone. Sun was setting, and she'd be along soon. Maybe she'd want to sit and kiss for a bit… which he longed for and almost dreaded at once. Their little time together was agonizingly sweet. Agonizing because she did not entirely understand what she did to him. And he wasn't about to explain why sometimes he had to find excuses to be alone in the cabin. Not that he managed to get such privacy often, not with Mouse and the bird around. But he'd rather find times to take him self in hand than try to push her further and have her, bloody rightly, refuse him. Better to keep living from change to change, sweetness to sweetness, than salt the whole damn thing with the bitter truth.

He saw the smoke descend and her form came together next to him on the stump. Together they could look down into the cool still pool of the water and see the large, grim warrior and the delicate lady reflected back. At least that were what he saw. Her hand drifted to her hair.

"Did you bring the bags? There's water and I should use the dye again…"

"There's time for that yet lass… you have the whole night for that. But we don't have much time for this…" He tipped her chin up with his finger and ghosted his lips across hers. She sighed.

"And 'sides, we're heading to Braavos. There's no one there who'd know a Stark girl with red hair. You could let the dye fade out…" He broke each sentence with a kiss on her soft blushed lips. He liked to play with kisses, making some soft and some hard, seeing which ones made her moan and which make her hungry for more. It seemed to change with each time they were together. And he had never known that there could be so many ways to kiss a woman.

"That's true…" She smiled and stood quickly, surprising him and making a frown cross his face. She turned and presented him with the back of her dress. "Unlace me."

The frown remained, he did not entirely understand what she was asking for, but his bloody body responded to the thought anyway.

She looked back at him over her shoulder. "It's long past time you had a bath as well…"

He grunted and stood quickly to unlace her, turning back when her dress fell from her smooth white shoulders. She might have shown herself to him before at the tavern in Salt Shore, but he felt unable to assume she would want to again.

He heard the splash as he was stripping off his shirt. After a moment's thought he kept his breeches on, and waded into the water after her. The bloody water sprite was already swimming away from the bank, her pale shoulders just visible above the water as her dark hair fell over them like a curtain. A few strong arms strokes and he caught up with her though, and she turned in surprise. She wasn't wearing a stitch, but the water was hiding everything he'd hope to see of her. Except those freckles on her collar bone.

"I thought Tarth was known for its bloody clear waters! I can't see shit through this murk!"

"It's called the Sapphire Isle because of the clear seas around it, silly."

He growled. "Did you just call me silly, girl!?"

She giggled and it was the sweetest sound he'd ever heard. She was treading water, slowly around moving as she did, and he was reminded of those bloody stupid dances that the lords and ladies sometimes did. The ones were you had to face each other and prance round each other with a hand in the air like a bloody fool. But if they'd been like this one, he might have gotten involved. With her at least. Gods, she was naked and mere feet from him! He shivered. Soon his change would come though, and best he was back on the bank for that…

"I need to go back… it won't be long now." Her face fell but she nodded.

"Race you?!" She plunged forward into the water, swimming under it and past him in one motion. He turned quickly and pushed himself through the water. Gods damnit, he'd have to stay at least part in the water when he got there. There was no hiding what she'd done to him now his breeches were wet…

She easily beat him back to the bank, and he averted his face as she got up from the water, and stumbled about trying to get back into her dress with wet skin.

"You're fast my lady!"

"Don't forget, I'm half fish!"

He laughed, but he was interrupted by a scream. It was muffled but there was no mistaking it as the cry of a small boy. He charged from the water, forgetting his dignity… not that that mattered much now… and raced to the tree line, crashing through the undergrowth, the sound of her rapid footsteps behind him.

They found Mouse at the bottom of a ravine, pale and sweating with the pain. His leg was broken, the bone pushing through his ragged breeches. He sobbed pitifully.

Sandor roared as the sparks came.

"Sandor? Sandor?! What do we do?!" Her face was a mask of fear. There was only thing that they could do… and he had to force the words out through the pain of the change as it came for him.

"Take him to the Tarth hall. Evenfall. He needs a maester."

SANSA

As the dog paced back and forth, and as Mouse groaned in agony, Sansa tried to find that quiet place inside of her she'd often retreated to in King's Landing. When her father's head was on the spike and Joffrey was gloating she'd found that hard edged, steel cold place and had moved to do what had to be done. The Hound had stopped her… doing his duty of course… but she remembered the feel of that determination and how clearly she had seen herself moving forward and pushing the king. In her mind's eye she had watched his body break on rocks below as they grabbed her to take her head off too. It had been so clear and she needed that clarity now. She needed it desperately.

She had reached for the smoke before, calling it to come and take her for the change. But now she didn't call it. She used her mother's voice, the one that had kept the dog away from the boy when he'd gone for him in Oldtown. She used her father's voice when he spoke to his bannermen; low and calm, but born of centuries of leadership. Now she didn't call it. She looked inside herself, to that place of steel and determination… and she threatened the smoke with its sharp edge.

The vile septon and the novice had both overpowered the Hound. And she needed that strength now.

She had been kneeling at Mouse's side, her skirts brushing against the leaves of the floor of the wood. But as she concentrated on commanding the smoke she stood, closing her eyes and turning inwards on herself. And then the edges of her skirts began to trail smoke that curled and twisted over the leaves and stopped the dog in his tracks. The smoke flowed over her shoulders, making her a ghostly cloak of grey and white. It twisted in the dark strands of her hair and gave her the grey locks of a crone, long before her time. And just as the dog had been fire and flesh at Malakor's house, so now she was half smoke, half woman, and as strong as steel. She picked up Mouse as though he weighed no more than a feather, gathering him up with his useless leg hanging down over her arm, and she turned back towards the slope the man and woman had charged down before.

One footstep, then another. Then another. She walked as though asleep, never pausing or reaching out to steady herself, ignoring the branches and thorns that grasped for her travel stained dress and tore it. The dog worried her steps, making low growls and whimpering sounds. The train of smoke had spread so far and wide that the whole of the hollow they had found Mouse in was full of rolling plumes of it. And as she reached the top of the slope it bubbled over on to the clearing and flowed down towards the lake they had bathed in. The dog watched the smoke more than he watched her, and he snapped at it with sharp teeth when it came close to him.

She slowly lifted the boy onto Stranger's saddle, where he fell against the beast's broad back and lay there shivering. Then Sansa came back to herself, suddenly as though waking from a strange dream, and shook her head to clear out the smoke from in there.

Then she realised quite how cold she was under the moonlit night sky. The smoke was receding but she called it to her again, bringing it around her and her wet clothes. It twisted and turned about her like silk… And then it was silk. It settled over her skin as a long fine dress and a cloak of grey and white. Her now dry hair was set with pearls and diamonds, and her skin was as clean and pale as the moon herself.

The last of the smoke she sent over to Mouse, and it covered him as it had done her, replacing his ragged brown breeches and tunic with a simple white shirt and grey breeches. The dog growled low and deep in throat. He was afraid, and so was she, but using the curse… the power they had been given… using it rather than being used by it, felt right. It felt like drawing the sword, instead of always being beaten by it. It felt… exciting.

She pulled gently on Stranger's bridle and he followed obediently, the dog walking after, a long loping shadow in the darker shadow of night.

Evenfall Hall was a dull grey building which did not live up to the romance of its name. Set on a hill above the port where the Courtesan's Wish was docked, the only way to it was up a long and winding gravelled path and Sansa was certain that they were spotted long before their arrival. Two guards in the pink and blues of Tarth were standing ready at the main gate when the woman in fine grey silks, the crying boy on a large black horse's back, and the dog that stuck to the deeper night-shadows, arrived.

"Who goes there?!"

"I seek an audience with the Lord Tarth."

"The hour is late mi'lady. Audiences are for daylight hours."

"I need his aid. Does the Lord Tarth turn away those in need of assistance?"

"Usually…" The other guard grumbled under his breath, but the first guard snapped a dark look at him.

"My lady… The Lord Tarth is at supper. Return on the morning, and I am sure he will open his gates to a fair lady in distress." The other guard sniggered for a moment, but the speaker was stony faced.

"My servant needs to see a maester immediately. You will open the gates." She drew on that steel again, not calling the smoke but just the voices of her parents. She was Sansa Stark, daughter of Lord Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, and she would be obeyed!

The guard hesitated, then drew back the bolts to open the gate to the courtyard. The guard half walked, half jogged over to a man who stumbled out of a side door, rubbing at his sleep filled eyes. He whispered to him quickly and he nodded and came over to the Sansa, throwing her a low bow and straightening his dublet at the same time.

"I am the chief steward here, my lady, called Oren. I will see that your servant is placed abed until the Lord Tarth agrees to send Maester Greve to his side."

"'Agrees to send'…? Is there some doubt that Lord Tarth will help me?"

"If you will follow Guards' Captain Caelin here, he will take you to the main hall and to Lord Selwyn." Caelin, the talker at the gates, bowed briefly and gestured that she follow him. She turned to Mouse and pushed a sweat soaked strand of hair away from his pallid face.

"Be brave my little Mouse" She whispered. "I'll see that they help you." Then she knelt quickly by the dog and cupped his head in her hands, staring deep into his eyes. "Stay with him, but if they try to make you go, don't fight them." She rose then, straightening her back and putting as much Stark ice in her eyes as she could. "Take me to Lord Tarth."

"Am I surrounded by fools?!" The man's voice bellowed out of the hall before Caelin even had a chance to open the doors and show her in. "Have none of you any serious answers to my problem? I should hang you all and start again!"

Caelin grimaced at his master's voice, pushed open the door and prepared to introduce her. But then he paused, dumbstruck. "I do not know my lady's name!"

She shushed him, and stood there patiently as Lord Tarth blustered and bellowed. The large fair haired man was sat in the middle of a long table at the far end of the hall, an empty hearth behind him and a fair, but bored lady beside him. Ranged along the table were a variety of men in their older years, but Tarth was prominent amongst them being both larger and redder of face than them all. Part of that was some rage that was currently gripping him.

"It's a Royal Wedding! I cannot send some salt beef and think that our King will forgive me for siding with not one uncle, but two!"

"I did not say salt beef my lord…" One of the men at the table was attempting to placate him and failing badly.

"You said 'produce'… 'examples of the finest that Tarth makes'! And remind me exactly what we make that will charm King Joffrey and make him accept us back into the fold?!" He slammed down a goblet, making the much younger woman beside him wince and roll her eyes. "We need a present for the wedding of the King and the Highgarden girl that will erase from memory that we gave men to first Renly's and then Stannis' causes… that we ever thought to believe the claims about his parentage!"

Sansa was confused by that last remark, but she held her face impassive. There was great danger here if she could not create a convincing lie. What could be a better gift for Joffrey's wedding day than the fugitive Sansa Stark?! The Lannisters would happily replace her copy with the real thing, and then take both their heads… She could not let them discover her.

Caelin took her moment of silence to shout out, "My Lord!"

Tarth looked down his bulbous nose at the stiff backed guard. "What is it Caelin? Why are you disturbing both our supper and our business of state?!"

"There is a lady here who seeks aid for her servant. He appears to have broken-"

"Step forward woman! Into the light, let me see you?!"

Sansa curtsied briefly and stepped into the light. The woman at his side looked her over and pouted, but on Lord Tarth's face was a disgustingly obvious leer.

"If it please you my Lord, my servant has broken his leg and I only ask that your maester might look to healing him as best that he can." She was by now unused to making the long, and frankly boring, phrases expected of court and she hoped she was being suitably deferential. Tarth seemed interested still, but a shadow did pass over his face and he sighed dramatically.

"Only? You only ask? Do you know how much a maester's keep and feed costs this humble hall? Do you know what financial strains a hall such as this must bear? Do you know why this hearth is not lit?! Do you?!"

"Forgive me my Lord…"

"And who are you to be travelling through Tarth and only to introduce yourself when you seek my aid? What manner of lady does not present herself and her entourage at my gates upon arrival on my isle?" He peered at her. "Your dress is fine, and there are gems in your hair my Lady. Are you of note?"

She inwardly recoiled from his uncouth and brash approach. But on her face she painted what she hoped was a pleasing smile.

"I am of Braavos, my Lord."

He threw up his hands as though that explained everything. But another of his elderly men piped up then.

"You do not sound, nor look, Braavosi girl!"

"I was born in Westeros, but I have made my fortune across the narrow sea."

The woman whispered into the Lord Tarth's ear and his face reddened.

"A whore! But you are a child!"

"The term courtesan is preferable" Seven…. hells! She really should have thought out a story that cast her in a better light. But he was right about a proper lady presenting herself at court before now. And the Braavosi had their own ways of doing things that she could play with. Courtesans were at least women of independent means… but Selwyn Tarth seemed scandalized. "And I am a woman fully grown."

"Out! Out! All of you. I would speak to this 'woman' and remind her of her duties as a member of a civilised society!" The woman grumbled but he growled at her, and she stormed out, stomping her boots on the wooden floorboards of the hall.

"Come here, woman of Braavos. What do you call yourself anyway? You have one of those silly titles the whores there give themselves?" There was a sudden sweatiness to Tarth's brow and Sansa had the unsettling feeling that she had played this game the wrong way. But she walked slowly towards the high table, being sure to keep it between this 'Lord' and herself.

"I am known as… The Smoke."

"'The Smoke', is it?! And if I grab you will you slip through my fingers?!" His fat, meaty paw darted out at her, aiming for her wrist, but catching her fingers as she pulled away from him, grey silks swirling. He gripped her fingers hard and squeezed them together painfully as she tried to yank them away. "What's a maester's services worth, 'my Lady'?" He stood quickly and grabbed her forearm with his other paw. "A quick fuck, here, on this table?"

She looked down in horror at the large gnarled hand that covered her fingers and then into his fevered eyes. Then a smile spread across her face. The smile of someone who knows a secret, or a cunning joke, that the other does not.

"What is it woman? I'm going to fuck you bloody, why are you fucking smiling?!"

"Because you are touching my hand…. and I am touching yours."

She called and the smoke answered. She ordered and the smoke obeyed. It reached into him and pulled something out of the part of him he would dare call his soul. Then he let her hand go. Because she willed it. He sat down. Because she willed it.

And when she opened her aching and red fingers and lay her palm out flat there was a flat, dull, yellow stone resting there.

SANDOR

He hated this room. He hated the plain grey stone walls, the smallness of it, the simple bed that took up most of the space of it. He hated the narrow high window with its warped, bubbled glass. He hated the boy in the bed, screaming out his pain. He hated the maester and his maids fussing over him, hated watching them tie sheets about his leg to pull and reset it. He hated it all, but he stayed because she had asked him to watch over the boy. He hated it all… because he felt as though he had been here, in this shitty little room, before.

Had he ever been so small? The boy, Mouse, was about six… at least, he said, he thought he was. When Gregor had grabbed him as he ran and carried him to the brazier he'd been of an age with him. He'd been taken to a room just like this one… out of the way and so very small. And the maester had worked on him there. Fire must fight fire, the bastard had said. Fire must fight fire. And he'd slopped foul smelling gunk on his face that burned into the mess there and made him scream and scream and scream. No milk of the poppy for him. It was too 'cooling'. Fire must fight fire.

This maester had held a vial to the boy's lips as soon as he arrived. But it was taking its own bloody time to work, and until it did the boy thrashed and wailed as they prepared to bring the bone back together. Sansa had swept in not long after the maester and sat quickly at his side, taking his hand, wiping his forehead with a silk cloth and whispering soothing words to the wild eyed boy. There had been no bloody mother to hold his hand. No one at all to stay with him when the maester buggered off back to whatever drink he'd been nursing in the great hall of Clegane's Keep. Just the darkness and the broiling burn on his face.

He should have been glad to see his lady returned, should have been happy that she'd got the boy some treatment for his foolishly gained broken leg. But the dog cowered as her skirts swept past, backing away from the touch of them. The dress suit her well. He knew fuck all about the fashions of court, but he knew an elegant lady when he saw one, knew what caught his eye and showed her to her best. It shaped her and covered her in a way that made him think about uncovering her, and that was all for the good. But the grey and white silks floated and fell like the smoke they were made from and that made the fur on his back stand on end as she moved around the room. He knew what arguments she would make, about the necessity of it, about how he'd called the dog and the fire in Salt Shore to find her and to break that shit Malakor. But that didn't change his mind. He hated that dress.

The maester's servants pulled hard on the sheets and the boy screamed mightily and passed out. The dog cowered further back into the corner of the room.

The old grey robe bumbled about fixing up a splint for him and then stood nodding at his work.

"He needs to be off the leg for as long as possible. If Lord Tarth has agreed to his treatment I assume he will be staying here-"

"No. Not at all. Lord Tarth has agreed to lend us a litter to take him back to our ship."

A maid entered quickly, a bundle of clothes over her arm, and a large pair of men's boots in her other hand.

"My lady, the things you requested. Boy's and men's clothes."

"My lady! You cannot mean to move him. This was a bad break!"

Sansa was inspecting the clothes, holding them up and judging the size. "These are the largest men's clothes you have?" the maid nodded, and Sansa look at them thoughtfully. "Well, they may do. The boy's clothes might have to be taken in a little though…"

"Wait, are those Galladon's clothes? Lord Selwyn would never let you have his son's clothes!"

"And yet he ordered this girl to get them out of storage for me."

"This is… this is wrong! He would never!"

The dog watched the exchange, saw Sansa draw herself up and put on that Stark face he knew so well.

"Are you questioning your master's orders?!

"No… I… no." The maester deferred to her, and Sandor shivered again, like something… wrong… was at work here.

"He sleeps. Are you done here?" The maester nodded mutely and Sansa rose from her seat by his side. "Bring men here in a little while to carry him to the litter."

He looked to be about to question her again, but quailed under her gaze.

Tarth's guards left them on the road back to the port, as per Sansa's commands. The captain gave Sansa a brief bow from the back of his horse and then the riders charged back up the hill towards the hall. Under the greying sky of very early morning Sansa looked ghostlike, and Sandor wondered what stories they would tell about the mysterious woman who had commanded their lord to help her. He had no doubt her great beauty would play a large part in the story. How had she convinced him?

Sansa dismounted from the gentle horse she'd been given and smacked it hard on its flanks to send it back after the others. They kept the pony pulling Mouse's litter and Sansa walked forward to capture its bridle, gently rubbing its nose as Stranger watched, huffing. Stupid, jealous, creature! The dog had trotted alongside them on the way down the hill and now he drew closer to her, feeling the beginnings of his change. He whimpered and she drifted a hand down to touch him on the fur between his ears.

"Oh! I just have to…" She seemed to remember something and turned away from him. From his lower position he was not sure what she did, but it seemed for moment as though she drew something out from the bodice of her dress and spun it quickly into the bushes by the path. In the half light he could not be sure though. What in the seven hells was that all about?

With the coming sun his change took him. He gritted his teeth through the pain, not wanting to wake the boy on the litter. Although, given how much milk of the poppy he'd taken, maybe he could not anyway. Sansa held out, without looking, the men's tunic and breeches she'd had the Tarth lord give her. They weren't a great fit, but at least he was dressed. And they were cleaner than what he'd been wearing. She turned back with a smile and moved towards him, as though for an embrace. Without thinking he moved back a step.

"What? What is it?"

The hairs on his arms had risen and he fought back a shiver. It was that bloody dress. But how could he say that? She'd not been dressed so finely since… since Highgarden. And even the fine travelling dress that woman had given her had been ruined on the road. This dress was finer still, but he felt dread at the thought of being touched by it.

She must have noted his eyes on her dress. She looked down at the fine silks and sighed. And then the silk was smoke again, drifting away from her and fading. In their place was the plain cotton of the dress he'd had made for her in Oldtown. Simple, badly cut based on his guess of her size, but familiar. And not born from the smoke. She sighed and shook out her short dark hair, the diamonds and the pearls vanishing like the stars in the morning. Had it been an illusion all along?

"Will you hold me now, Sandor? Before the day, and the bird, come?"

His heart ached. That she even had to ask! But the taint of the magic left him on edge. There was something about their brief stay at Evenfall Hall that bothered him still.

"Lord Tarth was bloody generous, wasn't he? Lending us his maester. Giving us the litter and the supplies of milk of the poppy…. Giving over his dead son's clothes!"

Sansa flushed and looked away and a horrible realisation came to him.

"You did something to him."

She was silent.

"Answer me!" He roared at her, the fear in him awakening the rage.

"I had to help Mouse." She spoke so quietly he barely heard her. "You told me we needed a maester. He was in pain Sandor. I couldn't bear it!" She regained her voice and shouted the last at him.

For a moment Sandor remembered the Stark boy… Bran… the one who fell. He remembered the paleness of her face when he saw her returning from visiting him. Visiting him in that big room at Winterfell, with the hearth and the old crone spinning her stories for the precious little lordling. Sansa had probably held his hand too, like she'd held Mouse's when they'd fussed about him.

But he'd been alone in that tiny room, alone with the fire on his face. Fire must fight fire, the bastard maester had said.

He grabbed at her hand then, catching her fingers as she pulled away. He shouted at her, bellowing his rage out. "What did you do to him?!"

The horror on her face stabbed him in his heart. But then the smoke came, and as tightly as he squeezed his fingers around hers, he could not hold on to her.

KAI

At first it had been slightly amusing. Watching Clegane's rapers and cutthroats spewing their guts over the side of the ship had filled him a black mirth. But weeks into their pursuit he wanted to slice up the lot of them and throw them as chum for the fish in the depths. Gregor himself had brought a woman with him from Oldtown and was rarely seen outside of the captain's cabin that he'd taken for himself. Sometimes Kai heard her pitiful crying, but increasingly rarely as she learnt her 'lessons' from the giant. His own cargo was well hidden, otherwise the wretched men would have spoiled his plans for it.

At night they all bedded down in the hold, feeling the swoop and flight of the ship across the waves of the Narrow Sea. She was the fastest that Kai could find in Oldtown. And faster still once he'd made the captain throw his own cargo into the sea upon their departure. He'd leashed Gregor, his men and the captain, but he'd had to leave the crew alone, he was stretched enough as it was and his sendings to Ektor were harder each night. But at least they were heading back north now, being all that way down in Dorne and reaching to him had tested him. He'd become grey and ashen of skin, although the men had assumed he was sea sick as well.

The death of the potential in Salt Shore had needed an urgent sending to Ektor. His master had been aware of the old man in the far South and his investigations, but he was apathetic about him and his death. He was more interested in the damage Kai had found. Given the fire, Ektor thought it was the work of the man, the other Clegane. That both the man and the woman were now reshaping the curse was a concern, and Kai had forced the men away from their whores and other… entertainments… in Salt Shore and back aboard the fleet ship as soon as he could.

He had not even needed to pull hard on their leashes for that. With Gregor pre-occupied they were more and more deferring to his command. As the giant seemed to respect him and his cold efficiency with the stiletto the others had come to see him as his second. So when he announced that they were to turn to the North East, few questioned him. The one fool that did had tried hard to collect his fingers from the deck as the rolled about with the motion of the ship.

Tarth. Something was drawing him to Tarth. Following the spoor of his prey across the sea was difficult, but a night or so back something had bloomed in Tarth. A rare flower in a colour only he could see. They were there…. And one of them was shaping the power given them by Heyrick.

Once they pulled into the small port with only fishing boats and a warship for company, he had pulled the men with him up to the hall of the isle, yanking at the leashes he had on them to get the reluctant men moving along the winding path up the hill. They had wanted to stay and play in the town. Most like they'd have burnt it all to the ground, their appetites were more used to larger playgrounds. Gregor had also emerged from his cabin with a shape slung over his shoulder and disappeared for a moment amidst the buildings, returning empty handed not long after. Kai suspected he'd want to find a new plaything, but first Kai needed him with the party to lend it authority.

Banners were unfurled as they walked in the midday sun. The Stag, the Lion and the three dogs.

They were not far from the port when Kai felt something off to his left, just in the undergrowth shadowed by tall elm trees. He quickly rooted around in the branches and creeping ferns till he found what drew him. It was a flat yellow-ish stone. No different to the hundreds of thousands of similar pebbles around it as the side of the gravel path melded into the wild. But so very different in nature. It sang in his hand, telling him about the power that had created it and who it had come from. Not only had they been here, but one of them had managed to leash the Lord of the isle.

Standing in the great hall, Kai listened as one of the Mountain's more eloquent men made the introductions to Lord Tarth. But the large fair haired Lord just sat there, blank of face. One or more of his men shifted in their seats uncomfortably as they waited for his response. Eventually he grunted, but remained blank looking. Kai was intrigued, he'd never seen a man on a leash without someone on the other end of it. It was as though the spark had gone from the man, leaving only the very basics of life and action. Some might not even notice the difference if the leashed was not a very… proactive… person to begin with. But this would not suit his purposes and was likely to enrage the Mountain soon. Already the giant made fists in his leather gauntlets.

"Is the Lord unwell?" Kai spoke up, ignoring the glares from Gregor's men.

"He has been… tired of late." A maester at the great table spoke when the others refused to fill the silence.

"We are not long from Oldtown and I have a remedy procured there that might aid him. If I might approach?" The guards tensed, and the Mountain's men smiled darkly at the thought of action. But the maester gestured him forward.

As soon as he was opposite the large Lord he moved quickly. He grabbed the man's jaw, wrenched it down and stuffed the stone into the very back of his throat. He had moments before he was grabbed and punched in the stomach, but in that time he made sure the stone was swallowed. He went limp in the arms of the guards, but the Lord Tarth stood quickly and bellowed at them.

"Let him go! Let him go now!" They retreated, dropping the slight man to the floor in front of the grand table.

"I am restored! I am restored! Leave him be!" The lumbering Lord moved as rapidly as he could around the table and helped him to his feet. "You have no idea how it has been-"

His eyes widened and his face paled as Kai grasped his hand.

"Oh, I think I know." Kai smiled as he drew a new stone from him and held it tight in his fist. "I know very well. Now, tell them that you are decided to give that rather splendid warship in the port to our cause."