The Wests kept the only dungeon in the realm where the prisoners were welcome to escape at will. The first day she was thrown in there after Quagmire framed her for Carol's murder, Meg had lain flat on her stomach and squirmed to the edge, to poke out her head and look down. Sky was six hundred feet below, with nothing between but empty air. If she craned her neck out as far as it could go, she could see other cells to her right and left and above her. She was a bee in a stone honeycomb, and someone had torn off her wings. Back in King's Landing, she'd heard that her mother Lois had brought Tyrion Lannister here as a prisoner. For all Meg knew, he might have been kept in the very same cell she was in now.
It was cold in the cell, the wind screamed night and day, and worst of all, the floor sloped. Ever so slightly, yet it was enough. She was afraid to close her eyes, afraid that she might roll over in her sleep and wake in sudden terror as she went sliding off the edge.
The only thing keeping her sane was her list, which she repeated over and over. "Joffrey, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Gregor Clegane, Lord Quagmire." After the stunt he had pulled, Quagmire was the most recent addition to her list. She supposed she ought to add the Freys too, but she didn't know all their names.
For several days, the only person she saw was a brutal man named Mord who came to bring her food once a day. He played cruel games with her, jerking the plate away when she reached for it. Sometimes he would spill the food, and then call Meg clumsy and refuse to give her more.
But finally, one day Quagmire came to visit her. "Let me out of here!" Meg demanded, trying to reach through the bars.
Quagmire stood well back, out of her reach. "If ya wanna leave your cell, all ya have to do is turn around and walk out," he said calmly.
Meg was furious. "You know that's not what I mean!"
Quagmire held a hand out in front of him, idly inspecting his fingernails. "There is one other way out," he said. "I hear Roose Bolton's son Ramsay is looking for a wife. I'll sneak you out of here if you promise to marry him."
"Never!" Meg raged. "I'm not having anything to do with any of the Boltons."
"Suit yourself," Quagmire said nonchalantly. "If you want to stay in there and rot, it's all the same to me."
"This is all your fault!" Meg exploded at him. "Not just my being in here, but this whole war! You made Aunt Carol kill Uncle Adam so the rest of my family would think the Lannisters did it. That's what started all this. I bet you even sent that guy who tried to kill Stewie in his bed! Why? What was the point of creating all this chaos?"
"There are those who say chaos is a pit," Quagmire responded. "But I say chaos is a ladder, and I'm going to climb it."
"You're not only a cowardly murdering scum, you're a fool," Meg said. "You should have killed me right away instead of putting me in here. I'm gonna break out of here sooner or later and when I do, I'm gonna turn you into a eunuch just like Lord Varys!"
Quagmire laughed. "Your mother said the same thing to me last time I talked to her." He turned on his heel and left.
He headed back to Carol's bedroom, which was now his room. With her dead, Quagmire was now Lord of the Vale and the sole guardian of Robin West.
Quagmire lay down on the bed and started to masturbate. He was picturing Carol's face in his mind. "Ah, Carol Pewtershmidt," he said out loud. "I remember how we did it in this bed on our wedding night. Giggity giggity goo! I gotta say, you were a good lay, but at the end of the day, you were just another vagina, and there's plenty of those in this world…"
All of a sudden Arya Stark appeared in front of him, holding a knife! Quagmire got scared and fell out of bed. "Who-who are you?" he stammered.
"A girl is no one," said Arya.
"Hey, listen, can we talk? Put that thing down!"
Arya jumped on Quagmire and slashed his throat. He died. She cut off his face with her knife and put it on top of her own face like a mask, and then she turned into him! She slid Quagmire's corpse under the bed. They would dispose of it later.
There was a knock on the door. Arya opened it, in her disguise as Quagmire. There was a guard standing there.
"Lord Quagmire, are ya all right?" the guard asked. "I heard you yell."
"It was nothing," Arya said, and her voice sounded just like Quagmire's. "I was taking a little catnap, and I guess I had a nightmare and fell out of bed. Heh. Heh. All right!"
"Okay," the man said and went away.
Meanwhile Mord was standing in the doorway of Meg's cell with a plate of beans. He held it in front of Meg's face. "You want eat?" he said. "Is beans. Here."
When Meg reached for it, he pulled it away. "You not want eat? Okay." He let go of the plate, and the wind carried it over the ledge, out of the cell and to the ground. A few stray beans hit Meg in the face.
"You fucking son of a pox ridden ass," Meg spat. "I hope you die of a bloody flux."
Mord just laughed. He heard someone clearing her throat behind him. He turned to see Sansa Stark. "Who you?" he said.
"Lord Quagmire sent me down," Sansa said. "I have a gift for you."
"What gift?" Mord asked eagerly.
Sansa whipped out a dagger of her own and slew him with one fierce thrust. "Quagmire doesn't know, but I brought you this!"
Sansa stepped through the cell door, over Mord's body, and held out a hand to Meg. "Come with me, Meg Griffin."
"Who are you?" said Meg. "What are you doing here?"
"My sister and I came to rescue you, and to stop Quagmire."
Meg followed her out into the hallway. They started to head out of the dungeons, but hadn't gone far when they came upon Quagmire.
"You!" Meg snarled.
But then "Quagmire" peeled his face off like a mask, revealing Arya's face beneath! Meg was amazed. "How did you do that? Who ARE you?"
"A girl is no one," Arya said again.
"You know, you're the second person I've met who talked like that," Meg said.
"My sister's name is Arya Stark," said Sansa, "and I'm Sansa Stark."
Meg gasped. "Your name is Sansa Stark? That's the alias I used at Harrenhal. I had no idea there was a real person with that name. I thought I was just making it up, but I… really wasn't?"
Sansa said, "Our family, the Starks, lived in Winterfell and ruled the North for hundreds of years."
Meg shook her head in confusion. "Your family doesn't live in Winterfell. My family, the Griffin family, does."
"That's what everyone thinks right now," said Arya. "But actually, your family isn't from Westeros at all. You come from a completely different universe, where you and your family lived in a town called Quahog. A while ago, there was an interdimensional mix up, and your family and a bunch of other people from your world were transported here. You and everyone else thought you'd always lived here, but you hadn't. Meanwhile, our family was sent to Quahog… except for our aunt Lyanna Stark, who stayed behind and became part of your family instead."
This was almost too much for Meg to take in. "How did it happen?"
"An evil creature named Bill Cipher tricked our brother Bran into making a deal with him," said Sansa. "That's why our family and your family ended up switching places. And Quagmire was working with Bill. He thought Bill was going to make him a king, but really Bill just wanted to destroy the world."
"Which world?" Meg asked. "Yours or mine?"
"All the worlds," said Sansa. "He wants to destroy reality itself!"
"But I just killed Quagmire," said Arya. "So, he won't be able to help Bill anymore. This isn't just a mask, it's Quagmire's actual face. Now, I can pretend to be him so everyone will think he's still alive."
"How did you turn his face into a mask?" said Meg.
Arya had a far off look in her eyes. "It's something I learned how to do in the Free City of Bravos, beyond the narrow sea."
Bravos. Meg remembered Mask had told her he was from there.
Arya turned to Sansa. "So, I'm gonna pretend to be Quagmire. Who are you gonna pretend to be?"
Sansa suggested, "Why don't we say that I'm Quagmire's bastard daughter who's come to live with him, and my name is Alane Stone?"
Arya was impressed. "Wow, how'd you come up with that so fast?"
"That was my cover story before when Littlefinger brought me to the Vale," said Sansa. "Except I pretended to be his daughter."
"What about you?" Arya asked Meg. "Do you wanna stay here with us?"
Meg thought it over. "I don't know," she said. "Everyone in the Vale thinks I killed my Aunt Carol. I don't see how we could explain that away."
"But what will you do if you don't stay here?" Sansa asked. "Do you have anywhere else to go?"
Meg reached into the pocket of her dress. She felt the Bravosi coin Mask had given her, remembering his words to her. "If the day comes when you would find me again, give that coin to anybeast from Bravos and tell them these words- valar morghulis."
Meg smiled. "Yeah, I know a place."
