The queen's solar was hot and fuggy and close, and Arya wanted to peel off her own skin. Her hair stuck to the back of her neck, and she could feel warm sweat behind her knees and between her breasts, beading and itching.
Around her, the queen's ladies chattered on about nothing like flies over a perfumed dung heap. If she had to sit here another moment more, she was in danger of screaming until her throat snapped.
One of the ladies of some Crownlands lord laughed like a bleating sheep. She had not been one of the queen's companions on the journey and was now patting Sansa's arm solicitously.
"Lady Stark, your daughter truly is exquisite. You must play the high harp for us when you join us next, Lady Sansa," she said, and her smile was particularly ovine too.
"Lady Lynesse has sung your praises with the instrument. I'll bring my younger girl next time. She could learn a great deal from you—that is, with your permission, Your Grace."
The woman tittered nervously, and the queen gave her a lazy look of indifference.
"Mother, really." It was her older daughter who replied. This woman was bony, with fat, fish-like lips, and her eyes raked over Sansa, then her own mother with a damp sort of impatience.
"It would hardly be kind to inflict Lollys on the Stark girls so soon upon their arrival." She gave a high-pitched laugh at her own cleverness then, and turned towards Cersei as well.
"Wouldn't you say, Your Grace? Oh, but please do forbid my mother to commit such folly."
The queen gave her a thin smile and returned to her wine. Arya hid her eye-roll and tried her best to let their words zip by without entering her ears.
They had not been long in the capital, and this morning the queen had invited Arya, Sansa and their mother to her solar to do needlework and eat a light repast with her ladies.
Of course, Arya had not wished to attend, but the maid had specified that the invitation was for Lady Stark and her two older daughters, and Arya could hardly snub the queen, no matter that she wished to break the vile woman's nose.
Arya's only comfort was seeing how reluctant the queen was to have them in her company. Clearly this had been an invitation extended out of obligation, for Cersei Lannister spoke little, and when she was not glaring at Amma, she was glaring at Sansa.
Her hostility made sense, naturally. Amma was prettier than the queen, more likeable than the queen, looked younger than the queen and was generally more agreeable. Even now, among women she had mostly never met, her mother drew all their eyes and managed to make them smile and laugh.
Sansa was the same—like a younger copy of their mother, with her hair perfectly coiffed and not a single bead of sweat on her brow—and Arya was fairly certain the queen blamed Sansa for Joffrey's outburst at Darry. She might not be able to prove anything, but everyone saw how much time Sansa had spent riding with the prince in the days leading up to his madness.
Of course the queen had no time to look down her nose at Arya, who was the only one mending small clothes and not performing elaborate feats of embroidery. In fact, everyone in the solar ignored her. Not that it made anything better. She still had to listen to the annoying chatter of the ladies, and the heat and cloying scent of perfume-ripe bodies only made things worse.
Still, it was not as if Arya had anywhere better to be. Vayon Poole had not travelled with them, and these days past, Arya had been holed up in their mother's new rooms in the Tower of the Hand, making household budgets while Sansa directed the servants in setting up their new household.
They had been mostly left alone. Father and Amma seemed suddenly busy with errands and visits, and the twins had been sent off to lessons with Tommen and Myrcella. The accounts were rather tedious work—she was good with numbers, but Arya did not particularly enjoy sitting before heaps of parchment and muttering sums beneath her breath—but not once had she thought to make an easy escape.
Not once had she had the urge to take her sword and practice in the yard below the Tower. Not once.
She had barely touched Needle since Darry. Ironic, because for so long she had been unable to come up with an adequate name, but the very day before they had reached the castle, Sansa had hit on the perfect one.
Micah had brought one of his father's kitchen tools to show them and satisfy Arya's curiosity—a huge trussing needle the butcher used to sew together a pig once it had been stuffed with herbs—and Sansa's eyes had nearly popped out of her head.
"Gods help us all, and I thought your leather needle was big, Arya. That needle's almost as long as that new sword of yours. Please don't fling it into any more rats. You scared me out of my skin last time."
Arya had looked up then, her own eyes growing huge.
"That's it! Needle!"
"What?"
Mycah had laughed, his voice earthy and smooth like a pebble heated by the sun. "For your sword, Lady Arya! That's fitting, ain't it?"
"For your…"
"Oh, Sis, you're a genius, you know that? Don't get used to my saying so, but it's true. Genius!"
No matter how sweet, that memory left a bitter taste on her tongue now. That day was so vivid—Mycah's self-satisfied grin at their shocked expressions so alive and real—but now he was bones and rotting flesh buried in a ditch somewhere near Darry, and Arya did not think she could feel the unadulterated joy of that afternoon ever again.
Sansa had not wished to tell her the details, but Arya had wrested them out of her. The Hound had cut Mycah nearly in half—severed his abdomen so that his liver and intestines hung from the gash.
For a spell, she had gotten it in her head that she needed to see his body, for she could not believe that someone who had, only a few nights before, been warm and breathing against her chest could truly be hacked into a bloody mess.
It had only been a glimpse of his father's wretched face that had brought Arya out of her idiotic notions. Of course the old man had buried him already. And who was Arya to him, anyway? Just the stupid, reckless girl who had gotten him killed.
She had wanted revenge against Joffrey. She had wanted to watch him suffer and fear, to make him feel what she'd felt in that flash when the Hound had lifted her by the collar and he'd come at her with his blade. Never had she imagined her plotting could take the lives of innocent people.
That hadn't been the plan. That wasn't meant to happen. She hadn't intended for any of it to happen this way, but her intentions meant less than the breath it would take to voice them. It had been all her fault.
All the smallfolk that Joffrey had ordered slaughtered had been at that Darry feast. Arya had asked around and knew it for certain. She did not know how Joffrey had picked them out, but of course he could not bear that they were witness to his pathetic display before the king.
And Mycah had been among them. Mycah had been a target—no doubt doubly so because Joffrey had seen him sitting in the grass with her and her siblings whenever they made camp. Arya had been the one to make Joffrey take note of him. And she had been the one who had gotten him killed.
Stupid, selfish girl.
Sansa had told her that she'd thought the executed smallfolk were felled deer when she had seen them wrapped and slung on horseback. She had told her, too, that Mycah's father had thought they'd brought him a pig to butcher when they gave him Mycah's body.
She felt her heart drop into her stomach, where it turned with bile and rose bitter in her throat. That was why she could not bear to practice with Needle of late. Every time she thought of her sword, she could see Mycah's smile and feel the way he had radiated solid, vigorous life. And then she would imagine those brutes cutting him down with their swords.
Swords that she, too, knew how to use; knew how to kill with if pressed, she was sure. Arya could not bear the thought of herself hacking and hammering like the butchers who called themselves knights, and so she stayed away from her sword and the practice yard.
"Arya?"
Sansa had been saying her name, she realised. Arya turned.
"What?"
"I said, would you like some apricot preserve?"
Sansa was holding a crystal jar of the golden spread dotted with flecks of garnet pepper. Normally, Arya's mouth would have watered, for this was one of the few sweets she could never grow sick of.
The Yronwoods in Dorne were famous for this spread, for only the apricots that grew in their rocky mountain highlands could be rich and tarte and fragrant with summer night air.
All Arya's life, a jar of the stuff was always on their table at home, and their whole family liked it on bread or porridge to break their fast—even Father, who generally did not take to Dornish food. Today however, no food had any appeal. She'd left her yoghurt and pastries untouched.
"No, I'm alright."
"Are you sure you don't want anything to eat at all?" Sansa asked under her breath.
Mutely, she nodded.
Sansa frowned, spooning more preserve into her own bowl, but quickly looked up as another lady spoke to her. Sansa had cried nearly every night between Darry and King's Landing—she had tried and failed to hide it from Arya—but Arya knew it was not truly for Mycah, or that she blamed herself.
No, Sansa knew she was not at fault. She cried only for the knowledge that some men held simply no goodness in their hearts—a truth that Arya could have told her at ten. That made Arya's thoughtlessness even more unforgivable.
The room devolved into talk of the preserves and other foods shipped from Dorne and the Reach, and Arya felt nausea swelling in a tidal wave up her chest.
She looked over at the queen. Cersei Lannister was leaning back on her cushions, swirling her wine, eyes narrowing like a lazy yellow cat. The kind of cat that was only ever nasty and tried to scratch your eyes out at every opportunity.
The queen had been complicit in Mycah's death and those of the other smallfolk. Cersei. Joffrey. And all those Lannister men: Sandor Clegane, Addam Marbrand…she had made sure to find out all their names, these monsters who treated people like beetles and so easily crushed beneath their thick heels.
She wanted to kill them all. In another life, Arya would have put the point of Needle through all of their hearts. But she could not. She was not some faceless assassin with no family and no ties. It was a prince who had ordered those deaths. It didn't matter that his reasons were ridiculous.
Her parents could do nothing—not Father, who was the second most powerful man in the realm now, nor Amma, who had always taught her that to be just and fair was as close to godly as one could be—and Arya could do even less. Not without grave consequences.
Joffrey was set to be the king one day, and the king's word was law.
They deserved to die—Cersei, Joffrey, the Lannister men—and yet they could go about their lives as if nothing had ever happened.
And the worst thing was, Arya was too bloody scared to take justice into her own hands. Too frightened to act on her impulses to orchestrate some fall for the Hound or sneak a poisonous spider into Joffrey's bed. Not when she had caused Mycah's death with her first little revenge scheme. Not again.
The choking heat of the room suddenly made the air too heavy and dense to draw in, and Arya was trapped in her body with the walls slowly caving in. Her breaths came short. Never had she felt so helpless as she did when thinking about the injustice of that day.
"…developed a craving for it when I was carrying Arya, and it's never left me. Now I am rather a nuisance to my brother at Starfall, always pestering him to send more up North."
The sound of her name buoyed Arya out of her miserable musings. Her mother had her hand on another lady's forearm, and three more tilted their heads in to listen as she spoke.
"What's Amma saying?" Arya whispered to Sansa. "What about me?"
Sansa gave her a little smile.
"They're talking of pregnancy and the cravings they've gotten. Apparently, before she carried you, Amma hated apricot preserve."
Arya raised an eyebrow and felt a little humour returning like a migrating bird.
"Really? So, you all have me to thank for the constant supply back home."
Sansa laughed lightly.
"Truly," one of the Lannister ladies was saying now. "I regret none of the havoc my boys have wreaked on my figure. Anything to have them with me, the dears." She gave their mother a narrowed glance and a half sneer. "Perhaps it is only multiple boys that do damage to the figure. What think you, Lady Stark?"
Before she could respond, the queen's goodsister seemed to choke on her wine, and Arya could see the mirth on her reddening face. Amma looked up, smiled, then looked down at her own wine.
"Lady Sylla, I've only borne one son, and him with a sister besides. Perhaps you should ask Her Grace. She has two princes, and ought to have more knowledge on the matter."
Even without looking, Arya could feel that Cersei's eyes had grown hard. For a long moment all was silent save for the stuttering apologies of Lady Sylla. The queen waited for her voice to die down, then pinned the woman with her eyes.
"I only know that some women simply get fat and stay fat." She downed the rest of her wine. "However, I do believe you when you say there is no regret in losing your figure. What would we mothers not do for our children?"
It was the queen's turn to sweep her gaze over their mother. Her eyes fell again on Sansa after that, but this time they glared at Arya too, and at once Arya was both cold with terror and aflame with rage.
"Those who seek to harm them. Those who seek to humiliate them. You've all heard of those beastly peasants at Darry, traitors determined to cause chaos in the kingdom by casting spells on the Crown Prince's mind. We only demanded their lives. They died too easily, I thought—not enough screaming—but Joffrey decided to be merciful. He understands that a king's justice is not to be equated with common revenge."
Was this rage flaring in her belly? Guilt? Or…Arya thought this was what a pig felt like as it watched its companion being slaughtered while it fought against its pen; wondering, perhaps, if it was next.
In a panic, the trapped feeling was back, hitting Arya like a suddenly-opened furnace, heat gnawing at her skin. Her stomach turned, the stench of the room trickling down her throat.
Suddenly, it felt like there was some crusty gremlin clawing and scraping at the inside of her ribcage, desperate to escape her tortured flesh. She could not breathe. She could not properly see. Black blooms were dotting her vision.
It took all of Arya's will to stand without falling over. She could hear the erratic gushing of blood in her ears, and the back of her neck was hot and cold and numb.
She felt more than saw the eyes on her.
"Arya?"
Arya didn't know if it was her mother or Sansa who spoke. Someone tried to take her hand, but she couldn't bear that contact. She couldn't bear anything. She needed to get out.
"I…I beg your pardon," she heard herself say from far, far away. "I am not used to the heat in King's Landing, and I think I might be lightheaded."
Someone rose to follow as she felt blindly for the door, but Arya shook her head. She could not have company now.
"I'm alright Amma, Sansa. Please. Stay. I only need some air."
And she managed to stumble out the door and down a corridor before dry heaving over the side of the loggia, the carved marble digging into her ribs.
000
Arya clumped up the stairs in the Tower of the Hand, her feet leaden, though her insides had yet to cease their storming. She'd never had such a sickening spell of panic, and for another terrible moment she had thought she was going to die again. But no. It must have been the heat of the room. That was it. The heat…though it could not explain why she suddenly felt as if she had been running for days on end.
She would have liked to be outside, perhaps find Nymeria in the kennels and take her to the godswood, but if she encountered any of the Winterfell guards or servants in her state, they'd surely make a fuss.
Besides, she could not bear the thought of feeling the eyes of the court on her as she traversed the Red Keep to get to the godswood. And so Arya retreated to her chambers. Or tried. Why had she not noticed before how many floors were in this accursed tower?
On she climbed, her breath heavy and burning, past the servants' rooms, past Yli's makeshift apothecary and the little accounting room she'd been holed up in these past days. Whose wretched idea had it been to put the chambers on the uppermost floors? Her legs were starting to tremble.
On the next landing, Arya half threw herself up onto the flagstones, her panting echoing off the blood-stained walls.
"Who is it?"
She froze. Father's voice. It was only now that she noticed she had stopped on the landing that led to Father's new solar. Bleeding, buggering hells.
Sure enough, Father appeared in the doorway, backlight by the midday sun. She squinted up at his silhouette.
"What…Arya?" He was at her side at once, and Arya scrambled to her feet before he reached to pull her up. He steadied her with a hand, and some of her simmering panic fled as she felt his solid support on her elbow.
"What's happened? Why—"
"I'm fine, Father. I just…I ran up the steps too fast and got winded is all."
Her eyes had adjusted, and now Arya could see he was frowning at her with concern. She tried for a smile.
"Gods, child, you gave me a fright." He tucked an errant bit of hair behind her ear. "Why were you running so fast?"
"Sorry," she said, and it came out as half a whisper.
"The queen excused you all from her solar already? It's barely been an hour. And where are your mother and sister?"
He craned his neck as if listening for footsteps below. Arya chewed her lip.
"The queen uh…hasn't excused us. I excused myself. I just…the room was really hot, the ladies are all horrible, and the queen is so vile."
He was still frowning, his eyes darting about her face.
"Are you sure everything is alright? You're very pale, Arya, and…"
He looked down at where he held her hand, and it was only then that Arya realised her fingers were ice-cold. She swallowed, hating the dry patch that had developed in her throat.
"I'm sure. I just need to…I don't know, lie down?"
She didn't think she'd ever said those words in her life, and Father's eyebrows shot up.
"Lie down?" His hand was on her sweaty brow. "I should send for Yli. You might be getting ill—"
"No! No, Father, please. I'm fine, truly. I'm not…well, I'm not ill that way. It's only—I'm fine."
He studied her for a long while before he spoke.
"The queen's solar was too hot, you say?"
"Yes."
His eyes narrowed in thought.
"Come join me for a bit, Arya."
"I really think I should just go lie down—"
"At least come have some water after your mad run up the steps. And besides." He gave her a small smile. "I could use some company."
Reluctantly, Arya followed her father into his solar.
"Shut the door," he said, turning to pour her rose tea from a crystal pitcher. She took it gratefully, for the familiar scent was already slowing her heart to its normal pace. Perhaps her father was right. This would help.
He motioned for her to sit in a tufted chair, then walked behind his desk, tidying scrolls as she drank her tea in silence. The shuffling of parchment softened the air in the room, and from the open windows, a breeze smelling vaguely of the crisp sea swirled in. This was nice. It was like the queen's solar did not even exist.
Finally, when she had finished her second glass of the tea, her father cleared his throat and looked up at her.
"Feeling better?"
"Yes."
"Good." He dragged his own chair over to sit beside her. Arya tucked her feet up under her skirts so he wouldn't see her fidget.
"Good. Do you want to tell me what the queen did today that was so vile it made you ill?"
"…not really."
He gave her a half smile, but then his face turned sober.
"I think I can guess. Your mother told me how upset you were about the butcher's boy.
Arya did not answer right away, chewing at her lip, but Father waited with his patient, expectant eyes, and finally she was compelled to speak.
"The queen spoke today about ordering them killed. Mycah and the other smallfolk at Darry." Arya bit the inside of her cheek. "She…she made it sound as if she had been merciful. Merciful. She and Joffrey and all the Lannister men murdered six people who had absolutely nothing to do with anything and…and…"
The words shot fast and hard, but caught painfully in her throat. She cast her eyes down and gripped her glass until the cut crystal dug painfully into her palm.
"I hate them all. I want to kill them all." She did not look to see if Father was shocked by her pronouncement.
"Yet all I did was sit there because there's nothing I can do. It's all my fault six people died, and there's nothing I can bloody do."
"Oh, no, Arya...dear girl, you mustn't blame yourself. You and Sansa shouldn't have done what you did on the road, but…gods, the queen and the prince should not have killed innocents. Their crimes were not your doing."
Somehow, Father had drawn her into his chest. She felt safe like this, like there was nothing that could go wrong with the world, and yet she could not allow herself to sink into this childish feeling. She didn't want to be comforted thus. Her mother had tried, and so had Sansa—telling her those same words—but Arya did not deserve to feel better.
Neither of them had understood, and perhaps Father would not either.
"It is terrible to say this, I know, and I am sorry all those smallfolk died, but…but it is Mycah's death that hurts most."
"Of course it is. There's nothing terrible in that. He was a friend to you."
The impulse occurred to her then, and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to tell her father exactly why Mycah's death had been all her fault.
Sansa had not been angry with her, though she had caught them, and if Arya told her mother about their nighttime meetings she would not be angry either, but Father…It would shock him, and perhaps then he would yell at her. Arya needed that, she thought. Deserved to have someone to rage at her and call her a horrible fool.
"He was…he was not just a friend," she said carefully.
"What do you mean?"
She kept her eyes fixed firmly to the flagstones. This was harder than she had imagined.
"I kissed him," she forced out. "I kissed him a lot. I would steal Alle's dress and sneak off to meet him behind the laundry carts in the evenings.
Silence. Father had grown like stone beside her. Arya did not dare look up. She could not even fathom what his face looked like at the moment.
Yet, when he spoke, his words were not angry as she had expected. They were not even stern.
"That was very reckless," he finally said.
"For him and for you. You are a lord's daughter, and this Mycah a butcher's son. Sometimes, with some things, you are not the one to bear the consequences of your deeds. If you'd been caught by the wrong people—the things they would have done to him—expected me to do to him for daring to touch a lord's daughter…
"Arya, that was very reckless of you."
Every word hammered dully in her chest, made worse because he did not sound angry, only resigned.
"I know," Arya whispered, her voice hoarse. "I know that now."
She bit her lip, the sudden pain of the memory icy and shocking.
"That first night at Darry, Mycah hadn't wanted to come to the feast. His father hadn't wanted him to. He disapproved of Mycah being around the noble folk all the time. I didn't care. I wanted him there, so I half-coerced him and promised I'd dance with him."
She'd given him her most promising smile over her shoulder, and Arya had known he would come by the way his face had turned pink. Arya had always thought this was one of the few good things about being a girl. If a boy liked you, a smile and a promise could get him to do anything you wanted. She'd always liked this little power she'd discovered. She hadn't known it was a curse in truth.
"That's why he was there that night—because of me. Because I knew he liked me, and I smiled at him. Joffrey saw him. I know he did. That's why he was killed. I made sure he was in that hall, and being there got him killed."
Her voice died into the quiet of the chamber, and for some time all she heard was the soft ripple of the curtains.
Father was still again, frozen despite the sunshine sprinkled about the flagstones. After what seemed an eternity, she heard him heave a burdened sigh, and when she snuck a look at him, he was pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Did you like him too, Arya?"
"Did I—what?"
"You say he liked you. Did you like him too?"
And Arya knew he did not mean simply as a friend.
Why did he not rage at her? Was he not shocked and angry?
"Yes. Yes I did. He was funny, and always smiling. And he was up for all sorts of adventure, especially when we were crossing the Neck, and never looked at me funny for not being the way normal girls are."
Arya bit hard into her lip again. He had been her friend too, before the kissing.
Father sighed again, and she thought she heard him murmur 'gods help me' under his breath.
"Arya? Arya, look at me."
Reluctantly, she raised her head to face him. She had never seen Father's eyes look so sad.
"Has Robb ever talked of his mother? Lady Catelyn Tully?"
Arya frowned. They all knew who Robb's birth mother had been, but Robb had never spoken of her. Why would he? He hadn't known her at all. She shook her head.
"I know you married her before our mother. During the war."
"Yes." He closed his eyes, as if shutting something out. "We were strangers at our wedding, for she was meant for my brother Brandon. We were only married a fortnight when I left her at Riverrun to go to war. Three moons later, she wrote that she was with child. That was the last I ever heard from her. After Robert took King's Landing, I received a letter from her father. Informing me she had died in childbed."
Arya thought she had known this in some nebulous form, but it had never been of interest to her.
"Oh..."
"For a long, long time, I could not shake the guilt that I had killed her. She was young—barely eighteen—and the maesters all say it is best that a woman not bear a child before then. I thought, if I'd left the marriage unconsummated—"
The childish bit of Arya's mind was covering her eyes and groaning at the terrible embarrassment of hearing her father talk of such things, but his pained face pulled at her heart.
"That's ridiculous," she interrupted him. "She died in childbirth. Lots of women do. How could it have been your fault?"
Father gave her a sad smile.
"I accept that now. But I tell you so you understand, Arya, that I know what it is to wonder how someone who had been breathing and speaking and warm under your hand can suddenly be cold bones in the ground. To wonder if you had somehow stolen their life by getting too close.
"Perhaps you were reckless in what you did with him, but you did not kill the butcher's boy. If you take any heed of your father's words at all, heed this. Mycah's death was not your fault. Do you hear, child? No matter what went on between you, it was not your fault."
Arya did not know when the terrible aching behind her nose broke apart into tears, but she found herself in her father's arms once more, sobbing great, trembling sobs as he held her tight.
"There now, darling girl. It won't always hurt so much. If nothing else, I can promise you that."
000
After she had cried herself dry as a raison, her father coaxed more rose tea into her and stroked her hair until she felt calmer and lighter than she had in weeks. When she confessed to him her reluctance to take up her sword once more, he considered it for A spell, then told her that she might want to take a turn with Needle about the castle gardens the next day.
"Must I?" she said, her nose scrunching. "The few times I walked there, the court people always stared, even though I was wearing a gown and not doing anything out of the ordinary."
Father raised his eyebrows.
"Arya, they stare for the same reason they stare at your mother and sister, not because they find you strange."
Arya looked at him from the corner of her eye.
"They stare at Amma and Sansa because they're beautiful."
His eyebrows crept higher. Arya shook her head before he could speak.
"Doesn't matter why they stare, I suppose. Why must I go into the gardens?
For a long moment, she thought her father wished to say something else to her, so closely was he studying her face. But then he, too, shook his head and offered her a smile.
"You'll find, I think, a most interesting man by the name of Syrio Forel. I know you do not wish to partake in swordplay as you have been taught it, but from what I have heard, this man does not practice the way of Westerosi knights."
And so, the next day, she made her way tentatively to the court gardens, Needle tucked into the folds of her skirts with the straps of the sheath Sam had made for her. She was not disappointed.
The little man was in the middle of a spar with one of the Baratheon men-at-arms who was twice his size, yet he moved as if boneless, and in a few blurred twirls and a cloud of dark hair, he had his sword at the knight's throat.
Arya had watched, entranced, and soon she had found herself standing opposite this magician of a sword-fighter, Needle poised before her, her skirts tucked up at her waist and not at all caring if anyone gawked. And no matter how hard she tried, no matter how quick and light she made her steps, not once did she manage to break the smiling man's defences.
In the end, when she was sweaty and breathless and wholly exhilarated despite feeling the steel of his thin blade against her shoulder, this Syrio Forel had looked down at her with his eyebrow arched in humour.
"You are a girl with a weapon," he said in his lilting accent. "You are good with your weapon. But if the girl wishes to become the sword…come find Syrio Forel tomorrow."
Bit of a slow, bridge chapter, though the dialogue was rather enjoyable to write for once.
If you've ever had a panic attack, I'm really really sorry! It can literally feel like you're about to explode. Or die. Or both. Hopefully you weren't in front of a Cersei Lannister when it started happening to you.
Also…:) Ned Stark being a dad has been one of my fave things to write so far. And now I miss my own dad. There was a lot of this resigned "sigh, that was very reckless of you Lena" when I was younger teehee.
A side note on Ned's fate: I've gotten quite a few comments over the past months saying "I hope Ned doesn't die," and I just want to assure you that he absolutely will not die. That was one of my "concepts" when I went in to write this fic: Ned marries Ash and therefore manages to keep his head. And this isn't even a spoiler. Things will deviate from canon, so you'll never get to wonder if Cersei/Joffrey is going to have him executed.
Another fic rec: All The Days of Work and Hand by Sookiestark on AO3. This is show canon from Roslin Frey's POV, detailing her return to Riverrun and awaiting Edmure's release and return by the Lannisters. It's really beautiful, a breath of calm air in the tumult of the surrounding war-torn Riverlands, and has that sweeping yet tranquil feel I love for these character-study short fics. It's complete with only 4k words, so it's definitely worth a quick read. Again, really beautiful writing :)