The Knight of the Laughing Tree is a servant of the nameless, faceless, old gods of the First Men, and a Knight of the Order of the Green Hand. The Laughing Weirwood face he bears in stead of a green hand is to mock the true enemy - the worshipers of the weirwoods, the Children of the Forest.
The words whispered through his mind as he rode down the mountain path through the mountains of the moon, the moon high overhead in the night sky.
High in the halls of the kings who are gone, Jenny would dance with her ghosts...
A daughter of the North danced with her ghosts tonight as well, the girl the Vale knew as Alayne Stone, natural born daughter of Lord Petyr Baelish, Lord Protector of the Vale. He had fulfilled his mission for the night, sending the spark of longing back into her heart, to reunite the wolf pack and bring her home.
The ones she had lost, and the ones she had found, and the ones that had loved her the most...
Burned men stepped out of the forests on either side of him, but stepped aside respectfully when they saw his shield. The First Men remembered, and the unlettered Wildlings of the Mountains of the Moon knew the sign he bore, and respected it.
The Ones who'd been gone, for so very long, she couldn't remember their names...
The sound of hoofbeats behind him was clear against the silence of the night. Two men were riding towards him, naked steel in their fists, mail gleaming in the moonlight. He turned his horse about to meet them.
They spun her around, on the damp old stones, spun away all her sorrow and pain.He charged, couching his lance at the last moment and letting go as the spike at the end hit his foe clean in the face, slamming the other with his shield as he rode between the two of them.
They danced through the day, and into the night, 'til the snow did cover the halls...
He stood over the man and touched his forehead and them closed his eyes. He searched the man's mind for the man who had hired him to kill him. He found him.
Through winter, and summer and winter again, 'til the walls did crumble and fall.
He put his sword right through the man's heart. He knew what must come next. He rode back to the Eyrie, dressing one man in his dinted and mismatched plate and wearing the first man's mail. He put the body on the back of his horse and rode back to the castle in the sky.
She had worn yellow flowers woven like a crown, when her prince came riding on by...
The shield he bore now had the moon-and-falcon of House Arryn on it, but the men were in the pay of the new Lord Protectir of the Vale. Changes must be made, and the darkness must be overthrown, the traitors left to hand from the battlements of the Eyrie.
When she stepped on the grass, she floated like a cloud, almost as if she could fly.
The gates opened as he rode up to them and he made his ascent alone, in the dark, just him and his horse. Step by step they went up the winding staircase about the Mountain, as winds blew hard and threatened to blow them off, but he kept climbing.
And she never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave.
He had sung that song aloud years ago, when he had ridden from White Harbor to the Isle of Faces and was dubbed the Knight of the Laughing Tree. He had ridden in his first command the day of the tourney, when he had taken Lyanna Stark's favor and rode down the three squires who had been abusing the young Crannogman. He hung his shield by the tree that night, and Lyanna had found it. He regretted doing that, it had caused so much pain and hardship.
He had melted away into the crowd, but he had seen and heard everything, after he had read the tree's memories a fortnight later.
Lyanna knelt before the tree and touched the shield. She had prayed the previous night for a rescuer for her brother's friend, her father's bannerman, and her prayers had been answered. All that remained of him was the shield, and she reached out to take it with trembling fingers. She wanted to remember this night for all time. She would, but for far more sinister reasons.
A stick cracked behind her. She turned sharply, and there he stood, in the little grove of trees, empty but for the two of them.
The dragon prince grinned. "There she is, the most beautiful woman in all of the Seven Kingdoms."
She edged away from him towards the tree, one hand on the tree, the other on the shield.
"I've been sent by my father," he said. "He wants me to take the head of this knight. Little did I guess that I would be taking a very different sort of head tonight, eh?"
"No," she whispered, frightened. "Please, I'm not the knight," she protested, but he held one hand over her mouth and the other slipped down her bodice.
"Don't wake the dragon," he warned, as he ripped the dress off of her, and fine wool and myrish lace went tumbling to the floor of the grove. "Not a sound, we'll forget this happened, and you can go on your way." His hand wandered between her legs and went up, deep and violent, her sobs of pain and resistance muffled by his hand.
The knight stopped watching from there. He knew what happened next. Rhaegar became infatuated with the Northern Girl and tried to make amends. He gave her a new dress, a necklace, two bracelets, and crowned her in blue roses, but she spurned him. All feelings she had had for him were lost the day he had raped her in the sight of the Gods.
So he abducted her. With her younger brother's help, she was kidnapped and taken back to Winterfell, where she bore him a son. With her last breath she had cursed Rhaegar, making her brother swear to keep his child safe and crown him, but only after she'd begged his forgiveness and made him promise Robert would wed again. She would not die peacefully knowing that Robert would be alone and thinking of her for the rest of his life.
Eddard may have failed his sister, but his daughter must not be failed. Winter was coming, and it was coming fast, and when the white winds blow and the snows fall, the lone wolf dies - but the pack survives.