DISCLAIMER: Not mine ;)

Bon appetite, my friends!

The Cat brushed away a stray wisp of hair from her face, and allowed herself to be led into the clearing. If she wanted to break free she would have to go through Gendry first. Had they been alone, she might have attempted it, though the chains would make it difficult, might have taken the keys from his still warm body and made a run for it; but with an entourage of royal guards, armed to the teeth and trained to kill without hesitation, to take action and ask questions later... besides, Gendry did not look like an easy target to begin with. He towered over her by a well over a foot, and was muscled like an aurochs. If she were fit and strong it would be one thing to attempt it, especially chained, but in the state she was in... she honestly couldn't say who would walk away from that fight alive, not without seeing him fight. For all she knew, he could have risen through the ranks to Lord Commander so quickly for a reason.

Gendry remained close beside her while a fire was kindled and food prepared from the crates and sacks of supplies. The soldiers rolled logs to make small circled, where they sat while their companions stirred and fried. Gendry pointed at a log, and pushed her towards it. She scowled at him, but sat down without a word. Her scowl deepened when he sat down beside her, sharing the log and taking up so much space with his colossal form that she was forced to shift closer to the edge to keep them from touching, if only by a scant inch.

Hungry by the time a plate was finally laid in her lap, the Cat became a bit more than irritated when the commander did not immediately remove her chains. He seemed to consider leaving them on her, as if she might try to make an escape with a fork as her only weapon, but after a stern warning look, he unlocked her chains and clamped them instead onto her ankles. She only rolled her eyes, as she raised a small portion of meat to her lips. She chewed slowly. Swallowed. Waited a few minutes, and then took another bite. The last thing she needed was to be sick in front of them all. While the soldiers talked amongst themselves, the Cat took in their surroundings. She and Gendry sat with five soldiers, all fairly young, none of them wearing a white cloak. The Crown Prince was sat with two men, both of an age with him, neither wearing uniform. Lords then, or at least, lord's sons. While Aegon had been all arrogance and amusement the previous night, and when he teased her that morning, his features were grave as he spoke with the two men.

She looked sideways at Gendry. "So how did you become Lord Commander of the Kingsguard?" she asked mid-bite.

"How do you think?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I'm just saying, it can't have been easy for a bastard to attain the position." She had not failed to notice his surname- or perhaps, lack of one. When he tensed, she added, "I'm not judging. Just asking. If anything it's impressive."

He swallowed, brow low over his eyes. Clearly he wasn't happy to discuss it. The Cat didn't care. "Impressive because bastards aren't worthy?"

She huffed a laugh, and put aside her plate, a third eaten. He frowned at it, but didn't say anything. "What a ridiculous notion," she said. "As if blood has anything to do with ability. If anything, it proves you deserve the role more than any of the little lordlings who laughed their way to the top. So how did you?"

He seemed taken aback by her words, and din't answer for a moment. "I- my father was Robert Baratheon," he said. The Cat blinked. She had known he must have had a noble parent, but not that he hailed from one of the great families of Westeros. "After he was overthrown, ten years ago, and the Lannisters put Aerys back on the throne, I was supposed to be executed, along with the other traitors, Ned Stark and the like, but instead Aegon told the king I would be more useful alive." Her gut clenched at her father's name, but she kept her face carefully blank. It would not do to give herself away amidst her enemies. "Said that to have the son of his enemy serve in his army would send a message. So, I fought out the rest of the rebellions, worked my way to knighthood. Became a captain."

She wondered how young he must have been. He was four and twenty now. She had been eight when Robert was overthrown and the mad king reclaimed the throne, thanks to the Lannister's treachery. That meant he would have been five and ten, then. She couldn't help but be impressed.

"You fought for your father's enemies?" she asked, brow crinkling. She would never fight for her enemies... but she supposed, in a way, she was doing the exact same thing, wasn't she? Agreeing to work for him, the man who had murdered her family, because it would grant her her freedom.

His lips pursed. The other soldiers looked between themselves, and struck up a conversation, pretending not to listen. Gendry frowned. "Yes, but... it was Aegon I did it for. My father was not a good king, but he was... more stable that Aerys." The Cat snorted. "But Aegon... he will be a good king, I think. So I decided to fight to ensure he made it to the throne."

She hummed. "How... selfless, of you," she said quietly. She cleared her throat. "How old were you, when you became Lord Commander?"

"Two and twenty," he said.

"And when you became a member of the kingsguard?"

"Nine and ten."

"Were you married before you became a kingsguard?"

"No." He looked at her sideways. "Why are you asking so many questions?"

She remembered how she used to be told off as a child, for asking so many questions. "I've been a slave for the last year," she said drily. "I want to know what I've missed."

He raised a brow at her. "And knowing whether I ever married will tell you that?"

She snorted. "No. That was just curiosity. Besides, what was that old adage?" She pretended to muse. "Oh! Friends close, enemies closer. And seeing as you've made it very clear we aren't friends, well. I'm just planning ahead." She flashed her teeth at him in a grin she knew made her look every bit as feral as the chains suggested.

His face immediately darkened at her words, the casual reminder that they were enemies. That they would always be enemies. Even if he didn't know he real reasons for it. "Planning ahead for what?"

She cocked her head. "For the day when that information could be very important to me," she said. "Families are a form of weakness. They leave you vulnerable. Be grateful that that white cloak of yours forbids you from ever taking a wife. It'll save you heartbreak one day."

He frowned at her. "What about your family?" he asked. "Where are they?"

She stood up when the soldiers began packing up, signalling that lunch, thankfully, was over. "No one has no family," she said, looking down at him.

He didn't have anything to say to that.

When everything was reloaded, the horses refreshed, her chains were transferred to her wrists again. The Cat's legs had become so stiff that, to her dismay, Gendry was forced to lift her up onto her horse. He barely grunted, as if she were a child. She hated how strong he was. How easy it was for him. She hated him for it. It was painful to ride, but she didn't utter a word of compliant, didn't allow a single wince to cross her face.

They travelled for the remainder of the day, and the assassin sat in silence as the miles passed by, her chest not easing after the turn their conversation had taken at lunch. Had he seen her father's execution? Had he been standing in the crowd, perhaps mere feet away from her? She doubted it, not if he had been a prisoner of Aerys, which he must have been for them to have recognised him.

She kept her mouth closed, save to eat a few mouthfuls of stew at dinner, nor care when her small tent was erected, guards posted outside, shackled to one of them. She dreamed she was a wolf, and blood misted the air through the night as she crushed life away between her massive jaws. When she woke in the morning, her throat was raw and she had left deep gouges on the frame of her cot.

She had blinked at them in shock, wondering if she had somehow actually transformed into a wolf, but quickly dismissed the thought at the sight of her bleeding, stinging fingertips. As she laced her borrowed boots, that were several sizes too big, she wondered why she hadn't had wolf dreams in the year that she was in Castamere. Maybe her spirit had been too crushed, or some other horseshit that her sister would have cried over if it was in a song. The Cat scowled as she shouldered her way through the tent flaps, and thrust her chains at one of the guards. Having to dress with her hands bound had not improved her already foul mood.

As the Lord Commander fastened her chains to his saddle, he raised a brow at her torn and bleeding nails. "Got angry," she snapped, and he kept his silence.

For the next week and a half, they travelled through the rocky mountains and hills of the Westerlands. By the time they joined the Gold Road at what the Cat suspected was Deep Den (for Gendry refused to tell her and had commanded the soldiers not to answer any of her questions), the Cat was half fed up with the cold. She was used to it, after years on the run, living on the road, the freezing nights in Castamere, when the Sunset Sea wind blew straight through the cracks of the barn, but the constant driving rain did little to heighten her spirits. She supposed she ought to be glad that it wasn't even winter yet, but then told herself that was stupid, and refused to think on it again for the rest of the two week journey.

If the Cat were ever to be lax in her policy of constant vigilance, she might have been half asleep on her horse as the sun had come out to warm the sky, and dry her damp clothes, when the Crown Prince pulled out of line and came trotting toward them, his silver hair bouncing. His blood red cloak, which was lined with silver fox-fur, fell behind him in a crimson wave. Above his unadorned, yet somewhat flouncy, she thought, shirt was a fine black jerkin, trimmed with scarlet. The three headed dragon of his house was sewn painstakingly onto his breast. She wondered if all of his clothes had it sewn on, as if his purple eyes and silver hair were not already a beacon that made identifying him all too easy, along with the self-assuredness and arrogance of command that only a born prince could possess. A fine knife hung at his hip, with a dragon bone hilt. She had no doubt that if he were to unsheathe it, the warm evening sun would glint on Valyrian steel. She wondered if he had ever had to use it. She snorted. He probably used it to cut his meat.

He pulled up his magnificent blood bay stallion beside Gendry. "Come," he said to the commander, jerking his head at the steep, grassy hill that the company was starting to ascend.

"Where?" the commander asked, jerking the Cat's chain for Aegon to notice. Wherever he went, she went. She barely suppressed an eye roll. He had barely left her alone these past three weeks. He erected his tent next to hers, ate beside her, rode beside her, in those initial days even followed her into the woods when she made her water, when the company stopped for a break, though he at least allowed her the privacy of standing at the far end of the chain and turning his back. The first time, she had considered sneaking up on him and wrapping the chain around his neck. The second time, she had even taken half a step in his direction, before abandoning the plan. Looking at him now, eyeing her as if she might attempt to knock the prince from his horse, she half wished that she had.

"Come and see the view," Aegon said, a lazy grin spreading across his face. He jerked his chin at her. "Bring the girl, I suppose." The Cat pulled back her lips in a snarl of irritation at being spoken about as if she wasn't right there. She had never liked arrogant, preening princes. Had never had much patience for them. Her mind cast itself back to a high window ledge in a far away castle, laughing with her closest brother and watching the display the snivelling lion prince put on in the yard below with distaste. There hadn't been much she could do about that one, besides throw his ugly sword in the river. But now- now she was a full grown assassin with nothing that could be used against her as leverage, like family. What of your freedom? said the snide voice in her head. One wrong move and he could snuff it out and send you back to the mines. So, she held her tongue as he smirked at her and rode off, kicking his horse into a canter.

Gendry manoeuvred them out of the line, giving her chain a fierce tug. She grasped the reins awkwardly in her shackled hands as they advanced into a gallop, and though she had been set on staying angry... she couldn't help a grin from spreading across her face. Gods. Gods. Riding- she had missed this. When was the last time she rode a horse- really rode, so fast it was like flying? In Braavos people travelled on foot or by barge, and her journey to Castamere following her sentence had been in the back of a dark, rambling wagon. She had always loved riding, more than anything, as a child. Until her sister and her friends started calling her "horseface". It hadn't been so fun after that.

As they followed the prince, balancing in his stirrups as he shot an entirely too self important smile at them over his shoulder, she considered delving into his steed's mind, and having him thrown from the saddle in front of the whole company. They couldn't possibly blame her for that, after all. She almost did it, too, but realised that if she did, they would have to stop for him, and probably wouldn't go faster than a slow trot for the remaining journey. Besides, if he fell and managed to hit his head badly enough to die, she would no longer be his champion, and would be sent straight back to the mines and her own death. She decided she would rather just enjoy the moment, for once. Even if watching him fall on his face would bring her more joy that she could put into words, if only for a brief moment. The thought of that joy almost had her reaching out to his horse again, but then the setting sun emerged from the trees behind them, and her breath caught in her throat as a spire, then three, then six more appeared, piercing the sky. Beauty. Sheer, pure beauty. She had not seen enough of it in her life.

As they pulled to a stop atop the hill, horses breathing heavily and frothing at the bit, the Cat stared at the crowning glory of the kingdom. Kings Landing.

And what a sight it was. It took her breath away... or perhaps that was the gods awful smell of it that wafted towards them on the wind, even where they stood so many leagues away. The smell of smoke, sweat and shit nearly made her eyes water after the long two and a half weeks they had travelled through the countryside. She was used to bad smells. The mines had been bad. The ports of Braavos not much better. Harrenhal had been the worst though. But Kings Landing... she would never understand what could possibly induce it's citizens to live there in such squallor and filth. They went hungry in the summer and starved in winter. Their houses were sheds and shacks and rooftops and streets. It was a pit of corruption and sin and death... yet a million chose to live there.

She could see the three hills upon which the city was built; Visenya's Hill, and the Great Sept of Baelor, with it's shining white marble walls and seven, tall crystal towers; Aegon's High Hill, upon which the Red Keep was built, smaller than Winterfell, and built with pale red stone, which to the Cat looked the colour of blood in water, with it's seven drum towers, topped with iron; but, what surprised her the most, was what stood of the Hill of Rhaenys. The last time she had seen Kings Landing, little over a year ago, the dragon pit had been little more than a colossal ruin. Now, it stood taller, more robust. Not rebuilt, not yet- but getting there. She wondered why; after all, it was common knowledge that there were no more dragons. She supposed it was a form of house pride; after all, the Targaryens had built their house and power on the once great beasts that they embroidered so religiously on their cloaks. It was likely little more than propaganda.

The Crown Prince caught what drew her attention. "They started reconstructing it some eight months ago," he said lightly, "but it'll be a long time before it's ready."

She didn't turn to look at him. "Ready for what?"

He shrugged. "The gods know what my grandfather is rebuilding it for," he said with a shrug.

She looked at him, arching a brow. "I wasn't aware we were allowed to say that out loud anymore." It was no new knowledge that Aerys had converted to the Lord of Light, in his years in exile after Robert Baratheon took the throne. After his reclamation of power, the mad king had made a war on the old religion- the term given to any faith other than that of R'hollor. "How come the Great Sept is still standing?"

He shrugged. "The red priestess believed it important to show it was never anything more than a building for the sinful," he said. "I think she plans to turn it into something new, at some point. A temple for those of the one true faith." His tone was the verbal embodiment of an eye roll.

"I see," she said. "And you are not one of them?"

He sighed and looked at he, boredom written on every line of his face. "Religion neither moves nor convinces me," he said. Then winked. "But officially, yes, I am of the faith."

She frowned. "What of the faith of your forefather's?" she asked. "They brought the Seven to Westeros. It helped them win the throne you'll one day sit on. Surely you should pay homage to that?"

He snorted. "First, Cat, we didn't win the throne. We forged it. " She rolled her eyes. "According to Kinvara, though, it was never the Seven that Aegon the Conqueror brought with him. It was R'hollor that brought him."

She raised a brow. "That sounds an awful lot like semantics to me," she said smoothly.

He laughed openly. "Is that not the main feature of all religions?" he asked lightly. "Fanatics argue over the face of god, the name of god, his message, but all of them seem to miss the point that they are all worshipping the same god, just in a different way."

She smirked. "Careful, prince," she said. "That sounds an awful lot like you secretly worship Him of Many Faces."

He smiled at her- a genuine, happy smile. "Are you saying I could be a Faceless man?"

She shook her head with a chuckle. "Perhaps you are lucky you are born to the throne," she said. "I do not think you have it in you to be a killer."

He smirked. "Is that your expert opinion on the matter?" She bowed her head, and he laughed. Gendry stayed silent. She imagined that this whole conversation made him uncomfortable, with how close it bordered on treason. "So, my lady," Aegon said, "what does it take, to be a killer?"

This time she did not smile. "First, you have to learn that there is only one god," she said.

"Oh? And which one is that?" he asked.

She watched the city, the way decay hovered in the air around it. "Death," was all she said. And after that, she did not open her mouth again.

When the prince finally sensed her change in mood, he turned to Gendry. "We've still some leagues left," he said, "and I'd rather navigate these foothills in daylight. We'll camp here, tonight."

The commander nodded absently. He probably had already thought the same thing, while he'd been sitting there silently. "I wonder what your grandfather will think of her," he said after a beat.

Aegon snorted. "He'll be fine- until she opens her mouth. Then he'll hand her over to Kinvara, to burn away her unholiness, and I'll regret the past two months of tracking her down. But- well, I'm sure my father has other things to worry about, what with the rumours that there's a Stark hiding somewhere in the North." With that, the prince wheeled his horse around and cantered back down the hill.

It took all of the Cat's considerable training to keep her face blank as his words settled in her gut like a venomous snake. Her breath hitched in her throat. A Stark, hiding in the North. A Stark, alive. Faces and names flashed through her mind, and the Cat suddenly found it very hard to breathe. It couldn't be her father, or Robb. She doubted it was her mother- or rather, what was left of her. But Bran and Rickon- they had been babes last she saw them. Had one of them somehow escaped the butchering block? Or Sansa, perhaps- the Cat hadn't heard anything of her elder sister in years.

"You look as though you're facing the gallows, not your freedom," Gendry said, still beside her on the other end of her chains.

It took every inch of effort in her body to push the thought away, to think about later, and turn to look at him. "How do I know I'm facing freedom, and not the gallows?" she asked blankly.

He frowned at her. "Surely you know better than anyone the difference between freedom and slavery?

She laughed emptily. "Says the man holding my chains," she replied, neither cold nor kind. Just blank. Like she had to be. Like she always had to be. "And do I? Know the difference? I suppose I know it as well as any person who has never known true freedom."

He wheeled his horse around, and she followed suit, careful to make sure the chain didn't wrap around her body in the process. Unlike the prince's reckless pace, they walked their horses back down the hill slowly. "But you were only a slave for a year-"

She snorted bitterly. "Only? As if even a week in hell isn't already an eternity."

He was quiet for a moment. "You spoke with the prince very easily about the gods," he remarked. "As if you do not care for their judgement. Are you not frightened that they might punish you?"

She looked at him slowly, carefully, taking in the low set of his heavy brows, the striking blue of his eyes as he waited for her answer. "No, Commander," she said finally. "They already have punished me. Are still. It's hard to be frightened of something you have known all your life."

After a moment he said, "you aren't just talking about Castamere, are you?" She did not need to answer. "How were you captured?" he asked.

She swallowed. She didn't like to think about it. Thinking about it reminded her of him. And thinking about him always sent her spiralling down a path that took too long to crawl back from, and it left her a little more broken each time. "I was betrayed."

"By who?" he asked. She could feel his eyes on her.

"No one," she said after a moment. "No one at all."

She kicked her mare into a canter. He could have kept to a walk, used the chains to force her to a stop, with the way they were shackled to her wrists, but he didn't. Instead, he pushed his black stallion into a steady canter, pulling up beside her. He remained quiet all the way back down the hill, and when she went to bed without any supper, he did not say a word, but she felt his eyes on her back all the way to her tent.

The Cat awoke with a gasp, a hand on her throat, cold sweat sliding down her back, settling in the hollows where there should have been flesh. She'd had the nightmare before- that she was lying in one of those mass graves, at Castamere, and when she tried to pull herself from the tangle of broken, rotting limbs, she had found that they were her family, staring at her with cold dead eyes, and then no one noticed that she was screaming as the faces of her past enemies buried her alive.

Nauseated, the Cat wrapped her arms around her knew. She breathed- in and out, in and out- focused on the feeling of air filling her lungs in place of dirt, and tilted her head, her sharp kneecaps pushing against her even sharper cheekbone. Due to the warmth of the night, they had foregone tents, which meant she had a clear view of the sprawling city on the Blackwater. She could see the river, reflecting the night's lights, like a thousand, thousand fire flies. The Red Keep rose from the ground as a great, hulking shadow that seemed to eclipse the sky.

By this time tomorrow, she'd be confined within those walls. But tonight—tonight it was so quiet, like the calm before a storm, the eye inside a tornado. Time came and went, mountains rising and falling, vines creeping over the slumbering city, concealing it with layers of thorns and leaves. She was the only one awake.

She pulled her cloak around her. She would win. She'd win, and serve the king, and then vanish into nothing, and think no more of castles or kings or assassins. She didn't wish to return to this city ever again. Her family was dead, her home destroyed and ruled over by traitors, and she would never again have anything to do with the rise and fall of kingdoms.

She wasn't fated for anything. Not anymore.

A hand upon his dragon bone dagger, Aegon Targaryen, sixth of his name, watched the assassin from his spot on the other side of the company- a deliberate placement, no doubt designed by Gendry. He could see the chains that linked them, glinting in the moonlight. There was something so sad about her- sitting so still, with her legs pressed against her chest, her hair as dark as the sky that held the stars she watched so avidly. No bold, calculating expressions graced her features as the glow of the Blackwater rippled in her sad grey eyes.

She was beautiful, he decided, if a bit sharp and rough. He hadn't been sure what to think of her, those three weeks prior when Gendry had thrown her before his throne. It had been clear she had once held beauty, but it was hard to see under the grime and dirt of the mines, the rags that did little to conceal her body. But here, now, as she sat in borrowed clothes that drowned her tiny body- far smaller, far more delicate than he had expected of a notorious assassin- he decided that she was beautiful. Not in the ways other women were, women like Margeary Tyrell or Cersei Lannister, or even Sansa Stark, whatever had happened to her. No, those women were the types of women that the poets likened to a summer's day. But the assassin, his champion, or Cat, as she had bid him call her, was more like a winter's night. She held all of the strange coldness of the moon, the beauty of starlight on pure white snow- which was ironic, in a way, because of the way the dark of the night seemed to deepen around her, darken, come alive. A strange gift, for a girl who worshipped Death.

She stared at the city unflinchingly, her form silhouetted against the night sky, and he wondered what she was seeing, what she was thinking. Clouds gathered above them and she raised her head. Through a clearing in the swirling mass, a cluster of stars could be seen. He couldn't help thinking that they gazed down at her.

No, he had to remember she was an assassin with the blessing of a pretty face- if it was even her face, for with her, there was no way of being sure- and sharp wits. She washed her hands with blood, and was just as likely to slit his throat as offer him a kind word. And she was his Champion. She was here not to fight for him—but for her freedom. And nothing more. He didn't doubt that if she were not guarded as heavily as she was, she would have already tried to escape. Perhaps she would take a ship back to Braavos, to resume her life as the Dark Heart. Perhaps she would change her face and live right under his nose, and take her vengeance on all those who had stood by as his father sentenced her to life at Castamere. He lay down, his hand still upon his dagger, and fell asleep.

Still, the image haunted his dreams throughout the night: a lovely girl gazing at the stars, and the stars who gazed back.

Such precious lil beans they are!

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Over and Out xoxo