Sansa
"...they'll scream, even the bravest of warriors, when the blade cuts through their skin...and when you start pulling..."
"Bastard!"
For once, it was she who startled Ramsay and not the other way around, the young man jumping at the sound her voice, echoing through the empty halls of the Keep. He moved, revealing poor Tommen Lannister cowering in the corner, and for a second she recognized the same malicious glint in his eye she knew so well.
"My lady Sansa," he bowed properly, addressing her through gritted teeth. Given her reputation as the spoiled brat of Ned Stark, it was easy for her to cultivate her reputation as a spoiled highborn around him, disdaining and dismissing the circumstances of his birth, but he'd surprised her as well, having maintained his composure and bearing ever since his arrival at King's Landing. Stannis had promised Robb he'd have his men spy on the bastard, pouncing upon him the first time he'd beat a servant or assaulted a handmaiden, but somehow Ramsay maintained the perfect model of a lordling the last few moons.
He must be dying for someone to torture. And Tommen proved an easy target, apparently, Ramsay thinking little of his status as the younger brother of a traitor and usurper.
"You speak of flaying as if you were personally familiar with the practice," she spoke carefully, noticing the blade in his hand. A small, dull blade, but men like Ramsay Snow had their ways of making even the most innocent objects into weapons of the worst torture. "Do you forget, bastard, that flaying violates both the King's laws and that of his Warden's?"
"Just a history lesson, for the boy," Ramsay bowed, stepping away from Tommen and towards her instead. "My apologies, Lady Sansa, you are the sister of my liege lord and I've yet to make my proper acquaintance with you."
"It's no accident, I've no time for sons of millers' wives." Taking a deep breath, she walked past him, and using all her courage to ignore him, gambling in her mind that he'd not dare to hurt a Stark, much less a guest of his King, in his King's keep, she bent down and gave Tommen her hand, the young man taking it and allowing himself to be picked up by a lady. "Did he hurt you, Tommen?"
"He didn't hit me," he said nervously, and Sansa felt her blood boiling. It was one thing for Ramsay to be Ramsay, it was another for him to pick on an innocent like Tommen who, as she'd grasped in the weeks passed, had been subject to enough of the same torments from Joffrey most of his life. She whirled to turn at Ramsay, who had disquietingly taken several steps towards the both of them, holding the knife in his hand plainly enough, as if it were any harmless object.
"If my lady would like, I can teach her the history of my house as well," he said, the all too familiar malevolent gleam in his eye rising to full surface. "Our families have a long and intertwined history, Lady Sansa..."
She forced herself to laugh at him. "Your family? Your house? You're a bastard, you have no house, no family, no name. Your father insults the king with your presence in this very keep."
As he bristled through her continued insults, she wondered whether she was glad of the fact that he had indeed accompanied Roose to King's Landing. Part of her wished Ramsay to remain in the Dreadfort, so as to remain Robb's problem, but Roose Bolton clearly distrusted leaving his son unattended for an indefinite period of time, whilst he served on Stannis's council.
"I will prove my worth to the King, Lady Sansa," Ramsay said defiantly, his voice low enough to turn even a harmless profession of loyalty into a threat, and Sansa could see his grip upon his blade tighten. "Then the King will name me father's trueborn, and wed me to a proper lady, blood free from rumors of vilest incest." Defying her, he bent down towards Tommen, moving his blade ever closer to the boy. "Did you know that, boy? Incest is considered an abomination in the North. But House Bolton has our ways of dealing with abominations."
"And House Stark has our ways of dealing with bastards of our lesser lords," Sansa said, leading Tommen by the hand past the actual abomination in the hall. Again, her heart stopped, but she felt nothing except the stare of daggers against her back as she walked away.
You're in the south now, she thought, unable to keep herself from smiling as she walked. You're impotent here, and you hate it.
"He didn't hit me," Tommen repeated again, in a way that could be considered dumb, his mind touched by the Gods, so to speak. But Sansa knew him well enough by now to understand he'd retreated inside his own mind, the same way he had when Joffrey abused him when he was even younger, and wondered what was it about Tommen's innocence that attracted the cruelest of minds.
"Men can hurt others without use of their hands," she replied sympathetically. "Did he scare you?"
Tommen nodded. "He shook the knife at me. I wanted to run away, but he...I...I didn't think he'd let me leave. Not without hurting me."
"He's a predator, Tommen," Sansa said too knowingly. "You were afraid of him, and you let him see your fear...smell it. That only makes him want to hurt you more, because he thinks you weak."
"How do you not be afraid," he asked, as she let go of his hand, distanced as they were from the true abomination.
"There's a difference between being afraid, and showing it." Then the words came to her, despite herself. "You're a Lannister, Tommen. You're a predator too...your mother a Queen, your uncle Jaime a great warrior, your uncle Tyrion a Hand to a King, your grandfather one of the most powerful men in Westeros." She stopped. Ought she encourage the boy to depend upon the reputations of his elders?
"I know," he said, voice lowered as if ashamed. "They're all...they all seem so...different, from me. Uncle Jaime, he could challenge a knight in single combat, by the time he was my age."
"Not every Lannister's the same," she said, "not every Stark's the same. Aren't you glad you're nothing like your brother?"
Again, he nodded, and Sansa realized the level of trust the boy placed in her to admit such a secret away from his mother.
"You're kind, Tommen. You're decent. Traits that others see as weakness in this world. But that doesn't make it right."
And that will change, she thought, her heart hardening. We'll change that together.
The next time she saw Ramsay was in Cersei's chambers, Sansa grateful for the woman's presence for once.
"Your Grace," Ramsay bowed, "you summoned me?"
There was no fear in his eyes, not before a room of women and children, Cersei's handmaid Bernadette the only other present along with Tommen, the servant cradling the young man protectively behind his mother.
"Roose Bolton's bastard," Sansa decided to introduce, before the former Queen could speak. She'd kept to her chambers most of the days, a sad, if still dangerous woman, and Sansa reckoned it must have been a difficult choice, to pick between accompanying her brother back to Casterly Rock, or staying in the capital and keeping an eye on her son in the hands of stags and wolves. In the end, it was her maternal instincts which prevailed. "An abomination," she said, using Ramsay's own words from the day before, "a bastard produced by rape, they say in the North. The bastard of the Dreadfort."
"Bastard," Cersei said, her ire for once directed towards someone deserving of it. "You threatened my son. You insulted him."
"Your Grace," Ramsay chuckled, a bit more nervous than before, "I meant no offense. It's a lonely castle...I just wanted to make a friendly acquaintance."
"No one wants to befriend a bastard," Bernadette said, following her and her lady's lead in choice of words, as Sansa intended. She'd hated the woman before, when she'd first bled, only Shae's threats keeping Bernadette from telling Cersei immediately of the matter. Today she held no love for the handmaiden, but her protectiveness of Tommen was something she could admire, born as it may have been out of loyalty to her lady, word being Bernadette had died with Cersei I Lannister when the Dragon Queen destroyed the castle, loyal to the very end.
"Word is your father tried proposing your bastard hand in marriage to the Crown Princess Shireen," Sansa said, taking the lead. "Do you know, bastard, how the court laughed when they heard of the joke? Do you understand, bastard, that you're seen as nothing but a joke in this city?"
She exaggerated. Word had gotten out of Roose's subtle suggestion, and some had indeed chuckled. But Roose Bolton had been but one of dozens of lords to make such a proposal, doing so more as a profession of loyalty to a new king they'd once raised banners against, rather than any actual belief of a future union. His son a bastard, there was no way Roose could actually believe such a marriage possible between Ramsay and sweet Shireen...except Sansa wondered whether he'd actually explained as much to his son. Perhaps he dangled the idea honestly before Ramsay, so as to keep him behaved, to keep his leash short. And that would explain why Ramsay had not been Ramsay since arriving in King's Landing, at least not until she'd caught him with Tommen.
"You're a joke, bastard," Cersei said, stepping forward, "but you're alive. Look at my son again, bastard, much less speak or threaten him, and I'll have you gutted."
"Your Grace, my lady," he looked at Sansa maliciously, as if casting blame upon her for telling Cersei of the incident, "this must all be a horrible misunderstanding, though for what it's worth, I apologize profusely for any offense given."
It must hurt him so much to say the words, Sansa thought, but then, she saw his eyes harden.
"My father does sit on the King's Small Council, Your Grace. I was unaware that the Queen Dowager and the mother of the usurper had any say with King Stannis, but believe me, I will apologize to my father also, I'll inform him of this small mistake in communication, so that he may assure the King I meant no harm."
"Save your words, bastard," Bernedette spat, clutching Tommen ever closer to her. "You think your father's position a shield? I doubt he'd even lift a finger for you, bastard, were Her Grace to order you dead today."
"Then I beg humbly for the Queen's mercy," Ramsay said, pretending to stammer nervously. Mad dog as he was, even he knew when he was cornered. "Again, I mean no offense."
"Out of my sight, bastard," Cersei said, and for a second it seemed as if she were about to fling her goblet at the man's head. The former queen must feel herself a cornered creature also, bereft of all the power which once befell her. Perhaps with Sansa unwilling to cross her, Cersei was almost glad to find herself a new enemy to direct her hatred towards. And while she was happy at the result, Tommen's unwitting involvement was not something she wished, nor something she would have planned, however much it could help in ridding the realm of the Boltons.
Letting go of Tommen, the handmaiden walked Ramsay from the chambers.
"Go find some sheep to fuck, bastard," she heard Bernedette say from outside the room, getting in one last insult.
"This is what it's come to," Cersei screeched at Sansa once Ramsay was out of earshot. "Even your northern bastards have no respect for me, much less fear."
"I've heard stories in the North about Ramsay Bolton, Your Grace," Sansa lied. "He's a man with little respect or fear for anyone."
Of course she couldn't have heard those stories, not even Littlefinger knew about Roose's bastard, but she trusted Cersei would not be able to distinguish true northern gossip from fiction.
"Yet your brother brings him to the capital."
"Roose Bolton was my brother's most trusted lieutenant, it was a proper reward to recommend his services to Stannis."
"I liked it better when you northerners stayed north."
You don't even know the half of it.
But then, her expression softened, and Sansa wondered whether this was the first time Cersei expressed to her an honest emotion that wasn't open hatred or contempt. "I'm glad you were there for Tommen," she conceded, then turned away without another word.
Hearing steps trailing her as she walked the vast distance from the former Queen's quarters to her own, she hesitated for a moment, fearing a vengeful bastard who may have followed her, before hearing a gentler voice.
"Sansa?"
It was Tommen, who no longer felt the need to address his betrothed as Lady, not when he thought her merely a playmate of his, only a few years older.
"Tommen," she answered, fondly and warily, because anything following an audience with both Cersei and Ramsay did not bode well. But the boy only ventured to produce a small carving from his pockets, a greysilver object she recognized as a lion beside a direwolf, roaming a field together.
"I had this made for you," he said, shier than he normally was around her. "Since we're to marry...I, I thought it an appropriate gesture."
Taking the object, lighter than she expected in her hand, she felt both touched, yet mindful of any gift from a Lannister.
"I thank you, my dearest Tommen." She paused, wondering how to ask the vexing question. "Did your mother give you this to gift me?"
He shook his head. "I asked my uncle Jaime for coin, and he had it made in Pentos."
"Thank you Tommen," resisting the reflex to ruffle her betrothed's hair as if he were a pet, or a child, though he seemed to be both at times. "I'll treasure this."
She wouldn't, but her heart was not so cold as to not appreciate the sentiment behind the gift. Gazing upon it, she wondered what Ned Stark would think of such a carving. Yet, she wondered, considering all the lives she'd saved by ending the War of Five Kings early, how much blood lay upon her own father's hands the last time, because of his contempt for the Kingslayer in a throne room lifetimes ago.
Jaime
"You seem to take great delight in leaving me."
"You could have come west with me, come to Casterly Rock." If he had been expecting a warm return from his sister, he was disappointed again, the same disappointment he found upon his first return to King's Landing with Brienne.
"And leave our son to the wolves?" She sighed, turning away from him, and to her drink, which seemed to have replaced him as her great love. "You didn't have to visit our wretched brother."
"He's our brother, nothing will ever change that," Jaime insisted, his annoyance giving way to anger, both in her persistent refusal to acknowledge Tyrion as family, and in the fact that their brother was indeed gone, half a world away for what could be forever. "You should be happy, you've rid him from our lives for good."
"Blame Stannis for that, that was his doing," she said, though her smirk told him that she'd still gloat over his exile. "Though I doubt father put forth little protest...I wouldn't be surprised if it was his idea."
She wasn't wrong. Any time he'd raised the subject of Tyrion's exile on their trip west was met immediately with a stern look.
"It's a disgrace," he'd argued, "letting Stannis insult our family like this. You went to war with the Starks over it, but you'd submit so easily to Stannis?"
"I lost the war with the Starks," Tywin reminded him, "with ample help from you."
"So we'll die fighting."
"And see our house vanish?" His father shook his head, as they rode alongside the coast between Casterly Rock and Lannisport, inspecting the garrisons of soldiers turned westward, rather than north or south. "A great lord need learn patience for the good of his house. I waited out Aerys. I waited out Robert. I can wait out another Baratheon."
"You have a plan to get Tyrion back then," Jaime asked, vainly hoping, though he knew better to hope. When his father did not reply, he could barely control himself from spitting upon the ground. "I've never seen you so happy in defeat."
"Sometimes to win a war," he started, beginning yet another endless lecture which had plagued them ever since they left King's Landing together, Lord and heir, "you must make peace. Friends can become enemies, and enemies friends. The day you let personal slights get the better of you, when you place your own wants and grudges above the survival of your house, is the day you betray your own house."
"Don't hold grudges," he'd spat back, knowing better than to continue, but he did. "Is that what you told yourself when you sacked King's Landing?"
The stern look of cold rage, but Jaime did not back down before his father. What could he do? Order the execution of his only heir?
"Had Robert lost on the Trident," Tywin said coldly and carefully, "I would have marched into the Throne Room myself and held up Aerys's hand as his champion."
"Before slitting his wrist," Jaime said.
"Perhaps, had my son not done the task for me."
"Father has a plan," Jaime said to his sister. "Do you think he'd give up so easily?"
Despite Cersei's scoff, Jaime sensed her satisfaction, though he wondered if she'd think their father plotting to place her on the throne herself. Tywin would have no objections, were it a sensible notion, but even Jaime could admit, much as he loved her, that Cersei with any bit of power in her hands was very likely to result in their father's worst nightmares...the ruin of their house.
"He's up to something," Cersei muttered, her eyes scoffing as she drank. "He told me to trust the Starks." She laughed, the sound almost resembling a choke. "Surely whatever he's plotting, he believes it beyond the understanding of both his children."
Funny, Jaime thought, he'd said the same thing to him, going so far as to say how the older Stark girl was the best match young Tommen could hope for. He'd thought it merely a grudging acknowledgement of Stark honor, that Sansa wouldn't betray his only surviving grandson after their families had been at war, but Cersei's words made him wonder. It was known that Sansa Stark had been present at both the parley with Stannis before the city's gates, as well as the Great Council after. Most assumed practical reasons, the assurance of safety for the daughter of the man who championed Stannis's claim at the parley, and for the benefit of her own family at the Council. But though Tyrion held back on telling him the full story, it seemed as if the Stark girl had been the pivotal player during the Great Council, and nothing his own father said to him during the last moon disabused him of the notion. Yet there was nothing special about her in his eyes, chasing cats and playing children's games in the castle with Tommen and Stannis's daughter.
"I have to go."
"So soon," she asked bitterly.
"Father wants me with him before the King." He looked at her longingly. "It's not as if you've any reason to want me here."
She'd not touched him since his return, one hand less.
"You're right, I don't," she said indifferently, disappointing him again. "Go then."
"The Martells have accepted my invitation to the capital," the King began plainly, seated indifferently at the Small Council table below the Iron Throne, accompanied by only the smuggler and the witch. Jaime wondered if he felt ashamed in admitting to the rest of his council that he did, indeed, still need Lannister help. To his right, his father raised one eyebrow. "I'll tell Prince Oberyn the same thing I say to you now, behave, act civilly, as behooves your names as great lords and princes."
So the ghosts of fat Robert's Rebellion continue to haunt us.
"Your Grace, I've no quarrel nor any wish for quarrel with House Martell."
The King gave his father a look of concern, though they all knew that were trouble with the Martells to be instigated, it would not be from Tywin Lannister. Not in this decade, anyway.
"The Westerlands?"
"Few sightings of the Greyjoy Fleet, Your Grace." Tywin then turned to Jaime, encouraging his heir to continue as if he were a child, and not a grown man very much accustomed to the whims of kings and queens alike.
"It seems Balon Greyjoy is far more concerned with the fortunes of his son, with Robb Stark marching north. I'd be more worried about the daughter, Yara, except rather than assist her brother Winterfell, she decamped from there several fortnights ago."
"The last reports have her fleets roaming the waters by Torrhen's Square," Tywin finished.
"You're concerned she's better positioned to raid the Westerlands," Davos asked. The odd priestess contributed little, and Jaime wondered what her purpose was at the meeting. Probably to whisper poison into Stannis's ears after they'd all left.
"Or she remains to ferry the so called Prince of Winterfell back to Pyke, assuming he gains some sense and flees before Robb Stark arrives." He knew better than most the consequences of facing the boy they called the Young Wolf in battle.
The King stared at him, uncomfortable in his demeanor. "Has he told you?"
Was he referring to father?
"Told me what?"
"The White Walkers, the Army of the Dead?"
He glared at the King incredulously, at first attributing the king's mad words to his red priestess, except a glance at his father indicated that even Tywin Lannister treated the tales of children not as a joke.
"Until Your Grace sees fit to make his declaration across the realm," Tywin said, stepping in diplomatically, "I thought to keep my silence regarding the various...threats, to the realm, so as to not stir panic."
"This is something...Lady Melisandre sees?" It pained him to refer to the strange woman so officiously as a lady.
"Ned Stark's daughter," Stannis added.
"Lady Sansa sees the truth," the red priestess spoke for the first time, "that the games of the iron thrones between your lords and kings pale in comparison to the true war, that between life and death itself."
Vaguely aware that his jaw was dropped most stupidly, he looked around the room, the serious faces of the king, Davos Seaworth, and to his own father, who, were this a face of a man bluffing at cyvasse, it was the best bluff he'd ever seen in his life.
"It would seem the death of the girl's father has...blessed her with the ability to see things," his father admitted begrudgingly, "and know of things she should never know of."
"It's true then," Jaime asked dumbly. "The Great Council...that was Sansa Stark's council?"
Both Stannis and Tywin nodded grimly, and Jaime recognized that such men of such pride could never admit to such an embarrassing fact, unless it was absolutely the truth.
"You allowed a girl of four and ten to dictate the terms of peace and war and crown a king?"
"The realm needs to be strong and united for what lies ahead," Stannis offered, though it was clear even he seemed discomforted by the idea that he owed his crown to a little girl.
"Aerys's daughter lives," his father said of the man he'd once loved and they'd both served, "and she's acquired three dragons, which one day will grow as large as the Black Dread himself."
"The Stark girl saw this too?"
"Her testimony is confirmed by the King's own spymaster."
"His Grace can't turn his eyes north if he worries about strikes against his flank west," Davos said. Cersei had always pushed him to be Robert's Hand, a position he'd never wanted and thankfully never received, and Jaime wondered what she'd think of a crabber's son in what she thought once his rightful position. "We need to end the Greyjoy threat, take back the Iron Islands. Dorne can help, along with their ships."
"And for Dorne to help us, I need the wounds from my brother's rebellion settled and buried in the past, as it ought be."
"I suspect you'll find a more difficult sell in Prince Oberyn than I," father said, diplomatic once again, "but whatever I can do help in the matter, I will."
"Why didn't you tell me about the Stark girl," Jaime asked, as they walked back to their quarters in the Keep. Though the King had not named his father to his Small Council officially, it seemed he was keen to keep the Lannisters at the capital, if only to keep a close eye upon them.
"I feared you'd tell your sister."
"She'd never believe such stories anyway," Jaime muttered, "grumpkins and snarks marching south to King's Landing."
"The Starks and Lannisters need each other. And we both need the Baratheons now."
He turned a cautious eye at his father. Enemies to friends indeed. "You're plotting something. But with the Starks?"
Jaime understood as well he could the need for friends of convenience, though such games were much more his father's arena, but there was something in him that rebelled against aligning so closely with the family that had heaped scorn upon him for years...that had taken his brother and falsely accused him of murder.
"You don't like it," Tywin observed, "but you'll work with me. Unlike your sister."
He cocked his head, trying to absorb everything that was coming at him at once, stories of dragons, and white walkers, and Tywin Lannister walking in line with Ned Stark's son. When he spoke again, his voice was hushed, speaking as they were in the King's keep.
"You think Robb Stark will help you betray Stannis?"
His father seemed nearly amused by his question. "Not all Starks are the same."
Robb
"Blow the horns. Send forth the terms of surrender."
"My lord," Rickard Karstark grumbled, though he went forth nevertheless to accede his order. Few were happier with the peace than the old lord of Karhold, who'd whinged the entire ride north over the mercy shown by Stannis towards the Lannisters, and his own weakness in accepting the terms of the peace.
"You curse yer own name, denying your father the revenge he deserves, denying me the revenge I deserve."
"Many betrayed my father, but Joffrey alone was responsible for his death, and Joffrey is dead. As to your revenge, were every father to get his for the deaths of their sons and daughters in this war, we'd have no realm left."
"I care not for the realm. Don't lecture me, little lord, you allow your sister to remain in the capital, fed to stags and lions alike."
She'd survive them all, Robb had reckoned, ignoring his insult. And they'd be lucky if they survived her.
"The true enemy lies beyond the Wall, Lord Rickard," he insisted, and though he believed Sansa, he knew how difficult it was for a his lords to accept the idea of otherworldly monsters, however ingrained as they were in the North's lore, and he wondered if Stannis would have the same difficulty, when the time came to rally the realm. "If the Others cross south, Karhold will fall before Winterfell. You may be grateful of Tywin Lannister's bannermen then."
"Aye, I'll be grateful for Tywin in my halls, I'll take his head off myself, along with his sister-fuckin' sons."
"And violate his guest rights," Robb had asked, remembering how he could have once died, in his sister's last life.
"For revenge, aye," Rickard swore. "I'll go to the worst of their southern hells fer it."
His mother remained in Cerwyn's keep, only a few days ride south of Winterfell, along with Talisa, their babe growing steadily in her belly. Were it a boy, Talisa promised in front of his mother to name him Eddard, winning bits and pieces of her approval day by day. And who could resist her? Certainly not him, that much was proven.
He'd expected the banners of the Kraken flying over the walls of his home when he arrived one cloudy morning, but strangely enough the brick was plain. And when he sounded the horns it was not Theon who emerged, though Robb had little expected the man whom he once thought a brother to face him in parley, but that of old Maester Luwin, whom Robb breathed a sigh of relief for, along with a man he did not recognize, holding a dark cloth bag.
"Your Grace," his old maester said, addressing him by his old title, and though he saw relief in his eyes upon his return, Robb thought he discerned sadness also. "May I present Dagmer Cleftjaw of Pyke."
"Where is your Prince," Robb asked, a feeling of dread crawling up his spine at the expressions of the two men, one pained, the other near gloating.
As he suspected, the pirate held up the bag. "Here. The rest of him's in the castle. Fergive me yer grace, we followed him to war, but not a war of our choosing."
"You betrayed your own lord and prince," Robb asked, his heart boiling already, barely keeping his hand from his own sword to take off this traitor's head this instant.
"I offer him as a gift, yer grace, along with the return of yer castle."
"Take him," he yelled, his voice quivering, as his lords and bannermen seized the man immediately. "Take him and every man who betrayed Prince Theon."
"Yer grace," Dagmer protested, confused as he'd thought he'd done him a great favor.
"I'm not a king. If it's your heads you were hoping to save by your vile betrayal, know that none of you will keep yours by nightfall."
Once, Robb had sworn he'd cut Theon Greyjoy's head off by his own sword, after confronting him and asking him how he could betray the family that had sheltered him and loved him as one of their own for so many years. Sansa had been able to talk him down from his rage, and though his blood still simmered, he'd been content, maybe even relieved, by the thought of merely punishing Theon without having to kill him, understanding that the position of the man who was by fact a hostage of their family more difficult than he'd imagined. What would Sansa think now, that the only traitor from her past life she'd wished mercy for was dead? He wondered if they'd somehow come to love each other, in that awful first life of his sister's he could still barely comprehend.
Forgive me, Sansa. Your first charge, and I've failed you already.
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Notes and responses: Thanks all as usual for reading and reviewing. Bernadette, as mentioned in this chapter, was indeed a show character.
As to the threat of Euron Greyjoy, Sansa probably doesn't think him a major threat yet, not with the realm strong and united (and I doubt Euron would have returned west had he not a the power vacuum in Westeros which gave him an opportunity). But yes, he's out there somewhere, still the same (show, rather than book) Euron in this story.
As to dragonglass, it was only a few lines, but in Chapter 7 Robb did mention that Stannis was going to send it up north, implying that it was discussed offscreen.
