The Best is Yet to Be

By littlelights

Hoping this update finds you all well and engaged in the story as it develops. Also, happy early Halloween!

Disclaimer: I am not making any money, blah, blah, blah.

XxX

Chapter 17

Howland Reed's boat was just ahead, a rusty brown shadow in the semi-darkness. The little torch light affixed to the front of Meera's boat was the only brightness she could see through the growing mist. It was rare for them to travel separately, as there was more safety in numbers this close to nightfall.

They had explored the forlorn reaches of the Neck, searching the secluded islands her people had abandoned when winter's icy touch had scared the fish into deeper water. Even in the coldest and deepest snowfall, the standing water in the Neck never froze over completely. During the scant hours of grey sunlight, Meera had been able to see creatures under the surface, slow ripples of fins and tails suspended in time, waiting for spring to set them free.

They continued for a time, the sounds of the marsh animals slowly beginning to fade as the river led them away from the shelter of the marsh to a place where trees stood apart from each other under a wider sky.

The light stayed steady, until it finally began to slow down before stopping completely at a waterway she'd only seen a few times before.

It had been a shelter for hunters when the Marsh Kings had ridden lizard lions into battle with the Starks. The rough branches and bark enclosure had weathered the damp and fog of the swampy marsh. Like all true shelters woven by the crannogmen, this structure would endure a few decades more before another generation of her people would build the site anew. Though she had seen this place twice before with her brother, they had not stopped to examine the site. Spearfishing had been on the forefront of their mind, a unspoken competition as to who could kill the largest frog had been the bigger priority at the time.

Pulling her boat beside that of her father, Meera looked down at thin crease at the edge of the camp site. It had been a tradition among her people to dig drain line around a shelter, unnoticeable to outsiders by the way it was covered by reeds and moss. This crease had been disturbed, rough scrapes of careless feet and a wide trail cut through the island, leading further up the embankment.

The tracks left in frigid mud were made by man, judging from the scruffy footprint. A man who walked hunched over, dragging a heavy item behind him on a rope. Her father gestured to the tracks, pointing out their plan of moving forward. Wordlessly, Meera and her father trained their spears forward and slowly followed an unfamiliar sight – a mass of dead toads piled into a heap atop a floating island. There was nothing special about the small creatures, these were far from the colorful black-eyed toads which provided poison for the darts of the crannogmen.

These were common, ordinary, mud-loving toads with big bellies and watchful eyes.

Even for all their vigilance, the head of each frog had been separated from its body, long legs stretched limply askew. None of them appeared to be eaten, they were just all dead.

Nothing went to waste in the Neck, Meera thought. The larger animals fed on the smaller ones, leaving not a scrap of flesh behind. Rusty remnants old swords and broken shields of trespassers would surface when the tides were low. Everything else was swallowed up by the mud never to be seen again.

The frog parts strewn about weren't the work of marsh lizards or the large creatures which swam in the deeper waters nearby. This display of mangled flesh felt wrong.

Using his pole to push one unfortunate frog over, Meera could see her father's sharp eyes examine every inch of the creature. "The sharp teeth near the throat" Howland said lowly, as to not to be heard. "Nothing I recognize from the marsh."

The circumference around the jaw was odd. Not pointed like a lizard or inverted from a different creature. It was half-moon in size, similar to the marks left on bread after she ate a piece. "A man?" she offered, but her words sounded bewildered.

"Not any man I've ever seen," Howland replied with a grimace. "The teeth were sharp, filed into points. Easier to rip out the soft parts there." He pointed at the jagged lines where the flesh separated from small white joints of the frog.

"A man survived this far into the Neck?" Meera questioned her father. "No one apart from us can do that."

"It's rare, and even if they do, they don't last long. The tracks there," Her father's pointed to the footprints just visible in the bent grass, "Larger than most men. No boots. Longer in the toe." His brow sunk into his head, making her father's face look more haggard than she'd ever seen him before. "Nothing I've ever seen."

"Do we hunt it?" Meera looked at the two small rafts stationed above the waterline. They could stay hidden in the reeds of the marsh for a week or so before they had to return to Graywater Watch. She and Jojen had been out on their own for two weeks at a time when they'd finally been old enough. But that was high summer, and this was winter. She'd never seen the marshland so quiet and devoid of life.

"Whatever it is, it's collecting," Howland replied, carefully turning the frog back to its prone position. "If it was a creature from the neck it might have buried its food for later. This is brazen, keeping what it eats here in plain sight. We'll stay, keep watch this spot from afar. We might have to wait it out a few days but whatever made this is certain to return."

They took great pains to hide their rafts on a marsh bed nearby, and found a great hollow tree trunk with room to store their supplies. They constructed a frame of rushes to hide the entrance, and while Meera extinguished one lamp to use later, the other lit a small fire near the back of the shelter. The smoke billowed up through the hole in the trunk, disappearing into the night sky.

Her father unpacked a smoked fish from his bag, handed it to Meera, and cracked off half another for himself. They said next to nothing, both prepared to wait out the creature. Both determined to stay awake and on watch through the reed screen the longest.

"Go to sleep, Meera," her father ordered quietly. "I've been up with the moon for half a year. The green dreams have their own way of warning us when we're needed."

It took a long time until she finally slept, her own dreams plagued with flying ravens, gushing blood, and the unmistakable image of a man falling from a cliff.

Meera tried to shake the impression that it was her husband falling while she stood motionless on safe ground.

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"May I have some water, please?" Medda asked, struggling to sit up higher on the rough hay pallet.

"Right here," Ser Davos chimed, fetching the water jug and pouring some of the contents into an empty wood vessel. "Drink it slowly."

Medda took a sip, then another, and continued until the cup was half-full. "How long was I asleep?"

"Three days," Ser Davos replied. "You had a high fever just after you fell ill. It was a rough night, but you pulled through. You had us all worried." It would be inappropriate to voice the full extent of his anxiety, or how he had grasped her hand and asked whatever god was listening to spare her life. She kept her distance from him for a reason. Before she'd fallen ill, he had accepted admiring her from afar, and not pressuring her for what she wasn't able to give him in return. In the week of her illness, he had moved beyond holding her hand chastely to applying as much snow on her face, neck chest as needed to keep her fever at bay.

Ser Davos knew he was taking more liberties than was probably proper with a recovering woman. Without a maester or a true healer present, it was unnerving to have so much physical access to the woman he fancied. Medda was not his wife, nor his betrothed. As he had resigned as Hand of the King, he was not quite sure what his role was at the moment. Although not a healer, he tended to Medda as competently as resources allowed. Her fever had broken, and she slept through much of the day and night, leaving him with long hours with just his own thoughts for company. Now, nearly two weeks into their isolation, the sun had gone down and the two other inhabitants of the cottage were gathered around the hearth for supper. Medda imbibed the water slowly and took in the activity of the room.

"Is anyone else still ill?" She asked noncommittally, bringing the vessel back to her lips.

"No, you were last." He supplied, tossing a glance at the other people resting and sleeping. "A few more days, and we can leave. They'll have to burn this cottage down, and the other one, I suppose. Maybe the store house as well."

He talked for a while, of the people he had seen from the window slats and how Lord Gendry met him outside at a distance every midday to exchange news and deliver food. News that the queen had delivered another son, whom she and King Jon had named Eddard. Bells had rung, but everyone in the cottage had been too sick to know what they meant. The sweating sickness had not affected anyone else in Winterfell.

When he ran out of news to share, Davos let the Stewardess finish her water in silence. She appeared to be deep in thought, absorbing the details of the world outside and reflecting on what she had learned. The world had passed them by, he thought. The living got on with the business of life. Those hovering around death did not have the same luxury. There was the slow recovery back or the finality of the end. Nothing much more than that.

Medda passed the cup back after finishing the remnants of her drink. "Do you need more?" he asked.

"No," her voice was wispy from sleep. "Will you stay next to me for a while?" Her eyes looked sad and pensive.

"Of course." He had stayed by her side since her illness began, only leaving to speak to Gendry or move the remains of those who had not recovered outside onto a waiting cart.

Helping her arrange the thin blanket around her body, he felt her right-hand wrap around his. He held his breath, and sat down, not letting go of her warm grasp. Holding her hand in his while she was dying was one thing. She couldn't remember it and the other people caring for her understood those struggling between life and death needed support to make their way back to the land of the living.

This was different. Comfort, he thought, then he studied the features of her sweet face. Bravery and uncertainty not unlike what he felt the first time he offered her his arm on one of their walks. It had taken a few moments for their movements to match, but over time it had become as natural as breathing.

Now her hand was in his, and he couldn't help but smile at her, and squeeze a bit of warmth back into her bones. "You had me worried, more than one time."

She nodded, eyes downcast, her free hand fidgeted with the edge of the thin blanket. "I didn't realize how ill I was. But then, I dreamed."

"Dreamed of what?" he asked, wondering what had guided her back to the land of the living. It could be a number of things, he supposed.

She told him, of walking through the forest of Deepwood Mott, of seeing her family on the other side of a river.

When he had been dying at the Wall, Brandon Stark had told him water like that meant death, and from her own experience it sounded like she had taken great pains to cross the river to join her family. She must have been far enough into the water to bring on the death rattle, and it chilled him to hear her tell how close she had come to leaving this world.

Medda paused, taking a breath and closing her eyes. "I wanted to go to them so badly," she said, little rivers of wetness slipping from her eyes. "I saw them, and nothing else mattered. I didn't hesitate. I ran into the river, and every step hurt. They never said a word, they just stood there on the other side of the river, waiting for me. I think they were always there, wanting me to give in and do whatever was needed to join them."

Ser Davos had heard stories from some of the small folk, how mourning the dead too much forced the souls of those who had departed to stay in the world of the living. The ever-present sadness forced some men and women to take their own lives by hanging or drowning. Westeros and its faith of the Seven forbid such practices for its followers. However, there were those who chose to waste away of their own accord. It sometimes took days, weeks, or even years, but eventually, the Stranger came to claim them.

Just as abruptly as it stared, the conversation changed. "I never told you how it happened. What happened before I came to live in Winterfell." Medda looked determined, her hand stanchly held in his own.

He did not care much for rumors, or gossip as a rule. The words of men and women should be heard from their own mouths, and little else. And any words being shared should be done out of rightness and respect. "Thought you would one day, when you were ready." Davos replied, his thumb brushed against one of her fingers. It was a small touch, something he would dwell over if they left the seclusion of the cottage.

She nodded, biting her lip and nodding. Her eyes drifted off for a moment before her voice dipped low. "I am a daughter of House Forrester, but you already knew that. My village was near Deepwood Mott. I had settled there with my husband after we were married. He began taking up with another woman. Actually, he never stopped taking up with her, even before we were wed."

"I remember her, the woman I sent to Blackbird Hall."

She nodded. "Everyone knew it was Sybell my husband wanted. Hamma's father, he hoped marriage would change him. Help Hamma settle down and raise a family. My father wanted me to wed, and Hamma was from a good family. We had a fine house on account of Hamma's father raising the best horses in the North. My husband enjoyed working with the animals, but he enjoyed Sybell more, and he left when Thomas was born. He had two sons and left it to me to raise them. It was a relief, actually. I wanted to go home to my parents, but they wouldn't hear of it. My place was in my husband's house, even if he wasn't in it. So, I carried on best I could.

Hamma left with King Robb, as did most of the men from the Mott. House Glover was pledged to the Starks, so all the men from the village left. Everyone helped with the harvest, and we sent what we had to Deepwood Mott for the winter. It was strange to be in a village full of women, children, and old men, but I was so used to being alone it wasn't much of a hardship. I had my sons, and life was very full.

I was helping a neighbor in childbed; it was just the midwife and I there to attend her. I'd sent Thomas and Owen out to play earlier in the morning. I thought nothing of it. They ran wild around the village when they were finished with their studies and their chores. My neighbor was a good woman, her husband had grown up with my brothers at the Mott. She'd been laboring for two days before she was delivered of a son. A little boy, healthy and strong. He was only a few hours old, and his mother was sleeping with him in her arms.

Then the Ironborn came. I didn't know what was happening until I looked out the window and saw a raider run a woman through outside. By then it was too late. Two of them were already in the house and up the stairs. The door was unlocked, they just pushed their way in. We had no weapons, and no one there to help. It was fast and brutal, and I'd heard of their raids but they were always discussed in hushed tones when I was young.

The midwife was first. She was closest to the door. They slit her throat and dropped her to the ground. They pushed her aside like she was nothing. One man grabbed me, threw me up against the wall. I hit my head, and everything moved slowly."

She became very still, her eyes lost in memories of the past. Eyes glazed over, and Davos could see she was reliving what she had experienced with most of the pain that went along with it.

"They took the baby and bashed its head in. They laughed, like it was a jape. The mother was screaming. They ended her life with a sword to the chest. I watched the life leave her eyes. I was against the wall when the first one…"

His heart stopped. Roving and rape was the Ironborn's primary trade. It was what he suspected, from the few pieces of her past had been able to puzzle together. But to hear it from Medda directly was a wholly different experience.

Medda broke down, a rough sob cracking from her chest. She slumped forward onto her empty arm and heaved a strangled breath. He could hear the pain being expelled, a torrent of hurt and wrongs left to churn and grow malignant inwardly. It was the cries of a soul who had carried deep cuts to the heart which had been left unchecked and festering for too long. Davos turned his body to shield her from the prying eyes of others. There was little privacy in the cottage, and fortunately, the other people slumbering, or tossing had learned to ignore the cries of the others around them.

He stopped himself from pulling her into his arms. She wouldn't want or need pity. But what she needed was a steady hand to hold as she expelled the grief of her past.

"Then the second took his place. He pushed me to the floor, and it felt like forever. The first man left to join the others outside. He spat on the body of the woman I'd just helped through childbed. I wanted the man on top of me to end it then, to just put the knife to my throat and push. But then I thought of my sons, and that they needed me. The midwife's knife had fallen to the floor when they killed her. I saw it and waited until he stopped. I rolled over, held the blade in my hand, and when he tried to climb on top of me, I thrust the knife into his neck. His blood was everywhere. Rivers of it ran red on the floor where the midwife and what was left of the baby lay so still.

I pushed him off me, went to the window and pulled myself onto the roof. I hid in the eves until I saw the lot of the Ironborn gather in the square and leave as quickly as they came. I had the hardest time getting off the roof. I slid down the thatch and fell at the lowest point of the house. I twisted an ankle when I fell, and it took a long time to get up. Walking was agony, but I had to find my sons. It got dark, but I didn't dare light a torch. The moon rose in the sky, and that's when I found them. They were on the other side of the gardens, sticks on the ground from where they had been playing. Thomas's head had been hacked off. Owen was next to him. They must have snapped his neck. He looked like he was sleeping. I cried all night and held them as their bodies became stiff. I couldn't leave them outside by themselves. I didn't want the animals to get them. So, I stayed outside with them all night. In the morning, I buried them there in the garden. I dug their grave myself."

I met a man on the road two days later. Ours wasn't the only village sacked during the raid. He told me all the Glover vassals had been attacked by the Ironborn. They were headed east to Winterfell. I decided to go south to Barrowtown, and I was there about a year when more raiders arrived held the town hostage. It was a hard time. Many of us left, lived hand to mouth for months, until King Jon and Queen Sansa took back the North and were preparing for war with the undead. When I arrived, I offered my services to the queen, and she took me into her household."

She was silent for a long time, her eyes distant and reliving the past in her mind. Davos knew from his own grief of losing his son, how the first few months he had been unable to grieve properly, the pain had cut deep in his heart. A year or so later, he had been able to see the events of past clearly in his mind, to see them for what they were, and mourn Matthos in the way he deserved.

What Medda had done was far harder. She had locked the past away behind a door in her heart, allowing it to freeze over and push her away from everything else in the world. It had been the only way she had been able to move on, he thought, to focus on what needed to be done just to stay alive to see the next morning. It had come at a terrible cost of living a half-life; of her heart and mind never truly healing from what happened.

Something niggled at the edge of his thoughts. She had seen something in her fever dream. Something more than what she had described. What it was, maybe she had forgotten. His own near death was cloudy at the best of times. But occasionally, when he was between sleep and waking, he was still able to see it. Whatever it had been, it had shaken her to the core. Jolted her enough to let all the emotions she had stored inside out all at once, and it obviously hurt like hell.

"What happened wasn't your fault," Davos said slowly, moving from the chair to balance at the edge of the bed.

"I know," Medda said flatly, her eyes were red from crying and her face was a collection of salt tears, sweat, and red splotches.

"You've a right to grieve, and cry, and scream and do whatever you need to mourn what you've lost. It hurts, Gods, it does. You walked everyday with the weight of it in your chest. You don't have to suffer alone. There's no reason to."

Her head sank as she continued to cry. It wasn't the seizing anguish from earlier, but rather an exhale of grief. "I never wanted anyone to know. It was my shame. My burden to carry."

Davos continued. "From what I see, there's no shame. There was a crime committed and the men who caused it never paid for it. We don't always see justice for what was done to us. Especially not during war. Wasn't your fault. Not what happened to your boys, and not for what they did to you. I'd kill 'em myself if they were standing here. I'm not good with a blade, but they'd feel my wrath, and that of the queen and king as well."

He knew shame was different for a man than it was for a woman. Women carried secret hurts most men paid little mind to. Medda had been alone for so long, pushing everything she felt away. He could feel her sadness, the isolation from holding all those untold things inside. He didn't try to bring her head level to his own.

"You don't have to carry every burden in this life on your own. You're not alone. Not anymore." As gently as he was able, he used their clasped hands to enfold her into his arms.

Her body felt small against him, as if the enormity of what she felt had cut her down inside and out. Their angle was awkward, but he adjusted, rotating his back to the wall and bringing her to rest against his chest. She continued to cry, and he let her. With what she was feeling, it was better have them expelled than allowed to sink deeper into her chest and fester further.

He rubbed her back, swept the hair from her face, and allowed her to lay everything she carried down and just let go. A long time passed, and when the stewardess cried herself out, she slept in his arms. While it had never been his intent to hold her for more than a minute or two, it lightened his heart to have her so close, to know she needed him in the darkest hours of the night.

XxX

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