Jaime
When he had first been taken to the training yard in Casterly Rock to finally begin the exercises that were expected of all the sons of great lords the Master of Arms, Jorge One-Ear, had told him that the first blade he would learn to use wouldn't be a sword but a hunting knife. Jaime, all of 7 years old, had expected that he would train with a wooden sword, as he had seen the others youth do, and thus had been rather confused when he had instead been given a rather plain, yet sharp, knife that had been longer than his hand. It had both made his brow furrow in befuddlement and his heart race in delight that he was given actual steel. The surprises had only kept coming when Jorge had brought forth some rabbits in a wire cage and reached in, snapping the neck of one and tossing it at Jaime's feet, the lifeless dark eyes staring at him. He hadn't been horrified by that, as some weaker lads might have been, for he had watched men kill and butcher animals before, but it still had been a surprising start to his training.
"A man can be the fiercest swordsman in the land... but that will matter little if he can't feed himself," Jorge had told him and then commanded him to skin the rabbit. Jaime had known better than to argue, as he'd understood that there was no way his father hadn't approved of this lesson and trying to get out of it would only bring about his father's wrath. He had tried to go slow but it had still been a bloody affair that saw him within 10 minutes covered in much of the rabbit's insides and the body made an absolute ruin. The only plus had been that he hadn't cut himself. He'd looked to Jorge but the man had merely grabbed another rabbit and snapped its neck, but this one he took for himself, sitting down on the ground and motioning for Jaime to mimic him. "You now know how to do it wrong. That's good. We can't learn until we know how bad we are. Now you'll learn the right way." The Master At Arms had then proceeded to slowly showing Jaime how he skinned the rabbit, explaining each step carefully so that Jaime understood WHY he did what he did. Then he had made Jaime do it again and again and again until there had been a pile of skins and they'd prepared enough rabbits for the cooks to make stew for the entire castle.
The next day they had moved to pigs.
"Are you sure you don't need help?" the swamp girl asked him and though she wasn't smiling he could hear the cheek in her words.
"I'm fine," Jaime said as he worked to remove the bark from the sapling, the snow crunching under his feet. How there could be snow in the early Fall he would never accept… it was as foreign as the sun setting in the east.
"I don't mind," she said. "I've already done mine."
"Good for you," he said sarcastically, refusing to look up for even a second. He could feel her staring at him, taste her amusement, and he grit his teeth and went back to the task at hand. Fingers moved along the still supply wood, removing the budding branches and carefully peeling away the bark so that it would gain more bend.
When he'd squired for Lord Sumner Crakehall after his father had failed to convince Aerys to make him Rhaegar's squire (and considering the rumors he'd heard concerning Rhaegar and Jon Connington it probably was for the best) the man had decided to go on a hunt within the first week of his arrival. He'd only left the Ocean Road a few days previously but had already found himself on it again, heading into the woods that bordered the Crakehall lands. He had assumed that it would be a large hunting party, like his Uncle Kevan had staged from time to time (his father, while able to hunt, preferred not to as he found it a waste of time; though he oddly did enjoy fishing and would hold meetings while watching a line bob in the water) but Lord Sumner had surprised him by stating he wished to go alone, making it clear to his household guard that if he wasn't safe in the woods that bordered his own lands then he didn't deserve to be the Lord of Cracehall.
So the two of them had ridden out into those deep woods and when they'd gotten far enough Lord Sumner had handed him a bow and a quiver of arrows and told him to catch them dinner. Jaime had set about the task with only the man's silence to keep him company but as the hours had dragged on and he had prowled the woods only to find it seemingly empty of all life his stomach had begun to rumble while fear and frustration had built in him over his inability to complete that task. Finally Lord Sumner had called him over and stared down at Jaime, his features solemn and tight.
"I never said you couldn't ask for help."
Then Lord Sumner had looked about the slightly damp soil, headed off in a seemingly random direction, and shot a doe so large Jaime had struggled to carry his half of the game stick as they'd made their way back to their horses. During the ride back Lord Sumner had told him that the only knights who did not ask for advice when faced with new challenges were pampered pups that had only fought against straw dummies and gained their spurs thanks to their family's wealth. He'd asked if Jaime wanted the title merely to have it or if he truly wanted to be a knight.
"I want to be a knight," Jaime had told him.
"And it is my job then to teach you. I doubt this will be much like other boys go through… no carrying and polishing armor, prepping tents, running small errands. I have servants for that. Your father has given me the grand honor of making you into something special… a true Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. I will not have you disgrace me. And I will not waste your time."
Jaime bent down and inspected the snare he had completed only for his hand to brush too close to it and the wood to whip back and snap across his face. He leapt back and cursed, bringing his fingers up and touching his cheek, forcing himself not to wince as he felt how tender it was. Bringing his hand back he was annoyed to find that the tips of his fingers glistened with blood. It was a small amount, a shallow cut at most, but it annoyed him all the same.
"Are you all right?" the swamp girl asked again.
"Perfectly fine. It happens." He waved her off, not interested in having some frog eater pity him.
The Neckling nodded. "Oh yes, more times then I'd like to admit. Be glad that wasn't a White Spike… they grow thorns on their bark and I caught one when it snapped back at me a year or so ago." He finally turned and she pointed to a faint scar just to the right of her nose. "The healer said that if I had shifted my head only a bit more I would have lost the eye. A good lesson."
He grunted at that, not wanting to bond with the girl over something so trivial as making snares… especially when it was something he could do in his sleep. And yet as he turned back to the saplings that seemed to be taunting him by standing there, still wavering slightly, he found himself asking, "Healer? You weren't close enough to your home… whatever it is called?"
"Greywater Watch."
"A charming place, I am sure," he said, rolling his eyes. He had never been to the place and barely recalled hearing the name before, but he could imagine it well enough: some fort made of crumbling soft timbers that was forever shrouded a thick fog that smelled like rotten eggs and was held by grubby little men who were covered in scum and dined on roots and frogs.
"Very much so. Though I am sure it is nothing like the Red Keep."
He couldn't tell if she were being sarcastic or not. It was so hard to tell with these Northerners. It was the great irony of Westeros that those that were best at playing the politics of the realm were so much easier to read while the Northerners; for with their blunt solemn natures it was impossible to get a grasp on their meanings.
"I grew up in Casterly Rock," he said, wincing at how weak and lame the statement was. It'd been his only response though, his only way to handle what she said. Better to go that route than open himself up for ribbing from the swamp girl.
Rather than respond to that she turned back to his earlier question. "There are no maesters at Greywater Watch."
He didn't want to ask. He really didn't. He didn't want to make nice with this child that looked down upon him even though he was the best swordsman in the Seven Kingdoms and belonged to the richest and most powerful of the Great Families. 'A Lion doesn't concern himself with the sheep'. His father's words rang through his head. He should ignore her, treat her as the nothing that she was. But he was starving for proper conversation due to the fact that the only other people he could talk with were a savage, a simpleton, a dreary boy, and the child he had crippled. Thus he found himself opening his mouth to speak.
"And here I thought every keep, no matter the size, had a maester. That is part of their charge, is it not? And the Reed family is an old House… long forged and established."
"Yes, we are," the young woman said, moving away so he might struggle with his snare. She began to pick up branches and inspect them and he knew she was going to set about making more arrows for her quiver; she might have been a scum-coated lily eater but she was a hell of a shot, much to his own annoyance. They'd practiced with some of her whittled arrows, him and her and the savage, using the bows that her dreamy brother had secured in the wagon they'd used for their escape, and he'd been shamed at how poor his scattering was, with several arrows flying off amongst the trees. He'd argued that it was because the bow was of poor quality and the arrows weighted incorrectly.
He had heard the lie in his own voice and the way the shaggy-haired bitch had glanced at him while the swamp girl went to retrieve their arrows and proven they didn't believe him in the slightest.
When he had been given his position on the Kingsguard at that Tourney Aerys had ordered him to return to King's Landing so that Jaime could protect the Queen, who had remained there (and, as Jaime had quickly realized, to show to Jaime the power the King would forever hold over his life and how he was now forever a prisoner in all but name). He had gone with Ser Arthur Dayne on that trip. The man that had knighted him after the defeat of the Kingswood Brotherhood and the idol of young boys everywhere. Before they had left Jaime had seen the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull and a legend himself, stop Ser Arthur so he might tell him to, 'give him the proper welcome'. After how Aerys had treated him Jaime had feared what this welcome might be. The Kingsguard was supposed to be the most honorable and brave men in all the land ('was I really that stupid?' he thought as he worked on the snare again) yet he had felt a dark plunging sensation in his stomach as he and Ser Arthur had ridden from Harrenhall. Not only was he being robbed at his chance at glory at the greatest tournament that Westeros would ever see ('though considering how it ended with Rhaegar I wonder if Aerys every regretted sending me away?') but he was heading out into the unknown with a man who had been given orders to give him a proper welcome, whatever that might be.
His dread had only continued as it had grown dark and Ser Arthur had continued to drive their horses through the wild untamed forests of the Riverlands, bypassing the villages and holdfasts that offered comfort and safety. Indeed it seemed as if the Sword of the Morning purposely pushed them to get as far away from such places as he could and Jaime had gripped the reins of his horse and wondered just what the Dornish man wanted to do that required there to be no witnesses. He had thought about how he would escape and then wondered if escaping would even be a wise action. Jaime had envisioned Ser Arthur coming at him, forcing him to run, only for Ser Gerold to have already spread the word that he had forsaken his vows and claimed that Ser Arthur had done nothing to him and Jaime had ridden off out of anger.
All those fears had been proven to be worthless when Ser Arthur had finally told him to stop and make camp and finally come clean about what the White Bull wanted.
"It is easy to forget what we began as when one lives in King's Landing. The opulence, the decadence… it blinds us and makes us forget where we came from. I don't mean our places of birth for that no longer matters Jaime. You are no longer of Casterly Rock, just as I am no longer of Starfall. We haven't been of those places for a while, not since we took our vows. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. That means something… it has to." Ser Arthur had looked into the fire, hands gripping his water skin and Jaime hadn't dared breathe. "Knights, true knights, began merely as heroes who traveled the lands seeking to do good. To help the innocent. It is in our vows. When we arrive in King's Landing you will protect the royal family but before then you will be reminded, one last time, of what all of us were meant to do. We will not stop at holdfasts or villages and enjoy free meals or comfortable beds. Our table will be the earth and our room the sky above. We will not dine with lords but find the lost and the scared and offer them comfort. We will live as the hedge knights still do and we will REMEMBER what it means to be a knight. And when it is time for you to welcome another brother to our ranks… you will do as I do this journey. So you never forget."
"Are you two still at it?" the wild savage complained. It took all of Jaime's strength not to jump; he refused to give her a chance to gloat on her ability to sneak up on him. Once, early on in their journey, he had made a comment that he was going to sew bells on her so he could hear her coming and she had spent the next two days loudly letting him know when she was approaching, mocking him and his 'dirt-filled southern ears'. "I already got dinner." Jaime looked up to see that she had managed to shoot a young fawn and was carrying the corpse over her shoulders in a mockery of how proper ladies wore fur stoles around their necks.
"We are just finishing up," the swamp girl stated and Jaime returned to finalizing his snare.
"How many did you set?" the savage asked.
"We set eight."
"And how many did he set?"
"We set eight," the frogling stated and Jaime wished she had just revealed that she had managed to get seven done while he was still struggling with his first. He could have handled her taunts... given back as good as he got. But he didn't like her pitying him. A moss girl pitying a Lion of the Rock? The greatest sword in the Seven Kingdoms?
'It is almost blasphemous,' he thought bitter before he quickly caught the sapling just before it could snap up again. This time he managed to get it secured and stepped back, looking at the trap and knowing without either of his companions saying a word that it was a rather poor and pathetic thing when compared to what the swamp girl had created. He could only see one of hers, it was so well hidden in the brush, while his fumbling about had crumpled the grass and undergrowth around it and left a misshapen circle around it. 'Maybe I'll catch a blind rabbit,' he thought to himself bitterly. 'Or a suicidal fox.'
"They don't teach you much in those fancy castles, do they?" the savage said.
"They teach us to use combs," Jaime said, glancing at the tangled rat's nest that was the woman's scalp. "Or do they even care about looks beyond the Wall? I've heard your kind will mate with bobcats and bears and I wonder if you do it on purpose or if the men prefer something that smells a bit better."
The savage shot him a look, eyes sliding up and down his form. "Every man I've been with has known what I am. I've heard how you fancy men dress for your dances and such... how many times have ya accidently slipped into the bed of a pretty lass only to discover she's really a long hair warrior with a thick cock?" She wagged her thick and unruly eyebrows. "Or did you merely tell your lordlings that it was by accident."
"We should be getting back," the swamp girl said before Jaime could retort. "Bran and the rest will be wondering where we went off to and we don't need Hodor getting worried and deciding to find us."
Jaime and the savage shared a look and grimace, for once in complete agreement. They'd wasted nearly an entire day just a week back when the dimwit had wandered off to take a piss and never come back. Jaime would have considered leaving him behind or, at the very least, continuing on and treating him like a hunting dog that had scurried off that one knew would return, but had quickly decided against it. The dolt had less brains than his cousin Orson but he was frighteningly strong, able to pull the cart that held their supplies and Bran and never tiring. Often they had to command him to stop for the night as he seemed ready to just keep marching along even after the sun had set. Thus Jaime and the savage had spent till nearly mid-afternoon looking for the dimwit, following his tracks until they disappeared in a stream and then moving about the woods in a fruitless attempt to find him. In the end they'd been brought back by the swamp girl who revealed that the moron had returned on his own carrying, of all things, a honeycomb free of bees but full of sweet honey. When Jaime had, in frustration, demanded to know where the lackwit had been he had only received a long stare before the simpleton had declared, "...Hodor," with a shrug.
'No, don't want him to come looking for us,' Jaime thought as they made their way back to their camp. 'Knowing the Seven they will have that dunce reappear with a living dragon that he has made his new pet just to torment me with the 'hows' and 'whys'.'
They were somewhere in the woods that bordered the western shores of Long Lake (because the Northmen were oh so cunning when it came to names), just off the Kingsroad. In fact for much of their journey they had been sticking to the Kingsroad, something that Jaime had been concerned about greatly when they had first begun. "We aren't exactly an inconspicuous group," he'd pointed out to them. "There aren't many families that include a giant and a boy with auburn hair who can't use his legs. Add in my Lannister looks... and the fact that I am sure your bloody brother will be sending everyone he can find after us, and it might be a good idea to avoid people!"
"We will be doing just that," the dreamy idiot, the swamp girl's brother, had told him with a smile and a far off look. Jaime had merely shot a glance at the others but only the savage had shown a hint of agreeing with his point and even then she'd finally shrugged and gone along with it.
"He's a greenseer," she had said to his unasked question. "With the likes of them you have to trust them."
And much to his own annoyance it seemed that she was right, for the dreamy bastard had led them safely away from Winterfell and along the Kingsroad without issue. Occasionally he would suggest they stop early to make camp in the woods or forge for supplies only to return to the road and find wheel marks or fresh footprints in the snow.
As if sensing that Jaime was thinking of him the threesome heard the pale lad call out, "They are coming Hodor. I told you they were coming."
"Hodor," the giant man said and when they emerged into the clearing that was their campsite he grinned and bobbed his head. "Hodor."
"Yes Hodor, we are perfectly fine," the swamp girl stated. "Thank you for watching out for my brother and Bran."
"Hodor."
Jaime rolled his eyes and went over to the fire that was already going, warming his hands. Bloody North and their frigid temperatures in the middle of early fall! The wild woman set about skinning the deer while the boy looked at them from where he sat, a small knife in his hand as he worked on scrapping more fat and tissue from a rabbit skin.
"Managed to get that one cleaned?" he asked, grabbing a stick and poking the fire. Bran held it up and Jaime raised an eyebrow. "And it still managed to look somewhat like a rabbit! There might be hope for you yet!"
"I still don't understand why I have to clean these," the Stark boy said though Jaime noticed that even as he complained he continued the task. Probably had been drilled into him by Winterfell's maester that it wasn't wise to stop a task because he wanted to whine about it.
"Well, while the rest of us are tiring ourselves out walking to... whatever the hell it is he wants us to go-" he gestured dismissively at the dreamy boy, "-you have nothing else to do than to watch the land go by. You might as well stay busy."
"I would walk if I could," the boy complained and Jaime had to force himself not to wince at his own mental reminder that he was the reason the child would never walk again. "And that isn't a good reason to give me busy work."
"It isn't busy work," Jaime said firmly, looking over at savage who was skinning the deer that would be their supper. Normally he would have said that even a small fawn would produce too much meat for them but with the way the lackwit ate they might have been better off with something a touch bigger. Still, the swamp girl had found some runty tubbers that they could throw in the cooking pot that would supplement the meal. "Do you think the wildlings get away with throwing away perfectly good skins?"
"He's right," the savage said, never looking up. She might have been a filthy creature but she was a professional when it came to dealing with a carcass; Jaime would love to bring her to King's Landing just to watch all the butchers hang their heads in shame at her skill. "Every part has a use. Meat we eat, bones we craft into weapons-" That much was true for them as well as the swamp girl had begun to collect the better bone bits to make arrow tips out of, "-and the skins provide warmth."
The boy looked down at the rabbit skin. "So we'll be making these into cloaks?"
"More likely gloves unless any of you suddenly shrink down to nothing." Jaime grabbed another log and tossed it onto the fire. The flames rose up to greedily nibble on the new wood and he looked over before glancing out of the corner of his eye at the boy. "And there is no 'we' in it. You'll be stitching them up as we travel."
"Me?" the boy squawked indignantly. "But... that's woman's worth."
Jaime's teeth came together as he grimaced, the swamp girl and the savage stopping what they were doing to glare at him. The boy suddenly cringed as he became the focus of everyone with a cunt in the camp. And most likely outside of it too; Jaime could see very fox and mouse with quim suddenly stop and glare in their direction and not know why.
"Is that so?" the savage said. "And when would you like me to prepare your dinner, your lordship, if I am to be sewing the entire time?"
"I didn't... it's just... Sansa and Arya-"
"Did what?" the swamp girl asked. "Sewed? So that means that we have to do that as well and you're too good to do it?"
"Well… I mean… Arya didn't sew that well-"
The savage scoffed. "We also shit too. Does that mean spreading your cheeks isn't for men either?"
Jaime stood and clapped a hand on the boy's shoulder before he could speak. "Something I have learned, thanks to my sister, is that when women are like this it is best to just apologize. Even if you don't think you're wrong."
"Is that so?" the swamp girl asked, hands on her hips.
"You're right. I'm deeply sorry." The lilypad muncher nodded and turned only to suddenly whip around and shoot him a glare. The savage cackled at how she had been caught out and Jaime snickered and crouched down next to the crippled boy. "They aren't wrong though. Sewing is very important, for men and women. The fact your father or your maester hasn't taught you that is a crime." He mentally scowled; what in the seven hells was Ned Stark teaching his children if the boys thought making stitches was only for women? "If I was in a fight and someone got lucky and made a cut in my trousers what would I do?"
The boy blinked at that. "…get new ones?"
Jaime fought the urge to cup his head in his hands and wonder how he'd ended up captured if this was how smart the next generations of Starks were. "I get my squire to repair them. And if I don't have a squire I do it myself."
"Even in King's Landing?" he asked suspiciously.
When Jaime had become a member of Robert Baratheon's Kingsguard the conditions of the men of the White Tower had changed greatly. His sister had demanded that, since the Kingsguard were the greatest knights in all the land, they deserved only the best. New armor. New swords. The Tower renovated so that it had every amenity that was possible. More servants were hired to see to their needs. No longer did Jaime need to polish his armor; he had servants to do that. If he didn't feel like taking a whetstone to his sword he could pass it off to another. Baths were drawn for him, meals prepared so that he didn't even need to get near a fire, and grooming was handled by skilled hands that kept every hair in place. When he wasn't watching over the king he was able to look out upon King's Landing and drink the finest wine and ignore the stench of the masses that huddled below him.
"The point is that we'll need warming clothing if we are to survive," he said. "And since you have the most free time you are the best one to help with that. To see to our survival." He could tell that the boy liked that idea, that he was helping them in his own way. That he wasn't useless. Jaime understood needing them. He stood back up. "We'll have plenty of furs coming your way. We set snares that should be full in the morning."
"They will," the dreamy boy stated. "So you best practice Bran. Active hands help keep a mind active as well and you will need an active mind for what is to come."
Jaime scoffed at that, going over to the pack he had claimed as his own early on in the journey and pulling out a full waterskin, setting the empty one he'd been carrying aside to be filled in the morning. "Is that more of your magic vision powers?" he taunted.
"Greensight," the dreamy boy said simply.
"Ah yes, Greensight," Jaime said with a snort, looking over at the others only to remember that he wasn't around intelligent people anymore but rather naïve children that hadn't learned better yet and gullible simpletons. Turning away he set about working to get the frame ready on which they would cooks the venison. "More of the wondrous Northern magic. Did the grumpkins teach you that or was it the snarks?"
"Why do you refuse to believe?" the Starkling asked.
"Because it is madness and fantasy?" Jaime retorted.
"Just because you say it isn't real doesn't mean it isn't," the swamp girl stated. "There are things that even you, Lannister, can't comprehend."
"I can comprehend quite a bit," Jaime stated. "Look. My brother is the smartest man I know. Smarter than my father I think and that's only because he figured out a way to survive being around someone he loathes and not get banished or killed and my father has failed to do just that to Tyrion. He reads as much as I swing a sword. If you point out a star he can tell you what constellation it is a part of and probably the maester who had first discovered it." He walked over and took hold of the fawn by the legs, lifting it up so that the wildling could more easily get into its stomach and remove the guts and get the blood to drain out. "And do you know what my brother has to say about such things? Not much that doesn't include laughter at the thought."
"After everything he has done you still don't believe him?" the boy asked.
"What has he done? Gotten us off a road at the right time? Good ears. Saw tracks. I've been on hunts where men were able to fire into the brush, seemingly just to lose an arrow, only for an elk to topple over dead. They knew it was there when we didn't. That doesn't make them magical." The dreamy boy merely turned his head and stared at him with those pale eyes and Jaime grimaced. "I'm not saying you are lying to us on purpose. I believe that you believe you have these powers." He was reminded of a magician he'd once seen entertain Robert and the rest of the court who claimed he could talk to the dead. It had been rather impressive… he would call out a name, discover someone who had lost someone with that name, and then give them all sorts of information about them. Tyrion had been in the Capital at that time and afterwards revealed to Jaime how it was done, something called Cold Reading. You made your first guesses so vague it could apply to anyone and then slowly built on that. And if you failed to hit on something correct you claimed that 'another spirit was trying to get through' and moved on. The man was schemer who wanted coin but Tyrion had been happy to let the man go on as parting fools from their money was an honored tradition in Westeros. "But in the end I believe it is merely natural talents we all have, not some mysticism." He wiggled the fingers of his free hand as he said that last part.
"You have not lived in the world, not really," the savage woman said with a scoff, motioning for him to shift the fawn so she could secure it to the roasting spit.
"Many have spoken of my life but none have ever charged that it was a sheltered one."
"Yet you have not seen the powers there are in the world. I have witnessed skinchangers take control of beasts. The little lord is one, I know it."
"Well trained animals," Jaime charged, though he was mildly surprised when the boy's direwolf emerged from the forest at that moment. The beast was getting bigger every day, now far larger than any hound and losing the puppy-like appearance it had held when he'd first seen it during Robert's trip to Winterfell.
"What of the tales of men that can manipulate fire? Or water?" the swamp girl asked.
"You mean the tales from Yi Ti of the elemental benders?" he said with a scoff. "Fairy tales to entice coins from travelers." He looked to Hodor. "Tell me, do you believe that there is a greater power in the world that grants to the lucky few skills and abilities that most can only dream of? Or is it merely the cunning mind of cagey men who use superstitious to trick others in order to gain themselves true power?"
"…Hodor."
"Yes, my thought exactly. Thank you."
The Stark boy, despite arguing against Jaime, couldn't help but let out a huffing laugh at that and Jaime grinned as he and the savage settled the fawn over the fire.
"The Iron Man," the dreamy boy stated.
That… Jaime didn't have a response to. His father had seen the Iron Man, had told him of how he could fly, how he could fire beams of energy from his hands, how he could move far quicker than a normal man could in such heavy armor and how blows did little to him. He'd heard from the Northsmen of how the Iron Man had saved Ned Stark and maimed Cersei and Joffrey and for that he would cut him down… but he couldn't deny it.
'Though what does it matter what happened to them?' a bitter little voice thought in his head, the same one that always popped up when he thought of his family.
Family… the ones that had abandoned him to die. Who had cast him aside because of his failure in the Whispering Woods. Father had told the Starks to take his head. Joffrey had only made demands that the Starks bend the knee and Ned surrender himself for punishment. Cersei… the things she had said they could do to him… he had seen her anger, felt its brunt, but never to that extreme. He had recognized her hand and he knew it was no fake. Only Tyrion hadn't demanded his death but he also hadn't mentioned him but he couldn't help but wonder if that was because of Father and Cersei refusing him to do so. He couldn't believe that Tyrion would doom him to death as well.
'You didn't believe Cersei would either,' the voice whispered again, his own traitorous thoughts. 'Father perhaps but not her. Never her. She is your other half… but you are no longer hers it seems.'
He shut his eyes and shook away the thoughts. He was alone, that was all that mattered. He had no family. No friends really… at best the Kingsguard tolerated him or respected him but he wasn't their friend and they didn't count themselves as his. The men of the West served his father, not him, and if they did decide to try and find him it would have only been because of his father.
'I am alone,' he thought as Meera handed him one of their wooden bowls and filled it with the thin tuber soup she'd made, something to fill his stomach while the fawn Osha had taken roasted on the fire. 'I have no one.' He looked to Bran and made a note to get Osha to show him how to make thread so he might begin sewing the pelts… he would collect some bones and see about making a crude needle as Lord Crakehall had shown him. Jojen and Hodor settled down around the fire, the giant nodding in thanks when Jaime handed him an empty bowl. 'Me and me alone against the world.'
