*** Hello everyone! I hope you are all enjoying the story so far. This show always makes me want to drink wine, regardless of when I watch it or what scene is going on. So, as I write this chapter for everyone who has clicked on this story, please know I'm raising my glass to you. Thank you reading, following, favoriting, and commenting! For those small percentage curious, it's a bottle of 19 crimes red wine that I'm enjoying. ***
She got a letter shortly after from her brother. The date on the post showed that it had been sent before hers, so she was excited to see that he had written to her first!
Maybe she shouldn't have threatened to box his ears.
She decided that the threats helped keep him in line. It was the grace of sisters to keep their brothers on the straight and narrow.
A threat here and there helped keep the process smooth.
She took her precious post into the gardens. After finding a lovely bench near roses she opened the scroll.
"Dearest sister,
I see your face from this blistering cold chill here at the wall. You're shocked I wrote to you first! Well, I assume first as I have yet to receive a letter from you. I'll probably be eating my words when the raven drops your letter into my lap after I send this.
The wall is. . . it is not as I was told to believe. There are those here who committed crimes ranging from theft to murder, all together with one another. They cannot fight. They cannot strategize. They care only for their life and their next meal.
We all practice sword fighting in the mornings and do our chores afterwards. Nobody can defeat me out of this group.
Little dove it feels like they all lied to me, laughing behind their hands at the stupid bastard wanting to join the low lives of society. It makes me furious. How could they, how could our uncle not tell me? His stories all seemed of mystery and victory.
Bran has not woken as of yet, but I pray that he does soon. I don't think he would enjoy the wall, knowing what I know now. We always promised to see it together, but this is no place for boys or good men. This is a hell hole full of the damned and the deceitful.
How are you? Are you safe and happy? Ghost is having fun terrorizing the livestock here. He blends in so well with the snow you can barely see him, living up to his name. How is Thorn? Nymeria and Lady? Are they enjoying the city? Thorn is probably digging holes in the gardens and growling at anyone who comes near his den.
Sister, I have included some sketches that I've done, but they are nowhere near to your standard so please have pity. They are of the wall, of what I see on the day to day, and most importantly of the very small, very very small, garden that I have started in the room of the Maester here. He thanked me for the seeds and told me that should you wish to reach out to him, his name is Maester Aemon. He is a rather grouchy thing but enjoyed the seedlings and instructions you gave. I would expect a letter from him if they sprout requesting for more things. He seems of the sort.
I love you, sister mine. Please stay safe with the lions. Wolves and lions don't belong together. But then again, wolves and bloody deer don't either and yet our father is best friends with the king who is a stag. A fat one, but one all the same.
All my love and freezing,
Jon"
She read and reread the letter until it started to get creased all along the edges with her fiddling. The pictures he had drawn were admittedly bad in her opinion. The people were little better than stick figures with outrageous facial or body features. The barracks room he was staying in was a rough outline. He had also included a shading done of a plant he had found that had managed to grow despite the cold.
She missed her twin terribly.
She heard voices coming near her. Just as her brother had guessed, Thorn was by her side but hidden within a bush of flowers away from view. He preferred to stay hidden than being out in the open.
The voices turned out to be her father and Littlefinger, a friend of Lady Stark from when she was a child. Littlefinger gave her the creeps whenever he looked at her, but nowhere near as badly as when she caught him staring at her eldest sister Sansa.
"I hear you're reading a boring book" Littlefinger toyed with her father. She knew they barely tolerated one another, what with Littlefinger's obsession with Lady Stark. It was a topic not brought up in their household.
"Hmph" her father replied. "Pycelle talks too much."
"Oh, he never stops. Do you know Ser Hugh of the Vale? Not surprising. Until recently, he was only a squire, Jon Arryn's squire. He was knighted almost immediately after his master's untimely death."
"Knighted for what?"
Her father and little finger had gotten too far for her to overhear at that point. Knowing better than to try and follow behind the man who raised her to sneak about and the man known for sneaking about, she decided to check in with the kitchens. She had convinced the baker to make fresh buns and cookies for the children of the orphanage.
It had taken trading a recipe for dough spread thing with butter in between the layers, folding in on itself once layer after another for the cook to agree to help bake the goods for the children. The cook served the flakey dough to the queen as a test run. To say the queen loved the new addition was an understatement. She demanded to know where the recipe was from but was shocked to learn it was from the little Stark Bastard with a twin. Wren. She ordered the cook to forget their conversation.
The cookies were simple, but the children would love the treat. The bread rolls were plain but they had some bits of scrap meat stuffed inside to help provide some nutrition to the orphans. She hadn't expected the meat buns but thanked the cook with a kiss on his old scruffy cheek before heading towards the orphanage.
The children who saw her coming ran up to her and offered to help carry the baskets of goodies. She laughed before handing over some of them. She said they could have whatever was inside once they were with the others so they could have a small party with the other children.
Not a single bun or cookie was eaten until she arrived. The matrons who controlled the orphans looked relieved to see the girl once more. She had been visiting every other day when she wasn't in the healer's halls or the fields. The people had grown used to seeing the young curly blond, walking down the street without a fear in the world.
The people feared for her, but they never told her. They couldn't, for what if she stopped coming? No, they would watch for her and keep her safe from the rougher sides of the city but would not tell her of their fear.
The children babbled about what she had missed, who was sick, the newest children to arrive, and gave her drawings they had made on scraps of paper with burnt ends of sticks. She read to them from a book she had in her pocket, helped to bathe them, and eventually helped in the kitchens to get their evening meal prepared.
The cooks were grumbling that they had enough to eat that day, what with the sweets and the bread from the angel.
"Excuse me?" Wren had asked, after hearing the term. "What do you mean, the angel?"
The cook seemed flustered at having been caught. "Beggin' your pardon miss. I meant no disrespect." Wren waved the apology away. "What did you mean when you said the angel?"
"Well miss, its how the people sees ya. You're always lookin' in on us, taking care of the youngin's, helping in the fields. Its like an angel was sent to help when the own family up on their posh asses couldn't be bothered with us folks in the muck."
Wren frowned. "I just like to help others. We all rely on one another, so by helping one we are helping us all."
"Miss, you ain't one of us lowly folk."
"I assure you, I am just the same. I'm no better at the very least."
"Well, ya royal highness, get them hands over here and help with the scrubbing'. There always seems to be dishes to do and laundry around kids."
Wren laughed, letting the change of topic go without comment. She chose instead to focus on cleaning the battered dented pots and pans of the orphanage.
The next day was the first day of the jousting tournament her father had been fighting tooth and nail to prevent. The king, in all his glory, was drunk on his chair next to his queen who once more looked as if she had sucked a lemon. Her children sat around her in their own chairs, all lower than the next signifying their stations amongst those around them.
The crowd was chattering and cheering on for the games to start. The king, taking another long swig of his drink from the horn of some animal, looked ready for it to begin as well.
Wren sat with her family in the stands closest to the right of the king. Sansa would look up longingly at prince Joffrey only to look away whenever he noticed her, leaving her heartbroken. Arya could barely contain her excitement at the idea of jousting.
Littlefinger must have been paying attention because he came up to Sansa and started the conversation with her by asking if she was having a lover's quarrel.
Sansa, surprised at having been addressed, looked up in shock at him. "I'm sorry. Do I. . .?"
Her elderly nurse maid came to the rescue. "Sansa dear, this is Lord Baelish. He's known-" but he decided he could introduce himself to the girls. "An old friend of the family." He took a seat next to Sansa at that moment. Wren did her best to keep her face neutral. Her father wasn't sitting with them just yet, so she felt she was the one to keep her sister's safe. "I've known your mother a long long time."
Arya interrupted in the way of young children. "Why do they call you Littlefinger?"
"Arya!" yelled Sansa, scandalized at the question. The nurse maid, always late to the game, teamed up against the small girl by telling her not to be rude.
"No, it's quite all right. When I was a child, I was very small, and I come from a little spit of land called the Fingers, so you see, it's an exceedingly clever nickname."
Wren disliked how smooth he talked. He never seemed to have real emotion in anything that he said or did. His smile alone made her skin crawl.
The king, deciding he had waited enough, decided to stand up at that moment breaking all forms of concentration or communication.
"I've been sitting here for days! Start the damn joust before I piss myself!"
A man in all black, including a black horse, rode up first. Sansa, having felt comfortable enough with someone who was a friend of her mother's, turned to Littlefinger to ask who it was.
"Ser Gregor Clagane. They call him the Mountain. The Hound's older brother."
The man had ridden up to join a knight all in white as they bowed before the king and royal family.
"And his opponent?
"Ser Hugh of the Vale. He was Jon Arryn's squire."
"Awfully quick to go from a squire to a knight in a tourney" Wren said off handedly without realizing she had spoken before thinking.
Littlefinger leaned forward to address her. "Quite right, most would agree. He was knighted shortly after Jon Arryn's death. This will be his first one."
"And they put him up against someone line the mountain?" Sansa asked, outraged at the proportion and experience gap between the two knights.
The king was tired of waiting though. "Yes, yes, enough of the bloody pomp! Have at it! Go!" The knights each rode to their starting positions after that, one on each end and side of the divider. The horns blared signifying the start of the tourney. Knights were passed their shields and poles, held straight at their opponent, as they began to ride at once another.
Wren couldn't help but feel awful for the poor horses. She hoped they wouldn't get hurt in the games.
The first pass went with only a grazing glance from the mountain to Ser Hugh, signifying another pass would be had.
Once more they rode, poles aimed at one another. Their speed increased as the horses panted to meet their rider's demands.
It was then that the Mountain hit a mark into the younger knight's body with his pole that anything happened. The crowed screamed and cheered as his body fell hard onto the earth in front of where the Stark girls were sitting.
A piece of wood was stuck out of his neck, blood gushing everywhere as he choked, still alive from the ordeal. He sputtered blood from his mouth, causing the deep shade to run down his cheek and onto the compacted dirt.
The crowed just watched, unable to help the dying man as he took his last sputtered blood-filled breaths, body twitching.
Once he stopped moving, his body was dragged away by two men in loose tunics. Littlefinger turned towards Sansa after the body was removed.
"Not what you were expecting?" he asked, already knowing the answer. Has anyone ever told you the story of the Mountain and the Hound?" Sansa turned to look towards the hound sitting by her prince before looking back at Littlefinger. Wren was also interested. Arya was too busy focusing on the events in front of her to pay attention. "Lovely little tale of brotherly love. The Hound was just a pup, six years old maybe. Gregor a few years older, already a big lad, already getting a bit of a reputation."
Wren pinched Arya gently to get her to pay attention to the story. Arya glared up at her sister, but Wren motioned with her chin to listen to Littlefinger.
"Some lucky boys just born with a talent for violence. One evening, Gregor found his little brother playing with a toy by the fire, Gregor's toy, a wooden knight. Gregor never said a word, he just grabbed his brother by the scruff of his neck and shoved his face into the burning coals. Held him there while the boy screamed, while his face melted. There aren't very many people who know that story."
Sansa, her voice watery with fear, promised not to tell anyone.
"No, please don't. If the Hound so much as heard you mention it, I'm afraid all the knights in King's Landing would not be able to save you."
Sansa had grown exceedingly pale at the thought. Arya looked thoughtful, but Wren knew a threat when she heard one.
Here, little bird, let me tell you a story that you shouldn't know. After all, you're only a young girl in a new city. Here, let me show you how knowledgeable I am whilst securing a relationship with you through our shared love of your mother.
Wren wasn't impressed with his chess move, especially when it pertained to her sisters. She sat back into her seat on the bench, hugging her youngest sister closely to her before they resumed watching the games.