Jaime

Jaime had been counting down the days until Barristan and Darry returned. When they'd received the letter that they'd gathered the last of Connington's men and were riding back to the city he was ecstatic enough about the possibility of not having to spend his entire day guarding just the King that he did the math of how long it should take them to make it back to the city with an army.

They should be returning in the day, hopefully. He knew that it was unlikely for one of them to take over guarding for the day, but at the least he'd be free the next day. Well, not free, more like he'd be assigned to the Queen or the Princess and her children. But free of the King for a day was quite the exciting thing for Jaime having spent the last few weeks subjugated to standing nearby the old and mad man for all hours in which daylight was out.

Days with the king proved either boring or maddening in themselves. Often Jaime found himself stood by the Iron Throne, the king deciding to sit upon the damned thing despite the still healing scabs that littered his body from the last time. Often when they left the throne room Jaime, following just a step behind the king, would count the little drops of blood that trailed the king on his way back to his private rooms. It wasn't a substantial amount of blood, but enough that made Jaime even more puzzled about why anyone would wish to sit upon the damned thing if it was a literal pain in the ass.

The kings solar was boring as well, typically the king alone with his hand Chelsted and any number of his pyromancers about him. Jaime would always stand off to the side, watching half-heartedly as the pyromancers showed their newest creations to the king. He'd watch with little attention as they set the little green bottles upon the map and Aerys leant over it, hunched and looking a strong wind away from crumbling with a sick smile that was illuminated by the bottles.

Chelsted, it seemed, enjoyed these meetings in the kings chambers even less than Jaime. Jaime, it seemed, at least had the option to tune out the kings rambling and the pyromancers whispering voices. Chelsted had to listen to every word, and advise the king without sounding like a traitor bent on the kings destruction. That seemed especially hard ever since Connington and the disaster at Stoney Sept, the king becoming acutely aware and paranoid over the looming threat in the Riverlands and the fact that it was likely the biggest threat to the Targaryen reign since the Blackfyre rebellions.

Jaime was not even sure that Rhaegars news of return was helpful or hurtful to the Kings paranoia. Personally he was ready for the Prince to return and hopeful that he'd bring some semblance of sanity back to the Targaryen rule in Kings Landing. But Aerys worried over it still, with the occasional sharp whispers to himself over Rhaegar's threat or something of the sort.

Jaime tried hard to not listen to the mad and rambling whispers that haunted the king.

He was stood to the side of the throne with the king picking at scabs, whispering something with wildfire and Rossart and Chelsted all making appearances in his rambling when two white cloaked men made their way before the throne. Bowing low to the king they swore servitude towards and stating the status of the Royalist army they'd been sent to collect.

The sight of Darry and Barristan made Jaime feel some relief. The feeling was made even better when Darry offered to take over for the rest of the day, giving Jaime his first evening off since the pair had left Kings Landing.

He walked with Barristan towards the White Sword Tower in silence until they were well within the tower walls. "How does the king seem?" Barristan finally spoke as they entered the barracks.

"Paranoid as ever," Jaime remarked. He'd learned early in his time as a Kingsguard who he could speak bluntly to about the king and who he couldn't. He also learned exactly how much he could say to each of them. "His pyromancers are ever present as of late."

Barristan nodded solemnly. The man, who held near three decades of life over Jaime, was one of the few that the youngest Kingsguard felt comfortable speaking these things around. It seemed Barristan understood his need to voice the questions and concerns that had come to Jaime since his appointment in the order. The older knight himself would never say foul things about the king, but Jaime had noted that the knight often held a sad look of grief when he looked at the king. The man seemed ever overflowing with concern towards the king, even despite the madness that had taken him and the lives he had burned away.

Still, it was far better than either Darry or Hightower. Both of which seemed more resolute in their duty of only protecting the king, and not in judging him. Darry even more so seemed to simply ignore the madness as though it were simply the way things had always been and will always be. Hightower at least seemed to get concerned from time to time, but he never showed that to Jaime outwardly.

"Perhaps Rhaegar and Hightower will be able to deal with them on their return," Barristan finally said once Jaime returned to the small armory to hang up his armor and sword.

"Hopefully." Jaime replied before leaving the older Knight alone while he left to seek out some more preferable company.

Alys

The days seem to move by slowly and numbly lately. Moving entirely through the motions of life at court she finds it hard to do much else but sleep, eat, and stare numbly at the old oak tree at the center of the godswood. She can't even pray. It was too much energy it seemed. Besides, every time she closed her eyes whether it was for sleep or for prayer she saw heads tarred and spiked looking out over the city.

Mostly, especially the first few days, it was Aleah. Just as she'd seen her there, face barely recognizable from the tar. She'd fallen sick after she'd seen it walking back. After she'd collapsed in her rooms and sobbed all that was in her she'd turned sick instead of weeping, and whenever she'd started to feel less nauseous the image would come to her mind and she'd return to dry-heaving over a bowl.

But it wasn't just her dead friend she saw in her dreams. She saw her father, burnt and strung up once again upon those walls. It was a nightmare coated in reality that had once faded away with time but was now back swinging before her with green flames all around. She saw Brandon fully occasionally, with bloodshot eyes and gasping for air. Reaching, always reaching, and with her stuck in her spot being able to do nothing but watch and scream. But sometimes she saw just his head up there, spiked above the city walls with her stood on the walkway just staring at his face, jaw open in a scream and eyes staring, screaming.

They were all dead, the three of them. With her still left alive.

Around her fathers burning body and her brother and handmaids spiked heads she saw the others who'd traveled south and died. She saw the men who'd traveled with her and Brandon, men who'd joked with her to calm her nerves about Lyanna in the quick race southwards. They were all slack-jawed and empty eyed in their decapitated state.

She tended to wake screaming from these nightmares. She tended to feel tears, hot on her face, when she closed her eyes for prayer only to see them all again.

Somehow, the worst nightmares were the ones with Ned. She'd walk along the seemingly endless walkways surrounding the Red Keep. The city distantly aglow with wildfire and the cackling of a mad king barely a whisper echoing in the distance. Her eyes trailed along the faces of those who'd died here, those she'd known and even some she didn't. Then she would greet a wall with a walkway that got closer to the inner wall that held the heads. She'd always stop before it, even as she wished she wouldn't, and look up at the head. It was always faced away at first, looking out over the city. Around it were heads she didn't know, but she felt the injustice of their death heavy over them like the smoke of the city. Then the head would turn, slowly and achingly towards her. An invisible figure turning it so she could see, another pushing her forward to see closer.

His hair was longer, his beard thicker, and tar covering it all to preserve it. But it was undeniably her brother. Ned. His head severed from his body and slack with death. It made her choke and scream but she was always stuck staring at it, the laughter growing louder in her ears as her legs forced her forwards until she was face to face with her brothers death.

She would always wake then, with tears and sweat and screams in her throat.

Alys glances up quickly to the sound of stone pushing, her throat catching and her heart beating hard in her chest. Her eyes moved from the dying fire of the hearth to the noise, behind a thin tapestry hiding the little door that she'd seen months back when Jaime had came back after the feast for the tourney. It was Jaime stood there again, a grunt of exertion escaping him as he pushed the stone most of the way back.

"Oh no, don't help me with that, I've got it myself." He remarked with sarcasm heavily flowing through his voice.

"Sorry," her voice felt slow, and cracked from the rawness of her throat. She blinks a second, looking as Jaime stands there now, in his simpler clothes he wears after his shift ends. "What are you doing here?"

"Well you stood up our last four games of chess, and then Alerie Hightower said she hadn't seen you over a week." He pulls the second chair over and infront of the fireplace with her. "She's quite worried, I assured her you weren't dead and instead just sick."

"You lied?"

"Yes, well knightly vows are lenient with lying depending on the reasoning." He looks her over once more. "And, well, I figured there was a possibility it was the truth at the time."

She glances away from his studying gaze and returns to looking at the dying embers before them. Beside her Jaime sighs and reaches over to throw one of the logs left to the side within, taking the iron poker leant nearby to stoke the flames into catching. "I'm not sick."

"Yes," he nods, "well I figured I should check on that, as well as making sure you weren't dead either."

She grits her teeth and shoves her hands along the blanket strewn over her lap. "Aleah's dead." She whispers the words. Voice surprisingly steady for the heavy words that escaped.

Jaime is quiet for several moments, and when she peaks a glance to him he's staring into the fire himself. His face stone and full of thought it seems as he mulls over the words. "It's my fault." She adds, her voice gentler and beginning to tremor as she squeezes her eyes shut to keep hot tears from spilling.

She opens them quickly at the imprint of her friends head. "It's not," Jaime remarks, "that's ridiculous." He adds and she feels his gaze upon her.

"But it is…" her voice shudders and strains. "I…" she can't meet his gaze though she feels it calling her to look. "She sent a letter. Two technically. A few weeks back."

"Yes, well she is… was a handmaid. They do that."

"She sent a letter for me… to my brothers." She can't stop her eyes from flicking up and meeting his own. Understanding was already upon his eyes, and he nods at her words. "It was a stupid risk… and now she's dead."

"I know." He says plainly, "but it wasn't your fault." He speaks the words with solidity to them. "Aleah made the choice to send them. She also made the choice to send other letters, ones that I'm certain were more treasonous in the eyes of our king and queen than whatever you had in yours."

"You knew about Aleah?" She breathes the words with little voice left to them.

"I knew she was taken by the spider and the queen, I didn't know they'd had her killed for it."

"When did you know?"

"I asked, when you said you hadn't seen her a few weeks back. I inquired and figured you didn't need to worry over it." His eyes, green and bright, were gentle towards her. A strange feeling of comfort extended for her that she felt surround her in a way she'd needed for days.

"It was still a stupid thing to do." Alys says, sighing and running a hand over her face.

"It was." He says with a shrug.

"I saw her… Her head. Up on the walkways." Alys blinked away the memories of it. "I haven't stopped seeing it. And all the nightmares." Her voice sticks in her throat, choking her slightly as a sob tries to force an escape.

A hand rests over hers on her lap. "It wasn't your fault." He told her again. "I can't tell you how to get rid of the nightmares." He informs her, green eyes like summer grass catching grey eyes of winter ice and the two connected together with the space between them. "But I can say that sitting alone in your room wallowing in your sorrow will do nothing but bring you more of it."

"It's hard," she chokes out.

"Well according to many so is life itself." He shrugged with little care, but his eyes still held the seriousness. "And so is chess so I need you to help me get at least to the point where I can beat my brother once when I see him next… could you do that? Because otherwise I believe I'm quite hopeless."

She laughs, its a sad sound, and a sound that feels utterly foreign but still pulls a smile to Jaimes lips. "Fine." She says though her voice is still strained and her cheeks still stained with tears. "Fine I'll help you with your chess."

Alys let her eyes shut just a moment in the sun. Trying to savor it the way she had weeks ago and finding herself only just able to enjoy the feeling of it upon her. She thinks faintly of Jaime as she opens her eyes to the green foliage and blue sky around her, the gardens of the Red Keep well tended and a strange beautiful thing in this time of sorrow and war.

Rhaenys was sat nearby upon the stonework, her small black kitten following a bit of ribbon the little princess kept on her for this very purpose around and and around. The Princess Elia sat at the small table of breakfast with Alys, watching her new friend steadily it seemed before remarking after some time of warm silence "My husband is apparently returning to court soon."

Alys looked immediately towards her and bites nervously the inside of her lip as she thinks on that. "Is that why Lewyn left?" The Martell Kingsguard that had spent most of his time guarding just the princess and her children had departed in the early morning without much fanfare or really anyone being any sort of aware. Alys felt she would miss him a bit, he was always kind and seemed to love his niece and the children greatly.

Elia nods, reaching for some of the food that was before them. "Well, more so sent to command the Dornish army being sent north. I'm sure he'll meet with Rhaegar though, and travel north with him."

"So Rhaegar was in Dorne?" Alys inquires, her own appetite still fairly limited as of late so she simply continues to pick at the same piece of pastry she'd been working at most of the morning.

"Apparently." Elia remarks, a flash of something serious crossing her face before she seems to shake it away and something more sad and worrisome towards Alys comes to her. "From what I'd heard there wasn't any news of Lyanna though. I'm sorry." Sympathy is laced through her dark eyes and Alys nods solemnly before looking back out over the bannister towards the Blackwater.

The two of them never talked much about her sister. Alys always worried over bringing Lyanna up to Elia, worried that it would lead to a foul air between them. She picked worriedly at the piece of pastry in her hands before remarking, "I am sorry as well, I suppose, for Lyanna."

It felt odd, apologizing for her sister regarding a thing like this. Then again, Alys grown up apologizing for Lyanna if the need arose. Apologizing when Lya ran off on her horse rather than talk with visiting lords, or when Lya would steal a sword and practice with it against their fathers wishes, or when Lya rebuffed her betrothed to go dance with someone else. Alys apologized whenever she knew her sister wouldn't see reason to.

Elia looks to her, a brow raised in questioning before a sigh escapes her lips with understanding. "You have no reason to apologize," her eyes cast downward darkly before the giggling of Rhaenys draws them to the small princess and a lightness comes back to them. "Rhaegar made a choice, not you nor I."

Lya made a choice too, Alys thinks to herself recalling easily the night near Harrenhal. Her sister pulling her cloak over her shoulders and glancing back at Alys on the bed. She'd knelt before her when Alys had called out and smiled with bliss to her face. "There is nothing to worry over Alys," she had said, her voice a whisper so as not to wake their traveling companions who were fast asleep nearby, "I'll be back before you know it." And then Lyanna had left and has yet to return.

"Still, I can't help how I feel about it sometimes. Wishing and wondering if there was something I could have done." Stopped Lya that night, or gone with her… perhaps then Rhaegar and her would not have run off.

Elia's eyes study Alys closely for a moment, and Alys can't help but look away feeling as though she were searching for the hidden words in her mind. The truth that only Alys knew about Rhaegar and Lyanna. But how much of that was truly the truth, perhaps even still there was more to it than what Alys had seen.

"I suppose I could say the same." Elia finally spoke, her eyes leaving Alys like a weight falling away. "I often think back to before all of this, the moments I shared with my husband and what signs might have come up."

"Signs?" Alys asks, her eyes now turning to fall upon Elia. Her turn to study the other woman for hidden secrets about it all.

"That Rhaegar was planning what it is he was planning," the dornish woman shrugs and keeps her own eyes steadily on Rhaenys. "I suppose I saw them, but I was either pregnant or had just had our second child." Alys watches a sort of dark look on the princesses face pass within a moment, perhaps a memory moving quickly through her mind before getting put away.

That was all that was spoken on that though as soon Rhaenys came bounding towards the two women with Balerion wiggling in her grasp and the small cat was being handed off to Elia. All while Alys was dragged along to run with the little princess about the gardens to play, letting her forget for just a while all the things that haunted her.

Eddard

Stood on the battlements of Riverrun is where Eddard found his new lady-wife. She was dressed for the day and held a thick shawl around her as cold winds blew around the castle. He smiled faintly as he recalled her joke a few days back that he'd brought the northern weather down south alongside his army. "Any sign of the enemy?" He calls after a moments hesitation. Two weeks of each others near constant company and he still felt nervous when he spoke with her.

"No," she returned, blue eyes turning to look at him with a gentle smile that Ned was easily coming to love. "Just armies preparing to take away my father and new husband." She spoke the words lightly but Ned could just hear the bitterness behind them.

He'd gotten good at that, at least. His wife was good at appearing gentle and sweet but he had learned after only a few conversations just the two them that she held a sharpness like steel in her words whenever she wished to wield it.

"We head straight for Kings Landing, if we're lucky we'll get there and take the city with little trouble." He knew they wouldn't be so lucky, it was war and he had learned early in it that luck was hardly on anyones side while at war. "Then I will be back here in your bed before you know it."

That earned another sweet and gentle smile that sent happiness through Neds being. "I shall hold you to that My lord."

"Ned," he spoke, as he often did after she called him that.

"Ned." She repeated, as she often did after he corrected her.

They stood together now, side by side, while looking out over the armies that had spent the last fortnight resting outside the walls of Riverrun. Within the walls it was almost easy to forget the armies outside, to forget the war and the loss and the bloodshed that had come and was still to come. Ned had enjoyed the nights with his wife, despite the guilt that still loomed like a ghost over him, and had enjoyed the moments he'd spent with her during the day whenever he could get away from war meetings and councils with Jon and Robert.

They had learned each other quicker than he'd expected, in bed and out.

He knew she often came up here before breaking their fast together in their rooms. She knew that he could only really sleep when the windows were open to bring in cold air, which she had been quick to complain over and insist that he at least let them sleep with an extra blanket and their bodies tangled together for warmth. He had learned the best spot to kiss her while they had sex, a small spot on her collar bone that brought a blush near as red as her hair when he kissed it. She had learned that he enjoyed having her legs around him while they had sex, pulling the pair of them closer together.

She had learned that he'd read his sisters letter before bed every evening. She had read it herself, after he'd given permission, and had moved it to the table beside their bed so he wouldn't have to leave her side to get it. Sometimes she'd reach for it herself, and read the words to him before sleep.

The two of them learned each other in the short time they'd had and Ned knew she was bitter over their departure partially for worry over the danger he would face but also because they still had so much left to learn of each other. He wished he could stay longer himself, wished that they were instead in Winterfell and spending the first months following marriage with just each other and not with a war haunting ever-present around them.

He sighed, taking a last look out at the nearly packed and ready armies before taking his wife's hand in his own. He'd learned it was tiny and delicate compared to his own, and that he loved feeling wrapping his hands over hers. He lead her back to their room and back to their bed. She smiled as he did, gentle and sad and longing as he moved to kiss her in the silence of their room.

Neither of them spoke, the only sound was them together in the room.

Together they made to learn some more before he rode out in the next hour.

Sorry for the bit of a wait! Got a new job so that took over my attention a bit.

Hope you enjoy this chapter! I love the comments I get and even if I don't reply please know that it makes me the literal happiest I can be! I'm much better at replying to things on my tumblr (under the same username) if you want to have a discussion or to ask any questions :)

I'm excited for some stuff that's coming up and have it outlined through the next several chapters so hopefully the wait won't be long.