Head pulsing with pain and stomach roiling, she was relieved as her feet finally touched the dark sand on a beach, not far from Duskendale.

It was a great blessing that she had the Northerner with her. He had helped her with her family and he was also privy to the fact that king's men were patrolling the shores of Duskendale and all the way up to Crack Claw Point, that sheltered Claw Isle.

Had she been alone, she would have gone to the Celtigars, or to Duskendale, bobbing around on her tiny dinghy in open water, straight into the arms of the Cripple King's men.

Avoiding Rook's Rest, a manned castle and the seat of the Stauntons, sitting on the cliffs just across the water from Driftmark, they slowly directed the boat to the steepest, tallest and most inhospitable cliff they could find. Indeed, save for crabs and gulls feasting on a soldier that had been brought from the carnage, its tiny shore was deserted.

She looked at the dead man. He was far from where they landed and she couldn't tell what house he belonged to. He was laying on his belly, his armour torn away, down to his small clothes and the waves were caressing him on and on, back and forth, strings of white flesh and pink froth dancing and bubbling on the sand around him. That same stench she escaped from on the island was wafting from the man who lay half swallowed by the sand.

The pounding ache in her head grew to such an apex that her belly clenched with all the strength it had and she retched. She clung to the bow of the boat and coughed all the contents of her stomach and then sat on her haunches, catching her breath.

"Sea sickness. Some get it. You should have some bread and water, m'lady. Or better yet, wine."

She almost crawled away from the boat to reach the sea, the Northerner's voice mingling with the sound of waves. She splashed salty water on her face, swirled it through her mouth, let it run underneath her clothes, through her hair and even down to her boots.

She was close to ripping her heavy clothes off and jumping in the water for a swim. Had she only been alone... She desperately needed the coolness and calm of water after such an ordeal. The heavy, servant's dress had not been a good idea. On the island the winds were strong and one could wear thick garments. On land, all was still and suffocating.

She looked up at Heward and through droplets of water, she saw him approaching her. He looked refreshed. Seemingly a Northerner was better built for the sea than her, a descendant of Ship Masters to kings, Lords of the Sea and even related to pirates. The indescribable ordeal, the exhaustion and constant presence of death's stench and decay, didn't help her sea sickness.

"Here... Wine is better, I would say." he offered a wine skin he had filled on the isle. "Trust me!" he added at her obvious hesitation.

She gingerly took the skin and sipped. The sourness truly helped, so she drank more.

"How are we going to climb that?" she asked in a voice she herself couldn't recognize, as she untied her stuffy cloak.

The Northerner appraised the jagged cliff and nodded.

"I'll go around it and look if there's some path or ravine. There almost always is one."

And so the man left her without any other word, not that she would have wanted to follow him. She wasn't even sure how she would climb a ravine, had he found one.

She sat in the sand, her back propped to the side of the cliff and closed her eyes, letting the sun caress her lids and naked arms, the dead man for company, once more.

Where would she go?

A wave of fear twisted in her chest. She was so alone. She needed to stay close to the Northerner for a while. She had no training in surviving like this. She had been raised as a lady since she was just a child. She had lived through the Great War, but she was too young to have to fend for herself then and her age only made everyone around her protect her even more.

She had to convince him to go to the Reach. House Tyrell was her only chance. If he could at least escort her there and then he could go wherever he wanted.

"Found it!" Heward's voice thundered through the sound of the sea. "It's overrun with weeds and bushes, but we'll manage." he continued as he carelessly limped around the dead man and went straight for the boat to unload their meagre provisions. His leg was not well. She needed to find some healer for him. She needed him able and whole.

After an exhausting climb, they finally reached the grassy top of the cliff and both sat on its edge to catch their breath. The heat was strong and sweat was running down her back and through her hair. She pulled at the strings holding the top of her dress together, loosing them, uncaring if she gave the Northerner an eyeful.

Some lady I am.

"You should probably not let that show from here on." she said, pointing at the wolf embossed on his leather gorget, as if that was more vulgar than her half exposed bosom.

He was so accustomed to wearing armour, that he seemed to have forgotten about it, even in this heat. He looked down at it and then at his gauntlets that sported the same hated symbol. He pulled them off and stuffed them in the sack he had been carrying.

"You still look like a soldier..." she tried smiling a small, crooked smile. He looked down at his breastplate and belt. It was a light, summer armour, but strikingly Northern. All it lacked was the traditional fur on his shoulders to let everyone from Duskendale to King's Landing know that he was a deserter.

He took it off too and threw it with the rest of his armour.

"Better!" she declared, as she stood up and hauled her sack over her shoulder. It was the lightest one but climbing the cliff with it, proved to be a daunting task. Heward had the bigger one, filled with most food items and he seemed to not even feel its heaviness.

"We need a horse..." He said as he too grabbed his burden and tied it with a looped rope around his shoulders. "Have you decided where you want to go?"

"Have you?" she asked him back.

"I have. The Wall. Or well, beyond the Wall. I'm not made for the far South."

"I see. I'll pay you well if you make a detour and escort me to Highgarden." She bluntly told him. "The Tyrells will pay you even more when we arrive there unharmed." she added.

He frowned thoughtfully, looking ahead over the Southern plains.

"I would do it. I wouldn't refuse money to help me settle. But it is not a detour. It will take us days with a horse and probably weeks on foot. Also, are you sure you are safe there or on the way there?" he asked.

"I don't think I'm safer North of here... The Tyrells are my last allies."

"And beyond the Wall is your last blood relative..." he spoke, more to himself than her. She barely made out his words and for a moment she didn't understand their meaning. Then, slowly, it dawned on her and an odd anxiety flooded her.

"What? My blood relative? The Queenslayer? Ha! He betrayed us all." She almost spat at the very idea of Rhaegar's son. "Also, our kinship is quite far removed and he is not the last of my blood. The pirate bastard, self proclaimed Lord of the Waters, Aurane and his equally bastard son are out there somewhere in the Southern seas. Just as big of a traitor, if not worse because he didn't even offer help during the war." She sneered and started walking towards the thick woods that surrounded the cliffs. "I'll manage. Keep the food."

Blessed impulsiveness. Where will I go? She could follow the coast South and then when she reached Duskendale, go West towards the Reach. She'll find a way.

"M'lady, I'll get you there. You really think you can make it on your own? Without food, no less? In honour of this man you call traitor, who I met and fought beside, I'll take you to the Tyrells. Queen Sansa has commanded the coast and King's Road be patrolled and so did the Cripple King. There are men everywhere, your clothes and hair are clean, your face unmarred by the sun and worst of all, your eyes, purple..."

She swallowed thickly. The dread of her utter vulnerability and loneliness overcoming her again.

"They can pass as brown..." she whispered.

"In the darkness perhaps, but the sun won't hide for many moons to come." He sighed and walked after her, reaching her in two strides with his long legs. "I'll do it. As I said, in honour of Jon Snow who you hate so much and who's blood you share. In honour of the Dragon Queen too, who's bravery was...beyond everything I've ever seen. I fought beside your kinsmen - the soldiers of your family. I've seen your war banner. Your men died beside me... I was a green boy and through blood and steel, became a man among them. I won't refuse the compensation, of course, but I'll be your sword."

She turned to him and nodded. He was smiling as he bowed his head to her and unsheathed his sword, holding it on his opened palms as an offering.

"Thank you, lord Heward. I shall reward you for your efforts." A sliver of hope dared return to her heart. "You need a healer for your leg."

"Yes. I do." He said as he sheathed his and started walking with a slight limp towards the forest. "We also need a horse..."

A horse and a healer.

Before heading South, they went inland and as far away from the sea as they could. The road was silent and lonely and the shadows were getting longer, the sun slowly taking his leave. As they entered the forests just West of Duskendale, the darkness was alike that of a moonlit night.

They both wished to stop in Duskendale, but that would have been dangerous. It was too close to the islands and likely a well manned place. Rosby was another option, but it was neighbouring King's Landing and still on the coast, so under watchful eyes.

The thought of the Isle of Faces went through her mind, particularly for the healers found there, but then she pushed it away. Too dangerous a place. She wanted and needed predictability.

They decided to stop in the forest for the night and start again, come the breaking of dawn, towards Antlers, the seat of house Buckwell, an ally of the Baratheons, or to Sow's Horn. Sow's Horn was just ahead of them, on their way towards the Reach, but she had no idea who it belonged to. Sow's Horn tower was the seat of house Hogg, landed knights, sworn to house Hayford, historical allies themselves to the Targaryens, but of their fate and heirs, she knew nothing. There were numerous villages and even inns there, and going to Antlers meant a detour North and time needlessly wasted, so the hogs and pigs sounded better. There, the horse and the healer, hopefully will be in their grasp.

Heward dropped his burden and threw himself on a grassy mound, groaning and holding onto his knee. They had walked as deep as they could into the darkness of the forest, keeping to the main road South and trying not to get lost in the sea of green and twin trees.

"I'll go get some firewood." she said to him as she too abandoned the baggage next to his. He answered with a nod.

She walked far from him to relieve herself. Her belly had stabbed her all day and it felt as if her moonblood had come, even though it was not its time. As she squatted unladylike behind some thick hawthorn, her suspicion was confirmed. Her moonblood had indeed come. She had heard this could happen in times of fear and sorrow, but it sounded like old wives tales.

She took a spiky branch from the hawthorn that served as her personal privy and tore at a corner of her thick dress, ripping a piece, bunching it up and shoving it in her small clothes to stop the blood from soiling her dress.

She needed to find a stream. She didn't have it in her to waste drinking water on washing.

Her arms loaded with branches and twigs, she returned to their camp. The cramps were giving her a cold sweat and the urge to double down and curl into a ball. It made her feel miserable and dangerous thoughts had started to haunt her with the coming of darkness.

She needed a fire for warmth and protection against possible predators. Food and a warm tea would banish her dread too. She always had a good, hot lavender and chamomile tea in the evening. She had seen some scraggly mint sprigs close by, so those would do.

Heward was silent as he started the fire and so was she as she gathered mint. She felt utterly incapable of surviving. She definitely wouldn't have known how to start a fire, or it would have taken her forever.

I need to keep him close for as long as possible.

She knew how to swim, ride horses and nicely ask for help. Those were her survival skills. She all but laughed to herself as she placed a pot of water on the freshly lit fire.

The smell of fresh mint and burning wood, the warmth and the peaceful crackling calmed her and she sat back against a tree, letting out a long held breath. The Northerner was chewing on a dried fish, while trying to stab a rock hard bread with a stick. After finally managing to find a weak spot in the loaf, he held it over the fire.

"Why did she do it?" she suddenly addressed the darkness, the woods and the fire.

Heward passed her a piece of the toasted loaf and shrugged, avoiding eye contact.

"I can't get into the minds of the nobles. You don't think like us, but the assassination attempt might have had something to do with it." the bread crunched loudly as he sunk large teeth into it.

"Ah..." she smiled. "That was brash. The dragon... Imprisoning the dragon made us do that. My husband..." she swallowed thickly as she warmed her hands, painfully close to the fire. "It was his idea and Baratheon agreed, and the Tyrells. Everyone agreed. And now they're all dead."

"She was furious for months. The queen." The Northman spoke as he chewed. "You kept resources from the Crown, the Reach refused to send grain out and then tried killing her precious brother."

"Yes. We also refused the crows on our islands. We wanted freedom and to not be watched and used like cattle. We killed crows and burned them. A black, burning mountain on Driftmark. It was glorious." A wistful smile twisted her lips.

"Ha! Heard of that." He laughed heartily. "Wished I saw it. I hate them pests." After a thoughtful pause, he continued. "You know what else there is with the queen? If you ask me, I think she is afraid. The whole North, from nobles to commoners talk about her lack of heirs. The whole North wanted a king and a queen. Then there is the whole business with the plague..." he sniffed and fixed his gaze on the ground.

She frowned and stared at him.

"What is with this plague? I keep hearing of it, but it seemed to have stayed in the North, for now."

He ran a hand over his face and up over his dark hair.

"It kills, m'lady. It takes over everything, mind, bowels, throat and then you think you are out of the fire and healed, but it strikes a second time and then worse. Gives hope and then a killing blow."

He stared at the fire and she stared at him. Time passed before he continued.

"It took my little girl. She was no older than your own." His last words were strangled and his eyes shone in his otherwise expressionless face.

"I'm sorry..." she whispered. "Do you have no other family? A wife? Did she die too?"

His face contorted into a disgusted smile.

"Ha. My wife." He laughed. Really laughed, throaty and dark. "My wife left to be a whore in King's Landing. Said she needs to do something more than rot in the North. Said she'll return with money. Five years passed and I only received letters here and there with a few coins attached. The honourable Northern women..."

"I'm sorry for that as well... I guess there's nothing for you here either."

"No, m'lady. My parents, good, righteous people, are gone and I have no other family. I won't be in the Night's Watch. That's for fools and rappers and I'm none, but I'll live with the wildlings. Hunt, eat, sleep, drink...live." A shadow of hope passed over his face. "I pray you and your allies win and knock the false cripple king off his throne."

"Shh, there are birds in these woods." she hissed.

"Ha, there are birds everywhere. We should have stayed in an open field to avoid our bird king, but then the soldiers would have seen us. Don't worry, I have good ears for wing flapping." he laughed and cracked his knuckles.

"Owls make no sound as they fly..." she whispered and looked around through the dark, swaying canopy.

"I found that if he wants to find us, he will. They've enthroned some sort of god. That is not Bran Stark in that body anymore..."

"The nature of this...person, frightens me so much I'd rather not even think about it. My husband said that there must be some spirit inhabiting Stark's body." she spoke as quietly as she could, the thought of Monterys, like a chain wrapped tightly around her heart.

"There are... legends in the North about his kind, about what he is, but it is better if we do not talk about it now. Not here. If you don't mind, m'lady." he said with an odd ring to his voice.

"I understand and agree. Some other time, maybe. I'd like to hear the legends."

Heward nodded and frowned, looking like he wanted to say more, but stopped. He threw some twigs on the crackling fire.

That night she slept a restless sleep full of nightmares, waking up several times, thinking she was still on Driftmark, on a boat made of dead soldiers, or on the bottom of the sea itself. She even found herself on the burning pyre with her husband and children, melting with the wood, flying off with the ashes and becoming one with them.

The following morning, as the birds chirped and slivers of light reached them, they ate a quick breakfast, packed and started towards Sow's Horn.

The road was long and the sun merciless. Her face burned and when they found a stream and she splashed her red cheeks she thought she could cry with joy. That was their only stop, the stream - a muddy thing, thick with clay and almost indistinguishable from the barren plains around it.

She made Heward go away as she washed herself, her moonblood making her feel disgusting. She would do anything for a glimpse of comfort, or of hope. The smallest things, like being passably clean, helped tremendously.

They reached Sow's Horn at midnight. She was exhausted and thought she might faint several times, but the plains were bone dry, no trees or a place to hide or rest. Heward's knee was inflamed and he had limped half his way here. After the sun had set, the howling of coyotes followed them until they reached the first glimmers of lights coming from the scattered cottages around the sturdy Hogg towerhouse.

Sow's Horn earned its name, rising huge and crooked over the tiny houses that surrounded it like black piglets, squirming through the muddy streets. The lands were well kept. Even in the darkness they could see large, tiled fields, golden with grain.

Heward groaned and stopped. He was in pain. Judging by his gait and how well he could control himself and stave off his pain, it was bad. She had tried looking at his leg, but he didn't let her. She didn't even know if it was an infection, a fracture, or just some bad sprain.

Not even looking at her, he pushed on and entered the winding, muddy road that snaked between huts. There were a few people pottering about in their tiny gardens, children playing and drunkards shambling. No one paid them any mind. No wonder, as except for their large supply sacks, they looked just as ragged as the inhabitant of this pig hamlet. Pigs. Indeed, there was a strong pig stench permeating the air and she could hear squeals coming from the back of the houses. That meant that they could eat some pork stew tonight.

Heward asked a hunched over grandmother where the inn was and she laughed mockingly, her two remaining front teeth glistening like pearls in the light from her torch.

"Inn? We got no inns here! Ha ha. We got The Tusk if you want to get drunk on piss beer and sick on maggoty bread." So no pork stew. "'Tiss there!" she pointed her gnarly finger in the general direction of the Tower. "It's not the tower, you fools!" She admonished them when they stared quite perplexed at the Sow's Horn itself. "That's the lordlings' pigsty. It's behind it." She mocked and then promptly left them, muttering something and still laughing at them.

She almost dragged her legs that had become as heavy as bricks, but after a time, they found the inn. She agreed with the woman laughing when she heard them calling it that.

It was a literal hole, a hovel, half on top of the ground, covered with a pointy thatched roof, and the rest rooted in the earth, dug at the side of a grassy hill. She almost yelped when she saw horses though. She hadn't seen horses since she left Driftmark, but here there were a few, tied at the door of the Tusk, and others in the stables, their shinny, dark rumps showing through the darkness.

She wrapped herself in her cloak and followed Heward who limped with confidence towards the hole in the hill. They passed guffawing drunkards and entered the candlelit gloom inside.

They easily found drink and food and to her surprise it wasn't as bad as the old woman had said. Or maybe her standards were almost nonexistent after the hell she had been through the last few days.

She ate a grey, slightly sweet porridge as Heward negotiated horses at a nearby table with a bald, filthy man. She wolfed her food down and washed it all with an overly sour buttermilk as she listened to their conversation.

The man serving them was also in a deep conversation with another man who looked like a soldier, but she couldn't tell who he was sworn too. She tuned out Heward and his talk of horses and coin and strained her ears to hear what the soldier was saying. He was quite loud and fired up, while the tavern keeper listened enraptured. She heard her family name and her heart started to race.

Hood pulled tightly over her head, she got up from her table, gathered her dirty dishes and went to the two men.

"Everyone complains at its screams and there was talk that it burned some fool in there. But what can they do? The king has them by the balls. Ha!" the soldier said and drank something from a wooden cup.

"He has us all by the balls, that freak... Who even chose him? Not that I want a bloody dragon again, but I'm tired of hunger and sickness and giving all my grain and meat to the Crown. Our children ask for food and we have none." the tavern keeper polished the bar, grimacing with disgust.

She slowly pushed the dishes on the bar, not looking up and just as slowly, she turned away to leave. The keeper didn't even look at her. He just grabbed the dishes, his eyes on the soldier.

"The dwarf. The dwarf made him king. He would have made anyone king or queen because he wanted to be the Hand. The dwarf also plotted the slaughter of the Velaryons and others and now he sent word for us to look for that sea horse broad, Velaryon's wife. It's rumoured she escaped."

She slipped away, trying not to run, her hands shaking and her legs feeling weak. She sat at her table again, her back turned to them, spine curled, mouth dry. Heward wasn't even paying attention to her. By the looks of his smiling face, he had struck a deal with the horse man.

"The dwarf can't be to blame for everything, my man! Haha! It was the North who did all that. The wolf bitch!"

"They plotted it together. The king sees everything, the bitch bites, the dwarf fucks us all and takes our coin." a bang was heard as the soldier looking man spoke. "I bet the dwarf fucks the wolf bitch too." They both erupted in laughs.

"Fuck them all. So many of our kinsmen moved South or across the Wall. So many run to the Free cities or free lands all over the world. Northmen die of the plague in the North. Let's see who they milk of food and coin when the realm is empty and all they have is ghosts and a dragon."

An odd pain nestled in her chest and tears pricked at her eyelids.

Heward finally turned to her and nodded. A sign that he had struck a deal.

That night they slept in a common room with a dozen beds and many other people around them. It stank of unwashed human, piss and food from the kitchens. She was certain that she stank just as bad. She had her usual nightly nightmares on a lumpy bed, her supply sack in her arms, afraid someone might take it from her. Heward did the same with his bread and dried meat supplies.

Their horse wasn't bad, fairly large and young. Skinny too, but so was everyone in Pig's Town, how she got to call Sow's Horn. He tried getting two of them, but the man didn't even want to sell one in the first place.

He still hadn't found a healer and his knee was now properly round and he all but hopped on his healthy one.

After some arguing, he agreed to ride on the horse along with their supplies and she would walk and maybe later join him too. She didn't want to tire the poor filly with so much weight, as Heward himself was a large man, but she also didn't feel comfortable riding in such close proximity to a strange man. She had only been with her Monterys. No other man had ever touched her or held her and it felt wrong, painful.

They rode for days that turned into weeks. Slept in forests, ravines, moats and in a few kindly people's houses. Somewhere close to the Blackwater rush they found an old hedge wise-woman who rubbed Heward's knee with some herbal ointments and bandaged it tightly. His knee cap had flown out of its place, the joint was blue and huge and the wrinkled wise woman put it back into place with a lot of skill on her part and pain on his.

He still rode the horse on Lucene's orders, but the afternoon they had finally reached Highgarden, he was walking well and she, finally, was in the saddle, excitement and anxiety making her want to urge the horse to a gallop towards the citadel.

After they passed the Meander, riding on a sculpted, stone bridge, she almost cried. No castle had ever been so beautiful. She had only seen Highgarden twice in her life and this was her third. Had she not been tied by blood and spirit to her house and isle, had she been a common woman, this is where she would have loved to spend her days.

Over lush forests and fields and beyond the sparkling Mander, Highgarden towered, bright and resplendent on its high hill, rising to the skies, in rings of white stone and crenellated curtain walls. Even the far mountains that separated the Reach from Dorne, were visible through the crystal air. She felt like she could finally breathe again, part of her weariness getting lost in the incredible beauty of the place.

It was hard to be cautious with such high hopes, but they tried blending in with the people riding and walking along the wide, paved road that snaked towards the citadel. There were many carts, men and horses. Most carts, loaded with produce and merchandise of all sorts, were leaving the castle and she found it odd.

Just beyond the bridge they found a large market and stopped to trade some old food for better one. There was so much fresh food that her mouth watered. Dried meat and bread seemed no better than rocks when mountains of fruit, vegetables and fresh meats and cheeses were laid before you. Here also, many merchants seem to stop, restock and ride North, towards the bridge over the Mander.

There were soldiers here too, dark ones. King's men. Fear was bitter to her and now, yet again, she tasted it at the back of her throat.

She hopped off the horse and pulled the little filly after her by her reins, to one side of the market, beneath some large oaks, away from the black, armoured crows. Heward did the rounds to find out more about where all the merchant carts were going and to get some good food.

She took the time to really look at the king's men. There were many, walking around, looking at everyone, each covered in armour as black as night, like some warrior order sworn to the Night's Watch. They had chest pieces that looked like scales or feathers, shinny and so closely bound, that it looked as if only Valyrian steel could penetrate them. The crown carrying crow of the king decorated their gorgets.

Down the road towards the castle, on a corner she couldn't have seen when she first walked into the market, soldiers were standing in line, blocking the path and searching the carts that entered the woods around the citadel. Only the people on horses or on foot passed without a thorough search.

She had always been upset that she didn't inherit the silver Valyrian hair of her father, but now she was thankful to all the gods, new and old for that blessing. Her tawny hair looked pretty when washed, combed and gilded with jewelled pins, but now, matted, greasy and tied in a tight bun at the base of her head, it looked as common as any woman's working the fields. If she kept her head down and her eyes hidden, they would pass unnoticed. They looked the part and smelled the part they had portrayed along the road here, that of a peasant wife and husband from the North, trading goods.

Heward brought peaches and smoked boar meat. She ate three peaches in mere moments and bit straight from the piece of meat. They were the best things she had ever tasted in her life.

"The carts are going North!" he was in very high spirits, happy, giddy. "Beyond the Wall. There is some sort of wildling celebration in just half a moon and they go to make coin. It's some sort of summer celebration, Feast of the Sun. I've heard of it so often, but never been there. It's just as well, because I already spoke to a family who leaves tomorrow and I promised them a good pay and they agreed to allow me at the back of their cart, among apples and potatoes. After I take you to the Tyrells and get my reward, I'll be finally on my way North." He bit half of a peach, juices running through his impossibly thick, dark beard.

He reeked. They both reeked, but it didn't matter.

"I'm happy for you." she smiled with honesty. He answered with a large, toothy grin.

"They are searching for you, you think?" he asked and nodded towards the group of dark soldiers down the road.

"I think so... They only search the carts. If we are careful, we'll pass." she whispered and ate more meat.

After they had their fill of peaches and boar, they took the filly, their bags and walked towards the small barricade of armoured crows.

In front of them a cart with grain was searched and quickly sent on its way. Two dark guards moved aside and opened their spears, swiftly crossing them again, once the cart lumbered through.

"Where are you coming from?" A dark guard who hadn't even seen his 20th nameday asked in a boyish voice.

"The North, ser! We're here to trade some goods." Heward spoke and as he did, her eyes rose to the oaks above them and there she saw a crow. It was a small one, scraggly and silent, but it stared at them.

"I can't let you through by the orders of the Lords of Highgarden. We try to stave off the plague from entering the cities." the words coming from the young guard took her mind away from the watchful crow and without thinking, she spoke.

"What? We are healthy! That is preposterous!" She spoke, squinting at the guard, the sun blinding her. She tried moving away, hiding her eyes, but the young man was already watching her like a hawk.

How many peasant women know what "preposterous" means?

"I'm sorry, but these are the orders of the Lords of Highgarden, approved by the king himself and even your queen Stark."

The boy, his dark armour too large for his scrawny frame, focused on her, frowning, looking, searching.

Heward was grinding his teeth so hard that she could hear it.

"You can trade here, just as well. Why do you insist on entering the city?" he pushed on.

She looked away, down from him.

"The money is better, ser. We have little children at home, you see. We need to put bread on the table. When we left, the plague wasn't that bad. We are clean. I haven't even touched someone with the sickness in my life and neither did Patsy here!" He threw one of his large hands around her shoulders and squeezed her uncomfortably, laughing his good natured belly laugh. "Isn't that right, woman?"

She nodded and smiled, hiding behind Heward, searching for a shadow to conceal the damned purple in her eyes.

"Hm?" the young man said and took off his helmet, a frown on his thick, blonde eyebrows. He had startling blue eyes and a sharp, long face. "Look at me, woman!" he commanded in that cracking voice of his. Just a boy.

"We'll be on our way, ser! Didn't mean to bother. We'll find good markets some place else." Heward said as he moved her around and pulled the filly with the other hand. A long line of men, horses and carts had formed behind them.

"NO! Stay! I order you to look at me!" He was not letting this go and Heward knew, judging by the sigh that went through him. "Look at me, now!" he continued and his hand wrapped around his sword. In the corner of her eye she could see his crow brothers stirring.

Heward's arm was painfully tightened on her shoulders and she pushed it off.

Might as well get it over with.

She turned towards the armoured boy and looked him straight into his pale eyes.

Realization dawned on his face and she could see every stage of it.

"You are coming with me!"

"Ha ha! My Patsy's eyes is the bug, then? Ha! It's rumoured that she hails from some purple eyed, Starfall bastard, my woman." Heward grabbed her upper arm tightly and started pulling her, but so did the young soldier.

"No. We have orders to take her to King's Landing. Lucene Velaryon is on the run and anyone fitting the description is to be taken before the king." The young man yelled and pulled her arm.

"Aw! Stop it!" She tried yanking her arm free, while Heward was pulling her away in the other direction. She felt like a rag doll and she was no match for the two men. The scene must have looked positively insane, judging by the many people who gathered to gawk.

The guard, no matter how young, was very strong, and with just one hand could easily carry her away. Heward was even stronger, but he tried not to hurt her and after carefully, but fruitlessly pulling her by the arm, he finally gave up and grabbed her around her waist.

The guard didn't let go, but rather got even closer, all over them and in Heward's face, with her in the middle, crushed and out of breath. As if at a signal, the proximity of the young man awakened something in the Northerner and after freezing for just a second, she heard his breath getting ragged and felt one of his hands leaving her waist and searching for something.

"Noooooo, don't, Heward!" She screamed at him and tried grabbing his hand away from the scabbard of the sword that was wrapped in rags and tied to his back.

He didn't listen. He couldn't hear her, surely. Fear ran through her as she saw him in an utter trance. In a matter of moments, too fast for the young man to realise what was happening, he pulled the rags off and took his sword out of the scabbard.

That is when the young man's eyes got huge and being sandwiched between them, she could hear his small gasp and smell his acrid breath as his mouth fell open in shock.

"That's a soldier's sword!' the young guard yelled shrilly. "A Northern soldier's sword!"

All was still for a few seconds, before all hell broke loose.

The young man took his own sword out, the other guards surrounded them, common people started screaming and cheering, she tried standing on her feet and breathing crushed between them and Heward started slashing.

She heard it all, metal on metal, metal through flesh, metal through bone, blood gurgling and last breaths being drawn as the young man finally released her arm. She feverishly searched for her own dagger, which she had never used on real, live flesh.

Heward was slashing left and right, spilling guts and spraying blood on her and on the screaming people around them. The guards were just as green as the blonde boy who now laid in a pool of blood in the dust. They were no match for the Northman. Poor, young children, peasant sons, not fit for war.

In the chaos, commoners joined in and rioted, stealing from the stalls, getting into fist fights and stabbing each other over fruit and spilled coin. Horses smelled death and reared and neighed and fled, dust rose and she was in the middle of it, hand clutched to her dagger, the filly gone and Heward joining swords with guards.

She took the moment to slip towards Highgarden, on the forest road that now stood unguarded. She knew Heward could handle himself and she would only be in the way. She locked eyes with him and by some odd magic, he understood what she meant to do, so she ran. The dust was as thick as fog and she prayed she wouldn't run into a tree as she ducked, slipped and scrambled her way to what she knew must be the direction of the forest.

A numbing force hit her suddenly and for moments she lost consciousness. Then she realized it was a soldier. A black armoured soldier had hit her in the chest with his gauntleted arm and then grabbed her, holding her tight as she squirmed and yelled and kicked with all the feeble might she had left. He started dragging her somewhere, away from the market and she squirmed even more.

They both fell and wrestled in the fine dust. He was trying to get a hold of her arms, she was trying to stab him and stab she did, but his armour was impossibly hard, impenetrable with her common blade. He climbed on top of her, suffocating her, pressing on her chest and yelling things she couldn't understand. With dust in her eyes and throat and no more air in her lungs she started screaming, yelling as loud as she could and aimlessly slashing with her dagger. She was losing her mind. There was nothing coherent in her head, just fear and rage and insanity.

Her dagger finally sank into something warm and fleshy and she could see that it was his cheek. Her dagger was deeply implanted through his face and all the way up to his ear and hot blood covered her arm. It didn't breach bone, but it half skinned one side of his face.

He stilled for a moment and touched the weeping wound. She quickly pulled the dagger out of his face and took this moment to run. Just as she got up and started running, he grabbed her by the ankle and the hard fall that followed took her breath away. She turned around and started stabbing at the fingers wrapped around her leg and that is when he pulled out his sword and deeply implanted it into her leg.

There was no pain. She just watched as the blade sank into her calf and bright red blood stained the dust, but felt nothing. The guard pulled out his sword and grabbed both of her legs, dragging her to him and when she was close enough, she shakily and clumsily embedded the dagger into his eye.

She didn't even know how she did it, but his screams, the blood and the eye bulging out sent her into a frenzy of panic and she crawled away as fast as her mauled leg let her. On her back, on her belly, rolling around, she slithered away as the man howled.

She didn't know how and when, but she reached a grassy precipice and fell into it. Before reaching the raging Mander below, she had thought she would die, splattered on some rocks in the Reach and she was at peace with that.

As the cold waters of the river embraced her and light was swallowed by its depths, she was finally happy. She could sleep here for a thousand years, had the waters let her. They were flowing, whirling, swirling, taking her with them, bringing her to the surface, cleansing and forcing her to life.

The Mander spat her on a muddy bend and refused to take her away with him. She lay in the mud, sharp twigs poking her, twisted willow roots digging in her ribs. The pain in her leg was finally here and she sank into it, revelled into the awakening sting of ripped flesh. She decided to lay there and wait for death in whatever form she may come. Whether it would take the shape of wolves, carrions, bears or maggots, she would welcome her comforting arms.

She laid there for what seemed like hours, slipping in and out of consciousness, until footsteps crushed leaves and twigs and large, gloved hands lifted her from the mud on the tiny shore that had cradled her.

"No. No. Put me down..." she could barely hear her voice.

She was thrown over a shoulder and she feebly squirmed.

"Heward, stop. I need to go to Highgarden or die. The Tyrells will help me. Let me go, or let me die." her throat was raw and the Northerner probably didn't even hear her. He stank of blood and sweat and she almost gagged.

"M'lady, you're bleeding to death. You plan to walk to the Tyrells? I'm taking you North. Better help there."

"The Tyrells... They'll help. They're my allies."

Heward chuckled as he walked up a hill through the thick forest. She could see the Mander sparkling merrily between the leaves as she hung like a sack over his shoulder.

"The Tyrells never truly helped your lordly houses. How can wolves, dragons, stags and lions need the help of flowers?" he laughed as they finally reached light. She could hear distant voices.

"I'm no dragon..." she whispered.

"I made some friends and they agreed to help us. Paid them well with the coin from the cloak you lost in the dance. They would do anything for us now. Good job on that crow you did there, by the way! I saved your dagger from his eye, too. Thank me later." He chuckled again.

When did I lose my cloak? She wondered as the view got blurry and her body numb.