Lenna LXI
Her nails were biting into her palms as she made her way from the Chamber of the Painted Table to her own rooms. Her footfalls sounded like the sharp retort of arrows against the stone, each one intensifying the ache that was steadily spreading from her neck to her head, a red veil of anger and anguish and utter frustration. She was seething, her shoulders thrown back in an attempt to maintain her dignity and remain above her feelings. The feeling of helplessness, of rage, was every bit as powerful as it had been in her last years in King's Landing, and now she leaned on every ounce of self-control she possessed not to let it bubble up, not to let the mask slip for even a moment. It was all she could do to walk from that room once the talks were over instead of upending the precious map table and pushing Daenerys Targaryen out the open colonnade and into the choppy waters of Blackwater Bay.
"Lenna."
His voice was dark, much darker than she remembered, only slightly smoother than Sandor's gravelly rasp. She bit her tongue and took a deep breath, not turning around and not stopping. She heard his footfalls following her, his gait double-speed to keep up with her.
"Lenna, you must-"
His hand was on her elbow, and there was a tremor in his stubby fingers. She turned to look at Tyrion with an anger that she had never before directed at him. He was much changed, she found, to her disappointment. She had some inkling of it when he met them on the shoreline, but his behavior, his thoughts and his words over the past week had sent her into a maelstrom of worry and sorry. The Tyrion Lannister that she knew had been sardonic, gently cruel in his way, but he hadn't been what he was now.
But none of us are, she thought bitterly. She had listened with her heart bleeding in her throat when he told her what had passed since their last meeting. Since the Blackwater and his triumph on King's Landing's walls. He had been beaten and bruised, imprisoned and then exiled. She shook her head in futile disapproval when she heard of Cersei's treatment of him after Joffrey's death, of how she had sent assassins after him in the wake of Tywin's death. She had always thought there was something unhinged in Cersei's nature, but she had never thought sister would actively turn on brother.
And now it appeared that the brother was fighting back. At all costs, and, to Lenna's eye, without any thought to the repercussions.
She turned her face to him, and he took a step back at the expression. Her skin felt tight across her own cheeks, her jaw clenched and her temples beginning to throb. Perhaps some of his old self had survived. He almost quailed, looking smaller than ever as he shrank from the indignation in her face, her chin tilted up and her eyes ablaze.
"Can we at least discuss this?" he asked with some of his old geniality, his hands worrying each other as he clasped them across his stomach.
"It has already been discussed," Lenna spat, words clipped and perfunctory. Without warmth of any kind. "It has been discussed to death, Tyrion, and speaking more on the matter will not sway me. Nothing you can say will change my mind."
Tyrion looked around uncomfortably, perhaps even a little afraid, but he seized Lenna by the elbow again and pulled her along the dripping passageways until they reached his own door. He pushed it open and drew her in, throwing it closed behind her. It landed with a hollow thunk, and for a moment she could see wildfire dancing on the walls.
Refusing to look at him, shaking the memory from her head, she paced before his hearth, the flames dancing in a fashion that should have been merry but was instead sinister. The shapes they cast on the walls were dark and contorted, and Lenna wanted nothing more than to just leave, consequences be damned.
"I know that you are troubled-" Tyrion began, looking up at her with those damn doleful eyes. She let out a harsh breath of mirthless laughter.
"Troubled," she said with more eveness than she felt, taking a step toward him. "Troubled doesn't even begin to encapsulate my feelings, Tyrion. You asked me here to treat with your queen," she said. "Instead, we are being given orders that we will not- mark my words- we will not obey."
He spread his hands, just as he always had when he was entreating her to be reasonable. As if she had ever been anything but reasonable, just not always willing to acquiesce to their malice, their subterfuge. "It is for-"
"Do not have the audacity, Tyrion Lannister, to tell me that this proposed invasion is for the good the realm," she said, her tongue quick and precise even as her thoughts were still in a morass. "This is for no one's good but hers. And yours, perhaps. We- the realm and the people- are stable. The wars are over."
"Thanks to you."
"Yes," she chuffed, not caring about her bloody modesty for a moment. She had given everything she had to them, and she was tired of pretending that she hadn't. Ten years spent a captive to preserve her family, hardship on the road, the sacrifice of her happiness and her future to try to save her home from them. And she had suffered alone for much of the worst of it, administering White Harbor as her father lay sightless and motionless in his bed, her brothers dead and her husband gone, Lenna the unexpected heir to White Harbor. And then she had come here to this ill-omened place with her child and new-found husband with her, unable to stand being separated from them yet again, and her rage at the idea that Tyrion Lannister, her old friend and teacher, was willingly and knowingly bringing danger and death to them again was unspeakable.
She wanted to strike him. To strangle him. She could still remember, in horror, the way it had felt to slip a knife through Grag Locke's throat, the way his blood had welled up like a spring and warmed her hands in the chilly night, sticky and vital. She hadn't wanted to kill him, hadn't even meant to, but she was now looking at Tyrion Lannister wondering how she could get away with it and survive.
She couldn't, and half a moment later she was ashamed she'd even thought it. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, she cursed the fact that she loved against her will.
Instead of striking out against him, she tempered herself. Taking a deep gulp of the dank air and checking her body, ratcheting the knobs of her spine up one at a time to gain some feeling of control, of agency.
"I have always acted and spoken in what I thought was the best interest of this realm," she said. "So you must understand, Tyrion, why I cannot counsel Lady Sansa to accept your proposal."
"There is a threat coming from the North," he said softly, a color to his voice that told her just how difficult he was finding it to actually deliver what were undoubtedly rehearsed negotiations.
"Don't threaten me, Tyrion," she said in the same tone she'd use to correct Addy. "We know full well what is coming. As much as we may and more than you. And it would have been a good thing to be allied with this girl, but-"
"She is not some girl. She is the rightful queen of the Seven Kingdoms," he replied hotly.
"According to whom?" Lenna asked with her head cocked. "The Annals? The Lineages? The long dusty lists of dead men? Her father was deposed, Tyrion. He was a despot, and mad to boot. The people rose up against him in support of Robert Baratheon. It is not the first time that a dynasty has risen and fallen, and simply being born does not give her rights to the Iron Throne."
"If you knew her-" he tried, again stepping toward her in half-supplication.
"I do not wish to," Lenna replied acidly.
"She wants to love her people."
"Before roasting King's Landing alive or after?" Lenna asked with more spite than she meant to reveal, contempt making her shiver. "To think that you would even think of supporting such an idea. Your own nephew is King."
"He is not a Baratheon," Tyrion thundered, and it took even Lenna a little aback. "We both know that he is not Robert Baratheon's son."
"No," she said softly. "Of course he isn't, Tyrion. Not by blood. He's your own brother's. Your own sister's. So he is your nephew twice over. He may not be a Baratheon, Tyrion, but by the gods, he is a good and just King. His wife is a caring and benevolent queen. They have stabilized a realm that was reeling from the ill-deeds of your own house, and now we are whole again, even in the face of winter. United. The North independent but part of the whole, the Reach, the Crownlands, the Stormlands, Dorne all sending food and supplies. The poor of our cities fed and clothed. Our armies one army. Lords from every part of Westeros represented on the Small Council. Tyrion, we have built what you and I only talked of." Tyrion looked away, unable or unwilling to acknowledge the truth of it. How many nights had they bantered about this, about their history, their future, the foibles in the annals lessons from which to learn. She shook her head, wondering if it had all just been an exercise in cunning to him, a joke. It had never been to her. "This girl talks of rocking us to our foundation once again, with winter here and war on the horizon," she said tiredly, the spark of her ire faded like an ember or a setting sun. "We cannot even entertain the idea of supporting Daenerys Targaryen under the current circumstances."
"If you would-" he tried again, but she could tell his heart was not in it.
"There is no gain to be had from it, Tyrion. At least, not for us." Her temper had cooled and she found herself chilled. It was a constant problem at Dragonstone, the moisture from the walls seeping to the floor, the rooms freezing and damp. Lenna felt as if she could never be warm, not even buried in the furs of her bed with her toes and fingers like ice shrouded branches. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and waited for Tyrion to turn over what she had said.
"What, exactly, are you implying, old friend?" Tyrion was looking up at her with nostrils flared, obviously wounded. He was blinking rapidly as if fighting tears.
"I'm not implying anything," she said. "I think we both know what this is all about, really."
Tyrion turned from her on his heel, his hands flexing as he held them behind him. He walked briskly the length of the room once, twice, then a third time, and when he stopped the look on his face was devastated.
"If you think this is petty vengeance-"
"I do not think there is anything petty about it," Lenna said soothingly, her tone at odds with her meaning. "You are talking about potentially destroying the lives of thousands of your own people. Though perhaps the reason could be called petty by some, I would not be so dismissive of you. Of what they've done to you."
"I did not join Daenerys because I am seeking revenge." His hands were balled up into knobby fists at his thighs.
"Oh, really? Why then?" She sat down in the chair at his desk to be closer to his eye level. He would not look at her. "It wasn't because you believe in her espoused ideals. If anyone would know that Tyrion Lannister was a secret altruist, it would be me. A master administrator, oh yes, that he is, but not an altruist. Her professed love of the common people, the downtrodden- you don't care about those things. I know you better than most, do I not? In all our years of study and debate and friendship, you have never lied to me about who you are. About what you are."
"And what is that?" he asked heatedly.
"A player," she said quietly. "You have always, always been a part of this game. And, Seven bless you, you tried so hard to teach me, to help me. I was stuck in it and had no idea what to do. And you guided me. Don't you hear yourself in my words now, Tyrion? Don't you see your own advice in everything I have done?" He looked at her like she had stabbed him in the gut. "But more than that," she said even more softly. "You, my dear Tyrion, are a Lannister."
Tyrion laughed hollowly. "Hear me roar."
Lenna closed her eyes and looked down, her hair falling heavily over her shoulder. She had styled it in the Northern fashion, the way she had as a girl, two waves twisted to keep it back from her face, the locks falling heavy and long almost to her waist. Strange that they should find themselves here now, Lenna the sage instructor, Tyrion the chastened pupil. The mad glint of his eye had been dulled, filed away by suffering, and she felt old, older than the cold stones of the Keep itself.
"You are right," he said lowly, turning his eye to her with a measure of defiance but overwhelming hurt. His voice was low and broken, like an unraveling skein of fine thread. "I am not altruistic. But I do not seek to kill my sister, or my brother, or my nephew-"
"But you will if you continue with this plan," she said. There was no other outcome. If Daenerys Targaryen did as she said she would, if she took King's Landing with her three dragons and her army of Unsullied warriors, his whole family- her family, in a terrible way- would all die. By flame or by sword. "Why, Tyrion? Why in the seven hells are you advising her?"
It had been nagging at her since the first time he had written, since she had seen the Targaryen girl's name in his hand.
"What else am I supposed to do?" he pleaded, hands outstretched again but this time in supplication. She had never seen him rendered so hopeless, so helpless. "There's a bounty on my head, Lenna. Cersei forced me out of King's Landing after the trial, even though I was found innocent. Even if it isn't an official attaintment, that doesn't mean it's less effective. We both know that she sent someone trailing me, looking for me. She won't be satisfied until I am dead, until I have paid what she thinks I owe."
Lenna could not argue the accuracy of this and it made her sigh with sorrow.
"You could have come to me," she said quietly. "You could have come to White Harbor just as Sansa did."
"And my welcome in the North would have been warmer than Meereen? I don't think so," he scoffed.
"For what it is worth," Lenna said quietly, "I would have seen to it. But it is far, far too late to discuss it now."
"Indeed," he said, rubbing his hands across his eyes. "It is too late."
Lenna felt as if a chasm had suddenly opened up before her, as if an earthquake had rent a hole in the chamber floor, rocky and jagged and pitch, pitch black.
"What did you expect us to say?" Lenna asked, looking at Tyrion across it and feeling so alone and weary she wanted to fall into the pit and simply cease to be.
"I don't know," he said gruffly. An arrow in the dark, she thought glumly. She knew what he had wanted. He wanted her to fix it. How had comforting him or Cersei or even Jaime Lannister turned into bandaging the realm for them?
"She doesn't want to wait," Lenna said carefully. "But if we could only convince her to delay any invasion. To put it off until this threat in the North is dealt with."
Tyrion was pacing again, this time his eyes darting quickly from place to place, the old familiar sign that he was deep in scheming. Lenna felt the fissure between them shrink, just a little.
He stroked his beard, pulling at the bristles until Lenna was sure he was in pain. Then he turned on his heel with precision and his mistmatched eyes met hers.
"You will speak with her," he said quietly. "You alone."
Lenna scoffed. "I have spoken plenty."
"You will bargain for her, just as you did the Iron Throne. Lenna, she doesn't know what she's doing, not really."
"Clearly," Lenna said with an arched brow and a twisted lip. "She's listening to you and Varys."
Tyrion pursed his lips at the jab. "She needs guidance. She doesn't understand the game."
"You are a far better teacher, then, if she wants to play it."
"No," he said forcefully. "The game has changed. The rules are different and I don't know what I'm doing. This Westeros, this realm, it isn't the same one I grew up in, the one that I left. You and Olenna and Margaery and Sansa- you rewrote the rules."
Lenna shook her head. "I'm not so important as all that," she said. "But you are right. This is a different realm. And surely you can understand why we will not quietly comply with something we feel is so wrong."
"I can't change her mind," Tyrion said. "She believes that the people of Westeros have wished for her return. She was raised believing it."
"Is she mad, Tyrion?" Lenna asked. The question had been worrying her, the girl's strange behavior and cool detachment stirring wariness in her entrails.
"I don't know," he said at last. "I don't think so. Not in the way that you mean." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "If you could ask her for one thing, what would it be?"
Lenna did not hesitate. "To help us defeat the Night King and the armies of the dead. The rest can be dealt with later. We need dragonglass. Dragons would be an unexpected boon, too."
"She is prepared to allow the mining to begin," Tyrion said. "She needs support here in the Seven Kingdoms. She can lend that much, but she will need Houses to stand with her when the time comes."
"House Manderly will not be among them," Lenna said quietly with a brief shake of her head. "Nor will House Stark. We are the Independent North. We will keep our ties to the Crown strong to maintain that autonomy. We will not bend the knee. Never again."
"She has been told as much." Tyrion said.
"And?" Lenna asked. "I do not support the idea of deposing the King, Tyrion. Not for any circumstances. But I know enough to see that there is little I can do if she-if you- have determined to invade. What of the aftermath, hm?"
"She knows that she will have a difficult time currying favor when she takes the throne," he replied, and Lenna shuddered at the confidence in his voice. "She has said that she is open to the idea of the North maintaining its independence. If it complies."
"I cannot-"
"She's been told, Lenna-"
"Yes, but has she listened?" Lenna asked. The girl was young, no more than eighteen or twenty, and Lenna remembered herself at that age. She would not have listened, she would have been convinced that she was right, that there were no other angles from which to view the circumstances. She would have been full of a righteous fire. "She cannot truly believe that we have been waiting for her return all these years. She has not come back by our invitation. How exactly does she think she will be received here?
Tyrion did not look at her, his hands still clasped tight behind his back as he stared at the dark stones of the floor. "She will need assurances," he said flatly. The web of understanding between them tightened and Lenna took a step back in wounded anger.
"I do not lie, Tyrion Lannister," she replied coolly. It had always been their most insurmountable difference. "I will not start doing so now."
Tyrion looked at her suddenly with his palms open in entreaty. "I am not asking you to lie, Lenna," he said quietly. "Just to...mould the truth."
Lenna's eyes narrowed. "The girl isn't stupid, Tyrion."
"She hears what she wants to hear," he replied, his face open.
"It is not up to me or you," Lenna replied. "There are many others to consider."
For a moment, she had allowed herself to be caught in Tyrion's fantasy, that together they could decide the direction of this war, of the realm itself. True, she had been an influence, an advisor, in unexpected and unlooked for ways. She often thought of it with incredulity, the way in which she had been caught in the whirlpool, her head above the water but still trapped in the currents. But it was folly for her to believe that she alone could sway a queen, could make the decision.
Margaery and Tommen. Prince Doran in Dorne. Her aunt, Olenna Tyrell. The Starks in Winterfell and even the Greyjoys in the Iron Islands. The Iron Bank. Not to mention, Cersei still played a significant role in her son's reign. All of them would have to be summoned, would have to be involved. Lenna nor Tyrion could ever truly control what would happen when, and if they came together.
The best course of events would see them all gathered at the same table, each with their own churlish self-interest
"Call them," he said firmly. "Call them together and broker a deal for the time being."
Lenna felt her heart drop into her stomach with a cold plop. It wouldn't work. She knew beyond a doubt that it wouldn't work, not in the long term. But it could at least staunch the wound for a time.
She nodded haggardly and took her leave without another word, spending the next few hours walking the castle by herself. Sandor was in the yards, Addy with him. Jon Snow doted on her, and Lenna remembered that he had always had a soft spot for the little ones.
She was standing in the gallery watching her husband warming up his sword hand while Jon Snow built a snowcastle with her daughter, and her heart clenched. There was so much at stake, she could not just sail away knowing the Dragon Queen would come for King's Landing, and then she would come for the North. She could not let it happen.
Against her better judgement, Lenna went to the door of Chamber of the Painted Table and raised her hand, knocking firmly at the door and holding her breath as it swung open.
Sandor LXI
Ravens went out immediately to King's Landing and Winterfell, to Dorne and to Highgarden. He'd watched in mute disapproval as Lenna wrote them herself, her hand the same flowing script it had always been, though these brief, diplomatic missives were free of the blots of her youth.
He kept an eye on her with concern. She was looking waxen and gray these days, the strain of whatever it was she was plotting with Tyrion Lannister settling on her shoulders like a yoke. She was constantly sick, as well. She wouldn't eat anything in the mornings, her chin trembling at even a whiff of the hard cheese and bread that constituted Dragonstone's rather meager breakfast offerings. She had explained to him that it was normal, but it didn't make it easier to watch her grow thin when he had thought she would grow round. She needed rest and good food, and she was getting neither. It only added to her weariness, her ability to leave their chambers each morning and do her work having more to do with the iron will she secreted behind her soft voice than any real energy. He hated to see how she would seem to wither when she entered their chambers at night, so tired and grieved that she couldn't speak, only bonelessly rest against him with her lips against his neck.
He hated even more to look on as she kept her courtier's mask in place, laughing gaily and smiling with sparkling eyes. No one else seemed to notice the purpling beneath them except for him, or the way her clavicles stood out like bony wings from her shoulders, ribs riding gently beneath her skin when they should be invisible. There was nothing to be done for it, her purpose was clear though it did not sit well with him to watch her interactions with Daenerys Targaryen. The Dragon Queen had seemed to him a frosty, cruel sort when she first appeared, but now Sandor detected something much more dangerous in the girl's demeanor. The haughtiness was born of desperation, the sardonic twitch of her lip and brow nothing more than lack of conviction. She didn't have a fucking clue what she was doing, that much was clear to him. She had gone about retaking her empire in the way a child might gather toys into an army, a patchwork hodgepodge of mismatched objects with only one thing in common: her.
It was like building a foundation in the sand.
She obviously had her supporters. Tyrion Lannister followed at her heels like a nervous father, and old Jorah Mormont was giving Jon Snow stiff competition for brooding. Sandor did not like the man, especially not the way he looked at the young Daenerys.
She's nothing but a child, he thought derisively. Still, Mormont trailed her with the abject dedication of an old dog.
He'd seen the dragons, felt the hot huff of their breath against his skin. They were his old nightmares made flesh, huge and hideous and only held in check by the flick of a girl's wrist. Daenerys was proud of them, as fiercely as if they were her children, and she had wanted to show them off. Drogon was by far the largest and most unruly, and it seemed to him that the girl had a special fondness for him that didn't extend to the other two, Rhaegal and Viserion. It was unnatural to watch her stroke the scaly neck, her face as soft as a mother's looking at her newborn, and Sandor had hung back from the crowd with Addy on his shoulders, even as Lenna walked with the Dragon Queen and laid her own hand on the enormous, bony snout of Rhaegal.
She had walked away with a tension in her face that told him the feat itself was hardwon.
Daenerys had been pleased with the interaction, almost jubilant when Rhaegal sniffed about Jon Snow and bumped his shoulder the same way a horse might. The young man looked like he was about to shit himself, but the little Targaryen had been ecstatic. Sandor wondered who else saw the way Daenerys Targaryen looked at Jon Snow, even though the young man didn't seem to return the interest. He was far too busy brooding, on what Sandor did not know.
It hadn't taken Lenna long to win Daenerys over. It shouldn't have surprised him. She had made Cersei Lannister love her, and this girl was starved for affection, reaching out and grabbing at whatever fear or love and kindness was pushed her way. She took to Lenna quickly. Like a child. And while he wasn't exactly proud of her for it, he wasn't ashamed either. He merely resented what it did to her, making nice with the Targaryen princess.
"She's not unlike Sansa," Lenna said one evening. They'd been on Dragonstone for a long week, and he was smoothing out her hair, running his fingers through the long curls before rebraiding it. She was leaning against him, melting into his chest as he went about his work, her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder, eyes closed and rimmed in darkness. She had been sleeping poorly and she was sick almost all of the time.
"Never cared for how much trouble you put yourself in for her, either," he rumbled darkly. He cursed to himself that he'd been happy to get her away from Sansa, only now the replacement seemed to him far worse. Her lip twitched.
"She's young," she said instead, though he was sure that she took his meaning. "And naive to how things work. And unlike Sansa, she thinks that she can just reorder the world to suit her needs. If there's something she doesn't like, she just knocks it over."
"Like a child," Sandor said without malice. "A stupid, selfish child."
Lenna did not contradict him, and he knew she wouldn't. He knew what she really thought.
"She thinks she's doing the right thing," Lenna said hollowly, a crease between her brows. She shook her head. "I can't make her other than what she is," she said tiredly. He had been thinking on that himself lately. Her comments about the young Targaryen wanting to reorder the world had reminded him of another royal child, another person Lenna tried to temper with soft words and a gentle hand.
It hadn't stopped Joffrey from being a tyrant, for all he had cuddled into Lenna's bosom and heard her stories. In the end, he'd brought down pain and terror on any who crossed him, who told him the truth he didn't want to hear. The only thing that had stopped him was treachery of his own caliber, and Sandor knew that Lenna would never be involved in such, Targaryen or Stark or Lannister.
He chased away the thoughts as she reached for him, her cold fingers icy against his neck. He didn't care. He drew her to him eagerly, wrapping her legs around his waist as she turned in his lap. He always preferred her like this, face to face with her astride his hips, even from the first. She was running her hands across his shoulders in that single-minded way she did when she just wanted to forget.
There was little enough he could do for her. He could at least give her this.
His fingers undid the lacings of her gown and his mouth found the soft place at the joining of her shoulder and neck. She reached between them and put him in his proper place, rocking against him slowly with her skirts rucked up around her waist as he palmed her breast and worried one pebbled nipple, the other hand still raking through her hair in long strokes that mimicked her movements. He dragged his fingers over her ribs, gripped her hips, then made his way beneath her shift to find the spot that made her quake. He timed his work with the methodical and leisurely pace of her hips, relishing it when she crested in a long, langourous shudder that throbbed around him until he joined her in a few drawn-out strokes.
She slept almost immediately, and he hoped she wouldn't wake until morning. There were too many times that he woke to her shifting against him, restless and sweaty. She would rise and pace as quietly as she could, her arms hugging her ribcage and her brow furrowed, the lines visible even in the dark in contrast with the almost shocking pallor of her skin. He would watch her sometimes through slitted eyes, and she was like a ghost to him.
The rocking of the ship seemed to soothe her, and she slept like the dead on the voyage from Dragonstone to King's Landing. It was only a day's journey, and she kept to their cabin beneath the furs of the rough bed, her hair spread out in a messy could across the pillow. Sandor had taken Addy above with him, intent on giving her the opportunity to rest before whatever it was they were sailing toward came to pass.
Margaery Tyrell welcomed them, a lone figure on the wharf. Sandor had not seen the queen before, and even he was struck by her feline beauty, but more than that, he liked the way she eagerly embraced Lenna, bending her nut-brown head to Lenna's near-black. She was speaking soft and low so that Sandor couldn't hear, but she looked up at him with a tight smile once Lenna had nodded. Then she reached out for Addy with slender arms and tucked the child onto her hip with a gay peal of laughter that was utterly at odds with Lenna's solemn and drawn face.
"What is it?" he asked, his palm skimming the small of her back.
"They are waiting," she said quietly. "We are not to waste any time."
It was strange to be back in the small council chamber after so much time. The room itself was exactly the same, but the faces that surrounded the table were different. Most of them, anyway.
Olenna Tyrell and Jaime Lannister, Prince Oberyn Martell of Dorne, slimy Petyr Baelish, a sweaty, rotund young man with thinning hair that seemed dreadfully uncomfortable. When Jon Snow saw him, Sandor didn't think he'd ever seen the young northern bastard show such enthusiasm before, nearly shouting with laughter and thumping the bashfully smiling interloper across the shoulders.
And then there was the slim young girl with great green eyes that Sandor had never seen before. She looked quite out of place in the gathering of advisors, her fingers nervously fidgeting with her pink silk gown, her hair a curtain of gold, bright and undulating. Something about her seemed familiar, but he couldn't place her. Then she looked at him full in the face and smiled widely.
"Myrcella," Lenna breathed beside him, and the girl sprang to her feet and rushed into Lenna's arms while a war of tears and smiles was waged across her pretty features. Sandor felt like he'd been hit with a warhammer.
"Dear Lenna," she said intently, tears flowing down her cheeks. "I came with Prince Oberyn. I haven't been home in so long, and imagine my surprise to learn that you would be here." Lenna rocked her with genuine pleasure, her hands ghosting over the young woman's long hair, the finely sculpted lines of her face. The girl turned to look at him. "And you, Clegane. I am so happy to see you. I have missed you."
It was a strange thing to be embraced by a princess in front of all those shuttered faces, but Sandor couldn't help but wrap an arm awkwardly around the girl's back when she flung both her arms around his neck and laid a kiss on his cheek. She pulled away from him dabbing at her cheeks and laughing, turning back to Lenna and squeezing her hand.
"I cannot stay," she said, "but I hope we may find time to talk."
Lenna nodded, her teeth worrying into her lip as Sandor watched her eyes gleam with unshed tears. The girl flitted from the room and Lenna let out a rending sound that was half-sob, half-laugh, and sat down heavily in the chair next to Jaime Lannister. There was no seat for Sandor and he hung back awkwardly, making for the door himself. Lenna caught him, slim fingers on his wrist.
"He stays," she said quietly, and no one argued.
It was exhausting listening and watching as they bantered back and forth, the future of the realm reduced to something like a child's ball being batted up and down the table. He was surprised that for the majority of the meeting Lenna remained silent. Her hands were quietly folded in her lap, her head cocked slightly in the direction of whichever of the little lords or ladies was speaking, and her eyes were resting on the surface of the table. He wondered what it sounded like inside her head when she did that, what it was she was thinking, or if she was thinking at all.
There were many opinions laid out on that table, and Sandor didn't like the pettiness of most of them. It all sounded like fucking bullshit, no matter how they dressed it up.
"I have yet to hear any real evidence that this threat beyond the Wall actually exists," Oberyn Martell said, his tone almost bored. "For all we know, it's a tactic thought up by this Dragon Queen to draw us north while she invades the south."
"He is real," Jon Snow replied, his dark eyes sober. "I have seen him myself."
"And you have already met with the Targaryen girl," Baelish riposted. "Who is to say you aren't in league with her? That you haven't already brokered a deal with her?"
"He hasn't," Lenna said, clearing her throat after a long silence. "And the Night King is real. He, or rather it, always has been. We've just been careful to hide away the stories."
"Explain to me how a child's tutor came to sit on the small cou-"
"Enough of that Petyr Baelish," Olenna said imperiously, Baelish's smug face going stony at the interruption. "Your presence here is merely suffered because of your long history serving the King's family."
Lenna's eyes cut quickly at her aunt and Sandor thought he saw her lips part. Petyr Baelish's mouth was set in a hard line, the point of his beard trembling.
"It has always been there," Lenna said. "In the annals. In the histories."
"Yes," said a tremulous voice. All eyes turned on the portly young man next to Jon Snow. His face bore the expression of a concerned owl, but he withdrew a series of scrolls and put them on the table. "I brought some."
Oberyn Martell reached for them first, unrolling the parchments and scanning the contents, rolling his eyes and tossing them back onto the table.
"Fairy stories," he said dismissively. "And nothing we haven't already heard. Dragonglass and dragonsteel. Nothing to prove that-"
"I killed one," the young man said quietly. "North of the Wall. With a dragonglass knife."
That drew everyone's attention. Oberyn looked at him with faint pity, as if indulging him.
"Were there any witnesses?" he asked amicably, though derision lurked just beneath the quirk of his lip. "How do you know it was one of these White Walkers and not some wildling?"
"Its eyes," he said quietly. "They were glowing blue."
A tense silence fell over them. When Sandor glanced around, he saw Petyr Baelish was chuckling and shaking his head.
"I've seen them myself," Jon Snow said quietly. "If you won't believe Sam, perhaps you'll believe me."
Margaery turned her eyes on Lenna. "Do you believe them, cousin?"
Lenna took a deep breath. "I do," she replied so lowly he almost couldn't hear her. "And I think the longer we sit here debating whether or not they exist wastes the precious short time we have to come up with some sort of plan."
"What do you mean, the precious short time?" Oberyn was outwardly befuddled, deep crevices carved around his mouth as he frowned, dark eyes narrowed. A quick glance around the table saw all of them taken aback.
Lenna glanced up at Sandor with an glimmer in her eye that he could only describe as apology.
"Before she arrives."
A pause like a gasp fell, and Sandor was grateful for the wall behind his back.
"She?" Jaime said lowly. The Kingslayer had hardly said a word throughout the meeting, though Sandor had caught his eye on more than one occasion. Jaime Lannister was looking to him for indications of what he should think, and that didn't sit well.
Gods, we're probably fucked, he thought bleakly.
Lenna took a deep breath, running her hands over her knees and leaving a trail of perspiration on the silk.
"Daenerys Targaryen has agreed to stall her invasion for a time," she said firmly. "She expects a raven from me within the next two days. If she does not receive one, she will come herself."
Sandor wanted to punch the wall. She hadn't breathed a word of it to him, but the strain he saw written in her every movement was now explained. The faces of those seated around the table were incredulously blank, as if wiped clean of their haughtiness, their own designs.
"It was the best I could do," she said in a rush. "She is willing to help us if we can come up with some manner of accord. We need the dragonglass at Dragonstone. We need the dragons," she took a breath, "or at the very least, we need to delay their coming until suitable defenses have been mounted and the threat in the north has been adequately dealt with."
"How?" Oberyn demanded. "This is not-"
"No," Lenna said quickly, "of course it isn't what you expected. It is what none of us expected. This girl is convinced that she is in the right, that she deserves the throne. She is King Aerys' daughter, she is sister to Prince Rhaegar. She has three bloody dragons. Some kind of accord needs to be offered to her." Lenna paused and wiped a hand across her brow. "It doesn't need to be perfect. We just need something."
"And what do you suggest," Oberyn said. Olenna Tyrell was looking at her niece steadfastly, and it occurred to Sandor that she was just as at a loss as the rest of them. Perhaps for the first time.
Lenna took three deep breaths, her breast rising and falling with effort.
"We sign a document agreeing to hold off on hostilities until after the threat in the North is dealt with. A document with assurances."
"That we don't intend to keep," Oberyn said hotly. "Dorne will not-"
"Good," Lenna said quickly. "It would not do for us all to seem to agree to it. Dorne should not participate if they do not wish to. But," she said with a labored pause, "you will, of course, be busy preparing to oppose her invasion."
"How so?"
"The Northern houses will fight. The Crown will fight. We will fight alongside each other, with Daenerys and her men. She thinks it will gain support for her cause in Westeros, and she is likely right," Lenna said quietly. "Her biggest obstacle is not whether or not she can take King's Landing. Believe me, she can." Sandor grunted. He'd seen the giant fuckers with his own eyes, calm as kittens at the tiny girl's commands. "Her challenge is getting the people on her side. As we have all experienced, the support of the smallfolk is integral to the success of a monarch. Aerys lost it, Robert Baratheon gained it; Joffrey lost it, Tommen and Margaery have gained it. This is not some petty squabble. She needs this engagement as much as we do, just for different purposes."
"She needs it to secure her throne," Olenna said in the most neutral tone that had ever, "and we need it to secure a throne to fight for."
Lenna nodded. "I explained to her that if she does not help, there will be nothing for her to be queen over."
Something like an icy wave coursed down his back.
"So, Dorne will stand in opposition to the accord," Lenna said. "And while we are fighting in the North, Prince Oberyn will begin to mount preparations for our defense in the aftermath."
"You would put us between you," Oberyn spat.
"She does not have sufficient forces to launch a two-pronged attack," Lenna said flatly. "She will pick one, and only one. And she will pick banding with us to fight in the North. We will worry about the fallout once we win."
"If you win," the Prince said drily.
"If we don't," Lenna replied tartly, "your brother can style himself king. Just like you all have always wanted. If we lose, there will be none of us left: Baratheon, Lannister, Stark, or Targaryen. We will all of us be dead. Or worse."
Oberyn leaned back, temporarily mollified. "What needs to be done?"
"Weapons that can stop a dragon," Lenna replied succinctly. "Well-trained forces and food."
"I have some things that can help, too," the round little man Jon Snow had called Sam interjected. "I found some books in Old Town. Plans for scorpions and the like."
Lenna turned her eyes on her cousin and the king. They had both been silent through the whole exchange, watching with wary eyes and listening avidly.
"Your grace," Lenna said quietly, Tommen's young face turning to her. "To move forward, we must have your agreement."
Tommen looked back at Lenna for a long moment, then his jaw tensed and he nodded sharply, just once. Lenna collapsed back in her chair and Sandor felt like going to his knees.
A/N: I'm procrastinating. Hopefully this one is more satisfactory. Please read and review!