Day 9: Crossing a line

Sansa

Professor Pycelle was going on and on about some king who had ruled Westeros long before any of them were born and long before Westeros turned into a democracy.

He was doing this in the most boring fashion possible and Sansa wondered how he managed to stay awake himself since half the students in her class had fallen asleep almost as soon as he had started his monologue.

Jeyne was sitting next to her and she was one of the few students who actually wrote down what Pycelle was saying.

"You look pretty today" Sansa told Jeyne in a hushed voice so Pycelle wouldn't notice that they were talking.

"Thanks" Jeyne said without looking up from her notes.

Sansa could almost feel the ice in her voice.

Usually Jeyne and Sansa never stayed quiet during class and many teachers had commented on that before but Jeyne and Sansa would just giggle and continue in a quieter voice.

Sansa really missed spending time with Jeyne.

Planning her birthday party with her best friend was supposed to be even more fun than the actual party but now the only thing they had done was fight.

Sansa was starting to feel more alone every day.

Margaery and Cersei were her friends of course but in reality she didn't know them that well at all.

The only thing she had known about them was that they were popular, pretty and happy and that had seemed enough.

Sansa took hold of Jeyne's hand and she finally looked up.

"I'm sorry, for being so caught up with my party" Sansa said "I just wanted it to be perfect"

A small smile appeared on Jeyne's face as she looked at her with big, brown eyes.

"It's okay" she sighed and she smiled again "we're still best friends"

"Forever" Sansa added and they both giggled.

Sansa felt like a weight had just been lifted off her shoulders.

She promised herself that she and Jeyne would start hanging out again after her party and everything would go back to normal.

Sansa wouldn't have to date Joffrey and she wouldn't have to pretend to be someone else anymore, because to be honest she really wanted lemon cakes on her birthday and not a stupid strawberry cake.

"So what's up with you and Ramsay?" Sansa asked her friend with a twinkle in her blue eyes "how did that happen?"

Sansa loved romantic stories and she hated the fact that she had completely missed Jeyne's.

"Well I went to his concert and we just hit it off right away" Jeyne said blushing with a shy smile on her face.

"That's adorable" Sansa said and she could just picture him singing a song for Jeyne.

She couldn't think of anything more romantic than a boy playing a love song for her.

"Well I'm just glad that you're not hung up on Theon anymore" Sansa said rolling her eyes at the thought of Theon Greyjoy alone.

A blush immediately spread across Jeyne's face and she quickly concentrated on her exercise book again.

"No way!" Sansa said forgetting to stay quiet for a second "you still like him?"

Jeyne turned even redder as she looked at Sansa with a guilty expression on her face.

"It's not like... it's just..." Jeyne said trying to explain herself "I really like Ramsay, okay?!"

Sansa flicked her long auburn hair and shot Jeyne an annoyed look.

"I can't believe you still like that douchebag especially after what he did to Robb!" Sansa said forgetting to stay quiet again "I bet he didn't even notice that you're dating someone, did he?"

"Well actually he did!" Jeyne said "he came to me as soon as he heard"'

Sansa started laughing but it didn't sound joyful.

"Let me guess" she said "it was something along the lines of, yeah, Jeyne, I think you should totally bang me and not that guy, right?"

Jeyne was close to tears now and she banged a clenched fist on the table.

"That's none of your business, and at least he is the only one who cared enough to talk to me about it!" Jeyne said almost shouting "that's more than I can say about you, Sansa!"

"Miss Poole, you are disturbing my class" Pycelle said and Sansa noticed for the first time that every student was looking at her and Jeyne "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave"

Jeyne cursed, packed her bag and got up from her seat.

"sorry" Sansa mouthed in Jeyne's direction but she rolled her eyes at her.

"whatever" she said and she slammed the classroom door behind her.

Renly

"I can't believe it" Loras said while he paced back and forth with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"I know" Renly said who was sitting on his desk and eating a peach.

Renly had asked Loras to stay a little longer during the lunch break "to discuss a project" but in reality he had wanted to tell him about what Stannis had told him yesterday.

He knew that they had to be very careful and that he couldn't ask Loras to do this too often or else some students might start to suspect that they were secretly dating but he just had to tell him Stannis' news as soon as possible.

"We can't just sit back while Stannis lets this school go to waste!" Loras said "we have to do something!"

"But what?" Renly asked who was still eating and he noticed how cute Loras looked when he got mad.

"I don't know" Loras said and he wiped away some peach juice of Renly's chin before licking it of his own finger "but I'm sure that people would want to help if you asked them to"

Renly raised his eyebrows at that.

He had been the youngest brother of three and he had always been the last people who was allowed to make a decision back home.

"Yes, you!" Loras said while he played with Renly's dark hair "people listen to you, you know?"

Renly chuckled.

He had never imagined that he would be able to make a difference at Stannis' school but he did enjoy working with the students and they seemed to enjoy his lessons too.

"I don't know" he said shyly.

"I'd help you of course!" Loras said looking at him with hopeful, brown eyes.

Renly bit his lip but he couldn't say no to Loras and he agreed with him on the fact that they had to at least make an effort to keep the school open.

"Maybe" he said eventually with a small smile.

"I knew it!" Loras said laughing and he kissed Renly gratefully.

Renly could feel the younger boy press his body against his and he pulled him even closer.

He let out a moan as he could feel Loras biting his lower lip for just a second.

Loras pulled away and Renly could see he was looking at the clock.

"Do you have class?" Renly asked and he couldn't hide his disappointment.

Unfortunately they couldn't spend much time together and these little moments were the highlight of his day.

"Sorry" Loras said and he gave him one more quick kiss "I'll call you tonight"

Renly and Loras left the classroom together and Loras went to his next class.

Renly leaned against the wall next to his classroom door and watched Loras walk away.

"Give it back!" he heard someone shout.

Renly turned around and he saw three boys passing each other a blue backpack while a tall girl tried to get it back.

She was taller than all three of them and more muscular too yet somehow she didn't make an attempt to overpower them instead she just stood there asking them for her backpack over and over again.

"Come on, guys, cut it out!" he said and the three boys turned around.

"We're just playing, professor" the boy who was currently holding the backpack said "she can have it back if she trades it for a kiss"

The other two boys made noises like they had to instantly vomit at the thought alone and the tall girl grew very pale and for a second he thought she was going to cry.

"What's your name?" he asked the boy while crossing his arms in front of his chest.

The boy seemed a bit confused by his question but answered nevertheless.

"Hyle Hunt, professor" he said still holding the blue backpack.

"And you two?" Renly asked pointing at the other two boys.

"Ben Bushy"

"Edmund Ambrose"

"Consider yourself lucky because all three of you are getting detention today" he said while approaching them.

He was taller than all three of them but he noticed that the girl was taller still.

"But..." Hyle Hunt started.

"But if you complain than I'll make sure that this isn't the only time you'll get detention this week and next week"

Hyle Hunt handed the girl her backpack and the three boys left while he could hear them mumble curse words.

Maybe Loras had been right.

He really did like helping other people and making a difference.

"Thank you" the blonde girl said softly.

"You're welcome" he said with a bright smile "and if they ever bother you again, you should come to me immediately"

The girl nodded while she looked at him with huge blue eyes.

"I will, professor" she said "my name is Brienne by the way, Brienne of Tarth"

"You can call me Renly, Brienne" he said.

The girl's face lit up when she smiled at him.

"Okay, prof-... Renly" she said and a blush spread across her freckled face.

Jeyne

Ramsay was leaning casually against the brick wall next to the recycling bin while Jeyne was pacing back and forth in front of him.

They were spending their lunch break outside so he could smoke and so Jeyne didn't have to face Sansa.

"I have never been so pissed off before in my life!" Jeyne said and she tried to kick over the recycling bin but she ended up hurting her foot instead.

Ramsay chuckled and shook his head while she continued pacing back and forth but with a slight limp this time.

"I've known Sansa for a very long time and I have always put up with her behaviour, even if I didn't want to, because I know that deep down she means well" Jeyne said "but I'm just sick and tired of being second place all the time!"

She walked up to Ramsay and put her head on his shoulder while he wrapped an arm around her.

"Is it too much to ask that every now and then she asks me how I'm doing while she is pursuing her life long quest of becoming popular?" Jeyne asked while she nuzzled his neck.

Ramsay offered her a cigarette when he retrieved the pack from his pocket to get a new one but she shook her head.

"I don't get why you even care about Sansa Stark" he said "you don't need someone like that"

Jeyne bit her lip to keep herself from defending Sansa.

She couldn't help it really.

They had known each other for so long already and they had shared so much.

She couldn't imagine a world without her best friend even though she drove her crazy every now and then.

"Maybe you're right" she sighed instead "and I can't even believe what she said about Theon"

The relaxed expression on Ramsay's face disappeared and he held her a bit tighter than he had done before she had spoken Theon's name but Jeyne was so consumed with her own problems that she didn't notice.

"What did she say about him?" he asked her.

Jeyne let out a sigh.

"Just that he was trying to break us up" she said while Ramsay held her close "and that she thinks he's a douchebag etcetera"

Ramsay's grip tightened even more and Jeyne let out a small gasp.

"What are you doing?" she asked chuckling.

Ramsay pulled back the arm that he had wrapped around her and then pushed her up against the brick wall.

His hands were on her wrists so she couldn't get away and he kissed her hard and passionately.

"You're mine" he whispered in her ear and his lips brushed against her skin "and I don't want you to worry about anyone but us"

"I won't" she said faking a smile and she tried to ignore her aching wrists.

She knew that he had meant it as a sweet gesture but somehow it felt like a threat too.

"Good" he said smiling and he let go of her wrists after stealing another kiss from her.

She heard a faint buzzing sound and Ramsay checked his phone.

A smile spread across his face as he read the text.

"Who's that?" she asked while she massaged her sore wrists.

"Some Frey kids, you don't know them" Ramsay said while he texted them back with that same smile on his face.

He sent the text and looked at her with a huge grin on his face.

"What are you smiling about?" she asked him laughing.

"They just texted that they were coming too tomorrow" he answered.

Jeyne didn't understand what he was talking about.

Sansa wasn't friends with any of the Freys and they weren't popular enough to qualify for Cersei's standards either.

"They're invited too?" she asked him confused.

"No, of course not" Ramsay said annoyed "they're going to crash the party"

Jeyne bit her lip and she could feel a blush spread across her face.

Ramsay had never been annoyed with her before and she really wished that could have stayed that way.

"Don't worry, it's going to be fun" he said smiling again "and it's Sansa's party so what do you care, right?"

"Yeah, what do I care..." Jeyne said nervously as Ramsay wrapped his arms around her again.

Cersei

Cersei was looking out of her bedroom window and into the garden.

The leaves of the trees were changing from green to gold, orange and red.

Cersei never liked autumn or winter because she looked best in the summer sun when the light made her golden hair glow.

She drank some of her wine and rubbed her forehead.

Cersei hadn't slept at all that night because the nightmares had kept her up again.

Even after all this time the face of Maggy the Frog still haunted her.

Melara had dared her to go to the fortune-teller at the annual carnival in Lannisport.

She had wanted to proof her that a lion of Casterly Rock doesn't fear a stupid, old charlatan like Maggy the Frog but she had soon come to regret this.

The words of the woman's prophecy still echoed through her head.

Someone younger and more beautiful will cast you down and take everything that you hold dear.

"Hello, dear!" Margaery said when she opened the door of Cersei's bedroom and let herself in "oh wine already? That's a bit early"

Cersei rolled her eyes at Margaery and put the glass down.

"Only the Gods can judge me" she said before she kissed the Tyrell girl on each cheek.

Margaery isn't that much younger, is she? Cersei thought.

"So tomorrow is the big day, isn't it?" Margaery said still smiling that dumb smile of hers "Do you already know what you're going to wear?"

"Something green" Cersei answered and Margaery's smile disappeared for just a split second.

Cersei loved wearing green because it matched her eyes but also because if she wore green than Margaery couldn't wear green too which meant the Tyrell girl couldn't display her beloved house colours.

"That will go wonderful with your eyes, Cersei" Margaery said smiling.

"Thank you" Cersei said "that's why I bought it of course"

Cersei couldn't stand Margaery's false compliments and she wanted nothing more than to knock her pearly whites out but she smiled at the girl instead.

Her bedroom door opened again and Joffrey entered the room.

"Oh Margaery, I didn't know that you had already arrived" Joffrey said but Cersei knew he was lying "you look very beautiful today"

Cersei rolled her eyes at that and her grip on the wine glass tightened while she sat down on the edge of her bed.

"Oh that's so kind of you to say!" Margaery said and she put her hand on Joffrey's arm "You look very handsome too"

She could see Joffrey's eyes shift from Margaery's face to her cleavage and Cersei coughed loudly to let them know that she was still there.

Cersei had noticed that there was something going on between Joffrey and Margaery ever since her pool party that summer.

Margaery had made a whole show of putting sunscreen on and she had even asked him to apply it to her back.

Cersei knew that Margaery was just using Joffrey to gain popularity but apparently he wasn't smart enough to see this himself.

That's the problem with men she thought bitterly they do all of their thinking with the little worm between their legs.

She had hoped that Sansa would have been able to distract him from Margaery but her plan hadn't succeeded.

"How did your date with Sansa go?" Cersei asked Joffrey.

Joffrey shrugged.

"It was okay" he said.

"You'd better make sure that it's more than okay tomorrow" Cersei said annoyed.

Cersei was terrified that someone would find out that she had invited the Freys to Sansa's party but if she made sure that all the guests knew that she had done everything to make it a great party than no one could blame her or Joffrey for that matter.

"I'm trying!" Joffrey said with an annoyed expression on his face.

"Try harder" Cersei said while she got up from the bed "this is incredibly important, do you understand?"

Joffrey ran a hand through his golden hair and she could see that he was running out of patience.

"You're not my mother, you know?" he said.

Cersei slapped him hard across the face while tears burned in her eyes.

Joffrey had always been her favourite cousin and he basically grew up at Casterly Rock.

She remembered the first time she was allowed to hold him when he was just a baby.

He had cried all day long but he stopped when she was holding him and he had smiled at her.

Cersei had spent hours and hours trying to teach him how to walk or how to say her name but at the end of the day his parents would always take him home again and she would feel empty.

"You can't do that!" Joffrey shouted while his cheek reddened.

"Try to stop me" Cersei said staring straight into his green eyes.

They looked at each other like that for a few seconds until Joffrey was the first one to look away.

"Whatever, I'll be nice to Sansa" he said trying to sound as if he didn't care at all.

"Good" Cersei said and she couldn't hide a smile.

Arya

Arya was sitting in a night bus with her headphones on and her hood pulled over her head.

Her backpack was on the seat next to her and she had stuffed some underwear, her toothbrush and clean shirts in it.

It had taken her a while but eventually she had managed to figure out where the Hollow Hill was.

Arya repressed a yawn and checked her watch: It was about 3 A.M.

Her family wouldn't notice that she was gone until after Sansa's party.

Cat had given up on trying to wake Arya on time and forcing her to eat breakfast so there was a small change that her mother would go into her room that morning.

Everyone would be too busy worrying about the party for the rest of the day to notice her and when they finally did notice she was gone, she would already be at the Hollow Hill.

Arya had never tried to runaway before but the thought that no one would notice had made it easier somehow.

The bus stopped at the corner of the street where the Hollow Hill was so Arya got up from her seat to leave the vehicle.

"Are you sure you need to be here?" the bus driver asked looking at the young girl who was about to walk into a neighbourhood known for its bad reputation.

"Yeah, I'm sure" she said but she really wasn't.

The squatting house still looked like she remembered it with its boarded up windows and missing roof tiles.

"Here goes nothing" she said sighing and she knocked on the door which paint was starting to peel off.

She put her ear against the wooden door and she could hear hushed voices.

"I know you're in there!" she shouted "Sandor, come on! Jaqen! Someone!"

Arya could hear footsteps and a boy with pale blond hair opened the door for her.

"Edric!" she said surprised when she recognised the boy from school.

"Arya, what are you doing here?" he asked with a confused smile.

"I'm looking for Sandor" she said.

Edric's face fell when he heard Sandor's name.

"Yeah, he is..." Edric started but Arya interrupted him by pushing past him and entering Hollow Hill.

The squatting house was nothing like she had imagined.

They were children of all ages at Hollow Hill: two sixteen year old girls were softly talking to each other while one rocked her baby to sleep, an eight year old girl was crying on an old mattress while her big brother wrapped an arm around her shoulder, a few teenage boys were playing poker next to the only window which wasn't boarded up and more children were using a burn barrel to warm their hands.

"What is this place?" she asked Edric.

"This is The Hollow Hill" he said almost with pride "it's a place for everyone who has nowhere to go"

Arya didn't think that was hard to believe when she saw all the runaways at the Hollow Hill.

Their clothes looked a bit tattered and some of them looked like they could use a nice shower but neither one of them looked starving and they all looked happy to a certain degree.

"The name sounds familiar" Arya said while she bit her lip.

That had been bothering her for a while now.

"It's the name of the first album of The Brotherhood without Banner's, you know, when they we're still called..." Edric said before Arya interrupted him.

"The Forgotten Fellowship!" she said.

They both laughed until she heard a deep voice.

"What are you doing here?" Sandor asked who had pulled his hood over his head again to hide his scars.

"I was looking for you" she answered.

"Go home to Winterfell" Sandor just said and she could see that he was getting very angry.

She put her hands on her hips and stared straight into his eyes.

"You can't make me leave" she said.

Her mother was leaving Winterfell so why shouldn't she?

No one seemed to care where she went anyway.

"Let her stay, Sandor, it's her choice" Edric said and Arya could notice that people were starting to stare at them now.

"Fine" Sandor sighed and he went back to his bed in the corner of the room.

She followed him and put her backpack on the mattress near his bed.

"Why are you here?" he asked her annoyed.

"Because I have nowhere else to go" she answered.

Sandor rubbed his forehead.

"Whatever" he said shrugging and he flopped down onto his bed.

Arya sat down on her mattress which looked sort of clean and wondered how she was going to get through the night.

As usual she hadn't thought anything through and Sandor didn't seem to appreciate it either.

"Arya" she heard someone say and when she looked up she noticed that it had been Jaqen "a man is honoured to see a girl again"

At least someone was happy to see her.

"Will Arya be joining The Fellowship?" he asked her "a man would be honoured to train her"

"No, she isn't joining anything" Sandor said suddenly.

"A girl can decide so herself" the Lorathi boy said.

Sandor got up from his bed and Arya could see that he was obviously taller than Jaqen.

"She followed me here, so she's my responsibility" he said in his gruff voice.

Sandor pointed at Arya and then at his bed.

"I'm taking the mattress, you can have the bed" he said before looking at Jaqen "you're leaving now"

Jaqen smiled one last time at Arya before leaving the two of them alone.

Arya sat down on the bed while she watched Sandor lay down on the mattress on the ground.

"Thanks" she said softly.

"I wanted to sleep her anyway" Sandor said and Arya couldn't help but smile.

Like usual she checked her phone before she went to sleep and she noticed that Gendry had tweeted something.

Thinking of her.

Arya's face turned bright red while she quickly put her phone away.

Could that be her?

I just want to take a minute to thank everyone who is reading this story, it means a lot to me :)

You guys are really awesome and you've made this even more fun to write :D

As you might have noticed the next chapter is going to be an important event and it will look a little bit different than usual, there will only be two (maybe three) different POV's but they will be longer.

So stay tuned for Chapter 10: the Red Birthday ;)