Today I confessed my sins for the first time. None of them were about fanfiction because I'm happy about the way I do things in fanfiction. You won't believe what KidWinTinker and I have for you in this chapter even though your reading it.

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Roran had just finished telling Elva the entire story. The story of how a stranger from King's Landing had arrived in Winterfell and did what he did simply because he could. The stranger had attacked Angela and torn her clothes off. There were no eye-witnesses, but shreds of her bodice were found all over her living room. How she had escaped the stranger's grip nobody knew. She had then barged into the kitchen in an attempt to defend herself with her kitchen knife. She had managed to scar the face of the stranger by striking it across the nose. Elva couldn't help but think to herself that it was stupid of her to do that. Elva would have gone for the lower region, they lose a lot more blood a lot quicker down there.

A few weeks had passed since Ned Stark's head was taken off at Baelor's Sept at the behest of King Joffrey. Already the Southerners were vying for Winterfell. The land had apparently lost its respectability along with its leader.

Most of the soldiers were restless now. Word through the grapevine was that Robb Stark was going to declare war on King's Landing unless a few terms of his were met. That those terms would never be accepted was a foregone conclusion. King Joffrey would never allow the north to secede. Even if Cersei tried persuading him it would be a hopeless case. Elva knew little of the politics at King's Landing, but this much was obvious to everyone.

"You said my father was fighting your father that day?" she asked Roran for the fifth time. "Yes" he answered as if he were answering for the first.

Silence followed her statement once again. Roran knew what Elva was thinking. Both their fathers were aggressive men, even by the fierce standards of Winterfell soldiers. They may not have had wolf blood flowing in their veins, but they had been training their whole lives for the day when the wolves would call them to do their duties. Who knows what may have transpired in the mind's I of Henry Solembum when he entered his house to see his wife raped and cut open. His wife that had spent so many waking hours feeding him, encouraging him and so often giving him the courage to carry on and become a stronger warrior when his own courage sometimes deserted him? Humans were seldom rational. Even the best of us aren't. Elva had realized at the young age of 15, the circumstances in which one encounters tragedy play a big role in shaping our response. Her father had fighting the fiercest warrior he knew. He had enough adrenaline pumping in his veins that he would have dared fight a wolf and a lion simultaneously.

Elva sighed wistfully. Her gaze seemed to drill a hole in the space before her eyes. "Do you ever think the gods will make it so that a man's strength will be derived from the fierceness of his emotions?" The question was directed at Roran who did not know the answer. He merely shook his head in response.

Unbeknownst to both of them, somewhere in King's Landing, a wise philosopher believed that was indeed how the strength of a man was determined. He was known as the Spider. And he had ears everywhere.

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Elva woke up to the sound of hawkers screaming and children fighting. Life on the road was hard, but she had almost reached her destination. King's Landing was less than a day's ride away.

She had been asked a week ago to stay with Oromis but simply had no intention of doing so. Credit where credit was due however. Oromis knew he would have a hard time containing Elva, so he kept her under close supervision at all times for the brief period that she was entrusted to him.

It was Roran who provided the distraction that allowed her to escape. Oromis could not risk his livestock escaping after all. Roran earned his punishment, but it was somewhat lessened because he contributed considerably to make amends for what he had done.

As Elva moved out of the north, she found herself struggling to place accents more and more. The people down south spoke the common tongue for the most part but they spoke it with such strange movements of their mouth that it might as well have been a different language all together.

Now one week had passed and Elva like other escapees of civilization before her had in a very short span of time grown accustomed to a great number of hardships. Any scraps of meat tasted as delicious as a cooked meal and a bed of stones and mud was as comfortable as any she had had back in Winterfell.

What did change was her perception of people and faces. Things grew blurry slowly and she wasn't sure she would be able to recognize most of the soldiers that had once populated her dining table. Her former dining table rather.

The cart she was travelling on slowly came to a halt and she found herself outside a tavern somewhere on the Kingsroad. From the looks of it, it was a popular tavern and many folk must have come this way to rest and replenish their reserves of energy. It must have been so, otherwise she couldn't see how the owner would be able to keep such a large estate in such a fair condition.

Elva cursed herself for being stupid. She really should've stolen some money from her house, she knew where Henry kept it after all. Now it was just stuck there with no one knowing how to get to it and where it was doing absolutely no good to anybody. In the meanwhile she was stuck out here in the middle of bloody nowhere, faced with the only decent establishment that she had seen in what seemed like forever and she had nothing whatsoever that she could use to buy herself another day of sustenance.

She was travelling unarmed, unaided and as far as she could guess unbeknownst to the farmer whipping the horses that were pulling her towards her destination. It was time to get off now. No point in arriving in King's Landing as a corpse she reasoned. If nothing else the experience she gained in begging might come in handy when she actually reached the capital.

Elva got down and took a look around at her surroundings. They seemed such a contrast to the inn. Vast stretches of countryside uninhabited both in past and present. Greenery as far as the eye can see. No one to hear you scream if you were attacked by a wild animal. Elva wasn't quite sure why this image popped into her mind but she imagined for some reason that it was the perfect place to kill a wolf.

She walked towards the inn. The owner of the cart had gotten off and abandoned his stock in trade to the trust that nothing would happen to it while he was sipping his ale.

Elva made her way into the inn. It was dark, damp noisy and crowded. She could barely make out any of the conversation because it all seemed to meld together into one big din of white noise. It wasn't the first time she had entered a noisy place and Elva found herself comparing it to the market where she used to shop with Angela in what now seemed like a lifetime ago. The market now present only in her memories was full of familiar faces. Out here she couldn't recognize a single one.

She went and sat at a table unsure of what was going to happen next. Perhaps she would be approached by a kindly stranger with gold in his pockets. She tried telling herself that things like that happened only in stories, but it didn't seem to work. A few minutes later two men both wearing rags noticed her and pointed her way. A jolt of fear ran down her spine. It was odd how being abandoned in the wild seemed less frightening a prospect than being in the clutches of men who had little to lose and even less by way of qualms.

She started to slide out of her seat but the men reached her before she could get up.

"Excuse me" she said, the despair in her voice showing through. There was no way they were going to let her go. Everything that she had feared about the journey was coming true.

"Where you going missy?" asked the shorter of the two men. His face was bland and expressionless, though when he spoke Elva noticed that he had two missing teeth.

"I need to go to the bathroom" said Elva, swallowing as she spoke.

"Well, ye better not go alone" said the other man, nodding gravely.

Elva was pondering whether she should make a run for it when the first man added "Better you go in the woods. The beasts will be sleeping at this time of day and there will be no one to spy on you."

Elva looked up startled. She studied their faces properly for the first time. This did not go unnoticed by either of the men who then exchanged a significantly long glance with each other. The short man sighed and reached into his pocket. He brought out three gold coins.

"We know wolves don't accept charity" he said "but this is payment for watching over my stock."

Elva wordlessly accepted the coins, her eyes moistening slightly.

"I'm afraid I won't require yer services any longer. You can wait here a while and soon enough you'll find another cart heading back to Winterfell. You can go on home then back to your family."

Without replying Elva made her way past the men and headed for the exit closest to the woods.

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It was quiet. So much so that the only sounds were that of a few birds chirping at a distance and Elva's sobs interspersed with gasps for breath. After she found a quiet spot to relieve herself Elva pulled her clothing back on and began to make her way back towards the inn. She wondered why she hadn't spent more time in the quiet of the woods back in Winterfell, but the thought disappeared almost as fast as it had come.

She reached the edge of the woods when the tranquility that she had experienced until that time was shattered. There was something going on at the inn that would have drawn attention had there been any bystanders present whose attention could be drawn.

Elva began to race towards it, the paused to think. If there was danger was there any real point in running towards it? Was there any real chance that she could contribute to what was happening inside?

She looked around and decided that she really didn't have a choice. There was nowhere else to go. As she neared the door, Elva realized that she in fact did have another alternative and made her way towards the stable. The cart she had come out on had plenty of hay on it and she could find an abundant supply more in the stable.

She peered in through the door to see what was happening inside. For the first time she could make out a few words amongst the chaos. One of them was "Brotherhood without banners". She wasn't sure whether she had heard that name before, people often don't think at their clearest when under stress, but she decided from the tone in which it was uttered that this was a bunch she wanted to be away from.

Elva moved swiftly, softly towards the stable and then stopped. Something caused her to turn around and take a look back. From the entrance she saw the old man in rags that had parted with three gold coins for her. Despite the sense of danger that filled the air around her she called out to him.

He turned around to look at her. He opened his mouth as if to say something important as he flailed his hands around in what could only have been a warning. And then a perfectly aimed arrow flew from inside the inn and struck him squarely in the vocal chords.

Before common sense could take ahold of Elva she screamed. The noise she made brought out a host of men.

The sight of them pouring out like a scourge and the blood spilt on the floor shocked Elva out of her senses, but some instinct made her decide what to do next. She scampered on to the nearest mare she could find and kicked at it frantically. The equine creature reared its forelegs and let out a high pitched sound before it galloped through the narrow pathway past the mob that had gathered in front of the inn.

Elva felt alive suddenly. The wind blew equally hard through her hair as well as that of the mare she was riding. Suddenly the horse she was on reared its front legs and stopped galloping away from the scene of distress. It then turned around and began racing back.

'It's scared and confused and it's heading back in the direction of the place it thinks of as home' thought Elva in despair.

She tried kicking the horse again, but that just made it run faster. The inn came back in to view rapidly, far too rapidly for Elva's comfort and horse began to slow to a trot. 'If it slows down enough, maybe I could get off' thought Elva. She carefully crossed one leg over the other and prepared for the jump. She didn't get the chance though. As the horse sped on Elva lost balance and fell headfirst on a rock. She was knocked unconscious immediately.

When she woke up she was wearing chains.