Cats. Cats. Cats. Sweet baby Jesus, cats.
Saskia loved cats with the passion of a lonely old lady or a billionth-wave, man-hating Tumblr feminist who owned too many Modcloth jumpers emblazoned with the fluffy objects of her affection slash future eaters of her corpse, and cursed her dad for being allergic to them and her landlord for not permitting her to have one. It seemed, though, that Tommen loved them more. A lotmore.
King Tommen Baratheon, first of his name, was sprawled about on a rug in the tiny chamber in a sea of perhaps forty cats. Olly and Rickon were occupied with putting the wee things in felt House Stark armour, and Shireen and four girls who looked conspicuously like Oberyn Martell were in vain attempting to have a tea party with a gaggle of grey Maine Coon kittens that couldn't sit still and made an awful mess of the saucers. Tommen, because it was good to be the king, lay giggling and content in a massive, moving blanket of felines, although he really should have been in Confessions: Animal Hoarding. Even Davos, subjected to wearing a tiara and being served hairy tea by his little princess, looked wonderfully content.
A wee ginger Scottish Fold munchkin scurried across Davos' legs and burrowed into his lap, and Saskia let out a too-audible whimper she wished she could've stifled. Luckily, no one seemed to hear over the clinking of kittens rolling balls into fine china and yowling. That thing in Davos' lap was her cat dream. Some people might've dreamt of spring, but Saskia dreamt of cats (okay, and Robb Stark, too). Even now, just looking at the darling things made her feel a lot better about the ridiculous situation at hand, but if she could actually interact with one…! She could die happy.
Saskia, sensing that she had lingered far too long – it was getting much too dark outside – figured she'd finally have to go, else she'd be creeping all night. She was taking a last look at those adorable darlings when the door opposite the window opened and Jaime entered, cradling an enormous tabby floof of a cat. JAIME AND A CAT. JAIME AND A CAT. JAIME AND A CAT. Saskia didn't like Jaime to the crazy extent that Orla did, but JAIME AND A CAT. She froze.
"Your Grace," Jaime began, "Ser Pounce has been groom—"
As he went to hand over the esteemed Ser Pounce to his sonephew, Jaime stopped mid-sentence and did a double take— and froze. He had spotted something on the wall. In the window. Jaime had spotted her.
FUCK.
Scrambling to maintain her hold on the sill whilst simultaneously ducking out of the way and prodding a foot along the wall for the nearest hold in the advancing gloom, Saskia slipped. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself not to look at the ground that awaited her splattered remains. A jolt of fear went through her. This is my last thought. I'm dying. I'm dead. Robb! Robb!
She fell into something hard with a clinky thud. This didn't feel like the warm embrace of death or the wet and muddied lawn.
Saskia slowly opened her eyes, trembling, half expecting to meet the skeletal countenance of the grim reaper. What she saw was almost worse. Someone armoured, one-eared, and very tall with a half-burnt, pus-weeping face, with half his lips burnt off and the bone of his jaw visible, was glowering at her, raging annoyance ablaze in his dark grey eyes.
"Goin' somewhere, little shit?" he grunted.
She had fallen straight into the arms of Sandor Clegane.
Sandor might've been head of Corpse Control and security at OFUW, but he was also, by his own volunteerance, kinda sorta the Hagrid of the Official Fanfiction University of Westeros— meaning, he tended the gardens and spent too much time doing gods knew what outside (other than digging graves and avoiding everyone else, that is). Why he was outside now, though, was a mystery, as was how he'd managed to find her in such an odd location.
"So... can you put me down? I'm safe now you've rescued me," she tried. "I won't run away."
"I rescue little birds, girl, and bury little shits. Answer's no and no, though might be it wouldn't had you thanked me. Not safe where I'm takin' you."
"Where're you taking me?"
"Bringin' you straight to Miss Ellie. Let me guess," he rasped in her ear, gripping her tighter so she'd not squirm away (not that she was even trying), "you were hopin' to get into Jon Snow's bed."
Saskia shook her head.
"Best not have been tryin' to get into mine."
"Robb," she croaked. "I just wanted to see Robb."
"Don't lie to me. Bet you were wantin' to fuck Robb."
"I just wanted to see Robb." Okay, and, if given the chance, she would very much like to fuck Robb. And fuck him again. And marry him. And bear his children. And fuck him some more. And grow old and die with him. And then spend the afterlife fucking him some more.
Sandor snorted. "You can do that in your lessons, girl, every fuckin' Tuesday and Thursday. Seen you makin' eyes at him every meal, too. That not enough for you? No? Stupid fuckin' fanbrat. If I had half a mind, I wouldn't've caught your cunt arse. Fallin' from that height wouldn't kill you. Your trip to the maester would. And painfully. Should've let fallin' and Qyburn teach you a lesson."
"How'd you know I was...?" she trailed off, disturbed by the way his bony jaw moved when he gritted his teeth, how a bubble of oozy red stuff burst in a crack of his scarring. In the moonlight, his face was eerily disconcerting. How people could be convinced that Sansa thought that Sandor Clegane was sexy was absolutely beyond Saskia's comprehension. Maybe he was overprotective of innocent girls, sure, and maybe Sansa liked him for that, especially if she was traumatised by creeps like Joffrey and Littlefinger, but... ew. This was the lust object of a good percentage of her peers, and that made little sense. Right now, she was probably living their dream of being rescued by this beast of a man.
"There's always one or two who try to do the stupid thing you just did. Been patrollin' here every damn night since you lot arrived, though not this early before you. Knew you were up to somethin' when you weren't at supper."
She made a face as if to ask what was weird about that, as she'd a mind to, but Sandor interrupted her before she could start.
"Who the cuntin' fuck skips burrito night?" he growled. "That, and you Suddenly Always Knew That™. You climbed the garden wall in Domestic Arts. Sansa says you're a climber. Your skills were useful now. If this were a fanfiction, I'd bet your wall-scalin' would come in handy later on in the fic, just as it would've done here to advance the plot."
By now, Sandor had carried her into the proper entrance to Kingspyre Tower, just around the side where she'd tried to climb. Evie would shit herself at being in Kingspyre Tower, so close to where her One True God, her Gendry, must've been hiding the whole time, because screw logic. Evie. Shit, Evie, she realised far too belatedly. Where was Evie? Had the Hound seen her? Surely he had if he had followed them out here. Had the Hound taken care of her? Saskia hadn't seen Evie since she'd started her climb, as, without a harness or ropes, she hadn't dared to turn her head and look down to check on the pervy Gendry fancier. She would've known or heard if Evie had been killed. And if the Hound had followed them out here, then who – or what – had been lurking in the godswood?
She hadn't any time to worry any more about Evie or the grumpkins and snarks that lived in the wood, or to marvel at the fact that she was kind of doing something Harry Potter-y— going to Umbridge's office in the arms of Toasty Hagrid. Miss Ellie, with a very Umbridge-like collection of trashy American tourist trinkets and red boxes of some kind of snack cracker, was sat at her desk, a hand smooshing up her face as she leant over a massive pile of papers, her creepy pale eyebrows knitting together. She really couldn't have been any older than eighteen, and, in her Pikachu pyjamas, looked more like a pupil dying over A Level coursework than the overworked coordinator of a fictional university.
"Gods, Sandor!" she startled. "Don't you know to knock?"
"Found the Crockett girl attemptin' to weasel her way into staff quarters. It only got as far as Tommen's cat lair," he said, dropping her unceremoniously to the tile floor. She rubbed her poor assaulted arse, whimpering. "I missed burritos for this little shit. You owe me."
Miss Ellie sighed, running a hand through her hair, clearly annoyed by what Saskia assumed was a common demand. "Yes, yes, three spicy chicken burritos from The Wraps with rice, extra peppers, sweetcorn, and guac. Don't scowl so. I'm not heading into Leeds from another dimension just for that, not on Tywin's watch."
"Make that ten burritos for the wait."
"Interest does not accumulate on burritos, Sandor. If you want more than three, then you come wrangling with me next year, and we'll stay at my gran's and we'll get your damn burritos. Every day, if you like. I'd rather deal with you and Mexican and your bean farts than Ilyn and his Greggs obsession."
"Fuck your fuckin' gran. Have fun with the brat."
And with that, Sandor was gone. Jaime spilled into the room as the Hound left. He looked a lot less sexy and manly and tender when not accompanied by a cat.
"Indeed," Jaime said at long last, looking from her to Miss Ellie. "I was worried it would die. My father won't be pleased, regardless."
"He needn't worry about that, Jaime. Sandor caught it."
"I'm not an it!" Saskia howled.
Jaime just ignored her. "Does it need Qyburn's services?"
"No, I don't think it does. It only got as far up as Tommen's playroom, and if Sandor caught it besides..."
He nodded. "Best not let Qyburn anywhere near it. You know how experimental he gets with brats. Remember Zélie Patenaude and Jessica Williams in your year? Horrid. Well, if I'm not needed to cart the brat away, Eleanor, I'll leave you to business. Goodnight, Eleanor. Farewell, Miss Crockett."
Farewell? As if he were bidding her goodbye forever?
"I know what you did, Saskia Crockett, and I know why you did it. Robb, of course. Darling wee Robbie, king of your broken and pitiful heart. Why else? You are beyond my authority to punish outright, luckily for you. This is a decision for Lord Tywin."
Lord Tywin? Luckily for me? No. Crap.
"Whilst I'm gone," Miss Ellie continued, "you may find it worth your while to start your archery homework."
"What?" Archery homework? She didn't know when she even had archery, because this university was an administrative nightmare, and barely anyone had been informed of when their Slaying lessons were to take place before now. "We've an assignment before we've even started the subject? With no reference materials or textbooks given ahead of time, with no access to Google? When I don't even know when I have archery?"
"Seven in the morning in the Whent Gallery. It wouldn't be torture if you hadn't to wake up early and do homework. We do take that learning through pain and torture thing very seriously here." She grinned, just a bit evilly. "Do your work, sweet summer child. Yes, of course Tywin may do whatever he sees fit to do with you. But if you live and haven't got your work done, I cannot promise that you won't be hurt in a way more painful and lingering than Tywin Lannister is able to concoct. Wouldn't chance that if I were you."
"But I've not got my homework!"
"Oh, sweet summer child, don't look at me like that. You all received your Slaying assignments and new timetables at supper. Of course I won't fetch it for you. I'm not waking Ygritte just so you can have a copy."
"But it's like eight at night! She can't be sleeping!"
"I don't care what she's actually doing. The point of the matter is that you would have received your work had you not skipped supper to stupidly attempt to climb Kingspyre Tower, and that you won't get that work because you chose desperate idiocy. This university and this world do not revolve around you, Saskia Crockett, and my staff are not subject to your demands at any hour of any day. This is what happens when we make wrong decisions. Robb made an unwise decision as well, didn't he? And look where that got him. Dead. Mind where yours get you."
When it came to academics, Saskia thrived on the thrill of getting work done barely on time. There was something about the rush of impending failure and no more time to put anything off or agonise over the mark she'd be getting that worked for Saskia. Then again, back home in England, none of her teachers and lecturers had been temperamental and armed with sharp things as they tended to be in Westeros. I'm clever. I can bullshit my way through anything. Or can I? There's no way I can get out of this. She sniffled, wiping her nose on the tattered sleeve of the unsightly blue PE jumper that must've ripped on her climb somehow. Never in her life had she wanted so much to do homework, and never in her life had she wanted so much to crawl into a hole and die so that she'd not be killed more brutally elsehow.
Miss Ellie poked her head out the door. "Alvilda, you may come in now. I'm to fetch Lord Tywin. Shame Saskia Crockett in the interim, and shame her relentlessly. Dolores Ed, Thormund," she said to something behind her, "do your duty."
In her climb-and-fall-and-convinced-she-was-toast-induced daze, she hadn't noticed the dragons—dragons with which she was now locked in a draughty office, alone, without their mother or Miss Ellie to placate them should they become cross or hungry. Dolores Ed, the black one, nipped at her when she tried to get up to stretch her legs and move closer to the fire blazing in the hearth near the window, and she settled back on the floor, shaking from the cold. Thormund, an enormous orange dragon, was leering at her. Thormund's dick was so huge and heavy that it couldn't drag the combined weight of its body and its gargantuan schlong across the floor, so the membery thing resorted to straining to get at her and hissing at her from where it was stuck next to Miss Ellie's desk. If the thing weren't so dead-set on, she feared, trying to eat her, she would've found it hilarious that its dick, maybe twenty centimetres thick, was long enough to wrap around the desk and touch the far side of the wall a few paces away.
Alvilda, the Shame Septa, could get to her, though, and did. "SHAME. SHAME. SHAME," she scolded. Ding ding ding, went her irritating bell, right in Saskia's face. "SHAME. SHAME. SHAME."
"Stop. Please. Just… stop," Saskia groaned, rolling over on her stomach. The smell of dragon piss, acidic and rotting, filled her nostrils. "I've had— a mess— of a day," she gagged. "Please… just stop. I get it. Shame. Shame. Shame."
"SHAME. SHAME. SHAME." Ding ding ding. "SHAME. SHAME. SHAME." Ding ding ding.
If the Shame Septa was anything, she was persistent. Annoyingly persistent. Irrefutably persistent. Shamefully persistent. But, after a miserable half hour of shame shame shame ding ding ding shame shame shame ding ding ding shame shame shame ding ding ding shame shame shame ding ding ding, the Shame Septa appeared to grow bored, and then turned to shaming Miss Ellie's pot plant, a cabinet, and the wall of Cheez-Its for an hour each before slinking out of the room, shaming the door as she went.
It was now about midnight, Saskia guessed, and she was going to either die of exposure or boredom or the headache she'd got from that goddamned ding ding ding bell. She was going to die. Robb was never going to know the depths of her love, and she'd never know the depths of his. What would he think of her now? Probably not very highly of her, that was sure, not that he had felt kindly towards her before; the thought tore at her poor mangled heart. Robb was never going to love her, and he definitely wasn't now, now that she'd tried to creep on him.
Tywin Lannister finally, after aeons, arrived with Miss Ellie in tow — as usual, quietly smouldering with annoyance — just as Saskia was beginning to drift off.
"Rise, Saskia Crockett," he seethed. Stumbling over her own legs and violently sucking the snot back into her nose, she stood, head bowed before Tywin.
"I'm—" sorry and never going to do that again, she had meant to say, as if that'd do her any good now.
"You are to be quiet at once and stop snivelling. Look at me, Saskia Crockett. I will make myself clear, and for once in your paltry life, you will listen. You are not a clever little darling. You are not to return to this tower ever again, unless it is to my solar or to Eleanor's. You will never attempt another stunt again, and you will make no mentions of your escapade. Am I understood?"
"Yes. Can… can I have my archery homework?!"
Tywin's mudkippy cheeks flared as he glared at her. "Am I understood, Saskia Crockett?"
"Yes!" she sniffled. "Can I have my archery homework?!"
"I do not have it, and neither does Miss Ellie. And do not so much as dare to think about trying to sneak into the staff quarters for a copy."
"I—"
"Goodnight, Felicia."
And Miss Ellie slammed the door in her face.
That morning, Saskia tried to relax. Key word: tried. She had finally had her bath, got through five chapters of A Game of Thrones without sobbing over Robb, and got two hours of sleep. She was fine. Totally, one hundred percent fine, and, she reminded herself, totally, one hundred percent not dead, and the same amount of lucky. She'd best not question why or how she was still here.
Lilanie, Hannah, and Ilze were also fine, albeit disappointed that no information other than 'Tommen is an animal hoarder' had been found. Lucy was not fine – she was going to meet Oberyn soon, and Oberyn was sexy, and oh my god Sass he's so hot when he's handling spears and talking and just existing I love him I think I want to bear him more daughters I don't even like or want kids but OBERYN! Like look at him he even eats streaky bacon sexily! Did you see him up there or just cats was he interacting with cats?! – and she'd stayed up too late worrying about Saskia to boot, so she was just a bit strung out and sleepy in addition to her usual rabid fangirlishness.
As Saskia downed her fifth mug of ale at breakfast, twitching like a defective Tickle Time Elmo from lack of sleep and nerves, she pored over the homework packet that Letty had brought down to finish, sulking something mighty. Even if she couldn't do the work, at least she could glance at it and could not feel so utterly daft and useless.
This is the string. It is a string, Saskia read from Letty's labelling of an illustration of a bow. Gods, Letty was a genius. It gets taut and makes a shooty thing go flying. This is the thing you grab. It's made of wood, like a witch. This is an arrow, otherwise known as a shooty thing. It will kill you if someone shoots you in the face or the heart or the neck, like Pyp. That was so cool. (PS: Hypothetically, if I shot Mr Blobby in the crotch at close range, would he die on impact or from an infection? Please tell me. 3, Letty Katniss Postlethwaite). To the question, 'What are some general differences between crossbows and longbows?', Letty had written, Crossbows are better for slaughtering whores, a la Joffrey. It's best to shoot face, tits, balls, like Arya and Joffrey did. A crossbow's got a cross and a longbow is long. (PS: Which do you recommend for killing Mr Blobby? PPS: When Jon and Theon and Robb are together, who's the centre of the fuck sandwich? Jon? I need to know. 3, Letty)
Saskia wouldn't have done any better with bullshitting the assignment, though she would have sounded much less crazed about uncanonical gay sex and murder. If she was going to be punished or beaten or shot non-fatally for not having done her homework, it was a small comfort to think that maybe Letty would receive the same treatment – or worse – for doing hers so inappropriately and idiotically. Although… she probably would've ended up writing crap about Robb somehow.
Pouring herself another half pint of ale, she glanced up in search of Robb, darling wee Robbie (that sounded weird and stalkerish and obsessive now that Miss Ellie had said that to her). There he was with Jeyne, wearing a lovely shade of green again, looking just as attractive as he had been yesterday. Robb gave Jeyne a quick kiss and took Baby Ned from her, bouncing him in his arms as he brought the wee lad to Auntie Sansa and Uncle Tyrion for some snuggles. Does Robb even remember that I exist? Does he know about the Robbery? Does Jeyne? Who does know? Rickon, Olly, Tommen, Shireen, the little Sand Snakes, Davos, Jaime, Sandor, Tywin, Miss Ellie, and the Shame Septa. And the dragons. And Ilze, Hannah, Lilanie, and Evie.
Shit, Evie. She'd forgot about Evie again—who was, thankfully, alive. Evie was sat at the far end of the Blackwood table all the way to the right of the hall, very close to the high table, at which she was staring rather wistfully. Shoving the crazily bullshitted homework packet back at Letty, Saskia leapt up and rushed over to Evie.
"I didn't know you had friends in House Blackwood, Miss Crockett."
Brienne was looking right at her, an eyebrow raised.
"I, um… I do. Evie's great. We met in the bathroom," she said stupidly.
Brienne said nothing. She just continued to stare at Saskia in a manner that could only be described as penetrating and perturbing in how unwavering it was. Did she know? Had Jaime told her? (What was their relationship to each other, anyway? In any case, it wasn't romantic enough to be Orla Dwyer-approved.)
"I… um… Evie and I are very good friends," she lied, absolutely and totally unconvincingly. "I'm going to have tea with my friend, thanks."
"Did you find You-Know-Who?" Evie whispered once Brienne had left. "Did you die?"
"Um… no?" It took Saskia a long second to realise that no, Evie was not asking about Voldemort. Heck, she probably wasn't even asking about Robb. "I didn't find Robb, just… cats. Tommen has a fuckload of cats. It looked like his playroom. But… way more cats than toys. Like, dozens of cats. Even a ginger Scottish Fold munchkin kitten."
"And that's it?" She twisted her fork into her sausage, pouting desperately. "That's it?"
"I didn't find Gendry, if that's what you're asking," Saskia whispered, knowing full well that it was. "Just Tommen and friends. And cats. And then I fell and you were already gone."
Evie's pale green eyes widened. "You fell? How are you still alive?"
"The Hound caught me. He'd been stalking us."
"Oh. Ilyn got me when you were at the window. He had me in his office all night until Tywin came to tell me never to do it again. The shame nun came to shame me and Ilyn just sat there making weird noises. It was awful."
"So he didn't punish you?"
"Nah. But, if I'm honest, I don't feel good about it. I hear they don't let you get away with anything here, and we got off scot-free. Mostly. I don't think a Tywin beatdown's totally scot-free." She stiffened, jerking her head as subtly as she could in the direction of the high table. "They're watching us over there. You should go."
Saskia spun around. Indeed, they were. Or at least Jaime, Brienne, Davos, Sandor, and Tyrion were.
Maybe if she apologised to Miss Ellie, she'd feel better and shake off that nagging, sickening feeling that something was wrong. Maybe, if anything truly was wrong, she'd change Miss Ellie's mind by apologising, and the staff watching her would realise she truly was sorry and not harm her.
She sulked over to Miss Ellie. Ramsay was already occupying her attention, standing just a bit too close to her near a blazing hearth and grinning as he was overeagerly spouting crazed bullshit.
"She can take much more than fifty armed and unskilled brats in single combat! I believe in her!"
"No, Ramsay."
"She's a beautiful, strong wildling woman who don't need no artillery support. Or two against, if Ygritte's safety's an issue?" he offered hopefully, patting the hilt of the sword sheathed at his side. "I'm very good at what I do, and you'd not want her to die, I'm sure, now that you're reformed and not murderous anymore. How many times did you kill her in your fics? Just once? That's unlike you, Eleanor. You don't want to make it once for real, do you?"
"I am no longer murderous. Do not tempt me, Ramsay."
"If you're truly no longer murderous, why can't I tempt you?" Ramsay smirked. "Anyway, if that doesn't tickle your fancy or hers, we can lock the brats in the gallery, put a couple of bows out for them to squabble over, and tell them it's the Hunger Games. Poison the arrows to be sure. Oberyn's got enough of that manticore venom, hasn't he? Winner is promised the lust object of his or her choice, and the prize of an axe to the face. But we won't mention the axe part."
Saskia, from a safe distance, paled.
Ramsay's face fell when he noticed Miss Ellie's deadpan glare, really not unlike that of Grumpy Cat. The stare, however, did not dampen his insane drive for more than a fraction of a second.
"The dragons can feed on their remains for easy disposal if you don't want Sandor, Jaime, and Hodor hauling corpses for days. The venom won't harm them. The dragons, I mean. I don't care about Sandor or Jaime or Hodor," he babbled, shrugging.
"When you are on the teaching or administrative staff of this university," Miss Ellie said through gritted teeth, "and that will be never, we will be more than happy to take your suggestions only a minuscule bit more seriously. You are a vuvuzela player and human alarm clock, not an instructor, and had I wanted you on staff, I would have hired you when I fired Anguy. I did not."
"You need another archery instructor."
"Not you, definitely not you, and not Myranda or Joffrey's corpse, either. I am trying to recruit that giant who can shoot spears over a seven-hundred-foot wall. Piss off."
"Miss Ellie- I…"
"Whatever do you want, Saskia Crockett?" she sighed.
"I just… wanted to apologise. For last night. For… attempting Robbery. For climbing the walls. For spying on Tommen. For seeing what I saw. For being a brat and a twat and a Robb whore. I'm sorry, and it'll never happen again. Promise."
Miss Ellie's voice was strangely soft. "Thank you, Saskia. Is there anything else you need to tell me?"
Does she expect me to confess to something else? What more have I even got to confess? That Evie was there too? That Lilanie and the others came up with the idiotic idea of it all, and were actually going to do it even if I hadn't come along, maybe? She shook her head and started to walk away, but then she noticed that Ramsay had moved back to the high table, and stopped dead in her tracks.
Ramsay had forcibly seated himself between Jon and Ygritte, an arsecheek uncomfortably on each of their chairs, and was helping himself to Jon's food as Jon glowered and he calmly, coolly proposed something. Saskia couldn't hear much over the usual chatter and clatter in the hall, but she did hear death and poisoned arrows and Harrenhal Hunger Games in dulcet, soothing tones. Ygritte was looking to Jon and very intently at Ramsay, but she wasn't doing anything to discourage the madder of the bastards other than slapping his hand away from her wine. Was… was she listening to Ramsay?! It definitely seemed like she was, particularly now when they were fucking shaking hands and Ramsay was grinning dementedly, almost like the Cheshire Cat on a inconceivable amount of cocaine.
Oh, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I'm fucked, Saskia realised. They're conspiring to kill us. I'm going to die today.
Fighting the urge to be sick all over herself, she rushed back to Miss Ellie.
"Can… can I switch to swordfighting? There's still space with Bronn, right?"
"Sweet summer child, no. I spent far too much time dividing all two hundred of you aspiring archers into smaller classes without impacting your other studies. Afraid of Bolton's bastard, are you? Fear does cut deeper than swords and arrows, you know. If it's any consolation, just about everyone dislikes Ramsay. Is that all now?"
Saskia muttered yes, and slinked off. Her head was spinning as she twisted through the aisles back to her seat, near reeling. Was it just her, or had Miss Ellie been kind again? She had gone through the same fear, perhaps, although Saskia knew she'd learnt the sword with Jaime years ago, before he lost his hand. It wouldn't be that unlikely an explanation, of course, but, deep down inside, Saskia knew that something wasn't right. Either Miss Ellie was tired, or forgetful (no, it couldn't be; she never forgot), or… no, something wasn't right at all, because Miss Ellie was not kind, ever, unless it was in a condescending way, and hadn't she been the only pupil ever condemned to this place for being a murderous writer? Like, she'd been nice enough to call Saskia by her Christian name, not 'sweet summer child'. And Lady Stark been suddenly nice, too, before locking everyone outside in the rain with a bunch of irritable dragons. And Ramsay. Ramsay was mad and Ygritte was kind of cray-cray. Would she be even more cray-cray over Saskia not having her homework done? And they were shaking hands over something something Hunger Games. Which meant death. Ouchy, shooty, painful death.
"Okay there, Sass?"
She shook her head.
"I'm going to die today, Lucy," she choked with Jojenesque assurance. "I'm going to die today."
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