Despite that she was certain she was going to die within the next two and a half hours, everything felt peculiarly ordinary to Saskia, as if she were in a strange, dreamlike calm before the inevitable storm. Perhaps everything was peculiarly ordinary in an Official Fanfiction University of Westeros way, from her four days' experience of it. All the pupils were dressed like villagers out of the Safety Dance music video in their brightly-coloured PE clothing, and the only things missing were a midget and a maypole. Archery was very inconveniently held inside a large gallery a fifteen-minute walk from the Hall of a Hundred Hearths, with a fuckload of little dragons circling overhead. A death-thin, mulleted loony who spoke in a rattle was pitching an asinine fit about Jaime not looking like Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Ygritte not looking like Rose Leslie (the only reason he'd signed up for archery, according to his screams), despite still having a hand itching at the pocket of his trousers as Ilyn Payne rattled back at him. Such sights were quickly and oddly becoming the very picture of normalcy.
The only thing not normal about the whole situation and setting was the presence of that freckly wee shit who killed Jon Snow. He was looking right at Saskia, and he was looking downright vicious.
It was well-known around the university that Olly despised fanbrats. A lot. With every fibre of his tiny, adorable, hardcore, revengeful being, with the burning hatred that, in show canon, he reserved for wildlings. It was rumoured that the poor boy's hatred stemmed from the loss of innocence he experienced when he found not one, not two, but a good several explicit stories about Jon, his hero and adoptive father, at least in this canon, brutally violating him with dildoesque vegetables. It did, undeniably, sound traumatising, and the slew of fans around now to attack and pester his hero was enough to make him rage and plot to stab them. Under Jon and Ygritte's roof and tutelage, though, Olly was resigned to just kicking fanbrats in the groin with brass-toed boots and hoping that they (the brats, not the boots or his adoptive parents) met unfortunate, totally accidental ends. If you were in Archery, Olly was there. Waiting in the shadows. For you to fall and cower so he could be permitted to beat you without Jon grounding him. So he could, if he were lucky and you were not, calmly watch an arrow pierce your heart, or a dragon toast and eat you. He had been the best archer in his hamlet, and he wanted you dead.
That was the story that Letty had gleefully told everyone on their way to the gallery, and Saskia was inclined to believe it, despite that the 'adopting Olly' thing was totally uncanonical and irrational, because he'd totally killed them both and loathed wildlings. Then again, there were stranger uncanonical happenings going on here, like that fat cook, Lord Something, who wanted to eat Khaleesi's dragons and communicated via wheezing and some sort of scooter Morse code. Here Olly was, murderous and staring Saskia down from where he stood guarding a pile of bows. She hadn't done anything regarding Jon Snow that he could hate her for – well, other than associating with Lucy – but had he caught a glimpse of her last night?
Crap. Wringing her empty, homeworkless hands and avoiding meeting Olly's death glare, Saskia slowly marched into the gallery as if in time to her own funeral dirge, down the long aisle, down the long, long room, down to the table where she'd have to sign in with Ygritte– who was, to Saskia's burgeoning horror, having an uncanonical friendly chat with Jaime fookin' Lannister, of all people.
"I'll give it to you it's very kind to spare babies and children the pain of being slaughtered, at least in show canon. I can't say I've never harmed a child to the point of permanently crippling it," Jaime was saying. "Gilly's boy I can understand. But sparing and adopting Olly? You could've shot him and spared everyone in the Seven Kingdoms from his cuntery. Just look at him. Look deep into the soulless eyes of that Jon-betraying, piss flap-faced little weasel, and tell me he's not appalling."
"An' you coulda spared us all th'orrors o' Joffrey. Whose kid's worse, now?"
"Yours. Worse than Hitler, too, I'm told, whoever that is. I hate to admit that Miss Dwyer is right in any regard, but you and Jon should trade in that festering shit of a child and have one of your own. Meryn Trant'll give you a fair sum for him."
"I… homework," Saskia squeaked, eyes darting from the roster she'd just ticked to Ygritte to Jaime to her hands to her feet to Olly glaring stabby daggers at the Cryptkeeper by his bows to somewhere off in space somewhere to her hands to Ygritte again, still trembling. "Don't have. Sorry. I was…" kinda horribly trying to stalk your boyfriend-husband-whatever's brother?
"Saskia, is it? Ten points from 'Awick, then."
That was very anticlimactically it? This was Westeros, and she was only getting a demerit and an annoyed glance, not brutally shot full of arrows by someone known to brutally shoot people full of arrows? What the hell?
Saskia must've frozen or looked confused or something, because Ygritte, out of nowhere, laughed. "Wha'? Ya askin' t' be murdered? T' be forbidden puddin' wi' tea for a week? Somethin' awful?"
"No… no thank you," Saskia whispered, her fists and mouth and arse all clenching. She rerealised that Jaime was smirking at her. She realised that Jaime existed, that Jaime was here, that Jaime had found her last night and had briefly spoken to her in Miss Ellie's solar. Fuck. "What're youdoing here?" she choked.
"Corpse Control are always needed on the first day of Slaying," Jaime said, looking straight into her eyes with a fresh seriousness and duty that perturbed her immensely, "and Sandor prefers not to be around this many dragons. There are never quite so many corpses and dragons with Oberyn."
There were a lot of dragons about, it was true. Barister, Gragor, Nedderd, Carl Drogo, Devos, Jayme, Turyian, Manse Raydar, Obreyn, Ser Allisters Thornes, Cersai, Geoffrey, Margry, Lisa Arren, and even little Ricken were nesting in the windowsills, in the rafters, on and under the disused tables pushed up against the side walls of the gallery, on the targets on the far side of the room… and, very soon, if the rumours about archery lessons and what she'd overheard at breakfast were true, there would likely be a lot of corpses about, too. Yes, loads and loads of corpses, red corpses, bled corpses, feasted-on-by-dragons corpses. Her own, probably, would fall just there beneath the window as she clamoured to escape hellfire and shooty things and…
Ygritte snorted. "Ya always stare off like you're watchin' yer brains desert ya?"
"Well, it is a fanbrat. Its brains left it long ago. Miss Crockett, what Ygritte means is 'shoo, and go find yourself your equipment'. In this lifetime, Miss Crockett. Shoo." And Jaime waved her away with a fly swatter… wherever he had got one of those from.
She'd rather have found a hole to die in, or maybe another ten pints of ale—even, as it was, whilst she felt as if she'd be needing to piss long before this lesson finished.
She did as she was told, though, and sulked over to Letty, who had once shot the outer ring of a target at a Renaissance festival when she was on holiday in Arizona when she was twelve, or so she'd bragged earlier in the week, and who was clearly over the moon at holding an actual weapon (which were indeed theirs and at their own draw weight, accompanied by personalised arrows of the appropriate length, because that was the benefit of the administration creepily knowing most things about you). Far over the moon. So far that she seemed practically in another universe, grey eyes glazed with wonder and probably murderiness as she stared down upon her new bow and quiver of shooty things. Eve, too, was so possessed, so like her stinking-pet-taming lord about to hunt, and chittering so very, very loudly to Flannery, who was convulsing with glee as she caressed her brand new murder toy.
"We'll be having loads of fun, won't we, Saskia?" Letty breathed.
"Don't think so, no."
She would probably be having a headache instead—you know, if she didn't snuff it. Ygritte had to keep reiterating and reiterating and reiterating and reiterating some more over the shrieky howls of Kayleigh Evans and company that no, none of them would ever get to bone Jon because she was doing an excellent job of that already (thrice that morning, she had to note in the torturous interest of narrative overshare), and no, Jon was not boning Sansa, Arya, Daenerys, Theon, Robb, Grenn and Pyp, the Great Other, Sam, Janos Slynt's decapitated head (because of course Esther would ship it), Jorah, Oberyn, Catelyn, Davos, Stannis, or Draco Malfoy on the side. You also weren't going to become an archery prodigy in minutes unless you were a Mary Sue (but I am, Saskia thought, or Lyalyah is…), and you weren't allowed to be one of those here, to the screamy chagrin of half the fifty or so girls present.
"M'ladyyyyyyy!" the Cryptkeeper moaned out of absolutely nowhere. "What does Jon Snow taste like?"
"Misery an' disappointment, tha's what. Though 'alf th' time," Ygritte said with a rather smarmy grin, "'e tastes like me own cunt."
The obscene, ear-splitting wails the Cryptkeeper, Kayleigh, and the Jon fangirls and shippers made at that sounded akin to something Saskia would've otherwise suspected as coming from a pack of dying velociraptors.
Even Letty, who usually appeared so calm and regal, or would in Saskia's mind if Saskia hadn't known she was into weird gay Starkcest featuring Theon and violence, was out of her goddamned mind.
"Pick me! Pick me me me me me me me meeeeeeeeeee! I wanna kill stuff!" Letty whined over at least twenty others doing the exact same thing (sans desire to 'kill stuff') when Ygritte asked for a volunteer, jumping up and down and wildly waving her arms in a desperate bid for attention like a moron attempting flagless semaphore. "I'm better than Katniss Everdeen! I'm so awesome you won't know what hit you!"
A brown-haired lad in the horde near them laughed. "Probably an arrow, given your skill."
"Yeah? You're no better, Matt!"
"My ears, Letty!" Saskia howled.
By the end of a rather noisy hour, Saskia had learnt some things, and Ygritte would never be able to mockingly tell her otherwise. She'd been so focussed despite the noise, even, and Ygritte had been so normal and not 'murdery for no reason' that Saskia forgot about Ramsay and the Hunger Games. Saskia could now name the parts of a bow, and knew how to hold one, how not to draw the string (not to your chest as she'd thought you were supposed to do), and how to position herself to shoot. And she knew now, grudgingly, that your OCs should never, ever, ever, ever shoot Bran's target instead of Arya, because everyone did that and everyone thought that the way to a ladylike yet feisty OC was to have her best her brothers – and sister – at archery, through no original writing of their own. Lyalyah wasn't a Stark, though, so she was in the clear, maybe. Lyalyah was skilled with daggers, and, naturally, was an archery prodigy, because all strong female characters apparently had to be sassy and had to have hobbies involving weapons— to the point of being able to shoot a bullseye from a hundred metres away on her second try ever.
Robb noticed his betrothed's amazing skills as soon as she showed up in Winterfell and learnt from Arya, of course. Robb was compelled to watch Lyalyah sneak up on Bran's practice, noticing the way her back arched and relaxed as the tension left her supple white body—those thin arms, that delicately curved backside. He marvelled at the blueness of her eyes and the sincerity of her smile, and felt his loins quiver.
Saskia was far too deep into this sappy reverie as she bent over her equipment, preparing to shoot for the first time— It was almost as if Lyalyah shot him through the heart with quarrels of love, leaving gaping wounds no maester could cure. "She's so special," Robb thought, "and so beautiful." But Lyalyah would sooner put an arrow through his thick skull than love the man to whom her father had so cruelly betrothed her. Laughing as she gave a sarcastic courtesy to Bran (who loved her, of course), Lyalyah scurried off back to her chambers—
— when there was a loud and sudden cry from somewhere above.
"HAPPY HUNGER GAMES! MAY THE GODS NEVER BE IN YOUR FAVOUR!" PPPPTTTRRRRPPPRRRTTT!
Imagine the scene, dear reader: afar a sodden tourney-field at Harrenhal, a drenched mass of eleven pupils were sat huddled around a smouldering fire on their haunches, shivering and shaking—though some, it seemed, were not shivering for cold. If there were only one thing that Lucy knew… Oberyn was fit and that mead was potent. Her fingers were tingly, her legs jittery, and she felt wonderful. And cold. And well jiggered, because Saskia had been a massive idiot and they'd both stayed up too late. And Oberyn was fit, all right? Okay, that was more than one thing. And she was off her head and the flask she'd stolen from the kitchens was still three-fourths full, and Damien Forshaw, who was too Gay for Oberyn to function, and that crazed half-Indian girl, Amy Moore, who seemed to have the attention span and cognitive abilities of a crack-addicted goldfish, were squeeing much too loudly about pointy sticks.
Lucy took a long sip, hoping and praying to the old gods and the new that these lessons with Oberyn would be as intimate as she'd heard they were. Sadly, though, they weren't intimate the way that Lucy would have liked. Because most of the girls tended to think that they were Katniss Everdeen and wrote Mary Sue fics in which their sassy protagonists were skilled archers, and most of the lads were obsessed with Valyrian steel swords, very few people took Oberyn's spearfighting lessons. Lucy wasn't personally quite sure what the fascination was with swords, but she reckoned that nothing could come between a Gary Stu and his shiny, sharp, Valyrian steel pseudo-phallus.
By the time she spotted Oberyn a minute later, Lucy had chugged the rest of the mead. Oberyn. Gods, Oberyn, she thought, her brain swaying weirdly in her skull. Oberyn, pile of spears in his lithe and strong and sexy arms, walking towards them all with the swagger he could manage laden so. In her daze of randiness and drunkenness, she briefly was fascinated by and subsequently forgot a wee pink spray bottle clipped to Oberyn's belt, bouncing as he walked towards them with the Hound. Oberyn, laughing about something with Sandor, wheeling a massive closed box trolley cart thing through the muck beside him. Sandor, strong and masculine and burnt and gruff and fit—
"I am Oberyn of the House Martell, spearmaster at the Official Fanfiction University of Westeros, as likely you know," said Oberyn. He did continue to talk about himself and his experience with spears and such, but Lucy heard essentially nothing. So fit, she thought, staring deep at his brown eyes, staring just a bit too drunkenly at how his orange tunic clung to his muscly chest.
"Shouldn't monologue," Sandor grunted. "That's how you die. And Tywin," he said, taking a swig from his own enormous flask, "doesn't like it when you die. 'Cept maybe he liked it when Oberyn did."
Damien was much too interested in the shiny phallic spears and not in listening to Oberyn, and stood there eyeing them, intermittently fanning himself as he watched Oberyn set some aside with his manly, strong, sexy hands. He watched the box cart thing, too, as Lucy did (what could possibly need to be transported out here in such a ridiculous thing?), and reached out to touch it.
"Do not touch the pointy sticks. They may or may not be poisoned with this," Oberyn said, brandishing that wee spray bottle at his belt. "It may be very diluted manticore venom, but it will kill in strong enough doses, in enough sprays from the squirty squirt. And do not touch the box, Mr Forshaw, Miss Hothersall, unless you should like to die today."
"If you don't want us touching it," Amy asked, ignoring Lucy's laughter at the phrases 'touching it' and 'sprays from the squirty squirt', "then why bring it?"
"Very special spears. For later, children. You will see."
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!" someone howled.
Damien had touched the head of one of the spears, and stood there cradling his slashed hand, bleeding and howling furiously.
"Mr Forshaw does not listen or believe me. Mr Forshaw will be sadly deceased within the hour," Oberyn said with a feigned, half-regretful smirk, "unless he should find his way to a maester at once. Qyburn will not hurt him, I am sure."
"Who's Qyburn?!" Damien managed to yelp through all the pain.
"A friend to all fanbrats, summer child. You will find him in his lair in the Wailing Tower cellar, third level down, fourth door to the left. Go at once, and try not to die. Take Miss Deane with you."
With Damien gone, Oberyn was finally able to hook them all up with spears. Grip the shaft like so, he'd told them, sending Lucy into convulsions of perverted, stomach-upsetting laughter. As Oberyn explained, some spears were for throwing, some for stabbing, some for slashing, and some were better for twirling and looking right manly, though Lucy could barely tell you anything at all about any of them or when and why to use them in combat, despite Oberyn's explanations. And Oberyn's was best for fucking. He'd even shown them how to hold these spears—in the centre, in the shaft—and set them to work at once whilst Sandor sat growling and drinking over that damn box thing, and Oberyn worked.
Lucy twirled her spear – pitifully, kind of – in her left hand, spinning with oafish incoordination into the nearest tree.
"It fights like a show-version Sand Snake. No swiftness. No strength. Nothing in here—" Oberyn slapped her head as passed by to inspect her grip on her spear, "—but Loki and hair and Kit Harington's naked arse."
"It's… it's a right mint arse!" Lucy protested, rubbing her aching head. "Cave lightin' don't do it any justice!"
"That was a stunt ass, you dumb-dumb!" hissed an American Jon fangirl who was obsessed enough to know that sort of thing.
"But have you seen Jon's? Perfection."
"Yes, very nice," Oberyn conceded. He leaned over her, brushing against her back. A rage of OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD HE'S TOUCHING ME BY ACCIDENT OH MY GOD raged through her addled, mead-hazy mind, and Lucy welly swooned. Breathing deeply, she leaned back into him. "But don't grip it so. It must be done with strength," he said, covering her hand with his own and clasping it with firmness around the shaft of the spear, "yet delicately enough to manoeuvre, as if you are handling a more fleshy shaft. You do not grip cocks like this," he squeezed her hand hard, enough to hurt, "Miss Hothersall?"
"N… no…"
"Good."
By the time they'd spent a while gripping and twirling the stabby-stabby twirl sticks (maybe an hour or so, but Lucy could no longer tell), Lucy's head was buzzing and spinning madly, and she slumped to the ground, defeated by mead and was, essentially, absolutely out of it. At home in the real world, she'd prided herself on being a damn good drunk, on being able to knock back far too much cider and be totally fine the next morning. But whatever in that mead was potent, and Oberyn had touched her, and held her hand, and squeezed her hand, so, really, she had many excuses to be absolutely out of it.
"What is the point of a Slaying lesson if you do not slay?" she heard when she was at last paying attention again somewhat, after gods knew how long. "Why call it Slaying at all?"
"Not true," Sandor said. "They do slay. Ygritte's brats do an excellent job of shootin' each other. Anguy's, bless his whoremongerin' heart, did even better than that. Or worse. And if it were up to Bronn, they'd all be slayin' pussy."
Lucy's heart raced so fast she swore she'd puke all over the grass beneath her. Wait, why was she sitting down and not shaking a spear? Why were Amy and Imogen and Jessica doing the same? Was Letty alive? Was Saskia? If anyone was, it was probably Letty, who had done her homework, didn't get off on climbing things she shouldn't climb, and didn't piss off the staff with her whinging and sulking and sneaking off to stalk people. Then again, if hell broke loose in archery, Saskia would be one of the first to hide in a cupboard and cry, but Letty would probably just stupidly stand there and scream. And die. By now, though, Letty had probably accidentally or not-so-accidentally killed Saskia, Flannery, Kayleigh, Archibald, and the equivalent population of a small micronation if she herself weren't keeled over. And was wee Orla okay? Lucy doubted Orla would get into too much trouble with a sellsword as experienced as Bronn, but if she annoyed him or the dragons enough, and annoy Orla was very wont to do… fuck. Soon enough, Lucy reckoned, she and her friends would all be dead, but at least she herself would die happy in the presence of almighty sexiness.
"In any case, we're slayin' today," said Sandor. He opened the box. "Our cunty little secret."
Their little secret was not quite so little.
The… the Mountain?! Bound very firmly with ropes, helmeted, and marked with odd paints lay the prone form of Gregor fuckin' Clegane, or what had been Gregor fuckin' Clegane before Oberyn had poisoned him and Qyburn had done some weird shit on him. Lucy couldn't tell. It seemed human enough, and Clegane-y enough, but beneath its helmet and likely fresh from Qyburn, who knew what exactly the Mountain was? Several of her classmates yelped, scurrying back as far as they could from the massive mound of likely drugged or slightly undead flesh.
"CLEGANEBOWL!" several fanboys cried.
"A misnomer. Not a very little secret."
"A cunty one, though," Sandor snarled.
"Today we will teach you how to slay. Just today, mind. The body has many nice soft bits that bleed and leak and prolong suffering. A stab here to the liver, for one," Oberyn continued, nudging the painted purple mark on the Mountain's stomach with the butt of his spear, "will cause massive bleeding and death within minutes. Or a slice along the belly, deep enough, will spill the innards."
"CLEGANEBOWL!"
The skull was strong, said Oberyn over a multitude of wails when he crouched too close to the Mountain's face, and thus no good for killing unless you should be quick and strong enough to stab through bone. The brain was better attacked through the eyes, and even if you didn't go deep enough to kill – as Oberyn knew first-hand – that alone was incapacitating. The heart and the bleedy areas surrounding it were hard to get through the ribs, and the throat – the nice, soft throat – required agility and precision to harpoon. The eyes, sinuses, and temples were perfect for making quick ends of your opponents, as was anywhere deep enough in the abdomen that punctured arteries. If the person you wanted to kill was pregnant, you could be GRRMly evil and stab them in the baby, which would be deliciously bloody. Besides, without modern surgery and a maester who was sane, anything could be deadly in terms of infections, but those were the quickest, cruellest, and most painful ways to slay someone with a spear without the use of poisons. With poisons or enough strength to twist a spearhead in a wound, thus mangling an opponent's organs, you could make very quick work of someone.
"Now," Oberyn grinned, "how shall we proceed? Perhaps Cleganebowl, a new trial by combat?"
"HAPPY HUNGER GAMES! MAY THE GODS NEVER BE IN YOUR FAVOUR!"
Saskia startled. Ramsay Snow, indeed, stood on a balcony above the entrance to the gallery and screechily began to play 'God Save the Queen' on that goddamned vuvuzela. As the irritating chorus of PTTPRTTR PRTTTPTPP PPTTRRRTT PPPPPPPPRRRTTTPPPPTTTTPPPPRRRTTR PPTTT PTTPTRRR! echoed off the stone walls and sent half her peers screaming and hiding behind each other, targets, Jaime's legs, and every last bit of furniture available, Saskia too dodged out of the way, throwing herself behind Letty and shrieking whilst Letty tried to clamber around her. The only ones seemingly unaffected were Ilyn and Olly, clapping at Ramsay's disturbance of the fanbrats, the former clacking and the latter wearing an evil, shit-eating smirk.
Ygritte, though, looked quite peeved, and stood glaring at Ramsay from below. "We agreed ya could give a lecture on crossbows next month, Ramsay, not sneak in an' tell 'em t' kill each other! Get out!"
Ramsay blew a piercing, kind of farty-sounding note and cackled. "Can I flay the ones that don't behave? I hear Hockins and Robinson and Crockett are already little horrors. Allow me take them off your hands and the skin off them before they cause you any grief. I'll even pop on over to Bronn's and flay Dwyer free of charge."
Ramsay wanted to flay her, Saskia thought, shaking so tremendously she'd dropped her bow and had stood for gods knew how many seconds without being armed in the presence of craziness. He'd wanted to flay her—not that he wouldn't jump at the chance to do that to anyone else. And Orla. She could see, though, why someone would want to flay Orla. Ramsay knew. Ramsay knew, or at least he'd heard, if he named her as being awful in particular, and… she was screwed, most like. Massively screwed, and not in the good way by Robb and his pendulous meat snake.
"Flay Olly!" yelled one of the rare neckbeards, who was promptly met with a Tearful Olly Death Glare™ and likely a place on his mental hit list. "Kill the boy if Jon won't!"
"They're all behavin'! Even Archibald!" Which was shockingly true, Saskia noted, because she'd not seen the Cryptkeeper with his hands down his trousers or heard him making inappropriate comments or screaming irrelevant bullshit about Stannis in, like, a whole hour, which was likely some kind of record. "Get out, Ramsay!"
"Pretty, pretty please with a cherry on top? Please, Ygritte? See, I asked nicely."
"Ask me one more time an' tha' vuvuzela's goin' where light don' shine!"
"Please? No?! Well, now you're just begging for midnight Yakety Sax for the next five years."
And Ramsay was just begging for Ygritte to fire a warning shot at him—cursing a plenitude of hells and then PPPTTTRRRPPTTTing on his hot pink instrumental wonder, he bowed and fled.
"Nooooooo, take me with you! Take me! Serenade me with Yakety Sax!" cried Flannery, so gutted and randy she'd slumped down over a table, frothing slightly at the mouth as she twitched and raised her clothed backside to a by now gone Ramsay. "Know me! Biblically! Biblically!"
"Come back and flay Olly!"
As soon as the bow was in Saskia's hands again, she relaxed as well as a person could relax after being threatened by Ramsay Snow. That is to say, not all that much.
But this isn't actually that bad now that I can defend myself, she reminded herself, the tension leaving her hunched shoulders somewhat, you know, other than my arms and back and hands and everywhere about to burn miserably, and a persistent fear of bodily harm nagging at me. It's like PE but with no running, and taught by a fictional character way too keen on teasing us instead of an overeager butch lesbian with a metaphorical hard-on for netball. And I loathe netball. Perhaps just thinking this carried a huge chance of jinxing it, but Saskia could see herself liking this in future. Kind of, except for the teasing bit and the fact that she very well could be dead in a matter of minutes. Then again, she hadn't even attempted to shoot anything yet, and it wouldn't much surprise her if the first thing she ever shot was herself, and if she died… well, she'd never have to face Robb and Tywin and shame and embarrassment again, would she?
And she very well could die, because hell broke loose as soon as Ygritte gave the orders to fire—not at each other, because it wasn't really the Hunger Games. Arrows sped this way and that through the enormous room, many of them Saskia's, who spectacularly missed anywhere near the actual targets, hitting instead the floor. (Lyalyah would've done much better, and Robb would've loved her for it.) Ygritte darted about, half in vain attempting to correct those who drew the string to their tits, aimed at the cathedralesque ceiling to hit a target five metres away, or proclaimed 'I'm Katniss, bitch!' as they accidentally and non-fatally shot their classmates in the extremities. Jaime seemed to have got his corpse-, injured-, and hiding-people removal down to a science, and wove in and out of the mostly incompetent throng, here and there dragging pupils off to a pile in a conspicuously stained corner of the room with his one remaining hand… though mostly, thankfully, most of the classmates she'd seen had just been scratched and not horrifically killed.
Saskia flinched and yelped as an arrow flew near her, landing not too far from her feet. It'd come from the right somewhere, and she glanced over, intent on screaming at whoever was careless enough to fire in the wrong direction. And it seemed to have come from Brunette Sophie, brandishing her bow and aiming it at the other Sophie. The Sophies, just ten spots down the line of archers, were engaged in a screechy bitch fit over gods knew what – it was much too loud and high-pitched to tell – and soon took to hair-pulling… until the brunette one (Wells?) made to shoot the ginger one (Jones?), who responded by shooting her clear through the neck and aiming an arrow at Jaime, trying to intervene. And then there was the pungent smell of fire and burning cloth and …pork?. And then the sounds of screams of fangirls and… dragons. Gods, the dragons.
Screaming, Saskia dived under a large desk where Letty, smelling strongly of piss, was already half-curled as Olly kicked her in the shins. Flannery, too, fell, landing with a heavy thump next to Saskia.
"Not enough space, Flannery! Get your own desk!"
Flannery said nothing.
"F-F-Flannery? You shot? Flannery?" Saskia whispered, poking her squirrelly cheek with a trembling finger.
Flannery was stone dead, red-eyed and frothy, and Jaime quickly dragged her and an injured neckbeard off to the body pile before Olly could have the chance to accidentally or not-so-accidentally desecrate her remains. He did, though, have the chance to kick Saskia once in the shin as she lay cowering in fear from a PE lesson (admittedly, a PE lesson from all seven hells) and of an eleven-year-old that, less than half a day previous, she'd seen gallivanting about in a pile of cats with Tommen.
But I'm alive, she breathed minutes later when the hellish lesson ended Jaime dragged her and Letty out from under the desk by their ankles- trembling, wet, and sore, but alive.
Over in the staff quarters in Kingspyre Tower, Tywin was adamantly Not Amused™ about the brutal demise of the elder and murderier Clegane. He was sat at his massive mahogany desk, ignoring a nice roast pork luncheon as Oberyn lounged in the chair before him, clearly and sardonically unfazed by the entire situation.
"You stole the body of Gregor Clegane from Qyburn. How, I do not know. You and the Hound then murdered Gregor Clegane in front of children," Tywin fumed in the quiet, seething way of Tywin Lannister, green eyes cold and calculating.
"Seventeen-year-old children at the youngest. Old enough to be watching Game of Thrones."
"All the same, Prince Oberyn, in front of children."
"Since when does Tywin Lannister care about the welfare of children? The last I checked, he liked giving orders to smash their heads in."
Tywin's cold expression changed not one bit.
"Of course you say nothing," Oberyn said with a bitter laugh. "You will never give me that kind of satisfaction."
"No, I will not."
"You know, Lord Tywin, it's not murder if it's a trial by combat. You know that. Even the pupils know that. Even so, what good was the Mountain to you in such a state? Did we ruin the fun of Cleganebowl?"
"That was no trial by combat. A trial by combat does not permit two champions to attack one."
"Sandor was my champion. I only… gave some post-death blows. My pupils will confirm this. Well, most of them. Forshaw poisoned himself and Hothersall passed out."
"You moved his lips, I'm told."
"The Mountain requested a trial by combat, with his own lips, in his own voice, and named himself as champion."
"Because you moved his lips after you charged him with being a cunt while he was incapacitated. He was capable only of grunting and twitching involuntarily, which you translated as consent to a trial by combat and naming himself as his own champion." With that, Tywin rose and reached for some parchment, his eyes never leaving Oberyn. "I can and should fire you, Prince Oberyn."
"That you should not do. That you cannot do," Oberyn said sexily and cockily beneath Tywin's icy glare. "I am the only spearmaster at the Official Fanfiction University of Westeros. Don't you wish you weren't a stingy bastard and had hired more than one spearmaster? There would be more of us to sack."
"We will get Obara. And as soon as we do, if her teaching satisfies—"
Oberyn chuckled. "You don't want Obara. Not after what the show's done to her. You must know, Lord Tywin, that my daughters thirst to avenge my death—Obara in particular. The girl is obsessed. You may find another vicious Dornish nuisance on your hands, not another member of staff on your payroll."
"I will send a raven to Sunspear," said Tywin, beginning to write, "at once."
"Be careful what you ask for. You may never get it. Or you may get it used. Damaged. Ruined. No good."
"We will see about that in a few days. The girl served her purpose in series five. Why would she not do the same with us?"
"Did she? Well, Lord Tywin, we shall see," grinned the factious viper. "We shall see."
*How to realistically murder your characters with sharp things:
writeworld dot org slash post slash 39568468890 slash a-summary-of-how-people-die-and-dont-in
*Ten hours of vuvuzela noise, just because I love you:
youtube dot com slash watch?v=-E6ljLSOkbY
*Oberyn vs the Mountain, denial version, because OBERYN NOOO:
youtube dot com slash watch?v=r8oOi6JOXEQ
I hope that Oberyn and Ygritte were snarky enough, and that Ramsay was vuvuzela-y enough, and that you're not going to kill me for having taken far too long to update. This is absolute shite, but I had to. Also, I've a new wee one shot coming out soon, if you're into Stark feels and fancy prose and not-crack (imagine…). I'm massively drunk at the moment, so if you see any typos... je suis désolée, et s'il vous plaît corrigez mes fautes de frappe, merci x