And Now Their Lives Are Ended

As soon as she was free from the horrible horror that was her archery lesson, which she never wanted to experience again (but would have to on Friday afternoon because life was pain and OFUW was torture), Saskia rushed back to the Wailing Tower. She threw herself on her bed, shaking with the remnants of fear, not even minding that she smelt of her own piss and hadn't yet been arsed to change her smallclothes. Now that she was decidedly not dead and she hadn't Domestic Arts (or, rather, Lamely Attempting to Stitch Things Whilst Having a Silent Emo Fit about Jeyne and Robb and Neddy) later, the rest of today was going to be excellent. She was alive and unflayed and unshot, she was far away from Ramsay Snow, renewed life flowed through her tired limbs, and… yes, the remainder of the day was going to be excellent.

Or not.

The too-familiar Wednesday morning scent of alcohol-y bile engulfed her tiny bedroom. Now it was her turn to care for Lucy, projectile vomiting out the window as Saskia rubbed her back and she breathed deeply and wheezily like a llama with COPD. Ever-chatty Lucy, between heaves and coughs, could not stop chunnering something about blood and arteries and Vegetative Cleganebowl and Oberyn touching her and spears and something about gripping cocks and would Jon touch her if she were this ill cos, like, she'd wrote an 'imagine' on Tumblr about him tending to you when you'd got the stomach flu and rubbing your back and fetching you tea and could Saskia get Jon or Oberyn to fetch her some tea and then a whole litre of mouthwash so she could snog them both for days to forget the gore and stench of Cleganebowl?

"Uh, no? What were you drinking, anyway?"

"Dunno. Mead, s'posed'ly. Saw some Thenns drinkin' from flasks when I went down the kitchens to steal me an half dozen teacakes… and… I stole one of those, too." She jabbed a thumb back at the empty flask on their bed.

Saskia laughed. "Why were you stealing food after breakfast?"

"Dragons," Lucy breathed roughly, combing back her mess of light brown hair with a shaking hand, "they're like ducks an' shit, supposin'. Everywhere. Annoyin' wee fucks after your food. I wanted to feed 'em down by the lamprey pool."

"Dragons don't eat rolls, Lucy. They eat bacon and goats."

…And people. Saskia was rather sure they ate people, too, or would've eaten the Sophies had Jaime not scared them away with his anachronistic fly swatter. And they would've eaten her, too, had she died. But she wasn't dead, wasn't going to die…

Well, she wasn't going to die of the Hunger Games, murderous staff, murderous vuvuzela players, Westerosi Hitler, the ding-ding shame lady's annoying and nearly head-exploding ding-ding-ing, falling from a tower, or shame, at least.

But she could be murdered- because, as Saskia realised many sick-filled and miserable hours later, they were both late for that writing workshop thing, and who knew who taught that and how they punished tardiness? Trembling terribly and rousing a still-sniffling-and-rambling Lucy from her puke post at the window, they darted down the millions of flights of stairs, across the courtyard, and way up into the third floor of the Widow's Tower, and tumbled into a cramped, windowless, and stone-walled classroom, panting. Saskia threw herself into an empty seat next to Letty.

A woman – well, a girl, seemingly – about Miss Ellie's age and just as tiny, though brunette, a tad taller, and much less bitch-faced, despite the disapproving furrow to her pale brow, stood glaring at her and Lucy.

Oops?

"As we were discussing before Miss Crockett and Miss Hothersall interrupted and lost House Hawick five points apiece," she said, causing a group of Hawick students near the front to groan and glare at them as well, "you must write a fanfiction."

"That's Miss Oloi, our writing workshop tutor. We've got to write a fic or series of one-shots in order to get our fanfiction licences," Letty whispered to Saskia with a pout and a huff, "and they've got to be un-Sueish and sane and make sense."

I've got the 'sane' bit covered really well. Letty hasn't, and neither has Esther or Evie or Lucy or Amy or Hannah or the Cryptkeeper or Gavin or Orla or Flannery, gods rest her Ramsay-obsessed, perverted soul. That's a start?

"Oh, come on, that's easy," Grace laughed. "We've all done that, or we're doing it."

"…A fanfiction that satisfies the in-depth requirements we'll give you at a later date, and is approved by a panel of staff including me, Miss Ellie, Lord Tywin, and a majority of your regular teachers."

"…Oh."

Saskia's heart sank; her head spun. There was no way that anyone would approve of Robb/Lyalyah or Robb/her, especially if even Tyrion went out of his way to make cruel remarks about her masterpiece, because hadn't that been the fic that'd got her sent here in the first place? And it didn't seem like this Miss Oloi person would be all that approving of Sues like Lyalyah, anyway.

"Even Davos? Nigga can't read!" cried a brown-haired, scraggly-looking fanboy in the front.

"That's racist!" Hannah hissed. "You can't claim that term if you're not black!"

"I'm sure Davos reads better than you do, Morgan Smith," Miss Oloi said, in that rather stern, sweet-sounding southern American accent that Saskia couldn't further place, "if you think there's textual evidence of Tyrion being a time-travelling foetus."

"Tyrion's Rhaego! It's fact! It's blood magic!"

Just as soon as Saskia thought that yes, today everyone was finally normal and sane and would appear just as so as they would in England or wherever else they lived when they weren't in Westeros, everyone took the opportunity to spout their personal brands of theoretical bullshit almost all at once.

"CLEGANEBOWL! REAL! IT HAPPENED THIS MORNING!"

"Maester Aemon bumped uglies with the Queen of Thorns!"

I'm glad I'm not that idiotic. R + L = J has got to be true, but that's a normal theory to believe. Maester Aemon and the Queen of Thorns aren't anywhere near the same age.

"WE NEED A NEW BOOK, GEORGE, FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST!" someone screamed.

"Bran is actually Bran the Builder!"

Amy let out an awful screech. "Hodor is Willas Tyrell!"

"NED WARGED INTO ICE AND PIGEONS!" Esther shrieked, banging a fist on her desk in overzealous, batshit passion. "BARRISTAN'S OBI-WAN IN AN ALTERNATE DIMENSION AND VAL'S AN OTHER! AERON WAS RAPED BY A DOOR!"

Silence. Absolute, uncomfortable silence—until, not a nanosecond later-

"WHAT?!" half the class cried.

"What? The Damphair 'ears the creaking 'inges and gets upset! 'E's got PTSD!"

Who the fuck were Val and Aeron (the Damphair?) and Willas Tyrell and Bran the Builder, anyways?

"It's tinfoilish, unscientific stupidity, that's what it is, and Lord Tywin—" Miss Oloi's voice trembled very slightly at the mention, though not seemingly from fear, "won't like it at all."

There was loads more that was 'tinfoilish, unscientific stupidity', as Miss Oloi liked to put it. Hodor's supposed true name – in the show, at least – was spelt W-Y-L-I-S, not W-I-L-L-A-S, and no, he had not lost his ability to speak because Oberyn beat and bumfucked him into paralysis or prolonged unconsciousness. Neither had Wun Wun or Treebeard, for that matter, because no, Hodor was not taking it up the arse from giants or Ents, and it'd take quite some force and mental trauma to ruin Hodor in that way. 'Hold the door' was essentially canon. And, speaking of doors, doors were not sentient, and therefore as unwargable as Valyrian swords and pigeons, and therefore unable to rape people. Maybe there'd been something going on with Euron entering Aeron's bedroom as a child, as one could infer, but…

"Yeah, but what if the door jammed its knob up 'is arse as 'e slept?!" Esther protested. "Hodor was 'olding it, and then it got 'im, too?"

Miss Oloi arched an eyebrow. "And unhinged itself to do that?"

"Yeah? Maybe it's a sentient door? Or Moqorro or Euron's warging it?"

"For the last time, Miss Whenlock, no."

As Miss Oloi went on to explain once Esther and Morgan had finally ceased to spew theories that made no sense to anyone but themselves and other deranged book readers (Saskia reckoned all the waiting they were doing for The Winds of Winter had the tendency to do that to a crazed fanbrat's psyche), they all had to write fanfictions, and although OCs were permitted, minor canonical characters were much preferred… and decent, non-Sueish, canon-based, realistic writing was expected.

Pouting like a miserable little bitch, Saskia sank into her cold wooden seat and shot a pitiful glance at Lucy, now hunched over her desk and moaning softly. What would either of them write? Scratch that. What could she write? Even now, about a quarter of the way through the first book in a massive series, there were more characters major and minor than Saskia could possibly name off the top of her head. There was Robb, darling Robb, and Catelyn and Sansa and Talisa-Jeyne and the rest of the Starks. And she now knew who were the Karstarks and Rodrik Cassell and Rhaegar and Lyanna, at that, so she supposed she was making progress. Nonetheless, what would be the point of or fun with writing a fic about Robb that didn't involve her, Robb without any clothes on, drama, Roose Bolton dying horribly, and gratuitous, poorly-written, florid smut that would make Ernest Hemingway shoot himself in the face from the sheer horror of it?

It was sorted, then. She was going to ignore the assignment – including thinking about it or reading the handout – for as long as possible. She envied Lucy, in no state to think of it at all.

"I'll take the Crockett girl now, Miss Oloi, if you don't mind," came a voice from somewhere behind her.

Saskia spun around, her already weebly head wobbling from the quickness of the motion. There Jaime stood in the threshold, looking mighty blond and attractive and Prince Charming from Shrek-y in his blood-stained white cloak as, for the millionth time that day, he was staring right at her, beckoning with his golden hand.

She had had enough of Jaime fookin' Lannister for a day— for a year, more like, or for eternity.

"Take me?"

Jaime grinned. "No need to be frightened, Miss Crockett. I'll return you in one piece."

"Best not return that little shit at all. Shits belong in the dirt," the Hound grunted, poking his head in the room. "Salad Postlethwaite, with me, now. Regardin' Flannery. Not killin' you, either, but can't say I'm not tempted."

Sandor didn't even wait for Letty to rise and leave the classroom as Saskia had with Jaime, and sauntered over to her desk, grabbing her by the arm and marching her away.

"I'm not – ow! - called Salad! Let me go!"

"Lettice's close enough. Who thecuntin' fuck calls their daughter after produce?"

"It's L-E-T-T-I-C-E! With an I! Ow!"

"Loads of lettuce with a U in my garden out back. Might be I'll plant a Lettice with an I if it don't listen any!"

"What're you going to do to me?" Saskia whispered to Jaime once he'd led her gently outside the classroom. He was gesturing rather severely to a cupboard as if to usher her inside.

"Do to you, Miss Crockett? Nothing but question you."

"Right here? Now? In… in a cupboard?"

"Precisely."

"It's not as if I'm putting you on trial before my father or the Faith. Just an inquest in the case of a Sophie Melissa Jones of Auckland, New Zealand— deceased this morning, as you witnessed. A fortunate but annoying matter of Official Fanfiction University of Westeros policy when someone dies."

"You were there, so…. isn't this, like, a… conflict of interest or something?"

"And who else would you or my lord father prefer to have do this?"

…Someone who didn't want to drag her off to dark and spidery cupboards, for sure. All the same, she let Jaime lead her inside, sat down on a rickety stool by the light of a tiny glassless window at the back of the cupboard, hunched over in defence.

"Truly, I am not going to kill you. I am not Ramsay Snow." Well, that was mildly reassuring. "In your own words, and honestly, what happened in Archery today?"

"You were there." He was there for more than just Sophie's toasting. He's the one who saw me. He's the one who made me fall.

"Yes," Jaime said, the shadows of his green eyes boring into hers, "but humour me for the sake of procedure. In your own words, what happened in Archery today?"

"Dragons and pain and Ramsay had a vuvuzela and Olly is Hitler and I think they want to kill us?" she ventured, fidgeting, the memories of that morning's burning and death and horribleness flashing through her mind. "And Letty weed herself. So did I. And Ygritte teased me and made bad oral sex jokes and everyone kept screaming cos she said we can't be Mary Sues or ship Jon with Arya and Postman Pat. She probably gets off on it. The teasing. Not Postman Pat with his penile head up Jon's arse. Colin wrote that. Pat uses his nose as… as..."

All in all, Saskia reckoned as she droned off, her stomach gurgling uncomfortably, today was a perfectly ordinary day at the Official Fanfiction University of Westeros, judging by the almost non-reactions of the staff to death, mass injury, mass incompetence, murderous loonies with vuvuzelas, and batshit ships involving stop-motion animated children's characters and the former and sexiest Lord Commander of the Night's Watch… and she would have to survive through May.

"Regarding Sophie Jones."

"She… you were there. She meant to shoot you and died of toasty."

"Right. Good enough. Sign here," said Jaime at once, shoving one of his papers and a quill into her hands.

In the silence, under Jaime's careful stare, the question that had been bubbling at the back of her mind all morning finally came forth.

"Ser Jaime? What happened to Sophie?" she blurted. "I mean… what… what happens when I – you – die?"

"A question for septons, maesters, Red Priests, philosophers, and Jon Snow."

"I mean here. Do we die? In our world? Is Sophie really dead?"

"No. Sophie's fine, and she's wherever she was when Oberyn and Ser Ilyn wrangled her. She has no memory of what's transpired here. No time's passed, and she'll think she's just come round after blanking out for a few seconds. The body that dies in Westeros is an incarnation of her Game of Thrones fanfic-writing soul, and that does burn or decay here. As for her fanfiction, It'll sit abandoned, and she'll lose all inspiration to write it. Writer's block that never ends, so to speak. If she tried, she wouldn't be able to write any more of it. That isn't to say she can't move on to other fandoms, but there are other universities for those if her writing there is awful enough."

Saskia's heart sank even deeper. So her shamefully nerdy favourite coping mechanism would be denied her permanently if she croaked, and she would have no memories of the in-person, glorious sexiness of Robb Stark, who did not look like Richard Madden, but was just as fit and gorgeous and Robb-y. And Robb was, in truth, her main motivation for coming here. Wonderful.

"Is there anything else you need to tell me that is relevant to this case?"

"Is… is there anything I… should tell you?" Saskia sputtered. Her own wee climbing endeavour wasn't quite relevant, was it?

"You tell me."

"…No?"

"Very well. Then it's back to Miss Oloi now, Miss Crockett. We cannot have you missing 'Gay' Is Not a Homosexual Character's Only Trait and Commas, Motherfucker: Use Them. Though," Jaime said carefully, in a way that sounded almost too kind, "I don't think you'll be needing those."

Because I don't make Robb uncanonically flamboyant with Theon and I have basic writing skills, or because I'm going to die? she wanted so desperately to ask.

The afternoon and evening, too, were alive with the sounds of falling bodies. By the time supper or tea or dinner or whatever you wanted to call it rolled around, Jaime had collected a nice wee pile of them.

Of course, no one was really upset about that except Tywin, the dead ones' friends, and Brienne, who, as a new teacher at the Official Fanfiction University of Westeros, looked just a wee bit sickened at the small mountain of arrow-ridden corpses just stacked at the end of the aisle in the Hall of a Hundred Hearths, and more upset than pretty much all of the staff at the absolute waste of human life. Oberyn, also a first-year teacher, did not seem at all phased, and sat lounging at the far end of the staff table, being sexily fed olives by Ellaria as several fanboys who were Gay for Oberyn moaned into their untouched suppers (whoever thought that serving food and hosting funerals at the same time was a good idea should've been sacked).

Olly and Ramsay, though, seemed the only ones pleased about the deaths. The former was adorable dressed in his funereal best, a black jerkin and a mini Night's Watch cloak, and stood sneering at the corpse pile from a short distance away, his lips twitching, his Satanic eyes glistening with tears one couldn't tell were from anger or glee, until Uncle Robb intervened.

"You're not going anywhere near Jon or burials tonight, lad, until you stop looking stabby," Robb growled, grabbing the wee terror by the scruff of his neck and dragging him off to Sandor, kicking and howling the whole way.

"But I wanna watch Jaime burn the fat one! I wanna watch Jaime burn the fat one!"

"Are… are all those from archery?" Brienne asked Bronn, sauntering up with an enormous mug of ale. She nodded to the corpse pile before them.

"Aye. You should've been here when Anguy was. It used to be worse."

Brienne shot him a look as if to ask how anything could possibly be worse than mass student death.

Bronn just laughed. "You really should've met Anguy. You see, the more students who met their ends in his lessons, the less money would be spent on their equipment and upkeep, and the more money he could swindle from the Lannisters and give to the Brotherhood, or spend on wine and whores. Big Bertha cost him a fortune."

"Is Bronn horrifying your sense of honour?"

She spun on her heels, flinching. Just Jaime. Looking rather concerned, at that.

Brienne shook her head. "I want to give them proper burials, Jaime." After all, rabid fans or no, they were human. Some children, even. And none deserved at all further shame or mutilation in death. And the little dragons were keen on the mutilation bit, stalking the bodies as Daenerys threw peaches at them. Hissing just as much as the Stannis fanboys at the sudden appearance of airborne peaches, some of the dragons took off, swooping under the staff table and continuing to hiss as they eyed the corpse pile.

"No need, wench. We're not so uncivilised as to feed them to dragons or leave them there to rot." As Jaime explained, there was a section on the enrolment form for the 'darlings' to note how they'd like to be sent off, and Corpse Control did the best they could to comply with those wishes… though it wasn't always possible unless that wish were a standard ground burial, cremation, or Tibetan sky burial with dragons. "Some self-important brats want enormous memorials built to them. Think we can afford it after Joffrey's? Who are they to us? We just build cairns in the woods for those ones, and they're lucky if Sandor doesn't ever shit on them."

"He… defecates on graves?"

"Urinates, mostly," Bronn said nonchalantly, sipping his ale. "The man's got to piss when he's working in the godswood."

Brienne stared at Jaime and Bronn, her jaw set, looking slightly offended. That was no way, after all, to treat the dead, even if the aforementioned dead were fanbrats. She looked to Sandor, now barking something cunt-filled to a group of perverted admirers in vain trying to caress his burnt face as he prowled between the house tables for leftover chicken, and resorting to punting Evie Hawkins and Maeve Wright into the nearest unlit hearth as Olly cheered. It would not be beyond him at all.

"If it's any consolation, Brienne, we employ Tommen, Rickon, Shireen, Lady Lyanna, and the little Sand Snakes to draw depictions of the tombs they want so much. Sometimes they make it onto the cairns."

"I'll be giving Ethan a Tully-style funeral at dusk, since he fancied Edmure and the Blackfish so much," Bronn grinned to Brienne. "Too bad we've only got planks for a boat, I'm not a good archer, and the nearest water deep enough to float anything's a pool of lampreys."

"That's… not… and there's the Gods Eye… and the stream in the godswood…"

"Remember what I said, wench. Don't pity them. Half of them bring it upon themselves, and we do what we can besides."

"No pity. They've no pity for you. And they'll be trying to get at you," Bronn added, "if they already haven't, for havingJaime, and the same goes for him."

Some of them already had, Brienne thought with a sickened grimace. Gavin Underwood had thrown himself at her yesterday after proclaiming revenge on Jaime (prompting an attack from Joffray, the most unstable of the mini dragons), and James Parry had composed a three-page, semi-pornographic ode to her nose and felt somehow compelled to gift it to her. A certain subset of the female Jaime fanciers seemed to resent her, though one particular child, blond as a Lannister, alternated between lust for Jaime and intense outbursts that Jaime/Brienne wasn't wholly canon, but needed to be immediately. Even Tormund, not even a pupil, had approached her before her and Davos's lesson that afternoon to waggle his eyebrows at her and insinuate that he'd fooked a beah, but never a maiden fair…

"But Jaime and I… we're not…" Not betrothed, at least.

"Doesn't matter. You're close enough to it, aren't you? Or you are already."

Are already, Jaime mouthed to Bronn.

"Doesn't matter if you are or you aren't. They don't care. The lot of 'em want to fuck him, and the lot of the fat beardy ones want to fuck you. And they'll end up the same."

As the long and bloody day drew at last to an end, so did Saskia's last shred of her sense of peace and several other unfortunate lives.

Damien Forshaw had, indeed, survived his little mishap with one of Oberyn's non-fleshy spears, and returned from Qyburn unharmed— with the notable exception of mini courgettes growing all over his legs like cysts. One of the Blackwood girls who learnt the sword came back from the fabled evil hospital lair with a real live gecko grafted over a puncture wound on her shoulder. Ilze had got scratched when an arrow grazed her thigh; she spent the evening curled in a chair in the study room, praying to the old gods and the new that the wound wouldn't fester. (If you'd got a superficial wound, you had the choice of either going to Qyburn or letting Jeyne wash it out with boiled water and put a Dora the Explorer plaster on it, however those existed in Westeros, and you were an absolute idiot who deserved it if you chose the former. Ilze, though, was not an absolute idiot.)

Lilanie was still alive, too, despite having been shot in the arm that afternoon. Saskia knew that an arrow to the upper arm would likely not be fatal, not from that distance and at that weak a draw (she had learnt something about archery after all), but it was still shocking that Lilanie was alive, given who the university's maester was. There wasn't anything wrong with Lilanie, thankfully, aside from the random hiccoughing fits that had plagued her several times since, the fact that her arm was in a sling, and her unusual sulky attitude—so sulky that she shot Saskia a dark, vicious glare from across the supper table.

"I just asked if you could pass the turnips?"

Lilanie's dark glare only intensified. "I don't see why you get to be so lucky. I mean, just because you're their favourite doesn't mean you should get away with it."

Her mouth gaped just a bit. "I'm their favourite?"

Saskia was certainly not anyone's favourite (if anyone was, Jay and Edrick seemed to be very much in Tyrion and Daenerys's good graces, and Catelyn and Sansa appeared pleased with Grace Keely, the only young lady who apparently liked 'real' needlework). On Monday, Saskia had annoyed Sansa, Catelyn, Jeyne, and some dragons. On Tuesday, her mere existence seemed to have bothered Stannis the Mannis, and she was rather certain that Robb didn't think too highly of her, either, especially now that he likely knew she was a pervy stalker. In the last twenty-four hours, she'd annoyed Tywin, Sandor, Miss Ellie, the ding-ding shame lady, more dragons, Jaime (and probably Brienne by proxy), Miss Oloi, Ramsay, Olly, and Ygritte (and thus maybe Jon, who would have likely told Robb, who was probably already annoyed by her from Military Realism, bloody fuckin' horrid seven hells). If she was anyone's favourite, she was well on her way towards being their favourite to torture and tease and laugh at, because clearly the year was off to a marvellous start.

"Seriously, Lilanie, I'm their favourite?"

But Lilanie didn't answer, only snatched her plate with her good hand and stormed off to the emptier end of the table.

"What's with her?"

"I mean, I think she just told you, Saskia," Letty said blankly. "She's been to Qyburn. And she kind of has a point. You are lucky."

Too lucky, perhaps… but then so was Lilanie, also unkilled and unflayed. Neither of them were in the corpse pile, so as far as Saskia was concerned, they were both lucky enough—though more so were Hannah and Evie, still alive and wholly unharmed.

The aforementioned pile of stiffened corpses lay upon a bier at the end of the aisle leading up towards the high table, just dragged in by Hodor a few minutes prior. The dead had begun to look… well, stiff and dead, some contorted into odd positions of defence in which they'd snuffed it, and Tyrion and Daenerys were having one hell of a hard time scaring away the winged, flesh-hungry, fire-breathing beasties by shaking a big stick and throwing fruit at them, respectively, and many students were having one hell of a hard time not crying or puking at the gory, Game of Thrones-y spectacle before them. Not even the promise of streaky bacon dangled enticingly from the table, as Sansa was finding out, could stop the mini dragons from stalking the corpses, to what looked like Ramsay's demented, creepy-eyed delight. And nothing, as Saskia had been finding out all week, could ever get Orla to stop staring at Jaime and Brienne, or Lilanie to not sulk, or get Lucy to be quiet.

"So fatherly. So fit. So carin'. He'd love me more for bein' so ill," Lucy sighed to Orla, too intent on ogling Jaime to notice she was being talked to, biting her lip as she watched Jon, at the staff table, sternly watch Olly dole out a fucktonne of Tearful Olly Death Glares™ at a rowdy pack of Mannimals staring creepily at their god, sat grinding his teeth in the corner. "He'd rub my back. Hold my hair. Make me toast and tea. Love me. Love me some more. I were writin' it on Tumblr when Ilyn wrangled me…"

Well, nothing could ever get Lucy to be quiet save Tywin Lannister, calling an announcement.

"We have come to honour the lives of the unfortunate fallen. Please join us in bidding farewell to Paola García Vargas, Sophie Wells, Flannery Marchant, Ethan Novak, Sophie Jones, Adam Tobin, and Keisha-Jane Cole. Samwell Tarly of the Night's Watch will lead the remembrances, courtesy of Bronn, and you are welcome to attend their disposals immediately afterwards."

Saskia's head threatened to explode as Ramsay screeched 'My Heart Will Go On' on his vuvuzela, to the horror and displeasure of pretty much everyone present. Eve wiped a tear from her eye—though Saskia couldn't tell if it were out of grief for Flannery or admiration of and lust over Ramsay and his annoying, vuvuzela-y Ramsayness.

Sam had risen, and stood at the podium to lead what already promised to be the most irritating funeral service she'd likely ever experience.

"Flannery Marchant came to us from Lake Village, Arkansas. She loved the Lord Ramsay just a bit too devotedly, and wrote genderbent Ramsay/Reek torture porn. She was… she was," he gulped, clutching the obituary that Bronn had passed him with trembling hands, "she was a... a rotten little minge who was so hopeless that she managed to kill herself with just a bow and not even an arrow. We will see far too many of her like again. And now her watch is ended."

"And now her watch is ended."

"Sophie Jones came to us from Auckland, New Zealand. She was a ginger, and… and thus there's no point to a requiem for her soul. She was, however, a—"

Sam and Ramsay stopped as, suddenly, the earth shook. The heavens trembled. The tables wobbled and thumped on the floor, clattering and shattering goblets and plates. Baby Ned began to cry, and few fangirls were unterrified enough to notice Robb adorably soothing his son, stroking his hair and kissing his wee red cheeks (though Saskia noticed, her own cheeks stinging with a flush of what wasn't totally quite jealousy, rage, or shame). Fifty mini dragons screeched in fear, flying as far up in the rafters as they could go, hissing and threatening to douse the hall in flames. And the beeping commenced.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Sam shouted.

Lord Manderly, too fat to sit a 500lb weight capacity mobility scooter, had arrived.

Miss Ellie grabbed Oberyn's beloved squirty squirt from where it lay before him on the table and rushed forward to the bier, flanked by Rahloo and Missendai. She did not even have to rush, though, for it took Lord Manderly's noble steed a good minute to bear his massive weight down the aisle. When he stopped before the dais and the bier upon it, he revved his scooter as best as he could (it was obviously overtaxed and barely functional, much less so than it had been the other day) and rasped something incomprehensible as the poor thing puttered and beeped. Globs of oniony sweat cascaded down his blobular cheeks with the effort of turning the handle.

"Lord Manderly," Tywin warned from his seat at the high table, "you cannot have these. Make pies out of something normal for once."

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep beeeeeeep sdfhsurhiuerwdfshdhfds beeeeeeeeeeeep sfyuagsruwgsdu bwwwewjsdfdeeeep fhidsuhfiudsfhidsufh beeeeep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep ppppprpprrpprrrrrppp.

Miss Ellie held her ground, a hand clasped tightly around Oberyn's squirty squirt. "The moment someone responds 'baked into a pie' on the question regarding their remains on the enrolment form, we will notify you and arrange what we can. So far, that has been absolutely no one ever. For the last time, Wyman, this is not free food. This is a pile of corpses."

Wyman's noble steed emitted a long, drawn-out beep that Saskia assumed to be the scootypuff translation of a very strong cuss word.

"Now, now, let's not get upset here," Miss Ellie soothed, looking to Tywin, who nodded. "As it turns out, you can have something. Would it hurt so much to have live ones?"

BEEEP. Guess that meant no.

"That settles it, Lord Manderly. Live fanbrats you shall have." And with that, Tywin rose and Miss Ellie cracked the giddiest of grins. "Saskia Crockett, come forward."

Just a wee bit of denouement and set-up before we get into the brilliance of the lectures and the appearance of some of the guests. Someday, sometime, we will be meeting Anguy, Thoros, and Beric, but today is not that day. We will also meet Obara, Not-Burnt Shireen, Not-Butchered Ellaria, MORE OBERYN BECAUSE I AM CLEARLY STILL NOT OVER IT SINCE I READ ASOS IN 2012, Theon, Varys, Jaqen H'ghar, Melisandre, Littlefinger, Cersei, Ned, Arya, Bran, Margaery (GOODNIGHT SWEET PRINCESS), Gendry, Grenn, Pyp, the Blackfish, Renly, Loras, Jorah the Explorah, Not-Dead Barristan, some Greyjoys, and my favourite book-only character. And Jaime/Brienne… well, that should be a thing because it's not like Orla's list is unachievable because I too am a massive screaming fangirl, like duh.

My favourite ASOIAF theory, at least after the 'Varys is a merling' one, is D + D = T… aka Drogo + Daenerys = Tyrion. Yes, really. TL;DR: Dany is Tyrion's real mother because Tyrion and Rhaego are the same person through Mirri Maz Duur's weird time-travelling surrogate foetus-swapping black magic, and Tyrion will then Oedipally fuck Daenerys and be king of Westeros. Aeron being raped by a door is my own unfortunate invented theory born of too much rum, though I have seen 'Ned warged into Ice', 'Ned warged into a pigeon', and 'Val is an Other'. I've always thought that Bran would be somehow all the Brandon Starks of the past, including Brandon the Builder… which doesn't seem too insane now, eh?