Disclaimer: I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire.

Another dragon, another wolf, another stag

Chapter 37: Quentyn

"Talking"

"Thinking"

(Location: Narrow Sea)

The ship rocked back and forth. "Look at the horizon. Look at the horizon," Quentyn told himself. It was something he heard one of the sailors that would help with his sickness. It didn't know if the man was having a laugh at his expense but he was willing to try anything.

As he looked at the horizon, his eyes looked at where they had sailed from, King's Landing. He still couldn't believe that they had managed to get out of there without being discovered. They had been planning this for a while and yet, it still felt like they were going to get caught, walking through the streets of the city to docks. That was the longest journey Quentyn had ever felt.

The sounds of someone emptying his stomach came from the other side of the ship. He didn't need to turn around to know who it was throwing up. "Every day Sam does this," he thought to himself. "I would've thought he'd have gotten used to it by now." Then again, Sam did say he didn't like the sea. He was a self-proclaimed coward. But then, Quentyn didn't think a coward could help do this.

The more Quentyn stayed in King's Landing while Jon was there, the more he could see the storm coming. With that storm, there would be a war. Somehow, he just knew it would be one worse than the War of the Usurper, maybe it would be known as another Dance of the Dragons. If it happened, it would be a war that would tear the Seven Kingdoms apart. He saw but what amazed him was how no one else seemed to see it.

He wanted to talk about it to someone but he knew he couldn't talk to his family about it. Arianne was still judging him because of where he was fostering. Oberyn might've been changing his attitude about him but Quentyn that it was slow and a talk like this would make him swing to the originals and keep them there.

He thought he was alone in his thoughts but much to his surprise, he found that there were others. Sam was one of them, Edd was a third, and so was Ser Daemon Sand. They found one another and quickly began speaking out of sight from others. They discussed what could be done to stop but there seemed like there was nothing that could be done. They didn't any kind of strength or support in court.

And yet, somehow they got that. They each received a note, detailing a tunnel in Jon's room that would lead out to the city or the sea. All they would have to do was concoct a plan that would see Jon safely out of the city and their benefactor would provide the rest. It was suspicious none of them could doubt that. None of them knew who their benefactor was, only that he signed each note GOTR.

Whoever that person had been, they were given a chance. They talked to each other, planned out the escape. Jon was brought into confidence only when they were sure they had the plan and could make it work. When Jon was told, Quentyn thought that there would be some resistance on his part. After all, he had seemed to grow closer to the royal family.

But it wasn't so. Jon agreed with the only hesitation being it being on the night before his wedding. While it was regrettable, it was the only night they figured they would be able to escape as best they could. Quentyn ensured it by mentioning to his cousin of the Dornish tradition of the last night that one night a groom and his friends went out to celebrate the end of his bachelorhood.

Aegon took to the idea like a fish to water. Quentyn and the others joined that night and like Jon, they barely drank that night. When the others staggered and stumbled back to the Red Keep roaring drunk, they were sober. An hour later, they came through the tunnel, where Edd had been waiting, and spirited Jon away. And now, they were out here, at sea.

Someone came beside him. "Are you well?"

He looked at the ship's captain. Out of all the people he had expected to be captain, never had he thought it would be the Onion Knight. "I am fine, Ser Davos," he replied. "I was told to look to the horizon."

"Aye, that'll do it. Good advice." He looked to the sea with a searching look. Quentyn didn't know what he was looking. It seemed to be a clear day to him. "Might be a storm later on," the plain looking man said. "You'd best head down below it reaches us."

It sounded ridiculous and Quentyn was tempted to say as much. But he wasn't a sailor and he didn't want to sound foolish. "Of course, Ser Davos," he said. He started for the hatch to go below decks, only to stop. There was a thought in his mind now. "Ser Davos, may I ask you a question?"

"Please, go ahead, your Highness."

"Why are you helping us?" What he was doing, it was treason. There was no doubt about that. He risked his neck by shipping them away from King's Landing.

The Onion Knight clutched the pouch around his neck. Quentyn had wondered what was inside that bag. Was it some kind of good luck charm? "I did it because my lord commanded me to aide you in your escape."

"Stannis Baratheon?"

"Aye," he answered.

It was surprising and prompted him to ask another question. "Why?"

"Oh, I'm sure that he has his reasons for doing this."

None that Quentyn could see. Stannis Baratheon had bent the knee to King Rhaegar when the war had ended and served the crown faithfully since. Why would he suddenly betray the Iron Throne? He looked more closely at the Onion Knight. "Do you know his reasons, ser?"

"I would say that he did this for the same reason you did: to stop a war from happening."

That raised another question. Did Lord Stannis know of what could've come? Was he contacted by GOTR too? Just who was this GOTR? But before he continued to ask those questions, he remembered something Ser Davos just said. "Ser, you said that was just one reason."

"Aye, I did."

"Is that the only reason you know of?"

"It's one I believe that I was sent on this trip."

"But you think there was another reason?"

He clutched the pouch as he stared out at sea. "Perhaps, in some small way, he did it as revenge against King Rhaegar."

Quentyn wanted to look at him but his stomach was feeling queasy again so he looked out to the horizon. The question stayed with him. "Is that the truth, ser?"

"I would not know, your Highness. I did not ask my lord that when he sent me to King's Landing." He turned around to his ship. "Remember to go below decks before that storm hits us."

It was good advice all the same. Quentyn stared at the horizon for a few moments longer. Once he knew that his stomach had settled, he turned around and quickly made his way to the hatch. He went down the decks just as quickly until he reached the others. "The captain said that there's going to be a storm coming," he told them all. "We should be prepared."

Sam, already green from being seasick, turned greener. "A s-storm?" he repeated, unable to keep the squeak out of his voice.

Jon looked just as nauseous as Sam did. Of course, he looked a little strange, thanks to the cloth tied around his head. It had been Ser Daemon's idea to shave off his hair. That way, he would be less recognizable. "Did he say when the storm would be here?" he asked.

"Later, he said."

Grenn groaned from his hammock. "That just makes it worse." Edd didn't say anything. He was asleep in his hammock but look no less miserable.

"Shut it, Aurochs," Pyp said from the other hammock. "We're all miserable down here."

He peered up from his hammock and glared at the smaller man. "If I could move, I would thump you," he said warningly.

"If you could move, I would be able to move too. And you wouldn't catch me."

Quentyn listened to their bickering with a tired smile. He knew that they didn't mean what they said. They were all friends made in Riverrun. Sam had found them in King's Landing and brought them into the fold. Pyp had been the one to cut Jon's hair.

Ser Daemon was the only one who didn't look affected by the sway of the ship. He had probably been on a few more ships than the rest of them. He sat at the small table and looked at them all. "What do we do now?" he asked, utterly serious.

All thoughts about the ship swaying and their sickness vanished. It was a good question. What were they going to do? They had gotten Jon out of King's Landing. Now what were they going to do? Quentyn looked around at the others. "Any one got a suggestion?" he asked.

"Do you?" Grenn asked back.

"No."

"I don't either."

"We already knew that," Pyp retorted.

Jon looked at them both. "Enough of that," he said. "This is serious."

They fell silent. Everyone looked at everyone. Quentyn was sure they were all thinking of something but no one said anything. "We could sail for Essos," Ser Daemon suggested.

"Where to?" asked Pyp.

"Anywhere we want."

"We could go to Braavos then? My troupe always wanted to play in Braavos."

Grenn frowned. "Why would they want to go there?"

"It's Braavos."

"So?"

"It's Braavos!"

His frown turned irritated. "You said that already!"

"I don't think that Braavos is a good idea," Quentyn objected, thinking about the idea. He was fairly certain his father mentioned how the king was in talks with Braavos for a treaty. If that treaty went through, the Braavosi could yield them back to Westeros and that could get them in trouble.

"Then where?" asked Pyp.

"We could go to Tyrosh and Lys," offered Ser Daemon. "I've been there before on business for Prince Doran."

"And with my uncle," Quentyn thought to himself. He knew what people said about Ser Daemon when he was a square for Oberyn. He never asked but he believed it. Still, to go to Tyrosh or Lys was a good idea. Westeros didn't officially deal with them.

"W-Wouldn't that cause a problem?" asked Sam.

He looked at the fat boy. "What do you mean by that?"

"It's in the opposite direction. We would have to turn around and sail back, close to Dragonstone and King's Landing. They would notice us."

The room was silent as they considered those words. "Shit, he's right," Ser Daemon agreed. "What's worse, we'd sail close to Dorne."

"What of it?" Pyp asked. "We got away from them, didn't we?"

"But we would be running back to them," Grenn said back. He grinned, knowing that he had Pyp. The smaller boy just glared at him.

Sam nodded at Grenn before saying, "So we have to keep sailing north."

"To White Harbor," Quentyn said. From there, they would go to Winterfell.

"No," said Jon, finally speaking. "Not to White Harbor."

They all looked at him, surprised. "What?" Sam said.

Ser Daemon looked hard at him. "Jon, do you know what you are saying?"

"Aye, I do."

"And you say it still?"

He nodded. "We can't go to White Harbor."

"Is there somewhere else in the North we can go?" asked Sam, looking nervously at him.

He shook his head and said, "No, there's isn't."

Quentyn didn't know what to make of all this new information. Ser Daemon looked at them all and then at Jon. "Then where do you suggest we go?" he asked. "Sail past Braavos to Lorath? Hide in their mazes?"

"There's a city past Braavos?" Grenn asked, surprised.

Pyp groaned in his hammock, either from annoyance or sickness. "He just said that!"

"I wasn't thinking of Lorath," Jon told them all, quietly.

"Then where?"

He didn't know how but Quentyn knew where the Northerner was thinking. "You want to go there?" he asked. "You know what it means but you want to go there?"

"I was thinking of it before I came to Riverrun. When I was to return to Winterfell, I was planning to join."

The idea had merit. He would be protected from the royal family trying to get him back if he joined. "What of us?" he asked. "We came to get you out of King's Landing, Jon. Would you have us sail back once you're gone?"

"I won't ask you to join me." He was being stubborn. It seemed to be a trait amongst the wolves. One side of his parentage might be in doubt but no one could doubt that he was half a Stark.

No one said anything. They sat in silence as the ship rolled. No one outright said it but they all knew what Jon was thinking about. "I'll go," said Samwell, quietly.

All heads swung to him. "You'll what?" Pyp almost exclaimed. The ship roll and his voice took a nauseous groan.

"I'll go with him when he leaves."

"Sam, I won't ask you to do that," Jon told him.

He smiled but it didn't look that convincing. "It's alright," he said. "I was probably going to end there anyway."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Grenn wondered.

"I'm not my father's son."

That sounded ridiculous to Quentyn. He looked at Ser Daemon and saw he felt the same way. "Your name is Tarly," he told him.

"It is."

"Then you are your father's son."

He shook his head. "Not in the way he sees it. I'm a craven. Dickon, my younger brother, is the heir my father wants. I stand in his way."

And this would be one way to get rid of an heir Lord Randyll Tarly didn't want. He wouldn't kill his heir. The Seven Kingdoms would've heard of such a thing. "Would you really go there?" Quentyn asked Sam.

"Yes."

Give up everything he had known, all the comforts. "That's very brave, Sam."

He paled, which made him look even sicker. "No, it's not. It's cowardly."

"It is not."

"Quentyn is right," Ser Daemon said, nodding his head in agreement. "What you want to do is brave. Anyone who says otherwise will face me in combat."

Sam looked shocked to hear such words from him. So was Quentyn. There was something else in his words. "Daemon, are you…?"

He didn't ask the question but the bastard nodded. "I will join them."

"But—"

"There's nothing but about it. My father is the heir to Godsgrace and he has other children. He would see what I've done and be proud of it." He sounded so sure, so confident of what he spoke.

Quentyn wished he could have that kind of confidence. He knew that he wouldn't inherit Dorne. That was Arianne. He was just the second son. "I'll go too," Pyp said. "It could be fun." He looked across the room. "You're coming too, Aurochs."

"What?" said Grenn, "Why?"

"Because you are," he told him.

"Eh? Wha?" said Edd, his head rising out of the hammock. He looked really pathetic doing that. "What is going here?"

"We're discussing where we're going to get off," Quentyn said.

"Is it Braavos?"

Pyp threw a look at Grenn. "See?"

"Shut up," he said back.

"No, Edd," Jon said, "It's not Braavos."

He groaned and asked, "Lys?"

"No, it's too far south. We would have to sail past King's Landing."

"Then where?"

"Further north," he answered. Quentyn wondered why he didn't actually say the words. Was he afraid that Edd would refuse if he heard them?

"…There, huh?" asked the sick square. "It can't be any worse than this ship."

"We're supposed to get a storm later," Sam told him.

He looked like he would throw up. "Why did you have to mention that?" he asked in a weak voice.

"I didn't want you to be caught off-guard by it."

"So instead you just wanted to make me wait for it to come? That's worse, Sam, much worse."

"Sorry," he apologized.

Quentyn didn't know if he accepted it or not. Edd looked too sick to actually show what he felt on his face. Finally he said, "Fine. So we're going there?"

"You don't object?" Jon asked

"Why should I? I can't leave you lot alone there. You might think that it will be an adventure. Someone needs to remind you that life is not fun."

That was certainly one way to look at it. Surprisingly, Quentyn found himself agreeing with the sentiment. Sometimes, people needed to be reminded that life wasn't a song. Then he realized that he was the only one who hadn't spoken about what happened next. He found that he didn't need to think about it for long. "I'll come too," he declared.

This time, all the eyes fell onto him. "Quentyn, not you," Jon protested.

"Why, Jon?" Why should he be the one who stays behind?

"You have more to go home to."

"He's right, Quentyn," Ser Daemon agreed.

He looked at the Dornish bastard. They had become friends at Riverrun, something that he had never expected. But that didn't mean he had forgotten who Daemon's first love was. What he and Quentyn thought of his sister were two completely things. "Do I?" he asked. "Do I truly have more waiting for me in Dorne?"

"Yes, you do."

"I have a sister and cousins who hate me because I made a single remark about my foster father, an uncle who feels the same way but has a slightly better control over his temper, no mother, and a father who will not stop my sister." His father could've done that when they were still in Dorne but he never said a word.

"What about your brother or the younger Snakes? Surely they would miss you. And what of your friends, Cletus and Archibald Yronwood or Gerris Drinkwater?" he asked. "What of them?"

He had thought about them. He knew that he would miss them. But the bad things outweighed the good. He had a feeling that if he was to stay in Dorne, Arianne or one of the Sand Snakes would have him killed when Father finally passed. In their minds, it would be justified. "If they were truly my friends, they will understand what it is I am doing. As for Trystane and the others, I will miss them but they will go on without me."

As he finished talking, the room filled with silence. Jon looked at them all with surprise. "You would do this for me?" he asked them. "You would give it up for me?"

"I've already told you why I'm doing," Edd said. "Besides, you need a friend." That was his last word on the subject, mostly because he pulled his head back into the hammock and disappeared from sight.

"He's right," Sam agreed. "We're your friends, Jon."

Ser Daemon nodded, grinning. "He's right. We are your friends, Jon. Who else would break you out of the Red Keep?" The grin faded a little as his words left the obvious implication hanging over their heads.

But Jon smiled at him. "Thank you, Daemon." He turned his gaze slowly around the room. "Thank you all."

Quentyn smiled back at him. This decision felt rather liberating, if he was being honest. It was like he was finally making his choice in life. The ship rocked once more, shaking him out of his thoughts. "The storm must be getting closer," he thought to himself. Here's hoping they would survive that. He looked at Jon, another question on his mind. "Jon, can I talk to you above deck?"

He nodded and they both climbed upwards. As they came out and smelled the sea air, Quentyn led him over to the rail. "What is it, Quentyn?" Jon asked him as they both stared out at the horizon.

"Is there a reason you don't want to go to Winterfell? Aside from putting the Starks in danger?" he asked.

The Northerner didn't answer him for a long moment, choosing to look out at sea. "…Yes, there is," he said.

"Someone you don't want to talk to?" He had a feeling he knew who it would be.

"Yes. And that was all he would say on the matter. Even when the storm hit and they were hanging on for their lives below decks, Jon would not talk about Winterfell.

End

Author's note: Thank you for all the reviews you've sent me.

And that's how it happened. We all know where they're going.

I think that Sam would have figured out what his father would've wanted without the threat. He's not an idiot or blind.

But wait, there's more! The thing you've all been waiting for! Ned Stark makes another appearance next chapter!

I'll see you all next chapter!