The Best is Yet to Be

By littlelights

Disclaimer: I am not making any money, blah, blah, blah.

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Chapter 10

The strangers brought so many new supplies it was easy to imagine they would never go hungry again.

As she picked up another stack of fabric from the cart, Dolyse of Goldgrass counted the length in her head before trudging back to Winterfell's maze of store rooms. The cold, crisp air had stilled for a few hours, giving the servants charged with hauling everything from the newly arrived supply carts painless period of time to unload the newly arrived treasures. The heavy maroon fabric, which looked both expensive yet serviceable, would be cut into cloaks or blankets soon enough. It seemed like such a waste to her. Dolyse hadn't seen anything so nice since before the War of the Five Kings, when her mother had sent her off to work as a laundress for a prosperous household in Torrhen's Square. Washing clothes and household necessities was tireless and ceaseless work. She'd been just a girl of eleven name days when she began hauling heavy buckets of water to and from the laundries, and she'd grown use to the work after another decade of heavy labor.

But then King Robb had called for war, and everything changed. After the sacking of the Torrhen's Square and spending the better part of three years on the run from place to place, Dolyse looked back at the years spent washing other people's clothes, making good use of their cast off garments, and wanted more than anything in that moment to wrap the rich fabric around herself and dream of a new gown and cloak.

It had been ages since she'd seen anything so nice, never mind just about everything she'd ever worn had been previously owned by someone else. For all her twenty four years, she just wanted something nice. Something all her own which hadn't been cast aside by anyone else. Something of her choosing to last through the winter.

Her dreaming ended when the careful eye of Winterfell's stewardess fell on her. Mistress Medda looked up from the paper listing supplies on the cart, and motioned Dolyse over. Obediently she obliged, and waited patiently for the stewardess's direction.

"Good fabric," the stewardess nodded, counting the stack in Dolyse's arms. "It will keep more than a few people warm." There was nothing sharp or judgmental about her tone, it was the reason why most of the smallfolk liked Medda Forrester. Dolyse had no quarrel with the stewardess. In the year since she'd taken up work at Winterfell, the stewardess was a constant presence in and around the keep. Few spoke ill of her, and if they did, it was because their work was lacking.

Dolyse seized the moment to speak. "Blankets would be welcome, but some warm cloaks would be nice as well, for those working outside."

There was no judgement in her mistresses' eyes, just a patient appraisal of the fabric in question and a swift glance of the state of Dolyse's own thin and hastily patched clothing.

"Are you steady with a needle?" The stewardess asked, looking back at her ledger.

"Yes, mistress," Dolyse replied, a happy bounce filled her words. "I mended some of the clothes in the laundries before I came here."

"Good. Take the stacks of this color to the second storage lodge in Wintertown, and when the needle maids arrive tomorrow, you can help them make whatever is needed. I'll send Sorsha to check on your progress. Distribute the first half when they're finished, and let me know when the second half is completed. There are a few people in the keep who are in need of extra clothing."

Not quite what she wanted. Feeling deflated, Dolyse nodded and shuffled the fabric in her arms. If this was to be the first of five loads, she could at least take a few moments to just enjoy holding the material for a few more minutes.

"Dolyse," the mistress interrupted with a kind smile. In the short time she'd worked for the stewardess, her smiles had been a rare occurrence. She must have been in a rare mood. "Make a cloak for yourself. If you patch the one you have much longer, it will be nothing but thread and cobwebs. It's best used as an extra blanket for your bed."

Dolyse's face broke into a smile. "Thank you, mistress, I'll get started on what we need when this is all unloaded." It was with a giddy bounce in her step and arms full of heavy fabric that she traversed the short walk to the smallest of the wooden storage buildings in Wintertown. It had been emptied for far too long, as the communal kitchens were supplied by the keep to prevent food theft. Storing the fabric here would allow for easier distribution, and allow for a bit more time to spare on trussing up a new cloak with different colored thread. While no real talent with needlework work, Dolyse was sure she could fancy it up a bit.

While dropping off each load with a helpful Sorsha in tow, the day was ending on a high note. Soon, supper would be called and then there would be time to dream a bit of what her new cloak would look like. In the middle of a heavy load, Dolyse noticed dried up specks of red dust in each fold of fabric. Spices from a cracked container? Lifting a finger to her mouth, it didn't taste like it. It was a queer taste, like a metal mug in her mouth.

It was probably nothing.

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"I need to go home."

Meera Reed's words held the sharpness of a razor's edge. Other people would have thought she was menacing, but her husband knew otherwise. It had taken months of traveling together and sleeping side by side in the frozen wastes of the far north to know when her words were spoken in anger, and when they signaled the need for immediate action.

Meera wasn't demanding to go home. She needed to go home, with all haste and the saddling of a swift horse. The reason for her announcement was due largely to the note in her hand, delivered by a small steed and rider from the Neck.

This was the part of his gift he hated the most – it prevented from living his life fully day to day just like everyone else. Suns rose and set. Moons rode high in the sky and were felled with each dawn. The dance of life moved forward sometimes gently, sometimes hurriedly, and sometimes stretched into the next. Time passed, but Bran didn't feel it breezing by. Time was seized in quick snatches between his visions. A meal, a night with his wife. And in times of need, just as now, his gift was needed beyond the effort of a normal man.

Another series of days spent with the weirwood tree, searching for a way through the blackness clouding his sight, and Bran had been wheeled to the private quarters he shared with his wife. Gendry had been the one to She was beautiful, Brandon Stark noted, observing the way the dark green gown hugged the curves of her hips. Her practicality dictated her clothes were plain, the neckline tilted just below her pale neck, and her trousers snapped straight down from the shortened tunic dress. He tucked the way she looked in the moment away into his memory, saving it for a time he would undoubtedly need in the future.

Meera must have seen him woolgathering, as her lips pressed together with a slightly exasperated hiss of her breath.

"The snows are deep, and the roads are dangerous in winter." Brandon supplied, knowing he was being petty. Meera had saved him from the bitter snows of the ancient heart of winter. She could fend for herself, although he was loathe to see her leave. He looked at the slimness of her wrists, and the crease-lined parchment folded one hand. The parchment looked cracked from cold and long hours of travel. There were no ravens at Greywater Watch, and no maester to keep them. Messages were sparse, only arriving when great need or urgent news merited their arrival.

"My father needs me." Meera replied, her tone dropping into cool tone she reserved for idiots and anyone else standing in her way. Bran turned his head, turning back into the fire, but it didn't warm him like usually did. For Howland Reed to summon his heir and only daughter, his need for her must be of high consequence.

"You're leaving." Bran said softly. "Leaving me." For good he wanted to add.

"Not forever." Meera did not try to soften her tone. "There's been some disturbances in the marshes, and my father needs someone he trusts to find out what's happening. The animals are leaving their places of winter sleep. It may be the river raiders or something else. There's no reason not to go." She didn't need to say much after that.

Bran wanted to fill the air with reasons for her not to go, most of them sounded selfish and shallow. Reports from the free folk Tormund had sent out to scout the rivers stated no other raiders could be found, leaving the Kings Road and waterways safe for travel again. House Reed had sacrificed much to ensure the safety of the realm. Could he really deny his wife after all they had endured?

Before the Ironborn raid on Winterfell's mill, he and his wife were almost certain she was carrying a child. They both had been relieved and happy, when two months passed and her moonblood had not appeared. He'd been too confident of their accomplishment, too sure they had conceived, only to have their hopes dashed after the raiders had been captured and his sight abruptly waned. He saw little but the slimy blackness, limiting his vision to that of the land of Westeros itself. Meera's blood had appeared a week after the raid and lasted two days. Her face had hardened when she realized she was bleeding. Her blood had been light with no cramping. No sign of a miscarriage. No sign of anything. Hurt yet stoic, Meera hadn't bothered to see the maester. She had sighed, pushed the disappointment aside, but he knew she was carrying the hurt deeply.

They should try again, but Bran felt bone-tired when locked in a physical plane. His appetite was lacking, his diversions were few. The war had fractured him, he mused. Spending so much time out of his physical body had taken a toll on his mind and health. The nights spent with Meera were equal parts joy and comfort, and while he'd managed to spill seed in his wife consistently, a year of marriage had failed to produce a child they desperately wanted and needed.

With his sight limited, and without a baby to worry about, there was no argument Bran could make with outstripped the need for Lord Reed to call for aid from his strong and capable daughter. All Meera's children, should they be sired by him or by someone else, would grow up responsible for the crannogmen of the Neck. When Meera arrived within sight of the bogs and grasses of the wetwood, raiders and outsiders were as good as dead. None of them knew the ins and outs of the Neck and its many sinkholes, marshes, and floating islands.

With his options limited, "When do you leave?" Bran kept his voice deliberately bland. It was better to keep his insecurities to himself when she was pointedly ready to pack her satchel.

"Before dawn on the morrow," she replied shortly. "I do not now how long I'll be gone, but I'll send word when I do." There was no anger in her voice, simply the steely determination of someone charged with an impossible task. His pride has been pricked by that particular trait in the past. Now he wished there was a reason for her not to go.

"I'll be back, Bran. I promise."

Suddenly tired, Bran looked into the flames, feeling the wave of another vision lurking behind his weary eyes. "I know. Safe journey, Meera."

The wifely admonishments he expected never came. She turned, the ghost of earlier reproaches of eating more, sleeping longer, one more cup of tea, one more blanket, one more moment of bliss followed her like shadows, blending into the dark until he was alone again.

Looking out into the flames, he wondered if he should give Meera her freedom, end their marriage, and seek solitude in the Three-Eyed-Raven's tree. Follow in his mentor's metaphorical footsteps and break away from the world of men. That path was still open to him if they didn't conceive during the next four years.

If she even let him touch her again after making an ass of himself again.

The last conscious thought he managed before falling into an unfamiliar abyss was of his wife gazing at him from the warm covers of their marriage bed, counting days and kissing him with anxious joy. "Two moons, and no blood," she'd said. The vision took over, and he was blind again. The rush of strong water on rock carried the smell of rotten fish. His sight was gone, but he could still feel an oily taste in his mouth.

With no light to guide his way, Bran walked forward onto rough rock, and fell forward, breathlessly headed downward into an abyss.

On the way down, he didn't bother to scream.

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Checking the account books one, then twice, Medda closed the ledger and stood up, arching her back and rubbing her eyes in an effort to push away the tiredness. The queen would be pleased with swiftness in which the caravan's supplies had been tallied, stored, and shared among the smallfolk in and around Winterfell. The lone candle in its iron stand provided just enough light to complete her figures, but her eyes ached with squinting in the dim flicker of a nearly gutted candle. Where it was common for the royal household to use more than one lighting source for their work, Medda kept to a single lit sentinel to review her accounts and tally the numbers. It was habit from a time when candles had been precious and her father had proudly stated he could keep Lord Glover's ledgers with little more than a thin tallow candle which produced more smoke and smell than actual light.

Winterfell now had an abundance of clean burning beeswax candles compliments of the Reach, but Medda could feel her father's disapproving gaze whenever she contemplated lighting another sturdy pillar candle.

Years after his passing and miles away from her birthplace, the dead had a habit of following her in unseen ways. The afternoon had been hard, when she'd seen all the children of Wintertown following the caravan men around, their eyes wide with delight as coins were handed out freely. Most had never held a coin, to have their own was revelation. Her sons would have loved it, Medda mused, their dark unruly heads pressed together in fascination of holding something all their own, and sneaking off to climb aboard the strange assortment of wagons to prove they were the bravest of their friends.

Medda had to stop thinking of them altogether in the days following their deaths. It had been the only way she had been able to press on and survive to help others. But she kept seeing them in the faces of the hungry children who begged at in the rundown streets of Burrowtown, and even more when her position with House Dustin had given her discretion to feed and rehome orphans from the war.

No matter how many children she'd aided, or women she'd nursed through labor, or the number of those she had fed during the War Against the Long Night, it had not eased the hole in her heart. Time had scarred over the wound, and she felt it most acutely in the hours she wasn't attending to her duties. Idleness caused her to dwell at her loss, not just of the boys but of everyone else. All of them gone. Shadows against the glow of light. Transparent, cold, and silent.

Attempting to put her maudlin thoughts to rest, Medda stood slowly and gathered the account books close to her chest. The queen's solar was through the family wing of the keep, a long walk which would provide the chance to make a final survey of the day's work in the public areas and be available for her final orders of the night.

The walk itself wasn't significant. It was the same route she'd taken hundreds of times both before and after the war. The energy in the keep was different tonight, she thought. The servants were smiling, chatting amongst themselves and nodding respectfully as she passed. She paused while passing by the great hall, where some of the men from the caravan sat around a long table, drinking with Lord Gendry, Lady Arya, and Ser Davos.

Medda tried to walk swiftly and silently as a shadow as to pass unnoticed, but her traitorous eyes cast a long gaze with the Onion Knight, and he smiled warmly her way. She tried to smile back, and where she could see him inviting her to join their gathering with the way he looked at her, eyes flush with cheer and anticipation of seeing her, Medda hoisted the legers in her arms, a signal she was engaged with a task from the queen.

He wasn't disappointed, as much as he nodded, understanding the importance of the task she needed to accomplish. His eyes followed her, dispelling the gloom which followed her for a few heartbeats before turning the corner and returning into the shadows and her somber thoughts.

Passing by the royal chambers, its inhabitants sleeping or at rest for the night. Her own light footsteps were the only sound as she unlocked the door to the side solar with a quiet click and pushed through the door. Correspondence, notes, and other details were organized in tidy piles, most of which bore the gentle looping handwriting of the queen. Medda placed the account books in the center of the table for the lady of the hall to inspect, and made a passing inspection of the room for cleaning. Satisfied with the work of the servants, she left, locking the door behind her and turning in the direction of the hall.

Feeling out of sorts from the memories which weighed heavily on her mind, Medda gasped as she nearly collided with a figure emerging from the royal nursery. Not Oona, who was charged with staying with the little ones at night, but a far more fearsome creature.

"My lady," Medda nodded to Lady Olenna as she attempted to steady the older woman.

"Don't worry yourself, I'm well enough," The Queen of Thorns brushed the words and Medda's capable arms away. "Though, when I conjured a scenario in which I'd be accosted by a dark figure in Winterfell's dark corridors, I imagined it would be a wildling. I'm not disappointed my dear, but it does deflate the fantasy a bit. Why the devil are you up here, when you should be taking part in the revelries downstairs?"

"Seeing to the account books for the queen. I wanted her to review them on the morrow."

"No one doubts your dedication to the Queen in the North, my dear." Lady Olenna leaned heavily on her cane, and Medda out of habit, slowed her pace to keep the older woman company. "No one serves her more loyally, which in some people is a questionable trait. But in you, wear it well."

Medda recovered enough of her tongue to inquire, "Are you retiring for the evening, my lady?"

"I've made my final visit of the night so to speak. Of all the tasks which fill my time, it is the final hours of the day spent with a little one in my lap which makes my other accomplishments look small. Tomorrow I am having luncheon with this Salladhor Saan of Lys."

"To protect trade ships leaving Old Town?" Medda demurred. Paying for protection was distasteful for a variety of reasons.

"For amusement if anything else. He may talk a big game, and his reputation is that of a man who takes coin and follows through on his word. I haven't wined and dined a foreign dignitary for quite some time. I may be out of practice, but I daresay I'll enjoy it."

There was a subtle pause to the lady's words as the two of them approached the last chamber before descending the steps to the level below. "He comes highly recommended by the Hand of the King, which is about as good as an endorsement as one can find for a pirate king in any part of the known world." When Medda nodded, the older lady continued, her cat-like eyes searching the stewardess's face for any sign of emotion. "I know it's not something you feel comfortable doing, but it had been a sincere hope you may have opened yourself to the possibility of what we discussed some time ago."

"I'm not aware we had an agreement, my lady." Medda stated steadily, sensing where this conversation was headed.

"I wanted to congratulate you on keeping our stalwart Hand of the King by your side more than that of his liege lord." When Medda declined to comment, Lady Olenna pressed on. "I can see the way he looks at you. And you at him. When the two of you think you're being ever so polite with each other."

The frankness in Lady Olenna's voice had been welcome when Winterfell was rebuilding after the war. Given the topic of her discussion coupled with Medda's maudlin mood, all of the lady's questioning words grated at her patience. The stewardess was tired, melancholy, and wanted to simply drop everything and retire for the day. But it appeared there was one more test to see through before finding her way to the cold bed supplied to her near the kitchens.

"The queen requested I work in conjunction with the Lord Hand on more matters, and I have obeyed her request to the best of my ability." Medda felt her conscience prick at the lie. Queen Sansa hadn't ordered her to become friends with anyone, simply to become more accustomed to the kindness the Lord Hand offered freely.

"The two of you would make a good partnership," Lady Olenna stated matter-of-factly, readjusting her stance and causing her cane to strike the smooth stone floor to the point it echoed. "You've changed the last few months. Less sad, and the loyal Davos Seaworth is the cause of it. Why not make it permanent?"

"I'm not interested in marrying anyone." The words cracked on her tongue before she added a slow, "My lady."

"Rubbish." The Queen of Thorns brushed the remark away with a wave of her hand. "You're old enough to know what you want and possess a manner which puts a man firmly in his place. You should be thinking of marrying and having a family of your own."

"My husband died." Medda replied, her voice sounded strained yet calculating, as if she needed to present an inoffensive string of thoughts.

"And the marriage wasn't a happy one."

"I never said that." Medda's replied in a rush of words.

"You didn't have to, my dear." Olenna assured with a frown. "Your eyes tell me everything I need to know. He was a brute or a philanderer. Maybe both. Well, you're rid of him now, and better for it."

When the woman beside her said nothing, Olenna pressed forward. "My own husband was an oaf, a sometimes loveable one, but a bit thick headed just the same. Now you and I have found ourselves in a better place than before, and with a higher caliber of companionship."

"I'm happy you're here, my lady, and I'm grateful for the duties and the trust the queen has placed with me."

The voices from the great hall, the thick northern accents intermingling with those unmistakably foreign and those of poorer recesses of Flea Bottom flowed from the space below. Lady Olenna looked the stewardess up and down in an appraising fashion before speaking her mind for what would be the last time of the day. Being straight forward with young people was both tiresome and exhausting, the older lady sighed.

"I suggest you metabolize the advantages of your new life and build something better for yourself. Marriage to a man carries a heavy risk for most women, but you have the good fortune to be in close proximity to one of the kindest and most capable men I've met in quite some time. Don't think I'm pushing you toward the Hand of the King just because he's available. And don't think marriage would disqualify you from service. I doubt the queen would allow you to give up your stewardship for anything less than packing up and marrying a lord. Which given the lack of lords, is very unlikely. I'm telling you this because I see the way you take care of people, and you deserve to have a husband who respects you and family of your own. Don't spend your life alone because your first husband was a fool and an idiot."

"He's not the reason," the younger woman whispered.

Ah, there it was. The sadness in Medda's lovely face seemed overwhelming now. Pain was there, as was something akin to shame and grief. So much so it seemed the room was suddenly swallowing her up whole. Olenna had seen that look decades ago on the faces of the women who had suffered grievously during the Ironborn raids on the coastal lands of the Reach. Few women were known to escape Ironborn raiders. A precious few. They may have resisted and ran away from the men who burned their homes but they hadn't been able to escape from the pillaging, raping and reeving completely unscathed. When the Ironborn returned again during the War of the Five Kings, entire regions of the Northern coast were wiped away, the people murdered and villages sacked. The settlements around Barrowtown had suffered heaviest, if Lord Glover's words could be believed.

Why else would a woman let go of the possibility of being with a man unless something horrid or unspeakable had happened her bodily or otherwise?

"Whatever your reasons, my dear, it's in the past." Olenna counseled on a slow exhale. "It can't hurt you anymore unless you let it. Nothing is worse than allowing the past to attack both your present and future with the same bloody sword. There is no pain which compares to spending the last years of your life without having the people you love around you. The love of my grandchildren sustained me when the world began to burn, and it was vengeance for their deaths which forced me to rise again when most people would have given up and died. I don't want to see you die a slow death from what you suffered. I've seen too many good people die already. I'd rather not see another body added to the pile."

As was her fashion, the formidable lady of the Reach pushed through the door the chamber, not sparing a glance for the stewardess standing still and quiet in the corridor. With a click of metal joints on wood, Medda was alone, her feet staying motionless for only a moment before they began carrying her down the stairs, needing to flee from a barrage of emotions welling up in her chest. The barrage of voices from the hall exploded in her ears, everything sounding too loud and too close, but she pushed it aside, as she seemed to push the rough folds of fabric aside from the warm bodies standing in her way. Her heart pound faster, her pace growing frantic, as she pushed past the final figure, through the dim darkness of the corridor, past the kitchens, and finally outside into the blessed cold of the night. Shaky legs carried her a few more lengths before she staggered to the wall, head pressed against the frosty stone, gasping for breath and fighting for control. Quick breaths nearly became sobs as she scrunched up her face against the pain, and attempted to take one deep breath. The air wouldn't go into her lungs. On the verge of crying, she pushed away from the grey stone wall for more space.

She never heard squeaky swing of the kitchen door or the footsteps in snow from a person following her outside.

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