Edward Stark stares down into the brook where his small party has stopped to water their horses. The little stream has barely any current to speak of, leaving a smooth, clear surface amidst the reeds. The blue sky above reflects in the water, crossed with branches of green. A swallow flies overhead, darting down low to catch a skittering bug. The slightest splash of its wings as the bird claims its prey sends ripples across the surface, disturbing the serene clouds and trees and distorting the image of Edward's own face.
He looks away from the water and back to the small canvas in his lap. A wet brush rests idly in his left hand, dripping green paint into the grass. He hadn't taken time to paint all the ride south, but something about the brook here had inspired him to dig his supplies out of his pack while the others tended to the horses and took a leisurely lunch. Ser Jaime, it seemed, was in no hurry to return to his service of the king, and had dragged out what should have been nary a week's journey into what could, at this rate, quite possibly take a fortnight.
Edward is not sure how long he has been sitting here, but he has made scarce progress, his canvas only stained with streaks of blue and green and brown, formless and unknown. He wanted to paint the brook, but every time he looked down at the water's surface, he saw his own scarred face looking back up at him. It no longer seeped puss, but the jagged red stripe that crossed his left cheek was ugly enough all the same, and still sore to the touch. He had never much cared about his face. But that was before he knew a princess. Now he feared he looked more like The Hound than Ser Jaime.
The events of that day at the Trident turned over and over again in his brain every day as they rode. He had been stupid, stupid to take the sword, stupid to fight Joffrey, stupid to get up again when he was already beat. He wasn't supposed to be stupid. He was the smart one, smarter than all his brothers and sisters, old Maester Luwin had always said so to Father when he thought Edward was gone. They all called him 'the little lord.' But he hadn't been acting like a lord at all, not since he became a squire. He wasn't sure why – trying to impress Arya, to impress Ser Jaime, to impress Myrcella. Maybe a little of them all. He missed the days when the brush in his hand was all he had to wield. But the path chosen for him was different now, he knew. One day he would be a knight. It was time to start acting like one.
"Edward!" Lyman Darry's voice calls out. The older lad appears behind the curtain of a willow tree, briskly pushing the long, lazy branches out of his way. Ser Raymun had near lost his mind at the suggestion that his son come to the city, but once Jaime filled Lady Darry's mind with thoughts of her son defending the realm and being knighted by Barristan the Bold it left little argument. Soon enough Lyman was packing his bags, saddling his horse and riding off down the Kingsroad with Edward, Jaime and the four men-at-arms who had stayed behind with them.
"Ser Jaime is preparing the camp for departure," he reports. Lyman is wearing riding leathers over an ill-fitted shirt of mail, all his father's guards could spare, that and one steel gauntlet on his sword hand, embossed with the plowman of House Darry. He said it was recovered from one of his uncles, slain by Robert at the Trident.
Reluctant to leave his place of contemplation, Edward washes out his brush and pallet in the stream and packs them back into his sack. Brushing off his breeches, he follows Lyman back beneath the willow and winces as the hanging leaves brush over his wound. As soft as the willow may be, it stings all the same.
"Percy says that if we keep the pace we're at, we'll be at King's Landing in two days," Lyman continues, dropping down a free hand to help Edward as they climb out of the gully. "Have you ever been to a city before?"
Catching his breath after the short climb, Edward shakes his head. Father had taken Robb and Sansa to White Harbor once, but he and Arya had still been too young.
"When I was a boy, I used to think Duskendale was a city," Lyman laughs as they traipse down the trail back to the camp. "I've been there many times, but it's a fly on a stallion's ass compared to a real city, like King's Landing. I've heard merchants and knights spin their tales of it. Everything's bigger there, they say, bigger than anywhere in the world. The castles, the markets, the septs…" He glances back with a smile that reminded Edward of Theon, "the women."
Edward blushed at that. He'd never had any thought for women, save for his sisters and Mother. And not at all the way that Jon and Robb and Theon had come to look at them, making fools of themselves with their little games. But then he had met Myrcella, and now those games didn't seem so foolish anymore. He wonders if Lyman really had talked to women like that before, and if he had, what he could teach.
"What does a lad like you have to do with women?" The loud, brash voice of Percy, chief among the four guards riding with them, echoes out as they step into the camp clearing. The huge man, Lannister armor strapped tight over his broad belly and bits of the morning's bacon still flecked in his unruly beard, lurches forward to give Lyman a playful shove. "Those whores in King's Landing will take all your gold before you see a single teat!"
"I have known women!" Lyman insists, angrily swiping strands of his long hair out of his face.
"Oh, sure," Percy chuckles. "I, too, came to know a few of your Darry women. What about you, Igor?"
The hook nosed, scar-faced archer grins from beneath his raised helm as he tightens his bow across the clearing. "Aye, I knew one or two in our stay. Enough to know I may need to see a maester myself when we get back."
"What do you mean, know?" Edward asks, confused, as the others laugh at a joke he seems to have missed. "I don't understand." But the guards, and even Lyman, only laugh harder.
"Never mind them, Edward," Ser Jaime calls out, riding into camp atop his white destrier, flanked by the other guards, Trever and Ian. "Foolish talk from idle minds. And idle hands, that ought to have loaded their horses by now."
That silences the men fast enough, so fast that Edward gets no answer. In a moment, they are on the road again, and Edward's mind is on the city, not what the princess will think when she sees his new face.
The first time Sansa Stark stepped into her room in the Tower of the Hand, it took her breath away. Winterfell had been elegant, she could not say otherwise, but her bedchamber there seemed a pauper's hovel compared to the lavishness here. Jeyne had nearly fainted when she saw her own room. But this… this was the home of Sansa's dreams – the softest silks of every color, nary a bland northern grey to be seen. And the furs and feathers of animals, some familiar but others unlike any Sansa had ever seen.
Collapsing back onto her bed, she squeaks with joy, feeling the comforting touch of the blankets and sheets beneath her, breathing in the smell of incense and perfume that filled the room- lavender, winter rose, and other smells new and strange but newly loved by her nose. Rolling over, she buries her face in one of the pile of pillows, a deep blue and unbelievably soft. The perfumes have dusted it so heavily it seems nearly to breathe out with the sweetness, as if stuffed with flowers instead of wool. She gags as the lovely haze clogs in her throat but, a dainty cough later, dives back into the softness to breathe it in again. If this is what was afforded the daughter of the Hand, what more did the Queen herself enjoy?
The queen! She sits up with a jolt. The queen, that name that would belong to her one day, that had been promised, so long as… Suddenly the fears begin to creep back in, fears nursed by the long days of silence from her prince as he brooded over his scarred arm and wounded pride. If he were to set her aside, then what? She didn't want to imagine it, not after a month of picturing that crown on her head.
But what could she do? Joffrey hated them all now, she was sure of it. Edward had been so stupid, it was so unlike him, he'd ruined everything. You give a boy a sword and suddenly he can't think straight, it seemed. Joffrey was no different. But she could sort them both out, she knew, there had to be a way. Moods came and went like the wind. She just had to find something that Joffrey enjoyed, something that they could both love, to get him to love her again. She thought back to the day in the woods, before everything had gone wrong.
The prince loved to hunt, that much was clear, but she was no good at that. Near everything else seemed to put him in a foul mood. Perhaps he only needed to find something new, something that could hold his attention. Like her stitching, or Edward and his painting, though Sansa could scarce imagine Joffrey with a brush in his hand. But she would find it. Whatever it was, she had to find it. And then everything would be alright again.
Rolling off the bed, she walks back to her trunks and flips open the latches to begin unpacking. She takes out dresses and smallclothes, gently, one by one. Father will need to buy her new clothes, she thinks, holding up drab, grey wool to the red bedcurtains. She had some fine clothes, to be sure, with fabrics bought from the ports at White Harbor, but if she wanted to fit in here in the city, in the Red Keep, those alone would simply never do.
Sansa's mind strays to thoughts of the most fabulous dresses as she absent-mindedly continues to empty the trunk until her hand wraps around a small hard object wrapped in a dark blue handkerchief. Raising it up, she runs to a table in the corner and unwraps the package - a small direwolf, the size of her hand, carved from the fallen branch of a wierwood and painted by Edward when he was only six, just picking up a brush for the first time. The paint was sloppy, the colors garish blue and orange, not the colors of any true direwolf. But she cherished the gift nonetheless and now, here in her hands amidst all the luxury of the Red Keep, it made her miss Edward. She could never stay mad at him, not for long.
And so, with a prayer to speed his and Ser Jaime's return, she collapses back onto the bed, wrapping the soft, heavy blankets around her and throwing her long crimson tresses free amidst the pillows. It may not yet be time for dinner, but it has been a long journey and now is time to let the smells of her new home carry her off to sleep.
Princess Myrcella Baratheon was glad to be home. As much as she might love the clean air, starry skies and wild birds of the North, it was all a strange, foreign place for her. Here in the Red Keep, within the royal chambers of Maegor's Holdfast, she felt secure. She had come to know every corner, every door and every hall like the back of her hand, etched out by countless peaceful afternoons playing hide and seek with Tommen, his clumsy fat feet stumbling on the stone, always leading her right to where he hid.
But now she was alone in her room. Alone in the whole Holdfast, maybe. She cannot hear even the slightest clank of armor or the faintest padding of a septa's feet. Myrcella sits alone in her room, kicking her feet aimlessly at the side of the bed. Her mind strays back to the wolf boy, Edward. They had gotten word he had left Darry with her uncle. He would be back here soon, back with her, back with whatever mark her brother had left on him. She tried not to think of that. Joffrey would get over his anger, she told herself. He always did, eventually. And he was often angry with her and Tommen. He would get a new sword, bigger and better than Lion's Tooth, and everything would be alright.
The sound of feet startles her from her thoughts. Dropping softly down from the bed, she strains to listen. The stone is cold beneath her bare feet as she steps closer to the door. She hears the feet again – human, for sure, not one of Tommen's cats that were always crowding about and getting underfoot. Someone small, certainly no knight. One of the Stark girls perhaps? Hopefully Sansa, she was frightened of Arya. She seemed more a boy than girl, and not a nice boy like Edward, always pulling faces and making japes.
Silently, she steps through the doorway into the huge hallway. Not a soul to be seen.
"Hello!" she calls out. "Who's there?" When no answer comes, she takes another gentle step forward, then another, carefully planting her feet in the center of each stone. She tries not to let thoughts of ghosts plague her mind as she nears the shadowy corner at the end of the hall. Such things were absurd, child's fantasies, at least Septa Eglantine said so. But so many people had died here in this keep, Joffrey had made sure she knew every one – each a dark and tragic tale to keep her up at night and shiver every time she felt a draft, fearing she may have stepped through the spirit of some long-dead Targaryen princess.
Finally, as Myrcella nears the bend at the end of the corner, she can hear breathing. The fears slowly begin to grip tighter around her mind, and she presses tight up against the wall, inching closer and closer until there was no wall to hide behind anymore. With a sudden force, she pushes herself out and spins around into the center of the hall. And the girl in front of her shrieks.
"Rosamund!" Myrcella calls out, recognizing her cousin and clamping a hand over her mouth to stop the screaming. "What are you doing here?"
Rosamund Lannister takes far longer than Myrcella has patience for to quit quivering. Everyone said the two girls looked alike, but she couldn't see it. Rosamund's hair was straight, not curled, her green eyes muddied with brown. But now those eyes were filling with tears, and Myrcella looses her hand.
"I… I was lost. I w…w…wanted to find you, but I couldn't… I couldn't…" Myrcella suppresses a groan as Rosamund starts to cry again.
"Well, you've found me now, haven't you? There's no reason to cry."
Much to her annoyance, Rosamund is undeterred in her misery. Thankfully, though, her noise doesn't seem to have summoned any guards, and Myrcella begins to slowly walk her cousin back to her room. The smaller girl had only recently arrived from the West. She was from a lower branch of House Lannister, but Mother believed she would make a suitable friend. Myrcella had friends, of course, but she had come to realize her Mother had little trust for anyone outside of her own family. And so now she was stuck with poor, lost, sobbing Rosamund.
"I thought you were a ghost. Like Queen Helaena or Prince Jaehaerys."
Myrcella rolls her eyes, quickly forgetting her own timidity just a moment before. Clearly Joff has already begun filling his cousin's head with his favorite tales of murder and woe. She pulls Rosamund further along, closer and closer to the door. But as they turn the corner, a dark figure lurches out from the shadows with an inhuman groan!
This time, both girls scream. Rosamund turns to run in terror but Myrcella shoves her into her room, rushing to slam the door behind them when she hears the dark figure begin to laugh a laugh she knows all too well.
"You really are so stupid," Joffrey howls as he tears a black scarf down from around his face, his taunting green eyes laughing behind his disheveled curls as they twist and tangle in the fabric. "And now there's two of you."
"Leave her alone, Joff," Myrcella glares. She can hear the sound of approaching armor. This time, the guards did hear. "She's only just got here, it's not fair, you frightening her so!"
"Then tell her not to be such a coward," Joff spits and turns heel to run. "I'm going to find Tommen." Myrcella watches his retreating back all the way down the corridor, waiting for the guards to arrive. Perhaps she ought to just tell them they'd seen a ghost. It would make little difference either way. She only hopes Tommen won't wet himself again.
It was almost dusk when the seven riders reached the crest of the hill and can see the walls and towers of King's Landing for the first time. They rise tall and stark against the darkening amber horizon, seeming almost to mark the end of the world as the land beyond falls away to the nothingness of the Narrow Sea. Edward hears a quiet gasp from Lyman's direction.
"Home, sweet home!" Percy thunders. "You can smell the reek from here!"
Beside him, Igor grins through his cracked teeth. "I can't tell, is it the dung or the rotted corpses?"
"That's enough," Ser Jaime shakes his head. "You needn't frighten the lads. It could only be the river. It gets particularly rancid this time of year."
But as the men ride off laughing down the hill, Edward pauses a moment longer as Tessarrion trots up alongside him. For all his fears, in this moment, looking in awe at the vastness of the city, he can only feel the draw of possibility. So much history had happened within those walls, legends made and unmade, warriors forged, lovers united…
At his side, the direwolf raises its snout towards the thin sliver of a moon slowly creeping from behind the clouds as the setting sun retreats further into the west. It lets loose a blood-curdling howl. Edward looks down and smiles.
"You see that, Tessarion? That's our new home!"
A/N: At last, our hero has finally reached his destination - King's Landing. We've picked up some new friends along the way - Lyman Darry and a couple of jolly Lannister guardsmen, and there are some exciting new teachers waiting within the city walls to help guide Edward on his course, not the least of which being the one and only Barristan the Bold. I've also had a blast writing Myrcella. The intricacies of her and Tommen growing up with Joffrey as a brother tend to get overlooked, and I'm excited to explore that dynamic more here. As always, thanks for reading! All questions, critiques and assorted thoughts are greatly appreciated.