The Eye of the Ice Dragon guides The Grey Ghost as it slips through blessedly calm waters, its silent companion, The Ruddy Gull, keeping pace close behind. Bound for The North. Bound for home. The sparkling blue star glistens, reflected in the eye of Lady, the grey direwolf resting cautiously at the bow of the ship. Sansa Stark watches the sky pass through her wolf's eyes, buried beneath piles of grey cloaks to shield against the cold night winds, her pale hands wrapped tightly around a wineskin stolen from the ship's larder.
She takes a drink, forcing the bitter wine down despite the urge to gag it back up. After the night of Joffrey's hunting banquet, when he had gotten her drunk for the first time, she had pledged never to take to touch wine again, the youthful desires of rebellion spewed into her chamber pot along with the bile and burned from her brain with a two-day-long headache. But the bards all said men and women forgot their loss in the bottoms of their cups. And tonight there was nothing Sansa wished for more than to forget.
Father was dead. There had been brief, cruel moments when he first made plans to send her away from the capital where she had wished for such a calamity. Perhaps this was all punishment from the gods for such wicked thoughts. She would ask Septa Mordane for guidance. But the septa was dead, too. And with them, her dream. That beautiful stained glass portrait in her mind of her, crown upon her head, seated by the Iron Throne, had been shattered by Meryn Trant's axe when it broke through their door.
What is left for me now? She looks to the sky, seeking the gods – old, new, whomever will answer. To be some cold lady of the North? Forgotten in dusty old genealogies? To never be more than Firstborn Daughter of Lord Eddard Stark, a footnote in history? The most handsome lordling in all the North will never be Joffrey. Will never be king. She takes another choking drink.
"What are we going to do, Lady?" she buries her face in the wolf's neck.
"Jeyne finally cried herself to sleep." Arya Stark's blunt voice snaps Sansa back to reality. She turns, her sister a slight, short shadow standing behind her on the deck, Nymeria lurking behind, nothing but a pair of glowing eyes.
"Oh. That's good." The pit in Sansa's stomach grows deeper. She knows she should be there for her friend. Jeyne lost her father too. She watched him die in front of us. But how can she comfort others when she has not hope enough for herself? "You should be asleep, too."
"Speak for yourself," Arya crosses her arm and sits beside her. "I can't sleep on this stinking boat. It won't stand still."
"Would you ask the waves to stop just for you?" Sansa smirks.
"Yes. I would. And they ought to listen if they know what's good for them. I'll run the Drowned God through the heart with Needle if they don't."
"Stupid!" Sansa laughs, her head feeling warm from the wine. "You might as well ask time to unwind itself and bring back Father!" She instantly regrets her words, as they drop into a dark silence. She turns to face Arya for the first time – her pale, thin face washed with the silver and blue light of the moon and stars, her eyes black holes. Glowing like this in the night, perhaps for the first time, Sansa sees her own face staring back at her. "I… I'm sorry."
"No. Don't be." Arya turns away. "I should stab the Time God, too, whoever he is. I'll stab them all for what they did."
"Who will we pray to then?"
"The only ones worth a damn."
Sansa gasps – a slight, quick breath released into the night air. But for once, she feels no urge to scold her sister's language. Instead, she uncurls herself from beneath her furs and wraps one arm over Arya's small shoulders, pulling her in tight against her.
"Thank you for looking after Jeyne."
"I won't do it again," Arya insists, her neck still stiff under Sansa's touch. "She's unbearable."
"Her father…"
"So is ours!" She cuts her off before Sansa can say it. "You don't see us crying all day."
"Septa always said that tears were how pain left the body."
Sansa pulls her sister closer. She feels he muscles relax as she slumps into the curve of her side, face buried beneath the fur. For a long while, no noise passes between them but the constant soft pounding of the waves against the side of the ship. Until, finally, muffled by the cloaks, she can hear the soft, gasping cries as Arya begins to shake. It is a strange, foreign sound; Sansa cannot remember the sound of her sisters' tears. And soon, her own join them. Still buried, Arya wraps her arms around her waist as their grief becomes one.
For a long while, they sit in silence, rocked by the sea, until there are no tears left to be shed. Two girls. Two wolves. One body. At last, it is finished. Through her final sob, Sansa begins to sing.
"Gentle Mother, font of mercy,
save our sons from war, we pray,
stay the swords and stay the arrows,
let them know a better day.
Gentle Mother, strength of women,
help our daughters through this fray,
soothe the wrath and tame the fury,
teach us all a kinder way."
It seems as if the sea has gone silent, all the world tuned mute to listen, so much that Sansa almost believes her voice can reach over the seas to Winterfell, to White Harbor, to wherever Edward may be. As the last note fades, released into the cold, salty air, Arya at last emerges from beneath the cloaks.
"I don't think I'll stab the Mother," she whispers.
"You promise?"
"I promise."
Sansa embraces her one more time.
"You smell like wine," Arya coughs.
"Get you to bed," Sansa kisses her softly on the forehead. "I'll join you in a moment."
Below deck, in the captain's cabin, a solemn council meets around a rustic green table, small waves of ale and wine rolling in their wooden mugs keeping pace with the sea outside. Lord Petyr Baelish, Jory Cassel, Syrio Forel and Arden Longwaters, captain of The Grey Ghost, a rail-thin man with squinting blue eyes and a thin beard. He looks almost like Lord Baelish, if the Master of Coin were to be divided in half.
"How are we to know the girls will not be seized the moment we land in White Harbor?" Jory is asking, hunched over in his chair, his twisted Tyroshi dagger turning in his hands.
"Do you doubt the loyalty of House Manderly?" Baelish responds dubiously.
"No. I doubt the loyalty of those I don't know." Jory shoots fearsome looks at the lord and their captain. "I learned that lesson the hard way."
"I'll let you know I went through great trouble to give you aid, Northman!" Longwaters blurts out, fist slamming the table. "It's my neck on the chopping block, now, too! I won't have my word questioned by passengers I barely know meself!"
"Calm, Arden," Baelish raises a patronizing hand. "Master Cassel, I can assure you, if I wanted to turn you over to the Lannisters, I could have done so in the capital. It would have been much simpler. And much less expensive."
"The Littlefinger is right," Syrio speaks up, spinning his wine idly in his cup. "A man does not abandon a seat on the council of kings for nothing."
"Listen to the Bravossi," Baelish insists, his voice calm but firm. "Did not our dear, late Lord Hand trust him with his daughter's life? Did not he trust me? Have I been nothing but gracious to House Stark through all your days in King's Landing? I bought this ship. I bought that dagger."
"A dagger doesn't care whose coin bought it," Jory stabs his weapon hard down into the table. "Only whose hand wields it."
"Now that's it!" Longwaters leaps to his feet, spilling his ale. "I'll not have these Northern heathens destroying my ship! You will pay for that table, boy!"
"Arden!" Baelish finally raises his voice, but does not move from his seat. "Go to your chambers. You have already been pledged compensation enough to buy the twenty finest tables in all of Westeros. Your expertise is required to steer this ship, nothing more."
Reluctantly, the captain slinks silently out the door. Baelish turns back to Jory. "Now, Master Cassell, you were saying?"
"I trusted a lot of men in that city, Lord Baelish," Jory pries his dagger free without breaking eye contact. "It got many of me friends killed. And my Lord. I think I've earned grace to be distrusting of strangers."
"Stranger I may be to you, but I am no stranger to House Stark, whom we both serve." At last, Baelish stands. "I beg you both, get sleep. Our charges need your strength. And I pledge when we reach White Harbor, Lady Catelyn will await them at the end of the dock with open arms."
Without another word, he turns and exits the cabin, striding softly but confidently through the ship's dark corridors until he steps into the beam of pale light marking the ladder that leads to the deck. With quick, curt steps he climbs one rung at a time, emerging into the crisp night air. He takes a deep, salty breath, pausing to straighten his tunic and his hair. His eyes drift up to the sky, to the Ice Dragon, guiding their way North. He had learned that constellation by heart the very night Catelyn Tully has been pledged to marry Eddard Stark. How its pale, blue eye had haunted his dreams ever since…
Banishing sentimental thoughts, Baelish steadies himself and makes haste to the bow. His feet tread quick and stable upon the boards – a lifetime ago the little boy, heir to nothing but a rocky finger of land jutting out to sea, had earned his sea legs upon his father's small boat. It seems no number of years at court could take that away from him. He slows, seeing two piercing eyes glaring out from a moving shadow step into his path.
"Peace. Lady," he exposes his hands to the wolf as it draws near. "It is only time for your mistress to sleep." He may not fear the sea, but nervous goosebumps boil along his arms as the wolf's cold nose presses against his hands, sniffing deeply. He remembers the scars on Joffrey's arm, and fights back a shudder. Satisfied, Lady steps aside with a low cough – enough to signal the silhouette leaning over the bow to turn towards him.
"Lord Baelish, ish that you?" Sansa's small, slurred voice calls out, her form indiscernible within the many cloaks, wobbling to and fro like a great drunken bear. "You should be in bed."
"It's funny, I was about to say the same of you, my lady," Baelish steps forward and the girl nearly collapses. He catches her in his arms, steadying her. His nose curls at the reek of cheap wine. "And you're much too young to be drinking away your sorrows." He wrestles the wineskin away from her hands.
"I am a lady pledged to be queen, I will do as I please!" Sansa stumbles backwards, pulling away as she tries to grab it back, but her flailing hands are casually batted away.
"Perhaps you're more like Prince Joffrey than we thought," Baelish scowls, taking a swig from the skin. He recoils at the bitter taste. "Besides, this swill is far beneath your standing." Sansa watches in seething irritation as he empties the rest of the contents into the sea below. "I know these accommodations are far from being worthy of you and your sister, but I had very little time to prepare."
"I don't care what sort of ship it is, I don't want to be here at all!"
"I know, I know." He reaches out a comforting hand, but she pulls away. "You will still be queen, my lady, I promise you."
"You're lying!" Sansa turns to run, but trips over the heavy robes, tumbling face first onto the deck with a cruel thud. She scrambles back to her feet, slipping free from layer after layer of fur like a nesting doll, until only a thin nightgown remains over her slight body, swaying drunkenly as she tries to steady herself. Looking about for an escape, she takes a few quick steps away before stopping, doubled over, and unleashing a desperate, choked, gagging sound, not unlike a seabird coughing up half-digested food for its young.
With a desperate lunge, she hurls herself to the railing, bending over it as her body shakes violently, at last releasing the tormenting wine as she vomits violently out into the sea below. It comes again, and again, as Baelish slowly draws nearer, pulling back her hair with gentle hands as she continues to retch into the sea.
"I would never lie to you," Baelish whispers in her ear as she finally stops shaking, letting the empty wineskin drop to the deck. "I promised. I live to serve you and your House."
"How will you make me queen?" Sansa gasps, her face still dangling out over the dark waves, a thin strand of bile dangling from her upper lip and glistening in the moonlight. She shakes herself free, stumbling to safety, her voice rising with each step back on the deck "How? How? Father is dead!"
Before she can get out of reach, Baelish grabs her, pulling her back to him. She stiffens as he embraces her, muscle and bone going rigid as her face is pulled tight against his chest. So close she can hear the beating of his heart. Only then does she breathe, only then releasing her resistance, and lets herself be held. She imagines these arms are her fathers,' and this his heart. She listens to the slow, soft beating. It sounds wrong, unfamiliar. But it is all she has.
"Do not worry, little bird," he finally speaks again, his voice a soft hum, like a lullaby. "Let us get you to bed, so you may dream of the future. You will have your crown. I swear by the old gods and the new. Today is a shadow, but it will pass. And when the dawn comes, House Stark will sit upon the Iron Throne."
