Margaery

Robb Stark was known to be a well raised young lord. As much his mother's son as his father's. He was no barbarian king wrapped in wolf pelts and stinking of the hunt.

Yet her cousins insisted on accompanying her, and did so with the tragic air of maidens accompanying their lady as she walked to the executioner's block.

Privately she had admitted relief to them. It promised to be a dreary existence that awaited her in Riverrun. If she had no hope to spend her days hawking and riding then she could at least be sure of pleasant company.

Only within the safety of her own mind, could Margaery admit the truth of it. She had not wished for her ladies to accompany her because she did not know what awaited her. Whether she would be able to succeed was not in question, but securing a marriage did not mean she would be able to secure any kind of power for herself.

After a lifetime of learning to wield a woman's strengths, Margaery was under no illusions as to her weaknesses. Far from Highgarden, beyond the Reach itself, and married to a man who had been blessed with the power of a God…she was faced with fears that she had not felt so strongly in many years. Not since Maester Lomys' histories had driven her weeping to her grandmother's arms, sobbing the names of ladies long lost to their dooms.

The lessons she had begged for, that she might avoid those terrible fates, had planted the seed of all her ambitions. It seemed a cruel irony that in making a more powerful match than she had ever imagined, she was placing herself at risk of such ends as had found Aemma Arryn, Elia Martell, and countless other Queens and Princesses besides them.

By contrast, the more immediate dangers that her ladies were following her into seemed to Margaery a distant thing, and with each of her father's banners that joined their growing host it grew more so. It was hard to be afraid of anything when surrounded by tens of thousands of men sworn to your defence.

Unfortunately, it was also hard to move with anything close to the necessary speed. Especially when those men's actual oaths were sworn to other men, and those men to others, and so on in turn until they all too often reached her family by way of those who felt their oaths to be more of an unfortunate accident than a sacred bond. Which meant that, for all they could be relied upon to keep her and her entourage safe, that they were more than happy to find reasons to delay and dither and argue with her poor brother.

Luckily for them all, within the confines of their many camps and the occasional hosting lord's home, Margaery could still exercise all her talents freely. A few kind words, a pittance of coin, and whispers flooded to her ears.

Whispers which brought her and her ladies to Garlan's tent of an evening.

There they were greeted with all courtesy by many of the young Lords of the Reach, and gave their own courtesies in turn. Her voice in a gentle lilt, Margaery explained her arrival to all present, "I had heard we would be crossing into the lands of my good-sister's distant family on the morrow?"

Though her voice rose in a question, inviting Garlan to affirm that they drew close to the green-apple Fossoways' domain, Margaery knew perfectly well where they were. The question simply bought her a moment to reconsider her planned approach, as she had not expected Lorent Caswell to be in attendance -the slender man had nearly fallen off his poor exhausted horse when he arrived that same morning- and knew better than to speak in his presence of anything so willful as she had intended to request.

"Might we discuss a gift for Leonette's cousins? I had thought to make a present of some bolts of cloth I have from Appleton, if you approve dear brother?" It was a weaker choice than the ride to New Barrel that she had had in mind, and would be far less enjoyable besides, but Garlan was ever reliable.

"My lords, it seems I must attend to matters of family. We shall continue these discussions tomorrow night."

She judged his dismissal a little terse, and wondered if she might have inadvertently saved him from tedium with her interruption. She might have considered leveraging such a thing against someone she loved less than Garlan, but for him she thought only of possible ways to tease him. All the while her face stayed pleasant in the gentle and inoffensive manner that kept a single lords' eyes from lingering on her as they retired to their own tents. At least, not on the parts of her that suggested any suspicion.

Young Alyn Ashford especially needed to learn to mask his leers better, though she did not allow herself a visible reaction there either.

When they were gone, Margaery dispensed a few whispered orders to her ladies, that they might remain in the meeting area while she withdrew to Garlan's chambers, such as they were.

There, she could drop a few of her facades and speak with some honesty, which she did in a fierce whisper, "We're not moving fast enough."

Garlan, who she normally loved dearly, nearly earned a kick in the shin with the brow he cocked at her words. "Sister mine, I am sure you studied enough of logistics to know that there are challenges in moving-" He broke off with a yelp as she gave in and kicked him in the shin after all.

"Do not speak to me as if I am a lackwit Garlan, I know it will not be easy, and I do not know all the challenges it will present you, but we must move faster."

Her tone broke through his poor attempt at mummery, and Garlan stopped pretending that her slippered tap had done him any harm. "What have you heard? Not word from father?"

"No, of course not. My last word was the same as yours, the raven at Appleton." A message that had spoken of promising early negotiations with the Starks. "It is whispers that I have heard."

Loras would have taken the opportunity for some jape, and she would have been glad of the lightened mood, but Garlan remained serious as stone. "What have you heard, little sister?"

"I am not the only lady of marriageable age that is to find their way to this host. A number of Houses are preparing to welcome their Ladies, alongside their principal forces."

What they had already gathered was mostly cavalry. Knights lead by the younger Lords and a few Lords fool enough to do as Caswell had and come nearly alone and ahead of all their forces. The full strength of their portion of the muster would meet them further along the Roseroad, or catch up to them upon it. Accompanied by a number of women that Margaery was sure would pretend at a desire to join her retinue, or find husbands amongst the companions of the Wolf King.

She knew better.

Garlan, unfortunately, needed some help. Grandmother would have said it was the way of all men, but Margaery was more inclined to blame his brotherly pride as he replied, "And what will any of them offer to outshine the Rose of Highgarden?"

"What any woman can offer." With an effort, she swallowed the thoughts that such words brought to mind. "Likely alongside an offer of better terms, if only Robb Stark will put his strength behind 'the true inheritors of the Gardeners' as so many of them claim to be."

It was a particularly absurd nonsense, among all the many threads of such that the Great Houses of the Reach liked to weave. As if House Tyrell, stewards to the Gardeners for however many thousands of years had passed since the Andalls came to Westeros, had no blood of that family's sons.

Bastard blood it might be, she still had more of House Gardener in her veins than any of them.

To say nothing of the Gardener daughters, so oft dismissed, that had married into her House in those long ago days.

But her frustrations would not change the world, and they certainly would not buy her house the loyalty of those who had so long considered themselves superior. They had to fight for their place, and Margaery knew enough of battle to know it was far easier to win if you arrived before your enemy and had the chance to prepare the ground.

"If I can have some time with him, ahead of the other ladies that will come with the main host, then I am sure I can ensnare the Wolf King. Can you give me that time Garlan?"

She did not quite dare to say plainly what she was requesting. It still put a stricken expression on her brother's face.

"Margaery!" He caught himself and returned to tones that would not carry through the entire camp, though his fervour was undimmed. "Margaery, you cannot be serious!"

"I am not asking you to send me off into the wilds alone. With such knights as accompanied father and I to meet with Renly, I could arrive in days and weeks, instead of moons from now."

"Arrive early, and ruined, like as not."

She fought not to bristle at the insinuation. It was more kindly put than it might have been, and she knew Garlan did not doubt her. He was only pointing out the appearance of such a thing, and that was readily dealt with.

"My ladies will accompany me, and stay at my side at all times."

"So you ask me not only to send my sister through the Riverlands amidst a war, but my cousins and other young ladies beside. Shall I bid Leonette to follow after you when she arrives at my side?"

"I think, dear brother, that you know better than to bid my good-sister to anything." She chided. Leonette was no fearful maid and she would not take well to being commanded like a dog. Garlan's chastened expression said enough that she abandoned the thought of threatening to tell her of his words. Instead Margaery went back to the well of reason and said, "Whatever the risks may be, is this not the time to take risks? Our House is not free of danger just because the war has not yet come to the Reach. If we choose poorly, then we may yet lose everything."

"You speak as if what you propose is free of risk, when I am opposed precisely because of the dangers. How might we survive if you are lost to us Margaery?"

"If I fail to marry Robb Stark, I will be of as much use to House Tyrell as a corpse." She stopped there, cut short by the sudden sense that she had said too much. Not in her rhetoric, which she could see had struck home, but in the truth that lay beneath it.

She had not meant it as truth, but it had the ring of such regardless, and again she thought of all those women whose tragedies had faded to ink on parchment.

"Two thousand knights."

"Garlan, we would hardly be faster than the host."

"That's what you had when you travelled with father, and you made time well enough then."

"Through the Reach Proper, not through the Northmarch and the Riverlands at war. A thousand, or less."

"Any less and you will be at risk."

"I am at risk no matter what. You have not seen the God-Touched Garlan. A thousand more or less will not save me."

"And you have not seen war or banditry sister. A thousand will be needed, even with orders to flee any chance of battle. You will have no wheelhouse either."

She nearly rolled her eyes at that. "You're not Loras brother, I can ride better than you can."

He snorted. "We can't all be tourney knights. Regardless of which, it is your ladies that I am worried for Margaery. Will they be able to withstand such a thing?"

They would not let so small a portion of suffering keep them from her side, but she did not expect Garlan to assume that resolve from women. She only nodded, and let him work out the rest of the details in his head before he spoke again.

By the time he finished, she had to head straight to bed if she was to be ready in time the next day.

If her dreams were strange and unusually vivid in her memory the next morning, Margaery gave no sign of it.

She could not risk spoiling her victory, and anyway, she was sure that any omens had been in her favour.

Though…she was not sure precisely where that conviction came from.

She had not been driven by anything so petty in her decisions, but Margaery could not deny the feeling of freedom that rose in her breast as they rode away from the host.

Her companions and she were the only persons of notable birth in their number, though she was careful as ever to know the smallfolk and lesser nobility, especially those that Garlan had placed in positions of trust.

Another Alyn was in command for any military matters. Ser Alyn Flowers was a Fossoway bastard and well regarded. He had been a squire alongside Garlan in the Greyjoy Rebellion, and was trusted enough for her brother to endure the cost of placing a bastard over so many Lords who would have liked such a command for themselves.

Of course, since the entire point was to outmanoeuvre many of their Houses, none of them had been an option. Yet Garlan had still trusted his friend with her safety, and Margaery was sure that said much of him.

She was also sure that, no matter the trust he held, nobody bearing the name Flowers had a hope of commanding her outside of battle or the promise of such. She was, in a very real sense, in command of the host herself.

So long, that is, as she did not try to order them to do anything they did not already intend to do. Such was the fate of women.

Being as the fate of men was to be oblivious to how malleable their intentions truly were, Margaery considered it a minor obstacle.

Her dreams, on the other hand, rapidly grew into, if not an obstacle, then certainly something major.

She had never remembered them more than an hour past waking before, and had enjoyed peaceful sleep but for times where she could clearly see what had inspired her nightmares.

Until the morning that she had woken to set out alone. Ever since, she had found her sleep disturbed no matter how many of her ladies she asked to serve as bedmates. Even Elinor, who normally had an almost motherly ability to calm her fellows, had done nothing but wake with Margaery's elbow in her stomach and a yelp on her lips.

Margaery had apologised earnestly to her cousin, but feared that she had done true harm, as Elinor slept near as poorly as she did from that night on. Though she refused to speak of her dreams, Margaery would not press her on the matter.

Not when her own dreams had become so strange.

When they finally crossed out of the Northmarch and into the Riverlands, that strangeness clarified, but into what, Margaery did not understand.

She dreamt of a great forest, vast and old and yet teeming with life.

She dreamt that she could see the smallest insect and blade of grass, and the entire span at once.

She dreamt of a forest in the shape of a hand, and of vines of gold weaving through it.

She woke, and rode another day.

She dreamt of snows, deep enough to smother the world.

She dreamt that there was a darkness far beyond the snow, in dark ice and a cold so deadly that light itself was frozen and all was black and dead.

She dreamt of evils ancient and new and felt the confusion of things that had never known true change.

She woke, and rode another day.

She dreamt of waters, deep and bitter and salted with blood and iron.

She dreamt of places that had once been seas and now were rivers, though the land knew only that it was wet and fertile.

She dreamt of things that lurked in that land, hungry and lustful and vile in a way that felt like it would taint her just for dreaming of it.

She woke, and thought of a woman emerging from the fingertip of a mountain that walked. Then she went directly to Ser Alyn Flowers, trailing enough of her ladies to ensure no tongues wagged.

Trying to explain her dreams to him, would have been foolish. However, explaining her dreams to her ladies, then having one of them -cousin Alla, who lied as well as anyone Margaery had ever known- claim to have received a message by obscure means the day before, when they had purchased supplies from the scattered and fearful smallfolk of the Riverlands.

Ser Alyn was willing to trust the message easily enough, though he sent a small party of men to scout their intended path as the rest of them took a new route.

When one of those men found them a few days later, wounded and weary, swearing with his last breaths to have lost all pursuit before he followed after them…

Margaery took Elinor aside that night, and pressed.

In return for her firmness, she received tales of the world from above the treetops. Above the clouds themselves. In the domain once of dragons, now only of birds.

Eagles, Elinor eventually dared to share. She dreamt through the eyes of eagles. And she was terrified by it.

Margaery comforted her, and brought her to Septa Nysterica, who was quick enough to understand when Margaery explained, and set to assuring Elinor that she had not strayed in the eyes of the Seven. She spoke of the foolishness of condemning such a gift with an eagerness that often made Margaery imagine the pox-scarred young lady as better suited as an aspiring Maester than a godsworn woman.

When Elinor calmed down, Margaery gave her clear instructions and a few drops of dreamwine.

She dreamt of things she did not understand again that night, but woke to find that Elinor's dreams had been far more practical.

This time Ser Alyn felt no need to send a full party to scout the route they diverted from, and the sole scout he did send returned with confirmation, having never gotten close enough to endanger himself.

The knights -and even more so the freeriders- had always been careful and deferential around Margaery. After the second avoided ambush though, they became almost reverential.

That only made it easier to pass on the contents of Elinor's dreams, even as they came to her cousin clearer and clearer, until she could slip into the eagle's skin without dreamwine, and wake herself at will. One day she did so, and Greatwing, Elinor's favoured eagle when they hawked, flew down to land beside her, still wearing the scraps of a tether that must have been torn from its post in distant Highgarden.

Not long after that, Margaery dropped the pretence of messages from the smallfolk. That same day she and her ladies gathered in a meadow to eat, and she noticed that the plants around Alla began to sway and stretch when her cousin strummed her harp and sang. Margaery was so fascinated by the motion that she stretched out and, with little and less idea of what she was doing, coaxed a wildflower to grow until its flower rested in her hand.

Then she almost flinched to the ground as she felt that same plant die, exhausted by what she had asked of it. Only her ladies eyes on her, and her sudden awareness that their own fears rested on her, kept Margaery steady in that moment. Though she felt a flood of guilt for her thoughtlessness, she only smiled and asked for Alla to keep singing. Then she bent and scraped a hole in the ground with her own hands, to return the flower to the earth herself.

That night, she gathered her ladies and cautioned them, with a care not to let their own growing fascinations turn to fear. She needed them to be careful, but not to turn against the gifts rising as the God-Touched returned magic to the world. For what else could it all be.

She dreamt of approval, a green hand that was her own when she looked down to herself.

She dreamt of a wolf, red of hair and dark of strength, and surrounded by enemies but blind to half of them.

She dreamt to frustrated things, hungry things, and the hunters scattering in a new strategy.

When she found Ser Alyn that morning, Margaery did not hide a thing.

"I have been warned Ser."

"You have my Lady? Not your cousin?" He gestured to Elinor, but he hardly seemed surprised.

"Yes. A warning of hunters, unable to find their prey, now splitting themselves that they might lay in wait far and wide."

Ser Alyn was attended by a number of other knights and horsemen. A moon's turn past, and she doubted the knights would have believed a word of what she said. She'd have been lucky just to end up with troublesome rumours following in her wake.

Now, they bent at once to the task of deciphering her warning and devising a counter strategy to what they were certain must be a tripwire. A great scattering of men waiting to converge on a force that could not punch through them in time.

Ser Alyn even asked her for confirmation once he and his men had a counter strategy in mind.

Margaery and her ladies found themselves at the heart of half of the knights. Alongside all the baggage train that had accompanied them, now stripped down the minimum they would need for the last stretch to Riverrun.

A cry went up, and they rode into the wake of the rest of the knights and all the freeriders. Down a path Elinor had scouted bare minutes ago, while ahead of them the cries turned to clashing steel and awful sounds that Margaery wished she could not have heard.

By the time they caught up and were surrounded by the full strength of her escort, only the sight and stench of a victory remained.

It was so awful, even in the moments it took to ride through it, that Margaery wished at once that she would never have to see a defeat.

It was with a weary kind of triumph that they drew within sight of Riverrun.

Though Margaery would not have needed Elinor or Alyn to tell her that Stark and Tully eyes had been on them for days, she still requested a halt and took the time to ensure that she was bathed and presentable.

If Robb Stark was in Riverrun then she would have one chance to make a first impression.

She did not intend to give him a choice as to what that impression of her would be.