Sorry for the delay folks. I've been quite busy of late. Anyway - enjoy.

Sandor

Life was good right now. The sun was shining, there was a mug of very good ale to one side, he had a belly full of excellent food and above all there was a giggling maid on his lap who had the kind of tits that a man could bury his face in.

Which is what he'd done the previous night. And from the giggling things she was whispering in his ear he'd be doing the same thing that night and a lot more.

He needed the distraction because he still had not the faintest fucking idea what he was going to do. Somewhere a raven was flapping its way South to Casterley Rock, to tell whoever was in charge there that a message had to be sent to Clegane's Keep saying that he was now the head of House Clegane, or what there was of it. It currently consisted of: him. Just him.

He wondered for a moment what his father would have thought about things. And then he stopped himself from thinking about that. He didn't want to get angry, not now. Not with Beth whispering the kind of things in his ear that made him want to pick her up and take her back to his room.

And then they both froze as a door opened to one side and the sound of screamed insults and general madness started to reach them. They looked over to one side as the Imp stumped into view, looking angry and strained, followed by his wife, who was flexing a hand but looked grimly satisfied.

"Oh shit, that's the queen of bitches," Beth muttered and sure enough after a moment two guards emerged with a struggling figure. Cersei fucking Lannister. She looked haggard and thinner than before, her hair was disarrayed, there were black circles under her eyes, she was not dressed in anything fashionable and all in all she looked like shit.

Oh and there was the red mark on her cheek that looked like a slap mark. He looked at the Imp's wife and her right hand, which she was flexing a lot, put two and two together and came to the correct conclusion. The Imp's Northern wife had a fire in her belly. Good for her.

And then the former Queen laid eyes on him. "Hound!" She screeched the word. "Dog! Come here and rescue me! Kill these Northern swine! I command it! I COMMAND IT! I AM YOUR QUEEN!"

Fuck it, but she sounded demented. Did she really still think that she was Queen, after everything that had she had done? After everything that happened as a result? She'd been caught fucking her own brother, had had his bastard children, had committed treason. If he'd had the horrific luck to be married to her then she would have lost her head months or even years ago.

So he looked Cersei Lannister right in her mad eyes and then just grinned. It was a big grin and he saw her start as she realised that his burns were gone. And then he laughed. This seemed to flabbergast her. "All hail the Queen of Nothing!" he shouted, making Beth jump a little on his lap in a very nice way.

"CLEGANE!" She shouted back. "HOW DARE YOU!"

"You're not the Queen anymore," he replied with a shrug. "Command away. I'm not listening."

She went into some kind of frenzy after that, struggling against her guards, until the Imp's wife strode up to her again. "Goodsister," she said in a voice like silk-shrouded steel, "You will be silent or you will get the taste of my hand again."

Cersei Lannister fell suddenly silent at that, one hand going to the slapmark on her face. "You dared…"

"I did – and I'll do it again if I have to. Stop making a spectacle of yourself. Be silent. Try and be a Lannister, with dignity."

Her eyes widened almost comically at this, as she almost reeled backwards at the words that Dacey Surestone-Lannister, or whatever the fuck her name now was, had flung in her face. He had to admire her. She had balls for a woman and was a match for the Imp.

And now the Imp strode forwards, with a face that oddly enough looked very much like his old bastard of a father. "Enough Cersei. You have embarrassed House Lannister enough. No more. You are to go into exile and accept that."

Pale and shaking the Bitch looked around the courtyard, at the Imp and his wife, at the still forms of Robb Stark and that odd Wildling girl with the big tits to one side and at the distant redheaded figure of Catelyn Stark. She seemed to almost prepare to hawk and spit on the ground in front of her, but then the Imp shook his head with a dreadful finality. "No." He said the word in such a way that he sounded just like his father.

And that seemed to break something in her. She wilted and was led to the waiting carriage to one side. The Imp sighed and walked over to the men and women who were waiting by it as the former Queen was ushered into the carriage. "My sister will be… a challenge to deal with. However-" And here he held up a jingling bag of what must have been coins. "Deliver her safely to White Harbour and this will the first of two bags of silver for your pains. The other awaits you in White Harbour. Please do not listen to her many and insane lies about what she might promise you."

The grizzled older man who accepted the bag nodded formally. "We'll get her there safely Lord Tyrion. And put her on the boat to that island she's bound for."

And that was it, really. They were all prepared to depart it seemed and after they mounted and passed out of the gate in front of them a sigh seemed to go up and a tension seemed to lift.

"Well then," Beth said. "She's gone. And good riddance to her."

He stood then, with her in his arms – which made her squeak again. "Aye, she's gone. My room?"

She looked at him, mischief and more than that in her eyes. "Your room."

And so he strode off with her. Whatever his duty was, it could wait.

For a while.

He had a growing feeling he was needed somewhere.

Theon

Mother had sung songs about Ten Towers to Asha and himself when they were very young, songs that he vaguely remembered even now. Songs about how big and tall the towers were, how much wisdom the Lords of Harlaw had, how beautiful Harlaw was.

And now he was on the island and could see what at least one of the Iron islands was like and… he wasn't impressed. He hated to say it, but it was true. Harlaw was nothing like the North. Where were the trees, where were the mountains, where were the resources?

If he had learned anything from Lord Stark over the past years that he had been in the North, it was that you always had a running total in your head of what the lands around you could yield up. Crops. Livestock. Ores. Lumber. People. Hunting grounds. Fishing grounds.

Harlaw barely ticked off a few of those. He could see why the Iron Islands needed lumber. There were some trees, but nowhere near as many as even the rockier part of the North. He thought of the Wolfswood and wanted to shake his head.

Mist padded up to him and wuffled at his hand until he grinned at his direwolf and scratched behind his ears until Mist closed his eyes in ecstasy and leaned into his hand, as a rear paw started to beat a lazy tattoo on the floorboards.

Knuckles rapped on the door an instant after Mist suddenly turned to look at the door, giving him the slightest of warnings. Nuncle Rodrik was standing the doorway, watching them both carefully. "Theon."

"Nuncle."

The older man strode in, stopped and looked him up and down. "You have the look of your mother about you. But speaking as a Harlaw I would say that wouldn't I?" He smiled slightly. "You have the open mind of a Harlaw, anyway."

He thought about the Theon that Robb knew from that future that never would be and smiled wryly. "I'll always try to have a more open mind than my father."

The Reader pulled a face. "You know what I think about your father from our letters. He's not the Greyjoy his father was. Ironically perhaps you could have been. Your sister will have to be it instead, as you have tied yourself to the North so completely."

"I had to," he replied, stroking Mist between the ears absently. "Nuncle, I was there in Winterfell when the Call was sent out. I was in Lord Stark's solar when it was sent. It ran through me like nothing else I have ever felt." And then he took a deep breath. "Nuncle, I have seen the Wall. I have seen wights. I have killed them. And I have seen Others. I know what's coming for all of us."

His uncle looked at him and then nodded slowly, before squinting at him. "Asha says that you have a weirwood pendant and a tale that I must hear."

He pulled the pendant out and then sighed slightly and told his uncle the full tale of both dreams. By the time he finished The Reader staring at him with an odd, set look to his face. After a long moment his uncle finally nodded slowly as he visibly thought things through. "That," he said hoarsely – and then he coughed and seemed to shake himself – "That explains a great deal about your actions, Theon. I understand better than most. Did Asha tell you about the room of runes that was found at High Harlaw?"

"She did. And what the runes meant."

"Aye, our ancestors knew something. Something that frightened them."

He nodded in turn and then he sighed. "Did Asha tell you about what we saw at Barrowtown?"

The Reader frowned a little. "She did not. What happened?"

So one again he told the tale of what they – and all who had been on the wall at Barrowtown, looking at that eerie mist – had seen. When he stopped speaking he could see that his uncle was deeply shaken. "The timing… the timing fits."

"Fits what?"

His uncle strode over to a chair and sat down. "Odd fog was seen on the north-easternmost part of Harlaw, more than ten days ago. It wouldn't move with the wind. And then, after an odd light was in the sky on the far horizon, it vanished. Based on your take and the times… they fit."

Theon found himself shivering for a moment. "The shades of the dead. Those who wanted to go to the Oathstone to join the others there." He paused for a moment and then frowned. "Was fog reported on any of the other islands?"

"Great Wyk." The Reader sighed a little. "We have some scattered reports from some of the other islands of something similar. Fog that gathered in places for days before vanishing on the same day."

He nodded slowly. "No word from my father on the fog?"

This got him a bitter smile from his uncle. "No. No word." Then he paused and ran a hand over his forehead. "Your mother is here at Ten Towers. She… has not been well for some years now. She mourned your brothers deeply and your father never understood the depth of her grief. But she heard the Call. Heard it loudly. She's… more focussed now. Better. You should see her."

Mother. His heart seemed to stop for a moment. "I have not seen her in years."

"She will welcome the sight of you." His uncle looked at Mist and then quirked a smile. "I am not sure what she will make of your direwolf though."

He laughed softly and then ruffled Mist's fur between his ears. "She'll understand that Mist and I are as one. I might not be a warg, like some of the Starks, but there are times when I wonder what it might take to be one."

The Reader nodded slowly, before looking out of the window. "I will be taking the Lord Hand to High Harlaw, so that he can see the runes. You should come, to see them." He paused and winced a little. "Your other uncle, Victarion, has seen them. You should see him too. The runes have… changed him."

"Changed him how?"

"He wants to go to the Wall. He wants to see things for himself. He'll have a limp for the rest of his life, he was wounded in the battle here, but he has a more open mind than he used to."

"And I take it that a message has gone to my father, to meet? To parlay?"

"Aye," Nuncle Rodrik sighed. "It has. And I have no doubt that your father will do something stupid during it. But having Stannis Baratheon there as the Hand of the King, and you as Lord Greymist will be a reef that he won't be expecting." And with that he stood, nodded at him and then left.

Theon watched him go and then went back to the window. He really wanted to be back in the North. He wanted to be building his holdfast, picking his people and he wanted Ros. He put a hand to his weirwood pendant and sent up a brief prayer to the Old Gods. He wanted to finish this business and go home.