The Braavos sea stretched like a black shroud, its oily waters carrying the stench of rot and salt, dead bodies decaying slowly in the canals, dissolved by the tide. The sinister lap of the waves against the time-worn walls echoed Ned Stark's uneven breath, hidden under a tattered cloak, his face obscured in the shadow of his hood.
He was no longer Ned Stark, Lord of Winterfell. That man had died in King's Landing, his head supposedly mounted on a spike to quench Cersei Lannister's thirst for vengeance. What remained now was only a shadow. Lord Eddard Stark no longer existed. Here, he was just a nameless ghost, a broken figure, left to wander the twisted streets of Braavos, far from anything that had once given his life meaning.
The pain in his leg throbbed like a constant burn, stabbing him with every step, every movement. The wound had never truly healed. The cold of Braavos slipped under his thin clothes, biting at his worn skin. His breath condensed in white clouds before him as he hobbled through the dark streets, dragging his weakened body through the damp alleys.
He could no longer recall how many days, how many weeks, he had wandered like this, searching for shelter. Varys had saved him, pulled him from his cell in King's Landing with promises of safety and silence, but since his arrival in Braavos, he had been alone. Lost in this foreign city, full of unknown faces and dangerous intentions.
Rumors of the war in Westeros sometimes reached his ears, but here, they seemed distant, almost unreal. He knew that Robb was fighting to avenge their family, to restore honor to their name, but what could he do? What was a broken man in this city of masks and secrets? His first instinct had been to return to the North, to join his children, but reality kept him a prisoner. He was nothing more than a shadow now, too weak to defend anyone.
That evening, Ned stopped in a particularly narrow alley. The smell here was more acrid, more suffocating. There was something rotten in the air, something… macabre. The ground was littered with trash, and large rats scurried silently, their eyes gleaming in the dim light. A metallic clink echoed, and Ned realized he was not alone.
A man stood at the end of the alley, dressed in rags, his gaze fixed on him. A thin, feverish figure. The man slowly raised his hand, revealing a dull, rusted dagger. Ned's eyes closed for a moment. Another thief, another miserable soul ready to do anything for a few coins or a bite of bread.
Ned gritted his teeth. He had no weapon, no means of defending himself, and even if he did, his tired body wouldn't allow him to fight as he once had. But he knew that in this city, death could come from anywhere. Every corner hid a threat. His mind clung to one thought: survive, just one more day.
The man advanced, dragging his dagger along the wall, the metal scraping against the damp stone. "You're not from here," he rasped, his voice rough, marked by hunger and resentment. "Give me what you have, or I'll leave you here with your guts on the cobblestones."
Ned didn't respond. He knew bargaining would be useless with men like this. The man had simple desires: survival, just like him. But Ned Stark wasn't ready to die yet. Not here. Not in this dark alley, leagues from home, from Winterfell. Not now.
The wind whispered through the crumbling buildings, carrying with it the smell of decay and salt. Ned's face remained expressionless, but inside, he felt a simmering anger, an anger he hadn't felt since learning of Petyr Baelish's betrayal and the Lannisters' schemes. This man before him was nothing. Just an echo of the world's miseries in which he was now trapped.
As the man stepped closer, Ned sensed another presence behind him. A second figure, dressed in black, stood in the shadows, his eyes cold and hollow. He was one of the many ghosts haunting Braavos. An assassin. Or perhaps something worse. Here, no one came to your aid without reason. The fate of the weak was to be consumed by the city itself.
"Leave him," the shadow murmured in a slow, Braavosi accent. "This one is already dead."
The thief hesitated. The man in black's eyes were fixed on Ned with a chilling intensity, as if he could see through him, down to his soul. Ned didn't move, too exhausted to understand what was really happening. Perhaps this was the end he deserved, swallowed by a city that no longer remembered him.
The man with the knife backed away, understanding that something unseen had shifted in this alley. Then, in a swift motion, he turned and vanished into the night, his ragged breath fading with his footsteps.
The shadow stood still for a moment, watching Ned, then whispered again: "You linger too close to death, stranger." He walked away, melting into the darkness, leaving Ned alone with the cold, the stench of the canals, and the weight of his own existence.
Ned leaned against the wall, his legs trembling beneath him. Each day spent in this city cost him a little more of his soul. But he knew he couldn't stay here forever. He would have to find a way back. To fight, somehow.
For now, he was just a broken man. But deep inside, a fire was beginning to rekindle. A fire fueled by pain, betrayal, and an unstoppable need for justice.