Crows gather atop the branches that reign sovereign near the edge of the Kingswood. Their murderous songs haunt the waking within, far from those a morning dove sings. Like laughter they sang, unholy and hideous.
Perhaps they are to blame for the way things will run afoul that morning, perhaps they are but a prelude. Elia cannot say, she is neither seer nor woods witch—the future is not something within her right to divine. She does not have the gift of prophecy, though she would not spurn it now.
It is the way in which the trees creak and groan and shudder that unsets her heart from ease; it is how there exists no sound louder than her own thoughts, no darkness deeper than her own worries. It is a long night made longer still by the company she keeps, or the lack thereof. But that is the bed she has made—one of leaves and dirt, lacking all semblance of comfort and affluence.
Dawn breaks with the sudden crescendo of the black birds' jeering, and in the diminuendo that follows it becomes easier to hear the distant cracking of a stick underfoot. Elia thinks nothing of it, tossing it from her mind, and focuses instead on the slumbering man beside her in the hollow.
"It is not as though I want to mistrust you," she says to none but the rising sun and he who would hear her not, "But it is difficult to place faith in a man who claims to desire nothing."
Even those who own the world lust for more of it—the forests with their rills and their hills, the valleys and the mountains, too. They want these and more; these and all else their fingers can dream of grasping for. The skies and their stars, perhaps, or higher still. Avarice is a universal trait, after all, and one to which she knowingly subscribes.
So, she does not believe him when he answers 'peace,' not wholly. Not minimally, neither. Perhaps it is a piece of a puzzle, perhaps it is several, but she is less than likely to see the whole picture from it.
A gust of wind curls around their hollow, ruffling leaves and hair alike, and as Elia pulls some from her lips she spies a hidden blade of grass still trapped in Jon's. She extracts it for him, twirling it between two fingers.
It does not make sense to her, the tale he tells. Not one bit. A northman, conveniently in the south, with knowledge or skill enough to prevent the murder of a queen he was scarcely subject to. His presence in the capital, while improbable, was not impossible. This she could not deny. But, everything that follows? That—that she could. That she did.
"Why did you come to save us? Why were you in the city in the first place?" Elia cannot help her mind's wandering, her heart's wondering. "Did you live there? Were you a traveler? A craven who flew from the Trident? A butcher with a stand to hawk from on the Street of Flies?" Did he have a family? A life he left behind to the fires? Something to forsake for the sake of her and her children? She had so many questions. So, so many—with so few of the answers that should naturally follow. "If it truly is only peace that you seek, you have settled upon the queerest and most winding route to her shores."
Her mind becomes distracted by the yawn that commandeers her lips. And her eyes burn at their bottoms. She blinks too many times to count before a second one can take her. Another stick snaps somewhere in the forest surrounding. It is loud and sharp, but drowned out by the pounding of her hands upon her cheeks as she tries to keep to her wakefulness.
Elia will fault the crows, but when the tip of a bandit's arrow is suddenly held against her throat, she knows the blame will fall squarely upon her own shoulders. At least within Jon's eventual and damning gaze.
Perhaps she ought to be concerned that, with a faceless man holding her life in his hands (as well as those of her children), her thoughts turn first to her companion's impending disappointment. Perhaps that is just the measure of faith she now places in his ability to ferry her from this fate, perhaps it is just her lunacy.
"I'd not move if I were you," her would-be killer kindly advises, "Scream neither."
Her cheeks curl as she clenches her eyes and tilts her head back. Muscles tight in every way they can be. Her heart pounds so mightily that she's certain a cut will kill her with how much her neck thrums with her lifeblood. She reaches for the black-handled knife at her waist, subtle and quiet, and the man fails to notice. When he barks a command to his allies hidden amongst the brush, she steals upon the chance she is generously offered.
The knife comes free with a jerk and a scream, and only as his reality dawns upon him does she slam it deep in his chest.
He does not die—does not even bleed.
"That were hardly kindly of you," he says instead. A surprised noise leaves her as the man grabs the knife and tosses it over his shoulder. He graces her with a yellowed, gap-toothed smile, and continues, "You really ought to unsheathe the blade 'fore you try skewerin' a man with it." Then, just as easily as it comes, his smile departs. And she knows then that, had he wished it, he could have killed her. Wrung her neck or slashed her throat. From the look in his eyes he would have, too, but she must hold more value alive.
He does not kill her. But the back of his glove tastes like leather and dirt and iron. She spits red onto his boots just so they could match her own.
She shan't turn from him, though she wishes too. Not even as more bandits pour from the trees like autumn leaves, descending from all sides. Not as screams and grunts fill the air. Not as those ill-omened crows cease their laughing and take flight in search of quieter trees to roost in. She does not turn from him; she does not—though he is ugly and vicious and he stank far worse than she—turning from him is the same as falling upon her sword. It was akin to courting the Stranger, and though she was ready, she was not willing.
More than anything she wishes to fly like those birds, to flee and to check upon her children, to gather them in her arms and lay kisses upon the tears that streak their cheeks. To extract a promise from the northman's lips that he would ferry them to safety, irregardless of what may come to pass.
But it is not possible. Not with how the bandit approached again, not with how his fingers tightened around her jaw, not with the littlest of them jabbing into the freshly cut red line on her throat and the blood that wells from it, and not with the point of his arrow at the apple of her cheek—the corner of her eyes. It collected tears at its tip that wet its shaft and ran down to the callused hand that held it aloft.
Still, she hears grunting and crying from those she cares for and those she might one day grow to. She desires to run to them with each and every one, damn her own life if she must, but this cruel man's grip is tight.
Another scream echoes through the air then. Aegon's. She jerks again, without thought, and this time the man watches her go. She's on the ground before even she realizes she's free, the sudden loosening of his grip sending her tumbling back with the slightest of jerks. Still, it takes only a moment for her to find her feet and dart over to her children's side.
Rhaenys trembles in a hollowy man's shadow and in her arms her brother sobs to the heavens. Yet, the girl herself does not cry. She kicks the man's arms away whenever and wherever they appear, letting out screams that crack and die before their ends, but she does not cry—at least not until Elia shoves the man aside and collapses over top them both, shielding them with her back.
She makes eye contact with Jon through the pit of her arm and the three men who hold him down. The look on his face is dark and it worries her, for she cannot tell who it is meant to be directed at—the ones who bind him or the one who failed to alert him of their nearing.
Her attention soon must return to the one who'd ambushed them. "What do you want with us?"
He refuses her an answer, not that she expected one, and asks a question of his own. "Why're you so far off the highway, friend?"
"Twas the quickest route," she lies, "We are returning to my father's keep."
"Oho? Y'hear that gentlemen? We found areselves in the company of a proper lady! A keep, she says, a keep!" One of them barks a laugh and it draws her attention away, by the time she looks back at him he's smiling again, her attempt on his life long and forgotten. His heart seemed to move more by thoughts of gold than those of steel. "Tell me, proper lady, what do y'think your father will pay for your life?"
The sound of his voice is hard to pick up on through the continued screaming of children, but she manages. "I—I haven't a frame of reference for an amount." His smile begins to droop, so she quickly throws a hand out and promises him, "More than men can dream! Enough for you to eat for the rest of your days and for your children for theirs!" She glances around, but half of the men seem half as impressed as they ought to be. "Enough for all of you."
One of the crooks sniffs his crooked nose. "Only enough?"
"We want more than enough," another agrees, simpler than the last. He is one of the three who hold her companion down, and his distraction is enough for Jon to buck and kick and nearly grasp freedom. The men waste no time collapsing back atop him, smothering any and all rebellion with their combined weight. The speaker does not join them, however, still distracted by thoughts of his reward. "Enough f'r a keep of our own, each! That's what I say!"
She nods jerkily. "Of course! That and more!" An empty process, and the easiest she's ever made. What was important was not fulfilling it, but buying Jon enough time to work out how they were to escape these men. She imagines it will be bloody. With each of her children's screams she regrets it less. "If you were to escort us to him I would see you fine men rewarded."
"Who's yer father?" He steps closer and Elia must think quickly to provide an answer that satisfies.
"Monty Cafferen," she decides, praying he interprets her pause as fear over fabrication. The tremble in her voice only helps to sell the point. "He is the—"
Her attempt to explain wins her a scowl. "I know who 'e is. I'm no fucking halfwit."
The simple one looks to the three piled atop Jon and whispers from his cheek, "Who is 'e?" None of them seem to quite know the answer: that House Cafferen is the noble family who rules from their ancestral seat in Fawnton, and Monty is the old lord who hermits himself away behind its walls. He is fair and overall well-liked in his rule, at least so far as Elia has heard it.
Their keep lies in the south of the Stormlands, and Elia's lie will keep them alive until well after Jon's wrists are decorated with rope and their journey to it has begun. Their destination lay many leagues further from the furthest tip of the Kingswood; it is a long and arduous journey they must make, and much of it exists in the foothills of the red mountains. She doubted these men knew that, though, or if they did they failed to truly comprehend the distance which separates here from there.
Elia shushes her children fruitlessly and gives the man who had struck her a painted smile. "I do not consider you simple, ser, nor anything similar. I believe we only got off on the wrong foot."
"You stabbed me."
She'd stabbed his jerkin and without steel bared. At worst he'd bruise, the sniveler. "And for that you have my deepest apologies. I was tired and surprised, you must understand. I mistook you for a bandit and reacted accordingly. I can now see just how wrong I clearly was." She feigns remorse; a task she is hard pressed to accomplish considering how little she felt for him.
When his displeasure remains, she licks her teeth and brushes a lock of hair behind her ear—batting her lashes. "You all seem like warriors most capable." It took three to mount a single, sleep-deprived man still half in his dreams. They could not be the furthest from the sort. "I meant what I said, my father would see you justly rewarded if you assist in my safe return."
He eyed her. "How can we know what you say is true? A lady she claims to be, yet she only has one guard and no ornaments?"
"We flew from King's Landing with such haste that I had no time to gather anything valuable," she shrugs, "All those jewels and baubles are replaceable, after all. And my companion is the only one of my guards who survived the journey thus far, the rest were nothing special and not worth the coin, it seems. With how easily you snuck up and captured us, I am certain your group will be different."
"Trained 'em myself," he boasts. And it showed. "Who slain your men?"
She casts her gaze around. "Highwaymen taking advantage of the war. Tis why I was so frightened by your sudden arrival."
"Fine," he eventually says, after a long consideration, and gestures to his men. "We will assist you."
The men regather themselves slowly after that. And, though initially uninviting, each of their tunes change after they have a whispered word with their presumed captain. The pace they set toward the south is slow and lumbering, yet constant. They do not afford her the many breaks Jon would—not that she had even noticed he had until then—and the sun is high above when they reach the edge of the Kingswood where the trees grow shorter and sparser.
By the time such an event occurs, she has come to learn a few things.
For one, these men were not bandits. Not truly. At least not as far as she could tell or they would say. According to the words of one of the men or another, they were under the crown's employ and charged with preventing unlawful hunting of the King's game. They kept track of where the best hunting would be, and maintained the peace of the forest.
She does not think they are aware of what transpired in the capital, however, and she feared their reactions when they learned their next coin purse was likely never to come. When they learn the truth, it would not be from her lips that it arrives.
For another, most of these men were nothing of the sort. Boys, she decided they were; in their majorities but only barely. It was no wonder they could barely keep Jon down.
"We'll have you there in a jiffy, madam," one tells her as he blocks the sun's light from his eyes with a hand.
She smiles at him, adjusting her grip on her daughter as she does. He had been one of the ones who captured Jon, so his presence offends her the least.
"You are most kind, ser," she tells him, "Though I do not understand why you must bind my knight." Her arms, on the other hand, had been left completely free—though her children did a better job of marshaling them than any rope could ever hope to.
"He is a hateful man, that guard of yours. Tried biting me, he did, like some foul-tempered cat!" He harrumphs, shaking his head. "Truthfully, I worry he may have been vying to deceive you."
"Deceive me?" Elia widens her eyes and casts a baleful look at the one in question. "However do you mean?" It is a battle to keep herself from loosing an untimely and ungainly laugh. She doubts Jon would take too kindly to the comparison. A foul-tempered cat, she privately muses, then nearly laughs again.
"A tremendous rake, he is, he is." The man eyes Jon up and down. "He lusts for you, it is plain to see. And I do not believe him when he calls himself a knight; knights have armor. It's what makes 'em so gallant."
This time there is no helping her laugh, no stopping it from bubbling up from her chest. It is borne of discomfort, however, rather than amusement. She did not very much enjoy speaking of anyone's lust, least of all theirs for her. "I must say I am blind to whatever it is you are seeing."
"You are only a lady, that is understandable. A man is better at seeing other men for their worth."
Elia's smile is thin, but he does not seem to notice the strain she places on herself to give it. "I will take your word for it, ser."
Her words earn her a pat on the shoulder. The contact makes Rhaenys yipe and tremble on her arm, and Aegon begins to fuss again, so the man departs for a quieter edge of the trail. As she works to calm and temper her children, her eyes stray to Jon. She tries to find in him whatever it was the other man does, but all she spies are his teeth as he yawns wider than wide.
He blinks his eyes tiredly as he's dragged forward by the ropes binding his wrists thrice over, barely paying his captors any mind. She watches as he looks up and around, taking in the dawning meadows, before his eyes inevitably meet hers.
The world neither stands still nor flips on its axis, but it's a near thing. That is the only manner in which she can explain the way in which the northman trips. History shows him as confident in his steps, except when tired. Partnered with his yawns, she's inclined to believe not even a full night's rest was enough to cure him. He needed a week's worth or more.
The arc of his fall sends him into one of the young men, striking his leg. Catching himself is impossible with wrists clad in rope, so he hits the dirt hard. He's still coughing from the impact when he's seized by the shoulders and hauled up.
There's one cut across his tunic and another across his ribs. The fabric of his shirt is slowly dyed red as he wobbles and stands, clinging to his belly like a second skin. The game warden inspects it and then the ground, but only grunts upon finding nothing but a few red blades of grass.
"Hm." Suddenly his cheeks and jaw are covered by gloved hands. The boy smiles at him and Elia must make several steps to the side in order to catch Jon's reaction. He smiles back, but his feels somehow crueler than his captor's. "You fall into me on purpose?"
"I tripped, you trollop."
That answer might have been a fine one … had Jon not insulted him and rolled his eyes while doing so. The young man grunts again and there is no other warning before his forehead strikes Jon on the bridge of his nose.
Elia gasps as he goes down and rushes to his side. "Jon!" There's blood in the air and on his sleeve. More than she ought to think a nose has any right to produce. He rises up on his wrists and spits even more onto the ground. It's thicker than water and a string of it bridges his lower lip to the dirt until it breaks and hangs low, floating.
She sets Rhaenys down as she kneels at his side, and her daughter offers what simple comforts she can—patting him on the back as he coughs and spits. Elia pulls her sleeve over her wrist, intending to bring it to his lip and clean it, but his hand finds her waist and he shoves her back onto her rear.
"Jon?" she utters, faintly confused. More than a little insulted.
He glares at her and when he speaks, his voice is nasally, strained, and faint. "Stay far away from me," he condemns; harsh, yet low enough for only her ears. Then, louder, he says, "You are too kind to your servants, my lady. Do not dirty your sleeve for me. It was my own fault for tripping."
She listens, she hears him. Eyes were already turning toward their interaction with interest; those of the boy who casted doubt upon Jon's intentions earlier felt particularly heavy. She finds herself nodding along and dusting herself off as she stands. When she holds her hand out for her daughter, Rhaenys actually hesitates to join her.
That would not do. They could not give these men any reason to suspect the truth was any margin different than what they had been told. Not devoid of weapons and options as they were.
Her mouth opens before she asks it to, preparing to call her daughter back to her side, but a voice interrupts her before she can. Jon's. And she thanks the gods for him then, each and every one. The Mother and the Father most ardently. The name she nearly says is not for the ears of these men. It would only complicate matters. Jon knows this well and acts accordingly, despite all that has happened—all her recent wrongs.
"Lady Arya," he says, somehow both more sudden and soft than he was with Elia. His eyes are wide and she can understand why, with what she nearly revealed. He lightly and reluctantly nudges Rhaenys toward her mother. "You are a sweet thing, but you must leave me to my troubles. Your kindness is undeserved."
"But—"
Elia grabs her hand and pulls her away before anything else could be said, knowing what must be done. She makes for a fine mummer when she knows what play she is to be acting in, what role she is to play. "Come now, sweetling. Stay by my side."
Small legs make for small steps, but Rhaenys follows her lead despite her confusion. Her hand slips into hers just as the leader nears. He inspects each party for but a moment, lingering the longest on where Jon is picking himself up from the grasses. At last, he turns to his own man to ask, "What happened 'ere?"
"He tripped and fell," comes the simple answer.
"Break his nose on grass and peat, did 'e? Do not lie to me, boy. You were always too quick to anger." He looks back at Jon, taking in the various bloody parts of him with a hum, then casts another scathing look at the boy. "Well? Give 'em something to clean 'emself up with! This is your doing, won't have you sowin' discord in my troop with no recompense."
The boy groans and scowls. "He hit me first."
"Yet here I see no blood on you, save yer cheek. Not even yer own. Hardly seems warranted, now does it?" He shakes his head. "Tell me, if trippin' into a man is to be repaid with a broken nose and a cut 'cross the belly, then what do you reckon your actions will bring? Think next time. Honestly, your temper will be the death of you."
"His hands are bound," the boy reminds him, strangely proud, "Not like he can do anything about it."
"That make it right?" He grabs the back of the boy's head and shoves him away, pointing toward a gathering of men in the distance. "Yorel caught supper, go gut it."
Whatever argument the boy has yet to make dies on his tongue with the cross look he's given by the older gentleman. He hurries off, tail tucked between his legs, but not before a rag is snatched from his pocket and thrown to Jon.
Her companion catches it against his chest and bobs his head. "Cheers," Jon grumbles. It is the most disingenuous the word has ever before been said, she suspects.
Watching his attempt to clean himself is a pitiful, pitiable thing. His forearms could hardly separate, and when he tries the rope only shifts up enough to reveal a hint of skin rubbed raw. If there were fewer eyes upon them, she would not have been strong enough to stop herself from helping when he eventually fumbles and drops the rag—his face only half dry. It would not have mattered had she, for his nose continued to run despite his best efforts.
"Hate to do this, but I can't leave you with your sword. Not after all," he gestures with a twirling finger, "that. You understand, don't you?"
Elia shifts her attention from him to Jon. When he doesn't respond, she moves back to the leader, who doesn't say anything either. From then on, it's every man for himself and she never quite knows where to look. The silence is longer than she can stomach, only ending when the stranger deems it has stretched too long.
"A proud knight, you are. Trust me, I can tell. But you must see things from my end, I—I have to protect my own. He was wrong for striking you as he did, I don't deny it, but I also can't change the past. What's done is done. And I shan't allow a vengeful man to remain armed in my camp."
Jon lowers the rag. When he speaks, his voice is still pained. "And if I swear to not harm the brat?"
"What use do I have for the promises of a northman?" He waves the idea away lazily. "They say you lot are tree-fucking savages. Hardly makes f'r a trustworthy sort, I'd argue."
"Hm," Jon drawls, "Funny." Notably, nobody is laughing.
In a battle of wills, Jon is the clear victor. He only speaks when spoken to, otherwise ignoring the leader. Even bound as he is, he holds more power than their captor. Such is obvious when the other man dares not even approach him to take the sword himself.
A biter, that was what that one boy had claimed. Perhaps there was more truth to his words than she'd seen for herself.
"Look. We can do this the easy way, and you can let me untie that scabbard from your hip. Or you can try your hardest to pointlessly hold on to it for as long as you are capable as—"
"Oh, just take the fucking sword," Jon snaps, "It is shite steel, anyway. No good it'll do you having it, even less than it does me now."
He leans to the side to make his belt easier to untie, and after a few short moments, the deed is done. They were wholly trapped and without recourse. Elia loses herself to her thoughts then, to starts of plans and concepts of others. As such, she nearly misses the quiet drawing of the stolen blade. The voices which follow are harder to overlook.
"The shit is wrong with your iron up north?"
She glances up and loses her breath. It takes everything within herself—everything that she has and everything she one day might, all that and more—just to not react. Her body goes unnaturally still, her eyes uncannily wide, but she manages.
The sword is darker than most, appearing almost black. It's a near thing, but it was at least darker than the gray one might expect—that one should expect. Jon had gone through lengths to disguise it, that much is clear. The blade was flecked with blood and dirt and debris, but its sheathe had held on to too much in its unveiling and the steel was visible once more. The pommel—now, it had been shattered, only hints of white peaking through at the end. The handle, too, had been thrown into disrepair. Torn apart then reclad in poor and aged leather.
And yet, there was no mistaking it.
"I was a smith's hand as a lad," Jon lies when nobody speaks. She knows he must be, knows it and knows it well. The admission is meant to distract from the truth, to pull the leader's attention away from the blade. To make him believe it nothing of importance. "This was the first blade I ever helped to forge. Not even worth the materials that went into it, so he claimed. Made me take it with me when I journeyed south. Said it would serve me well for as fine a knight I'd ever become, the buggerer."
None of that is possible. Not when the blade in that man's hands was more priceless than each of those which formed her goodfather's throne—more valuable than all of them combined.
It was Valyrian Steel—the rippling mark across its length could not belay anything else. A sword most precious, forged from an art long lost to the folds of time. Even the worst of the freehold's swords would be lighter, stronger, harder, and sharper than the best a castle smith could forge. It would never lose its edge, never risk its temper. Even purposefully mistreated as it was, this one would fetch fortunes from any lord who could afford it. Wars have been fought over less.
The leader looks at it for a moment longer before sliding it back into its scabbard with a grunt. "Why's it look like that?"
Jon shrugs with purpose. "Water too cold for a proper temper, I'd wager. Ask Mikken of Wintertown if you are that curious, he would know better than I."
There's a brief silence before his eyes flick to meet hers and the glare that is necessary comes far too easily. She had been such a fool. Too blinded by fear to see the truth of her savior.
It falls to her to make a decision—to pick a side. Here and now. In this instance. The sole swordsman who ferried her from the capital, or the band of boys and men who were frugal with their kindnesses, but simple and upfront in their desires.
She thinks she must have come to trust Jon far more than she'd thought—lengths more than she'd desired—for the betrayal leaves her more hurt than is reasonable. It means the decision that follows is far too easy for her to make, chest aching as hers is. Her fingers twitch, tightening around her daughter's for a moment before the tension eases and she exhales, slowly.
Perhaps it is the lie that tugs a foreign scowl to her lips, perhaps it is just how stupid she feels. So many emotions swirl within her and not one is pretty. She recognizes that, welcomes it even. It makes what must come a simpler matter.
"You lied to me?" Elia turns on the northman with a specific fury. She wants to say more, but her irritation is endless, the words that dance on her tongue ceaseless. They each are valid and true and scathing, but with them all piling atop the ones before, scrambling to the tip in some desperate plea to be voiced, she is left tongue tied and without follow-up.
A common northman, her arse. A northern conman, more like.
In the end, she opens her mouth several times, but little ever comes out. She lets out a noise more scream than grunt, and storms off in the direction of a distant copse. Rhaenys is unable to match her pace, so she gathers her in her arms and continues on without missing a beat. Her daughter's hands are damp and clammy, but they do not feel nearly as cold against her cheeks as the frustrated tears that streak them.
The leader trails behind her, allowing her the distance she needed to work through her emotions herself. And so, none are near enough to hear her daughter's words as she finally finds her voice.
"Muna," she whines, looking over her mother's shoulder, "Kekepa forgot my name. I am Rhaenys, not Arya."
Kekepa. Elia closes her eyes. Her jaw trembles and her breath turns heavy as she tries to force her eyes to dry. 'Kekepa' is a Valyrian word, one Rhaegar taught Rhaenys from his own lips, and one Elia thinks must mean something akin to 'granduncle.'
It is a title originally bestowed upon a certain member of the Kingsguard: Lewyn Martell. He is Elia's uncle—or was. He likely fell upon the Trident alongside her husband. His fate was not deemed important enough to be included in the raven sent with haste to the capital. Perhaps he breathes still, but she doubted it. Her uncle was a great man and an even greater knight, he would not have fled the field of battle, though she wished he would. Her fate may not now be so tenuous had he been at her side.
In years and months past, Rhaenys, the sweet, young girl that she is, could not differentiate her relative's face from the others within the Kingsguard. The helmets that were their standard made certain of that. As a result, she'd taken to calling any man with the traditional white cloak by her uncle's title, to Lewyn's dismay. It had become a source of amusement in the king's keep. Of levity. Something with which they rarely had in surplus. The title must have come to mean any who safeguard her.
But, to hear it now … Elia could scarcely bear it.
"Jon is … " She begins to say, only to sigh. She did not have the strength to explain it. "We cannot say your name around these men, okay? So for now, if one of us says Arya, pretend it is your name. Can you do that? For me?"
"But I am Rhaenys. Did he forgot?"
"No," Elia assures her, as geese fly past in a chevron above their heads, "No, he did not forget."
"We should tell him it again," her daughter argues, "He must know."
Elia doesn't have the heart to tell her that she may never get the chance to.
They make camp in that copse. Even her aching feet argue that they should have tried to forge further on, but the decision is not hers to make.
She finds a seat on a fallen log and picks bark from its surface to pass the time. Rhaenys is beside her, leaning into her arm, sleeping and drooling.
There is no clearing to gather in, so the group is spread amongst the trees. Elia peers around, keeping track of what everyone is doing, and pauses when she catches sight of Jon. Her nose lifts and curls and she forces herself to look elsewhere for fear of reigniting an anger that would do her no good. He was sleeping, anyway, and she was not cruel even to kick him awake so that she might do something constructive with her anger. Or destructive.
A stick cracks under foot somewhere in her periphery and she knows better now to look toward the noise. One of the younger boys is approaching her, bearing a similarity to the one who broke Jon's nose, save a few years.
"Good morrow," he greets her, with a bob of his head and a pleasant smile.
Elia eyes him critically before humming. "We are soundly into the evening."
"So we are," he agrees, before taking a seat beside her on the log. "Does milady require anything?"
"No." Perhaps she is too quick in her response, the wince he gives would suggest something of the sort, but he failed to even ask permission to join her. She owed him nothing. "I am well situated, thank you."
He twists to face her, perhaps too eagerly, and crosses one of his legs over the top of the log. "My name is Gyles."
She eyes him through her lashes. "Well met, Gyles."
He waits for a span of three breaths before gesturing to her and saying, "This is generally the part of a conversation where the pretty lady introduces herself."
Her eyelids flutter to a close as she brings her daughter closer into her side. "You may call me Lady Cafferen."
"But that is not your name."
He is correct, but not in the way he is thinking. "Anything more would be improper."
"Anything less would make us strangers."
"Indeed, it would." Because that is exactly what they were, and exactly how she would like them to remain. She did not need nor want to know anything more of this boy. He was a means to an end, and one she would use until she could not.
He scoots closer. "I'd like us to be more than that."
"I know your name. Does that not already settle the debt?"
"Mm. You are … Dornish, yes?"
"I am."
He bobs his head merrily. "Hm. Thought so. I knew a Dornish girl once, she was pretty, too, but not nearly as fancy as you."
She cracks an eye open and peers down at her current attire. For some reason, she sincerely doubted that.
Gyles must catch the act, because he's quick to lay an unwarranted hand on her shoulder and assure her. "It is not in the manner of dress, but how you hold yourself."
"How I hold myself?" She regrets asking as soon as the words leave her. Why she entertains the boy is anyone's guess. The answer is that she needs these men to like her; but she wished doing so did not require indulging some poor maidboy's delusions and fancies.
His eyes rake up her body, from head to toe, then back again. "You have nice … er, posture."
A short distance away a man barks out a laugh and turns their way, smirking. "Oh, yes. We've all noticed you admiring her posture, lad." He must have been listening in.
Another breaks through the treeline, slinging an arm around the former's shoulder. "Posture? What the bleeding 'ell are you tellin' 'er, Gyles? Tha's just an excuse for you to stare at 'er arse," he heckles.
The boy shoots to his feet, stomping them somewhat, and glares at the two with rosy cheeks. "It is not! I have done nothing of the sort!" Then, he spins around to face her. "I really haven't, honest! You have to believe me, milady."
She's spared having to respond by the waking of her son. All of the shouting must have startled him; he comes-to with a vengeance. It does nothing to stymie the growing ache in her head, but that is something she can suffer silently, so long as these fools leave her to her peace.
The two men keep on laughing as he son cries and the boy panics. Rhaenys wakes too, and glares at each of them in turn. "Hush, valonqar," she demands and Elia's heart goes very, very still very, very fast. "You are too loud!"
It is as if the entire forest goes silent at once. She knows that is not the case, Aegon still screams over the void surrounding her ears, but it is muffled. Distant. One of the laughing men look over, brow furrowed. "Valonqar?" he wonders to himself, "What language is that?"
Her breaths come in short, shallow. "It's—"
"The Old Tongue," a voice interrupts. She spins and there is Jon. Infuriatingly on time. He must not have been sleeping at all; rest cannot be easy when surrounded by strangers. "I taught the little lady a few words of it as we were traveling."
Gyles sniffs. "Never heard of it. You sure you ain't making it up?"
The northman was not intimidated by a boy who had only ever known one winter, and as little more than a babe at that. Gyles's false bravado could do nothing to change that fact. "It is the language of the First Men. We still speak it in the further corners of the winterlands."
"Prove it."
Jon raises his brow. The motion causes him to wince, pulling on bruised and bloodied skin. It is no surprise; the bridge of his nose was a mess of black and purple stretching deep into his left eye. "How exactly do you expect me to do that?"
"Speak some of their words to me."
"Oh, for the love of—And how will you verify what I speak? You cannot speak the language yourself."
Gyles works his jaw. "You do not know that."
"I do," Jon tells him, before gesturing with bound hands to Elia, then the two men still watching on, "So does she, so do they. If you could speak the language then you would have known what the little lady said meant 'cousin' and have simply answered your comrade, rather than waste all of our times with your pointless grandstanding."
To Gyles's credit, everything Jon is telling him is false. Valonqar is High Valyrian for 'brother.'
Now, the boy becomes angry. His face is even redder than before, but he cannot harm Jon as the other had done. A log separates them, and Elia atop it. Still, he spits on the ground and glares at the northman. "You have yet to prove you can speak it yourself."
What Jon says after, Elia cannot follow. It's coarse, harsh and clanging. And she worries, because it sounds nothing like what Rhaenys had said—something that does not escape anyone's notice.
"The girl sounded different."
Jon laughs despite how much it'll hurt. "She is a child. Of course it sounds different when she tries to say it."
Their back and forth ends with Gyles storming away, the other men following not long thereafter. Elia's shoulders relax with their departure, only to raise once more when she turns to her supposed guardian. "Valyrian Steel," she hisses, once they're out of earshot.
"Oh, come off it, princess. It is not as if I hid it from you."
She glares at him, standing and stepping closer. "You told me you were a commoner."
"Did I?"
Truthfully, she didn't know. Days had come and gone since then, his exact phrasing was lost to her. He likely knew that too, it was the only reason he had to be so damn smug. "Who are you?"
He rolls his eyes and ignores her question, bastard that he is; instead crouching low to speak with Rhaenys. Her daughter waits patiently for him, evidently having come to the realization that she far prefers his company to that of any of these newcomers.
Still, before he can enter her daughter's reach, before Rhaenys can reach out to gently touch the new crook in his nose, Elia slides between them. "Leave," she commands him. "I do not wish to see you."
He frowns, glancing between her and her daughter. "Why?"
"I do not trust you. You lie and you fib, and that is all you do. I have no use for a man who I cannot rely on, and I cannot rely on you." When he doesn't immediately walk away, she continues. "You will have what I promised you, I am a woman of my word, but I cannot bear to look at you right now. Stay out of sight until we reach this journey's end."
"All this over a sword?"
It is more than the sword. How he cannot comprehend that is beyond her. It is her life, hers and her daughters and her sons. It is that he is craftier than any of these other men, and she knows where that leads; she is a princess of House Nymeros-Martell. She knows vipers.
She is grateful for what he has done, she is, she owes him her life. But that debt could not be paid with that which was won. A life for a life is not a sensible deal when both are her own. Her life for her children's, that is an easy barter, but her life for her life is something else entirely. Cyclical and pointless. And Elia is not that altruistic.
Elia says to him all this and more. Telling him, begging him to ask her for something reasonable. A noble wife or an opulent keep. A title or something similar. If not, there is little that can bridge their gap of trust, not without him placing faith in her in turn. But by the time she finishes her breath comes short and heavy, and he is standing to leave.
He makes it a single step away before he turns again, this time holding out a palm to her. It is awkward, he only has so much movement at his wrist and elbow, so he pivots his shoulder and twists his spine to make it flat. "My dagger," he asks, "I'd like it back."
She squints at him. "I do not have it."
"You do not—" He cuts himself off suddenly, and when he begins again his voice is so quiet. It frightens her more than a yell. He looks around the forest surrounding, perhaps trying to figure out which of the men had taken it, but it was none of them. "Who has it, Elia?"
"I lost it in the skirmish," she admits. Lying is not even a consideration. "Their leader took it and threw it into the brush."
For the first time since she met him, Jon seems genuinely caught off guard. His eyes widen a margin and the drop of his jaw is only slightly larger. It hangs there until all of the muscles in it tighten and he goes rigid
"Pray, princess," he suddenly tells her, "Pray one of them picked it up."
Though her heart beats wildly in her chest, she still finds the nerve to rebut, like a fool, "All this for a knife?"
He is too angry to reply, only shaking his head as he tromps away and repeating himself once more. "Pray."