AN: Nothing you recognise is mine. Mostly it belongs to GRRM. Apologies for any mistakes regarding form, but I think I got practically everything.

TRIGGERS: Mentions of something that seems to be trip sickness but is not, the smallest allusion to combat, the smallest mention of a male ordering a female around. Overall, a terribly boring chapter with barely any triggers.

Abuse of random capitalization of letters, but I'm too lazy to fix it.

I think that's all.

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Visiting the Vale

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Two moons after Sansa's tournament, a convoy left from King's Landing towards the Vale. During the tourney, uncle Brynden had talked to Lord Arryn about in many occasions. Being men of about the same age, and having fought several times in the same battles, they rekindled their easy camaraderie. Most of the Vale Lords had also been invited into these talks and, at one point, Uncle Brynden wondered aloud if Sansa shouldn't meet her Lands and Vassals in their own fortresses if she was going to command them there one day. Lord Arryn had gone to bed pondering on this and some days later, he had announced that a Tour of the Vale was to be organised for the Arryn trio. The King had considered it a wonderful idea, a trip to the lands where he spent his fosterage, but Lord Arryn had talked with him about how unwise it would be to leave the capital without the King or the Hand, and reluctantly King Robert had agreed. He had then gone white wondering if he would have to really reign and rule the Realm, but Lord Arryn had convinced him to include in the Small Council his brother Stannis as Master of Ships, in order to have a just head in the council and maybe even make him Temporary Hand. After all, the trip to the Vale, a short stay and the return to Kingslanding shouldn't take more than two and a half, maybe three moons. Even Robert couldn't sink his Realm so fast, and even if some catastrophe appeared, Jon Arryn would be at most ten days away.

The Vale nobility, upon hearing the news, organised itself into a convoy with several carriages and wheelhouses and several family knights and sellswords around them. It would be, without a doubt, one of the safest trips ever made in the Vale. No Mountain clan's men would dare to attack such a big group. It would be ludicrous.

They took the Kingsroad up North until Harroway's Town. Lysa and Sansa shared the most luxurious of the Wheelhouses, and most days invited the children of one or other of their vassals' families to play with Sansa while they travelled. On the weird days when Sansa was allowed to go to other of the wheelhouses and play with the children there, Lysa invited the ladies themselves, but as the trip progressed, she felt more and more tired, and therefore, when she knew she was to be alone, she excused herself from the ladies with reasons of tiredness and took advantage of the rolling carriage to sleep some more. Lord Arryn, when being told of his wife's indisposition, took a look at her and declared it to be Mountain sickness and declared that she should rest as much as possible. He hadn't considered how uncomfortable riding with a toddler on a carriage could be in a bumpy road until then, and decided to bring to the King a possible improvement of this part of the Kingsroad, in case it was necessary to transport armies or resources. He took an interest in Sansa's wellbeing, and asked her to ride with him when she was not playing in the other wheelhouses with the children. Most of the time, she rode with a man of his personal guard, Quill. Still, he often made sure she rode for an hour with him while he explained her things about the Vale, and other times he asked her to ride next to him in one of the pack-horses to gain more riding experience. A pony would have been better, but they would do with what they had. Sansa was not terribly excited about riding, but she enjoyed spending time with her father, and was quite happy overall with the trip.

Once they reached Harroway's Town, they took the High Road up the Mountains. The First Keep they visited was House Royce of the Gates of the Moon, a junior branch of the Royces of Runestone. A feast was waiting for them and after many days of journey, they were all quite glad to sleep in real beds for two nights. They kept going after that towards the Redfort, where another feast awaited them. The more they advanced though the Mountains, the colder it got and Sansa remembered the Maester's lessons about geography. Lysa, who despite her husband's proclamation of Mountain sickness had not been having very little problems besides tiredness and exhaustion, started getting cold and requested hot bricks to be placed in the mornings in her wheelhouse to keep the carriage as warm as possible. She often searched for Sansa outside the carriage to check if she was cold, but she seemed to be unaffected by the temperature and only a little by the altitude. Must be the Arryn blood.

After the Redfort, part of their convoy went South towards the Bay of Crabs, while the rest went North to the Bloody Gate. Lord Arryn was proud of Sansa's look of astonishment when she finally looked at the landmark she had been told so much about, and she almost squealed when her father completed the ritual that would let them pass through the door that guarded the Vale. It was a fortification thought for defence, but in winter it was also the Court of the Arryns and Lord Arryn was honoured to host a feast for his bannermen. Although not enormous, if they bunked together there were enough rooms already warmed for all of them to sleep under a roof. Sansa found it very fun to room with four other bannermen's daughters, while her mother took an army of female servants into her room with some cots just telling them that as long as they were silent and let her rest, she didn't mind sharing her room.

Uncle Brynden's interest was picked in the fortress, and he even mentioned that when he was young, he considered becoming the Knight of the Gate, but that he still had time if he so desired and that at the moment he was quite happy serving his niece. Lysa hoped he meant it, because although it may be an honour to have him serve in the Gates, she had come to appreciate enormously having a paternal male presence willing to help her solve her problems and she didn't fancy having to rescind his services too soon.

Speaking of those services, while they were in the Sansa's Tourney, Uncle Brynden had asked her to write to Petyr and let him know that she was on her way to the Vale with her husband and while she might not be able to visit her dear infancy friend in his Keep, she was working on issuing an invitation for him to the Eyre or to have someone visit him with a decreet in which he was offered a high post in Gulltown. "I will keep you informed, but you mustn't write, for I leave soon and the letter will not find me" she had written at the end. The lies had tasted like ash in her mouth, but when compared to his lies and her lost babies and pregnancies, she knew this was a wound she must cauterise. Once he had reviewed the letter, uncle had made sure it left the city in an inconspicuous way, which wasn't hard taken into account the amount of people and letters and news that were in Kingslanding for the tourney.

Two days after arriving, they left the Bloody Gates at the break of dawn, together with most of the carriages, which would be unusable in the rocky terrain. Instead, they rode shaggy mountain horses and a couple of litters carried by four horses each took the ladies who didn't feel secure enough to ride, Lady Lysa chief amongst them. Not as luxurious as the wheelhouse but smaller, the litter kept warm for longer periods and Lysa was not totally unhappy with the exchange. The baggage was also divided between mules and open top litters. Finally, they reached the Giant's Lance and the waterfall, after crossing the three waycastles and behelding Alyssa's Tears. The knights and healthier travellers took the handholded path to the Eyre, while Lysa and Sansa were in the first ascending basket. As the people became smaller and smaller, Sansa's eyes widened more and more. She looked at the falcons playing with the air currents and the white castle that was becoming bigger with each passing minute. When they arrived, they were received by Lord Arryn, and soon handed to a servant with the purpose of bathing and changing before that night's feast.

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