Run.

The air feels thick inside; too warm and sticky and smelling too sickly sweet, with too much ale, too many men, and too little space.

The green dress she wears, laced with silver (still wearing her house colours despite what Saimon has to say about it) feels too tight and itches her pale skin. She wants so desperately to rip it off and bear her smallclothes in front of all these people... to push through the heavy double doors and be outside with the wind and the air and the green rolling hills for miles and miles in every direction; to hear the sea hitting the rocks and smell the salty air or freedom.

She wants to be with Charlie in the stables, a friend and not yet a friend, with the horses that calm at her appearance and nuzzle at her neck. The warm beasts who let her crawl up onto their backs and crave the same quick, desperate, running freedom that she does.

Not here. Not where she's so unsure of what to do, how to dance, who to dance with. And she misses the companionship of Mog and Tog. The easy, playful teasing and their practical jokes... but something changed there, without her realizing and now they're trying to play grown-ups. She's not ready for that. And not ready for the messy, new, hot and cold and desperately warm feelings that gather just below her stomach in ways that she can't quite explain yet.

She wants her Mother, but not her mother, because her Mother doesn't care about her and her impending womanhood unless that means something to her own political desires. She wants someone other than Saimon. Someone to explain what's needed of her, because right now she has no idea of what she's supposed to be. She couldn't give Tog a favour, didn't know how or what... and now she's clearly lost them.

She wants to run. No. She NEEDS to run.

Books.

She sits cross-legged on the cold stone floor of Pwyll's tower. Stacks of books on either side of her. The one on her lap, crumpled paged and old, opened to the center.
She's not the best reader and Pwyll never has the energy outside of her standard classes to sit with her and help translate. She thinks that his patience gets shorter the older he gets, and he's already SO old.

The book has rough drawn pictures, coloured with inks and colours that she can barely imagine existing outside some rich nobles estate, and one bigger than the Chester's.

Long grasses that look like green and brown waves, a bright sky, and dirt and dust as far as the eye can see. The people depicted are tall, so much bigger than Quinn, with sun-bronzed skin, dark hair and impossibly dark eyes. They hold silver blades, long and curved and never shown without the bright red splash of blood covering them.

The Dothraki.

She sees beautiful painted women, tanned the same as the men, with bright blues and purples swirled over their faces. She can barely sound out the word 'khaleesi' but recognizes it all the same and can't stop the smile from gracing her lips, she remembers Charlie and the words that warm her heart, 'like a great khaleesi with the horses. They know you'

She feels like her father would be proud of her way with those animals. And there's a pang in her chest that reminds her of what could have been... if the war had ended differently.

It's probably just an idle, childish fantasy, but she wishes desperately to be on the other side of the world. In that land of 'savages' as Pwyll would tell her; she knows that she'd prefer the open savagery to this world of political games and subterfuge. The dry heat and the open grasses for miles. Where to ride a horse is akin to sitting on an iron throne.

Terrance.

His body is too quiet. He was never like this in life.

She remembers the blood pooling out of his wound. Red and black and clotted. Remembers the smell of the tent, the sweat and the stench of it. The fear.

And the guilt.

She still feels that. It tugs at her heart and her head sometimes and reminds her that she foolishly broke his horse in before he had a chance. She rode him first, and he had run like the wind... had gotten used to her diminutive size.

Terrance.

Dreams.

Her breath comes out in puffs of white, a testament to the coldness in the air. The horse moves underneath her, she can feel the tendons working hard to keep up the quick pace she's set for him to follow. She can hear the pounding of hooves behind her and she knows that they're catching up.

The corset she wears is far too tight for riding, the whalebone cutting into her rib cage and jabbing sharp points into her hips and underarms. Whoever put her into this corset would have to be throttled later.

Saimon.

Where was he? She feels like he should be with her now. Riding beside her, away from whatever they've just done. She can't remember. It must have been important. The hooves beating on the ground intensify, there are so many. She can't look back. Can't find her brother... there's rain on her face, it tastes like warmth and salt.

The cold hard ground, covered in soft white is transitioning to browns and the powder is beginning to look more like sand. The rain and mud of the Greenshields is being swept away and replaced with dry dirt and long grasses. It looks like an ocean in green and silver.

She hears the horse beneath her cry out in pain, he rears back. Bright red blurs her vision. The whole world shakes as she falls from his back, the ground seems so far away...

Green eyes snap open, her mattress rises to meet her body, the jolt of it forcing her to full consciousness.

And she knows that sleep will not return this night.

The Sailors Say.

Saimon is almost slurring as he confronts the man locked away inside a crow's cage. And the only thing she can think about is that she has no idea what they're discussing. Saimon has never told her the stories of the battle. Of death and war and their Father on his broken ship.

She doesn't know what to do.

She wants to help the caged man, this Oz, he wears the same green and silver that she has secretly donned, threaded inconspicuously in her hair, since being taken as Ward... and isn't that what matters? Loyalty?

She can't think like this. Not with her brother drunk and angry and this pouch of letters in her pocket. She wants to hit him. Damn her for being so small and frail and feminine. Instead she talks him away and back to his horse, and leads him like a beggar to the castle.

There's an anger in her. She feels so used and so manoeuvred by her whole family, climb the wall, deliver the messages, keep your brother in line. And, oh Gods, she'd just like to do something reckless for once.

The hammer feels heavy in her hands, she hopes it will be strong enough.

Her horse knows the way, she's not sure how he's picked up her intent but she's sure she's not riding him as hard as he's running towards the broken man in the metal cage. The wind whips her blonde hair into her eyes as she gets close to the crossroads.

If he's surprised to see her back so soon he does an excellent job of hiding it.

And now, she's not sure what to do. What to ask. She want's to hear the whole story. The rise and fall of her family and everything in between. She wants to know why her Father never came home and why Saimon refuses to wear anything to do with their House, especially his pendant. But what could this near-lifeless man know about any of that. She'll take the idle sailor gossip in its place.

He speaks of storms and Demons, right out of one of Pwyll's great stories. And, truthfully, she can't believe a word of it until there's mention of another ship...

It's late and now that they're coming to the end of their conversation, she's trying not to think about her promise to free him. It would be all too easy to leave him to starve to death in this cage... but, the saying 'words are wind' has never rang true for her family.

She hands him the hammer.

Messenger.

The hooves of her horse beat the rhythm of the cold, hard ground into her head.

Thump thump. Thump thump.

She's chilled to the bone and her normally warm overcoat is doing nothing to fight off the wind. Her hands hurt from climbing, the often clean pads of her fingers marred with rock and dirt. And. There's a small, soft bag in her pocket that feels like a hundred heavy stones weighing her down, even though it's only several small paper messages. Small but undoubtedly important.

Why did Saimon drag her here and force her up the stone walls to see her Mother? Oh, her dear brother, so infuriating, and yet her only real connection to her heritage. But, why couldn't he face this alone? She feels so old and tired already at thirteen while still feeling so entirely lost and young and not at all prepared for what's expected of her.

What is expected of her?

She's so torn. Her family, and the family she's been brought into. As a Ward, yes. A prisoner for all intents and purposes. But still. Mog and Tog, Quinn, even the old man Chester... there's a fondness there, isn't there? Are these letters, the ones safe in her pocket, a betrayal? And if they are, would it be a bigger betrayal to not deliver them?

Is this a test? Her test? To see if she's capable of being loyal to the Glencairn's? There's still so much undecided... and no one to talk to. Certainly not her drunkard brother who can barely balance on his horse, not any of her brothers... no, not brothers... guards, keepers, and watchmen. She could go to Pwyll, but his mouth is always so close to Chester's ear.

She has to be strong. No matter how difficult.

But why is it so hard?