“Lady…Lannister?”

The thin, small, man with squinty eyes and too much hair upon the sides of his face clutched the parchment board as he examined her, his tone closing in on disbelief. The captain of the trading galley laughed, and loudly, “Aye, we have so many of them in Lannisport.”

“Lady Lannister of the Lannisport Lannisters?”

Lorelai didn’t say a thing as she waited near the bow of the vessel, it’s sailors still going through the motions of tying the vessel off to the docks of Bear Island, she herself remaining a silent sentinel near the railing, a green simple wool dress, complimentary but plain; the kind of thing a merchant’s wife might wear. 

The little man eyed her again, a look that lingered longer than it should have, before nodding. “I will notify the masters of the island of her arrival. I will begin the inspection, now.”

The large, burly, captain smiled big and broad, nodding at the declaration of the customs officer, “Follow me.” As they boarded the vessel, the captain gave her a little wink. Despite everything, it made her lips press into a small smile. She did like the man, Gareth, a long-time sailor with a hot temper in his youth. He’d struck a captain and had been denied any possible opportunity for his own vessel even after a decade. 

But he would work for a young Lady of the Rock, so she took a chance on him. Since that day, he’d become one of the most trusted captains of the trade fleet of Her’s. After the two disappeared below deck, Lorelai made her way off the vessel, the heavy green wool cloak tied tightly about her shoulders, as Bear Island had no concept of Spring, from the looks of it. There was still ice about, and every hill about the rocky island seemed to be snow-set and hazy with winter still. She wanted a proper look and had the boots on for it.

The thought of bear should have spooked her, but it didn’t. The only thing she wanted was to walk into the gnarled oaks and tall pines and get lost. The captain would wait for her return before he left, and if not, her chests would be with the other cargo in the same small storehouse the customs man had appeared from. 

The smallfolk of the fishing village were kind, if a little too kind. Every attempt at conversation was pierced in the heart by her reserved smile and indefensible courtly courtesies and manners. It took little time at all to pass through the threshold between the fishing village and the wild on Bear Island. She passed little girls with pigtails running, laughing towards the village. Lorelai caught herself wondering if she’d ever been that young, truly? 

Such a childlike pose she doubted she could ever hold, with such a smile? Not after Loreon left, not when the weight of Casterly Rock descended upon her once slender child shoulders. She walked past a croft crammed into the one sliver of tiny valley between crag and dense tree line stuffed with thorny underbrush, sticking to the trail that had seen wagon wheels. She walked past a swift creek that ran on a severe slope from the top of Bear Island to the Sunset Sea below. 

She walked until she stopped, smoothed the dress below her, and sat upon a mossy flat-faced rock. Julian’s face flashed through her mind, her eyes closed, her upper body lowered with a deep-seated sigh until the back of her head lay on the rock, as well. Lorelai had cut her losses on both ends and aimed herself away from anyone and everything she had ever known: and it felt better than she thought it could have. Haunted as she would always be by the complications of excuses for people to get into the game. She imagined the looks on the faces that she left behind, even his. 

She was half-curled, laying on her side, when she felt herself return to wakefulness. Like jumping into cold water and emerging feeling like a new soul in a new body, she felt warm, her head swimmy, her hard-hearted weariness settled so deep inside her that there was just numbness and comfort, not pain. The sun above was darker, lower in the sky, and in the air was a level of chill that she hadn’t prepared for.

A low, slow, emptying breath fled from her lips and turned to plumes of steam before her among the stone and moss. The trees around her filtered light and sound and sky, but even that wasn’t enough for escape. She just wanted to be alone with ghosts, now. She wanted to hide from the bird. She wanted to hide from death. From intrigue. From higher mysteries that left her dizzy and looking for ground to land on. 

She thought of the blue-eyed man, a shade of blue that seemed as unnatural as his grief. She thought of Jules, again. She thought of Loreon. She thought of her father, her mother…and then she tucked her head into her arms, and Lorelai Lannister sobbed. She wondered, if she screamed, would anyone hear except the trees? And if she did, would the trees lean down to comfort her? 

“Trees used to be trees…” 

She was tired of feeling lonely, lying down upon the rock in Bear Island, under the Northern sky. “Is he trying to talk to me when I see him in my dreams?” Lorelai asked, feeling the presence, feeling suddenly strong, “Did they take him too soon?”

The sound of little perching feet of the bird scratched against the far side of the stone under the moss as it moved closer to her body, turned away from it, a voice coming to her not from its beak, but somewhere else. Somewhere all around, and nowhere, all at once. [i]”Love is never gone. The dead die when they will. The living live. He sees the tear drops from your eyes. Do you think he wants to?”[/i]

She sniffled, the back of her hand rubbing her eyes as she curled closer into herself, curled as tightly and protectively as she ever had. She saw them, then, like she never had before. From the eyes above the trees, circling, she saw the two men and the woman. Well made clothing, looking down at the golden-haired girl curled and asleep on the mossy rock. Near enough her age, all of them. 

“Lannister from Lannisport, he said?” Asked the thicker of the two men, with thick brown beard. 

The woman, brown haired, curved like few Ladies in the West, strength, and pride on her facial features. “That’s what he said.”

The tall, leaner, of the three had black hair, and dark eyes that stared down at her longer, more intense, than the other two. There was a fascination in his eyes that the other two didn’t seem capable of, even his voice came softer in the chilled air, “I can’t tell if it’s mad or amazing that she wandered into the woods of this island and fell asleep.”

The bearded man chuckled, “With the bears as active as they are in Spring? As hungry as they can be? Madness, for sure.”

The black-haired man looked up, and saw the crown of ravens above, perched in the boughs of the pines surrounding them, staring down, all but silent and unmoving. “…you sure about that, Gwayn?”

The other two followed the gaze of the black-haired one and blinked. Lorelai might have blinked back, it felt as if they stared right into her and she into them…until it wasn’t like that, at all, until her eyes were her own again, fluttering open, body stirring. When she rolled onto her back and looked, she found the three staring down at her. The bearded one had a crooked smile, the woman looked mildly amused like you might regard a fool, and the black-haired man just…stared. 

“Lannister?”

Lorelai sniffled, involuntarily, as her feet drew closer to her body and her hands flattened against the moss below her, her head lifting as she regarded the area around them. The sound of wings filled their ears as two-score ravens departed into the sky, causing two of the three to snap their heads up and look. The bearded man seemed to chuckle at it, the woman gave a frown of some concern, and the man with the black hair and impossibly dark eyes just stared into her eyes as she locked onto his. 

[i]He knows.[/i]

“…yes, of Lannisport, not the, uh…”

“…Rock?” The one staring into her eyes finished for her, his lips creasing just at the corners of his mouth, like he had some secret smile that played with amusement of a secret known to him, and him alone. 
“…the Rock, right…pardon my state, thank you for seeing to my safety, I don’t know where I, um, where I ended up?”

“The ship you came on brought more goods than normal,” the woman stated, bluntly, in a tone that sounded resigned, “a lot of wine we didn’t pay for. A lot of beef, mutton, fruits, spices, ales…did your captain think he was headed south?”

“No,” she said, with another sniff, as her eyes dropped to supervise her body climbing to an upright sit, her legging swinging off the edge of the rock to allow her soft leather booted feet to touch ground. “It’s a gift.”

The woman didn’t seem to like it. The dark-haired man just stared, deeper than ever, and the bearded man held his happy expression as he spoke first, “Well, we must take advantage of such gifts, Lady…?”

“Lorelai,” she heard herself say, before she could think to lie. 

The bearded man nodded, firm, and motioned to himself, “I am Lord Gwayn, heir to Bear Island. This is my sister,” he said, motioning to the woman with them, “Lady Margery, and this is one of the many Lord Starks. Won’t you accompany us to our keep? We can send for the gifts and anything else you might need?”

Lorelai smiled, polite, proper, “Thank you, Lord Gwayn. You are kind.”

“…unless you prefer the birds and the trees?” The Stark asked, even as he held his hand out to help her off the rock and to a stand. His dark eyes now playing the same secret amusements the corners of his lips had moments before.

[i]He knows.[/i]