House Grant.

It is a remarkable thing to witness somebody’s world falling apart. 

Sawyer has seen grief before. He has lost men in battle and been forced to deliver the news to their families, the loved ones they left behind. He has felt it keenly a few times himself, the hollow ache that carves out your insides and makes you wonder if you will ever be whole again. 

But one never gets used to seeing it tear through somebody anew, even a stranger. His heart wrenched painfully at the incomprehension in her eyes, followed by a war of denial and despair. He could feel her shaking even without touching her, as if feeling it burning through his own nerves, and knew well that the roaring in her ears would drown out anything he might try to say. She would hear nothing, feel nothing; only the sensation of the world falling away underfoot. 

Did she know Eddard Stark, somehow? Sawyer’s eyes tightened at the corners in thought. This was more than patriotic shock at the loss of a well-loved leader. This devastation seemed personal, even familial. He could not begin to guess how this woman was connected to the Starks, if at all, but he felt certain all at once that she was. Somehow. 

His men had gone quiet, averting their eyes and staring glumly into their drinks as if hoping to grant the woman some semblance of privacy. Their shifting discomfort awakened Sawyer to his own, and before he knew it he was out of his seat, taking her by the shoulders to steer her out of the tavern. If she objected to such a liberty, or indeed was even aware of it, she gave no sign of it. She let him guide her outside into the twilit alley, where the air was a fragrant mix of sea air from the port and lingering smells from the evening market. 

He wanted to ask her. Did she know Ned? Who was she? But he could see she was reeling, and doubted he would get much sense out of her until she’d had time to collect herself. Grimly ducking back inside, he paid for a bottle of cheap Dornish wine and brought it back out to her. 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, shutting the door behind him and crouching at her elbow. “I know it is a shock. But it is the truth, my lady, however much it wounds me to say it.”

          He was guiding her outside into the evening, the sun setting on the harbor and the gentle sounds of the water and the gulls, the ships rocking in their salt cradles. How could the world be so calm and quiet?? How could things be so still and beautiful?? How was the world still spinning when hers had so collapsed?? When Brandon had died, she nearly lost the baby. Rhaegar had to sit with her for days to console her. Two brothers now, gone. How did this happen?? How could Ned possibly be dead?? 

          Lyanna settled on the ground, knees bent, no care for soiling the thin fabric of her tunic. Her scabbards made a sound as she sat (not much more than a collapse), and she leaned back against the wall of the tavern, face searching a cloudless sky. She took the wine from him without question, without thinking, uncorking it in a single motion and taking a long swig. It was a bitter fluid but she didn’t even taste it at first, swallowing fast. Better. It eased something in her chest slightly. She felt like she could finally breathe. 

          “Treason??” It was an incredulous question, as though she could not conceive of the idea. “Treason?!” Her tone changed, pitch higher, no longer shocked about the possibility, but the audacity of accusing Lord Eddard Stark, the most honest, honorable, and reliable man she had ever known in her life to plot against a king that he himself put on the iron throne. “He cannot be serious. It’s the most preposterous thing I’ve heard in my life– and I’ve heard some nonsense. Seven fucking hells.” Another lengthy sip from the bottle. Lyanna was not normally so heavy a drinker, but it was a small help, especially combined with the ale she’d been drinking earlier. 

          “It was Robert, wasn’t it?? He killed Ned, didn’t he?? He dragged him all the way from Winterfell to his death just because he could, that honorless, usurping, gluttonous, whoring scoundrel!! All of the world is his stage, and we are merely players, mummers for his amusement that he can do with what he likes and cast aside when he grows bored. Well I won’t have it. Not this time. I’m not going to let him get away with this.” She would tear his throat out with her teeth if she had to. She would teach him the meaning of winter.