The Long Winter | Jaime Lannister X Stark OC | GOT/ASOIAF

Lord Of Mountain And Vale

The last time Ross had been to the Vale she had been fifteen, travelling with Robert and her siblings to Lord Whent's great tourney. They had been on horseback, and it had been spring - a false spring perhaps, but none of them knew that then - and the ice on the road was melting, trees and flowers starting to bloom, a fresh breeze in the air.

Now it was autumn, and apart from a few days of sunshine after leaving King's Landing, the weather worsened the further north they got. Sansa was simply glad to be out of the city for the first time in almost two years and to have her direwolf by her side once more, absurd as Lady looked on the deck of a ship. 

But although Ser Davos was one of the best sailors in the Seven Kingdoms, Ross did not particularly enjoy the journey, spending much of the time clinging to the rail with white knuckles as the ship lurched with the steel-grey waves. She was glad when they made port at Gulltown and her feet were on dry land again. 

From there their party of fifteen - her, Davos, Sansa and their guards, mostly northmen, including Dacey Mormont - travelled by horse through the mountains, a way she had not come before. 

She couldn't help but be struck by the beauty of it all. Snow-capped peaks rose impossibly high in all directions, fir-forests and grassy plains growing beneath craggy rocks, icy rivers cutting through valleys like surging silver knifes, all under a sky that seemed to go on forever. The wildness and the chill in the air reminded her a little of the North, and she felt a sharp stab of longing for home.

Not that travelling through the mountains was easy. Often they got so high that they ended up in the middle of a low-lying cloud, making the already risky paths even more treacherous; this was usually just a small amount of mist, but a couple of times Ross could not even see her own horse's neck through the thick cloud and they were forced to stop until the cloud cleared.

"You'd think the main road between the Eyrie and Gulltown would be more passable," She remarked to Ser Davos, who chuckled in agreement. 

She liked the man who had been Stannis' most trusted friend. He was common born, yes, but down to earth, intelligent and above all trustworthy, despite being a smuggler in days gone by. He also never complained, unlike the few Baratheon guardsmen with them.

Ross had been expecting a litany of complaints from Sansa, who was used to a life of luxury, but none came. The girl rode huddled in furs on her horse, and cuddled up to Lady every night, but didn't whine about being cold once, simply politely enquired how much longer they had left every now and again.

Dacey took everything in her stride, as ever, and remained good, cheerful company throughout. Cold like this was nothing to one from the North, as the Stark men joked to the shivering southerners. Why, it hadn't even snowed yet.

The only castle on their route to the Eyrie was Ironoaks, seat of House Waynwood, which lay beside a great lake. Its ruler, Lady Anya, had greying-brown hair and crows feet around her eyes, but welcomed them in a manner that was both stern and courteous. Two of her three adult sons were in attendance, and pleased Ser Davos by not scorning his low birth like many nobles did. 

Lady Anya's grandson, Ser Roland Waynwood, seemed remarkably taken with Dacey, who found the whole thing amusing, but remarked to Ross he was 'good looking enough, I suppose'. As Mormont women were not overly bothered about keeping ones maidenhead until marriage, Ross suspected her friend would have a visitor to her chambers later that night.

There was also the surprise addition of Elbert Arryn, nephew of the late Lord Jon. Ross had met the man before; he had been one of her brother Brandon's friends, the youngest of the group who had come tearing into King's Landing at Brandon's side just before the rebellion. As he was only five-and-ten at the time, even Aerys had spared him (or not cared enough to murder him like the others), leaving him to languish in a dungeon for the entire rebellion.