The Last Stag • Game of Thrones

12.

Chapter Twelve.
The Mighty Bear

There were some who speculated that Duskendale would someday be a great city.

Presently, it was made up of winding rows of houses and churches, taverns and shops, all coming to a halt at the great harbor, which boasted a fleet of two-dozen ships, all bearing sails adorned with the Lannister lion. Fishing villages dotted the chalk cliffs that separated land from sea.

In one of these fishing villages just a half-days ride north of Duskendale sat the last tavern east of King's Landing. The tavern did not enjoy much business, especially not in the difficult times that the country was facing. Newcomers were rare. 

When the girl had first walked into the tavern, she had received many stares and whispers, drunken fishermen arguing amongst themselves that she was a soldiers wife, or a seawitch, or even the lost princess. But since the girl was none of these things, the whispers had eventually died down, and the barkeep had come to know her well.

"Another bowl, Koki?" He asked, slinging a rag over his shoulder. "Or are you finally full?"

The girl slurped from the bowl, fish oil dribbling down her chin, the hot tuna slithering down her throat and into her stomach. She set down the wooden bowl, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"I'm never full, Averick." She blinked. "Another."

Averick, a tall, burly man with no hair and a greying beard swiped the bowl out from in front of her, a bemused smile stretching across his face as he wandered to the kitchen. 

Koki stared down into the cup of ale that sat in front of her, staring at her own reflection in the liquid. She allowed her eyes to drift close, honing in on the conversations around her. It was her only real pass time these days; and her primary way of staying in the loop about the happenings in the war. 

"...you ask me, the Starks had it comin'. Trying to secede from the South, what were they thinking? The Frey's put them back in their place."

"And forsook the Gods as they did it! I mean, killing guests as they sat around their hearth is blasphemy, Daneel. And killing the princess was just cruelty..."

The air shifted very suddenly, pulling Koki from the conversation. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled up.

"Staring isn't polite." Koki laughed, a black curl falling in front of her face as she turned around in her stool. "I'd recommend averting your eyes, before you lose them."

But the old woman staring at her did not flinch. She just stared at the girl, with beady eyes darker than rivers stones, her matted grey hair framing a thin, angled face and gaunt cheeks. The woman was a bag of bones, standing directly behind Koki, her shoulders hunched inwards, her bare feet curling with age. 

"Please," The thin-lipped woman whispered, her creaky voice seemingly far too loud. "I'm so hungry." 

"Buy some fuckin' food then." The girl turned back around in her stool. "Or work for it."

Averick came back then, the bemused smile still inked onto his face, dropping the bowl back in front of Koki. He payed no mind to the peculiar woman, nor did any of the other patrons in the bar. 

"Please," Came the woman's voice again, so loud that she may as well have been hissing directly into Koki's ear. Koki turned in shock, her eyebrows furrowed. "I'm so hungry."

Koki cast a hesitant look around the tavern. Nobody else was looking at the woman at all. It was as if she was not even there.

The girl took the bowl from the counter, sliding off of her bar stool and stepping towards the woman. Not one person cast her a glance.