Hear me Roar - English version

CHAPTER 42 - That's not the plan

               Lady Brienne tells me about her clash with the Hound, how she beat him, and how Arya refused to follow her. That doesn't surprise me coming from my little sister, though I would have preferred her to be safe with Brienne and Podrick. Perhaps then we could have reunited. Would she have stayed with them had she known that?

"Do you have any idea where she could have gone?" I ask Brienne.

"None, my lady. Podrick and I searched for her for days, until..."

               The tall lady glances at her squire, as if she hesitated to go any further. I reassure myself by thinking that if they had found my little sister's corpse, they wouldn't have dragged out the conversation.

"Until?"

"Lady Brienne and I crossed paths with Lady Sansa in an inn, my lady," Podrick explains.

               This seems like good news. Sansa is alive, almost certainly accompanied by Baelish, who... Oh yes, I see the problem.

"When I bent the knee, she refused my protection and dismissed me," Brienne continues. "She preferred the company of that rat Littlefinger."

"Her hair was dyed black," Pod adds.

"Where were they heading?"

"North."

               What is there in the North that could interest Littlefinger? The miserable little castle he must have inherited is in the Vale, along with his new wife, my aunt Lysa. And it would surprise me if that old witch had gotten rid of him. If I rely on Varys's tales, she would have killed her own husband if it brought her even a step closer to Lord Baelish.

"Maybe he has family in the North," Robin tells me, trying just like me to find a rational explanation for all of this.

"None," I reply.

"Not even a distant cousin?"

"He has no family; he is the last of his name, and his mother was of the smallfolk."

♐︎

               And so our company was formed. We had a common goal: to go North to save my family. Brienne wanted to deliver Sansa from Littlefinger's clutches, and I was aiming higher, by freeing the North from the Boltons.

               Podrick followed Brienne everywhere she went, obeying his master's orders to the letter. Tyrion had given him a new assignment, and the least he could do was respect his will.

               Arrow spent all her time hunting and lounging; I had never seen her so happy. The great outdoors was a radical change from the dark cave of the Brotherhood Without Banners. Even though I had to admit, just as she did, that I missed Thoros and Beric.

               We moved slowly toward the North, partly because of my wounds. Podrick had learned from the best in the capital, but he was no maester, so I remained weak. Every time I let out an exclamation of pain, Robin would rush to my side. So I eventually stopped crying out anywhere but in my thoughts. There was no use worrying him; we already had enough problems.

♐︎

               Lying in the middle of a meadow, Robin and I observe the stars. The air grows cooler by the day, proof that winter is coming. However, it is still warm enough that we do not need to huddle around a campfire.

"If you could go anywhere in the world," I suddenly throw out, "where would you go?"

               He doesn't answer. He doesn't even move. When I turn my head toward him, I catch him looking at me.