The Provenance || Jon Snow | Game of Thrones

1.01

The tales had always told of the people—the heroes, the villains, and the monsters—but never of the lands. Men had been told of the folklore, but never of the existence. They had all been so thoroughly disillusioned by the truth of it all—that they could march straight into a story without initial recognition. History was never a question—they were the players and the books were the game—but the past had always been taken as that, immovable and untouchable.

But there they were, living amongst the legends, in the lands of the folklore without a true grasp of the background and culture. Few Southerners knew the stories, and even fewer recognized the transition as they marched North: from current reign to the lands of the deepest history. And though their party was great, she was the lone witness to such transition: as the trees wavered between bleak plains, there was a paranoid sense of being watched. And this was more than History watching—no, there was a sense of the great and forbidden Nature following behind them, ready to overthrow the petty Southern customs for the true power that hosted these lands. Winterfell was just a blip on the map of the North, a holdfast against the greater threat of Mother's Nature. These lands were not meant to be inhabited, and yet they were travelling with relative ease. Gabrielle Baelish knew that they were being marked—stained—for punishment. Her people had come to believe themselves superior to the whims of Nature.

Robert Baratheon was not the worst of them, despite his preceding reputation as they passed from town to camp to village. He might have been the greatest customer these taverns and whorehouses had catered to—making her job all the more difficult—but the primal urges of the king were just that—natural. No, it had to be the youngest cubs of Cersei Lannister. From their ornate and decadent clothing to the suppression of all intelligent and natural thought, Gabrielle was sure that the carriage they rode in was the only thing keeping them safe from the sharp winds of Nature. She half hoped the doors of the coach would burst open to the devils of these lands if only to murder Cersei and Joffrey. Natural as they were—sexual preferences, cruelty, and all—the two were the worst creatures to crouch upon the banks of King's Landing. She'd happily see them dead.

And though she had a decadence about her, Gabrielle Baelish was one of the few conversing with the Northerners in their path towards Winterfell. At first, she'd supposed it to be due to her position—bastard daughter of a whorehouse owner—but few knew enough of her to recognize the pageantry of her mockingbird pin. Then she'd supposed it to be due to her appearance—'the Most Beautiful Woman in Westeros'—but she looked far too much like a Lannister—blonde hair, green eyes, tall—for this to be a possibility. It only left her character to be the cause of her popularity: the green eyes of Lannisters revealed a grey strength of the North, her taller posture proposed shoulders that could hold back a Winter, and her blonde hair, wily in the ways they turned but fierce in its windy conviction. For those who came in contact with Gabrielle Baelish, they were convinced she was born of the North.

But that "Northern blood" was not so, the harsh winds of the North bearing heavily upon her petite bones, through layers of cloak and fur and beneath the pale skin of the woman. Robert Baratheon had tried to convince her to take refuge within the carriage of the Queen and the cubs, but had miserably failed as she'd claimed not wanting to "taint the air of the carriage with her whorish blood." And, of course, the King was obliged by that (as he always was) and she was left to rot in the cold that thickened her blood with each step North. Indeed, with the cold becoming less poignant with time, she was far happier to be on a horse than in the carriage. Robert Baratheon would not be surprised if either Cersei or Lady Baelish was killed in their joint company.

The cold had yet to taint her cheeks, wearing down the skin into an uneasy and painful red burn that would not go away even during the night's spent at the inns. And so, with two weeks of windburn to account upon her face, she finally decided to undermine her better sense and wear her fur-laden hood about her facade, a sudden relief to her skin if not her mentality. Indeed, she would have done this sooner if not for the continual feeling of being watched, her visibility greatly diminished by the hood and wearing her worries thin. She thought herself to be subtle in her common attempts to check her back for betrayers or spies, but the sharp and humored look the Hound had sent her undermined such a notion. But then again, it was Sandor Clegane and he tended to be sharper than most.