The Tale of the Opal Assassins

3: Happy Things Never Last

               ~Ingrid~
          I decided to do a little training after we ate. I practiced with my sword for an hour in my bedroom. After I was done, I decided to go check up on Ireonna and see if she wanted to go find something to do. I walk down the stone hallway that we had painted many murals on the walls of to the wooden door of Ireonna's bedroom. She didn't answer my knocking.
          "Ireonna," I questioned, "Are you in there?"
          Upon no answer, I opened the door to find that Ireonna was gone. I decided to check with Gudrun to see if she had seen her. I ran to Gudrun's creepy ass door. It's covered in red paint splotches to look like blood, and it has a knife stabbed into it. It has a small hole from where Gudrun would sometimes stab the door out of anger. It creeps me out, but in a way I like it. I was careful to knock.
          "Gudrun," I began, "Can I come in?"
          "Yeah sure," Gudrun replied
          "Have you seen Ireonna," I said as I opened the door to find Gudrun and Theon sitting on the bed, "I haven't seen her in hours."
           "I haven't seen her either," responded Gudrun," Maybe she's out somewhere."
           "This late?"
           "I mean we used to sneak out this late."
           "Oooooh," Said Theon, "Why did you used to sneak out?"
           "Slitting throats and kicking ass."
           "Actually," I interrupted, "I recall you and Ireonna sneaking into gardens to gardens and swimming in fountains. Also this was before you were the 'master' of stealth so I recall the two of you getting caught by the dwarf known as Tyrion Lannister, and I remember Ireonna gaining a large crush on him."
          All three of us laughed at the thought.
          "Wait," began Theon, "So Ireonna is attracted to an imp! That's hilarious!"
          He burst into even more obnoxious laughter.
          "If you think that's funny," I began, "You'll die of laughter at my other sister's crush! She likes troll bait! Isn't that funny."
          "I'll admit that I've never heard that one before."
          "It's okay," said Gudrun as she messed up Theon's hair, "I might not like you as much if you weren't as much of an obnoxious asshole."
           "And I probably wouldn't like you as much if you weren't a psychopath."
          "But about Ireonna," began Gudrun, "We shouldn't start worrying until tomorrow. I'd bet she'll be back by morning."
          "You're probably right," I added I guess I'll just read for the rest of the night."
          "About that knight you obsess over with your lion ring thing?"
          "For the record, this ring was given to me by that knight himself. There's something special about it. There's something special about him."
           "Damn ring's lion symbol makes it look like a Lannister ring."
           "It's not a Lannister ring though."
           "Don't you have some Knight to obsess over?"
           "Right," I said as I walked out the door and shut it behind me.

               ~Ireonna~
          I didn't think sneaking out would be so hard. I've done it a thousand times, but this time it's just oddly difficult. I assume that it's because of how far I'm going, but even that doesn't make much sense.
          I saddled my oldest sister's horse and set out to King's Landing. I'm not stealing it. I'm just borrowing it. I'll be back soon anyway.

               ~Gudrun~
          I woke up the next morning with Theon still asleep beside me. I thought about waking him up, but I just decided to let him sleep. Robb will probably be the only one to notice that he's missing. I just hope Ned doesn't notice."
          I went over Ireonna's door and decided to barge in. She wasn't there. I thought that maybe she had already gone to the kitchen to get breakfast, but again I was wrong. I started to get a little worried, so I went to Ingrid's room. I barged in to find her sitting at her desk reading yet another book on the mystery knight.
          "Ireonna isn't back," I began, "We can start to worry now!"
          "Where could she be," Ingrid replied, "We should talk to mother and father about it at breakfast."
          "I'll meet you in there. I need to go get Theon up."
          "He spent the night?"
          "Yeah. Why does it matter?"
          "You're only sixteen. He's only seventeen. Don't trust seventeen year old boys, especially that one!"
          "He's not a bad guy! He's really kind to me and sweet and-"
          "I don't care! I don't think you should be with him! He's-"
           "Only after one thing. I know. I know. I've heard you say it time and time again. He's not like that with me. I promise."
          "This isn't a good time to worry about that. We need to find Ireonna. I'll see you at breakfast."
          I ran back to my room to find that Theon had woken up. He was fully dressed and ready for the day when I walked in.
          "There's my insane little beauty," Began Theon, "Where have you been?"
          "Ireonna isn't back," I said in a panicked tone, "We have to find her!"
          Theon put his arms around me and began to speak in a calming tone.
          "It's okay. We'll find her."
           Ingrid ran into my room at that moment.
          "Mother and father aren't home," she explained, "It looks like we're on our own here. You two check her room for any clues of where she may have gone. I'll take my horse and search around town."
          Theon and I ran to Ireonna's room. I searched everything in and on her desk and found nothing that could help us, but Theon found a locked wooden box under her bed.
          "It's locked," said Theon, "What are we supposed to do now?"
          "Fuck the lock," I replied, "Can you break it open?"
          "If I do will you give me a little kiss?"
          "Theon! This is really serious!"
          "Right. Right! I should be able to."
          Theon smashed the box against the wall causing it to break open. Out fell a large number of letters. Upon further inspection I discovered that all of these letters were written to Tyrion Lannister. She must have written these while fantasizing.
          Ingrid rushed into the room.
          "My horse," she began, "She's gone! Someone must've stolen her. Do you think it was Ireonna?"
          "Possibly," I replied as I handed her some letters, "Look at what we found."
          "Letters? To Tyrion Lannister?"
          "I'm guessing that she wrote them while she was daydreaming. You know how much she misses the little dude."
          "I know she's obsessed with him."
          "Look at this," said Theon as he handed us a letter, "It basically says that she's going to Kings Landing to meet Tyrion."
          "She probably took your horse to get there," I pointed out.
          "We need to go after her," said Ingrid, "But I don't know how."
"Perhaps we could make the journey on foot..."
"There's no way we could make that in time. We need a horse or something. We're in so much trouble."
"Well I don't know what to do. Theon? Any ideas?"
"Not really. Well, maybe your parents went after her. Maybe they caught her sneaking out and chased her down. That's probably why they're not here."
"Good theory," said Ingrid, "But what if it's incorrect?"
"We can't do much anyway," I pointed out, "We just have to hope-"
"Gudrun, we can't just sit back and let her get robbed or raped or killed by some bandit or raider."
"You act like we can do anything about it! We have no horse, and she does. We couldn't catch up to her if we tried."
"I guess you're right. I bet that's what Mother and Father are doing anyway."