Ruby

Absolute Comics Presents - What If? [A DC & Marvel One Universe RP]

<Snipped quote by Ruby>

Perfect example of style over substance with these sheets. SMH

@Byrd Man

You can just say 'hi', dork.

Absolute Comics Presents - What If? [A DC & Marvel One Universe RP]

Supergirl

S U P E R G I R L
S U P E R G I R L

^{"He hasn't dropped them, forgot them, or anything...it's just too heavy for a Superman to lift."}

C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y _________________________________________________________ Kara Lena Luthor _________________________________________________________ Student/Heiress | Affiliation(s): M.I.T. Student / LuthorCorp _________________________________________________________ Multiverse 668 - Prime | Open C H A R A C T E R N O T E S C H A R A C T E R N O T E S _________________________________________________________ [+] - M I S C E L L A N E O U S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Kara has long been part of the upper crust of society, and a veteran of cotillions and charity events and the drama inherit with the life. There are times she's an outsider, there are times she's a societal power-broker for those her age. Rather tellingly, she has two close friends amongst a sea of 'friends.' And none, of course, at her new school. ►Kara is fairly good at not killing people or crushing things at this point, though plenty of damage has been quietly paid for or swept under exotic Persian rugs. A lot of these cover-ups have led to a reputation among high society that Kara Luthor is a bad girl with a destructive streak, a true upper class rebel. ►Although Lionel and Lex have dragged her into the narcissistic muck from time to time, Kara remains a kind person at heart. She knows the names of every staff member of the home, keeps in touch with old nannies, and is generally considered a stealth sweetheart under a cold exterior by those who have spent any real time with her. Those who don't know her assume this is the act, and the Machiavellian rich girl who doesn't care about leaving destruction in her wake is the real Kara. ►All Kara recalls about her pre-adoption past is the nice old lady who found her and helped her, the cop who checked in on her, and the dream of a white skinned woman followed by the sound of fluttering wings. The only thing she truly recalls in detail is the white skinned woman telling her, "Despair won't like this, but this isn't your time little one." Supporting canons: Lois Lane Perry White Maggie Sawyer - P O S T C A T A L O G P O S T C A T A L O G _________________________________________________________ [+] - P O S T C A T A L O G ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Posting History -

W H A T I F...? W H A T I F...? ________________________________________________________________________________________ What if Kara Zor-El arrived first, much younger when she arrived and ended up adopted by Lionel Luthor? Still a child when she was adopted, Lionel Luthor was a struggling businessman, a minority partner of a meager polymer company. The story was always through a charity for orphans he contributed to it was arranged he would foster the girl, and without finding a home he found suitable, took her into his family permanently. Good fortune and hard work, cunning and intellect, helped him create LuthorCorp: a company that would come to define bleeding edge technology thereafter. Lionel leaves out the violence and injustice done to the old woman who found Kara. Or that LuthorCorp was built on the back of the vessel that brought Kara to Earth. The very A.I. meant to guide and counsel Kara shackled and stripped, leveraged into helping Lionel. Lionel's wife had passed a mere few years before Kara's arrival. The home was stoic, cold, and distant; Lionel had no patience for disobedience. Yet the first few years after Kara's arrival to the Luthor home saw Lionel at least try, and Kara found a willing partner in navigating the ebbs and flows of Lionel's moods in Lex, Lionel's only child, three years her senior. Whether it was the incredibly strict rules, the gaslighting of Lionel, Lex was there to help Kara navigate Lionel's narcissism. When Lionel would try to pit Kara and Lex against each other, it rarely worked, and when it did the two were quick to apologize to the other and admit their wrongs. Over time both Lex and Kara excelled in academics, both focused on STEM. It was, to Lionel, proof Kara was one of them. Both began spending time at LuthorCorp, though eventually Kara made the decision to attend a university away from the LuthorCorps HQ. In the few friends she had, including Lex, she admitted to just wanting distance to find herself. In truth, she needs to hide powers she doesn't fully understand, let alone fully control. What Lex uncovered at LuthorCorp after Kara left shocked him, disgusted him, and left him in a cold rage. P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) ________________________________________________________________________________________ Kara tries to run away from the narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy of her adopted family, but with secrets buried as deeply as they are within this family, not even Supergirl can escape that gravity. At the same time, and likely no coincidence, Kara's powers begin to really develop. What results could make King Lear blush as Lionel, Lex, and Kara each navigate the maze of deceptions and buried secrets. Kara stumbles upon a new reporter with a killer instinct for the Luthor's named Lois Lane, as the two begin an uneasy alliance of necessity. Lionel and Lex clash, Kara learns more than she ever dreamed (or dreaded) she might, Supergirl emerges, and what remains of Krypton comes for the Last Daughter. All the while Kara tries to navigate the life of a wealthy heiress and university student.

---

What Are You Listening To?

A Song Of Ice And Fire : The Swords And Stars

_{Vaera Balaerys, dragonrider}

The wind whipped, snapping her cloak, and forcing her face into the heat and scale of the dragon she rode. It was the rumble of the guttural thunder from the leathery beast she rode that forced her back to the world—cold, stark, and full of mountains and hills as far as she could see in the dense cloud cover. The dragon had a point that she ignored the best she could until she could no longer, slipping one gloved hand from the leather straps that helped attach her to the beast. It was warm, and wet, breathing harder than it should have been.

“Just get us down.”

Landing hurt, but she ignored it, instead looking across the high mountain valley in which the dragon made its own. If there was any great skill above any other, she had spent her life practicing, it was her pain tolerance. She nearly jumped when her booted feet hit the ground, the spark of pain spreading through every part of her in an instant, lingering dull grief left in its wake, her face twisted and her voice cursing at every step she took. It would go away if she ignored it, she told herself.

With a twisted expression, her Valyrian eyes had their first true, good, inspection of the slice of Westeros before her: snow-peaked mountains, a league yet above the rocky mountain valley her dragon had set them down at. The Westerlands, crowned with mountains filled with enough gold and silver to be worthy of note even in Volantis. She heard Syrax lift off, but she ignored it, her eyes more focused on the dark pines in the distance, standing just under the thick blanket of grey clouds above.

Her mind more focused on the past.

”It will hate you. It will never accept you.”

What will, Papa?, she asked him, in the naivety of her youth.

He paused a moment. A long moment in the big fur chair in the great room of the lodge, staring at her, into her, before his deep voice finally gave the answer, ”Creation, my girl. You will never stop fighting, until you die.”

It was her sixth name day, and that was the gift he had given her. She had never properly thanked him for it. Momma gave her a little bow, and a horse, and her favorite cakes…her father had given her the truth.

“I hear you,” she said, snapping her head west, to the tree line, a bloody gloved hand brushing the hilt of her blade.

The man came slowly in darkness, a man draped in black, hooded, riding a black horse. Her eyes did the work for her; the saddle was castle-made, maybe better. His clothes were simple, could have been town bought, could have been castle-made. Someone was ready for a journey, given the heavy bags from the saddle.

Finding someone in the dying daylight in a high mountain valley was strange. Finding someone dressed like that? Even stranger, she thought, as her hand slowly coiled around the grip of the sword. They waited until Syrax left.

Even stranger? As the horse slowly approached and the mysterious ride removed the hood…Vaera recognized the face. She’d seen it, once, barely visible in pale moonlight over a Myrish private garden just moments before he left the garden, the Myrish master who’d been her host for the visit bleeding out behind him. “Assassin,” she said, with recognition.

His head dipped, black hair parted down the middle and long enough to nearly get into his eyes. He looked different now, years later. Tired? Weary? Sad? Troubled? Whatever it was, the man simply nodded at her, “…yeah, used to be. Well…” His voice trailed, like there was more to the story, but instead he simply motioned to her. “You’re hurt, Vaera Balaerys.”

“You know me?”

His eyes suddenly looked…amused. “You’re not your brother,” he swallowed, and took a look around, before returning his dark eyes to her, “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, or not. I’m no threat.”

“That why you came sneaking out of darkness?”

He actually chuckled, if under his breath, “How many strangers just go riding up to a dragon and it’s rider on a lonely hill when the sun is starting to fall?"

“Well, yes…I suppose,” even Vaera had to admit it made sense.

“You’re here for it?”

She blinked at him, “It?”

“The dragon.”

This time, she chuckled, “Its name is Syrax. And no, we’re here because of me.”

For a few moments, the man just stared. “Not your dragon.”

Before she could, the question was answered with a sound: the screech of a dragon in the sky. A screech that did not belong to Syrax. “When did Westeros get wild dragons this far from the Narrow Sea?”

“I don’t think it’s wild. There’s a Targaryen at Casterly Rock. Without a dragon.”

Fuck. Loreon. “The Master of the Rock is alive then?”

His face was stone, not unlike the mountains in the distance, “Loreon was alive when I left. His uncle, the Castellan of the Rock, dead. As is Loreon’s sister.”

“He has a sister?” Did Loreon tell her that, she wondered? It was hard to remember. She was starting to get cold again, and every breath was beginning to hurt a little more than it did before.

“Had.”

Her hand squeezed the grip of the blade, and his eyes softened. “Your doing?”

“No. The Uncle.”

Vaera didn’t relax. “Did he like the uncle?”

His mouth twisted, and he gave a casual shake of his head. “Nah. Liked the sister a lot more. Uncle sent the assassin.”

“Sent you?”

That made him smile among the growing shadows of the dying day, “She sent me.”

He’s not lying. Her hand relaxed, her thumb hanging casually off the belt, instead, as she watched him. “Running back to your master?”

“Trying to find her. Something isn’t right with Westeros. Something is going on.”

Vaera Balaerys laughed, sudden and harsh, hard enough to cause a curse, leaving her slightly bent, her voice just as amused as it was strained through the filter of pain, “…you don’t say?”

His body leaned back in the saddle, a black moleskin glove slipping into a saddlebag behind him. There was no rummaging, she noticed, just exact precision: he reached in, then withdrew his hand, seemingly having gotten exactly what he meant to as he straightened himself and tossed what appeared a small black wineskin almost within an inch of her feet. “For pain. For healing.”

“An assassin’s gift?”

He shrugged, “A kindness between travelers on the road. Take it, leave it, I did my part.”

“Currying favor with your gods?” She asked, suspicious.

This time, he laughed, “After the last few days, I’m not sure what gods I believe in anymore. Lady Vaera,” he said, his tone suddenly officious, formal, as he bowed his head, just slightly, and recovered the black hood about his head. “I think I’ll continue on, before either of those dragons comes back this way.”

In her own gift of kindness to a fellow traveler, she waited until he was out of sight to take the horn and blow it. The sound of dragons filled the twilight sky above of the mountains of the west. She picked up the wineskin, opened it, and brought it to her nose for inspection. A concoction, she thought, looking at the skin almost confused by the oddly sweet scent.

To be cautious? To play it safe? To not drink the mysterious drink from the mysterious assassin? As Syrax began to circle to slow for landing, Vaera threw back her head and drank from the skin. The burning sensation was immediate, her head suddenly circling as much as Syrax overhead, flame dripped from her mouth to her throat to her chest and finally her belly. For a heartbeat she thought she might die, and then…she smiled. Syrax barely had time to settle before she jumped back upon the beast with an energy that felt like unnatural.

“C’mon. We need to make sure your new friend gets to where they want to go.”

She had no idea how to do that, but the dragon did. It rose, It flew, it circled in wide, large, loops before the final section of the final encirclement saw Syrax and she blurred past the other dragon close enough that Vaera felt she could almost reach out and touch it. That did it, she saw as she looked back, as the eyes of the creature focused on Syrax, its wings beating wild as catching Syrax became its focus. The two traveling companions, once more, found themselves being chased as they raced for the sunset. Whether the mysterious drink, the thoughts of the assassin’s warning on Westeros, the thought of Loreon in danger, or just the very words of her long-passed father—the flight of the two dragons was far shorter than she expected. Before the final gasp of the dying sun, the giant shape appeared, with the town that sprawled beside it, looking from so far up as if it might just tumble into the Sunset Sea.

Their arrival was announced as the two dragons, one riderless, rushed across the face of Casterly Rock.

A Song Of Ice And Fire : The Swords And Stars

_{Lady Lorelai Lannister}

The sun seemed dim up in the grey-blue sky, robbed of its brightness and its very shine chilled from its typical warmth. Her eyes dared closed for the first time all day. When they re-opened, she couldn’t tell whether five moments had passed, or far longer. Her body felt as if moving would take double a normal effort. It was stunned, sapped, salted with the choppy Sunset Sea below the trade galley.

The captain and its crew had been kind, but that was because to them she was Lady Lorelai Lannister. Some of them even referred to her as Princess. The stubbornness of some people never failed to amaze her. She didn’t feel like a Princess. She felt like a criminal, and one of the kind crew would betray her—that she knew for fact. She didn’t blame them, not really: as soon as they returned to Lannisport the news would hit them that Lorelai Lannister was dead.

Except they would know better, and one of them would be paid quite a lot to tell that story to someone in Lannisport or the Rock. That kind of coin could change a sailor’s life. Lorelai’s weary body let out a pathetic little sigh, unsettled with the knowledge she would be changing yet another life, especially given she kept thinking about a life she had no way of knowing if she had ruined or not.

Did he get out? Her uncle was dead; she believed that with the same level of belief she had in the sun rising again. She had never seen his face quite like that, the darkness in his eyes, the emptiness. It wasn’t Keano in front of her days ago telling her to get out, now, it was the Stranger itself. She was certain there were better killers in the world, but in that moment of time and in that place, there couldn’t have been a more perfect assassin for the moment.

Her uncle was dead, her brother now thrust into the very worst of it. The web of informants and eyes she left partially behind. One sailed with the crew on the very galley she now used as an escape. Two were at her destination of Bear Island. Somehow, there was no comfort in the information. The very thing she had spent the vast majority of her adult life working on, inherited from someone she had loved so much, something possible only because she was the daughter a King…it was all nothing more than a golden noose around her neck and tightening fast.

They told her to stare at the horizon if she felt sick. She spent the first staring at the horizon. The sickness she felt had nothing to do with the sea. The rest of the day faded in and out as her body as the pale sun and the rocking of the waves below induced her in and out of sleep. She had tried to resist it, not wanting to fall asleep. Not trusting anything or anyone enough to fall asleep. But the Gods would have her in the dream kingdom.

They just weren’t the Gods she had expected. These were Old Gods, nameless and faceless, more of a feeling that rose in the back of her mind than a Stranger taken the form of Keano that had stood in front of her that night.

Run, she heard his voice tell her, as his eyes warned her what she was really running from.

When her eyes opened, she still slept, the grey cloud dimly lit excuse for daylight obfuscated by a black cloud that swirled overhead. There were several, slow, blinks of her Lannister emerald eyes before her mind realized that it wasn’t a cloud—it was the largest murder of ink black ravens she could have ever even imagined. Each caw came like a thunder strike, shuddering her and leaving her green eyes desperate upon the galley deck. There was no one there, now, there was no one to turn to…but she was too terrified to look up again.

She heard the shout of sailors going about their daily work, she heard the chatter of deckhands, she heard the sea, felt them roll the deck beneath her. It was better, now, she felt. Opening her eyes with a sigh, looking up, she stopped and stared at it. The black raven, that heart-dropping third eye.

Lorelai was wrong. It wasn’t better now, it wasn’t over.

Never will, never will, never will.

Quick word, said with it’s beady little three eyes trained intensely upon her. Without so much as considering what came next, Lorelai scrunched her nose and made a petty, adol, horrible face at the creature. Spooked, the bird took flight, and immediately Lorelai regretted it. Not because of the bird, but because of the freeze in the air. The cold was there before she even felt it creep, the vessel shuddering to its very keel as impact rocked the wooden frame.

Standing to look and see only made it worse: ice. The very realization made her skin crawl, and burn. Burn from the sheer cold of the wind now. The corner of her eye caught the blur of a shape just beyond her full sight, a quick pivot and it only, somehow, got worse. Yet, this time, it wasn’t cold she felt as she shivered. It was him, the man she’d seen stabbed, the man from the past, the threat of him all rushing back around to the more rational parts of her mind.

Caution didn’t win the day, though. It was the desire to talk that did that.

“You again?”

Though his face was slate blank, the anger still lined the edges of his eyes and the set of his jaw. The anger and hatred made the shiver cascading through her limbs still itself, if only for the clarity his anger provided her.

“…what do you want?”

At first, the question just seemed to bounce off him like a half-drawn arrow against full plate. But then, just when she might have moved on something stirred and his dark ice-colored eyes sharpened their focus on her, looking into her eyes, “It shouldn’t be you. Butt doesn’t matter what games the Children play now, whatever they hoped to achieve with you.”

“You know children and their games, “her voice trailed off, frozen shoulders shrugging at him, like she barely knew or cared what he meant. The clever response didn’t impress him. Behind the defense of the clever, Lorelai Lannister had only truth left to her: “I don’t know what you are. I don’t know what the bird wants. I don’t know…”

He looked like he might laugh, before his skin began to grow gaunt, losing what little color was left to it, the still black wound in his chest still seeming to stir within him, “You will.” It sounded to her ears like the worst kind of promise before her body was given the shock of the ship below her once again colliding with such a force that this time it nearly threw her from the deck. When she looked up, he was gone, again. Her long, deep, breath at the sight of an empty deck clouded in the cold air before her, her eyes closing heavy.

When they opened again, a broad shouldered sailor with a heavy belly and skin bronzed under life under the Sunset Sea’s sun stood before her, staring down at her in a curious awe that alerted her immediately.

“What?” Curt, short, demanding, the tone of a High Born lady awakening to such a sight.

“Your breath, M’Lady.”

“It’s cold, what else would my breath do?” She demanded to know, pulling the cloak about her even tighter to her.

He just stared at her. She nearly barked at him, but something wasn’t right, and she felt doubt creep across her mind. Was she even awake? She was now as focused on her breath and the steam from it as the sailor was.

The sailor that was…sweating. The deck full of sailors…sweating.

“BEAR ISLAND!”

Lorelai and the sailor stared at each other until, finally, the sailor began to back away from her, keeping his stare long after his body began to react to the other sailors around the deck, preparing for arrival to Bear Island. “M’Lady,” he allowed her in a tone that betrayed him, sounding more like a haunted whisper.

What Are You Listening To?

A Song Of Ice And Fire : The Swords And Stars

Casterly Rock was still and dark in the silvery moonlight of the Sunset Sea. Lorelai felt uneasy as she watched the sea rumble and roll far below the balcony of her private bedchamber, wrapped in a crimson silk robe, and little else. Sleeplessness had clutched her mind and body, the echo of a cawing raven haunting her nearly as bad as the face of the dead, or the screams of the burnt.

Loren was wrong. She knew it in her soul, she felt it in her heart. Everything she had told him had missed its mark with her brother. There was so much work to be done if she was going to have any chance at keeping the Westerlands from blood and fire. The grief of a Princess, the loss faith in both the Faith, by some, and the Rock, by others.

It should have consumed her. It should have ignited her to action…it didn’t. Instead she saw only the endless blue of the man’s burning gaze, his icy, crystalline armor and the crown of horns upon him as he said it again and again in a cold rage that she knew would never die:

They started this. I will end it, all of it.

Had he said those words? Had she just…understood his mind from the very manner of his gaze? She couldn’t, in the darkness and shadows of the silent, far too early hours of Casterly Rock, even remember. There was too much to parse, there was too much she had seen, too much she’d been told.

What hope did she have of understanding what any of it really meant? The raven with it’s three eyes made little sense. The flight of her mind from Rock to Lands of Always Winter, far past the Wall, made even less sense. And the sight of the little, forest, people stabbing the man with the burning blue eyes?

Fever dream, maybe?

She nearly chuckled but for the sound. Her head snapped behind her, and in the shadow a figure emerged. Another trick? Another vision? Another damnable bird? It was too late that she realized none of that.

Worse; a man. She stepped further away from the doors that led to the balcony, until the small of her back hit the stone ledge. In the pale moonlight she saw a face she didn’t know, but a look she had seen before: murder.

“Your Lord Uncle sends his regards, Lady Lorelai. He knows the secrets you keep. He wants to silence your whispers.”

The steel all but glowed in the moonlight as he drew the long dagger that looked impossibly sharp to her emerald eyes. She didn’t gasp, her lungs seemed to refuse the notion on principle. It wasn’t the fearless pride of a lion, but the sheer shock of a young woman with a mind dizzy from everything that happened and was suddenly happening with a finality that had a hard time, for some reason she couldn’t explain, accepting.

“…you’re a pretty thing, shame it has to be like this.”

Emerald eyes stopped watching him. Instead, they fixated on the dagger, and the way the moonlight played off it, dappling and shadowing as he rose it high and stepped out onto the balcony.

Neither of them heard the sound until it was too late. The sound was light enough, but the very pattern of it grew into a cacophony of inevitability: footsteps of a dead sprint coming from within the private bedchamber. By the time the assassin heard it and his heard turned, it was far too late as Keano’s body flew in the air and landed a devasting kick straight into the midsection of the would-be assassin.

The hired killer screamed as his body flew, flipped over the stone ledge of the balcony, and went flying to his doom in the blackwater of the early morning Sunset Sea waves below Casterly Rock.

Lorelai Lannister was still blinking when Keano moved into the room, retrieved a wooden chair, and hurled it over the ledge of the balcony, sending it, too, flying down to the blackwaters of the Sunset Sea. First the splash of the surely dead would-be assassin, then shortly after, the second splash.

He stood there, watching, his brown eyes flickering this direction and that—getting a full picture of every other balcony and window he could see upon the Sunset Sea facing side of Casterly Rock. When he seemed satisfied, he let out a deep breath, and finally looked at her. "You need to go.”

“…I’m oka…wait, what?”

Confusion hit her like a freezing ocean wave. He simply, calmly, repeated himself, “Two splashes. You can stay dead for a while if you disappear now, but it has to be NOW.”

“Stay dead? You saved me, Keano, I don’t—”

His right hand suddenly had her by the left arm, his brown eyes staring deep into her emerald eyes, his voice slowing, tone dropping,
“Lorelai, we’ve practiced this. Get to the drainage room. Change. Make your way to the servant’s stables. The boat is always ready at the tollhouse dock. Go.”

“But—”

“—GO!...I’ll deal with your Uncle, and meet you where we always planned, or else we’re both dead.”

---

Shouting began as Lannister men began the chain-reaction of reporting the splashes. They feared someone falling from a balcony, but it was far more than that. Tytos was awake, quill and cup and tankard upon the small desk tucked away into the corner of his private chamber within the Rock as he began to hear the shouting.

He seemed certain the vile dead was done. A heavy sigh fell from his lips, and his eyelids fluttered closed for a moment, as if in some small prayer of regret, or final farewell. It didn’t matter. His eyes were barely opened, his mind already back on the quill and the cup of wine, simply moving on, waiting for the guards to reach his chamber and alert him to the certain tragedy that had befallen his niece, Lady Lorelai Lannister, in the overly late hour.

Then the hand was over his mouth, and the grip upon him was more than he could struggle against in the short time allowed before the low voice hit his ears so quiet it was no more than a whisper, the cold edge of vengeance upon the tone that would be among the very last things Lord Tytos Lannister, Castellan of Casterly Rock, would ever hear.

“She loved you, so much,” Keano, the once Sorrowful Man finished, as the blade wrote the bloody end on this night, instead of the assassin and quill of Tytos Lannister. The grip was gone, but there was no calling out from Tytos Lannister, there was barely a sound at all as the blood began to rush a crimson pool around the golden wine cup of the Castellan of Casterly Rock.

A Song Of Ice And Fire : The Swords And Stars

Port Market Street was filled with roughspun and steel. What started a glare and a shove turned into posturing and shouts. The Faith Militant swelled in pride and posture. The Knights of the Golden Rose simply stood their ground. In the center of it, Lady Vittoria and her intended, Lord Baratheon, were having a heated discussion with Morgan Hightower. It should have stayed that way. It would have stayed that way.

Then from somewhere up high the sound sent a shockwave through the haze of noise and kinetic tension: thrum.

No one quite knew where it came from, or what it was…but she did. From a nearby second story overhang, Vaera Balaerys saw it. Before the bolt even flew, her face tightened, and her jaw set in a kind of anger that was never a good thing—not for her, not for those around her, not for anyone. But the moment the woman’s howl of pain echoed?

The very heartbeat that crossbow bolt hit Vittoria Tyrell and the sound of pain clapped through the crowded street like a shock of thunder in the dark? Vittoria screamed in pain as she fell. The Faith Militant and their poor followers cheered, jeered, and hollered. The Knights of the Roses howled in anger.

Vaera Balaerys howled in pure bloodlust heat. By the time Baratheon, Tarly, Redwyne, and those closest to the fallen High Marshall closed in like a shield of armored men, the melee was already aflame. The ground was bloody by the time Vaera was on the street, across it, and bathing dragonsteel in the blood of the Faithful.

At first they barely saw her; their eyes so focused on the Knights of the Rose, they almost missed the smaller but lethal woman in leather and mail cutting through man after man, leaving limbs and guts and brain in her bloodlust wake. By the time they realized she was behind their line and cutting them apart, the Knights of the Rose were showing their thorns. Maybe not even fifty of Vittoria’s knights were ignoring every command given to them by anyone that might try to give it.

This wasn’t the battlefield, and their High Marshall was down, bleeding. It was now a bloody free-for-all melee between Faithful and Noble Knight. Tarly tried to scream something. So did Hightower. No one heard. They wouldn’t have listened even if they had. Vaera didn’t even notice Vittoria’s inner circle start to move her off the street, or that the City Watch started to come in from behind the inns the Knights of the Rose had stayed out, coming from some hidden maze back-alley access to the street pulled from the terror of a child named Dake.

No, in that moment, all Vaera Balaerys noticed was the dark eyes of the tall, armored, man slowly pushing through bodies towards her, wearing armor that looked like an officer of Oldtown’s City Watch. Dead men stood between them, swaying and falling and crying out in misery as they collapsed from the bite of Valyrian steel.

“YOU SHOT HER!”

Vaera pointed with a Valyrian dagger in her off-hand. Lord Alaric thin lips smiled as he pushed a dying man out of his way and draw the longsword he carried. Her booted heel slammed into the side of his knee as he checked a quick thrust from her sword, snarling in pain as he unleashed an elbow that caught her between neck and collar. It was almost enough of a shock to allow the pommel of his blade to crash in her fine Valyrian featured face but for a last moment back stumble, and a quick rediscovery of her balance allowed her to simply turn away from one heavy cut, and side step another, landing her off-hand dagger a taste of the man’s blood along his left side, cutting straight through his mail under the breastplate of the City Watch.

Vaera smirked, winked, and Alaric straightened; outright denying pain access to his mind, murder in his black eyes.

---

“GET HER UP!”

Dennet Tarly bellowed as Vittoria Tyrell looked sheet white and blind drunk in pain. She was trying to say something, but nothing was heard as Davos Baratheon kept her either on her feet, or just off them, secure in his arms and following right behind Tarly. Ryam Redwyne was a pale figure in pale armor, round shield and sword acting in the kind of precision that a knight his age had no business possessing. The Faith Militant went for Vittoria, to take her, or to finish her—it never mattered. They never got close with Ser Ryam holding them off like the jaws of a dragon.

Tarly felt a pang of relief until he saw the men pouring in from the back alley behind the inn weren’t Knights of the Rose, but City Watch. “COME DIE, CUNTS.” The giant of a man unleashed his large blade, discarding the sheath to the ground as if he would never, ever, have need of it again in this life. One swing, two, a giant shove throwing two Guardsmen reeling in reverse, and more blood. Vittoria Tyrell screamed.

Stop! Stop it!

For the first time in years, no one listened to the Lady’s commands. The mammoth Tytan of the Wilds berserkered his way through a wall of flesh and steel, taking a Guardsman up by the back of the collar, and smashing him like an egg against the stone wall of the nearby inn, smearing blood and bone and death against the inn that had been their refuge in the city. Spears hit the giant of a man, but only a prick or two before Tarly cut them down like boughs to be splintered before him as the men worked their way off the street and towards the back alley.

The Tytan twitched as crossbow bolts bit into him, Tarly directing Redwyne to switch them him as they moved one bloody, besieged, step at a time. Redwyne’s shield and blade began to offer some cover to the massive wildling turned Knight of the Rose, though the sweat and the blood were beginning to slow the man as they neared the alley. As the Faith gave chase, the Knights began to fall in upon them, crushing them between the anvil of their ad hoc flank and the hammer of Dennet Tarly’s armored fist and longsword.

“Shut up, we’re saving you, love,” were the words Davos Baratheon offered his pale and growing paler betrothed High Marshall of the Reach, in a tone equal parts anger at her attackers, and irritation at her stubbornness, “stay alive, woman. Up, keep moving,” he said, pulling her up as her eyes rolled back, and he feared poison on the bolt given the coming and going of full consciousness on her pretty face. If something were to give him hope in that moment, it was the awe striking display of martial prowess before him as Ser Ryam Redwyne made every step, every motion of that shield, and every flash of steel against Guardsman look as if Ryam were moving at twice the speed of their attackers.

Behind them Dennet’s brutality was unleashed, as the man nearly the size of the wild giant named Tytan helping Ser Ryam up front bathed the wake behind them in blood. Before long there was nothing between Dennet and the push of Knights of the Rose that had collapsed on the flanks of the Faithful trying to reach Lady Vittoria.

---

“FUCK!”

Vaera Balaerys growled as her eyes rolled in searing pain, the length and reach and technique of the Watch Commander allowing him a piercing strike into at her left side. What felt like a gush of sweat or water at her hip was blood, and she knew it as her pretty purple eyes narrow, and her mind simply shut down the pain. She was too stubborn, she was too determined, and her legendary pain tolerance was on full display as she left a badly angled blow from the tall man deflect off her mailed upper arm, allowing Valyrian steel to bite at him again.

Once became twice, became thrice as she moved in a blur of quickness that the melee should have long robbed her of. The imposing figure growled low in anger and pain as fury nearly caught his mind…but to her surprise, he simply stepped back once, then again. She nearly moved forward before she saw it out of the corner of her eye; dagger and sword catching the Faithful coming at her from either side with just enough to allow her to stumble back.

When her back ran into something, someone, behind her, she cursed to herself and prepared for the worst. What she found was Knights of the Rose surging around her. “Get to her!”

“She’s off the street, get to your DRAGON!”

Saeryx. The sound burned through the street as screaming began, and heat emerged. Fuck. Black and purple spread like a midnight shadow over the street overhead. Dragonfire had half the street ablaze before any of them knew what was happening. By the time Vaera looked forward again, the tall Watch officer was gone, and half the Faith with him. She nearly tripped over the dead as the ground trembled upon the dragon’s landing.

Before she moved, she grabbed the Knight who had told her to get to her dragon, who told her Vittoria was off the street, “IS SHE ALIVE?”

The man nodded, and exhaustion atop relief flooded into her body. “Thank fuck.” She barely recalled making it back to Saeryx, but the dragon craned his neck to all but scoop her up. Dragonfire had a way of ending a melee, leaving both sides of the street burning as the Faith pulled their dying and dead to safety, while the Knights of the Rose did the same.

All she could imagine was the face of the tall, dark, man. And the image burnt into her mind of him letting loose the bolt that struck Vittoria Tyrell. This wasn’t over, she had a feeling, and in the back of her mind she had some idea that perhaps it was just beginning…but for now it was time to leave the Reach.

It was time to head for the Rock.

Post a random fact about yourself.

I've finally come to the conclusion that I will always be a batshit crazy, barefoot, free spirited, foul mouthed, Southern Applachian child.

I might be goth, or a hippie from time to time - but I'll always default back to the little girl that likes to play in the river.

@HaleyTheRandom

Would be disappointed if this was anything but the true reality.

A Song Of Ice And Fire : The Swords And Stars

_{Mina Tyrell // @Espada Emi}

The Sept of Upper River Road had not been what Dake had expected. Instead of just serving one or two Septons of the Sept, he found himself running around what the Faithful called the septry—the Septry of the River as the Faithful called it. The Sept, itself, was part of it, but there was more to it: there was the common hall, the infirmaries, the scriptoriums, the dormitory, the kitchens, a brewhouse, the cells, the gardens, the Sept, and the small Sept. And that didn’t even include all them other outbuildings.

Rarely did Dake find himself helping an actual Septon, of which there were more than two, he learned. Instead, there were Protectors and Holy Brothers, though mostly they just called themselves brothers, and even then, there was an Elder Brother apart from the Septons and the Proctors and the rest of the Brothers. Dake didn’t understand it all yet, but they just told him to listen more than he talked and respond to someone asking something of him with “Yes, brother” or “No, brother.”

He helped with the garden some days, but mostly he scrubbed floors when he wasn’t helping in one of them infirmaries. Brother Stohl told him the Sept of the River had the most, and largest, infirmaries in the Reach, maybe all of Westeros. The bile and the blood and the vomit and the spit and the piss…Dake didn’t know all them bodies held so many things, and he was used to the streets of Oldtown. But Dake didn’t waiver none, Brother Stohl called Dake blessed by the Seven because nothing seemed to turn his stomach.

The worst of it was the early mornings, but Dake got pretty good at waking up before even his mother, often sneaking out and making it to the Septry in time for the morning prayer. Because if you didn’t make it to the early morning prayer, you didn’t get to break your fast with the brothers, and Dake liked the stew the brothers typically had in the morning. After that was the work.

But after that was the mid-day meal, which was usually the same vegetable stew. After mid-day meal he’d sometimes be told to see Proctor Robin in the scriptorium. Dake wasn’t allowed to touch anything down there, but he would scrub floors, and the Proctor and Brothers who worked there would show him numbers and letters. Dake could write to ten, which made Brother Otho proud, cause none of them other ‘street boys’ did that half as fast as Dake was able to do it. The faster and more he learned, the more Dake was told to go work in the scriptorium, and Dake liked Brother Stohl the best, but the infirmaries were full of groaning and crying and sometimes worse.

The scriptorium was quiet, peaceful like. Dake liked that. It was Brother Otho who tapped his shoulder today as Dake went about scrubbing the stone floor, whispering in his ear about someone asking for him. They wasn’t allowed past the gatehouse ‘cause they was a girl, said Brother Otho. Dake rushed, ‘cause if the Proctor caught him gone too long it’d mean trouble, Brother Otho warned him. But at the gatehouse he was met by Septon Arlo. Arlo was old, thin, with shoulder length white hair and a blind eye…but he was the nicest man Dake ever met ‘sides Brother Pater.

And Proctor Robin wouldn’t do nothing if Septon Arlo said it was okay. Septo Arlo looked out for all the other boys in the Septry, too.

“Dake? You have a visitor,” The Septon said, as he moved aside, and motioned the Brothers at the gate to let the visitor into the gatehouse. Dake blinked when he saw Cissy.

“They don’t have girls here, Cis.”

“Go on,” Arlo gently urged the girl, with a calm tone and warm smile, like he was everyone’s grandsire, “you are safe here, child.”

Something wasn’t okay, though, Dake saw it. Dake could always see that kind of thing, and Cissy’s skin wasn’t usually so pale, and she never looked scared. Nothing scared her, except maybe Big Bill. “What is it, Cissy?”

The girls big eyes went to the Septon, to the Brothers of the Gate, before slowly falling back to Dake, “It’s your mum, Dake, you gotta come quick.”

Silence was the response. Dake just blinked, again, thinking…he’d seen his mother this morning. She was tired, but she was always tired, her labor was long and hard, she always said, but she was glad to do it, she also always said.

“Go, Dake. You may return on the morrow, I will explain it to Proctor Robin.”

Dake felt himself nod and leave with Cissy. Outside the gate she took his hand, which just made him feel more confused. Cissy didn’t hold no hands, but now she was squeezing his, “What’s wrong with—”

And then it just burst out of Cissy, like a cry that was all hushed talking, like she was afraid they’d be heard, “Big Bill needs your help, Dake! He said only you can help him, said it’s about your mother, and there’s gold in it. Real gold, Dake. But we got to hurry!”

Dake just ran with Cissy after she all but pulled him along by the hand at first. Dake tried looking back when he thought he heard someone shout out to him, but Cissy just yanked all the harder, leading them quickly down an alley, down a shortcut.

Scrapstone Alley once wound behind the North Silver Street. Disease had cleared out most of the shops and homes that had boxed it in tightly on its southern side, leaving Scrapstone Alley wider than most streets in Oldtown in some places. Though it was mostly mud and exposed foundations with nothing left on them instead of cobblestone, there were still one of two buildings that had been gutted by fire, or further disease, or banditry. The Square of Scrapestone was the largest ‘square’ of the alley. Its where Big Bill had held court for the past two years, after stabbing another, older, street urchin in the neck to take control of the band of urchins they called the Scrapestone Boys. Where once it had been makeshift seats and benches and tables filled with urchins of nearly all ages, some of the bordering buildings used for hideouts and makeshift brothels of the girls ruled by the Scrapestone Boys, when Dake and Cissy got closed, they saw now the square was bordered only by the mail and blue cloaked members of the Oldtown City Watch. At least a dozen of them.

Death and blood was everywhere. Big Bill’s body was broken and bloody, headless, thrown aside his big chair. All the others boys and girls Dake knew for years were laying around, some looking asleep, others with heads missing, or giant gashes flowing with guts and blood where they had once been whole. In Big Bill’s old big chair was a large man, shoulder length black hair, face covered in black hair. He didn’t look old, but he didn’t look young, neither, to Dake. Dake turned around, but his heart sank when he saw more of the City Watch when just moments ago had been the alley. Dake knew a trap when he saw one. When he looked to Cissy, she wouldn’t look at him, even as the members of the Watch behind them grabbed him, lifted him, and carried him forward to dump him at the feet of the large man wearing the uniform of a City Watch officer.

The man’s eyes were black, and seemed to smile in a way that didn’t hold any joy.

“Hello, Dake,” the man said sternly to him, before his black eyes looked up and past Dake, to Cissy, “dispose of her.”

Dake tried to move, but felt only a fist upside his head, sending him spiraling to the ground of mud and blood, all he could see was the officer’s booted feet. All he could hear was the screams of Cissy…before, suddenly, he heard steel, and then heard Cissy no more.

“M’Lord, ask Septon Arlo, ask Septon Pater, please M’L—”

Silence came to Dake in the form of a heavy gloved backhand from one of the two who’d threw him down.

“I know of your favors, urchin. Given not by the Seven, but by a certain sinful noble lady. But worry not, Dake. Your mother will live, your mother will keep her place in the service of her merchant master, and you will be forgiven for your sin of acting as a pawn of such sinful nobility…and in return, you will tell me how it is you got to Lady Vittoria’s inn on Port Market Street. How you managed to sneak past the patrol of the City Watch. Tell me this, young Dake, and forgiveness will be given to you.”

Mina had wasted no time in saddling back up and riding to the Septry of the River as she was bid. She was still running off of the electric high of what had happened at her father’s great tent earlier this morning and it wasn’t until she pulled up to the gatehouse and asked after Dake that her mood started to deflate a bit. She’d just passed him, said the old Septon with a milky eye as he pointed the lad out, running hand in hand with a pale street girl away from the sept on some urgent business about his mother. Mina wheeled around, trotting forward and shouting after Dake, but the girl just tugged him away down a side alley. Cursing, Mina leapt off her horse and went after the two before she lost them completely. If something was wrong with Dake’s mother, Vitta would want to help the boy further, she was sure.

Fortunately, the two younger children’s trail wasn’t hard to follow. The alley lead to a wider one, disused, worn and muddy with visible footprints. Mina slowed as her eyes caught their tracks, not just to better follow them but because of what surrounded them. Dake and the girl had left the freshest footprints, but they were overlaid onto a background of bigger, heavier prints, dozens of them, made by what looked like sturdy, hobnailed boots. Mina stopped completely, closing her eyes and focusing. A Water Dancer must learn to sense danger and see with more than her eyes, that’s what Master Athos had taught her, and something about this already felt wrong.

Yes, she wasn’t sure how she’d missed it before, but there was an unmistakable smell in the air too. Blood and spilled viscera, coppery and nauseating like someone had been doing a bad job slaughtering animals...or people. Mina shivered and moved more carefully, and as soon as she spotted the first blue cloaks she ducked quickly out of sight, pinned flat against a husk of a burned out building as she took in the scene.

There were children’s bodies littering the square, some with guts spilled and giving off the foul odor she’d smelled moments ago, some headless, some twisted and broken, all in pools of blood and mud and gore. The blue cloaked guards, a dozen of them visible, ringed the sight of the massacre uncaringly. Their eyes were fixed on the young boy sprawled on the ground rather than at the horror around them. If the girl slumped limp and blood-soaked at the feet of one guard currently wiping off his sword blade was anything to go by, the reason for their indifference to the hideous crime was plain enough. Mina fought down a wave of cold terror and nausea, breathed in, breathed out, trying to center herself. Now was not the time for fear. She could still save Dake. Besides, the bearded man towering over the boy had just mentioned ‘Lady Vittoria’. He might well be a threat to her sister.

Mina steadied her shaking hands and slipped away from her hiding spot. She could do this! The guards were distracted by Dake and she’d practiced stealth by sneaking up on tree cats in the forests off the River Mander. Quiet as she could, Mina slipped by the guards at the outer ring of onlookers and pulled her thin Braavosi blade from its sheath. Stalking up to the man who was still cleaning his blade of the girl’s blood like she’d stalked any number of animals, she readied herself to deliver a clean thrust to the gap in the armor near his neck.

Dake heard the words as they left his body, unbelieving he was saying them. Was his mother really even still alive? What had Cissy been screaming when they killed her? Mostly, his mind circled and circled around the same question that left him stunned, barely able to think, barely able to understand this was real life, that this wasn’t just a bad dream: Dake would’ve told the man whatever he wanted to hear. So, Dake told him, and when he was done, he finally looked up, and stared into the man’s black eyes.

“Why, m’Lord? I would have told you.”

The man sighed, a great weight upon him, his voice turning into a tone of wisdom, of a master taking a hard lesson to an apprentice, “They were criminals. Rapists. Murderers. Thieves. Your friend, the girl? Caught last night snatching the purse from a man of the Watch visiting the brothel her own mother worked at, as the man took his pleasure. Street urchins, Dake, do you not see?” His body shifted, from a comfortable seated position into Big Bill’s big chair to leaning forward, knees on his thighs, gloved hands clasped tightly together before him, half-helmed head lowering to bring his eyes almost level with Dake’s.

“You thought a sinner from the nobility was your savior, though you were wrong, I will give you that at least you tried to turn away from this life and serve the Faith. But these…things?” He said, raising his head up and unclasping his hands to motion all about, at the corpses of street children around him, “They had no sinner to save them, Dake. All that awaited them was a life of crime and pain and sin. Instead, we have given them the mercy of a death for a noble cause, in service of the Seven, for justice and the peace of the city. Their struggle is over, they now bask in the glory of the Seven. Grieve them, boy, but be glad to know their struggle has ended. The very sinful noble that saved you called banners to raise an army to oppose the Faith. Today, Oldtown will see just how mortal this ‘Ardent Maiden’ is.”

“Lady Vittoria is good, m’Lord, please. She protects the Realm, she—”

“—is an afront to the natural order as given to us in the Seven-Pointed Star itself. A sinner and hypocrite who says she dedicates herself to the Faith, while only serving her House and herself. The very creature who would raise an army against the army of the Faithful. Is this the person you would tell me is so virtuous, boy?”

Madness took him, as he didn’t blink before he heard himself say it, as he looked at the bodies around them, “...she wouldn’t have done this.”

The Commander of the City Watch stood suddenly, the song of steel ringing out as he drew the short sword that rested upon his hip, hanging from his belt, “The Stranger has bid you to come and see, Dake, and so it seems only then will you understand. Goodbye, child.”

In truth Mina wasn’t sure she could go through with killing anyone in cold blood, even supposing the man in front of her had killed children. It was different, skulking like this and committing to it deliberately, rather than defending herself in the chaos of a battle. But hearing his commander rave so coldly about her sister, about sin and slaughtering children, then watching him draw steel on Dake, her resolve and anger solidified. She stabbed out with her blade, quick, clean and forceful just like Master Athos taught her and shouted “Run!”

Alaric’s eyes narrowed in on the sound of the voice, and Dake saw the man…smile, like he’d seen a welcome surprise. The rest of the Watchmen just seemed stunned, but Dake didn’t so much as breathe again before he darted past the Watch Commander. Steel flashed as the man swung the blade after him, but it was a hair late, and Dake weaved between two Guardsmen who took bad angles in the chase, leaving both behind him. A single look over his shoulder was all he gave, enough to see the two guardsmen re-gather and start after him—while their Commander made a deliberate pace in the direction of the other voice, the one Dake didn’t recognize. He hadn’t time to waste, he had to lose the two men on him, and he had to make it to his mother before they did…if she was even still alive. Dake ducked into one of the empty shells of a building and went quickly up a barrel and into a hole in one of the floors, the kind of shortcut he knew that the two watchmen would not. He went out the window to the left and was quickly on another rooftop, his boots simple things but better and with more grip than his old ones. The Brothers had given them to him just two days prior.

He had failed the Septons. The Proctors. The Brothers. He couldn’t go back now. All the hope Lady Vittoria had given him was just gone, like that, because of a Watch Commander and an order. His face was wet and hot as he ran, and it wasn’t until he flew down to cobblestones that he realized…he was crying.

“Dake?”

Loud Lonnie stared at him, confused, from the door of his shop…but Dake just looked at him for a moment, felt nothing but shame, and kept running. It wasn’t until the pot shop that he wheeled around a surprise hay wagon along the side of the building and up back stairs, only to find the door open, certain they’d already gotten to her. What felt like tears before nearly took him to a sob before shock splashed upon him as he went through the door…and saw her there, shoving things into a basket.

He walked to his mother and cried and tried to tell her all of it. She probably heard none of it, as he blabbered and sobbed, hugging him close for a moment before lifting his chin to look her in the eyes.

“Babbet told me. Now let’s go, we’re going to King’s Landing where my sister is.”

She didn’t sound surprised, only determined. And yet again today, Dake just felt confused. A confusion that only deepened when he heard steps on the stairs, and saw a figure darken the doorway.

It was a girl, barely taller than he was, clean, except for sweat, and…the blade. The reddened blade.

Mina stood there in the doorway, panting slightly after the chaos and tumult of running full tilt after Dake. She reasoned he knew these streets and how to run and hide in them a lot better than her, so she’d followed him as he fled. Now she found herself awkwardly looming with a bloodstained blade in his doorway. She held up her free hand, trying to show she meant no harm.

“Sorry, I’m here from Lady Vittoria. Wanted to make sure you were safe. She’ll want to help, I think.” Mina made a half-awkward bow-curtsey. Then she remembered she was still holding the bloody blade and flicked it clean before wiping it down against the sheath and stowing it, Braavosi fashion. She didn’t think about how that just spattered more blood across the floor, couldn’t focus on the blood at all. Nor how the blood had gotten there, the man she’d killed, how she could feel the jerk and gasp from him as he’d died on her blade. But now that the running was done it was getting harder to ignore. No, best to focus on helping Dake and his mother.

“Lady…VITTORIA? TYRELL?!”

Dake’s mother exasperated a loud whisper, and she did it quickly, turning to stare at her child. “Why would she want to help? Dake of Blackcrown…why would…what did I tell you about the nobility? Do you not remember…”

Her voice trailed as her son’s eyes welled. The woman looked breathless in a terror of shock as she looked back to the girl in the door, “…and you? Do I even want to know what you are? Do either of you know the danger we are in? The Faith and the Watch have eyes everywhere. There is nowhere safe in this city.”

“They’re gonna kill her, mum.”

His mother's face twisted in confusion, but for a moment, until realization dawned further fear, “Kill her?” The words the woman wanted to say didn’t come, instead, her features seemed to soften as she looked at the hurt, scared, boy of hers, “Dake, I’m not even sure the dragons could kill that girl. She’s surrounded by an army. And what of us? What do we have to protect us but this girl assassin sent by this noble lady?......how did you come to find service with the Septry, Dake?”

The boy frowned, and his mother sighed. “Gods. And you never told me.”

“Wanda, I’m starting to hear…” The man who appeared walking up the backstairs was tall, but too simply dressed and he smelled of a tannery, short blonde hair and small blue eyes regarding the scene he stepped into carefully, “The wagon is loaded, everything is covered in hay.”

“This chest,” Dake’s mother said, shutting it, moving aside so the man could take it and load it. As he lifted it, the boy’s mother stepped forward and placed her hand on the man’s arm, “I’m truly sorry.”

Sadly, the man smiled, “I’ll be in King’s Landing as soon as I can get there. You two go…or three,” he said, awkwardly, before carefully moving himself, and the chest, out of the door and to the wagon.

Dake’s mother just stared at the assassin, “You can hide in the wagon with us. The man watching the gate we’re going out of is a friend. We’ll make it out, but we must hurry.”

Mina nodded, face twisted into a grimace as she put together just what her sister’s charity had wrought for these folk. “My thanks. I’m sorry.” It was all she could think to say. She didn’t bother correcting the woman’s assumption that she was an assassin, nor try to explain herself. It would take time they didn’t have and it could wait til they were safely away.

“Let’s go. Now,” the boy’s mother said, with the kind of courage and determination only a mother with a child in danger could provide.

“Lead the way.” Mina agreed, inwardly resolving to herself that she would do whatever it took to protect these two and fix her sister’s mistake.