GOT: P Chapter 17(EDITED)

The bay lies flat. Lantern hums as it sways with waves.

Rhaenys sits by the stern rail with a blanket round her shoulders. She talks low, like to herself.

"Wind's gone lazy," she says. "We'll make the turn by grey light if it bothers to rise." A thin smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "Eel pies were foul. I ate them anyway." Breath in, breath out. "City smells the same and not the same. I wish...."

Good. Let it spill in small pieces. She's holding the big part shut with both hands.

I hop to the little deck table beside her. Old cuts in the wood. Straight grain.

No more former antics I used to appease her. No little girls that need comfort like before. Keep it simple. Let her. 

"Garrad says wait a day," she goes on. "He's right. I hate that he's right." Her fingers worry the blanket edge. "If I walk in, I don't walk out."

Yes. So we don't walk in.

I set one claw. Pull slow. A clean groove lifts splinters.

She flinches. "Velmir, leave it, zaldrīzes." Warm in the word, but frayed.

Second stroke. Third. Keep the letters square. Don't hurry.

She leans closer. Her voice drops to almost nothing. "What are you…"

She stops. The board shows it plain: GO WINTERFELL.

Silence. Lantern sway. Rigging made noise behind.

She stares. Then looks at me. Then the board again. Her mouth opens, shuts. No questions, she doesn't have a shape for this yet. She presses her hand to her lips, steadying them. Her eyes say the rest: You can write.

Bootsteps pause at the break. Garrad. He sees her bent over the table, sees me, decides not to see more, and moves off. Men know when to leave a thing alone.

She just stares at the words. Mouth a little open. Breath held. Fingers hover over the G like it might burn her. Whatever she meant to say dies before it's a sound.

I scratch a small arrow north. Enough. Any more and it turns into a mess. Tonight isn't for mess.

Good. Leave it clean.

I step to the rail. One hard beat, deck falls away, ship shrinking, lantern a tiny spark.

"Velmir..." Not a question. Not even a call. Just my name, thin with wonder and a little fear.

I don't answer. I take the dark. North and west.

Behind me she stays frozen staring at the sky where I vanished, the sea moving under the hull, the world suddenly larger than it was a minute ago.

----------------------

North. Winterfell. I leave the deck before she can ask me why I can write at all.

Cold air, quiet wings. I run the treeline and the road shows its mess fast: firelight, men yelling, horses screaming. A prison line torn apart. Carts skewed, cages bolted and catching. Yoren on his knees, mouth bloody, still cursing them to their faces. Good man. He won’t stand again.

No sky-scream. I slide in below the branches and use the back-glare from the flames.

First pass: clean. Wing-edge across a lannister man gorget. He drops like a sack, no warning shout.

Second: heat. I push a hard wash over the bowmen. The gut-reflex is to draw. Bowstrings go soft and snap. Hands burn. They flinch.

Third: weight. Kick a horse at the shoulder. It tumbles into two men and their spears. Line breaks. Panic takes over the rest.

The cages burn hotter. Three hard men inside. One sits very still: half red, half white hair, flat eyes. Wrong calm. Not scared, just watching, murmuring. Jaqen H’ghar. Real predator. If he gets loose tonight, people die I don’t know yet. Doesn't matter now.

Because.

He is now my prey. 

I released a tight Fire Spin across the cage roof and hold it until the iron glows. Heat falls inside like rain. Screams start. He still doesn’t beg, just watches me like a second ago, then shuts his eyes. The other two claw at the bars. I keep the heat on. The road needs fewer wolves.

[New Skill: Aerial Ace]

The golden cloaks who still standing near their actual target tried to scatter away, the boy with the bull’s helm. I meet them chest-on with a straight Aerial strike. Bone-loud. We go through a burning cart together. He doesn’t get up. The cart handles the rest.

Yoren dies on his feet in his head, still facing the road. That’s as good as he gets.

A small girl with a hard stare locks eyes with me. Arya Stark. Her small world's logics is completely shattered in front of her. Fire spitting bird? Fire bird? She isn't sure what's going through her mind. And she’s about to scream. I don’t give her the chance for it. And grab her nape and belt and haul her up. Just high enough, not high enough to drown her lungs. She kicks and swings: good. Pain flashes in her shoulders; I feel the jerk in my grip.

The bull-helmed boy lunges and misses. I give him one long look: flat stare. Stay. He stops. Stays standing, hands shaking at last minute.

I run the hedges and the dark fields, then the ditch lines, then the marsh by the river. Hours grind. And what below fades behind us. The water opens. Dawn begins.

The ship is where it should be: Garrad’s long hull nosing north on the first turn of tide. I drop onto the foredeck and set the Stark girl down: not gentle, not cruel, just down. She hits plank hard on knees and palms and teeth- no, not that word- jaw clacks. Her face twists when her right shoulder hurts. She drags breath through her nose so she doesn’t sob. Good habit. She rolls onto one hip and swipes at my legs with a little sword that isn’t there. I hear cloth rip. She hates me correctly.

“Not again,” a deckhand mutters, backing off. Men scatter because a bird bigger than half a man just landed where they sleep.

Arya’s eyes go to the rail. She measures the drop. Knows she won’t swim this. She curls around the ache in her shoulder and glares at me instead. I take it. I’ve earned it.

Boots on the ladder. Rhaenys comes down from the quarterdeck slow, hands empty, hair tied back, face set. She stops three paces away from the girl. No reach, no sudden move.

There it begins.