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Theon found himself unable to breathe. He was strapped on a cross, he was being tortured for shit he'd done and there was nothing anyone was doing to save him. He was alone... alone... alone...
Something slammed into his nose and threw him off his back and onto his ass. He quickly grabbed his nose and felt the blood trickling through his fingers.
"Good, you've snapped out of it" Yara's voice cut through the mess in his mind and he looked up.
His sister was looking down at him, rubbing her knuckle.
"You punched me" Theon accused.
"I did" Yara agreed.
"You made me bleed!"
"You'll heal."
Theon rushed to his feet and with a yell charged at his sister.
But Yara caught him, twisted him and slammed him on the floor.
"You abandoned me!" Theon accused; angry, shaken and betrayed.
"I warned you about what would happen. I told you to come with me. But did you listen? Did you think of anyone but yourself? What about your crew? Did they want to die with you?" Yara hissed in his ears. "You're the one who made stupid decisions, and not just one but many. So don't go blaming it all on me when you're the one with an over-inflated ego and sense of self-importance."
Yara pushed herself off of him and walked to the door. The door opened but she stopped at the frame.
"You are my brother and I love you. But make stupid dumbass mistakes and I will leave you to rot" she slammed the door behind her, leaving a sobbing Theon on the floor.
xxx Viewing Hall xxx
Upon her return to the viewing hall, Yara found everyone seated impatiently while the visions on the wall stagnated.
"Where's your blasted brother?" Olenna snapped impatiently.
"Did the visions stop when we stepped out?" Yara asked with a cheeky grin, "Guess we really have to be here as well for the screen to start"
With those words, she returned to her seat grinning.
Theon returned a moment later, red-eyed, nose swollen and head lowered. He took a seat near Varys, Gendry and Rhaegar this time.
With Theon's return, the visions started again.
[THE RIVERLANDS, NIGHT]
[BRIENNE sits, bound and thinking, her brow still furrowed.]
"Eat. What are you doing?"
"I'm dying."
"You can't die. You need to live to take revenge."
"With what?" Jaime scoffed angrily. Tyrion may have promised him vengeance, but there was nothing he could do. Without his sword hand, he was nothing.
"I don't care about revenge."
"You coward. A little misfortune and you're giving up."
"Misfor-misfortune?"
"She does understand that a knight who can't fight is as useless as a broken sword, right?" Renly whispered to Robert.
"I honestly have no idea what she's on about" Robert shrugged.
"You lost your hand."
"My sword hand. I was that hand."
"You have a taste- one taste of the real world where people have important things taken from them and you whine, cry, and quit. You sound like a bloody woman."
"Oh, so she isn't above insulting her own gender. How manly of her" Olenna said dryly.
"A swordsman without his sword hand is nothing. If she as a swordswoman does not understand it then she's as delusional as those idiots who think Tywin Lannister is about to let them live after what they did" Margaery added with a scoff.
[BRIENNE and JAIME sit in silence. JAIME reaches for the bread and takes a bite.]
"I know what you did for me. You told them Tarth was full of sapphires. It's called the Sapphire Isle because of the blue of its water. You knew that. Why did you help me?"
"Because you've earned his respect," Tyrion said calmly. "And he's not as bad as people make him out to be."
[KING'S LANDING, TYWIN'S CHAMBERS]
[LORD TYWIN LANNISTER writes while CERSEI looks on, impatiently.]
"You wanted to speak to me?"
"Yes, about Jaime."
"What about him?"
"I wanted to make sure we're doing everything we can to get him back."
"She did not just ask him that" Tyrion face-planted.
"She did" Jaime muttered, the incredulity of the statement breaking him temporarily out of his slump.
Tyrion looked up at his brother, but the slump was back by then.
"When Catelyn Stark took Tyrion prisoner, what did I do in response?"
"You started a war."
"And if I would start a war for that lecherous little stump,"
"Appreciate the love," Tyrion said dryly.
"What do you think I am doing for my oldest son and heir?"
"Whatever you can."
[TYWIN seals the letter he finished and starts another one.]
"Did it ever occur to you that I might be the one who deserves your confidence and your trust, not your sons? Not Jaime or Tyrion, but me. Years and years of lectures on family and legacy- the same lecture, really, just with tiny, tedious variations- did it ever occur to you that your daughter might be the only one listening to them? Living by them? That she might have the most to contribute to your legacy that you love so much more than your actual children?"
"And she said that too" Tyrion snorted.
"All right. Contribute."
"The Tyrells are a problem."
Even Myrcella had to snort at that. The same Tyrells who had come in to help. Margaery may have been there to only be Queen, but her family helped and her mother saw them as a threat.
"The Tyrells helped us defeat Stannis Baratheon. The Tyrells saved your life, your children's lives."
"Margaery has her claws in Joffrey. She knows how to manipulate him."
"Good. I wish you knew how to manipulate him. I don't distrust you because you're a woman. I distrust you because you're not as smart as you think you are. You've allowed that boy to ride roughshod over you and everyone else in this city."
[TYWIN goes back to writing.]
"Perhaps you should try stopping him from doing what he likes."
"It's the fact that she thinks father won't put Joffrey in his place and make him question his worth that makes her stupid!" Tyrion exclaimed, turning to his niece. "I don't think your mother is stupid because she is a woman, I think she's stupid because she overestimates her capabilities and makes messes worse. Has always done so."
Myrcella only shrugged. That wasn't the problem between them anyway.
[KING'S LANDING SHORELINE]
[SANSA STARK kneels at a rocky overlook, praying. MARGAERY approaches. MARGAERY turns to the guards]
"We'd like some privacy, please. If you wouldn't mind waiting back inside the keep. Or if you'd be kind enough to give me your names, I'll ask the king to speak with you himself."
A few people snorted.
[The two guards leave.]
"What did you pray for?"
"I can't tell you."
"Probably for Joffrey's death" Sansa answered Margaery on behalf of her future self.
"I guessed" Margaery said with a small smile.
"Why not? I'll tell you what I prayed for in the sept this morning. Let's see, for my family's health and happiness, for an end to the war, for a short winter. Boring and traditional, I'm afraid. And you?"
"I'm sorry, I just can't"
"My cousin Alanna was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. When I was 12, I was all elbows and knees and Alanna looked like a goddess sent to torture me. Pig-face, she called me."
"You?!" Arya sputtered out. "But you're so beautiful!"
Margaery chuckled.
"Thank you for the compliment," she said with a smile, "but I was not always as blessed as I am now. Once upon a time, I was all sticks and bones."
Arya stared at her wide-eyed. If Margaerys could go from sticks and bones, maybe she could too. That would show all those people back home who bullied her.
"I think it had something to do with my nose. Whenever she passed me in the halls, she'd oink. So I prayed that she'd catch a horrible skin disease. A week after that, she came down with porridge plague."
"Porridge plague" snorted Renly.
"That's not real I'm guessing" Sansa murmured a little embarrassed.
Margaery smiled at her apologetically.
"Porridge plague?"
"You don't have it in the North? Your skin starts to look like boiled oats and eventually your face slides off and you die in agony."
"But that's awful."
[MARGAERY nods and then laughs.]
"You're- I believed you! Porridge plague. I'm an idiot."
"You are" Arya nodded, wincing when her mother hit her on the back of her head.
"Don't say that. No, you're not."
"So what happened to Alanna?"
"Oh, she grew up to be the most beautiful woman and married a handsome lord and they have darling children and live in a castle by the sea. It's all terribly frustrating."
[They arrive at another overlook.]
"I'm sure she's jealous of you now. You'll be married here in the capital and she'll have to come watch and pretend to be happy that you're queen."
"Good" Margaery muttered with a triumphant smile. That would show Alanna.
Olenna could only shake her head. The one competition between the girls that she didn't want to foster. There was no need for it in the family. With everyone outside, that was a different matter.