Broken Fasts and Honored Oaths

Light, this land was blessed with it. Shades of charcoal and hues of sadness dominated the landscape of the Isles. Even the ocean there was a bleak, swirling current that lacked color and vibrance. Not this place, here the trees sang with the cacophonous mirth of a hundred hundred birds and the grass smelled sweet and the sun kissed fair skin, warming all beneath its face.

She sat astride a great black stallion, built strong and as sturdy as the people whom it was bred to serve. Tÿr was his name, and he had been a gift on her twenty-first nameday. His hooves were massive, fringed with long hair, and his mane and tail were combed until sleek. Her father had seen no use in the animal, not when a ship needed no feeding and made no waste and was far more reliable, but she'd sequestered Roryn into acquiring him all the same.

The prized stud of a Northman who lived no more, his coastal farm ransacked and his valuables taken; the iron price paid in full. The steady beat of hooves on packed earth was lulling, and the Tawney woman found her thoughts drifting to what lay before them. Riverrun first, and then the lair of the beast. What horror awaited them there, thick-scaled and hungering for flesh, that dreaded maw spewing flame hot enough to melt stone and burn men to mere ash.

It was both thrilling and frightening in the same, and a shiver crept its way up her spine despite the warmth of the spring day. Rúna ride not beside her, she hadn't set eye on her sister since she had hurled steel at Volmark, and it was of no consequence to her where her younger sibling had gone. Back to his bed, she'd suggested to Birger the eve before, and not back to my camp if she's got any sense.

The city of the river lords crept closer day by day, the Lannister host and their Ironborn compatriots moving and making camp like clockwork each day. They traveled quickly for such an amount of people, and Kára was not one to let such sights go by without taking them in to their extent. She might not ever travel so far inland again, and should the Drowned One wish it she might not return home. The progress was halted, though, by the death of Svenrir and by the proceedings of his funeral. It was a fitting hiatus from travel, and every Ironborn in attendance would have it no other way.

That morning saw her in front of the fire not far from her tent after her pre-dawn ride, reclined on one arm with booted feet crossed at the ankle. Leathers sat low on her hips, woolen blouse riding up wantonly but not revealing so much as to attract more than a few glances. The morning also saw the furthered absence of her sister, and though she attempted to be staunch about the situation she quelled the urge to go searching by gnawing on the inside of her cheek.

She would not have to search, it seemed, as a flash of bleached hair and haunted pallor rushed through the array of tents and came to stop outside of the youngest Tawney's traveling quarters. All pretense of shunning the woman fled from her conscience as the sound of retching reached her ears, and Kára pushed herself to her feet with haste, making her way over as quickly as she could carry herself.

The smell of vomit wasn't at all pleasant but she'd suffered it more than a few times during childhood, and she knelt now at her sisters' side, brushing the mass of blonde tresses over one shoulder and out of the way as she had done on countless occasions. "I'm here." Her free hand rubbed a soothing figure eight on Rúna's back as the younger emptied the contents of her stomach, and when no more came forth the elder wrapped her arms about the sick woman. She didn't ask for whereabouts or company, she cared only for the well-being of the person in her arms. "I'm here darling."

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