Wilting ♞ Sandor Clegane

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SHE HOPES READING will be the cure for her restlessness, but she cannot bear to sit still long enough to read more than a page at a time. It's the culmination of being cooped up within the Keep for three days now —the rainstorm hardly ebbs from dawn to dusk. She doesn't enjoy the feeling of being trapped, unable to walk the gardens or practice archery in the courtyard. It stirs her to madness.

Sighing, Anya reaches for her cloak and goes to the door. She opens it slowly, hoping it will not creak or groan too loudly and wake Jory —he still lies in her bed, chest rising and falling in even breaths. If there is one good to come from this venture, Anya thinks it is the time she spends with him. A part of her wonders what Ned would think, or even Benjen for that matter —but she is happy, a difficult feat to achieve in the capital. Anya lets the door close behind her and then races into the night.

At Winterfell, on nights when she could not sleep, Anya would find herself in the kitchens. She found making honey cakes was a good way to relax a restless mind ever since the cook and baker taught her when she was only a kitchen servant. Robb and Jon found her most of the time in the early hours of the morning when they each tried to sneak off with extra rations of bacon —on those mornings, they made off with extra bacon and sweets for later.

Anya protects the flame of her candle from the wind and rain under her outstretched cloak as she darts across the courtyard in the darkness and deep into the bowels of Maegor's Holdfast. The halls are dark, with only dim sconces and braziers to light the path to the kitchens. It reminds her of the first weeks after she arrived in Winterfell —clumsy and untrained, but Maycey, the head cook, took her under her care. No matter the time, the stove will always be hot —the fire lit and welcoming. Anya steps into the main galley of the Keep's kitchens and frowns. The kitchen is the heart of the castle, Maycey used to say. But if the kitchen is truly the heart of the castle, then the Red Keep is dead or heartless. Anya cannot tell which it is.

She lights the candles and braziers and sets a fire in the great stone oven. It takes a long while to find where everything is, but once everything is gathered, Anya starts with honey cake —the way Maycey taught her to make them, twice baked and glazed with honey and crushed nuts. With dough betwixt her fingers, it brings bittersweet memories of childhood and family. Anya doesn't take notice of the kitchen-maid until she speaks —nigh horrified to find the sister of the Hand elbow deep in flour. "Milady! What are you doing down here at this hour?" She freezes and looks up, red-faced. "You should have sent word if you wished for something," the girl chides, gently as she can as to not offend.

Anya glances down at her hands and feels embarrassment twist her stomach and tighten her throat. "I couldn't sleep," she admits, eyes flitting upward.

The kitchen-maid doesn't press any further —it's not her place to judge or dictate what Anya Stark chooses to do. The girl looks over the ingredients: flour, eggs, cream, butter, honey, and soda ash, among other oddities. "What are you making, milady?" She questions.

"Lemon and honey cakes," she answers. The kitchen-maid falls in at her side, wordlessly beginning to help. They work in quiet harmony, only speaking on occasion about food and even matters of the heart. The skies start a slow shift from indigo to pale blue and orange with the rising sun, and slowly other workers begin trickling in to start preparing morning meals as the two batches of sweet cakes come from the oven.

Cersei Lannister wishes to speak with Ned Stark's sister. Only when the queen sends Sandor Clegane to retrieve her, Anya is not to be found in the Tower of the Hand. Whispers and rumors lead the Hound to the kitchens and there he finds her —asleep in a nook away from the bustling workers with a tray of honey and lemon cakes sitting next to her on the table. Flour still clings to her hair, making the strands look grey instead of gold. Sandor shakes her shoulder to wake her, and she groans in protest, reluctant to sit up straight and open her eyes. "You're in no state to see the queen, little rose," he tells her. If anything, she looks like a peasant who snuck into the Keep to make off with a sack of food.