As The Poets Say

Lannia III (Hope Where it Was Once Forgotten)

Lannia wasn't sure that she really missed King's Landing, with all the liars and whores and spies, but after weeks of traveling, she did miss sleeping in a bed. Often she woke up with bruises on her hips from laying on the ground in one position for too long.

She had lost track of the exact number of days they had been traveling for. At least a month, she was sure of that, and yet it was probably closer to two. The black dye had faded out of her hair so much that it nearly looked like it's regular color again, and Brienne hadn't missed her chance to point it out. 'If it was so important to dye it before, shouldn't you do it again?' She had asked.

The three of them had passed the inn at the crossroads many days ago. Lannia had, at first, tried her best to keep track of time, and had tried to start over and count the days when they left the inn, but she always ended up getting distracted and losing count. The thing she did remember, and was sure she always would, was the boy they had met at the inn who had served them a particularly delicious kidney pie. According to him, he was called Hot Pie, which was an ironic name to have. He also said he knew Arya Stark, which was such good news that Lannia nearly cried. She had only known Arya a little while back in King's Landing, but the two had always gotten along; Lannia also knew how sad Sansa truly was that her sister had gone missing, leaving her completely alone in the Keep.

Aside from all the thinking, the only good thing about traveling for so long was that Lannia had finally come up with a name for her horse. She remembered a character in a story that Malina used to tell her every night when she couldn't sleep; a kind but strong warrior with black steel armor, and gentle waves of inky black hair underneath the helmet. The story seemed a good fit for her horse, and so he was named Aramis.

Neither Pod nor Brienne felt the need to do something as silly as naming their horses, and Brienne almost outright refused to call the horse Aramis at all. Lannia didn't mind too much. The name would stay between her and Aramis, and that was okay with her. It didn't get brought up in conversation too often either way, but then again, not a lot ever got brought up in conversation.

Most of the time, Brienne didn't like to make small talk or have many conversations in general. On days like that, Lannia and Pod rode side by side, and had quiet conversation to keep themselves sane. They knew Brienne was always listening, even if she never joined in. On the other days, she would indulge them a bit and participate. Today, from the morning when they all woke up and set out onto the road again, it had been a talkative kind of day. At first, they mostly just told stories about things from King's Landing; being in the positions they were in, Pod and Lannia often had some of the best stories to tell, because they always heard the best gossip. Some of it even made Brienne laugh.

They had somehow migrated back to the question Brienne had asked her many times in the past few months. "Really, Lannia, how did you learn how to use that bow?"

"Is it so hard to believe that maybe I just picked it up?" Lannia teased, suddenly very aware of the way the bow and quiver of arrows felt on her back.

"Well, you were born in King's Landing, weren't you? Not a lot of city ladies, especially ones who work in the Keep, ever learn how to defend themselves like that, and they certainly don't just 'pick it up.'" Brienne was right, of course, and Lannia knew that. She supposed that if anyone else understood that as intimately as she did, it would have been Brienne.

"Actually, I have no idea where I was born. I can only assume that it was in Westeros, since that's where I am now," Lannia answered, reaching out absentmindedly to run her fingers through Aramis's mane with one hand, holding the reins tight with the other.

"You weren't born in King's Landing?" Brienne asked, casting a quick glance at Lannia over her shoulder before returning her eyes to the path.