Chapter Text
AN: Warning that there is reference to sexual assault in this chapter, nothing bad comes of it. Just wanted to warn folks.
Tanith Aiyana, or The Good Hunter as she was more commonly known before her arrival in Westeros, heard the bandits before she saw them. Three men and they had picked a good spot on the road to Harranhal, no doubt hoping to waylay small folk and tradesmen who risked traveling alone or in small groups. Tanith slowed her horse and smiled, aware that had she wrapped her chest before setting out that morning likely the bandits would have let the solitary Hedge Knight pass. They were scavengers, hoping to gain coin to see them warm and fed through the next Winter.
“You are not as stealthy as you seem to believe. Step forward in a semblance of men rather than skulking beast and perhaps we shall treat and both depart with greater understanding.” Tanith’s voice had a faint accent, a strange mix oh Yharnam and the distant lands of her birth she recalled only as the faintest of dreams. To the people of Westeros, she no doubt sounded like some bastard child of the free cities and when she had coin, most left it at that.
The bushes to her left rustled and two men stepped forth, one big and one lithe and whipcord thin. The bandits third companion remained hidden, no doubt hoping to charge out and grab the reigns of Tanith’s horse should she turn to flee. The whipcord thin man shot Tanith a sly grin and hefted a warhammer, old and spotted with patches of rust but still perfectly functional. “Sorry there ‘Ladyship’..” the word dropping scorn “..but that’s some mighty big words for the likes of us. Why don’t you get down from that fine looking mare and don’t struggle too much. You do that and me and the boys won’t be too rough with you and we’ll even leave you a pretty dress to get to the tourney with?”
Tanith felt a thin smile grace her mouth, expertly dismounting from Flora, her mare seemed slightly agitated as Tanith patted her nose and with gentle hands urged her to move out of the splash zone. Turning to the bandit leader, The Good Hunter tilted her head slightly to one side as if the Bandit were an interesting insect she had discovered crawling across the ground. “You intend to have your way with me then? A young foreign woman travelling alone?” The bandits grin widened at the seeming capitulation of the rider and started advancing forward. When The Good Hunter smiled though, displaying more teeth and a wider smile than could possibly fit in a human face, the bandit realised that perhaps this young women travelling alone had reason to not need guards. Tanith reached behind her and grasped one of her favourite weapons for dealing with would be rapists.
“It seems even here, Beasts can wear the skins of men…”
As the whirligig saw span up to full power, the woods echoed with the screams of blood and blades.