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When Davos Seaworth comes back to White Harbor bringing Rickon Stark with him, it’s clear from the reaction that no one had expected him to succeed and everyone had hoped for him to.
Wex hadn’t thought that he’d have much luck with it, but he figures that it’s a good thing. Not that it changes much for him regardless – he tries not to think about what awaits him if and when the war is over. It’s not like he can go back to the islands, can he, not on his own, and to be entirely honest he doesn’t see why he should even attempt it until he can stay here. Whatever they say about northerners back on Pyke, they’re wrong – they’ve been fairer to him than Theon’s own men had been, and wouldn’t Wex have something to say about it if only he could speak. At least he can write now, some, and that’s already more than he thought he’d get, not to mention that he’s not wanting for food or shelter.
Anyway, Davos Seaworth brings back Rickon Stark, who’s taller and leaner than Wex remembers him, and a whole lot more terrifying – no seven-year old boy should be that silent and stare at you with old eyes such as his, and Wex sincerely hopes that he doesn’t remember him. Not when he has a direwolf at his side taller than him and who looks ready to devour at first sight. Davos Seaworth doesn’t do it with a show, though – he smuggled the boy out and then he smuggled him in again, and after he does Wyllis Manderly takes prisoner every Frey man that still was in the castle and declares for Stannis Baratheon. None of which Wex cares about.
What he cares about is the conversation he overhears between Davos Seaworth and Lord Glover.
“We should go to Winterfell at once,” Lord Glover says. “That’s where Lord Manderly is, and there’s no time to waste, not when he just conquered it. Mayhaps we might even be in time to save Greyjoy’s head from being cut, not that he’d deserve it.”
“What?”
“Last I heard, your king was thinking of having it. I don’t think he’d do it if he knew that he didn’t kill the Stark children.”
“Then maybe we should send a raven before leaving, shouldn’t we?”
“With this weather? We’d be wasting it.”
“Still, maybe he deserves to die, but I don’t think it’s my king’s business to do it. Especially for something he didn’t do. We should still try.”
“Well, as you wish – you did bring our liege lord back, I suppose it costs us nothing. Be ready to leave soon.”
Wex’s heart is beating painfully fast and he doesn’t even think before he stands up from the chair where he has been practicing his reading and tugs on Davos Seaworth’s sleeve – hopefully he won’t be mad, but from what he’s seen, he’s not the kind of man that would.
He turns around and takes a look at him. “Oh, that’s you. Been practicing more letters? I understand you even too well. Is there something I can do for you?”
Wex wishes that he knew enough of those damn letters to write it down, but he doesn’t.
He gestures to his ear, hoping that this doesn’t turn into some kind of ridiculous pantomime.
“You heard us before.”
Yes, he thinks, he understood it. He nods and takes a deep breath, unsure of how to go on, and then Davos reaches for one of his pockets and brings out a small piece of ruined paper.
“There’s ink on the table. Do you think you can write it down?”
He can’t. But maybe… well, maybe he can. Somehow.
He goes back to the table and takes the quill in between his hands, before slowly and painstakingly tracing those damned five letters on the piece of paper. He hates the look of them, they’re all bent wrong and shaky, but they should be clear enough. He hands the piece of paper back and Lord Davos frowns as he reads it.
Reminding him a lot of his own face when he started learning to.
So maybe that’s what he had meant before.
“Theon? Oh. You were his squire, weren’t you?”
He nods.
“Let me guess, you want to come with us.”
Wex feels his own eyes go wide in surprise – he hadn’t thought that it’d be this easy. He nods, more forcefully.
“Well, I can’t guarantee you that he’s going to be alive when we get there, but I don’t think Lord Glover will have anything to object. As far as I’m concerned, of course.”
Yes, Wex thinks again, and he runs to his small room to pack whatever few belongings he still has, and he hopes that Lord Glover does not, in fact, object. Or that they won’t object when he asks to visit, which might very well happen, but – until now, Wex had been sure that he had been the only survivor of the sack. And from what he’s heard of Bolton’s bastard since he was taken in here, he had assumed that if Theon had ended up captured by the likes of him he wouldn’t have survived. Now that he knows best, though… Wex really wants to see him again. It’s not just that at least he would see a familiar face, and it’s not even that he feels obligated. It’s that Theon might not have been as capable as his sister, and it was plain obvious even to Wex that he was trying too hard to live up to his name, and in the end he had bitten more than he could chew, but at the same time – well, he had been the first person that ever gave him any credit at all. He hadn’t argued once when he took the deal Wex’s father had offered him, he had stopped assuming that he was as dumb as everyone else thought the moment he had proof of it, he had trusted him as much as anyone would trust their squire. Wex hadn’t been the first to step forward when Theon had asked who was going to stay in Winterfell because of obligations – he had done it because as far as he was concerned Theon had more than earned it, and regardless of what he heard the others say… Wex had always thought that a lesser man would have escaped when he could instead of holding his ground. At least Theon had made a mistake and had chosen to stand the repercussions of it instead of feeling.
Wex really wants to see him again at least once – he also would like to at least tell him some of that, but that’d be his luck if he could – there’s no way for him to write all of that down, and he can’t ask someone else to do it for him.
Well, he’ll see when he gets to Winterfell, if they’re not too late.
--
Turns out that they’re not – the raven had arrived in time and Wex doesn’t care if people notice him exhaling in relief when he hears it. Then again, no one is paying attention to him, which is perfectly fine as far as he’s concerned. He’s left to his own devices until the evening though. When Lord Davos comes searching for him, everyone is feasting in the main hall. Well, everyone except Roose Bolton, his bastard, anyone named Frey inside the castle and whoever else hadn’t sided with Stannis – those are in the dungeons. Then again, there’s a Stark in Winterfell again – that’d be reason enough to feast, wouldn’t it?
Anyway, he isn’t expecting it when Lord Davos comes near him and obviously gestures at him so that he’ll follow out of the main hall. Wex does and they reach a staircase outside it, far enough from the noise.
“All right,” Lord Davos says. “I asked Lord Glover, Lord Manderly and His Grace. They both said that they have no problem with it as long as you don’t try to make him escape or something equally stupid. By the way, if I were you I wouldn’t do that – from what I’ve seen, his sister is trying to negotiate with His Grace, so there wouldn’t be the need. At one point this afternoon I figured I’d go and ask him. Theon Greyjoy, I mean.”
Wex gives him an expectant nod.
“I think that when I told him he couldn’t believe his own ears, but then he said of course, as long as I tell you something else first. He also said that if you didn’t want to go up there anymore after you heard it, he’d understand it.”
What? Wex can’t help shaking his head in disbelief.
“Well, I don’t know how many months he’s been captive, but they didn’t exactly do him good. No, wait, there’s no point in phrasing this nicely. If you met him right now without me telling you who he was first, you probably wouldn’t recognize him – that’s how bad it is, but from what I see, something tells me that you really don’t care. Do you?”
Wex shakes his head at once. No. He really can’t care less as long as Theon’s not dead, and he had thought that far already. He knows enough of what Ramsay Bolton used to do to his prisoners, if only because after months in White Harbor he’s heard enough of them.
“Right. Follow me then – don’t worry about having to leave, I got them to agree to let you stay as much as you want. Don’t look at me like that, it was a minute of my time and I think I get where you’re coming from.”
Wex doesn’t question his luck and follows him to the upper floor, until they reach a room guarded by a couple of soldiers. Lord Davos goes to talk to one of them.
“I’ll say a few words to him and then just let the boy in, nothing’s going to happen.”
“How long?”
“As long as he wants, I guess. It’s not as if any of them would escape, and it’s not as if any of them has pressing matters to attend.”
“And where is the king ordering this?”
“Downstairs, but since I’m his Hand, I think I’m allowed to take a few decisions, am I not?”
The guard pales at once and lets him in – Wex waits outside. Lord Davos walks out not much later.
“All right, you can go. Hopefully those two understood that they shouldn’t pry.”
He nods again, hoping that it shows that he’d be thanking Lord Davos profusely if he only could.
He gives him a half-smile before he leaves, so Wex supposed it worked.
Well, good. He takes a deep breath and walks through the door, feeling it when the guard closes it none too gently behind him. He supposes that any hope he had that he won’t be stared at horribly in the next few days is gone, but who cares – it’s not like he owes most of the people here anything and it’s not like he didn’t do his part, did he?
The room is dark at first – the window is open but there’s not much moonlight to go on, and the few candles are on what looks like a nightstand on the opposite side of it. It takes him a few seconds to adjust his eyes to it – that’s when he sees that someone is sitting on a bed next to where the candles are.
He wishes he could say something, but he can’t, and so he walks towards the bed and circles around it – he can already see what Lord Davos meant. The person sitting on it isn’t holding himself straight, for one. He swallows once and he’s about to take the next couple of steps, but then Theon stands up from the bed and seems to take a deep breath, and then he takes one of the candles from the nightstand before turning towards him.
“Oh,” he says, and Wex recognizes the voice at once. “Then they were telling the truth.”
Good thing that he recognized the voice, because the moment he actually can see Theon, he understands what Lord Davos head meant. For a moment he looks wholly like another person – he’s so thin now, Wex probably weighs more than him, his hair isn’t so dark and long anymore, he sees silver filling gaps in between his teeth glittering in the candlelight when for a moment Theon opens his mouth wide enough to notice it, and the hand holding the candle has just three fingers.
Now he understands why they said that Ramsay Bolton was a beast in human skin.
And why would he even doubt about them telling him the truth, regardless?
But the moment passes and – well, yes, he would be unrecognizable, but the eyes are exactly the same and Wex has spent months sleeping in the same room as Theon, and he can recognize his face – the traits are always the same.
He nods once, cursing for the umpteenth time the fact that if he opens his mouth no sound will come out of it.
“Gods,” Theon says, “I was sure no one else had survived that. Well, at least out of the two of us, it seems like one didn’t fare too bad. At least it doesn’t look like you did.”
Wex shakes his head – no, he can’t exactly complain about that.
“If you want to sit go ahead – sorry, I should have told you first thing.”
Wex sits down on the bed, and the thing that is most strange is that Theon looks maybe worried, and sounds like he really thinks that it was stupid of him not to offer him a seat at first, and it just makes no sense because the man he used to know wouldn’t have done that.
He shrugs, shaking his head, hoping that Theon gets that he doesn’t mind at all.
“And – it seems like I have to thank you again, shouldn’t I?”
The surprise must have shown on Wex’s face at that. Theon takes a breath and looks down at his right hand – there’s a finger missing from it.
“From what I heard, my head is still on my shoulders just because someone brought Rickon Stark back from wherever he ran off to. And that someone wouldn’t have done that, if you hadn’t been there to tell them where he went. Am I wrong?”
Wex shakes his head – he can’t deny that, but he’s glad for it.
“Then you have my thanks. Again. I didn’t forget that other time, you know. The one where you ended up shaming men who were a lot more seasoned than you, if I don’t remember wrong. Much good it did to you though, maybe you’d have been better off if you hadn’t stayed.”
He sounds so – so self-loathing that for a moment Wex has no clue of what he should do. If only he could speak. He can’t even write anywhere, and he’s not even sure he could.
Then he sees a fairly voluminous book on the nightstand and he figures that it’s worth giving it a try – he can read a lot better than he can write, anyhow, so maybe it’s not going to take him hours to do this.
He stands up and goes to take it – it’s some history of the Seven Kingdoms. Well, if anything maybe he’ll find what he’s looking for. Theon looks at him queerly as he opens the tome and starts looking through it, He doesn’t even waste time trying to make sense of what he’s reading, he just needs to find those two damned words possibly one next to the other.
He skims four or five pages about what seems like the Blackfyre rebellion when he finally sees them.
He moves closer to Theon, puts the book in between them and points at the worth it written in the middle of the column.
Theon visibly flinches in the candlelight. “I – I really don’t think so,” he rasps.
Wex resolutely points at the same two words again.
“At least one of us is sure of that.” He sounds like he’s willing to admit defeat on that point, but he obviously doesn’t share Wex’s opinion. Not that Wex doesn’t get it – he’s sure that if he were in Theon’s position he wouldn’t have traded holding his ground as bravely as one could with the kind of torture that makes you look decades older than you really are, but the thing is that he doesn’t regret it.
He sighs and looks through that book again – hopefully among the entire history of the seven kingdoms someone will have done something similar.
Minutes later, he finds out that according to whoever wrote this book, the late Lord of Castamere would have qualified – at least, there’s a rather dangerous and eventually failed but brave attempt written on there, so Wex supposes that it’s the case.
He shoves the book in between them again and points at the stupid sentence.
Theon visibly flinches again as he reads the top of the page, but then he looks down at where Wex is pointing and his eyes go wide all over again.
“You think that it was brave?”
Wex nods once, trying not to look surprised at how Theon sounds right now – he sounds like someone who can’t even grasp the notion.
“I don’t – well, I think you’re the one person in the realm of that opinion, but – it’s – I’m just glad you’re not resenting me for it.”
I was the one volunteering, Wex would like to state, but it’s not like he can.
He points at himself once. Then at the damn sentence. Then at himself again.
“Wait. You’re saying – you did that?”
He nods once.
“You mean – something like, it was your decision?”
He nods more forcefully – and isn’t he glad that this isn’t taking all the effort he was sure it would.
He looks down at the House Reyne pages again, desperately trying to see if he can find something – yes.
He taps on Theon’s shoulder, then points at a blame written towards the end of the last column and then shakes his head forcefully.
“If – if that meant that you’re not blaming me for it, I think you might be the only one in this realm as well.” He also sounds like he’s about to start crying, actually he reaches up with a hand and wipes at his eyes, but that’s the amount of it.
“I – I see that at least you picked up something useful since the last time we saw each other, didn’t you?”
Wex can recognize an abrupt change of topic for what it is, and for a moment he startles – what is he talking about? – but then Theon looks down at the book and raises an eyebrow and – oh. Right. He nods again, a tiny one, feeling it when some blood rushes to his cheeks, but he can’t help feeling ridiculously proud of himself. If anything because before he left the islands, no one would have ever thought that he’d get as far as that. Not that it wouldn’t take him a long while to read those two House Reyne pages from start to finish, but just being able to is good enough.
“Just reading?”
He shakes his head.
“Writing, too?”
He nods, though he shrugs after – he hopes it says some, not too much.
“A bit?”
He nods again.
“Why don’t you show me?”
Wex swallows, suddenly feeling self-conscious – one thing was the people who taught him to and another was Lord Davos (whose penmanship is probably as bad as Wex’s if he understood right), but this’d be different, and even if he couldn’t read Theon’s ravens back then, when he was in charge of sending them, he remembers that they were written finely, with graceful letters that looked nothing as unrefined like his own. He shrugs and has a look around – where would he even do that?
“Right. Wait a moment, my sister was writing a raven in here this morning and I think she left some paper behind.”
He stands up and takes one of the candles, heading for the other side of the room – he walks slowly and comes back walking slower than that, and when he sits down on the bed he places a decently sized piece of paper on the cover of the now-closed history of the seven kingdoms. Then he goes back where he came from – Wex can see a desk there, he thinks – and then comes back putting a small vial of ink and a quill next to the piece of paper (holding them in three, slightly shaking fingers).
“There. All yours. It’s not like she can’t get more of that.”
Wex swallows again and takes the quill, feels it between his fingers for a moment and then goes for it – he wets the tip with ink, and then he thinks for a moment before figuring that there’s no point in trying for something fancy. His name is the word he’s practiced writing most, and so his name it is. He puts effort in it, trying not to get ink smudged over his hand – if anything, he doesn’t want to make a mess of it. When he looks at it, he can at least tell himself that this is the best attempt he’s ever made at it – it doesn’t look too horrible. He hands it over a moment later, not knowing what to expect, but it definitely wasn’t Theon whispering something about of course that’d be your name in a way that Wex can’t really place, but he also looks kind of touched, and at least he’s not laughing at his poor attempt.
“Stop looking down,” Theon says a moment later, and – good, he sounds almost amused. Wex is sincerely happy to hear that. “That’s – that’s pretty damn good. And – good choice of word, I guess.”
Wex raises an eyebrow, hoping that it shows that he wants some clarification. It’s his name. It’s probably a dumb choice, not a good one. Everyone who can actually do this can write down his name, it’s nothing special.
“It’s – you have to know your name. Sorry. That probably doesn’t make sense to you and I don’t even know how to explain that, but really, don’t think that just because it’s an obvious choice then it’s not a good one. I can read that on your face.”
Wex suspects that he can read through the history of the seven kingdoms for hours but that he’ll never find anything close to I know yours, too. It’s also true that what Theon just said doesn’t make any sense, but Wex supposes it does to him. And it has to be pretty damn important from the way he says it. He honestly has no clue of why, when he gets the idea, he doesn’t stop himself – it’s just stupid, but by the time he’s thought better of it he has taken the piece of paper back and folded it in two. He rips out carefully the part he had written on before, then places the blank one on the book and takes the quill between his fingers again. Right. It’s not just his name that he can write, he can get beyond that (a bit), and he remembers the last time he wrote down the one he’s about to try – but he had been in a haste then, and he isn’t now. He pictures it in his head, the way he’d like it, not that he’ll ever manage it but maybe he can get close enough, and he takes his sweet time running the tip of the quill over the paper.
He has no clue of how long it takes him to put those damned five letters on paper – probably entirely too much – and the e is visibly written in steadier penmanship than the other four. But he’ll have to make do. It’s not as bad as it was the first time, looking at it as a whole, and it’s not like he can try it again on another piece of paper, so – fine. That’s it. He puts the quill away and he feels ridiculous as he hands the piece of paper over while looking down at his free hand – he’s been through too much for feeling embarrassed right now, he knows, but apparently he’s not having much control on his own reactions.
He hears Theon gasping and breathing in sharply a moment later, and when he dares turning he’s looking down at the paper in his hands as if – he doesn’t really know, but certainly not as if it’s just a piece of paper with a name written on it.
“Could I keep it?” he asks, his voice definitely not steady.
Well. That wasn’t what Wex had expected. He nods, it’s not as if he has any use for it, and then Theon folds it carefully before putting it somewhere under his cloak – probably a pocket in his shirt. He’s treating it as if it was some royal decree though, which is just weird because it’s really nothing and he could probably do a lot better than that a month from now.
Still, it feels nice, as nice as it used to feel whenever Theon sent an approving look his way years ago, which had always made Wex feel good because someone was actually happy with him and trusted him to do things right, even if he has no clue of what exactly he has done right until now.
“Thanks,” Theon says a moment later, and gods he sounds like he means it entirely. “And – can I tell you something?”
He shrugs. Of course he can.
“Your father probably should have known better than involving you in a deal for selling a horse he couldn’t ride. As if he thought he could get rid of two birds with one stone.”
He doesn’t need to say more – Wex gets it at once. And – the thing is, he hasn’t let himself think much about it. It’s not as if his lord father ever wondered twice if maybe there was more to him than his lack of voice, and when he had made that deal he had thought exactly the same thing. The horse had been a bad affair (for his lord father, obviously) and he had been looking to sell in the first place, and he had in fact thought bitterly that it felt as if his father had made some money out of getting rid of the two of them in the first place and therefore having gained all from it. Then again he might as well have thought that he was doing Wex a favor – after all he was squiring for the crown prince, wasn’t he?
And – gods, he wishes he could put everything he’s feeling right now into decent words, but he’s not sure that he can. It’s not like he relishes thinking about all that has happened since the sack of Winterfell (and since before, too), he doesn’t relish recalling that slaughter and the smell of burned bodies coming from the castle, he doesn’t relish at all remembering the trek from Winterfell to White Arbor and the way his stomach would clench in hunger. He doesn’t think that Theon relishes any of what happened to him either, and he’s positive that neither of them would do it all over again, but he still can’t bring himself to regret any of it. Not when at least it meant that he was given a chance to be something more than Lord Botley’s mute bastard son – and he’s perfectly aware that Theon didn’t have to accept that deal.
Except that he can’t say any of that. He’s smiling shakily (he knows he is, he can feel his grin faltering without needing a mirror) as he tries to come up with something, and in the end he can’t do better than touching Theon’s wrist lightly, giving it a small squeeze and trying not to shudder when he can feel under his fingers that it’s been skinned at some point.
It’s not going to be enough, he knows, but then Theon’s eyes narrow and he shakes his head as if he’s telling himself that he should just do what he’s thinking of, and then Wex feels shaking arms circling his shoulders slowly and not too tightly, as if he might want to get out of it. For a moment it feels weird, but then again the last time someone touched him like this it was probably his mother, who died when he was six or so, and – he doesn’t really want to get out of it. Whatever Theon is assuming.
So maybe he should have thought better before doing the same with a lot more urgency – he’ll realize later that it must have hurt for someone who looked that frail and whose back hadn’t probably been spared the flaying – but Theon doesn’t react badly when he does. If anything, he stops being tentative even if Wex can’t help noticing that if he’s using his full strength then it’s not half of what it used to be, but – it really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even matter that what he can feel under the layers of clothes is all hard angles and not much muscle, and it doesn’t matter that he can only feel three fingers digging into his shoulder. It doesn’t even matter that his eyes are burning and that some escaped tears fall on Theon’s cloak where he’s burying his face– it’s not as if anyone is there to think any less of the two of them. He actually doesn’t realize that he’s crying for real until he feels a hand running up and down his back as if to calm him down, but he hasn’t let himself in months and as it is, he just wants to get it out. Of course he’s doing it silently, same as he’s always done, and he doesn’t even know why he’s doing it now that nothing horrible is about to happen and he’s as safe as it gets, but he figures that if he thinks too much about it he won’t like the answers.
When he thinks he’s regained enough control of himself, he moves away enough that he can look up at Theon, and his eyes are wet, too, and he’s giving him a sad, knowing smile, as if he understands all too well.
He starts shaking his head, knowing that he must look embarrassed.
“Don’t,” Theon croaks, his hand squeezing his shoulder. “It’s fine. And I’ve done enough of that lately, I’d know. I mean, I was doing that just now, too, and at least this time it was for a good reason.”
And – that kind of makes him smile in spite of himself – the last thing he’d ever thought he’d hear was that. But – it feels nice, too, and when he leans back and looks at Theon again it’s obvious that he meant it. It’s probably also obvious to see that he hadn’t expected it.
“Don’t look at me like that. Of course it’s a good reason. Not everyone I brought along with me in there died, which is more than I thought, and then it seems like you don’t hate me for it, which – well, when they actually told me that you wanted to see me I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. Why would anyone want to?”
Wex would probably scream in frustration if he could, but he can’t, and if he could ,there would be no reason to do that in the first place, but – then the corner of Theon’s lips curl up slightly as he shakes his head.
“I guess you want to say something that would be too long to write down, wouldn’t it?”
He sighs and nods at him.
“Well, then how about you write that down for me when you can? If no one has taken my head by now I guess it’s not happening anytime soon.”
It’s going to take a long time then, Wex thinks, not overestimating himself, but – Theon obviously means it. For this entire conversation he has never seemed to say something he didn’t mean, and Wex would like to think that he could distinguish the two things. So he nods.
“All right. I’m holding you to it, though. Even if it takes you months.”
He nods again, and he knows he’s almost grinning, and – well, it feels nice to have a reason to, for once.
“Good. And – wait, won’t they give you trouble if you stay for too long?”
Wex shakes his head – as far as he’s concerned, stay as much as you want doesn’t mean that they’ll give him trouble if he leaves whenever he wants to.
“Oh. All right then. Just – just make yourself comfortable then. It’s not like I’m going to fall asleep on you.”
Wex chooses to ignore the implications in that and decides that he’s going to do just what he’s been asked, since Theon insists – he sits up with his back against the bed’s headboard and drags the history book in between them. Theon does the same a moment later, though he puts a pillow up horizontally before he sits.
“So what, am I telling you how I ended up here instead of getting myself killed and you’re going to hope that if you go through that book long enough you might find enough full sentences to tell me what you’re thinking of it?”
That was more or less the idea behind it, yes. He nods.
“Fine. You asked for it, though.”
So it takes them a couple of hours, but all things considered, they manage pretty decently. Wex doesn’t leave until Theon passes over from what looks like sheer exhaustion, but as he walks out of the room, he knows what he wants to do. It’s not as if they need him anymore in White Arbor, and he’s sure that he can find someone to help him with his writing with not much effort.
He waits for a while though, until he’s sure of what his liege lady’s intentions are. When it’s official that Asha Greyjoy is going back to the iron islands for a new kingsmoot with her brother and an alliance with Stannis Baratheon, he asks to speak to her.
Well, figuratively.
He spends entirely too much time writing down the basics of what he would say if he actually could, but at least he’s done by the time they had told him to go to her room.
“Why,” she says when she sees him, “I was told that you survived the sack. And I guess I have to thank you for more or less clearing my brother’s name, or this would have been harder. I suppose you want to ask something in exchange for it.”
He nods.
“Very well, let’s hear it.”
He hands her the piece of paper where he had painstakingly written, I want to come with you.
“I suppose you mean, with me and my brother and not just with me, don’t you?”
He nods again. And a moment later she grins, looking quite pleased with it. “I don’t see why not. Is that all?”
He shrugs and nods again – what else should he want? “Are you sure? I mean, you might not have had a choice or you might have done it for different reasons, but you did do me a huge service, regardless. It seems hardly a reward. Not that I mind, of course. Hells, at least it’ll do good if he’s not entirely surrounded by people who hate him.”
No question about who the him is.
For a moment he considers it, but – no. He doesn’t really need anything that she could give him, and if she’s allied with a king he could ask for a legitimization, maybe, but what good would it make? He shakes his head after coming up with absolutely nothing.
“Well then, as far as I’m concerned it’s done. We’re leaving in a couple of days, be ready.”
So maybe he’s grinning widely as he leaves the room, and if the guards who heard the one-sided conversation are whispering to themselves and saying that if he actually wanted what he asked for then he must not be right in the head, Wex doesn’t really care. It’s not anything he’s not familiar with, and if they don’t get it it’s their problem, not his. He has good enough reasons, and so what if as he goes back to the small room he had been granted he’s thinking about a certain letter that he swears to himself he’ll write down as soon as possible?
After all, if he starts thinking about it now, it’s going to take a lot less time when he actually sits down and writes it, so he might as well get started.
End.