The Godswood

[Vex]

"Sometimes," Dacey agreed, stopping in her tracks to turn to her sister-in-law and noticing her book. She supposed Saesha wasn't a follower of the old gods, but it was as she'd said. People came here for a peace of mind, especially seeing as this castle lacked a proper garden.

"Care to see the heart tree?" she offered, cautiously optimistic about the lack of crows.

[Barley]

Saesha followed no Gods... maybe Lys' naked love Goddess.

"Of course. You follow the old God's do you not?" she asked to make conversation on the way. She was not actually that interested in seeing the Heart Tree, but wanted to get to know Dacey a little. She had some time spare after checking her schedule and the position of the sun. She'd left Simon at home.

[Vex]

"Yes," replied Dacey, to whom small talk was a foreign and unpleasant concept. Only once they'd crossed half the distance to the pale tree did she look at Saesha again. "What of you?" she asked. "The dragon gods?"

[Barley]

"No, my house does not follow the Gods of Valyria, though they are far more interesting than the Gods of the seven. When I was younger I spent a lot of time studying my Mother's gods, from Lys, but I do not follow any really. If there are Gods, none of them are listening," she explained.

"I know very little about the Old Gods though, could you explain them to me?"

[Vex]

Dacey looked at her briefly as if trying to decide whether or not she was being serious. She'd pegged her for an avid reader.

"They're in the trees, the streams, the dirt and the wind," she said, looking ahead in case Saesha was pulling her leg after all. "There are no priests, ceremonies or set oaths. Everything there is, is between you and the gods."

She paused as they reached the heart tree and looked at its grotesque face. "I don't know if they're listening," she said after a while, raising a hand to one of its twisted eyes. A moment later she dropped it, as if she'd suddenly changed her mind about touching the bark for some reason. "But I think they're watching."

She looked up at the hanged maester's remains. "Will you help me get him down from there?" she asked, turning to Saesha, noticing for the first time that her eyes were mismatched.

[Barley]

Saesha looked up at the remains of the Maester and nodded silently. She didn't exactly... want to, but she would help. If only to show she's willing herself to get her hands dirty. She had spent five years at war with Dacey and Belric and her brothers even if she had not spent time with the woman herself. She'd seen awful things too.

If nothing else it ruined the beauty of the area.

[Vex]

These weren't exactly the best conditions for it, but every time Dacey had returned with a spear or Yoren in order to remove the skeletor, the murder of crows had conveniently been present. She gave Saesha a measuring look, and after a brief subconscious calculation, walked over to the dangling maester, intertwining her fingers to give her sister-in-law a boost.

[Barley]

Saesha looked at her for a moment before she realised what she wanted. With a sigh, she put down her notebook and pen and walked over to Dacey and accepted the boost. She pulled herself next to the tree and sat there.

"Do you wish for me to pull you up, or would you like to catch him?"

[Vex]

"Just slide him off the branch," said Dacey simply, looking up.

[Barley]

Saesha did as instructed, and pushed the maester off the branch touching as little of him as possible.

[The Gambler]

The mound of loosely held together bones and gristle clattered to the grass, the skull popping off and rolling along the lawn.

[Vex]

"Need help getting down?" asked Dacey, though in her mind it was more of a rhetorical question. She looked at the pile of bones and briefly wondered whether maesters were buried along with their chains.

[Barley]

Saesha lowered herself gingerly down to the floor, landing with an elegant drop from the tree. She was not really dressed for grave digging anf tree climbing. "I can manage" she looked at the maester. "I hear you are going on the hunt for the bandits."

[Vex]

Dacey nodded. "Bastards stole my horse," she said. It had been Hoster's job to deal with them. Whether he'd spent the past few weeks on a bender or he was just incompetent, Dacey didn't really know.

[Barley]

"It's the middle of winter, they have likely eaten your horse" Saesha said, in a voice that was... badly attempting to mimic comforting.

"You should look for them round the clay pits. The traders are avoiding that area"