[for Arya]

[onceaqueen]

Rickon was bored.

Mother was busy doing something with some stinky vegetables she just got out of the garden. Rickon was not interested in that. Vegetables were yucky and if he stayed in the kitchen Mother might make him eat some. He did not want that. Father was not at home. Every other day or so he spent some time away from the house. Mother

Comments

[lonewolflives]

"-for Oberon is passing fell and wrath, because that she as her attendant hath a lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king-"

She paused, mostly because she'd forgotten what came next, but as she bent from her perch on a treestump to pick up her copy of the play, it became apparent there was another reason.

She listened. Footsteps? Maybe, but they much were lighter than she'd expect, but it didn't sound like someone sneaked. She glanced around for Nymeria but of course her recalcitrant wolf was nowhere to be found.

She listened hard, then decided there was nothing for it and crept towards the sound.

[onceaqueen]

Rickon was still waiting for the Lion to come. It was almost dark that one time... maybe he should wait longer. But Rickon didn't know how much longer it was until dark. It might be a long time.

He sat down in a patch of leaves and ferns and watched a brightly coloured bug crawling by. That was nice until the bug flew away and Rickon was bored again. It still wasn't dark yet.

Rickon started babbling to himself, long strings of sounds that would make no sense to anyone except him. To Rickon, he was making perfect sense, talking about the Lion and wondering where he was and how no one would play with him, but to anyone who happened to hear it it would sound very much like ah ah ah, bffffthhhhpt, eh eh ta!

[lonewolflives]

That was a more recognizable sound, and much easier to follow to the source than the faint steady rustling of someone moving across the ground, somewhere.

It was also not something you were meant to hear unaccompanied, which was something of a concern.

Especially since people didn't usually leave children in patches of leaves and ferns. Arya pushed a branch aside and stared for a second.

Then she glanced around, and even up, as if she expected Susan to be watching from up a tree.

"Rickon!" she said. "What are you doing all the way out here?"

She probably shouldn't have been a little proud.

[onceaqueen]

"Awya!" Rickon said happily, getting up and running to her. He hadn't found the Lion, but Aunt Arya was good too. "Wion," he said, which was as close to an explanation as he was going to get, and pointed. Rickon hadn't seen him, but if he did, he thought he would be right there.