This was destined to be a sleepless night.
Many people will be sleepless this night.
Queen Cersei, who was thoroughly humiliated; Prince Joffrey, who was threatened by his cheap father; the Hound, who was sent flying by the Mountain's sword; Mikael, the Butcher's son and apprentice, who escaped death; Arya, who hated Sansa and Joffrey to the core; and the people of the Riverlands, who were awakened from their sleep by a great fire.
Many people are destined to have a sleepless night!
As the Hound rode through the town's main street, Arya spoke with her father, Eddard Stark, inside the three-story stone fortress inhabited by the Northerners.
This dialogue will have a profound impact on the future trajectory of the world.
The conversation begins with Sansa apologizing to Arya.
After the guards, Sister Mordan, servants, and close friend Jenny Poole had all gone to rest, Sansa, accompanied by her father, knocked on the door of Arya's Cottage.
Arya opened the door and saw Sansa. Her eyes immediately turned cold and sharp. She slammed the door shut, but it was blocked by a large hand. Only then did Arya see that her father had also arrived.
Arya then turned and left, and Sansa and her father entered. Her father, Duke Eddard, gently closed the door.
"Arya!" Sansa said, her eyes filled with pity.
"Don't talk to me!" Arya shouted. Although the incident was over, she was still agitated. If it weren't for Bernie suddenly appearing, her best friend Michael would have been beheaded.
That's a human life, a life of the Stark family in the North. How could Sansa be so indifferent, just to marry Joffrey and become a queen like Cersei?
Arya disliked Prince Joffrey and Queen Cersei from their time in Winterfell, but Sansa was absolutely smitten with them and even showed her her embroidery to the Queen, taking pride in receiving her praise.
Sansa is disgusting, but of course Prince Joffrey and Queen Cersei are even more disgusting!
In Winterfell, Arya witnessed Joffrey humiliating her older brother Robb Stark. Robb was practicing swordsmanship in the training grounds when Joffrey saw him and mocked him. Robb challenged Joffrey to a duel, and Joffrey drew his sword, threw it on the ground, and ordered Robb to pick it up and hand it to him. Robb reluctantly went to retrieve the sword, but Joffrey suddenly kicked it away and, in the name of the prince, ordered Robb to pick it up.
When Robb angrily challenged Prince Joffrey to a duel, the prince smugly summoned his hound Sandor Clegane, who told Robb that he was only qualified to challenge him to a duel if he defeated his hound first.
Robb didn't fight the Hound. Jon Snow, who was closest to Arya, arrived and persuaded Robb to leave. Joffrey then loudly mocked Jon as a despicable bastard.
From that day on, Arya harbored no goodwill towards Joffrey and deep hostility towards the arrogant Queen Cersei.
Sansa, however, tried every means to please Joffrey and Cersei, and after the king proposed a marriage alliance between the two families, she repeatedly begged her father to agree to her marriage with Joffrey.
Today's events, with Sansa ignoring the facts and once again choosing to side with Joffrey, showing no remorse for Mikael's life, have made Arya truly hate Sansa.
Sansa stood with her hands clasped together, her figure slender and her demeanor graceful.
"I'm sorry!" Sansa said.
"I don't have a sister like you, I hate you." Arya stared at Sansa, making no attempt to hide her disgust for her.
Eddard gestured for Sansa to go and rest, and Sansa left the room looking helpless. She was dignified and elegant, and the Stark family's upbringing of Sansa as a lady was quite successful in terms of 'noble temperament and elegant manners'.
"Arya, come here!" Ed said gently. He sat down and stretched out his hands to his daughter.
Arya threw herself into her father's arms, her eyes instantly welling up with tears.
"It's all in the past. No matter what, you're still sisters. I hope you can love each other like sisters, understand?"
"But she's lying!"
"No, Arya, Sansa didn't lie. She just didn't tell the truth, which may not be a real lie."
"If she had told the truth, Mika wouldn't have been executed. And my direwolf… I drove her away… my Nymeria… is gone forever."
"Mike is alright, Arya, he's fine. If you want a pet, I'll buy you a cat or a dog in King's Landing!"
"No, I don't want cats and dogs, I only want Nymeria. Father—I hate Sansa, I really do! It wasn't you who saved Mikael, Father, it was the Mountain."
"Arya!" Father Ed said seriously, "Listen to me, Joffrey is Sansa's fiancé, and she will spend the rest of her life with him. As a proper wife, she cannot betray her husband. Although she is not married to Joffrey yet, she is already his fiancée, do you understand? Sansa has her own difficulties now, and you are more responsible than her, so you should be more understanding of her. In the future, you will also have a fiancé, and you will also have your own husband. At that time, you cannot be so willful. A proper wife would rather suffer herself than betray her husband."
"What if he was wrong?"
"Admonish him behind closed doors, but in public, give him face and uphold his honor and dignity."
Arya still felt wronged, and she fought back her tears. She couldn't accept that she would have to compromise herself to get married: "I will not get married, Father!"
Ed smiled slightly, gently stroking his daughter's hair, not wanting to 'dwell' on the issue with her.
"Arya, you just said that it was the Mountain who saved Mikay? What happened?"
"It's not Bernie herding horses behind the bushes, it's The Mountain," Arya said.
Ed was startled.
Arya's words were far beyond his expectations.
"Did the Mountain witness your fight at Ruby Beach?"
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"Yes, when I was leading Nymeria across the bushes, I saw the Demon Mountain. He told me to come with him and said he would bring me back that night and maybe testify for me."
"You didn't agree to him?"
"I asked his name and learned that he was the great villain, The Mountain. I refused his invitation and fled down the river with Nymeria. I was afraid that Nymeria would be killed by the king because she had bitten Joffrey, so I chased her away in a forest. I threw stones at her, but she wouldn't leave. Finally, I pulled out my sewing needle to drive her away, and she finally ran away…" Arya's tears finally became uncontrollable and flowed down her face. She wiped them with her sleeve, her face covered in tears.
Ed gently wiped away his daughter's tears, but Arya's tears flowed again, barely dried before they streamed down her face once more, and snot began to run down her nose. She missed her direwolf, Nymeria!
"Don't cry, you should go to sleep. Tomorrow morning, we'll go to the woods to find Nymeria." Ed stroked his daughter's hair and wiped away her tears again.
"Really?" Arya's eyes lit up with hope.
"Really!" Ed assured him.
Arya's little face immediately lit up with a bright smile.
Ed smiled too.
A child will be a child; one sentence touched her heart, and she immediately smiled, even though her eyes were still brimming with tears!
*
Ed walked out of Arya's room, gently closed the door, and stood outside his daughter's room for a while. When he heard that his daughter had stopped making a fuss and was quiet, he gently pushed the door open again, listened to his daughter's even breathing, and then silently closed the door again before leaving with peace of mind.
Eddard didn't go back to his room to sleep; instead, he went to the roof. The scene between Queen Cersei and Prince Joffrey had left him in a terrible mood and unable to sleep. Joffrey was his future son-in-law, the man he would spend his life with Sansa, and this marriage was causing him a lot of distress.
The Mountain saved Michael's life today and cleared Arya's name. Why did he do that? Eddard couldn't understand, and was confused. Whatever the Mountain's motives, Eddard Stark knew he owed the villain a favor.
Ed was upright and honest, and he clearly distinguished between gratitude and resentment. He didn't necessarily have to retaliate against those who wronged him, but he always made sure to repay those who were kind to him.
Without a trace, the Demon Mountain planted a tiny seed. In the future, as more and more of these'seeds' grow, once they take root and sprout, they will grow into a green expanse.
Eddard Stark was lost in thought on the roof, unable to calm his mind. Inadvertently, he saw the western sky, which had turned bright red without him noticing.
There's a fire in the west!
Below that sky lay the granary estate of Lord Horst Tully, Eddard Stark's father-in-law.