The Provenance || Jon Snow | Game of Thrones

3.08

"Ask her, if you ever see her again. Or letter Silver Tongue; she was there. Ask her who came back for Sansa when the mob had her on her back. They would have taken her every which way and left her there with her throat cut open," the Hound relates, and the amount of detail he prescribes seems to reassure Arya of his honesty all the same. And though she now seems to understand this truth, the Hound cannot find as much humour in this female than her sister. Indeed, Sansa Stark is the epitome of all goodness in the world, yet a mask to her darker instincts of her bloodthirsty ancestors. She is everything the Hound loved about Gabrielle Baelish, but in a simpler form that was coming into herself, not without tragedy but without the corruption of any insipid fathers.

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The only light playing on their faces is that of the fiery torch held in the hand of Stannis Baratheon, free to range across his chiseled face, while playing the lines of steel bars across the cheeks of Davos. It is the last person Davos expected to see tonight--especially after his attack of the red priestess--but this king seems particularly troubled by the ongoings of Melisandre, an expression Davos knows well from his own experience.

"The darkness will devour them all, she says. The night that never ends. Unless I triumph," Stannis relates to Davos, his eyes a steel and unwavering grey, though fogged with worries and duty that he cannot relate to. His expression meets Davos, admitting, "I never asked for this. No more than I asked to be king. We do not choose our destiny, but we must do our duty, no? Great or small, we must do our duty. What's one bastard boy against a kingdom?"

Davos eyes Stannis Baratheon and sees beneath the mask and words, knowing this to be an occasion where Stannis wants him to question his logic--to prove him wrong. So, he has to ask for the context of his powers, "Your Grace, why did you come to see me today?"

"I came to free you," Stannis responds in his blunt and unemotional fashion, though adding, "If you swear never to raise your hand to the Lady Melisandre again."

"I swear it," Davos acquiesces, even regarding himself as a little deranged to have attempted to expunge her life. "I can't swear never to speak against her."

Despite his character and situation. Stannis Baratheon grins in a rare instance of humour, remarking bluntly, "You have little regard for your own life."

"Quite little, Your Grace. Verging on none," Davos jokes pleasantly, though he sees through the mist of duty and confusion, quantifying the situation, "You could have freed me yesterday or tomorrow, but you came to me now before this boy is put to the knife because you knew I'd counsel restraint. You came to hear me say it because you believe it yourself. You're not a man who slaughters innocents for gain or glory. When my son was five he said to me, 'I don't ever want to die.' I wanted to say to him, 'You won't, child. You won't ever.' I hated the idea of him lying awake in the dark, afraid. I think mothers and fathers made up the gods because they wanted their children to sleep through the night."

The last line sets both men into a sense of wonder, though a believer and an unbeliever. To think of such cause of tales and folklore--as either reason to have fear or true stories that have turned into legend. Of course, neither Stannis nor Davos can known the truth of such folklore, but the eldest Baratheon has to relate all the same, "I saw a vision in the flames. A great battle in the snow. And fire. I saw it. And you saw whatever she gave birth to. I never believed, but when you see the truth, when it's right there in front of you as real as these iron bars, how can you deny her god is real?"

And that's exactly why Davos fears Melisandre.

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