Chapter Text
The air was dry, sizzling all around her, waiting for something, anything to happen. Lyanna Stark looked around and wolfish smile crept to her hidden face.
She felt it in her skin, in her blood and bones, the life and energy that echoed all around poured inside her like she was just an empty glass, waiting to be filled. Or maybe it was the other way around, maybe she was the one giving the energy to the world. She didn`t know, all she knew was that she was one with the world, one with nature.
Delicate and calculatedly she moved from one place to another. Her whole body obeying every though her mind made. It was every bit as exhilarating as she´d dreamed it would be.
Never had she felt this level of ecstasy, this level of freedom and ease that completely overwhelmed her in the most exquisite manner.
Silently she prayed for an endless and unstoppable fight. She asked to die at that moment, having finally tasted the rush of true emotions and real warmth in her blood.
With that fight, Lyanna thought with a smirk, she´d finally felt alive. She prayed to the gods to let her linger in this frozen moment for eternity.
But as always, her prayers were not answered. Gods were cruel creatures, crueler even than men, and she knew this very well.
As a child, she had spent days in the godswood, praying for her Lady Mother Lyarra to stop suffering and to die in peace. She had been 5 at the time and fully believed that the old gods would listen to her, but in the end, weeks later, she´d heard Lyarra´s final screams loud and clear from her bedroom, half a castle away. She´d prayed twice since then, once for her brother Ned, to stop his trip to the south, to stay with them and the other for herself, when she was told she would marry Robert Baratheon.
Needless to say, the gods’ didn´t come thru in either of those moments.
Lyanna felt the need to cry out in joy as she jumped over the man´s poorly executed stab. She grabbed him by the shoulders and used him as a ground keep to land safely behind him. She waited for him to turn, eager to see what he would do next. Expecting, begging for him to continue the fight.
Sadly for Lyanna Stark, all good things come to an end.
The man turned, and after a moment, he fell to his knees, yielding his sword.
He was sweating and panting, his eyes wide open, waiting for his destiny, like it was something he didn´t control, like she was just executing some order that could´ve never been stopped.
Lyanna suddenly felt disgusted by the man. She pushed him to the ground with her leg as silence fell over all the highborn Lords and Ladies watching the fight, she enjoyed the stillness of the moment for one small second. And then she struck the man´s head with her sword, and he fell exhausted to the ground.
A loud roar echoed everywhere as applause and flowers fell to her.
She had won the fight, just as she had done the last two. She proudly bowed before the King, and waited for her chance to get out of there unnoticed.
Lyanna felt his eyes on her and turned to face him.
He knew, she realized, smiling inside, a warm feeling running through her veins, the sudden need to laugh invading her. He was the only one in that gigantic crowd of Lords and Ladies who were watching her, who knew the identity of the knight of the Laughing tree.
Rhaegar Targaryen knew who she was.
***
A small, warm wind rushed inside the tent, making everything turn and twist. It moved around like a small cub, sniffing and messing everything up, but not more than she had.
Sitting in the chair, she felt stone cold now, the energy from the tournament long gone, dead inside as she tried to wear her innocent girl mask, the problem was her Father wasn´t buying it.
Maybe Brandon will help me, she though, trying not to look at her older brother, maybe Brandon will be on my side this time.
“What if it would´ve been another?” Her father spat to her, turning and acknowledging her for the first time since he´d walked in. He was actually angry, Lyanna noted, his face was pale and his eyes bright. He was truly furious at her.
Lyanna looked at him not saying a word.
“What if it was your betrothed who walked in on you? What would´ve you done then?”
“Asked him to leave and please tell everybody else no to bother her” Brandon said from the table, smiling while he poured himself some wine. Lyanna noticed how his eyes stayed cold.
Ice cold.
“This is not the time for jokes Brandon” Lord Rickard whispered angrily “your brother just caught your sister with the armor of the knight the king wants dead and with a running away bag in her hands. She was planning to run away with a man the King hates”.
How is it that you always get to the wrong conclusion Father? Is it something you learned, or just your nature?
She´d tried telling him the truth, but he hadn´t believe her. She´d said with a clear and calmed tone that she was the knight of the Laughing tree and he didn´t believe her. After seeing her fight in Winterfell for years, after she offered to put the armor on and even after she swore she wasn´t running away with some lowborn knight, Rickard Stark still didn´t trust his daughter.
Not that I would blame him, she though, almost smiling, but she was too hurt to smile.
He continued to talk to her like she was a child, and soon, Lyanna was lost in her fantasies, far away from the tournament and the man that stood in front of her, lecturing her about her duty as a woman when he would ever understand what it truly meant. She pictured herself in one of those cities the sailors always talked about. Different waves of smells would hit her and exotic colors and animals would surround her, making her feel lost, so wonderfully lost.
“She can´t marry Robert now” Ned´s soft voice crept inside her day dream and dragged her back to reality.
Rickard Stark turned to his second son, the one that was more like him, the silent wolf, and listened carefully.
Lyanna almost started to laugh.
Everybody listens to Ned.
Everybody should listen to Ned.
“She can´t marry Robert” Ned repeated, walking towards her, but without looking at her. He just stood beside her seat, and Lyanna understood he wasn´t defending her out of love, he was doing so because that was what his black and white honor told him to do. But Lyanna didn´t care, she held to her quiet brother´s words like she was drowning, because in a way, she was. She couldn’t take more talks about duty.
Fuck duty, she would´ve said if she weren´t a Lady.
“She´ll run away and we´ll never see her again. It is better to have her marry someone that will treat her the way she wants”.
Rickard raised an eyebrow and suddenly smiled kindly, sadly, lovingly.
He knew Ned was right. Everybody in the room knew Ned was right.
“It´s not that simple Ned. I can´t just go and tell Storm End´s Lord that my daughter is a wild woman who will never listen or pledge to his will and who will most likely run away at the first chance she gets, and there for, I can´t marry her to him because she would most likely embarrass him in front of everyone”.
“Tell him the other truth then” Brandon said with a chuckle “tell him you saw him bed three different girls in one night and you though he offended your daughter with his drunken lust”.
Four, dear brother, he took four girls to his bed, not three. Three was two nights ago, when he´d lost his jousting match.
The playful wind invaded the tent again, and suddenly, almost out of the blue, Lyanna realized her father and brothers were deciding her fate again, but this time she was in the room with them, and not behind the door listening like some petty spy. She could say something.
She wanted to open her mouth, to say something, to scream at them. She couldn`t.
“Dorne” said Lord Rickard after moment. “It´s Dorne were she´ll be treated the way she wants to. The North has never had an alliance with Dorne and there is no other place in Westeros were woman are treated as equally as men. A Prince of Dorne will marry your sister”.
She didn´t get say that time either, and it made her even more detached than when she was told she´d marry Lord Baratheon. She felt frozen, stuck there forever, and let them continue their plans in silence.
It didn´t matter she wouldn´t marry the Prince that ruled, she was to be sold to the Red Viper, who had three girls already and was at least ten years older than she was.
The crow was sent that same night, and Princess Elia was approached the next morning. With a gift in hand and a smile on his face, Rickard Stark talked to the woman about all the good things that would come out of a marriage. Lyanna had the small, almost fading hope that the woman would tell her Father that Prince Oberyn wouldn´t marry a child, but it was crushed. The princess was delighted and the arraingment was made.
The last one to be told was Robert, who surprisingly stayed silent while Ned talked to him. That same night, Lyanna found him in her bed with another girl. She almost wanted to laugh or maybe cry, she didn´t really know, but she felt too cold to any of those things. She only envied Robert for being capable of feeling something.
She´d been sold again, just because she´d made the mistake of getting caught in her last rebellion.
Maybe I deserve it, she thought, maybe it´s my punishment for not fulfilling my duty.
For a girl that couldn´t hear more about her duty, she often thought about it.
"It´s the Stark blood in you" her mother had told her once "you are wild, my child, but you are also honorable".