She studied the run she had acquired on her silken elbow before putting her arm back in the same position that had helped wear the thin thread apart. It had been easier before, to say she was no lady, when she had only worn homespun dresses of the north that she had embroidered under the watchful gaze of her ever dour Septa.
Even with the small lines of pulled thread at the hem of her gown and elsewhere, the dress was beautiful. Like all the clothing she had been given. The stitching was finer than any she could accomplish and it only served to make her feel like she was always looking back to before she wore such things. Before Harrenhal, before Robert and even before that, when she was naught but a girl learning swordplay and riding with her brothers, a winter rose stolen from father's glass house tucked into her hair.
In those times, she had been certain and sure, with a trust in the future that only a thirteen year old girl born of the north could have.
Winter was always on its way, only a few years from when she was young to when it arrived. Its course, like all winters before it, would be plodding and all-too consistent. Indefatigable snows would press against the walls of Winterfell. Such was life.
She knew it to be true, because Old Nan had said this and more when she had laid in her bed at night, while the creak-creak of Old Nan's rocking chair echoed in her bedroom. Now, it was false spring, and without Rhaegar she was adrift in the red sands of Dorne, her only outlet the three men who guarded her existence. Winter was coming, but it was still only a promise.
Cold was winding its way south, and the nights were beginning to be blessedly chill in comparison to each dry and empty day in the Tower of Joy.
She considered her guardians something like nuncles after having spent almost a year with them, at least Ser Arthur Dayne and Ser Oswell Whent. Ser Gerold Hightower had come later, and with him a stony silence that had moved in like a cloud to smother the mirth of Ser Whent and the kind attentiveness of Ser Dayne.
Ser Hightower had brought news with him, she knew. She inferred that it was the cause of Ser Dayne's look of pity when he thought she couldn't observe him in her periphery. Ser Whent's humor became darker, if it could be believed.
She grimaced, thinking of the steps to the dance they all marched along in willingly. Every day she asked Ser Dayne for any ravens or news, and each time he would tell her that there was nothing but what was already known; Aerys was dead by his own Hand, the North had declared for Lord Arryn and Robert Baratheon. No word of Brandon, Ned, Benjen or her father Rickard. Rhaegar was in the midst of fighting, but she was never told exactly where.
Ser Dayne was lying to her, to be sure, but he did it with such quiet desperation in his voice that pleaded with her to continue asking if she must, but not to expect a true answer. It made her wonder what happened to the wolf in her that she abided by this tense arrangement that seemed to grow more fraught with each passing day.
Rhaegar wouldn't love a fool, she believed. It helped in these moments where she felt vulnerable in many ways a woman could.
Even if her Prince didn't think her actions suspect, there were times when she knew for certain that she'd been a fool to love him. His child sat high in her womb, maybe several weeks away from entering the world, or days from it. Yes, she'd married him in the eyes of the Old Gods and the New, but the whole of Westeros knew nothing of this.
Yet, she didn't love him despite herself.
Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature.
Her own words whispered into her mind, and she lived again in those times before where she'd been both wise and somehow shamefully ignorant. Still, she couldn't find even a measure of regret, but instead a fierce and fiery love for the child inside her and the man who put it there.
In childhood, she hadn't thought about what she would want in a husband. For her, it had always been about fighting, riding and keeping the Stark faith. As a daughter of the Warden of the North, there was an explicit obligation to protect the land and its people. From what, she couldn't exactly describe, yet her instinct to learn all that she could to be a steward to the North remained.
The day she learned that her duty would lay not in taking up a sword, but in laying with a man she did not know, she was so incredulous that her father misinterpreted her silence for assent. It was only her little brother, Benjen, who she confessed her impractical plans for escape.
She grasped a smooth white branch in one hand and swung the rest of her body on top of it, now looking down at the pale face and black hair of her brother.
"Up!" Reaching down, he put his hand in hers and stood on another branch just below her. He turned, a little clumsily but catching himself on another branch with his right hand, looking out towards the castle.
"I see it!" He gasped with joy.
"Told you," Lyanna said smugly, with the confidence of a child who has done something only a few times more than another.
They looked out at the towers of Winterfell, Lyanna thinking she would never leave here, ever, no matter what father or maester Walys said. She'd hide in the crypts first, and steal hot pies from the kitchen, or hunt for her food before she'd run north or south, or anywhere, really.
"Don't be telling Walder now about it, he'll rat us right out to Old Nan, who'll go straight to father-" She glowered down at him and playfully smacked his head. He ducked down and looked sour at being thought a tattle tale.
"I know, I know, Lya. On my honor as a Stark." His boyish voice deepened, trying to sound like their brother Bran.
"I believe you." She said simply, twirling a red leaf's stem in her free hand. He wouldn't likely tell even if she hadn't asked him not to, but she wasn't taking any chances. Otherwise the maester would whisper in her father's ear about how it was un-lady like to be climbing in the godswood, and that surely, her father wouldn't wish to add to the list of her "unsuitable" qualities?
"Father said that Brandon is to marry a southron lady. Mayhap father won't make you go south?" Benjen hoisted himself up another branch, moving to sit beside her. She snorted and dropped the blood red leaf, watching it drift down to the cold pool that sat limpid below the massive tree.
"On my honor, I won't marry a man if I don't want. I'll take the black first, or I'll go to the Free Cities and join the Second Sons, or maybe I'll just go straight past the Wall and become a wildling!" If she didn't take the black, she'd become Queen beyond the wall, and fight giants and Thenns.
"But Brave Danny Flint-" her brother was still soft yet, softer than her and he worried about such things now. But he would grow hard as a man should, and she, well, she was almost a woman. And somehow when that moment came she would be transformed into an pliant maid ready for plucking by some lord in the south. She scarcely believed it, but the way her mother and the Septa would go on and on about how when she flowered she would become this thing, this creature of opulence fueled by her obedience to her lord husband, it made a planner out of a wolf girl like her.
"Bet she didn't know the proper end of a sword. And a Flint, too, what with Rodrik Flint tryin' to make himself king beyond the wall." You didn't break a vow, that she knew. So help her, she'd never make a promise to be betrothed to anyone. Can't break a vow if you never make it.
Inexorably, she aged from the small girl who had shown her little brother her secret view of their home to a women who felt the bars of her role as the only girl her father had sired squeezing tightly. It wasn't a matter of whether she'd marry, it was when, and maybe there wouldn't be a choice of who.
The bars on her cage weren't straight, or immediately obvious, but like vines that shot up overnight and grew wherever she looked. And each, while they had different names, were all from the same toxic plant: marriage. Perhaps it'd be a Manderly. Or the heir of Riverrun. Definitely not a Karstark, as there was no need to solidify an alliance, yet the threat loomed if nothing else substantial was negotiated, or she did something to dishonor her family. Maybe the Lord of the Erie, old as he was, would be it, given that he had no heirs.
When her stern, quiet older brother Ned came home to Winterfell from the Erie, carrying the words of his Storm Lord friend he would make a good-brother, she felt the whispers that this might be the last noose she couldn't escape. Her moonblood hadn't quite come yet, but it was only months away, given how the Septa had constantly inspected her sheets in the morning and tutted when she found not a splotch between the layers of blankets.
Her first defense had been regarding Robert's faithfulness, and a newfound distrust of her brother Ned's capacity to think objectively of his close friend. Ned had argued that Brandon was no different, bringing up Barbrey Ryswell.
"Bran did it for love! And truly, how was he to know father wouldn't allow him to marry a northern vassal's daughter. No Ned, it's not the same thing, it's-"
"Lya, please, he will make a fine father for your children, and if it's love you want, he's enamored of you." Ned pleaded softly, his hand reaching for hers as if to comfort her against the inevitable.
Anger rose, hot and sour in her gut.
"No. I'll not be with a man that can't keep to his marriage bed. I don't care what father says, Ned. Nor you." She hissed, spinning away from her forlorn brother and ran to the Godswood.
Love, when it came for her, when it saved her from what she thought her worst fear and fate would be, was not sweet. Instead, it killed the girl in her, and from the blood of the wolf maid something else had sprung to life.
Altogether, she wasn't entirely sure who she was anymore. Some part of her was a hypocrite, she knew, given the child of the dragon roiling inside her.
Elia Targaryen had not been showing her pregnancy at the time, but after the tourney of Harrenhal where Rhaegar had set the trap for Lyanna's heart, Elia's forthcoming child had been announced. Even now, she remembered the fear inside at her own burgeoning emotions towards the Dragon Prince, and the painful knowledge that she couldn't, wouldn't be with a man who would not respect his marriage.
That deep hurt had festered, and then grew with the forbidden letters exchanged between her and Rhaegar, until it was something so tight with need, that love did what she said it could not, and changed her.
The ride to Harrenhal from Winterfell had never been longer, even with her mount lathered in sweat and heaving sides taking her ever closer to the Trident. Ser Whent met her at an inn in Harroway, just where Rhaegar said he'd be.
Donning plain leathers, no white cloak or white enameled armor, Oswell had taken her and fresh mounts across the Trident by boat.
She could still recall the loosening within her as she neared the five towers that sat on the misty shores of God's Eye lake. It was unnatural, how her disappearance from Winterfell, in defiance of her family and the realm itself, was an easy step forward that only became easier the nearer she was to Rhaegar. Should she have felt so free? As though her ride to him was unraveling her from the tethers of Lyanna the Wolf Maid into something unfettered and as wild as the Children of the Forest must have been? Something more real than she'd ever been as a maid of fifteen years.
When Ser Arthur Dayne and the Prince came galloping down the road to meet them, Lyanna would not be outdone in enthusiasm. She kicked her horse forward to meet the Prince head on, Ser Whent letting out a short curse as he too pushed his mount to follow.
Her laughter couldn't be heard in the wind, but the smile on Rhaegar's face told her that he too was jubilant.
In the many lectures her Septa had given on being betrothed and marriage, what Lyanna remembered most was the fear that what she and the Dragon Prince had written to one another would fizzle into stilted silence when they met face to face once more. That their love would be as flimsy as the paper they had written it on.
Septa had given her a sparing look of approval when she had expressed her fear, likely thinking Lyanna was referring to her Storm Lord betrothed. It wasn't that Septa was particularly cruel, but she had a keen idea as to what a Lady was, and was not. And fear of one's husband's approval was a part of the construct of a perfect, cultured southron lady who lived in the light of the Seven.
Poor Septa, to forget that Lyanna was a wolf, who, like her elder brother Brandon, simmered with needs and wants that would not go unmet.
What time that followed after the meeting at Harrenhal were idyllic, and something more than that. Days that never ended in her heart, and days that couldn't last before the Prince left their marriage bed cold, and Lyanna's belly pressing eagerly against her sparring leathers and the occasional corset. The gowns and corsets she would only wear in reminder of him, as long as she could, disliking how they restricted her movements otherwise. She'd had to let out the fabric herself eventually, having no maids in the Tower of Joy but for her nuncles.
But maids they were, in their own way.
It had taken some convincing, but Lyanna had continued her swordwork with Ser Dayne. Though she was still unhappy that it had been her husband who had given the final word on whether the Sword of Morning would consent to train her. She could still hear Rhaegar's laughter at his "little wolf", as he ruefully called her when she was being obstinate.
The Sword of Morning was not as competent a teacher as he was a swordsman. That these skills were not the same as the other, was a truth Lyanna already knew from having trained with Winterfell's master-at-arms. Her brother Brandon was gifted with an essential, but nameless quality that made him part centaur on a horse and fearsomely lucky with a sword.
Had their master-at-arms devoted as much time as he did to Rickard's heir as he did to her, she would have been better.
Despite Brandon's gift, the master-at-arm's method of teaching to was to hit at a weakness repeatedly until the bruises taught the lesson. But it was Rickard, their father, who saw the weakness and would describe the ways men could exploit them. She learned from her father about what a man would do to live, how he'd do it, and the many ways to stop him.
She could have tolerated a man like their master-at-arms. He'd at least strike at her to land the blow.
Now it had been a month since Ser Dayne had sparred with her, and almost seven months since Rhaegar had left. And even at the last time Lyanna and Ser Dayne had crossed swords, the softness in his eyes that she felt in his sword thrusts and swats had driven her into a rage. The result of her tantrum had brought on painful contractions, and had the remaining Kingsguard confine her to the tower walls until her Prince, her King, returned triumphant.
Agitated at the loss of her independence, no matter how much it had been illusory in the first place, she had sat at her window and looked into the night, architecting ways of finding out where Rhaegar was and how she could go to him. A wolf needed its pack.
While desert air of the mountains lost its oppressive heat with the coming of night, its dry stagnancy remained. It seemed to Lyanna that in the Tower of Joy time had stopped and sat listless in the sandy pass that lead back to Nightsong and south to Kingsgrave. No wind, no small creatures calling in the night, and no Rhaegar. It was so still, that sometimes she could imagine he had only just left moments before, or that suddenly she would see a torch in the darkness and hear the clank of moving armor as he returned to her.
"Your Grace, Ser Whent has prepared a small supper, if you wish me to escort you?" She hadn't truly recalled hearing Ser Dayne knock, nor had she realized that she'd replied to offer him entrance before the words had come out of her mouth. In the darkness, she could only see the slight reflection off of his white armor from the night sky. She wanted to scoff at his state of preparedness, but she held back, thinking that perhaps as hot as it must be traipsing about in armor all day, he may have the right of it.
The tower was encased in the kind of quiet that was always felt poised to end, and she wasn't the only one who wanted to be ready when it did.
"I'm not a Queen, Arty. Nor am I an invalid." She groused at him, lifting her skirts to stand on her constantly swollen feet. Somehow, he could see in the dim light better than she, and grasped her arm to steady her. Grunting she took a step away from him, but swayed some and reached back to place her hand as lightly as she could on the man's shoulder, determined to not rely on him too much, if she could help it.
"You may be a wolf, but you do carry a dragon." He had said before too, that being the wife of the Prince made her a Princess. And when Aerys passed, Rhaegar became King, which made her Queen. So found was the kingsguard of telling her her own value.
"He's a babe, and while he may be what he is, he is the same as any woman has borne. And if many a woman could walk and some, like the Mormonts, could fight up until they gave birth, you will not see a Stark shirk from such things." Ser Dayne said nothing at all, but let her lead them to the door and down the better lit stairs to the main hall. The argument she made about her delicate state was well worn between the two of them especially, but not unpleasantly so.
"Your Grace." Ser Whent looked up at her from where he was stirring their dinner over the fire and gave her a wry smile when he spoke. Ser Hightower, bowl and spoon in hand, nodded to her, but instead offered her "my lady."
For sometime now, she had told the Kingsguard that they could address her by Lyanna, but if their swords were still shoved up their behinds too tightly, she supposed "my lady" would do. Ser Gerold Hightower had acceded to doing so without question, Lyanna still too informal for even him, while Ser Dayne continued "your Grace"'ing out of an abiding sense of honor. Ser Whent continued out of love; his love of raising the hackles on a wolf.
Once, the Black Bat had, upon noticing the lack of care she attended upon her gowns, wrapped his white cloak around his head like a Septa, and in a high pitched voice had chastised her, "By the Seven, Lyanna, if this is how you treat your gowns, I dread to see your needlework!" It was an eerily accurate impression of her own Septa, a woman Ser Whent had surely never met before. Of course, "Ozy", as she called him in her head, never would dare share such humor in front of the grizzled Ser Hightower. But between the two of them, he kept her in good cheer and sharper of wit.
Whereas Ser Dayne and Ser Whent were easy for Lyanna to both know and read, Ser Hightower was as fathomless as a weirwood tree, his face carved with age and battles. Whatever was on the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard's mind, it was inaccessible to Lyanna.
She quickly snatched her bowl and spoon before Ser Dayne could set about getting her meal for her, but Ozy guarded the stew and winked at her as he ladled a large portion into her bowl. He knew how it irked her to be served, and so he took every easy opportunity to do so. The man wouldn't have washed her underthings, not that she'd let him, but he'd hold doors and poor drinks for her with smirking abandon.
"Your Prince will not forgive you if you make me fat, Ozy." His lips crinkled into a full smile.
"He'll thank me a for a fat baby dragon, your Grace." Eyes twinkling with mischief, he set to eating his own portion.
"Well he might not come out if he's too large Ozy, did you think of that?" Lyanna snarked, setting to work on her stew. Ser Dayne's eyes shifted over to her again, that unsettling sensation of pity creeping into his expression.
"We may not be midwives, but you're of the North. Starks are made of sterner parts then even a dornish viper. You'll be fine." Ser Whent reached over to pat her silken knee, having correctly assumed that while Lyanna was in good humor, there was an underlying fear of dying in childbed that laced its way through her tone.
Ser Hightower continued to endure, while they all fell into a silence as they ate, each thinking of their silver haired Prince and when he would return.
It was high noon when Lyanna saw the raven sail towards the tower, towards her. She opened her hands out reflexively with desire to receive it, but it flew to the rookery, as she expected.
It was hot, and she was tired, dusty and bored. Her stomach and gown were both taut, slick with sweat between the fabric and her skin. She still lept up from her chair and rushed out the door to climb the stairs up to where she knew the raven was waiting.
Out of breath, and already needing a chamberpot, she had climbed two turns of the round stairs to reach a locked door. Behind her, a Kingsguard made his clanging way up the stairs as well.
Composing herself, she waited and put on her most imperiously demanding face that she could manage while still sweat-soaked and red from exertion. As Ser Dayne's light brown locks and deep violet eyes came into view, she felt ever more determined that this would be the day that she'd no longer play the game of pretending that the world outside of her current whereabouts didn't exist.
"Whatever it is, you'll tell me Ser Dayne. You'll tell me or so help me by the Old Gods and the New I will make you."
He stopped just short of the landing and stood frozen, unsure of testing her mettle.
"Don't think I don't see you looking at me like someone has drowned my favorite kitten, Arthur. You know something. You and all the rest of you, and you're hiding it from me. Rhaegar would do no such thing. So it's going to stop, today. If I am your Queen you will adhere to my authority as such." Ser Arthur twitched, though it was more like he jerked into dissemblance.
"Your Grace if there was anything for you to know-" He began, but Lyanna would have none of it.
"If you want into this rookery, Ser, you will have to remove me. And I will not go quietly." It was a testament to their knowledge of each other that he didn't provide platitudes about how a lady should act, or that she shouldn't concern herself with matters of the realm.
"If it were up to me, I would tell you." He said stonily, gripping his gloved hands so tightly that she could hear the leather squeak in protest.
"Ser Gerold Hightower then?" She replied glibly. Ser Dayne tilted his head in confirmation.
"Very well, I will confront the Lord Commander myself on this matter." Ser Dayne made a move to help her down the stairs, but she swept by him, every inch a Queen.
Determined, she left Ser Dayne scrambling behind her on the stairs and marched into the empty hall, her head swiveling predatorily. A loud thwack pulled her away and she followed the sound out into the practice yard where she had previously learned at Ser Dayne's hand.
Ser Whent and Ser Hightower were in leathers with blunted swords at the ready. While intently focused on each other, they both noticed her entering the yard and Gerold backed up with a nod at Oswell before they both tilted their swords downward and walked towards her.
"My lady," Ser Hightower wiped sweat from his brow and sniffed.
"Your Grace," Ozy managed a mocking bow that made Lyanna want to smile at his cheek. Arthur had caught up with her at this point, and she glanced at the wax sealed missive in his hand that had come from the raven.
"Why don't we all sit in the hall and discuss the recent news from King's Landing, hmm?" She folded her hands primly in front of her, mocking every lady who had ever been so pious as to mean it when they were submissive.
"Your Grace, I'll have Ser Dayne escort you to your rooms, as you should be at rest, and we can go over any news later tonight over-". Ser Hightower's expression was neither surprised nor inconvenienced. It was nothing but steady tolerance, or rather, he was adept at ignoring her outbursts. And to pretend that Lyanna didn't exist but as a task or duty, caused her blood to rush to her ears in rage. He thought he could disregard her. It rankled, embittering her towards the man. Ser Hightower's use of the honorific "Your Grace" was worse.
I am not my title. I am not defined by my relation to a man.
"By the Old Gods Gerold, this- whatever this is, it cannot endure. Each day I sit, just the same as you, and wait for him to come back. And with him, perhaps something resembling the truth of what is happening! Do you think that I'm not aware that there are consequences for my disappearance? That I haven't asked any of you, even Rhaegar, what those might be?" She gestured wildly at all of them, whirling around to face Ser Dayne in askance. The oppressive heat made her angrier, and had her body been less unwieldy she would have snatched up a practice sword and berated each of them with its edge.
"Our orders are to keep you safe. He said he would return before you gave birth, milady." The Lord Commander had said those words time and again, and he said them now with a long suffering tone that held belief beyond belief within.
A Prince could not be wrong, you see.
A future could not exist where Rhaegar didn't appear to relieve all of them when he said he would and set the world aright.
"I'll not say that he's not coming, but it is late. And I am not a glass house flower, wilting in the face of adversity. I was born to the north, and the north remembers that winter is coming, even if you southron lords forget." She paused, her arm wrapped protectively around her girth and leveled a hard glare at Ser Hightower.
"I am also your Queen, and you will arm me. If not with a sword, then with knowledge. And then we will plan, so that when our Prince does return, he will not find me helpless and or worse, dead from childbirth."
"Gerold, I think-"
"No, you do not think!" Ser Hightower whipped his practice sword forward to point at Ser Dayne as he spoke. The Lord Commander's indifference had finally ruptured. "To your room, Your Grace, or I'll have you carried." His voice was scolding and harsh, like she was some girl, and not someone who had the fortitude, the bravery to run from everyone and everything she had known for love.
"Very well." She acceded tightly to Ser Gerold, hoping that her constricted voice reflected a desire to not be shamefully dragged to her chambers instead of her true feelings, which were of rebellion. She turned, her grey eyes now boring into Ser Dayne's sky-violet ones. If she was anything besides a hypocrite now, she was also a liar.
...but it cannot change a man's nature.
No one had ever asked a woman if it were true. What was honor to a mother-to-be but whatever promises she made to keep her child safe? The Mother would forgive her, she knew and the Old Gods were of stream, stone and forest. What they desired was the honesty of men, who respected guest right, did not take slaves or kinslay. They did not forgive what they did not disagree with in the first place.
Yes, her first duty was to her child, then to her husband.
"My lords." She mockingly curtseyed to Ser Whent and Ser Hightower, playing up her defeat and how it chafed with narrowed eyes and a huff before she stalked off to her rooms. Let them think her a petulant child if it distracted them from what she must do.
In her head, she quickly assessed where she had placed all the sharp, thin objects like needles and hair pins in her room and was resolved to pick the rookery lock first, and from there, inspect the entrance to Ser Gerold Hightower's room to discern when she should attempt to access its contents.
Ser Dayne followed behind her, a faithful hound, but not to her. She stopped and waited a moment before turning around, so that when she did so, Arthur would be discomfited by the short distance between them.
"Ser, I do not require your company." Her words were a lance, and the Sword of Morning, who had always been courteous, and as affectionate as a warrior could be, winced ever so slightly.
"Yes, but perhaps a game of cyvasse? Rhaegar bade me teach him. I picked it up when I was a ward of House Allyrion at Godsgrace." His attempt at connecting her to the days when her Prince had taught her the strategy game was hamfisted, but he meant well. Cyvasse was easy to learn the rules, but harder to learn how to win. But she had done it, and before long, even Rhaegar would complain that she was more a dragon than he when it came to the game. She'd even played with Ser Dayne before, when everyone was still in agreement not to discuss anything outside the walls of their temporary home.
She hadn't known that it was Arthur who had brought cyvasse into Rhaegar's life, however. And it made her consider that perhaps, Ser Arthur Dayne wanted to be her ally, or her friend, more than he wanted to follow the Lord Commander, who she was beginning to believe followed his own prerogative, and not Rhaegar's.
Decided, she didn't reply, but beckoned him with a single gesture and continued up the stairs.
The Prince had left her a delicately carved set from the markets in Sunspear. He said that Prince Doran himself had a similar copy.
Sitting casually on her sole padded bench, she let Ser Dayne pulled up his own chair while she set the pieces on her side of the board, screen in the middle at the ready.
"Let's see then, Ser Dayne, how good you are at protecting the king." It was a low blow, but she wasn't feeling kind..
"Perhaps I am only good at protecting Princes." He retorted with a gentle smile playing on his lips. Of course he hadn't been there when Aerys had died. And now Rhaegar was the King.
"Maybe in life, but in Cyvasse?" She scoffed, smoothing her skirts before straightening the board tiles. Unlike other cyvasse sets she had seen, this one was made of real stones. The tiles were lapis lazuli from Dorne itself, jade from Yi Ti and carnelian from Essos. Her Prince had told her that one day they would go to all those places on the backs of dragons. At the time, when they lay tangled in their sheets, she thought it a musing said over pillows. A thing a little boy would say when he first learned of dragons.
She wasn't so sure anymore that he didn't mean it.
Lyanna wasn't a meticulous study of men's behavior, but she was trying, now. And part of that involved taking a harder look at the words Rhaegar had said.
She loved him, and he loved her.
But he also had a way of avoiding speaking of his soon to be former wife while at the same time joyfully planning a brother or sister he would give Rhaenys and Aegon. She knew he was hoping for a girl, a Visenya to marry Aegon along with Rhaenys.
It irked her, the idea of her child sharing a partner when he or she came of age. She was one to talk, given that as of yet, Rhaegar had not set Elia aside in the eyes of the Realm.
"Ready, Your Grace?" Ser Dayne had settled across from her, his board set during her short reflection.
"Lyanna. It's Lyanna Targaryen, or my Lady if you must, but I'll not have you refer to me as a Queen if you continue to refuse to obey me as one." Her eyes roved along the board as she moved her first pieces, a Light Horseman, a Spearman and some Rabble.
"The King's order supersedes yours my Lady." His fingers danced behind the screen, moving his soldiers towards hers.
"Throwing him under the horse then?" The trebuchet came next, behind her contingent of armed men. Risky, but she suspected that Ser Dayne himself was more likely to be cautious today.
"It would be a betrayal if I questioned his decisions." She moved her interrogation to new target, as she knew she'd get nowhere undermining Rhaegar's authority, but starting with such barbs could tenderize the meat.
"So whatever it is you know is either too harsh for me to handle, or something he wants kept from me perhaps. Possibly that the war isn't going as well for our side as he'd like. What bannermen are against him besides the Storm Lords? Stark to be sure, since none of you have let me send a rider nor raven to any House, especially my own," her fingers moved pieces left and right, her voice becoming controlled fury as she set about destroying the man in front of her in the only way she could. "My lord father's bannerman have no love for Aerys, and they'll side with father. Probably the Lord of the Erie as well, and mayhap the Tully's, but not all of the River Lords. Lord Frey would be last to the fighting fields, I imagine." She armed her trebuchet and guessed at one of Ser Dayne's squares, tile two by three. The range was limited to how close the trebuchet was, and since she did not want Ser Dayne taking that particular piece on her end out of commission, she aimed for just over the wall, striking a Mountain piece and damaging it by half. Unless Ser Dayne garrisoned it with other pieces, it would fall and he would be one natural stronghold short early game. It was too early, however, for him to move anything there unless he wished for her to smash through those troops as well.
"Mountain at half damage." Ser Dayne grunted, placing damage tokens on the respective tile.
"Well, are you going to answer Ser, or are you not capable of performing strategically while in the midst of a simple conversation?" The man rubbed his face before groaning as if he was as long suffering as she. He met her glare with an agitated expression of his own.
"My Lady, if I may, and even if I may not, keep your teeth and claws to yourself. There's not a thing I can do about our circumstances until there's a raven from the King telling me otherwise."
"Forgive me Ser Dayne, I would have trimmed my nails and muzzled myself had I realized you were so poorly armed." As for Lyanna, she did not stop playing the game just because Ser Dayne could not perform under pressure. She alighted upon her elephants and Crossbowman, aiming to make sure that any hits to the square they occupied would be absorbed by the elephants while she lit his borders aflame. She sent some Rabble up to the screen between them, where next turn they would pick at whatever Ser Dayne had stationed on the front lines, if anything at all. If not, the Rabble would needle away points from the kingsguard until Ser Dayne did something about it.
"I have been nothing but kind to you, my Lady." He implored, as he launched two catapults at an empty square, but one that she had been planning to move troops into on the next turn. She would move them there anyway, assuming that the Sword of Morning would think the area clear.
"The Mother weeps for you then. Perhaps you should pray to the Smith to put your world aright." Her voice was mocking; the Old Gods cared little for the constraining walls of the sept, with gems inlaid into each step and altar. A true place of worship was the cold ground of a godswood in front of the blood red and ivory white of the heart tree. It was where prayers were truly heard and answered. And trees could not be corrupted with bribes or excess of wealth. No, even Rhaegar could not convince her that the Seven were all that was needed.
"I pray to the Father and the Warrior for my Prince's safe return." Her second trebuchet fell to two of Ser Dayne's elephants, but in turn revealed their location.
"Your King." She moved her Dragon forward to the wall and waited, hands clasped in her lap, grey eyes studying the man before her. Ser Arthur Dayne was in his prime as a fighter and a man. From the crown of his head to the well soled boots he wore, a vision of what every knight in Westeros wished to be. The honor alone of the kingsguard was enough, but to be declared the best swordsman alive in the known world sat well on his sandy brown hair, violet eyes, golden tanned skin and sharp features.
While the northern parts of Dorne, including Starfall, were not invaded by the Rhoynar, inevitably their blood made their way their through alliances and marriage. Ser Dayne was not rough-hewn as some of the Andals and the First Men were, but more of a finely cut piece of granite.
Still, Rhaegar was white marble compared to the chipped Ser Dayne. She wondered which scars the Brotherhood had given him. And she was more thankful that none of them were from fighting her kin.
"You're correct, Your Grace. My apologies." He looked lost then, forlorn. The world was changing around both of them, and for anyone but a regent it meant that those changes were more or less out of his control. He was also being soundly trounced at Cyvasse.
A trickle of compassion entered her heart for Ser Dayne, before she pressed back against it. Doing what she needed required that she maintained composure.
Or did it.
Because she was going to leave. Before her child came. She would take all her fine jewels with her, all those given by her husband, and sell everything that wasn't an heirloom to buy passage on the river that led to Yronwood, and from there, Essos. She'd send a raven to her Prince as soon as she landed and when the Realm was again at peace, she'd return home.
All the little details on the hows of the situation would be managed later. Finding out the state of the Realm, and then leaving were her two goalposts.
She'd thought that staying consistent of temperament would be best, but perhaps, what would be better is to acquiesce, but only slightly. Give the impression that she'd ebbed in strength in the face of isolation.
"He'll come back." Gently, she reached across the side of the board to rest her fingertips on the man's knee. He couldn't feel it through the armor, but the message was received.
A/N: Not beta'd. Fixed what Kazetoame said.