*Revised as of 12/2016*
I'd like to give a shout out to my Beta Miss Jade Celandine who took a look at my work and gave it a chance. Thank You !
On another note, to those who are waiting for an update on Balance I am truly sorry but I write as inspiration comes and right now I am still on the process of thinking where I want it to go. I am taking into account what you guys voted on the last chapter.
JolieNoir Out.
ONE MORE WOLF
PROLOGUE
To the Stark bannermen and the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, Rodrik Stark was very well known; he was given the moniker The Wandering Wolf because he never seemed to take root anywhere until his later years. Whilst he took to wandering, he went on to become a hedge knight and later a sellsword, totalling a little more than two decades in service. Before entering his third decade on the road, he was called by his liege lord and cousin to do his duty. Once he was in the North Ser Rodrik was to choose a northern lady to wed. There in Winterfell he met all potential brides but found none he was sure he would come to love. At least, not until he met Arya Flint.
For all that the Wandering Wolf had seen and been through, he had never fallen in love not until he met the Lady Flint. And although he was almost three decades her senior his feelings were requited.
The lady Arya Flint was already a maid flowered at nine-and-ten and considered too old not to be married, yet she was the jewel of her father's eye and so he was convinced to wait for the man she would feel something positive towards to marry. Arya Flint was a lady through and through so she still had some notions of courtly love and chivalry but she also knew her duty was to deliver her husband a son to pass on his title and wealth.
She had been visiting the ruling house of The North on the orders of her father. She was to be on the lookout for a husband when the lady met a man more than twice her age, who with his grizzled appearance and outgoing attitude had caught her attention. As she endeavored to spent some time with him, they got to know each other and soon enough they were wedded and bedded.
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About one year to the mark of their marriage, the newly wedded lady Stark was to deliver very important news to her husband.
For the past few weeks Arya had been feeling nauseous and thought to go to the maester, hoping she was right in her suspicions. It had been two moons without her menses and with the maester's thorough examination, it was confirmed Arya was to give birth seven moons later. As the ninth month came, Arya already in confinement delivered with some trouble a baby girl. They named her Branda. After her birth, the lady Arya was given news by their maester that it would come to be harder for the lady to become pregnant again.
As the years passed the chances of the lord Rodrik's seed quickening again were getting grim, at least they were in the lady's mind. Arya was becoming worried that if she did not give Rodrik his heir he would search elsewhere, leaving her alone. On the other hand the Wanderer was quite happy to even have a child at his age of seven-and-forty, and getting to spend time with his beloved wife to boot.
When Branda was six namedays old, the awaited news was finally delivered: the lady Stark was once again with child and by the looks of it, twins. The lord and lady were very excited by the news; both hoped the twins were healthy and strong though Arya hoped dearly for a boy. Once again the lady Stark was put in confinement although this time a little earlier since it was a high risk pregnancy with it being twins and because of the trouble that had begun with her first pregnancy.
Soon enough the word went out throughout the whole keep that the lady gave birth to healthy, twin GIRLS. Arya Stark nee Flint was NOT pleased.
The first of the twins was given a good strong Northern name: Lyarra, that went with the Stark family looks. The second babe came with a tuft of the wheat-colored hair of House Flint and later on would only have the Stark grey eyes; she was given the name Danya in honor of her southron grandmother and the Flint hair.
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As the three sisters grew and their mother withdrew more and more into herself, they were each left to develop their own unique personalities. Not to mention the coddling of their father! Branda, the oldest, was levelheaded and quite serious yet secretly yearned to have a family to call her own. Branda became the twins' second mother figure after the various miscarriages their mother suffered, making Arya bitter about her perceived failings; in turn the girls learned to rely on each other and in their father, when he was not on one of his trips.
Lyarra, being the middle child, came to balance her wolfsblood early on their childhood to keep an eye on her twin, but still retained some of her adventurous side. She went on to learn how to horseback-ride the way a man would. She was the more balanced of the sisters between adventurousness and the womanly arts. Both Branda and Lyarra dedicated themselves to the duties of a highborn lady while the youngest of the girls was a hellion ever since she learned how to walk.
Danya may have been the only one of the three to have blond colored hair and soft silver eyes- the color more pronounced than her sisters', yet she was certainly the wildest of the three. Very early on, Danya skipped the lessons of their septa to train on endurance to someday wield a sword. 'Being a warrior is my calling' she would explain to her father later on when he found her training with a wooden sword.
Rodrik mightn't have been called a conventional father figure so as he grew in his old age he still had some fight in him to become aggressive in his decision to teach his daughters the basics of handling a dagger. Whilst the two eldest stopped when they had a handle on it, Danya pleaded to be taught more. Seeing that Danya was serious about training, Rodrik made a deal with her and himself; that if his daughter would train to become a warrior then he would be the one to personally train her to fight and to lead, to pass on all that he knew of the world. In turn his little she-wolf would put an effort on her classes with the septa.
Secretly, he was aware that even though he loved all his children, he favored Danya the most. Rodrik was of the mind that she looked the most like her mother but had his wandering spirit and therefore she was to be given all the tools to succeed in a world where she did not quite fit in.
And so the years passed and the girls matured into young women, bringing us to the beginning of this story.
So...please let me know what you think.
