Genre: Romance, Fluff, Starkcest, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma, Alternate Universe - Canon, Sibling Incest, Early in Canon
Length: Will be three-shots, I think (Posted this at AO3)
Prompt: "There are many names in history but none of them are ours."
Notes: Title came from one of The National's songs. Quote in the summary that served as prompt and inspiration for the coming fics came from Richard Siken (Crush; Little Beast).
Disclaimer: The characters belong to George R. R. Martin.
There's always sunshine for Winterfell, even in the winters or raging storm. The sunlight would come down in panes of white, sometimes a beam of yellow and gold, other times they were streaks of ice blue or burning orange-red, and as a child, she used to watch the way they scattered and casted over the walls, the towers, around clothing and over skins—she was entranced by the sort of that spectacle.
But it had seemed like thousands of years ago when she had last seen a ray of light. In these trying times, darkness may just as well have lasted for generations. She forgot the sensation of radiance on her skin; the cold had seen to it as the chill and snowflakes piled atop her, weighing her furs and silks down, pinning her on the ground. She was lying on a field of snow, for hours or days, she could not tell. She could not even care to start thinking, could not bear remembering how the horror started. She was tired, her breathing ragged, and the cold had spared her from going numb, which was cruel when she's suffering several wounds, deep cuts they were, throughout her body that a pool of red, bloody as her hair-color, surrounded her and stained the grounds of pure white.
The air was still, suffocating; she wanted to sleep but could not and would not. It seemed as if she was waiting for someone to come. But who could it be, when all she knew had perished from the monsters that used to inhabit her childish dreams, now come alive and had stolen her family, her home and her soul?
She moved some, began flexing her fingers and toes but that was all she did, the last time she tried to get up, pain shot through both her legs and ankles, her left side and her head had throbbed most furiously that the ground seemed to sway underneath. She opened her mouth once to hear her own voice but just a soft grumble escaped from her lips, and she did not repeat the process again for dread that she may have lost it. They said I have the sweetest voice, she thought, biting back a sob. Her lord husband and sons loved it when she sang songs and told them stories. She pressed her eyes closed for a while, she did not want to cry again, her tears have frozen and stuck on her face and she had enough of it, but she was taken aback when unbidden scenes flashed in her head—she saw her sons screaming, dragged by servants raised from the dead, watched as her lord husband became mad and was slashing at her with his priced dagger, noticed half of their household and the small folk fled while the other half were brought to the unlife—towed away she was by the loyal men that wanted to escort her to one of their liege lords, she saw herself running, or more like dragging her feet, she did not want to leave, she wanted their band to stop on the road, find her sons and bury them, but her men and her women would hear none of it, she asked most graciously and pitiable, "No, m'lady, it isn't safe, these are dangerous times," they all said, and so she screamed at them and begged them to leave her be but they did not pay heed all the same, the fifth night on the road they were attacked, dead against the living, a dance of life and death where the Others were inhuman and perilous and cold, cold, cold, while her fellow and kinsmen warm and all the more helpless—they leave her be in the end.
She woke some place in the North, alone and lying on her own blood, some frozen and crystal-like. Maybe she had walked some, had fallen or tripped. She could not be far from Winterfell but there's no way of saying she was right either.
Everything's coming back and she did not want it, did not want to linger on it, did not want to feel it but the cold has not made her numb enough. She choked back another sob and prayed to the gods of the Children. Take me, take me, take me, end this please, she crooned, pleaded and bawled inside her head. When she opened up her eyes she was staring directly into black orbs, darker than the sky. She was startled and so was the man whose suspicious eyes bore deeply on her. Her eyes glanced past his face and up to his arms where he was clutching a glass-spun blade aimed just above her throat and she knew, she just knew this was the one she was waiting for, the one her broken body held on for.
She mustered all her strength to talk but it came out whispery and hoarse, "P–please, e–end this… please."
The young man, dressed all in frayed tattered clothes, stiffened. He slowly put the dagger away and heaved deeply. "Star-blue eyes," he whispered not unkindly, "Strange and beautiful," he spat, "What have they been thinking to describe Others as such?" His long face was grim and he did not look to be saying those words at her face, more like he was complaining to someone he knew. He stared down at her again and realized that she was still looking at him, her eyes oddly transfixed to his face. He looked struck when he realized that she wasn't half delirious as he thought she was; he became conscious to what he had said and blushed furiously.
She watched him silently as he assessed her body, wincing at the number of bruises and cuts, "Gods be good, none of these are fatal but the open wound on your side may have gone deep in your ribs," then he started unclasping his cloak around his shoulders with a sense of urgency and wrapped it around her. "You lost lots of blood m'lady. I have to get you to a Maester and fast," he muttered more to himself, avoiding her eyes. He placed his dagger back to his belt, hunched over her and placed his arms under her to secure her to him.
"No… please, e–end—" she was about to say but the man cut her off with a grunt.
"I heard you the first time, and I can't. I won't."
She studied his face, a scruffy looking man with dark curls and dark eyes and dressed in all black, who looked solemn and stubborn. A crow. She could certainly say he was of the North. Her mother used to say that dark wings bring dark words, but the messenger who came for her has nothing but gentle terms. She wanted to ask where he exactly came from, how he found her, whose lord he was serving, instead she hissed "I want to die and you were just about to kill me earlier."
He stiffened again. "Aye, but thanked the Gods I haven't or that would be a grave error in my part," he answered softly.
"Still, I would as like die," she gritted her teeth and controlled herself not to let out a whimper or shriek in pain when he lifted her up, for a moment she was puzzled that she was feeling a bit warm again. His hands, strong though lean, were steady under her shoulder and legs and she could feel him radiate heat, skin to skin despite all the clothes they were bundled in. She squirmed when the man started walking. "There's no life after me to wherever place you're going to take me to."
He looked down on her for some time, studied her face as she did to him earlier. He had found something in her face that seemed to still him, that seemed to ease weariness in him. "I would as like not have to kill you. I slew a dozen this day alone, both stranger and kin. You're the first I encountered that the Others didn't turn as wight, I would have you know I didn't enjoy the task." He twitched the ends of his lips as if to give her a dark reassuring smile.
She stayed silent after that.
"I – I," he broke the hush in between his long strides, "I came too late m'lady. And even though you don't want to be saved now, I'll foolishly insist. Let me help you find a cause to live, give me a year or two and if nothing else bloomed after your grievances, I'll grant your death wish."
She considered. She tried to glance around and saw nothing but snow for yards away; she could not tell if it's morning, midday, or night already. It had always been dark. She considered his words again, they seemed hollow to her.
But she found she would gladly cling unto that. Her battered body did hold on for a long time, surely it must stand to something? She finally let her eyes rest, let the tears flow freely; she snuggled closer to him, basking in the sunlight the young man brought to her, the warmth that she thought was lost several thousand years ago.
