A/N: the usual disclaimers apply: I own nothing. This is my first go round after (many) years of lurking. This was written for my own amusement and as an experiment in which an original character was created by accident. I have borrowed (liberally) from the books and the television program, and make no apologies for how horribly marred they both are. I took what I wanted and left the rest. If you want canon of either ilk, please go elsewhere. All criticism related thereto will be ignored. However, I do hope you enjoy. We have a long, dry year ahead and this may help ease the burden of waiting.
Lenna I
290 AC
Gulls wheeled overhead, their sharp cries ricocheting off the ruddy stone walls of the Red Keep. Even from the distance, the young girl standing at the ship's railing could hear the birds as they broke the stillness of the day with their shrill voices. She was standing quietly, her hands folded on top of each other as she looked at the castle that was to become her home. Her hair whipped in the mild harbor wind, stinging her eyes and making them water. It's the salt wind, she told herself, they aren't true tears. Not really. Despite the balmy afternoon she shivered, raising a hand to grasp the neck of her cloak to draw it tighter around her.
She was dressed for cooler weather in her gray cloak and a woolen gown of slate blue. Everything about her was muted, from the colors of her eyes to the dull, pained expression of her face. Pale and drawn, the only vivid thing about her as she stood on the deck was the wild undulation of her dark hair, which seemed to have taken on a life of its own as it flowed around her in the salt breeze, mimicking her disquiet.
"My lady?"
She turned from the railing, startled, turning to the man standing a few scant yards away. It was clear to her that he'd been trying to get her attention for some time, but she was far away in her thoughts. Hundreds of miles North, in fact.
"Forgive me, captain, I must have been thinking too loudly," she replied, wryly twisting her lip. The captain, a stocky White Harbor native with impressive blond whiskers, nodded back. "Are we to dock soon?"
"Yes, my lady," he replied, looking almost relieved. "We should be disembarking within the hour."
"So soon." She looked back up at the soaring ramparts and spires of the capital city, so unlike the sturdy white walls of her own New Castle. Her own home now lay thousands of miles away. They had been at sea for nearly three weeks, catching a bad storm as they rounded the fingers which set them behind. She was grateful for it. No delay could have been long enough for her.
"My lady," the captain said again awkwardly. She shook her head, clearing away her thoughts like dust before a broom, forcing her to look back at him again with a smile.
"I should prepare." She touched his elbow lightly as she passed, making her way quietly below the decks.
In her cabin she sat on the bunk up with her knees tucked up under her chin, looking the child that she felt. You are too old to sulk like a petulant child, she told herself. But she didn't feel petulant. She felt heartsick. She fought the urge to cry, pressing her forehead against her knees and squeezing her legs tight with her arms until the urge passed.
Preparing took all of five minutes. She threw the quilt back over her bunk and shut the lid of her traveling case. The rest of her things were below decks, including her little gray palfrey, her gift for her nameday. She didn't expect she'd get to ride her much now.
She had risen on that fateful nameday as she always did, dressed quickly with a stomach full of excitement, and skipped down the wide stone stairs to breakfast like a girl younger than her fifteen years. The servants had laid out a feast of oatcakes, honey, and berries, all of her favorites, and even her brothers were coming to break their fast with their little sister.
Wendel and Wylis Manderly were nearly twenty years their sibling's senior, and Wendel's daughters were more like sisters to her than nieces. Helenna had been born well beyond anyone's expectation, especially Lady Adalyn's and her husband's. Wyman Manderly had already been silver-haired when his lady-wife gave him their only daughter, and he had been smitten with her from the moment she was placed, quiet and wide-eyed, into his arms.
When she traipsed into the room that morning of her fifteenth nameday, they were already all seated and waiting for with false attitudes of annoyance painted on their faces. She tried valiantly to affect the manners of a lady, but everyone had crumpled at her efforts, Lenna included. It was a family joke that Lenna would rise when Lenna would rise, though she had tried to get up at a decent hour so as not to keep them waiting, even if it was her nameday.
She sat between her little nieces, Wynnafred and Wylla, and together the three girls attacked stacks of hot oatcakes pure dripping with honey. They were giggling and laughing when Maester Loren, an unassuming man of middle years who wore his Maester's chain heavily, came rushing into the room on quiet footsteps. He glanced at Lenna and spared her a tight smile. She was his very best pupil, he said, and Lenna knew him well enough to know something wasn't quite right. His everyday air of seriousness had become grave.
"A raven, my lord," he said quietly as he came to Wyman's elbow.
"Could it not wait, Maester? Can't you see it's Lenna's nameday breakfast."
"I do apologize, my lord, but-"
"Spit it out!"
"It's from King's Landing, my lord," Loren said, proffering a little scroll he'd kept hidden in the sleeve of his robe.
Wyman Manderly looked at the seal on the scroll. From her seat just a few places away, Lenna saw that it wasn't the stag of the king, but the lion of the queen. Her father went scarlet beneath his snow white whiskers. Lady Adalyn, a regal woman with a fair face and dark hair now streaked with white, reached a hand over to cover her husband's.
"Read it before you have an apoplexy, dear," she said smoothly, shooting her daughter a roll of her eyes.
Despite being fifteen, practically a grown up, Lenna had never been told exactly why her father hated the queen and her family. If anyone did anything foolish or mean, he always asked if that meant they'd taken up with the Lannisters. It was said with humor, but there was a steel to his gaze that made it clear to her that it wasn't an idle jest. Between that and the fact that he steadfastly refused any and all overtures from the capital, it was easy for an intelligent girl to figure out that something was amiss between her family and theirs.
By the time he had finished reading it, Wyman Manderly was shaking with rage. His face was no longer red, but had gone white.
"Papa?" Her voice shook as she called to him, genuinely afraid he would have the stroke her mother joked about.
He didn't respond, instead handing the parchment to his wife with fire in his eyes. Without a word he rose and walked the length of the room, resting his forearm against the mantlepiece of the enormous fireplace.
Wendel and Wylis looked at each other and then back at Lenna, who sat stunned between her nieces. The younger girls had not taken any notice of what the adults were doing and had continued to tuck into their breakfasts, still chattering away to each other like magpies.
"Helenna, my dear, this is a message from the queen," her mother said. Lenna turned her face only to find her mother's face carefully set in the same way she schooled it when she was listening to arbitration in the Merman's Court and trying to remain neutral. It scared Lenna to have that particular expression turned toward her as it meant her mother was fighting a battle against her own feelings.
"She has done you great honor, my dear," her mother continued softly.
"Me? What kind of honor, and why would the queen-"
"She has invited you to become her ward, a lady-in-waiting. In King's Landing."
Lenna felt like she'd been plunged into deep water. The whole room became still, and she desperately tried to keep her focus on her mother's face.
"I'll decline of course." Even in her own ears it rang hollow.
Wyman Manderly turned from the fireplace, and to the shock of his daughter there were tears streaming down his face.
"No, my girl, you'll accept. You'll accept and be on your way as soon as may be." Obviously overcome, he strode from the room, her brothers hot on his heels as Lenna remained in her seat, staring at a stack of oatcakes that would now go uneaten, her mother stoic across the table from her even as the two little girls giggled and played without any idea about what had just happened.
At present, a knock on her door made Lenna jump. She'd been so lost in that awful memory that she had lost track of time. She got up quickly, stretching her legs and shaking out her skirts. On the other side of the door stood the captain and a burly sailor. She stood aside for the man to pass to fetch her traveling case as she stepped out of the cabin for the last time.
"Do you want to leave that?" the captain asked, gesturing to the little shelf beside the bunk. On it lay a thick book bound in red leather.
"Thank you." It came out as an almost desperate gasp as she turned to run back for it, nearly barreling into the sailor carrying her heavy case. She grabbed the book and hugged it to her chest, hastening after the captain as they made their way above.
A small group of guards stood on the quay, as did her little palfrey, Prim. The horse looked pleased to be in the sun again after so long on the ship. Two beautiful high-born women sat astride white palfreys. As Lenna walked down the gangplank she smiled at them brightly, remembering her mother's advice: if you looked pleased to see whomever you meet, chances are they will be pleased to see you.
Instead of smiling back the two looked at each other barely concealed disdain. Lenna withered a little. When she approached Prim one of the sailors webbed his hands to help her mount. She waved him away with a smile, swinging herself up into the saddle with ease. From the expression on the ladies' faces, this was the wrong thing to do.
Lenna thanked the captain and bid him farewell, and before she was ready the little group turned toward the long road to the Keep. The two ladies said nothing, either to each other or to her, riding ahead of her and giving her their backs. Lenna sat up straighter, thinking about the iron rod her mother had bid her imagine to keep her spine straight. She was surprised that under the hurt she also felt a surge of anger. She had done nothing to warrant being slighted, save arriving at all. With a bolt of righteousness she tilted her head up, her sharp chin set.
There was so much to take in. They were brought in at the River Gate, through the square where the fishmongers loaded and unloaded their carts, their voices echoing off the houses and paving stones like schools of leaping mackerel. If she'd been with her parents or even her nieces she would have made some delighted comment, and the fact that she wanted to made her throat constrict.
The city was teeming with people going about their days as the party wended through the crowded streets. A few common folk looked at them as they passed, but most of them carried on with their business without even a glance at the group of guards and young ladies. Lenna didn't mind, it gave her the chance to observe them unawares, rushing about with their baskets and parcels, mothers with babies wrapped in swaddling, filthy, rambunctious children weaving in and out of the paths of horses and people getting into mischief.
By the time they reached the Keep she was smiling again. From an early age she had been merry. Her mother laughed often and as loudly as her boisterous father, and though Lenna was far quieter than either of her parents, she had inherited their good-natured ways.
"The best remedy for a heavy heart is a good laugh," her mother would say, and Lenna would smile even when she didn't want to. Just like she didn't want to now, but made herself keep her chin up and her eyes open as they were admitted into the Keep itself.
Prim was taken off to the stables, and the silent ladies beckoned Lenna to follow them. The large interior courtyard was constructed of glowing reddish-gold stone, which seemed to glow from within rather than reflecting the sun's light. It was warm and and exotic to Lenna, child of the North as she was, filled with potted trees and flowering plants.
She looked about her as she followed the ladies through beautifully wrought cloistered passageways, wide and gracious with delicate stonework that looked like it might shatter if touched. She detected graceful motifs of bird and leaves and flowers, chiseled so skillfully they looked plush rather than made of stone. She was delighted, until she spotted a hidden skull among the foliage, cleverly concealed by the stonemason in a cluster of carved leaves. The death head grinned at her with empty sockets. The pleasure fled, replaced with the same familiar sense of foreboding that had dogged her across the sea from her home.
At last the two ladies stopped before a heavily guarded door. The palace guard stood aside for them, their spears clanking heavily on the stone. One opened the door for them and the ladies entered, Lenna pausing behind them. Anxiety bubbled in her gut as she looked through the door, realizing too late that she was about to be presented to the queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Her mother would have been livid at the state of her dress and hair, but she'd been given no warning that she would be taken straight to the queen's solar.
One of the ladies turned around, annoyance written on her otherwise fair face, and Lenna Manderly pulled her courtesy around her like she would a winter cloak, put one foot in front of the other, and stepped into the court of Cersei Lannister.