Note: Reposting from my AO3 account, Sanva. Original Character POV. Soulmate AU. Retitled from "A Simple Mistake" as I have an old fic with the same title on this site.
When she was eight she slipped into the local sept, blue eyes wide as she took in the statues of the Gods. The Mother was her favorite, the form she prayed to most as her mother had passed going on two years now and she was left to watch over her little siblings as her father worked long hours in the fields. The septon, a cheery, young woman named Deleena had smiled at her and the other children as she handed slates out along with lumpy pieces of white chalk.
She fidgeted while she waited with the slate on her lap for the Septa to reach her. When she finally did, after what seemed like hours, kind green eyes looked down upon her.
"And what is your name?" Septa Deleena asked and with a wide, bright smile, she answered. It took but moments for the septa to take her slate and trace out the letters that made her name.
Once a week for the next month she and the other children her age would skitter through the doors of the sept and trace the letters of their names until the septa smiled, patted them upon their heads and congratulated them on a job well done.
Over the years, she often traced the letters in the dirt or liquid spilled upon the rough tables of the tavern she found work in, memorizing the swirls and slants of each letter. She liked the second the best, the swooping curve of the 'y' as it drifted off course. Every evening she slid away from the grasping hands of patrons, saying pretty words to direct their eyes and minds from what they hoped to gain from her.
On the day she turned six and ten, letters burned into her skin and she traced them with a smile before letting her feet carry her to the sept. Septa Deleena held her left hand firmly as she read the name that had appeared upon her wrist with a smile.
It was a relatively common name, but she had hope. In her heart, she knew she would find him or he would find her one day. They were soulmates, meant to be!
Every morning she tied a ribbon over the letters, the ribbon her mother used to wear. It was a cheery yellow with faded orange flowers embroidered upon it.
When the war came, her father left the fields, conscripted into the local lord's army, fighting for what, she wasn't quite sure. It left her in charge of her six siblings—three full and three of her step-mother's loins. Her step mother had sashayed out of their life as quickly as she had come two years past, finding favor and coin in the eyes of a sellsword that passed through. Behind she left three children, the youngest barely able to walk and the eldest getting into everything.
A battle was fought nearby one evening and it sent the entire town slinking into hiding. Few wished to risk the winner's wrath. When the victors rode into town, banners flying high with sigils every smallfolk knew, the tavern owner welcomed the lords and officers with sweet smiles and called every girl and wench of age to wait the tables and please them.
"Well," one young man eyed her with bright blue eyes, trailing up and down her form, eyes lingering on her bosom, "aren't you a pretty lass!"
She blushed prettily as he reached out to lift her chin with his left hand, the wrist bare to the world for all to see. Her eyes widened and the blush darkened. "Thank you m'lord," She managed to stammer out.
Lost in the moment she let him take her upstairs to the room he'd purchased. Her heart a flutter as they traded kisses and he whispered words into her ear. His dark hair was soft to the touch and she relished the feel of it between her fingers as he slipped inside her. It hurt, at first, but then the burn eased and finally, when he whispered her name in her ear she followed him into bliss.
The bed was empty when she awoke the next morning, but still warm from his tall, muscular form. She'd never dreamed of this. Her man, her lord . . . she slipped her fingers under the ribbon still tightly tied to her wrist and traced his name before dressing and making her way downstairs.
"Lya," Seleste, one of the tavern's whores eyed her with a raised eyebrow, "of all the people to snag a lord I hardly expected it to be you!" She grinned wickedly. "Popped your cherry, have you?"
She flushed, the heat of it burning its way up her neck and over her cheeks. "It wasn't like that," she said softly as she cast her eyes about. The tavern was near empty, only a couple soldiers sleeping it off in the corner. "Where did they go?"
The whore raised an eyebrow as she helped scour the table with sand, cleaning up the night's mess. "Off to war again. Lord Robert's got but one thing on his mind after all, saving his soulmate from Prince Rhaegar."
"What?" She frowned, fingers freezing as they fiddled with the ribbon.
"Lord Robert Baratheon, started this war to rescue his soulmate, Lady Lyanna Stark from Prince Rhaegar?"
"But . . ." Lya trailed off and then looked up at Seleste. "Who did I sleep with last night?"
"Lord Robert Baratheon." the other woman grinned wickedly at her. "Quite a catch. I had hoped to take him myself. He paid quite handsomely for you," she nodded towards the tavern owner's wife who was counting the coin earned. "You should collect your cut. Should be more than enough to take your siblings to the cobbler as you've been whining about."
Lya dropped her hand from the words on her wrist and nodded numbly.
"Are you all right?"
"I—yes," she forced a smile upon her face. "I am. Thank you, Seleste, I hadn't even thought of the coin."
Seleste giggled. "He must have been something then!"
"He was," she nodded, staring down at the yellow ribbon wrapped around her wrist. "He was."
Her mind whirled with plans as she went about her business, wondering how she might catch up with him, convince him that she was his. Each plan fell apart before it even began. A man obsessed, the whore's whispered, was a dangerous man. Or a man to use for coin.
As the months passed she sought every word she could of the Lord's deeds, his victories and triumph's. When word came he had slain the crown prince upon the Trident, she traced her fingers over the swell of her belly and smiled. Even as her feet ached and she plodded slowly through town, wrangling her wayward siblings and mourning the loss of their father, she cheered inwardly at every victory that reached her ears.
When word of King's Landing falling to the Lannister's and then her Robert becoming King . . . she let herself dream. A Queen. She was a Queen no matter that none but her knew it. She was a Queen and the babe that kicked her and slept upon her bladder the heir to the throne. It took some doing, but even heavy with child she made her way south, placing her eldest brother in charge, her eldest sister with her golden curls traveled with her.
Lya would see the king, would force an audience. It was her name upon his wrist; she knew the swoop of the 'y' the curls of the 'L'. She'd traced it over and over again for years. Over and over again.
He was hers. She was his.
Robert just didn't know it.
The babe came early, days before they reached the capital. Her sister dragged her from the cart, lips pressed tight with worry, watching as the farmer that they had paid dropped a single coin in the dirt for them before sharply ordering his horses forward.
"It'll be okay, Myra," Lya told her sister as she leaned against a tree and winced in pain. "It'll be okay."
She desperately wanted to believe the words that fell from her lips as her little sister stared up at her, too young as yet to have a name upon her own wrist.
It took hours of pain and blood before a wail reached her ears. An elderly woman and her two sons had stopped to aid them, lending a blanket for Lya to lay upon as she birthed her child.
"A son," the rough voice of the old woman said softly, wrapping the boy in Lya's single extra skirt. Her sister had torn it to provide swaddling. "Loud and well."
The cries of her child seemed so faint as he was set upon her chest. She weakly held him, smiling down at his dark, thick head of hair and bright blue eyes. "Beautiful," Lya murmured.
Her sister knelt at her side and Lya looked up at her. Tears were streaming down her face, eyes red and puffy. The old woman was kneeling at her feet again. Idly, Lya wondered if she should be feeling more pain. Earlier it had been unbearable.
"Lya," Myra murmured softly, reaching out to toy with her ash blonde hair. "Vera, the old woman, she says . . ."
Smiling weakly, Lya reached out shakily towards her sister. Myra caught her hand. "Take him to his father."
"But." Myra cut herself off, biting her lip. "Lya . . ."
"My body too," she murmured. "For proof."
"Lyanna . . ." Her sister reached forward to support Lya's son upon her chest as Lya's hand slid away.
"Promise me, Myra."
Myra nodded, chin quaking and tears falling like raindrops in mid-summer storm. "I promise."
Note: So, here's my answer to a pondering I had recently of why Robert would have assumed Lyanna was his soulmate and gone to war over her hand if soulmarks were names.
Marking's come in at age 16 no matter who you are or how old your soulmate is in this world and is only a first name. Robert's came in before Lyanna Stark's and well, assumptions.