Teta Fairos
The aching cough resonated in her mind until this day – the weak little whimper of the child tucked in bed, wrapped in the thickest of bear hides, although she still fevered terribly so. Nothing helped the sickly little girl, Alva Mormont was doomed for an early death as so her father told her every night after she visited their Lady.
She remembered the deep scowl hidden under his beard at their dinner table, "you'll catch something from her and she'll take you to your grave with her" he harshly seethed at Teta. Teta chose not to listen, and always continued her little ten minutes with the lady of their house. Alva always held a different book close to her each time, and each time elucidated a summary of the read, "this is about an ugly princess" the younger girl spoke, her voice still wavering and weak, although she still smiled brightly with the naivety all children claimed. "Although she doesn't remain ugly for long" she hummed, paging through the child's storytales, and Teta felt a pang in her chest at realizing that she loved the little sack of bones tucked tightly under the weave of hides. She loved her like the younger sister she never had.
Every person within the community agreed without reluctance that the girl wouldn't make it passed ten, cruelly dubbing her the weakest Mormont they have ever seen born to the house. Teta didn't want to believe any of it, although her weekly visits she could see it in her – how her bones would shake under her skin at the mere whisper of wind, or the bags under her eyes telling of how she couldn't sleep that night. All these little hints only furthering the murmurs into shouts.
So it surprised everyone, after her eleventh nameday, when she emerged from her chambers, with a pinkness in her cheeks and a warmth to her skin. Granted, she was willowy and frail, although healthy – Teta's prayers every night within the godswood were finally answered.
Alva's mind was curious, and effervescently kind in the loudest of colors. This contradicted her body which disallowed her strength to wield a sword like her mother, or shoot an arrow like her younger sister. So her inquisitive nature delved into books of all sorts, satisfying this ravenous appetite of a world unknown. She was likely found either at the heels of their maester, or in a small makeshift library her mother sponsored her within her own bedroom, unable to will the energy to escape from her confines for a mere four hours before growing faint.
Teta would visit for months on end, every morning before and after tending to her chores, letting Alva ramble mindless nothings into her brain until she was pried away by her father or Lady Maege.
There was one defining memory emblazoned within Teta's mind bitterly – how the stableman's daughter rejected Alva's friendship with a mocking, and the cackle of her surrounding friends their age. They embarrassed Alva Mormont, and completely out of character, Alva found herself crying infront of them pitifully, which only deepened their hysterics. Teta pounced on her as if a feral wolf, digging her fists into the face of the pretty little stableman's daughter repeatedly until she was pulled off by a wandering smithy of their fort, "you planning to pummel her into dirt?" He accused after shaking some sense into her, and Teta stared down at the girl's face as she sprawled on the winter floor – all bruises and bumps. She almost felt bad.
"Were you?" Alva asked once within the safety of the Mormont keep, and Teta remained silent, and decided to press her lips together as if locking them and throwing the key. They shared several moments like that, before Alva collapsed her arms around the older girl, and nuzzled her face into the furs of her coat, "you're my only friend, you know that?" she clarified, content with this notion. Teta smiled down at the girl, smoothing her thin black tresses, "I sort of destroyed your chances of having any more, Alva" Teta mumbled sardonically.
Teta was berated by her father the moment she stepped into their house that night – she was grounded for a month.
At the end of that month, Alva sprinted out into the courtyard in search of Teta, and panted heavily upon finding her practicing Teta swing at a dummy. "Haven't seen you in awhile" Teta admitted with a grin, and Alva's sheepishly smiled as she attempted pathetically to control her exhausted state – she was incredulously out of shape and didn't want Teta to know that.
"I-I…." Alva took a long gulp of air before calming herself, leaning over her knees for a moment as Teta laughed at her little stamina capability, "I'm going to Winterfell, for a nameday – isn't that exciting?" and Teta felt the joy radiate the young Mormont, and shared the enthusiasm for the young girl. This wasn't only great for her friend, but also for the Mormont name itself, for it seemed that the Stark's have forgiven the house of it's damnation of Jorah and his slave-selling methods. Though as something as diminutive as a nameday feast was a miniscule effort on their behalf, house Mormont clung to it in desperation as the means to an end of their dishonour from Jorah's selling of poachers a few years back.
She left the next morning, and returned a week later.
"Oh gods, I danced the entire night away" Alva spoke, hand in hand as she twirled heartily within the secrecy of her bed chambers as Teta only stood still as stone and watched her young Lady with a smile ardent on her lips, "with which, the wolf? The Kraken? The Basterd?" and Alva paused her steps only to hold her delicate doll-like hand to her heart, "oh, I wish the basterd, I wish the basterd excessively so," she swooned, unashamed of her affections. "But the brooding Snow only stood amongst his siblings, with either Arya on his toes or Bran on his shoulders. By gods is he ever dreamy, he's the epitome of Northern men that my mother told me stories of" and Teta only wondered what Lady Maege spoke of northern men, and the stories surrounding such men.
"Who then?" Teta asked as she plopped herself down on the seat overlooking Bear Island's wooded environment. "The Falcon," she lifted her arms, pretending to be a bird soaring as she circled the room, and Teta laughed at the idiocy of her younger friend. "Falcon?" She asked again, and Alva nodded her head as she jumped on her bed flapping her arms, "Robin Arryn of the Eyrie" and Teta bursted into fits of laughter at the mention of the seven year old boy.
Alva was beautiful, stunning really – her hair was wisps of thin ink that cascaded in shiny falls of pin straight obscurity. Her eyes forever remained wonderingly studying her surroundings with the appreciation of a blind man seeing the sun for the first time in an eclipsed hue of gold and green. Her features were soft, gentle, welcoming, with a straight sloped nose, high aristocratic cheekbones, and heavy crimson lips that resembled a northern plum. She was twelve years old, and wasn't aware she was growing into a trueborn Lady, wasn't even aware of the effect she had on the boys around her. Teta noticed the growing squires in their small court and their transparent stares at the Mormont youth – they piled over one another to catch a glimpse of Alva.
"He's a sickly little thing, little wounded falcon. I danced with him all night out of pity – and he clung to me like a tick to a dog… He didn't really allow me to dance with anyone else, once I think on it" she hummed, a finger on her lip in thought, and Teta shrugged, "if you had fun, who cares who you danced with" and Alva agreed wholeheartedly.
Soon, only a couple months after the feast, soldiers from the north scattered within their courtyard – bannermen and knights of various houses holding invitations to Alva at their table, earning their unwelcomed welcome to their house, proposals spilled listlessly within Bear Island. Teta couldn't remember a time when so many northerners visited Bear Island in such a short span of time.
Alva, though, contained the sense of obliviousness that Teta was fond of, and they only watched from their window, both of their elbows planted within the stone as one pair of soldiers every third day rode in with new propositions, and they made a game out of it. Glover nine, Umber four, Reed twice, and Bolton once.
The banner of the Bolton's unnerved Teta, the flayed man floating airily in the breeze, and Alva remained sternly quite upon their arrival – there was no way Alva would be turned to the dreadfort, and they both let a sigh escape, relieved as the soldiers didn't stay a mere twenty minutes within their arrival.
"Aren't you a hot commodity" Teta smiled, as they watched the soldiers disappear into the distance, and Alva hummed to herself in boredom, "I do not want a Glover, an Umber, a Reed, and definitely no Bolton as a husband" She spoke languidly, a half smile on her lips, and Alva briefly thought of Robb Stark – did she want the future Warden of the North? And voiced this, "The wolf?" she asked, and Alva laughed, "the basterd." Of course she did, the girl already lived in a make believe world married to Jon Snow. Teta wished her younger friend a sense of reality, although despite herself, enjoyed the indiscriminate view she held dearly.
Another month passed, and soon, her suitors dwindled to only a rogue visitation of Glover's. Maege was a shebear indefinitely when it came the sickly cub she bore, and held her too highly for houses such as the offered.
Alva drew more and more into the library every growing day – Teta invited her to her father's session of sword work, being master of arms, he was surely obliged to teach the girl some sense of defense, although she politely declined when asked, and hid away in the library once more.
She read of anything she could get her little paws on – though what she liked often that naught was the poetic literature of lovelorn sailor men, an odd read, though when Teta decided to visit her friend within the monastery, she realized why she chose to hide away in such a place, and why she loved the book so.
Stained windows clasped every wall, shining in brilliant reds and oranges, with shelves of meagre collections of binded stories clouding every shelf, even some books laid perpetually loathed as they scathed the rugged floor, It was quiet, and only occupied the odd man or woman silently reading to themselves neatly propped within the crevices of the library.
"Cracking like an egg?" Teta mocked the stanza, holding a hand to her lips to veil the hush giggles that escaped, and Alva nodded eagerly at her friends reaction, "ridiculous, isn't it? These men cannot write poetry to save their life. I think its sad, I think of their wives opening their letters and reading these" Alva whispered, her eyes examining their environment, careful the maester didn't shoo them out of the place.
"I miss your bacon colored skin and the way you snore in the mornings" Teta continued, flipping the page as her smile turned brighter, "holding you and smelling your fried potato scent" Alva giggled, "I think he... missed his wife, and her cooking, and just… combined it?" The assortment of mysterious letters compiled together was an odd read indeed, and they both stifled their cackling fits at the hymns of these deprived men at sea, until the maester kicked them out of the room once Teta fell to the carpeted floor holding her stomach at the readings. Alva was perhaps fourteen now, herself fifteen, and she felt ashamed of indulging in such scandalous readings.
"Sometimes… I skip going to bed entirely and just read in here." Alva admitted upon their walking down the gallery into the foyer of their manor. "I see why" Teta thought aloud, "though, I must leave – I have lessons right now, my father is waiting for me." And before Teta walked off, Alva grabbed her hand, "come tonight, to the library – I have another books of ballads, although by jilted wives," Alva grinned with half her lips, and Teta mirrored this.
Her lesson ran late, her father opting to teach her the basics of holding a bow this time, and the sun was well into the horizon when Teta peeked into the dimly lit library, and walked in clutching her own candle, careful not to make a sound as she whispered Alva's name into the cold air around her.
"Over here" She heard a bark, and tucked between a windowsill and a bookcase was the little Mormont girl with the thick work sprawled on her night gowned lap. The window sill was large enough to fit them two comfortably, sit the candles down, and enough space between them to lean into the compilation of letters.
"Who do you think these people are?" Teta asked wonderingly, and Alva fingered the signature at the bottom of the page – it was a wave of scribbles, "Hilde, ah, Thornton" Alva spoke slowly, disbelieving her own judgment of the scrawl.
"Alright, we have… A highborn, Lady Greyjoy – or a basterd, Lady Rivers" and Teta opted for the latter before they set into an hour filled with muffled laughs at the things the former wives wrote – about other woman, other men, and themselves. The entirety of their marriage, the scorning of their was-husbands, and sometimes the understanding of why it happened; it was all waves of either sentimental sympathy or idiotic laughter of how the lady reacted. It was sad yet hilarious.
Three hours into the night, the two decided to head to their beds respectively, and slid from the hidden shared space into the openness of the library, and they both returned the elderly book back into the spot Alva found the thing in the first place, and retreated to the center of the room before separating their differing ways.
"I don't even think I want another friend, Teta" Alva spoke in a sincere hush of honesty, and Teta only saw the cloying child bundled in furs and bags under her eyes once more as the girl fumbled with her braided hair, "I just want you to know how much I love you," and Teta, without thinking, wrapped the girl up into her arms, "You're my little sister, Alva, I love you since the day I laid eyes on you" she whispered into the darkened atmosphere encasing them and stayed there for a moment.
Teta never regretted those words she spoke to her that summer night.
Staring down at Alva, smiling, she distanced the space between them and took a step back – although the movements were miniscule, they spoke louder to Alva.
The Mormont screamed, a blood curdling sense of urgency that surprised Teta – why was she screaming?
Then she felt it – the cold, unforgiving and precise steel of dagger slice effortlessly across her neck from behind her, the iron taste of the blade within her throat, and she wanted to scream as well – though above all she wanted to breathe.
She stared down at her white dress, and the black, warm liquid that continued to spew from the deep cut drenching her clothing, she dug her fingers around her flesh – attempting pitifully to hold the blood from escaping her jugular, although these were meaningless as they seeped through her tiny fingers. She dropped to her knees, and felt the comforting heat the floor radiated from her own insides soaking into the carpet – and let the dimly lit monastery coo her into a forever abyss.
A/n: Rewritten for more character depth of Alva.