The Stag and The Direwolf
Edited on April 26th, 2017.
Warning: Mention of menstruation.
Chapter One: Marna
The day before her fifteenth nameday, Marna was startled out of her slumber by the sound of someone knocking on her door. Upon recognizing the sound, the girl gave an annoyed groan from her spot on her bed where she laid face down on her pillows with her thick, dark auburn hair splayed out around her like the end of a mop.
"It's Betrys, milady, might I come in?" A high-pitched voice called out from the other side of the thick, ironwood door. Marna sighed in frustration as she pushed herself up from the bed, but stilled when she felt the all too familiar sign that her moonblood was upon her. 'Oh, of course. It just had to come the day before my nameday. I swear I have the absolute worst luck in the entirety of the seven kingdoms,' thought Marna as she angrily rubbed the sleep from her blue-grey eyes.
There was a pause in the knocking at the door, during which Marna had risen from the bed entirely with her legs squeezed together in an attempt to prevent any more blood from soaking her smallclothes. "Yes, yes, come in already, Betrys," she said as she waddled over to the dressing screen in the corner of her room. Moving behind the screen, Marna pulled off her white, silk undershirt and, with a frustrated sigh, stood on her tippy-toes to place it on top of the tall dressing screen.
The sound of creaking, a telltale sign that someone had opened her bedroom door, filled her ears. "Pardon me, milady, but it's already noon. You'll be late for your lessons with Septa Mordane if you don't hurry!" The woman admonished before she noticed the sheet on the bed had a bloody spot right in the middle of the bed.
Marna resisted rolling her eyes while she pulled off her bloodstained smallclothes and placed them on the top of the dressing screen next to her undershirt. "Betrys, my moonblood has begun. That, paired with the fact that I didn't sleep well, means that I am in no mood to deal with Septa Mordane and her lessons today."
Betrys shook her head at the young girl's stubbornness before collecting the stained bedsheets. "Milady, are you sure that's wise? Your Lady Mother will surely be cross with you if you skip the Septa's lessons," said the handmaiden as she placed the bedsheets in a pile next to the door before walking over to her Lady's wardrobe.
"Don't worry about it, Betrys. Mother will get over it. Besides, tomorrow is my nameday. She won't stay cross with me forever," said Marna, pausing briefly when she noticed the blood on her normally pale thighs. Sighing, she grabbed a rag from a stand behind her and wetted it in the basin next to the stand before sitting on a stool and wiping at her thighs.
After Betrys browsed the dresses in the wardrobe, she looked back at the dressing screen. "Whatever you say, Milady. Any thought to what you might wear today?"
Marna paused in her ministrations to think about possible choices for the day. "My simple green lambswool dress will be fine, Betrys." After cleaning her thighs, she rinsed the rag in the basin.
Betrys nodded to herself as she picked the mentioned dress out from the wardrobe, while also grabbing a white linen shift, silken smallclothes, a pair of hose, and calfskin boots that lace to the knee. Closing the doors to the wardrobe, Betrys made her way to the dressing screens with her arms full. "Here you are, milady," she said as she handed the items over the dressing screen to her Lady.
"Thank you, Betrys. Once I am ready, would you like to accompany me to the Godswood? Or, we could go to the Library, as I've been meaning to read 'Winter's Kings, or the Legends and Lineages of the Starks of Winterfell' by Maester Childer." Marna said as she dressed in her outfit for the day. "Though, if we go to the Library, Septon Chayle will likely reprimand me and send me straight to Septa Mordane, so it's probably best we go to the Godswood."
Betrys smiled at the suggestion as she grabbed Marna's soiled smallclothes from atop the dressing screen and moved to grab the soiled bedsheets as well. "Yes, milady, just let me send these bedsheets and your smallclothes down to the laundry and then we can go!"
A fully dressed Marna came out from behind the dressing screen, moving her way to her bed where she sat on the edge of it. A loud growl sounded out in the room, and a deep blush spread across Marna's face as she placed a hand on her stomach. "On second thought, do you think you could visit the kitchens and bring up some food? I didn't eat much at dinner last night. . ."
In the Godswood, Marna sat cross-legged on the edge of the pool of black water. Her long, nimble fingers fiddled with the grass, mindlessly tearing blades of it from the ground. Betrys sat against the ancient weirwood heart tree, which rested right next to the pool. She closed her eyes as she thought of the Old Gods and the things that troubled her.
Marna watched her handmaiden intently. The woman hadn't been her handmaiden for very long, maybe a whole moon at the very least, two moons at the most. In that time, they had never sat down and really talked or got to know one another. It was just Betrys doing her duties and helping Marna with whatever she needed.
'I need to be able to trust her, but how am I supposed to trust her when I haven't tried to learn anything about her?' thought Marna as she looked down, pausing her destruction of the grass. Quickly, she looked back up. Determined, she started to speak, "So, Betrys, you're relatively new to Winterfell, yes? So, where do you hail from?"
Betrys opened her honey-brown eyes to look over at her charge. "I'm from Oldcastle, milady. A branch member of House Locke, and the youngest of my father's ten children." she paused briefly to look away from Marna and towards the entrance of the Godswood. "My mother thought it'd be good for me to leave home and spend time with the higher nobility. She sent letters to several noblewomen, and your Lady Mother replied that your previous handmaiden had to retire from her duties for personal reasons. It wasn't long after that I was hired, milady."
The auburn-haired girl nodded in acknowledgment and started to pick at the grass once more before saying, "Oh, yes, I vaguely remember Mother mentioning that you were from House Locke. Your father, he's Barnaby Locke, correct?"
Betrys nodded in response, before realizing that the young girl wasn't even looking at her. Clearing her throat, she replied with a tight voice, "Yes, that's right. Why do you ask?"
Marna shrugged her shoulders before saying, "I was only wondering if we were cousins then." The somewhat older handmaiden looked at the girl in one part confusion and one part curiosity. "If I'm correct, I believe your dad was the youngest son of Darren Locke," Betrys nodded at this. "Darren was the brother of my great-grandmother, and my namesake, Marna Locke."
The eldest Stark girl looked up at Betrys with a small smile on her face. 'It's distant, but family is family. I can trust her,' thought Marna.
"So, what would that make us, milady?" Betrys asked as she brought her knees closer to her chest, trying to get into a more comfortable position against the heart tree.
Marna dropped the grass that she had been in the middle of ripping out of the ground, pausing as she pursed her lips in concentration. "Hm. . . Well, I think that would technically make us second cousins, once removed. . ." Trailing off, she leaned forward to rinse her hands in the pool of water. "We're family, in any case. So, drop the 'milady', if you please. There's no need to be so formal."
The handmaiden nodded, tilting her head in acceptance. "As you wish, m-" Betrys quickly let out a cough, bring her hand to cover her mouth, to hid the fact that she had almost called her 'milady' again. "Excuse me! What I meant to say was, as you wish, Marna."
The petite girl gave a small smile in response, knowing that her distant relation would have called her 'milady' out of habit. She wiped her wet hands on the end of her dress before maneuvering into a more comfortable position, one that would prevent any leakage.
"Well, now, Betrys. How many siblings did you say you have, ten was it? Do you all share the same mother?" Marna asked while giving the woman her full attention, curious about her newfound cousin's family and life.
"My father has been married twice. His first wife, Lady Gwenda Overton, gave him five children, six technically but the last child died in childbed along with the mother." she started, legs now crossed with her hands folded in her lap. "Two sons and four daughters, with the last daughter being the one who died. His second and current wife, my mother, is Nyssa Crugowe. She's given him three sons and two daughters including myself, and I am the youngest of them all at ten-and-nine."
Marna brought her thumb up to her mouth as she watched and listened to her cousin-handmaiden talk. Chewing on the thumbnail, she gestured with her other hand for the girl to continue.
"Well, there's Genna, the eldest of us all at forty-and-seven, who married into House Blackmyre, one of the Crannogmen houses, and gave him an entire brood of her own. I think she has seven or eight children, mostly sons, but I am not entirely sure. I'm not particularly close with her as she was married off before I was even born." Betrys paused to look over at Marna, who sat there watching Betrys intently, before continuing.
"After her was Eamon, but he died during Robert's Rebellion at the age of twenty-and-eight. He married a Flint girl and had twin boys, Verric and Merric, before his death. The twins and I were raised together, as they were but a year older than me."
"After him is Larysa, who remains unmarried and a maid to this day despite being forty-and-one. She recently left home to do a bit of traveling, took a couple of guards with her and didn't look back."
"Then there's Donnel, or rather Ser Donnel as he's a quite capable knight. He's thirty-and-eight, and he's been married twice but the first wife, an Arryn girl, was sickly and died shortly into their marriage after she caught a persistent fever, while the other wife, an Ashwood girl, died after a particularly nasty miscarriage." The young woman took a moment to gather her thoughts and to catch her breath before continuing.
"The last child who survived childhood is Norah, who is thirty-and-four. She married a Glover man and has a few children by him, three or four I think. Those siblings are all children by Gwenda."
"My mother's children starts off with Tomas who is thirty. He won a tourney a few years back and won himself a spot on the Kingsguard, so he is forever unmarried. After him comes Silas, who is twenty-and-eight, who married himself a pretty Oakheart girl from the Reach. They have two daughters and a son."
"After him, Mother miscarried once before she had the twins, Tobias and Alys, who are now twenty-and-three. Tobias volunteered to join the Night's Watch on his twenty-first nameday, and none of us has heard from him since, while Alys was married off to an Estermont in the Stormlands a year ago and is with her first child. Finally, there's me, you know my name and my age, but I am unmarried of my own volition."
She finished, looking back at her younger charge and cousin awaiting some sort of response. Expecting a quip about how large this particular Locke brood was, she subconsciously crossed her arms in defense. 'We may be a large group, but we don't nearly compare to the Freys and their ilk. And at least we're infinitely more pleasant than them as well!' thought Betrys, defiantly looking towards the young girl.
What she got though was a small, friendly smile and large, blue-grey eyes filled with acceptance. "I can see that you care deeply for your family, Betrys. Are you particularly close with your other siblings? It must have been quite difficult being the youngest amongst such a varied age group. I can scarcely imagine being the youngest of my siblings, as I myself am the third eldest, well, if you count my half-brother Jon anyway."
Before Betrys could reply to the girl's question, the sound of someone clearing their throat filled their ears. Turning her head towards the sound, Marna saw the small, gray man with the gray eyes and hair - Maester Luwin - standing before them with one of his eyebrows raised and his hands folded in front of him.
"Marna, my lady, do you not have lessons with Septa Mordane and your sisters?" He asked Marna pointedly.
The girl swallowed the lump in her throat before giving a closed smile at the old man. "Maester Luwin! Yes, I did have lessons today, but I was not feeling well this morning. Betrys and I thought a bit of fresh air might help me feel a tad bit better, but we haven't been outside for very long."
Maester Luwin gave a small, closed smile in response. "Well, my dear, if you're feeling ill, you should have come and -"
Marna stood up quickly, arms waving in front of her. "Oh, no, Maester, it's nothing serious. I… to be honest. . . Um. . . Well, it is my moonblood, Maester. . . It's almost always taxing on me and I simply wanted to take a break from my duties before the pain gets any worse." As she finished talking, she was wringing her hands and avoiding eye contact with the Maester. Embarrassment filled her due to talking about her moonblood with a man and she was nervous that he would have her punished for skirting her duties.
Maester Luwin tugged at the chain around his neck, a clear sign that he was a bit uncomfortable with the topic. "Well, my Lady, I have a vial of vinsonge you may drink if the pain gets to be too much for you. Feel free to visit me in my study if that happens. Meanwhile, I must insist that you attend your lessons, my Lady."
Marna frowned petulantly at the old man, obviously not liking his "insistence", but she knew better than to argue with him.
Betrys covered her mouth as she tried not to laugh at her Lady's expression. She was such a temperamental little thing; she actually thought that she would be able to shirk off her lessons of the day as if someone would not track her down. Lowering her hand, Betrys stood up to join Marna. "Come along, my Lady. We should not keep the Septa waiting any longer. You know how cross she gets when anyone is late."
With shoulders slumped in defeat, Marna mumbled a goodbye to Maester Luwin before following her Handmaiden to the Septa's study.