She's a child, barely up to her father's knee and trotting about on unsure feet, catching onto the leg of however is near enough to hold onto, childish determination playing on her face. That is when it becomes apparent to everyone (in Winterfell) that she is possibly the most stubborn girl to have ever blessed the Stark line. "Look at her," coos one of the servants. "What a silly goose," her mother says lovingly, holding one hand out. "Hold onto mother, Lyanna." But baby Lyanna will not be ordered to. She jumps away from her mother's touch and falls flat on her arse, hitting the cool, hard floor.
A shrill cry makes its way past her lips, but she doesn't stay down. Instead, she crawls on hands and knees until she's reached Brandon and grabs onto his leg and hoists herself up. "Silly goose," her mother repeats, this time laughing. "Look at her, husband. Isn't she magnificent?"
"Magnificently bruised," her father says, picking her up. His touch she cannot fight. So Lyanna allows him to perch her in his lap and stroke her dark hair. "Why do you have to take the hard road, goosy?"
It's a silly name, of course. She's not a goose. Just because the geese flock to her when she feeds them bread. Lyanna's lips curl in a petulant snarl. "I am a wolf," she says with an unsure tongue. The whole room bursts into laughter.
"Of course, of course," father mutters, setting her on the ground after. "Try keeping steady on your feet."
For the next few years she's goosy (although she insists at every turn that she is a wolf) and in the end Lyanna stops trying to fight it. It's a loving little name to re mind her of her foibles and recklessness. She cannot deny that sometimes her feet run ahead of her mind and she'll stumble and tumble, rip a tear in her dress and skin her knees and go back to her mother with an apologetic mien and get berated for not paying attention, then covered in kisses to soothe the ache.
"Silly goosy," Lyarra would say, stroking a hand to her daughter's cheek. "What shall I do about the dress?"
Her mother always knows how to make the dress pretty again. Of course, it ends up becoming a series of endless patches until Lyanna is forced into a new dress, pristine and stainless. This one she takes care with for the first couple of days. Then she ends up following Brandon down the lane, insisting that she wants to learn how to ride a horse as well as he. "I am a Northerner too!"
When she returns with a torn hem, her mother sighs. "So soon?" But she invites Lyanna to sit on her lap. "Mayhap I should teach you how much work this is."
And she teaches her. Lyanna learns, at that age when she finally reaches her mother's middle, that sewing is not the magic of faeries her mother has made it seem. She stabs her fingers repeatedly on the needle, her stitches are crooked and the torn hem can't seem to mend. Angrily, she throws her work away with a cry of frustration. "This is stupid!"
Lyarra picks it up and deposits it back into her lap. "You are not paying attention. Look closely." And Lyanna looks. She notices for the first time that mother holds the needle just so, picking the material softly between her fingers, pulling it taut at times, smoothing her hand over it. She struggles to mimic every move, fingers curling around an invisible needle and gliding through the air.
"There, you see, not so difficult," her mother tells her once she'd finished. Lyanna admires the neat stitches. "Is it pretty?" The child nods her head.
Stitching is more tasking than knocking sticks with Benjen in the godswood. But Lyanna has always been stubborn. She's determined to master this. Mother has taken sick to the bed and wilts under a fever the maester assures them will pass soon.
So Lyanna is left with much of the work her mother would usually take on. The servant who helps her has her own hands full, but every once in a while she looks at Lyanna to see how the girl fares along. "That is well done, m'lady."
It's not as good as mother's, Lyanna thinks. But it'll do.
Old Nan sits by the window, looking at the darkening skies. "There's a storm coming," she comments. "Goosy, you had best get on with your work if you want to go out to the godswood on this day."
By the end of it her fingers are stiff and red and too tired to even wrap around themselves. Lyanna blows on the abused flesh, hoping the red will fade. It doesn't right away. Nan brings her some water. "It'll help with the swelling." But there is no swelling.
Lyanna washes though. The cool water has a soothing effect.
That night her mother dies, shaking in her bed, a name upon her lips. Lyanna never knows what the name is. (She'll find out later and cry and cry and cry.) It's father who comes to tell her in the morning. He wakes her up gingerly, his stern face pale and gaunt, blue eyes filled with things Lyanna cannot name.
"Mamma has gone," he whispers.
"When is she coming back?" Lyanna asks, a child's innocence behind it.
"She's not, goosy. She's not," her father chokes out.
And he is right. Mother never comes back no matter what Lyanna promises. "I'll help with the stitching," she pleads, on her knees before the red eyes of the weirwood. "I'll be a good girl." She will try anyway. "I won't pester Brandon to teach me how to ride anymore." She won't even go near the stables. But mother never comes back.
The girl falls to the ground in a fit, shaking and crying, pleading with the gods to just give mother back. They never do.
She throws herself into horse riding after that and stitching and knocking sticks with Benjen near the tree. If they won't give mother back, then she needn't keep those promises. Except for the stitching, because her brothers are worse than even her and Lyanna trusts no one to handle mother's needles.
She's a wisp of a girl when a letter comes from King's Landing. Lyanna has been out riding when the servants call her back, claiming that Lord Stark needs to see her. Wrapped in one of Ned's old, tattered cloaks she climbs down from her horse and starts running towards the entrance, skirts hiked high, breeches visible underneath.
Father has indeed been waiting. He gives her a stern look when she comes in, hair wind-blown, face red with exercise, dress a mess. "Sit down," he tells her, gesturing to one of the available chairs. She's still breathing hard, eyes darting between father and Maester Walys. "We've a letter from the King."
Her eyes grow wide. "The King? What should he write for, father?"
Rickard shakes his head. "Your hand, girl, what else?" A lifetime ago he might have laughed and called her goosy and told her in a pleasant manner that aye, we are giving you up for sacrifice – the king's son needs a woman of sufficient status, but not too old because…well, just use.
"Do I have to?" she asks, not understanding that this is an honour being bestowed upon her. "I'm sure I shan't like the South half as much as I like it here."
"You have to," Walys assures her. "Your mother would have wanted you to."
Nay, her mother would have called her goosy and told her to be careful. Or mayhap she would have. Lyanna doesn't know. Mother is not here to tell her. "Father, what does the King want with my hand?"
"To give it to his son."
Father comes back changed after Duskendale. There has always been something not quite right about the man, Rhaegar knows. But up until this point there had been excuses – "He is working hard, your father is. He did not mean to lose his temper. He loves us, Rhaegar, never doubt it. A king has many responsibilities." – coming from all sides. The King is the king and has little time for his son's doubts or his wife's suffering. He must see to ruling (as little as it is his) and that is that.
And then there is Duskendale and the King is not just a king, but also mad. Not irate, or put off, but plain and simple mad. He sees shadows at every turn, looks at his family with suspicious eyes (even going as far as to ask his son if he should like the crown – a test) and dreams of a dynasty built upon absolute power and fear.
It comes in waves. It starts with yelling and screaming. Rhaegar, though not a mere boy anymore, find the sight of it frightening. Not so much the noise, as the knowledge. (The blasted, sickening knowledge that this is his father. This broken, measly, mean creature prancing about the throne room is his father.)
And then another wave. He finds his mother lying on the ground, blood marring her skin, the broken lip bubbling with it (thin, red line, that ought to burns as strong as dragon fire) and he is frozen there, in the doorway. Rhaella raises her head just so and the naked skin of her neck is bruised. Slim fingers wrapped around the yielding flesh, Rhaegar thinks, his stomach churning. She starts moving, trembling limbs cutting through the air to enable her in a more dignified position.
He wakes up then, as if from a dream and rushed forth, kneeling by her side and helping her sit. An uneasy smile paints her lips. "I fell, is all," she says. "I fell and hit my head on the tiles." And he thinks of asking her about her bloodied lip. But doesn't.
They are much mistaken, those people who call him brave. Rhaegar isn't brave. He's never been brave. He is cautious, calculating and, at times, easily riled despite knowing better. He is not Aegon. Though he might have been.
"Let me help you up, mother," he says, as if accepting her explanation. Rhaella leans into him and her smile becomes loving and his heart stops, just a moment. (The same sort of smile he'll see on another woman's face years after and it will still make his heart stop).
"Do not anger your father, Rhaegar," she will often tell him if he grips her hand too hard after finding her hurt, hiding somewhere. "He is simply concerned with the realm. I pestered him when I shouldn't have. 'Tis but a scratch."
He wishes he were braver. But that is not encouraged. "Whatever happens, you must take care of yourself, my son." Rhaella pats his cheek affectionately. "Wait. Bide your time. And when the moment comes, you'll know.
(She is right, of course. His mother is rarely wrong about such things. That, however, does not help with the pain.)
Elia Martell is older and wiser and calmer. She comes to King's Landing with her brother in tow. "My mother tells me it is high time I wed," she tells him, slipping her arm around his in a much too forward manner that makes him want to pull back and lean in simultaneously. She gives him an easy smile.
She is rarely subtle and always charming. And he thinks that perhaps he can forget with her, even for a little while, the monsters beneath the floorboards and behind the thick stones.
It's not exactly that he wants her, as much a he wants to be like her. And he thinks that enough time in her presence can give him that. He knows, of course, what her angle is. Elia wants to get married. And for some time Rhaegar does entertain the notion.
His father cures him of it quickly enough. It's an intense look of disbelief and loathing on the man's face that unsettles the Prince. "What?" the King laughs, head rolling backwards. The sound, shrill, unpleasant, nearly makes his ears bleed. "You think that just because she bats her eyelashes at you and smiles prettily it means a gods damned thing? What a stupid boy you are."
In the end his father agrees to a union. On one condition. "See as to the state of her. If she is honest, then I will have her for a good-daughter."
That Elia is not a maiden is not apparent to Rhaegar until that point. This not a fault, to be sure. But it feels much like a betrayal. Which is irrational. Because Dorne is different. Because Elia has not known him long and she is older, wiser and more experienced.
He never tells her about the King's words and she never demands anything more from him than a platonic relationship after. Maybe she has heard of it despite his care. She is just as affectionate, but keeps and emotional distance from him from that point on. Which suits Rhaegar just fine. He does not want her love.
(Because he himself has slipped on jagged edges and fallen out of love one sunny afternoon in her bed.)
They still keep company with one another despite that. Rhaegar does not complain if he ever notices other beaus and Elia cheers him to the best of her abilities.
Oberyn nearly breaks one of his arms on the training field. The Dornish Prince thinks he knows everything and feels it is his right to decide for everyone. Rhaegar resolves right then and there that he will not wed Elia. (Just to spite her brother, of course. And with that it becomes clear to him that love implies fondness, but not the other way around. And his affection for Elia has run out.)
He spits out blood when his opponent's shield crashes into his mouth and counts himself lucky that there are no teeth there as well.
Rhaella sits down on the edge of the bed, bruised skin peeking out from beneath the sleeve of her dress. Rhaegar wonders at her presence here. She usually keeps to her own rooms. His father must be in a devilish mood if she has taken refuge in these rooms.
"He is angry about the babe." The one she has recently lost. Rhaegar nods his head and shields himself the only way he knows how from that particular memory. "He was hoping for a daughter to become your wife one day." One day when he himself would be an old man. Rhaegar grimaces at the thought. "He'll look elsewhere, though. His patience is running thin."
And his temper. The Prince considers calling for Pycelle. But his mother is shaking her head. "I've some salve left yet. One of my ladies will see to it." Do they truly? "Now, now, do not look at me so." She stands to her feet and walks to him with open arms.
Rhaegar lets her hold onto him, feeling shaky fingers on his back.
"She cannot be older than a score of years," Rhaegar protests when his father brings forth the option of Lyanna Stark. "She is just a child."
"The younger, the better," his father dismisses that concern. "Have you forgotten your lesson already?" There is an ugly sneer on his father's face. "Rhaella, look how you have brought him up. You had best take better care with the infant. One spoiled wretch is more than enough."
"As for you," he points at the oldest Prince, "you will wed who I say you wed, or else your mother may pick you up off the ground in bits and pieces."
Rhaegar measures his paces so as to not pull the poor child headlong down the stairs. Lyanna Stark holds tightly onto his arm. She must be frightened. Who wouldn't be with so many eyes chasing them from all sides? Rhaegar pretends not to notice anything is amiss, although his bride is rather pale.
He helps her into the wheelhouse and then looks anywhere but at her. This child, he muses, is his wife now. Damn his father. What does it matter if there is a torn veil or not? For pride's sake, he answers his own question.
Lyanna Stark makes a small noise in the back of her throat and her eyes glint with something too much like hope. He wants to tell her not to hope, because they are in King's Landing. And he also wants to tell her to keep hoping, strangely impressed with the innocent bravery. She is a child and known no better.
And he wants to protect her.
(Although even at this point, it is clear to him that oils do not make a knight, no more than serving in a sept makes a septon.)
There is something proud and forbidding about Rhaegar Targaryen. Lyanna feels out of place whenever he looks at her. She wants to crawl out of her own skin and hide away. The King's son barely speaks a word to her and she finds him closed-off, arrogant and all in all a terrible match.
But they put a veil on her head nonetheless and make her kneel before granite gods in a wide hall that looks like the crypts of Winterfell. (Mother is down there.) Lyanna is not pleased, but she thinks that perhaps she might grow to like it, like sewing.
Rhaegar pulls at the strings of her cloak, steering the direwolf away from her shoulders and perching the dragon there. She feels cold all of a sudden. She shouldn't, of course. The South is so much warmer, even in winter. Lyanna mouths the words she's learned by heart for this and wonders at their purpose.
Her husband's voice rings hollow in the wide space.
The Queen gives her a kind, tired smile, patting the edge of the bed. "You needn't worry, Princess. I've not come to give advice. You won't be needing any of it for some years yet." What advice? Lyanna sits down on the bed. "I just wanted to know if you would mind keeping me company on the morrow."
The morrow involves needles and embroidery. Stitching Lyanna is quite adept at by now. Embroidery is another matter. "You've not done much of it, have you?" Elia Martell asks, her round, pleasant face the focus of Lyanna's attention. "Your mother should have taught you."
"My mother is dead, Your Grace." By force of habit she uses the address. After all, Lyanna is higher now than a Dornish princess.
"I am sorry to hear that, Your Grace," Elia murmurs, looking slightly taken aback.
The Queen tsks lightly. "Pray do not burden my good-daughter with such talk." Little Viserys plays in a corner, the nursemaid watching over him.
(Later, she will understand why there is so much unease in the room and she will be so angry.) Lyanna looks at the movement of Elia's hand. "I can learn."
"Of course," the Queen demurs. "Come sit by me and watch."
This is better, she thinks, than being in the company of her husband. He has no words for her, not even a kind glance. Rhaegar barely even acknowledges her existence. At least the Queen is kind and good and motherly. The only warm soul in this place filled with coldness.
Worst of all is the King. Lyanna is still scared of the man – though not as petrified as she'd been on the first day of her arrival and he looked her over as if inspecting a piece of meat, nodding his head with an she'll do.
Rhaegar tells her one day as they are going to supper with him and the Queen, "He's ill, lady wife. Do not mind him. Or mind him as little as possible. See to your food and do not speak unless spoken to."
It turns out well for her. The King is so busy berating his Queen and son that her turn comes only much later, after she is well fed . "As for you, you Northerner savage girl, I've paid a fortune for you and what have I to show for it. A scrawny little thing more fit for the stables than the bedchamber."
It's not as if she can help it. Lyanna looks down her front at the tightly laced dress. She is only three-and-ten and small and slim. Her mother had been small as well. But not very slim. She'd been carrying for much the time Lyanna knew her, either losing or birthing.
"At the very least have the decency to do something about that wild mane of yours." And the King carries on, throwing insults left and right.
Knowing what he knows about his father, Rhaegar keeps his attention firmly away from his wife. Spending time with her will only bring her into the King's inner circle and Rhaegar does hope that she will have some time yet.
(She is just a child, after all.)
His mother agrees to keep her as well away as she can. "He doesn't visit me now that there is no more need." She says it with relief and Rhaegar wishes, not for the first time, that it could all be different. "What about the Dornish Princess?"
"Keep her about you, mother. Elia is hardly liable to do any damage,"
(He doesn't know it at this point, but he'll regret his words bitterly.)
And so his mother and his wife and Elia are more often than not together, safely away from his father who has taken to strange mumblings that only his Spider can seem to make sense of. For his part, Rhaegar fills his days with trying to find a solution to his dilemma (that one about the throne and how to best proceed), while also attempting not to allow anyone to see it.
Arthur will, from time to time, speak to him about his wife. Nothing out of the ordinary. "She is a good rider," he'll say. "Marianne Hightower thought teasing her would be a good idea and earned herself a sharp set down. I should have a care with this one, Your Grace." Rhaegar smiles, although he knows Lyanna would never do that to him. She is not nearly comfortable enough in his presence.
It's a pity, truly. Because he does like the girl. But perhaps protecting her is more important than liking her. "The King will be leaving for some time," Arthur lets him know.
"I do not know, Rhaegar. I am not that fond of riding," the Queen says.
"Do it for me, mother. It's not far. I think she would like to be out of the keep at least for a little time. Before father comes back." One would need a good reason to be out and about and assurances of loyalty besides if they should ever get the King's approval. "Mother," he insists.
"Very well," Rhaella gives in. "I still think you should come along."
He shakes his head. "I've too much to do. It is enough to know that she is in your company. I won't worry then."
And he doesn't. Of course, two Kingsguards have gone along with them and there are still a few favours he can call in to make sure they are safe.
Since all good things must end, Rhaegar is not nearly as surprised as he could have been when the King finally remembers that Lyanna Stark has a purpose beyond that of keeping company with the Queen. So he orders Rhaegar to bed her.
"She is but four-and-ten," he protests without thinking, his better nature shining through for a moment. It would bring her pain. He does not want that.
"Bed her, or I am giving her to the soldiers, boy, if you think you have no need of her." And Rhaegar does believe his father would be vile and cruel enough to do it.
The first time she is bedded, Lyanna is four-and-ten and the King is out of patience. ("I don't care if she's stiff as a board and twice as thin! Get on with it.")
He is not cruel. But she is small and thin and he is so much larger than her. Lyanna isn't sure if she weeps out loud or sniffles softly. It hurts. It rips something inside of her. Rhaegar doesn't hold her or comfort her. But after it is over, he draws the covers over her and tells her to sleep.
Lyanna listens.
She's shaky as a leaf and cries. It turns his stomach inside out. Rhaegar closes his eyes because he cannot even look at her.
Elia pours him another cup of wine and sits down with him, toying with the hem of his tunic. "She is your wife. It was bound to happen at some point. By the looks of it," she laughs, "one should think you are the one who lost that maidenhead and not she."
Of course. Lyanna has nothing to feel guilty about. Rhaegar downs the wine and holds the cup out for more.
"And that is all the thanks I get," Elia grouses. She tries to place her lips on his, but Rhaegar instinctively pulls away. "You are impossible. I do not know why I bother." She would make light of it. But for him the issue is serious. "'Tis better for her to have been rid of it. You worry too much."
How exactly he ends up in her arms after that, Rhaegar cannot recall, except that the wine is making him lightheaded and he wants something to wash away the look on his wife's face. For what it's worth, he hadn't meant to cause her any sort of harm.
It is his mother that enters the solar with Lyanna in tow. "You wife would like to say something to you," the Queen announces, a small smile playing on her lips.
His wife flushes, as if embarrassed when his eyes rest on her. She stammers something he cannot quite catch and looks helplessly at his mother. The Queen's smile becomes encouraging. It would undoubtedly be a good moment to put in a mummery, Rhaegar finds himself thinking, if it were not happening to him.
"I am with child."
Her words nearly bring the world tumbling down.
He almost asks how, but catches himself. Somewhere between joy and horror he stands to his feet, walks towards her and takes her hand in his. Small fingers remain lax in his grip. "That is good news, lady wife."
Soon enough she's round with child. At first she is not sure what to think of it. It is a change and Rhaegar visits her more often now. He brings her lemon cakes and occasionally he reads to her. Lyanna likes it most when they just talk though. About anything really.
"Who would you have wedded, given the choice?" she asks one day as he is closing the book he's been reading. "If the King hadn't sent for me?"
It is surprising and hurtful that he answers without an ounce of hesitation. "Elia Martell." And from there on Lyanna learns to pay attention to the two of them when they are together.
Elia Martell is sweet and good and kind, demure and soft, a woman in both frame and frame of mind. And she loves Rhaegar. Lyanna startles at the realisation. How could she have not noticed? But then again, how could she have, when Rhaegar constantly pushes her away? He treats her gently enough, but as one might a liability. So Lyanna closes herself off as well. There is no reason in trying.
Given her current state, Rhaegar cannot help but sit with her more often. She has a quick wit about her and is quite knowledgeable, despite her lack of involvement. When he finally frees them of the King, he thinks that she will be a true asset.
Goosy fits her well. It's that childhood name she hasn't been called since her mother's death. But how well it fits.
Sprawled on her back, stabbed by wave after wave of pain, Lyanna tries her very best to roll away and stand to her feet. This is not unlike falling back as a child. Except that she is no child, but carrying one, and something wet pools between her legs. And it hurts. It hurts more than the first time Rhaegar took her and more than his indifference and more than the pain of knowing he loves Elia Martell.
It's Ser Darry that finds her, whimpering and crawling on her knees with blood spoiling the folds of her dress and running into a puddle beneath her. "Your Grace," he calls and stoops to assist her to her feet. "Your Grace, pray, allow me." In the end he picks her up in his arms and holds her above the ground.
"The horse," Lyanna murmurs, half gone from pain and exertion. "The King's finest horse."
She shouldn't have gone out riding in her state, she knows that. But Lyanna simply wanted to get away from everything and everyone. From her husband and the crown of flowers he gave to Elia Martell in the gardens, from the Queen and the sympathy in her eyes, from the king and his wrath.
She nearly dies in childbed.
Lyanna so sure she will die anyhow. There is so much pain and blood. She grits her teeth and pushes and pushes, praying that it'll be over soon and that the blackness will take her and bring her to her mother. There is salt on her cheeks and the feel of fire eating her up from inside out and the stretch, impossibly wide, and encouraging whispers, kind hands on her brow, wiping away sweat.
A stick is slipped between her teeth when she refuses to scream. "You'll crack your teeth otherwise," the foul old midwife says.
The dead don't need teeth, Lyanna wants to answer, but words have long left her.
And she pushes and pushes and prays again. Someone speaks about a head and not long now. And indeed it is not long now.
They put the tiny creature in her arms and Lyanna looks down into a face like her own.
(Later they tell her that the King's best horse has been sacrificed to the god of blood and flame, the crowned one in his chair. And Lyanna will cry for it. Goosy, indeed.)
His heart gives a painful lurch when the servant tells him his wife has fallen off a horse.
(This cannot be happening.)
She screams and screams and screams, the awful sound as loud as a banshee's cry. It does nothing to help Rhaegar keep his calm. He should take those doors apart and just see her. But a man's place is not in the birthing chamber.
"It would be best if you weren't there," his mother says. "There are some things men should not have a hand in." He thinks she might be right the next time his wife howls with pain. He doesn't want to see this.
Jonothor Darry comes towards him, finally answering the summon. He'll be back soon.
"It was no attack as far as I could tell. Her Grace fell off the horse; plain and simple."
Rhaegar doesn't know if he should be thankful for that or not. "That is just as well," he says in the end. "Ser Darry, I will not forget your aid."
The Kingsguard nods his head.
(No matter what he says, his father still has the poor horse burned.)
"It is a son," Rhaella tells him proudly, as if the feat were hers. "A perfectly healthy little boy." Rhaegar wants to hear about Lyanna though.
"And my lady wife?" He stands to his feet, walking around the desk.
The smile of his mother's face loses some of its shine. "There was quite a lot of blood loss," she admits after a few moments of awards silence. "The Grand Maester does not think her life is threatened by it though. There is a slight fever."
"A slight fever?" He doesn't want to ask what that could possible mean.
She doesn't wake up when he enters the room and Rhaegar shushes the woman by her bedside who looks as if she might speak. She is pale and looking exhausted.
"The poor thing," coos the woman after a moment. "Fell asleep as soon as she was clean. Only held the child for a little time." Ah, the child. Of course. "Would Your Grace like to see him as well?"
Rhaegar nods his head and while the woman leaves through a smaller door into the adjoined room, he sits down on the edge of the bed and touched a hand to Lyanna's forehead. It doesn't seem too hot. She stirs lightly, lips quivering.
The child they bring has been made in her image. Rhaegar takes the sleeping babe from the woman and looks down at the little face, an unexpected wave of tenderness twisting inside his breast. He has never felt something like this. The Prince looks towards Lyanna. She still sleeps. The babe moves in his sleep, distracting him.
Fearing to wake him and Lyanna, Rhaegar gives him back to the nursemaid.
Rhaegar is fascinated with their son. Lyanna watches the two of them, eyes half-closed and wonders why her heart speeds up just a little bit.
"We should call him Jon," Lyanna says, "for Ser Darry."
Her husband's gaze is sharp on her at that. "For Ser Darry," he agrees. But something in his face tells Lyanna she should be wary.
"We should call him Jon." Her voice reaches his ears. Lyanna is still abed, better now, but still very much tired. Pycelle assures him that she will be right as rain in a few more days. When the words finally make sense he looks up at her. "For Ser Darry."
He feels a strange sort of pinch in his chest area. "For Ser Darry," he agrees nonetheless.
It takes more than a couple of weeks to get the King to agree. And even that is accomplished after much strife. Rhaegar would be lying if he said he wasn't impressed with his wife's resilience.
"I do not think our son quite catches your meaning, Your Grace," Lyanna tells him, taking Jon from his arms. "He is yet too young for any of those lessons." But she's smiling as she says it. His son gurgles as if to agree with her.
Rhaegar watches them together; the way Lyanna holds the child, from time to time pressing kisses atop the crown of his dark hair, and feels oddly and inexplicably proud.
They go to the tourney together.
Lyanna is livid when her husband wins and dares place a crown of blue roses in her lap. She stares at him with burning eyes and nearly throws it back at him. The flower of her homeland, she thinks bitterly, has never been such an unwelcome sight.
Queen of Love and Beauty. That is what the people cheer.
(Sometime after he will tell her about shooting stars and prophecies.)
She looks as if she might storm away with that crown in her hands. Rhaegar follows her silently with his eyes and then nods to Dayne to go along and make sure all is well with her. He must speak to Lord Whent as it is.
Later, she returns to him without the crown and a plea to be allowed to see her brother and take Jon along with her. Experiencing a momentary pain, Rhaegar almost refuses. Almost. But then he looks into her eyes and thinks that perhaps he should. So he allows her to go in the end.
The blooms have been discarded, thrown to the ground in her haste to rid herself of them and fly into her brother's arms. Brandon holds her tightly and kisses the top of her head. "I heard you are a mother," he tells her, voice thick with disbelief and tears.
"I am, I am," she weeps, hiding her face in his chest.
"Oh, goosy." And then they are both laughing and crying. "I wish we'd been allowed to come visit. We even had gifts prepared."
She begs her husband after to allow her family to see the child. "The King must never learn of it," Rhaegar tells her with a nod of his head. Lyanna is sorry for having thrown the crown away in this moment.
Jon fusses in her arms and cries when he is passed to Brandon's. Ned has more luck and Benjen doesn't even try. But they all have gifts. "Father sends this for you," Brandon says, giving her a small chest before she leaves.
(Bolts of fabric and her mother's needles. Lyanna wipes tears from her eyes and decides that Jon shall have to do with her dubious skills.)
She clings to his shoulders, fingers digging into the taut flesh and Rhaegar knows he did right by her. This time, at least. A small sound leaves her lips, something which he cannot place, too far gone to. After, he pulls out of her, short of breath and still dazed.
But he doesn't stay.
Things are better after. Lyanna barely notices Elia and her husband anymore. She has Jon to worry over. And it's not as if the Prince is a negligent father. He brings toys and curiosities and plays with Jon on the floor, sometimes shows him dragon skulls in the gallery, naming them one by one as if their infant can possibly understand.
She is not happy. But she is content. And the days wear on and on. All is well except for the King. The Queen is carrying again, which has left Lyanna with not only Jon to look after, but Viserys as well, The boy is quiet and sullen and trots after his brother, asking from time to time after Rhaella.
Lyanna doesn't know what to do with him. She tries her best though, allowing the boy to slip into her bed after a night terror, soothing him. She sings in broken fragments a lullaby of her childhood and tells him the best stories she knows, culled together from books and Rhaegar and Nan.
But even that comfort comes to nothing.
The Queen dies soon, in childbed, and leaves another infant Lyanna needs to care for.
Daenerys is a tiny babe, smaller than Jon and possibly of a sickly constitution. The King never comes to see her. Rhaegar does though. As with Jon, he sees than each and every one of her needs are met where he can. There are toys and dresses and dragons skulls to name.
"Why not have a child with the woman you love?" Lyanna finds herself asking.
He stares at her with wide eyes as if the notion is completely new and perfectly foreign. "I already have a child, lady wife, with you and we may yet have more."
The Queen dies and Rhaegar loses one of his closest allies.
("Why not have a child with the woman you love?" his wife asks, a pout on her lips and confusion in her face, as he speak to Daenerys about Meraxes.
"I already have a child, lady wife, with you and we may yet have more." That is his reply.)
"Your Grace, 'tis much too dangerous. The moment is not right." Connington is not the only one to say it.
She is six-and-ten and has just miscarried her and Rhaegar's daughter all over the floors of the Sept. The King flies into a fury, of course, and her husband picks her up off of the ground and shields her from the yells and stares. She feels thankful.
She cries for days after losing their daughter and Rhaegar has absolutely no idea what to do to make her feel better.
Robert Baratheon comes to court and Rhaegar just knows that trouble is brewing.
Robert Baratheon is not unknown to her. She has met him before, at the tourney. There is something brave and bold about him, something in the way he says her name and looks at her. As if she were the only woman on earth, the only woman for him. He pays her such attention that Lyanna grows flushed with it and her heart skips beats before she knows it.
Is this how Rhaegar feels about his Elia? Is it?
Robert brings her flowers and tells her stories and Lyanna hardly minds that Ser Dayne trails them like a shadow. She can forget about being anyone in Robert's presence. It's just the two of them. (Because she's ignoring Dayne.)
They go riding together and shooting. Robert is a fair shot, but she's better. Her aim is more precise. "Your Grace has been made for the hunt," he laughs and Lyanna laughs with him.
Then unexpectedly, he takes her hand and crushes it into his. It pains her, but Lyanna cannot seem to tell him to stop. Silly goosy! her mind screams at her. Robert's smile turns sad. "If only I had known you first, Your Grace. A woman like you does not deserve to be treated thus."
(The whispers, he means. The whispers about her and her husband and his Elia.)
Rhaegar holds her in his arms, pulling gently at her elbows, dragging her to sit astride him. Lyanna allows him that, widening her stance, settling comfortably atop of him. He kisses her lips and slips inside of her and she closes her eyes and sees blue eyes that strangely bleed into violent.
"Run away with me," Robert begs her. "I will protect you."
They hide behind the tree like two naughty children. And though she shouldn't Lyanna nods her head. Her heart is beating fast. Her lungs feel empty. And she wants, wants, wants the promises he makes her.
Silly goosy. Silly little Queen of Love and Beauty.
"I was wondering if you were ever going to come to me again," Elia tells him, wrapping her arm around his shoulders. "By the by, your little wife seems quite fond of Robert Baratheon."
He doesn't answer to that. Instead, Rhaegar gives her a small roll of paper. "Your brother has written."
(And when she leaves he feels strangely relieved. Which is not exactly fair to Elia. But he is beyond caring.)
"You will just allow for this to happen?" Arthur asks, disbelief underlining every word. "I am telling you, Your Grace, that Baratheon works towards seduction."
"What would you have me do, Dayne?" Calling attention to it would not only bring Robert's death. The King is just itching to be given a reason and Rhaegar refuses to. He will not have her death on his conscience.
"I do not understand," his friend says. "She is your wife."
"Aye" he agrees softly.
Jon looks at her with unknowing eyes. "Mamma, mamma, no cry." And that makes Lyanna cry even harder. She must be the worst sort of person to be contemplating what she is. But she kisses the top of his head and then brushes a finger to Daenerys' cheek.
Viserys is asleep in her bed, lost to the world.
"Mother is not crying Jon. You and Daenerys ought to be sleeping."
They do sleep in the end. Lyanna continues weeping throughout the night.
This is the first time she seeks him out. Lyanna enters her husband's solar, knowing that even this late in the night he'll be hard at work. Rhaegar looks up from his reading when she enters, surprise on his face. "Lyanna," he begins a question that is stopped by soft, full lips and a warm body.
Papers and quills and ink, they litter the wood and the floor and their skin. Lyanna brushes her fingers through his thick hair the colour of starlight and swears it's the most beautiful thing with the way it shines. And her skin soaks in the feel of him, her thighs spread wide.
She forgets for a moment about why she is there, about Robert and the gates, and just feels. It's so good, the way he moves within her, for some reason.
(Why now? This is not fair at all. Why now? Why not then, at the beginning, when she might have stayed?)
Rhaegar whispers her name into the wet skin of her neck, biting there, the tip of his tongue soothing the ache. She writes his on the expanse of his back, jerking with every deep thrust. It feels like a goodbye. And it frightens her somewhat. But Lyanna takes everything, every little bit she can have.
He may go to Elia after. But right now he is hers.
"Gods, Lyanna," he says after, holding himself deep within her. "Gods."
Gods, indeed, she thinks.
She comes to him on her very own for the first time and that should give him more pause than it does. A chill of awareness travels down his spine at the look in her eyes and he opens his mouth to tell her something, anything ("Nay, stay. Don't go. You cannot go. Seven hells, you are my wife!"), but what he does say is "Lyanna."
She shushes him with soft limbs and eager kisses. He was hoping she wouldn't. But in the face of such determination, he resolves to set her free. (He might have taken a few blows at her pride, from time to time finding his comfort elsewhere, but she is cutting out tiny pieces of his heart.) Her lips move against his, hands creeping up his shoulders to his hair, fingers twisting strands around.
For one horrible, awful moment, hand on her knee, it occurs to Rhaegar that there is a simple solution to this. His fingers instinctively clutch at her limb, exerting a tight hold. And then dismisses the idea. It makes his stomach roil, the notion. She is easily breakable. But he doesn't want to break her beyond repair.
Instead, he tugs at her dress, pulling it out of the way, bending over pliant, warm curves. It's all instinct from there on, infused with that emotion he dares not name, just in case it all falls apart. He is barely aware that all those important documents are on the ground or stained beyond repair. All he knows is the warmth and taste of her, lost in something bittersweet and half-hopeful.
He takes his time, mapping out her body (as if he doesn't already know it) and swears that if he could he would stop time right now, right this instant. And then she's wrapped around him, humming softly, head falling back. He thinks he wants to say something stupid and tilts her hips at another angle, willing his mind to just shut up.
He pushes into her willing body and holds his breath to hear the breathy sound she makes. The chaos grows and grows, louder and higher. Impossible. The whole universe breaks apart into a congruous mass, pulling him into the void.
(They rest but a few moments and then somehow manage to fall back into his chair.)
She leaves with a soft whisper and a gentle swish of her skirts and Rhaegar has to bite on his tongue to keep from grabbing fistfuls of it and pulling her back. Right now, he hates Robert. And he hates Lyanna as well, because how can she be so bloody stupid and hates himself for not being brave. He hates himself the most.
Staggering to his feet, he combs his fingers through his hair and covers himself to some semblance of decency (not that it matters if the whole keep knows) and somehow makes his way to the door.
The servant standing there knows better than to give any indication of awareness.
"Wine," Rhaegar demands, shutting the door in his face after.
Ser Darry shakes his head. "'Tis important that I see the King," Lyanna insists. The dagger hidden in the sleeve of her dress presses coldly to her skin. "I beg of you, ser."
Jaime Lannister gives her a wide-eyed gaze. "The King sleeps."
"And he shall sleep after I am gone as well."
In the end they do let her through. Lyanna slips into the darkened chamber and tries not to think about what she shall do. The taste of Rhaegar still lingers on her lips when she puts the pillow over the old madman's face and pushes hard. He struggles. But somehow, the gods see her through it, and she overpowers him long enough to push the thin blade into his chest, deep inside. slicing his heart.
Rhaegar will be king now.
She and Robert flee into the night.
He's not been this drunk since the time he was made a knight and went out drinking with Selmy, Dayne and the Bull. What he does remember of that night is hazy and unfocused, but he thinks it might have involved more than one or two squabbles, some close encounters with potentially disease vessels and more luck than any man should have the right to.
Rhaegar will see if he can possible top that. So he flings his cup away and takes the bottle in his hand (the fourth, the fifth?), drinking deep.
When it's empty he smashes it to the wall, satisfied at the loud sound and the broken pieces.
(In the morning his hands will be bloody.)
"She killed him," Jaime Lannister whispers as Rhaegar holds his head in his hands. "She killed the King."
It is with just a twinge of unease that he looks upon the corpse on the bed. "Dayne, see that someone cleans this room after he is taken out."
(Later, in his own bedchamber, Rhaegar will break down into a fit of sobbing laughter, because not only is he craven, he is also very, very much an idiot.
His heart will need quite some time to recover.)
He takes her to a small keep that has been abandoned long ago. "It shall serve."
There is no one there but him and her. Lyanna thinks that perhaps this is for the best.
And then she's flat on her back, legs apart and Robert's. And for some reason, it doesn't feel like love. At least not like what she expected love to feel like. Her hands wrap around his shoulders, clinging to him. Silly goosy. And he pumps into her leaving her feeling emptier and emptier with every thrust. Her energy is fading fast.
He leaves after with a promise to be back soon. Lyanna is surprised at that.
Cersei Lannister smiles at him sweetly, wide green eyes trained on his form. Rhaegar watches her back speculatively. Tywin must be thinking, right about now, that his scheming little lioness actually has a chance.
She's tall, but not very strong. Slim and easily the most objectively beautiful woman he has ever seen. And instead of trying to get under her skirts, Rhaegar finds that he wonders about another matter altogether. (Is Baratheon making use of his wife right now?)
He surprises himself by bursting into laughter. Cersei follows his lead, though he thinks she doesn't understand.
Rhaegar turns on his heel and leaves her there, standing in the hallway. (Else he might just send her back to her father in shame to spite the old man into an early grave.)
When she is moved with stealth to Storm's End, Lyanna pretends not to notice the horrified stares.
"What have you done?" Robert roars at her. "The King is dead."
"Do you truly think it was I?" If he doesn't know then it means that Darry and Lannister have kept quiet about her visit. "Would I truly be so foolish as to murder the King and then run away with you?"
He doesn't come to her after. Not that Lyanna minds. In the meantime she's had time to meet two of his former paramours and two of his bastards.
"But Your Grace," Jon Connington protests. "They say she ran with him willingly."
"What exactly are you implying about my lady wife, Connington?" Rhaegar asks, hoping he sounds as livid as he feels.
Stupid fucking bitch. How is he supposed to let go of her just like that after what she's done for him?
"The King demands his wife back," Jon Connington says, eyeing Lyanna with thinly veiled disgust.
"Then the King should not have left her to another man," Robert meets the demand. "Lyanna Stark came with me willingly. Did you not, lady?"
Viserys scowls at the nursemaid. "He doesn't like that," he yells adding to the din Jon makes. "Aunt Lya never held him like that."
Rhaegar sighs and pushes the nursery door open. "Give me the child," he demands of the woman who turns as white as milk. Once he has Jon safely in his hold, Rhaegar soothes the infant. "Mamma!" the boy weeps, like he's been doing for some days now. "Enough, Jon. I promise mother will be back soon."
Daenerys watches them with curiosity, her small lips curling upwards.
Aye, he'll get Lyanna back if he has to drag her kicking and screaming.
"He said she was willing," Connington offers. Rhaegar senses how pleased the man is for it.
"I care not for his word. What did Lyanna Stark say?" The question feel heavy, loaded.
Connington's mood sours. "She said nothing, Your Grace."
Well, perhaps she'll be quite willing to come along then.
Of course there is a war. Lyanna breaks down into a mess of sobs and laughter. A war over the unworthiest of women. The bards should write about it.
Her hand travels down to her slightly bulging abdomen. She wonders who the father is. "Soon."
They are losing.
He comes to her one more time on the eve of the final battle. (They just don't know it yet.) Robert takes her in his arms and to the bed, and bends her down. Lyanna goes without a fight. She lies beneath him, panting and trying to bring to mind another encounter. The sharp smell of ink fills her nostrils. Her eyes close and her body softens.
It's the strangest thing, truly. She hated him when he was hers and now that she cannot even pretend that much, her heart aches for him. Robert slakes his lust in his typical fashion, fast and hard and bruising. Lyanna is glad for that.
After, when she is alone in bed, cover drawn tight over her nakedness, Lyanna dares think about another fruit of her womb, a small boy with her face and his father's temper and cries. She's been avoiding it up until thin point, thinking about Jon.
And here she is, thinking and weeping. Silly goosy, she can hear her mother's voice. What a thing to do. That she cannot argue with. She is not only the silliest of her line, but perhaps the very worst. A mother like her shouldn't live. A person like her shouldn't be breathing. But she does anyway, because she's too much of a coward to plunge the knife within her own heart.
She wonders if Jon is any taller and if Daenerys is speaking and if Viserys is still having nightmares. She wonders if Rhaegar will be kind on account of her having been his wife and given him a child, an heir. She wonders if he will give her a clean death. It's a pity, though, that the war has advanced like it has.
Lyanna would have liked to see this child she is carrying. Perhaps it would have been a girl. Like the daughter she lost. "I would have named you Lyarra, after my lady mother, and I would have taught you to shoot arrows and climb trees and knock boys to the ground. And to stitch very ill indeed."
But mostly she would have liked to teach her to not be so afraid. "Not like your mother. I think you would have been splendid."
He meets Robert of the field of battle. It is expected. Not of the King, of course. But of the husband. The winner sets the truth and Rhaegar already knows what truth he wants the world to know. Of course, the lover is just as thirsty for vengeance.
Battle is nothing like the songs would have one believe. There is blood and gore and too much death. Rhaegar hasn't an easy time of matching Baratheon for all his determination.
Somehow though, his lance meets the skull of his opponent, piercing through the visor into flesh and bone. A stroke of luck.
Why does he send Jaime Lannister after Lyanna? Rhaegar is quite occupied with having Robert nailed to the wall of his keep for the crows or seagulls or whatever corpse-eating creature is about to devour.
(He is wholly unapologetic at the surge of primal satisfaction the sight brings him.)
When the gates of Storm's End are forced apart by the King's army, Lyanna has half a mind to jump off the highest tower. But she doesn't. Instead, she brushes her hair and dresses in her finest and presses a hand to her middle.
One of the servants knocks gently on the door. And the sound of heavy footsteps is heard. She doesn't open it, of course. The wooden frame shakes. Lyanna waits, sitting on the edge of the bed. The King's men do not disappoint.
The door swings on its hinges and an armour-clad figure steps in. Lyanna almost doesn't recognise Ser Jaime with his helmet on.
"Your Grace," he greets. His voice has grown deeper. "His Grace the King has summoned you." He grabs her by the arm and drags her to her feet, attention momentarily straying to her middle.
Lyanna has the grace to blush.
There is nothing to say, really. She follows more like a woman dead than alive and thanks the gods her son is not old enough to know what is happening and that he is back in Kings Landing with Daenerys and Viserys.
She wakes with her armful of her children, all of them, from Viserys ("Aunt Lya, are you fine?") to Jon ("Mamma!") to Daenerys who doesn't speak but still clings to her.
Rhaegar watches them with cold, cold eyes. She sees his gaze resting at the level of her waist and her heart squeezes painfully in her chest. But then she looks at the children and tears are running down her face, blurring her vision.
"Don't leave again, mamma!" Jon demands.
"Aye," Viserys seconds.
She thinks that perhaps they don't know what to make of her. She wouldn't either.
"Let us return home," Rhaegar says after a long pause.
The child might be Robert's. This thought is what eats him alive when Lyanna hugs their son and his own siblings. The child could possible be Robert's and Rhaegar is half afraid of what he might do at this point.
There are ways, of course. But they are dangerous.
It would be utterly foolish to even consider it after he has worked so hard to preserve this woman's life.
She looks at him with something like trust and Rhaegar feels as if a blade is being twisted into his stomach.
"Let us return home," he hears himself saying.
Aenya has his hair and Lyanna's eyes and Rhaegar can already hear hearts breaking throughout the realm. Lyanna coos softly, murmuring something he cannot quite catch.
(He asked her what she wanted to name their daughter, but Lyanna said that since she named Jon, he should name this second fruit of their labour.)
He feels relieved that Lyanna never asks whether he would have allowed the child to live had it been Robert's.
She lies with him in bed sated and spent, her hair drawn over one shoulder, leaving the other bare. "And this one?" she questions, tracing a puckered scar that is discoloured, but visibly more recent than the others.
"Barely missed me with that swing of the sword," Rhaegar mutters. "One of Robert's men."
Lyanna's eyes become unfocused, just for a moment, as if she'd seeing some ghost. Rhaegar rests his weight on one elbow and looks down at her. His scars are closed wounds. Her wounds still bleed sometimes.
"Let it go, Lyanna," he tells her.
"How?" It nearly breaks his heart. "How could I possibly?" She catches onto his shoulder and gives a surprisingly strong tug.
"A little bit at a time." He bends his head down to her level, pressing a soft, chaste kiss to her lips. Lyanna accepts the comfort. He pulls back after a few moments.
"I do not know what I would have done if you hadn't come for me," she finally confesses after a lull between them. Her fingers are tracing an old scar near his hipbone. "I am so, so very sorry."
"The one who is sorry is I." He wipes away a tear with his thumb.
There is no fanfare, no ground shaking beneath them, not anything out of ordinary. It just creeps upon him that this woman (his woman) is the most extraordinary creature that the gods have ever fashioned. He doesn't think he will ever understand her heart beyond the love he knows is there and he doesn't try to. She's here, with him, and it's enough.
Her daughter has silver hair and silver eyes and she is the most beautiful thing Lyanna has ever seen.
The poor Queen, they whisper, kidnapped and used ill. They don't know anything. The poor Queen, they say, at least the child is the King's, small mercies.
"Why didn't you say anything?" Lyanna questions Ser Darry when there is a chance. "You and Ser Jaime both."
He looks at her coldly. "The King demanded."
Rhaegar lays a crown of wildflowers in her lap one sunny afternoon as she watches Jon chase after Daenerys. Lyanna looks at him questioningly, but Rhaegar says nothing. He just picks up their daughter and Aenya gurgles in something like contentment.
Silly goosy. Silly Queen of Love and Beauty.
She holds the crown out to him and raises an eyebrow expectantly. Rhaegar sets their daughter down and Aenya proceed to crawl about the ground in search of some new discovery she can astound herself with. Rhaegar smiles at his wife and she smiles back.
"If you are going to set about a task, husband, then you had best do it properly," she mock-chides.
Rhaegar clucks his tongue but places the crown atop her head nonetheless. "Perhaps I had meant for someone else to have it."
"Beast," she replies, smacking his shoulder lightly. "I had a mind to give you a reward, but if it's like this," she trails off and pulls away from him.
She's taken about half a step before he lunges after her. "Come back here, you." Their lips somehow manage to meet in something resembling a kiss between his chuckle and her shout of faux indignation.
"Disgusting," Rhaegar can hear his oldest son say to his youngest sister.
"Yuck," Daenerys agrees.
The kiss breaks because it's not possible to laugh while kissing.
"You should be sitting down," he tells her after she has paced the length of the room about three times.
"I am restless," she says, walking slowly.
"You are making me restless as well," Rhaegar accuses, not at all impressed with the glare she sends his way. "Seven hells, woman, you could have this babe any minute and you prance about as if nothing is amiss." Not truly, she still has about one moon's turn left. But he worries (like he always does) and she finds the habit frustrating (like she started to after their third child was born).
"Because nothing is amiss," Lyanna assures him. "I cannot help it that you complicate even matters as simple as this."
Their banter carries on into the hallway, Rhaegar reminds himself. (According to Dayne, who keeps insisting he doesn't want to get into their dispute over the babe's name, but suggests Jocelyn since the one before was called Aemon. For balance.)
"Stop pacing and come here," he tells her in his most commanding voice, which by now to be sure earned him only an indulgent smile from his wife.
"I might. But I'll need some inducement," is her saucy answer.
Well, it is certainly better than he expected.