Author's Note: So I'm not sure if I've ever said anything, but daemon AUs are my absolute favorite AUs to read and write. I've got like ten different AUs floating about, but daemons are my favorite. I realized that I'd never written one for the ASIOAF fandom. Which is a travesty. I planned on this being a Catelyn/Tywin daemon AU, but it somehow morphed into also a Catelyn/Ned AU and became very sad. It was difficult not putting this in a modern AU.
catelyn stark - european otter - merlin: means "sea fortress"
tywin lannister - african lion - harlow: means "rock" or "army" + "hill"
ned stark - gray eurasian wolf - griselda: means "gray" + "battle"
robb stark - light gray eurasian wolf - morrigan: means "great queen"
edmure tully - [unsettled in scene] - caoimhe: means "beautiful, gentle, kind"
sansa stark - [unsettled in mention] - cadeyrn: means "battle king"
margaery tyrell - clouded leopard - [unnamed in scene]
Disclaimer: None of this is mine, boo hoo.
and i will tell about it
Merlin hates this place, but he bites his tongue and says nothing. Too hot, she knows, much too stuffy for the sleek, little otter, but he never complains. He's never been one for complaining, much like herself, but he used to talk with her about these things. Instead, he ignores the basin of water that she requested, eyeing the water like it is a cage. He slips around the room, more reminiscent of a snake than a mammal, ready to hiss at anything that seems out of order.
Catelyn sighs to herself. Everything is out of order. She is alive. Her family is dead. Two months later and she still has to grip onto something to keep herself from swaying whenever her mind drifts to her lost children.
"You must not think of that," Merlin practically snaps, reading where her mind was going.
"What else is there to think of?" Catelyn asks as she stares out the window.
They've grown so distant with each other. For all her life, she and Merlin have been so inexplicably close. Even when she felt like she was alone, she had him. When Ned was dashed away from her, Merlin curled so tightly into her chest that she could almost forget that she would never see her husband or his Griselda ever again. Sansa held captive and Arya missing too... When news of Bran's and Rickon's deaths came to her, she wept into Merlin, soaking his dark brown fur, holding him gently as he mourned their unsettled daemons.
But this? The arrows that were shot into Robb's chest may have well as severed her and Merlin as well. She never heard Merlin scream before, as he did when Robb's Morrigan staggered to the ground, arrows dug deep in her skin. Morrigan, who so closely resembled Ned's Griselda, an unconscious mirroring that occured when she abruptly settled as a grey wolf when Robb was proclaimed King of the North.
Who is thinking of them now? Catelyn thinks.
Merlin jerks his head to the side and stalks to the other side of the room, lying down on a pillow she'd tossed on the floor. He closes his thoughts from her, as much to shield her as himself. He was always so small compared to everyone else's daemons. Griselda could've swallowed him whole, but she let him pick at her, slide through her legs, even ride on his back. And one would've thought that Merlin was the wolf the way he sometimes berated headstrong Morrigan.
"You are right though." Catelyn casts a level look to her daemon. He does not move his head, but his ears twitch just slightly. She feels his apprehension more than sees it, feels it in the air as much as she does in her mind. It tastes metallic, like the blood servants had to clean from her hands and face after pulling her from Robb's body. "There are other things we must think of now."
"Like what?"
Catelyn looks out the window over King's Landing. "Like vengeance."
Nearly everyone in the Tully family has a daemon that is touched by water somehow. It's in their blood, or so her father says. Merlin teasingly plays as a fish whenever they go swimming, though both of them know how ridiculous it would be for him to settle as that. His favorite form is a crane, beautiful and delicate, both tied to the water yet free in the air. There aren't many bird daemons in their family, but they could be the exception.
When her mother dies, Catelyn's heart seizes in her chest and she nearly drops Merlin, who changes into a snake so that he could keep hanging onto her. He slides up her arm and around her neck, flickering into a bluejay and perching on her shoulder.
The first night without her mother, Catelyn is lying in bed, Merlin curled up against her neck in a bunny form, unable to sleep. She has tried crying a few times, testing the emotions like she might test the temperature of the water before jumping in, but she cannot manage it. Her uncle called it shock. She just feels empty though.
Merlin stirs against her. "I thought..." He twitches into a river otter form. Somehow, he's able to look unsure of himself, more expressive than she's ever seen him be before. "I thought I was going to settle."
Catelyn closes her eyes. "I know. I felt it, like a...a shimmer, like something was changing in you - in me, too." They're silent for a while. She takes a deep breath and pulls Merlin onto her chest, holding him like she might hold a doll or a child. "I was scared."
He nuzzles into her, but she can feel him shaking just so, letting her know that he was scared too. Settling would be the end of her childhood, but if her mother's death did not signal that, then what would?
Catelyn nearly laughs when she sees Tywin's daemon for the first time. She feels the same sort of incredulous scoff vibrate through Merlin, though he clamps his mouth shut. Of course he has a lionness for a daemon. She knew that, but it did not make seeing it in person much less different. She's furious and devastated and feels as if her entire being as been torn apart at the seams. Part of her still wonders if perhaps she and Merlin have been severed on some small level after everything, but she can still hold onto some contempt for the man at the center.
"You requested me, my lady?" Tywin says, as if she asked what the weather was like outside.
Catelyn grinds her teeth. "I requested you weeks ago."
"I am the King's Hand." He speaks the words like they are simple facts and not slaps to the face. A little over a year ago, his position belonged to her husband. "I am a busy man."
"Then let us cut to the chase," Catelyn replies, practically barring her teeth, much more like Griselda than a dutiful Tully. "What have you brought me here for? Why am I not dead?"
For a moment, they are both silent. Both Tywin and his lion daemon examine her with the same coldness in their eyes, although his daemon's is much more calculating. Merlin puffs his chest up, though it makes no matter when the lion is even bigger than Griselda. Catelyn knows that they are not a threatening pair - she in her thin dress, wearing tear stained cheeks like armor and her once beautiful red hair cut haphazardly and he so small and delicate - but she refuses to admit it. The air in the room is rife with fury, enough to smother a person it would seem.
"We may have use of you," the lion finally speaks. Her voice is suprisingly light. For some reason, Catelyn thought it would be much more commanding, deep and husky, not melodic. Even stranger is having his daemon talk to her in his place, something that causes Merlin's hair to bristle.
"I will call on you when the time comes to discuss anything further," Tywin adds, finality in his voice. Before she can interject, he turns and strides out of the room, the lion on his heels.
Catelyn snaps her mouth shut so hard that she nearly bites her tongue. Merlin practically hisses at the closed door. When they look at each other, she feels that spark of connection again, heat reflected in their eyes. She doesn't need to speak to him to know what he is thinking: Vengeance.
Merlin settles the day her father tells her that he has betrothed her to Brandon Stark. She freezes on the spot, trying to come up with the proper words to say ("thank you," feels like burnt ashes in her mouth), when Merlin shudders in her arms and leaps onto the ground. Her mind goes all foggy and every inch of her tingles like she's being gently pricked by a thousand needles.
Before her father can ask her what is wrong or repeat himself, Catelyn forces a smile onto her face and curtsies. Her knees are shaking so much that she nearly stumbles. "I am pleased, Father," she lies, keeping her voice as level as possible. She wants to scream for a million reasons and yet she cannot. "I must go tell Lysa the news."
She hurries away from her father, but the moment he is out of sight, she turns a corner and runs out of the castle altogether, not in the direction of her sister's bedchamber at all. She runs until her lungs burn, losing a shoe in the mud, tearing through a bush and ruining her dress, runs to the point where she cannot breathe. Merlin runs beside her, somehow able to keep up with her despite his small legs. She collapses on the river bank, her favorite spot to swim, her knees sinking into the dirt.
"So it took getting betrothed," Merlin says in a flat voice.
Catelyn casts a glance over to him. He's beautiful really - lithe and sleek, with nimble hands and intelligent eyes - but she also knows that it has been many a year since any Tully had an otter daemon. He rarely took that form, except when he felt especially mischievous. She did not feel like that now.
"Are you truly pleased?" Merlin asks, suddenly careful. She can feel how edgy he feels. The topic of betrothal has been brought up a few times, but in all honesty, they tried not to think or talk about it altogether. Catelyn was the Lady of Riverrun in her mother's stead; their home and heart were here with their family, their people, their river.
Biting her lip, Catelyn looks down at the river water. "I don't know."
"Do you feel scared?"
At this, Catelyn smiles, if not happily, then at least relieved. "No, not when I know you will be with me." She may not know the boy that she will be married to once she is of age, but at least she knows that.
"You're absolutely ridiculous!" Merlin cries out, pacing in front of her like a wild creature.
The white hot rage in Merlin's voice shocks Catelyn almost as much as Tywin's proposal. Her breath hitches in her throat. She had not meant to think of his plan to use her in such a way, but that's what it was in the end, was it not? She reaches out to Merlin in her mind, trying to soothe him, but it's almost like he pushes her back, unable to allow anyone inside with his pain to guard him. She knows what that is like.
Tywin doesn't even blink at Merlin's blunder. Her daemon has never once spoken aloud in his and his daemon's presence, as if deeming them not worthy. It is unusual in itself for daemons to speak to other humans unless they are close, but this is on another level in itself. "We have thought this plan through and-"
"I do not care," Merlin bites out, shaking his head like he's trying to shake them out of existence if he tries hard enough. "I do not care what you have thought. I will not let you do this to her."
At this, Catelyn blinks and a surge of tenderness coasts through her. Merlin stops right in front of her, surely feeling what she is, and he finally allows her to feel how manically upset he is. The waves roll over her until she's not sure whether they are her feelings or his; she supposes they're both really. Her brave, little river otter. Tywin is the man that broke their family, the King's Hand, a man that has wiped out three great Houses now, and his lion daemon could break the otter's back in one bite, but he will not let them wound her anymore than they already have.
"Have you no shame?" Merlin demands. "No decency?"
"Have you any reason?" the lion daemon counters. They still do not know her name. Merlin has so far refused to talk to either of them and Catelyn refuses to stoop so low as to ask.
"You call this reason?" Merlin barks out a cold laugh. "This is madness; if you want to call it reason, then it is vile and twisted."
It strikes Catelyn then that she did not opened her mouth since Tywin first stepped into the room and he did not interject into the conversation once his daemon began to speak. She can see now how seamlessly they worked together, both rulers in their own rights. They at least seemed to be on the same page whereas she and Merlin struggled recently.
A few more minutes of the daemons arguing and Catelyn can no longer take it. With a hand pressed over her eyes, she interrupts, "Leave us be."
Merlin shoots her a look, but his eyes are filled with more concern than irritation. The lion daemon tilts her head, her eyes shrewd as ever, and then the two of them leave the room, the door locking behind them. She takes a shuddering breath and falls back onto the edge of the bed. It feels as if the weight of all her nightmares is pressing down on her. What was this world coming to?
For all his hesitance in the past few weeks, Merlin jumps on the bed and leaps up on his back legs, pressing his forepaws into her chest. "You cannot actually be considering this."
"And what would you say if I was?" she questions.
"I'd say that you were as mad as him, but I know you better than that."
"Otters are supposed to be clever, aren't they?" When Catelyn drops her hand to look at him, Merlin merely sniffs. She lays a hand on his back, smoothing down his fur. He's so warm. She wishes he would cool off in the water, wishes more than anything they were allowed to go outside so that he could lounge in some natural water, but he won't and they can't. (He's punishing himself for failing her.) "I think... If we are going to have a chance at beating him, we must play his game."
Merlin mulls the idea in his head for a moment. When a grin flickers onto his face, it is almost cruel. She has never known him to be mean - he has always been gentle and sweet, cool to even the harshest of daemons and their humans - but she sees something in him that has perhaps laid dormant until this moment. She sees hatred where she has never seen it before and knows that it reflects in her as well. "Let him think that we are a pawn to be used."
Yes, let him think that. To their honor, Catelyn will do what she can to help restore balance in the Riverlands. She can not imagine such a peaceful land so war-torn and wounded. She will hand her life over to Tywin in order to keep her brother alive. She is not so far gone to believe that she has absolutely no family left.
Merlin presses a paw against her cheek like a pact. "I will not let him hurt you."
She does not know how she ends up comforting Edmure on the night of her wedding, but her little brother somehow wormed his way into her room before the ceremony was to begin. He clings to her skirts, practically in tears and close to ruining her dress with them, as his Caoimhe skitters in circles about her. She can't seem to decide on a shape until she sticks with a small version of a river otter, a few shades lighter than Merlin.
"He's going to take you away," Edmure blubbers, all child-like and devasted. She knows better than to remind him that Lysa will also be getting married off tonight. The two of them are close, as they all are, but not quite in the same way as Catelyn and Edmure. Even as he takes great big sniffs, Merlin licks Caoimhe's face as she trembles. "I don't want you to go, Cat!"
"Oh, Edmure..." Catelyn sighs and bends down, taking her little brother's face in her hands. His eyes are red, cheeks puffy, and his nose is pink. She smooths his hair down in the same way she has done all his life. He is her brother, but he is so much more than that too. He does not remember their mother; Caoimhe cannot even picture what her daemon looked like. Catelyn bites her lip. There are days when she forgets as well, though she knows that Merlin will never forget and he never brings it up either. "You know that I must. What are our words?"
Even as Edmure shakes his head, gripping her wrists, Caoimhe whimpers, "Family, Duty, Honor." Just as stubborn as he is, just as emotional and difficult. She cannot imagine that she was such a willful child, but then she was raised by adults while he was raised by a child.
"You're going to leave me," Edmure mumbles into her. His breathing has slowed, not nearly as erratic, and he's gone still in her arms, his grip on her wrists slack and the sniffs gone.
"It is our duty," Merlin tells him, rubbing against little Caoimhe.
Catelyn kisses her brother on the forehead. "But we will always love you, of course. You know the words: Family always comes first."
When she is walking towards the only great weirwood tree in Riverrun in order to perform the ceremony, her eyes are locked tight on her husband to be. Not Bran, not as she had pictured for so many years, but his younger brother instead. She's never met him before, but she can see glimpses of his dead brother behind a solemn face meant for someone much older. Merlin walks a straight line, cool eyes mirroring hers, even when faced with Ned Stark's giant wolf daemon, deadly as she was still. Family always comes first - and this is for her family, as much as it is for duty and honor.
I'll not let anything happen to you, Merlin thinks fiercely. I swear it by the Seven.
Her brave, little Merlin.
Merlin is perfect for court. She remembers the way he would practically prance around when they were in King's Landing all those years ago, she a girl attending a princess. Now he is grown, yet still as handsome as ever, colder though. The clever, little smiles that he dishes out don't quite reach his eyes, but no one seems to notice, except perhaps for Cersei Lannister and Margaery Tyrell, but those women are vipers if Catelyn has ever seen one.
"I honestly don't know how they've managed so long in the court," Merlin says with a sniff after leaving tea. Both of them hate doing things like that, what with all those simpering women and their fake pleasantries, but it's important to keep appearances here in King's Landing. Despite the fact that it's well-known that her family was murdered, she still has to act as if she's entirely grateful and pleased to be in the company of the people responsible for it.
"Which one?" Catelyn asks. Theyr'e walking in no direction in particular, but it feels good to just walk around sometimes, after all the days they'd spent locked in those bedchambers and allowed only breaks to wash up. She needs the air to remind herself that she's alive and so that she doesn't fall back into the fog that not even Merlin could stir her from.
Merlin scoffs. "All of them - absolute, withering chits..." His grumbles become less intelligible, but she smiles nonetheless. She can feel his heated spirit. He hates the city even more that they've been allowed some freedoms, to get accustomed to the court and all the people before the wedding, and everything seems to grate on his nerves. Sometimes, she can't help but smile at how worked up he gets; it reminds her of how he sniffed around Winterfell when they first arrived all those years ago.
"Pardon me, my Lady?" a woman's voice rings out from behind.
Catelyn stops and turns, only to find that it is Margaery Tyrell walking towards her, all young grace and beautiful. It's no wonder that she is to be the queen; she already looks it. Merlin eyes the woman's stunning leopard leopard with intent intrigue. The large cat treads delicately at Margaery's side, almost the same way that Margaery herself carries herself, seeming much smaller than she is.
In respect, Catelyn makes a small curtsey. "My Lady."
"Oh, nonsense, you need not do that with me," Margaery insists, smiling so that it reaches her eyes. Catelyn can almost believe anything that this girl says - almost. Both she and Merlin have grown to suspicious for that. "I do hope that you will forgive me, but we've never had the chance to speak privately and I..." She takes a deep breath. For however caught up with her emotions she seemed to be, her daemon seems completely untouched. "I wanted to give my sincere condolescenes on your loss. I did not want to bring it up in front of the others, but... Your daughter was a true friend of mine. I did grow to care for her fiercely, my Lady. You raised a strong daughter."
The words were unexpected and threw Catelyn off guard. Glancing at Merlin, she can't help but feel slightly off balance, though it is foolish to even show such a thing. Still, no one ever brought up her family, even though Sansa was here just shortly before she arrived, spirited away in the night right after Joffrey's death. The look on Margaery's face is open, vulnerable, and Catelyn feels a tingling in the back of her throat, like she just might cry. The girl's leopard daemon has changed as well, head bowed, as if in regret. It's all so very careful, so calculated. Merlin rubs against her ankle at her side, warning her and comforting her at the same time.
"Your kind words are greatly appreciated, Lady Margaery," Catelyn replies in a tight voice. "I am glad that Sansa had someone with her here so that she was not completely alone."
Margaery gives her an almost watery smile. Oh, how it makes her eyes sparkle. Yes, she is a dangerous player indeed. "I do hope that we may be close too some day. It is a lonely place in King's Landing; and I know how difficult it is to come by friends here."
Indeed it is. The two of them part on good terms: Margaery gliding back to her friends and their sweet lemoncakes, the stunning leopard at her side; Catelyn to her bedchambers, Merlin trotting a little more stiffly than before, because she cannot stand to be around people all of a sudden. She can't help but think of Sansa walking these halls, sharing tea with the same people, she and her quaint daemon alone in a den filled with lions and thorns and snakes. No one told her if Sansa's daemon settled or not, but both Catelyn and Merlin knows that Cadeyrn could not have survived this place without settling. She imagines he never changed forms again after watching Ned being murdered.
A shiver runs through Merlin and into Catelyn. The halls of the Red Keep are cold, but their anger can keep them warm long enough, just maybe. Cadeyrn was such a sweet-tempered daemon, so very much like Sansa. What became of them? What did this place do to them? Merlin bares his tiny teeth. She will repay it all in tenfold.
Frowning worriedly at her dim reflection, Catelyn cannot help but feel worthless and disgraceful. She can barely walk around without waddling at this point of the pregnancy and it's a tad bit embarrassing. Ned never saw her when she was pregnant with Robb; he only ever saw her when she was thin and beautiful and not as large as a melon. Nearly two years into their marriage, and she is still unsure of where she stands.
It's home, is it not? Merlin thinks as he rolls around on the bed. She shoots him a glare, jealous of how limber and agile he is when she is most definitely not. He gives her an otter's grin in return. Snarky, little thing.
"May I come in?" Her husband pokes his head into the room.
"This is your bedchamber as well," Catelyn points out, not unkindly.
Ned flushes a bit behind his beard. He's been trying to grow it out, though it still seems as if the beard is clinging tightly onto his youth. She may be with child for the second time, but they are still young. Despite his quiet behavior and the fact that he has gone to war, lost men, and seen his family dead, she still sees the boy in him. It's rather endearing, how careful he is with her, but sometimes she wished he wouldn't treat her like she's glass.
Griselda pushes the door open wider and slips into the room before Ned. The wolf daemon is much bolder than her human, but still just as reticent. Still, her eyes are perceptive and ever watchful. She always lays close to Robb when he's attempting to walk, his tiny daemon tripping over itself as well. There's something odd about her tonight though, a strange hesitance in her step as she pads over to the bed and jumps onto it next to Merlin. The otter rolls about a bit more, bumping playfully in Griselda, who merely gives an arched eyebrow in return that only wolves and dogs seem capable of doing.
As Ned shuts the door, Catelyn walks (oh, waddles) over to the other side of the bed and carefully lowers herself down. Her belly is so swollen that she can only sleep comfortably on her side now, but she aches for Ned to touch her, just to cuddle even, though he's so afraid that he might disturb her. When she looks up to him, she sees the same hesitance in him that she saw in Griselda, his steps towards her almost jerky.
"You truly do look beautiful," Ned says quietly as he stops in front of her, looking down at her with a strange intensity that nearly makes her blush.
"Oh, please, I-"
"No, I mean it," Ned interrupts. He turns red again, no doubtedly because he actually interrupted her, but he doesn't apologize and she doesn't ask him to. Instead, he bends down so that he can splay his hands against her belly. His touch is warm and she can't stop herself from leaning into it. She feels Merlin brush against her back, nudging her forward even more. "I was wondering if I might-"
This time, Ned interrupts himself, one hand on her belly and the other hand reaching out somewhere...behind her, maybe. Merlin tenses behind her and she can feel a strange shock of emotions running through him, most notably fear. It has been a long time since she ever felt Merlin afraid, not since her mother died and he almost settled. But now she feels it plain as day, though he is as still as ever. She does not need to look back to know that Griselda has fixed her with an intent expression, but is also not moving a muscle.
No one has ever touched her daemon before. Brandon teased her about it a few times in between stolen kisses, talking of how lovers touched one another's daemons, but she never touched his and he never held said it wasn't proper to do so before marriage, but she knew it was simply because he didn't want to be touched by Brandon Stark. Almost two years and two children into her marriage with Ned, and he still had not allowed it, though neither one of them brought it up either.
Slowly, Ned starts to retract his hand, apologies ready on his lips, but Catelyn grasps his hand without thinking and stops him. She looks him in the eyes, willing him to see what both she and Merlin are feeling in this moment since the otter is still hiding behind her. He gives her a questioning look, the fear and unsureness back in his grey eyes.
"Griselda," Catelyn simply says, holding her hand back without taking her eyes away from her husband's. She can feel the wolf clambering to her feet slowly, can sense the wariness in it like she might be walking into a trap. Catelyn takes a deep breath.
Nothing prepares her for what it is like to hold Ned's soul in her hands.
Catelyn sucks in a shock of air as Griselda brushes up against her hand. Ned goes rigid in front of her, his hand on her stomach grasping at her shift, and his mouth parts slightly. It takes everything in Catelyn not to close her eyes, but she feels as if a fire is burning through her veins and it will burst at any second if she does not let go of Griselda. But she doesn't want to let go; the fire is too sweet, too loving, too beautiful. The wolf lets out a high pitched whine that Catelyn has never heard and it seems to surprise Ned as well.
Merlin is still tucked behind her and she can tell that he's warring with himself. To allow this to happen would admit to something. It would open them to the possibility of being hurt and he promised not to let that happen.
It is okay, my brave one.
And then Merlin is on his hind legs and pressing the top of his head into the palm of Ned's hand, eyes shut tightly, and Catelyn has to grip hold of Ned's shirt in order to keep herself from falling. All the air is sucked out of her. Every inch of her is on fire now, tingling so pleasantly, and Merlin is humming and Griselda is laughing and Ned, oh, Ned. He leans forward and kisses her, not some chaste kiss either. It's full of the same fire burning through her bones, the passion she hadn't felt for months but surely thought it was still there.
"I've wanted to do this for so long," he mumbles into her lips. His free hand sweeps into her hair. If her belly wasn't so swollen, Catelyn was sure that he would've laid overtop of her and lain with her right on the spot. She's still not sure that he won't, despite the fact that they were told to be careful with her so far into the pregnancy. "But I was afraid..."
It feels as if her heart is bursting with too much emotion and she laughs along with Griselda, putting her free hand on Ned's cheek, messing with his beard. "You have my heart. You need not be afraid of me." The look on his face is so happy that she feels as if she'll never be cold again as long as he is with her.
"I can't believe I let you beat me," Merlin harrumphs, though he still looks quite peached to being touched by Ned.
"You're not as quick as you think," Griselda responds, amusement filling her voice. Though she's acting more like a dog than anything else, Catelyn thinks that Griselda has never looked more like a wolf in this moment, brimming with vibrancy and strength. Catelyn loves her for it, realizing that she loves both her husband and his soul as two separate things and yet one at the same time. It amazes her. It amazes Merlin. How could she have been this lucky?
Harlow is her name.
Merlin is the one to find out, though Catelyn is unsure of how or when her daemon was able to get that information when she's never seen the two talk. It takes a certain amout of dragging to get Merlin to even admit to knowing, like he's angry with himself for getting involved with the lion daemon. He's learned to keep secrets from her in the time that they've been in King's Landing and she's not quite sure what to make of it, though she hides a thing or two from him as well. It's not that their suspicious of each other; it's that they're hurt and don't want the other to know.
They're being foolish and Catelyn knows it but she cannot stop herself from feeling so protective of Merlin when she knows how terribly he's been wounded. Losing Ned and Griselda... It was hard to explain but she had known the second his head had been loped off, known in the way Merlin stumbled and gave her a pained look, and she nearly fell to her knees. It was like losing a part of herself.
But now they're with lions and they need to be together more than anything else and Merlin is afraid - not for himself but for her. Lord Tywin can do nothing but hurt her and what can a little otter do against a lion?
Catelyn stands in the bedchambers, naked as can be. Though time and bearing children have aged her body, she does not care about modesty anymore. The bedding part of the wedding is something she cannot avoid, though she's adamantly been ignoring it since she agreed to the marriage in the first place. So she stands, arms folded, looking at the door as if her doom is going to step inside at any moment.
"You could deny him," Merlin suggests, only half-heartedly though.
"I don't believe anyone could deny that man anything," Catelyn replies. He might not like it and she might hate it, but both of them knows she is right. Still, he clicks his teeth and lies down so that he won't grab something and throw it across the room.
When the door finally opens and Tywin steps inside, Harlow stepping in next to him, Catelyn feels all the anger she was armoring herself with slip away. She feels a seventeen again and so very unsure about the bedding ceremony. Being naked suddenly makes her feel vulnerable and idiotic, but she is too committed now to try to cover herself up. The sudden appearance of hunger in Tywin's eyes, so very much like a predator eyeing its prey, startles her even more, but she fights the blush in her cheeks.
"I hope I am pleasing to my new lord husband," Catelyn greets through an obviously forced smile.
The look on Harlow's face is almost...entertained. She prowls around Catelyn, like she's examining her for Tywin's approval, and even chuckles. "I do not think you anticipated this."
Tywin's lips are pursed tightly, but he does not take his eyes off of her, not even as Harlow comes dangerously close to her. The lion tilts her head and then glances towards Merlin, flashing him an almost threatening grin, shiny teeth even larger than Griselda's and Morrigan's were. Instead of playing nice, Merlin taps impatiently and glares hard, though it's quite clear that an otter's glare is little more than amusing to a lion. She's never seen Tywin smile, grin, or laugh; those seem to be saved for Harlow whenever he's in a particular mood that only she understood.
"You are an unusual woman, Lady Catelyn," Tywin says, his voice even tighter than his lips. Catelyn feels a shot of triumph in this, though she can't say why. He steps towards her, haltingly for only a second, before almost storming towards her. She nearly stumbles back against the bed, but he grabs hold of her elbow at the last second, stopping her. They've never been this close before and Catelyn's throat clenches even as her heart tries to jump into it. "You have done a lot of things that I have not expected."
"Is that a bad thing, my lord?" Catelyn asks, her voice low and unassuming. She can feel Merlin bristling to the side of her and Harlow's calculating and golden eyes on her.
"Yes," - and then - "no."
She can hear her heart jammering wildly in her chest as Tywin lays a hand on her bare hip. His eyes never leave hers. Merlin is screaming in her head, but he doesn't move a muscle, as if ready to jump in to save her should she ask. The strange feeling to laugh bubbles inside of her, but she shuts it down immediately. Behind them, Harlow turns her attentions away, completely unconcerned with the humans, and meanders towards Merlin. She nips at him, teasingly so, and he scoffs at her, causing her to laugh and him to scowl. Who is the prey and who is the predator?
"It is a good thing," Tywin decides. "I could not have some weak thing as a wife."
"Oh, my Lord Tywin," Catelyn says, baring her teeth in such a pretty and deadly smile, "I'm sure you will find me anything but weak."
(They don't know a wolf when they see one, Merlin growled; and for a second Catelyn could almost believe that she saw Griselda in his black eyes. Perhaps they were in the North for too long. Perhaps they lost too much to be an otter anymore. Tywin and his Harlow would learn that well enough in due time.)