"You're hurting him!" The angry cry split more than just the stunned silence. He found himself wincing as the heat scalded his unprotected cheek. Despite his struggle, he did not manage much beyond turning further into the woman's touch. The distinctive scent of inferior slowly decaying flesh assaulted him as more and more of the creatures gathered around him. The circle closed in.
"He wouldn't have been hurt if he hadn't tried to flee." The sharp kiss of a dark steel played against his throat. He looked up into the man's face, a grin threatening to split his grim expression as blood oozed from the wound he'd inflicted.
"Arthur Dayne, don't touch a hair on my son's head. You hear?"
She was lying. He'd been watching her. The woman with silver threading through her hair. He watched her still as she knelt at the far end of the crude tent. She had to be lying. Her heavy cloak sagged down below her shoulders.
"Jon, I truly am sorry." He stared ahead warily. Who was Jon? The son she confused him with? But without she'd called him by another name. His lips silently mimicked the word. Jon. The other he could not even begin to pronounce for fear of breaking his poor tongue to pieces. "You did Ser Arthur a bad turn. He is a good man."
Insignificant worms, the lot of them. He would sooner or later free himself.
Tipping his head back he narrowly avoided the spoon coming his way. "You have to eat something." The woman's insistence was growing bothersome. For answer, he bared his teeth in a snarl. She flinched but did not back away. The bowl was placed upon the ground, the thin dirty liquid within moving to and fro before it stilled. "I am not giving up on you; cease acting like a bear with a sore head."
His first instinct was to lunge for her, but the shackles holding him back permitted little other than an ineffectual jerk. "I shall wait for however long it takes, but you must remember, Jon."
As soon as he escaped, he would tear her throat out.
The food was bland, but not poisonous. And when cold, he might go as far as to term it pleasant. The woman had loosened his restraints somewhat. He could sit up and take a few steps within the tent. Grateful though he was for the small mercy, boredom eroded even that small grain of gratitude.
As though summoned by his thoughts, she came in. She held in her hand a leather-bound volume. Humans especially enjoyed such objects. "I thought I might teach you." One should never interrupt one's enemy when said foe embarked upon an erroneous path.
He slowly lowered himself back into his customary seat and waited.
"Winter," he articulated carefully, the foreign sounds very nearly painful to his ears. "Winter," he repeated.
"Aye; winter," Lyanna nodded approvingly. She motioned towards the world without the tent. "Out there, it's been winter for a very long time."
He'd never known anything other than winter. She'd told him of summer though. He shuddered at the thought. But she paid him little mind as her eyes focused on aught she caught without. "Pray excuse me but a moment, Jon."
The blare of a horn was more than enough to see her up and about.
For himself, a horrifying realisation came. He'd not tensed when she called him by her son's name.
The man kept a steady hold on Lyanna's arms. For a brief moment he'd thought Ser Arthur had marched her into the tent, but despite resemblance between the two the man before him was a stranger. "I do not want you alone in here."
"Rhaegar; he is my son." Another one of those blasted names. "I am perfectly safe." The man pinned him with a distrustful stare. Jon returned it with a cutting one of his own. "If you would only spend some time with him, you'd know."
He'd know what? At least that one had the sense to know his enemies.
The tip of the sword was firmly embedded into the ground. He stared at the dark steel, fear creeping into his heart. Unlike Ser Arthur who had mellowed somewhat, this man did not present any sign of softening. If anything, the more they saw of one another, the more the rivalry between them seemed to grow.
"If you so much as hint at an escape, you will find yourself very much dead. Do not think to test me." He gave a slow nod; he was no fool despite present circumstances. "Get up. Slowly." He followed the instructions and heard the chain dragging in his wake. "Walk."
He scoffed. His eyes were drawn to the stick. While he understood very well what was being asked of him, he would much rather swallow hot coals. A shake of the head resulted in a tug on his chain. "We've all day," the man spoke. Lyanna had named him his father.
He'd never had a father. Brothers unnumbered; but not quite the same. It seemed for these creatures such connections carried some importance. "Nay. No fight." He held his hands in front of him, palms facing forth.
The man short forth, sword drawn out. Instinctively, he took hold of the measly branch before rolling out of the way.
"Fight."
"Aye."
Snow crunched beneath heavy footfalls. Lighter ones followed. "What if you are wrong? What if he is not our son?" His own heart squeezed in an odd sort of pain at the knifing doubt. What if he was not?
What manner of madness plagued him that such a thought brought pain?
"You never even saw him." Those words sliced as well. 'Twas not directed at him. He felt some manner of compassion for the man on the receiving end of such an accusation. "I held him. I know my son."
"I cannot change the past!"
"I am not asking you to. I just want my son."
His fingers gathered in a fist. He was well aware he stared at the poor thing as though he'd never seen his own hands before. Faint scratches marred the white flesh around his wrist. "Why?"
"Return whence you came." Steam swirled in the cold air between them. "If you bear her even a crumb of affection, you will disappear. And you shan't let me find you in battle."
"My mother," he asserted, frustrated that the words would not come. He could not say what he wished.
A bitter sound came from the other. "Leave, unless you wish this to be your grave."
But what if she truly was his mother?
What if he truly was one of them?
