A.N: So, in the books, the Three-Eyed Raven tells Bran that there have 'always been Targaryens who dreamed of things to come, since long before the Conquest", and because of the blood of the First Men that flows through the veins of the Starks, they are wargs. Combine the two, you've not got another Three-Eyed Raven, but the ability to dream…

I like to imagine the Northern women's fashions are more like what Lagertha wears in Vikings. Her "shieldmaiden" armour in season 3 inspired Lyanna's typical daywear when she's out hunting - add a knitted cowl a bit like Katniss, her hair in two fat, untidy Dutch-style braids, with curls loose, dirt on her face and under her fingernails, that's Lyanna!

A Dance of Ice and Fire

01

It does not do to dwell on dreams…

She dreamed.

Maester Luwin had given her that most precious medicine, milk of the poppy, something he reserved only for the direst injury - or to gentle the ailing into the waiting arms of Death.

From the pain, she could not decide which she was. Suffering a debilitating injury; or ready to embrace Death like a lover.

She had lost all sense of time, of reality; her dreams bled into her brief, anguished moments of lucidity, milk of the poppy and pain seeping her of strength. She slept, and she dreamed. Her mind was turned inside-out by splendour; she woke, choking on horror, her heart hammering in her throat, her back aflame, every muscle aching as her dreams clung to her like Bran and Rickon and Arya, each persistent in having their turn in the saddle with her as she galloped over the moors and through the wild wolfswood, so fast it felt like flying.

The dreams she had always remembered most vividly were the terrible ones - terrible either in their horror, or their beauty. She dreamed of ancient heroes, of ladies whose beauty was made immortal in song; she saw great fires, and the end of all things. She saw the Long Night dawn into the prettiest spring in the memory of Man. She dreamed of oceans of grasses that whispered and crackled like flame; of a wolf with three eyes; and of blood and roses. She dreamed of her father; and of the Ruby Ford and a lady's name whispered on a dying prince's lips; she dreamed of a chest of dragon-eggs fossilised by time; and of a great pyre. A silver-haired beauty riding beside a fearsome warrior with silver bells and rings in his glossy braid, longer even than hers. She dreamed of the hushed reverence of the Citadel, maesters praying to the written word with a devotion unparalleled by any zealot; she tasted the salt-spray of the Narrow Sea; and heard slaves' woeful song as they crossed the water; she saw great fields of gold turn into a graveyard of ash and bone; of the Wall itself, weeping in the sunlight before night fell. She dreamed of a great stag sweeping armies away from great labyrinthine rivers with the gilded tines of his massive antlers. She dreamed of Arya, crying out in fear to see her faceless; she saw Sansa in a gilded cage, cushioned by luxury and singing so sweetly as the world around her burned and bled and festered with decay.

She witnessed wars fought centuries ago; listened to the delicious giggles of doomed children as a silver-haired girl trailed blood and ribbons down painted mosaic halls, kissing and cuddling her violet-eyed baby brother with half his skull shattered, toddling with his fat fingers curled around those of his almond-eyed, blood-soaked, brutalised mother; and a prince's exquisite voice sang on as a ruined castle loomed overhead, the gentle snows of a false spring melting before it touched the braziers that illuminated scores of ladies and knights gathered for a fateful tourney. A leathern shield dangled high in the eaves of a tree, a white weirwood glowing in the lantern-light, its leaves like bloody handprints vibrant, as the light shimmered off a pale face half-hidden amongst the leaves. An Archmaester updated his great personal diary; and Jon Arryn raised his banners as a stag raged, pride wounded, and a quiet direwolf raised his head to howl his misery to the world. Lord Rickard Stark burned alive as his son watched, self-strangling himself in his fury and grief, five hundred warriors and members of court watching on in silence. Princes and battles merged into one, as the greatest fire the North would ever see was lit. To the east, cities fell to the flames of ancient beasts come into the world again. A dwarf stood tall as a king; a fat, uncertain boy shone brighter than any hero of the songs. Baelor's great Sept smouldered, a ruin; but the Dragonpit of King's Landing glittered in the sun, more glorious than memory, rebuilt and repurposed. A lioness roared her rage as tiny cubs of pure gold were buried, burned, interred, maddened by her grief. The great stag of her recurring dreams licked the nose of his gentle doe, two little fawns pushing up onto their legs unsteadily, her belly already rounded with another; and a giant mated fiercely with a direwolf, her pups fierce and beautiful and good; and a doe outlasted the winter with her plagued face, her heart aglow, the sigil of direwolf and white winter reindeer united as night dawned into spring.

Lyanna saw her mother's face, and her fate, and forgot, before she woke.

She dreamed of flying, as she so often had. Galloping over the endless moors of the North; sailing the Narrow Sea; soaring through oceans of clouds white and feathery, and dark and stormy, thunder reverberating in her belly, ice forming on her eyelashes. She dreamed of rains blackened by ash; of blizzards that buried holdfasts; of bright crocuses winking in the snow as a pink sun and the frigid cold turned moisture in the air to diamonds, glittering in the air as the breath of white reindeer rose in plumes. She dreamed of terrible wars; of betrayal; of a great sun; of histories being made in the storm-lashed halls of Dragonstone and in a modest tower named Joy.

The dreams she remembered most vividly were the awful ones, the ones she wrenched herself from half-choked with fear, drenched in an icy sweat with her hands - always steady with a bow or blade - shaking and the feeling of dread curdling in her stomach like milk after strong ale. Such dreams, she was dug into like a tick, as vivid and real to her as if she lived them; some she knew were scenes of the past, some, future paths that would never be explored like the lives of stillborn children. She woke from those with her heart hammering in her throat, confused as to which was the dream - the seas of multihued dried grasses that whispered and snapped like flames in a dry breeze, or her brother's solemn face lighting up at the sight of her.

She woke from a dream of climbing that sheer face of ice, the Wall, feeling someone else's terror and heartache, and their pure joy, at the thrill of defeating the treacherous surface, the brutal wind buffeting them this way and that, every muscle aflame, the wind and the ice screaming into every part of their bodies, the Wall itself a living, breathing boundary that cast off intruders as though they were flecks of dust. The burn felt delicious, sweat rolling down her back, the fire, the ferocity, unquenchable.

Lyanna woke, finally, with her back aflame, an itch she could not scratch, and the undeniable feeling of anticipation scratching in her veins impatiently, her heart fluttering for no reason she could give.

Maester Luwin always kept a fire lit in the apothecary; even confused by pain and milk of the poppy, her nose recognised the scents. The chamber was almost entirely reserved for her, the wildest, most adventurous, most accident-prone of Ned Stark's litter; her back had been treated with herbs she herself had gathered from the surrounding lands, honey from her own hives sealing her wounds from disease. She vaguely remembered Maester Luwin's calm, untiring attentions as he pieced her back together like a patchwork quilt, parts sewn, parts draped and left to heal of their own devices, his warm fingertips working deftly to lace her back together like the ribbons on one of Sansa's Southern frocks. Once he had cleaned up the mess and put her back together as best he was able, she thought she remembered little feet scurrying to help any way they could, fraught children howling in the night, sent running to fill bowls with snow for a coat to numb and soothe her back. She thought she remembered the sound of weeping; the flicker of candles; and her father's face peering at her in grim anguish; Jon, falling asleep as he held vigil, to ward away the enemies dark wings had brought to their door.

She cracked her eyes open, the light of a candle sharp against them, an open window sending a chill breeze tickling over her bare, wet back. She adored the cold; like the bellows in Mikken's forge, they fuelled the fire within her, tempering her, making her strong. She could scent the honey and herbs on her back, the snow on the air outside, flowers plucked from her own garden in a pretty enamel vase from the South, just within her sight and lightly perfuming the room. The dainty white Daybells of the North, many-petalled creamy daffodils touched with gold, fat blackberries still clinging to the prickling briars, creamy primroses, green-purple heathers and dainty lavender - and winter roses, Lyanna Stark's winter roses, the hardy hellebores Lyanna had adopted as her own, tending to them as she would her own children, experimenting with cross-pollination, creating dainty petal-and-a-half white ones, palest pink spotted double-petal blossoms that sent the Southern ladies aflutter, creamy-throated purple ones that shimmered like velvet. Father called them Lyanna's favourites - her namesake, her roses, her garden Lyanna had taken over, when the spring had first thawed the snows barely two years ago, the same garden from her very first summer, her earliest memory of being outside, ankle-deep in melting snow surrounded by time-worn redbrick and cracked flint walls and peering down at the fragile spire of tiny white blossoms called Daybells - the bells that heralded the coming of spring.

Princess Myrcella had picked those flowers, that vase had been brought all the way from King's Landing to beautify the royal chambers here at Winterfell; the old, fat leather book beside them, that was left by Lady Shireen. She read almost as much as Lord Tyrion. One exquisite and golden, one scaled and sweet, the two cousins had a single mutual interest; Lyanna, and her escape at Winterfell. The walled garden abandoned when the first Lyanna ran away with Rhaegar; the garden Ned Stark had given to his bastard daughter her first spring when the ice had thawed. If she insisted on fleeing the castle because of Lady Catelyn's cruelty, it had been Ned's hope that the garden would coax her not to go too far. It hadn't; but Lyanna was still devoted to the garden in spring and summertime, when it teemed with life. No-one entered through the scarred oak door without her invitation; the little loves had wormed their way into her heart, though, and into that garden. Arya and Rickon and Myrcella and Tommen and Shireen; they brought blankets, books, their knitting, and Lyanna helped with their slipped stitches or pronunciation of High Valyrian or laughed as Tommen followed his curious kitten through the flowerbeds, while she worked on her knees, the Northern sun at her back, dirt under her fingernails and the breeze carrying the scent of summer wildflowers and snow, assured she was home by the heat of the compost, the hum of bees, the good-natured chortling of the chickens amid the calendula and courgette blossoms.

Lyanna knew Lady Shireen would be seeing far much more of it than she would, the little doe gambolling about the autumn blossoms as the snow fell gently, until before they knew it, winter was come. When he had set sail for Dragonstone, the king's brother Stannis Baratheon, Master of Ships, had left his daughter behind; she was to be fostered at Winterfell.

She didn't have the time to teach Shireen the secrets of her garden; but Maester Luwin would, teach her how to care for everything from the radishes to the Daybells to the bees, how to string tomatoes and prune the roses. Winterfell was Lyanna's home only so long as Jon remained there; and there was no Winterfell for either of them without Ned. She felt that truth more keenly than any of Cersei Lannister's lashes.

Ned was sending Jon where she could not follow.

White Walkers were safer than Robert Baratheon and his vicious queen.

But even the greatest stags stumbled in the hunt; and what happened when a lioness ran mad?

How would either stand against the heat of dragonfire?

Lyanna sighed and grimaced as she moved. At first, the merest attempt had made her head spin and nausea churn; she was made pathetic with hunger. Hunger and restlessness made her irritable; she made the worst invalid. Maester Luwin always heaved a great sigh whenever she was brought to him for his healing wisdom. Lyanna was not designed to recline idle and sew; she was as fierce and untameable as the harsh North winds, had been fashioned and fed by them. The winds of the North and the endless carpets of heather and the great haunted wolfswood, untouched for millennia, had made her strong. She knew how to hunt, to fight, to survive; she had gotten into far more scrapes and escaped worse fates than a flogging, but Father would never know the worst of it. She had her secrets, and as a little girl, being told her dreams were not real, she had started to keep them to herself.

What use were warnings when no-one listened?

She always remembered the brutal dreams; and Maester Luwin had long since taught her how to purge them from her mind when they weighed on her. If she insisted on spending her days and nights hunting away from Winterfell, he had taught her how to identify every plant, flower, leaf, root and bark on the trees of the North, and their uses; she brought armfuls of them back to Winterfell, to turn into ointments and unguents and tinctures, and paints. She had her own pestle and mortar, and her arms were made strong not just from hunting and making her own arrows, but by grinding herbs into ointments for Maester Luwin, and paints for herself. She had learned how to make her own brushes, how to care for them, consulted with a carpenter to design a case for her paints suitable for travel. For all she was called Ned Stark's bastard, she had been raised by the wilds of the North, and by Maester Luwin, the unceasingly kind, wise maester.

She frowned, something gentle and warm tickling her lips, and startled awake, her back searing with pain as she twisted away, blinking as candlelight hazily illuminated pale skin and dark hair.

"What are you doing?" she grumbled groggily.

"I had to." She smiled weakly, grimacing as she let herself collapse gently against the board again, soothed by the contrasting warmth of the fire on her snow-packed back, drowsy from milk of the poppy. It was not Jon; her eyes adjusted to the light, and she saw the flames glittering off emerald-green eyes.

"You woke me with a kiss?"

"Like one of the songs," he said, and Lyanna wrinkling her nose. Tristram chuckled without humour.

"Never heard of a lady in any of the songs having scars from a flogging," she murmured.

"No," Tristram said heavily, "but I'd rather have your sort of lady than any other." Lyanna hummed, smiling sleepily.

"That's because you've some brains in your head," Lyanna sighed. She peeked up at Tristram. It was strange to see him without his whiskers; all the boys had started growing them. It was an ongoing competition; and Tristram, the tallest and strongest and youngest of them, won every time. He looked his age without his whiskers, still young, untested, but without that swathe of shadow on his jaw, Lyanna could see that something in his face had altered.

Lyanna had come to the conclusion that people did not change: circumstance revealed who they had always been.

Robert had revealed himself when Lyanna ran off with Rhaegar; in his single military loss in the entire Rebellion; and in declaring the butchery of Rhaegar's children war, not murder, when their broken little bodies had been presented to him draped in Lannister-red. King Robert had further revealed himself in how he handled that business in the godswood with Arya and the prince. As had Queen Cersei, to an extent: her true nature had been shown to the world the afternoon of Lyanna's flogging.

Cruel, but unwise.

Thinking of the Queen, she said softly, "She's vicious, your mother. Not clever." Tristram's beautiful eyes lanced to hers.

"No."

"Nobody ever says she's clever. They say she's beautiful."

"Less so every day because of her malice," Tristram sighed. "What do you say to Sansa when she's foul?"

"A pretty face does not mean a pretty heart," Lyanna sighed sadly. That always made Sansa pout with contrition, her cheeks flushing, far much more than any of Septa Mordane's gentle admonitions.

"King Robert forbade Cersei from taking the matter in the godswood further."

"That's why she did."

"Aye… She had you flogged when you still refused to give up the butcher's boy," Tristram said, and Lyanna nodded. It cost her, and she had to close her eyes from the dizziness, resting her forehead against the board to quell the nausea, frowning to herself when she realised how hungry she was.

"How do you know that?" she mumbled, exhausted. Thinking of Cersei Lannister exhausted her.

"Uncle Ned got to the bottom of things," Tristram said grimly, "after the King stopped raging. He likes the look of you." He folded his arms, leaning them on the edge of her board.

"That's why she did it," Lyanna mumbled. She knew half the reason Cersei Lannister had had her strung up was because she knew exactly the effect Lyanna, without doing anything at all, had on King Robert. Those who remembered her aunt said she had all Lyanna Stark's wolf-blood, and a great deal of her beauty.

Father could not look at Lyanna without his heart breaking, and she hated that. Sometimes she hated her aunt Lyanna for it. Sometimes she hated Lyanna Stark for many things.

"Most likely," Tristram agreed. He shook his head, and Lyanna noticed his hands, his huge palms and clever fingers, his bruised knuckles, the skin broken. She moved her hand, though her arm felt heavy and ungainly and she realised her skin was bare. She had gooseflesh, and the fine hairs on her arms had prickled in the chill from the open window. She rested her arm down again, tired from the effort, but trailed a fingertip tenderly over one battered knuckle. Her own hands were abused from labouring in her garden, from grinding the Maester's unguents, from hunting; her long, clever fingers, her right palm, were scarred white like fissures in cracked ice, from working with knives since she was a girl, hunting, a great pale-pink scar curving wickedly across fingers and palm from the time she had caught her hand in a wire snare. The wire had cut nearly to the bone, but Maester Luwin had saved her fingers. Her palms were roughened from holding swords, and her arms were strong from drawing bow, wielding axes, working in her garden and hunting the wolfswood. Still, she never drew her weapon unless she intended to use it; and her fists were just as much a weapon as the boys' swords.

"You lost your temper," she guessed. He worked harder than the other boys to control his temper; because with his temper came his strength, and after several cracked bones, several hits that had sent their brothers unconscious, they understood the danger of his temper.

Tristram shifted in his chair, wincing with shame. He worked so very hard to keep a rein on his temper. "You were bloodied and broken."

"Bloody, not broken," Lyanna corrected softly, her eyes drifting closed. She sighed, and murmured with effort, "That woman doesn't have the power to break me." She peeked up to see Tristram's lips twitching, his eyes shining with the familiar, fond smile.

"She has no idea who you are," Tristram said.

"She'll learn," Lyanna sighed. The crackle of the fire and the scent of snow soothed her as snow melted with herbs and honey on her back, the chill making her shiver as cool air scented with snow sluiced over her bare skin, water dripping from the board to the rushes, pooling beneath her.

"I suppose she was the last one left, wasn't she? The last highborn lady who could be queen. All the good ones were dead by the end of it… A stupid, pointless war."

"It wasn't pointless. They raised their banners to end the mindless cruelty of a vicious ruler," Lyanna sighed, but even she didn't believe it.

"They failed," Tristram said flatly. He sighed heavily, as Lyanna gave a grim chuckle. "Jon Arryn and Ned raised their banners against the Mad King's cruelty. My father called his banners because his pride was wounded: Rhaegar took what was his." Having observed the king's true nature, Lyanna, for the first time, could not blame her namesake for running away with the prince.

"Lyanna was never his to steal," she said, and Tristram nodded slowly. They had recently been speaking often of Lyanna Stark, of the consequences of Rhaegar's actions. Of the cost. To the crown and to the common-folk alike. Old Nan would say that legends were lessons; Lyanna intended to learn well from her namesake's actions. She would not let Tristram follow his father's fate, either; and she worried that he was headed straight for it. They had stolen kisses far too many times. There would be no more long hunting trips, laughing and running away from the castle, just the two of them.

"If she was as like you as everyone says, Lyanna was only ever her own to give to whom she chose," Tristram said, and there was a sad, dark note to his voice that Lyanna did not miss. "All the women in Westeros, that's probably why Rhaegar loved her. She was fierce and good and knew herself."

"And died young because of it," Lyanna said quietly.

"Elia, Lyanna, Ashara Dayne… It must wound the Queen's pride, to wake every day knowing she sits beside the Iron Throne only because the greater beauties perished," Tristram said heavily, then smirked. He was a Northerner, bred if not born: beauty was in Arya's great grin, chased away from the yard by Bran as she showed him up with her archery. It was in Shireen's sweet enthusiasm as she recounted the tales of Dunk and Egg at Winterfell as the she-wolves battled for the succession of their children. Beauty was cheeks pink and tumultuous curls whipped by the wild North wind as they galloped over the moors; or in the woods, naked under their furs and writhing, panting with the urgency of their love-making; it was resilience against a tyrant who wanted to butcher an innocent boy just because they could.

In the last year, Sansa had started to decide for herself what it meant to be a lady, following her mother's example and those of the great beauties in the songs she adored. She observed her mother's hatred for Lord Stark's bastards and her cold glowers, and had started imitating them: Lyanna had started to worry for the woman Sansa would grow to become, with her false courtesies and spotless silks, her naïve faith in the knights of the songs, and her nastiness towards unladylike, true-hearted Arya. What kind of lady would Sansa make, sent to the court to learn to be a woman under the queenly example of such a woman as Cersei Lannister? Worse; could Sansa not see the false sweetness of the Queen, or how excited Prince Joffrey became by cruelty? Or if she could see it, worse, did she believe that their behaviour toward others was what they deserved?

Sansa had never called Lyanna or Jon anything but her "half-siblings" ever since she learned what it meant to be a bastard. But Sansa shared blood with Lyanna; she was her little sister, and would be long after Lady Catelyn was dead. And Lyanna's blood ran chilled at the thought of pretty, hopeful Sansa turning out like Cersei Lannister.

"I wouldn't suggest you remind her of that," Lyanna sighed.

"You remind her of that every time she looks at you," Tristram chuckled. "Everyone knows it, too. You wound her pride every day. She had you flogged more for that than for hitting Joffrey."

"I imagine so," Lyanna said. She tapped her fingertip against his battered knuckle gently. "Who did you hit?"

"Joffrey," Tristram shrugged, and Lyanna moaned.

"You didn't."

"I did, and I would again. The girls and Tommen and Bran weeping, Rickon raging, and there's Joffrey, smirking as if it excited him to see you flogged, to see Ilyn Payne torn apart by direwolves," Tristram growled. Lyanna frowned, confused.

"What?"

"You don't remember that?"

"I lost count at nearly thirty; I think I must have blacked out then from the pain," Lyanna admitted, wincing; there was no weakness in admitting to Tristram that a flogging hurt worse even than the time she had come off her horse and snapped her leg-bone through the skin. A year later, that pink, puckered scar on her thigh was still tender if Rickon caught it while they played, but it hadn't stopped her from riding. She was too stubborn to let a fall steal her joy.

A flogging would not stop her from doing what was right, even if it meant defying evil queens.

Especially if it meant defying evil queens.

"From what the others have said, Little Brother cut Ilyn Payne down; Shaggydog took advantage and savoured a meal from him," Tristram said quietly. "Rickon was nearly trampled as he ran to you at the flogging-post, when we all arrived; you'd think Sansa lost an eye the way she's snivelling over a scratch from Arya's fingernails, demanding Uncle Ned give Arya the rod. Joffrey's nose is broken and he can scarcely see through his bruised eyes."

"Oh, Tristram…" Lyanna moaned, pressing her forehead to the board. She winced, and glanced back at him. "The direwolves - ?"

"Little Brother led them out into the wolfswood," Tristram assured her. "No-one's fool to go after them, not a pack of direwolves in the wilds with Little Brother leading them."

"I wish you hadn't struck Joffrey. Queen Cersei will not forget that."

"She has made many enemies for herself during this visit," Tristram sighed.

"They were already enemies," Lyanna corrected gently.

"Now we are more so."

"'We'? You count yourself among their number?" Lyanna frowned.

"You did what was right; I'll never forget that she mutilated you for it," Tristram said heatedly, a frown making his darkly handsome features stern. Lyanna imagined then what King Robert might have looked like as he warred with Father all those years ago. But she also shivered. Mutilated. She was not a vain girl, and never had been; but for Tristram to say that… Her stomach pinched at the thought of what her back looked like - and what he thought about how it looked. She would take the flogging again, if it meant she protected Mycah the butcher's boy, and stood up to a vicious bullying queen - but that did not mean she did not regret the scars she would have. She had seen the flogging scars on old labourers: she would have a tough leathern back now, crisscrossed with wicked scars.

Only a lover would ever see them.

Tristram would feel them. His hands were not yet so calloused from the sword that he might mistake her scars for his own rough palms, and the thought embarrassed her.

"She's a vicious cunt and stupid for having you flogged," Tristram said, his jaw ticking the way it did when he was trying to swallow his anger. "You're a fierce-hearted she-wolf and stupid for doing what is right."

"Don't call your mother a cunt, Tristram," she said softly, clicking her tongue, ignoring Tristram's insult - because it was true. If she had been stronger, she would have clipped him round the ear, as Ser Rodrik did every time the boys cursed in the training-yard.

"She's as much my mother as Lady Catelyn is yours," Tristram said fiercely, giving Lyanna a look that made her lips twitch.

"She gave birth to you."

"She wishes I had not survived even that," Tristram said, and his tone changed, gentled. He was sad. No child wanted to grow up unwanted; he and the bastards of Winterfell were alike that way. Robert had sent Tristram to foster with Ned because even he had noticed the queen's neglect of his son.

"You're too strong to be killed," Lyanna smiled fondly. He was a great strong lad, even though he was the youngest. He beat Theon and Robb together; the only one who gave him any real trouble was Jon, who was wily as Ghost in a fight even if he was smaller - because he was smaller, Jon was a cannier swordsman. People underestimated him because he was not tall, like Robb and Tristram. Lyanna was taller than her twin, by an inch or so, but that inch was everything, when the likes of Theon smirked about it.

"No," Tristram disagreed, chuckling. "Too stupid to know how to die."

Lyanna hummed, smiling tiredly, curling her fingers over his warm hand, noticing that her fingernail had turned black from bruising where she had shut it in the door the other day, her eyes sliding closed of their own accord. "I'm glad you're so dense."

Tristram sighed. "The king forbidding it forced her to wait to punish you; the longer she waited, the angrier she got. Anger makes people stupid… She's taught Joffrey he can do as he likes, without consequences. I am the consequence."

"What've you done, Tristram?" Lyanna peeked her eyes open, dread settling in the pit of her stomach. He flicked his pretty eyes over her - his mother's green eyes, she noted miserably - and bit his lip.

She hoped she would not look at him forevermore and be reminded of her, of being strung up with her breasts bared to all of Winterfell, to have the flesh of her back whipped into ribbons.

"Do you remember what Uncle Ned says?"

"Anything after the word 'but' is horseshit?"

"The other thing," Tristram grinned. "If you have to fight, win."

"Arya smacked Joffrey, love; you didn't win any fights beating him to a pulp," Lyanna yawned.

"No… I spoke to my father."

Lyanna scoffed. "And he was he sober?"

"Sober enough after I upturned the pitcher of ice-water over his head," Tristram sniffed, and Lyanna's lips twitched. Tristram was appalled by the change in his father, whom he hadn't seen since the Greyjoy Rebellion. "He's asked Ned to give up his home and divide his family to keep him on the throne he hates. He'd better make some sacrifices of his own to make up for it; a little Northern austerity never hurt anyone."

"It might kill him," Lyanna remarked, and Tristram pulled a face. "What did you do, Tris?"

Tristram stared at her for a moment. "I said Lady Stark will lose her daughters in one stroke. Lady Shireen will be left alone here… Princess Myrcella is going to remain at Winterfell, as Lady Catelyn's ward. Until she's old enough to marry Robb."

Lyanna's lips twitched, growing still as she watched his face. "And how did the Queen take that news?"

"Oh, not at all well," Tristram smirked gently. "She adores Myrcella, almost as much as she despises me."

"I wish I could have seen her face."

"I'm surprised her screaming did not wake you."

"No, I needed the kiss of a handsome prince," she snickered. "Why did you kiss me?"

"Do I need a reason?" Tristram asked. He delicately stroked his fingertip between her dark eyebrows. Septa Mordane had neatened them with a thread; Lady Stark had insisted they all be trussed up, trimmed and combed for the royal visit. Her brows had been tidied, her hair washed with fine perfumed soap, she had been laced into wisps of silk and stays, and, even worse than that, hunting had been forbidden. Father hadn't wanted her limping home hurt while the royal party was in residence.

The irony was not lost on her.

Now Tristram was so close, and it made her fidget, thinking he usually saw her so unkempt. But then, he'd never cared about that anyway. Lots of girls in the castle were pretty, were neat, but he didn't like them; he wanted her. And she knew that was dangerous. She had sat beneath Lyanna Stark's statue often enough not to heed the warning.

"You were getting that line between your brows, as you do when you're angry or upset…were you dreaming again?"

"Yes," Lyanna admitted heavily, fidgeting, slowly becoming more and more aware of the melting ice and snow trickling over her back, tickling her, of the familiar itchy tightness of skin starting to heal, forming an angry red crust that would give way to wicked pink scarring. "How long have I been asleep?"

"Two days," Tristram said, and Lyanna's breath gusted from her. "What did you dream about?"

"Lots of things," Lyanna sighed.

"Were they all awful?"

"Not all of them. Some took my breath away," Lyanna smiled tiredly.

"Would you like me to bring your paints?"

"No, thank you," she sighed, her eyes closed. "I think I'll sleep a little while." She started, confused. "Where's Little Brother?"

"He's…in the wolfswood, hunting," Tristram said gently. Lyanna settled, relieved.

"He must know I am not in danger," she sighed, and slept, leaving Tristram frowning and biting his lip, eyeing the sodden linen draped over her back, her features growing soft and beautiful as she slept, relaxed by milk-of-the-poppy.

Her characteristic intensity gave way to the sweetness she kept tucked away. Like the barbed thistles and prickly blackberries and tough conkers embroidered on the rich velvet-ribbon trim of her warm, plain dresses, Lyanna protected herself. Those who tried to harm her were pricked themselves.

But, like picking blackberries, the sweetness was worth the sting.

A.N.: I'm trying to establish relationships at Winterfell, so bear with me. Also, as a warning, my story will span over a decade rather than a couple of years, to give the characters time to grow up and introduce more characters! There are people hinted at in the books who'll make a greater appearance - for example, Bella, Robert's bastard, and Willas Tyrell, the only clever Tyrell male. I'm undecided about Arianne Martell, as the Sandsnakes of the show were such a disappointment!

I've created a Pinterest board, 'Lyanna - Game of Thrones' so you can see my inspirations!

Face-claims: Lyanna Snow; Kathryn Winnick. Tristram Baratheon; Henry Cavill. Ivar; Travis Fimmel (Ragnar in Vikings, for reference). Myrcella, when she's a little older; Diane Kruger (Helen in Troy, for reference). Willas Tyrell; Rupert Friend (Albert in The Young Victoria, for reference). Bella Baratheon; Bianca Balti. Arianne Martell; Sonam Kapoor (if I introduce her).