The taut knot of pain sat heavy in her chest throughout the day. At breakfast it forced her to consciously swallow each flavorless bite of bread and preserves. The warm milk that had come from the single goat at the Tower felt clotted and thick. It reminded her at once of blood and she threw the rest of the food away, begging off feeling ill from the child before retreating to her room.
As she trudged up the stairs, every part of her ached. Her feet were swollen, her body heavy and the need to cry while having to repress it made her eyes sting. She reached her room, out of breath and gulping back her sadness before peering inside through watery eyes.
Everything was as she left it. It's only that it felt false. All the months spent here washed away in the truth. The furniture, clothing and bedding were foreign, and the red stone of the room was a cage. Her storm-cloud eyes locked onto the bed.
The top sheet was red silk, as Rhaegar preferred. So very red.
Fire and Blood.
The south is no place for you.
She resisted pulling the sheet off, instead sitting on the bed and running her fingers absently over its softness. It was the only thing that felt cool in the heat of the desert air. Very few things here were like her home.
There was something more to the north than its cold. The north had a way of stilling the passion and pain of death, transmuting it into a primeval and harmonious truth; death was inevitable, life was ephemeral, and honor was abiding. When men died by the sword, the land quickly ate their lifesblood as though it fell upon an altar for sacrifice. Lyanna swore it went straight to the weirwoods, a thousand and one veins dug into the ground, pulsing with freely given oblation.
What men of the north feared wasn't blood or death, nor fire, but the Long Night. The cold winter snows howling down from the wall and weaving their way towards the holdfasts of men. The things that lived and died and were already dead in the darkness, weaving their broken way through the Ironwood forests to prey on the less prepared. For the Starks, winter was always coming, and to be the wardens of the north, the men who stood behind the wall and before the Realm was a duty that made them hard. They had to be. Harder than the Boltons, who were once Kings and never let the Starks forget- Our blades are sharp-, and their cousins the Karstarks. The Manderlays were accepted in the north, but they weren't true northerners who were bred to know how deep and long the gelid shadow would be each time winter came.
In this room, this place, she was striped of northern protections as well as her responsibilities as a northerner. She could feel the emptiness, see it when she gazed out the window at the mountains, where nothing grew. There were no Gods here.
Whether the Old Gods thought favorably of the Starks was irrelevant. The Gods were there through all trials and tribulations, coalesced in the ground and blood of the First Men. Without them, she was an insignificant tendril of humanity that reached and reached for what identity she had left at Winterfell. Belonging's only replacement was a blaze of awareness of just how alone she was.
The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.
She'd heard it from Brandon, from father, from Old Nan. The assumption, the security of her family and what it meant for her, was a given.
But then she'd broken into the Lord Commander's quarters. She'd pulled out letters, one by one, scanning them for relevant information while she kept an ear on the three kingsguard practicing in the yard.
When she'd seen it, the single incriminating strip of paper with her husband's personal seal, she'd almost torn the parchment in half, its edges crinkled between her fingers. She wasn't sure if she had put everything back the way she'd found it, hastily shoving it all into the locked drawer she had picked open with hair pins.
Once, she'd been fevered and hot as children often found themselves, and at the time it felt as though everything happening was a dream. Every movement of hers was slow, while the world spun quickly around her. All words from her mother and Old Nan passed through her head and failed to be sensical.
She felt much the same, making it back to her room after reading each scrap of paper. The walk took a lifetime, but the sounds of Ser Whent's laughter, Ser Dayne's admonishments to him as well as Ser Hightower's quick barks were a constant assault her senses couldn't process.
As the door closed to her room, she lay down in the stillness and heat, her heart empty. She lost time then, shadows from the dying sun arriving unnoticed. Blink, and another beam of light shrank. Blink, and her family died.
She begged off dinner for sickness, whispering through the door to Ser Dayne that yes, she was alright, no he did not need to come in and check on her, just an upset stomach, and of course she'd be at breakfast in the morning. Her hands had pressed against the door in the darkness, every grain of of wood, every divot, alive under her skin. How could she feel at all, when all that possessed her were thoughts of Brandon, wild, skilled Brandon who had come for her, and had died demanding her return? And her father. He had come for his son, and perished with him by fire.
She burned with them and was strangled by her tears, over and over. It wrenched her heart that she'd left all her family at odds before riding away. Including her father.
Brandon's brash nature had grated against hers so many times she believed she wouldn't miss him when she'd left Winterfell. She hadn't while she'd been here, not really. Rhaegar had made the days here bliss with his presence and the liberties he'd given her. Brandon, her father, Ned and Benjen didn't matter; they couldn't do a thing about her marriage now. The impossibility of going back, or changing anything made considering their opinions on the matter irrelevant.
Not until Brandon was gone and there were no more opportunities to reconcile with her brother. It wasn't meaningless then. After the tournament at Harrenhal she'd mostly ignored Brandon, given his behavior. And that distance, the judgement she held for him was the last thing she'd let him know from her.
As for her father, he hadn't always stopped her from her swordwork or riding, but as she moved ever closer to flowering, he'd slowly cleaved off her lessons with her brothers. His attempts to replace them with supposedly worthier skills had resulted in her rebellion, which found her alienated from Rickard. Towards the end of her days in Winterfell, they were barely on speaking terms. She'd stopped seeking him out when he agreed to the betrothal to Robert Baratheon.
It felt like their deaths were the price for freedom, and it was too high. And too late.
She wasn't sure if Ned would forgive her, or if he should. Either way, going back to Winterfell was an impossibility. So she let the truth that she was responsible for Brandon and her father's death weigh on her like a yoke. While she couldn't have predicted that King Aerys would have killed her family, he did it because of her actions, and the punishment should fit the crime.
Leaving Westeros altogether until Rhaegar came to claim her was the right thing to do. She would rather face her husband than her family. If it had been just her, it would have been the coward's way out to run away. But, as she wrapped an arm protectively across her belly, she knew that she needed to defend her child, Rhaegar's child. Even from her own kin.
In the morning her pale face showed none of the puffy skin she had felt when she had brushed her fingertips over her cheeks to wipe the tears away as she sobbed that night. All that was left was the gloss of yesterday's tears. A splash of cool water helped calm the redness around her eyes and the mirror revealed the face of a ten and six year old woman. Too young to look truly haggard, but old enough to be concerned that she hide her pain from the men around her well enough.
After she abandoned breakfast and pointedly ignored all the Targaryen red that surrounded her, she set to work on leaving. Staring hollowly at her room, she decided grief was a powerful tool. Loss sharpened her instincts for what mattered.
No where was safe for the woman she was. Her name and role in the war was a burden on her and her child. Her husband likely had intended on returning to the Tower, but he hadn't. And the last message that had been delivered stated he was on his way to the Trident to meet Robert Baratheon in open battle.
Since the kingsguard wouldn't leave, and most definitely wouldn't pretend that she was another person, or even put those damnable white cloaks in storage, it wasn't safe to stay when the outcome of the realm hung on tenterhooks.
Detachedly, she noted that if Rhaegar fell, some lordling or other would inevitably come to the Tower of Joy. If he didn't, some lordling could still come, probably before him.
The problem with the kingsguard was that they took their oaths technically, without question. It was clear that the safest choice was to leave and go into hiding, but because Rhaegar hadn't told them they could, they all stayed. The function of the kingsguard was to protect, not to advise and make decisions. And Rhaegar had put all of them in a position where they could not functionally do what was best for the Realm, lest they break vows.
She knew that if someone had explained it to Rhaegar, told her husband that the deaths of Elia and her children were not necessarily casualties of war but a warning that whoever sat on the throne wouldn't tolerate a single drop of Targaryen blood in Westeros, he'd listen. He'd make plans appropriately.
But fate, via his own father's poor choices, had robbed him of council. Rhaegar marched to the Trident with allies yes, but Lyanna knew a thing or two about what injustice was. How it made you ache and sting with desire to right whatever was wrong. The North and their allies in the Riverlands had lost in one fell swoop every reason to uphold the Targaryen dynasty when Aerys had burned their heirs and lords. The insanity of that decision would mean that the North would commit fully and deeply to the fight. Her older brother Ned, though he hadn't learned to be the heir of Winterfell, still had Stark honor, along with the close support of his friend Robert Baratheon and Jon Aryn, Lord of the Vale.
And that was the crux of it right there. Robert was obsessive in the things he was passionate about, which included her. In the interests of getting to know her betrothed, she had asked veiled questions of Ned to discern what kind of man he was. Robert was a skilled fighter and Ned said he put all of his weight into his blows. Many of his kills in dealing with the Hill Tribes of the Eyrie had been with his hammer, shattering ribs and sternums with a single swing. Her brother had not realized that Robert's body count was as unimpressive as his ability to hold his ale. What she heard, was that Robert was a killer, and he liked the glory of killing. Her own family had always swung the sword without hesitation when honor called for it, and taught that respecting life was integral to respecting death. Robert's choices weren't similarly motivated, but because Robert hadn't yet stepped outside the bounds of honor, beyond his bastard at the Eyrie, Ned couldn't see that his friend was tempramental Wildfire waiting to be shaken the wrong way.
Ned had said that Robert's brothers were nothing like Robert himself, Stannis being stern and unyielding, while Renly was a sweet, cheerful boy who loved to dress up, had no interest in learning and only passing interest in swinging a weapon. He liked to jape about 'Stannis the Stick' and 'natty Renly'. What Lyanna heard was that Robert had no respect for his brothers. That he was a man who put his needs and his concept of honor first, before family. Family and honor were not intrinsic, but there seemed to be little rational explanation for Robert's poor relationship with his brothers beyond his own single-minded beliefs on what was worthy of respect, and what wasn't. A man who designed his own moral code that hinged on fulfilling his desires first, however gratuitous, wasn't any better Aerys. Perhaps he wouldn't light lords on fire, but selfishness will out, and harm others.
Yesterday in her hand, she held a missive with a declaration of war from the Lord of the Eyrie, and the first crime of King Aerys and Prince Rhaegar had been her kidnapping. Not the burning of the lords and their heirs. It was telling then, that while Jon Arryn may have put out the call for the Riverlands troops, as Ned had done the same, it was the House Baratheon that determined how far they were all willing to go to see justice.
Maybe somewhere inside Robert, the blood of the dragon was there too, their line and ownership of the Storm Lands having been started by a bastard Targaryen centuries ago.
Ours is the Fury.
Robert would come here if he knew that's where she was, or he'd send someone. He may even kill Rhaegar. She knew he'd seek her husband on the battlefield for more than the obvious reason that Rhaegar stood in the way of their victory. Robert had been given Lyanna, promised. A man as single minded as Robert would never forget or forgive Rhaegar crowning Lyanna the Queen of Love and Beauty, and somewhere in him, he must suspect that she had been complicit in the end. It must be easier for him then, to push his own narrative that Lyanna was taken.
Not that anyone knew different. But she could imagine telling Ned that she had gone willingly, only for Ned to do the 'honorable' thing and throw her over a horse before taking a ship directly to Winterfell. Either Robert would insist the wedding go through, Rhaegar's child in her aside, or he'd consider her an oathbreaker, a traitor. Even though it had never been her promise that had bound Lyanna to him.
He may even kill her child, for the sin of being a dragon.
The very thought made blood rush to her ears and she felt the babe stir and kick, almost as if he shared her fear.
She was confident in her ability to plan and execute her escape. Her guards, while excellent swordsman, were not prepared to deal with a girl who had managed to abscond from her own locked room in Winterfell with impunity. And, she was handy with a sword and a dagger enough to take care of herself. Better yet, if all anyone saw was a knocked up whore, they'd be less likely to accost her.
Nonetheless, the riskiest portion of her plan was relying on her ability to reach a city that was far enough away from the kingsguard, and big enough to disappear within before giving birth. Even then, birth without a maester was a great risk. But it was a danger she was already facing while staying here. The thought steeled her, gave her strength in the belief that she was right to go. To stay meant that at worst, she could die in childbirth with no one here to save her.
It was going to get harder from here on out to simply exist. She was sure she knew what being alone for so long would feel like, how she would make it, and what possibilities for work existed for her. But even though she had wanted the leeway the smallfolk she'd grown up with had for so long, it was different to want, to idolize that kind of life than to possess it. It wasn't about being able to ride or fight when she wanted now, but to protect her unborn child. Finding the right path would be one of opportunity, she thought.
Lyanna collected all her useful items from the room and piled them on the bed, still mulling over the hows of her plan. A sewing kit that she'd begrudgingly taken from home because the bone needles were from her mother would come in handy. Her embroidery wasn't pretty, but that hardly mattered for her plan to look and act like the smallfolk.
A few daggers littered the bed, and she'd even managed to have a shield in her room. The paint was scuffed, but the tree still stood proud on the front, laughing.
At first her idea had only been to protect her father's bannerman. That was why she'd waded into the bullies attacking the crannogman. But if she asked herself now, it was because she felt icy rage at seeing the slightly older and better equipped boys pushing around the smaller man. That injustice, the sight of Howland's three-pronged spear lying discarded as he took lumps on unarmored parts of his body from tourney practice swords fueled her fury as she shouted at the squires.
Despite the heir to Greywater Watch's inability to defend himself in that moment, there were no weak houses in the north. The southron lords could laugh and disparage the short 'bog devils' for their supposedly cowardly tactics, all they liked. It didn't make them weak or any less dangerous.
Once, her father had taken Benjen and Lyanna when they were young, Ned having just been fostered. A group crannogmen met them at the edge of the marshes, appearing from the mists as if they could see right through the gray fog. Carefully they'd picked their footing through the marsh, the horses left behind. Their guide hadn't told them to be silent, yet everyone in the party whispered to one another, unwilling to disturb whatever lived in the waters.
She remembered with fondness the moss and the strange plants creeping down from the branches of dead trees that were ever sinking into the dark waters. There were ripples of creatures that stirred and swam just out of the corner of her eyes. In its stillness, in the smell of musky decay, was the makings of a hard life that Lyanna understood.
It was Benjen who didn't listen. But it wasn't him who paid the price.
Distracted by the soft sounds of flowing water and chirping of frogs, she didn't notice that Benjen had reached out of the side to touch something. It was the shout and jerking of the boat that caused her to turn and see in a flash one of men of Winterfell snatch Benjen's hand. Amidst the flurry she saw a streak of color attach itself to the man's arm before dropping into the water.
The boat erupted into action. Benjen was tossed back into father's arms, Lyanna herself was plastered against the wooden side as the crannogman shifted over to snatch the man's bitten arm and examine it. Rickard was squeezing her brother tightly, in concern and anger, while Benjen was pressed against him, white-faced.
"We're too far from the castle," their guide started pulling out a dagger and a rope, passing off his torch to an open hand. The man who had bravely, foolishly saved the third son of Rickard Stark tensed as other men gripped his arm in place for what was to come. Ropes were tightened around at the juncture above his elbow, sleeve peeled back from his wrist to expose the bite, which glistened with venom. Already it was red and puckered, waiting for the kiss of the dagger to cut it out.
Neither of the two Stark's forgot the sound of the man's screams as the crannogman carved and sliced and peeled the poison out.
Their father did not cover their ears or eyes. It would be unbecoming of a Stark.
Their time at Greywater Watch had been short. Benjen's mistake hung over both of their heads and instead of his usual pestering questions about fighting and monsters in the swamp, his face was stricken pale with guilt. They wandered the halls together, Lyanna shuffling behind in the shadow of her brother's disappointment. She spent a little time with Howland, as he tried to assure Benjen that it was a cruel land, and accidents were prone to happen. But as he spoke, she could see the words only hardened her brother's determination that it was his responsibility to mitigate those kinds of accidents, not cause them. It was no wonder after that, that he began to speak of going to the Wall someday.
No more than two days before they set out again, the swampy waters were bleeding back into land. It was harder to remember exactly what the moving castle was like, but impossible to forget its inhabitants, including the snake and of course, Howland Reed.
She caressed the white shield and its tree, surmising that this was where it had all gone awry, or right, depending on interpretation.
Exhausted from the tourney and not unaware of the King's mad and roving eye that was often rooted to her form while she fought, she fled. Her purpose had been served; the knight's terms were declared and their squires chastised.
Hefting the shield with a grunt, she swung her leg up on the branch of the tree. She didn't know why she couldn't just leave the thing, instead feeling some mischievous part of her insisting that she make the shield less accessible once found. She wanted it to mock whoever found it, the smiling face of the weirwood perched above, delighting in the deception.
The branches were weaker than the ironwoods and weirwood at Winterfell, but nothing broke under her sure footsteps. Finally she reached a good height, triple a tall man's length, and wedged the shield deep into the crevice of a branch off the main trunk. The climb down was quick, no longer being one handed, and she landed with a bounce, her breath huffing out all at once.
The double click of a man's tsking at her had her whirling around, dagger out.
"You're not wearing your crown." His smirk was arrogant, but an undercurrent of amusement played at the corners of his lips.
"Wolves don't wear crowns." Feigning control over the situation, Lyanna tucked her dagger away as if she wouldn't have to use it. Not that she could have done much against a competent swordsman who had the drop on her for strength, such as Prince Rhaegar. In those situations, it was best to prepare run, like she was doing now.
"You know my father suspects The Laughing Knight is here to kill him. Are you?" The silver haired prince abruptly switched subjects and began circling towards her, his lazy gait hiding a serpentine grace. She already knew him for a dragon, and not a mad or a stupid one.
"Who says I'm the laughing knight? The Master of Whispers?" She tilted her head, scrunched her eyes and scoffed, allowing herself to believe a lie that she certainly wasn't the knight in question. Knights were men, and the technicality allowed her some semblance of dissembling.
Rhaegar had made it to the tree, his hands rubbing the bark as he looked up at the shield that was guiltily staring at him with a wide smile. He grinned back and then turned his eyes to her, which looked almost lavender in the sun but for the flecks of dark indigo peeking out at the seams. His eyes were much like him, as she found out later. Silver and shining with his birthright and all that it entailed, he could capture anyone with a song as he had caught her the evening previous. Yet underneath lurked the darkness of his ilk. Madness may have not haunted him, but the tragedy of it, the Fire and Blood, was there waiting. Rhaegar was a man on the perpetual cusp of a storm.
"I guessed," the grin was back, and it pried a small smile from her lips.
"I think you're not a good guesser then." She snarked, arms crossing in unconscious defensiveness.
"And I think I'd know the woman I crowned the Queen of Love and Beauty anywhere and in any attire." He chortled, stepping forward to close the distance between them.
"But really, it is was a splendid thing to see you swinging a sword," she was stock still when he reached up and moved the hair from her brow. His touch made her frown, and she wondered if he expected her to be flattered with all the attention he'd given her so far.
Up close she had a chance to see every nuance of the Prince. What struck her was that his skin was as pale as her own. Those of Valyria, even most of Westeros, had little in common with the muted grays, browns and blacks of the First Men. Yet, the blue of his veins protruding delicately from his hand mirrored her own translucent skin. The romantic notion that they were opposing sharp edges of the same blade struck her. Quickly she pushed that emotion to the side with a swallow, his attention rapt on her blossoming discomfort.
"Forgive me," he then bowed to her suddenly, his composed expression faltering so briefly she almost missed the twitch to his brows.
"My father won't hear of this, however, I'll need one thing in return." Again the darkness of his eyes came into focus, and the air around her became fraught with tension. Lyanna thought it was her own fear of being exposed as The Laughing Knight, but later she knew it was the thin but tenacious pull of destiny that was wrapping around them both.
In her hands she held the many letters Rhaegar had asked for in return for his silence on her identity at the Tournament. It was hard to be angry with her husband. He'd wanted to know her, to find a wife he could be happy with and to bear him more children. She'd been more a child then, rather than a woman, entranced with the secrecy of it all and the machinations required to make it work. And of course, she hadn't known his intent from the start.
The bold manipulation was forgiven, but not forgotten, later when it all came to light that from the beginning he meant to marry her.
From the first, love wasn't much of a thought in her mind. Only that a man didn't seem to think it odd that she could use a sword, or ride better than most men. He wanted to hear about the challenges she faced at home and how she would train in secret, in the crypts, careful to not hit a statue of her ancestors with her practice sword.
And no one cared about these simple but important things, but for Rhaegar.
When love was cultivated from the attenuate soil of her resistance to conform, it was survival and need to rebel that drove her to embrace it. Going to him was a necessity, the consequences an afterthought. All the careful messages sent from ravens kept at Castle Cerwyn, delivered to her by a merchant who was convinced she was a simple errand girl for a cadet branch Northern man who was secretly conversing with a Lady in a minor house situated in the Stormlands, were torn open by her greedy hands. Her reply was sent back via the same merchant, to castle Cerwyn and onward to a minor house in the Stormlands where someone, perhaps Rhaegar himself would receive the letter, starting the process all over again.
Even at the time, she didn't ponder how tenuous and dangerous her liaison with the Crown Prince was. Not her impending betrothal, his marriage to a Martell, nor the ever spiralling madness of the King were obstacles that could not be overcame. So long as her letters came, there was a different world outside the one she pretended to live in every day. In that world, the Prince respectfully set aside Elia Martell, a woman he did not love and who did not love him, married her, and somehow even when he became King, he would have time for her. The only good thing about being Queen would be that she could ride and shoot, with no one to stop her. Granted, it was all a childish day dream now.
When the time drew so near that she believed he would be too late before she was sent off to be married against her will, he asked that she come. There was nothing vital to her to leave behind at Winterfell, besides Benjen. And while he merited a parting word, she didn't enlighten him on her true reasons for leaving. Clearly he saw she wasn't only running away, but running towards something. She still couldn't tell her brother about the silver Prince who loved her, her, and all her iron will housed in pale skin and dark accoutrement.
Rhaegar filled an emptiness in her heart she knew hadn't been there before him. A dragon-shaped space that beckoned him to nest in it. While he was there, so was she, more present as the she-wolf than she'd ever felt. Perhaps it was all the sword practices, or the riding and archery. Maybe it was in the times where he'd play on the harp that stood dusty and unused in her room. Or, she feared, it was his darkness and his passion that made her less one-dimensional, made her real. His optimism for the future didn't go away even when his eyes were dark with pain, and likewise his sadness and frustration didn't disappear when he smiled with love for her. Her husband was a man of many facets, and she had yet to see them all or what her image looked like gazing back from each surface of him.
Nonetheless, when he left for battle, extricating himself tooth and claw from her pithy center, something more ragged was left. Rhaegar's ghost was still there, silver hair disappearing around the corners of her periphery. Her fear now was that he would never leave her mind, and if she lost him for good, she'd be left with the pale ghoul of him that whispered to her at night about prophecy and destiny.
The worst, deepest hurt came from the acknowledgement that what she'd done had killed her family. While she did love Rhaegar, if there had been no child she would take it all back. She'd have found another way to be close to him without bringing about the deaths of so many. If only she'd been inclined to be stubbornly against him as she had been with all other men of marriageable age. She couldn't fathom one single rational reason why she'd be intrigued enough to agree with his bargain that day. Because truly, he couldn't have been sure she was The Laughing Knight. There was minimal risk that the King would have believed him; everyone knew Aerys was suspicious that his own son was working against him. Whether it was true or not didn't matter when it came to a King's madness.
While lost in her thoughts, despondency took her as she marveled at how utterly trapped she was now. More than she'd been before. Sorting through her things and packing them into a spare saddle bag in her closet, her fingers closed around the hilt of a small dagger.
The crannogman had been able to save the man's hand, even if he couldn't properly hold a sword in it after. She looked at the palm of her hand, wondering if love was a poison.
Can I cut him out?
Even dragons bleed the same.
Fire and blood.
Tilting the dagger down, the point dug in, stinging and then aching as she drew the blade over the lightly calloused skin. The liquid beads popped out one by one, red and swollen. Rhaegar wasn't inside any of them.
Sighing, she pressed her palm on the bed, letting the blood seep into the sheets. It would be brown tomorrow, the stain, but for now it only looked moist, and she wouldn't be here then. Only the stain would remain.
Everything was in order, which was just as well given that her hand still prickled with pain and packing more things would both stain them and irritate her. She only needed a short amount of time to grieve for the impending loss of comfort the roof and things under it provided her. No, her largest concern on the journey would be water. The waterskins laying deflated on her bed taunted her with their empty bladders, but better she had better take them empty rather than fill them up and be caught.
Glancing around the room, scanning for any missing items, she let her gaze fall onto her own face staring back from her only mirror. She could still see the etched out form of Lyanna Stark the wolf maid. Still see her. The girl become woman who had dared to do things that men told her she could not. To have a love that was forbidden and dangerous. The unbeaten eyes she saw reflected back at her, all but mired in a face that was lined with exhaustion, were strong despite all of that.
Standing, following her own hooded and beckoning gaze over, she stopped before her full reflection. Instinctively, she smiled then, and it looked toothy instead of innocent. A little bit wiser than yesterday.
"You'll be wantin' some water aye?" The sun-soaked skin of the merchant in front of her looked leathery with use, like a saddle or leather armor.
"And food for two days worth." Without explanation she passed him her spare dagger, hilt first. The man made raspy, throaty noises as he examined it before turning to note the empty waterskins she carried with. Her horse shifted from foot to foot, impatiently sweating in the noonday sun. Lyanna was also soaked in sweat, her recently dyed auburn hair clinging to her forehead and cheeks. The cape and hood were no help with the sheer heat of the desert, but they kept her skin from crisping like the man in front of her.
"I'll give you a single skin full, for all your empty. Two day and night's rations for the dagger-"
"That dagger is worth fifteen dragons, and we both know it." She hissed angrily. The man only shrugged and gestured to the wasteland before him.
"You'll let me know when you find fifteen dragons out here, you ken?"
"Four day rations, and fourteen dragons back."
"I ain't saying it to be cruel lass, but do you see a city anywhere?" He gestured again to the red landscape dust swirling around them. There were mountains on the left and right, in the middle where they stood, a road. If it could be called that. Mostly it was land devoid of large rocks stretching and winding out into the blurry distance.
"Kingsgrave is less than a few hours south. Four days and night's rations, seven dragons back." She said, her tone conveying the finality of her offer. He chuckled, squinting up at her as she sat astride the horse she had led silently through the small paddock and out into the still night air just seven hours previous.
"Girl you're lucky you've run into me at all out here in this wasteland. You wouldn't be askin' me for trade if you were willing to go into the town," he eyed her up, letting his gaze drop to her swollen belly. "Running from a husband now, who'll be looking for you. Say seven dragons back, two days rations and when your lad come a-callin' I won't be the one to tell him I seen you."
Lyanna inwardly winced at the man's deduction. He wasn't wrong per se. It was better to let him think it was that than the truth. She also noticed that while he spoke the common tongue, his accent placed him here, and hers… well it was going to be something she'd have to watch carefully when she made it to the small port on the edge of the river.
"My two empty skins for your full one, four days food," she raised her hand showing four fingers in emphasis, "for the dagger and six dragons back to me." The man considered for only a moment before he grunted in acknowledgement and started digging through his small cart for her share of the trade, tucking in the dagger as he pulled out bread, dried meat and a few wrinkly apples.
"Not sure where you're headed, but you'll want to stay clear of the river south of Kingsgrave. There's minor fightin' and men moving in this pass between the mountains. If you're travelin' alone," he eyed her again, not quite sympathetically, but acknowledging that he might as well offer her what information he could.
"If not south, and I can't go north…" Lyanna griped the reigns and craned her neck to look ahead of her, as if she could see anything beyond the silvery mirage of the horizon.
"A goat path, take you to Blackmont, if you follow it all the way. It ain't used by many, but seein' that it's on the other side of the mountains, that part of Dorne has been keepin' to itself 'sides sendin' out men to fight for the Dragons. It's the damn soldiers in the eastern ports, buying up all the goods from the Free Cities." He angrily gesticulated with the bread in one hand, upset about his limited ability to trade for the finer goods of the east.
Finishing packing away her food in a threadbare sack, he slipped off the waterskins before attaching a full one to her horse. When she heard the clink of the coin she held out her hand to receive it, pocketing it in a second, empty purse she'd brought. She'd learned that from Brandon, when he would go to drink in the south. Her brother would pretend to be a vassal lord from the edge of nowhere at taverns, his purse filled with copper pennies and a silver stag or two, while his real purse often held dragons. It had saved him when he was scouted out as being highborn by the innkeep. Instead he would pour the poorer contents of his second purse out with an exclamation that it was 'all I have!' Grumbling, they'd take his pay, feeling cheated out of a dragon or two.
"So this path then?" She tried to sound in control, but she was honestly frightened of taking the alternative path. Blackmont was usually accessed by the port at Starfall, and she speculated that it would generally be a three to four day ride to cross through the mountains if she went with the goat path.
But if she were measuring the risks, she'd rather not run into soldiers, bannerman of Dorne or any Lords versus having to watch her step on a riskier trek. If she gave birth at any point in the next week, she would either be found out or suffer without a maester. In a way, going to Blackmont was the better option because it would be so unexpected.
She was still considering while the man explained how to find the trail up ahead, nestled between two small peaks. It would require her to dismount to enter the trail, but once she had passed a set of switchbacks, the path would be winding, but not steep. He also said that about mid way there was a side trail that would lead her to a set of springs tucked into a small valley. The water would still be surrounded by very little plant life for food, but it would replenish the waterskin for the second leg of her journey. Her horse would have to make do on the brush that sprouted higher up in the mountains, despite the still arid heat.
Ready, and armed with further assurances that the man she had traded with would say nothing, or at least say nothing for long enough for her to be free of Westeros, she dug her heels into her mount. Even as the sun beat down from its place in the west, she thought that the desert, with its promise of freedom, had never looked so beautiful.
A/N I know there's not a lot of interaction with other characters here, but we're getting there.