Lyanna is not sure she likes the Lannister. He is arrogant. He is irritating. He asks all the wrong questions. Unfortunately, he is also very good with the sword. She learns this first.
The incident, as she and Ben have come to call it, had happened two weeks ago.
Brandon had returned from the Ryswell's to greet their father's new ward. He had been away for two years and had sprouted in that time. Gone was Brandon the boy, in his place a man. So when Lyanna thinks back on it, it makes a somewhat ridiculous memory, the Lannister in the yard across from Brandon, four years her brother's junior. But all his height and those four years didn't help him. And when the sleet cleared Brandon lay in the slush, the Lannister boy laughing over him.
But Brandon doesn't like to be laughed at. Lyanna has learned this the hard way. Instead of gracefully accepting defeat, Brandon abandoned his tourney blade and tackled the boy to the ground. Lyanna cheered Brandon on from the sidelines, of course. But the ruckus drew the attention of the master-at-arms who called down father. And well, it was embarrassing after that. Father came out, and there was a great too-do.
Father shouted at Brandon, who sulked mightily, and nobody knew what do with the ward, who hadn't said anything, only scowled ferociously. Father dismissed the boy, and the four Starks in Winterfell lined into father's study. Lyanna, one and ten, felt like a child again, she looked over to Brandon and wondered how he felt, he-a man on five and ten. It was not a… what's the word? Ah, yes, auspicious. It wasn't an auspicious beginning.
"The boy did not say anything to me. What happened?"
Brandon sat in those stony silences he was wont to have and Lyanna hadn't actually seen them start fighting, but by the look on Benjen's face, he had.
Good honest Ben, he was, well, he was the balm for her father's silences.
"Brandon insulted his brother," He said after a brief hesitation.
"What's wrong with his brother?" Lyanna had asked.
Brandon looked at Lyanna and said, "He's an imp, a monster. Half the realm knows."
Their father glared at Brandon across the table and said, "Imp or no, Tyrion Lannister is the son of a Lord of the Realm, you would do wise to remember that."
Rickard Stark looks at his three assembled children. Southern ambitions, their bannermen say, Lyanna had wondered what that meant.
"I do not know why Tywin Lannister fostered his son and heir, but you would do well to remember that the boy is of a rank with you. While he is here he will be serving as my squire-"
"But father, you are not a knight."
Rickard Stark did not look at Lyanna often, but when he did she always wanted him to look away again, "I have many of the same duties, so he can and will squire for me. I expect you to treat him with the deference he is due."
Their father assesses all three of his children, but when his gaze finds Brandon, well, Lyanna was glad their father never looks at her like that.
But Lyanna suspected that there is more too it than just Brandon's lack of respect. Brandon had the wolf's blood- yes. But something must have set him off, and Lyanna has interacted enough with her father's ward to know that it would have been easy.
He was so rude! Weren't southern Knights supposed to spread honor and chivalry wherever they go? Ned's letters paint it so. Honor, I wonder Jaime Lannister knows what that word means. And he was rather simple isn't he? Straightforward.
That had been two weeks ago and she still doesn't like him.
Her anger bleeds over into her sword strikes as she smashes into Ben's blade with her own. But he knows her; he shifts his weight to better take the blow but cannot stop the force of her sword. It flies out of his hand and further into the godswood. Lyanna crows her triumph.
"Any Master-at-Arms in the realm would have trouble with me!"
Shaking his head Benjen says, "Gentle Sister, soft like lamb's wool."
She rolls her eyes at his teasing, "Ah, but I am still a winner."
He laughs high and sweet, as boy are wont to do, and says, "A bad winner. Besides sweet victor, we have lessons."
And didn't that just deflate her? Lessons meant sewing and etiquette, though luckily today was a history day. Which means that she can get Benjen to ask all sorts of fun questions about the great heroes of old.
The Lannister boy is there when they arrive. He looks a bit tired, but manages to throw a smirk their way before they sit down next to him. She hates his smiles.
Maester Walys sits across from them and gracefully raises a brow, "you are late."
Both Starks nod while the Lannister idly drums his fingers on the table.
Maester Walys unsmiling eyes peer at her through his shaggy head of hair, "Punctuality is a virtue Lady Stark."
Lyanna only exhales through her nose. She does not like the way that the Maester calls her Lady. Luckily, she does not tell him this.
Instead they discuss Theon Stark, The Hungry Wolf, for under his reign the North was constantly at war, though mostly with the Ironborn.
At least the Lannister looks a bored as I feel. The Maester had even taken whacking the table with his expensive stylus, the one he used for writing, whenever the ward wavered to close to sleep.
"Are you an idiot, boy?" Maester Walys waves his stylus in their general direction and Lyanna stops her eyes mid roll, "You are far behind these histories compared to these two."
The Lannister boy somehow manages a look of boredom with a prideful raising of the hackles. The combination is actually impressive.
"Behind in the histories of the North? Yes- but I don't think they know about his histories of the west as I do," he grins here, grins wider when he sees Maester Walys frown.
"And where, seven-help-us, were you when you left Casterly Rock?"
The boy waves his hand; "There was something about a Lelia Lannister and a war with the Ironmen."
Lyanna leans foreword in spite of herself. Jaime, the Lannister boy, is better traveled than anybody her age that she knows. And he knows new stories! She loves old-nan's tales, but can't help her curiosity about the other realms too.
"What's it about?" Ben is the one to speak up, apparently he also recognizes their well-traveled guest.
The Lannister boy turns to Ben, without a smile for once, and then to Lyanna, he gives her a look she catches him with sometimes. A slow up-and-down- movement of the eyes that Lyanna isn't sure she likes.
And then he shrugs and says, "It's hot a particularly happy history."
"When are they ever?"
The Lannister looks at her and laughs but clears his throat and takes on the tone that everybody seems to find when telling tales, "Lelia Lannister was married to… Harmund Hoare-"
"Harmund II Hoare, the Haggler."
Lyanna almost shushes the Maester, but catches herself in time.
"A king of the Iron Islands. He," he pauses as he tries to remember the history, "had been a ward of the rock in his youth and married one of the Kings daughters-Lelia Lannister. She became Queen of the Iron Islands, but for some reason the priests-"
"drowned men-"
"Mutilated her, so the King on the Rock rose his bannermen and defeated the ironmen."
Lyanna said, "That's all?"
The Lannister threw a curious glance her way that turned triumphant and said, "Aubrey Crakehall threw down the usurper in single combat."
Lyanna wanted more though, but Maester Walys, seeing what was coming, cut in, "It is much more complicated than that. But we are discussing Northern History now."
Lyanna opened her mouth to complain, but it was Benjen who beat her too it, "Maester Walys', our father has a ward from The Rock, surely it would benefit us to learn about the history of The West," Ben's voice dies down at bit at the end, but he gets the point across. The Lannister looks at Benjen like he has grown a second head, but Lyanna knows her brother only as a peace keeper, so his diplomacy does not surprise her.
The Maester sighs and rubs circles on his temple with his right index finger but says, "Very Well."
So they learn a new history. It's like their own Northern Histories, to be honest, only the names are different. But then every one of the seven kingdoms has had problems with the Ironborn at one point of another. Still, she likes hearing about new places and people. She does not like that the only role that Lelia Lannister plays is that of the disfigured wife that sends the men off to war.
When she makes this known The Lannister only says, "Don't worry, Lannister women are…" but he doesn't finish the thought.
I wish I had been born a man; the thought is an old familiar one. Lyanna sighs, her breath catches a stand of her hair and in a puff it floats across her face.
Lyanna spends the next few days avoiding her lessons, she hates sewing, instead she pulls Ben into the godswood, for training. She traps Ben between a rock and a heart tree and smirks down at her younger brother. Ben frowns, but her own smile falls down too, someone claps behind them, laughing.
"Lannister."
"Stark."
Neither says anything after that for a moment, and Lyanna stomach turns, she doesn't know what to say in this situation, so she keeps quite. Across from her the Lannister still smirks. Is that the only face he knows? But he makes no moves, does not turn back to Winterfell, and does not seem inclined to tell their father. Lyanna recognizes all this, what she doesn't recognize is why.
"What?"
"I want to know if you want to fight me."
He has a practice sword held loosely in his right hand and holds it up, limp, but pointed in her general direction, "Unless you are afraid."
And that's that, later she will think it's the wolf's blood that made her do it. But in the heat of the moment she realizes the truth, she needs to prove herself. A few moments later she finds herself on her back in the dirt. He is smiling down at her, his tourney blade slung across his shoulder; absurdly she wishes that it were a real sword so that it might cut into the tendons there.
He is all chivalry again when the deed is done. She slaps the hand he holds out, stands, and cuts at him again. And again, and again. And the result is the same.
Lyanna, having nothing better to do, calls him out, "Do you enjoy beating the same person over and over again like this?"
The Lannister, Jaime, looks at her again, and it's that cat-green look that unnerves her.
Finally that familiar smile settles onto his face, "And you are better? Always fighting your brother who is a boy of eight?"
Lyanna flushes crimson, not from anger or embarrassment, but rather from shame. Her eyes find Benjen whose face says don't bring me into this.
She looks away and says, "He's nine."
All three sit in the silence after that, Lyanna stews in her shame, The Lannister-well, who knows, and Ben hasn't really spoken at all.
But he breaks the hush then, "Well, what do you expect her to do? It's not like the Master-at-arms will train her."
"I can do that."
Silence, Ben has not been expecting that answer and so cannot find a reply, and Lyanna is too stunned to speak.
Bitter Lyanna says "A joke."
"No."
She doesn't trust this southerner, isn't father always saying that they have no honor? But… "Why?"
The Lannister does not look at her this time. Instead his gaze loops around, never settling until his reaches the sky. For a brief moment something flashes across his face. Loneliness, maybe, if southerners are capable of feeling it, but at the very least she sees the vivid flash of a memory. For the first time Lyanna wonders what its like to be so young and so far away from home.
Whatever he is thinking though doesn't matter; it's his reply that causes her thoughts to stammer to a halt.
The boy says, "Because I can."
From there it is easy. The three of them become awkward but willing conspirators.
And when Lyanna says, "What were you even doing in the godswood?"
Instead of diverting their questions, as he does when he feels like it, he says, "I was exploring."
As it turns out, father had dismissed him for the day, and Ser Nestor had occupied himself in winter town (whatever that meant) so the boy had gone exploring, "I'd already been to the crypts, and the hot springs, so that left-" he gestures, and while he doesn't seem nervous, he is not exactly comfortable. This is a good mark in Lyanna's book, because if she is being honest with herself, the godswood can even be forbidding for her, a Stark born in Winterfell.
"I can convince Ser Nestor to help us too. My father has paid for five years of service," Jaime says the last bit through his smirk, "so he said his honor meant he would follow me north."
And he does, that is, Jaime convinces Ser Nestor to help all three of them practice. Ser Nestor is a big man, not necessarily tall, but wide across, with short legs a barrel chest and a head full of brittle mouse brown hair.
Benjen, being young and polite, nods his head, but Lyanna and Ser Nestor don't know what to do with each other. He, a man who had somehow agreed to teach them all to wield a blade, she the young girl who shirked a Lady's duties.
So baldly she says, "Why did the Lord of the West hire a man from the Vale to teach his son to fight."
And Ser Nestor answers unapologetically, "Because I am the best."
But he's not is he, The Ward- Jaime, regularly comes close to beating him, though Ser Nestor is a man grown, and Jaime is a green boy and her age.
When she tells him such he says, "Being the best fighter does not necessarily make one the best teacher."
Lyanna does not bother to try to puzzle this out.
But she does attack him with relish, at least when Jaime is not tied up in his squiring duties, or Ser Nestor "all tied up" in winter town.
When it is the three of them, that is: Jaime, Lyanna and Ben, they go to the godswood, for Ser Nestor won't touch it. Though, they have to be careful, many of the keeps denizens keep the old gods. There are good days, where she feels satisfied with the bone deep ache of skills well learned, and there are the amusing days where she manages to pierce Jaime's prickly southern sensibilities by catching him in the face with finely wrought snowballs. But then there are also days where Benjen's skills catch her off guard, or Ser Nestor says "relax your shoulders" one too many times.
But the worst are the ones where they are all trapped in the keep for the snowstorms. Days and days of monotony, of lessons and sewing, and counting, wanting to go outside, and incessant teasing from Ben. It is winter after all, no matter that they would all prefer spring.
Often times, its on these days that she catches the ward Jaime grinding his teeth, answering letters from his father or attempting to write his sister in his quick busy scrawl. He never lets her see these letter; but she knows from lessons that his spelling is terrible.
Winter is perhaps the worst for Jaime. The West is farther North than four of the other realms, but it is nothing to The North. In fact she rather enjoyed the look on his face when he first saw the size of a snowdrift after a mild storm.
Still they entertain themselves. During a particularly terrible storm she catches him lingering outside the lady's solar, though it hasn't been used as such since her mother died. Instead old-nan gathers the children and tells her tales. Jaime stands, trailing his hands on the walls, still surprised by how warm they are, when they catch him. Lyanna slides to make room for him next to her; so that he might watch the snow pound the window and listen Nan spin her tales.
If the old woman wants the southerner gone she makes no indication. Lyanna suspects that she secretly enjoys having a new ear for her tales. For all the Ben and Lyanna are of the North, they have heard many of her tales a hundred times before, and while Jaime often keeps his thoughts hidden behind his smile, even he likes a good tale. Especially during a snowstorm.
"And Mad Ax would take off his shoes and sneak about the Nightfort slaying his brothers while they slept. Sometimes the men would wake in the morning and try to follow his bloody footprints, but before he reached his rooms Mad Ax would pull on his boots and walk the rest of the way clad so that none would know from whence he came.
"He was only caught when the Lord Commander himself switched places with a man and pretended to sleep. When Mad Ax opened to door expecting one of his sleeping brothers and stood over his bed, the Lord Commander pulled out a hidden blade and slew the man before he could kill him."
Jaime, curious, asks, "But why would they even let a man like that near the wall?"
"Don't be stupid, most of the men at the wall are criminals." And then she elbows him, "Everybody knows that."
Jaime says nothing, only elbows her back, but Benjen, says, "Not many southerners would know. But it's common knowledge here."
"The Wall." Jaime says, tasting the word, and with a candidness that is almost out of character, says, "My brother Tyrion would like to see it."
Lyanna says, "Why would you want to see that stinky old thing? Do you want to be a Black Brother? An honorable watcher on the wall? I don't know if they take slimy southerners," after which she gets him just below his ribs.
He says as he pinches her back, "As if boney little girls know a thing about honor. Besides why would I want to be a Black Brother?"
Jaime seems to want to say more, but instead smiles, it infuriates Lyanna, the way he does that.
"The King's hand then."
Jaime visibly pales but quickly gathers this face and thoughts together, ah, there it is, another smile.
"Father is hand of the King."
"Is he?"
Lyanna had heard it said before before, she just doesn't know what it means, so she says, "What is the Hand anyway?"
"It means that he rules the kingdom."
Ben seems as puzzled by this as she is, so he says, "The King rules the kingdom."
Jaime uses his peculiar look, only this time he half smirks too, in that way that he has when he thinks he is about to be clever, "The King is mad," and then, "Everybody knows that."
They have all forgotten old Nan sits before them, but when she bobs her head in a little bow, Jaime turns first.
"It is treason to say so," Rickard Stark says as he towers above them.
Next to her Jaime stands, why does he stand? She doesn't know, but he stands nonetheless and says in his boyish voice, "Even if it is true?"
"Especially if its true. The Lords Paramount swear an oath of loyalty to the king, one that you will swear too when you take your father's place. The Kings keeps order in the land. So by our honor, we owe him our respect."
Jaime wants to say something more, she can see it in the twist of his mouth, but must ultimately see her father's wisdom, because he smiles and inclines his head, the closest thing to a bow he has ever done.
He says, "Lord Stark."
