Areli III

She was back at Winterfell's Godswood.

She understood before she could even open her eyes. She felt it. If she were to be poetic, it was something deep in her heart, a certainty that felt supernatural that she was within the home of the Old gods of this world, on the property of the family that her own would tare apart if not for her existence. She opened her eyes, clear, nearly but not quite up to par to her twenty/twenty vision. But it was well within normal infant development, as far as she knew. It had never been her jam, children, and when deciding her career as a nurse, she had with little thought or remorse crossed off both prenatal and pediatrics. It wasn't as if as Ana she hadn't hated children- she does not think she ever could find it in herself to truly hate anyone, let alone an entire age group. She was a quick fuse but burned out much too quickly to ever feel a true grudge. In this life, though she understood she was literally a different person, she also did not think she would change either. But children were always so... Strange to her. Foreign and sometimes unsettling in how innocent they were. So, she did not know much about child development more than the most basic and vague knowledge.

But her eyes were strengthing.

As Areli, she was growing, her body, slowly, so agonizingly slowly, catching up to her mental capacity. The lofty and far distant goal of full automation was far off, but closer than before.

With her stronger, more mature eyes, she could see the sunlight filtering through venous red leaves. She was cradled by the roots of the wirewood, starched bones, on a bed of those red leaves. She is cradled in bones and blood… She can feel eyes, so many, watching her from the branches she vaguely sees in the distance. She is not alone, but she feels no comfort in that thought. Because Magic and Monsters are real and within her reach. Waiting for her.

She blinks, closes her eyes with the panic clawing at her throat. She cannot even cry or whimper, too aware of the things that watch her.

"Areli," said Joanna Lannister, warmly.

Areli's eyes open. Joanna is next to her, face soft and facing her. Since she was so close, her face was vividly clear, and so young, barely in her early twenties. Areli said nothing back, not even a coo. Joanna only sighed, hand reaching out to lay on her head, threading slim, soft fingertips through her fine hair. She smiles. Areli sighs as well. It is a huff of air, it blows away Joanna's blonde hair, flyaway strands falling into her smiling face. It shows, how… Human this ethereal woman is. Because her beauty is marred by that movement, by that frustration on Areli's part.

"I know sweetling. I am sorry to take away your false hope. But no daughter of mine will ever be in denial over themselves," she murmured, green eyes intent, "Least of all you."

She says this every time. She always is adamant that Areli could not deny herself. It made the part of her that mourned the loss of being Ana the most want to scream, claw and at those leave green eyes. But she doesn't. For one, she can't, for another, she didn't like the thought of violence. Her anger was misplaced anyway. She wasn't angry at Joanna, not really. She just angry at the situation.

"Why… Why do I dream of you?" Her voice is sweet and clumsily. But it isn't the voice of an infant. Instead of a child or a young woman, it is every shifting. Ever inconsistent between the two. Some of her words are an echo of the two voices, of her voice as Ana and something of what her voice would be of Areli. The dream is her world, she supposed and her communication skills were more on par on what she was mentally.

And she had dreamed of Joanna, every night, always in the Godswood. The woman, more often than not, did not speak to her, only held her and sang lullabies. Areli on her part had refused to speak at all, even if the knowledge of the possibility had been hanging in the back of her mind. Now… Now she cannot help it. She… She was so tired of silence in her waking moments. Of being able to talk to someone who wasn't a babbling baby. She does not know if she can handle it in her dreams either.

Jonna hummed, again.

"I wish to see you."

"Do…. Do you try to see them?"

She wonders. Joanna cannot be attached to her surely, as much as she was to her husband or her two eldest children. Part of Areli denied, despite everything, that she was this woman's child.

"Your father is too pragmatic, too narrow to open his mind. He is so logical, he would not let me in And I do believe to dream of me would hurt him if he ever accepted me into them. Cersei is much the same. Jaime… Jaime cannot linger with the memory of me. He is so sensitive a child."

"And Tyrion?"

"I will haunt his life. I cannot haunt his dreams. He is too young."

"What of my dreams, Joanna Lannister?"

"You have felt death. Perhaps that is why I feel as if I must see you. You understand me." confessed the young woman, "And you are mine, Areli. My babe. If I can see one of you, it delights me that it is you."

Tears slip down her sharp cheekbones, from her beautiful eyes. Hands reach, thread through her limbs, lifting her, pressing her to her breasts to nestle between them.

"I love you, my Areli."

"... I'm sorry. I know you want comfort. But I just died myself. I don't think I can give you what you want."

It was a struggle. She couldn't deny that. The woman in front of her was mourning as much as her. And she wasn't reborn. She wanted to hate Joanna. Wanted to hate her as she came to her, every night, singing and love and sorrow about her. She clung to Areli. She sang to her, loved her, and Areli wanted nothing more to be far away from this ghost in her dreams. But Joanna would not let her go, a mystical connection between the two that Areli could not understand or feel comfortable with.

The guilt of the woman's death haunted her.

The love she gave she gave so freely choked her and locked her into the understanding of being someone new. To discard Ana Lee.

She was not so sure she could discard who she had been.

"I know, sweetling. I know. I will allow you to mourn, to understand your new life. But remember-"

"I am right where I belong."

Joanna smiled.

"Yes. And they will Hear You Roar, my little lioness."

OOOOOOOO

Areli wakes.

It is quick, her eyes flying open and her young heart is pounding. She licks her lips clumsily, blinking rapidly. She had not meant to go to sleep, but her infant body has it own rhythm that no mental capacity can control. She sleeps at a drop of a hat, and every time she closes her eyes she sees Joanna in the godswood, waiting for her.

She sighs.

"Hello again, young ones," and that's the Maester, briefly, she wonders if anyone will ever say his name so she can learn it, "How do you two fair as of today?"

So far, this older man is one of the few constants in her new life. Beyond her fellow twin, and Jaime, and the wet nurse, he always comes, like clock-work, to inquire or check on them. Every few hours, every day. Her biological Uncle, Keevan tries, but he is more or less in charge of the castle- Casterly Rock is no easy thing to run, and he has his hands full. At most, he can see them once a week, if that. She has never seen Tywin again, as he is in King's Landing more often than not as Hand of the King and Cersei is just as absent. Gentle hands descend on her twin, carefully checking his frightfully small limbs, cradling his larger than normal head, checking his pulse and breathing. He works carefully and delicately, humming as he does. She notes, with a small amount of hope, that perhaps this world is far more gentle than what she expects. She usually squashes down that hope rapidly because while it does great things for her moral she has always been a realist.

She still remembers the look on her Tywin's face, after all. The man, grief-stricken, did not look as if he wished to show her or her twin any care.

"Well, young Master Tyrion," says the Maester with a slight cheer, "You seem to be completely healthy if a sore because of the stiffness of your limbs."

The old man proceeds to massage the boy's tiny, shorter than average arms and legs. He does it for stimulation and stiffness of the poor underdeveloped muscles. Areli gurgles, gently, in approval. The Maester looks at her, a small smile quirking on his lips.

"Happy little thing, are you not?" he mummers, in faint approval, "Hardly cry, don't you sweetling?"

She gurgles in answer, not even bothering to try and form words in front of him. She had a couple months, logically, until any form of language would be acceptable. She's using Tyrion as a measuring stick, and while she plans on improving her mobility and language skills, she's not going to show her cards without Tyrion getting there first. She doesn't see the point of doing so, and she really doesn't want more attention on herself beyond necessary. She thanks whoever is listening that Tyrion is intelligent, as that means she has less time to be confined to baby actions.

"Your mother would have loved you both."

She blinks, surprised and turns away, her mind on newborn leaves as eyes and a gentle kisses to the temple, of cradling limbs of both flesh and bone and bleeding trees.

She needs not the Maester's comfort.

Her dreams are proof enough.