Memories that is long lost
author note: My deepest apologies for that this chapter is basically nothing else than a filler "episode", but that plot bunny might cause a side-story for this series
Also, faint warnings of a certain teenager being selfish, naive about consequences of her actions and narrow-minded with a major dose of Northern prejudice. (And a few pieces of "take that!" against some racist views on Dorne, its culture and Elia in the ASOIAF and GOT fandoms)
~X~X~X~X~X~X
The so called Tower of Joy, Dorne:
As much as her body was burning from the fever and pain of childbirth, Lyanna could not believe what just had happened. Why had no one back home in Winterfell told her that childbirth would hurt this much and take such long time to deal with, proving another reason to why she did not want to become yet another woman married with children? And why did that other Dornish woman rush out with her baby, the self-claimed midwife holding her down on the bed? How dared they take her child away from her before she even saw it!? Were they sent by Rhaegar's Dornish wife, who he said to not be able to bear more children and wanted her brats to remain the only royal children?
"Give me...my baby!"
Among all the pain, Lyanna ignored that it was partly her own fault for the situation she currently was in. She had never listened to Old Nan or any of the other female staff members at Winterfell in their attempts to explain what pregnancy and childbirth really meant for a woman who was married, finding it gross in details and tedious inspiration that she would never have any use for in a life as a female warrior.
"Lyanna!"
The voice of Eddard, him running over to where she was on the bed. Against her will to hear him, his voice sounded more and more distant, his face becoming blurry for her sight due to her tears in relief over finally having a family member by his side again. All she wanted right now, was to leave this tower that had been her prison for the past year and return home to Winterfell. Away from this horrible tower, away from Dorne where the Martells ruled, away from the South all together.
"...promise….bring you….home…"
And she neither saw or heard anything else as she tried to smile at her brother in gratitude. Ned would take her home, away from this living hell that was the most southern part of Westeros she and her baby would never have to leave the North again...
~X~X~X~X~X~X
"You really have not changed at all, from the last time I saw you here in my realm."
Lyanna opened her eyes in shock over the unfamiliar voice. Where was she? An impossible tall hallway of some kind, so tall that she could not see the roof, and there was no sight of Eddard either. In cold fear, the sixteen-year-old rose to her feet, for a moment surprised over that there was no pain anymore, but then her focus returned on that her middle brother were nowhere in sight.
"Ned? Ned, where did you go?!"
Was this the afterlife? If so, where was Brandon and Father? Surely they should be greeting her together with her late mother Lyarra and other Stark ancestors, as she had not converted to the Faith of the Seven! She had married Rhaegar in a secret wedding ceremony in front of a septon on the journey towards a hiding place in Dorne where no one would think of looking for them, yes, but that was to make him keep his side of the deal they had agreed on, that she would be allowed to be free from having to marry Robert and become a female warrior in exchange for giving him a third child which his wife was unable to do. It had sounded so easy, a single child for her personal freedom…
It was not even like Lyanna desired to be a mother in the first place. All she had to do was remaining healthy during the pregnancy and survive in childbirth, and then Rhaegar would ensure that Robert found another girl to marry instead of her.
"Eddard, this is not funny! I am too old to play hide and search, you promised to bring me back home to Winterfell!"
"Hush, foolish wolf-girl! You disturb the other souls in my care and there is others awaiting their turn to meet me here in my Halls," the unknown voice from before commanded with a hint of annoyance, and she turned around at where the man was heard from.
A massive throne, where a hooded figure was seated. In one hand, a small shape akin to that of a infant, was peacefully sleeping for now.
"Who...are you?"
Námo honestly was not surprised by that Lyanna had no idea who he was. After all, her soul had crossed between the worlds of Westeros and Arda the moment she drew her final breath of life, undoubtedly expecting to land in the afterlife of those who worshipped the Old Gods. Yet at the same time, there was a reason to why her soul had came here to the Halls of Mandos.
"Reborn so many times in Westeros across the centuries that you have no memory of our last meeting? I should have guessed as much, you did not exactly prove yourself well educated in politics or whatever your selfish actions have consequences for innocent people, back then either."
Lyanna was speechless in shock, briefly gaping wide before quickly closing her mouth shut again to not look like she was one of those feeble-witted women people loved to make fun of. How dared he insult her like that?! Her, a daughter of House Stark of Winterfell?
"You dare to…!?"
But she found herself interrupted, caged inside what seemed to shaped like a bird cage but instead made of glass all around. When she tried to break the glass by slamming her fists on it, no sound was heard from the outside.
"I do not have time to listen on a foolish girl bragging about her name and social status. That does not matter here in this realm. Instead, I want you to take a close look on what I am going to show you now."
By moving one hand, Námo created a illustration of a adult man with light grey eyes and dark brown hair down his back in a manner that did not make him seem feminine at all, for all of that Lyanna had never seen a man with such long hair before. Instead she found him so bewitching, stunning beautiful that she was literally speechless again, this time by awe.
"Cregan?" she whispered. Surely this had to be her son, the one she had given Rhaegar despite his insistence that her baby had to be a daughter, her own instincts saying her that she was carrying a son. There was no way she would end up with a daughter, not with her own father Rickard siring three sons among four children. And surely Rhaegar would not mind that her son was given a Stark name instead of a Targaryen name, after the Stark Lord who had ruled the North for so long that he came known as the Old Man of the North?
Then a second illustration showed up. A tall and fair man as well, with what had to be pure silver for his hair colour since she had never seen a shade of silver-blonde hair like that, but muscular in manner that spoke of a life outdoors and skills in battle. What alarmed Lyanna, however, was how her son and the silver-haired man both drew sword and started a duel, no doubt intent on killing each other.
"Cregan!? Cregan, what are you doing?! That is that Dornish woman's brat, right? Why are they fighting!? Rhaegar said that my child would be adopted by her as a legitimate son, because she can not give him any more children herself!"
He had promised that Elia Martell would not make a fuss about them! That she was used to people having a paramour in Dorne, and would understand the need of another woman giving birth to more children when she could not!
"Is that what he told you? Young lady, that promise is pure nonsense. How can a husband claim to know more about the culture than his own wife, who was born and raised in that culture? If you have bothered to read about the Targaryen family, you would know that younger half-siblings born from a different mother have a habit of causing trouble for the children born to the legal wife."
"My son will not do that! He will be second-in-line….CREGAN!"
In horror, Lyanna saw how the two men killed each other, laying dead on the floor before the illustration ended.
"No….no, no...no...this can not be what awaits him! My son killed by his own brother!? It has to be that Dornish woman telling him to do that…"
"It is not your child in this life. You gave birth to a stillborn daughter, Visenya Waters, who tore you open and made you die from internal bleeding because you had her inside your womb for too long, so she grew too big for you to push out without problems. That dark-haired man is your son, Dior Eluchil, and a rejected suitor, Celegorm Fëanorian, from your very first life as a princess in a realm that is deep below the sea now. Your son was killed by him for being the son of a mortal you chose over him."
What was he talking about? It was not Cregan and Aegon she saw? Her son from a previous life? No, this had to be a dream, a dream which made no sense at all. She had to wake up any moment now, to find herself escorted by Ned back to the North in some form of carriage, surely she must have fallen asleep from pure exhaustion after the birth…
A cry from a newborn caught her attention, it was the small shape in Námo's hand which moved around on his palm.
"My apologies, little Visenya, but I am trying to tell you mother what a irresponsible fool she happens to be, because of her selfishness in both this life and a previous one."
And then it dawned on Lyanna, the truth of what was going on. She was dead, because of that little brat she had struggled so hard to get out of her body. The child she had prayed to be a son so Rhaegar could have a spare to his heir, because she knew that a daughter would only end up trapped in a unwanted marriage like what she would find with Robert.
"NO! This can not be true! I can not be dead! Not because of a child I did not even want in the first place!"
She could not believe it. Lyanna collapsed to her knees as it all came crashing down in her head. All her dreams and hope for her life as a adult, ruined by that little girl who looked so alike Rhaegar already now, with her Targaryen colours, that no one would doubt who the sire was.
"Be silent!" Námo ordered, now towering above Lyanna who started to feel terrified, "In your first life, as you just saw in that illustration, it was your son who paid for what you and your mortal lover did in order to stay together. Does you even realize what princess Elia Martell had to give up at her marriage to the prophecy-obsessed Silver prince, who broke his marriage vows with you? She had to leave her homeland for a different royal court who distrusted her because of her ethnic minority, had to suffer two pregnancies in less than three years after the wedding because her first child was a girl and she needed to give birth to a son, deal with a goodfather who used her as a hostage in order to make her homeland fight against your betrothed in the Rebellion and watch her fellow Dornishmen die because of your foolish idea of escaping marriage with Robert Baratheon: vanishing with Rhaegar Targaryen, the Crown prince who happens to be a married father of two, Lyanna Stark."
Lyanna was now trembling in fear at feeling this powerful glare at herself, unable to move or say anything in protest, despite that a small part of her was seething in anger and humiliation over that he chose Elia's side in the course of events.
"Robert...would have cheated on me! He fathered a bastard in the Vale…"
"Before you two even was betrothed, little moron. Was all this really worth it? Refusing to marry Robert based on that he had a natural daughter? Then tell me, Lyanna Stark, what does that make your daughter? A royal bastard with the surname of Waters, because that is where she was conceived, on the last day you were in the Crownlands, before you left for Dorne. Rhaegar can not acknowledge her as his natural daughter in death, and people are not going to find it funny that you make a such fuss about little Mya Stone, only to become a mistress to the married Crown prince and bear him a bastard daughter instead of being the most powerful woman by marriage in the Stormlands. Tell me, Lyanna Stark, do you know of any other Targaryen King to have more than one wife, outside Aegon the Conqueror and his second son Maegor?"
Her failure of mentioning any names told enough. And according to the Faith of the Seven, Rhaegar would not be able marry a second wife either, for he had consummated his marriage to Elia on the wedding night and she had not given herself infertile by giving him two healthy children despite her own struggles with her health.
"See what I mean? You are not a legal wife or even the mother of a princess, just a foolish girl who have died during the birth of a royal bastard."
Anyway, Námo did not want to waste more time on Lyanna. Not only had she not learned a lesson from her first life before she was reborn in a circle of death and rebirth in Westeros, it was a such long time since her first life that she did not even recognize the two people who have been affected so much by her actions in the First Age of the Sun. It was high time that she learned real consequences of her poorly-thought actions, the loss of her father Rickard and oldest brother Brandon was only the beginning of it all. By running away with Rhaegar, she had not only refused her duty as a daughter of House Stark to marry the man chosen for her, she had humiliated the whole North in the same choice.
"Since you insists on that you are in the right and others being wrong, as well that you look down on a older woman who you view as inferior to yourself in so many ways, I think that I have a perfect punishment for you, young lady…"
Lyanna screamed as a blinding light surrounded her.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Her first feeling, was how she landed face down, hard on what had to be soft sand. And the horrible heat from Dorne, which she had grown to hate during her stay in the Tower of Joy. Looking around, Lyanna had no idea where she was. The tower was nowhere to be seen, and she was laying in the shadow of a different building, a house, built in a manner she had never seen before with dried mud. A alleyway?
"Where…?"
A cry at her left, and Visenya Waters was there at the ground as well, laying on a simple blanket without anything else on her tiny body, wailing loudly as proof of that she was alive, with none of the dragon-like birth defects that she had been born with in Dorne. Then Lyanna felt like her lower body was burning in pain. Worse, it felt like she was bleeding still, her thighs having that nasty feeling of when she got her moon blood during the night and found her bed sheets stained with blood in the morning.
"No, I will not undergo childbirth again!"
She saw Námo there in the deepest shadow, but he was slowly vanishing in front of her eyes.
"It is not childbirth or the belonging after pains you feel. It is your body reacting on that it have given birth and is trying to heal itself. I recreated your body alongside a healthy one for Visenya and brought you both there, to the Eastern parts of the world you once lived your first life in. However, your punishment for the mess to be known as Robert's Rebellion, is to no longer have any of the privileges or comforts you are used to. Neither shall your two remaining brothers, Eddard and Benjen, know that you are alive again in a different world. You will live your life among the lowest of the low here in this city, as a foreign beggar woman with a child who have no father around, needing to hide away your daughter because her Targaryen traits are going to make her a target for slave traders and others who want to exploit her beauty. You shall also be finding out the hard way why traditional feminine skills are so valued in cultures around the world, those skills you so dismissed as below yourself to know despite your social standing as a daughter to the Warden of the North. Perhaps this is the lesson in humility you so desperately needs."
Lyanna felt herself going cold in horror at those words. A different world, in a land that reminded awfully about Dorne? With no way of ever returning home to Winterfell?
"No! Take me back home! Take me home to Winterfell! Please, do not leave here alone with Rhaegar's brat! I do not want to be a mother!"
But Námo ignored her desperate pleading, vanishing like he was a mere mist giving in for the morning sun. Lyanna sunk back on her knees in despair, fully realizing what had happened right now.
"I ONLY WANTED TO MAKE EVERYONE UNDERSTAND THAT I WANTED TO LIVE MY LIFE ON MY OWN TERMS! I NEVER WANTED TO MARRY AND BE A MOTHER LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!"
But if anyone heard her screaming and crying, where she knelt beside her newborn daughter there in the alleyway, they would only have heard a young female voice speaking a foreign language not spoken in the region of Rhûn.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
author note:
Due to being the only daughter of a paramount lord, Lyanna is among the most privileged of the privileged in Westeros and does not realize how her life is a thousand better than the smallfolk due to all the things she takes for granted. She has never gone hungry due to a lack of food, never felt cold because of clothes being little more than rags and living in in a tiny shack with the whole family in one single room, never been beaten because of a poorly executed work and never suffered illness without a maester at her side
Cregan Stark was the Lord of Winterfell and head of House Stark during the reigns of kings Viserys I, Aegon II, Aegon III and Daeron I Targaryen. It is not known exactly when he died, somewhere between 157-209 AC, but he came Lord of Winterfell at age 13 in 121 AC and since he came known as the Old Man in the North, his rule as Lord Stark was a very long one.
I made Lyanna die from a difficult childbirth that had its origins in a postterm pregnancy, which is when a woman has not yet delivered her baby after 42 weeks of gestation, two weeks beyond the typical 40 week duration of pregnancy. One of the risks of a such postmature birth is stillbirth and with the stillborn Visenya also having dragon-like birth defects from her Targaryen blood, there was no way Lyanna would survive the childbirth
Lyanna mistaking Dior Eluchil and Celegorm for her imagined son Cregan and Elia's son Aegon as adults, is meant as a "take that!" towards fancasts in which Aegon is white-washed. House Martell is mentioned to have olive skin colour, so even if Aegon inherited the fair hair colour of House Targaryen, he would still look similar to Elia and Rhaenys, who is mentioned to look like her maternal family. There is no mention of Elia bringing baby Rhaenys along to Harrendal, so Lyanna is unlikely to know how Elia's children even looks like
Dior Eluchil is the only child of the Elven princess Luthien and her mortal husband Beren, one of the most famous couples from Tolkien book Silmarillion, which is set long before LOTR. Celegorm is a Elven prince from the same era of history in-story of Arda