EDITED VERSION POSTED THE 03/30/21
NOTE: Hello there friends. As promised here we have chapter two of the newly edited version!
The most attentive among you may notice the change in terms of length. And that it looks like there is partly missing. It's completely normal! Shorter chapters are easier to read and allow me to explore more with my character and the different dynamics I try to build around the whole thing. One of the main things that annoyed me with the original version was how little time I spend explaining how traumatizing it is for Kyria to lose everything she ever knew and to have to build her life again surrounded by people who knew her before.
Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy that new chapter! I will try to post the next one quickly but I feel like I need to be more advanced in my work before I start publishing more regularly. So you don't have holes of four-month between chapters when I will have everything published xD
Enjoy!
CHAPTER 2: Just a Dream?
On the tenth month of the year 296
Winterfell
Kyria Stark
This is just a dream. Nothing else. A dream.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo-GOT-oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Laugh. Gasp. Cry.
A place full of white figures. Again. All around. Her feet against the cold floor. Stuck. Glued. Impossible to move.
LOUDER!
LOUDER! LOUDER!
WE NEED TO SPEAK LOUDER!
Kyria screamed. The beast! The beast is here again! Giant thing made of gold and ugly red puffed skin surrounded by more gold and arboring glass-like teeth, large and shiny. The beast! The beast!
It's screaming and raging and passing in front of the white thing. Then it moves an arm, and one of the white things draws a sword.
PLEASE NO!
Red. Red splashing on the floor. A cry that came from the red.
No not the red. There was a bird there. A strange little bird Kyria could hold in her hand had she wished so. Tiny little thing with blood red feathers. When the beak opened there was no song. No chirp, just a cry of pain and beg of mercy.
The Monster laughed louder. The white silhouettes moved around. Laughing too. Talking, whispering, mocking. So many voices. Louder and louder.
Louder.
LOUDER
LOUDER!
"Stop it!" she cried.
But no one hears. No one cares. The monster is happy, he's hungry, the little thing on the floor cries and screams and beg. It's hurt and small and so fragile.
LOUDER! LOUDER!
He loves the screams. He loves the pain. He wants it, he carves it. Kyria wants to throw up.
"Leave her face. I like her pretty"
The white thing with the sword grows into a big shadow, tall and menacing. So dark it seems to swallow every light around it. There's still the sword on its hand and it goes down again and again and again.
And the little thing cried pathetically without any possible way for her to escape her fate and the large shadow above her.
"Unbind her."
The shadow barked a loud laugh and tears of the feathers of the little bird. Kyria cried at the blood, screaming for it to stop. The little thing cried so much the pain was so intense it seemed to dissolve itself like melted snow.
Kyria screamed again but there was no little bird any more. Only a cold blue eye, feral and dangerous, watching her from the poodle of blood and flesh and feathers agonizing on the floor.
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They are just dreams Kyria. Nothing but dreams.
You are going to be alright Kyria. Everything will be fine.
But it's not. Nothing is fine. Nothing.
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THE KING IN THE NORTH
King in the North. The North. North. North. North. North
Tall. Tall and large. Wide beast with a wide chest and large paws. So grand so fierce.
THE KING IN THE NORTH!
THE KING IN THE NORTH!
Everyone is watching him, expecting, admiring, wondering. Nothing can stop him nothing, nothing, nothing.
Her feet are glued to the floor. Cold, cold floor. She can not move, only watch. Always watch. Watch, watch watch.
A crow caw somewhere. She ignored it. Her eyes glued to the large beast with the larger crown on his head. Spikes of Ice and melted iron. Gigantic sculpture impossible to hold. But it holds. It holds. It holds.
And the beast looks magnificent, proud and tall and so proud. So young, so full of life. So proud. Proud. Proud.
And who are you, the proud lord say,
That I must bow so low.
Something crawled on the floor. Small and large and tiny and thick and disformed. Kyria watches it being dissolved into smaller ugly things, all strange and unnatural with their twisted bodies and blood red eyes.
Something is coming. The large beast moves and Kyria screams.
Only a Cat of a different Coat,
That's all the truth I know
Something, a voice in humming somewhere on the back. She can't understand what it says, it sings. A slow dangerous tune. Something is happening.
THE KING IN THE NORTH!
THE KING IN THE NORTH!
What was happening? Something was happening. Something. But what? What?
A coat of gold, a coat of red,
A lion still has claws…
The things bite something first. There was something behind the beast. Something smaller.
Blood splashed everywhere. The beast screamed. Something loud and awful filled with pain and anguish.
Then something fell. Another beast. Smaller. With- Its belly large open and something- something was moving inside.
Kyria screamed. The beast did too. Then she screamed louder when the blood grew thicker on the floor.
And mine are long, and sharp my lord,
As long and sharp as yours...
Then the little black things with shiny eyes started to cut the beast in pieces. It kept screaming and Kyria screamed too but her feet were glued to the floor and she could not move nor could she help the beast or stop the things.
And the blood grew thicker.
And so he spoke, and so he spoke, the lord of Castamere…
And now the rain weep o'er halls,
With no one there to hear.
Kyria kept screaming as the beast slowly disappeared under the thickness of the blood. A full river of it that swallowed everything. The other thing was in pieces already gone under the river of blood and the beast was fighting still.
And there was nothing she could do.
And now the rain weep o'er his hall,
With not a soul here so hear.
"You lose your crown the day you married her."
Kyria screams but nothing happens. The river kept growing and licking her feet, the white of her nightshirt.
The-
Regards-
She screamed louder.
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"KYRIA!"
"What is happening to her?"
"Get the Maester!"
"Why is she screaming like that?"
"I don't know"
"Maester Luwin!"
"It's the second night something like that happens, what is wrong with her?"
Chains. Chains and soft steps.
"I can not say for sure. Those are definitely nightmares. Maybe her brain was more affected than what we first thought. Maybe the distress of her loss is affecting her… There are many reasons why she could be in such a state."
"I don't care for your excuses Maester, do something!"
"Apart from giving her milk of the poppy every night there is not much to be done. And, as you certainly know my Lady, this substance is addictive after a time."
There was no escape then.
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The things I do for love.
BURN THEM ALL!
A Tower. A tower high in the sky.
For love.
Love.
Love.
Love. Love. Love.
Her feet move on the dirty floor. She can walk this time. There is nothing around. Nothing but the tower.
She walks around it. But nothing happened.
CAW
A crow. Big and massive and frightening fly right above her head.
CAW
It flies away, above the tower, high, high in the sky. And Kyria watches.
CAW
CAW
"The things I do for love."
Who said that? What was that?
Kyria blinked and she wasn't on the floor anymore. Her feet were batting under her, but there was nothing. Nothing. She was falling. No. Was she? No- no something was holding her.
There was a hand there. On her nightshirt, holding her in place.
"What is happening?"
The things I do for love
"Who are you?"
For love.
For love.
The hand let go. Kyria felt herself fall back and screamed.
She screamed as the wind whistled close to her ears and nothing was holding her back from the inevitable impact.
Then it stopped.
BURN THEM ALL!
BURN THEM ALL!
"I don't think he expected to die…"
"There is no man like me. Only me."
"My last chance of honor."
"I made a vow, I intend to keep it."
"She's a monster. So am I."
She won't forgive that easy little lady…
She won't stop until you have nothing else to give…
BURN THEM ALL!
BURN THEM! ALL OF THEM!
MINE. You are mine. MINE. MINE. MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE
MINE
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Dreams. Every night. Only dreams. There was nothing else. Couldn't be anything else. Couldn't.
They were worried, weren't they?
She doesn't always understand this. Sometimes it's obvious. Generally when death is involved. But other times, the dream talks about something. Or someone maybe… Something who isn't always linked with death, or tragedy.
She doesn't understand those ones. They are too confused.
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"I did warn you not to trust me."
The floor is licking. Melting. Like ice. She was stuck. Impossible to move. Not just the feet. Her arms too. She could not move.
Everything around her was sticky and glued and disgusting. She wanted to run, to move, anything really to escape the sickening feeling lurking inside her belly.
There was nothing around. Nothing but dust and mist floating around.
Trust me…
Everyone is your friend, everyone is your enemy…
Who was that?
Something was whispering in her ear. Close but far. It felt like a breath in her face, and yet thundered around her like a booming call in a battle.
There is something there, something beyond the mist. A bird. A snake? Something large and slimy and terrifying.
We are all liars here.
Long fingers. Long, long fingers. Wrapped around her. Kyria gasp. She can not breathe. Why can't she breathe? A bird? A man? What is this thing? Is it something?
The thing is looking at her. Large and ugly. It is its fingers that keep Kyria from moving. On its face a strange smile is disording the pretty feathers. The red gum looks almost like blood.
Kyria scream.
I did warn you not to trust me.
Distrusting me has been the cleverest thing you've done since you came here.
The fingers holding her keep pressing, keep spreading. Far far away. Touching everything, everywhere. They are black and twisted like a disease soiling the entire place. Changing it so much she can not even say what it is.
The voice kept whispering, sweetly in her ear. Loudly in the room. And Kyria wants to throw up, to forget everything, to make it stop.
Make it stop, please make it stop!
But it didn't. So she screamed.
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She wakes up and she can't breath. There's something in her mouth, and she can't breathe, she can't scream so she cried harder.
"Kyria! Kyria dear, calm down! It's over- shhh- it's over darling!"
The soft hand of Mother struck her back and Kyria stopped screaming. She kept her eyes on the white pillow that strangled her a moment before. Mother talked to the Maester who refused to give Kyria another dose of milk of the poppy, for fear she might become addicted to it, and Kyria couldn't care enough to move.
Father was on the other side of the bed, and the door was open, surely for the others to see what was happening. She did not care for any of it.
She did not care.
Dreams. Night after night. Just dreams. There was nothing else was it? It couldn't be anything else for sure.
"Are you sure there is nothing to be done? We can't leave her like that!"
"I am afraid we have to, my Lady. The mind is a very difficult thing to work with. The smallest mistake could damage it forever. She must endure this and maybe when the time is right the nightmares will stop."
The conversation kept on somewhere behind Kyria. She looked up to see her Father's dark eyes watching her like a hawk. Somewhere a voice inside her head whispered. They won't stop. Ever.
She was cursed, wasn't she?
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Snow.
Her feet were covered in snow.
There was a tree there, right in front of her. A large tree with wide branches and blood red leaves.
Kyria blinks.
She hears a scream. Somewhere. She blinked again and the tower was here. The tower with the person falling. And falling. And falling. And screaming.
Kyria screams for him to stop, but it doesn't. Then she looks again and it's gone. No tower. Nobody falls into nothing. Just snow. And the tree.
The leaves are not red. Not anymore. There are no leaves. Only black. Black crows. Thousand of them. Silently watching her with small black eyes.
There is someone under it.
A chair with wheels, and someone on it.
"Who are you?"
She does not expect an answer. Or a reaction.
She gets both.
The person - a boy. It's a boy- look at her with empty, intense eyes. The look is piercing and intense and it feels like it's not her face he's looking at, but her bare soul.
And she knows that face. It's not the same, but- But she knows it still.
"Bran?"
He blinks. Quiet, solemn. Silent.
"Are you… Bran?"
He's here, he's human. It did not happen before. There was always something. But never a human. A beast, voices in her head. Nothing. Just him. And crows. Never someone. Never a face.
Except for-
But she can not think about this one.
"You can not stop it Kyria." says Bran in front of her and Kyria feel the dread of a warning deep inside her.
She felt her hand shaking at the feeling.
"What?"
"You can not change everything. Some things need to happen. I need to stop being Bran Stark. You can not prevent it."
"What are you talking about?"
"You can not prevent it." he says again, indifferent to her questions.
"Prevent what? Bran?"
He blinks, slowly, and turns away, his face slowly disappearing as the crows above him start to caw loudly. In a myriad of feathers they all fly away, leaving a sea of black feathers behind. A sea that grew larger and soon hid the still silhouette of what looked like an older Bran Stark.
And Kyria scream.
She always screams in the end.
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She woke up. Tears in her eyes and a dry throat making her want to couch. And no one was there this time.
No Maester with milk of the poppy, no Mother with soft hands, no Father with a calming voice.
No brothers or sisters lurking by the door. No one.
She blinked slowly, and waited, as her tears dried on her cheek. But no one came.
She did not sleep that night.
On the morrow, finally, the Maester came to peel the cloth off her head.
"Have you dream last night, my lady?" he asked while slowly pulling away her last bandage.
She blinked again and looked at him. She thought of the crows, and the tower, and the tree. She thought of Bran, older, emptier, looking right into her soul. She thought of the beasts and the screams and cries inside her head. Of the severed head rolling to her feet and the river of blood swallowing her.
"No. I did not."
The Maester hummed and Kyria dropped her gaze onto her hands. A moment later, the old man put a small-looking glass between her hands.
She was met with the reflection of a young girl, with familiar blue eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips. Short hair were slowly growing back on one side of her head, while the other displayed a long luscious lock of dark red.
"You will be able to leave your room today my lady."
She blinked at her reflection, the salt on her face made it feel like her skin was cracking with the smallest pressure.
"Yes."
TBC.
And we're done for today! What do you think? Good? Better?
I really wanted to show how scared Kyria is, and how difficult it is for her. Sooo... what do you think of it?
I really like your opinion as always and all the feedback you have for me is valuable. Especially as I am trying to improve this story.
I hope you all liked this and I'll see you soon!
Bubyyye!
Rubyy.