Lyanna hears the voice on the back of her head shouting at her to run.
Lyanna ignores it.
Lyanna then makes it all much worse.
"We could be good friends, Lady Lyanna, I see much of myself in you." The eunuch titters like a gossiping hen.
"Help me survive the Queen's Household and you will have a friend as loyal as northerner, my lord." She extended her gloved hand, and he shook it.
"I will do more than that, my dear lady, I will make you Queen of the Seven Kingdoms." The man said with a giggle.
"I'm going to crown you tomorrow when I win, my lady." Loras vowed as they danced to some Reach dance, she'd picked up just from seeing it.
It was a scandalous dance, the Volta, the man lifts the woman with a hand directly under the breast and the other at the waist and boosts her up with his knee.
"You must and avenge poor Ser Hugh as well by wiping the floor with he who must not be named." She told the young knight.
"Robar says your white filly went into heat, if you loan me your loyal steed, I can make you the envy of all the other Ladies here." He proposed with a dazzling smile.
"Of course, Ser Loras, just make sure to return her in the same condition you borrowed her." She giggled, letting everyone believe they were just young people having fun.
"Would it be too much to ask you to wear the blue dress that allegedly looks like the one your namesake wore to Harrenhal, I promised the Court Painters, I would give them something to do tomorrow." Loras asked her as he lifted her up in tune to the music.
"Yes, the more witnesses the less likely I am to join Ser Hugh at the Silent Sisters' tables tomorrow night." The northern girl says making the sword swallowing knight laugh merrily.
The dance ends and her betrothed comes to claim her like he's her father and she was a wild daughter.
"You cannot dance with all the men here; people will think you are a lightskirt." He reprimanded her as they walked away from the dancefloor.
It was an old worn thing, dating from the Dance when Viserys Targaryen had it made for his daughter, Rhaenera apparently people used to dance on the dirt before that.
"Perhaps if you danced with your betrothed instead of just standing there, you would not be accusing her of being a lightskirt." Ser Jaime said smiling like he always did. His incessant amusement annoyed her to no end.
"I am the King's squire; I must be at hand if he needs me." Lancel turned red as doublet in anger.
"He has two squires, just leave the work to your partner and enjoy your betrothed, Lance." Ser Jaime suggested to the boy's embarrassment. "Now, will I have to order you to dance with her or will I need to tell Bronze Yohn that you insinuated his beloved great niece is a whore."
"Fine. I will dance." The blonde squire huffed.
King Robert had grown louder with each course. Demanding attention from everyone, but especially her. Lyanna had seated herself with Andar's wife, Edda Tollet, and Andar himself to avoid being too near him unprotected, but it scarcely worked.
Now everybody heard him. "No," he thundered in a voice that drowned out all other speech. It was a thing men like him did by accident sometimes. The Bronze Yohn had been guilty of such thing more than twice.
People shocked to see the king on his feet, red of face, reeling. He had a goblet of wine in one hand, and he was far more drunk than any person should be if they wished to see tomorrow. "You do not tell me what to do, woman," he screamed at Cersei. "I am king here, do you understand? I rule here, and if I say that I will fight tomorrow, I will fight"
The Kingslayer put a hand on his shoulder only for the boar of a man to knock him down like he was dust on his hide. "The great knight. I can still knock you in the dirt. Remember that Kingslayer." He slapped his chest with the jeweled goblet, splashing wine all over his satin tunic. "Give me my hammer and not a man in the realm can stand before me!"
This was all drunken bravado and a spectacle she had wanted to watch with morbid curiosity like an execution.
But said spectacle stumbled off drunk in search for Amerei Frey who had shown up with every intention of returning to the Twins fat with the King's bastard. Pate of the Blue Fork was impotent and knew there was good coin to be had from getting your wife in the king's bed.
The court took this as the sign the banquet was over, but Lyanna could not join them. A queen's lady does not leave unless the queen leaves.
"Attend me, Lady Lyanna, come tell me how you are finding King's Landing." The queen feigned to have forgotten the unpleasantness of before.
"Rather warm, if I am honest, but I think I just needed a change of scenery, your grace. I had been so disappointed when my lady mother refused to allow me a Lord's Progress when I came of age this year." Lyanna gave the appearance of speaking carelessly. She was charming if a bit chatty to everyone who didn't know her well. "I was just telling Lady Edda how I want to hold a tourney once I gain my inheritance."
"Perhaps Lancel will be knight by then, sweetling." The blonde woman said as conversation returned to normalcy.
"You must keep her on your side always, my dear girl, and be sure to sleep with one eye open. She may look harmless, but I know many girls and boys who have ended up in bowls of brown." The eunuch had warned her this morning as he pretended to be a Septon and led her to the street in King's Landing where the poor gathered for food and spiritual guidance.
Lyanna patronized orphanages, kitchens, schools and poor houses. Varys had encouraged her to do the same here.
Make the smallfolk love you like those in your lands do, Varys had recommended her. People gave you their loyalty if they had bellies filled with food and clothes on their backs, something no one bothered to tell Cersei Lannister.
"I have always had a curiosity for the new gods, my great aunt, Lady Royce keeps both faiths at Runestone and Septa Mordane has been so kind to give me a copy of the Seven-Pointed Star." Lyanna chatted amiably with the Septas as she helped them distribute food and blankets to the indigent of the city. "I have read it cover to cover and have so many questions, about the faith and whether I can worship both the old and the new like my aunt does without displeasing my lady mother."
Winter was coming, and autumn was already cooler than it had been previously, or so Septa Hilda had said. Hilda had been a Septa at the Woolfield Motherhouse but had left when she felt called to this shit-filled city after the Rebellion.
If the Royal Family could just stop spending so much on themselves and just put something into the city, this place would smell less awful. One of the golden lions in Cersei's private sitting room was valuable enough to hire the Braavosi Master Masons who designed the new sewer systems in White Harbour.
"Lady Dustin takes after her mother in that regard, the late Lady Ryswell was very devout to the Old Gods, she would've burned her good mother's Sept if Lord Rodrick had allowed it." Septa Hilda nodded.
Great Grandmother Willamina had been a Manderly of White Harbour and as such her husband Redford Ryswell had built her a sept in Morvark Castle, Lyanna's mother and grandmother hated it enough to try and have it burned to the ground when the then Lord Stark had declared Brandon and Barbery's marriage a sham to keep his betrothal contract with Lord Tully.
Rickard Stark had paid for his insults to the Ryswell family in blood. According to rumors, his forceful annulment of her daughter's short first marriage had led Lady Elinor Dustin to visit a woods witch and put a curse on the Starks. The curse killed him, his eldest son and his only daughter.
Her grandmother often told her that she was destined to take the north and be a Queen like those of old.
But the Queen Consort must follow the Faith of the Seven.
And conversion feels like such a low price to pay for the Seven Kingdoms.