Lyanna

She was supposed to walk around. The books said it would help, and perhaps it would but Lyanna was tired of walking the same little paths of the tower that she'd walked for over a year. She wished she were still allowed to walk about the paths outside of the tower, but for the last month none of the kingsguard had been willing to run the risk of her leaving the tower.

She was tired of it.

And tired in general.

She slumps over a bit against the window, looking out over the expansive landscape of the Red Mountains. It was a familiar view.

She could likely paint it without looking by now.

A sigh escapes her lips and she leans what little she can with her stomach as round as it is to look down. She can just barely see Oswell making his rounds outside of the tower, looking for danger. None would come, nothing had come to this tower since Gerold Hightower had arrived for Rhaegar.

"Careful not to fall." Arthur's voice comes over her shoulder and she looks quickly to him.

"I'm too big now to fall out," Lyanna says with a forced smile, her tone more biting than joking. "No worries that I'll jump either."

Arthur frowns, "Lya…"

"I know," she sighs, it was hard though to keep the bitterness from her tone. "I chose this. I remember." She remembers Rhaegar telling her that, when he finally told her of her family's reactions.

"I was going to say that you shouldn't even be sitting." And she frowns further at the kingsguard.

"I hate that you read those books as well," she states, pushing herself up from her seat. Arthur moves further into the room, holding a hand out for her to take to help her up. She takes it, though she wish she could do it herself still.

"It's best we are prepared," he remarks, "though I'm still trying to convince the Lord Commander to let me go to Starfall for an actual midwife."

"And a wet-nurse." Lya says, resting a hand tentatively on her stomach.

"You won't need one." Arthur assures.

"It's better to be safe." She remarks, she'd been having bad dreams for weeks about the birth. Dreams of bloody beds and winter roses.

It did not make her feel assured about any of this.

Arthur simply shakes his head and the pair of them slowly walk the rounds of the tower.

They're on their third bout around when the sound of riders and Oswell shouting reaches through the windows of the tower. Lyanna frowns, looking towards the window as Arthur moves over and peers out, he frowns as well and then looks to Lyanna with concern. "Stay here." He instructs, moving to the stairs leading down the tower.

"What?" Lyanna asks before moving to the window herself and looking out.

Below she sees three riders. Oswell and Hightower have already met them with some distance, and Lyanna acutely notes they are greeting the riders with their hands upon their swords at the ready.

Lyanna looked to the riders and leant slightly further into the window, trying to make out their features. She could see that the man at the head was Dornish, his brown skin giving that much away, but the two behind him were paler. A short man upon a horse and woman who pushed her own horse up beside the Dornishmans.

As she stares at the woman her breath freezes in her throat, a choked sound coming out as she recognizes the woman. Dark brown hair braided for riding, pale skin that is more likely to burn this far south than tan, and if Lyanna were close enough she knows she'd see grey eyes to match her own.

She pushes away from the window and moves quicker than she has in weeks in her state, making her way down the stairs and towards the door. Arthur left it open, the sunlight shining through as she pushes it the rest of the way and starts down the mountain stone steps.

Arthur is lingering on the steps and hears her coming, "Lyanna go back…"

"Not a chance in all seven hells, Arthur," she snaps, starting past him. "That's my sister," she adds when he grabs her arm in an attempt to stop her. She looks up at him, his violet eyes meeting her grey.

"We have to keep you and your child safe." He implores, dropping into his kingsguard position which is Lyanna's least favorite part of him.

"My sister isn't here to kill me or my baby." She snaps. "Let me past." She orders.

"Lya…"

"No," she shakes her head, "you can't call me Lya as though we are friends when you're keeping me from the first family I'll have seen since I left her asleep in her bed at Harrenhal."

He looks at her and she can see him giving in, and she can't help but smile slightly with pride at it as he releases her arm and she continues down the steps as fast as she can in her state.

Arthur moves with her, close enough incase she falls but enough space that she's not worried about him doing something stupid. It's once they're near the bottom that she can see the riders and the other two kingsguard again.

She'd been sure it was her sister before, but now she can truly see Alys. Sat upon a dornish sand steed and looking down at Gerold Hightower with wide eyes in an imploring look. And behind her on another horse was Howland Reed, looking near the same as he had last she'd seen him. It makes her chest tight with how much she'd missed them both. How much she'd missed her family and the north.

But it's the Dornishman beside her sister that speaks, "here I thought all you kingsguard were honorable men." He speaks with a sharp jest to his voice, like venom on a snakes tongue. "But you'd keep a girl from her twin sister, after near two years of said sister being missing."

"She wasn't missing." Hightower remarks.

"Clearly she was. Considering the whole mess that came of it." The man, who Lyanna finally recognized from the tourney of Harrenhal as Oberyn Martell, snaps with something bitter behind his tone.

"Please, ser," Alys pleads, "she's my sister. Let me see her."

"We are not to let anyone in—."

"Hightower," Lyanna called loudly from the bottom of the mountain stairs. "Let me see my bloody sister." All five faces turn towards her and Alys's face falls into something a mix of relief and grief as she swings down from her horse without further thought to the two kingsguard before her who are still resting their hands upon their swords. Alys moves past them all, not caring even as Oswell starts to pull his sword though Hightower stops him as Oberyn swings down as well, a hand upon his spear as he moves forward with Alys.

As she gets closer Lyanna notes little changes about her sister, her hair is longer even in its braid, and her skin just the slightest bit tanner. Though Lyanna's was likely as well, with all her time spent in Dorne. She looked sadder too, Lyanna notes as her sister is nearly to her. Her sister had always been more solemn, same as Ned, but it seemed more permanent upon her now than it ever had been before.

Then her sister is there, with her arms wrapped around Lyanna in a hug so tight and familiar that Lyanna can't help the sobbing sound that escapes her as she wraps her own arms tight around Alys.

Alys

Seeing Lyanna was almost like seeing a ghost.

It had been so long since she'd seen her. And so much had happened in that time. So much death, and loss.

But there Lyanna was, stood upon rocky steps leading to a tower in the Red Mountains, alive.

Alive, and bringing life.

Alys had noted it, when Lyanna called out and her eyes were drawn to her sister for the first time in a year and a half. But she'd cared little about it at that moment, her mind had locked onto one thing along. That her sister was there, within grasp, finally.

She noted it as well as they made their way back into the tower. The tension between Alys's small party of three and the two kingsguard who'd met them upon their arrival at the tower, but it was dissolved enough that no true conflict would come of it. Oberyn and Howland did stay close to Alys though, and it seemed the kingsguard intended to stay close to Lyanna all the same.

And Alys knew why now.

The evidence was the roundness of her stomach, the slowness of her walk.

Her sister was pregnant.

She didn't bring it up, not right away. She focused instead to her sister's presence, after all this time, and when the door of her room shut with just them within (only after Lyanna had stared down the Lord Commander and demanded privacy with Alys) she looked at her sister in full.

"You're pregnant." Alys states, letting the words and the truth linger.

"Yes." Lyanna nods, glancing down.

"With Rhaegar's child." Alys adds, she figures it but she wants to hear her sister say it.

"Yes, with Rhaegar's child." Lyanna nods, and though something bitter does fly across her sisters eyes it's mixed with a longing and a love that ignites the small flicker of anger Alys has felt at her twin for months.

Anger she's tried to snuff out, to put away. Anger she doesn't want but now can't help but feel once more. "Why?" She says, and she knows her voice is the harshest Lya has heard it by the way her brow furrows. "Why all this? Why did you run away with him?"

"I…" Lya frowns, "because I wanted to." She shuts her eyes and shakes her head, "no I mean, I wanted to and it was the only way for me to be free, Alys please understand."

"Your freedom has brought the kingdoms to war," Alys nearly shouts, "it's locked you in a tower, me at the Red Keep, and it killed our father and Brandon!"

Lyanna shrinks, grief passing her eyes at the mention of the deaths. She looks away from Alys, "I never meant for any of that. And it nearly killed me when Rhaegar told me what the king had done to them. I just…" Lyanna lets out a breath, and shakes her head before looking back to Alys to meet her gaze, seemingly imploring her to understand. "I never wanted to marry Robert, and then I met Rhaegar, at the tourney. And he was so kind, and understanding and it was as though he knew me for me, in a way Robert never would have."

"He was married, with two children." Alys remarks, "one of them still on the way when you first met him."

"I know," Lya says. "I, I hadn't intended anything when I met him at the tourney. It was just some silly fantasy then. But then, when we saw him at Harrenhal and he and I went for that walk. He offered it, to get me out of marrying Robert, to help me find my own way and future."

"A future as his mistress?" Alys says, "you have to understand how hypocritical that is? I mean one of the things you detested Robert for was that he had a bastard, and now you and Rhaegar have done near the same thing."

"My child won't be a bastard." Lyanna snaps, her own tone shifting from remorseful to defensive anger. "We married, not under the seven like Elia and him, but before the old gods. And Rhaegar said that he was planning to depose his father, and when he did our child would be made legitimate, he would make sure of it. Third in line after Elia's children, but legitimate."

"When he deposed his father?"

"Yes," Lyanna nods, "after he settles things with Ned and Robert, he is planning to pull his father off the thrown."

Alys blinks, taken aback. Her sister doesn't know. She thinks Rhaegar's alive, that the Mad King is alive. The flame of her anger fizzles, not put out entirely but doused by the how truly her sister believes in Rhaegar, in the idea that everything would work out in the end. "Lya," she starts, stepping close and taking her sisters hands. "He fought Ned and Robert at the Trident, a few months back." She moved her sister to the bed, motioning them to sit. Letting out a low sigh she looked to her sisters eyes, grey and wide with her brows above them furrowed in confusion. "He didn't win. They did. Robert killed Rhaegar on the trident."

"What?" Lyanna asks, blinking fast before shaking her head repeatedly. "No… no that can't be right. He said nothing about riding to battle. He said he'd sue for peace, get their support against Aerys, and with the condition that reparations would be made for what his father did to ours."

Alys felt her heart break for her sister, whose eyes were filling with tears. "He didn't, I'm sorry. He came to kings landing, for a little, and then he left with an army." She squeezes her sisters hands tight, "after— after that the rebels came to Kings Landing, as well as Tywin Lannister. They took the city, and Aerys died. Robert's been proclaimed king."

"No." Lya shakes her head faster, tears falling fully. Her voice cracking as she fell further into sobs "No, that's not how this was supposed to all go. I— this wasn't how I wanted this to go." Alys sighs for her sister and scoots closer pulling Lya into her arms and letting her sister find comfort as she cried against Alys.

"I know," Alys whispers against the crown of Lya's head. "I know it's not." The last of her anger fell away, perhaps not for good, but for now as she held her sister who'd fallen too far over her head and into something she had never expected.

Quick updates are always nice feeling tbh!

Thank you for reading! We're almost to Jon which I'm really excited for.

I really hope I did Lyanna okay, because I do really like her character and think she's interesting and exploring the reasoning behind her and Rhaegar is fun, so it was cool being able to share my own ideas. I tried to make it an even sort of balance of both Lya choosing to run with Rhaegar but also not being entirely aware of what she was actually choosing.

Anyhow, thank you as always for all your favorites and reviews telling me your thoughts. They make my day every time and my heart goes all giddy when I see them.