A/N: As a reminder for my long-time readers: I changed the title of the story to 'Lyarra' from 'Bastard in the Cradle' (the first arc). This story has been spinning in my head for over a year and is self-indulgent. Let me know your feelings with a review!

The Bastard in The Cradle Arc

CHAPTER EIGHT

The dawn had come with gold orange light bursting behind the great twisting sentinels of cypresses in the Neck. Where the Riverlands were green and fertile, this place was bog and unpredictable and was called home by Lord Howland, who rode his horse in a smooth amble beside Camille and her ladies in the litter.

Their intense pace taken from the capital had slowed to a more relaxed pace once they had officially stepped foot in the north. The northmen were all relieved to be close to home, and Eddard felt the same. During most of their trip past the Frey's lands, Eddard kept to Lord Howland, his closest confidant, who gave commands at the state of tents and travel as they traversed to Moat Cailin.

"This narrow causeway is the safest way through the neck," Lord Howland said through the window, giving a smile as she looked behind him to the bright flowers of peach and pale green and the moss that hung from the trees. He held one hand on his reins while the other pointed to other flora that looked pre-historic in size, and lethality, when Howland mentioned the poison they could hold.

"And the driest," commented Lord Arik Waterman. Before Camille had known him to just be one of her father's grooms of the chamber, but he was also apparently a cousin through a mother who was born a Stark. He had mentioned to Yadira that there were many of the insignificant Starks in the north. He had a wide mouth and a startlingly large nose, with ash blonde hair and brown eyes. They always held some sort of joke in them whenever he looked at you. It made Camille feel uncomfortable to be around him too long.

Lord Howland only nodded in response and otherwise ignored him, going back again to his lessons of the bar-tailed godwits, ringed plovers, and dark-bellied brent geese. Far beyond him to the east, Howland mentioned the bleak shores of the Bite, a cold salt sea, and then to the west were the more dangerous swamps and bogs, impassible and deadly. Camille could only shiver into her furs with Ernatta at the sound of it. Lord Howland terrified her with the few stories he told of men, southern and northern, dying in them during wars.

"But do not worry my lady. There is Moat Cailin," Howland teased, knocking his knuckles on her screen. She didn't know what that was and Camille asked him of it. Waterman interrupted instead.

"It is naught but ruins, my lady." His eyes held that same look that made her only look at him for a moment before turning back to Howland. He gave her a wide smile instead.

"Aye, ruins that have held off thousands for centuries," Howland added, mentioning that there was one tower that leaned, and how old it was. It had held the north for centuries. It and his people who made havoc with any survivor that made it through the Neck from the south.

A silence had come then, natural and slow and Camille had begun to doze off. Soon enough, Lord Howland had begun to sing. It had given her a shock of energy, it grew in her belly then spread out to her finger and toes and made her lurch up. It certainly shocked Odall who shrieked at her sudden movement, scaring the others outside. Yadira waved the men off looking in, patting Odall a moment, and then giving her a look.

"What did you see?" Yadira inquired with her, but Camille quickly lied, mentioning a bug, and embarrassed, crawled into Ernatta's arms. She saw the women all exchange glances as they checked the litter the door and made sure the screens were locked tight against the shiny blue beetles they saw everywhere. Lord Howland insisted that the oil they placed on the wood discouraged them, and Waterman that she needed milk to ease her into her mid-day rest, and Yadira agreed pleasantly, and then ignored them, speaking softly in Dornish about all they saw.

That peace did not last long of course, because as soon as Lord Howland began to sing again, she felt the strange racing in her veins and asked him what he was singing. Howland had obliged, mentioning the hymn he learned for the neck and other tales of his songs that they sung during wars and hard times. Lord Waterman interrupted again. "Yes, and a hundred greenseers used the hammer of the waters to fill the land with the sea. That is a better story for a girl, Lord Reed. Not politics."

"It is good to know the history of her home, and to not be so filled with dreams," Yadira commented through the screen. Lord Waterman laughed at that, but at the sight of Yadira, who held his eyes and chin lifted in anger, Lord Waterman gave another of his cutting smiles and rode ahead. No doubt to Catelyn who rode with Robb in her wheelhouse, widows firmly shut against the insects and muggy air.

Her time with Catelyn was filled with harsh silences and thin-lipped frowns. She was determined to ignore Camille, and her father to play with her as much as he could with her siblings. She would hardly even let Camille look at Robb during these moments. Her father had kept such times few, but he would thankfully keep Robb and Jon with them, and they would play and laugh as she scowled silently. Though her father would mainly keep one of their maids to mind them as he read or wrote letters.

Lord Howland had fared little better with Lady Catelyn than Camille did. Though him being one of the most prominent lords of the North, and one of her father's closest friends, she had to give him the nod of welcome or goodbye. But she did little more than that. It was worse than the Stormlands and those in the capital snickered at him. It made her angry. But she had been helpless to do much than watch Lord Howland in his dignity while she was denied any at all with her father's wife.

But for this night it was a dinner with only Camille, Catelyn, and her father. The table had been set with food from the neck of frog legs and soup with lizard meats and turnips in gravy and other things that were heavy salty, typical, it was said by her father's men, of Northern food. It was then, as she and Lady Stark ate through their plates of slightly stale lemon tarts, Lord Condon had come.

Her father's brows went high at his presence, one of his grooms taking the letter, a thick folded square sealed with grey wax and white ribbon.

"Uncle has sent an honor guard for us," he announced, reading the parchment turned to her, giving only a brief smile as she sucked crumbs from a thumb. Her mother would be horrified if she had seen Camille do it.

"Lord Benjen would send the honor guard to Moat Cailin?"

Her father had stood then, dismissive of her words, almost. "Of a sort. Our Uncle leads an honor guard 300 hundred men strong for us on our journey Winterfell."

"I see, his namesake?"

"No. My uncle Brandon, the elder brother." Lyarra wanted to know the story around his sour tone. It was hardly good.

"I had been told he was with a bad cough, my lord,"

"As did I." Lyarra looked between them both: Catelyn's red hair and thin pursed lips, and her father, who stared away from them both now, was lost in thought. He was stiff as he always was, his hair long and past his shoulders. "He intends to relieve the other men and allow them home." He let out a quiet sigh, his shoulders sagging.

"Yes, it has been a long time away from their wives and mothers, I suspect. It is hard upon everyone."

Her father had given Catelyn a sweeter look then, and she knew then her father liked Catelyn. All any could say was how Lady Stark was kind, and just, and gentle, as a lady should be, according to Lord Jon Umber, a man who seemed to be a giant. She always had to crane her head high up to see his face. He makes only a sound of some sort of agreement, then orders Ernatta to ready her for bed and to have her book readied. Catelyn takes the hint, and rises, giving a quiet goodbye and curtsey, and departs herself. Once gone, she can only hear her father call Arik to grab another, to his shock- for a missive to her Uncle Benjen, his brother.

It was then in the morning that they had come upon pools, too close to the road, and close to Moat Cailin, in which they had to move much slower. The moss hung low here, and the reeds were thick. She watched through little birds as the riverine men complained, trying to move it out of the way. Lord Howland, however, began to shout in warning as they went into the water— but too late, for the great black log they had tried to move was, in fact, a lizard lion, now in a poor mood to his rough handling.

There were shouts and screams when her litter rocked roughly as the two palfreys screamed and raised and tried to run, and she began to get nervous with all the jostling. Yadira screamed for the grooms to take the horses, but through the screen, she could see what she saw- some terrifying dinosaur-like crocodile crawl to the land quickly, its eyes like beads and it teeth like fine blades. She screamed in fear, as it bit one of her palfreys, and then yanked them into the water.

It was then the litter then rocked, then tipped, then fell with a harsh splash.

Water filled the litter. Camille winced as Ernatta cried out and hold her up to the surface, as Yadira calmly moved the water from their faces. Odall had blood on her face, her eyes droopy. She needed attention now.

"Out, out!" Camille demanded in Dornish, and Yadira had quickly opened the window, pulling her out, then Ernatta. Screaming for her to go as she reached in for Odall.

The grooms were close and struggling with getting the beast, making her litter lurch further in as the front palfrey cried out, and the other, when she looked: bloody, its back leg a bloody mass of flesh and missing.

With another lurch as the grooms began to pull them from the stinking clinging water, Ernatta let out a shriek, and before she could yell for Yadira herself, Camille felt herself lurch from her arms, and suddenly was underwater, her eyes burning, her body sinking and heavy and her eyes closed to a deep blackness.

Her mother had begun to dress her again- not in those heavy damasks, but soft shimmery silk with a muslin undergown, and had only twisted her curls with her fingers, before letting her play with Spot. He was a pretty Dalmatian, and she loved him. It was then her mother was speaking to her ladies. Avya, and Catelena, she remembered.

But where were Bice and her sister? Camille had wondered.

Her mother's face contorted, her fingers pinching. Ashara pulled Camille up roughly, before walking her to the balcony overlooking the crater the castle sat in, and with a yell, tossed her off. She screamed and screamed, and cried more than anything.

She began to fall then.

"Fly, little one," a voice whispered.

Her fall seemed to go one forever. Endlessly, weightlessly. Below, the great lake sparkled a clear jeweled blue, and if she looked close enough, shimmering white stones. No, she thought, Camille could see bones. She knew then this must be a dream. Or the beginning of her new life, a small thought came. She was dying, again. Such thoughts startled her.

"You will not die, girl," the voice insisted more clearly and forcefully. "Fly!"

"I can't fly," Camille insisted. She didn't have wings like the sparrows and herons. "Help me, please."

"You are not truly a child. You can fly. You already believe. Do it."

Camille watched as the lake came closer, and closer, and she found that the bones were much larger than she thought, with even smaller ones mixed in. She shivered in fear. She called out again for Ashara, for anyone, but could not find the source to the voice.

"Do you have anything to eat?"

Instinctually, she reached into her sleeves then and pulled out three of the jewel-like insects she had seen on the causeway. Suddenly a crow sat at her arm and began to feast.

"You are a crow?" This death seemed surreal.

"Are you a girl?"

"No," she said without thought. "I'm almost thirty-six, and I am dying for the second time."

"Are you?"

"Thirty-six? Yes, I am." Camille had no reason to lie.

"You must fly before you hit the lake," he insisted, almost incredulous the way he said it as he plucked at the beetles, and Camille felt startled that she had forgotten she was falling so quickly.

"I'll wake up again after I hit the lake," she countered. She had woken up after the bomb. What was drowning?

"You must fly before you hit the lake, or there will be no waking up," The crown insisted again, as he picked at the second beetle. She closed her eyes and waited for it to end, instead. Maybe she would wake in an adult body, though not old.

"Do not wait. To fly is easy. Look." She didn't even feel when the crow lifted away from her and fluttered.

"You don't need wings—FLY!"

She closed her eyes and remembered the boy. The wordlessness, the pain as her eyes melted and then she thought of Ashara's crying face, and the sneers of the King's court, and Renly's puzzlement over her bastardy. She began to scream.

"No! Not that, fly. Fly! FLY!"

The wind howled as she began to pick up speed, and the bones below, large as buildings seemed to form a sort of circle where she would land. Where she would die. Now the bones seemed larger than she had ever known. As they grew larger still, she shut her eyes again. Camille did not want to see.

"Do not let yourself die. Fly. Fly Lyarra."

She opened her eyes and saw the El in Chicago, then her favorite sushi-ya in the Ginza district. The Feira Hippe de Ipanema and its embaled piranhas. The coral reefs with their myriad of colors, and the starfish and sponges. The Nile, stretching far, as she could see on the boat. She began to cry. All of that was gone. Her world as she knew it, all her travels, all her accomplishments, gone. Camille was a child in this very strange place. Let it be over, she had thought suddenly, and let her not remember her past life this time around.

But Ashara, she thought. If she died. She would miss Ashara. And Yadi, and Natta and Essie and Ypolita and her cousins.

"Choose. Fly or die," the crow yelled. Camille could hear her mother's laughter over the water, and she opened her arms, her body rocketing to the sky again, far away from the lake.

"I am flying," she screamed. Without wings. The crow cawed loudly.

"Yes, but it is only the beginning. There is much to do."

"What?"

"There is much to do Lyarra." His voice seemed distorted, as she went near him, but soon he sky seemed to darken again. Had she fallen in? What world had she, as Alice, fallen into?

"Lyarra," the voice said again. There were three voices then, who had said that.

"Lyarra," another sobbed.

"Arra, my sweet one please," begged another.

Camille opened her eyes, and there was no more lake or bones or crow. They had all faded into her family instead.

She ached, and her mouth was dry and her eyes burned, but she could see them.

Later she had found that during that strange dream of hers, she had nearly died just as she suspected. Lord Howland had pulled Camille from the bog himself. All the maids said so. From there she had been tended in Moat Cailin, where Camille and the Kindred, and stayed for three days.

All of the Kindred and the Lords had said that it was a blessing. All her people claimed it was her birth, she was hallowborn, that the gods had deemed she live, and so she would. Her father didn't seem to care either way, just thankful she would still be among the living.

Camille just could only think of the crow who told her to fly.