LYANNA

Snow began to fall in the Wolfswood.

It was well into spring now, but it was not uncommon in the North to see snow fall as late as summer. These snows were different, however. They had started suddenly and without warning after weeks of hard rains and were said to reach as far as the Citadel. 'The Year of the False Spring' the Maesters were calling it and talk amongst the common folk declared it a sign of a long summer to come. But summer - as it was defined anywhere south of Winterfell - was of little concern to the North or to the Starks, who called it home.

Lyanna Stark was leaning against the trunk of a tree, her curly dark hair falling across her shoulders and long down her back. As the only daughter of Rickard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, she had learned early to appreciate the long held traditions and superstitions that had set her people apart from the rest of Westeros. She learned that being 'of the North' meant more than just where you were from, but a mark of distinction that ran as deep as the blood in your veins.

Lyanna closed her eyes and lost herself in thought as the snowflakes danced across her rosy cheeks. She was grateful for the snows. Quite possibly the only person in Winterfell who was. The snows meant less time at her studies with Maester Walys whose days were spent treating the illness and injuries that always came with unexpected changes in weather. It was a small reprieve, truth be told, but one for which she was incredibly grateful. The Maester was middle aged, fat and balding with an annoying lisp that made it hard for her to pay attention to him when he talked.

For going on a year now - on her father's instruction - all Maester Walys did was talk to her. She was four and ten and newly flowered, meaning that she was a woman and as her father like to say, A woman must spend less time in her books and more time concentrating on the lessons of a proper lady. This meant sewing, dancing, singing songs - pretty much all the things Lyanna hated for that is what Southron girls learned at her age, not a girl of Northern blood. Let alone a Stark of Winterfell. However her father had been insistent and there was no arguing with him once his mind was set on something.

Her father was unlike other Starks. Ask any Lord in the North and they could easily tell you that the current Stark in Winterfell was the least 'of the North' as you could get. An ambitious man, even from a young age, Rickard had always made it known that he wanted nothing more than to restore the Starks to the glory they held when they ruled as Kings in the North. Instead of being mere Wardens as they had been since the establishment of the Targaryen dynasty three centuries prior. This meant looking beyond the walls of Winterfell, beyond the boundaries of the North, and towards the South - towards the game of thrones - where the ambitious could find power.

Her lady mother, however, did not share her father's ambitions and had been very vocal in dissent about his aspirations to move beyond his station right up until the day she died. It was only after her death did her father begin to act on these ambitions and the older Lyanna got the more her hatred grew for the man she held responsible for her death. Maester Wyllas had come to Winterfell from Kings Landing not a month before. The first Maester to ever set foot in Winterfell. Yet, despite all of his knowledge and years of training he could do nothing to save her mother's life.

Lyanna's mother had died bringing her brother Benjen into the world. A fever took her only a week after he had been born. She was only three, but it had hurt deeply. Lyanna never trusted Maester Wyllas after that. She blamed him failing to save her mother. For leaving her along in the world. Her brother's had her father but Lyanna only ever had her mother. When she was gone, Lyanna found herself to be the Lady of Winterfell. A Lady surrounded by boys and men. It shouldn't have been that much of a surprise to her father that she grew up more interested in swordplay than sewing. And despite all of Maester Wyllas instructions to the contrary that was unlikely to change anytime soon.

She would spend her days in practice yard with her brothers, learning sword play and archery and her nights would be spent learning the histories of Westeros. The songs of the brave knights and heroes she had learned from Old Nan as a child, but which were considered too improper now that she was a Lady. Lyanna didn't want to be a Lady - she wanted to be a knight. Nothing would have pleased her more than to spend the rest of her days on horseback, with a sword in hand, fighting alongside her brothers. Sadly, her father would never allow that to happen.

No daughter of mine will carry a sword! Her father proclaimed the day he had come upon her and her older brother Ned playing at swords in the practice yard. She was one and ten. Lyanna remembered vividly how her lord father had marched into the yard and snatched the wooden sword from her hands flinging it to the muddy ground. A shocked and startled Ned began to protest, stopping short when Rickard gave him a severe look. Lyanna could see the apologetic look in his eyes and her brother's courage soon faded.

Rickard grabbed Lyanna by the wrist, jerking so hard that he could have easily have ripped that arm from her body, and dragged her back to the holdfast. Screaming half-muttered curses along the way he confined her to her chambers, forbidding her from leaving for the remainder of Ned's stay in Winterfell. Lyanna was crushed. Out of all her brothers, Lyanna was the closest to Ned. He seemed to see and understand Lyanna in a way her father and her eldest brother, Brandon did not. The way their lady mother once had.

Ned had been visiting from the Eyrie where their father had sent him to foster with Jon Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie and Warden of the East. The Arryns, like the Starks, were an old dynasty able to trace their lineage back thousands of years to the time of the Andals. A powerful Southron lord, Jon Arryn taking Ned as his ward, cemented a bond between not only the two families but between two of the largest regions in all of Westeros. An alliance her father had no doubt arranged as part of a plan to expand his sphere of influence beyond his own borders.

Lyanna had been four when their father had sent Ned away and all she could do was cry. She cried for days, so hard and so long that she had made herself ill with fever and was ordered to stay in her bed. Ned had come to say his goodbye's to her still, dressed head to toe in silks that bore the colors of House Stark. He had looked silly, too tall and lanky, and she had told him as much. Ned had only smiled at the jape and climbed up on the bed to lay down beside her.

"I do not want to leave," he said as he rested a hand on her fever soaked brow.

Lyanna sniffled, "Then why are you leaving?"

"One day I am to be a bannermen to Brandon," he had told her in a stern commanding voice that sounded too adult to come out of the mouth of an eight year old. "Father said that fostering me with Lord Arryn will help to teach me how to become one."

"But -" Lyanna replied softly, but soon found herself overcome with tears. "What if you get to the Eyrie and like it so much you never want to leave? What if you get hurt or sick, like mother had gotten sick and you die -"

"Nothing will happen to me so long as I am under Lord Arryn's protection," Ned said as he wiped the tears from Lyanna's eyes. "I will come back, Lyanna. Winterfell is my home. There is nothing that could keep me away."

"Promise me," Lyanna replied as she closed her eyes to rest upon the feather pillow.

Ned kissed her lightly on the forehead, "I promise."

When she awakened from her fevered sleep, two days had passed and Ned was gone from Winterfell. Lyanna cried and battled the Maester's attempts to calm her. It wasn't until her brother Brandon had come to sit beside her was she able to quiet her tears. He had said nothing at first as he sat there looking at her with distress. It taken Lyanna a while to realize that he had been crying. Whether it had been for Ned or for her condition she could not say, but she always liked to think that Brandon would miss their brother just as much as she did.

Ten years had passed since then and Ned had been true to his word. He had returned to Winterfell at least a half a dozen times since he first left for the Eyrie and had accompanied Lord Arryn to tourney events and feasts that the Starks were likely to attend. His years at the Eyrie made Ned an honorable and at times a somewhat stubborn man. Not unlike their lord father if Ned had made up his mind on something, it was unlike to change and if he made a promise, you could count that he would keep it.

Lessons that their brother, Brandon, could benefit from learning.

Brandon Stark was everything Ned was not and Ned was everything Brandon could never be. Where Ned was calm, Brandon was wild. Where Ned was quite, Brandon was boisterous. Where Ned was even tempered, Brandon was easily tempered. Quick to anger, impulsive and irrational Brandon was said to have wolf's blood, as if that was supposed to excuse his reckless behavior and lapses in judgment. Despite everything though, Brandon had his honor. Well, his own version of honor. Brandon's promises were like the wind. Only as good as long as they served Brandon's needs and Brandon's needs were ever changing.

Snap.

Lyanna was broken from her concentration.

"It is just the wind," she mumbled softly. "Nothing more."

Snap.

Lyanna turned in the direction of the noise. It was then she remembered that she had rode out to the Wolfswood. She sighed in relief as she saw her horse move slightly from where she had tied it to a nearby tree. Chastising herself for being so foolish she turned herself forwards and leaned back against the tree.

SNAP.

This time Lyanna tensed. She could feel her heart begin to thunder in her chest. This was no time for fear, she reprimanded herself. Fear is what gets you killed.

The sound was much louder than it had been just moments before and had come from the opposite direction of where she had reigned her stallion. She tried not to panic. Carefully she moved her hand to pick up the bow that was lying at her feet. She had ventured out beyond the walls of Winterfell before and knew that there could be any number of dangers waiting for her far from the safety of her families protection. And while her father forbid her from carrying a sword, this did not mean she went on her sojourns unarmed.

She drew the bow slightly as she stood, readied in a defensive position. One foot in front of the other, she thought as she moved in a circle, her back to the tree to ensure she could not be ambushed. Lyanna continued this dance for half a turn when she noticed movement in the bushes before her. Stopping quickly, she drew the bow up. Her hands trembled, but for only an instant, before becoming as steady and still as a mountain.

"Whomever is there -" she shouted as loudly and commanding as she could.

Before Lyanna could finish the rustling stopped as a figure emerged, almost leaping, from behind the brush. Lyanna gasped in horror at the figure before her and without hesitation loosed the arrow.