The Lake of Fire was what people called it. A trivial name perhaps, but one that reflected the place well. Robb used to go swimming there as a child, his father taking him and his siblings there whenever he had the chance, which was seldom, as the duties of Lord of Winterfell and Protector of the North kept him very busy, and in fact when he and his siblings were young, generally it was someone else who accompanied them. Not Lady Stark because, ironically, since the symbol of House Tully was a trout, Catelyn could not swim. Once they had grown up, Robb and his siblings had started going into the woods on their own. All except Sansa who apparently didn't think it was appropriate for a lady to swim in a lake or something.
Robb stared at Lady Meria who was swimming a short distance from him, saw her head emerge from the water, her long light hair floating around her. He looked like a vision. A vision that had turned around and was swimming towards him. When she stopped and placed her feet on the bottom, standing upright, she noticed that her shift had become practically transparent. Only her shoulders emerged from the water, and he could also see the tops of her breasts. Seeing her skin and the thought of what he might have seen if only the water had been lower, or she had been higher, gave him a warm feeling in his lower abdomen that had nothing to do with the temperature of the water.
"I love it here." She said, smiling, completely oblivious to her exposed skin.
"Me too." He replied without thinking. He had other thoughts on his mind that he was trying to get out of his head that were unchaste, in fact, not chaste at all.
"I was thinking… I wondered…" She said, approaching him dangerously. The boy gasped and instinctively stepped back. "You look like someone who has just seen a monster…. Am I a monster?" She asked darkly.
"No, absolutely not." He replied regretfully that she had misunderstood his behavior. "It's just that you got too close, and if you get any closer, I'm uncertain if I can answer for my actions." He said softly. Meria blushed in embarrassment, and he wondered how she would have reacted if she had been aware of how exposed her body was because the fabric of her shift had become wet and semi-transparent.
"Forgive me, I shouldn't have. I am a fool." She said, turning away, but he grabbed her arm before she could pull away, and she stared at him in amazement.
"You have nothing to be forgiven for. Please don't leave. I need you." He confessed. The expression of astonishment was replaced by one of indignation.
"Is it you who want me or your cock?" He asked diffidently he was aroused, he could not deny it. The thought of her naked, wet skin covered only by a semi-transparent robe excited him greatly, however it was because it was not only carnal attraction that drove him to desire her.
"I desire you, it is true, but it is not just lust. I… I think I love you." He replied, and a mocking smile appeared on the maiden's face.
"Love me? You are seventeen years old, what do you know about love?" She asked sardonically with a wry smile.
"And what do you know about it? You are the same age as me, aren't you?" He replied, hurt by her words.
"Let's just say that my husband loves someone who is not me and I have seen how he looks at this person and I think I have already allowed a man to hurt me and as far as I am concerned, that was enough." She replied coldly.
"How is it possible that he doesn't love you? You are beautiful, intelligent and I have only known you since yesterday, but…"
"Enough, I'm sorry, though I would rather not hear anymore. I think I've heard enough already, and if you organized this trip with the purpose of fucking me, you are very wrong." She exclaimed and then swam towards the shore. He stood motionless like an idiot as he watched her come out of the water, oblivious to the curve of her ass that could be seen through the fabric of her shift. She might as well have been walking around completely naked. She swam in turn towards the shore.
"Do you have such a bad opinion of me? Just because your husband hurt you doesn't mean all men will." He exclaimed. Meria, who had bent down to pick up her dress, turned to look at him, and he could see her feel, and her nipples crossed the fabric. He forced himself to look at her face and not think about her naked body, determined not to get aroused. She thought he was a maniac and that he had taken her there to fuck her and the last thing he should do to himself was to have an erection in front of her because if that happened it would not only be embarrassing, but moreover it would confirm her suspicions.
"You don't know anything about me and my husband." She said, "But I owe you no explanation." She continued. Furthermore, she bent down to pick up her dress. Robb grabbed her arm and the other freed herself from his grip with a tug. "Leave me alone." She exclaimed, glowering at him.
"I'm sorry, I never meant any harm, I swear to you by the Old and New Gods." He exclaimed. "Please believe me, Lady Meria." He added, looking at her pleadingly. Meria stared at him in silence.
"I believe you, and perhaps the real danger to me is myself." She said, "I am weak, and if there is one person between us who is being devoured by lust, it is me." She confessed. He took her face in his hands.
"I'm afraid that makes two of us." He said sincerely. The girl's lips curved into a wry smile.
"Then I was right after all to doubt you and your intentions because they are not so chaste." This time he did not seem to detect an accusatory tone in her voice. Meria came so close to him that their bodies could almost touch and caressed his cheek without taking her eyes off his. "I feel a strong attraction towards you, I do not know if it is love because I have no idea what love is that binds a man and a woman. I only know what binds a parent to a child." She said seriously.
"Me too." He replied, arranging a lock of hair behind her ear, then took her face in his hands and kissed her. Not the passionate kiss he should have given her but a gentle kiss that soon became more passionate. Meria threaded her fingers through his hair and he squeezed her hips. They continued kissing until they both had to catch their breath, although on reflection, wouldn't that be a good death? To suffocate to death during a kiss with the person you love? Or that you think you love because he was a boy of only seventeen, and it was possible that she was right when she insinuated that he knew nothing about love and if it really was just lust?
"Robb, will you show me the cave?" She asked, distracting him from his sinful thoughts. He was silent for a moment, surprised by her request.
"Alright." He agreed. She took him by the hand and stepped back towards the water, and he followed her. He almost didn't realize when they entered the water. It resembled one of those charming, serene ones that used their beauty and song to drown the sailors.
"We must swim to reach the cave." He warned her as the lake water almost reached his chest.
"Agreed." She replied. He showed her the way to the cave, and they dived underwater when they had to go under the waterfall, then entered the cave and came out of the water. "Oh, gods." She exclaimed, looking at her arms and the rest of her body. "I'm practically naked." She said with a small laugh.
"I am naked." He said, lowering his gaze and staring at his member. It was not fully erect, but not soft either. When he stared at her again, he realized she was staring at his member. "Meria, I'm sorry, I…" He said without thinking.
"No, you don't have to apologize." She said, stroking one cheek, then slid her hand down his chest, and he felt his arousal rise the lower her hand went. "May I?" She asked when her hand was a short distance from his most intimate area.
"You don't have to do this, I mean, you don't have to feel obliged." He said.
"But I want to." She replied, taking his penis in her hand. A moan escaped his lips, and she smiled with a satisfied air. "I don't really know. I had tried with my husband but…" She bowed her head in embarrassment, and he squeezed her hand gently.
"I'll show you." He said. He showed her how he liked to be touched then let her do it herself, just told her to squeeze harder and do it faster when he was about to ejaculate.
"Meria." He moaned her name as he came. "Now it's your turn." He said with bated breath. She stared at him confused, but allowed him to take off his shift so that she was completely naked, then made her lie on the floor of the cave. First he kissed her neck, then the nipples of her breasts and when he sucked some milk it went into his mouth and he swallowed.
"Do you like my milk?" The blonde asked, and he lifted his gaze to stare into her face.
"Yes, it's sweet." He replied, and she smiled contentedly, and he wondered if it was bad of her to envy her son who was constantly being fed by that milk.
"Thank you." She said, He smiled and then continued further and further down her body with his kisses. She had a big birthmark on her belly and when he saw her he thought she was cute. "I never liked that birthmark." She confessed. He brushed the dark skin near her navel.
"She looks beautiful to me." He said. The other did not reply, and he continued with what he was doing and reached her private parts.
"What are you doing?" The tone of her voice was confused, and he lifted his head, staring at her.
"Don't worry." He said softly, then began to suck gently on her tender skin. He had the impression that her moans of pleasure were one of the most beautiful things he had ever heard as they filled the cave. Furthermore, he does not have a lot of experience in this. He has only done it once, and it was Ros, one of Theon's favorite prostitutes, who taught him. In fact, he wasn't even entirely sure if Ros thoroughly enjoyed his attention; he had heard her moan his name, but prostitutes were good at pretending they were one of the reasons they were paid. Her body writhed under his mouth, and he couldn't stop his smile of pure satisfaction when she cried out and stiffened against him. When he lifted his head, he saw her chest heaving up and down as she gasped for breath.
"It was… I'm not certain how to describe what I felt." She asserted.
"I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as I did." He said, lying down beside her. The floor of the rock was hard and damp, but he did not care.
"What was that? I have never experienced anything so beautiful."
"Have you never touched yourself?" He asked. He knew that the Septa taught women, and for that matter, men as well, although with the latter, they were less successful at repressing their impulses, that they should not touch their private parts, which was a sin, but he would have expected a married woman, but then he remembered that she had confided in him that her husband did not love her, and he imagined that Lord Baratheon had not even tried to give pleasure to his bride.
"Are there many ways to give pleasure?" She asked with a hint of embarrassment in her voice.
"I am not an expert, but there is more than one way and if you want I can teach you." He proposed, feeling his member begin to harden again at the thought of hearing her moans once more.
"Yes, please." She said, He kissed her passionately, and she drew him closer to her. Their tongues began a sensual dance, and she pressed her breasts against him. He longed to be inside her, but first he had to show her how she could pleasure herself.
Simultaneously, not far from the cave where two young lovers were consummating their love, partly still unaware of the deep feeling that was brewing between them, Lord Stark and King Robert and a group of men were hunting. If there was one thing that had not changed over the years, it was Baratheon's passion for hunting. Ned also went hunting and enjoyed it; however, he did not share the passion, especially the perverse pleasure his friend seemed to take when he killed an animal and the sight of blood.
"My wife never wants to go hunting with me. I don't know how many times I have asked her to join me since we got married." Said the king as they walked through the woods. The men with them kept a sufficient distance to allow the deer and the wolf some privacy, but were still close enough to intervene in case of danger.
"Catelyn has no passion for hunting either." Eddard replied, avoiding pointing out that he did not like it either, or at any rate, not as much as his friend. The king clutched a spear in one hand, the blade of which was stained with the blood of the animals he had already killed.
"No one in my family shares this passion of mine. Recently, I tried to take Tommen hunting, but at the sight of the animal I had killed immediately after the hunt began, he began to cry." He commented, shaking his head, displeased. "Renly also used to do that when he was a child growing up, he stopped doing it, but the sight of blood bothers him." He added. "Lady Meria, on the other hand, is different. She likes to shoot with a bow and has an excellent aim. Just think, shortly after her marriage to my brother, she went on a hunting trip and hardly ever missed the target." He said in a tone of voice full of admiration. The last time he had heard him talk like that about a woman had been when he had just met Lyanna. He had immediately fallen in love with his sister and had developed a strong admiration for her and had praised her strength, determination as well as her beauty. All romantic except that Ned suspected that his friend had fallen more in love with the idea he had of Lyanna, and it was possible that that love would have faded with time if she had not died, and they had married. He had reassured his sister when she had expressed doubts about their engagement; however, the truth was that in his heart even then he feared that their marriage would not turn out to be a union of love, and perhaps they would not even be happy.
"I am surprised that Lord Tywin would allow his niece to learn to use a bow." He said surprised. The only women he knew who knew how to use a weapon lived in the North and there were not many of them instead among the Free Folk he had heard that it was common for women to learn to use weapons to hunt, spread or attack and even in Dorne it was not uncommon, and it may be that in the South there were other women who were able to defend themselves or hunt only they were probably few, and he did not see Lord Tywin encouraging his granddaughter even if she was a bastard to learn to use a bow.
"Indeed, he did not let her. She learned on the sly, just as your sister trained on the sly to learn how to use a sword." He replied, confirming her suspicions. "She reminds me of your sister, she is determined, strong and smart like her. Since she married my brother, I have gotten to know her better, and I wonder if my sibling is aware of how lucky he is to have married Lyanna." He continued in a somber voice.
"Meria, you mean Meria." His friend corrected him in a gentle tone. Robert looked confused for a few seconds.
"Yes, of course, I meant Meria." He replied, looking away. The lord kept silent even though he was a little worried because he didn't like the fact that his friend seemed convinced that Meria was Lyanna or, to be more precise, a blonde version of his sister. The only thing Jaime Lannister's daughter had with her sister was a determined character so strong that it made her want to rebel against her family and learn how to use a weapon. He thought back to when he had found out that Lyanna wanted to learn how to wield a sword. He remembered discovering her secretly practicing and instead of reprimanding her as she had expected, he had promised her he would teach her, and so he had. Furthermore, he had thought that one day his sister would have to marry, but meanwhile she could learn how to use a sword if she wished and who knows in the future it would be helpful to know how to defend herself.
"Robert." He said in a cautious tone. He paused to search for the right words. "Lady Meria is not Lyanna no woman can ever be Lyanna because she is dead." He added. Robert stopped walking and turned to look at him.
"You are right, no woman can ever be her. She is gone, and it is all Rhaegar's fault. He took her away from me and killed her." He affirmed, and the tone of his voice that was sad before turned into an angry tone instead.
Eighteen years, almost nineteen, had passed since Lyanna had decided to run away with Rhaegar. Robert was convinced that the prince had abducted her, but the wolf had always had doubts whether things had actually turned out that way or, unlike his friend, he preferred to believe that his sister had gone willingly and that the Targaryen had not abducted and raped her as his friend had always implied. When he had arrived at the Tower of Joy, his sister was dying after giving birth to a baby boy. He had not had a chance to speak to her and understand what had really happened.
'Please Ned, please." His sister's words echoed in his head as his face grew paler and paler and his voice weaker and weaker. "The little girl, Ned. Visenya." He still wondered what the meaning behind the second sentence was because Lyanna had given birth to a son, not a daughter. Perhaps she was simply confused that she was delusional, or that she was unaware that she had given birth to a boy and not a girl.
"Eddard there is a lake." Robert's voice distracted him from his thoughts, when he looked at Baratheon he realized that he had fallen behind and that his friend was standing near a tree several meters from where he was. The remaining members of their group were all close to Eddard except for the Kingsguard member whose job it was to protect the ruler and who stood next to his lord with an impassive expression.
"Yes, it is the Lake of Fire, a hot spring where people come to bathe." Eddard explained, then noticed a detail: his eldest son Robb's horse was tied to the trunk of a tree next to another horse or to be more precise, a mare because he wasn't sure, but it seemed to him to be Lady Meria's mare, and suddenly, he had a bad feeling.
"Let's go and see. I'm curious." Robert said, but Ned grabbed him by the arm before he could pull away and the other turned to look at him puzzled.
"Oh, I thought I heard something over there might be an animal." He affirmed, pointing to a spot in the woods on the other side of the lake.
"I heard nothing." Said the ruler. "But I trust your hearing." He continued and walked to the spot his friend had pointed out to him. If the other men in the group had any doubts, they did not express them aloud.
"That looks like Lady Meria's mare, but I ask where her mistress is and whose horse is the other." Ser Barristan said, and then followed his lord. Before leaving, Eddard cast one last glance at the two animals and hoped his son had not gotten into any trouble.