Comment fic meme #2
After the first round of got_exchange we had a surprisingly successful comment fic meme going for a while (here's a list of all the fics that were written last time), so I thought it might be fun to do this again. (Like last time, it's posted on the mod account journal because I don't want to enable anonymous comments on the exchange community.)
I changed the ( Read more... )
I changed the ( Read more... )
She knows, even before she knows Catelyn Tully’s name, that it is an impossibility, but Winterfell is her home, and she cannot imagine anything different (certainly not a salty, storm-laden seat in the south), so she lies in the soft shelter of the godswood (her septa will scold her, later, for the dirt on her dress and grass stains at her knees) and links her fingers through Brandon’s on those occasions he returns home to Winterfell and tells him about the future they will build. Lyanna is always there, in her visions, always there in the North and always a Stark and never a Baratheon, she is always the one by his side, helping him lead, there is no room for a summer girl who will crumple like lace or dust at the first northern winter wind.
“You will not love her more than me?” she asks, childishly, she knows, jealously, always. She has been the lady of the castle since her mother’s death, the only lady in the hearts of her father and brothers, and possessively she holds them close. She would if she could stay their first lady, all of them, but Brandon, Brandon most of all. Her home is his birthright and when they are very still and very quiet beneath the old gods, she can hear their hearts beating as one, wolf’s blood her father calls it, and shakes his head in dismay when she’s been running through the godswood with bare feet and winter roses falling from her hair. A wildness, in you both.
Winterfell belongs to Brandon and Lyanna belongs to Winterfell and she thinks, when they lie together with their legs entangled, her thigh resting against his, of what that means.
(It is fine when they are young but her septa scolds as she grows older, it is unseemly, improper, she says, as though Lyanna ever spared a thought for propriety.)
He always answers in a way that pleases her; he chuckles, tugs her thick dark plait lightly, puts an arm around her and pulls her to his chest. “Never more than you. Never anyone more than you. My little Queen of Love and Beauty.” And she nestles there, his tunic rough against her soft cheek and he traces patterns on her shoulder, dipping beneath the neckline of her gown to touch the skin there with calloused fingers. A wildness, her father says, but at that moment, she feels peace, she feels home, and she thinks, if she never, ever left, she would be happy.
She tells Brandon that Robert should marry Catelyn Tully, instead, and then they can, they can stay this way, and he laughs and kisses her sweetly on the mouth and calls her a spoiled little thing, but he does not say no, does not say that he would not want this, forever, and so she smiles, he always answers in a way that pleases her.
It falls apart all at once, as these things so often do.
She’s still holding the crown of blue winter roses (she does not know, then, all that that crown will mean, does not know the wheels of fate have already been set into motion as she runs and runs against it, in the opposite direction, to the North, to Winterfell) when he comes to her; she has smashed the fragile petals between her fingers, she holds tight.
He smiles, or maybe he smirks, his lips twist, and he bows his head. “My little Queen of Love and Beauty,” he says, and suddenly she is running to him, tripping over the hem of her gown (she has always found breeches so much more practical), dropping the flower crown that will break a kingdom; she throws her arms around him and digs his nails into his back, burrows her face into his neck, and he smells of sweat and horse and salt and man, and there, underneath, is home.
“I did not ask for this,” she says, for this, the crown, she thinks, for this, a crowd of eyes upon her, for this, her mouth upturned to his. “I just want to go home, Brandon.”
(She does not know, then, all that that crown will mean.)
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His touches are bold, because he has always been the brave one, and she scrambles to keep up, always the little sister, the little one. He presses her back against the mattress and it isn’t so different, really, from those days under the trees, it is closer, it is better, it is more home than she has ever been in all her life. There is pain but that too, isn’t so different from play-sparring with wooden swords, the pain is a good memory and this one is, too.
She waits for the shame, after (what would Father think, what would Ned or Benjen say, if they knew, she pushes those thoughts away as quickly as they come), but it does not come, only a sort of satisfaction (Catelyn Tully will be lady of Winterfell but she will always be first lady in his heart, he said, he promised) and when he playfully touches her nose, it is, really, not so different and as though nothing has really changed.
She laughs.
“I won’t let him have you,” he says stubbornly, and he pulls fallen petals from her hair where they have caught on the tangles, freeing her from their snare, and she laughs again.
(He takes her anyway, to a tower, to a tower to die.)
It seems in another life, another life without laughter or flowers or snow or weirwoods that she holds the babe to her, he is all Stark (all Stark she thinks wryly) with dark hair and dark eyes, he is no prince that was promised, he is the North, he is Brandon, he is home. She could laugh or she could weep, he is Brandon but Brandon is no more.
She holds him close to her because she is hot, so very hot, and his cheek is cool like a winter snowflake, like winter’s kiss back in the cool familiar North.
Her brother comes for her, one day, and she hates herself a little for wishing for another brother in his place, for wondering why Brandon is gone and Father is gone and she is almost gone and Ned is alive, and she hates herself and blames the fever. (Come out to die, they whisper that he had shouted, and now she does not choose and instead she smiles as she cries, he kept his promise, he loved her best, loved her most.)
Ned almost sees it, she thinks, when he takes the child in his arms, the curve of his cheek, the jut of his nose, but if he sees it he quickly closes his mind to it, quickly decides no, never (it is easy enough, to do so) and she lets it be, lets him be.
“Will you take us home?” she asks, and Ned furrows his brow (Winterfell is his now, she supposes, Winterfell and the North and a summer bride as his lady that somehow Lyanna does not resent any longer, perhaps it was never about the castle but perhaps it is just because she is tired, so tired.) and looks at the babe. “Promise me, Ned. Take us home. Promise me.”
He looks at her with those solemn grey eyes and touches her cheek, her son still swaddled in his arms. “I promise,” he says, and she smiles, and she sleeps.
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I'm rambling, but this is just wonderful. :D
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I am glad you liked Lyanna, I was wary about attempting her! :D
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I looove how you write Lyanna, wild and improper and unashamed and somewhat spoiled and jealous of Catelyn, but still just a young girl at heart, and her relationship with Brandon straddles the line between wrong and almost innocent and playful, like a by product of their wolf's blood (I loove how you work that in). I love how you write Brandon, and her show me what a real kiss is like line to him, BECAUSE OH LYANNA, SHE WOULD SAY THAT TO HIM (yeah I have headcanon for a character we've never met /o\)
she does not know, then, all that that crown will mean, does not know the wheels of fate have already been set into motion as she runs and runs against it, in the opposite direction, to the North, to Winterfell
THIS BREAKS MY HEART because she just has no idea how bad things are going to get, and just Lyaannnnaaaa.
It seems in another life, another life without laughter or flowers or snow or weirwoods that she holds the babe to her, he is all Stark (all Stark she thinks wryly) with dark hair and dark eyes, he is no prince that was promised, he is the North, he is Brandon, he is home. She could laugh or she could weep, he is Brandon but Brandon is no more.
THIS MADE ME CRY, JUST SO YOU KNOW. LYANNA AND HER DEAD BROTHER BRANDON WHO DIDN'T COME FOR HER BUT TRIED TO AND NOW BABY JOOOOOON, WHO IS THE NORTH AND I'M JUST DYING IN MY FEELINGS. LYANNA ASKING NED TO PROMISE TO TAKE THEM HOME AND THEN DYING AFTER THAT, MY FEEEELINGS.
THIS IS INCOHERENT BUT BASICALLY I LOVE EVERYTHING *____*
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I'm so glad you liked Lyanna! I was a bit nervous because we don't hear that much about her in canon and what we hear is idealized, and she was a real person and probably WAS a bit spoiled and selfish because she's the only girl and the baby of the family, but she's so YOUNG when so many awful things happen to herrrrrr. ;_;
I was debating at the end if Lyanna would even know about Brandon and her father dying, and HAD TO AT LEAST give her that peace, that Brandon tried to recover her, turned back from heading to his wedding because he LOVES HER BEST.
Thank you sooooo much for your wonderful comments, I'm so glad that you liked it, and thanks for giving me a new ship to wibble over!
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And this is the line at which I started ugly crying.
This was incredible. I'd like to be more coherent, but this whole thing was beautiful and I could quote all of it.
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I totally ship this now.
I'm glad you enjoyed! :D
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Exquisite. Really.
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Thank you again, your words made me blush! :)
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