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... )
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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