Little Dragon - Game of Thrones

1: Screaming Dogs and Wailing Crows

The godswood was not silent, as some might suspect, some considered it old and haunted territory in the North. The wind brushing through thick grey green pines, the scattering of mice and squirrels in the trees and underbrush. No, these woods did not know silence. The face of the weirwood tree behind him seemed to rumble with life every time its branches shook, like the slow breathing of a sleeping man. Lord Eddard Stark sat at its roots. It was three acres of forest enclosed in the walls of Winterfell. No wolves preyed in its trees, but crows and baying dogs could be heard on occasion.

It was always a place he liked to show the younglings. Even if they were far too young to remember it. Ned looked at his daughter in his arms, bundled tight in sheep's wool to keep out the chill, even in the midday of summer. Even young Stark's needed to learn to brave the cold. Her muss of hair was a mousy dark brown like his own. Like her sister's. Though her cheeks were still round, he wondered if she too would take after his gaunt features. Just like Arya. And though he thought it perhaps a trait of the North to produce such women, he couldn't say the same for his eldest girl. Sansa was the image of her mother, just as Robb was, and Bran, too. That fiery auburn stood out among his people, as red as the bark of the towering trees of their mother's own land.

Out of all the sounds of the forest, the snap of a twig turned his head.

It was a strange sight, even for a man such as himself (who held no superstitions, unlike most of his people), to find someone gracing the godswood. Someone unfamiliar. It was a woman, tall and thin, brittle and frail, though it was hard to tell from how many layers she was bundled underneath, despite there still being no snow. Her skin stood out among the grey, a soft olive color, her hair smooth and pitch black. Her black eyes crinkled humorously at the little one in Ned's arms, a mysterious iridescent glow glazing over her eyes. Like the skin of a black snake in the sun. She spoke before Ned coul5d seem to find suiting words for her.

"Such a sweet babe, is she not?" The woman cooed, her voice like a soft breath of air.

"That's a Lady of Winterfell you're crowing at," Ned replied with a guarded tone. It seemed cruel to slay a woman, in his eyes. Uncommon. But if need be, a blade laid in wait at his belt, hidden beneath his grey fur cloak. But this godswood was sacred, guarded. Not a place to find strangers.

"But of course, my Lord," she added with a simple bow of her head. "And what a fine lady she shall be."

It took Ned another moment to reply, watching her carefully all the while. "State your business, then." 

She blinked at him slowly, black eyes smiling down at the little girl. "The honor of seeing such nobles, my lord. A chance to see your youngest. And what an honor it is indeed."

"You seem a season too old to wander these woods alone," he told her. His fingers itched for his blade. Something was amiss here, that much was obvious, but it was too early to act on his instincts, however much he wanted to.

"A season too young to lay in bed, waiting for the god of death to claim me," she clasped her hands in front of herself and took a few steps closer. Ned gave a gravelly hum. Something flashed in the woman's eyes, a violet sheen that made him bring his hand to the hilt of his blade. A dog barked in the far distance, conjuring a chorus of its companions. In the trees and the distant walls of the keep they could hear crows mocking the barks of the dogs around them. Her black hair was carried by a swift wind until it passed a moment later, and all went still. Winds gone, dogs and crows gone quiet.

"They are protective of their pups, no?" She spoke lightly. Ned stood before her, expressionless. "The dogs. Much like the wolves. Could she not hear them?" Ned did not answer her. She could rant from here to Highgarden with that nonsense, so long as she came no closer. "I see it all in you two," the stranger said with a smile, gesturing at the father and daughter.

Softly, the little babe began to stir. Grey eyes blinked up at her father, her mouth making a pop. 

The woman's smile widened. "She's listening."

"It's best you take your leave now," he told her after more silence. These woods should never be so quiet.

She tutted at him. "Listen."

In the distance there was a snarl, then the sound of scuffling paws and gnashing teeth, snapping at one another. Ned's hackles stood on end, and the young Stark rolled and balled her tiny hands into fists. Something was upsetting her.

"Leave us," Ned spoke firmly, braced for something, although he wasn't exactly sure what. By the time she spoke again, the little girl's upset had grown to cries. The dogs continued to fight, and the trees around them rattled with sounds of disturbed crows tumbling through their branches.

Something darkened in the woman's face, her shadow seemed to bend and twist, hand outstretched to form a blackened claw over the girl in his arms. Ned drew his blade in an instant. Everything happened in only a moment. His infant's eyes shot open, blazing with the same violet rainbow of the woman's own black irises, like grey iridescent silver.

Ned's blade buried in the woman's gut just as her hands laid flat over the little girl's eyes, sickly red residue clinging to her palms that Ned no doubt recognized as blood. Why his daughter had been attacked in such a way, Ned hadn't a clue. But the woman fell and there was a slick, grotesque noise as his blade left her. She took a dull, painful breath, slow and ragged.

The girl tossed again in his arms, mind echoing with her dear mother's voice, crying out in pain. "Make them stop, I can't stand them, make them stop," and she wailed in reply.

As the woman fell silent and dead to the forest floor, Ned became aware of the ringing in his ears. There was a cacophony of howls from the kennels of the keep. Not howls, he thought. It was too harsh, too broken.

No, they were screaming.

His daughter screamed with them, joining them in the awful noise, her grey eyes so bright they almost seemed to glow a strange lilac. He looked to the trees, now finding that the tumbling crows had joined them in the noise. The perfect mimicry of a hundred newborns crying.

The noise stirred the castle, and it wasn't long before his lady wife Catelyn arrived hurriedly with their guard, carrying her skirts with a confused Robb behind her. He was only nine yet.

Catelyn stared in absolute horror at the woman dead at his feet, then at her dear infant daughter, face muddled with an awful bloody handprint. If you squinted at her beneath the weirwood tree, you could almost mistake the bloody mark with the red leaves from its branches. Catelyn sobbed and pulled her little one close, Ned trying his best to comfort her, smoothing and kissing her hair, all the while his own chest ached at the stress of having his daughter in crisis

Robb looked up at his mother, eyes wide. He had never seen his mother cry. And never seen his father with such a look, either. A man on edge. A man who feared for his child's life. Robb's heart beat with anxiety as the sounds around the keep continued on. It made his ears hurt, his hair stand on end. He looked at the bundle his little sister was wrapped in, and only had one word.

"Lyla..?"

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Hello!! Please feel free to tell me what you thought of this first chapter, I'm very excited to get on with the story of this book and show you all what I've created (this being more of a prologue than anything else), I hope you guys can take the same from what what I get from writing it.