A Dragon In Wolf's Clothing ~A Game of Thrones fan fiction~

Chapter Twenty Six: Escape

No.

Surely it had all been a dream? Please, let it just be a dream.

Let me just be back in my bed in Winterfell. Jon and Robb will come into my room and throw snow onto me to wake me up before training. I will go out riding with the boys, I'll play with Rickon, mess around with Arya, I'll spite Lady Stark as usual, I'll read with Sansa.

Everything will be normal.

Father will be there, laughing at Arya and Bran chasing after each other whilst we all train. I'll go to him whilst I'm having a break to ask if he thinks I could go to the wall. He'll write a letter to uncle Benjen and maybe, just maybe, I'll become the first woman of the Night's Watch.

Everything would be normal.

There would be no South. No Cersei to spite her, no Joffrey to be cruel to her. She wouldn't have to be queen to someone who orders her torture and their son's execution. She wouldn't have to be legitimised. She would be a bastard again and there would only the North, and her family.

Everything would be normal.

Nothing was normal, Lyanna realised as she woke to howling. A stabbing pain in the chest told her that as soon as she opened her eyes. Vision blurry, she struggled to remember what happened yesterday and how she ended up back in her room, until she remembered. The memories of it all flashed through her mind, the sight of her father just before his death and then nothing, as she'd closed her eyes like a coward. And then... Brandon... her little boy.

She didn't want to live anymore.

Joffrey had taken the man who raised her and her son. She wasn't going to let him take her too.

Except he already had. He'd taken her hand in marriage. He'd taken her maidenhead. He'd taken her dignity. He'd made her bare him a son that he would have killed not three weeks later. He'd ordered her to be tortured in front of the whole court. He made her stand and watch as her father was killed and then watch as they murdered her baby son. Just to spite her for being a Stark.

She wasn't even a Stark, not a true one anyway. She was a Targaryen, though that wouldn't help the situation anymore. She was a Snow. Always a Snow. Born a Snow, die a Snow. That was what she was going to make sure of now.

As if she could read her mind, Winter jumped onto the bed, diving on Lyanna's chest, licking her face. It was then she realised she had been crying, sobbing even. Her chest ached badly and her head was spinning. Her eyes were blurry and her throat hoarse from holding in cries. It was no use holding it in, she realised, and dissolved into real tears.

At first, she knew why she was crying. She was crying for Ned. He was her father, even if genetics stated him as her uncle. He'd raised her. He'd married her off to a monster. He'd been beheaded. She cried for the life she had with him, the life he gave her because he was too kind to let her starve.

Then, slowly, she dissolved into sobbing, then into screaming through thick tears, all whilst losing her purpose for crying. She no longer knew who she was crying for. She didn't know if she was crying for her dead father, for Robb, who was marching off to war, her son, who didn't even live long enough to see the horrible world he could have lived in, or for herself, trapped in King's Landing with the man who'd ordered her father and son's death. Soon, she was crying so much she was suffocating and gasping for air as well as screaming what felt like non-stop. It felt like the pain would never end, both mental and physical.

Finally, she heard a small knock on the door before it opened. Lyanna didn't bother to look up; she knew it was Alize. Poor Alize, who had been pulled into this game, not wanting to play. When Lyanna eventually looked at her, she saw yellow and purple bruises gracing her cheeks and any other parts of flesh Lyanna could see. She remembered seeing the poor handmaiden collapse on stage, and instantly thought of all the pain she must have gone through before she fainted, before she unknowingly gave Brandon away to Joffrey.