ZIRTYS PERZYS → podrick payne

CHAPTER THREE | wood

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ZIRTYS PERZYS
CHAPTER THREE
wood

❝CHOP YOUR OWN WOOD AND
IT WILL WARM YOU TWICE.❞

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CATELYN STARK HAD READ POEMS and books to Elia throughout her childhood. She loved every minute of it then Sansa was born, and Arya, and Bran and Rick, and Catelyn no time left for poems and books. There was one passage that Catelyn had read to Elia that she still remembered, A BEAUTIFUL MESS OF CONTRADICTIONS MAKE HER WHOLE, SHE HAS FIRE FOR SKIN AND AND STORMS IN HER SOUL.

Elia used to be spitfire, she was a Stark, a daughter of the Warden of the North, but she had little left of herself. A bastard daughter of common folk did not get to talk back to people, she was expected to due her duty and let everyone walk over her but that wasn't Elia Stark. Elia Stark was a wolf, she had fire for hair and storms in her gray eyes.

Though sometimes, it didn't work in her favor. Elia hit the ground a huff, air blown out of her from the sheer strength behind the blow. Elias sword was flung from her hand as another came to hover over her throat.

"Are you alright, m'lady?" Brienne stood over Elia, blue eyes shining in worry. Elia didn't understand why she was nicknamed Brienne the Beauty, when she stood with a stood in hand and a ferocious glint in her eyes, Brienne was breathtakingly beautiful.

"Elia, Brienne. Call me Elia, please." Elia stood with a wince and tried to smile at Brienne but she knew it was more of a grimace. Brienne scowled and pointed at the ground near Pod, Elia was quick to obey - Brienne was intimidating with a sword in her hand.

Elia unlaced her tunic and pulled it aside to reveal her shoulder, blue and purple bruises were spread across her skin and Pod winced when he brushed a soft finger across them. "M'lady, you really should be more careful-"

"Elia, call me Elia!"

"Podrick is right, my lady." Brienne sighed and picked the discarded sword from the ground where it dropped, she'd borrowed it from Pod for their training but it was far too heavy. "We'll see a maester when we stop in Woodend."

Woodend would be the first town Elia had set foot in after leaving the Green Tree, "I'm fine, truly."

"It won't do well to bring the Lady of Winterfell home with bruises covering her body." Brienne shook her head with a scowl and that would be the end of it.

"There is nothing to bring me home to." Elia muttered and turned to face the fire as Pod shifted anxiously next to her. He was a sweet boy, more shy than most his age, but sweet nontheless. What Lady Brienne lacked in conversation, Podrick tried to make up for - stuttering and stumbling over his words, but he tried and Elia would be ever grateful for it.

"It may not be home, but it is your castle." Podrick said firmly, "It is your right, your families right."

"Half my family is dead, Pod-," Elia did not like how heavy her voice was with anguish, "- the other half missing. It is not a home I want to go back to, Green Tree is more home than Winterfell."

There was a pregnant silence after Elia's spoke but she meant every word, Winterfell was not home, it was a castle. A castle full of ghosts and nightmares.

"If I may ask, my lady." Brienne had removed her armor and stared solemnly over the fire at Elia. Pod started to clean her sword, though there was nothing left to clean. "Why didn't you go home? Or to your brother, at least?"