Queen of Wolves // Jaime Lannister [GAME OF THRONES] (ON HOLD)

11. NO SUCH THING AS FAIR

Sansa Stark could deny it until her dying breath, but unfortunately, those closest to her knew the truth.

Gods could she snore.

Alynna propped herself up, supported by her elbows and glowered at her sister in the soft lantern lit darkness. She peered over her shoulder to her other side and found Arya sleeping peacefully with an extra pillow covering her ears.

With a sigh, Alynna went across the room to bring the oil lamp closer, placing it safely before pulling out The Shores of Asshai and Other Shadowed Lands and sunk into its nostalgiac presence. She read under the light until her eyes grew tired once again and the book fell from her gloved fingers, flipping open to the first page with her handwriting inscribing what the voice in her dream told her months ago.

She is watching.

She is watching with the roots that replace her limbs, the branches imitating hair and the leaves dipped in the same ink of her direwolf. Her emotions carry away like a raven with a scroll, harnessing and evaporating all of her heart but leaving everything else behind hollow.

Every action she feels an age to accomplish, where each blink is forceful and singular thought prompts excruciating pain. However, what concerns her is what she faces with each impending blink.

There are two children fighting with sticks, both dark-haired and grey-eyed Starks, yet their faces spark nothing in her to recognise them. She has a mouth but her lips can't form the questions she wants to ask, only think them. Is that enough?

'Yes.' the same voice from before speaks.

They can't be Arya and Bran?

'This is before their time.' the voice answers. She sees clearly now, Arya but with deliberate mistakes. Her eyes are a softer grey, nose slightly longer than the one the girl feels familiar with yet a similar fire and simply surpassing loveliness, unlike any other Stark girl after her.

Will I ever see your face? Know who you are? She searches for the voice.

'Once you meet your own, it will happen. Trust me.' the voice is soothing, easing her into being, like a nice sip of wine and she succumbs to blink once more.

Behind their ancestral sword, Ice stands a man, bearing the tough strength of honour. The younger Eddard Stark prays before her and the words from his lips fall mute to the girl. Somehow, the voice compels her to blink again. Her eyes widen in horror, but the physical pain is only secondary.

There is no one, only a direwolf, dark red and sorrowful and unlike the others, staring up at her as if she sees her too. The wolf howls and all the girl can do is stare back, she feels unanswered tears trailing down her face and the wolf backs away in fright. What can scare a beast like that?