Lyllianna Winters Stone ♘ Lyanna Stark (catalyzed) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2018-05-16 23:11:00 |
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It was unthinkable now to look back on how naive she had been when she left her family behind to follow her heart. The world that Lyanna lived in had changed dramatically, and it wasn’t just the location that made that difference. Not a week after she had left the Inn at the Crossroads and married Rhaegar in a private ceremony that legally bound them for life, she had received word that her father-in-law - The Mad King - had murdered her father and her eldest brother in King’s Landing when they had gone to demand she be returned to them. The grief that had befallen Lyanna had been swift and consuming. She loved her family. She had left them to escape a future that she had not wanted for herself and claim a chance at happiness with the man that held her heart, but she had never intended for anyone to die because of it. In the aftermath, she had wondered if she had just left a note to tell them her plans...would they have lived still? Would they have been able to ignore their own stubbornness and pride to stay away from the Targaryen King that sat on the throne. Shortly after, war had broken out on the lands of Westeros. It had been cemented by the death of her father and her brother, but the catalyst of the war...was her. If she had stayed home, it never would have happened. Rumors circled and spread that she had been kidnapped in the middle of the night by her now-husband, and that he treated her poorly. It was said that the loss of her tore into the heart of Robert Baratheon - her betrothed - so deeply that he would tear apart the Heavens to get her back. Safely hidden away in the South, Lyanna grew more and more weary of the war that raged on lands not all that far away. It raged on and on with word of rebel houses gathering under banners and battles ensuing against the crown loyalists. Her loved ones had become rebels for her sake, and with her marital ties...her loyalties were split right down the middle. For months, she read the letters and missives. There was no chance that she could return to her family and have the whole war called off. They would never believe that Rhaegar had never harmed her, no matter what she told them. They would demand blood and the throne until the war was won, whichever way the sword may fall. There was little for her to do other than worry and pray that everyone that she still held dear would remain safe. Lyanna would cling tight to Rhaegar and the love that still carried them through the darkest of times. She would try to live her life within these walls even while the rebellion gathered strength beyond their lands. She had found one bright spot in the whole war, and that was the child that she carried now. Her marriage to Rhaegar made their child a legitimate heir, and with every day that passed she was beginning to see change in herself. The cycle of bleeding had stopped some time ago, and with it had come a delicate appetite and tender stomach. Now, weeks after her suspicions had begun to take hold, her belly was beginning to round. She found herself often with her hand lightly pressed over her abdomen. It was still too early yet to feel the babe move, but he gave her something else to focus on. He gave her hope for the first time in months. She wondered what kind of mother she would be. There were some things, she knew, that would always be within the constraints of their position. Lyanna had risen station when she married Rhaegar. Though their vows were unknown to the world at large, if the Targaryen’s won the war, her husband would take the throne as King which would make her...a Queen, and a mother to heirs of the throne. Still, she liked to think that their children would be well rounded. Regardless of what society deemed right and proper, if they wanted to learn the arts of war, they could handle a sword and if they wanted to learn music, then they could play a tune to their heart’s content. Princes or princesses...it didn’t matter to her. She just wanted her children to be loved and supported, and she believed that she and Rhaegar could give that kind of love to their child. Lyanna supposed she had no comparisons, and she could be wrong, but she believed the child she carried to be a son. She hoped that she was right. Lyllianna sat in the bathroom with her head hung and eyes stinging. Her heart ached, and the tightness in her chest wouldn’t seem to ease. Her mind could take her far away, but she would still end up right back here. The past or her dreams could fill her thoughts with grief of loss from war-torn lands, but she was less surprised and gutted by the war than she was by the rest of the dream. She should have been more upset about the war. Instead, she found herself focusing on the flatness of her own stomach and the negative pregnancy test that she still had clutched in her hand. She had been prompted by the lateness of her own bodily timer to hope more than she had allowed herself in months...and even once those hopes were dashed, her dreams had to rub salt into the fresh wound. As she let herself sob, her fists clenched so tightly that little half-moon imprints dotted her palms. With the presence of mind that she was not alone in the house, she turned her head to her shoulder to muffle the sound of her own, frustrated scream. She wanted to be a mother. Not because of a dream. Her marriage didn’t need to be saved, as it was strong on its own. It wasn’t just the thing that she was supposed to do because everyone else was. She had wanted to be a mother for years...longer than she had been with Rhys. She had thought that it would be easy to get pregnant. She had thought it would be...meant to be. Instead, after more than a year of trying with doctors giving her no definitive answers, she was having to face the reality that perhaps she would never carry a child that would be of her own blood. There were other ways to be a mother. She already had step-children. They could adopt if it came down to it. But now, with this knowledge in her mind that Lyanna had conceived - seemingly without complication - she didn’t know that she would ever be able to shake it. Would she ever be able to forget the feeling of her own rounded stomach beneath her hand? Would she ever be able to fill the gnawing emptiness in the place of where she felt that child - her child - was supposed to be? The only thing she felt certain of was the knowledge that the dreams were only going to get harder for her to bear, and as difficult as it was to talk about them...she could not carry them alone. |