ironfeather (ironfeather) wrote in usurper, @ 2011-04-02 19:16:00 |
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Brandon Stark had a great deal of pride, that much was certain. He knew that he was a surpassingly excellent horse-rider and his skills at the joust were nearly unrivalled. He also knew that he was attractive, in the way of being both fit and approachable, for his easy laugh and full-lipped smile. Under his father’s tutelage, he was ready to lead the North when he came of age: his accomplishments, his excess of positivity and his natural instinct to protect would make for a Warden loved, feared and respected. He, however, was not so puffed up to be above scrubbing bird shit from the floor of the rookery, especially for a sister whose hard-won victory ahorseback would (theoretically) lay her up for at least a night and a day.
With a pail of water and a stiff brush, he shrugged out of his cloak and tunic, rolling his shirt sleeves as he knelt on the white-flecked stone. The brush, dipped in the water, was plied in short, circular strokes. He would have to move stone by stone; a task that would likely last into the night. But it was okay. The mind-numbing work (already working its way up his arm and across his shoulder blades) was easy enough to let his thoughts fly free: Lyanna would learn to ride at rings.
The boon had not been granted, not even for Ned, loved and missed though he was by Rickard Stark. Siblings should sup together, but the current Warden of the North was quick to supplement his agreement with a firm but children must learn to obey. Lyanna had had the grace to blush and study her honeyed wine for a good ten minutes before the conversation between Ned and Benjen pulled her out of her sheepish sulk (somehow, Lord Stark’s two quietest sons found common ground to make idle chatter, with Ben drawn out of his usual bouts of silence with vivid descriptions of what the North had been like throughout Eddard’s tenure in the Vale).
But when the Starks, their bannermen and their household servants had all dispersed for the night, Lyanna returned to the same masculine breeches and doublet that had served her well during her ride with the monster of a stallion that had cost her the presence of a brother. Her boots whisked softly against the paved stone floors of Winterfell as she made her way up to where their maester kept his flock of birds, the warm flickers of her torch lighting her familiar way.
Spying Brandon’s hunched figure -- “You missed a spot.”
Brandon paused, gazing over his shoulder to where Lyanna stood and rocked back on his haunches. One brow arched but he found himself smiling anyway, glad for the company. “What did I say about a good sleep and a hot bath, sweet sister?” A pause. “Don’t bring that torch any closer. I’d rather not get a good look at what I’m scrubbing.”
The stem of the torch was nestled within a rung on the wall before she pulled near, lowering herself (stiffly) into a crouch, her arms folded across her chest. “I did about half of what you ordered. A hot bath, yes. Sleep, no -- Ned is here. When I go to meet the Stranger --” Her nose wrinkled briefly at her mention of these southron gods; “that is when I’ll seep. I think we may have convinced Father to release you from morning shit-scrubbing -- siblings must break their fast together.” A grin.
“Let the Others take the Stranger --” he told her with a briefly conspiratorial laugh. Gods in general held little weight in Brandon’s world; his own fate rested upon the strength of his arm and the blood that bought his birthright, but he could not deny the power of the godswood. “So that the Children may --” A nose wrinkled that, in place of a flick of his fingers, got a light kiss dropped upon it before he wiped his brow with a forearm. “Ned?” He grinned and promptly dropped back to his hands and knees to scrub faster. “Then the both of us can teach you how to ride at rings on your stallion. After we have broke our fast together.”
“Yes, Ned--” But whatever insight Lyanna was about to share on the matter of their quiet and much missed brother was interrupted by Brandon’s latter words, which were welcomed with a blink and a quick trip of excitement in her chest. Riding at rings. Lord Rickard permitted many things, but he had yet to do anything but frown at the thought of a daughter with a sword in her hands... “Don’t tease, Brandon.”
“Our father is many things,” he began, his voice blending with the grate of the bristles across the stone. Another slap into the water bucket before he started again. “Good things, bad things. But he loves us and I think he will come to realize that you’re not meant for needlework any more than I am. You may not be permitted to carry a sword; but as a woman, and a Northwoman, I find it of the utmost importance that you learn to wield one.” He beat the brush once against the stones. “And a sword is hellacious different from a lance.”
Only the gods, old and new, would ever know if Brandon had an additional thought to tack onto his declaration, for barely had the words left his lips when Lyanna threw herself at him, a quick nudge of the bucket with the toe of her boot pushing it from being knocked over by the flurry of limbs as she as she wrapped her arms around her brother’s broader shoulders. Like Ned before him, Brandon was given a storm of kisses that were pressed light and quick across his face.
The only defense for such an onslaught, to half rise and draw her close with his arms around her shoulders as he laughed, brush and pail momentarily forgotten. “And none of this secretive business. I mean to tell him. And we will do every bit of it underneath his very long, pointy nose.”
“Oh, of course.” Lyanna was readily on board with this change of heart. “A new tactic.” With her arm around him, she paused to plant one last kiss upon the plane of his cheek before she leaned back, regarding him with raised brows. “Took you long enough to rally to my cause.” A light twist of his earlobe.
“Me? Me?!” A paw swiped at her side for that twist was meant to be the herald to a tickle but, as he twisted, one slick flagstone gave way to a sliding hand and he landed hard on his side. A pause for the shock of it rattled through his bones before he twisted, reaching up to tug on a strand of hair that fell over her shoulder. “Your true knight?”
“Ser.” Lyanna followed the slide that gravity exerted on her brother, settling herself on his lap, one slender finger flicking quickly down the length of his nose. “My truest. My favours are ever yours. May you wear it on the day that I unhorse you.”
“They will write songs of that day, for certain. What shall your favour be? Mine, perhaps, a wreath of raven feathers.” Wrapping one long arm around her shoulder as he slid to a full sitting position with one hand behind to brace them, lest the combination of bird shit, water and stone foil him again, he smiled. “Anyway. I suspect Ned to be working his gentle magic on our Lord Father as we speak. The stallion will be yours, in addition to your pick of the swords and lances in the armory. Do you have a preference?”
A preference? Lyanna’s lips pursed as she considered his question, knowing from her years of enviously watching her brothers that lances and swords required a certain amount of brute strength. Brandon, Eddard, Benjen -- though the eldest was almost a man grown, the youngest still caught in the awkwardness of youth, all three had power to them. To their shoulders. And she, after her ride, ached.
“Whichever one of them I am good at.” A moment more before she slid from his lap to land on her knees on the floor, arm outstretched as she reached for the abandoned brush. This was, in its own way, punishing physical work. “-- a wreath of the leaves of our heart tree?” she suggested as she dipped the brush into the water.
As if Brandon had a preternatural knowledge of what she was thinking as she scrubbed (he would permit her, he decided, only a few minutes of the work before he took the brush back), he rose to his knees and stretched the knots and kinks from his back. “You’ll be strong enough.” And then a pause. “A wreath of crimson leaves from the heart tree. So apropos.”
A nod of agreement -- she would be. She would have to be if she wanted to ride at rings (especially astride the bastard horse...). “Anything more flowery and I would be mistaken as a chit from Highgarden.” Her snort became more of a huff of exertion as she scraped an especially difficult splotch of dried bird faeces from between the cracks on the floor. “They have no godswood in the Eyrie, you know. I think it bothers Ned something fierce.”
“Ned needs to learn to carry the godswood in here --” And he thumped twice on his chest, watching his sister exert herself. A sigh. “You’re too skinny, Lyanna.” His shoulder dipped low, pushing her out of the way with it as he made a grab for the brush. And to take the sting out of the observation, lest she think it was a comment upon the power of her arm, he continued. “All the chits in Highgarden are fat and rosy cheeked. You’ll never be mistaken for them and their golden flowers.”
Slyly -- “Someone’s made a study of the southron girls.” Her smile held a wicked slant, even as she smacked the back of her hand against her brother’s arm in return for his attempt at theft, the brush held tightly within her damp fingers even as his blow knocked her onto her backside. And then, more thoughtfully -- “The heart tree in the heart?”
Taking note of the tightness of her fingers around the brush, Brandon simply made a grab for her wrist and used the arm, the hand and the brush to scrub the particularly dried bit of bird faeces. “We know that we can see the face of the old gods in the heart tree but with the arrival of the seven, the loss of the groves in some of the more southern reaches …?” He scrubbed dutifully with her hand. “I know it sounds stupid. But, I suppose, we have to make do.”
Lyanna had her fears about being sent away -- despite her brothers’ blustering and protectiveness, despite all the jokes made about Boltons and Baratheons, she knew the day when she would enter a politically strategic marriage would come -- and the thought of leaving behind Winterfell, if she allowed it to take up too much space in her mind, often threatened to steal the very air from her lungs. So Brandon’s reasoning was comforting, and she shook her head, blowing a strand of hair stuck to her lips before saying, “It doesn’t sound stupid. I think it makes perfect sense. We worship with our hearts anyway. Ned will just have to carry the godswood there, along with the memory of what makes this home.” Her arm tensed, adding some power to push the brush along. “Hoar frost in the light of dawn. Cook’s pies. Spying the wolves in the wolfswood. Bird shit on our floor.”
"Especially bird shit on our floor," he said, rolling her wrist in the tips of his fingers to get at the edge of the stain. A brief respite was taken then, one in which his lips found her temple, as he surveyed the work that was already done. "This floor is near enough clean for my tastes. The Maester isn't going to slip and plummet to an early demise (unless the ice comes and then, we'll gravel like they do on the wall)."
The persistent hum of croaks and rustling feathers was a reminder that they were not alone, and with an appraising squint of her eyes, Lyanna tilted her head to look at the Maester’s birds. “And they will only shit again, these ravens.” (If, tomorrow, one of the inky birds took to repeating shit, shit, shit in its raucous voice, she would laugh and feign innocence.) Straightening, she finally yielded custody of the brush to her brother. “Let’s away, then.”
"Where to, Ser?" Straightening slowly, Brandon gave his sister a long look as his arms extended over his head, joints popping back into place before they fell back to his waist. A grin. "It's a perpetual cycle. Winter is coming but the bird shit is already here."
“The bird shit is here to remind us that we’re not dreaming,” was a dry tease as her fingers found his shoulders, holding tight as she sprang to her feet. “And to the kitchens, I think. I believe I promised to find you food.”
" -- you don't believe that a man can live on bread and water alone, do you?" He gave a slap to his chest and then, peering down at her, a pinch to the arm. "Lyannas can't live on bread and water alone, though. They don't have enough flesh as it is.”
Their shadows were cast long and dark against the wall as Lyanna reached for her torch, her fingers wrapping tight around the knotted wood. “That is the second time you’ve commented on how thin I supposedly am,” she threw back at him. The door opened with a creak, the stairs that wound away from the rookery illuminated by the flame she held, the light dancing as she stepped out. “I’ll have you know, sweet Brandon, that I ate like a king tonight -- every other spoonful consumed in your honor.”
"Isn't that what I'm supposed to say to my sister -- ? You're skinny, eat more. But I'm not trying to fatten you up for the Boltons, I want you to get some meat for knocking me off-saddle ..." He followed dutifully behind his sister, his hand loose and hovering at the small of her back should her feet slip with their descent. Then -- "That's my girl. None of those tiny cuts will do for you. And I'm going to have you in the granary tomorrow. Be prepared."
“You’re the wild one, Brandon.” Another few worn stone steps, another creaking door, and they were in the long hallway that would lead them down to the kitchens, where Cook, at her request, had set aside a haunch venison, bread, and various sweet pies. Brandon, for his gallantry, would also eat like a king tonight. “I’m always prepared with you.”
"If I'm wild, what does that make you?"
Entering the kitchen to lay his eyes on the spread Lyanna had prepared, he gave a long whistle and folded himself on one of the wooden benches that typically sat the kitchen help.
"You're my favourite, you know that, right?" Gripping a knife that had been set for him, he speared the venison and pulled it near. "Sit by me and talk." A pause. "Tell me everything that was said."
“Your most able student?” she suggested as she lowered herself beside him, one leg curled beneath her weight to prop her further up. A hand took the weight of her chin as she leveled her eyes to watch her brother’s attack on the food “There was a great deal of lord-ly conversation,” she continued. “Father pressed Ned on the conditions of the road up from the Vale. On Arryn himself. His foster brother, and whether Ben should be sent as a squire himself -- you should have seen his face.” A hunk of bread was claimed with a greedy wrench of her fingers. “Ned will be leaving soon, but he is to return at year’s end, and I think Robert will accompany him.”
Lordly talk? Brandon gave a snort; "Let me guess: the road to the Vale is long, Ned was unharassed and Ben would rather marry himself a baker's boy than go squire under big brother up in the mountains." As for Robert Baratheon, Brandon let the silence reign. Slicing a thick chunk from the middle of the lightest meat, he held it out on a fork for her to try -- "A bite, little wild one. Just a bite, I beg of you."
“Why, Brandon--” An arch of her brow, even as she leaned in close with her lips parted just enough to indicate her intention to help herself to what was offered, but only when she had finished speaking. “Are you sure you were up scrubbing the rookery tonight? It’s almost as if you were there to hear it all first hand.” And with a chuckle, she pulled the meat free from the fork’s prongs with a quick snap of her teeth.
"The walls have ears, my sister, not just hot water --" And he removed the fork, cutting a piece for himself to taste the tender meat. A quick swallow. "My ears. Bless this deer for tasting so good." He dipped his fork into the flaky crust of a pie. "I'll see Ned before he's back off. And I've got a spot of news for you, too. Ready?"
“News?” Lyanna reached for the jug of honeyed wine, pouring him a goblet before settling back down. “Ready. Tell.”
"I have to go south for a spell --" Bringing the goblet to his mouth, he let the draught wet his lips before he continued. "To Riverrun." A sly grin. "Are you going to miss me terribly?"
Though her heart gave a sudden jump, Lyanna’s only open reaction to Brandon’s news was a faint upwards crease of her lips. “Are you going to write to me when you’re not courting your Tully redhead?” was her quick retort. “Because if so, not terribly. Ben and I will rule this roost.”
"I will write you even when I am. How do you like that, Lyanna? If you don't miss me, too, perhaps I'll just stay down there and we'll rule Winterfell from the warmer climes." He pushed one of the pies at her. "Try this one. It's got peaches in it and I don't know the last time we had peaches." Another bite of venison. "Would you like me to bring you anything home?"
“If you do that, I will box your ears for being so ill-mannered to your intended.” She shook her head at the pie, pushing it back at him before leaning to the side and making a show of patting her stomach (even now, hours after dinner, her belly was still comfortably pressed against the waistband of her stolen breeches -- a sign of a feast well consumed). “Which one of the Tully girls is it, then? Or will you be trying to speak pretty words to both?” Teasing Brandon about marriage came easily to her -- far too easily, as it was more amusing to think of her brother fumbling with etiquette and romance than to ponder the matter of her own fate. “I don’t know,” she said after a moment’s silence. “Surprise me?”
" -- here's a surprise for you: I've been bethrothed to Catelyn Tully since she was twelve years old. Which was approximately three years ago, if memory serves me adequately."
Which wasn't a necessarily long time ago; only Brandon had long wished that Lyanna not be told. He supposed, now, with her own bethrothal looming large in her mind, that she would be fit to not fly off at the news. "Instruct me on what girls like to hear. In this I need a teacher."
A beat of silence... and then Lyanna reached for Brandon’s goblet to splash its contents on his face.
“That’s for your secrets and for you letting me prattle on about your red-headed children in the snow, Brandon Stark.” Her words were rushed with quick anger; she wished there was enough wine left in that jug to further soak his damnable face. “Learn what girls like to hear yourself -- not silence is my hint to you.”
"Lyanna --" And then a gulp of wine-tinged air sent him sputtering as he, knowing his sister, pushed the flagon out of her way. "Lyanna. Listen. I was waiting for the right time to tell you. We agreed that none of us would meet until she was more of an age. Catelyn Tully." He wiped his face with his ruined shirtsleeve. "She would make a good sister for you. I'm sorry. I didn't want you to think I would leave you. I won't -- not ever. I just." I feared your jealousy.
Lyanna was not a girl made for sneers and the sharper edge of anger. Fury was in the red pinpoints of colour on her cheeks, in the widening of her eyes as she glared at her brother, the umbrage that she took with this news there for the world to read. There would be a bruise tomorrow where the flat of her knee knocked against the underside of the table as she moved to quickly unfold her limbs from the bench, but now she barely registered the smack of bone against wood. “What else haven’t you told me, then? Have I secretly been engaged too for the past three years? To a Bolton, judging by our recent conversation? The Others take you -- do Ned and Ben know?”
"It was kept quiet, I assume, for the young girl's sake. Twelve year olds do not react well when they've been bethrothed to older boys. I only found out last year. And I suppose Ned and Ben know, though I didn't necessarily care about their feelings on the matter. I cared about yours and I thought you'd be happy." An exasperated sigh. He pushed back from his food, sodden and suddenly without appetite.
"Lyanna. You aren't engaged to a Bolton and if you were, I'd win you back in single combat, if necessary. And I'm sure there's no secrecy where you're concerned as I'm quite certain you're all but promised to Baratheon on the back of Ned's great friendship." He rose. "Maybe the Others will take me on my way south and you'll be free of me."
His latter words made Lyanna grit her teeth against the need to release her anger in the face of his threat and beg his forgiveness for dousing him with wine and ruining his dinner. To beg him to not be angry. But -- no, I won’t let him toy with me. “I don’t care what Catelyn Tully was or was not told.” Her own anger made her unkind, but then, both she and Catelyn were beholden to the same fate, that of highborn girls, and Lyanna wanted only honesty and openness when matters regarding the rest of her life were concerned. “And maybe they will. Write me if you get there.” She sucked in a breath.
Brandon's own anger would neither let him back down, for that was what being sorry brought him: rage that his cheeks would burn, ire that he could possibly be wrong. "You have two other, finer brothers. They'll do, for certain, when I am lost."
Now this response was almost enough to get a smile out of her, and so Lyanna clenched her jaw all the tighter. “Indeed,” she said tightly, “I’m sure I’ll barely notice your absence.” She turned for her torch, then paused.
Quietly -- “One of us was always going to leave. You didn’t have to not tell me.”
"Indeed you will not," was curt enough to sting. For all of Brandon's stupid hurt and his fire, however, he could bend for Lyanna. He often did -- just not yet. " And I'm certain they write prettier letters."
He let that die between them momentarily before pressing on, sufficiently bent enough to take a step toward her. "It's not forever. Only a little while ... long enough, though."
She bit her lower lip, worrying at skin that the day’s wind had already left chapped. “Terrible Brandon,” she began, and her voice lacked its previous ire. “Please don’t keep things from me.”
"Never again," was a husky vow, even as he held his arms wide. "Come here to me."
“But you’re wet.” But this would not keep her from him, not when he was so openly contrite, not when he had already apologized and meant it. Stepping into his embrace was the easiest thing in the world for her, as was the kiss she pressed against his cheek.
Lest, however, he thought he was entirely acquitted -- “I’m still a little mad at you.”
"And who's fault is that?" was a whisper as Brandon's arms wrapped tightly around his sister's slighter shoulders. He sighed into her hair; this girl, his great love and the sun in his pale sky, was a part of him more than his other siblings. And to one day be so thoroughly sundered from her ...? "I'll wear that ire like a badge of honor before the Lord of the Trident."