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The Sword of Darkness

Lost in the Woods

When she heard about Rhaegar's death, she laughed, triumph and satisfied vindictiveness finally making this grey day of imprisonment brighter than any other that she had spent here, even the first ones when she had been still in love – because there was clarity now. Openness. No deceptions on anyone's part and no delusions on her own. Ser Gerold and Ser Oswell stared at her, aghast, but she shrugged their opinion away as she kept laughing. She would do them the courtesy that they had never done her – not hide anything. When had they ever seen a wolf hiding, pretending?

At least, she would give them what of her feelings could make its way to the surface because her desire to weep was also a very real one. No matter the wrong Rhaegar had done her, he had been the first man in her life. Her babe's father. She had loved him or, rather, she had loved what she had thought she saw in him. She was surprised that the death of a wielder of illusions could hurt almost as a real loss. But when the two emotions collided, triumph and the feeling of justice served took precedence, squashing grief into a place of her heart where it could be easily ignored. Where it belonged, actually. Slowly, in a matter of days, relief spread over her, elation giving way to soft contentment. Her babe was now free of Rhaegar's plans and designs. No prophecy would touch his life – oh yes, Lyanna was now sure that it was a boy; the Seven Rhaegar believed in had already meted out their justice. They would not let him triumph in death as they had in life. Her babe would grow up happy, no matter what happened to her. Ned would make it so, Lyanna was sure. Things were finally falling back in place…

Until the news of the sack arrived.

She felt the first shiver of horror the moment she saw the knights' faces; she almost wept when she heard the whole story, for despite Ser Gerold's attempt to spare her the details, Ser Arthur insisted that she should know – she could practically read his thoughts and they ran along the lines of, Well, if she was strong enough to make the decision to run away with Princess Elia's husband, it certainly won't break her to hear what came of it, for the Princess included. But Lyanna did not care for the Princess this much, not when she heard the rest of it. Yes, Elia Martell had not deserved what happened to her. No one did. The smallfolk had not deserved the massacre Tywin Lannister's men had committed either – but it was when Lyanna heard about the children that she almost threw up. The squashed head… How Robert had reacted… and here, she really threw up, the babe in her womb kicking wildly, picking on her distress. "Robert will regret this," she managed to say somehow after wiping her mouth in her gown for the lack of any other cloth. "Ned will make him pay… he has already parted ways with him…"

The three men stared at her the way her father had used to do when despairing of her, with all his irritation and none of his affection. "My lady," Ser Gerold finally said. "Your brother has not truly parted ways with Robert. He went to fight the last battles for him. They are still together in this. They will arrive here together."

Finally, Lyanna got herself under control and refused to discuss the matter with them because they did not know. They had served a madman for so long that they had forgotten there were still men who had principles. No matter the cost, Ned would do the right thing. He would not support a murderer of babes. No!

This night, she fell asleep dreaming of a soft silver head hitting the wall with a wet sound as the screams of a woman filled the chamber… a dream that would keep repeating many times a night, every night, an image that consumed even her days when she learned that Ned was indeed still committed to their cause. His cause with Robert. As much as it hurt her, Lyanna had to consider the possibility that he no longer had any joint cause with her but her mind simply refused to take it. Instead, she caught herself making excuses more and more often. What good would punishing Tywin Lannister achieve? The massacre was a fact and perhaps if Elia Martell had bothered to learn some basic mastery of a mere dagger, she could have held her attackers off just for a little while, until help arrived. The Seven were supposed to protect weak and innocent. Elia Martell had certainly been weak, so had she been innocent? Lyanna rummaged through her mind to find any occasion indicating the opposite but just because she could not, it did not mean that it was not true. Rhaegar, in his madness, had barely seen anything but his prophecy. A smart and cunning woman could have played him like he had played his harp and that was likely what Elia Martell, a Dornishwoman, had done. She must have had, because else, the Seven would have let an innocent suffer and Lyanna would have been party to this, however inadvertently – and this, she could not bear, even if Elia Martell was… had been so weak as to let Rhaegar walk all over her without saying a word.

Ned and Robert could not have let Rhaegar's heirs live it they wanted to have peace, ever. It was horrible but this was the truth. At this thought, Lyanna's hand always crept to her belly to reassure herself of the strong movements of her own babe. She shuddered at the thought that had Rhaegar come around to his initial intentions to wed her, this child could have shared Rhaenys and Aegon's fate. As it was, his salvation lay in his bastard status. Robert was many things but stupid, he was not. He might have said some things in the heat of the moment but he had not really meant them. Even in the throes of love, Lyanna had never wished for these children's deaths and she felt sure that he had never wished for this either. Why would he punish a babe who might carry the Targaryen blood but not the name? Why would Ned let him do such a thing to his own nephew? It had been different with Elia Martell's children – they would have always been a genuine threat. But Lyanna's bastard?

At night, she lay awake in her bed, poring over the mistakes Elia Martell had made. She had accepted the humiliation Rhaegar had heaped upon her without protesting, thus basically inviting him to heap some more; she had been so fragile that she had literally forced him to seek another woman for this madness of prophecy that he lived for when she had become barren after barely giving birth to a second child; she had stayed in the Red Keep weeping, instead of bribing whomever she needed to escape when she had not been kept in a tower and served by so few people that any attempt of bribery would be doomed to fail. These were the things that had eventually led to her children's deaths and her own. It would be different with Lyanna – it was already different! Rhaegar had certainly told someone that she no longer wanted him. Ned would know. Somehow, he would. She had severed her cuts to Rhaegar and this would be taken into account. "Don't worry, babe," she whispered, smoothing a hand over her belly. "You're going to be fine. We're going to be fine."

When the thought came upon her that it had not been a matter of mistakes but luck, that Elia Martell and her children had simply been terribly unlucky, she pushed it away with all her mind. They would have been unlucky anyway but she was not ready to admit this. If things had gone the way she had initially thought she would, just how long of life would Aegon have had? At one point or another, she might have been forced to deal with him and this thought made her feel sick. Only very rarely did she allow herself the luxury of admitting that since the moment she had first seen Rhaegar Targaryen, she had heaped fantasy upon fantasy, lie upon lie, dream upon dream, justifying along the way until she had gotten lost in the woods, with no moral path to lead her out of it.

The End

A. N. In case anyone wonders, I based this on the bit of Lyanna dying as she still held on what basically everyone assumes was the crown of winter roses Rhaegar gave her. She was clearly fine with the public way Rhaegar humiliated Elia for her, as she carried the crown with her wherever she went, presumably to relive this glorious moment over and over. My take on this is that no matter what virtues she might have had, she had no respect for another woman's (Elia's) dignity and was quite happy to trample over it to get what she wanted – and she clearly wanted Rhaegar, for whatever reasons. I see no reason to believe that it just never crossed her mind that Rhaegar had a wife who might not be OK with their great love story. This is not to say that she was not deceived and taken advantage of, or that she was in any way to blame for the war - but this isn't the same as presenting her as a pure soul who had no idea that she might be harming others.