9 The Joys of Womanhood Are Many and Troublesome (I)

"-. 273 AC .-"

"Are they back yet?"

"Not yet," Lyarra Stark told her daughter.

"What about now?"

"No," the Lady of Winterfell answered with ease of long practice.

"…How about now?"

"Still no." Very long practice. "Now come here and let me check that embroidery."

"I think I messed up the inlay," her daughter grumbled, passing the handkerchief on. "This pattern's hard!"

"Wait till you start on weaving," the woman said, inspecting her work. "But you're right. You'll have to redo that last petal. Now, do you think you can tease the threads back?"

"Of course!" Lyanna Stark said loftily, before deflating. "… I'll probably pull too hard and mess up again."

"Well we can't have that." Especially since this was supposed to be a personal gift to Lord Cerwyn, one of three that Lyanna was making. "Here, I'll do it this time. Watch closely, dear."

Her daughter indeed watched very closely. She worked diligently even afterwards, up until Lyarra called a halt to their sewing time for the day. Only then did she run off to badger Ned about sword practice.

Not for the first time, Lyarra pondered the differences in her daughter. Before Brandon's make-believe games, Lyanna had been far too wild to sit down and learn the womanly skills for more than half an hour. At best. But then she fell in love with those living stories and became extremely thorough in milking every opportunity to squeeze past a bad roll of the dice. Learning to sew in order to beat Brandon in game figurines was just one of many rounds in their 'perpetual contest of passive-aggressive one-upmanship' as Brandon called it. Though truth be told, Ned was probably more deserving of praise for Lyanna's growth – he'd taken very well to managing his 'party members' even outside game time.

None of which Lyanna appreciated, even as she failed to catch onto either brother's particular approach to motivating her.

It wasn't all sunshine and roses, though, as was made clear at least once a day. Often during dinner. Which was to say, her Ned was perhaps getting too used to deliberately provoking his sister. Usually by not humouring her, which Lya always took as a personal affront. How her daughter could find so much to bristle over when Ned said and did so little to her personally, Lyarra didn't know. It wouldn't have been such a bother to child-rear away if it weren't so effective in getting Lyanna to acquire useful skills. Case in point, Ned's 'goading' was the only reason the girl was so determined to sew a perfect blue rose on not one but three handkerchiefs for their soon-to-be-hosts.

"Don't worry, brother mine," Ned had reassured Benjen at dinner. "You're still too young for people to expect personal gifts. No one will be offended for at least another year or two."

"I'll make it up to them when I'm big!" Benjen vowed, bless his innocent soul. "Like Lya!"

Lyanna had, of course, been sitting right there.

If you feed a moose, the Flint told her once, it'll become rapacious and attack the next man that's got no food to offer.

For all her sudden diligence, her daughter didn't seem to realise she was less a moose and more a small, harmless puppy.

Didn't mean Lyarra wouldn't take what opportunities the Gods gave her though. She'd give it another one or two moons to tend Lyanna's leanings. If she managed to impress on her daughter the usefulness of womanly arts in having a good life, maybe she could even bring on a governess to teach her further. Teach her everything Lyarra herself never learned. Much as she hated to admit it, Lyarra Stark had been as wild has her daughter when young, only she'd never gotten over it until it was too late. After her parents' deaths when she was a child, she was fostered with the Flints in the mountains. Her mother's family. It had done well to ground her in archery, horseback riding, hunting and woodsmanship, even swinging an axe now and again. But while decent, she never actually excelled despite her thoughts to the contrary. Later, when she was wedded and realised how short she was in certain areas – marriage did not mean she could get away with just popping out a child every other year, unlike what she'd loudly bewailed for so long – she'd hoped her mother-in-law would teach her what she lacked. Stature, comportment, dancing, accounting, household management, making preserves for winter times. She'd been shoddy in almost everything when Rickard wrapped her in his cloak. But the sickness took Marna Locke along with everyone else before she could pass on what Lyarra needed. Lyarra dearly hoped to spare Lyanna going through what she had after the sickness outbreak. Was still going through even today. As for the rest, well…

What use were weapons or riding or woodsmanship when your husband was so much better in all of them? Especially when someone always has to stay behind at home? Never mind everyone else's expectations.

You should stop thinking like a man, her aunt had tried to impress on her so many times. Marriage is a union, not a competition. A house divided against itself only ends in tears or worse.

Fortunately, these days she did well enough for herself when it came to organising. That included family outings. A good thing, seeing as she'd had to take over all travel plans for their trip to the Cerwyns. It helped that it was a good distraction from her worries over her husband and son. She hoped they were well, wherever they had gone. She wanted to believe they'd finally bridged their estrangement. Public displays of unity only did so much, especially when they kept so very silent in private when asked what they'd been doing. Together.

Finally.

She thought she'd been handling it well. Then she jolted awake in the middle of the night on the tenth day after their departure.

If it'd been a dream or nightmare, she couldn't remember it. She turned over and curled into the covers trying to get back to sleep, but it didn't come. She rose and pulled on a nightgown, then went to poke and prod at the hearth. It didn't help. She paced the entire length of her bedroom, the moonbeams tween the cracks in the blinds her only light to see by. The moonlight always reflected off the snowy rooftops through the master bedroom windows in the winter months. Usually she was enamored with them, and the way they slid and climbed the walls. Reflected off the smoky vanity mirror. Played on glistening skin and hair while she and her man were making love. Tonight it only summoned up memories of want and need she had no way to indulge. It made her angry. Hadn't she already lost enough rest, unable to drift off until damn well near morn due to worry about her menfolk for four whole nights and days after they left?

Coming to a stop near the desk, she briefly considered lighting the lantern to read for an hour or two. But her mind just conjured up an image of Brandon muttering about low light and tired eyes and going blind before his time. She couldn't even dismiss it as fanciful ramblings since it was one of his more recent ones. Although just how copper and saltwater were supposed to solve the problem, she had no idea. She went and opened the window instead. Stood and shivered as the chilly wind washed over her. Gazed out of it. The one facing north. Then she turned, put on her slippers, threw on a coat and left the room in a haste.

She knew those clouds and those rumbles, but she'd seldom seen or heard them during winter times.

Soon after, she emerged on top of the Great Keep from where she could see everything around Winterfell for leagues and leagues. When the weather was clear at least, and it most definitely was now. No fog, few clouds and the moon bright in the sky. As she'd guessed, there was a mighty thunderstorm roaring and flashing far to the northeast. What she hadn't expected was for someone to beat her there.

Her Ned stood at the farthest crenel.

She'd been right in suspecting him to be anxious at his father and brother's absence, no matter how much he pretended otherwise. Going treasure hunting in his Lord Father's rooms was something she'd have expected from Lyanna or Benjen, not him. But her eyes didn't deceive her – he was wrapped in one of Rickard's cloaks. It unfolded behind him like a sea of black atop the snow.

Everyone said parents weren't supposed to play favorites, but the more time passed the more she thought everyone was a lying sack of horse dung. She loved Lyanna like a mother loved her only daughter. She cherished Benjen like any mother would her youngest. She depended on Brandon probably too much, after all these years of being the only one he could always depend on. But Ned, Ned was her favorite. Her little quiet wolf. He could have been ugly instead of fine, brash instead of calm, loud enough to shake the rafters and none of it would have changed anything. When Brandon took sick and only seemed to get worse, when even her strong husband broke after that last straw, when Lyarra was set to weep and waste her days away at the side of her firstborn's deathbed, Ned was the one who'd saved her.

Watching him, her mind travelled back to earlier times. She and Rickard had begun their marriage with the all too serious worry that House Stark could very well end if they did not have heirs, and quickly. Or at least the main line. Once they got an heir and a spare, though, Rickard proved to be a fair bit more ambitious than he'd made it seem since the wasting took his parents. Rickard's visit to King's Landing didn't do much besides give their oh so great king crazy ideas – a second Wall? Madness! But it also seemed to have planted a seed in Rickard's mind about southern ties and fostering their sons. One that steadily grew over that year. Fostering. In the south. But then Brandon took with that terrible fever and things only seemed to get worse after that, and those seeds withered and died without even a sprout. To her eternal shame, a quiet part of Lyarra was glad for it. Had things been different, Ned may well have been sent off to Steffon Baratheon or Jon Arryn by now.

Walking over, she was surprised to hear Ned humming. There was something even more surprising though. "Oh my, your voice is sounding a bit high, is someone coming down with a chi-YAH!" Lyarra Stark shrieked and jumped back, hand going to her chest in fright as a second head popped out of Ned's throat. "G-gods! What-Benjen!?"

Her baby boy proceeded to laugh at the poor mother he'd just scared out of half her life.

"Couldn't sleep," Ned said for both of them. His fingers could barely be seen beneath Ben's chin as he held their father's cloak around them both. "Lyanna's a log as usual, but Benjen was off plundering."

"So you came up here?"

"I wanna see the eyes!" Ben piped up before deflating. "But there's just clouds!"

"And thunder," Ned chided.

"But I wanted to see the lightning!"

Eyes? Lightning? Who?

Benjen proceeded to tumble his way through one of his most bizarre fancies yet. Usually Lyarra found them endearing. Even funny sometimes. There was nothing like Benjen napping his way from a dream straight into a daydream to scrape the muck off her mind after hours of drudgery. This one was fairly nonsensical even for him though. She couldn't even piece it together in her own mind after he was done. Something about birds, a murder and Rickard baking a Brandon pie while the boy shot lightning from his eyes at every last crow he could see. There might even have been something in there about a half-blind raven swooping after one of the crows who'd stolen its eye for some reason, but she wasn't sure. Even Benjen couldn't decide if it was the crow or the sky who'd done it. Apparently.

Oh well. At least it wasn't one of his heart-to-Heart-Tree war tales. Why that dead brother of Cassel's figured into Benjen's fancies so often, Lyarra had no idea. Her youngest had barely been born when the man decided to spit on every last shred of fealty and responsibility and – no. No. She wouldn't go down that road. Not right now. "What was that you were humming?" she asked instead.

Benjen proceeded to hum it all over again. It was a surprisingly slow and low drone. Well, for a child whose voice was still years off from breaking. "Bran's sick of it!" He crowed after a few loops. "But he dreams about it. It makes the castles move! They sa-spra-spou-"

"Sprout," Ned said.

"Sprout! Sprout right out the ground!"

Well, her children certainly weren't lacking in imagination.

They watched the distant thunderstorm until frost nipped at her toes and she cajoled them back inside. Ned went willingly. Benjen not so much, but he went all the same. She tucked them in and kissed them goodnight. She also went to her sleeping daughter to do the same. She didn't stir. When Lyarra was once again alone, she found that sleep no longer eluded her. She slept uninterrupted for the rest of the night. She dreamed of summer, winter, and birds flying and falling up and down into a red-hot sky, trailed by black feathers that fell and drifted in the wind.

Lyarra had no words for her relief when the second sennight passed and the away party returned. They looked harassed and exhausted and confounded at having had to carry quarry scrap all the way home, but they had no wounds on them or a man lost. Unlike their departure, though, it was Brandon who was the animated one, for all that she barely had time to embrace him before her other children pulled him away. And Rickard was so spent that she was amazed he managed to get through the rest of the evening instead of collapsing like he did when he finally reached their bed.

She was going to keep her peace despite how much she wanted answers, but for once her husband pre-empted her.

"Our son is a seer," her lord husband grumbled as he clambered into bed next to her. He couldn't even hold his eyes open. "He sees so many things. Knows so many things. Dreams so many things. Imagines so much. Whole worlds exist in his mind. Stories. Memories. I don't even know where to start. Whenever I think I've finally grasped him, it's lost in the heat of a red sky. That's how the crow escaped."

… What. "… Husband, what-?"

"He's been haunted his whole life. Haunted by a crow with one too many eyes." Rickard embraced her, his once strong arms as feeble as his apparent belief that anything he said explained anything. "He's been spied on too. Him and the rest of us. Fucking Targaryens and their bastards, the maggots'll burrow under your skin the moment you turn your back. Brynden fucking Rivers." What-? "Bloody oathbreakers, not one generation without our house tripping over the worst of them. What is this world, when the worst kind of traitor is the only one in this madness not out to make a cock-up somehow? Fucking Bloodraven. Every rumor about him was true, he's a fucking greenseer. And he's been warding the fucking crow away from our son, not that he knew it. Bah! Maybe I shouldn't've banished him until after this mess was over, but fuck him. I rule this land. I have no patience for smug shitstains pulling strings behind my back. The raven was enough defence for the two of us anyway."

Rickard drifted into silence then… But no, no! She couldn't just leave things at that. Lyarra kneaded her fingers through his hair. Firmly. "Husband."

The man blinked tiredly, barely seeing her, then his eyes fluttered closed again. But he managed to scrounge up some last words. "A one-eyed raven guards him. Us. A raven I'm haunted by. The crow runs from it. I don't know what they mean. Neither does Brandon. What they are. Dreams and portents. Grumpkins and snarks."

Rickard Stark finally drifted off and Lyarra Stark suddenly experienced the very uncharacteristic urge to push her man off the bed and see how he liked having his life thrown upside down. He hadn't even told her if whatever ailed Brandon was finally fixed or not!

She didn't. Instead, she moulded herself to him, moved one of his hands between her breasts and slipped hers around him, twining one of her legs with his too. Then she waited. Watched him through the night, her thoughts too many and jumbled to let her more than drowse on and off. And when he moved, she moved against him every time. Her patience paid off half-way through the hour of the owl. Her husband roused from sleep to use the privy. And when he returned, she was there with all her frustration and impatience and hands gone a-wandering and her demands.

Lord Rickard of House Stark never did suffer anyone's demands well, and she was no exception.

She severely underestimated her husband though, exhausted beyond belief or not. By the time the snarling wolf was done putting her in her proper place, she herself was too tired, tender and sore in all the right places to react the way she should have once she finally got Rickard to give some 'explanations.' None of which she appreciated. 'Our son needed to dream himself up a second brain' indeed. Because it's not like something tried to stop it and caused a thunderstorm that all but buried them alive and nearly killed them all! And did she mention that Brandon was literally sliced in half at some point? That he had a huge scar from navel to shoulder now? But don't you worry, wife, he's perfectly fine now!

"If he weren't so hopeless without me I'd think he were a god made flesh come from the stars," Rickard murmured as sleep finally reclaimed him. "But then I remember that he broke his own mind just by thinking too hard. He can't even blame the tree for that one. Or Rivers. He can't even lay it all on the crow. Fucking crows…"

Gods, what did she ever do to be cursed so?

Lyarra glared sullenly at him, but when she tried to speak and only moaned as a result of Rickard's enduring connection, she gave it up as a bad job. She'd talk to Brandon at some point instead. Maybe he'd make more sense. Gods, she was seriously hoping for Brandon to make sense now.

That morning she couldn't move a muscle under the stare of the one-eyed raven on the windowsill. It was black and large enough to enshroud a full-grown man even as it fit the window somehow. Its feathers smoked as if it'd flown too high near to the sun. Then it opened its beak and made a sound like rat-tat-tat and she crashed awake with a gasp to something pecking at the window.

Rickard didn't move at all from where he lay, despite him being the lighter sleeper between them. Grunting from the lingering soreness, she left the bed, put on her slippers and braved the morning chill to open the blinds. There was a bird pecking at the smoky glass. A raven, by the shape and size. She opened the window and tried to shoo it away, but that's as far as she got.

The raven sidestepped her swing, blinked two perfectly fine eyes at her, hopped over her arm and flew all the way to the foot of the bed.

Lyarra Stark barely had time to spin around, hand at her breast in sudden fright as her dream resurfaced, before her mind caught up to her eyes.

Rickard Stark sat up in bed and held out an arm for the bird to gingerly hop on, opening eyes misted over with white fog. They cleared soon after, but the bird did not flee his touch. And the familiar steel grey of her husband's sight would never erase what had just happened.

"I'm a skinchanger," her man said idly, stroking the raven's tufts once and twice as he assimilated this great and new and monumental truth into his life. Then he flicked his arm and the bird flew back out and away. "Right. Back to work."

Rickard Stark stood from the bed, pulled on his clothes, gave his wife a kiss as he passed her by and went to work.

Lyarra stared flatly after him, then she called for her maids to help her ready herself so that at least one of them could get around to catching up on everything that wasn't just more work.