[ bloodiedwolf ]

                    ‘ perhaps not. ’

       and yet, for her, the past is not erased, but rather continuous, and
       layered ; cat’s life coexists with beth’s, and mercy’s, and nan’s and
       weasel’s and lysander’s too, and finally lyanna’s underneath them
       all – a promise made can be broken ( was, in fact ), but not retracted,
       not forgot, just as a seed can be uprooted, but the indent in the earth,
       and the memory of having planted it, will remain, or just as a book can
       be burned, but the memory of its existence will linger.

       perhaps that is what leaves her inescapably brittle, wounded, this multifold
       self – no doubt it would be simpler to have only one, or none at all, but these
       dead girls have left their fingerprint-bruises and their scars upon her skin, and
       she can compartmentalize them, hide them away and appear as solely lyanna,
       but they are never forgotten either, not entirely. always there, under her skin,
       for better or worse.

                    ‘ but what’s done is done. ’

       it stings more than it rightfully should that the shadow of the man
       she knew no doubt would abhor her now, but it doesn’t surprise
       her, either ; let him, she thinks, let him hate me. if that is the cost
       of being my own woman, let him.

       the slight irony, besides, that she might have rendered herself so loathsome
       and incomprehensible to one who professes a lack of sentiment hasn’t escaped
       her ; beneath the slight ache of being shot down is a spreading vindication like
       blood seeping into and damply staining a cloth – if she has made herself so
       hateful that she provokes anger and disdain in no one, is that not then her
       victory and not his?

                    ‘ you say i owe you nothing, and yet you come to my realm
                        asking for land, for steel, as though you’re entitled to prevail
                        upon a favour i don’t feel, a friendship you and your dead man
                        walked away from without a care in the world. to what end? to
                        spy on me, on my sister, to send your whispers back to braavos
                        of the wolf bitches who rule the north? you understand espionage
                        is an act of treason. if that’s why you’re truly here, whoever you are
                        or aren’t, i would have every right to take your head. ’

                       ◤ Ꮴalar  Ꮇorghulis. ◢

        A bemused smile touches the lips of a man, visage lowering
    in slight as if attempting to listen to other’s asseveration once
    again, ( the man initially shocked by the crass, unnecessary colour
    addition to discourse — vocabulary usually reserved for those not
    in a position such as the lord’s ) lids flickering with disbelief, not of
    threatened punishment but of the accusation concerning reason
    for travel. Hands nestled in overcoat’s warmth loosen in concentration;
    pulse slows. Eyes wander to the horizon and lips part to speak and
    relaxed posture changes not. Only nominal bewilderment coats
    features; nominal, but believable bewilderment.

        “My Lord, let us not escalate this situation too soon,”
    he proposes, allowing a corner of lips to twitch in feigned nervousness.
    Each manoeuvre of sinew is subtle, but noticeable. Equanimity is of a
    man’s nature ( no one’s nature ) and remaining in touch with self, if
    applicable, if self is a true concept, with the lack of it, is of utmost
    importance lest he look to be bipolar ( lest he look a LIAR ); stolid
    at one point and overstrung in the next. Credible, he inly
     cantillates, credible. Slight, slight, slight. 

        The transition betwixt expressions is seamless.

        The girl left an acolyte. Clever, determined, something else,
    acolytes’ ( past and present ) skill sets are below those who
    have been initiated.

         A puppeteer sits unobtrusively within the confines of cranium,
    atop brain, plucking at thoughts and memories unneeded
    ( UNTRUTHS ), tugging at various muscles twined.

         “ … Asking,  yes;  not  expecting  nor  demanding…
    Can I not live in peace with my intended, swearing my allegiance to
    the North? Your scenario concerning espionage makes no sense,
    this friend of yours is … deceased?” A question, hesitancy lining
    carefully chosen words. “A promise, as I said before, seemed a
    mistake on his end; I know naught of what the promise entailed.”

        Does Merek, this guise, remember the man Lyanna speaks
    of? A vague memory flickers in a deeply buried alcove of mind,
    but the static is silenced when musing is. A man is not supposed
    to know, therefore he will not. ( Why was he trying to remember
    in the first place? )

        “With respect, I am beyond offended by your accusations
    as to why I am here or not here, my Lord. Do you think me a killer?
    An intelligencer? Entitlement is not here, only friendship, as I have
    mentioned before. Can friends not talk openly amongst the trees?”

[ bloodiedwolf ]

       the almost smug edge to his mien threatens something worse in her again,
       half mad, half feral, though she betrays none of it, says nothing – he’s missed
       the point, she can tell from the fleeting break of self-satisfaction. ( it’s not for him
       that she covers herself ; if he finds her anger so distasteful, good, let him look, let
       him see – better to be the feral wolf than to be anyone’s nobody, any man’s slave
       or whore or caged starved weakened bitch at heel – but rather for herself, for her
       own composure, and for the interest of the north, for the fresh, changed mantle of
       the king’s hand, of valar dohaeris, she has taken on more willingly by far, and him
       thinking for one moment that she does any of this to please him almost makes her
       want to laugh for its complete erroneous bent, though she doesn’t do that either. )

       nonetheless, she remains tangibly impassive when the moment passes ;
       he of all men – of all ghosts – has no right to cast stones at her when he
       himself dwells within a glass house, of which the walls are already threatening
       to crack and splinter the more he speaks, even without her help.

                     ‘ i followed my friend into hell, ’ she points out, crisp, clean,
                         unwavering as the snow around them, laden into the ground
                         beneath their feet, and the branches above their heads ; she
                         wonders if he knows already, or if this, too, will be news to him.
                         if the day comes when you would find me again … ‘ and he wasn’t
                         there to meet me, though he said he would be. if you ask me, a
                         man who can’t keep his word is no friend of mine to begin with,
                         nor does he have any right to my secrets. as far as i’m concerned,
                         he was quite happy to leave me to die as it was, so i don’t think i
                         owe him – or anyone else he might be – a thing. ’

                       ◤ Ꮴalar  Ꮇorghulis. ◢

        Into Hell.

        Disapproval of VOID opinion simmers beneath chilled skin ( whilom the
    North’s gelid weather having no effect upon false flesh ), this ‘Lord Stark’
    possessing enough audacity to asperse the place of which a man’s guise,
    of which a man, calls home. Dare the woman think resistance to the Many-
    Faced God worthwhile? ‘Tis futile. If one cannot keep his or her word and
    remove inherent identity ( ironic, calling her old friend a man not of his word ),
    why should he or she be bestowed an erasure of memory? An erasure of
    the most toilsome fragments? ( He recalls, many a year ago, animatedly
    speaking to a child with unyielding determination: to be a dancing master
    is a special thing. But to be a faceless man, that is something else entirely. )
    The then-child did not obey, wherefore she did not flourish. Does her
    insolence constitute a kind farewell? A dismissal of her former behavior?
    For this man, and for this guise, without question; but not for the Guild.

        “ A man, this false friend of yours, should not have
                      promised anything, I think,” he intones.

        ‘Tis a reflection of former self, but thoughtfulness behind words
    is not evident upon ever stoic lineaments; thoughtfulness should not
    be an emotion felt. Although a man looks to a Lord, a man sees a child.
    The memory cannot seem to shake; to finally see a boy turned girl in
    yore-longed environment ( because winter is coming. And I don’t mean
    to be here when it does ) rings something curious inside of him, betwixt
    fixed ribs, a feeling that he refutes before the bud can form into a nasty,
    TRUE sensation of reminiscence, of weeds linking themselves within
    the bed oh his flesh, into the forgotten foreign feeling of fondness.

        “ And with respect, it’s not possible to owe anything
    to dead men, Lord Stark.” Again, stolidity. “I have no quarrels with you,
    I barely know you. A man deceased is a man invalid; as are his opinions
    and actions.” Or lack thereof.

        Please don’t go, Jaqen.      RULE YOUR FACE.

[ bloodiedwolf ]

                    ‘ lord stark. ’

       the correction is quiet, even hushed, testament to pulling her temper back
       under the set of her jaw, dimming the burn of her eyes ; yet, the sentiment
       that sears on beneath now-illegible countenance is bitter, barren, like an
       anti-seed, something one could plant to watch something die, spreading
       out from the nexus of her poisoned, twisted womb like the pain spreading
       from an arrowhead’s piercing bite.

       and still, the other feeling lingers alongside it, dread mixed with the
       anger – who is a man? he asked her, and she wants to say she knows
       that too, but doesn’t ; had thought she’d known half a dozen things,
       and had paid for them with much dearer lessons.

       she’d passed all their tests save one ; made it blind, made it barren, made
       it mute and passive and everything they wanted, played the fish seller played
       the beggar played the ugly rotten twisted girl and the slave and played the
       whore, too, served and served and SERVED but it was never enough to take
       everything from her, no, they wanted more, and it doesn’t matter to a single
       one of them that she wakes in the night not knowing where or who she is,
       doesn’t matter to a single one of them that she dreads the mirror lest she
       find ( as she has before ) a dead girl’s face staring back at her, a stranger.

                    ‘ everything that happens in my realm concerns me, ’ lyanna
                        explains, calmly, as patiently as she can muster. ‘ especially
                        when old friends ’ – the emphasis, there, pointed, shedding
                        some scant light on her ever-growing suspicion – ‘ from my
                        past stumble through my gates. your temple is very far from
                        here, and we have our own laws. now i can torture your pur-
                        -pose out of you if you’d like, many a bolton foot soldier has
                        found himself target practice for my arrows before i killed him,
                        but i think we can both agree that’s not the preferable course. ’

                       ◤ Ꮴalar  Ꮇorghulis. ◢

        Whilom characteristic upturning of lips’ edges ensues once
    the woman makes a correction of her words, her face; once she
    rules it. Of course she would. A child would cower when proven
    wrong by a superior, when told how poorly she was doing; she
    would immediately rectify the situation, perhaps get defensive
    and begin to spew more threats.

        Natheless, Merek looks blankly into Lyanna’s icy eyes. For a
    fleeting moment his flicker in past recognition of a man long dead
    GONE, but for only a moment. He refrains from judging her. He
    has no place to say how she should feel, how she should not feel.
    He has no place to tell her that she must have forgotten who she
    is dealing with. ( I know a killer. A REAL killer. He’d kill you with
    his little finger. You’d be a KITTEN to him. )

        Thereafter he nods understandingly, taking in her words,
    remembering his temporary mien’s place concerning Winterfell’s
    social structure. He will not take chances nor will he think the
    threats to be idle. Visenya’s hot breath upon his neck but several
    minutes ago was not disregarded when dismissed, when she
    padded away as refined, hunterly sinew carried her weighty frame.

        A girl will weep. 

            “ Lord Stark, ‘twould be a shame if friends could
    talk  in  secret  no  more — if a  friend  would  kill  the  other.
    I don’t think that sounds like  true  friendship,” he responds,
    the enigma of a man ever contradicting himself.

[ bloodiedwolf ]

      initial words serve no purpose but to narrow lyanna’s eyes, and then,
      just as promptly, to banish all trace of sentiment from the sharp set
      of her features altogether ; warping of the kindly man’s words filling
      her mouth with acid, bones aching with the remembrance of poisons’
      searing and the near-constant littering of cuts and scars and sores,
      chest scraped out hollow and yet heavy all the same with the weight
      of the DEAD GIRLS she carries everywhere she goes, she turns to
      stone and yet wants to snarl, to scream, to HOWL.

HE WILL TAKE YOUR SAD GREY EYES THAT HAVE SEEN SO MUCH YOU WILL BE NO ONE’S DAUGHTER NO ONE’S WIFE NO ONE’S MOTHER WOMEN BRING THE GIFT OF LIFE WE BRING THE GIFT OF DEATH NO ONE CAN DO BOTH WHO ARE YOU WHO ARE YOU WHO ARE YOU YOUR HEART IS TOO SOFT TO BE ONE OF US

      no, she thinks, stopping the flood of sound in its tracks, seizing it ( seizing
       the ghost ) by the THROAT until it quiets ; my heart’s harder than yours,
       than ANY of yours, i said NO.

       a soft heart is malleable ; a harder one can resist, and does she not have
       the scars to show for it? EVERY HURT IS A LESSON, she thinks, bitterly,
       AND EVERY LESSON MAKES YOU BETTER. ( and yet, something small
       in her whispers, you’re not better, are you? sick, rotten, twisted, warped,
       hateful undeserving – the same small voice that picks away at her skin in
       the dark, nailsclaws scratching into the flesh, sometimes until she bleeds,
       but even that doesn’t feel better, she still feels poisoned, still feels … )

                    ‘ you know nothing of my ire, ’ she utters, sharp but calm, and
                        unafraid. ‘ i met one of you. before. he helped me, or i thought
                        he did. and when i – ’ when i needed him, she thinks, almost
                        says, bites her tongue. when i needed him he was gone, but
                        why did i expect any different? that’s what people DO. ‘ ten
                        years. ten years i gave you, you took everything from me, and
                        for nothing. we’re finished. so if you’ve come to punish me for
                        leaving, if that’s why you’re really here, i suggest you turn around
                        and tell your master you failed, that you couldn’t find me. because
                        i owe you NOTHING. and if you’ve come to give the gift ’ – it’s spat,
                        almost, sharding and sparking off her teeth – ‘ to my sister, you can
                        do the same. she dies, you die. i don’t care who sent you, or why, if
                        they gave you her name they can forget it. ’

                       ◤ Ꮴalar  Ꮇorghulis. ◢

         Ability to remain impassive amidst the woman’s spewing of
    unknowable ire begets her to look the same: as if a child. As if
    Arry, with courage and no sense. She is transparent. He sees
    through her. He doesn’t move a muscle. He waits for her to
    finish. He stays quiet. He gathers his emotions. ( The emotions
    that threaten to break placidity but DO NOT; the emotions that
    are forbidden; stupid, as she would say; ridiculous. And friends
    may talk in secret. Yes? No. Lyanna was not a man’s friend.
    Friends follow each other. Friends trust each other. She did
    neither. Being admired [ be it a fleeting moment in time ] does
    not amount to being a friend. Rules were broken in the name
    of Arry, in the name of all men are equal in the eyes of the
    Many-Faced God, in the name of Valar Morghulis, in the name
    of Valar Dohaeris. For what? As the woman said: for NOTHING. )

        “ If I was here to bestow the gift unto your sister, my Lady,”
    he speaks with a lack of intonation, “it would have already been done.”

         Empty threats fall upon a man like raindrops atop a candle;
    they do no damage, they glide off of surface without a second
    thought. These emotions, this ire he knows nothing of serves
    to show that Lyanna Stark of Winterfell could have never
    forsaken her identity, her temper. This is better, he thinks, bitterly.
    ( hedoesn’tneedfriends. friendsareunnecessary. facelessmendon’t
    needCOMPANIONS.notheydon’t.notheydon’tNOTHEY DON’T. )
    They are better. Alone. 

        “ Nor am I here to punish you. I am here for
    reasons of which you are not to know. Rest assured—”
    though she sees him a liar, “they do not concern you.”

[ bloodiedwolf ]

                    ‘ i didn’t say who. ’

       a small difference, but a pivotal one, the skinny sharp of a knife’s edge
       tipping between one word and the other ; the sudden change in his
       parlance is noted, too, and the empty wasteland of lyanna’s belly knots,
       twitches, in spite of herself. speak the names, and a man will do the rest.

       it doesn’t seem like one of THEM to commit an accidental slip, and yet
       – hers is the dominion of error and bad luck and cursed second names,
       bloodied teeth and bloodied paws, her temple is the ice-strewn famine-
       -hardened badlands and thick dark trees and death walking, so why not,
       why not?

       ( i see you, you and your nothing, that she had already uncovered, but this
       – friends may talk in secret, and if she’s right, she has half a dozen reasons
       to spit the vitriol of her bestial, raging fury into his eyes and let him burn as
       she did. )

                    ‘ you’re no one. what you are’s a different question. ’

                       ◤ Ꮴalar  Ꮇorghulis. ◢

        “ Some secrets are best kept for no one, my Lady.”

        Sentiment not a facet a man is to express, in any form, save for
    reverence once in Braavos again. When the thought of a boy abrades
    his mind it spreads rampantly ( tries to, tries to ) and his scrutinizing
    gaze chills, resembling surrounding snow-ladden verdure too similarly.
    The girl could have been like him. She could have. Who is she? Who
    is he?

        But it is not a man’s duty to judge, nor is it his to impose own inner
    turmoil unto an ‘innocent’ — she would likely claim otherwise, he thinks.
    She would not appreciate the changing of face yet again, a trick he
    knows ( should NOT know ) that once entertained. Show me. I want to
    do it too. There is no going back in time, there is no need to. She, a
    Hand of the King, he, No One. Nothing. An empty void once filled with
    life,  now  with  layers  upon  layers  upon  layers  of  the  dead;
    and DEAD men tell no tales.

          “ What am I to say? What could quell this ire of yours?
                  We are alone; we are speaking freely, are we not?”

[ bloodiedwolf ]

       she’s silent – registering only that she’s heard, but giving no answer –
       until at last her feet carry her as far as the wolfswood, away from curious
       ears save those of the beasts that are half her kin ; the howling, the snow,
       the sharp, crisp smell of pine in her nose, and the warm musk of elk and
       deer beneath that sets her mouth to watering even when visenya isn’t by
       her side, it all serves to remind lyanna of her purpose here. ( her own place
       of secrets, a city of ice amidst the trees – where she goes when the abyss,
       the abscess, of no one grows to be too deep and dark and loud and hungry
       within her ; to remember lyanna, to drag her back from wherever she goes
       when she slips between scarred, callused fingers like sand, like ash, like the
       fragile powder of incense, no matter how she may try to grasp at the remnants.

       sometimes all she needs is to be quiet and breathe. )

       pallor, though spiderweb-veined and fatigue-bruised, of her
       eyelids slides closed for a moment, two, until lyanna pivots
       to face her erstwhile companion in full ; flicks them open onto
       something coldly patient, gaze keen and searching as a knife
       scraping through, past the ribs, into the innards.

                  ‘ you can start by telling me the truth. the real
                      truth. i know what you are, and you’re no sell-
                      -sword or hedge knight. ’

                       ◤ Ꮴalar  Ꮇorghulis. ◢

        Front bides unchanging still with reintroduction of iciness. Courage,
    she had, once a boy, to question a man — dare she anew? Faint, faint,
    faint twist of lips’ edges etched upon visage as black sand atop white
    in a children’s toy, unable to fade unless shaken violently. In midst of
    mindly conflict does the man, the hollow object ( naught but a servant,
     naught but a servant. Naught but loyal, naught but loyal ) think to part
    his lips and speak; ought not, for better would he be to mull upon over
    her words, think his out carefully.

        Again, silence prevails. Comfortable … questionable. Aforementioned
    quietude  all  the  same  lingers  like  a knife dangling from a fine  string,
    hanging quietly, harmfully above the man’s flesh and sinew and bones.
    ( Threatening what, exactly? His image? His reputation? With a brush
    of finger a man could be a man no more; and so, he remains impassive. )

        He provisionally chooses to feast upon her reaction to his ensuing
    question — a wanting response he is aware, but a response withal.
    To bend so easily, so quickly? Not he.

        “ If that is the case, who is a man?”

[ bloodiedwolf ]

       the better answer, lyanna thinks, would have been no ( all men are liars, one
       way or another ) ; but at least it’s not a full yes, either. it’s close enough to
       the truth that she accepts the first half ; the second, though, does give her
       pause. how much of it is a lie he’s woven only now, and how much is the
       face he’s slipped on over his blood and bone? does he imagine himself
       betrothed to a dead man’s intended? perhaps it doesn’t matter, and
       yet – she’s never encountered one who’s claimed to be betrothed before.
       you will be no one’s daughter, no one’s wife, no one’s mother ; it leaves a
       fierce, angry cold sting in her chest, that the men should be somehow exempt,
       as though a fresh layer of OWNERSHIP of the women that the men are not
       subjugated to, unless they’re not exempt and he’s a worse liar than he thinks
       he is. or he just thinks she’s stupid ; she almost wants to assume it’s the former,
       and give him the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn’t come here under such
       pretext – she hasn’t lived as long as she has and risen from the ashes of
       NOTHING to be where she is now by lacking for wits. )

       lyanna feels herself nod, even so ; pulls fur-lined gloves over scarred
       fingers ( the most notable blemish a bone-deep band of thick white
       tissue about her index finger on the right hand, earned when she was
       blind ) and callused palms, more work-ready and weapon-ready
       than those of most lords, just before she nudges open a door to the
       exterior – her eyes fall half-lidded for a split second in breathing in the
       crisp, snow-laden air, and she holds the heavy wood of the door open
       behind her for erstwhile companion to follow suit.

                    ‘ i’m sure i will. ’ she’s sure of no such thing, but her voice betrays
                        none of it, nor her face ; she makes herself smile, instead, at the
                        false image he’s created of a wife, a child, perhaps more. ( loyalty
                        is what makes you who you are, she echoes, silently, but loyalty
                        to a false, hungry god turning men and women into THINGS is
                        worth less than salt to me. whether he has come to spy or to kill,
                        it makes no difference ; she will watch him all the more closely
                        either way. ) 

                       ◤ Ꮴalar  Ꮇorghulis. ◢

         Lips once coated with the ichor of past self  (  Who are you? I’m–
    Head begins to spin lips begin to tremble  limbs begin to shake eyes
    begin to water – the  child would wipe the sticky substance from his
    mouth but the child deserves the blow.  Who are you?  I’m–  another.
    The pain is sharp, quick. It’s gone in seconds, as is his foolish doubt.
    He’s on the floor and he does not feel it he doesn’t feel anything he’s
    floating;  these  limbs are not his nor are his eyes nor is his nose  nor
    his lips nor anything else; what is he but a servant? What purpose is
    there but to  obey?  Devotion  is the only sentiment felt.  What is sin?
    To think of oneself as a being.  That was not him.  Who is that  child?
    He  is no one  he is no one  he is no one.  )  spread  into  a  mirroring
    smile. Frame, although mortiferous in nature, compliantly follows suit
    the woman’s  slight, with hands tucked into pockets of overcoat and
    fur of a  dead  beast  surrounding  neck,  keeping  the  warmth  of  a 
    hollow body within bounds of false flesh, mien.

         The underside of his tongue  burns with the need to question once
    he  and  his  provisional compeer are suitably distanced  from  lurking
    spiders and flies on walls, curious as to how a child who once reeked
    of  death  reigns  over a populace seemingly content with its  system.
    (  It reminds him of House Tully’s motto and the mere thought leaves
    a bitter taste akin to copper in his mouth.  )  Visage lined with dark
    stubble turns to face companion’s.

        “ What is required of me to earn land and your trust, my Lady?”

        Eager,  just as a common  man  would  be.  Lyanna  knows  where  his
    true  loyalty lies, but does she know that he once forsook it by proffering
    an iron coin?  That was but a fleeting moment in time. His master saw in
    due course the appropriate, deserved retribution.

        Diurnal strolls through the godswood prove a welcome distraction
    from what the unacquainted might call mundane activity. All noticeable
    is a man who leaves his home before the wake of dawn and is back by
    the afternoon with naught in hand; again in the evening and still back
    with naught. He looks to be a commoner, with his battered clothing
    and long, oft tousled hair; but an unexplainable emptiness, not
    noticeable from a distance, sits behind his dark eyes.

        ( Rule your face. )

        When the sacred assimilation of flora and fauna is tainted with a
    woman who shoots her bow ( acutely precise he notices by the third
    visitation ) a man grows suspicious. Whereabouts he spends his private
    time is appreciated to be kept as such, but he says nary a word when
    the stranger is near.

        Eventually  the man’s guise who goes by Merek Clarke spots
    the brunette woman again but yards away on an autumn day.
    Multicoloured leaves lay atop the earthen ground and the
    sun grows dreary with each passing moment, slowly
    sliding down the rich pink and blue and yellow
    and orange sky.

    The person unknown
    appears to be sharpening
    a dagger—  attempting  to 
    sharpen  a  dagger.  The man takes
    the liberty to walk up to her, proffering
    a courteous nod once face to face.

“ You can quickly sharpen the blade if you first wet the stone.”

[ bloodiedwolf ]

       a FOOL’S question ; lyanna doesn’t smile ( doesn’t give him anything ),
       eyes filled with naught but a cool, empty sort of patience – she drops
       her arm when it remains untouched, and is, privately, silently, invisibly
       thankful that her walls ( intangible as they may yet be ) remain unbroached.

       still – it strikes her as brief, passing strange, as she continues on
       unmarred and unmolested, that he would abjure himself what her
       lady mother might once have termed the simplest of ladylike cour-
       -tesies when others before him have been all TOO eager to take
       them and more from her.

       ( a man is a man, no matter what ELSE he might be second and third
       and fourth, and even, perhaps especially, if she is what she strongly
       suspects, a woman is still an object to him, as she has been to so
       many others – WE ARE NOT THINGS rings sharp and harsh in
       the back of her mind, reverberating against the dome of her skull from
       the inside, but she voices none of it, her face still and clear as a dead
       lake, near to void of expression save that same, stone-wall patience,
       the ghost and the weapon that they MADE her into whether she likes
       it or not. )

                    ‘ you want land. steel, ’ lyanna finally responds, voice
                        yielding nothing but precisely what she means by her
                        own words. ‘ i want loyal men. those sorts of comprom-
                        -ises. are you an honest man, clarke? ’

                       ◤ Ꮴalar  Ꮇorghulis. ◢

        Finally the girl  understands that tourneys concerning ‘who are you?’
    are not  played  by the man outside of the House.  Indeed, her sobered
    words  draw  Merek  to  cast  his  line  of  vision  towards  the   horizon
    clouded with dense trees.  There is a reason he stands atop the snowy
    terrain, a worker’s hands clasped behind back and no one’s true form
    hovering  above  mortiferous  frame,  watching from above.  There is a
    mission to  complete  and there is no room for old deeds said, done …
    erased  into  the  unforgivable  past … to lie betwixt spoken words and
    phlegmatic silence.   (  Go across the Narrow Sea once more,  for there
    are   missions  to   complete.    Do  not  come  back  for   six  fortnights.
    Serve Him. All will be well in your absence.  )  

        Little  did  he know that in the meantime
        a lovely girl would turn to an iron coin.

               “ I’m as honest as any man is during times like these.”

        He bestows a glance upon the Stark and instinctively ignites false life
    behind brown eyes.  How  can a man be an honest man if a  man  does
    not  truly  know  who  a  man  is?        ( Who are you? )       
    His lips form a fine line in the presence of familiar silence.

                  “And betrothed,” he continues. “I’m in need of land and steel.
              To support my intended.” A pause. “I’ll do what it takes to make ends meet.
                      You will find, my Lord, that loyalty is what makes me who I am.”