joannalannister:“Were you in love, Lyanna?” you tearfully ask over a baby’s cries, holdi
joannalannister:“Were you in love, Lyanna?” you tearfully ask over a baby’s cries, holding my cold hand. “Were you in love, sister? Tell me the rivers ran red for love. Give me that much.”I did not love Rhaegar.I did not love him when his long fingers plucked out the notes of a sad song, his silver voice singing a bride’s tears on her wedding day. I wept, because the girl in the song — she was me. I did not love him when he leaned over from the saddle with a wreath of winter roses. They were my favorite flower; at least, they used to be, before his metal gauntlet caught in my tangled curls as he queened me. He pulled out a lock of my hair when he drew away impatiently. I should have seen he wanted a piece of me, even then. In the silence, with every face turned toward me, I was the only one who could hear the princess screaming, hoarse screams. I dropped my eyes. I did not know when I would be able to raise them again.I did not love Rhaegar, not even as he held out his hand in the hour of the wolf. “Come with me. I can take you away.” I hesitantly agreed. I was no stranger to horses, and the prince and his Kingsquard knights had plenty to spare, but he insisted I climb up in front him — another warning I missed. I could barely breathe, he held me so tightly, but the wind was in my hair and at last I was outracing everyone.I did not love him when the fingers that knew my song suddenly sought notes to play on my bare skin, with no care for harmony. Just because I looked a woman did not mean I knew what women know. I was not yet sixteen.I screamed at him when word came of our brother and father. Burned. Strangled. I understood how Princess Elia must have felt, screaming for so long with no one listening. I screamed as he kissed my swelling belly and rode away without a word, like I was nothing more than eggshell. Made to be broken and discarded, no matter how beautiful. I whispered to the baby moving in my belly, quietly, so Rhaegar’s knights wouldn’t hear. I told him to be headstrong like Brandon, to be true like Benjen, to be noble like you. He learned nothing of his father, not from me.I screamed in my bed of blood. I hated him by the time I heard your sword singing to me, singing sweeter than Rhaegar ever sang. I screamed at the pain, screamed in triumph. I was alive and he dead.I screamed too soon.“Promise me. Promise me he will know nothing of his father. Keep him safe. Promise me, Ned.”“Were you in love, Lyanna?” you tearfully ask over a baby’s cries, holding my cold hand. “Were you in love, sister? Tell me the rivers ran red for love. Give me that much.”I was, dearest Ned. I was. I was in love with having a choice. Rhaegar opened my cage, and said I could run free, if only I chose to. He said a direwolf was no pet, and I agreed.It wasn’t my fault I was deceived. I was not yet sixteen.Lyanna Stark | Ghosts of the Rebellion -- source link