The Little Wolf

Becoming a Warrior

The Stormlands

Through the day they trained endlessly, and through the night they did the same. Lyra once knew only to run without ceasing, yet now she and Ser Kaelo refused to cease training.

Sometimes Lyra would fall backward by Kaelo's strong blow, and she would burn her hands on the coals of the fire, and Kaelo would not cease his blows on her. She would whimper and raise her hand to forfeit, but Kaelo never paid attention.

He was teaching her a resilience she never had before. Real courage, Lyra had learned, was knowing you were damned before beginning, but beginning anyway. Whether it would end the way she had hoped, she was unsure, but she would fight while she could.

On fallen logs, Kaelo would instruct Lyra to stand on one leg to work on her balance. He would hit the log nearby and scold her if she flinched. If Lyra turned her back on him in battle, he would relentlessly hit her over the shoulders and reprimand her, saying, "You never turn your back on your enemy!"

She was not a warrior, but she was learning. She was learning how to think like one, learning that perhaps a strong, wise mind was a better weapon than a sword. The strategy of the battle was more important than the battle itself.

When they weren't training, which was a rarity, Lyra would find solace in an activity that was new entirely. Smooth and round stones were collected, and upon the faces of each, she began etching her lullaby.

Eddard. Catelyn. Robb. Jon. Sansa. Arya. Bran. Rickon.

Her father, the strongest man she had ever known, was the first to be carved, and Jon, her best friend, was second. The rest of the family followed, and with longing tears pattering on the letters as she carved them, she felt a little bit of Lyra breaking through the cracks. Her heart was cold and dark, each beat seemed cynical and morbid - yet, the shattered remains of it ached. The ache of a little girl. And at her core, that was who she was. Who she remained. When the training ceased, when the Monster succumbed in eating her alive for the day, she was just a little girl who missed her family.

In the weeks since Kaelo arrived, Eddard, Jon, Catelyn and Robb were the first names she had carved. Each night, she would place her family around her in a circle, a protective circle of love. And tenderly, on the face of each of them, she would kiss them, and her mind would scream the love her outward words simply could not form.

She dreamed of them. She dreamed of Winterfell. She dreamed of the happy endings that had once seemed to be promised in her innocent mind.

Lyra never forgot them. Not even her former being.

She remembered Robb's stern face, his seriousness, but she remembered how protective he was of her. When Lyra was three, Robb had drawn his sword and yelled at Lyra's mirror when the monster scared her. Of course Robb had thought it was all fake, but the intent was kind.

She remembered her sisters. Sansa was tall with hair like fire, she loved lemon cakes and happy endings. Happy endings; it sniggered in her mind. Happy endings were merely fables. Happy endings have smiles, and friends and mercy.

Smiles and friends and mercy were non-existent to Lyra. But smiles were once abundant. When Arya would play Knights with her, when Bran taught her how to climb a tree, when her mother kissed all around her face before kissing her nose, when Rickon teased her about being short and her Father would put her on his shoulders so she was much taller. When Jon Snow smiled at her, and taught her to be a Knight. To stand up tall, to be strong, and brave.

Lyra was alive. Somewhere.

Perhaps deep down.

But Lyra never died. Nor did her family.

In her heart they would live forever.