She is Daemon's daughter but she wants nothing from him, rides a dragon and doesn't shy away from a fight. She also hides a dangerous secret and has her own reasons for coming to King's Landing.
Aemond wonders if he can tame her.
✧...
warnings: mentions of blood and torture (very brief!)
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She feels like his hands left imprints on her skin, and the feeling of his touch stays and tingles all the way to her chambers. For the first time in what seems like forever, Lia's thoughts don't go back to the burned forest. As she lays in bed, she thinks of a little boy with courage so great, he went for the largest dragon he knew and dared to claim him. She imagines his triumphant laugh, his face happy, both of his eyes bright with glee and intact. She can't stop herself from thinking of how it all was ruined, overshadowed by pain and loss, how the red painted half of his face. How alone he must've felt then.
How alone she felt all those years back.
And it brings back the memories that rush to the shore of her consciousness like a heavy surf.
Her weeks pass in a blink but the string of them only builds up her confidence, strength and resilience. Lia trains twice as hard, and soon the dagger feels like an extension of her hand. Fighting with a sword keeps her alert, disciplined, combative, but using a dagger feels just right. The smaller blade brings her lightness and maneuverability — and she is a fast learner.
Matthias keeps their training a secret, and most of the time she is left to herself, like a lone flower in the wilderness, her mother being away more often than not. Lia never runs away from a fight again — just like her dragon doesn't hide in the cellar any longer. Olwen lives in a cave hidden up in the mountains, in the impenetrable, faraway part of the forest that takes her a couple of hours to reach, and the girl gladly spends time away from the village.
On that day, the road back doesn't take much time as she is eager to see Matthias again, her blood already rushing in excitement. But when she comes to his house, the door isn't locked and he is nowhere to be seen. Lia impatiently explores the insides of the building and then walks out to go around it — she catches muffled sounds coming from the barn almost instantly.
The girl quickly approaches it and sneaks in, only to be met with a group of lads standing with their backs to the door and blocking the view. As on cue, one of them turns to her, and she has to fight the retching at the sight of his annoying face.
"What is she doing here? No one asked you to come," resents the boy with a crooked nose.
"Say one more word and I will break your other arm, Beren," she informs him quietly. "How long did it take to heal last time, hm?"
He's about to argue with her but his discontent slightly fades when he notices the dagger she is holding. They stare at each other like wild animals reading for a fight.
"Let her in," another voice comes, followed by a face more pleasant. Lia glances up to meet Willam's calm gaze, and no one dares to argue with him. His broad shoulders and strong arms might be one of the reasons for that.
He steps away so she can walk in, and her eyes are drawn to two figures at the further corner of the barn. He recognizes Matthias but the other man doesn't seem familiar as she silently watches the scene unfolding. The man is tied to a chair, sweaty and pale, his body strangely limp. There are ropes wrapped around his shoulders and arms, and when she looks closer, everything inside of her goes cold. He's got his hands stretched out but in place of fingers there is a bloody mess, skin cut open and bones exposed, and Lia feels nausea sweeping over. It's not the first time she sees blood — but the rawness and cruelty of it seem wrong, sickening, disgusting.
"The boys caught him stealing goats," Will's voice disturbs her torpor. "It seems he's been the one doing that all those years."
She takes his words in but her eyes stay on the tortured man, on the knife in Matthias's hand, and the blade and his fingers are all sullied by blood. He grabs the man's face, their conversation too short and quiet to make it out, but Matthias seems to be satisfied with the answers he's got. He finally cuts the ropes and wipes the knife with a rag that's dripping with crimson already.
When he turns and sees Lia standing there, surprise glides across his face but he works through it. Matthias walks up to the group, addressing the boys:
"He's been selling them to the neighboring village, you were right. Get him out and leave him at the creek."
"Will he manage on his own?" one of them asks but Matthias doesn't look concerned.
"That's for his friends to worry about."
They follow the order with no other questions, and Lia stays aside, watching the passed-out man being picked up from the chair and carried away, his feet dragging along the ground. Lia puts a hand over her mouth to keep herself from vomiting. Will is the one to interrupt the horrendous procession — he catches up with the group at the exit, and whatever his arguments are, he persuades them to change tactic and takes the man into his hands, then throws the body over his shoulder. He casts a quick glance at Lia before leaving.
She can only hold her sickness for a couple more minutes before she runs out in the yard and empties her stomach in the first bucket she sees. Matthias silently walks up to her, shaking off the excess water from his hands that are cleaned already. She thinks she can see the red splatters still.
"How could you do that," Lia mutters, wiping her mouth, her breathing ragged. "Was there truly no other way?"
He doesn't reply right away and the first thing that comes out of his mouth is a deep sigh.
"Do you know how many goats it takes for a whole village to get through the winter?" he doesn't give her time to answer. "I can tell you that it's more than you think and more than some people in here can count to."
Matthias throws his rag away in the same bucket, then continues.
"I've tried searching and asking around, tried addressing the issue the best I could, through conversations and pleas and whatnot. That brought me nowhere, and the goats kept disappearing."
Lia stands up straight, taking deep breaths, but doesn't look at him yet. She is afraid that if she does there will be no malice on his face, and she'll forgive him on that basis alone. Matthias picks up on her disappointment.
"There is no honor in doing what I did as cruelty should only be the last resort," he admits in a low voice. "But those are the means necessary when nothing else works."
His words make Lia turn to him, and she keeps her intent gaze on the man.
"He may never use his hands again," she remarks but there is not a hint of regret in Matthias's eyes.
"They will heal, and it will be a reminder for him."
"A reminder of what?"
"Of the consequences each choice can have."
"Or maybe he'll just stay a cripple," Lia huffs but she knows that his words hold meaning that she can't deny. He knows that too, so he doesn't take offense at her objection.
"I know ways to harm that will hardly leave a scar. I can teach you if only —"
"I will never take it that far," she instantly refuses. "Plenty of fair ways to settle a conflict."
"Well, there is truth to that," Matthias says, and Lia finds his agreeable tone to be concerning. She is proven right when he adds: "Willam happens to share your opinion. What an honorable man he's grown to be, hasn't he?"
Lia wants to tell him it has nothing to do with her but instead, her mouth closes and her cheeks heat up. She can find flaws in any of the boys but it is no easy task when it comes to Will.
He and his father — a tall man wielding an axe — wandered into the village when the boy was ten-and-three, two years older than Lia but with his thin frame and reclusiveness matching hers. He stayed away from the fights and never joined in on the teasing of her, and even once tried to stand up for the girl which led to him being beaten. Lia helped him with bruises and scratches while he didn't utter as much as a word, and on the next day, she told him to never interfere again. Soon after the incident, his father started taking Will to help him chop wood, and sometimes they were gone for days but would always come back — tired and taciturn, with planks of wood and bundles of sticks. It took him another month to come up to her, asking if she had some books to lend while his eyes landed anywhere but on her face. The faded hardcover of some Westerosi tales was the first thing she shared with someone else.
They've grown a bit closer in a couple of years and yet, Lia thought she could barely call him a friend since Will rarely talked and almost never about himself. She managed to find out that his mother died at birth and his father was a man of high moral standing but with a kind heart. People gossiped that the boy was actually some lord's bastard but Lia never dared to ask nor did she care much. She knew better than anyone how wile gossip can be, even if they are true.
Things changed when in just one summer Will grew a head taller and stopped avoiding confrontations — within a few weeks everyone has learned that chopping wood did have its benefits when it came to physical strength. His father disapproved of the fights but never tried to stop them, and Will would only stop when others started asking for mercy. He earned their respect in no time, and no one risked testing his limits.
By now, at the age of ten-and-seven, he's the tallest one in the village, and all the fighting has come to an end, and he's gotten better with words. But Lia still doesn't know what to call the relationship they have, and she avoids, she loathes thinking about it. Matthias is well aware of it.
"You will have to let people in, you know," he tells her with the same voice that he always uses — not too fatherly, merely good-willed.
"As if there are many I could actually care for," Lia retorts, seemingly content with the loneliness she's grown so used to, she can't begin to imagine what it's like to share life with someone else.
"You and Will seem to get along," Matthias shrugs, not entirely convinced by her attitude. "If I were to pick someone you could learn to care for, the odds would be in his favor."
She would lie if she said there was no logic in that hence she argues no more. Lia does feel that Will's presence brings her somewhat of an assuagement, and it flatters her that his brown eyes only seem to look at her. In some rare moments, she thinks it would be easy to take the chance, to maybe try and see him as more than a friend. But her heart stays silent and dormant, and there is no spark to lead her way to him.
So not only she avoids those conversations, she never speaks of the L-word itself. And yet, whenever her solitude keeps her up at night, she can't help but think that maybe falling in love isn't supposed to be easy.
Maybe someone will win her heart against all the odds.
