GROWING STRONG ... j.lannister

chapter ten; pennyroyal

"We could try to find him–"

"They would kill us too."

"We cannot just leave him–"

"Caecilia, they would kill us. We must let him be. He will find a town to hide in. He may find a wife. And I shall never know."

The Night's Watch takes brothers from their sisters, sons from their mothers, husbands from their wives and throws them into the cold. Steals their bloodline from them. Their families. They strip them bare of themselves and force them to protect what they do not care for. They walk the wall made of ice and pretend that is a feat no other man can do. They force them to be unloved, unwanted just to have a guard dog mangled enough to come crawling back for scraps. It is no place for a good man. It is no place for Acrux Crane who merely wanted to feed starving children while their king sat lavish in his castle. The king her husband is currently fighting for.

If they lose, will Trevyr be forced to join the Night's Watch too?

Will she lose him to the cold of the North or the Stranger's poisoned touch?

Lunette wrests her arm free from Caecilia's shaking grip.

If Trevyr dies, she will be a widow before she reaches sixteen years. She will be a childless widow at such a young age and she will only talk to other widows until her father convinces another lord to marry her. Or she will be a widow for the rest of her life. If she loses Trevyr, she may be stuck here. She is already stuck here, surrounded by thick walls that keep in the cold and expel all warmth. That are haunted by spectres they all pretend they cannot see. That are furnished darkly so that none of them may feel any semblance of happiness. She will be stuck in this castle where loneliness suffocates her as she falls asleep.

Her missing husband, despite the friendship of her handmaiden, has made this place all the more unbearable.

She misses the warmth of her home, a warmth that feels no winter chill, a blessing from a witch long ago in the family. The brightly-coloured flowers growing high, twining around window sills to create beauty where other castles have failed. The gardens that spread out far and wide, the light food she can eat with her fingers, the dresses that grow translucent in the sun, the roses that she can smell from miles away, the Mander she can dip her toes into. Highgarden, her beautiful home. Her beautiful people. She cannot be ripped away from them any longer. She cannot live without their smiles, the sun kissing their skin to create freckles, their laughter that spins around her like the skirts of her favourite dresses. She cannot live without the dancing. The music.

There are festivals in Highgarden that have not touched anywhere else in the Reach. The long nights of summer festivals where they dance until their feet start to bleed, all they drink is wine, all they eat is bread, and they allow their sins to wash away from them in the beauty of the sun high in the skin. The autumn festivals where they burn fires that reach the sky and chant songs as the darkness falls around them, wearing masks to celebrate the ghosts returning to their homes at midnight on the full moon.

Caecilia stands and Lunette stares up at her.

"Enough of this." She crosses over to the trunk at the end of her bed and tugs off the light blanket that had been hiding it. "We cannot sit in this pitiful place any longer. We may turn mad. I am sure we would not be the first."

"What are you saying?"

"I am saying–" Caecilia grabs a spare dress that had been thrown on her bed, folds it and places it in the empty trunk. "–we must leave. Let us go home, Lunette." It comes out as a whine, hands gripping the top of the trunk, throwing a pleading look over her shoulder at her friend.