The Little Wolf

Scars of the Mind

King's Landing

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

The marching tone of footsteps would clomp down the passageway in front of her cell, all through the day. The noise was frequent, like the slow dripping of condensation slipping down a stone wall of a hollow well, before pattering when meeting the water at the base.

When Lyra was a child, she used to cover her eyes in the belief that if she could see no one, then not one person could see her. Though she had outgrown this, or, rather, had been beaten out the childishness, the same method applied for her each time the stomping would march closer.

She would close her eyes, hold her breath, and pray no one could see her.

What began as a fear of the pain Ser Deacon would inflict upon her tiny body, had shifted in the past weeks and became an intense fear of the toll it was taking on her mind. Lyra had learnt an important lesson in that damp cell – the body can heal, you can cover up scars and bruising with linen and lace, but the mind never heals. Damage to the mind is like a wound that fails to heal. You can cover up the scars, but they are still there.

Her family's faces swam up to meet her each night, and she bathed in the memories they provided for her. Without them, she would be lost, and her Soul, no doubt, would have flown. The memories hurt her now, as she was constantly reminded of what she had, but lost.

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

The noises resumed, they never stopped.

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

The voices held a firm place in her scarred mind, too.

Vicious little monster. Vicious little monster. Vicious little monster.

There is no such thing as mercy. There is no such thing as mercy.

In her head, all day, every day.

Vicious little monster, she would think to herself, vicious little monster.

Lev, often in the corner of her cell, would droop and die just a little bit more. He was waiting – waiting for Lyra to release him, waiting for Lyra to let go of her Soul, so he could be free. Yet the strength of the wolf was the strength of its mind, and Lyra had more strength than she had ever considered. Her body was weak, her mind was strong.

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp

The steps finally reached her, and stopped by her battered body, lying prone on the stone floor, manacled, bruised and pathetic.

"Vicious little monster!" Ser Deacon would begin the cruel ritual by announcing, followed simply by "there is no such thing as mercy!"

Then he would draw his axe handle, heave it over his head and slam it down on her body. Harder and harder each time, she could feel the bruising forming. The pain ripped through her body, and all Lyra could concentrate on was "there IS such thing as mercy, there IS such thing as mercy!"

The axe slammed down again, this time hitting her back as she shriveled into a ball and yelped, "There IS such thing as mercy!"

Ser Deacon continued, beating his contender harder each time the axe would fall, combating each brave merciful plea with his same repeated phrase – "there is no such thing as mercy!"

He beat her until it rattled around in her mind, and formed another scar. Just another scar that would never be healed; the scar of being beaten for no reason other than how you were born.

It was only then, as the final blow fell to her crippled body, that she realized what he was doing, whether or not he knew he was doing it.

Intentionally or unintentionally, he wasn't beating her because she was a "vicious little monster", he was beating her into one. She was becoming a monster. It scratched and clawed its way into her mind, and tried to evict Lev with a growl. Lev lay prone in the corner, and his master did the same.

When Lyra was barely conscious, barely lucid, Ser Deacon knelt by her side, pulling out Wolf – her blade.

He held Wolf close to her face, and Lyra was too battered to tell herself Jon's word "Courage, Lyra". Her eyes shut as Ser Deacon gripped a clump of her hair in his fist, Wolf in the other. As he began to cut he snarled, "Now are a monster, and now you will look like one".

The hair fell down her back, her cheeks, her bruised complexion, and landed in a brown heap near where her head lay. Her scalp was bleeding, and her mattered hair no longer fell straight down her back. Some was cut to her scalp, some remained the length of her shoulders, some random clumps rested halfway between the lengths.

Either way, she didn't care anymore. She relented.

She was a monster.