LION'S LEGACY | ROBB STARK [2]

44

"I don't think you want to know that, little sister," Torra confessed and Lyanna found herself feeling nervous, "I'm surprised you don't remember."

"Remember what?" Lyanna asked, not having the slightest clue about what Torra was getting at.

"Years ago, when I first came to Winterfell, there was an assassin. He tried to kill you and I saved you. I killed him by shooting him through the throat with a crossbow," Torra explained, causing Lyanna's eyes to widen in shock, "I was ten at the time."

"Was that your first kill?" Lyanna questioned Torra, who couldn't help but laugh.

"Definitely not," Torra admitted, shaking her head in response, "I was a wildling, after all. I was forced to kill many times in order to protect myself from warring clans before my mother and Mance raider united the Free Folk Clans."

Lyanna was taken aback a bit, shocked that Torra had actually mentioned her mother and her past as a wildling. She rarely ever did that. She didn't like to mention her mother, no one in the castle did, especially Annalys. It was a tough subject for their mother, that was for sure.

"How does it feel?" Lyanna found herself asking Torra, giving her elder sister a concerned look, "To kill someone?"

  "It changes you. You feel the life of that person drained out of them. It's something you'll never take back," Torra explained, knowing there was no point in lying to the girl.

Lyanna opened her mouth to ask more questions, only to have their conversation interrupted when Eddard walked toward the group.

He turned to Torra, a pleading look on his face. Torra sighed in annoyance, giving Lyanna a parting look before walking away.

   Before Lyanna couldn't react, Eddard slapped her on the back of the head, as if it were supposed to snap some sense into his reckless and impulsive sister. "Are you mad?!" He complained loudly, giving his sister an angry look, "How can you do this, Lyanna? How could you sacrifice yourself like this?"

"You want to know why I did it? I did it for Joanna!" Lyanna shouted at Eddard, tears beginning to form in her eyes, "She's innocent compared to the rest of us. You saw what happened when she lost Lady. What do you think will happen when Tyrion dies? She'll be broken. She'll lose all her innocence and she'll become cold at the heart like the rest of us. I refuse to let that happen."

Hearing his sister's words, Eddard's eyes softened, finally understanding why she was doing it.

He remained silent, watching as Lyanna began to quietly cry. She was scared of what was yet to occur, despite looking so confident in front of everyone else. It was different when she was around Eddard. They might not have gotten along most of the time, but Eddard was still her twin.

They could see and understand things about each other that no one else could. They were each other's twin. They came into the world together, they would always be apart of each other, no matter what.

Eddard took a step toward Lyanna. He placed his hands on both sides of her face, forcing her to look up at him instead of at the ground as she began to cry. "Listen to me, Lyanna," Eddard pleaded in a soft tone, "You must stay strong."

"I can't stay strong," Lyanna argued, beginning to cry in her brother's arms, "I was never strong, no matter how much I tried to seem like it."

"You are strong," Eddard argued in a stern tone, trying to snap some sense into his twin sister as he forced her to look him in the eye, "You are the future of our house, Lyanna. The heir to the Iron Throne. You are the strongest of us all."