( ACT 1: chapter 4 )
𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙲𝙷𝙸𝙻𝙳'𝚂 𝙵𝙰𝙸𝚃𝙷 𝙸𝚂 𝙽𝙴𝚆
a 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐃 𝐒𝐄𝐓 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐄 chapter

seven years later...

296 AC. two years before game of thrones.

Eight years. Today marked eight years since, on the morning of a cold autumn day, Alysanne Tyrell had been thrust into the back of a cushy carriage and had been sent thousands of miles away in the North, like a prize cow trussed up for auction to marry Robb Stark, the future Lord of Winterfell. 

Today marked eight years of watching Robb and Jon sword fight in front of the stables, of teaching Bran how to climb and helping Rickon with memorizing his houses so the septa would not yell at him the next day for having forgotten them. Eight years of learning how to embroider with Sansa, of cutting the dresses of Arya's dolls into pants for the girl, of trying to distract Theon when he would practise archery. Over the years, she'd grown into her place at Winterfell, as a future Stark during what she would say were the best years of her life in another eight years. 

But today also marked eight years apart from her family, without hiding behind Willas at breakfast when her two brothers would play swords over her plate of food, without hiding in the rose gardens to avoid her tutors. She had not experienced a summer in the Reach for eight years, had forgotten the sound of her father's hearty laugh and the occasional soft smile from her mother that the sound would elicit. Eight years since she hadn't curiously counted every wrinkle in her grandmother's face, since she had listened to Garlan and Loras tease her. 

It had also been eight years without a letter from her sister, Margaery. Eight years without a word from home. A promise wiped away by time and the fading of childhood innocence and faith. 

On the morning that marked eight years of her having been sent away by her family, she'd woken up before the start of her lessons with the septa, before any of the Starks, even Ned, and had snuck down to the kitchen to nick the equivalent of a breakfast from the storage. Luckily, Robb had told the cooks of her love for mushed apples and cinnamon when she had told him of her favourite dish from home, and the cook always had a plate lying around for her. 

She was not planning on returning for breakfast, or even for the beginning of lessons. In fast she was planning on sitting by the small frozen pond all morning, upon the snowy rock, eating her plate of mushed apples and cinnamon, and wallowing about the carelessness of her family for her situation. 

It was a beautiful morning, that she could admit. A soft layer of snow covered everything, just like it always did during the winter time. Of course, they were in the midst of a long summer, so the snowfall was relatively light compared to what it would be during the long Winter. Still, Alysanne felt oddly sheltered by the steady morning snowfall around the frozen pond and sleeping trees. Like she could scream her lungs out and nothing would change, no one would come looking for her. 

"Will you write to me in Winterfell?" The jarring question asked by her younger sister caught a ten year old Margaery off guard. Her hand stopped fluffing the pillows and she turned to look at Alysanne, who'd been dutifully sitting in the corner of the bed, leaning against one of the pillars of the four poster bed.

She went very still. "How do you know about Winterfell?"

Alysanne shrugged meekly, staring at her sister with compelling eyes that looked brown in the golden candlelight illuminating Margaery's chambers. "Will you? When they send me away."

Margaery smiled softly at the only sister she had. "Of course I'll write to you, everyday. And when you are married, and the Lady of Winterfell, you will come visit me, as I will come visit you."

"Do you swear?"

Margaery nodded, her reddish brown hair swayed back and forth as she did. "By the old gods and the new. Now come to bed."

"Liar." Alysanne mumbled weakly, tears that had gathered in her eyes at the memory tracing their way along the curves of her face, leaving humid streaks behind that quickly hardened at the cold air. 

Those tears quickly gave away to resentment, which led the quick tempered Tyrell girl into anger, fast. "Liar." She repeated, this time through clenched teeths as more tears ran down her face. 

They had all left her alone, sent her away like she meant nothing. They could not even wait for her to turn thirteen, they had to send her away before it even made sense to promise her to someone. Had she been that much of a burden? Had her family hated her so much they could not wait for her to even learn to read before they shipped her off to Winterfell? Did she mean so little?

In a fit of anger, she grabbed the metal plate that the apples had come with and, with all the force she could muster in her thirteen year old body, she threw it hard at the pond. The plate did not break, instead it broke right through the thick layer of ice and Alysanne watched numbly as it slowly sink to the bottom, the hot anger that had provoked such a display of emotion vibrated in her chest, alive and tired of being subdued. 

She thought of her grandmother's harsh words. "Bottle it in, child. No one cares to see a lady crying, or angry. Especially you." 

Alysanne let herself slide off the rock, choosing to lie down in the snow besides the pond, her boots touching the frozen ice. She thought of her grandmother's words, of her harsh treatment of Alysanne growing up. She thought of the way the woman would speak to her sometimes, constantly reminding her that somewhere out there, someone had it worst, and she was lucky to get to even do her duty. She'd been five years old when she'd been on the receiving end of those words. Would she ever repeat them to six year old Rickon? Could she be as harsh as Olenna Tyrell was to a six year old boy? 

She must have spent hours lying on that patch of snow, trying her best to push down any feelings of anger, of sadness, because the next time she heard a noise, it was of someone calling her name. 

"Alysanne!" She could have recognized Jon Snow's fifteen year old voice anywhere, no matter how much the sound was muffled by the heap of trees and falling snow. He was looking for her. 

"I'm here!" She called back, sitting up. He was calling out to her, repeating her name over and over again, like he'd been looking for her for a few hours now. She cursed her scattered mind, hoping that no one else was looking for her besides the boy. 

She would never admit it to a soul, but Jon Snow made her increasingly nervous. 

As young children, they used to harbor a feeling of trivial hate for one another, but once they had outgrown those feelings and entered their years of late childhood, something unimaginable had grown between the two. A feeling deeper than friendship but far too unspeakable to be called love. They could not quite place when the emotions they reserved for each other had shifted from annoyance and dislike to something more meaningful, but after Alysanne's eleventh name day it was as if they had traded their children's eyes for a set of totally different ones, or had simply wiped a layer of fog from their own. Rolling eyeballs had turned to embarrassed, downcast looks, cheeks that used to be flushed with anger were now tinged a soft shade of pink when the other would walk by, and insults at the breakfast table had been traded for longing stares. 

But they could never act on those feelings. Because she was promised to someone else, and he had been toying with the idea of joining the Night's Watch in a few years after the idea had been planted by a visit from his uncle Benjen Stark. 

So both of them had promised themselves never tell the other what they felt, no matter how much the resolution made them suffer on the inside. Besides, both of them hoped what they felt was nothing but illusions made up by them slowly growing closer to adults and that those feelings would eventually subside. Eventually, they thought they would laugh about it in ten years time when Jon would visit Robb, Alysanne and his future nieces and nephews in Winterfell as a Night's Watch guard. By that time, both hoped that what they felt for each other today would have vanished and they will have gone back to bickering with each other like they used to. 

"There you are." Jon sighed when he finally entered the clearing she had made her safe haven for the moment. 

Alysanne looked away, embarrassed. Her face suddenly felt very warm, like she had held it above the fire in the Great Hall until the smoke made her cough and pull away. "Sorry for making you worry."

He shrugged, putting on a nonchalant demeanor and careless expression. "I wasn't worried." 

She gave him a look. "Alright, fine, maybe I was just a little." He conceded. "You did run off without a word to anyone."

"I'm sorry." Suddenly, she felt like an idiot for running away from Winterfell without warning everyone. Had she not gotten lucky, she could've fallen down a ravine, or met an unforgiving thief who would've cut of her hands just to steal her rings. "I'm just having a hard time today." 

"I know." He said it with no judgement, which Alysanne was immensely grateful for. 

They basked in the comfortable silence that followed Jon's words, neither of them in any kind of rush to break the stillness that had settled amidst their conversation. Instead they savored the utter peace they had found in this clearing, the soft layer of snow acting as a blanket from the outside world, trapping any harsh cry, irritating yells or patronizing shouts that may have echoed through the same trees had it not been for the minute flakes of frozen rain falling from the sky, clinging to their furs, their lashes and their hairs. 

"Do you ever think of your mother?" Alysanne practically whispered into the morning air, careful not to rupture the sense of peace around them. 

"Sometimes," Jon answered equally as quietly. "Mostly what she might have looked like, who she might've been. It seems like any mention of her will have my father grimacing at the reminder of his infidelity to Lady Stark." He turned to her. "What about you, you must miss your mother today?" 

She lifted her shoulders before letting them drop carelessly. "I cannot remember what she looks like. I used to be able to, but I suppose after eight years away from her, it was bound to happen. I barely recall any of their faces now." 

He pushed tentatively. "Do you remember what she was like?" 

Alysanne went quiet for a moment, digging deep into the crevices of her mind, trying to retrace the features of the woman that had given birth to her. "She was distant, cold, mostly strict. She never told me she loved me and I have no recollection of her mentioning she liked me." She suddenly recalled the sharp features, her regal bearing and doe-like blue eyes. "But she was very beautiful, kind when she wanted to be, and she sounded like an angel when she laughed, which became rare in my last years at Highgarden, I recall. She was the one that pushed for one of us to be sent away, it seems she could not wait to be rid of me." 

She could not help herself from ending on a bitter last note, it seemed. 

There was another wordless pause. In front of them, what Alysanne had thought to be a small pile of snow started moving, shaking a few seconds before the powdery white layer was shaken off to reveal a bright yellow canary. Alysanne smiled when she recognized the same bird she had currently sitting in a metal cage in her room in Winterfell. It dusted itself free of any last flake of snow before taking off into the distant white clouds. 

Both Alysanne and Jon looked on as the small speck of yellow became smaller and smaller, until it had faded amongst the trees. 

"I've never said it but, I'm glad you came to Winterfell, Alie. As bad as we may have gotten along at times." 

She smirked teasingly. "Would it be so bad to admit that you like me, now?" 

"I do..." He hesitated. 

"What was that?" 

"I do, like you." 

Her smile disappeared, and she suddenly realized how close they were to each other. Eyes boring into the others', shoulders touching, fingertips mere inches away."I like you too, Jon Snow." She said quietly. 

Tentatively, almost akin to a child learning to walk, Jon tilted his head to the side in a gesture so measured, it would have probably went unnoticed to an onlooker's eyes. He leaned forward, stilling as soon as he felt his nose brush against Alysanne's. The two stood still for a few seconds, Alysanne looking down at his lips as if awaiting for something she knew would never come. When she did dare lean ever so closer, to the point where she could feel his hot break fanning on her face, she seemed to realize what was happening between them and jolted away when she felt their lips brush against each other. 

It was not a kiss, not even a haste one. But it had felt all too real for Alysanne, who as soon as she had pulled away had stood still, eyes closed and head turned away from Jon for a few moments until he spoke. 

"I'm sorry." 

She shook her head. "It's okay. Me too." 

A beat of silence. "I'm promised to someone else." 

"I know." 

They stared at each other for a moment. 

"It'll pass." Jon said reassuringly. 

The thirteen year old nodded, though her heart remained unconvinced. "It'll pass." She repeated, a whisper of reassurance neither of them believed in. 

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

I love time jumps, but if there was one thing I would like to say I dislike about them is that they make it really hard to write impactful scenes like this, so I hope I did okay. 

Next up, GAME OF THRONES SEASON 1 BABY. 

Can't wait to make everyone suffer and start butchering characters left and right, this is gonna be so fun !