Chapter Text
To learn how to save a life, you must first learn about the body’s desire to live. You must learn of the half-starved mothers and children that wake up another day, of the men without limbs in their old age still. Those once struck on the head who cannot see, cannot walk— even they, you will find, still breathe.
So, it was nothing to say the words again, in the Septa. To hold my hands tightly… to hear my voice crawl out of my throat. Nervous, as though the Mother, the Father, the Warrior, the Smith, the Maiden, the Crone, and the Stranger stood behind me.
Just like the words that tumbled out of my mouth, the steps I took after I could have done in my sleep. Steps to a dance I once knew well: clinging to the walls and shadows, silent and small. Kneeling and muttering. I once looked away so easily but, I know now how to become the thing— the ugly thing. The thing not seen.
They did not think I could wait, that I could learn, then. But, the body knows how to stay alive.
The day I left, in the small hours, wandering slow and patient. Ambling and distraught— that part was never a lie. I thought of Robb, still, like a fool.
I had always loved Robb in the early morning. Even in the North, where the first glance of dawn struck the snow sharply— like a lance right in your eye, unforgiving. The first morning light seemed, even then, to crest and slide across Robb— awakening him tenderly.
I never got used to it.
I hardly ever woke before Robb but, on the few occasions where I managed it, I always made sure to watch and did not dare breathe— to see the world cracking right there across his face.