Catelyn has taken to spending afternoons outside, sitting shaded near the river with the babe on her lap, sometimes letting him kick his feet in the slow stream though Lysa notes that for all his Tully looks, he takes to the water more like a wolf than a trout, and it makes Catelyn laugh as he battles it with a stern expression on his little face.
“Come sit with us,” Catelyn will ask her each day, and most days Lysa shakes her head, the sunshine seems obscene compared to the heaviness in her heart and she cannot quite reconcile that her sister is an ‘us’, and not Cat, herself, alone, anymore. She’s Lady Stark, the Lady of Winterfell, and more than all of that, more than anything, she is a mother now, and it is that that Lysa envies, what she craves most of all.
What must it be like, she wonders (but never asks, she never asks), to carry a child and know that it is wanted, by everyone, to know that you can have it and keep it and love it? What is it like, to carry a child proudly and not in secrecy, to bring forth life and not death and blood made from tansy tea?
(It is as always, Catelyn has the best of things and Lysa has a poor copy, since the day she came into the world, less brave than her sister, less beautiful, less dutiful, simply less, simply a poor copy, parading about in her sister’s dress and Petyr laughs at her, what are you doing?)
She sits with the babe in her lap, and she sings to him, and Lysa thinks that Catelyn has never been so beautiful, never glowed so brightly. She is a goddess of spring, she is the Mother herself. Cat is in love, for perhaps the first time, she thinks, and with a Stark but not her lord husband or the boy she had been promised to so long ago, but the small bundle she holds close to her, holds safe, her cheek pressed to his copper hair. Messages of congratulations come in from northern holdfasts, manors sworn in fealty to Winterfell. They will love her, all of them, Lysa thinks, and she is almost able to swallow her sour resentment, almost but she can still taste it on her tongue, all of them, she gave them a boy, she gave them an heir.
Love suits her sister and Lysa has never felt so dull, so common in comparison. She is gold and I am tin. She wishes, at times, that she could hate her for it, could hate Cat for all that she is and has and all that Lysa is not and has lost, but the bitterness comes, the sour resentment, but not the hatred; Catelyn cannot help what she is any more than Lysa, and she does not know her sister’s dark secrets and Lysa cannot begrudge her smile.
Today is different, today Lysa makes her way across to her sister, barefooted so she can feel the earth and the mudded water between her toes, as familiar as Cat’s touch on her hair, as her uncle’s hand pressed to the top of her head, as Edmure’s laugh, as Petyr’s eyes, as familiar as all of home is, and yet it feels wrong now, distorted. Part of her wishes that Jon Arryn, that old man they call her lord husband, will never return, will leave her here in an illusion of youth and childhood happiness, blissful ignorance, of it never happened and I am whole, and part of her wishes the war would end tomorrow, that she would be taken to the Eyrie, somewhere far and somewhere new, it never happened and I can start again, I am whole.
She can forget that she was ever a Tully, forget her father with lies on his lips and murder in his cup, how blindly she had trusted and how easily the drink had gone down.
Catelyn smiles up at her, shading her eyes. “He looks like Edmure,” she says, and she presses a kiss to her babe’s sweet head. “Don’t you think so? Do you remember?”
Lysa sits beside her, smoothing her skirts, folding her hands on her lap (she does not touch her sister’s boy, no, never, she is poison and her fingers may turn him to ash and dust like her own child made from love, she is death to beautiful things). “Yes. I would have thought he would be darker.”
FILL: Lysa and Cat - lie by the river (pt 1/2)
“Come sit with us,” Catelyn will ask her each day, and most days Lysa shakes her head, the sunshine seems obscene compared to the heaviness in her heart and she cannot quite reconcile that her sister is an ‘us’, and not Cat, herself, alone, anymore. She’s Lady Stark, the Lady of Winterfell, and more than all of that, more than anything, she is a mother now, and it is that that Lysa envies, what she craves most of all.
What must it be like, she wonders (but never asks, she never asks), to carry a child and know that it is wanted, by everyone, to know that you can have it and keep it and love it? What is it like, to carry a child proudly and not in secrecy, to bring forth life and not death and blood made from tansy tea?
(It is as always, Catelyn has the best of things and Lysa has a poor copy, since the day she came into the world, less brave than her sister, less beautiful, less dutiful, simply less, simply a poor copy, parading about in her sister’s dress and Petyr laughs at her, what are you doing?)
She sits with the babe in her lap, and she sings to him, and Lysa thinks that Catelyn has never been so beautiful, never glowed so brightly. She is a goddess of spring, she is the Mother herself. Cat is in love, for perhaps the first time, she thinks, and with a Stark but not her lord husband or the boy she had been promised to so long ago, but the small bundle she holds close to her, holds safe, her cheek pressed to his copper hair. Messages of congratulations come in from northern holdfasts, manors sworn in fealty to Winterfell. They will love her, all of them, Lysa thinks, and she is almost able to swallow her sour resentment, almost but she can still taste it on her tongue, all of them, she gave them a boy, she gave them an heir.
Love suits her sister and Lysa has never felt so dull, so common in comparison. She is gold and I am tin. She wishes, at times, that she could hate her for it, could hate Cat for all that she is and has and all that Lysa is not and has lost, but the bitterness comes, the sour resentment, but not the hatred; Catelyn cannot help what she is any more than Lysa, and she does not know her sister’s dark secrets and Lysa cannot begrudge her smile.
Today is different, today Lysa makes her way across to her sister, barefooted so she can feel the earth and the mudded water between her toes, as familiar as Cat’s touch on her hair, as her uncle’s hand pressed to the top of her head, as Edmure’s laugh, as Petyr’s eyes, as familiar as all of home is, and yet it feels wrong now, distorted. Part of her wishes that Jon Arryn, that old man they call her lord husband, will never return, will leave her here in an illusion of youth and childhood happiness, blissful ignorance, of it never happened and I am whole, and part of her wishes the war would end tomorrow, that she would be taken to the Eyrie, somewhere far and somewhere new, it never happened and I can start again, I am whole.
She can forget that she was ever a Tully, forget her father with lies on his lips and murder in his cup, how blindly she had trusted and how easily the drink had gone down.
Catelyn smiles up at her, shading her eyes. “He looks like Edmure,” she says, and she presses a kiss to her babe’s sweet head. “Don’t you think so? Do you remember?”
Lysa sits beside her, smoothing her skirts, folding her hands on her lap (she does not touch her sister’s boy, no, never, she is poison and her fingers may turn him to ash and dust like her own child made from love, she is death to beautiful things). “Yes. I would have thought he would be darker.”