valiantnedspreciouslittlegirl:

jeyne.  jeyne?

now is not the time for fear.  

old nan used to say that fear was for the winter, when she told stories to them all before crackling fires.  fear was for the darkness, darkness so heavy it made you weak.  jeyne couldn’t remember that darkness.  she was a summer child, and summer nights in the north were rarely dark for very long.

be brave.  you must be brave.  she tries to tell herself that, but she’s frightened. what if he finds me again, what if they take me back to him, what if they take me back to it.  she remembers the sting of the lash on her back, the taste of her own tears, the blood on her tongue from biting the inside of her cheek to keep from weeping.  

how she hates the barking of dogs.

jeyne poole is not a brave girl.  she never has been.  she’s always been afraid, but her girlhood fears have no place in the winter.  sansa had been braver than she was, and even this would have made sansa frightened.  you must be brave. theon had told her.  she hears it in the wind, too, she thinks.  sometimes.  be brave.  

arya, they call her.  lady arya, or even princess.  jeyne is not a princess.  she is a a girl, and a jumpy one at that.  they whisper about her–how unfortunate it is, what happened to her.  how ned would turn over in his grave to see his daughter treated thusly.  how she’s lucky–a glance cast at theon–that worse didn’t befall her.  

worse?  

she doesn’t want to think of worse.  she’d rather be dead than think of worse, dead like the real arya.  is there bravery in that?

at night, she huddles under her blankets.  at night, she closes her eyes, and tries to make her mind go blank, tries to remember her father’s face, her mother’s smile, the sound of the giggles she’d shared with sansa, the taste of lemon cakes. those are the things that made her her, once.  better that than not.  so long as she has those memories she’s–

jeyne? jeyne.