Work Text:
Her vigil was unceasing. Alannys kept a faithful watch, day after day, waiting for her boys to rise from the sea, waiting for them to wave to her from across the sea. One day, they would return to her like her good-brother Aeron was returned from the sea, after he, too, had been given up for dead.
They would not be the same, her Rodrik and her Maron. They would not be the way they had been the last time she saw them, the last time she held them in her embrace. She was prepared for that. It would not matter in the least, not to Alannys. She would know them, no matter how different they turned out to be. They were her boys, her precious boys. A mother would know her children, always. A mother could never mistake her children for anyone else.
What is dead can never die, but rises again, harder and stronger. She cared not a whit about harder and stronger. She only wanted them to rise again, to breathe again, her Rodrik and her Maron. They could be as weak and fragile as newborn babes if need be. She would nurse them back to health. She would protect them with all her might, against their own father if need be. This time she would not fail, she promised them. Her boys. Her lovely boys.
Theon though … Theon need not rise from the sea. Theon had returned home to Pyke, Rodrik told her. Rodrik her brother, in whose honor her oldest son had been named. Alannys had insisted on that, despite Balon’s initial reluctance. Back then, he had been willing to listen to her. Back then, stubborn as he could be, he had not completely disregarded her words and her wishes.
Do not think of him. He is no one. No one to me. He is –
She closed her eyes, tightly. Wrapped herself with more furs, to ward off the cold wind that seemed to be the only thing rising from the sea, despite her tireless vigil.
Theon. Think of Theon. Her baby boy. Her lastborn. He would come to visit her soon. He would come, oh surely he would come! She would kiss the top of his head first, before his cheeks, the way he favored it. He had grown shy about being kissed on his cheeks by his mother in the presence of others, though surely this time it would not matter. Surely this time would be an exception. She might have to stand on tiptoes, to kiss the top of his head. How tall had he grown, since last they were together? You are loved, and missed, and cherished, she would tell him, over and over again, her fingers stroking his face. We have never forgotten you, never!
A knock at the door. One … two ... three quick taps in succession. Alannys did not turn her head. Rodrik again? No, not her brother. This was not her brother. Rodrik’s knocks were more hesitant and tentative, the sound of a man fearful of what he might find, once he opened the door to his sister’s bedchamber.
Where have you gone, Lanny? Come back to us, Lanny. Even when those words went unsaid, they did not go un-thought. She could read them on her brother’s face, written in clear, legible strokes. Roddy had always been an open book to her. He had never been good at hiding between the covers, not from his Lanny.
Come back to us, Lanny. You must not vanish, Lanny.
She was here, right here. She had not gone anywhere. Her boys were gone, and she had not gone anywhere. What kind of mother did that make her?
“Mother.”
It was her daughter’s voice calling for her. Alannys took a long time to turn her head, to look at Asha, afraid of disappointing her daughter with the face she had become.
You raised me to be bold, Mother. That was a different Alannys. That was Lanny with the laughing eyes and the fierce strong face. That was Lanny who knew how to insist, who knew how to get around any obstacle, who mistakenly believed that she was part of a united front, a husband-and-wife team that would rival Jaehaerys and Alysanne themselves.
“Not yet,” she had warned her husband. “Not now. Our time has not come. Robert Baratheon is eager to prove that his throne is secure. He may appear weak at the moment, but this is when he is at his most dangerous. He is wary and constantly on his guard, not yet complacent, not yet filled with a sense of false security. We must wait.”
Balon’s reply had been a mixture of scorn and disappointment. Disappointment of her. “If not now, when? How long must we wait? Have you grown as soft as a greenlander, like your bookish brother? I thought I had wed a woman worthy of being the mother of krakens.”
“Balon is bold and fierce and strong,” she had told her brother, long ago. Balon was her kindred spirit, she had thought. A man worthy of her, and worthy of being the father of her children. Instead, he had been reckless with their lives, mistaking pride with boldness and strength.
“Mother,” Asha called out, once more.
Alannys turned her head, slowly. She tried to smile, but the smile came hard. Asha leaned down to kiss her mother’s cheek. There was a pause before the kiss, as Asha’s gaze, full of compassion if not necessarily comprehension, searched through her mother’s face.
Are you hiding, Mother? Are you hiding somewhere inside this stranger I do not know? How will I find you? Could you find my mother for me?
Was that what her daughter was really thinking, or was Alannys imagining what she herself would have thought, in her daughter’s place?
She was not hiding. She was not hiding inside any stranger. She had become this stranger, this stranger to herself and not just others. It defied her own comprehension. How do you reclaim the person you had been, when you could not remember how you lost her in the first place? How do you trace your way back, when you could not remember taking the path that led you astray?
Forgive me, Asha. It is not because I love your brothers more. If you were the one held hostage at Winterfell, or the one … the one …
The one she was waiting for to return from the sea.