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„Smile little cat“, your voice still echoes through my head. „Smile for me“, you said.
Ned never tells me to smile and yet I do.
I remember the last time I ever saw you as well as the first: Your shoulders broad and your laugh broader. I don’t think I ever saw you solemn - not even that last time. You were furios then; wild, hungry for justice, but never solemn. You didn‘t halt to consider the weight of your actions, didn‘t halt to consider the seriousness of the situation as a whole. As rash to demand a duel with the Prince as you had been to duel a low lordling from the fingers. You hadn‘t changed a bit during all the time i had known you.
Looking back, I don’t think, I had known you for that long. Looking back I don’t know anymore, if I ever knew you at all.
„Dance with me, little cat“, you said - and yet: our Dances were never more than stiff. Maybe you were a great dancer, but your chosen partner always was your sword. Your live was a dance - a dance on a blade's edge. Oh how you danced, always to a happy tune, always daring, always dashing. Always full of life. I hear you danced till the end, reaching for the things out of reach. You got what you longed for in the end - rebellion and victory. You didn't get what you longed for in the end - the blade you reached for. The one to save your father, the one to duel with the prince. You got what you longed for after all: death and chaos and ruin. I never got what I longed for - you, only you.
"I will come back", you said. You brother did. Looking back, I don't know, if you ever cared, if you did.
My Ned doesn't like to dance and yet he does. He dances because he knows I like to dance and he likes to see me smile.
Ned never tells me to smile, he makes me.
"Smile more, sweet Ned", your voice still echoes through my head, "if only for me", you begged.
Cat never asks me to smile for me and yet I do.
How bright yor beauty shone in those distant halls. How you turned the heads of many lord and quite a few ladies. And still you said yes to meet me again. You shone brighter in the night strolling through the camp, on the evenings exploring the woods, than you ever did on the evenings celebrating a feast, during the days cheering the jousts. You were a dreamer, how I wished I could have dreamt with you, but I always knew. I knew what was to come, what plans had been made and what you had dreamt could never have been met. You dreamt so bright and I wanted to smile for you, I smiled for you, but lied. That first time we parted - I wished it could have been the last - but I lied and I promised you things I never should have.
Looking back I wish, I hadn't. I wish I had never asked to dance with you. I think I was dreaming as well, when I did.
"I will dance with you, sweet Ned", you said - and yes, we danced - through those halls and through that tourney. A mummer's dance it was and like every mummery it had to break. And still we reached for that dream of ours, and while we parted, we only parted with promises. But like every promise, it had to break. When we met again, I thought you would resent me, but still you hoped to dream, hoped to dance again.
The second time we parted, I wished it would be the last, but never like that. You had not dreamt blindly, but because there was nothing left.
"Don't come back", you said and I never did. Now I always pray that I will.
My Cat never dreamt with me, we only built. We built all those things, I think I should never have.
Cat doesn't resent me, but I think she should.