𝑺𝑯𝑨𝑫𝑶𝑾 𝑶𝑭 𝑭𝑳𝑨𝑴𝑬𝑺 -𝒂𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒈𝒂𝒓𝒚𝒆𝒏

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑬𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 ~ 𝑨 𝑴𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓'𝒔 𝑴𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒚

"Feet apart and keep your knees bent when you strike." Ilyna's father said as he evaluated her stance. Ilyna had been bending her knees, and rolled her eyes at her fathers words. She had already learned the basics from Pyrs and felt that she did not need a refresher. For weeks it had been her father coming every three days to help her with her weapons practice. Most times it was with the sword or the spear since her father felt she needed more practice with those.

"I am bending my knees." She said under her breath. Her grip on the wood sword tightened as she struck the straw filled cloth again. Several days had passed after she overheard his conversation with Princess Rhaenyra when he first came to the grounds. She had been doing target practice with a bow when she heard footsteps walk up to her; he spoke before she could get any ideas about running away. It had been very strange between them; she still hadn't forgiven him, however she no longer pretended he did not exist while he actually spent time with her during the day when he had time and during their night practices.

"No, you are not." He responded, tapping the backs of her knees with his wooden sword. This had been their routine, he would force her to work on the most basic exercises and have her practice them until he felt she had learned enough. It had become quite tedious and while Ilyna was grateful that her father, Ser Harwin Strong Breakbones, was instructing her personally she did not care for the rudimentary lessons.

"Yes I am." She hit the straw man harder, not caring about her stance. He was starting to get on her nerves. Her legs hurt, her arms hurt, and she had been practicing the same stance for some time now.

"If I say you need to bend your knees it is because they aren't bent properly." He was now behind the straw man. Though it was dark out and the only light was coming in from the few torches and lanterns on the ground, Ilyna could make out the hard expression on her fathers face. While things had been getting better between the two of them they did butt heads from time to time about small things such as this.

"I have already learned this, if you wish for me to bend my knees more I will end up on the ground." The sword fell to her side, her grip getting tighter as her voice grew louder.

"The things you learned from Pyrs Tully need to be retaught. Do you think that the young Tully boy is a better swordsman than I?" Ilyna let out a huff and once again rolled her eyes. Of course she did not think Pyrs was better than her father but she had learned all of these things before, it did not matter who taught them.

"I know you think you know what you're doing, however you cannot see what I see. What I see is someone who was taught wrong." He placed the sword against the straw man and crossed his arms.

"If you want to know how to use the sword you must listen to me." She knew he was right, Pyrs was in all honesty a terrible teacher compared to her father. He had been someone who would remember certain details after teaching something and never really know how to assess if she was doing something right. These lessons were just tedious, she had already learned one way and it was hard trying to figure out how to do it the way her father wanted her to.     

Ilyna let out a sigh and held her sword in an upright position again, bending her knees. Her father chuckled and walked up next to her. She took a small step away and saw his face fall slightly. While they had been doing this for several weeks, Ilyna was still getting used to being close to her father. The training grounds were very big, however they had to keep themselves confined to one area in case anyone decided to visit them at night, but being this close to him was still strange for her.

"Alright, we're done for the night. Time for you, young lady, to get to bed." He grabbed the sword from her hand and placed it back with the others on a rack several steps away. She followed behind him and hoped he did not end because she had moved away from him. It was still hard for her to move on from everything and actually become close with him. There were times when they were together when Ilyna would forget about some of the things that her father had done but something would always come up that reminded her. Most times during the days when he was at the Keep they would run into Princes Jacaerys and Lucerys which were always very vexing to her. They would try to join the two of them so they could spend time with her father. While they seemed like very nice boys, Ilyna still could not see them as anything else but the reason her father never came back to Harrenhal. They had not caught on though that Ilyna had no desire to know them. Since the third day of Aegon's name-day celebration Prince Jacaerys had been following her around like a lost dog. He would try to be secretive about it, but she always saw him. He would follow her to the library, to the garden, sometimes even try to speak with her when she was on her way to dine with her family. The more she looked at him the more she saw her father; they had the same face shape and while her father's hair was curled and Jacaerys' was straight, the two could not look more alike. She worried that if people saw her with the young princes the rumors would grow because she looked like her father as well.