I want to break the cage- Game of Thrones- A song of ice and fire

Chapter V

The day after the excitement last night, I had agreed with Mrs Mordane, that Shireen should have two days free of education. Those being her Saturday and Sunday, and after luncheon I retired to the library.

Tapping my fingers over the variety of covers and binding, running my hands over the leather and paper, admiring the great authors whose genius I could never replicate, and never being able to pick all of them. I took out a volume, that looked like it would have a fair amount of pictures in it, it was one on Bird watching, for I feared any other books with no pictures would bore me. I do not believe I shall ever grow out of that childish habit of needing pictures to stay interested and amused.

Sitting down on the couch, Lady jumped up onto my lap, and curled up on my legs. Smiling down at her I set the book on the arm and opened the pages. Many colours filled my gaze, which I believe kept me interested. There were explanations of their birthing place, how they came to be in England. That's when it came to me, that birds will fly further in a few days than a woman shall do in a lifetime. My cage will never truly be broken as a porcelain bird. But the real birds can be free from their first breath.

"Now I can see you like birds?" I looked up and Mr Clegane was walking in. Closing the book I smiled a little and looked down at Lady sleeping.

"It is a hobby, Mr Clegane. Can I be of assistance?" Picking Lady I held her in one arm and put the book back with the other hand.

"I just, thought you might like to exercise, with your new found friend." She was beginning to stir and I stroked her ears.

"Yes, thank you sir-Mr Clegane."

"You'll learn to not use your dignitaries." He handed me a black collar and leash. Kneeling down I attached the buckle on the collar around Lady's neck and tied the leash to the loop hole.

We walked up to the great hill behind the keep. I let Lady of her leash and she stayed at my side, already growing at a very fast pace. She was about two months from her birth, and alreadly to my knee. Mr Clegane put a hand on the top of my back and directed me toward a clearing behind some trees.

As we came into the clearing, I looked up and around at the spectacle. A circle of heart trees surrounded me, sap leaking from their eyes, as if, they were crying, red tears. The bone white trunk and branches, stood out from the autumn leaves and red five pointed leaves that fell onto the ground, rustled in the wind and seemed to hum as they moved.

I inhaled, totally in awe with it, I had not seen a weirwood tree since my first home, and never in this quantity.

"How?" I finally asked.

"My family used to worship the old God's, I do not believe in any God's but, my father and mother did, and so did my sister. Unfortunately my brother, he, felt though he had to be dominant. That he would have to take charge of everything, and, things complicated between my brother and the rest of us. He started by cutting down the weirwood we had as he believed in the new God's, and refused to have anything to do with the old in the keeps ground. But we still had some of the weirwood trees left over from the cutting.

My father and mother passed when I was young and my sister, well, I have no knowledge of what became of her. So then, my brother who is four years older than myself, he took himself from the keep and me, and the employees and everything he called, his home. Leaving and he has never comeback since. As we all thought him dead, I got the keep and all its responsibilities. I started by having someone tend to the weirwood." After that proclamation I raised my eyebrows and Lady nuzzled her head to my leg.

Stepping toward my employer I rested my hand on his arm.

"I am sorry." There was a moment of silence when a state of tranquility passed through he and I. There was no noise of the birds or beasts. I did not notice anything but it was broken.