The Little Wolf

The Dungeons

King's Landing

Toward the Maester's chambers, the guards carried the body. It was light between them, not heavy or a burden of dead weight. Exposed skin, namely the face and hands, were a bloody mess. Yet, despite the mangled appearance, the casualty's breathing was remarkably strong. The guards' renewed great hope that the body would be recovered and the boy would awaken to tell them what had happened, and where the monster had escaped.

They had no idea where Lyra was, and that gave her a magnificent feeling; a feeling she simply couldn't grasp onto. She did not like power, power was just "evil" with honey dripped over it, but it was still a wonderful feeling. She was near to them, yet cleverly out of sight.

She could hear the panting of the guards as they carried the body. While it was light, the length of time they had been holding it wore on them and sent a painful ache up their arms. Still, with agitated sighs and a flurry of obscenities, they persisted and lifted the body.

Their treads were slow and heavy, and it seemed like ages they had been carrying the load, yet they seemed to have gone nowhere. They were still on one of the many of the floors containing dungeons. It was dark and eerie, and they had no flame to light their way. Each floor held a different kind of perpetrator, each had committed a different crime, yet they were all untied by their lack of freedom. Some prisoners were punishable, but not as dreadful as others. Another floor was reserved for the vilest of creatures, and that had been the floor Lyra was on. Down deeper was where screams ripped apart any man, and it was best to walk without light as no man would want to see what occurred down there; these dungeons were for the tortured prisoners.

The load the guards were carrying might have been heavy, yes, but their consciences were heavier. They weighed deep inside the men, and the extreme terror lurked in their rapidly beating hearts.

"Where do you think the monster fled to?" one guard asked, trying to distract himself.

"Only the Gods know", the other answered quickly, "But it could not have left the castle. The gates are shut; the guards are manning each battlement, each window, and each chamber. No hope for it."

"It", they called her. The word rang through her mind, and she added it the collection of atrocities she had been called. All the foul words and wicked terms used to describe her were banked up in her mind, and one day, she was determined, she would cash them in for revenge.

She was getting used to the names other called her, though. Like "monster", she embraced it, and would use it against them. She would use her own flaws as her armour. "It" implied that she wasn't a real being, or that, in some form, she wasn't all there.

Yes, she thought to herself, I can use this against them.

She was an "it" to them; she was invisible, but present. She was like the strong gusts of wind atop her favourite hill near to Winterfell. The wind was invisible, but its gusts were so harsh, they could knock over her father, and her father was the strongest man she had ever known.

Like the wind, I will be silent yet harsh; an invisible force, Lyra told herself defiantly.

Like the wind, she remained hidden. She twitched impatiently, itching to reveal herself and embark further on the plan of escape that had taken over her mind.

The guards continued to carry the body, chuckling to themselves about the fate of the monster, ignoring the menacing laughter coming from some cells near to them.

The first guard chuckled, "Soon we will have a dead monster on our hands", and the other chortled back, "Bloody Stark's. Kill them all, I say. Her father was a traitor, her mother a whore and they have a clan on pompous brats; a bastard, Outsider and cripple among them.

"Aye, send them to their graves", the first nodded in agreement.

They were nearly out of the dungeons, and were a floor or two above the vilest of criminals. They felt safe. Yet that safety was all but fleeting, as soon after, a low growl sliced through the air. Instantaneously, they turned their heads to face a dog behind a cage. No, it wasn't a dog – it was a Direwolf. Though its large form was caged and its mouth muzzled, its fiery red coat billowed like fire in the cell.

The Direwolf sniffed at the body, and resumed growling shortly after. The guards were keen to hurry passed, however, a lump of flesh and blood obscured the barren corridor just a few steps before them. They placed the body on the ground by the cell of the wolf, and hesitantly leaned toward it. Both were so frightened they jumped back in fright before they got a chance to see the fat lump on the floor.

Finally, one guard asked the question Lyra had been waiting for: "Why did she keep the boy alive?"

They looked at the body and at the lump before them. They drew their swords, and readied themselves to attack the fat lump should it attack, should it end up being the Monster.

They took a step closer and gasped in shock. The lump was merely an overweight boy, hacked to death by a knife and what looked to be a thin object. The boy had a head, but no face – the face had been cut off and the remnant was bloodied and bony, veins and tendons shooting out in each and every direction.

Suddenly it clicked for the smaller man; it was the nail, left in a pool of blood, in the dungeon that held the Monster. Then the reality swam up to meet him – the corpse was the boy.

Who then was the body they had been carrying out of the dungeons?

As the guards looked in shock at the corpse, the body began to rise behind them. Pulling off the bloodied mess of a face, the Monster made herself known.

"There is no such thing as mercy!" she whispered, and before they got the chance to turn to see their undoing, she had knifed them both in the back.