The Little Wolf

The Mask

Alongside Roseroad, Near to Highgarden

Something stood sentinel within Lyra, it growled at her Soul and forbade every joy.

The Monster.

Oh, how it ripped her apart and had caused such dreadful destruction. Lyra realised, the importance of inner-strength. The newfound logic held great value: when caged with monsters, it is important not to become a monster.

It was the mask she wore to escape King's Landing, the mask that allowed her to prosper. Where once it had only been the frightful figure in the mirror, it now resided inside her.

It was the mask, she was beginning to realise, that was crippling her the most.

The mask of the boy.

She had told herself that she was a little wolf, that she was a Stark, but the memory of the boy lived on. She was covered in blood and mud, and wore his clothes, albeit ripped to shreds. She had wanted Lyra to come back, she had wanted the Monster to leave, but it was only now that she realised what she really wanted was not at all what she needed. The old little Lyra Stark was the only good thing in the young Outsider, but the Monster was the only reason she had escaped and thrived.

It was when Lyra began to shed the mask of the boy she had murdered that light began to shine through the cracks, and the seed of possibility grew within her for all to see.

Almost as abruptly as it had begun, her silence concluded. Her Soul flew in one day, pried open the bars of the prison of her mind and perched himself in her mind with a proud sigh. The Monster was there, Lev could sense it, but so was he. Her Soul had returned to her, and nothing, Lev declared proudly, could ever remove him again.

When Lyra had first arrived at the home of Trynn, Arkadah and the little old lady, the moon had been in its first half, but now it was in its last. Time had past, and, thankfully, the little Outsider had only grown closer to her Soul, and had opened her mind more.

She learned that the Monster did not escape when she opened her mind, but nor did he stir, and, for that, she started to consider the possibility he wasn't actually there. Perhaps this was Ser Deacon's victory over her; he had planted a vicious monster in her mind, a monster that made her weep in the darkness of her own mind in fright, a monster that made her tremble in her shadow and refuse to look upon her reflection.

Arkadah had noticed her bloodied clothes, and, following a previous incident of Lyra stabbing her reflection, Kaelo had mentioned the Monster in the mirror. The ageing man approached her one day, a bundle of cloth and linen in his hands, and said, "These are for you. The You you need to become."

They were clothes typical of a boy- a simple shirt that tucked into dark brown pants, knee length boots and fabric vest- but feminized with an old torn dress that came to her knees, ripped open up the front, that she wore as a vest over her outfit.

She did not look like a boy.

She did not look like a girl.

She just looked like Lyra.

The little girl who used to sprint around Winterfell with her tattered clothes, the little girl who didn't want to be a girl, but didn't want to be a boy either.

It was perfect.

Lyra felt more freedom in this outfit alone then she felt when she was fleeing King's Landing. She had, at long last, taken off the mask.

"I've seen an owl", Arkadah sighed, "And that owl, my dear, is your destiny."

Lyra looked at him, and puzzled herself over him - who was he, and how was he to know about her? He clapped his hands together and over trotted the deer she had seen on his Outsider necklace.

"This is Zennah", the man smiled, stroking the deer on her silky head, "My sweet, sweet Soul". His Soul looked over at the girl, cocked her head slightly before doing the oddest, most unexpected thing - it bowed its head to her in respect.

Lyra stared in silence at the deer for a while, before the man interrupted, "You may have a Monster living inside you, but you also have a Soul, and that will become a destiny far greater than you can imagine". The man, stood beside the deer that was still bowed, bent his knee - an act of respect, but one Lyra had been raised to show to her superiors. How odd, this man was now imparting such an act on a girl as plain and simple as Lyra.

You bow to no one special. I am just me. A plain, simple, battered, bruised Outsider, Lyra wanted to say, but it only echoed in her mind.

Lev, who was out of sight, echoed back, "And that is what makes you so special"

"It is time for you to shed the mask. You need to start to prepare for your road of enlightenment that will lead to your destiny."

Lyra nodded in agreement.

She was plain Lyra. She was simple Lyra. She was battered, bruised, brainwashed and completely utterly broken Lyra.

But, through it all, she would become something else. She would build from nothing and learn that there is beauty in brokenness.

She was broken, but she would be brilliant.