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There are some feelings you will never find words for; you will learn to name them after the ones who gave them to you
i.
Freedom
It is Brandon who introduces her to the feeling of freedom. She is only young when he does, but it is something she will never forget.
He shows her that the wolfs-blood in their veins is not something to be tamed or controlled. It is something that they should embrace. After all, the Starks prided themselves on being wolves. They ride horses in the Wolfswood together and he teaches her how to fight. He gives her a tourney sword and adjusts her stances, shows her that her small frame and stature is not a disadvantage but strength to be used against her foes.
Brandon does not expect her to be good at sewing or to wear dresses all the time. Brandon does not make her tame her wild curls, only when they are sparring. He does not mind that she prefers breeches and a tunic and to ride horses than to drink tea and gossip with the other maids in Winterfell. Brandon does not expect her to be a lady. He just wants her to be Lyanna.
But it is when she is holding live steel in her hands, sparring with Brandon and not being forced to be a lady that she feels that this is freedom.
ii.
Disgust
She truly learns what disgust is when she meets Robert Baratheon for the first time and her father announces that they are to be married.
Robert is handsome, there is no doubt about that with his bright blue eyes and coal black hair, and he speaks sweet promising words to her, but her disgust arises when they are at the feast later that evening to celebrate his presence. She watches Robert shove food in his mouth and pour even more wine down his throat. She watches how he can even barely stand, let alone dance with her. She watches the way his Baratheon blue eyes watch every other girl in the vicinity and how his hands wander about the serving girls when they get too close. She hears him whisper to a serving boy asking where the whorehouse is in Wintertown.
It is to be expected. She had heard good things of him from Ned but it was Brandon who told her the truth of what he knew. About the Baratheon bastard that was in the Vale.
But it is when he escorts her back to her chambers for the night, stumbling along the whole way, and he’s gripping her hips tightly as he forces his mouth upon hers, tasting but nothing of wine and lies that Lyanna truly feels disgusted.
iii.
Trust
Benjen is the only person that Lyanna can really trust.
He had always been her shadow and she loved him even when their father could not bear to look at him after their mother’s death.
He does not tell anybody of their secret sparring sessions in the Godswood, of her desperate attempts to become a better warrior than anyone would ever suspect her of becoming. He does not tell anybody that his sister, the only Stark girl, actually wants to be a wildling beyond the wall. He does not tell anybody that she is the Knight of the Laughing Tree at the tourney in Harrenhal, better than practically all the men. He does not tell anybody that Lyanna exchanges letters with the married Crown Prince and that he writes to her of strange dragon dreams and prophecies, that these letters make her smile more than Robert Baratheon ever had. He does not tell anybody that Lyanna has more than once considered running away to escape her betrothal to Robert Baratheon, that she does not want to be the Lady of Storm’s End because she is a Stark of the North.
But Lyanna knows that Benjen is the only she can trust, who knows the meaning of the word when she tells him she’s meeting Rhaegar Targaryen in the Godswood and is going to run away. And he doesn’t tell a single soul.
iv.
Choice
Choice was never a word that existed for women in Westeros. They never had a choice in anything. They were told where to live, who to marry and how many children to bear.
Choice comes to her in the form of Rhaegar Targaryen, the Crown Prince.
When he crowns her the Queen of Love and Beauty at the tourney at Harrenhal, Lyanna is angry. Angry that now he’s gone and ruined her adventure because Brandon is gripping her wrist tightly and telling them that they’re all to leave for Winterfell that very night. She’s angry that because he gave her that stupid crown, Robert is holding her tightly and kisses her farewell like she is some toy that he owns and does not want to share. That the people in the tourney are staring at her like she just grew another head and gave birth to ten children at once. That the people from Dorne are glaring at her with such venom that she truly begins to think that they are snakes. She hates Rhaegar Targaryen then.
He writes her letters when she is at Winterfell. He writes to her sweet words, similar to the ones Robert says to her, but he also writes to her of his dreams and some prophecy. She doesn’t care much for them, she just finds it interesting that he’s writing to her. The he writes her a letter she has to care for. The one letter that truly captures her attention and becomes important to her.
It is when she’s sitting on the back of Rhaegar’s horse, Winterfell becoming smaller and smaller and the thought of having to marry Robert fading away that she finally understands what a real choice is because Rhaegar gave her the chance to make one about her future.
v.
Honour
Honour has always been a word associated with the Starks. They were known for being an honourable, good and true, house.
Lyanna has never really cared as much as her father or Ned about honour because they’re the only two people she had ever seen it from. Brandon is far from honourable when it comes to women and he freely admits to that. Her and Benjen must not be honourable if they are sparring in secret. She is not honourable because constantly contests her betrothal to her father.
Ned is honourable. Ned does as he is told and what is best for House Stark. He goes to the Vale when his father sends him there. He helps Robert become betrothed to Lyanna when Robert asks him to. He keeps his siblings in check at Harrenhal when his father asks him to. Ned upholds the betrothal to Catelyn Tully when Brandon dies. Ned marries another despite his heart belonging to Ashara Dayne. Ned is the honourable Stark who upholds the reputation for the rest of them.
Lyanna has never really understood it. She does not understand why her brother puts honour above himself and his feelings, how he hurts himself for the sake of some word that has no meaning to her.
Lyanna Stark finally understands and cares for honour when she is lying in a pool of blood and gripped by fever, and Ned is the one who is holding her tightly, promising her….promising her….
i.
Arthur
She has no name for what it is that Arthur Dayne makes her feel.
Most would call it love. But she knows it is not love. Love was surely part of it, but love wasn’t it. Love was not the peaceful oblivion she feels when she is wrapped in his arms and it certainly is not the electricity she can feel coursing through her bloodstream at his touch. She still cannot name the feeling when they walk around the tower together, when Arthur tells of her of his life in Dorne before the Kingsguard, when Arthur holds her close and cherishes her like Rhaegar never did and Robert was never capable of. To her Arthur is everything; he is freedom, choice, trust and honour. Arthur is the one she wished she found before she ran away.
It is not until she hears the cries of warning about the men on horses approaching the tower, when Arthur is kissing her lips and murmuring “I love you”, when her body feels it is on fire that she finally knows what this feeling is. Arthur. It is the only name she could ever give it.