She watches him leave when he thinks her quiet enough. The ridding crop is whipped on her bloody sheets and hung up by the door, as it always is. He even takes the time to oil the leather- in front of her- with a vial by the door. She stares as he hangs it up so casually. It is sickenly clean now as if it had not just been dripping wet with her blood. As if he hadn't just beat a nine-year-old girl with a whip until she bled. As if he didn't just hurt her because she screamed in fear and hysteria. As if it was normal for him to hurt a child in his power. The hands holding her down belong to her personal handmaiden, a sharp-faced woman named Jeyne, a far off cousin of House Hetherspoon.
She hates her.
Even as she does not quite understand what the fuck just happened to her, of who she is, she knows that she hates Jeyne-the-Maid so fucking much.
Melara's body hurts. But Her mind is whirling like a storm.
" No era una niña ," she whispers to herself, in a language that she had not known before the Well, even as she is harshly thrust off the bed like a rag-doll, tumbling into a hard wooden tub with a listless splash.
Her hands are small as they hadn't been, curling around the lib of the rough wood, clutching tight, all uncalloused and delicate as they hadn't been in years. Her skin is pale, rosy, and freckled. A series of constellations waiting to be made. Her skin Before had instead been olive but frecked too, her hands broad and calloused with her many days of practice and-
Her Lord Uncle leaves without a backward glance or a word. He always does. Near every other morning, he comes to her. Beats her. And leaves as if he after he imparts his 'wisdom'. Act well. Do not bring shame to House Hetherspoon. Smile more. Be more graceful at her stitches and dance steps-
The bed is stripped with practice efficiently.
The water starts to sting, cold and aching into the wounds on her back and thighs.
Saltwater. Almost a morning ritual for her. She had been a crone in her first life when she died. And old maid unwed. But- not. She had been nearly twenty-seven- seven and twenty- and she died via a car crash. Truck versus pedestrian never is in favor of the pedestrian. And she died on the way from getting a pastry.
A fucking pastry she didn't even get to eat.
I izekaied. Transmigrated? Reincarnated? Because I awoke in a body not my own, a life half-lived. Yet, I have Melara's memories. I remember the way my mother smiled when I sung the Mother's Hymn to her on her last nameday… But this was also in a fantasy world she knew of.
Westeros.
Fucking Westeros. A song of Ice and Fire. And it had to be into the body of a girl that would have- worms taking my maidenhead oh for the love of every living fuck why?!
Melara- was she Melara or was she the woman she had been before-
She paused.
Her name.
Her name.
What had been my name?
She sobs. She cannot remember her name. She knows the future of the Seven Kingdoms- from the novels and the show and possible interpretations- but I do not know my own name.