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The rains poured just outside the glass windows of Rhaena's chambers. She was already snuggled into her furs, her sister snoring peacefully at the other side of the room.
"Septa?" she whispered, her voice more of a raspy shout than anything.
"Go to sleep, Rhaena," Septa Vaella whispered from just outside the door. Her old legs ached, her hands a tangled knot of swelling and pain, but still she waited outside the girls' chambers on stormy nights, when she knew Rhaena would be too frightened to fall asleep.
"I can't." Her small voice tugged at Vaella's heart.
"What do you want to hear, child?" The Septa sat in her usual chair, creaky and worn, beside Rhaena's bed. She was grateful for the strain taken off of her feet.
Rhaena smiled, her dark blonde hair already a sticking up in all directions from the static in her blankets. "The bear lady, Septa!"
Vaella put her hand to her chin to show she was thinking. "The Mormont girl? I thought you didn't care for her."
"No!" Rhaena glanced to her sister, waited to see her chest rise and fall in the steady rhythm it had been, and lowered her voice. "The girl who fought the bear."
"Oh," Vaella made a show of smacking herself on the forehead. "You mean the Maid of Tarth. I met her you know, when I was only a girl."
"Really?" Rhaena's eyes were wide.
"Just after the War of the Five Kings," Vaella nodded. "She was as tall as they said." Of course, Vaella was only four then, when anyone seemed like a giant, but she didn't tell Rhaena this.
"Tell me about her." The girl wrapped herself snugly into the blankets, leaving the pale moon of her face peeking out for air.
Septa Vaella cleared her throat quietly, though she knew Alys was only pretending to sleep. "Some say she had giant's blood, others that she had a wicked spell placed on her as an infant to curse her to a life of being a giant ugly beast of a woman. Either way, the Maid of Tarth was no fair lady," she began. Already, Rhaena was rapt, her focus on the storm entirely foregone. "She was tall as any man by the age of ten-and-two, and strong too. She had no family but her father, no marriage or betrothal that lasted more than a few months. She—"
"Why?"
"Well," she thought for a moment. "I suppose the lords didn't find her beautiful."
"Oh." Rhaena looked sad.
"As I was saying—"
"Was she?"
"Beautiful? I suppose not, but I remember finding her…enchanting as a girl."
Rhaena nodded and nuzzled her chin to her chest, satisfied with the answer.
"Where was I? Oh, yes—our Maid of Tarth, Brienne was her true name, was skilled with sword and shield beyond her years and her sex. In a melee—I believe Bitterbridge—she won against all other fighters," the Septa paused to catch Rhaena's eye, to watch them shimmer in the dim light.
"When's the bear?" Rhaena said just before a yawn that shook her little shoulders.
Septa Vaella rolled her eyes. "Patience, child." Still, she could see the sleep threatening Rhaena's eyelids, pulling them down like they weighed a hundred pounds. She'd need to hurry and get to the good part. "So, the story goes she won this melee, joined Renly Baratheon in his Rainbow Guard—Brienne the Blue, that's where it comes from, you know—and sometime after he was dead, she was captured and brought to Harrenhal." Usually, when Vaella paused here Rhaena would cringe in fear at the mention of the haunted grounds, but tonight her face stayed in a state of relaxation, too tired to emote.
Across the room, Alys shifted in her bed and Vaella knew her audience had not quite all slipped away. She cleared her throat and continued. "At Harrenhal, it is said she was placed into a deep pit with a live bear and nothing but a wooden sword and the dress they put her in. Now, bears are no small animal, but this was no ordinary woman," Septa Vaella smiled. "The legend says she drive that wooden stake straight through the beast's heart, only after it had scraped at her throat, trying to tear her to pieces."
Alys inhaled sharply, fully awake now but keeping her eyes pinned closed so she could remain "asleep."
"I saw the scars, too, back then," Vaella said quietly. "Across her shoulder, deep and angry, but still she carried them along with her others, as if it were no mind." Rhaena was snoring now, her mouth hanging open and already beginning to pool saliva on her pillow. "She missed the only part she wanted to hear," Septa Vaella whispered.
"I like that part too," a small voice, barely above a whisper, said from across the room.
"I know, Alys." The Septa rose from her chair, her joints creaking along with the wood, and finished tucking Rhaena's blankets around her back. There was so much more to tell of the Maid of Tarth, but her old eyes were itching to close, her throat a dry croak. "The storm has calmed, children. Sleep now." She patted Alys on the shoulder on her way out of the room, clicking the door shut behind her.