For the prompt: Catelyn Tully & Lysa Tully, comfort
“Last night I dreamed of that time Lysa and I got lost while riding back from Seagard. Do you remember? That strange fog came up and we fell behind the rest of the party.” (A Clash of Kings)
The fog appeared so suddenly, out of nowhere, it seemed like. One moment, Catelyn and Lysa were chatting and giggling about Lord Jason Mallister, and the next, they had lost sight of the rest of the riding party.
“Where are they, Cat? Father, Petyr, Edmure … all our knights and men-at-arms, where have they gone?”
Catelyn could not see further than a foot forward. She saw no sign of the others. Only trees, and more trees, their branches swaying to and fro, looking eerily like grasping hands.
Lysa’s imagination took full flight, mingling with her dread. “Did the fog get them? Is this some sort of evil trickery by a woods witch? Have they been abducted and taken to the witch’s realm?”
The feast welcoming them to Seagard had featured a performance by a troupe of mummers, a performance heavy on spells and incantations recited by make-believe woods witches and sorceresses of various incarnations. A mummer’s farce it literally was, and yet, so haunting and unforgettable had the performance been that afterwards, Lysa (and Catelyn too, truth to tell) had a hard time falling asleep in the guest chamber that had been especially prepared to honor Lord Tully’s daughters.
“Hush, Lysa, there is no witchery or sorcery here,” said Catelyn, trying to sound bolder and more certain than she was actually feeling. “Father and everyone else got through before the fog began to rise, I am certain. We … we are a bit behind, that is all.”
This only seemed to increase her sister’s apprehension. Lysa’s voice rose, anxiously, “Then they do not know where we are? We are lost, you mean? Tell me true, are we lost, Cat?”
“We are not lost. We are only delayed. We will catch up with them, after the fog has cleared.”
“What if it never clears? What if we are trapped here, forever?”
“That will not happen!” Catelyn insisted. “I will call for help.”
But her voice, even when she shouted as loudly as she could, sounded so weak and tiny, as if the fog had greedily swallowed it whole.
Catelyn shook her head vigorously. No, she must not let wild imaginings get the better of her. The fog was not a living creature. It was merely a natural phenomenon, like the rain, or a rainbow.
A rainbow had never made Lysa cry, though. “No one will help us,” she sobbed. “No one will come for us. They are gone, all gone.”
“They will come back for us. We only have to be brave, for a little while, just a little while,” Catelyn said, in an attempt to console her sister.
Lysa stared at Catelyn, tears still streaming down her cheeks. “You … you are afraid too, Cat,” she said, half-dazed, as if the realization had shaken her to the core. Wiping her tears with the back of her hand, Lysa added, “You are just as scared as I am.”
Catelyn dared not say a word, in case the wrong word would induce fresh burst of tears from her sister. That was when Lysa began to sing. It was a song their mother had sung to serenade them to sleep, when they were little girls, a song about the many daughters of the river. Lysa remembered all the names, it turned out, even the ones Catelyn had forgotten. And her singing voice had more of the tone and timber of their lady mother’s voice. Their father often said that Catelyn resembled their mother in looks, in the cheekbones and in the set of her jaw, but it was Lysa whose voice was closest to Lady Minisa’s. Catelyn found herself comforted by this, and by the song Lysa was singing, with her eyes closed and her brows furrowed in concentration.
Mother, help us find our way home, Catelyn silently prayed.
