Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.
She wonders that she’d even said those words.  Wonders it now.  Perhaps it was protest, perhaps it was what she’d been telling herself.  No man could be perfect--and certainly not Robert who drank and spoke of loving her but philandered.  Not even Prince Rhaegar was perfect, though his song was lovely.
Elia was, though. Â Elia, with her soft brown eyes and her wicked smile and the way that her gaze makes Lya feel like a little girl, her stomach all tied up in knots.
Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.
She’d never felt in love before.  Not truly.  She’d tried to imagine herself kissing Robert Baratheon when she had first learned of their betrothal, had done her best to imagine riding through the Rainwood with him as she rode through the Wolfswood with Brandon.  But not since she’d met him.  She couldn’t now that he was real and not some figment of her imagination.
But oddly enough...she didn’t know why she could with...maybe something was wrong with her.  No woman she knew wanted to kiss other women, and certainly no woman would be so foolish as to want to kiss the Prince’s wife.
She helped put the Princess’ hair in braids, and helped her choose her jewelry, and the others of the Princess’ ladies let her do it, though she was newer to the Princess’ household and, by rights, should not yet have the honor.  Elia’s laughter is infectious and makes Lyanna’s heart lift, and when Lyanna helps her paint her lips a deeper red, they sit so closely that Lya can feel Elia’s breath on her skin, smelling of the blood oranges her brothers had sent her from Sunspear.
“Would you like a bite of one?” Elia asks her, and Lyanna accepts a slice, feeling its juices squirt into her mouth and dribble down her lips. Â
Elia laughs gently and reaches for a handkerchief to wipe away the juices and Lya closes her eyes when her hands brush across her lips.
But it cannot change a man’s nature.
It is Lya’s night abed with Elia, and they are telling one another secrets.  The windows are closed--Elia finds King’s Landing too cold; Lya finds it too warm, but she doesn’t care if it means she shares her bed with Elia. Â
“I like my husband,” Elia says, “but I do not love him.”
Lyanna knows that such a secret could mean ill for the Princess, and vows that no one will know it from her lips. Â Not ever. Â
“I do not love Robert,” she says, hoping that Elia will hear the meaning behind those words, the promise that her secret is safe.
Elia smiles at her.  “I’d rather thought not.” Â
Elia’s brown eyes flicker between Lyanna’s, then she leans over and her lips--they taste nothing like blood oranges.  They taste sweeter than anything Lyanna could have dreamed.
